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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 10/19/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 16
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. MT meetings are in the cafeteria.
_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C
10/24 LZ: THE WORM OUROBOROS by E. R. Eddison (Classic Horror)
11/07 MT: WANDERING STARS ed. by Jack Dann (Jewish Science Fiction)
(MT 4A-229)
11/14 LZ: WAR WITH THE NEWTS by Karel Capek (Foreign SF)
12/05 LZ: EQUAL RITES or THE LIGHT FANTASTIC by Terry Pratchett (Humorous SF)
_D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C.
10/20 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
11/10 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)
HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpa!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3E-301 949-4488 hotld!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 mtunq!lfl
MT Librarian: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. This week's discussion book is E. R. Eddison's classic, _T_h_e _W_o_r_m
_O_u_r_b_o_r_o_u_s. Set on a planet Mercury (well, it certainly isn't _o_u_r
planet Mercury!), it tells of the struggle between the sorcerer-
king Gorice and the Lords of the Demonland, complete with all the
appurtances of an epic: thrilling battles, awesome danger,
fantastical creatures, and much more. Eddison's use of precise
detail was noted by Lin Carter in _I_m_a_g_i_n_a_r_y _W_o_r_l_d_s, where he notes
that a character was introduced by Eddison with the comment that he
had hanging about his neck "the kingly order of the hippogriff."
_T_h_e _W_o_r_m _O_u_r_o_b_o_r_o_u_s was Eddison's first book, published in 1922,
and is related only very tenuously to Eddison's Zamiamvian trilogy
THE MT VOID Page 2
(_T_h_e _M_e_z_e_n_t_i_a_n _G_a_t_e, _A _F_i_s_h _D_i_n_n_e_r _i_n _M_e_m_i_s_o_n, and _M_i_s_t_r_e_s_s _o_f
_M_i_s_t_r_e_s_s_e_s), and so may be read without comitting oneself to a
tetralogy or even a trilogy. [-ecl]
2. It has often been acknowledged that "less is more" ... at least
more or less. Actually, the person who used to quote this the most
was my old high school pal Lester Meyers, who used to say, "Les is
more." But then old Lester was acknowledged to be the second
weirdest kid in my high school. Dignity forbids me telling you why
they thought he was only the _s_e_c_o_n_d weirdest kid.
But in any case, I think the phrase applies to nothing so much as
the world's love-hate relationship with seafood. Seafood is one of
those things you probably hated as a kid, but learned to like as
you were growing up, but still hate deep down inside the primitive
child's brain--and leave us not forget that "ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny," which is scientist talk for "a human child's brain is
identical to that of an _a_d_u_l_t, upwardly mobile salamander." Mot
that the child's brain doesn't have a point. I mean, we have seen
the pictures--vintage 1948--of government inspectors, in white lab
coats yet, going through and inspecting huge torsos of dead cattle
and stamping them with terms such as "Grade A," "Prime," and
"Choice." With names like that, you just know they love what they
are seeing. Actually, this terminology was forced on them by the
meat lobby. The original grades proposed by the government are the
more accurate: "scuzzy," "rancid," and "National Velvet." But the
same child's brain tells us, correctly for once, that the guys in
the white coats are not going to stand around stamping every
flounder and sardine somebody pulls up in a net. The best
government minds have thought about the problem of what to do about
the problem of inspecting fish and have decided the way to approach
the problem is to do what the government does best ... zip. The
government doesn't grade apples; why should they grade fish?
Besides, even the healthiest fish turns to a deadly poison if not
properly cared for, so what good is the rating then?
But the child's mind is not really thinking about inspection
questions. It just knows it does not like fish. In fact, nobody
likes fish. It's just that some people don't dislike it. AT one
point Kentucky Fried Chicken also ran a fish-and-chips chain called
H. S. Salt Fish and Chips. And how did they get Americans to want
to eat fish? They ran ads with a family eating fish and chips and
saying joyfully, "It doesn't taste fishy!" Imagine an ad with the
same family eating a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken saying
excitedly, "Hey, this stuff doesn't taste like chicken!"
What all this has to do with Lester Meyers I will get into next
week.
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper