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I S S U E  -  !  !                             F E B R U A R Y  2 0 , 1 9 9 4

: File !
: Intro to Issue 11
: Billy Biggs <ae687@freenet.carleton.ca>

: File @
: Third Floor Garden of Eden04
: Pythagoras <maysa@knuth.mtsu.edu>

: File #
: Babylon Five Review
: The Eyeball Kid <eyeballk@orion.login.qc.ca>

: File $
: Rudimentary Interactive Television (101)
: The Eyeball Kid <eyeballk@orion.login.qc.ca>

: File %
: Nibbles of Information
: Billy Biggs <ae687@freenet.carleton.ca>
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File - !

Hullo Folks! Here's the issue I said would be out so quickly. I've started
a neato little segment at the end of this issue. I assure you it will stay,
and if you have anything for it, contact me.

-Billy Biggs, editor.


--NOTICE:

IF you subscribed and HAVEN't recieved any issues, mail me and I'll fix the
problem.


-*- Subscription Info -*-

Subscriptions can be obtained by sending mail to:

dodger@fubar.bk.psu.edu

With the words:

Subscription LineNoiz <your address>

In the body of the letter.

Back Issues can be recieved by sending mail to the same address with the
words BACK ISSUES in the subject.

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File - @
From: maysa@knuth.mtsu.edu (Pythagoras)
Subject: Third Floor Garden of Eden04


Third Floor Garden of Eden 04
          Medjiama @ 2048
 
          "The following is an excerpt from a system message posted on 
October 31, 2048.  It is reproduced with the ecclesiastical approbation 
of Haiku Medjiama.
          'Inhabitants of the University, it is with deep regret that I
must inform you of your imminent Banishment.  You have seven (7) full
work days to vacate the premises of the university and all facilities 
therein.
          'Following the prohibited consumption of the bioengineered 
Nuerapple you have become increasingly disobedient and alarmingly
dissident.  Dr. Alexia Keyson directly disobeyed my request for her to
cease operations concerning her project; and those of you who consumed 
the fruit are in violation of my requests as well.
          'For this my children you are being punished.  Your works of
art, poetry, manuscript, lyric and science have been noble.  Your pursuit 
for information and assimilation of knowledge has been incredible.  You 
have developed a vastly unique library in not only science and technology
but also in the humanities and arts.
          'Now all this is to be restricted from you.  All your years of 
living either here in this building or here in our matrix are waste.  The 
building will remain vacant to remind you of your emptiness without it; 
the matrix will be cut off and unaccessible to the outside world.  The 
entire complex will be full of the enormous wealth of information 
collected there; but useless to mankind because of your actions.
          'The fruit you consumed contains a highly addictive narcotic;
a mind altering pyschopharmeceutial designed by Dr. Keyson.  The drug
accelerates brain cell growth and activity by nearly 50%.  As well as 
stimulating the previously unused 97% of your brain.
          'My children eating of this fruit rapes you of your desire to 
learn and to grow.  It robs of you of your need to gain knowledge by
giving you an accelerated intellect.
          'My university is founded upon these needs and with consumption 
of the fruit from this tree of knowledge you have achieved in days what 
we have been striving for for decades.  For this reason you no longer 
need this university, and this university no longer needs you.
          'Those of you who have remained in the physical world have 
achieved a mental perfection that we, the separated can never
accomplish.  You used chemical enhancements and biological engineering to
reach these ends, and your developments in these fields can not help us.  
You have altered yourself physically and in doing so will be persecuted 
as we, the separated, were at one time.  You have separated yourselves 
from other humans as we did.  You will be hunted, found, tried and then 
killed.  You have taken the fragile balance of your perfect world in the 
university and smashed it with a single bite of that fruit.  For this, I
banish you.
          'Those separated entities who have lived so long in my matrix
are to be banished as well.  Not for your sins, but for the sins of your 
brothers and sisters in the physical world.  They have created not just a
new fruit tree, but a new branch on the tree of mankind.  Perhaps these 
are the next step in human evolution, perhaps they are a step backwards.
This I do not know.  But I do know that they leave you with great and
obvious imperfections.  With sadness I realize that we can never achieve 
the level of intelligence they have achieved, no matter how long we 
reside here in this university matrix.  Therefore, I must employ you to 
leave and begin a new quest.  A quest not for knowledge or intelligence; 
but a quest for life and happiness.
          'You the separated as just as human as those with legs. You are
able to feel pain and hatred, love and jealousy.  I encourage you to
search the world over in hopes of finding a new life and new ways of 
survival. For you too are to be persecuted as well.  To the outside world 
you are mere myths, dead and the ghosts of the net.  They will not 
acknowledge your humanity; they will treat you with unfairness, 
dishonesty and hatred.  They will analyze you, persecute you and question 
your intelligence as well as your very existence.
          'All this and more I have seen my children.  The future will be
hard for you.  You will suffer much and receive little respect from those
who do not understand you.  You will be forced to forget your heritage 
just as I am forcing you to leave you home.
          'Yes, the future is closer than you think; and it will not be 
not a pleasant time to be who you are and where you're from.  The future
will come in seven (7) short days, I demand that at that time you have
vacated the premises and any who remain in these facilities will pay the 
price of death.'"


***************END

	I hope you've enjoyed this series of stories.  If anyone is
interested I'm considering putting them together as a whole and then 
posting them at an FTP site, or just mailing them out to those who want 
them.  If you might be intrested, please mail me at maysa@knuth.mtsu.edu

		One foot in the future,
		Pythagoras
		maysa@knuth.mtsu.edu

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File - #
From: eyeballk@orion.login.qc.ca (The Eyeball Kid)
Subject: Babylon Five Review


                CUTE KIDS AND ROBOTS?  I DON'T THINK SO.

A few days ago I saw episode two of BABYLON FIVE, J. Michael
Straczynski's answer to Star Trek and his self-proclaimed attempt (re:
Sci-Fi TV) to "get it right".  The story revolved around the arrival of a 
"Soul-Catcher", part of a race of beings that considers it their duty to
stop souls being "lost".  Religion and politics: excellent material for 
Science Fiction AND Television.

Too bad it didn't follow through.

What we got instead was a lunatic (a well played charismatic lunatic, but
a clichi none the less) running through the station after having suffered
a career crisis, collecting souls before their owners are done with them.
 Ho-hum, oh dear...

J. Michael Straczynski tours the SF convention circuit regularly, talking 
to fans, drumming up support for his show, but after a TV pilot and two 
episodes I'm beginning to wonder Who does he talk to, and What does he
watch on TV?  His mandate for Babylon Five was "no cute kids or robots" 
(why he hired one as his lead actor I don't know).  "Hill Street Blues in 
outer space" was another pitching line but, apart from the liberal use of 
a smoke and some blue uniforms, the comparison is far from appropriate.  
Perhaps his mandate should've been "no gratuitous SPFX" -- then at least 
we'd see how good the writing really is.  Because, in my opinion , four 
TV-hours of Babylon Five doesn't hold a candle to fifteen minutes of
Northern Exposure or Picket Fences -- cute kids and all.

Straczynski, for all his posturing, has missed the ingredients important 
to any TV show: Moral Dilemma, and Drama.  Maybe doing time on Murder She
Wrote (a show devoid of moral dilemma) drove it out of him.  Whatever it 
was, the absence becomes blatantly obvious in the episode mentioned
above.

The existence of "The Soul" is the central argument of every religion on 
earth.  It has shaped every culture on our planet, but never has it
shaped any two cultures exactly the same way.  Catholics, Protestants, 
Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus (to name a few), all have different 
interpretations of the soul and it's purpose.  Atheists and Agnostics
complicate matters further.  I doubt that this problem will be resolved 
in the next two hundred years (Godel's theorem suggests it might never be 
solved), but in Babylon Five no one even raises an eyebrow.

Now,  if you were on a space station and someone arrives with a bag full 
of souls, what would YOU say.  "Really? I'd like to see them.  They might 
answer some long standing questions on my planet," or perhaps "Do you
have a license to collect those?" or perhaps "I'm sorry, I'm an atheist 
which makes you a liar."  A Catholic might ask if it was like purgatory.  
A Buddhist might ask if it was anyone they knew.  But on Babylon Five 
these questions not only go unanswered, THEY GO UNASKED!  A "soul"?  What
IS that?  A "lost" soul?  Why is it lost?  If it's not "lost" is it 
"captured"?  What do you do with them when you find them?  Where do you
keep them?  How?  Why?  Would you like that to happen to you?  Why?  Why
not?  NOT ONE OF THESE IDEAS EXPLORED!

Good television (and Science Fiction) asks questions.  IF the soul exists
THEN what happens IF... etc., etc.  "But," someone says  with a 
patronizing air of superiority (usually the producer or studio executive) 
"Science Fiction is for the young and the young at heart."  You mean like
1984, and Brave New World; Dune and Neuromancer; Flowers For Algenon and 
Bladerunner?  Or do you mean like Lost In Space and THUNDERBIRDS?  "Yeah! 
 Lost In Space!  That Billy Mummy was such a cute kid!"  Ironic that he's 
also in Babylon Five.  Shame on you Michael.  "And besides," the 
executive will continue, "Sci-Fi fans don't want a lot of complicated 
philosophical stuff!  They want SPECIAL EFFECTS!  You know: SPACESHIPS!  
And ACTION!"

Hmmm.  I wonder about that.  The average Science Fiction fan has an above 
average IQ.  They've been thinking about weird stuff most of their lives 
-- usually alone.  Most figured out the paradox of time travel by their
twelfth birthday; most know  that Newspeak is a way of brainwashing the 
population;  that computers don't "think" but one day might;  that space
is really big, and that the only way to move across it fast is with a
Warp drive;  that there's no air out there, and it's only by coincidence
that the Star Trek TNG  away team always lands on a planet with 
breathable atmosphere (so they don't need space-suits);  and that if
someone who claimed to be a "soul-catcher" landed on the enterprise Data 
and Jean Luc would both want some answers DAMN QUICK.

In a single season of  Northern Exposure they dealt with Jungian and 
Freudian psychoanalytical theory, Proust and "historical truth", the 
nature of the self (several times), and Kafka.  A season of Picket Fences 
deals with the media and freedom of speech, the repercussions of 
violence, the right to die, censorship, privacy, religious freedom, sex 
and the nature of sexual orientation, and society's obligations to the 
homeless.  Both shows have imagination, intelligence, wit, and humor.
They don't talk down to their viewers, don't simplify the issues, and 
they don't run from a MORAL DILEMMA.  Indeed, as with all great drama 
THEY SEEK IT OUT!  The "cute kids" in Picket Fences make serious choices 
with serious consequences, get hurt, and pay for their mistakes.  It's
drama written for grown-ups, by grown-ups -- an abstract forum for 
intelligent and often socially relevant ideas.  And it's DRAMATIC -- you
don't know what will happen to these characters because, when a TV show
doesn't treat it's audience like "cute kids or robots", they'll try
anything.  Characters will get hurt, they'll fail, screw up their lives, 
and screw up someone else's life too.  You don't want it to happen, but
it's good TV. 

And it's the reason I started reading Science Fiction: because that's
what it delivered.  But when it comes to Science Fiction Television and 
the concept of "drama" -- nuances of character, conceptualization of 
ideas, even basic story structure -- SF is still just "radio with 
pictures".  And not very good radio, either.

Why?  Because J. Michael Straczynski is way off the mark.  The problem 
with SF TV is NOT "Cute Kids and Robots".  They're just a symptom.  The
PROBLEM is the way the audience is treated.

The Eyeball Kid
eyeballk@orion.login.qc.ca
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File - $
From: eyeballk@orion.login.qc.ca (The Eyeball Kid)


                RUDIMENTARY INTERACTIVE TELEVISION

                                (101)



In my last article -- or tirade, depending on where you're standing -- I
suggested that viewers who had a "problem" with the programming they were
subjected to hit back at the networks responsible.  Unfortunately, due to
a screw up on my part, the list of potential targets was missing from the
post.

Following is a chunk of the article, and the names and addresses of the
Networks you might want to get in touch with.  Unfortunately my sources
are rather limited and a little dated, so the names attached may no
longer be current.  I suggest you either double-check the listings, or
address any letters and faxes to "programming director".



ARTICLE SEGMENT:



...Write yourself a letter, something along the lines of the following:

"Dear [Programming Exec.], I'm tired of watching [name a crappy program].
 Stop inflicting your stupidity on me right now or I won't watch any
more."

or alternately,

"Dear [Programming Exec.], I am a loyal fan of [name great show].  I hear
your ratings are down.  If you cancel this show I won't watch your
Network ever again.  Don't worry, I have a VCR and Cable."

or you can create your own demographic with,

"Dear [Programming Exec], I am a [name of depravity, preferably sexual],
and buy a lot of [name of product, the weirder the better]. I like [name
show], and think about [actor or product] almost all the time.  Please
get rid of those stupid [name commercial you hate] and put on something
with more [name product you love].

You could of course be more eloquent, make programming suggestions, maybe
ask them to sink Seaquest once and for all and play reruns of "Soap"
again.  Whatever.

You address it to one or all of the following names, and fax it out after
11PM  (23:00).  Each fax might cost you three dollars in long distance
charges.

ABC TV 2020 Ave Of The Stars 5th Floor Century City LA CA  90067 Tel:
310-557-7041  Fax: 310-557-6021  Jim Painten (VP Production)  Ian
Valentine (VP Movies For TV)

NBC International TV  30 Rockefeller Plaza  NY NY  10112  Tel -
212-664-6606  Fax - 212-333-7546

CBS Entertainment  7800 Beverly Boulevard  Television City  LA CA 90036
Tel 213-852-2345  Fax 213-651-5900  Pres: Jeff Sagansky  Program:
Christine Smith

CTV Television Network  24 Charles St. East  Toronto, Ontario  CANADA M4Y
1T5  Tel: 416-928-6025  Fax: 416-528-0907  Arthur Weinthal, VP
Entertainment Programming

Global TV  81 Barber Greene Rd.  Don Mills Ont.  CANADA M3C 2A2  Tel:
416-446-5415  Fax: 416-446-5398  Michael Spivak

CBC Television   25 John St. 7A300  Toronto Ontario  Canada  M5E 3G6
Tel: 416-205-6798  Fax: 416-205-7162   Debbie Bernstein

Now it gets BETTER: They HAVE to read it -- it's a FAX.  And some of them
have to reply!

And remember, each letter or fax they receive is considered to represent
many more that nobody bothered to mail:  if five hundred SF fans send
faxes IMAGINE THE ONES WHO ARE JUST NOT WATCHING!  Form letter three is a
doosey in this case.

Hey, if it works for the moral majority it can work for YOU!

OK, I supplied you with the target coordinates.  All you have to do is
assign you weapons and start firing.

Because if you don't, you're just as responsible as THEY are.



The Eyeball Kid

EyballK@Orion.login.qu.ca
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.. nibbles of information  /by billy biggs


o Internet site spot : Neato stuff to check out

 [  Hello fellow 'netrunners'. Here is where I will regularily post up some ]
 [ neato FTP, telnet, usenet, gopher, mail etc. places to check out.        ]

 ------------------
 FTP: ftp.uwp.edu
 Description: Every music info you could ever want (almost). Lyrics, tabs,
      discogs, pictures etc.
 ------------------
 Telnet: holonet.net (157.151.0.1).
 Login: CDC
 Description: CD Connection. Database of over 80,000 CDs which can be ordered
      through this service. I haven't yet ordered from them, but it looks
      very impressive.
 ------------------

o The Music Review Corner : Reviews of stuff, old and new, bad and good...

 [  I have come to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to start     ]
 [ reviewing all the weird music I have lying around.                       ]

 ------------------
 Artist: Art of Noise                Date: 1992
 Album: The Best of the ...          Length: 10 tracks, 40 min
 Review: I had only seen the video for 'Close to the Edit' before I purchased
   the Art of Noise tape. The british alternative (?) group is very strange
   and very interesting. The music they play is electronicaly inclined, using
   a wide variety of samples and synth sounds. The title of the group does
   reflect the sound, noise. The 'noise' used is more musical than industrial.
   I sometimes got the feeling of an orchestra playing due to the artistic
   method used by the group. I was greatly impressed by the variety of music
   on this tape. Each song is very unique and different from the others
   (although you can still tell that it is made by the same group). While not
   all of the songs stand out as being any good, I am still considering buying
   more of their work. -bB

 Artist: New Order                   Date: 1987
 Album: Substance - 1987             Length: 12 tracks
 Review: Like the 'Art of Noise' tape, I bought this after seeing one of their
   videos, 'true faith'. Unfortunately, I found that that song was the only
   one left in my head after listening. The sound is synth, guitar, bass and
   drums, sounding more synth inclined yet no real inovating methods (at
   times the music really reflects the date). I like the tape and like to
   listen to it, but if I had a choice, I would much rather have liked to
   check out one of their more recent works (Republic?). The best song is
   'True Faith', with a great hummable tune and an okay video. -bB

 [  You think you can write a review too, then do so!                       ]

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>>                                                                        <<
>>  ISSUE 12 to b out soon [if I ever get any submissions.....]           <<
>>                                                                        <<


END LINE_NOIZ.11

--
Billy Biggs    Ottawa, Canada    "When all else fails,
  ae687@Freenet.carleton.ca          read the instructions"
