Omni Magazine, Post Otfice Box 3041 , Harlan, IA 51537-3041
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FORGOTTEN SPACE HERO FOUND mmAPRIL1995 mf£^ Si iif'W VJ $3.95 "71486 02484 2 onnrui EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT & C.O.O.: KATHY KEETON VP/EDITOR: KEITH FERRELL EXECUTIVE VP/GRAPHICS DIRECTOR: FRANK DEV1N0 MANAGING EDITOR: CAROLINE DARK ART DIRECTOR: CATHRYN MEZZO 4 34 First Word The New Outer By Daniel Pinkwater Limits 6 By David Bischoff Communications Control over 8 your TV's transmission Mind is about to be By Steve Nadis hijacked. Get set for a new Beyond wave of SF thrillers. central control 45 Omni's Project Sounds Open Book By Ed Juge Implants, forensics, 12 and Part Two Artificial Intelligence of Omni's guide to By J. Blake Lambert investigating UFOs. Managing (k \ the information Max Faget: overflow Master Builder 14 By James Oberg Wheels A rare look at the former By Jeffrey Hsu NASA wiz whose Highway surveillance genius propelled humans 16 into space. Electronic Universe By Gregg Keizer Fiction: 18 Resolve and Resistance Wings ByS. N. Dyer By Peggy Noonan 75 20 Interview: Learning Hazel O'Leary By Mary Ann Tawasha By Linda Turbyviile 21 Powerful talk Style from the Secretary By Fred Hapgood of Energy Underground architecture 96 24 When the inner mind is pushed to its Games Museums outer limits, the resulting harvest can cause both awe and By Scot Morris By Paul Kvinta horror. A peek into the minds behind 103 27 television's strangest new series. Cover art by Tsuneo Sanda. Last Word Continuum (Additional art and photo credits, page 90.) By Daniel Pinkwater OMNI (ISSN 0149-8711) is published monthly in the United States and Canada by Omni Public=:iors mte -national Ltd., 277 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10172. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: 7. Copyright Send address changes to Omni Magazine, Post Otfice Box 3041 , Harlan, IA 51537-3041 . Volume 17, Number © /& 1995 by Omni Publications International Ltd. All nclrs reserved. Tel. 1-800-289-6664; (212) 496-6100. OMNI is a registered trade-^7 mark of Omni Publications International Ltd. Printed in the USA by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Inc. and distributed in the USA, Canada, and United States territorial possessions by Curtis Circulation Company, 433 Hackensack Avenue, Hackensack, NJ 07601. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by The Horowitz Group, P.O. Box 306, Cammeray NSW 2062 Australia. Distributed in the UK by COMAG, Tavistock Rd„ West Drayton, Middlesex, London UB77QE and the rest of the world by Worldwide Media Service, Inc.. 30 Montgomery Si., jersey City, NJ 07302. Entire contents copyrighted. Nothing may be repro- mentioned in duced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any similarity between places or persons the fiction or sernifiction and real places or persons living or dead is coincidental. Subscriptions: U.S., AFO—$24 one year; Canada and elsewhere—$36.38 one year. Single copies $3.95 in U.S., AFO, and Canada. Telephone: 1-800-289-6664. The pub- property lisher disclaims all responsibility to return unsolicited matter, and all rights in portions thereof remain the sole of Omni Publications International Ltd. Letters sent to Omni or its editors become the property of the magazine. Printed in U.S.A. Canadian GST Registration #R1 26607589 , — FIRST WORD WORDS TO WONDER: When reading really matters By Daniel Pinkwater can remember the exact mo- to be played with plenty of Errol ticipate in the ^'Celebrity Auc- tion," and its variants. Children ment when I broke the code Flynn swash and buckle. or I and became able to read. It Someone told me that people are given credits play money was during the second semester who probably can't read sing for every book read during a the streets of South given period. At the end of this of first grade. I had purchased a songs in children their Batman comic—the first brand- American cities about the char- period, can use in Garcia Mar- earnings to bid on autographed new comic I had ever owned. acters Gabriel Having invested a whole shiny quez's One Hundred Years of books, posters, T-shirts, chewed backyard dramati- pencils, cigar stubs, and other dime, I was determined to read Solitude. Our of artifacts donated by the likes of every word in the thing. And I did. zations were something this kind. I, for one, did me, Sometimes, local merchants I can even remem- ~~ participated, and the kids ber some of the dia- W I not know that these have were books, and only can cash in their chits for pizza. many books for logus: Batman was JjflS: lH^ | practice, talking about scaling later did I encounter This is a bankrupt them, first as Classic and I decry it. The message from all ages and a a building, some- pip commentator thing he and Robin Comics, and then in adult authority seems to me to for National Pub- could do because of full-scale, be, "Look, kids— reading is a ' .'-- : I don't like it myself, (which ~.:.'SY their athletic prowess. %[0^^M It needs to be said drag. Dick and Jane that we were not en- is why I can't communicate any some other literary couraged or super- enthusiasm to you,) but if you'll Daniel Pinkwater characters with whom * \ vised by benevolent do it, we'll pay you." What's sug- in these exer- gested is that, in too many looks at I was familiar at the adults learning to read. time, never scaled /•ffi' cises. All the grown- cases, the wrong people are anything —and their ups knew was that representing books to the athletic prowess appeared lim- we were making a racket, waving young—and maybe that they're ited to chasing that insipid dog wooden sticks around, and get- representing the wrong books, of theirs, who was always mak- ting dirty. These were days when (but the state of the children's ing off with the red ball. there was no such thing as a book-publishing industry is too Dick and Jane. Batman and media specialist. Librarians were big a topic to tackle here. All I'll Robin. It didn't matter. "I can read not kindly guides to the world of say is that a two-year moratorium figures on juvenile publications would do this!" 1 said. "I can read any- letters; they were severe told to noise, no harm except to me what thing!" And I did, from then on. who you not make — — I thinking?). Even before i picked the lock get fingerprints on the books, or am time'. These matters would depress of the printed word, I had been fail to bring them back on participating in semi-organized The preceptors and authori- me, except that I get other mail— libraries games in my middle-class Chi- ties I remember from my early from better schools and cago neighborhood. These games days struck me as people who that serve their clients well. And I consisted of reenactments of his- showed up to do a day's work hear from actual kid readers, torical events of a certain kind: as we pupils did. The goal was who, having read something of Pickett's charge, the battle of to get through the reader and the mine, are ready to share their San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood, iwo arithmetic book, and learn some own .efforts: "I read your book geography. Whether about the Blue Moose," wrote in Jima. I suppose these games had spelling and gone on in the backyards and we wound up well-rounded or one reader. "It was pretty funny empty lots, the details handed well-adjusted was our own busi- the way he moved into that guy's down by generations of older ness anyway, not theirs. It was up house. Have you ever seen a really brothers and sisters, since the to each of us, and our imagina- moose? I have not. Do they wars we portrayed were current. tions, to see to it that culture was like clam chowder?" We also played Ivanhoe, The allowed to take care of itself. What these kids have discov- of, is in putting words to- Three Musketeers, The Hunch- I wound up as a writer ered that back of Notre Dame, Mysterious among other things, books for gether they have their own Island, and Twenty Thousand children and young adults. As questions to ask and their own to make. a re- Leagues Under the Sea. Captain such, I get a fair amount of mail. observations What it lief. Culture be taking care Nemo was a choice role, I re- Some of comes from libraries may member, and D'Artangnan was and schools, inviting me to par- of itself yet.DO Explore the Internet! Delphi Internet"" offers you full access to the internet and now you can explore this incredible resource with no risk. You get 5 hours of evening and weekend access to try it out for free!* Use Delphi ^?J° Internet's mail 9,600 gateway to exchange 14,400 messages with over fops 30 million people at universities, companies, and other onlipe services such as CompuServe® and MCI Mail® Download programs and files using FTP or connect in real-time to other networks using Telnet. You can also meet people on the internet. Internet Relay Chat lets you "talk" with people all over the world and Usenet News is the world's largest bulletin board with over 20,000 topics! To help you find the information you want, you'll have access to powerful search utilities such as Gopher, Hytelnet and WAIS.