#2218

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2218^th Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3666, November 15,2007.
Golden State Colonial Convalescent Hospital, 10830 Oxnard Street, North Hollywood, California 91606-5098.
Telephone: hospital(818) 763-8247; personal (818) 506-3159 * eMail:fredpatten@earthlink.net

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Last Thursday my sister Sherrill brought me to the LASFS meeting, which was dominated by the nominations for Board of Directors elections the following week. More significantly for us, Charlie Jackson told Sherry about a post-Hallowe'en sale(?) at the Dark Delicacies bookshop.

On Friday, I could hear the mewings of newborn kittens outside my room's window. Since I am in bed always facing the next-door rooftops (good for watching the squirrels), I cannot see the ground, but a nurse looking out confirmed that two kittens were gamboling about, probably belonging to one of the feral cats in the neighborhood. I got the impression that nobody will do anything about them.

Later that evening, a friend of Gina Ruiz brought me two boxes full of books, to review or not as I pleased. (My review of Diana Wynne Jones' The Game was posted last week on her website.

Late Saturday afternoon, Sherry picked me up for an evening at her apartment. She had gone to Dark Delicacies earlier that day to buy lots of discounted Hallowe'en purses, napkins, dishes, bath toys (for our great-nephews for Christmas; they are so young that they won't care that it's the wrong season), and similar stuff, for "presents for friends" though she will probably keep most of it for herself. She got there just in time, as they were being temporarily put away to make room for a signing that afternoon for the premiere of the Awaken the Dead zombie movie DVD. She also picked up some Horror Writers of America brochures. I guess that if they have any horror conventions locally, we will be going to them. While she was in that area of Burbank, she went to Chili John's to get me some hot chili & beans for dinner. We took the two boxes of books to her apartment so I could see what I'd been given. Most of them were uncorrected advance proofs of new Young Adult fantasies, although there were a lot of books by Harry Turtledove that I've already read. The chili was delicious, and Sherry watched Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) on TV while we had dinner. Yum!

Dr. Melissa Conroy has asked me to publicize the Eaton Conference planned for UCRiverside next May:

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Cover - (Moffatt) Now that's the spirit of Hallowe'en!

De Jueves #1556 - (Moffatts) If red ink looks gold on black paper, what color does gold ink look like? ## I wonder if the idea of instantly disguising yourself as a Coca-Cola vending machine would be accepted in any country but Japan, with its long popular tradition of ninja who could instantly disguise themselves to disappear against any background. ## There are a couple of films on YouTube of squirrels eating avocados. They appear to love them. ## On my computer, the link to Zercustoms shows the Pivo-2 demonstration film without asking for any registration, every time. I am happily surprised that the Internet link in ˇRR! #2215 to Theódore Ushev's Tower Bawher animated film still works, too. I recommend again for LASFen to see it for free while you can. ## There were lots of laws around the 1830s, usually local and in the North, that said runaway slaves could not be returned to their owners. They were constantly cited by Southerners as illegal theft of Southerners' property. Federal laws like the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act were attempts to overrule such local laws and placate the Southerners, but so many Abolitionists openly ignored them that Southerners cited this as proof that the North was hostile to the Southern way of life.

I Tapdance With Killer Whales - (Gold) Oops. I do not know of any Austrian flags with kangaroos. But the designer of the Confederate "Stars and Bars" national flag, Nikola Marschall, a Prussian artist living near Montgomery, Alabama at the time of the formation of the Confederate government in 1861, later said that he just took the Imperial Austrian red-white-red flag and added a blue canton with seven white stars. That detail is omitted from most Southern histories of the Confederate flag. Marschall also designed the Confederate officers' military uniform; compare it to Austrian officers' uniforms of the day.

Fish Out of Water #248 - (Helgesen) Amanda's memory needs to be kept fresh every couple of years.

1 T-Rex - (Cantor) Not only was Columbus not the first European to reach the Americas, he arguably did not discover them since he insisted that he had reached China, Japan or the Indies. But trying to change the National Holiday is like trying to change Independence Day from July 4 to July 2, which is when independence was really declared.

Vanamonde #754 - (Hertz) Considering my opinion of the taste of Cap'n Crunch cereal (eccch! ptooey!), the concept of anyone devoting a shrine to worshiping it is - well, eccch! ptooey! ## Define first principles. A national flag featuring a kangaroo would be instantly associated with Australia by most people - although if I remember some of the proposed designs correctly, especially one which depicted the kangaroo in an abstract Aboriginal-art style, the kangaroo would first of all have to be recognizable as a kangaroo.

ˇRábanos Radiactivos! #2217 - (Patten) It looks like Japanese katakana which appears clearly on my computer somehow turns into blank squares when transmitted over the Internet to Vanessa Van Wagner or to Marty Cantor for printing. Curious.

Godzilla Verses #164 -- (DeChancie) "How similar are enzyme active site geometries derived from quantum mechanical theozymes to crystal structures ..." Arrggh! Mah brain is strained! Does this have anything to do with the Carwash of the Gods in Revolutionary Girl Utena? If a DeChancie understands it, then we're safe. ## But the Schwebebahn monorail in Wuppertal, Germany has been operating successfully since 1901. It is a major tourist attraction of Wuppertal. Downtown Sydney has a monorail that seemed to be very efficient when I saw it in 1999. The anime feature Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (2001) shows an elevated monorail as the major form of urban transportation on terraformed Mars, which is demolished in an excellently choreographed karate battle between the hero & villain. Popular opposition to monorails looks to be based mostly on stupendous startup costs, not that they will not work as planned. True, the frequent breakdowns of the Disneyland monorail were not encouraging, and it might be an easy target for terrorists to sabotage...

Oh, All Right!!! - (Lembke) Kangaroos carrying kegs of brandy to rescue hikers in the Alps? Is brandy drinkable if shaken, not stirred? Actually, why not kangaroos with kegs of water to rescue hikers lost in the Outback?