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FUTURE FILMS
7 GREAT DIRECTORS SNEAK PREVIEW THEIR OWN MOVIES FOR 2001 A.D. UNK: RUSSIA'S GREATEST THREAT TO WESTERN SCIENCE 8 MYSTICAL SHORT STORIES THE SECRET LIVES AND DREAMS OF ABORIGINES onnrui
EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KEETON EDITOR: PATRICE ADCROFT KM API IICS DIRECTOR -RANK DEVINO EDITOR AT LARGE: DICK TERESI MANAGING EDITOR STEVE FOX APT DIRECTOR DWAYNE FLINCHUM
CONTENTS PAGE
FIRST WORD An End lo Hunger Loret Miller Ruppe 6 OMNIBUS .Contributors 10 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 14 FORUM Australian Dreaming Susanna Cuyler 16 EARTH Fowl Play Caiherine Caufield 22
SPACE Asleep in the Cosmos Sieve Nadis 26
EXPLORATIONS Pirate Societies Bill Lawren 30
STARS Martian Life Search Eleanor Smith 32
CONTINUUM Physics. Hollywood Style, 35
ANIGHT AT 1 HE MOVES Future Movies— David Lynch, John Sayles, Mel Brooks, Susan Seidelrnan, Richard Attenborough, Michael Douglas. John Schlesinger, and critics Gene Siskel and Roger Eber!
THE VISITATION, Fiction: Eight Religious Greg Bear, Gerard Klein, 54 AND OTHER Michael Bishop, Connie DIVINE ENCOUNTERS Willis, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, Damien Broderick Jack Dann, and Jeanne Van Buren Dann
UNK: THE ACCELERATOR Russian Physics Robert P Crease and 63 THAT COULDN'T SHOOT Charles C. Mann STRAIGHT
REEL ILLUSIONS Pictorial: Special Eifects Thomas G. Smith 70
ERICWILLMOT Interview: Australian Kalhy Keeton 80 Aborigines 95 ANTIMATTER -.. Judging UFO Evidence,
STAR TECH Tools lor the Year 2000 , 125
GAMES Results of Competition #42 Scot Morris oC
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'. !,..„ : M V V" ![ I i I — - )NTRIBUTOR^ annruii story begins long before Other story ideas, however, are just with critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Every 1 like likely that the special effects created pen is put to paper. Inspired by thinly veiled excuses for oeisor.a oan. It's someone's words or actions, 'A Night at the Movies (page 44). Omni by George Lucas's company Industrial will play role in a question is posed; curiosity, satisfied. ooi:or Paince Adcroit simoly wanted Light and Magic a major the pictorial And when an individual sheds new light on a date with director David Lynch. As a shaping future movies. And "Reel Illusions" (page 70) displays the a subject, it may alter our view of the journalist, the most discreet way to meet oi innovators, are world. Such is the case with this month's him would be to write a story about him. work of this band who Interview (page 80). While visiting Australia But being absorbed in Omni, Adcroft responsible for such wonders as Elliott bike. to promote her book Woman of Tomorrow, doesn't have the time to write much ol and E.T, flying past the moon on a Omni president Kathy Keeton met aborig- anything beyono business lellers, memos, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia racing ine Eric' Willmot. An educator, inventor, and copious notes scrawled in the through the woods on speeder bikes. filmmaker, and novelist, Willmot is a man margins of her editors' manuscripts. So and Indiana Jones narrowly escaping giant stone ball. of two worlds —with one foot in his sne oecideu to ask several directors being squashed by a aboriginal culture, the other in white including Lynch, of course— to devise Every story, of course, requires an society. He believes Australia's native future tilm treatments for Omni. angle— a particular voice— and that's peoples can teach us a great deal about She turned the idea over to associate what makes each story different. You can, human evolution. "The common miscon- editor Murray Cox, who coordinated for example, give eight science-fiction will ception is that the aborigines are backward the project. His team included contributing authors a single topic, and they primitives on the way to extinction." editor Marion Long—with her seemingly produce eight unique stories, as in 'The Keeton comments. "But they are a unique inexhaustible resources—and editorial Visitation and Other Divine Encounters" editor Ellen people, and it's important that we know assistant Mary Salinger Gincksman. What (page 54). Fiction Datlow more about them in order to learn more movie, Long asked the directors, would commissioned six short religious tales about our own origins." you most like lo rrakc? And what future from such masteriu slorv.elicrs as Cbnnie Willis. Zelazny, and The initial idea l.or a story can be technologies would you use in it to expand Greg Bear, Roger Bishop. "A later broad —a writer is interested in, say, your art? Michael seventh was of initial group," Russian science. Or it can be specific: Though the directors were enthusiastic recommended by one the -j edited Fifth Why have 44 Americans won Nobel a do I ;he projoc".. a low expressed recalls Datlow, who The that ancthei ' immaker might Omni Book olScience Fiction (Zebra), prizes in physics, compared with only . concern seven Russians when the Russians always steal their concepts. The iinal result "And in the middle of the project, another seem to have the upper hand? includes creative input from Susan story just appeared on my desk," Sometimes reporters may wonder about Seidelman. Michael Douglas. Mel Brooks, We wonder if the appearance of that the repercussions c/ recent developments John Say es. Richard Atten do rough, eighth story had anything to do with David Lynch. a higher authority's influence. If so, that in Russian physics, "hat curiosity was , John Schlesinger—and, yes, the inspiration ior "UNK: The Accelerator There are screen credits and a synopsis same authomy might dabble some more ;; That Couldn't Shoot Straight," by Robert for each lwerily- rsl-century film, as in Omni affairs and deliver David Lynch :je63) interviews With each director to our editor's oifice.DO I and Crease ai | well as LETTERS . connanuruicATiaru! "The Truth Aboi..i B^ack Beauty" [Contin- I'm impressed with Hugh Downs's editorial uum, March 1987] are twisted. His anthro- on the space program [First Word, March pomorphic dog laments dying "uselessly" 1987]. I am sending copies to "people in a pound instead of "usefully" in a lab. of influence" in case they missed the Such values are abysmal. article. Other reader;, should do (he same. Isn't it ironic that scientists, with all their David Alan Wright degrees and knowledge, are Ihrealened New Britain, CT by vulnerable little creatures like Bambi and the judgments of children who are Spin honest enough to display compassion? The n:'lh force nay have oeen dsoovered Jerry Cirnisi already [' May the Force Be With You," Southampton, NY March 1987], It appears to be a biological J force, a kind o spin deic around the A Miller's Tale body. The amplitude of the force is partly Diane Connors's interview with Alice a function of Ihc gcjoiraoi k-;I c field activ- Miller [March 1987] was outstanding. I've ity. Seve r a: researchers have ouilt instru- been a 'an of Mi ler's for several years ments that verify this. and have'been concerned thai so lew Bury] Payne, Ph.D. people know her work. Her insights olfer PsychoPhysics Labs hope to adults who were abused as Plymouth, MA children, giving them a chance to end the vicious cycle of oecomino, abusive Congratulations on the superb article parents Ihemselves. describing Ephrairn = ischoach and the Jacqueline Knapp "fifth force." As a high-school physics and New York Chemistry teacher, I have followed' the reports in the various science magazines, I have never read a more profound but nfone of them reported on the examination of child abuse and its conse- phenomenon as irs ghr.'u ly as you did. I querces than the Interview with Alice look forward to sharing this article with Miller. It's interesting to note thai both Stalin my currenl physics students. and Hitler had abusive falhers. And the Frank Lock Marquis do Sade was brought up in Lemon Bay High School a church-run boarding school where the Englewood, FL monks beat the boys. Bui Miller carries some ideas to the Mericie Worker point of absurdity. She claims that all William C. Mericle's article on the violence results from ch Idhood abuse. Rorschach test [Lasl Word, March 1987] What about violence done in the name of was preposterous, humiiaimg. arid lone self-defense? What are you supposed overdue. But I wonder if Mericle has to do when someone is going to kill you? the guls to tackle Freud's little-known fear Mark Oiler of ferns- or Carl Jung's habit of playing Falls Church, VA with his food in public? I crave more of this kick-ass type of writing. I am a classic example of the. abused Allan J. Grise child as described oy Aiice Miller I felt so Orlando, FL relieved when I read the interview because I finally found someone who The Horse's Mouth understands my trauma. I hope more Someone once said that one of Walt people become aware of the destructive- Disney's great achieves en Is was lo show ness of child abuse. Miller is uncovering thai animals have ives o* their own, with just the lip of the iceberg. their own trials and moments of happ ness. Name Withhold HalvorChristensen'a comments in Lexington Park, MDDO — — DAYDREAM BELIEVERS FORURJ1 Susanna Cuyler, a crafts expert, is ham, near Melbourne. I occurs to me that at home, I procrastinate ever designs; owner of B. Rugged in Highland maternity is too "mammalian." I dream I have to "get into the mood." There, part Park. New Jersey, and author I'm the mother of lots of children of varying of my resistance is a reflection of our of The High Pile Rug Book (Harper & ages, sizes, races. We are walking, society's prejudice that crafts are boring, Row), She participated in the first Austra- silhouetted on a hill, a small, private United simpleminded, something to do when lian Fabrics Conference in Melbourne. Nations. My husband, a scientist, there's nothing better. But aborigines and Below is a selection from her notebooks believes in the probability of a nuclear c'altspeoo e the world over know the concerning art, aborigines, and dreaming: disaster within the next three years. Part spaciness of simple, repetitive handiwork, The white peoples are so very young of the extinction pattern of animals wherein the mind goes free, beyond compared with the Australian aborigines, giant kangaroos, tor example— is to cease anxiety's bounds of success or failure. who have their dreamtime (see the Eric breeding because of climatic changes. Doing it bypasses the sriiicipalory part ol Willmot interview beginning on page 80). Apparently, desert women here stop the brain that prefers to ponder. The myths of "the dreaming" are more menstruating during droughts. I dream I'm inside a vast canyon. At a than 10,000 years old, twice the age In our workshop, in the midst of whatever certain distance horn me, there is a of the Greek myths of Zeus on Mount we are doing, the aborigines periodically ce-emony going on wi'h songs and Olympus, If the aborigine time span were get up and leave. Never a word of expla- dances. I don't move toward it. I am fixated a day, then the Europeans only arrived nation, "Time has different components by doing so'-:eihing with a . . . fish. I in at aborigine lands —and took them over for them," anthropologist Alan West look ad'-"irai;or at its scales. Am I with gunpowder—just belore midnight. It is explains. These breaks are not to stretch cooking? I wake up just as the party is our civilization's fifty-ninth minute (plus or get a bite to eat. No simple change over. I feel immensely satisfied. It is how many seconds?). To survive, we must of pace, but a profound absence. One day I hear the myth of the Rainbow learn about lime, the necessity of peace, exactly as if they who were giving the party Serpent, a grca! creator so rit who made and dreaming. left it. When they return, we are the new the rivers, I remember that the only thing One night during the time I was studying guests, and a new party begins. I cherished from freshman geology is She the technique:; el aborigine ioop-and- Pleasures kaleidoscope into the immer- fact that meander : ng. sepc-rtine rivers twisl basketry, the images in a dream had sion of days doing just crait work. No mean the river is either very, very young or border designs of loops, ovists, spirals. anxieties about getting started, whereas very, very old. Like scrolls on a medieval manuscript, the European Stone Age cave artists border designs connected the dream's depicted the animals they wanted to kill, scenes, now forgotten. The very fact to eat, or that they feared. Often these of dream borders—those were the first, animals on the cave walls were repeatedly and there have been none since—seems pierced with arrows. Effigies. Why? In to do with the pleasures of sitting on the prehistory, as the weather fluctuated ground, making baskets all day. between the frigid and the tropical, Europe animals. BuL I appreciate how the aborigines' barren had great migrations of landscape is made spiritual by patterns Australia simply got warmer and drier. of kinship. Ancestors are embodied in Along the cave wars, abc ones empha- 'rees 'oc^s: spirits are evident in birds, sized not animals but the contours of animals, and fish. All this dispels the rock; they deepened holes, 'ounded out loneliness of the vast, sunbaked outback. protuberances. High on cliffs, women I picture their forebears traveling on painted men with largo genitalia erect to bamboo rafts from South India through their chins that could be seen for miles; the Indonesian islands, moving on when wish fulfillment. volcanoes frightened them. At last they Hunters did portray the animals they reached Australia, where bamboo didn't wanted to eat, and perhaps their grow. They couldn't raft back; Australia "X-ray" style evolved to show the bones had to become their home. they wished to have as trophies— teeth yoL.nc aborigine for necklaces, small lor additional I amaze a girl in our bones ' group by taking out my contact lenses body ornaments. Other wishes were my eyes are-blue, then dark green. But expressed in art; Aborigine rain dances the lenses lose all novelty after I 've taken" included incising lines into a boulder one out and put it back in three times. to make it bleed— i.e., rain. While on a topless beach at Sandring- As an adolescent I was entranced with — — the African Bushman's "He is a dream With the at ften silence examine our dreams. As soon as I wake up, I note in few words the dreams I dreaming us." And in college I studied as we all work. When someone speaks, a is begin Eastern religion and learned that there is it's to accompany the showing of a remember. The next step to links only Buddha; all else is a dream, an completed project. Everybody responds interpreting them, making between enthusiastically to ihe pride, the self- them and recent events. These links illusion. Now as I tind out bits and pieces ' to the subconscious. ot the aborigines' cratts and beliefs, I esteem thai has been expressed. But can provide access I often, wanl their earth colors to penetratemy usually we drift with the rhythms of our I make rugs and rock-climb so perspective. dreams. At the University of Melbourne, at hands, our eyes, and the object. If we're my dreams have a top-view vigorous climb, the premiere of a movie about aborigine thinking at all, it's usually associative, After an especial y the perspective n into play women gathering materials for their comparing (his work with other aspects of top-view aga ccmes lives as farmers, artists, craftspeople. in my dream: A rust-colored pinnacle in basketry, I sit next to two of the movie's our will sun is narrow enough to climb with my stars to see their reactions to Ihemselves When I start realizing that this end the it. legs like frog's in 16mm: cool. After the movie, a group (hat we will all separate, the aborigines arms around My are a the sides, -but my head of us walk around the campus. It's the first will leave Melbourne, and there will be no as they go up meeting lor most of us, and what stands more peaceful tranquillity of just doing is snug in the warmth of the rock. Only at the very top can I rest comfortably and out is this: one aborigine woman's walk. It's crafts— I dream. In my dream we have no very sexy, but what is most fantastic is money. We're traveling and have come look around 360 degrees at the sky, I populate the surroundings that it bespeaks absolute ancestral assur- to the place where old men have dragged the landscape. ance oi place. ofl the young girls for sex. We fry to find with dancing below. It has been the to make friends with. It's exertion of climbing that has erased any In my dream I have an impediment in some young men my nose and leave the room with a all anxiety. We were on the wrong train, anxieties, and now on the top of my the direction; pinnacle I can choose to look in any nosebleed. When I come back to the going in wrong and now festering with direction. But I watch the dancers dance small group at a theater-dinner party, I we're in the wrong place, again again, climb down to look down and there's blood splattered all loneliness. I sit myself down in an empty and and in of watch them more closely. When I ge! down, over my shirt. (I had recently seen square, Ike a so'der a cobweb are pictures of aborigine men with goose brown baggage. Then along come a Ihe party is all boys, and they boxing like kangaroos. I join some women sitting feathers stuck to their bodies with blood.) I bustling market scene and a pig. Members baskets decide to be natural about my bloody of the crowd push one another and on the sidelines, and we make twenty- hassle over how much the pig is worth; from half-reclining positions. One older shirt. I want terribly to seduce a year-old man (he resembles a college everything turns noisy; Ihe colors are woman says, "Pity agitates the heart." boyfriend) who's walking behind us, but horrid. In a frenzy we leave, start to run, In Within a Budding Grove Marcel Proust players it's running feel strong again. said, "Like those craftsmen, those how? And suddenly I decide that and by fuss asking better to record the boy's songs than to The European cavepeople ceased who, instead of making a and content try to love him. The dream changes their painting when they began farming. lor what they cannot have, is there themselves with Ihe instrument that comes abruptly: There's a question of keys. I Cultivation tol from dawn to dusk; fatigue to stay lo paint to their hand, the artist might say of don't need a key— I have one. "You need is too much awake what, that it would two, in case of loss." We have been or sing, dance, tell stories, even watch the anything, no matter circling, have made a complete circuit. stars. The aborigine has the time. Aborig- serve his purpose." I hear a chorus of for may craftspeople singing to me, "Leave crafts I of the ines death weeks. They When I wake up, am reminded mourn a circles of many aborigine rock paintings. mutilate Iherr.t; Dives, but they also make in a societal trough— better off there." These apparently were symbols of territo- sand paintings, tree carvings. They grieve In near secrecy, let craftspeople fructify, more crafted objects rial intent, marking, perhaps, the memory for death with dances portraying bearing more and of friends of early ancestral routes around the incidents from Ihe life of the deceased. until their houses and the houses loo lew rituals concerning are full of the handmade. Then the circular coast. What I feel is heartwarming, We have grief is totally confusing. engineers of war will say. "Gosh, they genuine love, as if I had been with the death. Our almost old boyfriend. We need time. We certainly need to don't even have built-in obsolescence. There can be no commercial equivalency." Back home. I'm so fit, so strong my running shoes chew up the road. But it's staggering how two days of modern travel can wipe out a strong body. Typing these notes, keys down to a digital sprung noise on the computer, I think With computers a.!/ is exactitude: there is no room for approximation. Where are its arts without, any approximation? With anxiety, I always dream that I'm obliged to go back and linish school even though I've been to college. With frustration, my dreams become compre- hensively visual. For example, I go over an elegant town arjnss n'Spcct every room, and approve its decoration. I look for where my rooms should be. I'm awake. In a straight-upward fantasy I conjure up an aborigine drifting around me in my tiny study above my white- walled studio. Loneliness is a seemingly bottomless pit. I pour my experience down. After a sensation of endlessly dropping a pail loaded with gifts, the ihe Dbci;<;:n:l! r.vihs i_v ihe c FOWL PLAY EARTH By Catherine Caufield ^% I ardens at the Kesterson ground to carry away their excess water. reusing it. Until recently, olher farms with 111 I Reservoir National Wildlife The bureau built a concrete channel lo arlificial drans dischivcod around vv w Retuge in California's San take Ihe drain water lo Kesterson. Donald 60,000 acre-feet (one acre-foot equals Joaquin Valley first suspected in 1982 thai Swain, recently retired as head of the 326,000 gallons) of wastewater each year something was seriously wrong. As one San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program into the Grassland marshes, a duck of a dwindling number of wetlands on the Planning and Evaluation Section, says, "If hunter's paradise just south of Kesterson Pacilic Flyway, the Kesterson wetlands we had discharged Ihe drainage water almost ten times the amount of waste- attracted hundreds of thousands of into the esfuary the way we originally water dumped into Kesterson annually. birds—such as ducks, geese, still, planned, it could have been even worse Those marshes are so contaminated with avocets, and coots— looking for food and I the problem." selenium that ihe siato department of a place lo breed. In addition, the marshes Neither the farmers nor the bureau took health has warned people not to eat locally provided a home for many species of into account how polluted the wastewater caught waterfowl. This water is now fish and smaller animals. By 1982 all bul would be. Any irrigation runoff is polluted dumped into the San Joaquin River; the one of the native fish species had myste- with salts and trace elements. But in San Joaquin River drains into ihe California riously disappeared from the sanctuary. the western San Joaquin Valley the soil is Aqueducl, from which Los Angeles gets The next spring many chicks were born cursed with unusually high levels of a portion of its drinking water. Alarmed by dead or horribly deformed—with no eyes, po:on:ially loxic substances. It has been this fact, the state senate last year no legs, or with brains bursting from known for many centuries that intensive commissioned Ihe University of California their skulls. irrigation leaches such substances out of Energy and Resources Group, in Berke- Biologists soon pinpointed the culprit the soil. So not only would Ihe trapped ley, to study the quality of drinking water in as selenium, an element necessary to water suffocate crops, it could poison Southern California. John Harte, principal human nutrition in small amounts but toxic them as well. Simply draining the water investigator for the study, says, "Our in larger quantities. In late 1984 Kesterson away—as Keslerson demonslrat.es—can research showed that about half of the was declared a toxic -waste dump. Workers also poison ihe larger environment. aqueduct water exported to Southern there are required to wear protective As a temporary solution, the "Kesterson California originates in the San Joaquin clothing and masks. The federal Fish and farms" are now saving their polluted River. Since the San Joaquin contributes Wildlife Service employs "hazers" to water -nixing it wiih fresh water, and significantly lo the aqueduct, it is vital rove the polluted marsh and scare away that the quality of the San Joaquin water thousands of birds with loud noises, A not be allowed to deteriorate." wildlife habilat supervisor at Kesterson, Al least 1 million acres of the western Pete Blake, describes the eerie situation; San Joaquin Valley will need artificial "When you walk into a marsh, you expect drainage. Thousands of acres are already to hear birds singing and frogs croaking. floating on a poisonous underground When you go into Kesterson, you don't lake. Potentially lox:c levels of selenium hear that. The sound isn't there." have been found in alfalfa, com, sugar The Bureau of Reclamation, a federal beets, and cattle raised in these areas. agency, dumped the selenium into Gerald Johns, chairman of the San Kesterson. It was helping local farmers Joaquin River Basin Technical Committee, get rid of their used irrigation water from points out lhat no one is quite sure how 42,000 acres of agricultural land. much selenium is toxic and how it works its Normally, irrigation water that is not way through the environment, In 1983 evaporated or used by the crops drains Kesterson's water had concentrations of deep into the subsoil and eventually 200 to 400 pans per oiilior of selenium. into local streams and rivers. But most of But scientists have observed, says Johns, the farmland on the west side of the lhat waterfowl eating aqualic plants with San Joaquin Valley rests on top of an substantially lower levels of selenium impermeable layer of clay that prevents can show adverse effects similar to those the wastewater from draining away. at Kesterson because the plants absorb Eventually, the water will rise into the root high concentrations of selenium. zone, suffocate Ihe crops, and deslroy There are no legal limits on ihe amount the productive capacity of the land. of agricultural pollutants that farmers To prevent this from happening, some are permitted to dump into California's farmers installed plastic pipes under- Pristine wetland::- may rivers. The Central Valley Regional Water 22 OMNI ASLEEP IN THE COSMOS By Steve Nadis have of airline crews on overnight duration flights a host of problems n the iirst flight of the space performance zones, he yet to be addressed. And almost all shuttle, Mission Control ran a test fliahts crossing many time risks of NASA's research efforts have gone into during the second night, when has already documented some of the for sleep. In engineering, hardware, and other both crew members were fast asleep. of not respecting our need life sciences." of pilots, copilots, and systems— but very little into Alarms went olf on the console, and one survey 30 chief of navigators, he found that they often had Frank Sulzman, NASA's in reply, one groggy astronaut threw a and actually nodded biomedical research, admits that there is switch the wrong one— before going to fight to stay awake — at of 32 times per month. no organized program looking crew back to sleep. The next day he had little off an average even occasions when every- schedules, sleep physiology, and human memory of the exchange between There were off at same circadian rhythms in space. "We devote Mission Control and himself. one in the cockpit dozed the of resources to areas where we time, as happened on one transcani.nenia most our "It was like going into someone's Angeles. The plane drifted know there is a potential problem, such bedroom at three in the morning," explains flight to Los the Pacific before as motion sickness, bone deterioration, Curt Graeber. a psychologist at the NASA 100 miles out over muscle atrophy, and cardiovascular Ames Research Center. "Fortunately, the ground crew was able to rouse the disorders," he says. "We don't know if nothing happened to the orbiter, but one pilots with chimes. problem with sleep in space." • the question of getting the there is a could argue that in space there should In space professor of physi- of sleep can be critical for other Yet Charles Fuller, a be a split-shift schedule so that one alert right kind There, work should be sched- ology at the University of California, crew member is on duty at any time." reasons. heard from many astronauts let crew perform at its optimal Davis, has Despite the fact that NASA hopes to have uled to a estimated $100,000 per that they did not sleep as deeply and humans on a space station for periods level. It costs an space, were more easily aroused wh le dozing in three months or longer by the Nineties, hour to keep an individual in of can sleep working at only half of weightlessness. Astronauts agency "really hasn't planned and if someone is the space but they efficiency, that's $50,000 [bating freely in their spacecrait, adeguately for long-term space travel," his or her peak bumping into things. For this reason comments Harvard Medical School per hour wasted. risk with disrupted sleep they use a "sleep restraint system." a professor of physiology Dr. Martin Moore- . Crews can get by sleeping bag they attach to the wall- expert concerned about for a week. Ihc iyp c;il lorg-.n of a shuttle Ede,.another sleep Moore-Ede. "But on longer- There are questions about when to the problem. In a study of sleep and flight, says and what will happen to the circadian rhythm when a human is removed from the normal 24-hour cycle of day and night. Typically, spacecraft orbit the earth every 90 minutes; so astronauts, in a sense, experience 90-rninute days. Should their natural biological clocks be allowed to drift from Earth time? Some answers have been suggested by the Soviets' experience in space. The Russians are better versed in long- term spaceflight than we are: Their first space station, for example, was launched into orbit in April 1971. Soviet missions also last much longer than American missions, with the longest one to date running nearly eight months. On some of the Soviet missions, sleep has been a real problem. During a 211- day mission on the space station Salyut 7 in1982, the crew had particular difficulty sleeping during the early and middle stages of the f.ighl. "ill though* aboul home, trie flight, friends, work," said one cosmo- naut. "I should have slept at leas! a little another. space trips'' while but couldn't," complained Perchance to dream: How much sack time will Mure astronauts need on long CONTINULO ON PAGE 133 26 OMNI "HE TRUTH ABOUT PIRATE! EXPLDRATOnJS By Bill Lawren : J^^t first glance the Cape Cod "Most peoo e s rnage cr pirates is that Clifford, himself a talented historical #^^k warehouse, with ils bright lights, of semibarbarian cutthroats who killed researcher, had heard whal amounted to # » thrumming fans, and antisepti- and maimed and gave no quarter," says a storybook's worth of local tales about cally clean concrete floors, looks like Kinkor. "But our findings, along with the pirate ship Whydah. Like Kinkor, anything but a pirate's lair. But to Ken other research, may revise that image." he knew that the ship had been built and Kinkor, a soft-spoken, friendly man who Rather than a gang of bloodthirsty operated as a slaving vessel but had may be the world's only practicing thieves kept in line by a tyrannical and been jumped and captured near the "piralologist," the place is a treasure (rove equally bloodthirsty cap-.ain Kinkor thinks Bahamas in 1717 by the pirate captain worthy of the besl of Blackbeard. the crewmen of the Whydah were part "Black Sam" Bellamy. Three months later. Immersed in the neat rows of saltwater of an egalitarian and democratic society after robbing a small fortune's worth of tanks and covered with lumpy, 270-year- whose memoers took o/eai pains to avoid money and merchandise from a string of old crusts of rock, hardened mud, and shedding their victims' blood. merchant ships along the American dead barnacles lies a fascinating collection A thin, bearded Midweslerner who coast, Ihe Whydah ran into a sandbar off oi objects thai come straight from the likes to. wear his watch outside his the Cape Cod port of Wellfleet and sank armoire of the Whydab, the only shirtsleeve, Kinkor attributes his interest within sight of the shore. Bellamy and documented pirale ship ever to be in pirates to a great-aunt who read Treasure all bul seven of his crew were drowned. successfully salvaged. Island to him when he was five. From Knowing that the Whydah's holds For the past several years K;nkor and that poinl on, Kinkor was hooked. As a were full of loot, salvagers went looking his associates at Maritime Explorations, kid he read everything he could get his for it as soon as the storm had passed, bul Inc., a privately owned salvaging company hands on about pirates; and later, as without success. Others continued in Chatham, Massachusetts, have been a graduate student at Illinois State Univer- looking tor the next 200 years, but the analyzing the Whydah's contents, which sity, he specialized in pirale history. His fine sand on the Cape Cod bottom had include everything from cannons to unique interest and h:s impeccable swallowed the remains of the wreck rum bottles. As the researchers do so, a research eventually put him in contact so completely that all attempts tailed. richly detailed and in many ways surprising with his present boss, Maritime Explora- Then in the late 1970's Clifford—whose picture of life under the skull and cross- tions owner Barry Clifford, use of modern magnetic detectors called bones is emerging. As a boy growing up on Cape Cod, magnetometers had helped him salvage a number of other wrecks—decided to take a stab at finding the Whydah. A year of patient, ioot-by-foot searching through the bay waters turned up seven old shipwrecks bui no Whydah. Finally, in 1982, Clifford's shipboard magnetometer located yet another wreck. On the first day of excavation, ten feet under the sancv bottom. Clifford's divers hit Ihe jackpot: more than $1 million worth of gold coins from the holds. The coins, which were Clifford's to keep, kindled the interest of investors. Today his company is rich. But for Clifford, these coins are only a means to an end. "The real treasure here," he says, "is the archaeology." Clifford invited Kinkor to help analyze the ship's artifacts. Now a virtual fixture in Clifford's warehouse-laboratory, Kinkor cheerfully admits to being "like a kid in a toy shop." As he steers a visitor from tank to tank, he proudly shows off some of those 270-year-old "toys," including a pair of hand-carved brass seals that illiterate pirates used to "sign" documents, Scrutiny oi the bonr.iy and a jarful of carefully cleaned lead 30 OMNI LIFE SEARCH 'By Eleanor Smith sediment at the bottom. Geolo- Sometime in the Nineties a robot activity putting out gases and possibly "there is spacecraft will ease into orbit creating a warm atmosphere." gists say the sediment was put down a few hundred miles above In fact, early Mars resembled early by lakes, because of how smooth and flat Mars. On a proarrarg.ee command a hatch Earth, McKay and colleagues contend. it appears. If anything were alive on billion years ago, some will open and a small fleel of projectiles, (And they mean early— about 3.8 billion to Mars three or four each about the size of a large garbage 3 billion years ago.) During that period, of it would have been in that water. It sellloci to this ccttom and been can, will shool out and tumble down Earth was blanketed by a thick hydrogen, would have toward the planet's surface. As each nitrogen, and carbon dioxide atmosphere buried in the sediment." .everyone thinks that looking for projectile crash-lands, it will break in two. and was covered by a liquid known as Not- primordial life Mars is The front half will fall away and send a the primordial soup. Out of this soup evidence of on a Murray, probe deep into the Martian permafrost. sprang bacieria and other single-celled promising endeavor. Dr. Bruce a Over the ensuing months each of Ihese organisms. Around the same time, they California Institute of Technology geolo- expert, thinks that the robots, called penetrators, will Iransmit believe, it may have had its own warm, gist and noted Mars organic on data to Earth. From the data, scientists thick carbon doxioe alrr-osphere, and odds of finding compounds are slim. "Impacts from meteoriles hope, will come an answer lo the rivers and lakes. Mars of the question. Did ancient life exist on Mats? "We know there was life on Earth then, would have churned up most planet's surface," he says, exposing any Assuming all goes as planned, several because we ve "ound "ossils of micro- the sun's destructive penetrators will crash on the surface of scopic life from 3.5 billion years ago," biological" material lo the oxidizing peroxides on Mars before the end of the century. And if McKay .says. "Because life was already UV rays and Christopher McKay, Rocco Mancinelli, evolving on Earth, it's logical to ask, What the surface. "It's unlikely thai by drilling and Robert Wharton have their way, happened on Mars during this period?" down a few meters, one would lind any of life." the penetrators will give us information on in future missions, NASAs exobiologists chemical evidence In the exobiology (non-Earth life) of Mars. want to search for organic compounds That's not to say we shouldn't try. Network and later McKay and Mancinelli both work at NASAs in, and bring back samples from, Valles anticipation of the Mars Wharton, and Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Marineris, a 3,000-mile-long network missions to Mars, McKay, California— McKay as a planetary scien- of canyons near Mars' equator. Mancinelli have been busy designing instruments to find tist and Mancinelli as a microbial biolo- "In certain canyons," McKay explains, experiments and other "signatures" of ancient gist. Wharton is a iormer NASA biologist fossils and example, now at the University of Nevada. life on Mars. For McKay and Antarctica What they hope to discover is the Wharton pay frequent visits to partially lakes. presence of chemical precursors of life to explore frozen By on Mars. That would add weight to their studying the sediments at the bottom of Antarctic lakes Earth's closest theory that microscopic life could have the — evolved' on Mars a long, long time ago. counterparts :o Martian pr.; eolakes—they The penetrators are the key components can.develop ways of looking for traces of a proposed Mars Network Mission, of life in similar sediments on Mars. so called because NASA envisions the By going to Mars, McKay argues, we collection ol machines as constituting a may also lind clues to the origin of life network of unmanned monitoring stations. on Earth. Scientists understand the proc- Scheduled to visit Mars sometime in the ess by which simple chemical molecules late Nineties, the Mars Network Mission will became the prebiological soup. Anrj to be the first U.S. spacecraft to touch down evolution from single-celled organisms on the planet since Project Viking in T976. multicellular organisms and on up to Viking's 2,000 photographs of the red humans is also understood. But, McKay planet revealed tall volcanic peaks and explains, "we still don't know how you channels apparently carved by water. This go from the soup to life. It's thai Utile step suggests to McKay and his colleagues in the middle, which occurred 3.8 billion that primitive life forms, could have evolved years ago, that we don't know." sometime in the past. "The channels On Mars, two thirds of the planet's say that there wasorce liquid water on, surface has remained unchanged in 3.8 the surface of Mars," explains McKay, a tall, billion years. So if life ever evolved on bearded, and intense astrophysicist Mars, its remnants are probably still "The volcanoes say that :here was volcanic V/U'd' ol'!. .'V'ni'S Here buried somewhere uenc-ath its crust. DO 32 OMNI coruTifuuunn PHYSICS, HOLLYWOOD STYLE n ihe movie Star Wars a fighter from the fleel of the evil Darth and hard is hard. And those penetrating X-ray eyes? "If Super- Vader comes zooming at tremendous speed directly toward man's eyes are actually beaming X rays out," Weyland wants to the creaking, ouimanned craft of Han Solo and Luke Sky- know, "then how can the results possibly get back to his brain?" walker. But somehow, jusl when all seems lost, Han manages All this analysis began when Weyland was still in college. He which to hit the onrushing enemy with a last-second salvo of deadly was watching an otherwise forgettable war flick in a sub- missiles. Like a target in a video game, the black starfighter ex- marine cruising in Arctic waters is suddenly crippled by huge Infuri- plodes, then falls harmlessly away. ice chunks that had supposedly broken off an iceberg. "Cut," yells physicist Jack Weyland. ated, Weyland leapt to his feel in the crowded theater and started "Violates the laws of conservation of momentum," he says with yelling. "Ice floats! Ice floats!" The gambit got such a big laugh, a sniff. "Vader's ship already has considerable momentum as it's .Weyland says, that it "gave me a feeling of power." Thus Weyland wenl on to make systematic studies coming.at Han and Luke, and I doubt that the momentum of their empowered, it," "when missile would be great enough to just cancel it out. So the enemy of scores of SF and adventure films. "My kids love he says, rent movies spend the ship might blowup, but the pieces would keep right on coming." I tell Ihem we're going to a dozen and He's lecture, complete In other words, if Star Wars director George Lucas had gotten whole day watching them," worked up a his physics right; Han and Luke would have heen destroyed by with video clips, that he's used to galvanize audiences ranging the shrapnel of their own success. from the august graybeards of the American Physical Society to Hollywood has had a tough time getting anything past Jack an auditorium full of reform-school juvenile delinquents. Weyiand. In fact, the physicist, who teaches at South Dakota Very few films have escaped the heat of Weyland's blasts He School of Mines and Technology, has become something of a recalls a James Bond movie, for example, in which one of the self-appointed scientific censor, using the rules and rulers of characters is killed by falling into an open vat of liquid helium. physics to give science-fiction directors like Lucas a series of "Real liquid helium," he reminds us, "is stored at four degrees swift raps on the knuckles. Weyland's concern is that movieland's above absolute zero, and it's very expensive. If you had a vat of often blithe disregard for immutable natural laws can "lead the it, you certainly wouldn't leave it open to the atmosphere, be- unwary into false concepts about physics." cause it would evaporate in nothing flat." If you listen to Weyland, there's plenty to worry about. You may Despite his disparaging comments, Weyland does have some remember, for example, the awesome sounds of Star Wars bat- noticeable soft spots. Star Trek, for example, escapes relatively tles; the whizzing starfighters. the roaring rockets, the exuberant unscathed. "I don't get mad at them," he says, "and I don't know explosions. Well, sorry, says Jack. Space, being a near vacuum, why. But somehow their stunts just roll over me." (He's not happy, has no medium by which to conduct sound, so all those battles though, about all those people being beamed up. "Every time should have been fought in spectacular silence. There's a similar you did that," he says, "you'd be creating more energy than an problem for the gleaming laser swords that were wielded so bril- H-bomb explosion.") He found —the busted-vaive premise of The liantly by Vader and his good-guy enemy Obi-Wan Kenobi. Un- China Syndrome quile realistic "The Russians at Chernobyl," less there's a lot of dust or fog in the air to scatter their light, he says, "would certainly agree that that could happen"—and Weyland warns, laser beams simply can't be seen from the side. he has high praise for 2001s "enchanting beauty." Then there's the scene in Superman I when Lois Lane falls off In the end, in fact, Weyland remains a confirmed fan of the SF the roof of a Metropolis skyscraper, only to be rescued by our flicks, "i love George Lucas's movies," he says. "I've seen some Kent-ish hero, who catches her about ten floors down Bu! of them ten times." (Lucas, by the way, refuses to comment on nooooooo, says Weyland Having already fallen that far, being Weyland's critiques. ) 'And really," he concludes, "I don't want any life. if caught by the' Man of Steel would have squashed Lois just as of them to be more true to I Ihink that they were, they'd be flat as-if she'd actually hit the sidewalk. Gravity is gravity, after all, awfully dull." —BILL LAWREN " . " CDruTiruuunn "voieeprint" of the sound of a garden rake being dragged across a piece of slate— Ever wonder why aimosl that Blake calls : a sound everyone shivers al the sound "acoustically indistinguish- o( a fingernail being scraped able" from blackboard ^I1h * - across a blackboard? A . screech, \ learn oi researchers ai North- When they compared that *''-?:-.' western Universily in Evans- voieeprint with a spectro- ^Kit i ^F*- V Ion, Illinois, has recently gram of warning cries issued 3» ~-^»' completed a -sophisticated by macaque monkeys, ihe acoustic analysis oi the sound two sounds bore a very &-\i ' - si and has come up with a close resemblance, the re- IE surprising. question: Could searchers report. "Our find- j^v .^^Ei^Z blackboard screech be ings," Blake says, "suggest -•v.. x^-li an evolutionary artifact older our behavior is an instinct we than man himself? inherited from our primate 4 :"' ,mMM "More than ninety percent ancestors. The human brain a ^mMmm Ir of people.-" says psychologist obviously still registers a r % ' ,^^m|HH| Randolph Slake, "react to strong vestigial response to giry3 the sound oi fingernaiis-pn a this- chilling sound." f jJ blackboard by cringing — Bill Lawren and feeling uncomfortable. igay///lls The automatic, almost vis- ceral' reaction to this sound E^FviflE made us wonder whether il You'd like him to ask you out and you've been sending all the right signals, but he I jTfe! -IwBI remains either hopelessly I oblivious 10 you or painfully shot Id 3 woman make the fast move? Most men, research indicates, shy. What to do? will say yes, especially il Ifie worn n is smart. "Go ahead and ask." advises psychologist Char- One stereotype remains. more than she really does," lene Muehlenhard of Texas however The woman who Muehlenhard says. ASM University. "Men will asked was seen as more But women still find asking overwhelmingly say yes if sexually active. "But this effect difficult. Only about 3 percent they're attracted is countered when she is of college women in the Muehlenhard and her co- also seen as intelligent." survey would ask men for researcher Teresa Scardino In fact, women need never dates, "even though ninety- played videotapes of conver- hide their intelligence. "The five percent of men say yes if sations between a young intelligent woman was rated they like her, and men seem ." nfor3 ) col- as more likable, kind, and to like women who do lege males Half the time considerate." She was clearly —Vincent Bozzi sne asked him to go toa the woman the men pre- movie; half the time she didn'f. ferred, despite claims that "God made everything out of Her intelligence was also intelligent women deflate a nothing, but the nothingness varied. "The woman who man's ego. shows through. asked for a date," says "By behaving intelligently. - —Paul Valery Muehlenhard. "was rated as a woman seems able to kinder, warmer, and less reap the advantages of being "Growth for the sake o! selfish than the woman who able to ask a man lor a date growth is the ideology of the Macaque monkey: A cry like a .did not ask for a date. Men without the disadvantages of cancer cell." garden rake across slate. were very receptive." his thinking she wants sex —Edward Abbey 36 OMNI DEATH BY INSOMNIA li was the most gruesome chronicle ot insomnia ever to. appear in a medical jour- nal—or anywhere else, tor l;^i"'s:j;,;i that matter. H was the story ot her disea js.can be a middle-aged industrial ;i-ted inrr. nh iransfu- manager who suddenly be- method recovers a t picked gan to iose sleep, whose own bipod during s ever-worsening insomnia re- and when pos toper sponded to no known treat- bleeding occurs, ar ment, and who died within a year in a state of total ex- haustion. By the third month of his illness, the patient could sleep for only one hour a night, and even this paltry amount of sleep was diS: tur bed by vivid dreams that dence, Gambetti and the made him rise from his Other doctors believe they bed and give a military salute. have identified a fatal famili His other symptoms included isom by ft^ impotence, severe fatigue, era-ion oi the thalamus. The amnesia, arid finally a lung next step of their research infection that could not is to establish the identity of be controlled by antibiotics the diseaseand to name The patient lived and it— as well as the gene re- died in Italy, where he was sponsible for its transmission. treated by sleep experts Commenting on the case, at the University of Bologna. Manfred L Karnovsky of But his brain was autopsied Harvard Medical School said by neuropathologist Pierluigi thai this heritable condition- Gambetti of Case Western might likely contribute to Reserve University in Cleve- a better understanding of land. "I found a lesion. in normal sleep. The thalamus's the thalamus," Dr. Gambetti long-disputed role.jn sleep. says. Indeed, as he and mple. 5 his colleagues reported, in ,,,-.;ne .;.: The New England Journal oi Medicine. 85 to 95 percent of the- neurons in two parts of this region of the brain had been destroyed. The doctors learned of lour sophr relatives who were similarly have made the nation's affected by insomnia. One blood supplies safer than was a sister whose autopsied ever, many surgery patients brain-showed she had ap- still worry about contracting parently died of the same AIDS and other infections strange malady. On the weight of the evi- — " ranjTiruuunn magnesium, iron, nickel, BIRTH PATROL conceiving. These "surveys" and other elements that are are much more than gentle the fingerprints of. a meteorite. A warning to free-choice prods. Childless couples Most of the remaining craters advocates on vacation in who cannot produce.a medi- showed /aces of—titanium, Romania; Don't raise your cal excuse tor their childless- zinc, and- silicon "typical in- voices in favor of abortion. In ness can be subjected to gredients," says Brownlee. the first piace, the Romani- severe tax penalties "ot the -type ot thermal control ans have already heard How does Ceausescu paint used on spacecraft." it and have listened so well, justify this? "The fetus," he Apparently, ultraviolet radia- in fact, that the country's says, "is the socialist property tion andthe earth's oxygen abortion rate— approximately of the entire society Giving plasma erode these' paints; . three abortions for every birth is a patriotic duty that is and when they peel, they live birth—is the highest in decisive for the fate of the pour; eventually forming an Europe. In the second place, country. Those who retuseto intermittent shower that chips Romanian strongman Nico- have children are deserters away at other satellites. las Ceausescu has decided tleeing from the laws of our Is the "paint shower" dan- to do something about it. national continuity gerous? "Not in this size and when Ceausescu talks, — Bill Lawren range," says Brownlee, al- his country listens. though he notes that even tiny Not content with mandatory "The scientist has no corner PAINT SHOWERS pain' particles could damage monthly medical exams for on wisdom or morafity" IN ORBIT :>. delicate optical instrument married women— those —David Krech like, an orbiting telescope. He found pregnant who do not Pity the poor satellite: also recalls an early shuttle deliver a child within nine WALLPAPER IN SPACE condemned to whirl about the (light in which the windshield months can be imprisoned earth in monotonous perpe- of the spacecraft was pitted Ceausescu has inaugurated We already know that the tuity: all bul naked to the by a piece of flying paint. "birth squads," teams oi space. station will draw on the onslaughts of sun, solar wind. 'There was no hazard. " says Communist Party functionar- latest in high-tech advances: and stray radiation, easy Brownlee. "but NASA did ies and police agents who superfast computers, orbital prey tor zipping meteorites. feel it was prudent to replace visit married women at home maneuvering vehicles, re- Now comes a pair of astrono- the windshield."— Bill Lawren to ask why ihey aren't busy mote manipulator arms. But mers from the University ot what about the simple, Washington to add a final everyday technology needed insuft to-this litany ct injuries, to run the station? Who's Seems that in at least one going to throw out the trash? satellite the most common So far, there's no definite form of wound was caused design tor a garbage, dis- not by any of the above posal system. "We know trash but by chips- pi dying pain! is a big problem in space, that peeled off other sate'! tes but we don't know exactly M. R.- Lawrence and D. E. what form [irash disposal) will Brown lee looked at tour take." says Frances Mount aluminum panels recovered of NASA. "In the U.S. space from the Solar Maximum program we don't throw Mission satellite. In its four trash out. The. Russians jetti- years in orbit, they found. son their trash." So/ar Max had been pinged And garbage disposal is by space debris at least only one basic issue that 331 times But when ihey could affect the happiness looked closely .at the micro- and productivity of crews in scopic craters -left by these the space station. In fact, collisions, they found that in a study conducted for only 20 of them contained the NASA by Lockheed, more 38 OMNI ' than 100 such problems were idenlified. "These aren't life-and-death issues," says Mount, the technical monitor's representative forthe study. "If they're not resolved, it doesn't mean we won't be sending people toa space station." On the other hand, if the issues aren't solved, life in the space station may not be so pleasant. For instance, one of the issues raised in the study is noise. The shuttle is very noisy, but shuttle flights-are short-term. So how much noise will be acceptable to the space station's residents, who will be in orbit for 90 days a! a shot? The question has yet to be answered. Even the decor of the space station presents prob- lems. What color should the walls be? What kind of lighting is necessary? How much, if at all, should space- station residents be able to change the decor or person- NASA scientists fwe 'ilieady Viorrieci about cor/ip-uters ana 'r.-pnipufator inrns m their space si alize their living quarters 7 But what about the really important things, such as decor, color scheme, and wallpapei Mount, for one, would like to see a type of adhesive- DRUNKEN PEANUTS grees Fahrenheit," says backed wallpaper: Crew Harold E. Patiee, a researcher members could then put up A Department of Agricul- a! the government's agricul- whatever color or design ture chemist has devised tural research station at - they wanted in their personal a sort of sobriety test for North Carolina State Univer- quarters When their tour peanuts, a huge cash crop in sity in Raleigh. of duty was over, they'd sim- states like Georgia,"-Alabama, Before Pattee used a ply peel off the wallpaper. and North Carolina that can diode sensor thai works No one expects lo have the be ruined by an alcohol like a smoke detector to snitf answers to these questions content that rises when the out alcohol vapors, manufac- anytime soon— but the nuts are dried or cured under turers had to rely on taste Lockheed study at least extremely hot or unseason- tests. Now four food-process- serves as a guide for the ably low temperatures. The ing companies are in the companies that will design process, called anaerobic midst ol a series of tests of the space station, says respiration, gives the peanuts the Pattee detector. Mount. And later this year a bitter taste. Patiee hopes eventually to another NASA study will set "For some reason, their have his invention, which definite noise, light, and other cell structure changes and sells for $725, installed in all standards for the entire they begin to 'erment at 2,000 peanut-buying stations manned space program. temperatures above ninety- in the country. —Devera Pine five or below thirty-iwo de- —George Nobbe CDruTiaiuunn Vicki Hufnagel, a surgeon whose strong views have not exactly endeared her to the largely male medical fraternity in Los Angeles. There are alternatives, she insists, adding that only in the case ol cancer is removal of the uterus really manda- tory. She calls the 90-year-old procedure—Ihe most com- mon one performed on women in the Western world — obsolete, adding, "Its easier ior a surgeon to chop something out than to take the time, patience, and creativity to rebuild and reconstruct the uterus." And that is precisely what she does, using microsur- gery techniques, ultrasound, lasers, and sophisticated plastic surgery at Beverly Hills Medical Center, where she has performed more than 100 such operations. They have been "very successful," i she adds, "with few of the major complications that often The next scary threat in space may not be a voracious alien but an airborne bacterium. Microorganisms | bacteria iaster in space. accompany hysterectomies, tike bttc fe =. "id some grow NEW MENACE Spacelab mission by Horst- to help manufacture various IN ZERO G Dieter Menningmann, substances in space. professor of microbiology al Menningmann isn't sure The astronauts in the the University of Frankfurt exactly why bacteria have orbiting space station are in Germany, showed that such a quirky response altacked by a mysterious al- some bacteria can grow to weightlessness, but he ien — airborne, invisible, faster in space than'lhey do speculates that it may be due deadly. No weapon known to back on Earth. Considering to the effect ot radiation in ' man is powerful enough to that the human immune space. Future experiments on stop the silent invaders; ihey system may not work as well the shuttle will tell for sure. colonize the entire station. in space and that some -De vera Pine wiping out its inhabitants in bacteria become more resis- the process. tant to antibiotics, you could HYSTERECTOMY This farfetched story could have the makings of a real SCANDAL conceivably happen: Just problem. substitute the word bacteria There is, however, another Up to 80 percent of the tor mysterious alien. side to this picture, says more than 650,000 hysterec- Microorganisms like bacte- Menningmann: Fast-growing tomies performed yearly ria, it seems, take well to space bacteria could also are unnecessary and amount weightlessness: An' experi- be used to recycle the air and to little more than female ment carried out on the water of a space station, or castration, according to Dr. 40 OMNI ; " such as early menopause, Plus, the lunar soil bonded BEEFING UP LAMB early osteoporosis, increased well to the other ingredients. cardiovascular disease, Because it's also theoreti- An experimental new and loss of sexual function." cally possible to produce ingredient for animal feed She calls her technique water from lunar soil, Lin holds promise of changing female reconstructive surgery; foresees the day when con- the way lambs and beef and 1 hough her patients crete will be made on the cattle grow—making their come from as far away as moon. His next step: looking meat more plentiful and Australia, she admits that hers at producing water and much lowerinfat. is an uphill battle because j cement (a fine powder that, The dietary supplement, "the medical profession, on Earth, is made from silica called cimaterol, could both male and lemate, has and limestone) from lunar dramatically increase the been taught for years that soil—Devera Pine efficiency of meat production hysterectomies are a solution and satisfy the cravings of to everything from fibroid "Space isn't remote at all. It's health- conscious Americans tumors to cramps, especially only an hour's drive away il for low-fal foods. in women over thirty- five." your car could go straight In experiments at Cornell —George Nobbe upwards. University, a dash of cimaterol — Sir Fred Hoyle (about 1 ounce for every LUNAR CONCRETE 100.000 ounces of standard "The closest a person ever feed) in the diet of lambs scientist Donald H. Beer- Will the streets of America comes to perfection is when reduced the amount of fat in mann. who conducted the one day be paved with they fill out a job application their bodies by 30 to 66 experiments. "Genetic selec- made-on-the-moon concrete? form." percent and increased the tion didn't move us this far It's possible, now that an —Stanley J Randall amount of muscle by 20 toward improving efficiency Illinois researcher has made to 30 percent. What's more, and composition." concrete out of 40 grams "No race can prosper until it the animals remained healthy Indeed, Beermann ex- of lunar soil. teams that there is as much and did not grow any larger plains, genetic selection, T. D. Lin, the principal dignity in tilling the field than normal. which involves the breeding research engineer for Con- as in writing a poem." "We've set a new bench of animals for certain desired struction Technology Labora- —Booker T. Washington mark," says Cornell animal characteristics, sometimes tories, Inc., formerly a divi- backfires. For example, sion of the Portland Cement attempts in the late Sixties Association, used the moon and early Seventies to breed soil to make a one-inch hogs with less fat and more concrete cube and three muscle yielded svelte but minislabs, each the size of a overexcilable pigs with stick of chewing gum. The "porcine stress syndrome." soil served as aggregate in Strange environments upsel the concrete. (Concrete is these animals so much that a mixture of cement, water, a number of them actually and aggregate— usually died of aggravation en route gravel.) to the slaughterhouse. Results? The samples Cimaterol, however, seems held up well in strength to have only a temporary tests— in fact, they proved to effect on the animals' heart be comparable to high- rates and related functions. It quality concrete made on was derived from a group Earth. That may be due of substances related to to the fact that unlike some adrenaline, and developed earthbound aggregate, as a dietary supplement the lunar aggregate con- by American Cyanamid tained no organic material. Company.—Dava Sobel " coruTinjuunn CHOCOLATE ROBOT came up heads three out of four times, or that if a coin heads four times in A chocolate- decorating came up a row, the next time it would robot has recently been probably come up tails. developed by a British com- To see how the believers pany for a West German machine manufacturer. The and skeptics would really do in a coin toss, the research- two firms have spent several computer to years developing a machine- ers rigged a show a flipping coin that vision system to guide a would randomly stop on piping nozzle that can deco- heads or tails when the sub- rate as many as 60 pieces jects pushed a button, They of chocolate per minute were told when to try for as they slide down a con- heads or tails. - veyer belt on their way to their boxed packages. The believers were con- they were "controlling" The one-armed robotic vinced asked system was developed the computer. When how many of the 20 tosses tor Otto Haensel Machine they would have gotten Company, Inc., by A. J. alone, the average Cronshaw, among others, at by chance response was 7.9, rather PA Technology in Cambridge, than 10, the correct answer, England. The robot is capa- which the nonbelievers ble of recognizing and dis- carding misshapen choco- 'usually offered. "If people they would be getting lates stuck together, as think eight right by chance, and well as oversize or undersize they see themselves getting pieces, all the bane of the think packager. ten right, they might they're doing something The system, according to Of 20 coin tosses, how many should you be able to predict by clever," Troscianko says. Cronshaw, consists of a chance alone? Psychic believers, oddly enough, said 7.9. For these poor mathemati- TV monitor hooked into a cians, says the psychologist, microcomputer that is pro- ten machines. It all depends PSYCHOKINESIS: JUST belief in the paranormal is grammed to the needs of on production needs. Many BAD MATH? "continuously reinforced, even hazelnut slices; rum marzi- mass manufacturers use it basis in pan; mandarin truffles; lumpy, enrobers and shell-molded People who believe in the when has no fact." Vincent Bozzi nut- or fruit-filled pieces; pieces that would not lend paranormal are probably — and even continental cups. themselves to robotics. not nuts, just a little rusty in person should be denied "It's highly cost-effee five and Says Sam Bruce, Haensel's the math department. "Wo rights of the laborsaving in a labor-inten- man in Toronto: "We are After finding that most equal because sive industry," says the talking to money people in people believe in parapsy- shape of her skin." Paulsen Englishman. the United States. ... In chology, psychologists Tom —Pat Black- "It would be nice to have many cases they don't need Troscianko and Susan "Drop the question what but difficult to justify," a robot; they need a me- more of the University of counters one American chanical system." So far, the Bristol set out to discover why. tomorrow may bring, and that manufacturer, referring to a chocolate robot is now They began by asking 100 count as profit every day allows you." price tag for the robot that is widely used only in Europe. medical students questions Fate —Horace so far a closely guarded —George Nob.be about probability. secret in a closemouthed "The believers performed industry Some 5150,000 per "The art of medicine consists fairly badly," Troscianko "The joy of living, its beauty. likely is all bound up in the fact arm is a sound estimate, in a'musing the patient while says. They were more with any producer worth his nature cures the disease." to believe, for example, that a that life can surprise you. —Frank Herbert nougat filling needing some —Voltaire coin would be biased if it 43 OMNI ANIGHT ATTHE MOVIES You're invited to a private screening of Hollywood's greatest minds. Come as you are BY MARION LONG Brooks, Richard Atten- titles, plots, stars, and comments. movie you're about to see or to Melborough, Michael Doug- So race ahead to the next cen- sip a metabolically balanced las, Susan Seidelman, tury, say the year 2001. It's a cool beverage in a high-tech cafe. David Lynch, John Sayles, evening in early June, and you're Maybe you'll stop at a refresh- John Schlesinger. They're all ac- going to the Metropolis Deco-Plex ment stand and sample the rich complished iilm directors of this for a night of entertainment. Be- variety of snacks, including 25 century. You know that already. cause you'll be able to choose flavors of popcorn, Mars bars (di- You are, however, probably won- many movies at one complex, ro- rect from the red planet), and dering why they're featured in bots, prepared to describe each vegetable shish kebabs. Omni. What you're about to read movie and give a sense of the plot, A robot announces that the fea- is the result of a unique project. the time period, the cast, and the ture presentations, showcasing Contributing editor Marion Long crew, will welcome you. Features seven directors from the latter half tracked down these giants of film will be presented on hemispheric of the twentieth century, are about in editing rooms, on sets, and in screens in Dolby Showscan, and to begin. Get your popcorn, set- postproduction facilities around most theaters will be equipped tle back, and join us on this voy- the globe and asked them to' pro- with Sensavision. As you wait for age into the future of film. (If you're vide us with treatments of films the movie of your choice, you'll unhappy with the film's ending they would like to do in the future. browse through the shops, per- and wish to redirect it, interactive Everything that you read is theirs: haps to pick up a script of the video versions are available.) PHOTOGRAPH BY ELLE SCHUSTER I what real and which isn't. Lynch contrasts this although really like people— I like THEATER ONE slice-of-life drama with surreal images they think about and what they worry film A David Lynch Film: Ronnie Rocket and bizarre mutations. Cinemaiographer about— I wouldn't mind making a Starring: Harry Dean Stanton, Brad Francis' smoke-filled frames heighten the about sheep. I'd have to meet a lot more Dourif, John Nance, Dean Stockwell, Is- sense of the natural world. of them, though. I'm right now, I want to abella Rossellini Lynch Dreams. I love things that are What drawing Music: Angelo Badalamenti absurd. They are very real to me. This is include in this film. I'm interested in things Cinemaiographer; Freddie Francis (The a world of confusion and imbalance, and that are almost like smoke— ethereal, If there transparent. (These effects are hard to Elephant Man, Dune, The French Lieu- I don't think it's going to change. in paint, which is kind of opaque: but tenant's Woman) is one artist that I feel could be my brother, get crayons or pastels, the effect Sound engineer: Allen Splet (The Black it's Franz Kafka. I'd love to put his story with conie perfectly.) I to I just want Stallion, Eraserhead) "The Metamorphosis" on screen. His sto- want happens create atmosphere that acts Genre: Absurdist comedy ries involve surreal events, and I love the a mood—an that you feel some- Time: That's for you to judge. combination of the real and surreal. like a magnet—so float into the drama. Sample dialogue: "Life is a doughnut." When making a film, you have to be thing and you special effects in Setting: Hoboken, New Jersey, a small true to your ideas, because they are big- Omni: How will you use industrial [own retaining much of its ger than you are. Once you get inside an this film? twentieth-century flavor. The atmos- idea, once you step into that world, you Lynch: I learned irom working on Dune follow that is done in front of the camera phere is very dark. The film was shot discover its rules. You had better what is more successful optically than mostly at night. them, or the audience will know you're not much what later. In Eraserhead, for in- Synopsis: In this film-noir comedy about being honest. And following those rules happens all the effects were done electricity, [he main character, Ronnie may mean producing strange images or stance, almost Rocket, has 60-cycle alternating current disturbing ideas. But you must go inside in front of the camera. What you see is things out of the running Ihrough his body. Ronnie's about that world and work inside that dream. what you get. By lifting natural environment, I portray them in a three and a half feet tall, with lots of phys- It's a magical phenomenon. You don't intensified kind of state, ical problems, though nobody's quite sure know what's going to happen. You may very imaginative, greenery, blood-red roses, and of their cause. He wears a red wig in a even find a source for your next five films. like the white picket, tence in Blue Velvet. Every- pompadour style and has acne. His age: There are lines I feel I would like to cross heightened, but somewhere between sixteen and sixty. over sometime in the next century, even thing seems hectic and For it's all organic, and that's the way I want The film is set in two dark industrial it only fo see what would happen, me, to keep doing things. worlds; it's up to you to decide which is such a line would be wacko comedy. And production number feat ires Kubrick's :n a slartlino/depar Field oa: Ha: doing a icnditic of "Daisy, . m. Sally decl Daisy.' as the Rocke'tte b sf -actress award ir synchronized space sv mming. The donTfikeyouanyni niahiighiO' the- week wi in a stunning finale cryoqemc revival o- Ws Disney. He w nner dead or alive' receive lor the second i me, the- Irving d sing 'There's No G. Thawlberg Award fo lifetime S ow Business," ted- achievement F lei Merman, Severa< new caiegon 3S'witi be This years nomine announced Ihis year, in fueling best ihde.RonnreRock — await the next report. Thousands upon that happened very, very rapidly. Jimmy Stewart. Monroe falls in love with Omni: Why is music so important to you? cated a manner as possible, conveying THEATER TWO thousands of people On the other hand, the videocassette you'll have to see the film. of thousands upon Lynch: I got into film through painting, and technically and dramatically Ihe kind stood around in Times Square watching offers new possibilities. If costs are kept Seidelman Says. What interests me as as a painter I'd make up sounds in my A John Sayles Film: Eight Men Out skill and ability it takes to play baseball the game, looking up at the board down, movies could become like the a possibility for the future is to take the head io create a mood tor a painting. Music: Electronically re-created blues the way these guys played. To get the Omni: Tell us about your future. publishing industry of ten years ago, not various film genres and see them through Sound is superimportant—much more and jazz performances by King Oliver audience inside the heads of the play- Sayles: What interests me about the fu- the monopolistic publishing industry of a female perspective. There are lots of powerful than most people realize. II is and Louis Armstrong. ers —to get deeply into their psychology ture is not the future itself or the technol- today. That is, you'll be able to make a genres, and I like the idea of taking for- the magic ingredient—the bending and Cinematographer: Garrett Brown (in- but still have an entertaining movie— is ogy of the future but whal people are movie that is the equivalent of a kind-of- mulas and turning ihem around a bii. produce textures ventor of the Steadicam and Skycam) very difficult to accomplish. I, just have to- shaping of the sound to genre going to do in the future. I'm interested difficult first novel, gel i.t "published" in a Desperately Seeking Susan was a that alternately complement and contrast Genre: Sports drama gel better at what I'm doing. in whal is going to happen next. In the limited edilion at selected video stores, film, a screwball comedy using a corny with the tone and texture of the rest of the Time: 1919 I hope recent advances in technology last fifty to one hundred years, especially and make enough money to finance an- device of amnesia. But the movie wasn't film. For example, the wind \n Eraserhead Settings: Chicago and Cincinnati help in filming this story. As film stock in this country, traditional culture has been other half-million-dollar movie. about amnesia or stolen goods: it was a gave the film a science-fiction feeling, and Synapsis: \n 1919 eight members of Ihe gets faster, night scenes should be psy- dying out— in some places slowly, in other story about contrasting life-styles. the roar of the machinery in Elephant Man Chicago While Sox were charged with chologically more like the way we per- THEATER THREE places fairly quickly. What will people do In a way, I guess I'm a sociologist. I'm worked against the reserved feeling of accepting payoffs from gamblers and ceive darkness and less like the old day to replace that traditional culture? A Susan Seidelman Film: Yankee Doo- interested in patterns of behavior and dif- the rest of the film. deliberately throwing Ihe World Series to for night—an accepted cliche. There's a There aren't any particular modes of dle Sweetheart ferent modes of existence. I'm fascinated ihe Cincinnati Reds. Sayles focuses on couple of process shots I'd love to get in 1 think the new equipment sounds too Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Robert De by modern life: how we talk, think, and existence I feel more impelled to exam- electronic, too clean and plastic. It turns the "Black Sox" scandal and Ihe eight this film. If this is the future and anything it different elements ine than others. I'm interested in both in- Niro, Debra Winger, Jimmy Stewart live. And I love when . it- I'd me off. But I haven't had a chance to fid- players involved, moving from the fix goes, love to re-create what hap- siders and outsiders, in different cultures Genre: War movie come together and clash—when worlds dle with the latest machines. I'm not say- self through the Series, trial, and after- pened in Times Square. As you know, they and subcultures and in their interaction. Time: Late twentieth century collide. Modern life is increasingly fas- movie didn't have TV in 1919. They didn't even ing I won't use technology in the future. math. Using the most sophisticated In some ways the future looks difficult. Setting: War-torn Central America cinating to me because the times change The speed is fantastic, and if it can sound cameras and shooting techniques avail- have direct hookup radio. A kind of crys- Being on the Iringe of the industry is like Synopsis: Seidelman electronically re- at such a rapid rate. It's weird because organic, I'd love to mix the old and the able. Sayles takes the classic sports lilm tal set transmitted the sound of the per- living in a very small hut during an earth- creates Marilyn Monroe, The sex god- in the past, change seemed to take so new together. In the future, Films will have to new heights. For the first lime in movie son in your vicinity who was announcing quake. When there's any kind of rumble, dess of the Fifties plays a showgirl oil to long. If you look at the Middle Ages ii to achieve an artistic shape that remains history, the audience gels a sense of whal the game. The announcer simply watched your hut gets shaken up the most. The the front lines of a war on a Bob Hope seems that three hundred years are satisfying time and again, The question It's like to play each position —to feel the a ticker tape and re-created the game two most important factors thai will de- USO tour. In sharp contrast to Monroe's whomped together at a time. But today won't be who is in the film or what the plot blinding speed of a fastball and ihe Ihump for the radio audience. At the top of the termine whelher alternative, non-Holly- innocence and naivete slands Debra the Seventies already are seen nostalgi- it's Old York Times Tower in Times is, but the way it looks, the way it sounds. of the ball as caught at home plate. New years wood movies get made are distribution Winger, a military nurse acutely aware of cally. I see people who are just ten Film tell story, but it can also turn But, more dramatically. Sayles projects Square was a huge mock-up board of ihe can a life experi- horrors of war. Bui ihis is Monroe's younger than I am whose and exhibition. I hope that independent Ihe itself into a symphony of visuals and the audience into the minds of the main World Series game — a baseball dia- theater owners can hold out. There used story— her coming-of-awareness. Rob- ences and the way they view the world sounds working together to create a characiers (Lefty Williams, Eddie Ci- mond wilh bases. Men on scaffolds with from I it. to be more lhan one hundred rep houses ert De Niro, a Marine sergeant deadened are totally different the way view powerful experience and put you in a new cotte. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Chick long poles would hear Ihe ticker-tape re- around ihe country. Because ihe movies to human emotion, wants one thing: the Omni: How will this film differ from other place. Once that happens, the audience Gandil, and Buck Weaver). port of, say. somebody reaching first are available videocas- showgirl. So does his friend, a young re- war movies? the card- they showed on I they move really will want the experience. If I knew Sayles on Sayles. want to re-create base, and would setles, only a handful are left— a change cruit, played by a computer-simulated Seidelman: There will be more detail. In first how to do it now, I'd be doing it. the world of 1919 in as highly sophisti- board culout of the player to and Get the flavor ofthese leading brands, but less tar. ^gWrit: Kings: 8 mg "tar," Q.5 mg nicotine av.ucr cigarette, FTC Reporl Feb'85. SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal vers on of products Injury, Premature Birth, Add Low Birth Weight. Comparisons based on -;ng-s u: shown and "tar" levels from Fefa.'85 FTC Report or by FTC meihod. . . . : ; . 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The Trinity approached her table on hooves, paws, and wings; PAINTING BY ERNST FUCHS " — and this, she knew, expressed Ihe ultimate "What is pain'?" the lion aaKed, lifting one close their eyes, the lion said, "and sleep assurance and humility of God—that He paw to show a triangle .narked by thorns. together peacefully." 9 " should not require her to approach Him. "It is transitory, and suffering is the mois- "Then. . . wc must be enemies forever "Good morning," she said. The lamb ture of My breath," "For I am a zealous -God. I am zealous nuzzled her leg affectionately. 'An espe- "I don't understand." Rebecca said, of your eyes and your ears, which I gave cially significant morning for you, is it not?" shivering. you that you mighi avoid [ho agonies I visit The lamb bleated and spun its tail, "I am 'Among My names are disease and dis- upon you. I am zealous of your mind, which I facile, might so pleased you have chosen me, though I aster, and My hand lies on every pock- made wary and ihai you al- wonder why." mark and bldtch and boil, and My limbs ways be thinking and planning ways lo im- The lion spoke with a voice like a ty- move beneath every hurricane and earth- prove upon this world." still phoon confined in a barrel: quake. Yet you seek lo love Me. Do you "Then I understand." Rebecca said fear- "Once each year on this date we reveal not comprehend?" fully, her voice breaking, "thai all our lives the Craft of Godhead to a selected human. "No," Rebecca said, her face pale, for we musi fight against you, and ... but when Seldom are the humans chosen from My the world's particles seemed lo lose some we die?" formal houses of worship, for I have found of their stability at that moment. "How can The lamb scampered about the yard, but them almost universally unable to compre- it be that You love us?" the lion reached out with a paw and laid all on the wi:h its bro- hend the Mystery. They have precon- "If I had made things comfortable and the lamb out p/ass back ceived ideas and cannot remove the blinds sweet, then you would not be driven to ex- ken. "This is the Mystery" the lion roared, from their eyes." amine Me and know My motives. You would consuming the lamb, leaving only a splash Rebecca Sandia felt a brief frisson then, dance and sing and withdraw into your of blood steaming on the ground. but the dove rubbed its breast feathers pleasures." Rebecca leaped from her chair, horri- against her hand where it lay on the table. "Then I understand," Rebecca said. "For fied, and held oul her hands lo fend off the "I have never been a strong believer," she it is the work of a scientist to know the world prowling beast, "i understand!" she are selfish said, "though I have always had hopes." and control it, and we are often driven by screamed. "You a God, and Your "That is why you were chosen," the dove creation is a toy You can mangle at will! You sang, its voice as dulcet as a summer's do not love; you do nol care; you are cold evening breeze. The lamb cavorted about and cruel." the grass; and Rebecca's heart was filled The lion sal to lick its chops. 'And?" it with gladness watching it, for she remem- asked menacingly. 477ie lion : fell bered it had gone through hard times not Rebecca's ace flushed. She a sud- long ago. roared, consuming the iamb, den anger. "Then I am better than You," "I only one thing of My cre- she said quietly, "for I can love and feel have asked leaving only a I low ations," the lion said, "that once a year I compass, on wrong we have been to find some individual capable ol under- . splash of blood steaming on send our prayers to You!" with growl. standing the Mystery Each year I have the ground. Rebecca "And?" the lion asked a chosen the most likely individual and ap- "There is much we can teach You!" she leaped from her chair held peared to speak and enthuse. And each and said. "For You -do not know how to love or respect Your creation, or YourSelf You are year I have chosen correctly and found un- out her hands to derstanding and allowed the world to con- a wild beast, and it is our job to lame You fend off the prowling beast* tinue. And so it will be until My creation is and train You." fulfilled." "Such dangerous knowledge." the lion said. The dovo landed among the hairs of "But I am a scientist," Rebecca said, concerned by the lion's words. "I am en- its mane. "Catch Me if you can," the dove chanted by the creation more than the God. sang. For an instant the Trinity shed its the lo misery. symbolic forms and revealed Its true Self I am buried in the world and not the spirit." urge prevent Through our "I have.spun the world out of My spirit," knowledge we see You more clearly," a Ihing beyond ugliness or beauty, a vast the dove sang. "Each particle is as one of "I see MySelves more clearly through cyclic ihing of no humanity whatsoever, my feathers; each event, a note in my you." dark and horribly young—and lhat truth hysterics. song." "Then I can love You. and cherish You, reduced Rebecca to the Trinity vanished, the world "Then I am joyful," Rebecca said, "for knowing that ultimately You are concerned Then and lor that I understand. 1 have often thought of for us." conlinued another year. you as a scientist, performing experi- The world swayed; and Rebecca was But Rebecca was never ihe same again, ments." sore-afraid, for the peace ol the lamb had for she had understood, and by her grace "Then you do not understand," the lion faded, and the lion glowed red as coals. we have lived this added time.—Greg Bear lion said. "For I seek not to comprehend My "Whom are you closest to." the asked, creation but lo know MySelf." its voice deeper than thunder, "your ene- HIDE AND SEEK "Then is it wrong for me to be a scien- mies or your lovers? Whom do you scruti- It had been a long, demanding task. For left li- tist?" Rebecca asked. "Should I be a priest nize more thoroughly?" a whole decade he had never the or a theologian, to help You understand Rebecca thought of her enemies and her brary where ho worked li ling up one page YourSelf?" lovers, and she was not sure. alter another, piling them up. rereading ^a:er slowly crealing a "No, for I have made your kind as so "In front of your enemies you arc always them a few months * many mirrors, that you may see each other; watchful, and with your lovers you may re- colossal universe of .-ji'iomaiir;:-: iriio which and there are no liner mirrors than scien- lax and close your eyes." he, and he alone, might voyage. Partway tists, who are so hard and bright. Priests "Then I understand," Rebecca said. "For 'hrough the lenih year he perceived the dim result. ultimate equation. and theologians, as I have said, shroud- this might be a kind of war; and after the outline of the The their brightness with mists for their own war is over,, we may come together,—former The unsurpassable solui ion Vlalhcrnaiical comfort and sense ol well-being." enemies, and ce'ebvite the peace proof of the existence of God. factor "Then I am still concerned," Rebecca The sky became black as ink. The blos- He had had to take every into ac- build exact theoretical ol said, "for I would .ike the world to ultimately soms of Ihe almond tree tell, and she saw, count, an model be kind and nurturing. Though as a sci- within the branches, thai ihe almonds would the cosmos, combine a million coordi- ugh". entist I see that il is not, that it is cruel and be bitter this year. nates, lie Ihem into tidy bundles, se'. harsh and demanding." "In peace- the former enemies would to them, and weigh -her ashes out row 56 OMNI . themselves to re again, now he knew the ultimate equation; he was broadcast Ihe program. Watching it at eight churchgoer, but in the three years the De- the soaces between the commercials, you wirrips and madder actively sought per- him shook mum- hurried to their own writing it down; he was proving it. So ex- o'clock (EST] every Thursday evening on ity's been on, well, it's made me appreci- gazed blankly at the ineffably shining face sonal union with the Deity. bled incoherently, ge! : for tremely simple was it that it covered only the network of the disembodied eye was ate the rejuvenating aspects of weekly of God, minttess y imbibing Glory. No one Tillery remembered lry ng to miss God's refills. Whereupon the ad a Mova was of about a thousand pages. He toiled for mandatory, so it always had a one-hun- worship." knew exactly what these minutes con- Hour while still a prisoner. He had been suddenly displaced by a nova Godlight twenty hours a day. Three months of this dred-percent share of the ratings for its time Tillery, sipping his beer, gave Ihe jerk a sisted of, though, because memory failed, shown a vision of hell—a hell uniquely that plunged nearly everyone back into grinning stupefaction. Tillery's teeth were exhausting labor saw his work complete, slot. The other commercial and cable net- siare that shut him down as effectively as and it was technically impossible to vid- suited to his. own bellicose personality— the supreme achievement of the human works simply went off the air for that hour. a slap. eoiape or by any other means reproduce that, regrettably, was altogether unforget- on edge, though, and an angel observing spirit. He inscribed the final line, fondly Tillery, a convicied child murderer, eased After the first thirty-six- episode season a God's Hour episode. table. And he had never missed an epi- him would have seen a face locked in a shaped the final symboi, scrawled a dash his way through the crowd in the Twelfth of God's Hour broadcasts (followed, ap- Thursday was the evening of mandatory sode since. You only got one chance. Peo- resentful rictus. across the bottom of the page, and won- Street Tavern, keeping his elbows in and parently, by a summer of reruns), every viewing— primarily, said the Deity's earthly ple who tried a second lime suffered a fatal Since the first telecast, wars had ceased, dered whether to add the end in capitals. perfunctorily apologizing to anyone he detention center in the world had released emissaries (most of them persons of great (but reputedly painless) rupturing of a ce- crime had vanished, terrorism had halted, Then the Voice spoke to him: almighty, bumped. A man already at the bar politely its inmates. That was how Tillery had es- wealth and/or political influence called to rebral brain vessel anc passed in spirit to and even petty disagreements had be- majestic, overwhelming, resounding from insisted that he fake his stool. Tillery mur- caped a life sentence lor sexually brutal- service by apocalyptic dreams), because the hell revealed to them during their first come a passion of the past. The Supreme accidents, natural everywhere and nowhere. Terrified, he mured a listless thanks, climbed up on the izing and killing, ten years before Ihe First more folks were naturally at home on misbehavior. Being still permitted ill- leapt to his feet. stool, called for a beer, and turned his God's Hour, a snolty little Chicano twerp Thursday than on the weekend and be- God is love, thought Tillery sardonically. disasters, and inexplicable terminal NOTHING ATTRACTS LIKE THE IMPORTED TASTE OF BOMBAY GIN. « A' (IRIS ITALY LICORICE INDOCHINA /CORIANDER SEEDS FROM MOROCCO *» ANGELICA ROOT FROM«AXONY 8» JUNIPER BERRIES FROM ITALY %ij#7CAS$\A BARK FROM INDOCHINA ^pALMQNDS FROM INDOCHINA j VJ LEMON PEEL FROM SPAIN \ }l ORRIS ROOT) FROM Tg>j/ FROM noi qurie oy the mother-of-pearl nesses; but on the whole. His name had "Good I " said the Voice. "You have found ashen eyes on the magnesium-bright in El Paso. So, yes, Ihe program had neu- cause God had no wish to alienate the rab- overcome iiooding screen; risen steadily in esteem over the past three Me. Now it's your turn to hide. I shall count screen mounted like an oversize mirror be- tered even his old antisocial tendencies. bis, priests, ministers, and other responsi- images him from the Why works Ihe prob- to a million. A million years, that is, hind the bar. Tillery was glad to be out, he watched ble clergy who passed their collection did all the shits around him submit so doc- years, and far fewer on evil pain were being pub- "Don't fry to cheat."—Gerard Klein "I can't stand television," said the burly God's Hour faithfully, he was walking the plates on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. ilely to this celestial brainwashing? You lems of and happier, man sitting next to him, "I'd rather dig straight and narrow- -but unlike the meat- The CBS eye took shape on the screen, might have to park your heinie on a stool lished. The globe was a much t had been before From La Loi du Talion {Editions Laffont, ditches than watch most of fhe garbage head next to him, he hated Ihe Thursday- a Coca-Cola spol briefly eftervesced, and to watch it, but who but God said you had more serene place than tavern. to "surrender even your last deep-down the worldwide debut of God's Hour. 1973). Translated by John Brunner. Eng- they try to cram down our throats, but I love evening broadcast. For one thing, after the a scary hieratic glow filled ihe personal identity to the autocratic Ads for hot dogs and cheesecake punc- version copyright I icli Eyeballs glazed, brains scrap of lish © 1976, 1985 Brun- this program, mean, I out-and-out love it: program all that you could recall of it was Everyone s-len: ir- First Farter's television tuated the rema.r'r.g parts of the broad- ner Fact & Fiction Ltd. 1 wouldn't miss it for five nights in a Holly- its commercials. The regular sponsors were blanked out, and Tillery— resisting the show? Sara Lee spot to wood harem." CocarCola, Chevrolet. Oscar Mayer resistible—heaved a sigh that shuddered No one, that's who. cast,' and Tillery used the counted. hurry to the rest room for a piss. Naturally, GOD'S HOUR "You die if you miss it," Tillery said. Franks, and Sara Lee Kitchens, whose col- through his wiry chest. Caught in an even Absolutely no one who Tillery Chevrolet commercial interrupted the there was a line, but three or four guys always dropped in at Ihe Twelfth "Well, there's that," the burly man admit- orful spots came on al roughly I welve-min- bigger than usual Thursday-night crowd, A still hypnotizing blarney of the show's opening made such a big deal of deferring to him Street Tavern to watch God's Hour. ted, "but it's not the clincher, I mean, I al- ute intervals, lucid litllc checrloading ses- he was somehow alone with his God; io the urinal and In the United States, the earthly emis- ways feel spiritually cleansed — inwardly sions in the telecast's phosphor-dot ocean and an angry corner of his mind fought like segment. Tillery drained his beer and that he was able splash unasked-for pairing. for another Ihe turkeys around gel back to his stool before CBS signaled saries of the Deity had chosen CBS to refreshed, you know. As a kid, I wasn't a ol hypnopedagogical vagueness. During crazy against the Only asked as 58 OMNI are only nine here," I I chuckle. "There it all of dark me of the weakness that you see." a resumption of broadcast Godliness with QUEST SEND "Do you hear me. Lortan?" I ask, did I stop him. and took my considered the benefits explain. "The other is up that side corridor. the familiar earsplitting warning buzzer. The deed is done. And done pretty well. "Yes. Bactor," he answers weakly from magic rather than the strength of my body. "I have always enirance than wall Dammerung who of a quick death to be somewhat mar- That hero made a different Everyone else made it. too. but some of I might add. where he fell, his back against Ihe to Verily, it was Gloring and the others, and I stopped him there. He was the poor jokers had to finish watching with The princess lies dead on the tloor o( my my lell, legs thrust at crazy angles. Thon were the greatest." ginal," he replies. cunning one." act "Tell me. that I may protect myself against a their legs crossed. And then it was over; cave, amid the strewn bones of centuries' "Why do I still live?" he asks. "Alas, poor Eric could not beat an "I wish to see it for myself." and the second highest rated program in worth of heroes, wizards, princes, prin- "For a bit of terminal amusement, wearer like that." its exploitation." course, lord. Follow me." is encountered. The insolent old man has the audacity "Of my the land (probably because of its strong cesses, dwarfs, and elves, and the frag- of Ihe Light. If you will curse all that good "No, nor any other I have I hear slow I lead him uplhe sideway. him draw will laugh. I resolve to make his death a lead-in), a show about hard-boiled cops ments of nine broken swords commilled to and beautiful and true and noble, I will give And now my lord Glaum's reign never to a breath as ! halt before the niche. retraining as nursery-school teachers, their task— another possible reign of you a quick death." end, for the Darkness has vanquished Ihe thing, regardless. will tell says, "and you will still "This one is whole!" he hisses. "The man came on, Most of the tavern's clientele sweetness and joy I've clipped before its "No thanks," he answers. Light. There ace no more to be raised up "I you," he stands intact, the blade unbroken!" either turned away from the screen with bud might unfold. "Why nol? You have failed, as did the against us." be unable to guard againsi it: I see now harmless, lord. Now will love." I laugh again. "But It thai I see on that you die when you know their beers or filed out into the winter dark- I run the rasps of my tongue across my nine before you. You were the last. is over "Of the broken weapons " magic. roar. and forever. This one 1 bound by ness, Tillery being one ol those who opted fangs, savoring the acrid lasle. The good guys lose, ten to nothing the floor." he says, "tell me which is the I stamp my loot and of Love? Your mind is as broken as rather ihan rending him with the strength to go. A cozy glow suftused him, but his The last hero is twisted at an impossible He does not respond so I goad him fur- blade Dammer and where the bones "Love? admire him on our Ihe rest of you, to accuse me of such a foul of my body. I come here to apartment was empty, and in the morning angle in the corner, his magic blade shat- ther: "And your hero— Eric Broadthew. or Gloring lie, that I might see where failing! Love!" occasion. He is the best. He came very he'd be back at his job as a foam-extrusion tered. It was the tenth and final one of that whatever you call him — didn't even touch brightest hope fell." destroying me." laughter rings aboul the cave as I close to operator for an insulation firm on the out- brood of evil piercers forged an age ago me with that weapon. The last one at least "You talk loo much, old man. II is time to My roll his head back along "Fool!" he cries. "A spell can be broken! skirts of town. Happy, happy. by the minions of Light to account for my caught me a good one across Ihe shoul- end this conversation." decapitate him and it is Gloring and Dammer- passageway, slinging it by the beard. And I see thai I hilts the ruin." the Someone at the Twelfth Street Tavern's master and those such as myself who serve der before dismembered him." "But I see only nine amid must finish them now to assure lot rear to strike him. My sides ache from Ihe strain of laughing. ung! We door bumped him. him. How delicious! The ring I guard re- "We were Ihe worst ol the you faced?" I extend my claws and our triumph!" After a time I pick up someone's leg and It was the lard ass who'd been sitting mains in the jeweled cask within the niche he inquires. Bui he holds me, by no magic but by a for the death wand in its case begin on it. Ralher tough. Must He reaches I munching beside him at the bar. He patted Tillery on at my back. "Oh. I wouldn't go that far," say. "Bui single statement: the hero's. upon his belt. the shoulder. "Say, fella. I'm sorry, really Pieces of their faithful dwarf companion you were hardly Ihe best." "You have not yel won." have been regard the point of that are the My lord Glaum, always and future ruler 1 turn again and sorry. Will ya forgive me? Can ya, huh?" are strewn along the passageway. I can "Humor a defeated old man and tell me, "How can you say thai, when you inch enters that evening wearing blade I had halted bul an from my "Yeah," Tillery mumbled. "Sure." see the small hand that still holds Ihe ax. Who was Ihe best?" last?' of the world, said his defiled garment of Lighl, to admire my breast when my spell froze all motion and "Wasn't tonight's show great?" the jerk Had the little man actually thought he could I chuckle. "Easily done," I answer. "Glor- "You lied," he continues, "when you work, congratulate me on ages well lell its grinning wielder a staiue of judg- continued. "I mean, wasn't it just about the reach me or do me harm with that pathetic ing. of the Second Kingdom. He came so lhat your lord's reign will never end, that the to gives a cunningly wrought ment and execution forever delayed. best and most uplifting episode in the whole weapon? close to killing me that it was beautiful. The Darkness has vanquished Ihe Light. You spent. He me of gold with my name engraved Dammerung's edge is finer than thai of any ever-lovin' series so far?" Only the old wizard still draws breath. arc of his blade, Dammer, came down like do nol see your own weakness." timepiece its point the nearest approach that upon it, to reward my faithful service. leaf, Tillery stepped back from the man. "Don't But 1 have shattered his staff and scat- a bolt from the heavens. The muscles of "I have no weakness, wizard." "Bactor, my lovely," he asks after a lime, matter might make to infinity press your luck," he said. Then he eased tered his power down ways of darkness. I his arms rippled like the lides of Ihe sea. Through the gloom I see his smile. Bactor." ol only I hear my master: "Move away, have "why is it that I behold Ihe remains out have granted him a few moments more that He glowed with Ihe sweat of his exertions. I then. "You do nol himself sideways through the door— "Very well," say own- all of And I hear another voice—my wondrousfy, it like a beauty, no- nine of the weapons of Light when into the God-pervaded night. I might mock him and see him die cursing He cursed me so was to curse goodness, truth, and that break the spell. The tell the heroes have fallen?" shout the words —Michael Bishop the powers he had served. poem. I stood transfixed. Barely, only barely bility as the price of a quick death. Just CONHNUFDONPAGE ItO An idea whose time has come and gone. Has come again. "VW Fox—the Beetle "Most of what others Volkswagen introduces the Fox. Like the very first Volkswagen, reincarnated?" charge extra for in this class it's designed to be reliable, durable, fun to drive. And as the it's built for today. "... devours the competition" is standard" A„,owe«k newest Volkswagen, fuel-injected engine. Front- — Rood & Track The Fox has a powerful 1.8-liter wheel drive. A roomy, comfortable interior with handsome cloth "Our guess is people will flock "Very German. Very reassur- cut pile carpeting. And the Volkswagen 2-year to the showrooms because of upholstery and ing. Very rewarding" unlimited-mileage limited warranty. price and drive out in Fox /rfn^, - — Auiomobtle Mogozme the a The new The new Volkswagen Fox: it's German because of the car." /AVA\ COY "... a solid, well-trimmed engineering everyone can afford—again. IvkArl/ L™* automobile..." For information, call 1-800-33VWFOX. ^J^ $5,690" BY ROBERT P CREASE AND CHARLES C. MANN Ever notice that practically down his bags, glad to be re- every article, about the Soviet. lieved momentarily of his bur- Union has a Russian joke in il? den, and pulls out a beautiful This slofy is about Russian digital watch covered with science, but it's no exception. dials and switches. "It's The |oke goes like this: 10.47:02; the temperature is A Pole sees.a Russian stag- 21.4 degrees; I he sun will rise gering toward him with two at5:32 tomorrow morning; Ju- huge, obviously heavy suit- piler is now in the sixth house cases. Despite the suitcases, of Saturn; and the next Pus " the Pole asks the Russian what leaves in fifteen minutes time It is. the' Russian puts The Pole is staggered. He's never seen a watch like this. "Where'd you tok. the first manned spacecraft, but never in a few years and will eventually surpass this are called particle accelerators—atom get that?" he asks. "Switzerland?" made it to the moon. The Moscow subway anything the United States has." As we smashers. Unscientific as the procedure "Switzerland— ha!" snorts the Russian, system costs kopecks to ride, handles 8 found out on a recent trip to the Soviet may sound, scientists have learned a lof a little offended. "This is ours! One hun- million passengers a day, and is never late. Union, Huray and the Times are right about about the nature of malter by doing it. Over dred percent Soviet technology!" It also took 50 years to build. UNK. But they are forgetting something. half a century, experimental physicists "What's in the suitcases?" the Pole asks Now—and here we come to the subject They're forgetting about the batteries. around Ihe globe have built bigger and as the Russian shoulders his huge load. of this article—the Soviet Union is building bigger machines that smash together "The batteries." the most powerful atom smasher on the The Russians do the same things that electrons, protons, and their brethren with Like that watch, Soviet science and planet. Known as UNK, the Russian acro- everybody else does, but they do them dif- more and more energy. In there's law of particle phys- technology has its good points . . . and its nym for accelerator storage center, the big ferently. Not necessarily better or worse. the West a not-so-good points, The Russians built the machine has already caused alarm in the Just ditferently, ics that goes like this: He who gets there with the moslest usually gets the . like their first working nuclear power plant . . and. West. The New York Times described UNK Soviet particle physicists, col- fastest Chernobyl. Soviel science brought the in a front-page article as a threat to Amer- leagues in the West, study elementary par- Nobel prize. You build a bigger, stronger world Sputnik, the first satellite, and Vos- ican dominance in science, And Senior ticles, the tiniest bits of matter in existence. accelerator, and you discover new things. Policy Analyst Paul Huray, of the White And like their colleagues in the West, the Fundamental things. Surprising things. The stud ot which atom smashers are made. House Oflice of Science and Technology Russians have come up with only one way So. one would think, when the Russians Bottom right: bubble chamber with particle Policy, to succeed in finishing UNK, the most pow- tracks. Top right: channel in which subatomic says, "Having the lead accelerator perform experiments on these sub- erful builf. will particles are accelerated. Above: copper strips, brings with it eminence in high-energy atomic entities: Slam them into one another accelerator ever ihey be which are used to cool the bubble chamber. physics, UNK will become state-of-the-art as hard as possible. The machines that do poised to make new, fundamental, surpris- 64 OMNI . , ing discoveries. Discoveries that might governments to pay for his ever-growing machines. Accelerators were basic tools shake the Western lead in physics. machines. In any case, that kind of re- for physicists, and physicists had won the So one would think. Except that in the search} was stopped by the war, when war with the bomb; so funding accelera- Soviet Union, things are a little different. physicists spent their time on radars and tors seemed the route to making new mili- Three times before, the USSR had the most atom bombs. tary advances and preserving this coun- powerful accelerator in the world. Three The Russians did things a little differ- try's national security. times before, American scientists, journal- ently. Stalin was slow to pick up on the idea Meanwhile Alikhanian built his acceler- ists, and government officials warned that of particle accelerators, but when he did. ator at the Central Institute for Nuclear Re- this country was in danger of losing its su- he stuck with it. Leon Lederman, the direc- search, near the town of Novgorod about premacy in physics. tor of the big Fermilab complex (home of 70 miles north of Moscow. An authentic And three times before, the USSR dis- America's biggest accelerator) outside marvel of technology, it was more powerful covered . . . nothing. They've made many Chicago, knew Artem I. Alikhanian, one of than the biggest accelerator in the West. technical innovations and performed a lot Russia's first accelerator builders. "I once Switched on in 1949, it smashed particles of good, solid measurements; but in terms asked him," Lederman says, " 'So what did with 36,000 times the force of Lawrence's of. discoveries— pulse-quickening, col- you do during the war?' He said, 'I was in original machine. Soviet scientists were league-stunning discoveries —well, they the siege of Leningrad.' I said, 'That's aw- justifiably proud. didn't score, as Americans like to say. ful! What did you do?' He said, 'Design ac- There was just one catch: They couldn't And therein lies a tale. celerators. Four hours a day I carried water, tell anybody about it. The USSR has a And once you hear it, you'll know why but the rest of the time I spent in a quiet mania for secrecy, and the big new ma- Soviet physicists are a little sensitive to basement designing accelerators.' Can you chine was secret. Top secret. Ultrasecret. questions about UNK's performance And imagine? Even during the siege of Lenin- Send-to-Siberia secret. Physicists in the why it's been called the accelerator that grad, the Soviets thought it was important institute couldn't even publish their exper- can't shoot straight. for him to design accelerators! "The Amer- iments openly. If they made an earth-shat- The earliest accelerators were built in the ican attitude is different. When there's a tering discovery, nobody outside Novgo- early Thirties by English and American crisis, funding agencies tend to say, 'Cut rod would know. The situation was physicists They were small gizmos and not the accelerators.' For a while, the Navy infuriating for Alikhanian and his col- terribly powerful. The first U.S. machine, funded accelerators through the Office of leagues. Fortunately, the joke runs, the So- built by Ernest O. Lawrence of the Univer- Naval Research. We used to say, The Navy viet system had a solution: It made sure no sity of California at Berkeley, was smaller does two things: paint battleships and build discoveries would be made. How? Well . . than a baby's head and spat out particles accelerators.' Well, in a crisis the Navy it has to do with the batteries. with less zap than a chunk of uranium. Al- paints battleships." When particles collide in a particle ac- though Lawrence won the Nobel in 1939 After Hiroshima, Lawrence and other celerator, pieces fly all over the place. Spe- for his accelerator work, he had tremen- American physicists had less trouble per- cial equipment is used to track the pieces, dous trouble persuading universities and suading the government to pay for their and these detectors, as physicists call CONTINUED Ol Puppets spring io life, odd air- craft whiz through the ether or plunge into the deepest forests at ungodly speeds, bicycles fly, and kitchen paraphernalia are tlung about by poltergeists, Without the efforts of one group of artists and techni- cians, these special moments from such classic movies as Poltergeist, EX: The Extrater- restrial, and the Star Wars saga might never have been exe- cuted, There was a time when major studios supported their own special effects shops, siaffed with masters of the art, But effects shops were phased out as Ihe studios went from self- contained production centers to mere soundstages. By the time George Lucas was making Star Wars in the Seventies, no studio had a special effects facility: He had to create his own ministu- dio— Industrial Light and Magic (ILM)—to do the work. If there were one word to de- scribe how ILM performs its tricks, the word would be mini- aturization. By filming on a small scale, ILM can make E.T and Elliot! appear to fly on a bike past the moon; Luke and Leia chase storm troopers through a redwood forest on a speeder bike; and a family haunted by poltergeists see their tract house implode into a black hole. Miniatures have been used in moviemaking before, but with Star Wars, space hardware was given character for the first time. The ships looked space worn, with holes and dents. Much of the arlwork and many of the sets used in spe- cial effects do not look as good as they do in Ihe films. ILM's models, however, are amazing in their detail. Even on very close inspection one tends to see more than is ever apparent on the screen; each model is an important character in the film. REEL ILLUSIONS This page: miniature the Star Wars saga was filmed separately. models of Hie snow (bottom left). Composites are walkers (middle Bottom right; An made with miniatures and top rows) and actor riding a speeder and other elements, bike in Return of as in this scene from the Jed! was filmed in 1983's Return of ' front of a blue the ledi (facing page). screen; the forest in the finals — The opening ten minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark imparl a powerful sense of visual de- sign: The camera glides Ihrough a dark jungle, giving shadowy glimpses of the forbidding en- vironmenl. We move into an an- cient tomb, scramble to dodge darts, and see the hero dangle over a deep pit, He's finally chased by a giant stone ball, only to dive into the midst of a threatening tribe of natives. This is followed by a classic chase on foot, and an airplane get- away. Words can't describe the excitement evoked by these images, developed under the direction of Steven Spielberg. Scenes like this are no acci- dent All Ihe special moments have been carefully planned. Spielberg does not just dream up amazing scenes on loca- tion. Like George Lucas, he is highly conscious of what he's doing cinematically. The term special effects tends to evoke images ol star- ships racing through space and of ghosts hovering in the air, Special effects are also used in places where tew suspect they have been applied: Matte paintings— realistic paintings made to be shot separately, then added to live-action scenes have replaced real but expen- sive scenery: miniatures have been used to cut costs of vehi- cle use or of set construction. Imaginalive filmmakers use special effects to expand Ihe possibilities of their medium. The artists and managers oi ILM realize they are part of an industry that is being rapidly transformed by modern tech- nology. In order to keep its place as a leader in special effects, Lucasfitm Ltd. (George Lucas's production company) must continue to develop new meth- ods of creating effects as well as new uses for these effects. Previous pages: Stop- between separate shot of the final space motion photography exposures. Optical- battle in Return oi was used to bring the effects specialists the Jedi. Next page: walkers to life in then combine all the The spaceship from The Empire Strikes elements to create Cocoon hovers above Back. This entails a finished scene. This as it draws up a filming an inanimate page: tour of the boatload of waiting object one frame elements that went senior citizens. al a time, gradually into the final shot moving the object for Star Trek II: Tke Wrath of Khan (bottom right). Facing page: a composite ^^ jl * 4 "") '// EH , The next big jump in technol- ogy is taking place as the com- puter manipulates images that exist only in digitized memory, ahd paints those images di- rectly onto film. This permits the filmmaker to do such things as create an object from new per- spectives directed by the op- erator's "joystick," much as is done with video games. As it happens, effects for some television commercials and even a few films have al- ready been generated by digi- tal means. Quite often, though. we see Ihem as tasteless sta- tion-break logos or spinning ti- tles for a television program. For the time being, digitized images are impractical for any- thing but short special effects sequences and TV commer- cials. The situation is changing however; and with the intensive work at Lucasfilm Computer Di- vision and many other research facilities around the world, breakthroughs in the technique are inevitable. Though early research in la- ser scanning will have applica- tions in the special effects field, the most significant applica- tions will be seen in the final ex- hibition of dims. Imagine a day when a film can be "projected" by laser beam in your local the- ater. The "film" need not be shipped in print form but will be transmitted by satellite. A new Slar Wars film could be exhib- ited in thousands of theaters si- multaneously, all over the world. Its laser images would be sharper than traditional im- ages. The potential is enor- mous.—Thomas G. Smith Adapted Irom Industrial Lighl and Magic: The Art of Special Effects, by Thomas G. Smith. Copyright c; raS6, Lucastilm Ltd (LFL). Re- printed by permission of Bailan- tine Books, a division o! Random House, Inc. ILM's models are Poltergeist monster. suburban home—was renowned for their Middle right: Rubber achieved using a carefully wrought miniature of the miniature copy of the detail. Each becomes poltergeist is set in a house. Crew members a well-defined water tank to make used a strong vacuum character. This page, its hair float. Top left: and wires to draw lop right: original final filmed version. the model into a large. tiny clay model of the Middle left, bottom right: Poltergeist's page: Elliott and E.f. esophageal entrance sail past the moon. to the otherworld. ' Bottom left: The film's g# ' As at home in "the dreaming" as he is in sophisticated Sydney, this aborigine inventor, filmmaker, educator, and novelist intends to awaken the world to the visions and splendor of the ancient Australians IRJTER\7IEIAJ 1956, when Eric Willmol study he did. In eight monlhs Inwas a Iwenly-year-old trail he applied his Ihen rudimentary hand and rodeo rider, a skills at reading and writing horse fell on him in a rodeo with enough tenacity to earn a accident, mangling his leg university scholarship to study badly enough lo put him in Ihe science —and lo gain entree hospital lor 18 months and into white Australian society. It forever change the course of is a world where, ho estimates, his life. "It's a great place no more than 20 or 30 native lo study," says Willmot, now Australians ("And that's a professor of education and lot") have gained acceptance. head ot the School of Education From his present position at James Cook University in as educator, inventor, writer, northern Queensland, Australia. filmmaker, and man in And with the help of a teacher two worlds. Willmot is not only for his own to whom it did not matter a pathfinder thai Willmot was an aborigine. people but a loader for white PHOTOGRAPH BY KATHY KEETON 'mDreamtime lasted a long time, a forever within a forever. Before, all life forms on Earth were there but remained undifferentiated.^ Australians as well. He is informing both race would become extinct. peoples about the place aborigines right- For almost 100 years the aborigines fully occupy in the continent's ancient his- floundered. Bui slowly some "special peo- tory and its modern epoch, a place they ple" began lo emerge. One was Charles have been denied for 200 years. Perkins, who became head of the Depart- Willmot was born in Queensland of ment of Abor cjiral Altars and thetorce be- mixed-race parents. Of the Mandandantji hind Australia's Freedom Rides, which led people on his molher's side, he is Waka to the granting ot citizenship to the conti- with a little French flavoring from a great- nent's native people in 1967 Willmot later grandfather on his father's side. Unfil his served lor a year as Perkins's deputy. accident Willmot lived "a bush sort of life, In 1971 Willmot set up an "enclave" sys- a cowboy life"; riding in rodeos, working as tem of alternative education, one that would a drover— or trail hand— faking part in ihe offer aboriginal people a chance to suc- last transcontinental cattle drives from there was any way out." It was while pur- cessfully complete a university degree Kimberley in the northwesl to Sydney in the suing his several degrees in mathemalics program. Today the largest example of that southeast. "I have seen most ol the center and in education that he first discovered system is the school Willmot heads at of Australia from ihe back of a horse," says thai a folk legend he had grown up with James Cook University. Willmot also be- Willmot, "and it has given me a sense and was, in facf, history. In contemporary ab- came the first non-European principal of a value about this continent. 'Waltzing Ma- origine lore there existed tales of a fierce Australia's Institute for Aboriginal Sfudies. tilda' has real meaning for me." lighter, Pemulwuy, skilled in eluding and And he made a documentary film on the Willmot was, by his own accouni, always defeating the British military. "Pemulwuy ancient trade routes lhat once linked all the cognizant of ihe aborigines' condition. in of Nei- wasn't any the history books," says early peoples. "I decided I wanted to make ther counted in the census nor recognized Willmot, "but when I to the a film went about old Australia," he says, "so I as citizens, native Australians out- sources. were . .the English soldiers' journals are asked somebody what she would want to casts in ihe land ihat had belonged to them full of him. They were fighting for their lives!" know. And she said, 'Whal Ihe shopping since the dawn of humankind And that Pemulwuy led a resistance against the was like then.' " His first novel will be pub- land, from which they derived their spirilual Briiish from 1790 to 1802. He was finally lished soon in Australia. Called Pemulwuy, being, had been simply overrun by the shot and beheaded, and his head was it's about the actual man, the hero whose British since 1788, when they landed on shipped back to England to prove lhat he name is not only 'lissng from all Ihe white the eastern coast. was really dead. 'After Pemulwuy 's deaih." Australian history books but is also glar- Before his accident, Willmot "didn't think Willmotsays, "the back of the resistance ingly absent from Robert Hughes's The Fa- was broken." Decimated by war, loss of its tal Shore, a current best-selling account of ' land, and diseases Clockwise from top let!: Rainbow Serpent ere- for which native Aus- the founding of modern Australia.— Willmot ated the rivers; Ayers Rock; "X-ray " rock art ol tralians had no natural immunity, aborigi- has read Hughes's work "quite a good major female ancestor spirits; turtle painting. nal society crumbled. People believed the rendition of what is understood to have 82 OMNI — happened Irorn the European viewpo.n;." nectedness 'the cental idea of aboriginal Omni. Does lins refusal to acknowledge Pemulwuy, on Ihe other hand, "is what religion]. And many suffer from what we aboriginal sovereignty over the land date we saw happen." And what happened in call a Lawrence affliction. You can almost back to the arrival of the British? Pemulwuy's time "is every bit as important see Ihe while robes swirling after them in Willmot: Aboriginal society views land as as what happened s\ Wounded Knee." The the wind and sand. People who can't really the source ol spirlual ly and certainly as a novel is Willmot's attempt not only to bring handle their own society often wish to save source of genesis in the spiritual sense. the historical man to life but to change the someone elses; missionaries, mercenar- Therefore aborigines are very, very con- view of Australia toward its beginnings to ies, and misfits— all afflictions of aboriginal cerned with the land. As soon as the Brit- an outlook that is more in line with the way Australia and aboriginal society. ish arrived, they determined to pursue a the United States sees its origins. "Ameri- Omni. How would you characterize rela- policy that was termed terra nullius. They cans don't pretend nothing nasty hap- tions today between white Australians and essentially relused lo recognize lhat spe- pened with the native Americans," he says, aboriginal people? cific aboriginal peoples occupied specific "and that they didn't wage war." Willmot in- Willmot: A piece of social psychology re- lands. Oh, they recognized ".hat there were tends that Ihis peculiarly sinister Australian search done in 1984 by a governmenl- some people wandering around here; but pretense— this "conspiracy of silence"-- commissionec'. organization showed thai they didn't regard them as occupying the be dropped. Particularly in 1988, 200 years about twenty-live percent ol white Austra- land, rather as perhaps using it or visiting after the British occupation, "so that all lians are strongly supportive of aboriginal it or something. This policy led to the de- Australians can hold up their heads." And issues. A second twenty !'ive percent have struction of aboriginal society. it clear that it the novel doesn't accomplish that? "Well, disastrous relations with aborigines and As time wore on, became total bullshit: it's a damn good yarn anyway." bitterly oppose any legislation to help them. terra nullius was Aboriginal Eric Willmot was interviewed by Omni Many in this group could be called red- people owned this continent and lived in president Kathy Keeton, who spent three necks. The remaining fifty percent sit in the precisely bounded areas of it. Aboriginal really weeks touring Australia last fall. middle. These m-do'lo Australians are softly society in Australia amounted to a prejudiced and are swayed either way community of protonations, each having its Omni: You're a man who, in your own words, without too much (rouble. II was this group own language and cultural aspects that clislinguisheci one group from another. They . aflected the is "a bit overenthusiastic in . . condem- that was most by Western nation of anthropologists." Mining Company's "marvelously" suc- shared a common religious system though. Willmot: Anthropologists have done a lot of cessful campaign against aborigine land from one side of the continent to the other. bloody damage as the result of their gu- rights. Middle Australia is a kind of "ordi- White Australians have lived with the lie rulike obsession with sorcery and sex. nary Oz"; they believe they live in a lucky of terra nullius for nearly two centuries White anthropologists working in Australia country, and when anything goes wrong and they still cling to it. Even this present lo would make an excellent story tor Pent- with it, they'll blame anyone. So if some- Labor government reluses discuss not house, not Omni. Most o! their damned body tells them the aborigines are causing only modern aboriginal sovereignty but books reveal their incredible ignorance— their economic problems, they usually be- ancient sovereignty, lor God's sake! And will they don't even know about spiritual con- lieve it, quite well. that's incredible. It's a problem that nol go away, because if you try to run a nation in which there is doubt about title to land, the whole equity business tails to bits. In both Amencu and Canada, either wars were fought and land was taken by con- quest, or else treaties were signed. So Ihere was always some acknowledgment of the Indians' ancient sovereignly Before the last election, Reagr-n was asked how he would deal with the land-tax problems involving the Navahos. He said, "| will deal with them government to government," meaning thai the United Stales government recognizes thai Navaho lands are run by a form of lo- cal ethnic government. There has never been anything like that in Australia. While Australians have stead- fastly refused to draw up and sign any form of land settlement. The aboriginal leader Billy Fergusen proposed such a settle- ment in 1938. Modern aborigines pro- posed a treaty called Makarrala in the Seventies. This is a proo'em f or future gen- erations; indeed, it will grow worse gener- ation by generation. The whites reluse to deal with it: they, are very foolish. Omni. Haven'l whiles also pretended the war they lought with Pemulwuy and the Eora people never happened? Willmot: The original while seniors neither fought lor Ihe- lane nor bought it. but simply occupied it. pretend ng clear through Ihe twelve year war with Pemulwuy that the aborigines had never existed. This war ended in 1805, ;il!e; Pemuiwuy was finally beheaded, when his son Tedbury was captured and imprisoned. Many Irish po- — — Discover the Timex Atlantis 100" lt% water resistant to 100 meters. With a stainless steel case that's Timex I tough, stopwatch, 13-hour countdown timer, alarm and 5-year battery. [ Available with a stainless steel band or black resin strap. Each under $40, suggested retail price. For the store nearest you, call 1-800-FOR-TIMEX. who arrived at a large trading center in lilical prisoners had joined with Pemulwjy money or goods might be exchanged, but equal south Australia with a handful of a partic- in his campaigns, and after Tedbury's because the things exchanged are rain forest of north death they mounted a revolt. They stood in value, the transaction leaves neither of ular sap from the acquit- Queensland. This natural plastic was use- up to the British at Vinegar Hill [in Sydney] us in debt. The second sort is the ful stone heads to spear tips. If but, lacking any ot Pemulwuy's military ge- table-debt exchange: We make an ex- in binding for can't for all of it I needed a special ocher ceremonial nius, wore cut to pieces. It was a massa- change, but one of us pay agree on the value of the purposes, I wouldn't just go and say. cre. And it was hidden from Australians at once. So we and your ocher so we "white and black—for almost one hundred thing, on the method of paying the bal- "Weigh up my sap exchange." I would hang and eighty years. More than a century ago ance, and on the fact that ihe debt will be can make an abcjrigina- people are quite good people living in that are;; of Sydney wanted acquitted at some time. Now, I might put a around— hanging around reading Ihe scene until their post office renamed Vinegar Hill. That deposit on a hot dog, and it may take me at — heavies in this it. I the were mob. I saw who requesf was scorned by the government. till next week before can pay for I'd gift of my sap. If anyone Not until 1983 did ihe present Wren gov- Now, the third kind of transaction is the Then make a enough to accept if, they'd cre- ernment in New South Wales celebrate Ihe nonacquittable debt. This sort of ex- were mad with a muerbok, a word meaning I birthday ate me event on Vinegar Hill. It is this conspiracy change occurs when send you a Northern Territory. They might of silence—on top of the unending refusal card. You become beholden to me be- "debt" in the ' I'd go back empty- to recognize the existence of any impor- cause even if you send one back, that give me nothing, so I next time, tanl Australia before Ihe British, to ac- doesn't discharge your debt to me. It sim- handed. But when returned duty I bound knowledge a world of nations that owned ply places me in debt to you —so now we're even if had nothing they'd be and- occupied every square meter of this locked into a debt system. No society on to service that debt; so they'd give me the continent that most gets up the noses of Earth has taken this system to such ex- something. This form of trade was es- modern aboriginal people! traordinary lengths as the aborigines did. sence of traditional Ausira 'an economy. Omni: Beyond these very real grievances Debts could be developed over years and The basic European will typically offer That's over land rights and historical acknowl- could be inherited. The accounting sys- you things— cigarettes, chocolates. edgment, don't aborigines feel very un- tem, being based on Ihe traditional aborig- bad etiquette. The aborigine regards it as or comfortable with Western economics, both inal kinship system, would act very much terrible manners, since you're asking— into a debt situ- in practice and philosophy? against the acquisition of material wealth bludgeoning —someone right lo Willmot: Most certainly, because the abo- because nothing had specific value in the ation with you, which you have no riginal economic system involves very exchange. Everything had value only in- do. In aboriginal socic:y yot. ask someone for you want, indicating that special and complex ideas of beholden- sofar as it serviced the debts between something ness.-Commercial iransaclions might be people or groups of people. There were all you're quite happy :o inaeh; yourself to him. aborigines find difficult to carried out in three ways. The first Involves sorts ol names for these debts. What all most in the modern world is this tend- I young, commercially accept simple, no-debt transactions: I give you Suppose were a i something; you give me something. Either minded lad, living a thousand years ago, ency to treat the resources oi nature as — believed inal people something to exploit To despoil or take from incised. Perhaps, being the lone placental the vegetable foods and hunted smaller nies — could mean that a man had a ties guaranteed men nothing. with romance. They this shouldn't marry, to avoid nature is to creale debts with her. And na- mammal in a marsupial world, you need to animals like opossums, lizards, birds, and mother-in-law bestowed on him when Omni: What about children's guarantees? the same age ture on this continent, aborigines have try to reflect the animals and resonate with fish. Men tended to hunt larger creatures. mother-in-law herself was not yet married. Willmot: Illegitimacy was impossible. No bringing into their relationship common birth any matter to get problems. an older woman learned, will demand payment in ways often life around them. Some people argue that like kangaroos, which ranged over long {And she might never give to how a' woman managed Because and daughters!) Yet this unfortunate fellow was pregnant, she always had a social father a younger man, or vice versa, tended lo brutal and far-reaching Europeans are it was something of a birth control device, distances That's nol to say thai men didn't a: rfirererl there It left with a lifetime ol beholdenness to this for her child, one who took great pride in mix problems generations, learning the hard way that Australia's a but I don't believe that. was a purely re- also sometimes hunt smaller game, and societies constructed less conflict within the marriage. This bloody difficult place to deal with. Despite ligious device, and it's connected inti- women large ones. woman and had to practice special avoid- her children. These was relationships. could look at practical systems making it impossible for is a reasonable idea, one probably worth all the Europeans' intentions, nature has mately with the shape and appearance of In contemporary Weslern society, when ance He never directly only through Ihird child to be hurt in any by relation- pursuing in society. forced them to live in a narrow little urban the marsupial penis. boys or girls go out looking for a mate, they or talk to her — a a way modern archipelago along the east and south These very serious religious ceremo"- really have to look—and do battle with one party. In some groups the young man ships between adults. The systems were Omni: Whal c:s:irc]L-8hes "/ad 1 tonal abo- coasts. Seventy-five percent of the conti- nies came from the desert centers, from another for that mate. In the modern world's avoided even her shadow or footprints! And strict, with all sorts of penalties for those rigine religion from all others? yet he constantly had to provide the mother- not abiding by them. Although promiscuity Willmot: It differs sharply from Christian- nent still remains the emptiest habitable peoples like the Walbiri. Pintubi, Aranda, mating game, both male and female do the religions, lor that mat- place on Earth, with a population of less and Pitjantjatjara. Around the coasts and choosing. In old Australia, men were heav- in-law with gifts and look after her. She was common, the system ensured that its ity—and most world the of his only the fact that aborigines deny spir- than one person per ten square kilometers. softer places of the country, the puberty ily selected by women. And women were might have daughter dreams costs were borne by those engaged ter—in it their offspring. Western itual singularity. don't believe Omni: Do aboriginal people continue to ceremonies weren't so fierce or blood- guaranteed everything: sustenance, af- and she might not! in — not by In so- They it's largely children personality is entirety within Ihe practice special ancient rites of passage? thirsty. When Europeans arrived, circum- fection, and a social father for their chil- Very young women were often be- ciety today, the who contained spiritual Hence they have no concept Willmot; You should remember that aborig- cision spread over most of Australia. While dren. Men were guaranteed nothing. A man stowed upon much older men. And men, suffer the consequences of adult promis- part. lifetime thcui 'irciing in general, were expected to remain celi- cuity. It's obviously not possible today to of soul. Aborigines believe that human inal culture was always changing, dy- subincision is still relatively rare. 1 did hear could go a w a mate, years or construct a anything like these ab- beings are made up of a spiritual and a namic. And I've seen evidence of change of one white doctor—from another—who, but women always knew they would have bate for thirty more. A woman system Ihe personality is con- it. might be married to two or three men in original societies. Even so, modern abo- mortal part and that within these ceremonies from when I was wanting to be part of those desert people's a mate; society demanded riginal society least tries to create sit- tained in the synthesis of these parts, When a child to now. Elemental societies tend to groups, had himselt subincised. In the There was a strange, almost esoteric succession, whereas a man might have at a uation is born an death destroys this construct, the mortal mark men to show the arrival of manhood. process he got himself quite seriously in- approach to the mating game. The kinship several wives at once. This maximized where each child into mixing, might promiscu- extended family and is guaranteed some part degrades into the earth. The spiritual Women are marked by nature with men- fected. Give it a few more thousand years system could bo laci out almost like a map. gene-pool as a in constella- ous, free-love society where the promis- important adull relationship in lite. part persists. Itdoesn'l contain the human struation. The two major male puberty rites and I think these ceremonies will have A man could find his spot the there's no basis for of were circumcision, commonplace slowly worked their way around the coast. tion or pattern of things, and somewhere cuity is highly organized and controlled. Romanlic love in traditional Australian personality, so a god throughout the world, and subincision, But these ceremonies are only indicators in the pattern (here was a temale or num- Only in middle life and old age did society was not an important aspect, al- retribution or reward, or tor heaven or hell. it and women, it Why. then, do aborigines, lacking a con- which certainly is not. The subincision cer- of something more important—the total ber of females who night be related to him women achieve status, and achieve though among young men hereafter, in ethical emony has very distant and uncertain "religiousization" of a society. in a proprietary way. He could expect to through roles they might play relating to was no different than it is in any other hu- cept of a behave an their spiritual temporal religious ceremonies or through man society— basically sex driven. But I way? Because and origins. It produces an enlargement of the Omni: Were the basic roles of male and find a mate from among them. His relations marriage, directly connected front end of the penis: a wide, flat-looking female in traditional aborigine society very would negotiate with the relations of his their connection to a powerful mate with have observed older men and women in domains are so —more for people on Earth- thing with a passage or cut ending about different from those in modern societies? possible mates. Such marriages might well whom they might develop a long-lasting wonderful, long-lasting love relationships closely (han any other all any heaven or hell you halfway down the penis. The result of sub- Willmot: In traditional society, aboriginal be arranged with the "spouse" as yet un- relationship. Men had much more slalus that seemed powerful their lives. Abo- so connected that far with Ihe through happens during your incision curiously makes the penis look like women contributed some seventy percent conceived! A betrothal agreement as when they were younger, but this was never rigines were more concerned might go people on together than Ihey were temporal life span. At death the goal is to that of a marsupial, which is naturally sub- to the economy. They gathered virtually all there were no actual marriage ceremo- guaranteed into old age. These old socie- way got Introducing collector's Hems you can a before they become antique lanship. Just get teitsl02-hpfuel- PH ate its rich interior, pop-up table nd unique seating ai , 1987 Wolfsburg Limited that becomes a be< i; Edition Volkswagens hurry. Because as 11v investing in, there aren't mmmany of them to go drive the spirit back lo its source, the land. camped or where an event took place. They But the evening slai is always said to have It joins with and becomes part of the spir- rounded off the soul of the landscape, you an essential femininity. Even on the east itual component of land. From this com- could say, and all the creatures in it. Thus coast, where I've never heard the creation ponent or source, child spirits are re- the forms of the landscape, animals, and story of women, the evening slar is female. born—a kind of reincarnation but very plant life as we know it were created. These Some of the species creators, such as the different, say, from the Buddhist view. places— caves, water holes, trees, boul- Djankawu Sisters, are also female. Physical paternity is denied. Not that ab- ders—are full of essences or spirit. Omni: Aren't species creators held to be origines did not see a connection between The wandering spirits and the process responsible for creat4ng certain sacred sexual intercourse and conception. Rather, of differentiation they left behind formed a sites, such as Ayers Rock and Orroroo? it was thought that there was no simple mark or trail .that lies within the spiritual es- Willmot: Yes, when the species creators, connection. It was believed that inter- sence of the land. This trail is referred' to as as I mentioned, passed through the land, course prepared a woman for conception, the dreaming. 'A person who says he be- giving it and its creatures their' present form but conception itself was an "act of proto- longs to the honey-ant dreaming means at the end of the dreamtime, their passage plasm" within the woman's body, being in- that his group of people and, perhaps, the also created sites that commemorate that fected by a child spirit from the land. honey ants were awakened at some re- creative period. Orroroo is such an impor- ' This belief in the land has caused lots of lated time and in some related form. This tant site because it is a key marker of one difficulties. On the one hand, it completely dreaming is essentially retained and re- of the major journeys of these spirits eradicated wars of land aggrandizement. flected within the spiritual essence of the through that part of the country, now known It was pointless to take someone else's land, although the person and the honey as New South Wales. Actually, it is no more land, because you couldn't reproduce ants may be quite dilicrenialod and ordi- sacred than Katatjuta or the Olgas, which yourself Irom anything but your own land. nary today. The dreamtime came to an end are outcroppings of rock quite similar in When the British drove groups from their with the reality of contemporary nowness, appearance to Ayers Rock. lands and onto others', however, the abo- or the temporal domain thai we live in to- In the last century or two, Australia has rigines became nol only economic but day. (Some say dreamtime ended sharply; changed dramatically, with the forests spiritual refugees. Then great trauma be- being cut down or burned, and cattle and set these people, and they just plain sheep being introduced. Many of these stopped having children. They believed it sacred sites are actually quite small and was too dangerous to reproduce on oth- are marked only by paintings or their spe- ers' spiritual lands, and they were able to cial shape "or appearance. So today only ^Australia's exert tremendous psychic control over their a those sites with enduringly spectacular body functions. kind of singularity of nature. geological and geographical fealures have Omni: The "dreamtime" is a distinctly ab- From what we become well-known. Orroroo and Ayers original concept of the birth of the world Rock are only two of such sites. and evolution. Can you tell us about it? find in the earth here, we Omni Isnftli'- i ieeply spiritual Willmot: Aborigines believe in a system or can read things involvement with land and nature docu- process of creation. They think that the mented by an elaborate form of rock art? about the beginnings of the earth was always here, that it was formed Willmot: Aboriginal rock art represents the from some primordial process in the uni- planet, solar greatesf assemblage of ancient human art verse but that it was in a sleeping state. on Earlh; it exceeds by a thousandfold system, and universe itself.^ The initial act of creation was to wake up anything else. It is the equivalent— or the entire earth—but partially—from this more— of archaeological scripts and pretime of total sleep. The period following hieroglyphics found in other old civiliza- this awakening is known as the dreamtime. tions. But it was not always like this. The It lasted a long time—a forever within a for- very early art Irom the Northern Territory, ever. Before dreamtime, all the life forms others maintain it merged s-owly into real- which dates back perhaps 'itty thousand found on Earth today were there but re- ity.) Bui the dreaming connection is ever years, resembles art from the caves of Al- mained undifferentiated; dreamtime be- present. When a traditional aboriginal man tamira in Spain, and Lascaux in France, gan the process of differentiation. The ear- or woman walks through the land, he or This art is very naturalistic and often speaks liest part of dreamlime was brought on by she walks through a spiritual place; it's real of animals that are long extinct, and gives the Transcendental Creator, which existed on one side, in one way you look at it; but us some idea of their appearance. since the beginning of time. This entity, in the other way, it always contains the spir- Probably around the time of the lirst ab- which all aborigine people know, often itual essence of the dreamtime. That is your original skeletal remains, around forty takes the temporal form of the rainbow and dreaming. thousand years ago, aborigines became is referred to as the Rainbow Serpent Omni: Haven't the Rainbow Serpent and interested in religion. (The first religious In the first part of dreamtime the Rain- other spiritual boinrio continued to change disposal of a body on Earth was al Lake bow Serpent awakened the earth and their sex even to this day? Mungo. When this Mungo Lady died, her awakened such dreamtime creatures as Willmot: Gender in aboriginal language is body was covered in red ocher and cere- "kangaroo man," "seagull man," or "eel more complex than in English. Australian" monially cremated. The remaining skeletal man." These giant, mystical beings were languages—perhaps the oldest living lan- material was carefully broken and placed not half-man, half-beast combinations like, guages— are complicated, Latin-like in a small conical pit.) European art of the say, the minotaur of ancient Greece. They things; and sometimes genders don't con- same period or earlier depicts economi- were rather "precreatures" that contained vey the actual sex of things so directly as cally important things — like the animals the principal elements or essences of, say, the. simple pidgin. In any case, the Tran- Ihey ate. The aborigines, however, were al- both man and kangaroo. During this time scendental Creator itself assumes some- ready on to things spiritual- things human these creatures had adventures and, in the times a male, sometimes a female form. It and beyond human. And they painted them process of those adventures and heroic tends to be male in the far north and fe- on the rock faces of this whole continent. deeds, brought about the next stages of male in the south— but. not in the usual This art is mystical, religious, and speaks dreamtime. Dreamtime is also the work of sense of .male and female. The moon is the mind of the first people to concern the species creators or subcreators who, commonly represented as male across the themselves with the nature of humans. in journeying throughout the land, left their- northern part of the continent, but along Early aborigine art fused painting with essences and the dreamtime creatures the east coast it is generally female. The literacy. Desert paintings and those from behind them at various places where they sun is sometimes iridic, sometimes female. the north can actually be read. This arl is . aa omni actually much closer to Chinese character served in sufficient purity that we will ever opposite lhal of Ihe aborigines: The West literacy than to alphabet literacy: It tran- know all the thing;, these myths can tell us. maximizes the use of any technology, no scribss ideas into markings on stone or Omni: While anthropologists have tradi- matter what the cost to society. These two bark. Peripatetic an. consisting mainly of tionally 'explained [he development of old factors, plus the intensely religious nature rock engravings, is found throughout the Australian culture in terms of the conti- of society," made old Australia what, it was. country, including Tasmania. But it's mys- nent's isolation from European technology. Omni: When and how did the first humans terious; even modern aboriginal scholars Is this something of a simplification? Get to Australia? can say very little about it. Some of it has Willmot: Two major things caused old Aus- Willmot: Until recently most scholars slrange similarities to arl seen else- tralia to be the way it was when the rest of thought that humans hadn't been here for where— mosl similar, perhaps, to that found the world came calling. The first is .ex- more than forty thousand years, although in parts of South America. plained by the colors aboriginal people use an opalized skull found in northern New Australia is a kind of singularity of na- lo painl their world: reds, yellows, whites, South Wales is probably a' least sixty thou- ture. So from what we find in the earlh of blacks. These earth pigments come Irom sand years old. Bone preserves well only this continenl, we can read things about minerals like aluminum, iron, nickel, and in special circumstances, lools found later the beginnings of the earth, the solar sys- chromium. But these metals are the most on, however, now indicate that aboriginal tem, and perhaps the universe itself. The difficult to extract from their ores. Only occupation of this continent is more than a records left behind by the early human in- modern technology can do it, so the abo- hundred thousand years old. habitants of this continent are somewhat rigines made no me:a.lL,rgical discoveries Until fifteen thousand years ago, New 'similar to nature's own records.. This his- o ; these minerals — beyond the pigments' Guinea was part of Australia and was in- tory of both the natural earth and its human use in art. Accidental discoveries of cop- deed inhabited by Australian aborigines. inhabitants, this ancient Australian art, is per would have been much simpler, be- Melanesian habitation of those islands is written in and on stone. But il is an imper- cause copper reduces easily from its ore quite a recent event, by comparison. Yet in fect literacy, and one that may take many in pottery kilns. But aborigine art reveals a spite of the fact :hs" tides were much lower centuries to fully understand. glaring lack of the blues and greens that during the last ice age than they are today, Omni: What is aboriginal mythology about? Australia has i icver boon pined lo any other : Willmot: Aboriginal mythology serves two large landmass by any sol o land bridge. purposes; Sometimes it's a record of the The only way people could have gotten very distant past; but it is more commonly here was by an extensive sea voyage. a way this society conveys, first to itself and How they got here, nobody knows. But '•Recently scholars then to the world, the complex nature of its it was an extraordinarily long time ago. Un- workings—the way its people are or ought thought humans hadn't been like the mythologies of the Pacific Island- to be. The historical significance is evident ers, old Australian my.hoiogy is virtually here for more in a myth telling of islands of ice near Tas- without migration mylhs. The only possible mania. This myth arose during the last ice than forty thousand years. mythic reference is that at leas! one spe- age, when Tasmania was largely glacial But an opalized cies creator is said to have come from the and there were large icebergs close to the sea during the dreamt me And whatever skull found in New South continent. Another myth tells of volcanoes happened, it happened in the drearntime. near Victoria, volcanoes that haven't been Wales is probably whenever that was. Aboriginal scholars to- volcanoes for fifteen or twenty thousand day take the view that however humanity sixty thousand years old^ years. In central Australia there was a per- came to be in this place, this continent is sistent myth about the bones of a large an- where ihe people ol old Ai istralia became imal preserved in a dried-up salt bed. lully human. This indicates lhal abor gines Eventually archaeo.oyisia '"iad a look; and may have arrived in Australia in a form pre- sure enough, they found the bones of the ceding that of Homo sapiens. diprolodon. This, the largest marsupial that come from copper. So the aborigines had Omni: Doesn't that suggesl that aborigine ever lived, died out about six thousand no metal whatsoever. And without the dis- fossils could have immense import tor un- years ago.. Very recently in north Queens- covery and use of metal, technology as we derstanding human evolution? land, a large painting—identified as a di- know it could never proceed, Willmot: Absolutely 1 Homo sapiens has al- prolodon —was found on a cave roof. It The second factor shaping old aborig- ways been (height to have evolved some- looks as we'd expect one to, and certainly ine society was a peculiar policy that de- where in Africa and then migrated north to the toes are those of a diprolodon; but Ihe manded that you maximize aflluence for Europe and south to. Australia. Remains of leg structure looks different. One wonders the minimum level of technology. For in- modern humans found in Australia, how- if it were a diprotodon or a close relative. stance, when the British arrived they noted ever, are at leasi ten thousand years older And there's a cave painting in the Northern the aborigines' interest in fishing lines and than any found elsewhere. So it's quite pos- Territory of another relative of the diproto- hooks. Yet recent archaeological digs show sible thai the final step in human evolution don, an animal that's known to have been that less than a thousand years ago, abo- took place in the isolation of Australia. extinct for at least eight thousand years. riginal people were using fishing lines made Two subspecies of man lived in Australia The point about tneso myths and paint- of kangaroo sin'ews, and hooks carefully in the distant past. One, commonly known ings we're discovering is that Ihey indicate wrought from shells. But clearly something as the Cow Swamp people, was very sim- quite clearly lhal the world, which for the happened to make them see that this tech- ilar to the European Neanderthals. The so- aborigines today is largely mythological, nology was less efficient for fishing than called Mungo people, however, were far was once a very real world; and these an- that of the "simpler" multiple-pronged more gracile lhan ever- Cro-Magnon man. imals were food animals, a source of the spear. So the line-and-hook technology Modern, fully descendant aborigines are aboriginal economy. was discarded by ihe aborigines. probably a mix of these two groups. The Like the imperfect literacy of the stone- When the British arrived, the average likelihood of a very old find in Australia, faces, aborigine mythology is terribly aborigine worked about five hours a day particularly one relating Homo sapiens' lo wrought with symbolism. Such symbolism' and was fat, brown, and happy. The aver- Homo erectus, is fairly high. Even more im- is cross-related, layered wilh meanings, age Britisher, however, would have been portant is the 'act that the relationship be- designed to convey special things to spe- lucky to make ends meet in fifteen hours, Iween Ihe two may be much clearer here, • cial people. The best I can do is give you even with sending his kic's into the coal than anywhere else. Homo erectus defi- some idea of its antiquity. 1 fear the tradi- mines. The British, and Western society in nitely existed in Asia, but until recently tions of ancient scholarship will not bepre- general, yousee, have a policy completely there's beer re evidence of Homo ereoius 90 OMNI |i.ist in Australia. That opalizecl skull that I men- Willmot: Australian."- were not inter- EXPLORATIOrUS tioned before, which was found by archae- ested in Europeans. Captain Cook, the fa- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3D ologist Allan Thorn, could, prove to be the mous navigator who mapped the east first piece of solid evidence for Homo er- coast'of Australia, said himself that when cannon shot, showing that each ball had ecius in Australia. he made offerings — the usual gifts of been left with an untrimmed "tail." When Omni: Hasn't there been great controversy technology such as steel tools—the abo- fired, he explains, this tail makes "a hell oi recently about whether bone specimens rigines unrolled them, examined them a screech. If you were a Joe Blow mer- housed at the University of Melbourne carefully, rolled them back up, and re- chant captain and had twenty-eight of should be returned to the aborigines? turned them to Cook. He had nothing of these buggers screaming at you, it would Willmot: Archaeologists and physical an- value for them. The unwanted technology definitely encourage you to surrender." thropologists have bitterly opposed abo- was a most unwanted debt. In addition, ihe Whydah fired tumbling riginal demands that these bones be re- Aboriginal people had most probably "bar shot," designed not for killing people turned for reburial. Very recent remains, the had two thousand years' experience with but for ripping holes in sails. so-called Crather Collection in Tasmania, so atari ng adventurers. The Macassins from Kinkor interprets this unusual ammuni- are simply the product of grave robbery. A Indonesia not only visited the land but set tion as evidence that psychological war- most appalling affair, because the robbers up quite elaborate facilities in north Aus- fare was a good deal more important for were living relations of those skeletons. tralia to process trepangs or beches-de- the pirates than actual violence. "These These remains have been returned and mer [sea cucumbers]. The first clearly re- guys were businessmen," he explains. buried again in the traditional manner. verted altack was on one of Cook's boats. "They knew that if they got the reputation Aboriginal people, much more sensibly But I fear that Cook fired on the people for viciousness, the crews they attacked than white scholars, have finally con- first. Or perhaps they threw the first spear— would put up that much more resistance." cluded that very old fossil remains, such they were irightened, unsure people. Who Instead, the pirates put on a show of force as the Mungo Lady or the Cow Swamp really knows what happened? But these to encourage their opponents to surrender. people, are the prime evidence of aborig- contacts were sporadic and trivial —cer- For Kinkor, though, the most gratifying inal existence and so should never be de- tainly nothing like the response that met objects are those that help confirm his stroyed. Recently the National Museum of Europeans whan I hoy allompted to invade impression of pirate society as democratic Australia, which has a statutory aboriginal the lands ol Ihe Molanosians and Polyne- and egalitarian. The brass "signature" advisory commii'.oc. decided that if abo- sians. Those were societies like the British, seals, for instance, are fascinating "inds. riginal people demand skeletal remains be based on warrior elites. Australia never had for they were used to sign the ship's "arti- returned, then they should be returned. Let them. Pemulwuy was perhaps Australia's cles"— a set of seagoing constitutional aboriginals bear the responsibility for the "first warrior, the Rainbow Warrior. rights that guaranteed each crew member future— both for the value these remains Omni: Have extremes of climate and ge- a prescribed share of the loot. In fact, Kin- may have for their own scholars, and the ography led aborigines to evolve distinc- kor says, the articles even provided for dis- value to the world of science. This is some- tive, pro-survival physical characteristics? tribution of that share to the crewman's thing that's always been missing in Aus- Willmot: Some aborigines have physical family if he were to be killed or incapaci- tralia—that aboriginal' people be allowed abilities allowirg them to live in the desert tated before collecting. to practice being really part of the modern or tropics better than Europeans. Desert As a matter of fact, Kinkor says, the human race. A deal with the local aborigi- aborigines have high intercellular inter- Whydah pirates may have gone even fur- nal community has also been made con- stices [spaces between the cells] that fa- ther in the direction of modern liberalism. cerning the remains in the Victoria muse- cilitate water retention. And almost all ab- Court testimony by the wreck's survivors origines in indicates that Bellamy captured the um collection, so I think the issue is passing. have a higher melanin content when Omni: Wasn't the separation of Tasmania the skin than whites, which protects (hem ship, one of his first acts was to free the from the Australian continent fairly recent? from ultraviolet rays. But all animals that black slaves aboard and to "adopt" 25 of Willmot: Tasmania became an island evolved in the tropics, including hominids, them as pirate crewmen, each entitled to roughly eight thousand years ago. Prior to probably have dark skins. Because you an equal say in shipboard proceedings and that, the technology of those living there really don't need a black skin in Australia, an equal share of the loot. "Not only were was similar to that of the peoples of Victo- the melanin is very poorly fixed in aborig- the pirates democratic," Kinkor concludes, ria. They made clothes from hides care- ines, and aboriginal people lose "heir color "they were, in an incidental way. purveyors fully sewn with bone needles, used wom- very quickly. Within two crosses with Eu- ol social justice." flour ropeans, have quite fair skins. I've For Kinkor, Clifford, and the rest of the . erah, or spear throwers, and ground we can from seed. Tasmanians appear physically seen Tasmanian aborigines with blond hair Maritime Explorations scientists, these findings are gratifying. different from mainlanders, but I think that's and blue eyes, whereas when you cross extremely They are only because of their isolation. And let's Europeans with Africans, Melanesians, or further encouraged by the admiration and face it, their isolation was a dramatic thing. Polynesians, you sometimes get brown keen interest oi the academic community, We know the tides took perhaps a thou- babies lor six generations. which 'views the artifacts as invaluable sand years to rise to present levels, but Omni: Haven'r the abongines beer excep- clues to the iruth about pirate life. parts of Australia, because of its flatness, tionally hard hit by alcoholism? But Clifford and Kinkor's work has just experienced even small tidal rises as cat- Willmot: Charles Perkins, an eminent abo- started. The wreck of the Whydah is strewn aclysmic events. For instance, in a single rigine, is currently leading a massive cam- over an area thai they now estimate to be generation the sea would have penetrated paign against alcohol in New South Wales. almost 100,000 square feet. Only 2 per- the land a kilometer in the northern parts. Many aborigine communities there have cent of that area has been excavated thus A child taken from Tasmania by his parents introduced laws banning alcohol within their far. Clifford estimates that it will take as long across Bass Strait to visit his relations in boundaries. I'm not sure I support prohi- as five years to do the rest. Victoria would, as an adult, be isolated for- bition, because the alcoholism is a symp- In the meantime, as Kinkor and friends ever from the rest of the known world. Tas- tom of a deeper malaise. As a symptom of slowly recover, clean, and restore the Why- it mania, I believe, did not regress; rather distress, of dispossession, of depression, dah's archaeological treasures, new infor- carefully adapted its culture to a form its alcoholism— as well as excessive tobacco mation turns up at a measured but satis- people needed to survive on this south- smoking and other drug taking —is char- fying pace. "It's a jigsaw puzzle down ernmost, isolated island. acteristic of all cultures of poverty. there," says Kinkor, referring to the sandy Omni: Did the old Australians massacre I've no doubt'that the Europeans them- bottom under which most of the Whydah white explorers, as did Melanesian peo- selves had a very bad time with alcohol a still, lies. "Each new bit of evidence we find ples? long time ago. Alcohol is very new for Aus- puts one more piece in place."DO 92 OMNI CO'-.TlV„'FD ON PAGE 132 *lf even a portion of the facts about UFO sightings is suppressed, the truth wilt never emerge.^ I was as skeptical as and Lieutenant Henry the next fellow about Combs, encountered unidentified flying ob- a lighted UFO circling jects. My legal train- at 17,000 lest They ing requited evidence described the object to prove the existence as an oblong ball with of UFOs. None was one light, no wings, forthcoming, except and no exhaust llame tor the typical tabloid It I could still doubt headlines (i was. sex- the sanity or sobriety ually ASSAULTED BV A of the observers al- MAfrriAN) found al su- ready mentioned, an permarket checkout inspection of Air Intel- counters: But what ligence Report 1R- was laughable has 193-55, dated Octo- now become serious ber 15. 19i Solid evidence does have to be the con- exist to erase the vinces The report was skepticism. Before this compiled after inter- evidence emerged, I views with Senator believed the Air Force, Richard Russell of the Central Intelli- Georgia, then chair- gence-Agency, and man of the Armed' every other govern- Forces Committee of ment agency that in- the Senate; Lieuten- sisted UFOs were a UFD UPDflTE ant Colonel E.V. Hath- myth- I would have away, a staff officer continued to -accept this government pronouncement for- assigned to the committee, and Reuben Eiron, a committee ever had it not been lor the passage ol the Freedom of In- consultant, On October 4. 1955, at 7: 10pm., after departing formation Act (F01A), Congress enacted this law because by tram from the USSR, all three observed two flying discs It felt thai the government was keeping too many facts from taking oil almost vertically—one- minuie apan public inspection. This concern was certainly justified Whatwe ultimately seek in Ihe courts is the truth. If even Thanks to the FOIA, we now know that Uncle Sam- has been a portion of the facts is suppressed, the truth will not emerge sitting on evidence lhal UFOs do exist and that very sub- How could I or any judge reach a proper decision on the stantial people have seen them. issue of UFOs when the testimony of responsible and cred- The most revealing information is found in Air Intelligence ible witnesses has never been heard? Division Study (A.LD.S)203. Following are some of the ref- We have now heard the other side of the case. We had erences-found wilhirr been led to believe that only charlatans, drunks, fools, or • White Sands, New Mexico. June 29. 1947. Three scientists psychopaths observed the phenomenon We now know that sighted a large, wingless disc or sphere moving horizontally. many of those witnesses were responsible, credible, and •Portland, Oregon, July 7, 1947 Five police officers sighted respected people, most of whom were technologically ,a varying number of similar discs Hymg over different sec- trained. We now have reason to consider the subject of UFOs tions of the city in light of strong evidence Heretofore suppressed.—HOW- • Andrews Field, Maryland, November 18, 1948. Reserve ARD E GOLDFLUSS. Acting Justice, Supreme Court, State pilots Lieutenant Kenwood Jackson. Lieutenant Glen Stalker, of New York, and author of the book The Judgment. ; " " are visualizing in a positive, upbeat way," Levitan notes. "For example, if a mother 'sees' her children crying after she is dead, I can point out that it's only natural because she is leaving them, but that her memory and influ- ence will always be with the youngsters." Levitan claims that patients typically respond to the death rehearsal with a sense of comfort and relief "It helps them accept death as a desirable biological out- come," he says. "We are dying from the moment we are born, but it doesn't have to be something we fear Levitan notes that death rehearsals have changed his own view of mortality "I would grieve if I had to die now," he says, "But I feel comfortable about death I'm convinced it isn't an unpleas- ant event at all." —Sherry. Baker "The days are gone when a man was allowed to die in peace and dignity in his own home. —Elisabeth Kubler-Ross techniques that allowed the According to Levitan, patient to "see" what death death is frequently described Devastated by would belike. in the same terms used by of terminal lung cancer, the Levitan. who has con- people who have reported man suffered a serious ducted "death rehearsals" for near-death, or out-of-body, emotional collapse. "His own dozens of critically ill pa- experiences. "Some feel death had never crossed tients, explains that hypnosis the self merging into a more his consciousness before," can be used to project universal awareness and says Alexander Levitan, people forward in time to the feel a sense of familiarity," he a Fridley, Minnesota, internist, moment of death. The patient says. "Some talk of looking oncologist, and hypnother- describes the images he down, as though they were apist "After the diagnosis he sees, meanwhile relating how separating from their bodies." fell apart totally and became he feels— if he's afraid, if Levitan assists the patients 1 obsessed with dying' Levi- there is any pain, what the by offering a positive re- tan was able to relieve the people around him are sponse to the visualized man's paralyzing anxiety, feeling, and even who visits scenes. "I don't lie to them, however, with visualization his body at the funeral home but I help interpret what they m OMNI a " " "" in nervous women who chew or suck on their hair "These Anyone who owns a cat hair balls, technically referred has probably Seen the animal to as trichobezoars, take choking because of hair years to build up," Truss says, balls, which form internally as "and can be mistaken for a resull of the feline's groom- tumors on X rays ing habits But in Iran re- Unlike oats, who usually cently, doctors discovered a vomit or cough up the excess huge human hair ball in a hair they swallow, human woman's stomach, eaters are faced with more The twenty-year-old patient serious consequences. was rushed to Alavi Hospital "If human hair balls are lefl in Shir az for removal of untreated, Ihey can erode the what was believed lo be a wall of the sldmach and large, cancerous growth that lead to a_bleeding ulcer," was threatening her life and Truss warns. "They can also endangering her pregnancy obstruct the stomach, block it off, and even be fatal." - Sherry Bakei Ihem The murdered soldier, Car up again, turn it around however, turned out to be during a night terror, and his wife. The court accepted drive down the road in the the plea of not guilty due wrong direclion Three people set killed. If you com ml I acts of to "sane automatism" and were murder, violence, or mayhem the man free Under Massachusetts law. while asleep, says British Psychiatrist Ernest Harl- Hartmann says, this episode psychiatrist Peter Fenwick, mann, author of The Night- lit the definition of Insanity: you might be able to get mare The Psychology and "The person did not know off scot-free Biology of terrifying Dreams, what he was doing and did The murderous acts, has studied a similar case not know the difference according to Fenwick, occur in the United States. Under between right and wrong." during episodes of a bizarre stress and Ihe influence The man was convicted, but sleep disorder known as of alcohol, he says, a Massa- Hartmann thinks that "if he night terror Unlike sleepwalk- chusetts man pulled off the had not had alcohol in his ers, the victims of night road to sleep, only to start his blood, he might have been terrors show intense emo- found innocent Bui when surgeon Ibrahim tional involvement in their As for Fenwick, he hopes Shademan removed the dreams^ which typically in- the law in Great Britain will be mass, he found, Instead of a clude sensations of falling, changed: "For most other malignancy, a solid ball ol choking, or being attacked violent, automatic acts Gamed hair weighing 4.4 pounds. Those in the grip of an epi- out in an organic contusional How did the mass form? sode may scream, sit up, state, there is a mandatory Doctors learned the woman walk, or assault a sleeping referral to a hospital, usually a continually chewed and partner. Typically they recall secure one. The difference swallowed her own hair— little upon waking seems Magical and suggests habil she had developed One such episode was the that the law on automatism in childhood. highlight of a recent murder needs revision According to Birmingham, trial in Great Britain The —Paul McCarthy Alabama, gasiroenterologist defendant apparently had Christopher Truss, the Iran dreamed Japanese soldiers "Extreme terror gives us hair ball was unusually large. were chasing him in his back the gestures of our But smaller versions have sleep—and in the ensuing childhood been found from time to time struggle, he strangled one of —Chazal " " —" " to una the dinosaur nas not diminished his belief Iha't The latest group to brave il exists. "We tracked down a the Congolese swamp in pastor who had seen one search of Ihe creature called immediately in front of him." Mokele M'bembe has re- Gibbons says "He turned ampty-handed The described it as the size of mysterious animal, said to be two forest elephants, with a a living example at a sauro- long neck and tail, reddish- pod dinosaur, has been brown skin, and a comblike reported by local people lor frill on the back. There is the past 30 years. no question that a small pop- The recent expedition, led ulation of these unknown by former British Army pri- aquatic creatures does reside vate Bill Gibbons, was in the area. It is only a matter plagued with troubles Irom of time before someone the start All four members of discovers irrefutable proof" the group were arrested Gibbons would like it to upon their arrival in the be him. But the next chance Congo, and any government may go to University of e m p loy ee endo rsi ng th ei r Chicago biologist Roy particular evening a young are undergoing dramatic mission was expelled from Mackal, who has probed the woman with blond hair in pressures and changes. In Office. The group Imally swamps of She Congo In workout garb kicks things off order for itto survive, it must received permission to pro- search of Mokele M'bembe for a dozen yuppie peers. offer the services and under- ceed only alter paying thou- twice before. Mackal says he "I'm beautiful, sensual, and standing that people need. sands of dollars' worth of has been accumulating brilliant," she says "I'm a These days, he notes, bribes. And en route to the funds and plans an expedi- wonderful mother, a talented those needs are best met by animal's alleged lake home, tion for February 1988. writer, a gifted psychic I'm casual channeling groups they trekked through swamps Gibbons himself plans to go a money magnet!" and by spirits like 'Jonathan. filled with poisonous snakes back in 1990 as a mission- Clearly, Ihis is not a seance As the lights went down and tribes of Pygmy head- ary—partly to eliminate some for bereaved widows hoping and the candles flared during hunters. of. Ihe red tape, he says, to speak with spirits from one recent meeting of the According to Gibbons, one and par tly because he was beyond. Instead it is a sign Wednesday group, Jonathan advantage was his red hair "born again" during his that the tired Spiritualist seemed to settle in Stock- and beard, which caused the first journey to the Congolese religion may, after all, be well's body. "Pay heed to to treat swamp people him swamp.^Jenny Randies changing with the times. world affairs. ' Jonathan/ like a god. "They were very "Most Spiritualist churches Stockwell told the group; 'And friendly to me," he says. "As spread -thighs are to the I know are filled with lovely practice making your own "They made me their 'man of libertine, flights of migratory people and very outdated predictions about the global the people' and offered birds to ihe ornithologist, practices, " says Stockwell, state ot affairs me presidency of the lake the working part of his tool bit who is a member of the "In these troubled times," after a special ceremony to Ihe production machinist, First Universal Spiritualist Stockwell says, "Spiritualism He was sanguine about his so was ihe letter V lo young Church of New York City and has a more important func- " failure to glimpse the mon- Stencil. has been a channel for tion than to say that Aunt ster "We did discover what —Thomas Pynchoh guides from the spirit world Millie and Uncle Jack are still seems to be a new species of all his life. "Seances often around and send you their monkey and brought ahead devolve into parlor games, love."—Tracy Cochran back !pr study," he says. with mediums dragging "We now believe that the Mo- On Wednesday nights out one dead relative after "Wo matter how slow the film. kele M'bernbe has moved Jehremy Stockwell holds a the next. The way my guides Spirit always stands still from the lake but still lives in "channeling" class in his have explained it to me. long enough for the " the lake region." apartment oh Manhattan's though, is that Spiritualism, photographer It has chosen Indeed. Gibbons's failure Upper West Side. On this and indeed all religions, —Minor White 98 OWN) — audiences because they are just so . . . be less centralized, more personalized, AT THE MOVIES out there. In this film I really would be allowing for a larger selection of lilms. In bent. Or I might play a villain —and this the near future, the industry will move be- is my father's lake on me—who con- yond ihe New York-Los Angeles axis. The artistically over what you want to do and vinces the audience that he's a nice, re- old joke that everyone dreams of being say, you have to control how you make sponsible guy and then changes com- a screenwriter will come true. With the ihe movie—and that means control over pletely. In the end the audience would advent and quality of Super 8, video has the budget, casting, location. choose— to let me go or to off me. more lineage resolution than celluloid. As Omni: Does all the discussion about de- costs continue to decrease, more people THEATER FOUR creasing attention spans worry you? will have the opportunity to tell their per- Douglas: Steven Spielberg spoke very sonal Stories, and film will have a greater astutely at this year's Academy Awards, sociological impact. And I think movie Time: Late twentieth century saying we're going to have to return to "theaters themselves will be influenced by Setting: Los Angeles story, to the written word. People's read- computers and Showscan, offering spe- . Synopsis: Lust destroys a Beverly Hills ing interests will peak again —and not too cial experiences and technological ad- psychiatrist's life in this film about sexual far into the future.- They'll be more adept vances to people who want to go out of obsession. He's got it made: a thriving at sitting through a complicated story and their homes for entertainment. practice; the right wife;'a well-ordered, plot line. The story is crucial in whatever THEATER FIVE moral life. One day a strange woman genre you film. I started out in films with walks into his office. She's not very pretty; a political and social nature, like One Flew A John Schlesinger Film: Hadrian VII she's not a great seductress; but some- Over the Cuckoo's Nest; then I did ro- Starring: Dustin Hoffman thing about her makes him lose control. mantic comedies like Romancing the Screenwriter: Charles Wood (Help!, He becomes obsessed with her, and his Stone. I said I'd never do science fiction, How I Won the War, Tumbledown, Cuba) I life starts to fall apart. He begins to break but I did Starman. After filmed Romanc- Genre: Historical drama his own moral and ethical codes until he ing the Stone, people said, "You've lost Time; 1903 loses everything he's worked for. your credibility." But, God, I was sent Setting: London A Son Also Rises. One of the most in- really depressing scripts after The China Synopsis: Dustin Hoffman is stunning teresting possibilities for the future will be Syndrome. Every cancer story in Ihe world in Schlesinger's many-layered re-crea- inleractive movies, in which the audience must have made its way to me. Actors tion of the life of the turn-of-the-century will redirect the story line. I'd like to make and producers should try different roles, that's the nineteenth century— writer a suspenselul, interactive film and fulfill different movies. What's important is to Frederick William Rolfe. An extremely dif- a personal desire of mine; to play a really be open to the story. ficult man, the smallish, graying Rolfe grim, bad character—a murderer, maybe. Omni: Any comments on the future 7 failed as a writer. Rejected twice for the I've played so many morally righteous, Douglas: There'll be a wider spectrum of priesthood, he eventually withdrew into a humane guys. Villains usually fascinate films In the future. The film industry will world of fantasy. Britain's maverick direc- tor focuses on one of the fantasies Rolfe wrote out as a sort of novel: He becomes the first British pope. The audience trav- els with Rolfe from his real-life. Spartan room into an imaginary land where he dons the full vestments of the papal of- fice and sits on a throne surrounded by members of the Sacred College, Swiss A VISIT fROM THE guards, and an entourage of cardinals in READER full purple. As Pope Hadrian VII, Rolfe METER walks among throngs of the faithful in St. Peter's Square. He even changes Ihe world in significanl ways. In the end his own delusions invade his fantasy. Schlesinger: Everybody's Talkin' at Me. For some reason I'm attracted to sub- jects that exhibit a dark quality—people pushed to the edge of their experience, to a crisis point. Portraying people who have failed and live in a world of fantasy is a repetitive theme in my films. The dif- ference between fanlasy and Ihe reality behind it fascinates me. I don't mean to say that I'm totally pessimistic —optimis- tically pessimistic, perhaps lhat's it. I'd really like to do a film about the country again, an enclosed society, like village life and its darker side. I've dreamed of doing Evelyn Waugh's novel A Handful ol Dusl, about a kindly, civilized man who C.60 cuOui^— leaves London and returns to the old family estate, located between the vil- lages of Hellon and Cornpton Last. His young son dies, and his wife, who is bored with isolated country living, has an atfair. The hero attempts to escape from his pain ' by traveling to Ihe jungles of South Amer- — ica, where he falls into the clutches of an Filming Hadrian VII would be a ques- much shorter, and they are accustomed insane old man. The hero realizes that his tion of how the sets would look. They to seeing things in familiar surroundings. fate is not radically different from what he would, change vastly and instanta- This requires no effort on their part. A had encountered in "civilization." neously but would be related to the ac- world full of people changing channels Omni: Any comments on the way you use tual environment in which Rolfe lives. I'm and I include myself—is disastrous from technological breakthroughs? not interested, however, in technique for Ihe point of view of concentration. We Schlesinger: As a child I was an amateur technique's sake but in the human ele- don't allow a film, even when it gets a bit magician; and the mixture of technical ment of filmmaking. I use film for emo- slow, to wash over usr we don't go with dexterity, illusion, and audience control tional purposes with all the techniques it. People want instant gratification. The closely parallels the craft of a filmmaker. available to me. I hope only that viewing audience doesn't want to listen very hard An invisible string exists between the systems improve. Maybe someday we'll for very long, and that's a real problem. screen and the audience The director see films on our walls beamed from a They want a film to be sharp, shocking; pulls it tight, lets it loose, or jerks it back- satellite. But no technological develop- their attitude seems to be, Get on with ward or forward. It's a matter of move- ment will replace the experience of going the story. On the other hand, the great ment and fluidity: how you achieve a cun- to the cinema and sharing those mo- thing about "the audience" is that it can't ning composition, how you move the ments with a lot of people in a darkened be second-guessed. Films that didn't look camera, how you use clever lens tech- room. I regret the passing of the big commercially viable on paper, like Room niques to form a tight framework, and how screen and the large cinema. I hate the With a View or Platoon, are successful. you edit a film. These things, in a very way films, on the whole, are exhibited. And they are human stories that do. not simple way, propel the emotional content And it's getting worse, not better. At the rely simply on technique. Thank God of the story in the tilm. I like the flexibility present moment I don't see a wonderful there's always something coming from left that technical improvements in the tools era of filmmaking about.to explode all over field, confounding all the people who want of our trade provide. Film stock is faster; the world. I suppose I was fortunate to to jump on bandwagons overladen with color is better and needs less light. have begun in the Sixties, a great period repetitive ideas. I recently made a film, An Englishman for film. Things are not as optimistic look- THEATER SIX Abroad, in an extremely short period of ing today. On the whole, films are very time. I didn't feel the pressure largely be- mediocre. No one takes risks. The com- A Mel Brooks Film: She Stoops to Con- cause we were working with sixteen-mil- mercial considerations are enormous. I'm quer limeter; the cameras were smaller, more shocked by the lack of money here in Starring: Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, mobile. There are all sorts of things you England, because we have a vast amount Gene Wilder, Dudley Moore, Victoria Ten- can do to sets with computers and com- of wonderful talent. nant puter graphics. I know people already are Omni: Do we have a different generation Screenwriter: Mel Brooks stripping in backgrounds for television, of moviegoers because of television and Genre; Satire Circa and I think these techniques may be re- the video revolution? Time: 1770 fined to make the scene very real. Schlesinger: People's attention spans are Setting: Surrey, England Synopsis: This intricately plotted com- edy, based on Oliver Goldsmith's classic play, involves a series of misunderstand- ings that have far-reaching conse- quences. The fun begins when Marlow (Dudley Moore) mistakes the home of a friend's father for a country inn. Director Brooks plays Squire Hardcastle, with his real-life wife Anne Bancroft posing as the gorgeous Lady Hardcastle. As the movie moves from farce to high comedy, Gene Wilder steps in as Tony Lumpkin, the country-bumpkin squire who is Lady Hardcastle's son from a pre- vious marriage. Marlow, who is terrified of well-bred women but able to handle "females of another class," mistakes the squire's daughter Kate (Victoria Tennant) for a barmaid. And the fun continues. Brooks: Past, Present, and Future. Probably the biggest event in the next century will be the war between human- ism and machines. People will become more robotic in their thinking, while ma- chines will learn to make love. By the time the twenty-first century rolls around, we will have had our fill of violence and an overabundance of frontal nudity. Strait- laced Victorian attitudes toward sex probably will be back in vogue. But to me, comedy has always been based on be- havior; and even though times change, the human animal remains basically ihe same. So I base my comedy on the eternal verities: greed, lust, blind ambition, lazi- ness, lying, and (occasionally) goodness. No one becomes a great comic talent, 102 OMNI by the way. You are born with it. and it them, their faces bathed in the beautiful Cinematographer: Ronnie Taylor {High becomes apparent very early in life. You white hght bouncing off the silver screen. Road to China, Gandhi) sharpen and hone your gifts with hard Suddenly they all laugh at once: a glo- Sound: Simon Kaye [Platoon) work and dedication, bul if you don't have rious explosion; I couldn'l live without it. Genre: Historical epic timing lo begin with, you'll never achieve Omni: Will you ever do a serious film? Time: Late 1700's' it—except maybe tor Ronald Reagan. Brooks: I want to do a David Lynch un- Sellings: London, Paris, Philadelphia Omni: Is there a comedy you'd like to conscious treatment of the secret mind Synopsis: The director, who won a 1982 make in the future? of Adoll Hitler, a Samuel Beckett-ish ad- Academy Award for Gandhi (Best Pic- Brooks: The op iy classic genre I have not venture dealing with unconscious truths. ture), draws a celluloid portrait of Thomas worked in is the Disneyesque animated I'd have to find new cinematic devices to Paine, one of the most wrongly judged film. K I could got the right angle, I'd love unfold the story properly. I'd produce it. and underestimated philosophical radi- lo kick the shit out of Snow White and the Gerald Hirschfeld. who did young Fran- cals of his time. Born in England in 1737, his lirsl Seven Dwarfs! I also want lo re-create kenstein and can paint with a camera, Paine was in thirties when he met the Thirties Busby Berkeley black-and- would be my cinematographer. Terence Benjamin Franklin in London. Paine went white musical spectacular. I see myself Marsh, whose best work has never seen to America to work for the cause of free- dancing down a thousand steps and the light of day, would be my set de- dom, influencing the Founding Fathers somehow tripping on the last one. It would signer. The guy's a genius. And Lynch with his brilliant political essays. In 1776 be fun to cast a thousand beautiful ladies would be the perfect director. He'd do it he published Common Sense, a defense lo be balled-up flower buds that open as in black and white, as he did Eraserhead. el the colonist position, and the famous Ihe camera passes. Hermann Goring and that incredible little pamphlet The Crisis, which Washington Omni: Any device or technique you'd like snakelike Joseph Goebbels would be had read to his soldiers. Altenborough the film industry to produce? represented in some insane, symbolic painslakingly brings the man's life to the Brooks: Someone in the industry should way—Goebbels based on power -and screen — !rom Paine's involvement in the invent a new lens that covers what hap- Goring on sexual perversity. Eva Braun American Revolution to his trial for trea- pens in a small area without bowing or would represent the people— the inno- son in Britain, and his escape to Paris. bending the image. If such a lens were cent people— swallowing everything, where he became involved with Danton, lie, Robespierre during available, I would work in tight quarters believing a being seduced. It could Marat, and the French with minilighls. It would save on the cost be an incredible picture. Revolution, Imprisoned in France, he of building sets. wrote The Age of Reason, a critique of 1 HEATER SEVEN Omni: Will videos replace the movie the- orthodox religion. At President Thomas ater experience? A Richard Attenborough Film: Thomas Jefferson's request, Paine was released Brooks: There will always be a film au- Paine trom prison and returned to America. He dience; hundreds of people sitting in a .Production Design: Stuart Craig [The died seven years later— poor, sick, and theater, eating popcorn, mesmerized by Mission, Greystoke: The Legend of Tar- out of public favor. the twenty-loot images that tower above zan, -Gandhi) Attenborough 's Magic. I don't know if this movie could ever be done as a single film. The scale is monumental. And cer- tainly the budget would be horrific—sev- enty-five to eighty million dollars. I don't know if I could persuade any company to agree. The shooling would occur on all the original locations. I haven't any idea about casling. Paine has been drawn by .a number of artists He looks very in- tense, hawklike —with a high forehead, heavy brow, prominent nose, and serious bul solt eyes. There are a number of ac- tors who might portray him. In general, I admire Kevin Kline and Denzel Washing- ton, who is as exciting as Sidney Poitier was twenty years ago. Also, Alyson Reed is one of the best screen actresses I've ever come across. If there were ever a part in any movie that I was doing that she was even slightly right for, I would bend it and rewrite it in order to put her in Ihe film. Omni: Do you think future film audiences will be less willing or able to become emotionally engaged by films? Attenborough: Increasingly audiences are willing and able lo tackle subject matter that they must listen to and assimilate, rather than sitting passively, gazing at escapist, superficial entertainment. But when people are dealing with difficult, absorbing material. Ihe experience de- mands the movie house, the cinema. There are now—and there will be more and more—subjects that demand the large screen. The stories demand the ex- citement and ernoliona nve vement ol an — — audience. People are beginning (o rec- ling excifing subjects. Milos Forrnan Still ognize ihat silling at home, with Auntie SISKEL ON EBERT takes risks. And Stephen Frears, who did asking for a cup ot tea at" the most dra- My Beautiful Laundrette and has just fin- matic moment, destroys that moment for- ished Prick Up Your Ears—a marvelous film it will easier to soaring out of control in main- about the life and death of the playwright ever. I think be draw peo- budgets ple into the theater for important films in stream Hollywood, a whole bunch of in- Joe Orion— is superbly talented. dependent films were nominated this year Omni: Will there ever oe a kind of interna- the future. " trade in Omni: Will the film industry of the next for Oscars? I think we're going to get all tional movies? century return to more politically and so- kinds of strange and wonderful tilms very Ebert: Wilh the advent of new. cheaper cially conscious films? soon. We have this David Lynch, who got technology, countries that couldn't afford Attenborough: Film has an important role nominated lor an Oscar for Blue Velvet. I'm to make films will begin producing films Ihat to play in affecting the way people view betting we're on the uptake. I just hope the express that country's culture. It's really an political malters. The industry has moved major studios don't gobble up all the the- exciling possibility. As a critic, I see mov- away from such matters in the last ten aters—as they are doing right now—so ies Irom Iran. North Vietnam, China, Mo- non- rocco, Nigeria. But ninety-five of years. But I think politically and socially there aren't alternative theaters for percent engaging films will become imporlant Hollywood films to be seen in. all the movies are made in the United again. Of course, that's my hobbyhorse. Ebert: The cassette and disk revolution will States, Japan, Europe, Australia, and In- dia. -ha: when arge portions I fifteen That means That's what I love doing. am a narrative be consolidated within the next factor ot the world's population to Ihe movies, filmmaker, and through narrative form I years. That's a key to remember. The go try and tell stories whose contents are use of prints-will be obsolete. Sludios won't they see people who don't speak their lan- socially, morally—whatever Ihe word is send a print to a theater. The movie will be guage or live in their country. This is going high-definition to in a very big way. I satellite change important to me. I don't write books; delivered by via rev- are predictions that com- couldn't write to save my life. I don't com- television technology. This will cause a Omni: There of motion-picture puters robots will one used as pose music or paint pictures. I say what olution in the economics and day be it will in and that computers will syn- I want to say through film. production because be extremely actors films if both to tilm to distribute movie. thesize tamoL.s deceased film stars, to the If I had failed to make Gandhi, or cheap and a will in for just delight of their fans. Whal do you Ihink? Gandhi had been a failure, I probably Because a movie be beamed it is Ihe Ebert: That will the day. That sounds like would have given up directing. I believe exactly where and when needed, be fundamentally that film is the most per- break- even point will be reduced substan- the very last thing in the world I would ever suasive medium that we've devised. tially. I'm sure we'll still have a blockbuster want to see. If in Ihe future the technology Nothing can compare to tilm on a world- mentality in the future— movies that one does become available, there ought to be wide basis. Some two hundred million hundred million people want to see. But a law against it. people saw Gandhi. The possibilities for directors will be able to make a movie that Siskel: In terms ol technology, we defi- the future for film, in terms of social com- one hundred thousand or ten thousand nitely will be seemg interactive movies. I ment and education, are very great. people might see. Directors will be free to dread ihe day when I II be sitting in a the- Very recently there has been the most experiment and take on more offbeat and ater watching a movie wilh a remote con- extraordinary encounter between Mik- personal projects. By the year 2000 or so, trol on my lap; with lots of other people hail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher, a motion picture will cost as much money trying to fight my response or chase me the British prime minister. She is as right- as it now costs to publish a book or make out or whatever. It's a gimmick. See, the wing as your president, and she is saying a phonograph album. greatest experience in moviegoing is to that her encounters with Gorbachev were Omni: What technological advances will submit, if you will, to be subordinate to the more stimulating and more important than affect movies in the twenty-first century? film. Submitting to a great film is a delight. any encounters she has ever had in her Ebert: I've seen Showscan, the sevenly- I don't need anything more. I don'l want to life. She said she would be prepared to millimeter. sixty- frames -a-second technol- be the director. I want to be Ihe viewer. trust anything that Gorbachev said. In one ogy developed by Douglas Trumbull. It was Omni: Will Siskel and Ebert be together in flash the" door to arlistic exchange is open. the most amazing sight I've ever wit- . the Iwenty-first century? I'm sure Ihis openness will affect cinema. nessed on the screen, offering a far more Ebert: Actually, I'm planning to collaborate Film is going to help break down barriers realistic viewing experience than any other with Susan Seidelman on a computer-gen- between nations. technique. Because it doubles the speed erated clone of Gene Siskel. I'm going to Religious issues may play a bigger role of today's movies, you experience incred- program it to be a heck of a nice guy. I'm feelings. looking to working with thai clone in film in the luture. I feel very concerned ible physical sensa-ions and The forward flooded with in- lor years. about that possibility. I become fearful of human nervous system is many "religious issues" because religion can formation. Showscan's a very significant Omni: Will Ihe show change in any way in technology. the is the next century? be so divisive. I would be very uncom- And Showscan movie fortable if films suddenly became one of eomoalible with television. Ebert: It surely will change once Seidel- the principal ways to disseminate forms Omni: What directors do you most look for- man gets to Siskel. of religious conviction. ward to seeing-in the future? Siskel: Okay, I'm going to say something. del.ver I I I've I certainly think that fairly soon we will Ebert: would name just a few: Gregory been dying lo this speech. have a degree of three-dimensionality in IMava. who made El Norte; Susan Seidel- don't know whether well be doing the straw a normal cinema projection. That means man, whoso latest Nlrri is Making Mr. Right; in the year 2000. That would mean the show you'll have at least an element of three- and Alex Cox. the director of Sid and Nancy would have boon running twenty five years. D withoul having to sit in an auditorium and Repo Man. But I'm lalking about young, After the show ends, we will go our sepa- wilh strange glasses on, as though you young directors Among established di- rate ways socially. We do that now. From were sunbathing. rector's, I will be extremely interested in time to time we'll connect, maybe via MCI lik- There is one film I would love to do, if seeing what Werner Herzog and Martin mail, saying, "Can you believe they're anyone would let me The Hunchback ound the year 2000. ing this junk?" We were recently on The To- certainly o! Noire Dame as a musical. I would slar Siskel: David Lynch has proved night Show, and Carson asked us. "Do you diffi- in it. God, I'd give anylhing up to be able he has extraorcMwy talent with Blue Vel- two even like each other?" We gave to jump around hke Charles Laughton with vet. He's a very. exciting director. Woody dent answers. But I think otherwise. When only one eye and ring those cathedral Allen is doing just line, clicking along at my three-year e e eaughter sees a picture bells and sing. What a part! Whal a film one picture a year. Jonathan Dcmme. di- of Roger and me, she says, "That's your that would be!DO rector, of Swimmmg to Cambodia, is tack- friend Roger." She knows the truth. DO 106 OMNI ' " ' — being allowed visi:ors ior ioar they would into everlasting torment. The sheep from VISITATION say something that might upset him. "Look the goals. Wha; i-ho lighleous are the mi- at cells," tochondria? i ney cio unto ethers; they love CONTINUED FROM PAGE 61 "God created cells," 'he had said, tap- i.neir neighbors; they give us oxygen." delicious thrust is completed, after millen- ping the Bible. "It's all in here." "And we give them a place to' Jive." Jan- nia of delay. 'Are mitochondria in there, too? Does the ice said. "It's a symoiel'c relationship. They If ".here : Then it slides from me in a fountain of Bible explain why God would create a pari can't live without us. s such a thing life, gives it Ihe mi- my body's juices, and I fall backward. of the cell with a differenl DNA and RNA as eternal and God" to As the beautiful thing, dripping my life, from the rest of it? It's obvious the mito- tochondria, he has to give it to us, too. Oth- erwise, they live?" is turned againsl Glaum, I glance at its chondria aren't even part of us. They're a where would : wielder, at Ihe whiteness o his lovely face, prokaryolic cell that swam in at some poinl The waiting room began to fade. The still blackly, teeth clenched within its grin. . . . in the evolution of the cell and formed a door to ICU yawned but be- il —Roger Zelazny symbiotic relationship with it. I dare you to side there was awhile light. "Well, thank find even one meniion of mitochondria in goodness!" Janice said. LORD OF HOSTS that Bible." " And when you depart out of that house When Mr. Lederberg went into ventric- He had started thumbing through the Bi- or city, shake off the dust of your feet,' "Mr ular fibrillation, Dr. Janice Greene ordered ble, looking upset, and two days later he Lederberg said. the nurse to adminisier lidocaine, felt a had had ano;her heart attack and died. The while light was blurring his bare legs sudden grabbing pain in her own chest, Final-stage anoxia: guilt, Janice thought. somehow, mak ng them look like they were 7" and fell to the floor. She left her body and "You found mitochondria in the Bible she shaking. Spontaneous lading of the mem- hovered above the ICU team trying lo save asked him. ory trace, Janice thought. her. Autosa it on by "In Genesis," he said. " 'Thus the heav- The white light became a man in a white cerebral anoxia, she thought. She entered ens and the ear ih wore in shod, and all the robe. He spread his arms out, his hands a black tunnel, saw a white light, and heard hoslof them.' open. "In my father's house are many man- voices calling to her Automatic endorphin sions," he said. release in response to oxygen disruption, Mr. Lederberg backed toward the ICU she thought. The light and voices faded, door. He was looking at his hands. They and she found herself in the hospiial's ICU 'were snaking, too. No, not shaking. Vibrat- waiting room. Mr. Lederberg was sitling on ing, as if every pore, no. every cell were in 4T/fe waiting a green plastic chair in his hospital gown, motion. You couldn't really see your mito- holding a Bible. Flash recalls due to tem- room began to fade. The door chondria, Janice thought, not without an poral-lobe seizures, Janice thought, and electron microscope. to the !CU yawned waited for them to fade, too. Janice looked down at her own hands. it When it didn't, she sat down next to Mr. biankly, but beside there Peptide-generated hallucinations, she thought despcialoly. Her mitochondria be- Lederberg. "That idiot ICU team was so was a white light. busy working on me, they forgot all about gan to come out. Connie Willis It became a in a white you, didn't they?" man "I don't know," he said, clutching the Bi- robe. He spread THE FABLE OF THE FARMER AND FOX his chest. "I seemed lo leave my Once, so they say, a certain people re- ble to his arms out, his hand open.^ ceived teacher, no one knew whence. body, and then I went into a dark tunnel a ." But he seemed kindly and wise, and be- and . . cause he broup.tr knowledge of useful arts "I know, I know," Janice said. "You're dead," as well as voicing high and moral princi- "Where are we?" he said. ples, they made him welcome, and he "My guess is that I'm being wheeled- into "And this host is the m tochondria?" came to be considerably admired. folk, the morgue. It only looks like the ICU wait- "Yes. 'They wandered in Ihe wtoerness Some of the richer however, jealous ing room because of random neural stim- in a solitary way; and he led them forth by that anyone should exert more influence uli." She looked around at the waiting room. the right way. that they migh: goto a city of than they, resolved to pose a guestion to answer. It was dark beyond the door to ICU. "I hate habitation.' The city is us. Once I started him that he could not On a day, until this place," she said. "I always had to come looking, I found dozens of references. 'Ye they waited for him in the road he oul here and give rhe patient's family bad are the salt o'f the earth.' It's true. We passed by with those who now were his news." couldn't live without them.- And when Je- disciples, and one whom they had ap- "Bad news," Mr. Lederberg said. " 'And sus asks the Gadarene man, 'What is thy pointed said to h m, "If you believe, as you before him shall be gathered all nations; name?' he answers, 'Legion.' Don't you see have.offon said, that the world was made and he shall separate them one from an- what that means?" by forces that are wholly good, how, then, other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep It means that people hang on to hare- account lor sickness and deformity, for from the goats.' " He opened Ihe Bible. "I bramea ideas m death., too, Janice thought. misery and death?" 7" found them in here. After you asked me "No. What does ii mean The teacher said, "God loves the whole about them. The mitochondria." "Thai the Bible wasn't written for us. It creation." "Oh?" Janice said, wishing some other was written for them," "So where is this God you talk about so dying synapse would fire. She didn't like- "Don't be ridiculous!" she snapped. "I freely?" they demanded. Mr. Lederberg any more than she liked the thought God was supposed to be the God "You may find God wheresoever you de- waiting room. It wasn't that she disliked of everything." sire," the teacher said. fundamentalists. She realized that dying "The fish of the sea and the fowl of the "We think little of that," they replied. "Are people would cling lo anything. She her- air and every creeping thing? The mito- we to honor the creator of plague, the one self was still hanging on fo the stethoscope chondria are in everything." who decreed that we must die and make she had been Holding wrier she died. But Janice clutched nor stethoscope. We I our flesh a meal for worms?" Mr Lederberg was a cellular biologist, and then, He's 'our God, too, because the mi- "Listen," the teacher said, "and I shall Janice thought ho. shoud know better. tochondria are inside-us." show you why." "How can you believe man didn't "The Bible says that on the day ol judg- There was (he said) a farmer, and he evolve?" she had asked him the day .alter ment, God will separate :hc righteous from loved his land. He dug and sowed his his heart attack, even though he wasn't the unrighteous and throw the unrignieous fields, and Ironi them fed his family. On days 110 OMNI . .when gentlemen a-horscback passed, in- tent on hunting foxes, he waved his hat and cheered. For he kept chickens, too. and Whole or Vz Brain? everybody knew thai foxes ale them. One evil year a murrain stole upon the Are you willing to achieve major breakthroughs in your ability to learn winter mist. He spent that Yuletide alone; easily, expand your brain, eliminate self-sabotage-those subconscious his wife had died, and his young children. belief systems that block your happiness and success? All that remained, save frosted vegeta- Major breakthroughs are taking place In the field of Neuroscience. bles, was a flock of hens chiefed by a weakly rooster. Leading the way, is John-David, Ph.D., founder of Whole-Brain Learning,'" Still, they did furnish eggs. From wood whose discoveries of sound patterns (certain tones and sounds played and straw he cobbled coops for broody at different frequencies) when sentto pre-designated areas of the brain/ hens. He raised clulch after clutch, named mind can achieve quantum breakthroughs in accelerated teaming. every chick and coaxed it through its Your brain/mind can actually experience growth, and learned to love them all. these discoveries in a 5-Day Total Immersion One crisp, fresh day in autumn the hunt when he checked intensive"" seminar {24 hours a day, even rushed by again, and his coops he found a baby vixen. She had while sleeping), short weekend seminars, and sleek russet fur, bright eyes, and teeth of an annual 12-day Certification training in an amazing sharpness. accelerated learning. Plus several titles on Seizing the farmer's linger as though it state-of-the-art cassette tapes. Seminars $495, were her mother's nipple, she whimpered $1,000. $2,200 and $4,200. Tapes $195 to when it gave no milk. II was his impulse to call back the hounds Are you willing to cross the threshold into and toss her to them. Yet she was beauti- the 21st century? ful, and when he looked into her shining Call Toll Free for a free detailed eyes he found his resolution waning. Out catalogue: 1-800-437-5646 of loneliness-he bore her to his fireside and Cal 1-800-624-9779 gave her an egg he had been saving for his ate, and lay contentedly State at Calif. Authorized CEW Nurses. supper. She Autre rJited/Nat'i. Assoc, on Accelerated beside him. That night he slept well for the Learning. Certified/lnt'l. Inst, on Neurosciences. first time since his children died. Time came when eggs would not suf- John-David Learning Institute fice, and foxes can't make shift with leaves 2441 Impala Drive and roots. The vixen snarled from hunger Carlsbad, CA92008 (619)931-0456 keener than his and pawed at the chicken- coop bars. The larme' oonciered long and thought of driving her back lo the wild. Well, if he must, he rnusi. . . Then came the sound of naming horns DON'T again. He said at lengfh, "If I turn you loose, ihe hounds will kill you. If I give you my chickens to eat, I'll likely starve. I love these silly birds I raise from eggs, but maybe MAKE AMOVE that's because I depend on them to keep. me alive, not because I've tended them since they were halched and call them WITHOUT US. each by name. I cannot say. But do I not eat them when I have to —kill them in sor- row when they're old and pluck and boil them for my own sustentation? So the best chicks MOVING? I can say is this: I shall not love my if if hunlsman We need 4-6 weeks notice of a change of address. Fill in the attached form. the less you eat them. But a sets his. hounds to eating you, he will love NEW SUBSCRIPTION OR RENEWAL? neither you nor them. Come, little vixen! year of is in the U.S. $28in overseas (U.S. currency). Please One Omni $24 Canada and Choose your chicken!" enclose a check or order for the appropriate amount. 6-8 weeks for delivery. money The vixen spoke. He heard her clearly, LISTING/UNLISTING SERVICE? and her lone was one of vast surprise. "Then you are God!" Omni makes the names and addresses of its subscribers available to other publi- her gift ran. It too cations and outside companies. The publications and companies selected are She snatched and was heavy. The hounds caught oo and tore her carefully screened for their acceptability and quality of their offers. If you would like limb from limb. When the huntsmen came your name removed from this mailing list please check the appropriate box. to boast how they had rid this and other farms of a dangerous fox, Ihey found fifty OMNI P.O. Box 3041 Harlan, la. 51537 chickens pecking round a farmer dead of | [ long privation, but with a smile of bliss upon Please check the appropriate box below. Payment must accompany order. I his face. I G New Subscription Q Renewal Please remove my name from your mailing list. | "We can make nothing of your foolish This is a change of address; my new address is below. i; ID tale," said Ihey, ihe rich, who were so jeal- I Name ! . ous ot the teacher's influence. _City_ -Zip- "But we can," said the common folk, and after that they paid no heed to what the — — — rich sort ordered them to do, but ruled their lives after the teaching of him who had so ialely been a stranger. John Brunner Some of the most-asked questions on THE APOTHEOSIS OF ISAAC ROSEN air conditioning andheating systems. Truth rests with God alone, and a little bit with me. Jewish Proverb God lived for a month in Johnson City, New York. What are the advantages His name, Holy be He, was Isaac Rosen, ofbuying a system with and he was seventy-six years old and on Social Security and a pension. His wife, a high-efficiency rating ? Ruth, may she rest in peace, had died three Q: years beiore; and Isaac had hardly been out of the house since. When Ruth v [wo Social Security checks alive, they had How easy is it to to pay the bills, but since her checks were stopped, he barely had enough to live c install air conditioning It was a luxury thai he even kept the tele- phone. Bui Isaac spent most of his time in in an older home ? his chair near the window and counted the Q: cars that passed by. There was a loud rap on the door. "It's me, Eunice let me in. I'm early." — If I furnace, Isaac opened the door, and there stood have a gas adour-facedwomanholdingabrownbag. how practical is it to She was his Meals-on-Wheels lady. She had a nice thing, this working for the gov- installa heatpumpsystem? ernment. "Why don'! you come in for a col- Q: lee?" Isaac asked, greedy for company. "I'm running," she said, "but thanks for the invitation." And that was that. "The answers will save you He brought the bag back io his chair, took out ttie food wrapped in foil, which he headaches, time andmoney placed on the hand-me-down end table beside him. He smelled the foil package." when youput Probably chicken again. But smelling that food gave him a daydream. He had them York quality to sometimes. He would just slip back in time. It was wonderful. He remembered Ruth, how she looked, how she smelled; and he work for you." remembered their passion. And then- boom— he would be back in the present. - In.the apartment. Alone. The right decision. Then the phone rang. Isaac answered it: "Hello." I to It YORK. "May piease speak God?" was a young voice. Probably somebody's kid from the neighborhood, playing tricks, Isaac thoughi. "No," Isaac shouted, and slammed the receiver down on the cradle. He got up to make some fresh tea and get some sugar he still used the cubes, which he iiked to pul between his dentures when he sipped his tea. But tho phono rang again, He an- swered it. "Hello," he said. "Look, I'm very sorry to bother you again. Could I piease speak to God?" "I don't know what kind of a joke you're playing, so leave me alone or I'll call the police." Just as Isaac was about to slam the phono down, the caller asked, "Is this 777- 3386?" It was, bui Isaac said. "I'm not giving oul any information." "Please," the caier said, "this isn't a joke. I must speak to God." But Isaac hung up the phone. This guy's fib® Atet © ART CUMINGS What a team / \ TV special 5 -Hv . ii) in -bhis How about a cameo appearance V .4v . v> ^, Ur> 5£ -r^as* o " . " a real nut case, ho though".. How could he get my number? Maybe I'm listed as somebody else. Just my rotten luck. He reached for the :o'cohonc book and looked up his name. "Gevalt!" he said, stunned. There his name was, and beside it he read "See God." He was shaking as he turned to the G's and read God 39 Allen St JnCy 777-3386. So maybe God does work In mysterious ways. Isaac marveled. He looked at the phone directory again, li said he was God. What a responsibility. . . Maybe I'm just going crazy, he thought. Or—God lorbid—senile. Then the phone rang again. Isaac picked up the receiver. "Hello. God, please don't hang up. I called you before, remember?" "Of course I remember," Isaac said, feeling magnanimous. Finally, he had something to do with his life. "Does God forget?" "No, of course not," the caller sobbed. "Okay, come on, tell me what's the prob- lem," Isaac said. "I can't find a job, I'm broke, and I'm in the middle of a divorce. "Don't worry, I 'II take care of everything, Isaac said. "But you ... are you Jewish or what?" "Presbyterian." "That's okay, Go to church, buy a new suit, call an employment agency, and when you've shaved and showered and have a job, call your wife and tell her you're sorry." "I'm sorry?" " DANIEL'S DISTILLERY, these "You gonna question Goo7 AT JACK "No, sir." gentlemen make whiskey as their fathers before "Good," Isaac said. 'Then everything will be all right. Good-bye and good luck." them did. "Thank you . . . Lord." Isaac hung up and made himself a cup of tea. He hadn't fell this good in years. There are dozens of men who work in our "Several days later the phone was ring- here too. ing- off the hook. The word had certainly Hollow whose lathers have worked gotten around. Isaac couldn't complain That's because it the elder aboul being lonely anymore. How could good, means hands God be lonely? Isaac was a fixer now, a can pass their knowledge and skills healer, a regular Baa Shem. .Vlaybe a hun- dred times a day he would say, "Don't worry, to newer generations coming along. I'll take care of everything." And it worked. Presbyterian cailec' oack The to say that That's the way it's been since Mr. he had a job, a haircut, and his family. Good for him. He should live and be well. Jack Daniel taught his nephew/, Lem Isaac staried getting bags of mail. It was like being a movie star; and people were Modow, how to make whiskey. sending him checks. Goc bless them. Do- nations. So Isaac opened a checking ac- A sip, we believe, and you'll be count and could now afford to lake a cab and go to the synagogue. He'd sit with the glad we still set store in other men and schmooze and pray. Of course, he didn't tell anyone who he was. family tradition. He went incognito. He bough! a water bed for his back and a carved walking cane ' made out of cherry. He began to receive SMOOTH SIPPIN mail-order catalogs, which he loved; he TENNESSEE WHISKEY would peruse :hern .n bciweon calls,. He got rid of Meals-on-Wheels and had Ihe diner on Main Street deliver his lunch every day. . . He even bough ar answering machine. by the winder and waited. H-; drarv. topic or what?" Isaac asked. Isaac fell he shouldn ; miss his calls. After tea. He kepi going out to the mailbox to "No, I found it written on the waJI in a all, God had io be omniscient, didn't he? check for letters. men's room." But as the weeks went on, the phone There were none. "Well, what kind of a deal did you want never seemed to slop ringing. These calls He began to worry. He had loused up to make, anyway?" Isaac asked, curious^ were wearing him out. No wonder God the job. It was bad enough if a Lamed Vuv- "I've got something you want, and you didn't make himself known often: Every- nik, one of the chosen Ihirty-six holy men can give me everything 1 want." body took advantage. So Isaac began to who make it worthwhile for God to le! man- "What could you have "that I would want?" let the answering --achire take his calls, kind go on, screwed up. But God shouldn't Isaac asked. even when he was there. He told himsell screw up. . . "My eternal soul," Ihe caller said. that it was his duty and obligation to call He picked up the telephone directory Uh oh, Isaac thought. "Look, you got the every one of his supplicants back, but it and nervously checked his listing. wrong guy. I'm not such a terrible person 1 became such drudgery. At first he would But there was no reference to God be- that I would ta Isaac shouted "its:he micclieot the night. "Is this 777-3386?" It was an unfamiliar, TIME DAY OF NIGHT Call me in the morning. What do you think nervous-sounding, male voice. I am, a day-and-night store?" "That's right," Isaac said. "Tell me what's "Thai's my number," Isaac said to him- But the caller had hung up . . . before the problem." self, suddenly feeling like a person again. Isaac had finished talking. "I'm calling to make a deal," What the hell. . . . It might not be so bad The next day Isaac awoke with new re- "Look, you're talking to God," Isaac sa c to be a Lamed Vuvnik. I won't have it so solve. He was going to answer every sin- ophmisiically. ' "his isn't s television show." good as I had it before, and ihe pay's gle call. Afler all. God only took a rest for "Maybe I've got a wrong number," the probably lousy—no more donations. one day when he made the entire universe. caller said. But it could aJ^ays be tverse. . . — ar?:! But the phone didn't ring once. Isaac sat "Did you look it up in the telephone book, JackDann Jeanne Var. BurenDann No Wild, No Wildlife. tough these days, u border Yellowstone and are not specifically been leased: habitat th-jt iMcijriiirlk.'j if';. If their refuges are replaced with roads. oil rigs and gas pipelines, they too will thoughtless development. The Sierra Club's development also helps preserve the through membership please Sierra Club. 730 Folk Street. 5 CA 94109. (415) 776-2211. SIERRA iCLUB " . THY STiNG whspe-'s) of gravmr:o-nc: uecd intron re- in the Tiflis Theological 3em nary rises in See, there's a Catholic, a Buddhist, and covery, he's the sole known current rein- his blood to darken his face, lo sharpen a a Communist. They're silling at a bloody carnation of Josep'i S:alin (:here are whis- repugnance for blasphemy he learned in enormous conference table, members oi pers abouf that, too), a universal genius that century, thai lifetime, from his doting their staifs on every side, shaven monks in utterly without fear but not altogether in- mother. And the Dalai Lama jusl broods on saffron robes, Opus Dei operatives gliding nocent of humor. He grins with great the Angutarra Nikaya; There is one who, suave as barracudas, jowly apparatchiks pleasure. Thin lips and.no mustache. having been one, becomes many, ap- muttering into tiny Japanese discordcrs. "The Pope is a notable ironist," the Ti- pears and vanishes; unhindered he goes and everyone except the Catholic terribly betan remarks Irritably, and pushes his through walls; he dives in and out ol the grim and serious. found glasses up on his small Mongolian earth as if it were water." So the Catholic says, "I've got some good nose. "You're sure it's a valid Jesus Chrisl?" He sits back in his chair, ciearly at a loss. news and some bad news," pushing back "No doubt about it. We've got a ream of "You accepl this claim, then?" his satin skullcap and propping his elbows validated, cross-indexed material from His "Looks watertight Psd^asambhava." on the table. brother and His mother." "Hmm, And the bad news?" "Let's hear the good news first, Your "I hope you don't think il indelicate of me "I withdraw that remark. You would cer- ." Holiness," says the Dalai Lama with a little to ask, but who—was His, uh . . tainly consider it in poor taste." shudder, because for months now they've "Mary Mag "Certainly we have gone beyond taste, all had their scouts out, ever since James, "... genelic partner?" for good or ill," growls the revenant of J. V, the brother ol Chrisl. turned up in the Len- "— dalene. of course." Dzhugashvili. "What is the balance of your ingrad clinic (if you could believe !he Rus- "Oh. You're not surprised?" news?"- sians about anything, let alone that), and "We've had documents under lock and "It's the old gag. Embarrassing. Enough then Mary three days ago in Chile, a pious key for upwards of sixteen centuries," the to make you believe in prophecy." peasant selling lea towels of herself as the Pope says. "Gag?" Virgin of Guadalupe. "How many children at demise?" Stalin The Pope sighs. "The bad news is, she's "The good news is thai we've found Him, asks acutely, taking a pocket calculator black." [hanks to your Chinese pals." from the oulstrelched hand of an assistant. "Oh, God." cries Ihe Dalai Lama, who You know that kind of silence in a room. "Unknown. We have a primogenitary-line until three months ago has truly believed So finally; revenant, from slightly leas nan one year himself the lineal clcsconoan". oi his saintly "I would not have thought you'd find that into His ministry." The Pope gives a fueful predecessors and now can't deny that for good news," says the Communist, a lean chuckle. "He may have been tempted in a hundred generations he's been no academic type n his thirrios. a trace of gut- the desert, bul evidently He kept His legs greater than a clod in the fields. tural Georgian in his voice. As well as being crossed until remarked y late in the piece." "Oh, God," cries the Dalai Lama, who front-runner for both physics and medicine The Russian glares, scandalized. Five knows his Hegel and his Marx at least as Nobels for his discovery (though there are years at the close o'the n re:eenth century well as ihe frown nc; Russian across the ta- Ski with the Elite 1 . Discrimin ni! .;,! i.r; i i.'.\ i;c he cle distinguishing our Ski F.Lite From other ski bo The wood-grain finish, actually hue: a,. ass, and quality craftsmanship -.re reminiscent oi: bygone days. The re- sult is a handsome iki boat oftcnm; exceptional perfor- Elite Craft 3** Classic Era Waiercraft, Inc. mance and elegant appearance. Ilieak away from the. P.O. Box 7843 • Orlando, FL 32S54 • (305) 869-8030 humdrum. . .join the "Elite fleet."* a£ The Quality of Yesterday. The Technology of Tomorrow^ " " 1 ble from him. "The lirst time as tragedy," press instructions. I have shown you the cries ihe sad little Dalai Lama, "and the documents. Please stand aside and let me second time as farce!" get herjnto Ihe vehicle." EARTH And there're these other three people, "Those pricks. ' Sic- clutches the child to see, sheltering from the sun under a rag her. "You're insane," she tells the man. Quality Control Board will decide later this strung on a stick and a length of ratty rope "Lysenko and all that Commie crap. My year whether to set standards for sele- in the middle of an almost motionless sea God." nium, salts, boron, and molybdenum—just of human misery in hottest bloody driesl "No. You know better than thai. The sur- four of the 23 most troublesome sub- darkest Africa. There's a white man, a black plus DNA in the genome— was not even stances in subsurface drainage. man, and a yellow man. dreamt of in Lysenko's Four programs have been proposed for of polluted irrigation I tell a lie. The yellow man is a swarthy, "You can't inherit someone else's mem- disposing the water good-looking fellow from the Beijing Tele- ories," the nun says through gritted teeth. from the farms in the western part of the vision Centre, a poet who specializes in "That's voodoo, not science. There's not valley. One approach, suggested by the science reporting. That bit is true. But the enough DNA." Bureau of Reclamation, is to dump the white man is actually a nun, and she's not "Quantum nonlocality," the Chinese in- wastewater in San Francisco Bay or Mon- exactly white, being a quadroon from Miami tones tiredly. "Bell-theorem connectivity. terey Bay. Environmentalists bitterly op- named Sister Concepcion Ortiz. And the Reverse transcriptase intron coding. You've pose this plan on both financial and envi- black man is really a skeletal adolescent seen our videodiscs, Concepcion." His ronmental grounds. Another solution is to girl. The adults argue while she lies per- tone sharpens. "It's this child, ot course. store it in evaporation ponds on the farms fectly still, flat on her back in the scant You can swallow popes and birth control themselves. The farmers find this unsatis- shade, eyes huge and passive in a face and heaven and hell and miracles and vir- factory. A third is to inject the water into like a skull. gin births, but you can't face the one frag- aquifers 5,000 feet underground, an un- "Keep your stinking hands oft this child, ment of truth thai makes it all such a sham." tested technique that may threaten the nun screams. "Bloodsuckers! Liars! "Shut up." She puts the child's arm aside groundwater supplies. The fourth ap- Goddamn creeps!" and walks toward the Toyota. The journalist proach is being studied in an unusual co- The handsome man is sweating. The follows her, throws open the tailgate. They operative venture between Westlands ground is foul with sludge, and the sun hear snores. Water District— the biggest user of irriga- drives up wavering sheets of heat. Here "She's a reincarnation of Him, Sister, and tion water in the western San Joaquin Val- they all are, poor bastards, twenty or thirty that's it. We have all the preliminary probes ley—and the Environmental Defense thousand of them and more arriving every on disk. You've seen the academy's pro- Fund—one of the chief critics of existing day, perishing from thirst and hunger as visional evaluation." irrigation policies It involves removing pol- the wobbling world, God's spinning top, "Bullshit. A phony juggler? A first-cen- lutants from the water and reusing it for ir- drives the scorched Sahara farther and tury cardsharp? A political opportunist with rigation. All these measures have esti- ever farther into the heartland of Africa, and his hand in the till? You think a fraud like mated capital costs of hundreds of mil- the appallingly random thunderstorms spill lhat c.ould create a world taith that's still lions of dollars. damfuls of useless water into the eroded alive after two thousand years? A user of No matter what standards are adopied, dust, into the trampled, pissed-in, shat-in whores?" She ieans against the stinging- there is no practical way of monitoring in- mud. "We saved her life," he explains pa- hot metal, eyes squinting. "I mean, your own dividuals whose drainage -water is pot- tiently, his Yale American classier than so-called theory doesn't hold up. This is a luted. The farmers will have to work to- polluted Concepcion's. girl, haven't you noticed? I thought the gether to reduce the amount of "Listen, buster, what makes you think life memories were supposed to be passed water that enters the environment. Unless is what's important here?" Her arm em- down along with the sex chromosome." a safe and economical way is found for braces the filthy, muddy plain of numb, si- "He was special," Ihe journalist says. "He farmers to dispose of their contaminated prime farm- lent, doomed human refuse. "You're trying was . . . larger than that." wafer, several million acres of to kill their souls, you bastards/' "What?" For the first time, Concepcion land may have to be abandoned. DQ " "You're-an educated woman, " he begins looks at him and sees a human face. "You're ?" again. "How can you— a Christian?" CREDITS "Pitiful. You're pitiful. Reductionist crap. He shrugs. "Help me move her." You think that's science7" The child's head 'Jesus really fathered a child?" is with of wires, transmit- "How else could His karman have capped a crown chY:arz;page30,ME_! ting gravitino-induced data to a briefcase passed into the gene pool?" m 32, Donbavls; page -36 Inc.; page 36 right, Mnv S A ! a the of microprocessors in the cooler cabin of Concepcion walks back blindly to Mi:. c !paM37 rignl ^S L : " the Chinese's Toyota, where the intron tech small patch of shade. The girl is sitting for- .,'" ; Kra-'miaruPelar Arnolo. is drowsing. "Why not just cut the top off ward, regarding her. The crown of elec- W.H. Hodge/Peler Ar- r It'll '. Still Archives: page 40 stir her brains with stick?" tronic sensors into the ''.,:: a has brushed i ' and been ':. ;;,. S5SKK !! fc V. -.< ,,., fiijit- 31 IJ llt .l:;i!V!i list Fhotogrnp-. "You're defending a paradigm that's mud. The child's gaze is alert, penelraiing, S : K.:i. dead and gone, Sister. Your trendy holism and something, more. It takes the nun a page 46, - ;; ' e man). Do Lauren his En;H ainment Group (Lynch). to in- ;. doesn't have a single valid response moment to identify that terrible glee. Kirkiand'S/gn-a (Douglas and Brooks). Bill Nairn . Chllders/Sygms tron recall. So you abuse us wicked Com- "You are both wrong," Jesus tells them, s™ j,^m:^,y,n^:.M hael c; gma (Sayles): page 63. munists for saving a child's life." and rises to Her feet, tloats and bobs above Men/Kl; page 64, Erich artmarv'Magnur- page page 65 bottom. Dan "Fuck off." She is quite beside herself. the foul mud like a feather of light. "You are pages 70 to 9, Industrial Light and "Let me tell you, I've marched against cor- both right. Come, follow Me." (>' Roberto McGralh; page porations that send their stinking drugs here The journalist utlers a loud cry and runs ttoi^lght^Sn'^.fK ures; pages 76 and 77. is for testing, and what you're doing exactly for his portapak. aii.ii r'.mCo-ptnv,in;iSir.; as bad. If it's so safe, get the hell back to Concepcion's heart clutches. She stum- i«';lr.cS?w;s*;™[itOiii;-fi the reeducation camps in Taiwan and burn bles, one arm outstretched, mud sucking on "Ramies; page 95, Cnr Moore, page 96, Movie there, at 'her rises ihon. free out a few brains instead." Then Con- shoes, and pops from Still SATO Peter Carani- cepcion sits down in the mud, shaking her the embrace of the ruined earth to scamper, s. page 97 center, page 9B, page 125. r.'.del Tchere (oft/lmage Sank: page - head and weeping, and holds the black like a besotted. apostle on the wind- "'' ;: M a k Stat; page 126 left. F* -^t'p'sSe lM botto n right, Mel Lindsiron: child's hand against her breast. whipped surface of an ancient lake, in her Weob. Ad- "Sister, we are taking Ihe child into Addis Savior's unmarked train. r\ 131, Doug denfl urn: MaylWTiMue, page ia, Robert McCallWSA Ababa under your religious superior's ex- —Damien BroderickDG 118 OMNI of modern Moscow," says one physicist. everything accord no lo the law. If you want Visiting scientists get met at the station. to build an accelerator, you have to bribe If theytre lucky. they see Serpukhov on their people, which is not always easy to do. Bui way to Protvino. Then' they get issued a you adjust. You learn how to get things Idem, provide Iho raw data upon which they pass, which they have to show whenever done." Soviet scientists work carefully, fi- base their theories. Although the Five-Year they enter a building. In the past these for- nagling what they can, triple-checking Plans had given high priority to accelerator malities were not enforced, but several everything ese; and they produce good. construction, they didn't give high priority years ago Western physicists visiting the solid measurements. to the detectors. A tirst-rate accelerator with lab wrote a letter to Brezhnev about freeing When they can't do that, they relay ideas a poor detector is like a beautifully made dissident scientists. "Since then." says an- about innovative eoupment and experi- telescope with a smeared eyepiece—as other scientist who has worked there, ments to Western friends "At one time," good as useless. "they've done things by the book." Lederrnan says, "people at the Los Ala- So the Russians sat :he re. A huge num- Protvino is officially designated as a mos laboratory were working on three ideas ber ol exceedingly intelligent exceedingly closed city, and people aren't allowed to, that had been pioneered by Soviet physi- r,, well trained physic sis had (he best atom say, pop olf to Moscow for the weekend. cists [including me ioka ak design for fu- smasher in the world but could tell nobody Visitors aren't even supposed to go to Ser- sion reactors—see "Getting Nuked," Feb- about it and could find nothing with it. pukhov without permission and nobody is ruary 1987]. On one occasion the secretary And that was accelerator lead number allowed to go out for a spin. Even if you of energy, who shall remain nameless, one. We'll gel to the others in a moment. wanted to, there aren't many cars, and after came to visit. I'm told he was horrified to a few miles you'd get stopped at a check- learn that we were working on Russian "It's hard to fly the Russian flag in high- point. The Soviet Union is the Land of No ideas. He had thought that tokamak was energy physics," says Lederrnan. And in- Joyrides. And so Lings get dull. Very dull. some sort ot American Indian word!" deed, their record isn't very impressive. "You have to be a drunk to survive," says And that brings us to accelerator leads Americans have won 44 ot the 118 Nobel Kresin. "Imagine you live in a city like Prot- numbers two and three. Which will in turn prizes in physics; Soviet scientists have take us back to UNK. won seven. Part of the poor record stems from lingering anti-Soviet prejudices. In 1956 de-Stalinization began, and "There's a systematic bias in the West American physicists -vers oermiited for the against acknowledging Soviet physics first time to visit the Soviet Union. The Rus- of achievements," prominent theorist Lev •Part the problem sians sprang a surprise on them. A brand- Okun says. Another portion is due to the is Russian hospitality. The new accelerator, the world's most power- r,, relatively slow coiTimur regions in and out ful, was nearing co pie:ion at a brand-new Soviet Union is of the USSR. Some more is due to the fact scientific city near Novgorod. The accel- thai Russian strengths lie not in making the Land of No Joyrides. So erator facility was called Dubna, and the rather mathematics and gleaming machine itself sat right on the discoveries but m things get dull. theory, and the Nobel is (by the terms of main floor of Iho main building. (This later Very dull. "You have to be Alfred Nobel's will) supposed to be proved to be a big problem. Accelerators awarded only for "discoveries." a drunk to survive," emit intense radiation when in operation. But part of Russia's poor record in phys- The practice in the West is to put them un- says theorist Vladimir Kresin.* ics stems from the ancient Russian tradi- derground.) When physicists from the tion o! hospitality. United Stales saw the Dubna machine for LINK is under construction outside Ser- Ihe first time, they marveled at the magnif- pukhov, a Podunk burg 60 miles south of icently polished brass boxes that housed Moscow. Accelerator labs tend to be set the scintillating material, which forms an .up in such places because there's more vino. The population is very small. There's imporlanl part of the detectors. Their own space out in the meadows and birch woods one theater. Nothing to watch on TV—there scintillators were merely wrapped in black for huge pieces, of scientific equipment. are only two channels, both of which play electrician's tape. What they didn't know (Fermilab, in Batavia, Illinois, has so much mostly propaganda. Unless you're a work- was that the Soviets had been forced to room that a srnal herd of ouf'alo is allowed aholic, what's to do? build and machine the expensive brass to roam around the premises.) The town "You have only one possibility—to visit boxes because the Five-Year Plan had for- itself is 1,000 years old: little winding roads, your friends. And there's an old Russian gotten to include tape for the detectors. country railroad station, wizened ba- tradition of hospitality: If you visit a friend, This time the Russians openly publi- accelerator, bushky—the works. It has a nice art col- it's inappropriate to come without a bottle cized their world-beating as lection and an Orthodox. church thai ac- of vodka. And if somebody comes with a well as their expectation that it would dis- tually holds services, although Westerners bottle of vodka, it's inappropriate not to cover new forms of antimatter. When it Fi- aren't necessarily allowed to attend. drink it. And if you do that every day—well, nally switched on. however, they were con- The laboratory itself, unfortunately, isn't you can imagine!" siderably more reluctanl to advertise that actually in Serpukhov but in Protvino, a The physicists sometimes drink, Kresin it, too. had detector problems. "It is a very brand-new scientific city a few miles away. says, but the technicians are sometimes sick machine," remarked American physi- ("These scientific cities arc fashionable in sober. In fact, sociologists in the Soviet sci- cist Luis Alvarez after a visit in 1959. 'And the Soviet Union," says emigre theorist entific city ot Akademgorodok in Siberia the doctors will have to twiddle a lot of dials Vladimir Kresin. "They think it's Ameri- found that an astounding 35 percent of the to get it well again." can.") Like the other scientific cities, Prot- city population were. alcoholics. In that at- Dubna did not find anything startling, vino was set up in the mid-Fifties on a mosphere it's hard to keep things going at Worse, a much less powerful machine in stretch of woodland by the Protvino River. a peak level. To make the machines work. Berkeley came online in 1958, and a team The area is Chekhov country, the land of To believe —really believe— the readings of physicists' there promptly discovered the dachas and summer estates that Russian you're getting. antipfoton (the antimatter equivalent of a writers have been evoking lor a couple of Soviet scientists are very able, and they proton), for which they were soon awarded centuries. But' nobody lives there except,. adapt to the situation. "To gel things done, a Nobel prize. scientists, technicians, and their families. you can't be an entirely clean person." says But the Soviels were not to be outdone. Like many laboratories, the architecture is another emigre physicist, who doesn't want In 1967— the ITlieth anniversary of the Oc- Early Cookie Cutter. "It looks like a little slice to be quoted by name. "It's hard to do tober Revolution—the USSR, tor the third 120 OMNI . lime, swiiched on the world's most pow- accelerators because I 'ieyaieobso:cle by erful accelerator. The father of LINK, it was ihe time the bugs arc- linal.y i'oned out. All Personal copiers the first accelerator bu.it a: Serpukhov. Like three Russian candidates for the world's most modern accelerators, Serpukhov was most powerful accelerator, for instance, are shaped like a ring a mile around; the par- still working. The early American candi- for every ticles whirled round and round the circum- dates are mostly collecting dust in the ference, being kicked to greater velocity Smithson an. ITEP's accelerator has been personality and higher energy at every lap. The ma- operating at one end of Ihe campus since chine was built aboveground and covered 1961 and has served as a modei for both work, at home, with an earthen berm that looked like Serpukhov and 'UNK. One of the first So- At something from the Mound Builders and viet nuclear reactors, the ancient heavy- t Canon's linu of personal shielded the neighborhood from radiation. water kind, is still percolating away in the I copiers are part of The best news was that the Soviet Union basement of a building at the other end of more people's lives had finally solved another major problem: Ihe institute. ^than ever before. Detectors were imported. The Russians Now, ITEP is perhaps the most impor- the portable oflered European physicists a crack at tant center of theoretical physics in the So- ^There's director: Serpukhov— if they brought along the de- viet Union. Top dog in ITEP is its PC-3 in stylish colors. I. V. who lost tectors, as well as ten tons of computers Chuvilo, an authentic war hero { The PC-5 and 5L with gear needed to run them. an arm at the age of nineteen in the battle and the lulti-stack feeder for With an advanced accelerator and state- of Stalingrad. And above him -the highest multiple copies up to of-the-art detectors, the Soviets should of the high in Soviet physical science, the [ legal size (PC-5L). have been in the catbird seat. A few years boys who really push everybody else after Serpukhov was commissioned, Ihe around— is the Moscow Fire Department. Plus Canon's PC L world of high-energy physics was con- Obviously you can't have a fire in a place -=• Mini-Cartridges ior vulsed by the sudden possibility that elec- where [here's a reactor in one building and compact, virtually service-free tromagnet ism and the weak interaction, a an accelerator in the next. Especially if the in a choice of five colors. : copving fundamental type of radioactivity that is in- p ace is in the -"idcile of v'oscow. Because there's a volved in the shining of the sun, might be of this, the Moscow Fire Department tends Whichever you choose, shown to be part and parcel of a single to lean on ITER It leans on the scientists Canon personal . gh; exoect phenomenon— totally changing scientists' with the subtlety one m from the copier for your views oi matte ana energy. Serpukhov was Soviet Union that gave the world . . . well, personal style. periectly equipped to test the new theory. the Soviet Union. But the experimental program had been "They are all-poweriul," says one ITEP set up before Ihe theoreticians did their experimenter, who shai reman nameless work. And in the Soviet Union, you can't . "Even the director is helpless against Ihern. change something like that. They make rules that you cannoi break." "The Russians have a Five- Year Plan for He suddenly jumps up and pounds the everything, even high-energy physics," low ceiling. "See this?" The ceiling gees says one Eastern-bloc researcher. "Flexi- boinnng. It is a single, thin slab of metal. ble reallocation is not possible as it is in "And this?'—banging the door. Boinng. the West." And so the scientists at Serpu- Another single piece of metal. The scientist khov were forced to ait on their hands while is irate. their Western colleagues proved the the- "It used to be wood, and we had io ory right and won the Nobels. change it to metal. There is no reason for And that was accelerator lead number it, except that the fire department had to two and accelerator lead number three. follow its regulations. This room was cbsed for one month, and all our computers were The. centerpiece of Soviet high-energy down, and all our experimenls were physics is the Insl.'iute 'or Theoretical and stopped. Why? Because we had to put in Experimental Physics (ITER) in Moscow. a metal door! One month for a door! Each ITEP was founded in 1946 by Alikhanian's time they iind some little thing, ihey shut brother Abrarn on what had been a sum- down the building for a month! mer estate of Prince Aleksandr Menshikov, 'And when there is an actual fire, the kind Peter Ihe Great's fabulously corrupt prime they are supposed to do someth r -g about, minister. The institute covers about 150 they are helpless." acres of country that, thanks lo Moscow's He is referring to the great ITEP three urban sprawl, is now within the city limits. alarmer. Wha: happened was this; Six or Surrounded by an imposing wall, the cam- seven years ago there was a fire in the ac- pus is guarded by two black iron gates that celerator building. The hook-and-ladder open ponderously alter visiting automo- brigade rushed to Ihe institute. When they biles have been thorough y scrutinized and got there, they did things by the book. Be- the identities of all occupants verified. It fore they entered, they naued out the book takes some time to get in and out because of regulations. Regulation number one read the guards do things by the book. something like this; In case oi fire near Canon Doing things by the book has its disad- electrical gear turn oit ttie imes. Which they vantages; it may mean unnecessary de- did. They shut off the electricity to Ihe whole It also has advantages in that once compound. Now, one recalls that the ITEP lays. PERSONAL COPIERS something is finally done, it is done right entrance is guarcod by two huge iron gates and it continues operating. Once Russians that open when vis tors snow the right I.D. build a piece of scieniilic equipment,' they They open electrically. Excepi when Ihe get more mileage out of it than Americans power is shut off. Then ihey don't open, do; the United States tend;; to d smantle i!s . The fire truck satin front of the gate for — . 20 minutes while the physicists inside beam machine; that is, instead of speed- watched their experiments go up in smoke. ing up particles and slamming them into a Eventually somebody figured out what was target, it would slam two beams into each s:aiit:o operation and a largo machine on wrong, but in the meantime a lot of stuff got other. The difference is Ihe difference be- Long Island was actually shut down in mid- burned up. Because things get done by tween a head-on freeway accident and a construction because of problems with its the book in the Soviet Union. car hitting a telephone pole. The head-on supercooled magnels. Late, poorly built UIMK has been done in the same way; is much more violent. accelerators were not so tunny anymore. by the book. UNK is planned to have four stages. The "We have definitely narrowed the bureau- Planning began in the early Sixties, al- tirst is the existing Serpukhov accelerator, cracy gap," Lederman says. "They're still though precisely when, like much else the October Revolution fiftieth-anniversary ahead, but we're catching up fast." about UNK, is cloaked in secrecy. By 1967. accelerator. We'll call it UNK Ring I. This In the beginning oi 1986. two decades when Serpukhov was switched on, the So- will shoot its particles into an adjacent sec- after the initial design, ground was broken viets already had detailed plans for a suc- ond stage—that is, UNK Ring II —which will for UNK. Unlike the Europeans and ihe cessor machine that would be 13 times be an accelerator with about the power of Americans, who use big funnel-digging more powerful —30 times more energy fhe first Fermilab accelerator. This device, machines to excavate for their accelera- than the biggest accelerator in the West. in iurn, will inject its particles into yet an- tors, the Russians must blast out the rock These plans were almost immediately other ring —UNK Ring III —ihat will have with dynamite. Progress is noisy, uneven, translated into English by the Atomic En- roughly fhree times the power of the im- and slow. Not too far away a Cookie Cutter ergy Commission and studied by worried proved Fermilab accelerator. Finally, sci- factory is being set up to wind miles and government officials. What they saw was entists plan to build still another ring, UNK miles of wire around the boxcar-shaped staggering: a ring twelve and a hall miles Ring IV. going with the same energy but in magnets. They're likely to have f rouble with around. It was vastly larger than anything the opposite direction. If all goes as hoped, the electronics. In the past, Western visi- physicists had ever dreamed of before. protons will eventually fly chutes-and-lad- tors have been asked to bring along pock- (Fermilab's ring, by comparison, is four ders style from UNK Ring I into UNK Ring etfuls of Radio Shack resistors capacitors, miles in circumference.) It would be a mon- and other electronic stocking slulfers be- ument to Soviet science. It was clearly an cause the Russians' own had been on or- attempt to grab the lead in particle physics der since the last Five-Year Plan. lor at least a decade. Today, after a full year of work, only about A year later, design-group leader Alek- 2 of the 13 miles of tunnel have been dug, Soviet way, they would have to account for remained was a little more design work. '. . site has ye! been chosen, and none will be every detail in advance to make it through But things had to be done by the book. for al least a year While President Reagan the Five- Year Plans. But while they froze Time passed. The age of detente ended has included the SSC in his budgei, the their design in the Five-Year Plans, West- and started up a little bit again. As UNK's prospects in Congress for such an expen- ern accelerator techniques kepi moving, starting date receded into the future, U.S. sive project are unclear, to say the least, in forcing Soviet scientists back to the draw- physicists sympathized with their Soviet the era of delicit reduction. ing board. They found themselves in an colleagues' plight. When Ihey could get vi- Therefore— or so U.S. scieniists. jour- impossible dilemma, laboriously planning sas. Russian physicists would talk with thc'.r nalists, and government officials warn— every nut and bolt of the project while si- friends in the hallways at international sci UNK, the accelerator Ihat couldn't shoot multaneously trying to incorporate the lat- entific congresses about UNK's progress straight, will end up being top gun in the est technology. Even so, they kept trying. Conversations went like this: physics world. The next generation of efe- Between 1973 and 1975 Ihe Russian de- "Hey, what'::, happening with UNK?" mentary particles, they fear, may well bear . ." sign was upgraded and given a name: "Soon, soon . Vague waving of hands. Soviet names. How would Americans tike UNK. Then it was upgraded yet again to Rolling of eyes. to hear, they ask, about the discovery of include supercooled '"agnets, which are Unfortunately, Western scientists were the lenino? Or the Hero-of-Socialisl-Labor- more powerful and cheaper lo operate. At facing the same sorts of questions and on? Could be. And it would be a sad day fhe end, under Ihe sole: tulciagc of Serpu- giving the same sorts of answers. As for American physics if it happened. khov director Viktor A. Jarba, UNK was' American accelerators grew bigger, they But when evaluating these warning cries. much more powerful than originally de- cost more. and were subject to ever more it is well to remember one thing. signed. Moreover, it was to be a coliiding- government scrutiny and longer delays. The batieries.DC] 122 OMNI — — — STAR TECH ACCESSING THE FUTURE MIGHTY THE RUSSIANS' MULTIPLEXER SUPERFILM You say you've got a If photographic pioneers personal computer and a Mathew Brady and Alfred modem and that you want to Stieglitz could be resurrected, make an electronic bank they would find the tools of deposit and talk to your their trade changed beyond accountant at the same time? recognition. All, that is. but Well, you can't do it, because one: the silver iodide emulsion the modem you use to send that still constitutes the the data ties up your phone essential interface between line. But now a couple of light and film. But now scien- Silicon Valley technocrats tists at Moscow's Textile have developed a black box Institute have developed a that allows you to talk and substitute. transmit simultaneously. The Soviet team discovered Named Victoria—after that ferrocene crystals originator Tom Edrington's become sensitive to light twelve-year-old daughter when combined with certain the multiplexer works by organic compounds. transforming telephone Although not as "fast" (light signals from analog to digital, sensitive) as traditional, thus capitalizing on the silver-based films, Ihe crystal digital signal's greatly emulsions are virtually free enhanced capacity to carry of the graininess that inevi- multiple channels. Victoria can WHEN YOUR for Ihe small end of the p-'vais tably shows up when small- pivij users the equivalent of PAYLOAD launching business format photos are enlarged. seven separate telephone payloads of two tons or less Also, they can be used to lines, two for talking and five ABSOLUTELY, that need to be delivered coat other materials— even for sanding computer data. POSITIVELY... to low Earth orbit. "We want glass or plastic— so that Pacific Bell, which has tested io become the Federal photographic images can be the device in 200 California Now that NASA will Express of outer space," printed directly. Perhaps homes, isn't saying anything basically no longer be says company president most interesting, the ferro- definite about price but shuttling commercial George A. Kooprnan. "We cene-based films can be has asked consumers if they payloads to and from orbit, wanl to be in the business of developed in just ten minutes, would pay anywhere from we can expect to see pr vale ehabiy cenve-nng and return- without water and in normal $12 to $75 a month as a companies stepping in to ing lots of small packages light elmhatng ;he need leasing fee. For many stay-at- do the job. In addition to the to and from orbit." for a darkroom. home workers, the price b g three aerospace compa- Critics, however, point out All this could be great for may be well worth it. "With nies—General Dynamics, that the market for small photographers. But the one Victoria," says Greg Martin Marietta, and payloads in low Earth orbit is ultimate winners may be the Carse, whose Saratoga, IvlcConner Douglas—several unproved and that small textile industry and its California-based CWA smal er 'irms are venturing launching companies like consumers. The ferrocene Communications Products, into the launching business. Koopman's must scramble for emulsions will allow manu- Inc., is developing the proto- One, American Rocket, financing.—Devera Pine facturers to use stronger type, "you can have a plans its first commercial Access: It will cost about dyes on their fabrics, meaning residential phone line, a launch by 1988. The rocket $8 million to send a two- that the life of the colors business phone line, and of choice: a four-stage, ton payload to low Earth orbil and thus of the- clothes several data transmission expendable launch vehicle on ILV One. Contact James themselves —will be greatly lines."— Bill Lawren named industrial Launch Bennett, American Rocket prolonged.— Bill Lawren -Access: For more informa- Vehicle One, or ILV One. Company, 847 Flynn Road, Access: Try calling tion, call (408) 374-0807. American Rocket is aiming Camarillo, CA 93010. Moscow. 125 . BTMRTECH MALPRACTICE medic ;ne —where malprac- ALERT tice insurance premiums aveagc- $50,000 oer year. One oui oi five physicians ""iey also come from the will eventually be named most litigious stales—Califor- in a malpraclice lawsuit, nia, New York, Texas, and according to Michael Florida—which have the most Eckstein, president oi an doctors and, not coinciden- unusual company de-oica:cc! lally, the most lawyers. to helping doctors spot —Gregg Levoy litigious patients. Access; Call Physi- Called Physician's Alert cian's Alert at (312) (PA), the Chicago-based, 726-3831 computerized service allows its several thousand sub- PRUS5IAN BLUE scribers in 52 cities to call a mercury acetate, of"' provide the public with loll-free number to learn In a bad week, the US- This FDA-approved iron better and less expensive whether a patient has a history Food and Drug Administra- compound (ferrous sulfate) is procucis. This rule could be ot chronic malpractice suits, tion may receive as many edible and nontoxic, though broken, however, if the PA is not meant lo bo a as 50 threats of food or ;esis sill need to be done on motion-picture and record blacklist but a drug tampering. the long-term effects of industries manage to rges'.ing it. Thus, major food po'SL.ace Congress to adopt rnan.jfacturers understand- their pet piece of technology. so y prefer it absorbed into the so-called anticopy chip. To packaging vvnich would The chip, developed at itself turn Prussian blue (a the now defunct CBS pigment formulated in Prussia in the late 1700's), and not into the food or drugs way to improve doctor- Scientists, themselves, So far, Honigs paiienl r olations by clearing however, may have (above) has tested milk, the air of lawsuit jitters. In found an answer to this sugar, gelatin, mouthwash, r oremegoncy sixations. form of terrorism. David soups, beer, and drug though, a physician could turn Honigs, assistant profes- capsules and is working on such a patient away (none sor of chemistry at the sensors that can detect have been so far), charge University of Washington natural contaminants as well more, or simply exercise in Seattle, has devel- (ootjism, salmonella, and greater caution. oped an additive to turn'' so on). He predicts that Most of PA's calls come food or drugs— or even products with a dash of fer- : i'orr physicians n high-risk their packaging— bright rous sulfate should be appear- specialties— obstetrics/ Prussian blue in fine ing on grocery shelves in gynecology, anesthesiology, presence of cyanide or, a year or so. '.Mihopeoic surgery, internal as research progresses, —Gregg Levoy '^ccicinc, and cardiovascular strychnine, rat poison, Access; For information, call David Honigs at (206) 543-0713. Technology Center, is actually a circuit designed to prevent ANTICOPY CHIP copying from specially encoded recordings. The In the world of consumer aniicopying system could electronics, it's been the provide the movie and record general rule that new industries with a way to m fm m technologies and techniques make a monumental legisla- is 3J iiS I vo breakthrough. With this anticopying system, many powers in movies and records believe they have found a way to control all home taping ofl ihe air, a practice they say deonves them of revenues, but one that has been upheld by the nation's highest court. Unlike past legislative efforts, which called for unpopular (axes on tape and ooL.ipmen! to compensate the movie and record companies, a bill mandating i^.ipercrincal I u c; extraction cic esx"oi Dos! of all, the ELECTRONIC anticopy chips in all audio to remove up to 95 percent of process doesn't change the RETINA and video recorders would the ane-'y naroening choles- appearance, consistency, put the immediate burden on terol from these delectables. or taste of .butter, eggs, lard, For several years human the manufacturers. They predict that within two or beef tallow— products engineers have been trying to Even if Congress passes years, you'll be able to buy the researchers have already develop an electronic imita- legislation thai would oroducl :n the grocery store. taste -tested and experi- tion of Ihe human eye. Now ult matey li'"it constituents' The extraction process, mented on. Cheese, milk, and a group in Japan has come access to technology, the according to Val Krukonis ice cream are on the way, up with an electronic retina record and movie people of Phasex, /SjM&ti tno.igh to sen. Congress and that uses sophisticated have some basic challenges the FDA, says University computer technology to mimic to look forward to; Will they organic vision. be able to make sure that all The new device, reports TV, radio, and cable Shoei Kataoka of Japan's programming carries the Sharp Corporation, uses a right encoding? Will Ihe computer chip in which ,': ictually work in real a layer of electronic photo- life? Will people figure out sensors takes the place ways of circumventing the of human rods and cones. system?— Marjorie Costello Other silicon layers contain -Access; To stave off this computerlike memories, anticopy movement, wrife to signal :ransfer gates, and your senators and member logic ga;es io process visual of the House of Representa- signals. Still deeper in the tives today, chip is a tiny computer, which po: "on- , s some of the EGGS WITHOUT same processing functions CHOLESTEROL as the vision centers of the human brain. Although For everyone who loves no one is suggesting that the D'.jtier. eggs, and beef but used in Europe :o remove cl vV sconsin food scientist electronic retina might lead who can't take all the choles- caheire from coffee, bittering Robert Bradley, the product the way to an artificial eye for terol, there's now some good agents horn fops (for use names may have to be human use, the device, re'.vs Researchers at the in beer), and oil from spices. changed. Butter, after all, says Kataoka, might be used ...riversily o! VV sconsin and It uses carbon dioxide isn't quite butter without all the as "an eye and a brain in a the Phasex Corporation of combined with the food at fat.—Gregg Levoy robot."—Bill Lawren Massachusetts are using a - specific pressures and Access; Call the Phasex Access; Prototypes 100-year-old process called temperatures to dissolve the Corporation, (617) 794-8686. expected by 1990. 127 ADVEri J&B PRESENTS QWERTYCRYPT II didn't realize it . Mark Twain not only wrote is named for the letters in the position and urr.il looksa oacf. tc the about adventures, he lived top row, and it survives peri- :ie computer screen and saw one when he became the first odic attempts to change it. he written. author to use a; typewriter for The message at right shows what had you decode the a book manuscript. The type- a Mark Twain quote as it was Can writer, produced in 1874, was written by a touch-typist. message? a Remington, and the book Unfortunately, he set his Look for the solution to this was The Adventures of Tom hands in the wrong "start" puzzle next month in Orrmi. Sawyer, published in 1876. What, we wonder, would Twain think Mark now yjr, yjr id ;ry id nr yjsmlgi; gpt yjr gpp;d/ *niy gpt trdy pg that editors are beginning material to ask for on vpi;f mpy divvrrf/z diskettes! But even today's computers = z,stl*yesom follow the. same keyboard pattern set by that first zjrtr Remington. The system, 'vjstsvyrt/ known as the QWERTY d yp *tstr — Competition #42: the results of drastic measures By Scot Morris Last November we demon- strated a number ol ways to determine the time of day with a broken watch: Use it as a sundial; take it to the phone and use its stem to dial ihe "time" number; or bang it on your apartment wall until someone yells, "Hey, cut Ihe racket! It's in the morning!" We also included such oxaiTip.es of "megameaning" wordplay as 10 li? micro- phones = 1 megaphone; 1CF bicycles = 2 megacycles; andl milliheleiT = the amount ol beauty necessary to launch 1 ship. Allot this, of course, led to Co "' petition #42, which we. dubbed Drastic Measures. Using lateral thinking .he ability to view a subject differently— readers had to create new and clever ways to measure something. The ideas could be serious or silly, as long as they were I ongina . or instance, Alpo dog food costs 38 cents a can; that's more than $2,50 in dog dollars. Well, the winners have oooi": determined. The grand -,: prize: a Casio 2000 pocket A ugor :r\ your tank $ one :nmg. bu: new Jo you wow H mere's a monster m you: j oci take- Cj- color television Nine "urneri-.- readers mokca their &;,','. v; '.ma r.auie no w/!h seme new. c'C'er nnc o-rcr: r< : 2- pints = 1. cavort The number of feet in a a (en get a one-year sub- GRAND PRIZE-WINNER scription to Omni. —Oscar Wfngio yard is directly proportional Several readers came up A billion dollars of budget. Whitestone, NY tothe-success of Ihe barbe- win additional ways to tell deficit = 1 Gramm-Rudman Basic unit of laryngitis: the the time with our broken —Jill Martinson ho arse power' —Virginia Jelovcich watch. Runner-up B. Oppen- Wheaton, MD —Andy Staff, Plymouth, MA Union, NJ A i.ri: .;;:' co-osnal brightness Additional runner-up: Louise heim of Berkley, Michigan, RUNNERS-UP submitted several sugges- thai never caughl on: the Jackson, Tiverton, HI (see 33 tions, including: Try to sell the 6.023 x 10 alligator pears half-sirius our megameaning quiz) = watch until someone says. Avocado's, number' —Scott Martinson HONORABLE MENTION "Hey, Ihis watch is broken. It's — Karen Bracey, Burke, VA Wheaton, MD not o'clock, it's The .amount of weight an The shortest distance b.er Bananosecond: the time o clock"; or use the hour hand h the- tween Iwo jokes; a straight between slipping on (he peel fo tally the tolls as a church Almighty: Billigrahams line and landing on Ihe pavement bell chimes.'the hour, — R. J, Thomas, Syracuse, NY — Richard Halasz t/twai.kee — Jeffrey Day, Memphis ]&) OMNI ; 1 .i i ^ :. ii i .. i ens The soonest nerval of time MEGAMEANINGQUIZ abrasive pheasant's Known: the instant between — Linda Giordano the traf lie: signal turning 'Can you determine the Florence, AL green and the taxi driver measurement equivalents for ' Unit o.f professional -fooiba.il beh no you blowing his horn- these reader entries? heptncss; Oilers constant —Anonymous 1. 1,000 beers served at a —Joe Scassero East Lans.rg. Ml wins basebal came (Jill '3 College, -500 calories = 1 food Martinson) State PA ; 1 mole = 007 secret agents pound 2. The ratio Plan igloo's = 25 cagey bees Heidi Viue er circumference- lo its diameter Ache 1": Linii of hypochon- (Karon Bracey) dria : acher -- 2 magnums 3. 2,4 statute miles of of.shampain intravenous surgical Libing ai — Herb Martinson Yale University Hospital -Whealon.-MD (Louise Jackson) is of Chinese' 1 dog pound =16 ounces becajse I rhymes: Noss- 4. 2,000 pounds- Of Alpo lesshess soup —Robert R Kinney —ELH. Bailey, Dorset, England 5. :;)-'- ~'ou:hwashes !>'- Appomal'.ox. VA To measure tne oa:h o- a and 5: Janet Mascia) 6 curses = 1 hexahex g'icst who haunts your block. 6. The speedof a tortoise — Sapnna Gnff n ca ci. ate the square route Portales, NM of minus one— If in the land of the b1ind. the Caro Jackson : one-eyed man is king, does Santa Barbara, CA Shis make one-eyed jacks 1'sagan = pillions and wild?. billions- — Robert Krause —John Brum n age Searsdale, NY The'decibel level of a band in a singles' Dai - :he total number ol "whats" it 10. 16.5 feet in the Twilight produces —Pascal Portfolio Huntington Beach- CA The in'ertia of an object at rest (its resistance to moor so cole I shougnl al 10 ond(i0and11 Chris Doyle) should be measured in m my bedroom. 12. 1/2 large intestine 6 "mobile ohms" -Kenn Howard, Pitt 13. 10- movies (12 and Angstrom: a common meas- —Peter Shepherd I took aspof oei cola 13: Rex Smith) u re of- computer anxiety; 1 Waukegan, IL 14. A thousand pains angstrom = 1,000 nail-by-.es The enormo us al i e n ke pt 15. One word (14 and 15: 100 —Jud Richland staring at me with her "ID —Randy Bermah, Peoria, IL Valerie Swartz) Washington,. DC optical eensory organs:- I'm neither tall nor small- ANSWERS Yiddish Thermal Units: tem- she nad been making goo- just Fahrenheit perature measurements goly eyes- at me. all day — Patrick MacAulay 1, 1 Killibrew 2. Eskimo tt of deli foods —Stephen E: Childress Grand Rapids 3. 1 I.V. league 4. won ton —John Huotari Roswell, NM Additional honorable men- 5. 1 microscopes. 1 -mach Zimmerman, MN Resistance to Hare Krishna tions: .;anei Viasoa Arirgr.on. turtle 7. 1 octo-puss 8. knot The energy burned in a lower vendors .r airports VA; BenGottl-eb. Mel ear furlong 9. 1 lite year 10. 1 rod single dance step: 1 pas cal ranges from the simple VA; Chris-Boyle, Burke. sorting 11. 1 fig newlon 12. A unit of wine dryness at "beca-ohm" to the violent VA;- Valerie Swartz, San i sem. colon 13. ! microfim 1 the nineteenth ho-c: 1 par sec "ktlo-dhm" Diego: Rox Smith, lacoma 14. megahertz 15. — GaryTutt, Duncanville, TX —Barbara Price, Las Vegas ISco our quiz, next column.) TirtipictureOQ — And it has allowed Eccngnais to see peo- The Mysteries IRJTERV/IEUU ple quite different from the Lawrence of Arabia types they've been constantly be- of Mind set by. Failures within their own societies, Italians— and white Australians as well as these whites were fugitives, looking for a like aborigines have succumbed to it. Various hiding place among gentler societies alcohol rehab' if.aiion programs have beer the old Australian one. started, but none really work. Alcohol is a As I've noted, anorigines are terrified of marker of human destruction. During the indebtedness to nature because nature, time a society is suffering change, espe- especially on this continent, exacts a terri- tourist operate cially destructive change, it will be rrarkec ble price. If the industry can of by alcoholism or its equivalent. without causing massive degradation the it's positive thing. Omni: Perkins once said that a I societies environment, then a very differ in the way they regard death. What We're all tourists at some times in our lives, is unique in the aborigine view? and aborigines, traveling from one end of Willmot: For a primitive people, aborigines this continent to the other, have always been were exceptionally concerned with ascer- great tourists. And yet they were not no- taining the specific causes of death. So mads. Instead of living in one spot, trying they often held complex postmortems, es- to rotate crops and animals, they left the pecially when a young person or one in the crops and animals where they were and prime of life died. The aborigines were rotated themselves; and these travels WORLDS through their lands were very precise. THE TWO quick to suspect murder even if the person own WE LIVE IN showed no physical signs of harm, such Omni: What paths are you traveling now? as a spear hole. Willmot: Instead of giving up public life, Man is not just an isolated entity on The old Australians practiced nothing like running a company, and pursuing wealth. Earth. He is also of a greater world— the involve myselt in the voodoo or witchcraft. But because of the I still feel the need to Cosmos. The forces (.hat ornate •faiaxif-s close relation in all aspects of aborigine life affairs of Australia. I can'l resist having my and island universes also flow through between the temporal and spiritual do- fingers in the pie of human destiny. After man's being. The human body and its mains, they absolutely believed that death all, what is more- satisfying? I've certainly vital phenomenon— life— are of the same great deal of money in recent spectrum of energy of which all creation can be brought about by psychic pres- earned a years, the tax in Australia is consists. The universe is yrju because you sures—such as "pointing the bone" [be- but man, who are one of its myriad forms of existence. lieved to be imbued with special power] or nearly as pitiless as nature herself, has had : the of these it I. Australia is not kind to Snipping away mystery "singing" somebody. I someone sings an- as much of as I'oivos within you increases the trouble to Cosmic other person to death, well, it's murder. Il people who fail to go to a lot of personal reality of the Self. There is no But I value what works! 1 myself have seen people die of cover their financial tracks. adventure greater than ihe exploration I I and psychic causes. If someone is guilty of I do more than wealth. am what am, of Self. singing and causing someone's death I'm comfortable with what I am. It's not to portray you as This Free Book and for it to work, you've got to believe in Omni: uncommon guilty as when in West- a man between two worlds. The Rosicrucians, a worldwide cul- it—then they're as somebody pulls a gun and. Willmot: I was born between two worlds tural organization, have shown thou- ern society, somebody's brains out or perhaps and will probably always live between sands of men and women how to ration- blows in the dusty knowingly infects him or her with a disease. them. I am as much at home ally explore their inner world of Self. A aborigine theory of diseases and an outback as in the cosmopolitan city. I'm an vast psychic realm lies just beyond your The mythology converge right here. Australian who grew up among the visions conscious mind. It is a link with your aspect of Aborigine doctors held that illnesses were and splendors of this vast, flat continent. potential crimiiniiy and r, ttainment. Not . it. being infected by I'm a kind of outsider, and I understand magic, not fantasy, but a revelation of the result of the body white I perfectly minor irritating spirit. Although you I can't say understand the fullness of your being. Write today fur some it well ohorn.es' devices ;o control the Australia, but 1 understand at least as a free copy of the Mastery of Life. It tells could use if really wanted to cure as most white Australians do. And I cer- how you can learn and use more of what symptoms, you had to get rid of the invading tainly understand the aboriginal world. you are. someone you mischievous spiritual influences. The Omni: Can you give us a vision of what is The Rosicrucians are: Quinkan spirits of Queensland are actually best and most beautiful in both worlds? said, Willmot: All of us contribute to the way we • Not a religion not spirits of the dead, as is sometimes but rather hangovers or relics from the are. Aboriginal societies close to nature » Non-political dreamtime that still, in part, inhabit the develop certain visions of the world: Eu- • Non-profit earth. These mischievous spirits carry on ropeans, driven on by a frenetic energy. THIS USE COUPON a bit sometimes (as is mentioned in my develop others. This vision of the universe: Scribe BNE-3 9 novel, Pemulwuy) inhabiting water holes of the Stars sne fine ng your place among KOSJCi;i.'G'IA.\ OKDEK. AMORC and causing them to be poisoned. them; of drawing Halley's Comet and at its kiisHiriician Park There are numerous taboos, too, in ab- second-to-last visit being able to actually San Jose, California 95191, U.S.A. original society. Volumes have been writ- photograph il, and this time almost bring- Gentlemen: ten about brother and sister avoidance, ing back a bucket of it— this is truly the Pleast send meacopy of the .Win; .(cry of Life. mother-in-law avoidance; they're mostly European vision. But there are two other 1 am sincerely interested. related to strucii.rss loi avoiding incest. The visions that are very much aboriginal: The orecominanl religious one, which has gone first is the dreadful specter of Venus—an beyond a taboo and become more of an Earth-like planet devoid of life, a hell place. ethic, is the avoidance of using- the name a consequence of the debt nature may ex- of the recently dead. act if we continue to damage this place. Omni: Is tourism -benei cia to aborigines? And last is that beautiful vision of a blue Willmot: Oh, definitely. Tourism has al- planet the astronauts might see on their way ready created in visitors' minds an essen- back to Earth. This is the aboriginal vision: tially positive picture of aboriginal society. the place where we began. DO One Salyui mission was disrupted after a cosmonaut became nervous and irrita- The first VCR that can ble—the result of having taken too many sleeping pills lo catch up on lost sleep. By the end of trie Ilighl the cosmonauts bring 'AsTheWorldlirns" were allowed 12 hours a day to sleep rather than the usual eight. Tfie Soviets found their crews had fewer problems when cosmo- nauts adhered to a normal 24-hour sched- ule synchronized to Moscow time. (They were awake during Moscow's daylight 1 hours and slept when it was night there.) "Hi^tfeiv Problems in the crews' efficiency ensued I ,>• when work schedUes strayed from that. ^B * ,?g '- # ,,? -JffifclLj, • Not everyone favors a 24-hour day, in 1 which every astronaut sleeps at "night." , n i Gr.aeber believes it's just not practical. "For • - OS'-'-;.;^; • -- . economic reasons alone, we have to look at the possibility of shift schedules. And whal if (here is an emergency?" he asks. What kind of schedule should we use? The U.S. Navy places submarine crews on an 18-hour day; work rotates in three 6-hour shifts. But after investigating this, chfono- biology experts found the schedule too Introducing the Toshiba DX-7.The world's first digital VCR. It does everything a VCR is supposed to do (only better). And has a still frame grueling. "II would be difficult to devise a capability so precise— it can actually freeze broadcast television. There's also schedule that is harder to adapt to," says crystal-clear slow-motion. Superb stereo high-fi sound. Four heads. Dr. Charles Czeisler. director of the Neu- And four home computers' worth of inToueh with Tomorrow roendocrine Lab- at Harvard's Brigham and memory built in. The Toshiba DX-7 digital VCR. TOSHIBA Women's Hospital. "It's the equivalent [in * ^^wniO** Once you've seen it, you'll stop looking. terms of jet lag] of flying to Paris every day," adds Moore-Ede. He and Czeisler think the problems .of scheduling sleep in space are tricky but not insurmountable. They've already de- ROLLS OF vised techniques for helping nuclear- power-plant operators and other workers 2 35mm with 24-hour jobs adapt more smoothly to different shifts. For one thing, they recom- FREE mend leaving workers on a set shift for at least three weeks, to allow body clocks sufficient time to adjust. For another, they have found thai dirfe'eni oeople are more suited to particular work shifts. Younger FILM rints or people, for example, are more Flexible Get p slides about being moved to later work times, or BOTH from the And one way to keep an astronaut's bi- ological clock on a schedule is to use spe- same roll of 35mm cial lights. Cz::isk-;r was aoie io correct one COLOR film! patient's circadian rhythm by exposing her e Kodak's Hollywood film ..,ir your 35mm Camera! Also ideal for use in ihe new to four hours of full-spectrum fluorescent lighting each night before bedtime. Its especially fine gr.un and extreme eojor aeouraev fiiw you beautiful reoiofiuciion results. For Moore-Ede believes the same circadian everyday memories and speiiaUTiects in bright or !ov.- light situations (up to 1200 ASA). The principles can be applied to astronauts' same film movie producers use, it can handle a wide range of exposures ... so there's less risk fait schedules. But it is something we have to of tour pictures wining under- <.k over-ex posed. And w,u can ehoose prints, or slides, or begin working out long before the space BOTH from one roll of film! station is launched. "You don't want to have Send for two FREE rolls of this incredible new film today! to do the experiment in space," he says. "" "Given the tremendous costs [of getting' FREE a5LORTirMOFFER" **« there], it's crazy to ad-lib."DO YES, please rush me mv two 20-exposure rolls of special 35mm film (5247® and 5294*). I've enclosed $1.99 for shipping and handling. Editors' Note: Anyone inle.!e:,!ed in the per- Name sonal expenence o: s/eea/'i;? and working in .space can cos.- o copy oi a tape diary made Address by astronaul Jeffrey Hoffman during a 1985 City _* . State Zip shuTiio mission Send S3 95 (check or 'money Mail to: Signature Color, 5311 Fleming Court, Austin, TX 78744 order) lor the tape and a paperback diary 52-17 j.'.'.'i Kodak. and :l rr trjaeinai k--rf t:asi;iia:i Kyriak Co Signature Coloi is v.hollv separate from transcript io Caiioan Fw;-:j. 11-1 Westview Road, the manufacturer. Process ECN-II. Montciair. NJ 07043. ; : . 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