lists. I’m still working on plans to conduct a (Science Week) Science Freecon and a SF&F Freecon later this Transcendental year

Basenjis Mailing comments. Forever behind and lost in time again! By the time you are reading this (Late April?) it will be well into the New Year, too late then to Sermons and wish you all a merry Autumns Equinox, but let me wish well ahead of time a cheerful (Northern) Summer Solstice. Enlightenment Mailing comments on ANZAPA issues # 234 of Issue Number 23 December 2006

April 2007 1- OBO 234 – Bruce Gillespie Congratulations heroic achievements in recruiting with the 34 copies required for mailing. Perhaps we will soon Produced by Garry Dalrymple as a see full ANZAPA membership becoming a listed and contribution to ANZAPA, the Australian tradeable commodity, with new market entrants required to form a consortium and buy out an existing franchise and New Zealand (SF fan’s) Amateur holder. With QANTAS on the way into private hands, what other Aussie Icons are there left for the Merchant Press Association. Postal Address: P. Bankers to ‘commodity-ise’ and charge fees on? O. Box 2 Bexley North NSW 2207, 2 – Bloody Bored Student – Duncan Campbell Home ph. (best after 7 pm) 02 9718- 5827 Commencing an ANZAPA newsletter with an uncredited [email protected] photo of the Moon (centred on Sinis Iridium and the North pole region) sends mixed messages. I am in general agreement with the views you have expressed on Sci-Fi TV, but why not read a book or two as well. All the When first packed this ideas that come through as Sci-Fi generally existed in books / short stories before their adaptation to the TV / newsletter contains a Movie form and usually so much is lost in the translation.

3 Geology Rhubarb – John and Diane Fox specially selected mixture When I see the drawings of you, I keep thinking, ‘have I seen something like this on May Day in Red Square. I of; wonder how the authorities would react if you were to have it painted up on your houses facade? As the Wolli Valley area is also sandstone outcrop country and as Mysti and I pass a pile of spoil boulders from the M5 East Mailing Comments to #234 tunnel each time we walk to the Post Office Box I had

often wondered at the weathering and colour effects on the sandstone we pass. Up on the cliffs there remain Is SF the New Black? salt water weathering effects from when the valley was last an estuary. A point to ponder given predicted

ocean rises.

A Basenjis Tail Piece

Editorial 4 - Little Passport – Christopher Garcia This newsletter is a shorter version of what had been piling Humour is such a subjective thing. I watch a fair bit of up as my next ANZAPA contribution. The NSW Election the Simpsons and the ‘Little Passport’ didn’t immediately and then the Easter Break intervened. Apart from these, come to mind. Museums for Computers, what next? what I have been spending some time on is a listing of all Zoos for endangered software applications, captive the books I have at home, Fiction and non-fiction. I’ve breeding and release programs for programmable passed 1,000 and 1,500 is a likely total. Re-shelving, and calculators? the identification of Duplications and Discards will surely Hope to hear more about ‘conventional life’ in the US follow. Whatever happens I intend that my hoard doesn’t when you have evolved a more repeatable newsletter end up like Kevin Dillon’s. At some point I will distribute format. Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 1

‘Christlike Fanac’, do you think? Oh dear, yet more 5 - *BRG* 47 - Bruce Gillespie Cats! I agree with your Firefly / Serenity analysis, but I Ah at last, some mailing comments directed to me. On think Joss Weedon was in effect following the path the topic of Zara Baxter, two comments in one issue blazed by Space Above And Beyond, of re-telling old but deserves a response. I am very aware of her ‘promising’ essentially timeless stories of human adventure in a new track record of Fanac Vs actual performance, at times it has SF-nal setting to a new audience. been something I have had to work around with planning for the Freecons. I prefer to provide excuses for her in the 8 – Megatheriums for Breakfast No. 48 - David Grigg hope of eventual improvement rather than to bare teeth and Not much bicycle use ahead of the Freecon! With the criticise pointedly. Re Sue Ann Post, sadly it did not new year just starting I will have to do something about occur to me to put those very questions, perhaps at some this! time in the future ….. What a kerfuffle over yesterday’s heroes! Re your Cosmos concerns, I had been hearing 9 – Neccessity 73: Little Things – Jack Herman Where similar sorts of misgivings from Sydney, so no surprise would we be without people like the Lordly Vesties, a true there. The Observatory lost its main function in the 1930s, charactature of their class on both sides of the World, with City lights. A ‘Branch Office’ Observatory was set up ennobled by Llyodd George for an election time twenty some short distance from the Dalrymple (-Hay) State thousand Pound political donation (in the era of the ten Forrest on Sydney’s (then) outskirts. During the War-time pound Pom?), the apogee of the absentee Landlord blackouts it was able to function again and with modern light surviving into the twentieth Century. I find it perpetually filters and electronics it could still do some types of amazing that in a country so in love with paper money Astronomy. An irony is that as a ‘Museum of Astronomy’ that it invented the automatic and faultless paper money for the tourist trade it has the best instrument it has ever counting machine so they could spend more time with had! Going all the Way and organising a ‘real’ long their money and less time re-counting it that they cannot weekend SF convention is some time away yet. A long get quicker and less disputable results by having uniform weekend SF con in Sydney would have to compete for dollar bill sized ballot papers for their elections, sorting members with the other ‘near’ SF interests, Anime, Gamin, them into piles and then feeding them into the counting the Wannabee Writers et al. It would be a $20,000 machines. Fifth Item, What Fifth Item (I apply the experiment and what I feel would happen at this stage is ‘Cole’ defence). I also watch and appreciate the that even if you could devise a multi-stream program giving Science Fiction show ‘West Wing’, with an American appropriate representation to all the flavours of Science President of Nobel Prize winning intellect and principalled Fiction you would only end up with in effect four or five small staff in high public office, what else can it be but SF, on single interest conventions happening simultainiously rather the other hand, ‘Commander In Chief’ with an than a harmonious whole and each of these parts (at $50 Independent Woman in the White house will just be plain per day) would be less appealing than a ‘Supanova’ day at Fantasy - Until the Clinton-Obama ticket sweeps the US $15 per day and dozens of (Comix / Anime) guest Stars. I Primaries. only see a future for a $20 a day Syncon if I can build up the number of Lit SF fans attending a Freecon to 100 or so and 10 - Kingdom of the Bland – Eric Lindsay - even then events something like ‘A Day at the Australian RAEYCBNC. Museum with Lois Mc Master Bujold, David Brin and Jack Dann for $15’ would have to be intermediate proof of 11 – From the lair of the Lynx 39 – LynC concept steps. Without belittling the consequences to the suicide’s family I think you fail to appreciate how desperate the 6 - Notes from a new life No. 6 - Karen Gory depths of depression can be. Being of Irish descent I Ah the Unitarians, the faith of Isaac Asimov and Fred Pohl, have a predisposition to the ‘Viking’s Disease’ of a fascinatingly American religion, with most of the religiosity Depression, Anxiety attacks and feelings of negative self removed and just the philosophical justification of moral worth.. At times it has been pretty bad, no were near to behaviour retained, Old Testament Free fundamentalism. I actual suicide, but close enough to consider the means suspect that to most of them what they believe is far less (but never a full appreciation of the consequences to important to them than the consequences of their actions, those around me, that only happens when you are ‘over’ Quakers without the hats and the Oats? I do not know if a spell of the Black Dog. they have an Australian congregation. Sorry No Hits with the books or the movies. 12 – Panopticon 39 – Dan McCarthy An Iconic Cover feature and a tale of the dire 7 - Bookmark No.4 - Michael F. Green consequences of small DIY competencies. New NZ Ah you are confusing Christ SF fans (really love the ideas Coinage! gadzooks so that’s why so much Kiwi trash- of the man) and Christ Fantasy Fans (love and look cash has been turning up in my change of late. forward to the Rapture and Tribulation Special effects and Presumably the poker machines of Sydney will also be looking forward to a more comfortable afterlife than you - overflowing with examples of this now officially debased you God Dammned Unsaved Asshole!), indeed concern coinage. (NB to our Friends from Overseas, NZ coins over ‘Right to Life (and being pro Capital Punishment)’ Vs before this recent change were the same size / the Right to Human Rights. Which group is more into denomination as Australian coins, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 cent Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 2 pieces. The usual exchange rate is that one $A usually Mangy cats survive barely to breed a litter of a few cute buys up $NZ1.50 so Australian vending machines of all kittens each year, and so it goes. More sympathy for sorts traditionally receive down the slot a mixture of the cat than for the frequently demented homeless. Australian, New Zealand and Fiji coins. At your Re the prams, a case of cost shifting, it is very difficult to recommendation I went out and bought a block of NZ made get a pram, baby, toddler and shopping onto a privately Whittakers (the pharlap of Chocolates?) Dark Ghana owned bus, doorways are too narrow, stairs are too Chocolate. To me it tasted ‘smoky’ and to my mother it steep (funny that) so mothers without cars have to go by tasted too bitter. I presume the difference in taste might train, at the end of the peak hour rush if they want seats. be the Cocoa being smoked dry rather than sun dried. In The V-J Day celebration went well, it was not a date that spite of the name I fear that it is from South American most Australians would think to celebrate, but I feel it has sourced raw Cocao, ‘American’ rather than ‘English’ great importance. Consider the unthinkable, an invasion flavoured chocolate. I detect the same taste in the dark of Japan in 1946, a Korea like US Soviet partition of Chocolate blocks on sale at at the Aldis shops (and what a Japan? What would that war have been like? There is shock to the NZ ‘Dairies’ industry their arrival will prove to an Adult Migrant Education Service facility in Bankstown, be!). I’m sorry to hear about your wife, I fear that the much so it is not unusual to see robed migrant women moving heralded twenty first century break throughs in treatment for about with babies in a pram and orbited by four small Parkinson’s disease and Dementia will come too late to children, such is the migrant / refugee family these days. prevent much loss. Would that we were 20 years further ahead in medical technology rather than in consumer 16 – Hold that Tiger – Terry Morris electronics? In the abscence of the availability of sensible Sorry no hits with the books read. RAEYCBNC three wheeler bikes (or quads?) a bike with an outrigger wheel, a ‘sidecar ostensibly for carrying groceries hither and 17 – Ping! – John Newman yon, is a product that I would like to see available to the I find that the level of strangeness avoidance that chronologically wobbly, as it would take away the anxiety dwellers in urban societies routinely accrete to be most over fears of falls. surprising, a sort of institutionalized blindness that is I maintain that it is through the London (and Manchester?) quite profound, but is possibly the cost of sanity in a too based Mystery magazines that SF fandom really got its complex society. What I see and report on is ‘normal’ start, with a loyal readership ethos started by the the stories that casualty nurses, taxi drivers, police and serialization of stories in these. The first ‘Worldcon’ was in homeless outreach workers see on a daily basis would fact in Liverpool in 1936, rather than in Ghod’s own probably drive Philip K. Dick sane. Sometimes I think America. that perhaps I border on the Autistic, but maybe it is the society that we live in that is institutionally blind? 13 – Arbitraryness No.1 - Clare McDonald Dear Clare, Welcome to ANZAPA and May the Force be 18 - You Really Know You’re Home When You Find a with you (that’s a Star Trek greeting isn’t it?). I look forward Wombat in Your Bed #108 – Cath Ortlieb RAEYCBNC to hearing more from you, how would you like to be a guest at my next Freecon? 19 – OZ SF Fan No.38 – Lucy Schmeidler Thank you for the detailed suggestions about the original 14 – Avoiding Australian Values – Murray MacLachlan fiction, I have already explained the punctuation mangling Dear Murray, A newsletter that starts with an Airship (a la that took place to fit it into the TBS&E format. See my Alan Bond) taking off is hard to argue as being totally free of comments to Bruce for my thoughts on steps up from the Australian Values. current Freecon format. Even if you can never attend in person feel free to join my circle of advisors (and critics!) 15 – Land of 10,000 Loons – Jeanne Mealy for future Freecons. The Freecon went very well. If you are cunning enough, tickets are only optional, it would be possible most days for 20 – Siyayilanda 12 – Nick Shears me to walk through Campsie and Bankstown station I hope that things get better and stay that way. Given barriers without a ticket but ‘Men in Grey’, Security / Ticket the general incidence of unwellness in our little Inspectors conspiciously walk through the trains checking corresponding community I fear that Bruce will have to tickets and issuing ‘feet off seats’ instructions. Some institute some time soon another OBE newsletter, just people, the unemployed etc perpetually travel without like the inside cover of an RSL branch newsletter, tickets (concessions are available) and rack up fines detailing which ANZAPANs are on the sick list / on the totalling $ thousands per year. Having no money they go mend or up to receiving visitors etc. unpaid, collecting interest with no consequences whatsoever until in the end they are denied jobs or Credit 21 – Anzapa 770 – Roger Sims due to their record as fine defaulters. Due to the weather Enjoyed the travelogue, but RAEYCBNC in Sydney Cats and the homeless tend to survive longer on the streets than in most US / UK cities, winters do not 22 – Ytterbium No. 79 – Alan Stewart usually kill although public hospitals do fill up with the unwell I for one appreciate the Tram tickets, just wish that the homeless at Winter time. The Cats I’m afraid starve, get Sydney Rail System could be bothered to get into sick or kill each other off between breeding seasons. commemorative ephemera like this, I expect that large Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 3 numbers of Sydney Rail / Ferry tickets leave the country in ‘Chips’. What impressed me most was the demeanour traveller’s handbags or as bookmarks etc, pity they can’t be of the contestants, as ‘Fans’ some were very much more used as ambassadors. relaxed and familiar with the host than the average person would be on first contact with ‘celebrity’. To a 23 Interstellar Ramjet Scoop - Bill Wright degree that I think ‘Moon face’ was initially a bit set back Now that’s cover Art I can appreciate, pulp era SF magazine by this but was soon playing off the contestants. The era like depiction of adventures in space. The photocopy Star Wars people seemed a bit more ‘wired’ by the ‘I’m of the stamps on the back mostly catalogues the heroes of on Television and I’m wearing my Uniform’ moment. I my primary school age comic book reading. All this and wonder how theses teams would have gone against a Mailing comments in between! team of more cerebral Dr Who fans or Book SF fans?

24 – Les Chattes Parties 85 – Sally Yeoland According to an AAP report found on page 5 of the Dear Sally, you do have my sympathy with the work Sydney Morning Herald on December 27, 2006 situation, but I am simply astounded that this is the first workplace Sociopath you have encountered to date. At Bug creates Human Sex kittens my safe distance what you report of this guy rings bells - A common parasite picked up from undercooked meat or The bloke is a Psychopath. By this I mean he has cat excreta can make “Men behave like alley cats and absolutely no ingrained ability to consider the needs / women like sex kittens”, a researcher at the University of emotions of others in response to his actions. These guys Technology, Sydney says. Toxoplasma gondii made are much more alien than anything you will see on Dr Who infected men more likely to break the rules and take or Star Trek! For him it is all Me!, Me!, Me!. To him risks, and women more outgoing and promiscuous. other people are just for using, lies don’t count. Any care or Umm, we know a lot of SF fans who have cats don’t we? consideration for others that he shows is just a ‘learned response’ for smoothing the way to getting what he wants. You have absolutely no chance of moderating his behaviour Three drinks under the Sydney Sun! by ‘counselling’ as from past successes at manipulating 1. In Early February, on the way home from work, I met situations and people to his advantage he already has lists Mrs Ford, a family friend of approximately my mother’s and lists and lists of ways around anything that stands in his age at the Campsie station 412 bus stop. My brother way. All I can suggest is that you just get out of his way and I both went to Clemton Park Public SchooI and then coz trying to ‘help’ this guy is just going to make you his on to Kingsgrove North High School with her son Roger. hostage shield, the person that the people he will hurt will My mother and Mrs Ford chose to serve on the school come to seeking redress or amelioration. canteen together for twelve years. It was a warm and humid Sydney afternoon and Mrs Ford had just spent a 18 – Life Goes On – Gerald Smith few hours at the doctors and she was not looking well. RAEYCBNC I was very sceptical about the Conflux split I was a little concerned as I know that Mrs Ford is a venue approach, it was a reason why I did not go to diabetic, and in conversation she stated that in attending Canberra this year (sent Brian Walls on my tickets the doctor for tests and prescriptions this afternoon she instead). had missed a meal. After her bus stop she still had 19 – Further Adventures of an incurable Romantic 2 – some distance to walk to get home. She was very Roman Orszanski RAEYCBNC General agreement on relieved and visibly revived when I pulled out of my bag a your choice of DVD viewing. 250 ml tetra pack of fruit juice and gave it to her. I usually carry one or two of these with me when I go out coz I am all too aware of the consequences of travelling Quark Strangeness & Charm in Sydney around Sydney without re-hydration. ‘Not having a bad As not very much was happening at work during the week day’ and even consciousness itself can be touch and go before the annual Australia Day (riot) Long Weekend I on a humid afternoon in Sydney without a drink to hand! decided to take a flex day mid week. In the afternoon I 2. Which allows me to lead on to an event that happened watched a few videos and as the TV was on ‘under’ the in the following week. Standing at the bus stop at VCR signal, at the end of that tape I ended up watching an Campsie again, another warm and humid Sydney otherwise completely forgettable afternoon quiz show. It afternoon and I attracted the attention of a weasely little was hosted by Bert Newton and it featured a contest bloke who told me that he had just been discharged from between two teams – Starwarz Fans Vs Star Trek Fans, the nearby Canterbury hospital and he was feeling de- teams of four and in costume! The Star Warz team hydrated and could I spare some change for a can of consisted of four Fanboys for Star Warz, while the Trekkies Coke … etc. I’m fairly certain I have encountered him had managed to find and bring along one woman for their before on the same quest for change. I think that being team. I presume that they were Melbourne Sci-Fi fans self evidently ‘English Speaking’, bearded and hat (wearing lots of black?). I also noticed that at least one of wearing seems to attract these beggars (how do you go the show’s hostesses was wearing a blue STNG uniform. Jack?). While he was talking and showing me his scabs The competition itself wasn’t much, a test of specific or (yuk!) I reached into my bag and handed him a tetra general knowledge. It was the sort where ‘We asked 100 pack of juice. The tetra pack was in his hands while he people for a word to go with … and ?? said …. i.e. for ‘Fish’, was still talking and briefly, he clearly didn’t know how to 9 said ‘Bait’, 12 said ‘Fingers’, 37 said ‘Tank’ and 42 said Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 4 react. He put it in his bag and without further comment (or any attempt to drink the stuff) shuffled off up the road, The 458 is a more Anglo-Saxon journey, as Concord looking a bit crestfallen. I very much doubt that he will be Repat Hospital still serves our diminishing number of bothering me again! The 400 bus arrived shortly WW2 veterans, or more commonly these days, Cancer afterwards so I was able to see him trailing a Greek or patients. On my 458 bus trips the bus has never been Italian guy that presumably he was trying routine on without filled with people, but it is filled and weighed down with success. A Good Result I thought. No weight on my justified apprehension. There are old blokes visiting a conscience if he really had been about to fall over and mate who has been ‘a bit crook lately’, or the passengers probably one less irritation on future afternoons. are middle aged or younger, visiting their mum / dad or 3. Last year, similar conditions, Brian Walls rushed in to a grandma / grandpa who is under the indeterminate Sydney Futurians meeting, pale and moist. Brian is not a sentence of ‘Cancer’. At Concord you are very aware big man and I believe he had walked the length of the city in that not everyone is going to get better and go home and a hurry that evening. He also was revived by a provident resume life as they were before. Everyone riding the 458 Tetra pack. It pays to be prepared doesn’t it? to the hospital is quiet and reflective, by mutual consent no one talks loudly about their loved one’s condition, you A Prince of Beggers in Sydney do not want to add to your worries by overhear other There are a number of people on Sydney’s streets who people’s. It always could be something worse. seemingly make a living (or feed a habit?) by one-on-one begging requests. Central Station, on the platforms and Garry’s Jan 2007 Big Day ‘out’ (twice!) outside seem to be an epicentre of the ‘can you spare some On Monday January 29, 2007 I attended Concord change, I need to buy a bus/train ticket home’ approach. Hospital (via the 458 bus) to give a blood sample. This Very soul wearying, they might just be genuine, you feel like sample is needed to assess my tissue compatibility to my a bit of a louse standing there with your hands in your brother and is the first step towards my providing the pockets and saying ‘No’. The only beggar that has made bone marrow for a transfusion that my brother will shortly me feel good was an unwashed, ill dressed and probably require. The plan was that by my going by bus in my retarded bloke who I used to see at Bondi Junction plaza. own time, rather than by being driven by Ruth my Sister- He would sit there all day with his cardboard sign stating the in-law (a registered Nurse), it would be a slightly less usual plausible hardship story (they all seem to be written emotionally charged process. For me this event and its by the same slightly manic sign writer!) gibbering away, implications overshadowed the Australia day weekend. talking to whoever wanted to talk to him, ignored by the rest. I did not have a peaceful morning’s sleep before setting In effect he was having a very much better day out on the out, having had nightmares of the ‘late and unprepared streets than if he had been in an institution. Also sleeping for high school exams’ again. All good preconditions for rough, there were far fewer confusing rules than living in a an anxiety loop! I set out at about 8.30 am, just group house or similar. By the act of publicly begging he missed one bus, had to go round the corner to try the was in effect protected by a psychic force field. Kind alternate choice, which got me to Burwood by about 9.15 people would noticed him and occasionally throw him some am, much later than I had anticipated. I had to walk up change, very kind people would talk to him or give him and down Burwood’s main Street looking for the some food, indifferent people ignored him and pass without unmarked 458 bus stop. At Strathfield Station a comment and even the malignant passed on without even nicotine saturated (reeking of it) smoker gets on the bus verbal abuse because picking on a beggar in public would and sits in front of me for the rest of the trip. By his ears be seen by everyone passing by to be a really low act that I could tell that he had been a digger, as the tops of his you couldn’t expect to get away with. To my mind, this ears had been worn flat by years of wearing an AIF felt beggar, dirty and smelly as he was also less noisy and hat. I end up with a Nicotine buzz from his out gassings offensive than some buskers I have known. He was living and I’m slightly nauseous from the buzz when I get off free, in a manner of his own choosing. the bus at the hospital just after 10 am. Having been delayed, I arrive at blood collection just as the blood Two of Sydney’s grimmest bus rides nurse is about to cancel my appointment, some standing Through Burwood run two of the most depressing bus around and then into the chair for some blood letting. I services in Sydney, the 407 which takes you to (and from) pass out twice! Not fun! After the second time I Rookwood cemetery and the 458 takes you to Concord realize that taking this morning’s anti hypertension pill at (Repat) Hospital. When I worked at OTEN I would walk 8.15 am was probably not a good idea. past the twenty or so black clad Widows chattering like sparrows (and two or three Widowers) waiting for the 9.02 Passing out is always a singular experience. I had to am 407service. It is the 9.02 am service they are waiting discontinue giving blood because I used to end up on the for as this is the first bus of the day that will honour their floor more often than not. Each time it seems likely to concession passes. Their destination and morning was to happen I try to fight the plunge by thinking calming be spent at the above ground section favoured by our Italian thoughts (usually about dog walking) but some times you dead, decorating their loved one’s resting place. Quite go out with a thought still in train and you come to morbid to my sensibilities, but the ladies were probably quite knowing that you were thinking about something that you effective a self help group for the newly widowed. just can’t recall. All this while your senses ‘re-boot’ and you begin gradually to realize where you are and what Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 5 has happened - Again. I do not panic, as that level of Being my several adventures in the March analysis is only available some time after you can hear, see, 2007 NSW State Election feel and only then analyse.

After the second incident I come to with a (very) young and Prior to this election I decided not to stand in the seat that apprehensive doctor looming over me and I’m connected to I reside in, the reason being that the local member is a machine that ‘goes ping’. I’m shower wet and porcelain Lynda Burney and she is the only NSW parliamentarian pale. The machine is measuring Blood Pressure and of acknowledged Aboriginal descent (1 out of 134). heart rate which are each satisfactory and percent of O2 Depending on how you estimate it, the degree of saturation, which take a while to get over 95%. After a ‘Aboriginality’ among NSW residents could be up to 5 or cup of tea I’m up and out at 11.15 am. On the way out, I 10%, it’s rather more common than being a Lawyer, notice the smoker, he is with a mate in a hospital gown, Merchant Banker or Trade Union official, but less both smoking. represented in ‘The House’. So instead I chose to take on Morris Iemma, the NSW premier. Someone had to I try to get down a bottle of Coke, for the sugar hit, but it is do it? vile tasting stuff to have to drink in a hurry! The 458 arrives at about 11.30, so off to Burwood. At Burwood I self The Liberals certainly were not even making much of an prescribe a bit of therapeutic shopping and I’m surprised to effort, having gone ‘Tasmanian’ with an ‘all Mansour’ set find three rather newish, rather good SF paperbacks for of candidates for three adjoining seats of Marrickville, $2.10 at the Anglicare shop, but nothing much at the St. Canterbury and Lakemba! In future it seems that all Vinneys round the corner. I wait for the next available bus Liberal Candidates (for seats they can’t be bothered to try home, and get home by 1.15 pm, very glad I had arranged to win) will be contested by members of the one family. in advance to take the whole day off for the procedure. Letterboxing Postscript – For bone marrow transplant purposes I am not For every election I have participated in a constant has compatible with my brother. In fact I register as almost a been letterboxing, and in every election you wait and complete ‘opposite’ by tissue type. I was not looking hope that it rains on the days before you get your forward to the actual ‘transplant’ but I am looking forward letterboxing material and not on the dwindling number of much less to not being able to do this small Philadelphian nights remaining before the election. It never quite service for my brother. His future health will be dependent works out the way that you want. During gaps between on the kindness of strangers. rain the paid letter boxers are out, filling letterboxes with tight wads of supermarket catalogues. If I arrive at Campsie station just after a 412 bus has left I can sometimes face a 30 or 40 minute wait to the next one. If you reach the letterbox before them your stuff is buried, If I’m not carrying much, I can walk from Campsie station to if you follow then, then you have to cram your leaflet in home in 25 minutes and beat the bus home. on top of these and hope that they will be looked at and read before the next rain turns the whole lot to mush and One afternoon while half way home I came across four slug food. Most leaflets / shiny catalogues are printed / Asian (possibly Korean?) teenagers standing round a small coated with vegetable oil based inks, good for mollusc dog. The dog was lying on its back on the concreted over nutrition! A lot of the time when you are doing political front yard / driveway and one of them was massaging its letterboxing you have to stop to push the commercial genitals with the ‘shoulder’ of a wire coat hanger. The stuff all the way in to be able to get yours in at all. If dog’s tail was wagging. In their ignorance the boys you see a jammed full letterbox you can fairly assume thought that this was some fascinatingly wanton ‘dirty-dog that A. the address is unoccupied or B. English not read like’ sexual behaviour. What was actually happening was at this address. On the letterboxing trail this time I that the 10 kg dog was terrified at being circled by up to 300 noticed almost a complete absence of other political mail. kg of people and was desperately doing its belly up A few ‘Don’t Trust Debnam on IR’ postcards, a Greens submissive ‘I’m no threat to you, leave me alone’ reaction Postcard or two and occasionally Fred Nile stuff thrown while being ‘clawed’ by the wire coat hanger. on the ground near the letterboxes.

I now love Australian Suburban pubs, open late for gambling, they provide the achingly neccessary venue for a late night, post letterboxing comfort break. Driving Sparks in the night With only a few days before the election I took myself off into the night with hammer and a step ladder to nail a few Green Pages corflute placards of Arthur Chesterfield Evans to telephone poles. I concentrated on the Bexley Road / William St. intersection and a pole just outside what - Politics and Rainfall would be the main Canterbury side entrance to Clemton

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 6

Park PS. I waited until nearly the last minute coz minor - Candidates have got to get some paper about party signs tend to wander in strong Labor areas themselves out into the community to get more than 1 or 2% results. The information to generate ‘Some paper’ On the day should be held on hand about all Democrat members. After much thought I decided to make my stand on election - Identify and list all your high letterbox density areas, day at the western side of Clemton Park Public School, Villa concentrations or rise blocks of flats areas. I feel partly because it was in the shade, (under a big gum tree this would be more productive than bothering CBD office that was flowering out of season due to recent rains) but workers in the morning. I.e. there are many places in mostly because it was on the Lakemba side of the school / Sydney where a carload of people can ‘hit’ over 1,000 polling booth. On the Bexley Road side it would be all addresses in an hour. In 90 minutes at town Hall I gave fumble and mumble about whether the intending voter was out less than 100 ‘vote for ACE’ leaflets at Town Hall. It a Canterbury or Lakemba resident while a full pack of took me an hour to get into town and an hour to get out of parties jostled to get at the voter. On my side it was just town. In three hours of walking I have done 500 me and a tag team of Labor party people, the Liberals, Fred houses. Nile and Unity people wandering off half an hour or so and - Bother CBD workers from 3.30 to 6.00 pm, instead of in absolutely no sign of the greens at all! At about 10 am a the morning, as commuters and office workers are more bloke appeared and started marking out a half sized soccer likely to ‘read it on the way home’ than on the walk to the pitch on the fairly uneven school playground. Shortly after office, Additionally, many discarded leaflets would make two boys soccer teams materialized and played a 20 or 30 it onto the trains and disperse through greater Sydney minute game, in 30 degree heat and nearly midday Sun! area and would be there on train seats to be picked up They were later followed a pair of girl’s teams. It was a and read (by several readers?) until the cleaners come hot and horrible day, until about 4 pm when a storm hit, through (check Train cleaners shift times?) fortunately I standing was on the shady side - How about ‘Democrat Bookmark’ leaflets for public transport using readers, bookmarks stick around much Comments on my ‘campaign’ longer than ‘political’ leaflets. It wasn’t much of an effort, Lakemba has 47,000 voters and - Identify church service times, organise a car, several I ‘visited’ at most a few thousand addresses with only an helpers and a ‘Democrats Christian Values’ leaflet to upper house ‘vote for ACE’ leaflet and minimal presence in take on Fred Nile / Family First etc by meeting the local newspapers, no specifically ‘vote for Garry’ leaflets parishioners after they leave church and showing that we delivered or local paper advertisements taken out. On are ‘normal’ people. election day I had precisely two polling booths manned, just - Could also get ‘Democrat’ suits made up in bulk for me and Stephen Bingle, so realistically my vote represents these visitations, Green Trousers Gold Jacket. Make a ‘did nothing candidate’s’ outcome. purchase of one of these a condition of candidature? The suits would also be good also for Demos, the The aftermath Democrats would stand out in any crowd, instead of So I got just over 1% overall. This seems like a ‘road kill’ looking like a bunch of scruffs in motley T Shirts? sort of an outcome but I prefer to see it as datapoints on the - Start thinking of forming Democrat teams, rather than graph, results of minimal effort. I did beat the mystery the time and effort consuming job of starting up new independent (Socialist Alliance!) , whose half a percent branches. ‘Branches’ can represent regions, ‘Teams’ might be considered to be a reverse donkey vote, and I my can represent two or three Electorates, to start thinking vote was higher than 3 or 4 other Democrats candidates. about what they can do about boosting the Democrat vote in an area now rather than putting all this off until Bright spots? only after somebody comes forward to be ‘The Coz it was a mongrel of a day, particularly for Lakemba Candidate’. voters, at about mid-day I started thanking electors as they left the school, to universally positive responses. It seemed The idea of a ‘Team’ would be to have at least one driver the right thing to do At Clemton Park, where I attended most and several passengers, isolated democrat members of the day my vote was 2.7 %, (about one eight of my total might be more willing to get involved in letterboxing ‘only electorate vote!), so manning a booth really does help, for half an hour’ if they had people to do it with and an tripling or adding ~2% to my vote. I also got higher than assurance that they could be ‘home in time for tea’. average votes out near where my brother lives, and Next Page – Some Election Results generally higher (double?) near where letterboxing took place. Wading through the minutia of the voting results and ever in the political Vangard! published in the Sunday paper while searching out the Democrat votes I noticed a curious thing. It seems that the Greens vote in most seats has declined, with the exception of those usually inner-city seats where the Greens are really just ALP challenging independents.

A list of Recommendations

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Rainfall recorded at 1 Eulabah Avenue Earlwood by Garry Dalrymple between July and December 2006

Day Rainfall Monthly Total 04 JULY 9.91 mm 05 0.66 16 5.44 17 0.18 20 2.03 21 2.30 22 0.13 25 17.0 26 0.04 27 1.64 39.31 mm 04 AUGUST 26.14 mm 05 0.84 06 1.42 07 1.42 16 0.40 30.49 mm 07 SEPTEMBER 35.3 mm Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 12

08 1.90 12 12.0 09 10.8 13 18.49 11 29.0 14 0.04 12 6.10 22 0.35 13 0.58 24 3.76 27 0.71 84.39 mm 26 13.7 06 OCTOBER 0.01 mm 27 12.9 16 0.35 28 0.10 17 0.10 63.76 mm 0.46 mm 01 MARCH 2.03 mm 03 NOVEMBER 0.57 mm 05 9.64 04 0.53 06 5.71 05 3.23 07 1.24 06 5.75 08 0.10 07 0.13 08 0.31 14 1.19 16 3.58 19 0.10 17 0.49 25 6.02 29 0.58 30 0.31 15.17 mm 26.34 mm 02 DECEMBER 0.18 mm 03 2.48 Day Rainfall Monthly Total 12 3.18 15 0.04 Year to Date 121.70 mm 16 3.01 20 13.4 21 3.36 22 0.13 Not Much Rain in Earlwood so far this year. 24 1.86 Please feel free to quote from Chaucer’s ‘The 30 1.81 Canterbury Tales’ at this point? 31 0.01 29.46 mm Day Rainfall Monthly Total Rainfall recorded at 1 Eulabah Avenue Blue Pages Earlwood by Garry Dalrymple between January and March 2007 Science

Day Rainfall Monthly Total Garry’s notes of Sydney Science meetings attended during 01 JANUARY 0.10 mm 02 19.37 January, February & March 2007 03 8.40 04 1.73 The 2007 Darwin day celebration, 08 0.93 MSA Monday February 12, 2007 13 0.10 24 0.97 Who was there, that I recognized 31.60 mm John August 01 FEBRUARY 0.57 mm G Dalrymple 02 0.10 Dr Robin Holliday 04 0.49 Nick Lomb 08 1.02 Ian Woolf 09 0.10 and about 70 other people, Humanists, Rationalists 10 0.10 et al. 11 0.04 Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 13

Who wasn’t there! over time, he would be able to calculate the age of – Cosmos Magazine, who had offered to provide the Earth! Aristotle’s view was that there were Einstein T shirts as door / raffle prizes. 540 immutable Species which were rankable in closeness to God. The ‘Discovery’ of Fossils by As I had arrived in town slightly earlier than I had the English middle classes was a post industrial expected I was able to visit the library ahead of the revolution thing, people with leisure and some meeting to ask a question about ISBNs and Dewey education had the time to start collecting. decimal numbers. There were two other meetings taking place at the same time, as is the case with The two speakers finished on 7 pm. I thought that MSA’s breadth of associated events, both of which I the speakers could easily have filled an extra hour of could have been interested in attending. time as they admitted that their presentations were the short version of their usual talk on the topic. A John August was very much in evidence. He was question and answer session followed, mainly about MC-ing this meeting in his capacity as a Committee Creationism Vs Evolution in schools. member of the Australian Rationalists. I think I detect John’s hand in the mix of political and Science events After the meeting I was able to talk briefly to Ian that I noticed on the listing of future MSA events. Woolf. He will know if he has a job at the UTS only during the week that students go back. The meeting itself started at just a little after 6 pm. As you might expect, the crowd looked very similar to a After leaving the MSA at ~7.30 pm I did some TAMS or Skeptics audience. There was a brief MSA shopping (Milk and Dog biscuits if you must know!) intro, explaining for the benefit of Rationalists etc. what and was able to catch a 7.58 pm 412 home without the MSA was about, then over to John who described further delay so I was able to be at home shortly the Humanists as being about Atheism with ethics. after 9 pm The TAMS Darwin Day (the next night) was mentioned as was a showing of a film / video about Intelligent Design that will take place on March 2. Yellow Pages Dr Andrew Simpson, a Paleontologist at Macquarie University and Dr Robin Holliday Fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Australian Science Fiction Academy of Science

The impact of Darwin’s work on Museums is his Garry’s notes of Sydney SF&F fixation. Would others in time have brought the same meetings attended during understanding to the study of life’s origins – he rattled off a long list of mainly French Naturalists – possibly, January, February & March 2007 possibly not, but as it’s Darwin Day, lets talk about him and his 500 page book which he described as ‘not a cracking yarn’, but a set of speculations and large My thoughts toward an alternative numbers of facts. The words ‘Evolution’, ‘Missing to Magic Casements 2007 Link’ and ‘Survival of the fittest’ did not appear in the book. Garry Dalrymple January 9, 2007

The context of ‘The Origin of Species’, prior to TOoS Things that seem to work in Sydney Museums grew from curiosity cabinets ‘Museums’ were regarded as the temple of the Muses rather than SF&F Science. Much popular interest in fossils but these were commonly believed to be failed life experiments, - Achievable near term goals God’s Noachian discards / mistakes rather than - Regularity rather than one of, momentum lost, events - SF&F / Speculative Fiction Writers from Sydney and ancient or ancestral animals. Belief in spontainious elsewhere will show up for an event promoted as a SF&F generation of life, Flies and rats coming into being from / Speculative Fiction Writers event piles of filth etc. was widespread. Benoit de Maillet (a - Some Sydney SF&F / Speculative Fiction fans will show French Diplomat) had noticed marine fossils at altitude up for an event promoted as a SF&F / Speculative Fiction around the Mediterreanean. His theory was that if he Writers event to see / hear the writers (except for ‘Sci-Fi’ could get an estimate of rate of ocean level decline fans apparently). Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 14

- ‘Organized’ SF fans like the Sydney Futurians etc will show The Civic Hotel gatherings (or the Half-price-Tuesday up for most ‘book’ SF and F events (and for various Sci-Fi movie group outings) are my monthly chance to get into events as well). the MSA library on a weekday. It’s a $4.00 train trip from - Dr Who Cons (every two or three years), ‘Star of TV’s ….’ Bankstown to Town Hall, or a three hour round trip and Type Sci-Fi celebrity day events. $7 for fares on a Saturday morning bus to achieve the same end. Part of the trip I shared with Natalie who told Other considerations me of her recent trip to Vietnam. She found it a bit - The value of the in-house promotional and financial disappointing, the Tsunami tide of Capitalism rolls on and support that the NSWWC provided to the previous Magic the bad aspects of Vietnamese totalitarianism remain in Casements events was considerable (and would cost the ascendant, market forces are delivering the lowest $1,000s to duplicate?) as they supplied Venue, Publicity to a common denominator of both systems rather than the large NSWWC magazine subscriber mailing list and their best. With waiting for a train and in transit delays, it took membership included a considerable number of both ‘Writer’ over an hour to get from Bankstown to Town Hall, I and ‘Reader’ members. managed to get to the library door and return my book at just a few minutes to 6 PM. Afterwards I went shopping - The first half of the year Feb to June 2006 is too short a at Woollies, mostly dog biscuits, donuts and some ‘herbal’ time to organize a new venue and the program of a ‘most of wholegrain bread. While wandering I was able to direct a day’ long event. two groups of tourists who were struggling with city maps and directions. On the way to the George st. cinema - The second half of 2007 is already fairly well filled out with complex I found a $2 shop where I bought a new belt and interstate (and Nippon 2007) SF&F cons, not necessarily a two bags of Birthday party balloons. distraction to a Sydney SF&F fan audience, but your writers / This evening the Half-price-Tuesday movie group panelists might already be committed? (I know I am!). consisted of Sarah Murray-White, Gerald Smith and

a Sydney fan, SF fans all. This evening they - While the NSWWC might assist with a venue for an were going to see the Australian made, animated penguin externally organized Magic Casements replacement event it movie ‘Happy Feet’. They asked for me to carry their best would have to fit in with their timetable of internally wishes for 2007 to be to the attendees of the Civic Hotel organized festivals and courses. I.e. NSWWC events will gathering. have first choice of ‘good’ dates and promoting it’s own events would be it’s priority. I arrived at the Civic hotel to find Chris Barnes, Mark Philips, Ted Scribner and Roland Sinn in the small (and My thoughts quiet) Pitt Street facing room off the main bar area. I As a ‘replacement’ for the 2007 Magic Casements consider passed on the Movie goers regards. Conversation was holding an evening (6 pm to 9 pm) every second month in about the faults and conceits of ‘Grand Space Opera SF’, the Sydney CBD near to public transport. A program of two mostly modern day stuff, Hamilton and Banks, the main Writers, possibly even (one Science Fiction writer and the point being the unghodly bigness of things needed to other a Fantasy / Horror writer, with a discussion panel and make an impression these days, continent sized space review of what’s new in SF&F / Speculative Fiction etc. I.e. ships, Star Empires across thousands of Light years. a two-ish hour slice of a Magic Casements program This discussion may have been consequent to repeated five or so times (in late February, April, June, something raised at one of Christopher Levinson’s August and October) a year. recent ‘Sci-Fi Monthly’ SF book of the month discussion meetings. My comment was to the effect that in modern It would be much easier and more manageable to organize Space Opera the writer was set a formidable task in a sequence of two and a half hours of something every eight maintaining a credible conflict over the necessary weeks or so than to organize twelve-ish hours of program duration of decision and action implied by a theatre of ten to twenty months ahead. How long would you expect operations ‘hundreds of Light Years’ across, even with to spend each month just organizing and attending ‘paycon’ FTL travels. In LM Modestitt’s ‘The Parafaith War’ the committee meetings? writer deals with this well. Slavering BEMS or totally inhuman invading Aliens are not necessary to set up a The cost of a venue (such as the Gaelic Club on a conflict. He sets up two opposed cultures drawn out of Wednesday night?) and other financial commitments would tendencies present in modern day American culture, a be minimal and you have the opportunity to learn as you go fusion of Moslem and Mormon beliefs Vs a more secular in trying to publicize the event, rather than an annual ‘all or ‘Californian’, ‘growth should have limits’ society. No nothing’ effort to get your one weekend of the year listed in Mad / Bad emperor or evil Galactic Dictator to personify the paper etc. Compare this to the effort of even and drive the conflict, just different perspectives dividing investigating where a replacement 2007 Magic Casements people with otherwise much the same traditions and could be held and then paying a deposit some months outlooks. ahead of the event? As ever, being Sydney in the year after the prophesized ‘end of the baby boomers bubble’ (in 2006 statistically Tuesday January 8, 2007 speaking more people were supposed to be leaving the Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 15

Sydney housing market as retirees than would be entering it as new home buyers), Real Estate was discussed (anyone Garry’s Notes ahead of the need a Des. Res. in Cronulla, near the beach and railway January 19, 2007 meeting of the station – apply to Ted). Residency and the implications for being able to enroll your child as a ‘local’ at a desirable Sydney Futurians Public school were discussed. Some schools because of their programs or other features have very long lists of ‘non- locals’ (as defined by limited ‘catchment’ areas) seeking to January’s SF&F news enroll at the school. In some cases enrollment at a closest - There will be no more Magic Casements events at the school can be difficult if your side / end of the street is on the NSW Writers Centre, Festivals seen to be out and one wrong side of the line on the map in the principal’s office. day courses seem to be in. This was discussed at the Civic hotel meeting on January 9, 2007 (five people The Origins of the sequence of Magic Casements events present). See my thoughts on alternatives to Magic were discussed. Apparently, Irina Dunn contacted Ted Casements (at the back of this sheet). about it shortly after the success of the Academic / fannish - Brian Walls phoned me to tip me off about - The ‘Fantastic Fictions’ symposium. Prior to this there had Inaugural Kinokuniya Debate - That Science Fiction is the been (one or two?) Selwa Anthony’s ‘Popular Fiction’ days New Black' will take place at 2 pm on Saturday January at the NSW Writers Centre. Selwa Anthony is a Sydney 20, 2007. Literary agent with a large number of local writers on her The panellists will be Deborah Abela, Justine books, including some Fantasy and SF / Speculative Fiction Larbelestier, Michael Parker and Scott Westerfield. writers like Kate Forsyth and Richard Harland. Her To attend you need to have booked before Thursday Popular Fiction days were a day out for those of her writers January 18. whose books were too ‘popular’ in style to be featured at the big ‘L’ literary festivals etc. , so a transition to an ‘all Fantasy If you haven’t already reserved a seat, I have booked and SF / Speculative Fiction’ writer’s event was not such a three seats for the Sydney Futurians. January at great stretch. I believe that the writers of ‘Romance’ and Kinokuniya is Science Fiction month. Their in shop ‘Historical Fiction’ books were also given their own festival Display and their SF&F catalogue are well worth seeing. days by Irina and the NSW Writers Centre. - After reviewing my notes of an Infinitas meeting of May So what to do now that Magic Casements is no more? Try 2006 Jan Tångring wants to know : Who was first to to repeat substantially the same event beyond the umbrella launch or predict an Internet like idea in science fiction. of the NSW Writer’s Centre, or should something different The common answer to the questions seems to be be tried? My suggestions (and those of others) were William Gibson, but, maybe it is possible top find discussed. Chris paid me the compliment of saying that something earlier, what do you think? my proposal was a well thought out way of maintaining - Per Sue Batho, New York fan Jan Howard Finder – some of the momentum built up by the successive Magic AKA Wombat – might be in town for an Arthur Casements events. A sticking point will be finance. To Upfield (Inspector Bonaparte) film festival at put anything ‘big’ on money will be needed for venue and expenses that were previously looked after by the NSWWC. the Chauvel on January 22? Proposals to source / raise funds were briefly discussed but as the solutions to these problems are more likely to emerge - I intend to hold a 2007 SF Freecon at Bankstown library from more discrete negotiations I’ll leave unrecorded what on a Saturday in October or November this year. was said. We finished up at about 8 pm and went our - I also hope to conduct a Freecon Format ‘All Science’ separate ways. event during Science Week during August, again, Saturdays at Bankstown. Ted and I discussed was ‘whither the Sydney Futurians?’ - Paolo Rech sends his apologies, he would be (To wither or to change?) The annual post December attending this meeting, but he has to attend an ‘Auto slump is apon, we have no program of topics set to discuss defay’ people making themselves into a fireworks display starting January 19, 2007, and John Fox retires later this or something. year, severing out official link with the UTS. Change the - There is an amazingly bright Comet of the Century format, change the meeting night. The ideas listed as ‘My (McNaughten) that everyone but me has been able to thoughts …..’ were my ‘B’ plan for future post UTS Futurian see but me, damned clouds. meetings. Something that I really should have done, instead of spending forty minutes standing at a bus stop waiting for a 412 bus home was to have visited the SF&F TV Kinokuniya bookstore up the road and get a few copies of After the wasteland of the non-ratings season Battlestar their January SF catalogue (January is Science Fiction Galactica back on TV at a new and even less accessible month at Kinokuniya) and check out their display. time slot, around 1 am on Sunday night / Monday morning Eventually the bus came and I was home just before 9.30 (why? Has the Channel 9 programmer switched PM. stations?) ‘Good Night Sweetheart’ is on the ABC at the moment, involves a bloke who can walk between 1999 and 1940s Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 16

(the Blitz / wartime) London. came in while Justine Larballestier was partly through I noticed the 1950s ‘Rocket Man’ TV serial being played on her talk. The area was set up with benches and a few Channel 31 (Thursday 6.30 pm). It was ‘Rocket man Vs rows of plastic seats and although there were about the Radar Moon Men’ or some such. enough seats, a number of people were standing at the Torchwood is to be on ABC TV this year? back of the area, not sure wether they wanted to ‘commit’ Heroes is being advertised at the moment, is it as Science to the event by taking a seat. The area for the debate Fictional as the ‘Drawn together’? SBS cartoon series. was a corner with all manner of cooking books to the South and West and (written in) English Magazines to the George Street side.

Notes from the Kinokuniya Book Justine Labalestier shop Debate ‘That Science Fiction (part of talk only) Justine digs the relative freedom that SFantasy allows, i.e. you are able to comment on issues is the New Black’, on Saturday in the abstract that would otherwise make for uncomfortable (and target audience innapropriate?) January 20, 2006 reading. Feels that SF is definitly ‘Chic Lit’ as it is read

Present were; Deborah Abela Justine Labalestier, by lots more girls than is commonly thought (she really Michael Parker, Scott Westerfield, Deborah Abela’s did say much more than this). publisher, Helene Byfield, Garry Dalrymple, Mark Phillips, Judy O’Connell (also seen taking notes) Helene Byfield, a Scott Westerfield, dozen or so University aged young adults, more than a Scott confesses to being a pure ‘Genre Head’ in that he dozen ‘tween’ age girls (only one boy of that age) some with can’t help seeing a TV show without thinking how much a parent and Brian Walls. About forty people in all, with better it would be with a Vampire or a Space Ship in the roughly half being Adults. story. Started to talk about his book series, the time pause one and the more recent ‘Uglies’. Considers that This event was advertised in store as a ‘Debate’ and listed in SF and Fantasy are Very different. He cited the the morning paper as being an appearances by ‘Children’s differebce between the main story engines of each, Authors’ what was one to expect of the event? On the bus Technology for Science Fiction and Magic for Fantasy. into town two young women got onto the bus at Earlwood. For SF he said that the light switch doesn’t care who you They were both wearing ‘Gloria Jean’ shop uniforms of black are or what youve done. It works without you needing to shirt and black jeans, sort of a Vietcong with corporate logo be the seventh son of a seventh son, the rightful heir of effect. The smaller one of the pair was one of the (locally the true king or iff you are a non-muggle who knows the famous) Bardwell Park triplets, whose most recent local correct ritual and spell to cast. SF is in this sense more paper appearance was to mark their presumptive HSC Democratic and Fantasy more appealing to tradition and success and university plans for the future. The other priviledge. No ‘Chosen ones’ in SF stories, if a device young woman was very much taller. Very different builds, works, it works for everybody, if is Science you can identical uniforms cut to the same length. For the taller girl, understand then you can manufacture it And we can All top and bottom refused to meet in the middle in a manner have one. Only in Fantasy is it possible to contemplate that was not at all enticing. The point that I’m getting at is an ‘enchanted sword’ that can be wielded only by the just that niether concept, the ‘Debate’ or the ‘Meet a children’s to kill only the unjust. Many Fantasy stories make use of Author’ were probably going to exactly cover the situation. devices that do their thing and only their thing, leaving the I arrived at Kinokuniya after 1.30 pm and as I had cased the rest of the world as it was before, except for characters joint the previous night and I was under the impression that who are left with no evidence other than an ‘unbelievable’ it would be located in the children’s section. This section at story. In many SF stories the SF device ‘change the a corner of the shop has a sitting area and windows with a World for ever’, for everybody. marvellous view out over the Town Hall / Cathederal intersection. Seeing no sign of activity here by 1.40 pm I Deborah Abela decided to cross the street, do some shopping and return in Author of the ‘Max Remy Super Spy’ series of children’s time for the debate. I think I may have seen Anne books, her cover artist has been moonlighting for Rankins leaving the store. On the way to Woolies I had a ‘Greena’ on the ABC web page? Her stories have Science Fictional encounter. I was offered a free copy of a heaps of gadgets, gadgets that start off from a real of post rapture Christian evangelical SF book. I think I rather Scientific basis then go ‘imaginative’. Recalls the stunned the ‘missionary’ by by declining the offer while Science Fiction of her childhood being all about Real Big / stating being able to state quite truthfully that I thought I Real Bad things happening, usually when Science goes already had a copy of it at home. This particular book is wrong. It also seemed to be about Real far away events. being promoted by one evangelical sect that is very With her books then she tries to depict real now / real concerned at the unbiblicalness of some of the commercially here things. Used the Ipod phone and Skype as successful line of post rapture SF novels being promoted by examples (must like ‘shiney things’) and Bill Gates’ ‘mainstream’ ‘End Times’ American evangelicals. home, where due to an indiviual identifying chip, the house adjusts to you as you move through it, your Back at the shop I must have been a few minutes late, as I preferred temperature and music follows you from room Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 17 to room. With the aid of some technology she tried to JL - finds definitions boring, so lets talk about me instead, illustrate the sources of some of the gadgets she used in a described her Sydney-to-New York via Grandma’s magic recent book. A (Maxwell Smart) cone of silence, a video back door Trilogy. Would prefer to rely on magic rather watch, a telephone in a golf ball. Some things, such as an than airlines! This is Fantasy coz she says so! inflatable (oxo cube sized) car, she admitted, strayed a long MP - Wishes that there were a broader term than SF to way from ‘Science’ of any kind. For one story she wanted cover all forms of speculative Fictions. to knock out a secret headquarters, so starting with the To SW - Where did he get his ideas for the ‘time pause’ example of a ‘Kissing Bug’ (it sux blood Bigtime!) which are stories? The same source that Rod Serling (Twilight a vector for the potentially incapacitating Chagas Disease Zone) ripped off! With the ‘Uglies’ series he had the she ‘engineered’ fleas for her story’s purposes. For her SF-nal idea (of how to live if your way of living is in ‘Malta’ story she siezed apon a young fan’s suggestion dissent from the whole basis of your society?) and about ‘hover shoes’ and added jet power and VTOL realizing that it would appeal more to girls than boys, then capacity. Completely implausible as written; she showed a set out to write a SF book that turned out to be a ‘girls real jet pack, talked about the 1920s gunpowder rocket jet book’ with SF in it. pack and ‘resiline’ the flea’s ‘super-ball’ natural rubber, but As (happens to the best of us) the stream of questions based on an initially Scientific idea. Her latest book dried up, so to prevent an early conclusion I asked the features a ‘Time and Space Machine’ (Who?), for which she panel the following question - Who do you see as the atleast read Paul Davies book ‘How to Build a Time Third best Scottish SF writer? (i.e. after Mcleod, Ian M Machine’. The most important ‘SF’ thing is that her stories Banks and Hamilton etc) - answered by SW - Aliester are about girlz having fun and adventures - Fashionably. Gregg, Lanark and Duncan Hall, Scotland has loads of talented SF Writers. Michael Parker, The effect of films in bringing SF into the mainstream? Has written a ‘door between alternate worlds’ book which for SW - HG Wells and Henry James corresponded around commercial reasons has been promoted as a mainstream 1900 to the effect that the future would have no place for thriller without genre identification on the cover. Much of ‘drawing room drama’, the future was of necessity the Science Fictional action of this book is in fact set at the Science Fictional, however for ‘drawing room drama’ is nearby Town Hall station! To answer the debate’s still being published as ‘Literature’, but the more modern question, based on the objective judgement of Sales, he forms of media, TV, Movies and internet gaming etc are feels that no great ‘Quest’ is needed. The New Black, the owned by SF forms. old Black and the once and future Black is still Fantasy. ‘Real’ SF movies are rare Most of the ‘Sci-Fi’ books sold are Fantasy, SF is a minority JL Disagrees but is actually talking about Fantasy even on shelves labelled as ‘SF’, Kinokuniya being no movies. exception. Which he feels is a shame as SF takes you to The Unasked Question about SF and Movies would have places beyond the familiar and nourishes a sense of resolved this, the Short Form Vs long form question, (in curiosity about the world beyond the covers of the book my opinion) present commercial expectation is that you being read. He mentioned Carl Sagan’s ‘Contact’ for the cannot do Fantasy as short form Fiction, but the glory of big ‘What If’ of First Contact and that what interested him SF is often short form. Most good SF movies are most and drew his attention to affairs of the real world was actually originally from short form originals. the implications of the final variable of the Drake equation Opinion of panel – What SF and Fantasy have in that predicts the likelyhood of finding an ET to communicate common (among many contestable differences) is that with. The final element is a guesstimate of what fraction of they are each reliable as a ‘fix‘ against the oppressive technological ET civilizations get round to achieving self and alienating mundanity of modern life. extinction through technological innovation. From Science Fiction you can get to work through future and present day The session then ended with a typical fannish moment, moral issues in a way that you just can’t with more realistic with the panel members pelting the audience with mints! styled writing. Mentioned William Goldings ‘The Lord of the Flies’ (schoolboys in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange) Other points of interest from the day as an example of the flipside behavoir that SF can explore. - A poster on display for the month of Science Fiction has an interesting timeline of SF, not based on an annual Questions, Questions, Questions? string of Hugo winners at all, possibly based on Japanese To SW - about his ‘peeps’ book, a book that explained sensibilities and Seune award nominations? I must try Vampirism scientifically. His ‘research’ for this book was to get a copy of this listing and look into its origins. Carl Zimmer’s book on Parasites, so not much additional in - Noticed in the Children’s section a comic book about depth research was required. resisting the third Reich, by Sophie Masson. To MP - his books were allowed to be ‘thrillers’, read and - Noticed on the display near the entrance, among others admires Michael Chrichton’s ‘Next’ as it introduces SF ideas - books by Larbalestier (fact and Fiction), Westerfield, into a thriller framework. Machinations (CSFG) and Aurealis. The ‘SF is / Fantasy is’ question was revisited, - Did not see ASIM in ‘English Magazines’ but I did see MP - Starwars is Fantasy with SF elements, previous one copy of Locus and had to stretch to help a buyer of it positions were repeated. reach it, as it was on display on the very top shelf!

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 18

- I spoke to Helene, who is keen to have some sort of book - The Sydney Dr Who Sunday Video events are on discussion groups to make use of the area used by the talk again, on February 11, March 4 and April 1 at the which last year was a larger Magazines area. Drummoyne RSL Club, from 11 am till late (6 pm?) NB Adult content, presumably Torchwood Episodes, are shown after 3 pm. The Infinitas Book shop SF&F KF – Vista has arrived and news of faults will follow. Already discovered is that you can use voice commands discussion meeting of Thursday to take over other vista user’s machines! February 02, 2007 WK – Has seen on the Sci-Fi channel a ‘behind the scenes’ program on a movie called ‘Outlander’ which features a re-interpretation of the Grendel / Beowulf Present were; Darryl Addams, Leonard Chapple, Henry movie, with an alien crash landing during late Viking Chatroop, Garry Dalrymple, Kurt Frank, Jo Kay, Wil Kenedy, times in Skandenavia etc. Marcello Nobleza, Mick Ousley, Charmain Spears, Tim MN – has read that the SF classic ‘Diamond Age’ by Neil (infinitas owner) and Brian Walls. Stephenson has been optioned for a BBC TV series. Stephenson will participate in the making of the series. SF&F News for February 2007 - is amazed by the SF like nearly full recovery of his SF on Free-to-air TV of the moment – Battlestar Galactica, father from ‘terminal’ multiple organ failure over the Xmas Radar Men from the Moon (on 31) and the much hyped holidays. Heroes is finally on TV this week. CS – Eregon the dragon based Fantasy movie is OK, but DA – Two SG1 movies have been announced, one will tidy the books are better, with the usual book to movie up loose ends from the ‘Ori’ episodes. The other is a Time omissions of parts of the story Travel story which will presumably allow ‘dead’ characters BW – George Takei is to play the role of father to to return and reprise their roles. ‘Heroe’ from the ‘Heroes’ TV series. - Dr Who progresses, contractual arrangements will permit - On January 20 and 21 this year there was a Sci-Fi three more Dalek featuring adventures. Collectors Toy Fair held at the Blacktown RSL club. - The Battlestar Galactica movie will link the Caprica themed - The creator of Freddo Frog is dead. Was to be a TV series about the genesis of the Cylons to the current TV chocolate mouse, but marketing warned that mothers series. would not buy their children chocolate vermin to eat. The - Babylon Five’s three projected straight to DVD telemovies adventures of Freddo Frog were Australia’s first cartoon have been reduced to two. animation made for TV (1962?). HC – The Floppy Disc is on the way out! A major US - Robert Anton (of the Illuminatus Trilogy) has died, or retailer is no longer stocking it. 1.44mb is now too small. that’s what the conspiracy wants you to think – fnord! - Karuna, near the Arctic Circle in Finland has been chosen - Has sent an email message to be stored on a satellite as a Virgin Galactic Space launch base. The location has so that it will be recovered in 50,000 AD. a history of sounding rocket research, but it choice implies a - The first Kipling Society of Australian meeting will new marketing problem, i.e. will people choose to fly into take place at 2 pm on Saturday February 24. Contact space with a ‘frigid Virgin’ space ship? D.R. Watts - [email protected] for details GD - No Magic Casements anymore. After several of these much appreciated annual events the NSW Writers The Best & the Worst of the Year Centre has other priorities, out of one day book related Not everyone was able to come up with one best and festivals and into one day intensive courses. worst for each category, several people quoted several - The Chinese have used a ground to orbit missile to Books / Movies, reflecting the different types of SF&F destroy one of their own surveillance satellites, resulting in that those present have enjoyed over the past year. an impressive spreading shrapnel field in orbit! There is some veracity in anonymity so the following then - Now screening is the incomprehensible SF movie The are individual responses gathered together rather than Fountain (of youth), a Time traveler / death parted lovers attributed, so this is not an alternate Hugos list, just a through time Movie. Blink and you will miss it. Are all summary of what we read / watched and enjoyed in fantasy movies featuring Jeremy Irons foredoomed? 2006. - The BBC is getting into internet delivery simultaneous to free to air broadcast for a short time only then on sale as Best SF Books DVDs later. A case of bowing to the inevitable, they would The YA Novel ‘Elsewhere’ a post death, religion free rather you saw it from them direct rather than through existence where time runs backwards, death to birth etc. Youtube. Lois Mc Master Bujold’s latest episode of a Spanish - You all missed the ‘SF is the new Black’ talk at Kinokuniya. setting Fantasy. - Lots of Water on Mars? New data on current Martian ‘If the Sun was the Moon’ by John Ringo about a planet water loss implies that it must still be there. where they know about Technology, but they can no - The Terry Pratchett visitation in February (at most longer do it. A bigger guns and Space Ship story. Sydney bookshops apparently) is connected with the ‘We Few’ by David Webber and John Ringo, which has Discworld convention in Melbourne. a ferocious weight of LOTR and Starwarz puns in it.

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 19

Lauren K Hamilton’s Vampire Detective / Porn books. The return of the Sydney Freecon, during November. Recent Fantasy by the Sydney writer known as Kate Garry’s buying Brian Walls a Sydney Mechanics library Forsythe / Humphries. user’s membership (Brian said this without prompting). ‘Anything’ by Charles Stross was good but Dan Simmons’ ‘Hyperion’ was one attendee’s personal favourite. Worst SF related events ‘Hammer Jack’ by Marc Diller ‘Those who walk in The end of the Magic Casements Festivals of Darkness’ and ‘What Fire Cannot Burn’ both by John Speculative Fiction. The end of the Sydney Ridley and both had ‘appealing’ (or was that appalling?) Mechanics SF&F book readers Saturday morning cover art! meetings after just over a year of meetings. I would have to include the raft of A. Bert Chandler books that I read ahead of the 2006 Sydney Freecon and John Birmingham’s World War 2.1.

Worst SF Books Any of the books by Matthew Rielly, perverse pleasure in reading them, they Suck Big time, replace Brian Herbert on the Bad SF writer’s pedestal. I still hate Margaret Attwood for her multiple offences of genre abuse.

Best SF TV Garry’s notes from the Sydney ‘Battle Star Galactica’, narrowly edging out ‘Dr Who’ each was mentioned by most people present. I think Battlestar Futurian’s Meeting of February would have been further ahead if it wasn’t getting so 16, 2007 Topic – Transformations damned dark and if it screened at the same time more often. ‘Heroes’ and ‘Torchwood’ mentioned by the more (of the human) in SF Stories connected people present. One person spoke up for Star Gate Atlantis although most present felt it belonged under Present were; G Dalrymple, Diane & John Fox the following heading. Being disaffiliated last year, this meeting was our first for Worst SF TV the year as ‘squatters’, a return to the status quo of Some people have not reacted well to ‘Heroes’ (comment – several years ago. We met before 7 pm in the UTS a soft cock version of the X-Men) or ‘Torchwood’ (one Broadway street level foyer (level 4) and moved down comment was - Why do they bother!), so they were stairs (level 3) to near the giant chess set. As it was the nominated as ‘worsts’ as well as bests. In a class of its week of the Sydney Gay Mardis Gras we re-arranged the own was the decision to replace the ‘reality’ based Catalyst pieces slightly, so that the black and white queens could Science program by the fatuous ‘Psychic Detectives’ series be together, striking a blow for gender inclusion and racial on ABC TV . Another comment relevent to this heading harmony? Nearby the Electronic Gamers Group (EGG) was ‘Too many to mention’. after our meeting, and while they were dismantling their equipment we spoke to some of them. The already Best SF Movies have absorbed / sub affiliated the Non Electronic Sci-Fi ‘Children of Men’ Gamers as their board game interest group. Like the ‘A Scanner Darkly’ Futurians the SF gamers us were disaffiliated due to ‘V for Vendetta’ insufficient paid up students Association members. The ‘The Prestiege’ - mostly because it features David Bowie people present saw no insurmountable difficulty to our impersonating Nikola Tesla. No seriously, have you ever sub affiliation as EGG’s ‘SF book interest section’, as was compared a real picture of NT and compared it to the ‘Thin foreshadowed last year. Some EGGs members were white Duke’! kind enough to express surprise that a Science Fiction discussion group at UTS should have difficulty gaining 15 Worst SF Movies financial student’s Association members as members. ‘Aeon Flux’ – failed to translate the appeal of the anime series. ‘King Kong’ - best three hour doze off movie. February SF&F News - Terry Dowling is offering SF&F writing classes at the Best SF Comic Book NSW Writers Centre (the Feb 4 one was re-scheduled) Marvel’s ‘The Clone Republic’ and ‘Ultimates’ series. which lead to a discussion of the NSWWC’s writer opportunities. Best SF related events - John Fox is now a bona fide, paid up student at the The beginning of the Sydney Mechanics SF&F book UTS, having signed up for several subjects which will readers Saturday morning meetings, SF&F chat and keep him enrolled for most of the year. Plans for his catering. Yum! retirement proceed, the foxes now have a reliable newish car. as - Amazing non-talking Squid pictures, as it lights up Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 20 before turning to attack a Japanese camera / underwater On the Topic - Transformations probe 500 metres down, a truly Science Fictional sight, like Many stories in SF deal with issues and transitions that a Bab 5 Star Ship! are ‘too early yet’ to discuss in non-genre prose? - The email of Bookcrossings book release details from Nisaba, suggests an ideal opportunity for ‘viral marketing’ to Kinokuniya’s nominations; Keeping it real, by promote the Futurians and Freecons and a way to clear Justina Robinson, no idea what it is about, but the some boxes of books out of my garage. book’s cover has a teenager on it Uglies, by Scott - My book review of a David Webber (Honor Harrington) Westerfield, at 16 all children are surgically altered to book appears on page three of the electronic version of the conform to ‘barbie-like’ prettiness standards, ‘Uglies’ are February infinitas bookshop newsletter. Threw are also a those who have not been modified, or who refuse to go number of my other reviews on the Infinitas ‘reviews’ under the knife. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, the webpage. transition between life and non-life. If you can make a - I am working towards listing all my books, Fiction and non- man from spare parts, what then of the soul? The fiction with a view to re-shelving / discarding and making my Invisible Man, by HG Wells, is invisibility enough of a books more available to selected friends. Does anyone transition to count? Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde, by Robert care to run a guessing competition on the final number? Louis Stephenson, obviously. - Attended the January Kinokuniya SF debate (as did Mark Philips, Brian Walls and a few other familiar faces. Our Suggestions; - Should we look into meeting at Kinokuniya in the future, Obviously, Kafka’s Metamorphosis must be mentioned, advertising our venue as ‘somewhere in the foyer’ at UTS with the (first?) SF treatment of the transformation of a has limited appeal. human into a Bug and its consequences. - Of late I have had several encounters with our friend John August , firstly at an Astronomy meeting where the topic The story / movie The Fly, an matter transmission was light pollution, John is active in Solis the better lighting accident merging human and Fly is probably more group and at the Darwin day talk at the MSA, John familiar to movie oriented fans and covers many of the organised this joint meeting of the MSA and the NSW same transformation issues. Rationalists. In Robert Heinlien’s I will fear no evil, a rich bastard - I am standing for parliament, for the Australian Democrats plans to live forever via a full body transplant at the for the seat of Lakemba. This will be my abiding soonest opportunity. His hot sexy young secretary distraction from fannish activity until the end of March. becomes road kill and so to speak he ‘moves in’. - I plan to do a ‘Science only’ Freecon as a Science Week However it is not a completely vacated tenancy! But not listed event (during August). This means organising an to worry, exploring a legitimate transformation issue in a outline of a line up of talent by May this. There will typical Heinlienian manner, Sex as a woman and / or an inevitably be some SF- nal content in this and it will be an ‘in-mind’ woman’s perspective is not such a bad new audition for future SF Freecon science program items. life? - This is in addition to an October / November Sydney Freecon Science Fiction event. Super hero comics, all about disguised puberty transition - I am committed to a family event over the Queen’s birthday to adulthood issues? As are all Vampire and werewolf weekend, so No Australian Natcon for me, but at the end of stories. In most genre fiction the book’s characters are a long line of ifs I might manage the NZ one which takes changed by their adventures. place the week before (and shares major guests)! - Before the Freecon a journey to Japan for Nippon 2007. A modern Fantasy movie genre, enabled by recent special effects technology are the visual depiction of Sci-Fi TV news; animal to human transitions, without the scary stuff of The runt of the litter, Star Gate Atlantis is back on TV werewolf issues (such as eating corpses yum!). These (channel 7). transitions are usually governed by a curse of some sort, The series Heroes is not turning out to be the blinding of some secret magic that permits a ‘Quest’ to resolve success as promised by recent wall to wall promotions. It the injustice. In Lady Hawke, separated lovers coz of a is turning out to be an interesting and thought provoking curse, he animal by day human by night, she vice a series never the less versa etc., except for during ‘night in day’ eclipses! Battlestar Galactica battles on. A recent episode had Fox is a French story along similar lines, girl to fax and Cylons with a conscience! Much network strangeness back again. Pretty much all Fantasy stories have evident, they are able to force it some nights into a 45 transition issues, in Harry Potter there is a teenage minute duration, with a full load of adds and the ‘start before Muggle to magician transition, ragged orphan to rightful the start’ element appearing too abruptly after the previous prince / princess, or even just the self knowledge show’s end, cutting out the preview of ‘next week’s episode’. accumulated on the long and perilous quest. A very What gives, with the highly mobile time slot, do they resent much older treatment is in The Water Babies, where a showing it that much? The show is big business drowned pauper becomes a water baby, a much cleaner internationally. Not much else on TV, other than ABC life. The Island of Dr Moreau, or even the Shape of promises and some children’s cartoons? things to come, by HG Wells, are also about to-human and human social transition. Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 21

Piers Anthony’s Bio of a Space Tyrant, featuring a main Who was not there; Members of the JRR character’s transition from a refugee to statesman. Tolkien, Lewis Carrol, Arthur Ransome, Nevil Shute and James Joyce (Bloomsday) fan clubs. Dr Who’s Cybermen, man-to-machine, de-humanisation in exchange for invulnerability and the Doctor’s own series of Long is the road and hard is the journey that leads to us regenerations. Technology in some SF stories can lead to new insights about what we thought we already to the character’s non-physical transformation, i. e. the understood. At this meting I got to see exactly how humanising effect of extended use of the armoured suits in Science Fans and organized Science Fiction Fandom the Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War (or its prequel?). must seem to outsiders. A string of public transport difficulties caused me to arrive nearly an hour late at the In some other stories, the ability to explore human hostile venue, the same place where I had attended my Uncle’s worlds via cybernetic or psychic linkages leads to some memorial service. Roseville is a very long way out of operators wanting to abandoning their physical bodies for my usual orbit and I have only a passing interest in better ones with limitless horizons to explore. Kipling’s writings. My main compulsion in attending was to see how Single Author book interest groups Other stories include the one with ‘fuxes’ where a alien constitute themselves and a sort of curiosity about who is being goes through several stages in life, losing a set of interested in long dead authors these days. I also legs and changing sex as it grows older. brought with me a ‘Single Author interest group’ survey and was given leave to address the meeting about it. Other human sex change stories are an example of transitions. In Orlando a young Elizabethan (1) man Garry’s Rough Notes becomes an Elizabethan (2) woman over 400 years, losing - There will be a listing of many of the locally active power and rights in the process but with some Single Author Societies in the April Edition of ‘Good compensations? Reading’. - Much discussion of Alternative meeting venues and In Robert Heinlein’s All You Zombies, a highly contrived potential guest speakers and office holders. story a single character gets to play all of life’s reproductive - Most present had fond memories of their youthful roles through congenital hermaphroditism, sex re- ‘Empire Era’ reading. Kipling is no longer ‘on Syllabus’, assignment surgery and time travel. A continuous loop this was identified as a barrier to recruiting younger daisy chain of incest, abandonment, search for an absent members. father etc. - A thing about Kipling that was mentioned was his descriptive powers, a legacy from a career spent in The other side of Terra forming is when Aliens invade earth journalism. ‘Mark Twain’ has a similar history, was and the boot is on the other foot, the conquering aliens want Kipling the Empire’s Mark Twain (only not as to ‘Terra form’ (Exo Form?) the Earth to their comfort. An humourous?) and a precursor to Kurt Vonnegut? early (est?) example of this is in Karel Kapek’s (Robot) The - Discussion of ‘Things that the club should do’ were Salamanders, where the amphibious ‘tapa boys’ defeat deferred to allow talk about the practicalities of forming humanity, destroy all seaborne commerce and do their best an incorporated society under NSW law. to transform the earth into more of a sea world. - The meeting was evidence of inheritance of the British disease of citizens and well meaning amateurs forming In a Movie about an investigation about a mysterious Societies inspired by a common passion, The German conspiracy to increase C02 emissions turned out to reveal disease is to form Scientific advancement societies to that heat loving aliens had answered the SETI call and improve the means of killing people, The French form working in disguise, intent on changing Earth’s climate Academies backed by the prestige of the Republic, to ahead of re-settlement. better perfect their nation’s Anti-Semitism and the © GPD Feb 2007 Russians form competing political parties that kill each other for ‘Freedom’ and for the power to impose the The First meeting of the Kipling Society apparatus of a vicious police state. - As I arrived late I missed out on all the better bits of the of Australia, held on Saturday February meeting, arriving in time for the ‘Any Questions?’ session 24, 2007 at the Roseville Uniting Church which was mostly about the onset of the minutia of Hall, Lord Street. committees, bank accounts and incorporation. - What was occurring would be readily recognizable to Who was there: About 40 to 50 people, a any Science Fiction Fan, the bonding of a group of people who share an enthusiasm and a common reasonably equal mix of Men and Women. The experience for the literature of the time of their own meeting was chaired by Fullerton and D.R. Watts; coming of age. individual members of the Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, - The fact that most of those present were well over Trollope, Charles Dickens fan clubs retirement age does not change this central truth – Here Be Fans! Not Academics or scholars necessarily, but people who have enjoyed the writing of Rudyard Kipling Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 22 and who will have the same difficulty in conveying their The internet is a wonderful thing, full of sources of excitement about these works to the unconcerned general information sublime and obscure. Casual public as we SF fans have in getting recognition from encounters with a Basenji frequently Mundanes for the qualities of our dreaming. They are just encourage passers-by to want to 'look it up' in starting a fannish involvement several decades later than Encyclopaedias on the internet. Our dogs are most SF&F fans. I wish them well. fascinating creatures and to live with a Basenji is to Conclusions want to know even more about. There are I cannot begin to assess how successful the ‘Kiplers’ are interesting facts out there, If you have the (dogged) going to be in sustaining a group. At the outset there was persistence to seek them out. concern at ‘succession issues’, i.e. who will there be available to be on a committee in a few years time given the Logging on to the internet in search of average age of those attending this first meeting? Another enlightenment on quirky subjects is at times like related issue is that many people present are already attempting to sip the nectar of knowledge from a Fire members of similarly inclined literary groups. hose of unfiltered 'facts'. The number of 'Basenji' At this meeting it was necessary to discuss what dates were sites or references you can visit is mind not already used by other literary groups before setting numbingly numberless, so let us make like a Basenji dates for future public or committee meetings. The pre-committee who set up this first meeting seem to and sniff for our information with a degree of know the ropes of committees and Literary clubs, selectivity, cleverness and great care. There are assembling a Society, a membership and an annual several on line Encyclopedias. Wikipedia is a free program of meetings will probably follow. to look up, peer reviewed internet Encyclodepia, and it accepts submissions and editing in a most My Recommendations democratic manner, consequently its a useful first Perhaps instead of one more Single Author club there is a source for specialized non-academic information need for a single larger organization, a sort of ‘Out of and contacts. Copyright Author Society’ (OOCAS). This is the way than most (Book) Science fiction activities are organized, general A Wikipedia search on 'Basenji' (on May 24, 2006) convention committees rather than single author fan clubs. delivers 29 references. 9 are duplicates or An OOCAS could have one committee / membership /Accounts etc. with a large number of Vice Presidents to repetitions leaving 20 on display. Each of these manage the interests of members fond of a particular writer, has a relevance ranking, expressed as a percent. and responsible for finding as many Guest Speakers as For Basenjis topics the relevance rating declines interest in that writer will sustain. I.e. each monthly very fast, but even so there is some very interesting meeting of OOCAS could have a ‘before’ and ‘after’ speaker information out there for the Basenji obsessed. on Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Trollope, Charles Dickens, JRR Tolkien, Lewis Carrol, Arthur Ransome, Nevil Shute or The first 'Basenji' entry shown (100% relevant) is a James Joyce. Some Authors might get only one or two fairly comprehensive account of the breed, its speakers a year, others would be almost monthly. origins, and characteristics etc. It has a predictable Economies of Scale! An organization like OOCAS would American bias but this is to be expected. be almost mandatory for Arts Students with an English major? This would address most succession issues as well? Among these ‘tiddlers’ of relivence I found: 1.'Chris Gaynor' (0.8% relevant) is apparently a The Kipling Society of Australia Drummer with the rock band 'The All American Rejects'. The entry notes that he has a dog called Contacts [email protected] 'Wicket' which presumably is a Basenji? PO Box 421 WYONG NSW 2259

Ph 02 4392927180 FAX 02 4351 1109 2. Under 'Hypoallergenic dog breeds' (0.6% relevant), the Basenji is listed under qualifying 'Single Coated Breeds'. Which seems a little inaccurate to me at a time when Mystique Pukkanut A Basenji Tail Piece is furring up with a Winter undercoat at this time of year.

The Basenji according to the 3. Jonanji (0.8% relevant) native dog of India, Carolina Dog (0.4% relevant) native dog of America Wikipedia and Pariah Dog (0.3% relevant) native dog of India, Africa and Asia etc. each include mention of the Basenjis breed as being '... similar to the Basenji ...' Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 23 in some degree or aspect of character / breeding Page 14, Blue Page, coverage of the MSA Darwin cycle. The Jonanji site has a nice picture of a Basenji Day event tailed 'Cretan Hound'. Of similar interest are listings Pages 15 to 22, Yellow Pages, Notes on some under 'Portuguese Podengo' and 'Saluki' (0.3% Sydney SF events (NB No Book Reviews or lists of relevant). books read, deferred to TBS&E 24). Pages 22 and 23, Garry’s notes from The 4. An unexpected gem was the discovery that the UK Australian Kipling Society’s first meeting comedienne 'Maureen Lipman' (0.4% relevant) is Pages 23 and 24, Basenjis Tail piece listed as having adopted a Basenjis puppy called Page 24, Newsletter Plan / Index 'Broiges' (celebrity pooch interview opportunity Ms Editor?). I think this listing is likely to be fairly up to © Garry P Dalrymple April 2007 date as it includes reference to Maureen's 2006 Dr Transcendental B. S. and Enlightenment Who appearance. Volume 1 No. 23 April 2007

5. The Intelligence of our beloved breed is disparaged From now on each TBS&E draft will include; by the infamous book 'The Intelligence of Dogs' (0.3% relevant) by Stanley Coren. In the questionable assessment of this book Basenjis are listed among A. Distribution List for the current issue of 'Lowest degree of Working / Obedience Intelligence'. Transcendental B. S. & Enlightenment The book lists over 100 dog breeds and ranks them B. The Universal listing of all who I have sent first to 79th. The Final three are; 77th Bulldog, 78th Basenjis and 79th Afghan Hound. Nuff Said? TBS&Es to in the past C. The listing of Sydney fans of the current 6. The final discovery is a doozy. It certainly made year, which will be updated as the year my day. Do you remember the 1960s TV Sitcom 'I Dream of Jeanie' (0.3% relevant)? What Basenji I progresses hear you ask? Distribution List for the current Why the NATION of Basenji of course! Transcendental B. S. & Enlightenment issue,

I was amazed to read that in the Fifth series Jeanie is No 23 April 2007 called on by her Uncle Sully to become the QUEEN OF BASENJI. 1 - ANZAPA commitment, Posted April 12, 2007? - 36 ea Care of Bruce Gillespie This country was described as being near Russia and bordered by a mutually hostile country of Kajsa. The Plus story goes that Jeanie decides to give the country of 14ea sent mostly to the Freecon short Basenji to Tony her Astronaut Boyfriend / Master as a story writers and some Futurians birthday present, this occurs at the same time as when NASA is urgently trying to negotiate a supply of 'Finkilium' (apparently an essential element/metal needed for the US space program) from Kajsa. Mr. Garfield Barnard Passing Strange indeed! Perhaps that’s where the 4/22 Barnesbury Grove Basenji postage stamps on the internet come from? DULWICH HILL NSW 2203

Newsletter Plan / Index

Page 1, Editorial Mr. Robert Bee Pages 1 to 4, Mailing Comments ANZAPA Mailing # 8 Joseph Banks Court 234. MOUNT ANNAN NSW 2567 Page 4 to 6, Quark Strangeness and Charm in Sydney Pages 6 to 13, Green Pages, Politics and the Environment featuring a NSW State Election report Ms. Alison Boyd and Rainfall from July 2006 to April 2007. Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 24

P. O. Box 1290 Mr. Barry Williams, BOWRAL NSW 2576 Editor, The Skeptic, P. O. Box 268 ROSEVILLE NSW 2069

Mr. Ron Clarke Mr. Ian Woolf 95 Southee Circuit 329 Victoria Avenue OAKHURST NSW 2761 CHATSWOOD NSW 2067

Mr. Dan Cotton Mr. Felix Jenkins 3/3 Englund Street Flat 2, 9 Moss Street BIRMINGHAM GARDENS NSW 2287 KINGSCLIFF NSW 2487

Ms. Lynne Green John Karp 50 Warrane Road 7 Liverpool Street WILLOUGHBY NSW 2067 NORTH IPSWICH QLD 4305 c POB

poSusan Batho Mr, Martin Livings 107 Myles Road Michael Duggan – Posted 6/5/06 SWAN VIEW WA 6056 40/33 Waratah Street

MAYFIELD NSW 2304

Lewis Morley & Marilyn Pride 60 Martin Place Mike McGann - 7/5/06 LINDEN NSW 2778 115 Queen Victoria Street BEXLEY NSW 2207

John Masters-Brown & Maggie Blinco Ms. Anne Rankins Post Office Box 409 Post Office Box 622 PUNCHBOWL NSW 2196 ROZELLE NSW 2039 -

Doug Nilson - Posted 8/5/06 Mr. Graham Stone 24 Warren Road Unit 205, 24 Victoria Street DOUBLE BAY NSW 2028 BURWOOD NSW 2134

Ron Ward Mr. Brian Walls 5 Namur Street Post Office Box 999 GRANVILLE NSW 2142 NSW 9999

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 25

Geraldine Williamson 8 Berridale Place Garry Dalrymple HECKENBERG NSW 2168 * L.B. Dalrymple (me Mum!)

Ian Woolf – Posted 6/5/06 Helen Fischer

329 Victoria Avenue John and Diane Fox CHATSWOOD NSW 2067 Blue Mtns

Lynne Green 7 Liverpool Street NORTH IPSWICH QLD 4305

Richard Harland - Wollongong

John Karp 2- The Freecon members version 50 Warrane Road (Being the attendees, the applicants and the WILLOUGHBY NSW 2067

supporters of the 2006 Sydney Freecon) Victor Kay Attendees * David Kelleher – A. Bert Chandler Chris Barnes Martin Livings Robert Bee 107 Myles Road 8 Joseph Banks Court SWAN VIEW WA 6056 MOUNT ANNAN NSW 2567 Lewis Morley * Dr Ragbir Bhathal 60 Martin Place LINDEN NSW 2778 Alison Boyd P. O. Box 1290 Joanne Nickl BOWRAL NSW 2576 6/7 Kabarli Road LALOR PARK NSW 2147 Lyndon Brown 9/29 Myra Road Elizabeth Pastor DULWICH HILL NSW 2203 Gillian Polack - ACT Ron Clarke – Posted 6/5/06 95 Southee Circuit Anne Rankins OAKHURST NSW 2761 PO Box 409

David Clancy PUNCHBOWL NSW 2196

Bill Congreve Paolo Rech

Dan Cotton Ted Scribner – Blue Mtns 3/3 Englund Street BIRMINGHAM GARDENS NSW 2287 Susan Smith

* Kathleen Tanswell - Spocksoc Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 26

Susan Batho Gerry Williamson Brian Walls – Posted 6/5/06 5 Namur Street Garry’s List of 2007 Sydney GRANVILLE NSW 2142 Book SF&F Discussion January Chris Wellwood to July / December 49 Glenfield Road GLENFIELD NSW 2167 meetingsGarry’s progressive Simon Yates 6 Garners Avenue list of all the Sydney SF fans MARRICKVILLE NSW 2204 that were during the year 2006 So, who was there at the 2007 Sydney Freecon? An A - Z of Sydney Fans? * Indicates their first ever Freecon Chris Barnes Darryl Addams - INF * Robert Bee Winsome Allen - Mech * Dr Ragbir Bhathal John August - Mech * Lyndon Brown - Pink form handed in John August’s Friend - Mech Ron Clarke Chris Barnes - Civ David Clancy Zara Baxter - Civ Bill Congreve Robert Bee Garry Dalrymple Dr Ragbir Bhathal * Mrs L.B. Dalrymple (me Mum!) David Bofinger – Mech – INF - Fut Helen Fischer Lyndon Brown Diane and John Fox – Blue Mtns Jacqueline Cadwgan - INF * Lynne Green – QLD Voyager Sci. Christine Campbell - Mech Richard Harland - Wollongong Karen Carpenter (Ace) - Tav * John Karp – Lem Talk - Pink form in Henry Chatroop - INF Victor Kay David Clancy * David Kelleher – A. Bert Chandler Ron Clarke Lewis Morley – Blue Mtns Bill Congreve * Joanne Nickl - Pink form handed in Elizabeth Pastor Belinda Coombes - Mech Gillian Polack - ACT Garry Dalrymple - INF – Mech – Fut - Civ Anne Rankins Ann Devrell - Mech Paolo Rech Helen Fischer Ted Scribner – Blue Mtns Kurt Frank - INF Susan Smith Diane Fox - Fut * Kathleen Tanswell, from Spocksoc John Fox - Fut Brian Walls Lynne Green * Chris Wellford - Pink form handed in Richard Harland * Simon Yates - Pink form handed in Edwina Harvey - Mech * Gillian’s Whovian Friend and 2 or 3 badgeless Brendan Jones - Tav lurkers who left no trace John Karp Jo Kay - INF Apologies Received Victor Kay - INF Garfield Barnard David Kelleher Wil Kenedy - INF Christopher Levinson

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 27

Mrs Levinson Wil Kenedy Eric Lindsay - Civ Mick Ousley Ross Mitchell - Fut Charmain Spears Lewis Morley Tim (infinitas owner) Joanne Nickl Brian Walls Mick Ousley - INF Elizabeth Pastor Sydney Futurians @ UTS Mark Philips - Civ (8 ea) Ann Pritchard - Mech Gillian Polack Garry Dalrymple, Ann Rankins - Fut Diane and John Fox Paolo Rech - Mech Ross Mitchell James Sellwood - Tav Ann Rankins Roland Sinn - Civ Graham Stone Ted Scribner – Fut - Civ Brian Walls Susan Smith Trish Wilkins Charmain Spears - INF Graham Stone - Fut Sydney Fans in the Pub at the Stephen Szabo - Civ Kathleen Tanswell Civic Hotel, Pitt Street, Sydney Brian Walls - INF – Mech - Fut CBD (8 ea) Chris Wellford Simon Yates Chris Barnes

Zara Baxter The Sydney Mechanics School of David Bofinger Garry Dalrymple Arts SF&F book discussion group, Eric Lindsay Pitt Street (12 ea) Mark Philips Winsome Allen, Roland Sinn John August Ted Scribner John August’s Friend Stephen Szabo David Bofinger, Christine Campbell Sci-Fi World, book of the month Belinda Coombes, Garry Dalrymple, at Bondi Junction (6 ea) Ann Devrell, Edwina Harvey, Christopher Levinson Ann Pritchard Mrs Levinson Paolo Rech Mark Philips Brian Walls And three others

The Infinitas bookshop SF&F From published and website discussion group (12 ea) membership lists etc. Darryl Addams Jacqueline Cadwgan Magic Casements – Sydney Henry Chatroop NB No 2007 Magic Casements Garry Dalrymple, Kurt Frank Chris Barnes – Organiser Gabriel Zara Baxter– Writer Guest Jo Kay Leigh Blackmore and Partner

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 28

Various members of the Clarion South tribe David Chris Barnes (Magic Casements/Con Syder) B Coe – US Writer Guest Graeme & Susan Batho Bill Congreve– Writer Guest Doug Bayne Terry Dowling – Writer Guest Zara Baxter – Con Syder Grace Duggan – Writer Guest Deborah Biancotti - W Irina Dunne– Organiser Leigh Blackmore - Raven Books John & Diane Fox – Sydney Futurians Greg Bridges Donna-Marie Hanson – CSFG Writer Guest Chris Broadribb Richard Harland – Writer Guest Michael Byrne Lea Henderson – Old Sydney Fan Michael Calnan Robert Hoge – QLD Writer Guest Matthew Carter Rob Hood – Writer Guest Queenie Chan - Comics Infinitas (Tim and Danielle) Eleanor Clarke Ian Irvine – Writer Guest David Coe Margo Lanagan – Writer Guest Bill Congreve - W Maxine McArthur – ACT Writer Guest Cassian Cox Rod McLeod– Old Sydney Fan Gillian Coyle Sean McMullen – VIC. Writer Guest Margi Curtis Catherine McMullen – VIC. Writer Guest Wilson da Silva – Cosmos Nicole Murphy - CSFG Wei Fang Sarah Murray-White – Old Sydney Fan Matthew Farrer Mark Philips – a Past-urian Kate Forsyth - W Gillian Polack – ACT Writer Guest Jackie French - W Ted Scribner– Organiser & Sydney Futurian Ray and Justine Gleeson Stephanie Smith - Voyager Laura Goodin Cat Sparks – Writer Guest Deborah Green Alinta Thornton – Writer Guest Donna Hanson - W Ian Triffit – Old Sydney Fan Richard Harland - W Brian Walls – Sydney Futurian Beric Henderson Danielle Williams– Organiser Lea Henderson Andrea Heriseanu And the countless nameless others, whose lives Margaret Hilliard are whole and real, but who pass our eyes and David Hislop leave our sight unremarked and unrecognised as Robert Hood - W if they were but the drawing room wallpaper as we Jess Irwin pass by self absorbed in our own schemes and Patty Jansen adventures. Richard Kerslake Alison Kubbos I know that this list is incomplete as I handed out Robby MacLaurin about twice as many Magic Casements / Karen Mandeville Futurians bookmarks Karen & Lazar Maric Michelle Marquardt – W

NSW Conflux Membership – Canberra Robert McEwan 81 people – 40 M, 39 F and 2 not known Andrew McKiernan – Aurealis Art Director (source – the final (?) pre-con report) Dave Minutello Anne Mok – Writer? Kylie Ahern (Cosmos) Andrew Moores Craig Anderson Lewis Morley - Artist Joanne Armstrong Rose Moxon Carissa Avenhouse Bryan Moses Mark Barnes Wendy Munro Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 29

Necromancer by Gordon R. Dickson, Nicole Murphy – W (Nowra?) Lamarchos by Jo Clayton and The Big Black Sarah Murray-White Mark by A. Bertram Chandler. John Nemesh Jason Paulos Star Courier (Dininity by Spacial Delivery), Marilyn Pride - Artist by A. Bertram Chandler, 142 pages, © 1977. Kyle Rowling On the back of this book, ‘From Daw’ – Slave Colleen Schultz Girl of Gor by John Norman, The Weird of the Nicola Scott White Wolf by Michael Moorcock, Diadem Gerald Smith - ANZAPAN from the Stars by Jo Clayton and The Big Catriona Sparks – AGOG! Black Mark by A. Bertram Chandler. Was the Nick Stathopoulos - Artist intention that If you enjoyed this book then you Kaaren Sutcliffe – W might like to read ….? or just a random Aaron Syris selection from DAW’s current releases? Anna Tambour Wayne Turner Rendezvous on a lost World, by A. Bertram Tony Walters Chandler, (1st book publication, by cover) 123 Richard Womack – W pages (half an ACE Double header) © 1978 Marty Young Daniel Zachariou – Comics Future Tense, The Cinema of Science Fiction, Brian Walls (as Garry Dalrymple) by John Brosnan with a foreword by Harry Harrison, 320 pages (an Encyclopedia of SF NB these lists are made up of the people that I movies?) © 1978 recall seeing at these meetings or are assumptions made up from hearsay overheard at other SF meetings. It is almost inevitable that more than these people have attended one or more Sydney SF meetings but I have not been there to get their names.

Seven Books I bought from Graham Stone (for $25 on Saturday July 29, 2006) ahead of the 2006 Freecon.

Into the Alternate Universe, and The Coils of Time?), each by A. Bertram Chandler, 128 pages and © 1964. Each story being a half of an ACE Double header.

To prime the pump, by A. Bertram Chandler, 157 pages © 1971

The hard way up, by A. Bertram Chandler, 162 pages (half an ACE Double header), © 1972.

The way Back, by A. Bertram Chandler, 175 pages, © 1978. On the back of this book, ‘From Daw’ – Star Courier by A. Bertram Chandler,

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 30

As I was writing up these notes I received an email from Chris Levinson to the effect that someone he is in touch with has a list of about 200 Science Fiction books that he wants to giveaway ‘to good homes’. I’ve seen the list and I have hopes that most of these books can be directed into the MSA’s library, as the list Notes ahead of the Sydney Futurians seems to be mostly ‘real’ SF and mostly very meeting of Friday March 16, 2007 respectable names. More about this later, after the election has past etc. Discussion Topic: SF Masterworks On Topic Contributions Present were? MMM reports that a friend has suggested 10 titles ‘Science Fiction Books you should read Contributing Virtual Futurians were; that are not Gigantic 12 part Trilogies’. It is; Amanda Atkinson, Bruce Gillespie, Christopher CS Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet Levinson, MMM and Mark Philips HG Wells’ Country of the Blind Harry Harrison’s Make Room Make Room! Garry’s News for March 2007 Riddley Walker’s Russell Hoban - I’m standing for The Australian Democrats in the Robert A Heinlein’s Rocketship Galileo seat of Lakemba in this month’s NSW State Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange Election. I understand that John August’s (Anti P. K. Dick’s Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? Monarchy) Republican Party is not standing Ursula Leguin’s The Word for World is Forest candidates in this election, preferring to wait for John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids the Federal Election. I’ve been sighted in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenhiet 451 several local papers and my letter to the editor To which he added Arthur C. Clarke’sThe (about my dog again!) which famously appeared Sentinel and Isaac Asimov’s I Robot . He in the March 6, 2007 Sydney Telegraph. also proposes as a litmus test for lists of SF - The Sydney Futurians and their friends are Masterworks; That the criteria would result in warmly invited to attend Elizabeth Moon’s (a US AE Van Vogt being excluded and that such writer of Military SF) visit to the Kinikuniya one-off delights like Alison Sinclaire’s Bookstore on 6.30 pm on Tuesday April 10, 2007. Cavalcade would be included - Subsequent to a discussion on Eastcoast SF

(yes, like the Australian Democrats it too still likes!) I have been invited to be interviewed about Bruce Gillespie mentions that older SF works ‘Classic SF Books’. (Must try to get Graham are becoming available only through Gollancz Stone included in this). Masterworks titles and NESFA Press editions. - A bloke in Finland who is standing for election The Gollancz Masterworks are dependent on has had some of his election material translated the tastes of Malcolm Edwards and the into Klingon! NESFA people are doing omnibus editions of - Mr Sledgka Fett is broadcasting Sci-Fi some American writers, however, books by his soundtracks and a ‘War of the Worlds Radio favourite authors, Brian Aldis, Wilson Tucker broadcast 2007’ on the internet as and George Turner are becoming hard to find. ‘Scifivertigoradioshow’. Bruce reports that the Gollancz series list of - Chris Barnes has doubts about the Civic Hotel books is likely to persist and expand, as it sells Tuesday, afterwork meeting persisting? well. Fantasy Classics do not do so well - My listing of books continues, up to ~1000, more apparently. ‘Pringle’s Top 100’ is a good to go, half done? guide, but only includes SF published up to the early Eighties. Extending this list would be difficult because of the rise of so many new VERY LATE NEWS Sub-genres and the absolute volume of recent

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 31

SF&F titles. Bruce also notes that reader’s tastes change over time, mind blowing becoming 3. Mood of the Moment effect, i.e, George unreadable, tedious becoming deeply insightful? Orwell’s 1984 and HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Chris Levinson suggests 5 books that he feels probably better known more for the movie and represent a good cross section of Authors, Award the notoriety after the radio broadcast than Nominees and SF theme; read as a book? Frederick Pohl’s Gateway Philip K. Dick’s The Man in a high Castle 4. The First ever SF book about ……. Robots / Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End Clones / Eco Catastrophe /Alien First contact Olaf Stapledon’s First and Last Men story etc Vs the book or short story that really Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero inspires the new subgenre or becomes its ‘Classic’, i.e. Cyber Punk, Magic Realism. And then adds four more; Robert A Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land 5. Books that the Mundane world feels are Gene Wolf’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus Classic Sci-Fi, as an example of ‘SF Bad, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War Literature Good’. Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity commenting that it would be easy to go to ten of 6. Books not popularly promoted as being fifteen such titles. Science Fiction (sometimes even actively denied?) as Margaret Atwood’s The Mark Phillips appreciates the gesture of re- Handmaiden’s Tale and John Birmingham’s printing SF classics but complains that they would World War 2 part 2 series. be much improved by introductions and comment on other works by the same author. The 7. Stuff that is so strange and weird that no-one Bloomsbury “100 Must Read Science Fiction” list actually understands it but it is so memorable disappointed him given its many omissions of i.e. the movie version of Stanislas Lem’s some recent British SF&F writers. Solaris The Sci-Fi monthly group have been reading through the ‘SFWA Hall of Fame’ list, but Copyright GP Dalrymple © March 2007 observes that some of them are ‘dated’ read. Space for your meeting notes Amanda Atkinson says a SF Masterwork is; that any SF tale that stays with you for years and ……………………………………………………… stretches your imagination. She is finds it difficult to take some ‘Best of’ lists seriously, ……………………………………………………… having found that many of her best SF reads were from un praised or awarded books. ………………………………………………………

Garry’s questions on ‘SF Masterwork’ ……………………………………………………… status ………………………………………………………

1. Acceptance by mainstream Lit, i.e. George ……………………………………………………… Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World ………………………………………………………

2. Bestseller status and outright popularity Vs ……………………………………………………… Fannish or more knowledgeable views of ‘quality’

– i.e. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series VS …… ……………………………………………………… well , lots of other Fantasy.

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 32

……………………………………………………… In alien flesh In the ocean of night ……………………………………………………… Alfred Bester Starburst Golem ……………………………………………………… The dark side of the Earth Hi, The demolished man I have a fairly large collection of sci-fi paperbacks (over Star light, star bright 200?) & I wonder if there is anyone in yr group who The stars my destination would be interested in them? Also a (probably) JG Ballard The terminal beach complete Start Trek encyclopedia. Iain M Banks The state of the art I'd like to give them to someone who is interested. The player of games Cheers, Excession John Deane Look to windward Lloyd Biggle jr The world menders All the colours of darkness John Deane’s SF Book Collection List A-Z JF Blumrich The spaceships of Ezekiel Poul Anderson The boat of a million years Ben Bova Colony The high crusade Ray Bradbury Dinosaur tales Brian Aldiss Forgotten life The martian chronicles Buzz Aldrin & John Barnes Encounter with Tiber Fahrenheit 451 Piers Anhtony Prostho plus Marion Zimmer Bradley The spell sword Isaac Asimov Universe Vol.1 David Brin The practice effect The gods themselves The squares of the city The naked sun Sundiver Foundation Dr Pak's preschool Foundation and Empire Total eclipse Second foundation The long result Prelude to foundation A maze of stars Forward the foundation Startide rising Foundation and Earth The river of time Foundation's edge Earth Earth is room enough Kil'n people Mysteries The uplift war The currents of space Edgar Rice Burroughs Fighting man of Mars Pebble in the sky FM Busby The proud enemy The planet that wasn't Cage a man Nine tomorrows Orson Scott Card The call of Earth Robert Asprin The bug wars Speaker for the dead Edwin Lester Arnold Elroy Gulliver Jones, his vacation Wyrms Robert T Baker Raptor red Maps in a mirror John Barnes Orbital resonance The abyss Stephen Baxter Timelike infinity Lovelock Titan The ships of Earth Greg Bear Strength of stones Hart's hope Blood music The memory of Earth Eon CJ Cherryh Hammerfall Eternity Brothers of Earth Gregory Benford If the stars are gods Downbelow station Find the changeling Cyteen Heart of the comet Finity's end Against infinity Hestia Across the sea of suns Chanur's venture Artifact The pride of Chanur Chanur's homecoming Chanur's legacy Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 33

The Kif strike back Ron Goulart Starpirate's brain Visible light Everybody comes to Cosmo's Joe Halderman There is no darkness CJ Cherryh cont. Tool of the trade Hellburner Worlds enough and time Heavy time Worlds Serpent's reach All my sins remembered Tripoint Mindbridge Merchanter's luck Peter F Hamilton The nano flower Rimrunners Harry Harrison Galactic dreams Hunter of worlds Montezuma's revenge Inheritor The stainless steel rat Invader Lifeboat Defender Backdrop of stars Precursor Robert Heinlein Waldo & magic inc Foreigner 6 X H Explorer Between planets Forty thousand in Gehenna The worlds Port eternity Revolt in 2100 Arthur C Clarke The deep range The day after tomorrow Tales of ten worlds Glory road Imperial Earth Beyond this horizon The songs of distand Earth The greem hills of Earth Expedition to Earth The number of the beast The fountains of paradise Beyond this horizon Tales from the White Hart The menace from Earth Report on planet three and other speculations Assignment in eternity Rendezvous with Rama Orphans of the sky Rama II Job Garden of Rama Farnham's freehold Rama revealed Friday Edmund Cooper The deathworms of Kratos Time enough for love Michael Crichton Jurassic park The star beast Sphere I will fear no evil The terminal man The cat who walks through walls The Andromeda strain Frank Herbert Dune Brian Daley Tron Dune messiah Philip K Dick The world Jones made Children of Dune The simulacra The dragon in the sea A maze of death The Santaroga barrier The zap gun Destination Void Nathan Elliott Inner space Christopher Hodder-Williams 98.4 Robert L Forward Ocean under the ice Fred Hoyle Ossian's foot Timemaster Into deepest space Return to Rocheworld Rockets in Ursula Major Dragon's egg Raymond F Jones This island Earth Starquake The flight of the Dragonfly Damon Knight The other foot Martian rainbow Tomorrow X 4 Alan Dean Foster The last starfighter Michael P Kube-McDowell Enigma Mark Frost The list of seven Emperv William Gibson Virtual light Emprise Count zero Keith Laumer The compleat bolo Neuromancer A plague of demons Mona Lisa overdrive Ursula Le Guin Maria Ginsberg (ed) The ultimate threshold The wind's twelve quarters Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 34

The disposessed Anthony Price Our man in Camelot The left hand of darkness Alex Raymond The plague of sound The lathe of heaven Alastair Reynolds Revelation space Rocannon's world & Planet of exile Keith Roberts Pavane Fritz Leiber The big time Charles Sheffield Sight of Proteus Murray Leinster Planet exploration The Nimrod hunt Stanislav Lem The star diaries Lucius Shepard Barnacle Bill the spacer The invincible John Sladek The reproductive system The chain of chance Clifford D Simak Way station George RR Martin Tuf voyaging Time is the simplest thing Maxine McArthur Time future Aust. Writer Cordwainer Smith Norstrillia Anne McCaffrey Dragonflight EE Doc Smith Triplanetary Jack McDevitt Ancient shores Norman Spinrad A talent for war The Solarians Deepsix The void captain's tale McKenna Casey Agonistes etc Bug Jack Baron James Michener Space Allen Steele Orbital decay Jimmy Miller The big win Rude astronauts Walter M Miller jr A canticle for Leibowitz William Tenn The wooden star Donald Moffitt The Jupiter theft The human angle Larry Niven Inconstant moon Of men and monsters The long reach of Gil Hamilton Walter Tevis The man who fell to Earth The world of ptaavs Wilson Tucker Ice and iron Protector The year of the quiet sun The patchwork girl The Lincoln hunters The magic goes away John Varley The Ophiuchi hotline Ringworld Titan Ringworld engineers Kurt Vonnegut Cat's cradle The Ringworld throne Slaughterhouse 5 A hole in space Joan D Vinge Eyes of amber A gift from Earth Verner Vinge A fire upon the deep A world out of time John Wyndam Trouble with lichen The flight of the horse Chocky Destiny's road The seeds of time Rainbow Mars The day of the triffids The smoke ring Jack Williamson The legion of space Limits Jack Womack Terraplane Neutron star Convergent series Footfall The mote in god's eye Oath of fealty Inferno Beowolf's children The legacy of Heorot The Barsoom project Dream park The descent of Anansi The California voodoo game Man-Kzin wars III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII Three Reports, one Night of observing! Andre Norton Star Ka'at

Frederick Pohl Black star rising A report to residents after the The annals of the Heechee first Eulabah Avenue Sky Jerry Pournelle King David's spaceship The endless frontier Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 35

Watch held on Saturday March As this will be a Winter night viewing I will be able to show you the different stars of the 31, 2007 season, as well some different Planets and a Crescent Moon under darker sky (many more April 2, 2007 stars to see) than was the case on the 31st.

Dear Neighbours As before, I will let you know about this Sky Watching night by putting an invitation into your Firstly I would like to thank everybody who helped letterbox a week or so ahead of the night. in to make the Sky Watch night a success. This time, I expect to run two sessions, rather

than three. The first will be at about 5.45 to Even if you were not able to attend, your turning 6.45 pm and the other at around 7 to 8 pm. off a few outside lights and restraint with driving If you have small children, bring them to the first up and down the road was greatly appreciated. one, so you can show them the stars and put

them to bed at a reasonable hour, as little It is hard to count people in the dark, but I know Angels do need their sleep. that well over twenty people attended (from six households) and people turned up to each of the If you would like to bring some friends along to three advertised sessions. the next Eulabah Ave. Sky Watch, then please consider bringing them for the later session. As planned, the first session was attended mostly by parents with small children and the later On the other side of this sheet you will find the sessions were attended by older people. The sky chart that I was handing around on the st first session started well, with a satellite passing night of the 31 . It is a Sydney Observatory overhead and finished with a shooting star! guide to the skies of April, each month these sheets are available as a PDF to download After a brief sky orientation talk I was able to show from the Sydney Observatory website. people some of the highlights of the Southern In addition to the Planets and the Stars, I often Sky, the Southern Cross, Pointers and the get the telescope on some nights to look at constellation Musca. Using the two telescopes, I many different things during the year such as was then able to show the whole of the Moon, the Comets, Satellites and Meteor Showers. So if Planet Saturn (it’s satellite and its Rings!) and you see me out with a telescope, and there is a then a much more magnified ‘crater hopping’ view candle burning on the porch, then you are most of the edge of the Moon. welcome to join me at the telescope and see a

little more of the sky’s night life. My Mother, who is used to me dragging her out into the night to look through telescopes at Stars Wishing you well in all things and Planets, was very impressed and very pleased to see that so many people from our street came out into the night to met and talk with their neighbours! Garry P Dalrymple Committee Member, Sydney City Skywatchers Given the success of this first Eulabah Avenue 1 Eulabah Avenue, Clemton Park NSW 2206 Sky Watch I will definitely be organising more of these nights later this year and next year. An Observing Report delivered to

The next Eulabah Avenue Sky Watch the April 2 public meeting of the night for this year will be held during Sydney City Skywatchers June or July.

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 36

When I first learned of the ‘Earth Hour’ initiative I approximately 30 households, all the Eulabah was already in pre-election mode, so after the Avenue houses and several of the houses on initial reaction of ‘Why on Earth did they choose a streets backing onto Eulabah Avenue, whose night so close to the Full Moon for this?’ my next light trespass could seriously compromise the reaction was to add yet another item to my ‘got to viewing. That is, I was only able to give people do something about this’ list for action after the four days advance notice that it was on and I election on the 24 th of March. spent those days wondering what level of response this initiative would receive. I You can read about the highlights of the night placed a sign on my gate post (with a star chart from the ‘Report to Residents’. The purpose of on it) on Saturday morning. this report is to pass on to Sydney City My mother was skeptical about the level of Skywatchers’ members the ‘how-to’ nuts and bolts response to expect. Her opinion was that of what I did and what I have learned by doing this ‘community spirit’ was fairly dead in our vicinity. Sky Watch event. I offer this to members as a I received back four RSVPs (three ‘coming’s) primer on how you too might organise a one off or there were two additional verbal indications, i.e. annual local Sky Watch or observing night for about 12 people ‘booked’, about half the neighbours, church groups, relatives or work number who showed up on the night. I invited colleagues. I found it to be a very rewarding my brother’s family, but they had to beg off as experience, it was much like a nocturnal, my niece had homework assignments to Astronomy version of the Science Fiction complete Freecons that I have been organising recently! The observing Program Intention I decided to keep it simple. With an unknown I wanted to take advantage of the light awareness number of people coming I wanted an generated by media coverage of the ‘Earth Hour’ observing program that I could be completely event and to give people who would not usually confident of offering and delivering on the night think about a trip to the Observatory or attending to each customer every time. a Macquarie night a bit of an appreciation of the The observing program on the night was; night sky and to gently push the anti-light pollution - A brief sky orientation talk. barrow. - Pointing out the Southern Cross, Pointers, South Celestial Pole Orion and Background Musca (naked eye). Eulabah Avenue is a street of about twenty - A view of the whole of the Moon under houses. It dips down off a main road (Bexley slight magnification (80 mm telescope). Road) and it then runs up a slight incline, so the - A view of Saturn (114 mm telescope). street is well awash with light from the main road. - A view of the Moon’s terminator at higher It also has also recently had installed some overly magnification (114 mm telescope). bright street lighting. Seeing conditions are not I.e. one Planet, the Moon and some talk about good, in fact for the respite from street lighting, I the most visible constellations of the night. determined a few nights before the 31st that my The date and time was not really of my preferred viewing positions for the night were all in choosing, a few weeks later I would have had the shelter of a vigorous bottlebrush tree, this Jupiter, an hour earlier and I could have shown gave ‘windows’ to the North and South skies. Venus in the twilight etc. I had plans to pass Seeing would have been much better from the around Binoculars, (Orion’s belt anyone?) but backyard, but a front yard / footpath observing the number of people milling around precluded position has fewer barriers to public participation this. My Conclusions from the night The Build up 1. There is a base level of interest in ‘walk-to’ I went back to work on Tuesday March 27, with a footpath Sky Watching events. Expect 10 to draft of an advice letter to my neighbours and an 15% of households to RSVP and about double RSVP card. That night, after work I letter boxed this number will send someone when they see Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 37 that the event is on and it is only across the street. kids as they are directed by parent / sibling Parent/s with a child/children (under ten years of advice to ‘pin the Planet on the donkey’ etc. age) is what you will get from each participating - As I want future Eulabah Avenue Sky household together with some (youngish) adults Watching events to develop attendees and some seniors. I.e. if you letterbox 50 understanding of Astronomy I need from SCS houses / flats, then be prepared for 40 or 50 members a syllabus / list of elementary people to show up on the night. observing targets that are achievable with the 2. All of the children who attended were of primary equipment I have to hand. To ease the strain school age. Most children present I feel were too of holding onto a small child for the full length of young to get a sense of what they were seeing. the session I will be putting out bench seats for I will have to do something next time that they can people to sit at. more easily relate to. 3. A School Holiday Day or Weekend might be - To make the evening a little more social I will better for families with 10 to 15 year olds. consider putting on (free!) hot sweetened cocoa. Luck was on my side. I got it about right with the program and the degree of publicity. If I had - I am more strongly considering getting a invited the all residents on the streets on either driver’s license and a car / van partly as an aid side of Eulabah Avenue, Parker, Malley and to taking these sorts of events to local church Clemton Avenues, about 60 homes in all it would groups etc. have been an unmanageable crowd. At the back of my mind I have always been thinking about The letter for the next Eulabah Avenue Sky holding a star night for Clemton Park public Watching night will stress; School, the local Primary school (400 children?), but clearly an open invitation of this size would - That it is to be a ‘Parents with their Children’ generate 300 to 500 attendees, requiring half a invitation, to avoid potential child control issues. dozen telescopes and telescope operators. It is better to know this before attempting to take on - That attendees should bring a Mug, for the hot too big a job. cocoa

Future Plans - To bring a pair of Binoculars, partly so dads - There will be more of these Eulabah Avenue Sky can show their kids some sky, partly to get Watch events. Given the response level I will adults talking about what they can see, and give the night much the same level of promotion how they saw it, rather than the event being a as this time as much greater numbers than last ‘Garry-to-a-crowd’ or a succession of one-on- time could be problematical. By myself I could one beside the telescopes contacts between comfortably handle the two telescopes and twenty me and the audience. people per session. More than this and I will need a helper or two and additional instruments. In conclusion

- For the younger children I am considering taking One Star party does not make a pavement advantage of the local geography, I might mark Astronomer, but this was such a fun night for out some Zodiac constellations on the flat road me that I would like to do more things like this. near by and mark out the distances between the planets on the road that goes up the hill. The children can then ‘learn through their feet’ by being given a comparative Planet sized ball or symbol and told to stand on the constellation where that Planet is on the sky that night. This could be as much fun for parents as well as the

Transcendental Basenji Sermons and Enlightenment Volume 1 Number 23 38