L&SF Online Bulletin, December 1996

	L&SF Online Bulletin, December 1996 Our warmest wishes for the holiday season and for the coming year; may it all go well for you! 1. I need to explain to all of you who've been wondering why I haven't done something or other I'd promised to do, why I haven't answered your mail, and the like. As follows... My mother was taken ill in the first week of November and had to have major surgery; she died on November 22nd. This effectively deleted the month of November for us. The hospital is an hour away by car, and the entire month was spent either at the hospital or driving to and from the hospital; I slept in the waiting room overnight sometimes to cut down on the trips back and forth, but I did have to go home now and then to shower and change clothes. Then there were the funeral arrangements, and the settling of her affairs (which won't be finished for quite a while yet.) I also want to let you know that although we miss Mother greatly, we're not mourning. Not this time. She was 84 years old, and had only recently become unable to live independently; she was utterly miserable having to depend on us for everything, and terrified that she'd become totally bedfast. The surgery was awful, and had she lived it would have meant many months of bedridden helplessness and much pain; furthermore, the doctors told us the problem would undoubtedly have recurred, requiring her to go through it all again. Her death, under these circumstances, was a release and a blessing, and we are wise enough to know that. It goes without saying: we've fallen far behind in everything; we'll catch up as quickly as we can. It doesn't mean that the plans for the online conference have changed, or that you won't get your next newsletter; it just means that things like correspondence are getting short shrift right now. If we seem to be ignoring anything that you view as an emergency, please don't hesitate to send a reminder -- it would be a help. 2. I want to encourage you to send papers for the online conference, Gentle Readers. Don't be modest, please. They need to come in by email, they should be no more than two thousand words long, and they should focus on the link between linguistics (or related fields such as linguistic anthropology, artificial intelligence, and the like) and science fiction. I am sixty years old and a tenured retired associate emeritus professor -- I am fully capable of looking at your papers and saying no. I am also capable of saying yes and showering you with compliments. Just give me a chance. If the phrase "online conference" rings no bells with you in the L&SF context, it's because you haven't yet read the section announcing it in the November/December newsletter; you'll find details there. I look forward to reading your work.... 3. Two books I want to alert you to... (a) I've almost finished J. Gregory Keyes' new novel, The Waterborn, and it's splendid. It lives up to the billing Barnes & Noble gave it in their newsletter. Very little about language in the book, but the culture that Keyes builds is complex and beautifully constructed. I almost never read an sf novel and find it hard to put down, because one of the burdens of being an sf novelist yourself is that you can often see the seams in other sf novels, can often tell what's coming next, and so on. This book is an exception. It's not "cerebral," it's just a terrifically good read. I'll be reviewing it in the January/February newsletter if I can squeeze it in -- if not, in the next issue after that one; I'll try hard for January/February. (b) I just got my contributor's copy of Space Opera, an anthology of science fiction about vocal music edited by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough -- DAW Books 1996. I haven't yet had a chance to read it, but wanted to let those of you interested in the sf/music interface know it's out there. Here's a bit from the back cover blurb.... "a detective/choral singer whose perfect ear for music offers the only clue to catching a criminal who has been illegally selling sentient avians....an isolated space beacon keeper for whom music may prove the only means to save a spaceship....a photographer on a shoot in a desolate part of Africa whose search for the source of a distant melody carried on the desert winds could forever change his life...." That sort of thing. 4. The Editor's Choice issue this year will be on the linguistics/music interface..... If you have materials that you want included, questions you want explored, etc., please send them along. 5. Finally, I'd like to ask you to think about something for me. Our L&SF Network "mission statement" claims that language is the most powerful mechanism for bringing about social change and that science fiction is our most useful mechanism for testing such changes in advance before we have to deal with them in the real world. I would like you to think about how we might go about testing those two claims in some respectably scientific way, without having to raise large sums of money. Remember Sheldrake's seven simple experiments people can do that could "change the world?" (The book is out there everywhere, and in libraries, if you want to look at what he proposed.) I'd like to put together some descriptions of experiments like those -- things ordinary people can do with a rubber band and a balloon and two toothpicks, or whatever -- and see if we can't make some progress at putting a floor under the claims. Again, don't be modest; I am interested in any and all ideas. That's it for now..... Suzette
	All text formatting errors are the responsibility of Steve Marsh and not the fault of Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin. I've got a long way to go with my HTML transit skills. All copyrights remain in Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin. [return to Lingua]

L&SF Online Bulletin, December 1996

 Our warmest wishes for the holiday season and for the coming year; may it
all go well for you!

1.  I need to explain to all of you who've been wondering why I haven't
done something or other I'd promised to do, why I haven't answered your
mail, and the like. As follows...

    My mother was taken ill in the first week of November and had to have
major surgery; she died on November 22nd. This effectively deleted the
month of November for us. The hospital is an hour away by car, and the
entire month was spent either at the hospital or driving to and from the
hospital; I slept in the waiting room overnight sometimes to cut down on
the trips back and forth, but I did have to go home now and then to shower
and change clothes. Then there were the funeral arrangements, and the
settling of her affairs (which won't be finished for quite a while yet.)  I
also want to let you know that although we miss Mother greatly, we're not
mourning. Not this time.  She was 84 years old, and had only recently
become unable to live independently; she was utterly *miserable* having to
depend on us for everything, and terrified that she'd become totally
bedfast. The surgery was awful, and had she lived it would have meant many
months of bedridden helplessness and much pain; furthermore, the doctors
told us the problem would undoubtedly have recurred, requiring her to go
through it all again. Her death, under these circumstances, was a release
and a blessing, and we are wise enough to know that.  It goes without
saying: we've fallen far behind in everything; we'll catch up as quickly as
we can. It doesn't mean that the plans for the online conference have
changed, or that you won't get your next newsletter; it just means that
things like correspondence are getting short shrift right now. If we seem
to be ignoring  anything that you view as an emergency, please don't
hesitate to send a reminder -- it would be a help.

2. I want to encourage you to send papers for the online conference, Gentle
Readers. Don't be modest, please. They need to come in by email, they
should be no more than two thousand words long, and they should focus on
the link between linguistics (or related fields such as linguistic
anthropology, artificial intelligence, and the like) and science fiction. I
am sixty years old and a tenured retired associate emeritus professor -- I
am fully capable of looking at your papers and saying no. I am also capable
of saying yes and showering you with compliments. Just give me a chance. If
the phrase "online conference" rings no bells with you in the L&SF context,
it's because you haven't yet read the section announcing it in the
November/December newsletter; you'll find details there. I look forward to
reading your work....

3. Two books I want to alert you to...  (a) I've almost finished J. Gregory
Keyes' new novel, *The Waterborn,* and it's splendid. It lives up to the
billing Barnes & Noble gave it in their newsletter. Very little about
language in the book, but the culture that Keyes builds is complex and
beautifully constructed. I almost never read an sf novel and find it hard
to put down, because one of the burdens of being an sf novelist yourself is
that you can often see the seams in other sf novels, can often tell what's
coming next, and so on. This book is an exception. It's not "cerebral,"
it's just a terrifically good read. I'll be reviewing it in the
January/February newsletter if I can squeeze it in -- if not, in the next
issue after that one; I'll try hard for January/February.  (b) I just got
my contributor's copy of *Space Opera,* an anthology of science fiction
about vocal music edited by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough --
DAW Books 1996. I haven't yet had a chance to read it, but wanted to let
those of you interested in the sf/music interface know it's out there.
Here's a bit from the back cover blurb.... "a detective/choral singer whose
perfect ear for music offers the only clue to catching a criminal who has
been illegally selling sentient avians....an isolated space beacon keeper
for whom music may prove the only means to save a spaceship....a
photographer on a shoot in a desolate part of Africa whose search for the
source of a distant melody carried on the desert winds could forever change
his life...." That sort of thing.

4. The Editor's Choice issue this year will be on the linguistics/music
interface..... If you have materials that you want included, questions you
want explored, etc., please send them along.

5. Finally, I'd like to ask you to think about something for me. Our L&SF
Network "mission statement" claims that language is the most powerful
mechanism for bringing about social change and that science fiction is our
most useful mechanism for testing such changes in advance before we have to
deal with them in the real world. I would like you to think about how we
might go about *testing* those two claims in some respectably scientific
way, without having to raise large sums of money. Remember Sheldrake's
seven simple experiments people can do that could "change the world?" (The
book is out there everywhere, and in libraries, if you want to look at what
he proposed.) I'd like to put together some descriptions of experiments
like those -- things ordinary people can do with a rubber band and a
balloon and two toothpicks, or whatever -- and see if we can't make some
progress at putting a floor under the claims. Again, don't be modest; I am
interested in any and all ideas.

        That's it for now.....

        Suzette

All text formatting errors are the responsibility of Steve Marsh and not the fault of Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin. I've got a long way to go with my HTML transit skills. All copyrights remain in Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin. [return to Lingua]