The Big Five-Oh!

Introduction to Drink Tank 258

by Taral Wayne
Welcome to a special topsy-turvy issue
of Drink Tank. Otherwise known as the Big
Five-Oh Issue. Im happy to announce that its
a pretty full one, too three articles that Im
sure will amuse you, and a number of letters of
comment on previous issues. And, as a particular
treat, I have a Guest Editorial by Chris Garcia,
(often mistaken as the editor of this fanzine).
The reason for this topsy-turvy Big
Five-Oh Issue is anything but obvious. Its to
celebrate one of Drink Tanks most prolifc, and
(I like to think) popular contributors. In a word:
me.
In this issue appears my 50
th
written
piece published in Drink Tank. Which one?
That all depends on whether you count my
introduction to this zine as one contribution
or two. I began to get the DTs with issue 153,
when Chris published the frst part of a long,
long interview of the frst person singular by
Frank Wu. That was in December of 2007. Issue
154 fnished the interview in the same month.
While it ran in two parts, by choice I count it as
a single piece and a single appearance.
The interview was partly Franks work,
though. The frst piece in DT that was purely me
was in issue 161 in February. Its convenient to
think of 2008, then, as the start of my continual
presence in Chriss zine. I hadnt planned on it,
but I contributed not only again, but again and
again and again.
I discovered that it was mighty convenient
to have a friendly editor who published two or
three times a month. Material that would date
quickly and be unpublishable by the time an
issue of Askance, File 770 or even Banana Wings
came out, was still timely in the next issue of
Drink Tank. As well, with such a rapid turnover
in issues, not everything I wrote for Chris had
to be a magnum opus. In fact, I found I could re-
use casual material I had written for my on-line
the Big Five-Oh. Fifty! At the rate I was
contributing, it seemed likely that article number
50 would turn up around issue 255, I thought.
As it happened, Chris introduced a few more
special issues than I had counted on, so the Big
Five-Oh is being celebrated in Drink Tank 258.
Chris and I had already joked that, sooner
or later, Id fll up a whole issue. So, I proposed
we go ahead and do just that for the Big Five-
Oh. Chris thought it a funny idea and agreed.
Not content with providing all the content, I
suggested I also do the cover, and even had the
bloody nerve to write the editorial. In fact, I
would do everything except loc the issue
That would be nuts.
Which article in this issue is number ffty,
then? This One, Of Course.
Drink Tank is still Chriss zine, despite
appearances this issue. Under the circumstances,
asking him to write a Guest Editorial seemed
the gracious thing to do. Thats your curtain call,
Chris Put down the Oreos and take a bow.
journal by polishing it up a bit.
Many astonishingly trivial but
possibly amusing events in my
life would otherwise have gone
unheralded except for Drink
Tank.
The number of
contributions to the zine
mounted steadily. Around
issue 240 or 245 I began to
become curious about just
how many times Id appeared
in DT. The number surprised
me. I was rapidly closing on
On Taral Wayne
A Guest Editorial by Chris Garcia
It should be no secret that I think Taral
Wayne is one of the greatest fan writers in the
world today. Ive always been a fan of his art, but
his writing is just as good. Being allowed to run
ffty of his pieces is an absolute honor and Im
happy I can give this issue largely over to him.
The funny thing is that when I think of
Taral Wayne, I think of the Drink Tank. Im fairly
certain that hes had more total words in the
Drink Tank than I have over the last year. Its a
fact that my written output has dropped a fair
bit, but Taral was there to pick up the slack and
provide writing that is so much better than
anything I would ever put out.
I have to admit that one of my favorite
issues of The Drink Tank is Think Tank: The
Rotsler Folio issue. In that issue, Taral commented
on more than a dozen of his pieces. That issue,
more than any other, is my fave of that era of The
Drink Tank. It shows how versitile Taral is. Also,
how opinionated! The Rotsler Lettraset was my
fave piece in it, and when I saw the pieces that
Paul brought to the Fanzine Lounge at LosCon
for the Rotsler exhibit, there was a copy of it in
there with a ton of Rotsler art.
I love Tarals political pieces. I am a big
follower of politics, which s pretty obvious. Its
kinda rare that Taral and I are on the same side
of a political fence, but I have to admit that his
writing makes me see the logic in the side of
things that doesnt usually go for me. I love the
Sack of Toronto, which appears later in this issue.
Its one of my favorites.
The other thing is that hes written a
very good number of pieces in the Furry world,
and Im not a Furry, but his pieces like Green Tits
& Fur and Somewhere on the FurryMuck are
some of my faves. The sign of a great writer is
one that can take you out of your comfort zone
and make you glad they did.
Such as...
I was at Further Confusion, our local
Furry convention, and working the artists
lounge. In fact, I worked the late night shift,
from Midnight to four am. I loved it, though I
had a long stretch of How Am I Going to Stay
Awake!!!. There was a guy drawing at one of the
tables and he was working at a piece that was
interesting. A large 11 x 17 pad with a big wire
coil at the top. It was a great piece, a sort of
slinky woman-thing, walking towards the viewer
with a long fuffy tail. I walked over and took a
look.
Reminds me of a Taral Wayne piece. I
said.
Its a little like Saara, yeah, but I like this
tail better.
We talked for a minute and he said he
liked Tarals stuff, and I said how much I enjoyed
his writing.
Hes a writer? the guy, whose name
was Gary Something, asked.
Yeah, and a damn good one.
Taral Wayne should have a
few Hugos for his fan art, and hey,
it wouldnt surprise me to see him
on the ballot for next year. Hes
a stud and has been an absolute
workhorse the last couple of
years. I cant say how much I feel
like hes the backbone of the Drink
Tanks content. taral Waynes given
me ffty pieces, and I cant wait for
another 50 more!
All the art in this issue is
From Taral, and I think all have
appeared in here before. except
for the 2 5-0 machine guns!
Solipsism 101
Number 49
by
Taral Wayne
I dont know why Im bothering to write
this, since I know you arent out there reading
it. Oh yes, you go to a lot of effort to make me
think youre there, but youre not.
Or so I once thought. Over the years,
Ive gradually come to accept that Im not actually
the only person in the world. I am not the victim
of a diabolical machine-intelligences conspiracy
to convince me that I live among millions of my
own kind when in fact, Im alone. How likely
is that, anyway? Im sure that the machine-
intelligence that rules the world has far better
things to do than trick me.
So what to make of the war in Afghanistan,
the world recession, global warming, and Fox
TV? Doubtless, its all a charade to fool a rival
machine-intelligence.
I dont happen to have the advantage of
being a machine-intelligence myself, and have
been slow accepting that there are a few fellow,
sloppy, wet-ware thinkers on Earth. But, there
are not many of you. I know there are not many
because whenever I enter into an e-mail dialog
with one of you, you sound no different from the
last conversation I had. The last one, or maybe
the one before that. Perhaps, if you had faces
and voices, it might be revealed that there are, in
fact, a large number of other people in the world.
Lacking any evidence of that, however, I will
concede only that there are at most six or eight
real people in the world, other than myself.
One of them is the reasonable guy who
agrees with most of what I say to him. He goes
under a number of names. Walt. Ken. Albert.
Robert.
Then theres the idiot
who never agrees with anything I
say, who goes by names like
well, never mind.
And theres the
irritating so-and-so who
always has advice for me,
who corrects my spelling
and punctuation even when
he knows perfectly well its a
typo. I do my best not to think
about him.
There is a guy who is
very likely as real as me, who
can be depended on for non-
sequiturs and pointless links
to YouTube or Wikipedia that I
never understand. Lately hes
been going under the name
Terry but Ive known him as
Andy as well.
Then theres the S.O.B.
who rips off my art, now and
then. If he isnt real, then Ill
wring his digital neck for him
as soon as I trace his URL.
I can vouch for a guy
named Steven and Bob. Hes
occasionally loaned me money.
Finally, theres an
individual who I think must
still imagine that she is the only person in the
world.
Those of you who are real, you know
who you are! The rest of you arent fooling me
a bit by asking to be my FaceBook friends
This One, Of Course.
Taral Wayne
Politics... Worse, Canadian Politics
Making unilateral decisions that he
never submits to discussion in Parliament
is, of course, a trademark of Prime Minister
Steven Harper. It is perfectly in keeping with
his character that Mr. Harper decided to
infict the G20 on Toronto, last June, without
informing the city council and the hapless
population until it was a done deal. His need
to rule arbitrarily is suffcient reason unto itself.
But I cant help set aside the suspicion that
there was more to it that Steven Harper was
in fact punishing Toronto for overwhelmingly
voting against his government. Punishing Toronto
also for being the East, which many Westerners
still deeply resent. Why, Toronto is very nearly as
bad as Montreal and those French-Canadians!
During the G20, the city was turned
into an occupied zone. Not only the downtown
core was affected, but highways leading in-and-
out of the city were blocked by the Ontario
Provincial Police. It happened that the Toronto
coin show was held in a hotel near the airport
that same weekend. I attended with a friend who
also collects ancient coins, and afterward we
found our way home was closed off. We were
re-routed miles and miles out of our way by
roadblocks at every exit ramp. OPP cars were
everywhere. And for one leg of our journey,
the traffc was bottlenecked and slowed to a
crawl. One lane was cordoned off by barricades.
There we were, squeezed like toothpaste
into two lanes, while the third was empty.
Then, suddenly, motorcycles whizzed by in the
other lane, followed by a parade of stretch-
limos, police cars, and more motorcycles.
I fervently wished that terrorists
had planted IEDs in the asphalt
somewhere ahead of the motorcade.
While the cops put up fences and
barricades around the immediate area of the
convention center, they virtually removed police
protection from the rest of the downtown. This
almost guaranteed some sort of trouble. And, by
now, everyone must be aware of the incredible
over-reaction of the police to demonstrators.
Many were harassed, detained, abused, beaten,
and arrested for very little more than just
being in the wrong place. Many in the crowd
simply happened to live in the neighborhood,
and had no idea why they were attacked
by police along with the demonstrators.
Meanwhile, the little actual violence that broke
out in some parts of the downtown occurred
where there was no routine police presence.
There have been suggestions that
the cops deliberately planted police cars in
unlikely and strangely vulnerable places so that
they would be trashed, as a ploy to work up
public opinion against the protests. Maybe the
police even set their own cars on fre. It was
certainly suspicious that they failed to react
until camera crews arrived and began flming. I
thought these suspicions were a tad paranoid
at frst. To my surprise, I found that sober
reporters in France and the UK, writing for
respectable newspapers, had many of the same
suspicions. It was known, for instance, that
police had planted agitators among the crowd
during a previous Montreal demonstration.
Some of the same agents provocateur
appear to have been in Toronto for the G20.
In ordinary times, I trust the Toronto
police. But police have a way of getting out of
control when they feel threatened, and are highly
primed for perceived trouble. It seems obvious
to me that our police were pumped-up before
the G20. They were told that the protests were
likely to be violent, and that there might be actual
terrorists among the demonstrators, and that
there might be a credible threat to the visiting
dignitaries. So they hit the streets imagining they
were the Marine Corps motivated to fght their
countrys battles against disorder and heinous
leftie-ism. I blame whoever instructed them,
mainly. And whoever framed security policy.
At the very top, that would be Steven Harper.
To put it in perspective, the amount of
actual damage down during the G20 was less
than occurred in Montreal a couple of years
ago during a riot after the Habs lost the Stanley
Cup. Hardly justifcation for what amounted to
suspending civil rights and putting the nations
largest city under siege.
Toronto was punished. Like an ancient
city whose people booed the emperor at the
games, troops were sent to teach us a lesson.
A little slaughter and pillage would show our
disrespectful plebs who was boss. The Sack of
Toronto is what it was, and is all that it deserves
to be called.
Apart from the damage done to the
countrys largest city (and its relations with its
police force), there is the cost to the nations
taxpayers. Only days before the meeting, it came
out that the bill for facilities, security measures,
and hospitality was an astounding $1.2 billion
dollars an amount so huge that the hosts of
previous economic summits were astonished. The
President of France and the Prime Minister of
Italy informed the media there would be no
such waste when it came their turn to host the
G20. In fact, the Tory government came under a
lot of fack for this from their own constituency.
People who vote Conservative like to think
of themselves as thrifty, and dont approve of
government spending on principle. Here was
their chosen government spending a billion
dollars on a fancy photo op!
Thats about all the G20 meeting
amounted to this June. While many countries
came to Toronto hoping for changes in how the
world banks and does business, it was known
in advance that Steven Harpers intentions
were to thwart every single proposal. In effect,
Canadas policy was to support nothing, to do
nothing. As usual. Since the Conservatives
won a majority a few years ago, this has pretty
much been Canadas policy about everything
that desperately needs to be done. The only
issues the Harper government have been
proactive about have been measures to wreck
the social infrastructure or extend favoritism to
corporations and the wealthy.
Given that everyone knew that nothing
would be accomplished at the G20 in Toronto,
what was it even for? Many suggested that, for
all practical purposes, the real business of a G20
could be done over a conference call.
I have my own thoughts on that. Why
not hold these events on a cruise ship sailing the
Caribbean or Mediterranean? Security would
be much easier. Once the ship has sailed, who
could board it? Does Al Queda have the money
or the sailors to attack a ship with a submarine,
do you think? Have terrorists been reported
buying Exocet missiles? Not only are such
threats unrealistic, it would be a simple matter
to keep the route of the cruise classifed. Now
consider this: the cost of chartering the ship
cant be much more than ten or twenty million
dollars almost cheap! As an added beneft, a
cruise in the tropics would also provide a far
superior holiday atmosphere for the delegates.
I cant say that it didnt also cross my
mind that, if we wanted to be rid of the people
who run our lives, once and for all, it would be
easy to open a seacock just before they got
under way.
Id say that would be suitable vengeance
for the sack of Toronto.
The Big Five-Oh!
Tarals Written Contribs
to Drink Tank
Ish Title
153 & 154 In Twiltone Yet Green I&II
161 Not the American Century
162 Put Down The Brush!
163 Blank Page
173 A Parable of Faith
179 Plastic & Paper
185 Milestones
186 Somewhere on FurryMuck
187 Obama on Election Night
188 Think Tank the Rotsler Folio
189 A Dialog With Faith
190 It Might Look Like Canada Again
192 Bill of Xmas Rights
198 School of Hard Knocks
205 Recent Excavations
211 A Day of Our Own
212 Looting the Worldcon
214 Post-Creative Depression
216 As Eye See It
217 Dancing on the Grave
218 Piracy on the High CDs
219 Remembering Phyllis Gotlieb
220 The Countdown
221 1982
222 Open Letter to Frank Wu
222 Open Letter to Anticipation
223 Parable of Mercy
224 Green Tits & Fur
225 Macabre
226 Energumen
227 A Vick-Tory of Sorts
228 Ka-Blam, Zow!
230 Following the Footsteps
231 Words and Pictures
235 Watching the Clock
236 On the Face of It
238 Anatomy of Failure
239 When We Were Giants
242 Anti-Theft Device Included
243 Fast on the Draw
244 Word of Amra
249 Black and Blue Bayou
250 Rich, Aint It?
250 Miscarried Concerns
251 Play in Two Acts
253 What I Dont Say
254 Just a Few Words as I Pause My Brain
256 Not the Sincerest Form of Flattery
258 Solipsism 101
258 The Sack of Toronto
258 #50 The Big Five-Oh!
258 Collective Amnesia
258 A Whole Lotta Locs
Collective Amnesia
The Story of a Yahoo Group called
Perils of Gadget Hackwrench
by Taral Wayne
About a year ago, I discovered that I was
managing a Yahoo Group called Perils of Gadget
Hackwrench. It was surprising news to me, since
I hadnt been to the group page in about that
length of time. It was the sort of place, too, that
gave Furverts their name, but I had something
to contribute at the time and did. Gradually,
I recognized that I was getting little in return.
The other contributors were mostly crappy.
And, frankly, after a while I got tired of dunking
Gadget in quicksand or wrapping her up like a
mummy. It was only a cartoon show. A 20 year
old one, at that. What I didnt know, however,
was that at some point, the owner had made me
a co-moderator. I might have been aware of it,
briefy. But as there was no need for me to do
anything, I dismissed the title as honorifc. Until,
that is, about a year ago...
Thats when I began to get e-mail from
people who were trying to join, but werent
being accepted. I also got complaints that
messages werent being approved for posting. I
shrugged my shoulders, as it were, and told them
that I didnt run the joint.
Eventually, I did look into it and
discovered that I was running the joint. The
owner, who I only remembered as Horsemage,
had vanished some months ago and left Perils of
Gadget in freefall. He may have thought Id pick
up the ball, but if so he didnt appear to think
it was necessary to give me a heads-up. As a
result, for months nobody was running the joint!
Once I knew Id been left holding the
bag, I quickly approved backlogged messages and
pending members. Next, I informed the group
what had happened and that it looked as though
I had been unknowingly left in charge. But I also
said I didnt want to run the group permanently.
By that time, I wasnt paying any attention to
any Yahoo Groups, having found greener pastures
in DeviantArt, FurAffnity, and WebPages like
Pygmalion Syndrome. I promised the group a
year, though. In those twelve months, I hoped
someone else would step forward and shoulder
the task.
None did. In fact, since I was watching
over the group, I noticed that it was very nearly
inactive. In response to my notices, activity
picked up a little. Over the course of the next
twelve months, I got about a dozen well-wishers
giving me the best of luck, but that was about
all. One new member uploaded some episode
of a long bondage story I had no appetite for
reading. Im not sure whether he ever posted
the last chapter. The response was not, all in
all, a recommendation for the groups continued
survival.
The year ticked by... Still nobody stood up
to take the job. I began a countdown, reminding
members that there was only three months
left two months one month... Finally, time
was up. At the last moment, someone actually
volunteered to be moderator! Unfortunately,
that was when Horsemages real time-bomb
exploded!
When he made me co-moderator, I was
given very limited powers. I could approve or
remove members, do the same for messages
and fles, I could tinker with a members status,
but that was all. I couldnt appoint another
moderator, or transfer any of my powers to
another member. I was unable even to quit as
moderator! Having no immediate alternative,
I decided the delete the group then and there.
Guess what? I didnt have the power to do that,
either! Apparently, the options on the pull-
down menu were limited to running the group
or ignoring it. I was denied the means to pass it
on or put it out of its misery.
Naturally, I complained about my impasse
to the group. A handful of members sent me
their suggestions, all of which were perfectly
useless since I had no power to implement
them. I tried Yahoo Help, and wasted an hour to
fnd out what I already knew. Unless you had a
problem that fts a common template for which
there is a previously prepared answer, there is
no Yahoo Help. I tried writing directly to the
Help staff, using a very hard to fnd URL. No
answer ever came.
To summarize, I wasnt able to create
another moderator. I couldnt transfer my
powers as moderator. I couldnt even quite
from being moderator. Nor could I close the
shop.
Finally, out of sheer bloody mindedness,
I hit upon a drastic solution. Perhaps I should
have just ignored the group, and let it wither
on the vine. But because Yahoo was so friggin
unhelpful, I was in a vindictive mood. Also, I dont
like ignoring e-mail from agitated people who
want to know why they cant join the group or
why they cant post a message. If I didnt cut my
ties with Perils of Gadget, I might get desperate
pleas for help for years more. So, after giving the
group the heads-up, I
1) Deleted *all* members by hand.
Over 350 of them.
2) Deleted *all* folders, image fles,
documents and messages, leaving an empty
group without content.
3) Deleted myself as a member, so that
not even I could fx things.
Perils of Gadget is still there, if you look
for it. But, nobody can join or upload to the
group, because theres nobody there who can
approve them. It will remain empty and void
until Yahoo fgures out that its had no activity in
until it registers with Yahoo that there has been
no activity in however-long it takes for them to
notice. I presume they will delete the group
themselves, fnally.
In the meantime, I worry that Ill wake
up someday to fnd Ive been running Sawyer
Unleashed, Cat-Dancing Omaha, or Young Muslims
For Sarah Palin for the last two years without
knowing it
Locs for Drink Tank 258
Scott Peagrim, 401 Mirvish St. Toronto,
ON. (On Issue 252, the Hugo Award
Issue)
Reading a list of Hugo nominees one year
is much like reading a phone book. You see the
same names in the same order, year after year.
Another novel by Lois McMaster Bujold, Charles
Stross, John Scalzi or Robert J. Sawyer year
after year. It is clear that the bulk of readers in
the SF genre are in a serious rut. They need to
widen the scope of their attentions, for far too
many worthy works of speculative fction are
escaping their notice.
For instance, how is it that exceptional
books such as the Left Behind series, written
by Tim LaHaye, have been totally overlooked by
the readers of SF? While not everyone may fnd
the premise of The Rapture to their taste, it is
as legitimate a topic for scientifc speculation as
Darwinian evolution, say.
When it comes to fandoms blind spots,
one of the most blatant examples has to be the
deathly silence that followed after the 1995 Baen
publication of 1945 by Newt Gingrich. This
richly textured and subtly nuanced alternate
history of the Second World War in which
the US takes on Japan, only to fnd itself in a
cold war with a Germany victorious in Europe
ever received the attention it deserved.
1945 rightly fully belongs on the same shelf
as H. Beam Pipers Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen,
Harry Turtledoves Two Georges, and The
Tales of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card.
Speaking only of this years Hugo for
Best Novel, the most conspicuous omission
is clearly Dan Browns clever solution to an
ancient Freemason mystery. Published in 2009,
The Lost Symbol was an obvious nominee, but
was it anywhere on the ballot? I didnt see it.
Rumour has it that Sarah Palin is working
on a speculative novel about a Environmentalist
conspiracy to fake global warming. This sounds
like a potential nominee next year, if only fans
will toss aside their prejudices and give the book
a chance.
Brian N. Pinckney, 23-2 Warner Sq.
Burbank CA (On Issue 254)
Geek Talk is all very well, but regards
An = QnA(n-1) + A(n-2) and Bn = QnB(n-1) +
B(n-2) isnt it obvious that neither (n-1) nor (n-2)
are intrinsic factors, but corrective values added
to the equation to cancel out the limits y = (An)
and y = (Bn) when c-t = n(-1)? In all cases where
c-t is greater-than-or-equal-to square-root -1,
the range of values for Qn cannot be resolved in
real numbers. The drawbacks of adding arbitrary
factors to force a desired answer is, of course,
obvious to any idiot.
K.C. Jones, 99 Olde Rd. Chattanooga TN.
(On Issue 255, The Train Issue, Part II)
One might almost wonder what a train is,
these days. But if the cost of air travel continues
to rise, and if concern over global warming
forces jets out of the air, we may have to start
thinking about trains again. I for one wont miss
air travel nearly as much as my younger self
would have thought likely. Sure, a fight from
Washington to Miami need take only a couple of
hours, but fying is the least part of fying. What
about those many other hours spent in a taxi
going from home to airport, then from airport
to hotel? The cost per mile of the taxi is by far
the more exorbitant, as well. Then more time
must be spent at the airport, simply waiting.
Meanwhile, your carefully packed luggage is
being torn apart by customs inspectors looking
for a home-made nuke or perhaps a thermos
of live Ebola virus. More shocking still a two
inch Swiss Army Knife. The fight itself fails to
live up to any expectations you may have had
about human fight. Your view of the world
29,000 feet below is restricted to a Perspex
portal a little smaller than a spread-out Kleenex.
As often as not, Ive found the glass half misted
over as well. Meals? Well unless youre in
the air for three hours or more, the airline no
longer feeds you. Meals were a travesty in any
case, whose portions resembled a page out of a
recommended diet book. At the other end you
wait again for your luggage. Total time in travel
for a two hour fight might easily run to six or
more hours.
Compare this to the luxury of a train!
No long waits in a passenger flled lounge. You
merely run pell-mell from your bus or taxi to
the platform, gaining seat moments before All
Aboard and the train lurches into motion.
Meals are chosen from a convenient overhead
menu and paid for on the spot your choice
of entry as long as it comes wrapped in foil.
Condiments available at the napkin table. And
while the view is from a modest nine or ten
feet (instead of twenty or thirty thousand), it is
through a panoramic sized window that would
grace many urban apartment living rooms!
Instead of squinting through a six inch peephole
half frozen over with frost and discovering
only that it is overcast from departure to
destination, the view from a train is a living
tapestry of the city and countryside. From
boarding to departure, there is constant change.
Factories turn to warehouses, junkyards give way
to retaining walls, and telephone poles march by
with the regularity of the minute hand sweeping
by 12 every sixty seconds. Soon you are in the
country, watching for haystacks! Barns! Cows!
Hardly before you know it, the fve hour ride
is over and you have magically arrived at a busy
station in the city of your choice. Breathe in
the ambiance the music of diesel horns, the
soprano of metal wheels gripping steel track,
the clatter of wheeled trunks and suitcases on
tile, the dim yellow lights hung from the ceilings
of a quaint architectural achievements of the
previous-to-last century, the fug of high voltage
electricity and old grease emanating from
unknown corners...
How could this be any more romantic?
Sandra Cass, 851 Homer St. Troy NY. (On
Issue 256)
It seems to me theres no reason to
complain about internet piracy. It happens.
More than that, its the coming thing. The
internet is bringing us a propertyless society in
which the fruits of mans intellectual genius will
be free to anyone with a large hard drive and
high speed connection. No more will the so-
called owners of intellectual property hold the
public up with demands for money. Everything
from novels, movies and concerts to the formula
for custard favoured Bose-Einstein condensates
will be in the public domain whether old-
thinking copyright holders like it or not. The
digital revolution will make their creations a
shared intellectual legacy, and free us for the
frst time to lay claim to our entire culture!
Therefore I hardly know where the
arrogant author of Not the Sincerest Form of
Flattery is getting off. Who is he to say, once
his efforts have been uploaded to the internet,
who should pay and how much to see his dirty
pictures, as though it were still his? He should
be lucky that anyone wants to view his work.
He could be as easily ignored. In fact, I strongly
suspect he protests to protect something few
want anyway.
In the future, inevitably, it will hardly
matter at all who did what. The author, the
musician, the artist will all fade away, leaving
behind the only thing of importance the data,
which will no longer even be the immutable
monument to the creators ego it once was.
Instead, a creative audience will add or subtract
to the fle as they will, altering premises, drawing
out fresh ideas, examining other outcomes. No
more will Huck Finn run away to Indian Territory
to escape civilizing. He may return to Hannibal
and run for President instead. Nor must Bilbo
succeed in his duty to destroy the Ring, if he is
as likely to become a Dark Lord and rule Middle
Earth. Art of all kinds will be fuid, holistic, the
collective sum of every persons creativity. We
see this already in the ceaseless re-inventions of
fctional characters like Superman and Sherlock
Holmes. Certainly Holden Caldwell, Gully Foyle
and Hamlet will inevitably be freed from their
proprietary prisons as well.
In time, all notion of which version is
the original will be relegated to the dustbin of
history along with the idea of creators as a
special class of people.
Also Heard From Eric Weimer, Roy D.
Pfennig, Walt Wench, Sherri Birkenstalk,
Joseph T. Marjoram, Tim C. Meriam-
Webster, and James Baconegger