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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 01/08/99 -- Vol. 17, No. 28
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week: http://lit-arts.com/bpaul/shake.htm. No
science fictional connections, but a list of all book/poem titles
derived from Shakespeare. (Well, I thought it was interesting.)
[-ecl]
======================
2. A guest editorial by Evelyn Leeper:
While I was in Virginia for a class recently, I took the Metro into
Washington one evening after class and did some sight-seeing--less
than usual, it is to be admitted, since sundown was at 4:40 PM and
I got into the city about 5 PM. There was just enough light in the
sky for me to determine which direction was west and orient myself
(so to speak) on leaving the Metro station.
My first stop was the Lincoln Memorial. This was built during a
Classical revival and resembles classic Greek and Roman temples,
complete with Doric columns and godlike statue in marble. Its
religious atmosphere is even more pronounced in the evening, when
it is not full of crowds of people talking or listening to guides
explaining it. It is at this time that the nature of the America's
"civic religion" is clearest--it has its sacred writings (the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc.), and its
houses of worship (and one imagines, its corresponding saints,
though several have fallen of late).
From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial one can see the Reflecting
Pool and the Washington Monument. Of the latter, much has been
written of its symbolism, but currently it is wrapped in
scaffolding and looks like nothing so much as a rocket gantry--
perhaps a reasonable symbol for the new century/millennium coming
up. Even the Reflecting Pool is a "sacred spot" of sorts, being
the site of so many historic demonstrations and rallies.
Between the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool is the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial. This is a complete departure from the Classical
style of the Lincoln Memorial. It is also very hard to find at
night, since it is below the level of the surrounding ground.
Though it is moving even at night, I suspect this memorial should
be seen during the day with other people there to be understood.
(The fact that the dim lighting makes it very difficult to read the
names at night certainly contributes to the problem.)
Because of the radically different style of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial from memorials up to that time, there are two more
traditional statue groupings as adjuncts of it, one of three
soldiers, and another of three nurses and a wounded (dying?)
soldier. The last is so evocative of Michelangelo's Pieta as to be
almost cliche, and as a result emphasizes the more original (and
thoughtful) nature of the main memorial.
I can't claim to have gotten a good view of the Korean Veterans
Memorial either, since it is equally low-lit. This has a wall
similar to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but with faces of GIs
engraved on it (presumably not specific faces, but generic ones),
and also statues of about two dozen soldiers on patrol. These are
not a single unit, but separate statues spread out over a lawn-
sized area, which makes them seem less anonymous and more
individual than a single statue (such as the Iwo Jima monument)
would.
Walking part way around the Tidal Basin one comes to the FDR
Memorial, the newest memorial in this area. I had thought there
was a statue of him in a wheelchair, but I guess that is just in
the planning stage, since I didn't see it. This memorial is also
in a more innovative style than classic memorials, being a large
space that one walks through. Of course, as with many memorials,
there was a certain irony to some of the words carved there: "We
must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all
citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any
oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to
attack our civilization." This was said in 1940 in an address to
the American Committee for Protection of the Foreign Born; on
February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on
February 19, 1942, putting all American citizens of Japanese
ancestry in the western United States into internment camps, and
also imposing restrictions on resident aliens of Italian and German
ancestry in that area as well.
And finally, even further around the Tidal Basin, is the Jefferson
Memorial. This is back in the more traditional "Greek temple"
style, with Ionic columns and so on, and noble sentiments such as
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a
nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these
liberties are a gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more
certainty written in the book of fate than that these people are to
be free." Well, we all know about that one.
And one more note: though I did all this walking after dark
(between 5:30 and 7:30) and in an area at times not brilliantly
lit, it appeared to be perfectly safe. There were quite a few
people jogging, bicycle riding, walking, and so on. And the Park
Ranger I asked assured me it was safe to walk around this area at
this time. So while I'm sure not all of Washington is safe all the
time, reports of the dangers there are probably somewhat
overstated. [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural
passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it,
struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it
as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will
every now and then peep out and show itself; you will
see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if
I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it,
I should probably be proud of my humility.
-- Benjamin Franklin, "Autobiography", Chapter 8