LETTERS OF COMMENT

Buck Coulson
2677W-500N
Hartford City, In 47348
April 23, 1996

The Jewish afterlife material was interesting. I suddenly realized that I don't know any Jews I could discuss it with. I may be corresponding with some, but religious discussions are rare in my circle, so I don't know. My own assumption is that death is the end; there is no afterlife. Heaven and Hell are very nice concepts for keeping citizens honest, though they don't work very well any more -- not much else does, either. Anyway, I can't really comment; I've never studied afterlives. But I enjoyed reading it.

I have no idea how many lesbians I've conversed with at conventions; the subject never came up. I've known only a couple or three and liked them. I was never interested in sex outside marriage, so sexual orientation makes me no nevermind. I have a perfectly good wife so why bother with outsiders? I also have a perfectly good ego, which doesn't need to be shored up by "conquests."

Most women I know have perfectly good brains and use them. I don't know about the younger non-fan generation; my friends are in fandom or have been at one time. I don't know any women -- like actresses or models -- who are in the public eye and expected to be seen with the "right" men, and I'm quite happy that way, but in their case, their choice of escorts is dictated by their careers. Teenage girls may dream about "hunks" but I don't know any older women who do, though I know a few who joke about it. (One of them, about half my age, snuggled up to me while we were walking through a main hotel corridor, in order to outrage the non-fan males present, and we both enjoyed a good laugh when we got to the con suite. There had been a few audible gasps from outsiders as we passed.) There appear to be quite a few man-haters at Wiscon, which is a very feminist convention, but I've never been acquainted with any of them personally, so it may all be a put-on. They always invite Juanita and I, anyway. I've known a few really glamorous fan women; most of them were costumers and showed off, and a couple of them are among Juanita's and my best friends. They are also married, and have been for years.

Obviously my essay on relationships did not tell the whole truth and nothing but. However, my experience with patrons of my libary tells me there is more than a grain of truth to it. I would hate to think it was more tthan a peck, though. Also, I agree that no adult woman will "admit" she would sell her eye tooth for a hunk. - ed.

What we feel about politics depends on our natures. What politicians feel about it is extremely rational; the only difference is the degree of honesty they're willing to keep while trying to get elected. Ideologies are for voters, not politicians. Personally, I don't think I've ever had one. Consequently, earlier this year I got campaign photos and requests for donations from Clinton and Dole on the same day. If Richard Lugar had obtained the Republican presidential nomination this year, I'd have voted for him. Since he didn't, I'll vote for Clinton unless he really screws up before the election. Oh, blacks and whites are, as races, equal. As individuals, no two people are exactly equal. I've never been "tolerant and open-minded" and don't intend to be. I would never physically harm Pat Buchanan, but I wouldn't be outraged if someone else did. And he's not the worst of the political lot by a long shot.

The point about Newton isn't that everyone can see that apples fall; it's that nobody derived a general principle from it until Newton did. (According to the story, anyway.)

That may agree with the story as told in modern times; it disagrees with my impression of history. The way I heard it, another explanation was accepted in Newton's time. Descartes', that the ether of outerspace clamped the apple to the Earth. Some believed the Earth attracted the apple, but their belief was not even in the running until Newton 'proved' it. Academics tended to believe that attraction at a distance was occult, magical and ungentlemanly. -ed.

No, the point of "The Lady or the Tiger" was about decision-making on insufficient evidence. Everyone knows that it shouldn't be done, but sometimes it has to be, anyway. So what do you do? And every reader gets a chance to answer it in his or her own way. (That's if you want a complicated explanation; most people just enjoy it as an entertaining story.)

I thought there was more to it than a gyp. I identify: most decisions we make seem to be based on insufficient information. That's one reason we have emotions and a vast capacity for self-delusion - ed.

The reason that some conversations are good, Lloyd, has nothing to do with pedantry; it means that both (or all) conversationalists are interested in the same subjects and have something to contribute. If you start talking about something I'm not interested in, I'm going to wander off. (Nothing personal; having had only one conversation with you, I have no idea if we have many subjects in common or not.) Scientists and teachers can have very pedantic conversations about their own subjects, and enjoy them. so can farmers or steelworkers. For that matter, if both speakers are interested in the same subject, it may not matter how much either one knows about it. Other fans and I have solved all the world's problems over the course of an evening. But the interest has to be there first.

In the D.C. area, too many people have a different criterion for a good conversation. Whether they're interested in the person doing the speaking as opposed to the topic being spoken about. Specifically, whether they can get money or a job or influence out of him or her. If not, why bother talking; the person's a jerk. So the 'wisdom' goes. - ed.

Big city influence, Harry. In barbershops here, the customers may or may not talk with each other, but the barbers talk to all of them. You city slickers got a horror uv bein' nosy, but we-uns out here ain't. Readin' books is okay if'n you like it, but fer the real stuff, you gotta talk to people.

So far, the system is applying the bar codes to letters -- you mean you haven't received any with a long sticker across the bottom of the envelope? I got them regularly for a while so I suppose it was a test. One or two charitable requests arrived with bar codes pre-printed on the return envelopes. Only negative results was when a sticker was slapped onto one of Teddy Harvia's postcards and covered up part of his writing.

Of course, maybe this is all a plot to affix "666," the Number of the Beast. Or "668," the neighbor of the Beast. Or "3' x 5' x 666'," the Lumber of the Beast. ...Sorry, couldn't resist. - ed.

P.S.: Buck has several additional things in his letter not amenable to a text. One was a clipped headline Bombs endanger peace process. His answer is Really?. Another item was the printed words STATE OF PERSONAL GOALS. His answer is To become rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Also, the paper is a shade of orange. He says The paper was a gift; I bought the pink envelopes because they clashed so nicely with it. - ed.

Harry Cameron Andruschak
PO Box 5309
Torrance, CA 90510-5309
April 24, 1996

Hello there! JOMP, JR. #16 arrived some time ago, and it is time for me to once again unleash the raw power and majesty of the DOS Editor and compose a LOC. To update the brief LOC that you printed, I came back from school in Norman alive and well, ready for the annual madness that is the Christmas season.

To relax from all that, I went on a 2 week vacation to Italy in the month of February 1996. I wrote up a report for the fanzine/clubzine FOSFAX, but if you do not trade with FOSFAX I can send you a photocopy once the fanzine is published.

Could you do that? - ed.

Then again to Norman this month for another 9 day school, also related to the RBCS, and to answer your questions...

1) You need not concern yourself with the 11 digit Zip codes. They are part of the DPC (Delivery Point Barcodes) which is intended mostly for bulk mailers.

2) The use of 9 digit Zip codes improves the chances of your mail being delivered sooner. However, most Americans seem to be curiously reluctant to use 9 digit Zip codes, so part of the RBCS and the new Multi-line Optical Character Readers are designed to extract a 9 digit Zip code from the 5 digit Zip code and the street address. This costs us more money than if you had used 9 digit Zip codes, alas. But the hope is to eventually have 100% of the mail bar coded to at least 9 digits.

9 digit Zip codes are new. The Postal Service will have to give us some time to get in the swing of things. While nearly everybody places their 5 digit on right now, that took many years to learn. - ed.

9 May, Thursday Morning

One project I have started is to re-read the complete unabridged edition of DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Edward Gibbons. Yes, this is a bit of a project, and to keep it in bounds I am only reading it one chapter a day, and only at work during lunch period and coffee breaks.

I also have e-mail again, and can be reached at andruschak@aol.com for those who might be interested.

That is all for the moment. Yours Aye.

Your article on the views of the Jewish afterlife made for one Hell of a read.

Only through procreation are individuals immortal. Those who apply the philosophy of survival of the fittest to the battle of the sexes are stumbling into an evolutionary deadend.

I don't know, do your progeny, or their genes, have anything to do with the important part of your self? The proof is more philosophical than scientific. On the other hand, why shouldn't you believe you get immortality from your progeny or their genes? Then again, why shouldn't we believe in an afterlife for the purpose of being comforted? One thing you're certainly right about is applying survival of the fittest to the war between the sexes. Those who practice it are doomed to be unfit. - ed.

I have another devilish cartoon for you half-finished. If only the demons of time would set me free from the drudgery of my mundane life.

Beast wishes.

No rush, I have two more, which I am going to print at one an issue. I'm not blowing my Teddy Harvia cartoons all at once. ...Also, in typical Teddy fashion, Teddy's postcard has a Notre Dame, gargoyle demon on it. - ed.

Sheryl Birkhead
23629 Woodfield Road
Gaithersburg, MD 20882
May 23, 1996

To re-repeat, I DO like that Harvia cover piece!

I said I'd help the Lynches at the fanzine room at Disclave (this weekend) so I'll be "at" a con for the first time in about 5 years. (Um - you could have one prolific species (and plants) survive IF it could be omnivorous (in This case herbivorous and cannibalistic) - it's possible and recyclable.

Harry Warner, Jr.
423 Summit Avenue
Hagerstown, MD 21740
June 23, 1996

At last, some comments seem to be imminent on the 16th Jomp, Jr., which has been awaiting them for almost two months. They are made possible by the fact that this issue emerged the other day when I finally sorted out the conglomeration of unlocced fanzines, some of them dating back to early 1995. I segregated them by size into three paper sacks, one of which now includes fullsized fanzines that were mailed flat, another half-size fanzines and those of full dimensions that came folded, and the third anything like JJ that could be mistaken for ordinary letters because they were sent in long envelopes like correspondence. Now all I need to do is try to remember why I adopted this sorting plan, because I no longer can figure out what good it will do me or the fanzines involved.

Sounds like the purpose is to make your job more manageable by making the stacks smaller. - ed.

Your article on how the afterlife figures in the Jewish religion was quite informative. Previously, I'd been told by this or that person that devout Jews just don't think much about the hereafter. Obviously, it's more complicated than that.

However, I have three lp recordings of originally 78 rpm discs made by Cantor Josef Rosenblatt, who had the greatest tenor voice I have ever heard. The texts are translated on the back sides of the jackets. If these translations are accurate, I get the impression that the question of existence after death is more often sung about than talked about or written about. From Elokay Neshomoh, for instance: "Thou preservest it (i.e., the soul) within me; and Thou wilt take it from me, but will restore it unto me hereafter." From Tikanto Shabbos: "They that find delight in it (i.e., the Sabbath) shall inherit glory for everlasting." From Shofar Shel Moshiach: "'Neath a mountain steep, in a cave down deep, / There lies the grave of a hero brave. / Full many a year is he resting there. / 'Tis of David the King of Israel I sing, / Oh, David, David, arise from your sleep!... / But when he'll hear Messiah's shofar blast, / He'll get up from his resting place at last, And seat himself erect upon his throne...." Rosenblatt, incidentally, did the singing in the non-pop vocal sections of the Al Jolson The Jazz Singer.

I fail to see your distinction between Watergate and Whitewater. Nobody accused Nixon of breaking into a building but rather of conniving and lying about matters that grew out of the burglary. The Clintons are also accused of prevaricating about illegal manipulations of financial transactions done by others. The media coverage admittedly has imparted a sense of the differentness to the two casts of characters, since the media hates Republicans and loves Democrats.

The difference is evidence. It is over two years now and Starr has yet to accumulate enough to issue Clinton a parking summons. The evidence is always just around the corner. I don't even think Congress has been able to make any contempt of Congress citations stick. As for the media being lenient on Clinton. You must be paying attention to different media than I am. Maybe it's no longer first page stuff, but Whitewater is certainly second and third page stuff in as liberal a paper as The Washington Post. The media I read believe there will be Pulitzers all round if they can nail Clinton and the hell with any ideology. - ed.

Psi continues to figure in your letter section. This reminds me that I've been able to read for the first time in three or four decades the huge biography of Mark Twain by Albert Bigelow Paine, thanks to a dramatic discovery of the two volumes just as I was leaving a used book sale last month. (I used to borrow the biography from the library but it disappeared long ago from its shelves and, all these years, I had failed to find a used set I could afford.) I'd forgotten how much it contains about what was called by Mark mental telegraphy. He was very interested in the matter, wrote some stuff about it in his published books, but referred to examples many more times in letters and conversations described in the biography. Most of the time, his attention focused on moments when two people suddenly began to talk about the same events or thing or idea with no apparent reason for both of them mentioning it simultaneously.

And when I was writing about apple trees, I forgot one matter which a local friend once pointed out to me. Apple trees have been favored in pop music for a long time, from In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree through Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me. For all I know, they may still be figuring in pop music but nobody can comprehend the lyrics of anything sung in the past quarter-century so we'll never know. My friend pointed out that apple trees are most often rather small and their leaves aren't very wide so they really aren't very good providers of shade, and it's much more likely that the individuals in those songs would be sitting under some other type of tree like a maple or oak. He speculated that the first pop song about an apple tree was written by some hack who had never left New York City and had never seen any kind of tree and picked an apple tree at random or because it fit his meter. Later tin pan alley residents imitated what had been successful.

Maybe. The big song of the Vietnam era was "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'round the Old Oak Tree." A more proper tree for shade. However, it was not used for shade in the song. - ed.

Lloyd Penney
1706-24 Eva Rd.
Etobicoke, ON
CANADA M9C 2B2
August 14, 1996

Sorry, it's taken a while to loc Jomp, Jr. 16, but the Move From Hell prevented me from doing a lot of things (see CoA above). The computer came apart for packing in June, and didn't get put together again until last week, and in the meantime, the mail mounted up. However, the IN box's pile is starting to shrink, and here's an effort to make that pile shrink even further...

A woman colleague told me that as a rule of the thumb moves in-State (Province?) meant the next three weeks would be the pits; moves out-of-State meant the next six weeks would be the pits. - ed.

The afterlife is as vague as ever, no matter the religion, and only the supermarket tabloids report on people who claim they've come back from the dead to report on what they've seen. I'll be very happy to wait a good long time before I must go and see for myself. No matter the final result, the messages given to us by the various holy books all say the same, there'll be a good place for the good people, and a bad place for the bad, all of which is an effort to urge followers to live a righteous life. Some of the theories put forth over the centuries could be put down to imagination rather than divine insight.

You also get accounts of the afterlife from Kubler-Ross and her 'near death' studies. How much science goes into them and how much wishful thinking is another thing entirely. On the other hand, why shouldn't we believe in an afterlife for the purpose of promoting law and order, something we find notably lacking? Or for the purpose of tickling our imagination; something that, many of us fear, has atrophied? - ed.

Too many men (and women) see little difference between a strong woman and a pure bitch. I am married to a strong woman, and have been for just over 13 years now. Yvonne gets things done, and she has ideas she puts across to test the waters. I believe that I'm a strong person, too, and sometimes, there are clashes between two strong personalities. However, we both remember that there are our own feelings and the feelings of others, and true strength is knowing when to back off and think of others, and still feel secure about yourself and your opinions. Both of us like the idea of having some control over the situation we're in, but neither of us would like that control all the time. For example, Yvonne looks after the chequebook and the car, and she was doing a good job of both before she met me; why upset her own routines?

Why indeed? Good for you that you have companion in the war of life - ed.

Right now, the Republican National Convention is on CNN, and when I see all these righteous white Americans claiming glory and credit for all the good events in the world so far this decade, I shudder (especially when I remember that the Gulf War, one of those "good events," was caused by a few Kuwaitis, a slick Washington advertising agency and a pack of lies and misrepresentations told to a gullible Congress). Then, I hear their platform, which cuts many programmes to the poor, and slashes funding to education, and I shudder again. The Democrats aren't much better now, with cuts to welfare and further hurdles to immigration (so much for Ellis Island and what it says on the Statue of Liberty, hm?), and for me, politics in the US isn't strange, it's insane. Canadian politics is nuts, but, at least, it's familiar.

I'm not so certain about your account of the Gulf War now. I don't believe our reason for fighting was secret lobbies; I think it was something more open. The US government feels we have some sort of obligation to the Saudis, without whom we would have very little influence in the Arab world. That is why we came to the aid of Kuwait, an ally of the Saudis. Of course, this can't be sold to the American public, so Saddam was demonized. And this has led to strange consequences, like bombing Iraq to save the Iranian faction of the Kurds. The Kurds and Iranians being as popular with the Saudis and Kuwaitis as a toothache.

As for the craziness of U.S. politics, I fear it is going to get crazier. I think an realignment is underway. And when it is finished, we will not recognize the Democrats and Republicans. And maybe not the liberals and conservatives. Anyway, that will be the case if my crystal ball is clear. - ed.

An entertainment newspaper in Toronto recently published an article about bad movies, particularly those whose storyline featured an unknown rising to the top of Hollywood or Broadway. Such a movie was The Oscar, and the article said "to make things worse, the movie was scripted by the late sci-fi author Harlan Ellison." I called the paper; they were unconcerned by their error. I called the local SF bookstore to ask if they'd had calls, and they hadn't. They did confirm, however, that Harlan is alive and relatively well, still recovering from that heart surgery. He ain't dead yet, and still has plenty of years ahead.

The Oscar seems to have come up a lot recently. I recently browsed Dewey's Pulp Fiction website, where the owner trashed the movie. He noted that there were a lot of Oscar Winners in the movie and wondered why. The Oscar was the type of movie an Oscar was supposed to protect you from. Before this, I hadn't heard anything about that movie for twenty years when the Golden Turkey people presented their dubious award to Tony Bennett for his ham acting. Of course, it was part that cried out for ham acting. In short, Harlan has written some great stuff but he has a lot to answer for, in particular that movie. - ed.

End of zine. So time to go. Take care, and I hope I haven't fallen too far behind in the zine/loc exchange.

Don't worry about it. - ed.

Write me at dengrove@erols.com.

THE END