bonnee

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  • in reply to: Star Trek X:Nemesis Quotes #43448
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    I really liked Marina and her character, Troi. And I agreed with her when she whined about lack of screen time and the importance of her part. I had so many ideas one what they could have done with Troi and the Betazeds. All those possibilities unexplored. Nitwits.


    To boldly go where no one has gone before apparently didn’t include pyschological regions and mental spaces

    in reply to: Milton Berle and Dudley Moore passed away today #63068
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    OH Bonnee, my sides are still hurting, great comment !


    in reply to: LEXX: "Prime Ridge" and "Mort" Reviews #57260
    bonnee
    Participant

    Great (updated) signature DT. Looks wonderfully playful.

    For the record, though, Plato’s notion of love has been getting a bum rap over the years, and is much more in the spirit of Lexx than usually acknowledged. Its not that he valued friendhip between men and women (he thought women weren’t really worthy of true love). Rather, Plato urged (via Socrates) that love between men was the most preeminent value.

    Lysis, Phaedrus, and Symposium: Plato on Homosexuality

    ….
    Plato
    ….
    “And when the other is beside him, he shares his respite from anguish; when he is absent, he likewise shares his longing and being longed for, since he possesses that counterlove which is the image of love, though he supposes it to be friendship rather than love, and calls it by that name” (from the Phaedrus).

    The nature of love and friendship and their varying manifestations have stimulated philosophical interest for centuries. How should we understand such concepts as: the beloved, physical beauty, the beauty that transcends the physical, and the power of love between men as the ancient Greeks understood it? In the Lysis, Phaedrus, and Symposium, Socrates, the gadfly of Athens, searches for the truth about love and friendship. In doing so, he reveals how his Athenian contemporaries regarded homosexual love as an educative, aesthetic, and social force.

    That is the real version of Platonic love espoused in the dialogues, but in the spirit of the discourse that enabled it as such, see

    The Order of Speeches in the Symposium
    External Dialogue 1721-173e Apollodorus tells an unnamed interlocutor he can recount the story told to him by Aristodemus about going to the symposium at Agathon’s with Socrates on the occasion of Agathon’s being crowned the victorious tragic poet
    1. Phaedrus 178a-180c: Love inspires virtue.
    2. Pausanias 180c-185c: Homosexual love, with roles distinct and defined.
    {Interruption: Aristophanes gets the hiccups.}
    3. Eryximachus 185e-188e: Love is a force in the cosmos (à la Empedocles).
    4. Aristophanes 189a-193d: Love is the desire to have wholeness restored.
    5. Agathon 194e-197e: Love is the source of all good things.
    6. Socrates 201d-212c: (From Diotima): Love is the desire to procreate in beauty.
    The birth of Eros from Penia (Poverty) and Poros (Resource) 203b-204b
    The soul’s ascent to beauty
    one beautiful body
    the beauty of all bodies
    the beauty of souls
    the beauty of laws, activities, and customs
    the beauty of knowledge, ideas, and theories
    Beauty in itself (211a-d)
    7. Alcibiades 215a-222d: Socrates himself personifies Love.
    Conclusion: Socrates drinks everyone under the table, and they are debating whether the same person could compose both comedies and tragedies.

    Also Relevant on Platonic Love: Phaedrus, especially Socrates’ second speech, 243e-257b Love is the “divine madness”

    Cribbed off the Net, of course.

    [ 31-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Brigadoom vs The Game #57308
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    Thanks for the heads-up!

    *smooch!*


    Hey, it was my pleasure Aleck – so, your welcome. When you pull your head out of that orfice that YOU’VE claimed describes you (since your HEAD fits right UP there, its no wonder it pops out of your neck) feel free to be my teletubby

    BIG HUG

    [ 30-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Brigadoom vs The Game #57306
    bonnee
    Participant

    **Toll Troll Alert**

    Aleck, I’m not sure why you feel the need to so publicly fly off the handle so often, doing your part to render discussion inhospitable and intractable. I’ve called you on this before and I will continue to do so. You cannot claim the defense of a private discussion in a public forum, irrespective of the fact that it is just between you and Lee. At least when we read Flamegrape’s responses, the attempt to contain himself is palpable, however exasperated he might also be. Can I please suggest that you a) conduct yourself in a more seemly manner b)email your tantrums to him or c)consider an anger management course as a way of getting your obviously correct points across. You invalidate valid points by way of the bizzare sense of entitlement and righteousness

    So there.

    One out of five Americans has an anger management problem. Anger is a natural human emotion and is nature’s way of empowering us to “ward off” our perception of an attack or threat to our well being. The problem is not anger, the problem is the mismanagement of anger. Mismanaged anger and rage is the major cause of conflict in our personal and professional relationships.

    Domestic abuse, road rage, workplace violence, divorce, and addiction are just a few examples of what happens when anger is mismanaged. (We might also add Internet discussion with Aleck *freaking* Bennett)

    [ 29-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Brigadoom vs The Game #57287
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    What?!? If this is an extention of your pet theory that the Lexx is a phallic symbol, I find that very unlikely.
    At best it’s eisegetic speculation and requires serious loosening of associations, at worst it’s borderline psychotic sexotropic pareidolia. Explanation: If you have sex on the brain, you’re going to see sex images everywhere. The Lexx is shaped like an insect. Nothing else. Not a male organ, not a nude woman. It has a distinct head, thorax, and abdomen, compound eyes, and an all-around arthropoid construction. It’s a dragonfly with no wings.


    I think I might need to explain something to you – pareidolia is eisegetics. To ascribe meaning to something involves acts of inscription. Meaning is only possible via associations and is explicated/generated accordingly. Explanation: if you have meaning on the brain, you are going to see meaning everywhere. The question is where the meaning is really to be found. The answer is not (just) out there. Indeed, the world is not so much found but made in the finding. Despite what dgrequeen implied elsewhere, meaning is the most esotoric property imaginable (read: imagined). We need to distinguish between the model of reality and the reality of the model in order to better account for the relationship. The relation we are really talking about is the one between signifier and signified. I would therefore encourage you to invoke two other big words you seem disinclined to cite – that of semiotics and hermeneutics. You seem to want to rely on a literal or identity notion of meaning, but this is untentable within the context of making sense of anything, including that of (say) a penis or dragonfly. There is a disjunct between word and wor(l)d, and the one can only be generated by way of assosiation with the other. One thing (a word, concept, sentence, picture, etc) stands for or signifies another thing (object, event, property, situation, etc). Within the context of a language that encourages you to distinguish between pareidolia and eisegetics, you are invariably having recourse to language’s own pre/determinations (speculations). In other words, the relation between words explains the relation between word and world, and such a (semiotic) process is interpretive (or hermeneutical).

    Indeed, the concept of meaning you seem to be defending is only relatively recent and culturally specific, and is inclined to interpret away its own symbolic status (relation to the world). What is at issue between us, then, is not a pet theory about Lexx’s symbolic function per se, but the role we seem to think a symbol plays within the universe. Everything is symbolic in so far as it possesses a content and exhibits a referent. The way symbols bridge this gap/cross the divide turns on the way content and referent relate to each other. As I indicated elsewhere, semiotics regards everything as a sign that refers (back) to other signs by way of interpretation and exeggesis. One way to illustrate this is the way you invoke one category of meaning to distinguish it from another (the ideas of ‘insect’ and ‘phallus’ respectively). These concepts, however, have already been mapped out for you in accordance with the way they function as signs within culturally determined significations (you might otherwise know their functional status as conceptual schemes or paradigms of meaning). Take the example of those planetary objects that continue to go by the significations of deities, even if WE do no deify such objects within our own accounts of the universe. Another way to illustrate this that via the notion that the universe is written in the language of mathematics. When you recognise a star as a star, however (or indeed, your own penis) it is not in the form of an equation – it is rather by way of an interpretation enabled by certain relations enacted by your own assumptions, as mediated by certain significations. The next time you go to the toilet you could (if you were say an Indian who subscribed to a different notion of meaning) be conceivably reaching for a dragonfly by some other name.

    quote:


    The Lexx is shaped like an insect. It has a distinct head, thorax, and abdomen, compound eyes, and an all-around arthropoid construction. It’s a dragonfly with no wings.


    Hey, nice description of a penis.

    [ 28-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Brigadoom vs The Game #57286
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    Bonnee, I didn’t mean to imply that your remarks weren’t welcome. I only meant that I didn’t see where Season2 led directly to the anal humor in Season4 (which is what I assumed your remarks meant). IMO, the whole series has been about appetites of all kinds, which is just basic human nature (Dalek excepted).


    I suppose what I was trying to suggest is that the anal humour has a deeper connotation. Anu(s) is the god of the sky and re/creation in various mythology, and the notion of anus as displacement connects up with the notion of an end/ing as a new beginning. Indeed, if you look up the Book of the Dead, you’ll find the idea(d) of Anu as day of judgement and deliverance. I include a copy and paste of Anus as deity.

    “While Alalus was supreme in heaven, Anus became more powerful. After serving as Alalu’s cupbearer for nine years he then overthrew him, banishing him to under the earth as Zeus did Chronos in Greece. He then held the throne with Kumarbis as his cupbearer. Kumarbis then also rebelled, and Anus fled in the sky. During his flight Kumarbis bit off and swallowed his phallus. Through this act Kumarbis was impregnated with the Storm-god, the Aranzahas (Tigris) river, and Tasmisus.

    Anus then retired in heaven, recalling the castrated Ouranos’ myth in Greece. From there he advised the Storm-god on exit strategies from Kumarbis. After the Storm-god’s ‘birth’ (regurgitation’), the triad brothers plotted to destroy Kumarbis and, with his other children, apparently succeeded . This story recalls Zeus giving ‘birth’ to Athena from his head and also Zeus’ overthrowing Chronos”.

    in reply to: Brigadoom vs The Game #57276
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    Why not just say: “Brigadoom” is a play on the word “Brigadoon”, and leave it at that? And read Flamegrape’s posted synopses of the original.

    We got it the first time, Bonnee. For your information, life is libidinal. There’s nothing esoteric about that.


    For the reasons that were (apparently)overstated. My remarks weren’t intended as a corrective, but as supplementary. Clearly they weren’t welcome, but it seems to me that Lexx is working with an esoteric notion of sexuality – even if it is slightly tongue in cheek. My feeling is that our respective backgrounds predisposes us to experience lexx in different – but equally valid – ways. The idea of leaving something the way it is does not encourage me to question why it might be that way in the first place. Sorry for overstating what you insist was obvious the first time, but your remarks indicate that I haven’t made myself clear at all.

    in reply to: Brigadoom vs The Game #57273
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    Headgehog nudges DT to look up a few posts where Flamegrape just gave the ANSWER


    And Bonnee provides a definition which (hopefully) helps explain Flamegrape’s answer. Given this definition, the versus aspect of this thread might be thought inappropriate and instead encourages the notion of thematic continuity. Indeed, it helps provide a bridge between the two universes, and suggests that the notion of the (ass) End of the Universe coincides with the thematic of a new beginning/ending. Or , as stated above, the end/ing of season 2 offers a literal opening for season 4. Correspondinly, the notion of Lexx not really being about sex is also antithetical the show’s impetus/trajectory. Not only does the show constantly posit the idea that the universe’s life force is essentially libidinal, the symbol of Lexx as dragonfly underlines the themes of fertility and renewal. The dragonfly/flying penis motif is itself the messenger or midwife (read: bridge) between universes.

    [ 27-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Moss Flops Too #57228
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    Scifi never did a good job plugging lexx. Only during the second half of s4 did they finally give it some ad spots. Which they only showed frequently during the first few weeks of it return.
    Ironiocally Lexx did twice as better with zero advertising then it is with all the advertising its getting now (Err was getting). Currently it’s still better then it was for s2 and s3.


    I’m not sure its appropriate that we blame the television network for Lexx’s recent lacklustre performance. There is only so much you can butt plug a show that gave the APPEARANCE of losing the plot during the course of the fourth season. Even die hard fanatics – moderators such as Sad geezer and Rachel (at lexx.com) – have indicated that the season has been quite the endurance test. Other fans have been very vocal about their own disappointment, and ‘announced’ their intention not to watch again (Lily and Bowcatz immediately come to mind). It seems to me that not only is Lexx not building its core audience, it appears to be erasing an existing fan base. Perhaps my remarks will be construed as trolling (again), but the decline in ratings speak for themselves. The season return via ‘Midsummer’ could even be construed as commercial suicide, and subsequent ratings merely an extended suicide note. I just hope that the freefall has stopped. Its a shame really, because my own enthusiasm has returned with a vengeance and I hope other disgrunglted viewers feel similarly. Mort was encouraging, and Moss was stupendous. Given the way everyone has been talking about the Game, I can’t wait to see it and watch it over and over again. Hopefully, the ‘vibe’ generated from this episode has also found its way to others.

    in reply to: DAMMIT ALL OF YOU, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE! #61991
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    it seems as if EVERYONE is conspiring to defeat the message inherent in the topic.


    Agreed Superjoe – and on behalf of everyone (again), I want to aplogise to you for getting caught in the crossfire. Our collective attempts have been defeatist and self defeating. Please don’t despair though – things will settle down once everyone settles back down.

    quote:


    All it’s doing is giving him a reason to hang around (after declaring that he’s leaving…what is it, about 5 times now?). It’s just providing more and more reason for him to indulge in philosophical and verbal masturbation, taking every phrase uttered and twisting it around in a labyrinthine path of convoluted nonsense so that it can appear that he’s being “intellectual” and “clever” in an attempt to simply call someone a name. It’s clear that all he’s doing is trying to cause a stink wherever he goes: first here, then at lexx.com, doing the same thing at both places after *apologizing* for his actions here, stating a transparently false reason *why* the scene was caused, etc. It’s simply all about him. Manipulating the situation to rile people up, manipulating the words of others to make them “mean” whatever he wants them to mean…then, after annoying and/or angering a sufficiently large group of people, he can then complain about a “clique” existing and persecuting him. Basically, his current actions seem to be aimed toward one goal: to make whatever thread he posts in pertain completely to him, his own, belonging to him. Or, to use his own definitions, reducing any thread in which he posts to a level of idiocy.

    So, basically, Squish, what I’m saying (while admittingly contradicting my own words, so there’s no need to point out the paradox inherent in this post) is…

    Just don’t give Bonnee anything to work with, and maybe he’ll finally shut up.

    –Aleck


    I have to agree with Aleck Squish. All you’ve been doing is giving me a reason to hang around – or at least, draw attention to my continued presence. What is it – about 5 or 6 times now? – that you’ve both given me reason to ask what’s that smell, despite a desire to let the air clear of its own accord. Your collective posts recall the opening scenes of Prince Caspian in the Narnian saga, where I feel I’m being summoned from the station to respond to a cry for help. Naturally you’re re-calls have been merely crying wolf. If you want ME to shut up, then follow the example YOU presume to be leading from . Don’t continue to kick up a stink and then complain about the smell – take note that if it appears to be clinging to you two then maybe it is also emenating from both of you as well. Stop mentioning a previous dispute either directly or indirectly, resist the urge to mock me or anyone else you might mistake for me, stop calling me names, and then maybe – just maybe – you two will approximate the versions you have of yourselves.

    Toll Troll – J. Ludwick

    Change is really a way of life for me
    They say it’s inevitable, like waves on the sea

    I keep changing mostly mindlessly
    On nice days it’s not a bad place to be

    On cold ones, hours stretch on endlessly
    I’m telling you folks, lunch and driving ain’t free

    CHORUS
    I’m the toll troll, I’m the toll troll
    Giving you exactly what you’re due

    I’m the toll troll, handing it on back to you
    I’m the toll troll, handing it on back to you

    We both know you don’t like slowing down
    Seeing me makes it longer to get cross town

    And I-pass means I’m not around

    CHORUS

    It’s eight tolls to nowhere you say
    And I’m just one more stop along the way

    Sometimes I even say, “Have a nice day” (and I mean it)

    CHORUS

    I’m the toll troll, I’m the toll troll
    Giving you exactly what you’re due

    I’m the toll troll, handing it on back to you
    I’m the toll troll, handing it on back to you

    [ 24-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: DAMMIT ALL OF YOU, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE! #61987
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    You came onto the LEXX fora of the Sadboard first by claiming that S4 of LEXX was horrible, and that Farscape beat it, hands down.


    By this stage, I was no stranger. My weekly lexx downunder thread predated it by some six to eight weeks. I don’t recall you posting in either of these threads, so I’m not sure if you’re one to comment. Your recollection of the Farscape thread indicates that you actually might be unfamiliar with it. That was NOT was discussed – rather, it was structured around the notion of a circle, and I was trying to navigate myself around it accordingly. Again you presume to describe my behaviour when all your doing is doing is describing your own response to it. Since the thread has been accidently lost, neither of us can profitably respond further to it.

    quote:


    After I called you on this, you decided to mock me in name, both on this board, and on the other board — one that I don’t even frequent regularly. Even after it’s been made abundantly clear that I do not frequent the other board, you continue to do so. Again — actions designed purely for antagonism. Again — trollish behavior.


    You’re calling on this was a response to my own judgement call regarding bruttish and nasty behaviour in an otherwise good natured thread. I also apologised to you for our previous dispute in this thread, and you responded with a noble ‘ditto’ prior to the next outbreak. Despite the fact that we appeared to settle our differences here, the thread provided an oppurtunity for you to behave towards someone else in an incredibly ill tempered and custodial manner. By your own admission, your an [Alleged negative word] – as if the admission constitutes a moral pretext. When you continued to get personal, you decided to strategically unveil me as rip_lexx as a way of putting me in my place within another place. If you had been paying as close attention as you claim, you would have noted at least one of the moderators attempting to expand SG borders over there. He got his backside kicked good and proper by the moderator for behaviour that tends to get a pat on the back around here. You should have also noted that no one reacted to my behaviour over there as they did over here. Interestingly, it prompted a moderator to ‘step down’ and voice her own misgivings about season 4, where she claimed she no longer wanted to watch it. My so called attempt to prevent discussion actually generated it, and Jason has both privately and publicly engaged with the questions YOU raised to preclude the possibility of ANY discussion whatsover. As I indicated, however, I thought you were Jason over there and were willing to try again. Sorry my mistake. Hence the smart Aleck designation and signature concerning the ‘custodian of truth’ when I objected to your appalling behaviour and your subsequent attempt to put me in my place again.

    And clearly you don’t frequent Lexx.com – because I stopped doing it when Flamegrape asked me to a long time ago.

    If we need any proof of your need to willfully obscure what has been going on across the boards, consider the lily.

    Lily posted her own reservations about Season 4 and indicated that she no longer intended to watch it for the reasons cited. She was worried about encountering the kind of response my posts tended to engender. I offered her support and apologised for the behaviour of a select few, including my own. That was your cue to put me in my place again by claiming that at least her post was reasoned . Flamegrape intervened by saying that you fell into my trap again by claiming that Lily was obviously Bonnee because of textual support indicating as such, and cited the one and same reasons as evidence for the different identity. So, on the one hand, Lily gets defended by you because of the reasons cited. On the other hand, Flamegrape urges that you’ve misheard Lily because it was obviously me – the reason being: she was speaking in my own ‘voice’, as evident by the reasons cited. In other words, the one and same post was actively misread by two different people, where it was supposed to simultaneously point away from – and back towards – me. Either way YOU look at it, there must have been something other than trollish about Lily’s post that encouraged such inconsistent and disparate readings. Talk about mis/identiying something according to your own identity. A perfect example would be my own experience of you (and others) behaving as if you were Gandalf speaking to Balrog – who might profitably be identified as the biggest troll of all. Gandalf sceaming “You Shall Not Pass!” , however, may be construed as ingenuous. The fellowship of the Ring were trespassing on his territority. Within the context of a Lexx forum of a self annointed fellowship enacting and policing a border, you have to wonder who have really been the trolls here.

    You’ve cited more than once that the evidence regarding my own behaviour points in a particular direction. You fail to note, however, that what is regarded as evidence can point us in many different directions. That is why philosophers have something called the problem of knowledge in so far as evidence can re/direct us in many different ways. You purport to be able to resolve this problem by way of making everything point back to you – ie, via the route of your own beliefs and desires. There is actually a sign for this route and it is marked Idios. The derivation of this term perfectly captures your own avowed philosiophical position and has crossed over into everyday discourse. Namely, idios means ‘pertaining to one’s self, one’s own, belonging to one’s self, seeking one’s own counsel’, etc. Whilst you readilly call me a liar, the evidence calls out for the *fact* that your an idiot by any other name.

    quote:


    So forgive me …


    I forgive you Aleck… Again

    [ 23-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    A Word was replaced by “[Alleged negative word] “. It was borderline, but theoretically it broke the rules. {We’re on very dodgy ground here guys, so give me a break will ya!}

    [ 23-03-2002: Message edited by: SadGeezer ]

    in reply to: DAMMIT ALL OF YOU, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE! #61984
    bonnee
    Participant

    Bonnee:

    You are in a tough position. On one side you have peeps who think you are a troll! and on the other, it looks like some think you are taking things too seriously. I really think that’s an unfair situation.

    Thanks Sad, but the clique has spoken. I do think, however, that the situation should concern you more than it does me. Not for my sake, mind you, but as a way of seriously addressing the issue of how many have presumed to moderate or administer the integrity of the site on your behalf. The fact that it has been the same people keen to return me to my place says more than I could possibly say. You’ve indicated elsewhere that Aleck – like your father- never loses a philosophical argument. Whatever argument Aleck may have won or lost, they aren’t of the philosphical sort. Unlike Jason, the *dude* has refused to traverse or negotiate that terrain. This has been nothing less than a nasty territorial dispute administed by various crossing guards violating the very principles they purport to be defending. I can only assume that your Dad would not approve of the situation as it has been dis/cussed by each and every one of us.

    For my part – I remain sorry in more ways than one.

    [ 23-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: DAMMIT ALL OF YOU, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE! #61982
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    God, I just *love* revisionist history.


    Actually Aleck, I think you would be just as guilty as revising history as you seem to think I am – as evident by your own chronology of events elsewhere. If you were as open minded as you often presume to be, you might be aware that you’re guilty of a tautology with your declared love: history is a form of re/vision. no doubt you would construe this as more philosophical babble on my behalf, but I encourage you to seek out the question of the problem of history within the historical sciences. And I only suggest this as a way of identifying the problem that I’ve always had with your own position/ing regarding any issue – you defend a concept of ‘truth’ by way of the very conception that disallows it (Truth). In this instance, you purport to be citing History as the agent or bearer of truth, and invariably objectify your own subjectivity via the province of your own historical access/experience. You thereby offer an objective account of your own subjectivity, rendering your own re/visions and renditions self refuting. You might as well be calling yourself God, and regard your own observations as god like. Rather than taking God’s name in vain, you’ve just managed to underline the question of vanity (self love).

    To cut a long story short, historian’s call it hiSTORY for good reason, and find themselves struggling with the problem of history as inter/personal narrative. To paraphrase the title of this thread: giving all the pieces a chance to fit Not that I’d expect (or want) you to revise – let alone, interrogate – your own version of events, but for the historical record .. http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/burbul es/ncb/syllabi/Materials/N_and_epistemology.html

    A philosophical translation of your most recent put down of me – read: another attempt to put me back in my (historical) place – would therefore be revised thus: God, I just love myself or myself as a just God.

    Meanwhile

    Split Enz – History Never Repeats

    [chorus:]
    History never repeats
    I tell myself before I go to sleep
    Don’t say the words you might regret
    I’ve lost before you know I can’t forget

    There was a girl I used to know
    She dealt my love a savage blow
    I was so young, too blind to see
    But anyway that’s history

    I say [chorus]

    You say I always played the fool
    Well I can’t go on, if that’s the rule
    Better to jump than hesitate
    I need a change and I can’t wait

    [chorus2:]
    History never repeats
    I tell myself before I go to sleep
    And there’s a light shining in the dark
    Leading me on towards a change of heart (ah-ar)

    History never repeats, history never repeats

    Deep in the night it’s all so clear
    I lie awake with great ideas
    Lurking about in no-man’s land
    I think at last I understand

    [chorus2]
    Never repeats!…
    Hey…. Hey….
    Never repeats!

    And I say, that’s all
    Remember til the next time

    [all?:] thank you!

    won’t you stay, stay a while with my own one
    one more day, one more day with my own ones
    this old world, is so cold, don’t care nothing for your soul
    you share with your own ones…

    Haul away, haul away, heave away, haul away, haul away, heave away

    (Sorry Tony, but I’m not sure why Aleck felt the need to antagonise me, and just want it on record that it has cut both ways). Although, of course, he’s no troll – just a valued member devaluing another one.

    [ 22-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: who is the best sci-fi character? #43486
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    And he wasn’t an alienated alien… he was actually kwai (an assassain) but he was alienated.

    And doesn’t the assassain bit prove that Kai’s not the only good assassain in sci-fi?


    Hmm, I wonder if the word (and possible referent) Kai is a riff and reference to Kwai?

    in reply to: DAMMIT ALL OF YOU, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE! #61979
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    Also, I really don’t want to encourage anything cliquey. Everyone is welcome, no matter what opinions they have.

    Bonnee, I’m worried that you feel the need to apologize for your posts and that you are perhaps a little too worried that you may offend. Your opinions are valued and encouraged (unless of course they are used to intentionally upset individuals, which I’m sure they wouldn’t be).


    I appreciate the benefit of the doubt Sad, but – encouraged or not – there is a distinct clique within certain forums, and my posts were (and will remain) construed as acts of tresspass. To some extent, it felt more like a possee intent on rounding an apparent newbie/troll up and beating them into submission.

    Some of my posts encouraged a misreading and flame war, and I have no one to blame but myself. Basically, I didn’t know what I was stepping into until I stepped into it. But as I’ve indicated both privately and publicly, some of your visitors are more inclined to ‘get the message’ earlier than others, and have indicated a tendency to allow themselves to be beaten into submission if that’s what’s required to stay ‘on board’. Others seem disinclined to post at all because it appears as if some posters might be “looking over their shoulders”.

    Tony, I’m not sure if I need to remind you of the context prior to my public venting of spleen and subsequent shouting down. but for the record: The only reason you know me was because of a mutual love for Lexx. I postively reviewed your site for an e-zine I was writing for a while ago, and might have even pointed sci fi fans here as a result (prior to the dot com bust, the e-ezine had millions of subscribers). There was even talk of me writing reviews for you at one time to help facilitate the site’s content. I kept you informed (privately) of my correspondence between Salter Street, and emailed you a series of odd exchanges indicating their reluctance to commit themselves to air dates outside NTC zones. I immediately informed you of Salter Street’s subsequent (and surprising) email to me regarding confirmed air dates outside the USA. I excitedly drew your attention to the first season 4 review on the Net, although you already knew about it. I posted a thread in the episodes section once the series premiered downunder to excitedly chronicle my thoughts, only to find myself increasingly taken aback by the quality and the tone. Much to my shock, I found myself preferring Farscape to Lexx, and posted a thread that wanted to encourage seeing each show through one another’s lens in order to make sense of a mental turn of events. I was immediately pounced upon as a troll. A turning point for me was the suspicion that the post got deleted by the moderators because of its apparent inflammatory nature, although you have indicated that it was unintentional and encouraged further discussion. Trouble is, I also appeared to be banned so could not discuss anything even if I wanted to. Your personal intervention appeared to result in the lifting of ‘the ban’, although you’ve insisted that it was merely a software problem requiring self correction.

    I took your own posts regarding season 4 as an indication that the show had been misconceived or ill thought out, and tried to encourage discussion in what I assumed to be an open forum (no one seemed to think you were a troll). Instead, I encountered what appeared to be border crossings in more ways than one, and allowed myself to get cross as a result. (By that stage, I had decided to write my first television article for a film journal on Lexx and Farscape to encourage a broader and more appreciative audience, and found myself increasingly needing a place to vent some spleen to remain committed to the idea). Due to the resulting flame wars, I thought I had encouraged SG to become an inhospitable place for others – a situation compounded by my own concern that a lot of the hostility had spilt onto you for allowing a troll to ‘pass’ and remain in everyone’s midst. I privately asked you to publicly ban my ISP in order to save face and enact damage control. You politely told me to kiss my ass, and said that I had just as much right to be here as anyone else. Although I had no intention of returning, I found myself having to defend someone else against the possibility that they might have been me. Although I have posted since, my troll status appears to have remained intact and non negotiable. Although I am very hurt and quite incredulous, I must acknowledge my own role in allowing things to get out of control. A self imposed ban would therefore be best for all concerned. There are not enough stars in the universe to count how I’ve become sorry in more ways than one.

    [ 22-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: who is the best sci-fi character? #43483
    bonnee
    Participant

    I find myself gravitating towards morally duplicitious characters, aliens who feel alienated by their own relationship to others. characters caught between worlds and moral dimensions, so to speak. Thus, Daan and Sandovaal from Earth: Final Conflict, Garak from Deep Space 9, and Scorpious from Farscape strike me as being the most interesting characters to grace television sci fi, rendering the question of each’s moral universe very intriguing indeed.

    [ 22-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: DAMMIT ALL OF YOU, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE! #61974
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    Then again, there are some people would have genuine grievances with the show or the direction it is taking. I’ve been a bit worried about LEXX myself in the last few episodes (up to 4-15). So maybe we could set up a forum in each category (or at least the most lively ones) for people who want to sound off about the show that they have a grievance with or even so that trolls can have somewhere to play without disrupting the main business.

    Of course, that’s why the Angst forum was setup. Is the Sci Fi Angst Forum enough?


    I hope you don’t mind me commenting Tony, but I find the above remarks particularly interesting. Its been nice of everyone to not mention me by name, by the way, particularly since my ‘troll’ status is pretty much a given.

    Back to the main point though – and that is the notion of a troll who trespasses upon friendly terrain just to antagonise people, and so, trangresses accepted codes of designated conduct.

    In retrospect, I’m convinced that my initial two posts regarding Farscape and ‘What’s that Smell’ in the Lexx forum would have been viewed as less antagonistic if I had posted them in the Sci Fi Angst forum. They might have been more postively discussed and even welcomed there. I find this very interesting, if only because it underlines the notion of a forum as a territory – and I’ve felt (rightly or wrongly) that I’ve encouraged a territorial dispute. In fact, my own grievance is that I’ve felt that certain people had been policing a border , and was often reminded of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings screaming ‘You shall not pass!!” The lexx.com thing was an objection to what I perceived to be an attempt to expand the borders elsewhere , a situation inflammed by behaviour that does not just include my own.

    I’m not going to defend my behaviour though or adversely comment upon anyone else’s (what’s the point, the borders of dis/agreement will remain mapped out as exactly as they were to begin with, and will only cross everyone accordingly.)

    I’ve sinced looked up the meaning of troll, and can see why some of my posts could be interpreted as such. The last thing I wanted was to make SG intractable and inhospitable for others, and I APOLOGISE FOR ANY OFFENSE they tended to engender. I don’t intend to post too often anymore. Note that I didn’t come back after a good think, though. I only came back to defend Jen against the thought that she might have been me.

    I do think , though, that the notion of a forum as a border is not something that I’ve encountered elsewhere. I’ve been trying to understand it, and can only think that the nature of sci fi enthusiasms tend to dis/allow territorial crossings and disputes. Given the expansive ground covered by Sad Geezer, this has revealed itself to be not so much a problem of demarcating borders, but of encouraging the perception that everyone should know their own place. As if there is a time and place for everything. As far as I am concerned, though, cartography in the for(u)m of a space-time continuum is the very antithesis of science fiction, even if it appears to be the province of the sci fi fan. The last thing I would expect is provincial attitides from sci fi fans – I thought it was more provisional. (read the definitions of sci fi I posted elsewhere).

    By provincial I don’t mean narrow minded but fenced in or partioned off according to sensibility or custom – one exhibiting the ‘manners’ of certain inhabitants or locals within a cordoned off area. And by manners I don’t mean to just imply the question of good or bad behaviour, but mannered in the sense of indicating a person’s habitual bearing (which simultaneously implies something good and bad ). Please note that this is not an attempt to antagonise anyone – more a lament at failing to recognise everyone’s ‘place’, including my own.

    Sorry everyone.

    And as Tony is fond of saying – cheers!!

    The Cheers Theme

    Making your way in the world today
    Takes everything you’ve got;
    Taking a break from all your worries
    Sure would help a lot.
    Wouldn’t you like to get away?
    All those night when you’ve got no lights,
    The check is in the mail;
    And your little angel
    Hung the cat up by it’s tail;
    And your third fiance didn’t show;

    Sometimes you want to go
    Where everybody knows your name,
    And they’re always glad you came;
    You want to be where you can see,
    Our troubles are all the same;
    You want to be where everybody knows your name.

    Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee’s dead;
    The morning’s looking bright;
    And your shrink ran off to Europe,
    And didn’t even write;
    And your husband wants to be a girl;

    Be glad there’s one place in the world
    Where everybody knows your name,
    And they’re always glad you came;
    You want to go where people know,
    People are all the same;
    You want to go where everybody knows your name.

    Where everybody knows your name,
    And they’re always glad you came;
    Where everybody knows your name,
    And they’re always glad you came;
    (fade out)

    [ 21-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: sexual imagery in lexx #52144
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    The Lexx as a phallic symbol!?! That requires some pretty serious loosening of associations.


    Don’t you mean a hardening of associations Lee? Or is that a Freudian slip – into something comfortable?

    According to Charles Peirce – one of the two main founders of semiotics (the study of signs and symbols) – the fabric of the universe is made out of signs. The “entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs”. Indeed, sign as matter is why its matters (is entirely SIGNificant for those within it).

    Within the context of the Lexx universe/s, it should not be thought insignificant that the Lexx’s appetites often coincide with Stan’s, and that the resulting frustrations exhibit themselves within Stan’s in/ability to let the Lexx compensate accordingly.

    I am convinced that if Lexx were more widely known, literary and cultural theorists would think it so obvious as to want to associate themselves with Lexx – in order to signify their own place within the known universe.

    [ 17-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: A COMMENTARY ON SCIENCE FICTION IN THE 21ST CENTURY #43389
    bonnee
    Participant

    I have already posted these 52 definitions of sci fi in another thread, but it seems to me that they might be particulary suitable here. I don’t expect anyone to read all of them of course, I just include them as an extended comment on the commentary per se. I think the question/s of sci fi cannot, by defintion, be rendered reduntant or obsolete.

    52 Definitions of Science Fiction

    : copied and pasted from http://www.panix.com/~gokce/sf_defn.html)

    These definitions of science fiction are for those of you who are not satisfied with Damon Knight’s definition of science fiction, which appears in the rec.arts.sf.written FAQ: “…[Science Fiction] means what we point to when we say it.”

    Definitions available by
    Aldiss, Brian W. Allen, Dick Amis, Kingsley Appel, Benjamin Asimov, Isaac Bailey, James O.
    Benford, Gregory Boyd, John Bradbury, Ray Bretnor, Reginald Brians, Paul John Brunner
    Campbell, John W. Carr, Terry Conklin, Groff Crispin, Edmund de Camp, L. Sprauge Del Rey, Lester
    Dickson, Gordon R. Franklin, Bruce Franklin, Bruce H. Frye, Northrop Gaddis, Vincent H. Gernsback, Hugo
    Goswami, Amit Gunn, James E. Heard, Gerald Heinlein, Robert A. Herbert, Frank Knigth, Damon
    Lundwall, Sam J. Moskowitz, Sam Panshin, Alexei Pohl, Frederick Rabkin, Eric S. Riley, Dick
    Scortia, Thomas N. Shippey, Tom Stableford, Brian Sturgeon, Theodore Suvin, Darko Toffler, Alvin
    Williamson, Jack Wolleheim, Donald A.

    ——————————————————————————–

    Brian W. Aldiss
    Science fiction is the search for definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould.
    Trillion Year Spree: the History of Science Fiction (London, 1986)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Dick Allen
    Is it any wonder that a new generation has rediscovered science fiction, rediscovered a form of literature that argues through its intuitive force that the individual can shape and change and influence and triumph; that man can eliminate both war and poverty; that miracles are possible; that love, if given a chance, can become the main driving force of human relationships?Top
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    Kingsley Amis
    Science Fiction is that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terresial in origin.
    New Maps Of Hell (London, 1960)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Benjamin Appel
    Science fiction reflects scientific thought; a fiction of things-to-come based on things-on-hand.
    The Fantastic Mirror-SF Across The Ages (Panthenon 1969)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Isaac Asimov
    Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions.

    That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings.
    (1952)Top
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    James O. Bailey
    The touchstone for scientific fiction, then, is that it describes an imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences. The most serious pieces of this fiction arise from speculation about what may happen if science makes an extraordinary discovery. The romance is an attempt to anticipate this discovery and its impact upon society, and to foresee how mankind may adjust to the new condition.
    Pilgrims Through Space and Time (New York, 1947)Top
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    Gregory Benford
    SF is a controlled way to think and dream about the future. An integration of the mood and attitude of science (the objective universe) with the fears and hopes that spring from the unconscious. Anything that turns you and your social context, the social you, inside out. Nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely possible.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Ray Bradbury
    Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    John Boyd
    Science fiction is story-telling, usually imaginative as distinct from realistic fiction, which poses the effects of current or extrapolated scientific discoveries, or a single discovery, on the behavior of individuals of society.

    Mainstream fiction gives imaginative reality to probable events within a framework of the historical past or present; science fiction gives reality to possible events, usually in the future, extrapolated from present scientific knowledge or existing cultural and social trends. Both genres ordinarily observe the unities and adhere to a cause-and-effect schema.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Reginald Bretnor
    Science Fiction: fiction based on rational speculation regarding the human experience of science and its resultant technologies.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Paul Brians
    [Science Fiction is:] a subdivision of fantastic literature which employs science or rationalism to create an appearance of plausibility

    Posted to the mailing list SF-LIT, May 16, 1996 Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    John Brunner
    As its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we cant predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe. Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it is par excellence the literature of the open mind.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    John W. Campbell, Jr.
    The major distinction between fantasy and science fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses one, or a very, very few new postulates, and develops the rigidly consistent logical consequences of these limited postulates. Fantasy makes its rules as it goes along…The basic nature of fantasy is “The only rule is, make up a new rule any time you need one!” The basic rule of science fiction is “Set up a basic proposition–then develop its consistent, logical consequences.”
    Introduction, Analog 6, Garden City, New York, 1966Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Terry Carr
    Science Fiction is literature about the future, telling stories of the marvels we hope to see–or for our descendants to see–tomorrow, in the next century, or in the limitless duration of time.
    Introduction, Dream’s Edge, Sierre Club Books, San Fransisco, 1980Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Groff Conklin
    The best definition of science fiction is that it consists of stories in which one or more definitely scientific notion or theory or actual discovery is extrapolated, played with, embroided on, in a non-logical, or fictional sense, and thus carried beyond the realm of the immediately possible in an effort to see how much fun the author and reader can have exploring the imaginary outer reaches of a given idea’s potentialities.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Edmund Crispin
    A science fiction story is one which presupposes a technology, or an effect of technology, or a disturbance in the natural order, such as humanity, upto the time of writing, has not in actual fact experienced.
    Best Science Fiction Stories (London, 1955)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    L. Sprague De Camp
    Therefore, no matter how the world makes out in the next few centuries, a large class of readers at least will not be too surprised at anything. They will have been through it all before in fictional form, and will not be too paralyzed with astonishment to try to cope with contingencies as they arise.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Lester Del Rey
    … science fiction “is the myth-making principle of human nature today.”Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Gordon R. Dickson
    In short, the straw of a manufactured realism with wich the sf writer makes his particular literary bricks must be entirely convincing to the reader in it own right, or the whole story will lose its power to convince.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Bruce Franklin
    We talk a lot about science fiction as extrapolation, but in fact most science fiction does not extrapolate seriously. Instead it takes a willful, often whimsical, leap into a world spun out of the fantasy of the author….Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Bruce H. Franklin
    In fact, one good working definition of science fiction may be the literature which, growing with science and technology, evaluates it and relates it meaningfully to the rest of human existence.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Northrop Frye
    Science fiction frequently tries to imagine what life would be like on a plane as far above us as we are above savagery; its setting is often of a kind that appears to us technologically miraculous. It is thus a mode of romance with a strong tendency to myth.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Vincent H. Gaddis
    Science fiction expressses the dreams that, varied and modified, later becomes the visions and then the realities in scientific progress. Unlike fantasy they present probabilities in their basic structure and create a reservoir of imaginative thought that sometimes can inspire more practical thinking.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Hugo Gernsback
    By “scientification,”… I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prosphetic vision.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Amit Goswami
    Science Fiction is that class of fiction which contains the currents of change in science and society. It concerns itself with the critique, extension, revision, and conspiracy of revolution, all directed against static scientific paradigms. Its goal is to prompt a paradigm shift to a new view that will be more responsive and true to nature.
    The Cosmic Dancers (New York, 1983)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    James E. Gunn
    Science Fiction is the branch of literature that deals with the effects of change on people in the real world as it can be projected into the past, the future, or to distant places. It often concerns itself with scientific or technological change, and it usually involves matters whose importance is greater than the individual or the community; often civilization or the race itself is in danger.
    Introduction, The Road To Science Fiction, Vol 1, NEL, New York 1977Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Gerald Heard
    Science fiction in the hand of character-draughtsman can create a new contemporary tension-of-choice, new moral decisions, and so indicate how they may be faced or flunked.

    In its [science fiction’s] aim it is bound, by its extrapolation of science and its use of dramatic plot, to view man and his machines and his environment as a three-fold whole, the machine being the hyphen. It also views man’s psyche, man’s physique and the entire life process as also a threefold interacting unit. Science fiction is the prophetic … the apocalyptic litterature of our particular culminating epoch of crisis.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Robert A. Heinlein
    A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.

    To make this definition cover all science fiction (instead of “almost all”) it is necessary only to strike out the word “future.”
    from: Science Fiction: its nature, faults and virtues, in The Science Fiction Novel, Advent, Chicago:1969

    Science Fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real worldas we know it, including all established facts and natural laws. The result can be extremely fantastic in content, but it is not fantasy; it is legitimate–and often very tightly reasoned–speculation about the possibilities of the real world. This category excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy.
    from: Ray Guns And Spaceships, in Expanded Universe, Ace, 1981Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Frank Herbert
    Science fiction represents the modern heresy and the cutting edge of speculative imagination as it grapples with Mysterious Time—linear or non-linear time.

    Our motto is Nothing Secret, Nothing Sacred.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Damon Knight
    What we get from science fiction—what keeps us reading it, in spite of our doubts and occasional disgust—is not different from the thing that makes mainstream stories rewarding, but only expressed differently. We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Sam J. Lundwall
    A simplified definition would be that the author of a “straight” science fiction story proceeds from (or alleges to proceed from) known facts, developed in a credible way…Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Sam Moskowitz
    Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the “willing suspension of disbelief” on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science, and philosophy.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Alexei Panshin
    Facts and a concern with change are the stuff that science fiction is made of; science fiction that ignores facts and change can be made less frightening and more popular, but inasmuch as it is superficial, stupid, false-to-fact, timid foolish or dull, it is minor in another and more important way, and it is certainly bad as science fiction.

    … its [science fiction’s] attraction lies … in the unique opportunity it offers for placing familiar things in unfamiliar contexts, and unfamiliar things in familiar contexts, thereby yielding fresh insights and perspective.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Frederik Pohl
    The future depicted in a good SF story ought to be in fact possible, or at least plausable. That means that the writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true…and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you.
    The Shape of Things to Come and Why It Is Bad, SFC, December 1991

    If anyone were to force me to make a thumbnail description of the differences between SF and fantasy, I think I would say that SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past. Both can be entertaining. Both can possibly be, perhaps sometimes actually are, even inspiring. But as we can’t change the past, and can’t avoid changing the future, only one of them can be real.
    Pohlemic, SFC, May 1992

    That’s really what SF is all about, you know: the big reality that pervades the real world we live in: the reality of change. Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have.
    Pohlemic, SFC, May 1992

    Does the story tell me something worth knowing, that I had not known before, about the relationship between man and technology? Does it enlighten me on some area of science where I had been in the dark? Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? Does it suggest possibilities about the alternative possible future courses my world can take? Does it illumunate events and trends of today, by showing me where they may lead tomorrow? Does it give me a fresh and objective point of view on my own world and culture, perhaps by letting me see it through the eyes of a different kind of creature entirely, from a planet light-years away?

    These qualities are not only among those which make science fiction good, they are what make it unique. Be it never so beautifully written, a story is not a good science fiction story unless it rates high in these aspects. The content of the story is as valid a criterion as the style.
    Introduction–SF:Contemporary Mythologies (New York, 1978)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Eric S. Rabkin
    A work belongs in the genre of science fiction if its narrative world is at least somewhat different from our own, and if that difference is apparent against the background of an organized body of knowledge.
    The Fantastic In Literature (Princeton University Press, 1976)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Dick Riley
    At its best, science fiction has no peer in creating another universe of experience, in showing us what we look like in the mirrorof technological society or throught the eyes of a non-human.
    Critical Encounters (New York, 1978)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Thomas N. Scortia
    … [science fiction has] the humanistic assumption that the laws of nature are amenable to the interpretation of human logic and, more than this, amenable to logical extrapolation.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Tom Shippey
    A revealing way of describing science fiction is to say that it is part of a literary mode which one may call “fabril” “Fabril” is the opposite of “Pastoral”. But while “the pastoral” is an established and much-discussed literary mode, recognized as such since early antiquity, its dark opposite has not yet been accepted, or even named, by the law-givers of literature. Yet the opposition is a clear one. Pastoral literature is rural, nostalgic, conservative. It idealizes the past and tends to convert complexities into simplicity; its central image is the shepherd. Fabril literature (of which science fiction is now by far the most prominent genre) is overwhelmingly urban, distruptive, future-oriented, eager for novelty; its central images is the “faber”, the smith or blacksmith in older usage, but now extended in science fiction to mean the creator of artefacts in general–metallic, crystalline, genetic, or even social.
    Introduction, The Oxford Book of Science Fiction, (Oxford, 1992)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Brian Stableford
    True science fiction [is] fiction which attempts to build logically coherent imaginary worlds based on premises licensed by the world-view of contemporary science.
    (very slight editing from his GOH speech, ConFuse 91)

    Science fiction is essentially a kind of fiction in which people learn more about how to live in the real world, visiting imaginary worlds unlike our own, in order to investigate by way of pleasurable thought-experiments how things might be done differently.
    (from his GOH speech, ConFuse 91)

    What is authentic about genuine science fiction, is that the science fiction writer should not stop with just saying: Well, the plot needs this to happen, therefore I’ll just do it and I’ll invent an excuse for it being able to be done. Proper science fiction ought to require people to begin to explore the consequences of what they’ve invented. And thus, I think that science fiction is, in a real sense, capable of being scientific. Not in the sense that it can foresee the future of science, but it can adopt a kind of variation of the scientific method itself, it does feel compelled to explore the consequences of hypotheses and the way things fit together.
    (from an interview on Science in SF, ConFuse 91)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Theodore Sturgeon
    A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.
    Definition given by: William Atheling Jr., (James Blish) in The issue at Hand: Studies in Contemporary Magazine Fiction (Chicago, 1964)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Darko Suvin
    It [science fiction] should be defined as a fictional tale determined by the hegemonic literary device of a locus and/or dramatis personae that (1) are radically or at least significantly different from empirical times, places, and characters of “mimetic” or “naturalist” fiction, but (2) are nonetheless–to the extent that SF differs from other “fantastic” genres, that is, ensembles of fictional tales without empirical validation–simultaneously perceived as not impossible within the cognitive (cosmological and anthropological) norms of the author’s epoch.
    Preface, Metamorphoses Of Science Fiction, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1979)

    SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficent conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment.
    Chapter 1, Metamorphoses Of Science Fiction, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1979) Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Alvin Toffler
    By challenging anthropocentricism and temporal provincialism, science fiction throws open the whole of civilization and its premises to constructive criticism.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Jack Williamson
    “Hard” science fiction … probes alternative possible futures by means of reasoned extrapolations in much the same way that good historical fiction reconstructs the probable past. Even far-out fantasy can present a significant test of human values exposed to a new environment. Deriving its most cogent ideas from the tension between permanence and change, science fiction combines the diversions of novelty with its pertinent kind of realism.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Donald A. Wolleheim
    Science fiction is that branch of fantasy, which, while not true to present-day knowledge, is rendered plausible by the reader’s recognition of the scientific possibilities of it being possible at some future date or at some uncertain point in the past.
    “The Universe Makers”

    PS http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/%5B/url%5D (sci fi studies) http://www.liv.ac.uk/~asawyer/sffchome.html (sci fi foundation collection)

    [ 17-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Email from a non-SadGeezer #52137
    bonnee
    Participant

    Do you have any pictures of Stan’s ‘penis’ that you could upload Flame? Preferably one where Stan is limp (read – when the Lexx is hungry) and another where Lexx is ejaculating Stan’s entire ‘load’ of grievances upon an unsuspecting planet. You would be a scholar and a gentlewo/man if you could manage it.

    in reply to: Email from a non-SadGeezer #52135
    bonnee
    Participant

    And we musn’t forget that the Lexx is also a flying penis, where its many ejaculations are obviously the displacement/compensation for Stan’s impotence. If that hasn’t been argued here, it certainly invites the kind of scrutiny that cultural theorists certainly enjoy when discussing the question of ‘sexual identity’. Given Stan’s poor experience with wo/men, its a plausible line of enquiry. No disrespect intended Lee

    in reply to: The Clones #43362
    bonnee
    Participant

    Spoil Sport Alert

    The Saga Begins (by Unfunny Al Wankovick)

    A long long time ago
    in a galaxy far away
    Naboo was under an attack
    And I thought me and Qui-Gon Jinn
    Could talk the Federation into
    Maybe cutting them a little slack
    But their response, it didn’t thrill us
    They locked the doors and tried to kill us
    We escaped from that gas
    Then met Jar Jar and Boss Nass
    We took a bongo from the scene
    And we went to Theed to see the queen
    We all wound up on Tatooine
    That’s where we found this boy…

    Oh my my, this here Anakin guy
    May be Vader someday later – now he’s just a small fry
    And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
    Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”
    “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

    Did you know this junkyard slave
    Isn’t even old enough to shave
    But he can use the Force they say
    Ahh, do you see him hitting on the queen
    Though he’s just nine and she’s fourteen
    Yeah, he’s probably gonna marry her someday
    Well, I know he built C-3PO
    And I’ve heard how fast his pod can go
    And we were broke, it’s true
    So we made a wager or two
    He was a prepubescent flyin’ ace
    And the minute Jabba started off that race
    Well, I know who would win first place
    Oh yes, it was our boy

    We started singin’… My my, this here Anakin guy
    May be Vader someday later – now he’s just a small fry
    And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
    Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”
    “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

    Now we finally got to Coruscant
    The Jedi Council we knew would want
    To see how good the boy could be
    So we took him there and we told the tale
    How his midi-chlorians were off the scale
    And he might fulfill that prophecy
    Oh, the Council was impressed, of course
    Could he bring balance to the Force?
    They interviewed the kid
    Oh, training they forbid
    Because Yoda sensed in him much fear
    And Qui-Gon said, “Now listen here
    Just stick it in your pointy ear
    I still will teach this boy”

    He was singin’… My my, this here Anakin guy
    May be Vader someday later – now he’s just a small fry
    And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
    Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”
    “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

    We caught a ride back to Naboo
    ‘Cause Queen Amidala wanted to
    I frankly would’ve liked to stay
    We all fought in that epic war
    And it wasn’t long at all before
    Little Hotshot flew his plane and saved the day
    And in the end some Gungans died
    Some ships blew up and some pilots fried
    A lot of folks were croakin’
    The battle droids were broken
    And the Jedi I admire most
    Met up with Darth Maul and now he’s toast
    Well, I’m still here and he’s a ghost
    I guess I’ll train this boy

    And I was singin’… My my, this here Anakin guy
    May be Vader someday later – now he’s just a small fry
    And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
    Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”
    “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”
    We were singin’… My my, this here Anakin guy
    May be Vader someday later – now he’s just a small fry
    And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
    Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

    [ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: DAMMIT ALL OF YOU, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE! #61959
    bonnee
    Participant

    quote:


    I’ve been around the Sadboards for awhile now, and I’ve noticed a rather disturbing trend. It seems that, far from being a place where sci-fi fans can express their thoughts and opinions, they are instead turning into bloody freakin’ war zones! Instead of polite discussion, there are now only textual daggers and flames polluting the boards. I should know. I was one of these damned *******s (if you don’t believe me, ask ana). I mean, this place is supposed to be somewhere sci-fi fans can gather and voice their opinions on the world of sci-fi. If you have an opinion, bad or good, about anything sci-fi, then create a message board and have your say. BUT NO! Instead of discussing sci-fi in a decent, civilized manner, you turn what was probably created with good intentions in mind into something that makes Bosnia look like a snowball fight!
    As I said before, I was someone like that. Simply because I didn’t like the Dylan Hunt character in ‘Andromeda’ and personally disapproved of Kevin Sorbo’s part in having Robert Hewitt Wolfe fired, I chose to spit in ana’s face, who had a bit of an attraction to Kevin. If I remember correctly, I called her,”one of the most superficial people I’ve ever seen,”. It was only after my message was deleted by the administrators (I never got the chance to thank you guys, so I’m doing it now) that I finally realized what I’d done, ironically while thinking of an appropriately insulting counterattack. I had finally got it through the solid bone that composed my skull that my right to free speech does NOT give me the right to assault someone, whether physically, verbally and/or textually. So what if I think Kevin Sorbo is scum? ana doesn’t, and I don’t have the right to bully her over it! So what if DalekTek790 is insulting? I have read DT’s posts, and although insulting, I think that they are simply DT’s normal way of speaking, and that what may seem flippant, may actually be attempts to lighten the situation by adding humor to it. I know too that there are many nitpickers out there, (me included, when it comes to the English language) so why not just grin and bear it? I, at least, don’t mean any harm by it.

    I know, however, that there sre some people out there who, even after reading this will still think that their right to free speech grants them the right to hurt someone, maybe even gain some pleasure from it. That’s alright with me. I at least, am able to face myself without needing a layer of some intoxicant to do so without retching. If there is anyone out there who agrees with me, then say so. Maybe it will help make a change, I don’t know. All I want is proof that I am not the only man who feels like a voice in the desert. Goodnight, and God bless.


    Is that you, Bonnee??!!






    (Spoil Sport Alert)

    PS

    Where’s Rodney King when you need him?

    [ 16-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Email from a non-SadGeezer #52127
    bonnee
    Participant

    Spoil Sport Alert

    Tony, I’ve read your amendments to my reply, and so would like to amend my own reply by way of reply to your amendment

    End Spoil Sport

    A lovely poem by your Dad – clearly you’re very proud of him, and the sentiments are quite inspiring.

    Consequently,, I want to ask you not to take offense to what I’m about to say. I’m not trying to antagonise you or start a flame war.

    I’m a little troubled by the (sudden) desire to impugn Jen’s motives or character. Its almost as if the support has given you the courage to take it more personally than you originally intended. Despite the fact that she was obviously rude, it is also equally apparent that she found your reviews offensive. Although we don’t have to agree with her, we don’t need to agree to recognise the integrity of her concerns. I think thefrey put it best when she said that Jen sounded vexed, and reacted accordingly. The only thing I would disagree with her about here – and by inadvertent extension, agree with you – is the notion that there might be such a thing as uniquely fe/male perspective. A cult sci fi site may be the place to encourage the belief that ‘men are from mars, and women are from venus’, but I think frey would be the first to dispute such nonsense. My experience is that there are as many variations within the sexes as there are between them.

    An important point that you might want to consider though – now that women have greater access to educational opportunities, etc, they have statistically revealed themselves to be more intelligent than men (irrespective of the background). If this statistic is replicated in the graviational pull towards sci fi, you might need to be wary of speaking in just the one ‘voice’, and not invariably disallow a woman like Jen her ‘say’, however she says it. Following you’re Dad’s example, I think she deserves the benefit of the doubt – if only because it is us who really benefits from such doubts.

    The second – and more personal point – is you’re remark concerning winning philosophical arguments. Speaking as a philosopher, we don’t win or lose arguments. We try and preserve the integrity of the problem/s that give rise to them. More often than not, we invariably fail and so find ourselves arguing with each other. Some people decide to fight on, others realise that trying to win is part of the original problem. There is a famous dispute within philosophy concerning its status as a disipline involving Wittgentein and Popper. Wittgenstein – the allegedly open minded one – resorted to threatening Popper with a red hot poker because Popper wanted to keep the question/s open. Bertrand Russel is notorious for screaming ‘put down that poker!’ Most importantly, there is a debate about what ‘really’ happened that night, and no one can get the ‘facts’ right. What is clear, though, is that the dispute is divided along partisan lines, indicating that people only believe what they want to, and argue according to personal need. There is a point to this – namely, in philosophy(as in anything else), life is like a game of poker, and we can only play with the cards we’re dealt. Jen played her card, we’ve played ours – no point in believing that she isn’t playing fair, cause she is convinced that she has – and who are we to begrudge her conviction?

    Finally, if philosophy were able to settle its disputes or answer its own questions, it would have stopped playing the game the day of its own inception. The history of philosopy is (and will remain) old whines in new bottles. Arguments are never lost or won – old solutions appear as new problems, and these new problems go on to reappear as variants of the very questions that vexed everyone in the first place.

    [ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: The Clones #43359
    bonnee
    Participant

    Stop (by the spice girls)

    You just walk in, I make you smile,
    It cool but you don’t even know me,
    You take an inch, I run a mile,
    Can’t win you’re always right behind me

    And we know that you could go and find some other,
    Take or leave it or just don’t even bother,
    caught in a craze, it’s just a phase,
    Or will this be around forever

    Don’t you know it’s going too fast,
    Racing so hard you know it won’t last,
    Don’t you know, what can’t you see,
    Slow it down, read the sign, so you know just where you are going

    Stop right Now Thank you very much,
    I need somebody with the human touch,
    Hey you you always on the run,
    Gotta slow down baby, got have some fun

    Do Do Do Do Do
    Do Do Do Do Do
    Do Do Do Do Do
    Always be together,
    Ba da Ba Ba
    Ba da Ba Ba
    Ba da Ba Ba
    Stay that way forever

    And we know that you could go and find some other,
    Take or leave it cos we’ve always got each other,
    You know who you are and yes, you’re gonna breakdown,
    You’ve crossed the line so you’re gonna have to turnaround

    Don’t you know it’s going too fast,
    Racing so hard you know it won’t last,
    Don’t you know what can’t you see,
    Slow it down, read the sign, so you know just where you are going

    Stop right Now Thank you very much,
    I need somebody with the human touch,
    Hey you you always on the run,
    Gotta slow down baby, got have some fun

    Gotta keep it down honey, lay your backs on the line,
    Cos I don’t care about the money, don’t be wasting my time,
    You need less speed, get off my case,
    You gotta slow it down baby, just get out of my face

    Stop right Now Thank you very much,
    I need somebody with the human touch,
    Hey you you always on the run,
    Gotta slow down baby, got have some fun

    Stop right Now Thank you very much,
    I need somebody with the human touch,
    Hey you you always on the run,
    Gotta slow down baby, got have some fun

    Stop right Now Thank you very much,
    I need somebody with the human touch,
    Hey you you always on the run,
    Gotta slow down baby, got have some fun

    Stop right Now, we wanna thank you,
    Stop right Now, thank you very much

    Stop! In The Name Of Love
    (Brian Holland/Lamont Dozier/Edward Holland, Jr.)

    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart

    Baby, baby
    I’m aware of where you go
    Each time you leave my door
    I watch you walk down the street
    Knowing your other love you’ll meet
    But this time before you run to her
    Leaving me alone and hurt
    (Think it over) After I’ve been good to you ?
    (Think it over) After I’ve been sweet to you ?

    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart
    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart
    Think it over
    Think it over

    I’ve known of your
    Your secluded nights
    I’ve even seen her
    Maybe once or twice
    But is her sweet expression
    Worth more than my love and affection ?
    But this time before you leave my arms
    And rush of to her charms
    (Think it over) Haven’t I been good to you ?
    (Think it over) Haven’t I been sweet to you ?

    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart
    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart
    Think it over
    Think it over

    I’ve tried so hard, hard to be patient
    Hoping you’d stop this infatuation
    But each time you are together
    I’m so afraid I’ll be losing you forever

    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart
    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart
    Stop! In the name of love
    Before you break my heart

    Baby, think it over
    Think it over, baby
    Ooh, think it over baby…

    (Sorry Flame, couldn’t resist, baby.)

    [ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Email from a non-SadGeezer #52122
    bonnee
    Participant

    I was joking Sad – clearly I’m more adept at getting my point across when I’m not joking. I note it is customary to have a spoiler alert on certain postings to warn people in advance about its content. Perhaps my jokes should begin with the warning Spoil Sport Alert. Either way, I’m sorry for antagonising you. And I’m not back – really. just thought Jen should be defended against the suggestion that she might have been me.

    Incidentally, I tend to agree with Lee about Norb. When I watch the (fantastic) opening scene, I’m convinced the ‘playground in space’ theme (park) is intended as a lure and is, in effect, an eloborate disguise. The claim that it is not consistent with the drone’s behaviour doesn’t quite make sense in the Lexx universe: continuity is hardly an issue in Lexx. looks like Donovan just wanted to spend the money obviously allocated to this episode. As for his suggestion that Garden is not rife with sexual imagery and merely a projection of the male libidonal drive – pleaaaseee!! I watched this episode with my girlfriend, her mother and her mother’s mother – and watching them look at each other in continual shock was almost as fun as watching them squirm at Downey’s erection in another episode. The imagery is so overt as to beggar belief.

    Spoil Sport Alert 1.
    Btw, that IS pretty much how I met my wife.

    Spoil Sport Alert 2.
    I am struck, however, by your suggestion that Jen Fridy could really be Brian Downey.

    [ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: What’s science fiction and what’s not? #43325
    bonnee
    Participant

    52 Definitions of Science Fiction
    (whilst I’m emerging from stasis dgrequeen, thought this might supplement your post – going back into hibernation right now: copied and pasted from http://www.panix.com/~gokce/sf_defn.html)

    These definitions of science fiction are for those of you who are not satisfied with Damon Knight’s definition of science fiction, which appears in the rec.arts.sf.written FAQ: “…[Science Fiction] means what we point to when we say it.”

    Some of the definitions here have been obtained over the internet in the bad old days where there were no flashy www interfaces to the net, over gopher and ftp links, so not only am I unable to credit the sources I found them, but also I am not exactly sure of their autenticity. Some of the definitions, I think, I got from the gopher server at Lysator. The definitions I have personally extracted from reference works and such are always credited below the excerpt, and I say when I am quoting verbatim or I am paraphrasing stuff taken from conversations etc.

    Hope you enjoy this. If you have any more definitions you think would be added here, please send them to me, if possible, with the information about where you found it, and I’d be happy to include it in the future.

    Definitions available by
    Aldiss, Brian W. Allen, Dick Amis, Kingsley Appel, Benjamin Asimov, Isaac Bailey, James O.
    Benford, Gregory Boyd, John Bradbury, Ray Bretnor, Reginald Brians, Paul John Brunner
    Campbell, John W. Carr, Terry Conklin, Groff Crispin, Edmund de Camp, L. Sprauge Del Rey, Lester
    Dickson, Gordon R. Franklin, Bruce Franklin, Bruce H. Frye, Northrop Gaddis, Vincent H. Gernsback, Hugo
    Goswami, Amit Gunn, James E. Heard, Gerald Heinlein, Robert A. Herbert, Frank Knigth, Damon
    Lundwall, Sam J. Moskowitz, Sam Panshin, Alexei Pohl, Frederick Rabkin, Eric S. Riley, Dick
    Scortia, Thomas N. Shippey, Tom Stableford, Brian Sturgeon, Theodore Suvin, Darko Toffler, Alvin
    Williamson, Jack Wolleheim, Donald A.

    ——————————————————————————–

    Brian W. Aldiss
    Science fiction is the search for definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould.
    Trillion Year Spree: the History of Science Fiction (London, 1986)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Dick Allen
    Is it any wonder that a new generation has rediscovered science fiction, rediscovered a form of literature that argues through its intuitive force that the individual can shape and change and influence and triumph; that man can eliminate both war and poverty; that miracles are possible; that love, if given a chance, can become the main driving force of human relationships?Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Kingsley Amis
    Science Fiction is that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terresial in origin.
    New Maps Of Hell (London, 1960)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Benjamin Appel
    Science fiction reflects scientific thought; a fiction of things-to-come based on things-on-hand.
    The Fantastic Mirror-SF Across The Ages (Panthenon 1969)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Isaac Asimov
    Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions.

    That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings.
    (1952)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    James O. Bailey
    The touchstone for scientific fiction, then, is that it describes an imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences. The most serious pieces of this fiction arise from speculation about what may happen if science makes an extraordinary discovery. The romance is an attempt to anticipate this discovery and its impact upon society, and to foresee how mankind may adjust to the new condition.
    Pilgrims Through Space and Time (New York, 1947)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Gregory Benford
    SF is a controlled way to think and dream about the future. An integration of the mood and attitude of science (the objective universe) with the fears and hopes that spring from the unconscious. Anything that turns you and your social context, the social you, inside out. Nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely possible.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Ray Bradbury
    Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    John Boyd
    Science fiction is story-telling, usually imaginative as distinct from realistic fiction, which poses the effects of current or extrapolated scientific discoveries, or a single discovery, on the behavior of individuals of society.

    Mainstream fiction gives imaginative reality to probable events within a framework of the historical past or present; science fiction gives reality to possible events, usually in the future, extrapolated from present scientific knowledge or existing cultural and social trends. Both genres ordinarily observe the unities and adhere to a cause-and-effect schema.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Reginald Bretnor
    Science Fiction: fiction based on rational speculation regarding the human experience of science and its resultant technologies.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Paul Brians
    [Science Fiction is:] a subdivision of fantastic literature which employs science or rationalism to create an appearance of plausibility

    Posted to the mailing list SF-LIT, May 16, 1996 Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    John Brunner
    As its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we cant predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe. Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it is par excellence the literature of the open mind.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    John W. Campbell, Jr.
    The major distinction between fantasy and science fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses one, or a very, very few new postulates, and develops the rigidly consistent logical consequences of these limited postulates. Fantasy makes its rules as it goes along…The basic nature of fantasy is “The only rule is, make up a new rule any time you need one!” The basic rule of science fiction is “Set up a basic proposition–then develop its consistent, logical consequences.”
    Introduction, Analog 6, Garden City, New York, 1966Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Terry Carr
    Science Fiction is literature about the future, telling stories of the marvels we hope to see–or for our descendants to see–tomorrow, in the next century, or in the limitless duration of time.
    Introduction, Dream’s Edge, Sierre Club Books, San Fransisco, 1980Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Groff Conklin
    The best definition of science fiction is that it consists of stories in which one or more definitely scientific notion or theory or actual discovery is extrapolated, played with, embroided on, in a non-logical, or fictional sense, and thus carried beyond the realm of the immediately possible in an effort to see how much fun the author and reader can have exploring the imaginary outer reaches of a given idea’s potentialities.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Edmund Crispin
    A science fiction story is one which presupposes a technology, or an effect of technology, or a disturbance in the natural order, such as humanity, upto the time of writing, has not in actual fact experienced.
    Best Science Fiction Stories (London, 1955)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    L. Sprague De Camp
    Therefore, no matter how the world makes out in the next few centuries, a large class of readers at least will not be too surprised at anything. They will have been through it all before in fictional form, and will not be too paralyzed with astonishment to try to cope with contingencies as they arise.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Lester Del Rey
    … science fiction “is the myth-making principle of human nature today.”Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Gordon R. Dickson
    In short, the straw of a manufactured realism with wich the sf writer makes his particular literary bricks must be entirely convincing to the reader in it own right, or the whole story will lose its power to convince.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Bruce Franklin
    We talk a lot about science fiction as extrapolation, but in fact most science fiction does not extrapolate seriously. Instead it takes a willful, often whimsical, leap into a world spun out of the fantasy of the author….Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Bruce H. Franklin
    In fact, one good working definition of science fiction may be the literature which, growing with science and technology, evaluates it and relates it meaningfully to the rest of human existence.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Northrop Frye
    Science fiction frequently tries to imagine what life would be like on a plane as far above us as we are above savagery; its setting is often of a kind that appears to us technologically miraculous. It is thus a mode of romance with a strong tendency to myth.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Vincent H. Gaddis
    Science fiction expressses the dreams that, varied and modified, later becomes the visions and then the realities in scientific progress. Unlike fantasy they present probabilities in their basic structure and create a reservoir of imaginative thought that sometimes can inspire more practical thinking.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Hugo Gernsback
    By “scientification,”… I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prosphetic vision.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Amit Goswami
    Science Fiction is that class of fiction which contains the currents of change in science and society. It concerns itself with the critique, extension, revision, and conspiracy of revolution, all directed against static scientific paradigms. Its goal is to prompt a paradigm shift to a new view that will be more responsive and true to nature.
    The Cosmic Dancers (New York, 1983)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    James E. Gunn
    Science Fiction is the branch of literature that deals with the effects of change on people in the real world as it can be projected into the past, the future, or to distant places. It often concerns itself with scientific or technological change, and it usually involves matters whose importance is greater than the individual or the community; often civilization or the race itself is in danger.
    Introduction, The Road To Science Fiction, Vol 1, NEL, New York 1977Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Gerald Heard
    Science fiction in the hand of character-draughtsman can create a new contemporary tension-of-choice, new moral decisions, and so indicate how they may be faced or flunked.

    In its [science fiction’s] aim it is bound, by its extrapolation of science and its use of dramatic plot, to view man and his machines and his environment as a three-fold whole, the machine being the hyphen. It also views man’s psyche, man’s physique and the entire life process as also a threefold interacting unit. Science fiction is the prophetic … the apocalyptic litterature of our particular culminating epoch of crisis.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Robert A. Heinlein
    A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.

    To make this definition cover all science fiction (instead of “almost all”) it is necessary only to strike out the word “future.”
    from: Science Fiction: its nature, faults and virtues, in The Science Fiction Novel, Advent, Chicago:1969

    Science Fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real worldas we know it, including all established facts and natural laws. The result can be extremely fantastic in content, but it is not fantasy; it is legitimate–and often very tightly reasoned–speculation about the possibilities of the real world. This category excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy.
    from: Ray Guns And Spaceships, in Expanded Universe, Ace, 1981Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Frank Herbert
    Science fiction represents the modern heresy and the cutting edge of speculative imagination as it grapples with Mysterious Time—linear or non-linear time.

    Our motto is Nothing Secret, Nothing Sacred.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Damon Knight
    What we get from science fiction—what keeps us reading it, in spite of our doubts and occasional disgust—is not different from the thing that makes mainstream stories rewarding, but only expressed differently. We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Sam J. Lundwall
    A simplified definition would be that the author of a “straight” science fiction story proceeds from (or alleges to proceed from) known facts, developed in a credible way…Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Sam Moskowitz
    Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the “willing suspension of disbelief” on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science, and philosophy.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Alexei Panshin
    Facts and a concern with change are the stuff that science fiction is made of; science fiction that ignores facts and change can be made less frightening and more popular, but inasmuch as it is superficial, stupid, false-to-fact, timid foolish or dull, it is minor in another and more important way, and it is certainly bad as science fiction.

    … its [science fiction’s] attraction lies … in the unique opportunity it offers for placing familiar things in unfamiliar contexts, and unfamiliar things in familiar contexts, thereby yielding fresh insights and perspective.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Frederik Pohl
    The future depicted in a good SF story ought to be in fact possible, or at least plausable. That means that the writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true…and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you.
    The Shape of Things to Come and Why It Is Bad, SFC, December 1991

    If anyone were to force me to make a thumbnail description of the differences between SF and fantasy, I think I would say that SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past. Both can be entertaining. Both can possibly be, perhaps sometimes actually are, even inspiring. But as we can’t change the past, and can’t avoid changing the future, only one of them can be real.
    Pohlemic, SFC, May 1992

    That’s really what SF is all about, you know: the big reality that pervades the real world we live in: the reality of change. Science fiction is the very literature of change. In fact, it is the only such literature we have.
    Pohlemic, SFC, May 1992

    Does the story tell me something worth knowing, that I had not known before, about the relationship between man and technology? Does it enlighten me on some area of science where I had been in the dark? Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? Does it suggest possibilities about the alternative possible future courses my world can take? Does it illumunate events and trends of today, by showing me where they may lead tomorrow? Does it give me a fresh and objective point of view on my own world and culture, perhaps by letting me see it through the eyes of a different kind of creature entirely, from a planet light-years away?

    These qualities are not only among those which make science fiction good, they are what make it unique. Be it never so beautifully written, a story is not a good science fiction story unless it rates high in these aspects. The content of the story is as valid a criterion as the style.
    Introduction–SF:Contemporary Mythologies (New York, 1978)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Eric S. Rabkin
    A work belongs in the genre of science fiction if its narrative world is at least somewhat different from our own, and if that difference is apparent against the background of an organized body of knowledge.
    The Fantastic In Literature (Princeton University Press, 1976)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Dick Riley
    At its best, science fiction has no peer in creating another universe of experience, in showing us what we look like in the mirrorof technological society or throught the eyes of a non-human.
    Critical Encounters (New York, 1978)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Thomas N. Scortia
    … [science fiction has] the humanistic assumption that the laws of nature are amenable to the interpretation of human logic and, more than this, amenable to logical extrapolation.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Tom Shippey
    A revealing way of describing science fiction is to say that it is part of a literary mode which one may call “fabril” “Fabril” is the opposite of “Pastoral”. But while “the pastoral” is an established and much-discussed literary mode, recognized as such since early antiquity, its dark opposite has not yet been accepted, or even named, by the law-givers of literature. Yet the opposition is a clear one. Pastoral literature is rural, nostalgic, conservative. It idealizes the past and tends to convert complexities into simplicity; its central image is the shepherd. Fabril literature (of which science fiction is now by far the most prominent genre) is overwhelmingly urban, distruptive, future-oriented, eager for novelty; its central images is the “faber”, the smith or blacksmith in older usage, but now extended in science fiction to mean the creator of artefacts in general–metallic, crystalline, genetic, or even social.
    Introduction, The Oxford Book of Science Fiction, (Oxford, 1992)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Brian Stableford
    True science fiction [is] fiction which attempts to build logically coherent imaginary worlds based on premises licensed by the world-view of contemporary science.
    (very slight editing from his GOH speech, ConFuse 91)

    Science fiction is essentially a kind of fiction in which people learn more about how to live in the real world, visiting imaginary worlds unlike our own, in order to investigate by way of pleasurable thought-experiments how things might be done differently.
    (from his GOH speech, ConFuse 91)

    What is authentic about genuine science fiction, is that the science fiction writer should not stop with just saying: Well, the plot needs this to happen, therefore I’ll just do it and I’ll invent an excuse for it being able to be done. Proper science fiction ought to require people to begin to explore the consequences of what they’ve invented. And thus, I think that science fiction is, in a real sense, capable of being scientific. Not in the sense that it can foresee the future of science, but it can adopt a kind of variation of the scientific method itself, it does feel compelled to explore the consequences of hypotheses and the way things fit together.
    (from an interview on Science in SF, ConFuse 91)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Theodore Sturgeon
    A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.
    Definition given by: William Atheling Jr., (James Blish) in The issue at Hand: Studies in Contemporary Magazine Fiction (Chicago, 1964)Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Darko Suvin
    It [science fiction] should be defined as a fictional tale determined by the hegemonic literary device of a locus and/or dramatis personae that (1) are radically or at least significantly different from empirical times, places, and characters of “mimetic” or “naturalist” fiction, but (2) are nonetheless–to the extent that SF differs from other “fantastic” genres, that is, ensembles of fictional tales without empirical validation–simultaneously perceived as not impossible within the cognitive (cosmological and anthropological) norms of the author’s epoch.
    Preface, Metamorphoses Of Science Fiction, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1979)

    SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficent conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment.
    Chapter 1, Metamorphoses Of Science Fiction, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1979) Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Alvin Toffler
    By challenging anthropocentricism and temporal provincialism, science fiction throws open the whole of civilization and its premises to constructive criticism.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Jack Williamson
    “Hard” science fiction … probes alternative possible futures by means of reasoned extrapolations in much the same way that good historical fiction reconstructs the probable past. Even far-out fantasy can present a significant test of human values exposed to a new environment. Deriving its most cogent ideas from the tension between permanence and change, science fiction combines the diversions of novelty with its pertinent kind of realism.Top
    ——————————————————————————–

    Donald A. Wolleheim
    Science fiction is that branch of fantasy, which, while not true to present-day knowledge, is rendered plausible by the reader’s recognition of the scientific possibilities of it being possible at some future date or at some uncertain point in the past.
    “The Universe Makers”

    PS
    http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/%5B/url%5D (sci fi studies)
    http://www.liv.ac.uk/~asawyer/sffchome.html (sci fi foundation collection)

    [ 14-03-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Email from a non-SadGeezer #52110
    bonnee
    Participant

    I’d check that spell check, Sad. It’s ‘bonnee’s comments’ and not ‘bonnees comments’ someone is obviously not possessed by the possessive.

    and thanks for the kind words.

    (by the way, I looked up her name on the Net – Jen is a writer (amongst other things), and from the picture I encountered, quite the babe. so if you want to impress a woman worthy of being cast in Lexx, improve your spelling

    in reply to: Email from a non-SadGeezer #52104
    bonnee
    Participant

    Well, for starters Squishums – its not me. not every person with a concern is the one and same person and/or me. If Sad were to post our most recent email exchange, you’d be ashamed of yourself for continuing to entertain such ‘thoughts’.

    I have to confess though, Tony, that despite being a pedant and missing the point of your reviews, this person raises an interesting if belated concern. It should be stressed that you were amongst the first to publicly support (and chastise) the show, and deserve complete credit for your longstanding and hard work. However, as many pointed out to me in another thread, the sex ratio of Lexx fans has become disproprtionally female and/or gay over the years. There is even suggestion within the show of an increasing awareness of this ‘fact’ (assuming its true).

    If so, the unabashed hetrosexual element of your reviews may have become increasingly anachronistic, and threatens to alienate newer (as well as older?) Lexx fans. Even more of a concern is the possibiity that sci fi is no longer a male dominated and/or post adolescent province per se, assuming it ever was (which I doubt).

    I’m not suggesting you rewrite your old reviews of course – or indeed, change the way you write future reviews. I just wonder, though, if this complaint is symptomatic of something else – namely, a possible disparity between your perceived and actual readers. As someone has indicated to me many times, someone moved to write a letter is often an indication of many other people who might feel similarly, but haven’t bothered to get worked up – and have just gone elsewhere or turned off. So, whilst its probably best not to take her comments personally, I wouldn’t take them in your stride either.

    in reply to: Work it out #61918
    bonnee
    Participant

    no need Squish – I’ve already indicated that I was leaving for your sake.

    in reply to: Bad Vibes #51950
    bonnee
    Participant

    Ok Squish – it seems to me that it is much more important for you to want to belong here than me. I don’t want to displace you by my presence, so I’ll leave instead. Sorry for taking away your peace and quiet.

    in reply to: Work it out #61915
    bonnee
    Participant

    I was mocking you Aleck – with my monkey chunks : for the simple reason that you have outraged me on more levels that I can bring myself to mention. the last straw was your turning around and taking over a good natured exhange (with Lee) with something so vindictive that I’m still troubled by it. So, yes – whilst I would dispute your chronology of events (the inflammotary post was NOT my first, but a gradual unleashing of anger) I have been guilty of wanting to bring you down a peg and publicly chastise you as the A hole you obviously seem to enjoy being. I think you presume a great deal – as evident by your equivocation with finding yourself inflammed by something with the inflammable material (so to speak). So, I thought if I was going to inflame someone so inflammable – then at least let the inflammation be justfied. I’m not suggesting that we let by gones be gone – I remain wary of you, as you of me. Basically, I object to you on principle – I think you are a living self refutation who feels he can police and moderate others accordingly. And quite frankly- I think if you weren’t allowing yourself to be enraged by Lee, you would actually see him much better. I actually considered emailing you to draw something to your attention, but thought – why bother? the guy’s head is so far up his ass that its no wonder it pops out of his neck. just like me. Although I’m grateful to you for going to great lenghs to discuss this with me, the more I write this I think – we are just trying to impose our subjectivity upon each other, so why even bother?

    in reply to: SciFi Ignorance #51894
    bonnee
    Participant

    ——————————————–
    I was also flattered that you thought my puny brain could benefit from it, but now I see you simply mistook me for Aleck). I found it highly interesting and generally agreed with the central conclusion quoted below:

    “As understanding and knowledge thus can vary somewhat independently, it is then essential in life and in philosophy to retain an awareness that different issues, hermeneutic and foundational, may be involved in many, or all, questions.”

    Reading it caused me to revisit my initial statement, where it appeared that I left no room for objectivity in the assessment of creative works – this is of course wrong, as there are many elements that may be analyzed objectively (plot complexity and originality, depth of characterization, technical quality of production, influence on similar works, etc…). My argument is that despite these elements, the impact of creative works on different audiences will also involve interpetation and subjectivity. This does not mean all intepetations are equally valid, nor is it a defense of subjectivity in general which I believe should be eliminated, to the extent possible, from as many decisions and questions as possible. This was alluded to in my original post.[/QB][/QUOTE]
    ——————————————–

    Jason, I’m sorry for taking so long to respond. My next door neighbour’s cat just had kittens, and I was too busy trying to drown them in everyone’s sorrows

    Seriously, I’m sorry for the confusion my post engendered regarding you and A. It was a very presumptious and obnoxious error of judgement, but I’m pleased that it at least amused someone.

    My biggest confusion, however, is why you would impugn your own intelligence. Your original two responses to me indicated someone with a very acute mind indeed. Although I felt that some of the remarks were misguided, it was certainly apparent that you would be willing and able to develop and clarify your own position. So I’m grateful that you tracked me down in one of my many guises in order to do this.

    I think you’ve identified and pursued the problem to your credit. Now, I want to stress that I view any knowledge claim as problematic – none more so than the claims creative works can make upon us. Without pursuing the status of art in great detail, I would like to at least note that these have tended to be privledged in many accounts of meaning and truth. It is almost as if their mode of address really drives certain points (back) home by hitting us all where we live.

    Consequently, the only reservation I have with your characterisation of the problem is the attempt to steer a relatively safe passage between being subjective and/or objective. I have to confess to being very uncomfortable with the attempt to minimise the one at the expense of the other. I don’t think it is either possible or desirable. The question is the nature of the relation between knowledge and experience (working on the assumption that these are distinct but related in so far as experience is ‘subjective’ and knowledge can be ‘objective’). The ‘foundational’ question is the source of knowledge and experience, and how the objects of the one (experience) can either conform to or deviate from the objects of the other (knowledge). The concern that motivates such a problem is the nature of the relation between those objects that subjects can all dis/agree on. That is, WHAT is an object (of knowledge and/or experience), and HOW do such objects come to be (in such conformity or deviation)?

    Given these questions, the problem is the nature and extent of the dis/agreement. Many of us want to demarcate between (experiences of) objects, but this just returns us to the problem of knowledge.

    I want to thank you for recognising that I wasn’t attempting to render your position unassailable, and appreciate the attempt to discuss some admittedly dense material. For the record – these questions continue to defeat minds greater than ours put together, so I’m not trying to get you to dis/agree with me. I’m just trying to make clear how opaque these issues really are, and that by trying to clear them up can really murk the waters.

    …You’ll have to excuse me now – I’ve just seen an unattended baby with candy in her hand (twirls moustache).

    [ 27-02-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: disappointment #51845
    bonnee
    Participant

    Consider the Lily

    Lily, I’m sorry to hear your considered judgement. It sounds like you’ve come a long way only to give up in exasperation. I’m particularly troubled by your fear that you might be attacked for expressing such a judgement. As I’m sure we all are at sadgeezer.com. We are all friends here and all opinions are given a fair hearing (LOL). The expressed concern is actually more common than is publiclly acknowledged here – as indicated to me privately (relax, I’m not going to mention You by name – although a little support would have been nice).

    My suspicion is that the makers of Lexx miscalculated by second guessing its audience. its almost as if the fourth season is offered as a corrective or apology for the third season – where many felt was too ‘heavy’, ‘serious’ or ‘singular’. So they went the other extreme. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head by pointing out that the relentless caricaturing and referencing is not doing the show any good. I would suggest, however, that you try and stick with it. Many people here have indicated that the anal probes, enemas, farts, male rape, etc will all make sense ‘in the end’

    [ 27-02-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: EFC just blows this season, its rank, it sucks, add your neg #62199
    bonnee
    Participant

    Earth’s Final Conflict Hinted

    (from http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2002-02/25/11.00.sfc)

    Paul Gertz, executive producer of the syndicated SF series Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, told SCI FI Wire that the final episodes will have some surprises, but he added that he believes fans will enjoy the way it ends. The storyline will pay off all the key players as they “get their moment to shine,” Gertz said in an interview.

    While Kevin Kilner (William Boone) won’t return, other key players will. The syndicated series is in its fifth and final season. “It’s been great, but it hasn’t been the easiest show,” Gertz said. “Part of the challenge was everybody had a view of what they wanted the show to be, and since it was created by Gene Roddenberry, who is no longer with us, he wasn’t there to say, ‘Well, this is what I meant it to be.’ So actually the first year was the year that I felt was closest to what Mr. Roddenberry envisioned. So there’s been obviously a lot of tinkering with the premise over the last five years. I’ve had a great time, and you sit back and there are things you wish you could change. But you can’t look backward. You can only look forward [laughs]. We’ve already shot the last episode, and it was quite emotional. … Call up the people you know [at the SCI FI Channel] and tell them if we get a sixth season, we’ll finally get it right [laughs].” Earth: Final Conflict currently airs on SCI FI weeknights at 7 p.m. ET/PT and will move to weekdays at 2 p.m. ET/PT, beginning March 18.

    [ 26-02-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Lexx actors in other roles #51780
    bonnee
    Participant

    in reply to: Lexx actors in other roles #51775
    bonnee
    Participant

    “One of us, One of us, One of us
    Geekle Gooble, Geekle Gooble”

    [ 23-02-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Lexx actors in other roles #51778
    bonnee
    Participant

    Aleck, let’s suppose Lee is delusional and egocentric – what in the SAM HILL is YOUR problem, apart from a pathological need to kick someone when they are so obviously down?!

    in reply to: sorry to tell you this but… #44768
    bonnee
    Participant

    LOL

    in reply to: sorry to tell you this but… #44786
    bonnee
    Participant

    LOL

    in reply to: Are You A TV Addict?! #43263
    bonnee
    Participant

    um – what does Zoinks mean?

    in reply to: Are You A TV Addict?! #43261
    bonnee
    Participant

    Then, of course Squish, being social can also lead to antisocial behaviour

    in reply to: Lexx actors in other roles #51773
    bonnee
    Participant

    Fx – hope you’ve enjoyed the show. I don’t intend to take any sides in this proposed threesome: I’ll just imagine myself as the meat in the sandwich.

    For the record – I’ve been around a lot longer than my recent posts indicate (as a general sad lurker) and only felt motivated to join in by all those monkey chunks season 4 has been throwing up at me

    Lee – bear in mind that you make many of your posts easy to misread at times, and I would encourage you to not let personal impressions bear the brunt of truth values. Remember: when we share our impressions, we are encouraging the possibility of dis/agreement. so, let’s qualify our observations more advisedly.

    Aleck – stop being such an ass hole Some people (like Lee) are obviously hurt and confused by your justifiable exasperation, and don’t intend to rub you – or anyone else – the wrong way. Lee’s intent was obvious – to good naturedly share information amongst ‘friends’. so i think that should be your guide when he is obviously being misinformed. try and keep things friendly – except when you meet your match in an ass hole like me

    by the way A, I would be very interested in your impressions of the scientific american article on ‘tv addiction’. please have a look at it if and when you can manage it

    [ 23-02-2002: Message edited by: bonnee ]

    in reply to: Lexx actors in other roles #51768
    bonnee
    Participant

    Aleck, i have to confess to being slightly hurt for Lee. Although I agree with everything you’ve said, I can’t help but disagree with the way you’ve said some of it. Your tone has been emasculating in places – not to mention humiliating. Whilst I understand that some of Lee’s posts can strain incredulty, I think it is important that he be accorded some respect regardless. Please understand that I’m not taking sides or trying to start an argument with you. Its just clear to me that you don’t suffer foolishness gladly, although I’m not sure why there is the tendency to allow yourself to make the other person feel like a fool (at times, I must add). You have to understand that most people are not as intelligent or as educated as yourself – let alone as exacting. Many things are to your credit, but expecting others to measure up to some common standard is not one of them. I think especially intelligent people like yourself have a moral responsibilty to be more accepting of apparent stupidity and obvious mistakes. The irony surely must not be lost on you here – elsewhere you wanted to defend a subjectivist notion of truth and I was urging a constrainst upon such relativism. And now the positions appear to be reversed. my deepest, sincerest apologies for upsetting you, but: whilst Lee can talk out of his ass at times, you can come across as a real ass hole (even though I know you’re not, as evident by some of the principles you defend. trouble is – like me at times, we can often violate these same principles when defending variants of them).

    please forgive the bluntness of my post, but i am doing my best to be as clear as possible.

    in reply to: Are You A TV Addict?! #43254
    bonnee
    Participant

    I actually stumbled across this article in my readings – not related to Lexx at all You do raise an interesting point though – one i intend to develop elsewhere: namely, the relation between hunting and gathering. why is it, for example, that people gather around the telly to track down particular kinds of experiences to feed off? this so called study ignores the most addictive question of all – the fact that we are all producers and/or consumers of meaning. audiences ‘produce’ shows by virtue of their patronage and selections, and what individual consumers chose to select by way of their patronage requires us to specify the nature and extent of the addiction. this article is a joke because it presumes to raise the question of substance abuse, and reveals itself to be insubstantial.

    in reply to: Are You A TV Addict?! #43252
    bonnee
    Participant

    I’m surprised you were able to tear yourself away from the tv to read it Mary Beth

    and remember – the first step is admitting you have a problem. the second step is following its advice on how to beat your addiction – like taping your shows instead.

    in reply to: Lexx actors in other roles #51764
    bonnee
    Participant

    good luck with the site Lee – but tread VERY carefully when posting your remarks about the hallowed Blade Runner: it might be what makes or breaks its credibility

    in reply to: Lexx actors in other roles #51759
    bonnee
    Participant

    Rutger Hauer was also in the original Buffy movie,

    quote

    He was curiosly ineffectual in Buffy, elmey – hard to believe that pee wee herman would show him up so easily. basically, he’s another great actor who deserved better than what hollywood threw at him – and discarded as a result.

    in reply to: sorry to tell you this but… #44764
    bonnee
    Participant

    Blame Atlantis/Tribune – they have already destroyed a show riffe with great potential, and it looks like its going to be E:FC all over again.

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