All posts by Erica Frank

Magazine/Anthology, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[January 6, 1968] Entertainment for Men (January 1968 Playboy)

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by Erica Frank

An unexpected place for science fiction

When I saw January's issue of Playboy, my first thought was, of course, "Ugh, mostly-naked women being exploited", including a Gidget-lookalike, wearing a lot fewer clothes than Gidget normally does.

Cover of January 1968 Playboy

And then I saw some of the contributors: Kurt Vonnegut (author of Cat's Cradle), Shel Silverstein (author of both the heart-twisting The Giving Tree and very clever Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book), Arthur C. Clarke, Ogden Nash (whose poetry I love), Ray Bradbury…

And I thought, well, it's pricey—more than double the price of most science fiction magazines—no doubt because of the, ahem, artistic photography. But I could get it just for the articles. (That's the joke, anyway.)

The shopkeeper at the store where I saw it refused to sell it to me. I was confused, but they were adamant. But I persevered, and found a less-discriminatory site that didn't care who acquired their wares.

My first thought was: There's certainly a lot of magazine for my buck-twenty-five! This anniversary edition has over 250 pages, and while a lot of that is advertisements, they don't skimp on the actual text.

Two science fiction stories, two articles by science fiction authors, some poetry, some futuristic art… and an article about religion and hippies.  That's well within my interests.

The Yellow Room, by John Cheever
Cheever is mostly published in The New Yorker, with some stories in Playboy, Esquire, and The Saturday Evening Post. He is not known for his science fiction, and if this story is typical, I can understand why.

Our protagonist is a rich fellow afflicted with the cafard, either a form of depression or just the ennui of someone wealthy enough to pay a psychiatrist a dollar a minute for therapy. (Mister, just skip half a dozen sessions and buy yourself a motorcycle, okay?) The doctor declares him sexually repressed—a "transvestite homosexual," caused by sculptures of his body-building father being used prominently at several hotels and opera houses. Our narrator denounces the guy as a charlatan and stops attending sessions.

After that, he starts gallivanting around the globe in search of the perfect room, one with yellow walls, which he is certain will end his cafard. I suspect half the purpose of the story is to give the reader the fantasy of jaunting from hotel to hotel without worrying about price, attending a job, or having family obligations. Eventually, he finds such a room, but it is owned by someone who won't sell her house. So, noticing that she is a heavy drinker, he plies her with expensive alcohol until she winds up in a car accident—and buys the house after her death.

It does, in fact, cure him, or at least, he feels energetic and happy in the room with yellow walls.

So where's the science fiction? His mother, a dilettante traveler, writes letters informing him that when she stays at hotels, she has dreams of the previous tenants of the beds. This is done in great detail over several pages, but does not seem to connect to the plot, if you can call it a plot.

The writing itself is good enough, if one enjoys overly intellectual rich man's pontification as a writing style. The story, however, begins nowhere, goes nowhere, and is packed with nothing but descriptions of a jet-set lifestyle and the protagonist's ego. Two stars.

God and the Hippies, by Harvey Cox
This article compares modern hippies to St. Francis of Assisi, and notes that modern "welfare society" allows a level of leisure that has turned to ecstatic exploration, meditation, and a strong interest in Oriental spirituality. Modern Protestant Christianity, he points out, is "squarer than American culture," and focused on dominion over nature instead of harmony with it.

The choice is no longer Christian, Jew, or atheist. Christianity will also have to recognize that in a postindustrial, leisure society, people will have more time for meditation and
for cultivating the kinds of religious practices that have been so highly developed in some Oriental countries—and so underdeveloped in the West.

Wanda declares she has found true love with "Grok the Guru."
A scene from the "Little Annie Fanny" comic strip at the end of the issue.

He then talks about three aspects of hippie culture that seem to clash most with Christianity: Drugs, aversion to work, and open sexuality. He points out that current drug laws are discriminatory in both focus and enforcement: that there is no rational reason for alcohol to be legal but marijuana a felony, and that the marginalized are penalized more heavily than the wealthy for infractions. He says the Calvinist work ethic may not make sense in a computer civilization—that we will soon all have more leisure time, and that hippies are not wasting it on "TV and bowling leagues," but taking to poetry, art, and philosophy. He even mentions that space travel will likely take many years, and require travelers who know how to stay alert and interested in life with no entertainments but each other. And, given that this article is in Playboy, of course it is in favor of erotic pleasure.

The article is a little starry-eyed about hippies (they are not all as idealistic and passionate as he seems to think) but does a nice job of showing the conflicts between hippies and much of modern society, especially how hippie ideals often clash with Christian morality. Four stars.

Welcome to the Monkey House, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Welcome to the Monkey House is a delightful change from the previous story. Our setting is future-Earth; population 17 billion humans. They are required to take "ethical birth-control pills," which remove all the pleasure from sex without actually preventing it, three times a day, or face a penalty of $10,000 and 10 years in jail. Not many people will risk the cost of a cheap house to skip their mandated medications, but "notorious nothinghead Billy the Poet" has been spotted heading for the local Suicide Parlor, where he no doubt intends to seduce someone.

The workers at the parlors are referred to as "pretty, tough-minded, highly intelligent girls":

All Hostesses were virgins. They also had to hold advanced degrees in psychology and nursing. They also had to be plump and rosy, and at least six feet tall.

America had changed in many ways, but it had yet to adopt the metric system.

This story contains forced drug use, kidnapping, forced withdrawal, rape, and various other crimes, all in a very implausible future. It addresses themes of moral vs practical science—specifically, sexual abstinence vs contraception—written in a style that seems packed with science fiction clichés until it turns darkly philosophical.

While I was rolling my eyes at some of the "facts" of the future world, I couldn't stop reading. Five stars.

Death Warmed Over, by Ray Bradbury
Bradbury is a fan of the old classic horror movies: Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bela Lugosi's Dracula, The Body Snatcher, and other "monster movies." He does not care for the newer, more intellectual films: Our Man Flint, Charade, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He intensely dislikes horror-comedies like I Was a Teenage Werewolf. The point of horror, he says, is to take the universal fear of death, give it a face, a shape, a name… and conquer it.

I may not fully agree with his conclusion, but he argues his points eloquently. Four stars.

When Earthmen and Alien Meet, by Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke ponders how we might find evidence of extraterrestrials and what proof of their existence would do for humanity. In most cases, he points out: Nothing. Finding the ruins of an alien civilization on the moon might spark more space exploration, but after a few interesting photos make the news rounds, most people would shrug. The moon is a long ways off, and other stars even farther, and what is or isn't out there isn't relevant to their lives.

Most of this article is pondering methods of contact or verification, like finding ruins, receiving the equivalent of television broadcasts, or actual direct communication—although he points out this is not likely anytime soon. He goes on to quote a number of science fiction stories that deal with various possibilities, throws in a number of science facts that the general public may not be aware of but science fiction readers often are (e.g. how long a rocket would take to travel the four light-years to Alpha Centauri: 25,000 years), and declares the importance that we learn "to change, or at least to control, the atavistic urges programed into our genes," so we can take our rightful place among the stars.

Image of a strangely colored man viewed through a round window
"Could an alien tell the difference between a man and, for example, a bear—or would he conclude that the automobile was our dominant life form?"

If these were new ideas to me, the article might be intriguing and pleasant, instead of heavy and pedantic. Two stars.

City of the Future, by R. Buckminster Fuller
Last October, Fuller gave a speech in which he referred to "Spaceship Earth," building on Adlai Stevenson's 1965 description of our planet as a spaceship, one with limited resources that we must preserve. Fuller is widely considered an architectural visionary, and in this article, he talks about some possible structures for futuristic cities based on pyramids.

The city plan consists of "three triangular walls of 5000 living units apiece" forming a tetrahedron; each unit has a spacious terrace and a sky view. The interior receives sunlight through openings every 50th floor.

A picture of a tetrahedron-pyramid superimposed on a photo of Tokyo
Artist's rendition of the 200-story city set outside Tokyo, with a view of Mount Fuji.

It's a lovely idea. The article itself talks about the history of housing construction, vehicle constraints of the past, and assumes we will soon have the ability to make giant floating pyramid cities. While he dismisses several potential drawbacks with a wave of the hand, claiming that that this is both technologically and politically viable, it's interesting reading. Three stars.

This & That
Ogden Nash's poetry turns out to be a page of somewhat-racy limericks with artwork by Ron Rae.

A teenage protester named Lil
Cried, "Those CIA spies make me ill!
First they bugged our martinis,
Our bras and bikinis,
And now they are bugging the pill."

Cartoon drawing of a topless woman with a tiny CIA agent in her underwear.

They're all about that level of clever – a nice chuckle, nothing memorable.

The article, "The New Girl," by John Clellon Holmes is all about "postfeminism," how "girls" (not women, even when he's talking about adults) these days are free to explore their true selves. The New Girl, he says, is "self-emancipated, unabashedly sexy, charmingly individualistic and a joy to the men in her life."

I love the artwork. I hate the article. Didn't finish reading it; I don't need to hear a man going on about how feminism was about "attacking men's privilege" more than women's rights (and it's over), and women's self-exploration properly leads them to being sexy girlfriends.

Psychedelic picture of a 'New Girl' in a miniskirt with a rainbow-ish sunrise behind her

Silverstein's article is a series of cartoons and a few photos about him visiting Hollywood. They're fun.

Shel interviews a high school student, who says "Oh sure, I can tell you about the sex clubs and the pot smoking and the LSD trips, but if you want to know about the free-speech movement and the student political demonstrations, you'll have to ask one of the older kids!"

And of course, what would a review of Playboy be without a mention of scantily-clad beautiful women? Miss January is a 20-year-old blonde who recently moved back to her home town of Detroit. She looks very alluring in a black sheer negligee in the centerfold, but they're quick to point out that she's really a fun-loving gal. Her housewarming gifts included the new party game, Twister.

Photo of Miss January in a negligee next to a photo of her and friends playing Twister

Humor?

Playboy is known for its jokes. Or at least, in some crowds, it's known for its jokes. The magazine is riddled with cartoons, both full-page color and quarter-page sketch art adorning the articles and stories, and it has a monthly page, "Playboy's Party Jokes," with a couple-dozen supposedly humorous anecdotes.

After the third one where the punchline seemed to be "and they HAD SEX!!!", I started counting:
Punchline is adultery: 5
Punchline is "women are sexual property": 5
Punchline is rape: 6
Punchline is nudity: 4
Punchline is kinky sex: 3
Punchline is "women want money for sex": 4
Punchline is sex: 14
Not sexual jokes: 22 (some of these are Santa/holiday themed)

Cartoon drawing of a man entering a holiday party room; he's carrying a bundle of plants and says 'Hey everyone! Mistletoe!' Most of the partygoers are already tangled in deep kisses.
This is one where the punchline seems to be "people have sex."

The whole magazine is very much For Men, even on theoretically neutral articles. The Playboy Adviser is Playboy's equivalent to Dear Abby, mostly about relationships. Playboy's advisor, however, is nameless. It's moderately decent advice with a politely sexist bias. All the questions are from men; they universally refer to the women in their lives as "girls." 

As much as I enjoyed the Vonnegut story and was intrigued by Cox's article on hippies, I don't think I'll be buying the next issue.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 4, 1967] Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Star Trek: Shore Leave)

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by Erica Frank

We join the Enterprise on Stardate 3025. The crew has had a rough few months and desperately needs some downtime. Fortunately, they have found what seems to be an ideal uninhabited planet for shore leave.

While the planet seems almost fairy-tale idyllic, with open meadows and pastoral lakes and meandering paths, it is soon clear that something strange is afoot. McCoy sees what he is sure is a hallucination: A man-sized rabbit holding a pocketwatch, muttering "I'm late" before hopping out of sight.


Not what we expected on an alien planet.

But the scan results are clear: No animal life found on the planet. No birds, no mammals, no insects.

Nobody asks why there are paths through the woods and around the lake, if there are no creatures to make them. Nobody asks why there are tree stumps. Nobody asks what's pollinating the flowers. …Nobody notices the antenna that tracks their movements.

A Grin Without a Cat

They split up to investigate, and Kirk finds someone who cannot possibly be here: Finnegan, a fellow he knew from the Academy. Finnegan was a practical joker who targeted Kirk all the time.


He looks like a fun fellow. (This looks like the ship's uniforms, but it's sparkling silver. How many outfits does Starfleet have?)

Finnegan immediately throws a punch at the Captain, but their fight is cut short when other crew members are in danger—Kirk rushes off to protect Barrows from Don Juan. Then Sulu gets chased by a samurai while the other team hides from a tiger. Spock beams down into this mess, and they discover their phasers aren't working and communications are down: they'll have to deal with the planet's problems on their own.

McCoy decides, "This is all hallucinations," and gets himself stabbed by a charging knight. It seems McCoy has forgotten every hallucination-inflicting alien they've encountered so far, starting with the salt vampire: The lance may be a hallucination, but the damage is real. If he thinks it's all hallucinations, why did he encourage Yeoman Barrows to swap her uniform for the princess dress they found? Is he happily imagining that she's actually wandering around naked?

While the team looks for answers, Finnegan reappears. Kirk, never one to skip out on a fight, chases him. Finnegan is tricky and tough, but Kirk refuses to give up.


I like Finnegan. He can punch the shirt off strapping young captains.

Kirk fights better once his shirt is torn. (I think Kirk gets special tear-away uniforms to enhance his fighting skills.) He eventually overcomes Finnegan, as he never could as a student, and grins. Spock, bemused that Kirk enjoyed the fight, realizes what's happening: Something is reading their thoughts and providing them the exact experiences they're seeking, even if those are dangerous.

They need to warn the others and figure out how to stop it. But first: They must escape the tiger and an airstrike! (Did the producers just have some airstrike footage they wanted to use? The samurai wasn't dangerous enough?) Kirk and Spock dodge for shelter together, pulling each other to safety as they dodge dangers from land and sky.


I'm sure this embrace was very relevant to the plot.

The surviving crew members meet back at the Glade. A very angry Kirk demands they stand at attention, not even thinking, while he looks around for… something, someone.

A man in a green robe walks out to greet them. He's the caretaker of this place, a kind of amusement park: Anything you imagine can be your exciting adventure here.

Kirk points out that adventures are substantially less fun when people die—but it turns out nobody is dead; McCoy was healed in their underground facilities. No harm done, all in good fun, and so on.


The druidic version of Mr. Green Jeans remains nameless.

Kirk asks the caretaker who his people are, but he demurs: "Your race is not yet ready to understand us." However, he welcomes them to enjoy the planet. With communications restored, Kirk orders the other teams to beam down for their shore leave.

This was a delightful episode. I believe this is the first time we've encountered godlike telepathic and technological powers that are not used to threaten and control people.

I hope to see more aliens like this, an advanced race that uses its abilities for peaceful, benevolent purposes. They aren't going to share their technology with still-warlike humans, but they open their vacation resort to those who need a break from their busy lives.

Five stars. Fun to watch, a return of Shirtless Kirk, and an immensely satisfying conclusion.

“Drink Me”


by Janice L. Newman

This was a fun and rollicking episode. At the same time, I found it unsettling.

In order for the story to work, the crew have to behave in ways that are out of character for a military crew. Not only do they not seem to notice the discrepancies Erica noted above, but they allow themselves to be distracted, separated, and discombobulated throughout the story. When Kirk meets his childhood sweetheart, he can’t take his eyes off her, unable to finish his sentences even as he’s having an important conversation with a member of his crew. Yeoman Barrows has no hesitation about changing into a fairy-tale dress she randomly finds, and McCoy has no hesitation in urging her to do it. When Sulu finds a gun under a rock, he picks it up and starts firing it.

These are not the actions of trained specialists.

The only thing that really makes sense is to assume that the planet has a built-in relaxing effect on the mind. Whether there’s some sort of drug in the air or something even more sophisticated — perhaps some sort of ray along the lines of what we saw in “Dagger of the Mind”, except this one causes mild euphoria instead of forgetfulness — it’s a little disturbing.

It’s perfectly logical that such a planet might have “something in the air” intended to help its visitors let go of their cares and worries. The people and things they encounter aren’t real, after all, and this might have a dampening effect if one thinks about it too hard (Kirk’s first love was nothing but a complex robot, yet even knowing this, he doesn’t hesitate to take his own shore leave at the end of the episode, very clearly looking forward to enjoying her charms). Some kind of ‘euphoria effect’ that helps the attendees of this planet-sized amusement park suspend disbelief in order to enjoy themselves seems almost a necessity.

However, the crew encounters and is influenced by whatever it is without any chance to say ‘no, thank you’. Even at the end, Kirk tells the Enterprise to start beaming people down, presumably with the intent of informing them of what kind of planet it is, but never mentions the euphoria effect. Do the crew even realize their minds have been affected? Will they recognize it after they leave?

As someone who values her ability to think in a straight line, I found the idea of being drugged without my knowledge disconcerting at best, and outright violative at worst. Not to mention, we don’t know how far the effect goes. Could it become addictive over time? Could it have other long-term consequences?

The existence of the euphoria effect is all extrapolation anyway, so maybe it shouldn’t bother me so much. But the alternative, that the crew just behaved unprofessionally and out-of-character for no reason at all, is even worse! Either way, it knocked the episode down for me a little, bringing it to three and a half stars.

”Pleasure Planet”


by Tam Phan (Secret Asian Man)

When we think of science fiction, we don’t often consider what entertainment will look like in the future. Our technology is so advanced that it’s hard to imagine what we might be able to accomplish in our lifetimes, let alone in the distant future–and so often, science fiction focuses on the advanced ways we might harm each other. But how about how we might please each other, or ourselves? Color television is the pinnacle of modern entertainment, and it seems that, in every episode, with marvelous plots and better special effects, Star Trek keeps pushing those boundaries.
“Shore Leave” conceives an entirely new level of entertainment.

Currently, Disneyland is the only thing that comes close, and if you’ve ever had the chance to visit, you’ll understand the boldness of that statement. But where Disneyland brings one man's imagination to life (that of Walt Disney, sadly gone from this world as of last month), "Shore Leave" presents an entire planet designed to grant your every wish. Maybe calling that an amusement park is an understatement, but there’s no better way to describe the way my head is still spinning with all the things that I would love to do if granted that opportunity.

Though, with all its ability, it seemed that the planet required a bit of suspension of disbelief on the part of the participants to be fully engaged. Maybe the planet was causing the landing crew to be less restrained. It’s not too much of a stretch to believe that the planet was also able to put people’s minds at ease. The vision is really what’s important. The point was to create a pleasure planet, and they accomplished that.

We, the audience, know that it’s not real. Even the emotional McCoy eventually determined that it wasn’t. It didn't keep him from being run through with a lance, but that’s beside the point. Of course, McCoy wasn’t permanently harmed in the process of fulfilling any fantasies, but he also couldn't fully enjoy himself until he let go of his inhibitions. It wasn’t until Kirk gave into his desire to “beat the tar out of Finnegan” that he was able to take full advantage of the planet’s capabilities. It was never made clear as to why the crew was acting a bit strange, but maybe this is just a reminder that suspending my own disbelief might make this a more enjoyable experience.

If entertainment comes anywhere close to this in the future, we’re in for a treat. Until then, I’m looking forward to the next episode of Star Trek on my color television.

Four stars.

Getting to know you


by Gideon Marcus

We've gotten hints of Captain Kirk's background before "Shore Leave"–we knew he was a stack of books with legs in his Academy days.  That he almost married a blonde woman Gary Mitchell steered his way.  And that he suffered on Tarsus IV under the iron hand of Governor Kodos. But for the most part, the history of James Kirk has been a mystery.

In one swell foop, we get confirmation that Kirk was "positively grim", we learn that he once deeply loved an older woman (the "blonde"?), that he was hounded by an upperclassman named Finnegan.  We also find out that the Captain enjoys an occasional Vulcanian backrub; I imagine Spock has special nerve pinches for tight lumbars.

Also fleshed out is McCoy, who finally gets to carouse after his traumatic "reunification" with a former flame back in "The Man Trap".  The doctor is quite charming, really, and I can see why he caught the eye of Yeoman Barrows (though I have to wonder if this relationship would have been kindled elsewhere than in the befuddling airs of the Shore Leave planet).

And finally, we're learning something about the universe as a whole.  There are three types of science fiction universe: those with lots of aliens, those with few aliens, and those with only humans.  Star Trek clearly takes place in the first of those types of settings.  We have seen almost as many races as we've watched episodes.  Most of them are indistinguishable from humans, but the Talosians, Vulcanians, Romulans and Thasians make clear that there are far out aliens as well.

So numerous are the aliens, and so familiar are the forms of many of them, that I suspect there will be some kind of explanation for the phenomenon.  "Miri" already has suggested one.  I look forward to the revelation when it happens.

In any event, a poll of our usual watching crew has elicited a wide range of appraisals for "Shore Leave", from 3 to 5.  For myself, there was never a moment I was not thoroughly enjoying the episode.

Five stars.

And come join us watching the next episode tomorrow at 8:30 PM (Eastern and Pacific):

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[Oct. 20, 1966] Crimes against Humanity (Star Trek: "Mudd's Women")

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My kind of scoundrel


by Erica Frank

Let’s start at the beginning: the Enterprise is pursuing a smaller ship as it careens into an asteroid field. Captain Kirk orders his crew to protect the ship, burning out nearly all of their lithium crystals, and then beam the crew onboard. Mister Scott first beams over a man who initially introduces himself as "Leo Walsh". Then Mister Scott beams over three women — Eve, Ruth, and Magda — who pose elegantly on the transporter pad.

"Walsh" shows up wearing some kind of swashbuckler's outfit with a bejeweled earring just a little smaller than a golf ball. He says the three lovely women he's escorting are not his crew but his "cargo." He quickly explains: he's delivering them to their husbands-to-be on a mining colony.


Introducing: Leo Walsh, matchmaker from the stars

Right away, we can tell there's something sketchy about him. He smiles too widely, brushes aside questions, and tries to sneak away to talk with the women. They're all terrible liars, so it quickly comes out that his name is not "Leo Walsh" but Harry Mudd… in more ways than one.

Mudd's got a rap sheet: He's wanted for crimes like smuggling and counterfeiting, not for anything violent. He lies; he cheats; he steals; he runs away and does it again at the next port. He swindles people out of money, but he's not trying to ruin lives; he's just trying to enjoy his own.

Sure, he's trying to scam the potential husbands for the three ladies he's escorting (more on that shortly), but the women are planning to be good wives, to be partners and helpers to the men they marry, and they're willing to live in a very isolated place for that.


Eve, Ruth, and Magda, wearing the only clothes they own after being rescued

While Mudd and "his" women are involved in some kind of scam that the crew is trying to figure out, the ship itself is having problems. It's out of lithium crystals and can't travel faster than a slow crawl. Fortunately, there's a lithium mining planet with — as luck would have it — exactly three men, all single and desperate for wives. The three women immediately agree to abandon their former betrotheds (whom they'd never met) to latch on to these new, closer, wealthier strangers.

By the middle of the episode, we have a tangle of conflicting interests. Mudd wants to get paid (needs to get paid; his spaceship was destroyed) and would really like to stay out of prison. The three women would like husbands who can keep them in the type of luxury they'd enjoy. The Enterprise needs crystals or it's dead in space. Captain Kirk would like to know what the scam is so he can deal with his prisoner appropriately. The miners would like wives, and would be especially happy with beautiful, alluring wives. Doctor McCoy would like to know why every man on the ship (except Spock) acts like they're being enthralled. (This is difficult when he himself is subject to their charms.) The cops presumably would like Mudd behind bars for his past crimes.

I was worried this was yet another "mind control powers" episode, and was delighted to discover it was not. Mudd's been giving the women "the Venus Drug" which makes them beautiful and sexy. All three women are homely, unable to find husbands because they are so ugly. Their plan was to get married on a remote planet; by the time they ran out of the drugs, their husbands would be stuck with them and Mudd would be long gone.


As you can see, his name really is Mudd.

Kirk throws Mudd in the brig while he tries to figure out what's going on. However, in accordance with standard Enterprise security, the women are free to come and go as they please, visiting officers at work, breaking into Kirk's cabin, and coordinating to help Mudd. Mudd can't leave the brig, but they can not only visit him, they can bring him a communications device. He contacts the miners and arranges a deal for his own freedom.

The lithium miners must have a powerful union, almost as strong as the fashion industry: Mudd, not Earth (or starship command, or whomever Kirk reports to), tells Kirk that he's not only to be set free, but delivered safely to another planet after the women are settled. Presumably, Kirk verifies this with his superiors instead of just taking Mudd's word for it, but I'm never sure how much anyone on this ship pays attention to chain of command.


The crew beams down to the mining planet. Even when the plot is hokey, Star Trek's visual impact is breathtaking.

Eve has second thoughts about the whole thing. She runs off into a sandstorm, gets rescued by the head miner, and winds up telling him the whole truth. At first, he rejects her because she's ugly; eventually, after some shenanigans between Kirk and Mudd, both she and the miner realize that the drug isn't (entirely) what made her enticing — it may have removed a few wrinkles and added a bit of sparkle, but it's her own actions that made it effective: She was beautiful because she believed she was.

Kirk tells her: "There's only one kind of woman–" Mudd interrupts him to say, "–or man, for that matter," and Kirk finishes with, "you either believe in yourself, or don't."


Childress, the head of the mining colony, and Eve, the woman too ugly to find a husband on her home planet

They decide to make a go of it, and so do the other women, thus avoiding the likely violent reaction to the truth if the change had happened without giving them a choice. Hurray. The women get husbands who are willing to accept them as they are; the men get wives who are willing to put up with the isolation of a mining planet; the Enterprise gets the crystals it needs to function; and Harry Mudd gets a presumably fair trial.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd is obviously a conniving, selfish liar and con artist, but he's not trying to hurt anyone, and he's devoted to a life of leisure and flamboyance. That's hard to manage as the captain of a tiny ship drifting between the stars. It's not mentioned in the episode, but he must spend some of his time managing the ship and addressing its technical needs, and much of the rest looking out of viewports into the inky blackness of space.


Would you buy a used spaceship from this man?

Mudd's a ruffian, a scalawag, a scofflaw: a criminal to his bones… but he's relatable (we all know someone like him) and has managed to stay mentally sound, to be optimistic even, in a setting that could drive men mad. Humans are social creatures; we need each other to survive. Any sailor will say that ocean life is lonely; a starship is even more isolated — and yet Harry Mudd rejects companionship on his journeys.

It takes a strong will to maintain enough social skills to wheel and deal with those who are planetbound — and an even stronger one to be a maverick, obviously not following society's rules or moral standards, but in a way that says "I'm a rebel outlaw" rather than "I've been living alone for so long I've forgotten which fork is used for ice cream." 

I don't know that I'd like Harry Mudd in person, but I am certainly entertained by him at a distance. I admire his dedication to his chosen lifestyle, and the skills and mental strength he must have to pull it off.

Three and a half stars. It would be four, but there are no shirtless men in this episode.

The Message


by Robin Rose Graves

The introduction to "Mudd’s Women" is ripe with promise. Action and intrigue. How did these three otherworldly attractive women end up traveling with a space pirate like Mudd? And what makes them so irresistible that even a crew of professional men can’t help but gawk? These questions ensnared my initial interest, filled my head with theories. I was ultimately let down.

“Confidence is beauty” is the moral of the story upon the revelation that the pills did nothing to change the normal human girls’ appearances, but instead gave them confidence, leading to them being perceived as supernaturally beautiful. While I don’t disagree with the message, I was nonetheless disappointed. Confused, even, at how the show decided to depict the beauty of the women. Under the influence of the Venus pills, the girls have glamorous makeup and clothes. Once the pills wear off, the women are stripped of their make up and they, along with those around them, act as if they are appallingly homely looking. Otherwise, they appear the same as before, particularly to me, who still found the actresses chosen to play the parts to be attractive.


Disheveled, maybe… but ugly?

The overall message feels out of place in a science fiction world. It’s one that felt unchallenging compared to the better episodes we’ve seen thus far. The final act of the episode feels as if it could have happened in any mundane situation comedy program. I’m not opposed to science fiction tackling issues of our society (in fact science fiction at its strongest does) yet I felt this episode didn’t go far enough. Compare it to a favorite Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder” where the plot differs greatly, but the question answered remains the same – “What is beauty?”

“Eye of the Beholder” subverted expectations. The episode built you up to expect the main character to be as ugly as everyone around her treats her, only to reveal her face looks like ours but everyone around her has large noses, sunken in eyes, and puffy lips – what is considered attractive in their universe. Twilight Zone went to greater lengths than “Mudd’s Women” to challenge the beliefs of their viewers, and six years before Star Trek. I expected more from a show that has at its best moments challenged modern television programs, and the way the episode began promised more than what was delivered.

3 stars.

Clear as Mud


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Many moments in "Mudd’s Women" beg us to ask: are Eve, Ruth, and Magda property or people?

The episode follows a fairly simple structure: a chase, passengers rescued at great cost to the Enterprise necessitating an emergency refueling using fuel which Captain Kirk can only attain by trading the passengers’ lives, which he does. Or does he trade valuable cargo to the lithium miners of Rigel 12, with the cargo's willing consent?

The women explain what drove them from their home planets: hardship, unequal treatment, and a lack of hope for a real future. But we are not getting the whole story:

We discover that Mudd is supplying them with “Venus drugs,” that seem to alter the women’s appearances and charisma for a short time. Or do they? Towards the end of the episode, Kirk gives Eve a placebo pill without her informed consent and it has the same effect as the real thing. We are left to wonder: were the women’s transformations like those in The Man Trap, where Nancy Crater’s face aged depending on point of view? Or were these women actually aliens with a natural talent for appearing, as Erica described it as we watched, to have undergone a four hour hair and make-up treatment within moments of downing a sparkling pill?

Setting aside for a moment these mixed-up metaphysics, Eve, Ruth, and Magda clearly believe they need the drugs that Mudd controls access to. There is a harrowing scene where he goofily searches for more pills as the women rot and wither around him, bodies wracked with discomfort and with physical changes they believe they are powerless to control. This desperation and enforced dependency must color every other statement we hear from them about their consenting to their impending futures.

On Rigel 12, Mudd offers to trade Eve, Ruth, and Magda for his own freedom and crystals to fuel the Enterprise. What follows are several deeply upsetting scenes where Captain Kirk first refuses, and then — without any on-screen consultation with Eve, Ruth, or Magda — agrees to Mudd and the miners’ demands. Kirk transports them down to the mining camp to become wives of the miners. On the surface, we see a party where Magda asks a man to dance and men fight over her; a man asks Eve to dance and she says no, after which he publicly shames her for not consenting. Furious and distraught, Eve shouts: “Why don't you run a raffle and the loser gets me?” before running into a deadly sandstorm, with men baying after her.

Seven hours later, the miner who tried to shame Eve has her in his cave, where she is cooking for him. They fight, and he lays hands on her, only to growl: “I didn't touch her” when Captain Kirk and Mudd materialize, looking for lithium crystals. Moments later, Kirk gives Eve the placebo. Then he lectures her on womanhood and the importance of self-confidence before leaving.


“I didn't touch her.”

The episode ends without us seeing what became of Magda or Ruth. But we do see Kirk abandon Eve on a remote mining post with a violent man, taking Harry Mudd along with him for trial.

If Eve, Ruth, and Magda are “cargo,” then there is nothing wrong with Captain Kirk, Harry Mudd, or the miners’ actions. You cannot bruise a sexy automoton. Its tears have no meaning. It has no will or sense of adventure or right to privacy. It cannot yearn for freedom. But if Eve, Ruth, and Magda are people, then Mudd was cruel to withhold medical care they believed they needed; Captain Kirk was cruel to trade their bodies and lives for fuel; and the writers are cruel for writing a narrative that expected us to go along with it.

All in all, the metaphysics and the intended humanity of the women in this episode were as clear as mud.

One star.

(Will the next episode be better? Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) to find out!!)

Here's the invitation!



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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[October 6, 1966] One Trek, neat (The Naked Time)

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by Erica Frank

We return to our weekly adventures aboard the Enterprise, in the first episode that does not feature the dangers of psychic powers gone mad. We're still dealing with madness, of a sort — "The Naked Time" features people who have lost their self-control and run wild throughout the ship, endangering everyone on board.

The episode began with a trip to a planet on the verge of destruction; the Enterprise planned to record the event, collecting rare scientific data while avoiding being caught in its implosion. When they arrived, they found the on-planet base crew dead of mysterious causes. One bright fellow – we'll call him "Ensign Stupid" – takes off his gloves to scratch his nose while poking around the base, and he gets a scratch.


Ensign Stupid in his very fashionable orange-and-silver safety gear, completely undermining whatever protection it offered.

He catches a mysterious alien disease that eventually kills him, but first he manages to share it with several other crew members. One of them, Riley, starts singing old Irish ballads, takes over the engineering department, and locks the captain out of both control and communications. This would be funny if the ship weren't on a deadline: if the ship doesn't leave orbit before the implosion, the Enterprise will become part of the rubble.

Oh, and while that's going on, the disease is spreading: we see wild swashbuckling from Sulu, a heartfelt confession of love from Nurse Chapel, a tearful breakdown from the normally stoic Spock, and various drunken-seeming shenanigans from random crewmembers.


Nurse Chapel declares her love for Spock while clutching his hands in hers.

By the time the Captain regains control of the ship, it's too late for a safe departure; Riley's turned the warp engines completely off and they need to warm up. Scotty, the chief engineer, warns him: "I can't change the laws of physics. We've got to have thirty minutes." (They have eight minutes.) But Kirk has an idea: maybe they can jump-start them using antimatter… but for that, they need Spock sober enough to run the calculations for them.

In the end, Dr. McCoy figures out the problem – something on the planet converts water to "a complex chain of molecules" that acts like alcohol; it's transmitted through sweat. He injects people with a cure in time for Spock to manage the math for the risky maneuver; somehow, Kirk is the only person whose shirt gets torn during the vaccination.


Is this how vaccines are normally administered in the future? Or does the Federation just issue Kirk shirts with tear-away sleeves?

By the end of the episode:

We all hated Riley and his singing.
We all cheered for shirtless Sulu, even if he was being disruptive.
We were all fascinated by Spock's emotional outburst.

As usual, some details needed a bit of hand-waving to accept, but I will forgive quite a bit of "instant alien disease" and "having to remind security not to use lethal force on their crewmate" if it means I get to see dashing young men leap around with swords and without shirts.

I may start keeping a tally. Shirtless men in this episode: 1.25 (counting Kirk's torn shirt).

Five stars: the story moved fast and kept me engaged. I only noticed flaws later as I was trying to write up notes about it.

A Shocking Scene


by Janice L. Newman

This week’s episode was a departure, not only from the kinds of episodes we’ve seen from Star Trek so far, but from the kind of science fiction we’ve seen on television in general. There was no monster to fight, no human with special powers bent on taking over, no alien menace. The enemy, such as it was, came from within. (Which, coincidentally enough, sounds like next week’s episode title.)

A lot of interesting and character-revealing things happened during the show, but one moment stands out in my memory with a sharp clarity: the moment when science officer Mr. Spock, under the influence of a virus, breaks down. Although we don’t know Mr. Spock very well as a character yet, the scene was incredibly powerful. When was the last time you saw a man cry in a movie or TV show? I’m not talking about camera-friendly ‘manly’ tears when a comrade dies in a war flick, or the sniveling of a villain. I’m talking about a main character sitting down and sobbing, all while desperately trying not to.

Mr. Spock, as we learned this episode, is a half-human, half-alien person who fits into neither culture and has had to spend his whole life suppressing his emotions. He speaks of how he couldn’t tell his mother that he loved her, of his shame at his inability to control his feelings.

And yet, is this so very alien? Men are not supposed to cry, after all. Which was why it was so shocking to see Leonard Nimoy sit down and bawl onscreen, made even more compelling by his obvious struggle for control. Everyone has had that moment when they’re fighting back tears. Ironically, the ‘half-alien’ felt the most relatable and human of everyone in the episode.

It looks like I have a new favorite character. I’m looking forward to seeing more of “Mr. Spock” in future episodes.

Four and a half stars.

The Crew Stripped Bare

by Robin Rose Graves

This episode was an emotional whirlwind. I couldn’t help but laugh as Sulu rampaged the halls, sword in hand (as fun to watch as I imagine the actor had while filming it), and be irritated by Mr. Riley’s incessant singing.

Yet these moments are juxtaposed with two exceptionally serious and jarring scenes. Lt. Tormolen, the first to contract the disease, has a breakdown in which he questions humanity’s presence in space – wondering if they are doing more bad than good – quickly spiraling into taking his own life. This scene is emotionally impactful, despite the audience’s lack of familiarity with this character (though it seems to be a common pattern, introducing a new character who dies that episode) and raises a question I wish the episode, or series overall, took time to explore:

I am in favor of scientific discovery and am thrilled by the space travel depicted in the show. Yet I can’t help but question the consequences of such a journey. While Tormolen focused mostly on its impact on humanity, I wonder about the effect on alien lifeforms. Could our common cold be potentially lethal to other species? What if we accidentally introduce an invasive species on an alien world, dramatically changing their climate and causing it to be uninhabitable for its native species? Beyond physical issues, there's the possibility of destroying an alien culture just by contacting it.

But I digress.

It’s Spock’s breakdown that stood out most about this episode and led to significant revelations about his character. He’s half-human! Up until this point, Spock’s character has been entirely defined by his alien biology. As exemplified in the episode, during a medical exam he assures the doctor that the bizarre readings are perfectly normal for his species (though you’d hope medical staff on a ship like this would be well versed in the alien biology of its occupants). While some answers are given, more questions arise. Are interspecies relationships common? And judging by Spock’s revealed shame about his mixed identity, is Spock a Vulcan outcast? That would explain how he is the only Vulcan (and alien, for that matter) among a crew of all humans.

Despite how much I enjoyed this episode I can’t help but think it came too early in the season. This episode has grand revelations for characters we are meeting for the first time (i.e. Sulu, Scott, Chapel…even Tormolen). The episode would have been more impactful had we had a chance to know these characters before their deep secrets were revealed. Spock’s breakdown would have been all the more moving had we had more than three episodes with his character beforehand.

This episode would have been the perfect season finale, rewarding long time viewers with new details about the characters they’ve come to love and setting up promising new plots to explore within the next season. Even the unexpected (to the crew and viewers alike) time jump suggested an ending. It left me with a sense of peace, the opportunity for much needed healing after a particularly trying adventure and emotions rubbed raw. I have to wonder if this episode was moved up in the schedule for some reason.

Four stars…though easily could have been five.

Questioning Boldly Going


by Jessica Dickinson Goodman

I'd like to expand on an excellent point Robin brings up. Zoom in with me for a moment on just one line from this moving episode:

Lt. Tormolen: We bring pain and trouble with us, leave men and women stuck out on freezing planets until they die. What are we doing out here in space? Good? What good? We're polluting it, destroying it. We've got no business being out here. No business.

Lt. Tormolen’s monologue begs us to question the underpinnings of the Federation. We do not currently know if his nihilistic view of space exploration is accurate, though my optimistic heart hopes it is not. But his focus on the evils of expansionism felt particularly poignant to me today as I read of Botswana declaring independence. Last week, that hilly country joined 28 other nations who have declared themselves independent from the United Kingdom since the end of the Second World War. (Lest my friends across the pond complain that I am picking on them, below are the names of each imperial power, and the number of countries who have declared independence from them since September 2, 1945: France (26), Belgium (3), Japan (2), Italy (2), Spain (1), New Zealand (1), Malaysia (1), Saudi Arabia (1), and the Netherlands (1)).


Independence ceremony for Botswana

Were there people on Psi 2000 who could have declared independence from the Federation? Did they survive great wars too, before succumbing to frost and madness? Captain Kirk calls Psi 2000 “a wasteland” and perhaps the worlds in the universe of Star Trek are often barren of locally-evolved cultures.

I hope not. I loved watching Captain Kirk treat with the Thasians as equals in Charlie X and like other reviewers, was deeply affected by the half-Vulcan Commander Spock’s breakdown. The best moments of Star Trek so far have been when the crew strives to understand the vast diversity of the universe around them using what academics might call “cultural relativism” and I might call “voracious curiosity.”

Or, to quote Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s powerful anti-colonial novel Things Fall Apart (1958):

“The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”

I hope that, in Star Trek the worlds will have no end, and we will continue to explore both the stars and our reasons for reaching for them.

Five stars.

Score One for Star Trek


by Gideon Marcus

The latest Star Trek adventure takes us where some men have been before — the crew has settled into a consistent ensemble (though the second pilot, "Where No Man has Gone Before", was shown last week and must have been bewildering to folks tuning in); the fine director of "The Man Trap", Marc Daniels, returned as well.

But we got to see new sides of many characters, particularly Spock and Sulu, to a lesser degree Kirk. We were introduced to Nurse Chapel, who has an implied depth to her history that suggests this is not her first filmed episode even if it is her first appearance.

There are pacing issues.  I felt the second half of the episode was more riveting than the first.  There were scientific issues, particularly the collapsing planet.  The casual introduction of time travel was shocking — is Star Trek about to become Time Tunnel?


"My chronometer…it's running…backward!"

A few things stood out to me as truly superlative, though.  Janice mentioned Nimoy's tour de force portraying Spock's breakdown (which Robin notes came a little too early in the season for full impact).  What thoroughly impressed me was the scoring for the episode: The Irish-tinged phrases for Riley.  The "disease theme", punctuated with snake rattles that indicated transmission.  The entire suite from when Kirk reenters the bridge at the end, all the way to the end of the episode.  I wish I'd taped it on reel-to-reel for later listening as I have with the music from Secret Agent.  I'll have to do that during the summer reruns.  Or perhaps they'll release a soundtrack album a la Victory at Sea.

I liked that all of the bridge crew were cross-trained.  Both Uhura and Rand took the important navigation and helm stations, reinforcing that women are not just auxiliary crew in the future, but full-braid officers.  I wonder if we'll see female ship captains in future episodes.

And it's a small thing, but I really appreciated the exchange between Kirk and Uhura when, tempers frayed, they snap at one another.  Kirk then apologizes, and Uhura smiles in forgiveness.  It was a very human, very professional interaction.

Four stars.

(P.S. Has anyone else noticed that one of the themes in this episode's soundtrack sounds a lot like a common refrain in Twelve O' Clock High? I think I heard it in "The Cage" as well.)

(Join us tonight at 8:30 PM (Pacific AND Eastern — two showings) for the next episode of Star Trek!)

Here's the invitation!



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TV

[May 26, 1966] Batman: So Bad It's Good?

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by Erica Frank

I have been greatly enjoying the new Batman tv series. Campy costumes, over-the-top acting, wacky super-science gizmos, silly plots, the chance to see several of my favorite comic book characters on a screen; it's all good fun.

Batman and Robin running toward the viewer

Na na na na na na na na…

…It is not, however, amazing storycrafting, believable characters, thoughtful worldbuilding, or plausible traps and clever solutions. This is definitely a "kick your feet up and relax your brain before watching" show. If you have some favored intoxicants, you may wish to indulge in them first. Trust me. It'll help.

The Batman Drinking Game

The best way to watch this show: Before it starts, get yourself a beer, glass of wine, or couple of shots of something harder. Every time you see a gizmo that can't actually work as shown, take a sip. Every time Robin says, "Holy [something]!," take a sip. When either of the Dynamic Duo is trapped, take a sip; if they're both trapped, take two. Every time a supposedly valuable item, like a museum statue, is destroyed during the obligatory heroes-vs-thugs slugfest, take another sip. By the time the show is over, you'll be pleasantly relaxed—unless you actually know much about science and technology, in which case, you'll have left "relaxed" in the dust and be on your way to "blitzed."

This is not a show for careful thinking. This is a show for enjoying nostalgic thoughts about your childhood heroes and watching them climb up buildings so they can beat up the bad guys in a large warehouse room.

Batman and Robin climbing a wall using a batarang cord

I don't know what that cord is made of, but I bet the US military would love to get their hands on it.

The show's opening has cartoon Batman and Robin tackling cartoon villains; a few old favorites like the Joker are visible, but most are nameless thugs. The theme song is catchy (and simple, which you'll need if you're playing the drinking game). It works nicely as a reminder that this isn't a serious crime drama—it's a live-action version of comic books, full of goofy technology, ridiculous villain shenanigans, and grandiose gizmo-speak solutions to bizarre plots.

Our Heroes and Villains

Adam West portrays both Bruce Wayne and Batman as polite, honest, and serene to the point of parody. He is very safety-conscious: he insists that Robin fasten his "bat-seatbelt" for a trip of only a few blocks. (He has a lot of bat-gear. A plethora of bat-gear. Everything Batman uses is bat-themed.) He's prone to saying things like, "This is just the first stitch in a large tapestry of crime." Yet he never seems angry, just disappointed that so many people have turned to villainy instead of hard work. At no point does he ponder that being born a millionaire might have some impact on his ideas of how easy it is to find gainful employment.

Burt Ward's Robin is excitable and clever; he's the one who figures out most of the riddles and other puzzles they face. When he's Dick Grayson, he's an ordinary teenager, albeit one with less interest in dating than most teens I've known. Robin, we are informed, is not old enough to get a driver's license. I don't know what the driving age in Gotham is; it's 16 in California and most other states. Robin is apparently a very mature 14 or 15. We pick up a few extra details about him: He speaks Spanish and French but struggles with algebra. At one point, the villains putting him in a complex trap mentioned that he weighs 132 pounds and 10 ounces. He and Bruce are often shown engrossed in intellectual pursuits.

Bruce and Dick playing 3-d chess

Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson playing 3-dimensional chess, just before Alfred gives Dick advice that lets Bruce checkmate him.

The two of them live with Alfred, their butler, who is in on the big secret, and Dick's Aunt Harriet Cooper, who is not. She's under the impression that Bruce and Dick go on a lot of fishing trips. Overnight fishing trips, in some cases. She must be Dick's mother's sister. Or maybe she's a widow, and was Harriet Grayson in her youth. (Bruce also calls her "Aunt Harriet," so maybe she's his aunt.) Dick's parents aren't mentioned, but obviously his origin story isn't quite the same as in the comics—while the murder of Bruce's parents is mentioned, nothing is said about Dick's time before he lived at "stately Wayne Manor."

Batman and Robin regularly cooperate with the police: Commissioner Gordon, whom we know from the comics, and Chief O'Hara, new to the tv show, are both happy to turn over all the super-villain crimes to our heroes. The entire police department is grateful for the costumed crimefighters. I'm not sure whether the officers are horribly incompetent, or just happy to have someone else get strapped to the inside of a giant bell.

Each story is two episodes, with the first ending on a potentially fatal cliffhanger. (Often, Robin in a death trap.) The seventeen stories—34 episodes—of the first season involve several infamous villains from the comics and a small handful of new ones. The Riddler, played by Frank Gorshin, appears four times. His cackling is delightful.

The Riddler, laughing

"Riddle me this: What is it that no man wants to have, but no man wants to lose?"

Burgess Meredith as the Penguin and Cesar Romero as the Joker each showed up three times. Catwoman, the Mad Hatter, Mr. Freeze, and False Face each appeared once, although some of them didn't quite match their comic versions. The tv series also brought in three new villains: Zelda the Great, King Tut, and Bookworm.

The “Villainesses”

Only two of the villains Batman faces are women: Zelda the Great and Catwoman.

Zelda the Great is a woman magician trying to steal a million dollars; she partnered with someone who wants to kill Batman. While they successfully trapped Batman and Robin, at the last moment, she warned them about a pair of hidden assassins with guns. The Caped Crusaders prevailed, and she and her gang were arrested. However, as a result of her change of heart, Bruce Wayne offered her a job when she gets out of prison: a position in one of the Wayne Foundation's children's hospitals as a regular performer.

Catwoman, played by Julie Newmar, purrs and hisses and slinks her way through her cat-themed crimes.  Batman and Robin tracked her by covering a golden cat statue with a radioactive spray—but she was prepared; she knew they were coming and set up a trap. (The show has a lot of traps.) Batman defeated her deadly tiger by putting on his bat-earplugs (…take a drink) and then "reverses the polarity on his communicator," which, for some reason, is activated by a large button under his belt buckle, and then "increases the audio modulation to about 20,000 decibels" to disable the large cat. (Take another drink.)

Catwoman and her two henchmen

Catwoman and her henchmen, Leo and Felix. Neither of them escapes with her.

Did I mention not to watch this show for the science? Please, do not watch this show for the science.

Later in that episode: Robin awakens on a plank, balanced precariously over a pit of tigers. Looking around wildly, he declares, "Catwoman—You are not a nice person!"

Don't watch this show for the witty dialogue, either. Interesting dialogue, sometimes. But it falls short of "witty," even for pun-laden satire.

Plenty of Failure to Go Around

My friends here at the Journey don't think much of the show. Batman does not hold up well under the thoughtful analysis we normally do; it's packed with stereotypes, clichés, and all characters' endless failures to see the obvious. The women are almost all overly emotional: fearful, soft-hearted, and unwilling to see even their enemies hurt. (Catwoman is a notable exception—she shows no mercy to Batman or Robin, betrays her own sidekick, and falls, possibly to her doom, rather than lose her ill-gotten gains.) The crime-adventure stories rely on the melodramatic villains to distract you from their nonsensical plans. The show has a breathtaking ability to casually throw around horribly inaccurate details about law, finance, city life, fashion, and every possible aspect of science.

Batman holding a scroll, Robin standing over his shoulder

The answer to the riddle: A lawsuit… which Batman has received in the form of a scroll.

And yet. It manages to be fun. (Are you not having fun yet? You may need another drink. Perhaps a pipe loaded with something a bit stronger than tobacco.)

This is not a show to watch as an analytical reviewer, looking for insights into the human condition or the nature of society. This is not a show to watch as a serious science fiction fan, looking for innovative uses of technology to solve ancient problems. This is a show to watch as a tired reviewer, as a jaded science fiction fan, who has read a hundred books that earnestly bludgeon the reader with astute pontifications and idealized future societies where somehow, all the important people are well-educated white men who speak English.

Bruce Wayne is well-educated, rich, white, smart, talented, physically fit, noble-minded, law-abiding, conscientious, and respected by his community—the perfect classic science fiction protagonist. And he is ridiculous.

Batman dancing

Batman shows off his "Batusi" dance moves at the new discotheque, "What a Way to Go-Go."

The entire show is ridiculous.

Bat Poles to the Batcave

Bruce, being a fully-grown adult, has a thicker pole than Dick.

Are you having fun yet? Robin's having fun, if we allow "fun" to mean "unconscious under the influence of strange pharmaceuticals." Robin has a lot of "fun" in this show.

Riddler leaning over Robin in the Batmobile

The Riddler is not actually kissing Robin. Probably. Almost certainly. He's just checking to see if the poison dart knocked him unconscious.

Tune in next season, same bat-time, same bat-channel, and I'll see if I can find some value in this series other than open mockery of too-serious approaches to science and technology. Even if I can't—even if all we get is silly costumes and clichéd gimmicks and Robin tied to increasingly implausible devices—I know I'll be watching the rest of the episodes.

Of course one of the songs on the Journey's radio station is the Batman theme. So tune in to KGJ, our radio station, and see if you can catch it!




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Book, Fashion, music, politics, sports

[April 12, 1966] The Degenerate Modern Era

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by Erica Frank

Interesting Times

It's been a tumultuous half a year since my last article. In that time, the world of music and activism has grown tremendously. Joan Baez has released a new album with several anti-war songs and has relentlessly protested against the Vietnam war. Ken Kesey has begun his "Acid Test" concert-parties in San Francisco, and the headline band is often the Grateful Dead, formerly known as the Warlocks. Timothy Leary was arrested for pot smuggling – maybe he should've stuck to the more legal LSD. Poll taxes are now illegal, and formerly-obscene racy novel Fanny Hill is now protected by the first amendment and can be freely published. In the midst of all these political and social changes, Time Magazine is asking, "Is God Dead?" raising cries of "blasphemy" from conservative preachers across the nation.

Time Cover: Is God Dead?

Time Magazine, April 8 1966, asking the hard questions.

It is at that last point where I wish to begin, because I feel entirely qualified to answer that question: No, God is not dead; God is a female and Her name is Eris, Goddess of Discord.

The Best of All One True Religions

I can say this confidently because I have come into possession of the new scripture for our age, the Principia Discordia, or, How the West Was Lost, "beeing the Officiale Handebooke of the Difcordian Societye and A Beginning Introdyctun to The Erisian Misterees."

Yes, as is common with many of the younger folk involved in today's spiritual movements, I have apparently fallen prey to a religious cult, this one centered around the divine principles of Disorder and Chaos.

Sacred Chao of Eris

The Sacred Chao, drawing on the Taoist "yin and yang" symbolism–a circle divided into the Hodge and Podge, with a Pentagon on the Hodge side and the Golden Apple of Discord on the Podge side.

Principia was written by "Malaclypse (the Younger), Omniscient Polyfather of Virginity-in-gold" and "Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, Bull Goose of Limbo and Protector of Switzerland" in 1963; they distributed copies made on Jim Garrison's Xerox printer. Garrison is a New Orleans lawyer with a penchant for going after corrupt judges: a laudable goal, but likely a frustrating career choice. I can understand why his office assistants might pray to spirits of Chaos.

The Principia describes what we know of Eris (not much, but that she was worshipped by the ancient Greeks as goddess of strife and discord, and the Romans thereby named her Discordia) and her part in the Myth of the Apple of Discord – a retelling of the Greek myth of the start of the Trojan war. Much of the fable is lost in my copy of the book, alas. Perhaps later editions will contain the complete text.

The Discordian Society purports to provide false but comforting answers to questions like, "why do today's leaders ignore the principles of science and instead embroil us all in totalitarianism and war?" It promotes "unworkable principles of discord" with the intent of providing a workshop for the insane, and thus keeping them out of the mischief they can create as "Presidents, Ambassadors, Priests, Ministers and other Dictators."

I love this book. Five golden apples. Please, seek out a copy at a bookstore near you, or demand to have one provided instead of a bible when you check into a hotel.

The Psychedelic Revolution

No religious movement would be complete without its music, and the music of the Age of Chaos is, in a word, "trippy." As in, it is often accompanied by acid trips, the experience of being under the influence of LSD. Kesey and his Merry Pranksters are at the heart of the psychedelic movement, and the Grateful Dead – formerly the Warlocks – are playing its tunes.

Can You Pass the Acid Test? Poster

Can YOU pass the Acid Test? Poster for one of Ken Kesey's events. Possibly used as an actual test: if the spiral starts spinning, it's working!

In January, they played at the Filmore in San Francisco. From that set, "Death Don't Have No Mercy" is memorable – somber and poignant. In February, they were at the Ivar Theater and played "I Know You Rider," a traditional folk ballad that's one of their staples. Their version as The Warlocks was heavier on drums, more "rock" and less "folk blues."  Their bluesy-rock music with long instrumental sections is the perfect background for Kesey's entirely legal, if a little unorthodox, LSD experiments.

But the Grateful Dead aren't the only ones directing the swirling energies of modern life into something more profound. Joan Baez's newest album, "Farewell, Angelina," includes both the anti-war title song, written by Bob Dylan, and "Sagt Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind" – Pete Seeger's German translation of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

She is in West Germany right now, involved in the Easter peace demonstrations. She and her fellow marchers are trying to get governments around the world to realize that we cannot solve problems caused by poverty, fear, and violence by creating more of all three.

Wherein the Law Is Less of an Ass Than Usual

While we among the lunatic fringe are often at odds with our governments (especially when those governments are dedicating incredible amounts of our tax dollars toward killing people whom we don't want dead), occasionally we get a bright moment, a win for tolerance and a step toward true democracy. This past month, we have had both.

On March 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Virginia's state poll tax was unconstitutional. Harper vs Viriginia State Board of Elections brought some of the protections of the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act to state laws. Justice Douglas delivered the ruling, including:

[T]he interest of the State, when it comes to voting, is limited to the power to fix qualifications. Wealth, like race, creed, or color, is not germane to one's ability to participate intelligently in the electoral process.

The court noted that the state may decide who is qualified to vote, based on reasonable criteria. States may disagree about the age of adulthood, or which crimes are so terrible that committing one removes a person's right to vote. But states do not have the right to declare soldiers non-residents, nor to apportion representatives differently for urban and rural areas. And now, it is established that "Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth nor to paying or not paying this or any other tax."

Poll Tax Receipt from 1966

Poll tax receipt from Alabama, showing a fee of $3–the price of a pair of sneakers–to vote for the year. Anyone who misplaced their receipt would not be permitted to vote.

No more shutting people out of voting because they're poor… or because their wallet was recently stolen… or because of a fire in their home… or because the receipt got damaged… or because the election official decided it was illegible… or whatever other excuse a district had decided on, as a way to keep anyone who wasn't white and wealthy away from the polls.

More Books to Read

Tom Lehrer fans rejoice! On March 21st, we scored a victory for smut: Cleland's Fanny Hill, also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, originally published in 1749, is now legal to distribute throughout the US. Memoirs vs Massachusetts overturned the ban in Massachussets which followed the ban (and removal thereof) in New York.

The court ruled that the book has obvious literary and historical value, proving that it cannot be held obscene by the Roth test, and that since it is not linked to any illegal activities, there is no justifiable reason to censor it. The no-longer-obscene racy novel is now available to be printed by any publisher that cares to do the typesetting… and is willing to accept the hit to their reputation.

Fanny Hill paperback front and back covers

Includes the New York State Supreme Court decision – possibly even Desmond's dissent, which points out that "it describes to the last intimate physical detail numerous instances not only of prostitution but of voyeurism, transvestism, homosexuality, lesbianism, flogging, seduction of a boy, etc., etc."

Speaking of "reputation for publishing the wrong books"… Ace has been soundly castigated for their unauthorized editions of Lord of the Rings. The backlash against Ace was strong enough that they have offered repayment to Tolkien (which he has accepted), and have agreed to stop publishing and not reprint the book. Ballantine is now publishing fully authorized versions that pay royalties, and they are selling as fast as stores can get them.

However, it's likely that, without Ace's bold (and arguably unethical) plan, we would never have seen these books in paperback. Tolkien had initially refused to publish them in "so degenerate a form," and it is likely US publishers declined to republish in hardcover, as they didn't believe a big enough market existed. The hardcover books were a whopping $5.95 each; the Ace paperbacks were 75 cents. Ballantine's paperbacks, which factor royalties into their price, are 95 cents.

The hardcovers sold an estimated 15,000 copies… the paperbacks have sold almost eight times that many in a handful of months. So let's give a cheer for degenerate publishing and hope for a long and happy future of access to forbidden books!




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Book

[September 10, 1965] So Many Thews (Lin Carter's The Wizard of Lemuria)

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by Erica Frank

A Bewildering Epic of Tiny Proportions

ACE Books is practically synonymous with "science fiction," but they also put out quite a bit of fantasy (for instance, most of the works of Andre Norton). The newest addition to their stable of fantasy authors is Lin Carter. His first foray into book-length (barely) work is, shall we say, ambitious…

The book is titled The Wizard of Lemuria but we don't meet the wizard until Chapter 4. There are 12 chapters. The first quarter of the novella-length book is spent introducing our hero, Thongor of Valkarth. He is, although a lowly barbarian mercenary, both mighty and honorable.

The book opens on the aftermath of a wager on a zamph race. Jeled Malkh—an officer and swordmaster—lost the wager, and attacked Thongor rather than pay up. Thongor quickly overcame him, shrugged off the bet, and offered to drink away their differences. Jeled refused and fought dirty, yet Thongor overcame him again, and again, offered him peace.

Very mighty. Very honorable. A man who doesn't like to kill other men, even cheating men.

Jeled Malkh accepted his offer of peace—then betrayed Thongor, stabbing him and throwing him in a cell. Thongor spends a lot of time in cells. Mighty he may be; clever he is not.

Cover for The Wizard of Lemuria
Gray Morrow's cover shows Thongor fighting a grakk from his air boat made of urlium, the weightless metal.

Thongor has friends, though, and one of them got him out of the cell. On his way out of town, he managed to steal an alchemist's experimental airboat. Thus equipped with exotic and fast transport, he aimed for the distant land of Kathool and promptly fell asleep.

He awoke to an attack by lizard-hawks, which battle you may see depicted on the book cover. Thongor did mightily well against them, as is his wont, but the boat was unmoving because its rotors had run down. Also, the winds had blown the boat far into the great jungle of Chush, and below him was one of the mighty dwarks, a jungle-dragon. In the ensuing fight, the boat crashed and he became lost in the jungle.

What would he do during the long watches of the night, still many hours away, when every dreaded predator of the jungles would be out roaming for food? How could he protect himself from the swift-footed poa that could out-race even a trained zamph—or from the man-eating zemedar with its six great arms—or the gigantic flying spiders?

His situation by night would be doubly dangerous, for due to the prevalence of slith in the trees, he would not be able to climb them and avoid the beasts.

By 25 pages into this story, I already had to keep track of twelve species, seven locations (not counting Lemuria itself), three status-related titles, and two deities. Four of these things would never be mentioned again.

Map of Lemuria
Not labeled on the map: the rivers Ysaar and Saan; the Mountains of Mommur surrounding the Dragon Isles; Sharimba, the "mightiest" mountain the range; Zharanga Tethrabaal, the Great Ocean; Neol-Shendis, the "Inner Sea" where the Dragon Isles lie.

Chapter 4 is where the actual plot began. Thongor was rescued by the Great Wizard of Lemuria, Sharajsha, who offers him a job: Help the wizard re-forge the great dragon-slaying sword and take on the remnants of the Dragon Kings, who are due to rise again and attempt to destroy the universe.

Fortunately, Sharajsha is wise, clever, talented, and resourceful, all traits that Thongor lacks. (Thongor, however, has mighty thews—iron thews, we are told—which is exactly what Sharajsha needs to face down the Dragon King hordes.) Sharajsha fixed up the damaged flying boat, and added a new mechanism, so that when one spring winds down, it winds up the other, so it will never again be left without power. With this perpetual motion machine neatly handwaved into existence, they set off on their journey together.


John Keely and one of his fraudulent perpetual motion motors, c. 1890

During their travels, Thongor acquires an ally, a Tsargolian nobleman named Karm Karvus, who was always referred to by both names, and princess/queen/Sarkaja Sumia, a beautiful woman whose throne had been usurped by evil priests.

I'm going to bypass the bulk of their adventures. The recurring sequence of events is: When Thongor gets himself captured (again), his allies in the flying ship look for the biggest scene of carnage and mayhem in the city to find and rescue him. 

Musical Interlude

Each chapter of the book begins with an excerpt of poetry (save one that opens with literature). These are Epic Tales of Battle and Legendary Feats of Yore. They are obviously intended to be sung, or at least recited with something of a tune, to make them easy for a non-literate culture to remember. I do not know what tunes Thongor and his friends may have used for them, but I have found music that works for each of them.

The War Song of the Valkarthan Swordsmen, Thongor sings in battle; he must be formidable indeed if he can hack and stab his way through swarms of enemies while keeping enough breath to belt out a tune.

"All day our swords drank deep and long
Of blood wine-red, of blood wine-strong!
Tonight in the red halls of hell
We'll feast with foes and friends as well!"

As you can clearly see, this sings beautifully to "Greensleeves," and I choose to believe that the tune is much older than originally believed.

Thongor's Saga is presumably written after the conclusion of the book.

"The sliding hiss of scales on stone,
Weird green-flame eyes in shadows black,
When Thongor faced the slorgs alone
And cold steel drove the nightmares back!"

This works nicely with "Greensleeves" as well, which is fitting, as Valkarthians probably don't have the imagination to use different tunes for their war-songs.

Diombar's Song of the Last Battle describes how the Dragon Kings were defeated several thousand years ago.

"From wild red dawn to wild red dawn
    we held our iron line
And fought till the blades broke in our hands
    and the sea ran red as wine.
With arrow, spear and heavy mace
    we broke the Dragon's pride,
Thigh-deep in the roaring sea we fought,
    and crimson ran the tide."

This is more complex, and needs a tune with more variety. It scans wonderfully to the theme song from Gilligan's Island.

The Rituals of Yamath, chanted while making offerings to the God of Fire:

"The naked virgins on thine altars plead
As scarlet flame on pallid flesh doth feed!
Lord of the Fire, drink down young lives like wine—
Hearts, limbs and breasts—their very souls—are thine!"

This was harder to track down, as iambic pentameter is common for poetry, not songs. However, I did verify that "Battle of New Orleans" works nicely. The sacrifices in the book happened long before 1814, so they must have originally used a different tune.

The Scarlet Edda, which contains the prophecy the wizard fears.

"Lords of Chaos dark the sky:
All the Sons of Men shall die.
Dragon-rune and blood of men:
Portals ope—to close again?
Naught can make the Portals fade,
Save the Sword by lightning made."

As is appropriate for such an otherworldly subject, it can be sung to "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me."


Now you, too, can sing along with Sharajsha as he describes the impending doom of Lemuria.

Words of Wizardry

The vocabulary is downright dizzying. Five of "the nineteen gods" are mentioned by name; one is a goddess. At least 12 cities are mentioned; more than half of them are only mentioned once or twice, and they are not visited. The vorn is a measure of distance: 5,555 "strides," claimed to be roughly the same as our mile. You might expect that distances are only measured in vorn, but no: while the Mountains of Mommur are "a stupendous wall of rock almost two thousand vorn in length," the Inner Sea is "[l]ocked in by miles of mountains"—those exact same mountains.

The various species and cultures of Lemuria are more interesting than Thongor's adventures, which can be summarized as, "Thongor meets great danger; Thongor kills great danger; Thongor is overwhelmed by even greater danger but his friends come to his aid; Thongor then slays the source of the great danger."

A Lemurian Bestiary and Herbarium

Three different creatures have the honor of being the worst monster in Lemuria: the grakks, the drawks, and the zemadar. The grakks and drawks are tied for "fiercest and most deadly fighters," while the "man-eating" zemadar is "the most dreaded." (I don't know why they're called "man-eating." It seems that all the creatures and some of the plants eat men.)

Note: Some creatures are italicized. Some are not. I could not find any pattern in this.

Bouphar, animal: Possibly cow-like. Common food animal, often roasted; also used for leather. The meat is called "beef."

Dream-Lotus, plant: A flower with sedative properties; it works on men and beasts. "One grain [of the dust] will transport a man to the dreamworlds… for many hours."

Dwark, animal: Giant forest dragon found in Chush: 200' long armored body, 60' long neck, and teeth longer than Thongor's sword.

Grakk, animal: Lizard-hawk, a giant predatory flying creature, with 40' batlike wings and a barbed tail. The young are called grakklets.

Lotifer, plant: Huge trees in Chush, sometimes 200 yards tall. All seem infested with slith

Photh, animal: Its skin is used for making scarlet leather pouches.

Poa, animal: Fast predator in the jungle of Chush

Sarn, plant: Berries found in the jungle of Chush, used for making a wine popular in Thurdis.

Slith, plant: Deadly vampire flowers that cover the trees in Chush; they are used for executions in Thurdis. They have "soft petals like a yawning mouth, laying bare the triple rows of hollow fangs."

Slorg, animal: Dreaded woman-headed serpent of Lemuria's deserts. These are near-mindless beasts, that attack in swarms. They have green flame eyes.

Spider, giant flying, animal: Yet another danger in Chush. This one does not make an appearance.

Waterfruit, plant: Fruit from Chush, small enough to be eaten by the handful.

Wolf, green, animal: Sharajsha has a book bound in the fur of a green wolf.

Zamph, animal: Somewhat-draconic creature used for riding or racing. It is a descendent of the triceratops, and somewhat resembles a rhinoceros. The reins are attachehed to iron rings that pierce the ears, the only portion of it that is sensitive to pain. Sharajsha's is wide enough to seat two people.

Zemadar, animal (also spelled zemedar): The shape is never described. It has six arms (plus some number of legs), a triple row of foot-long fangs with poison that instantly paralyzes, a barbed tail, and is very fast; described as a "crimson juggernaut." One of these was the "Terror of the Arena" in Tsargol. It is only vulnerable at the eyes.

But is it any good?

The book is surprisingly readable considering how packed it is with specialized vocabulary, including terms that are only mentioned once. Thongor's story, although rather predictable, contains powerful imagery; this book would do well converted to a movie or comic series.

As a book, however… the plot is cliched; the men are stereotypes; the woman is devoid of personality; the outcome is exactly as expected. Two stars, and half of one of those was probably the fun of singing Diombar's song to "Gilligan's Island."

[Speaking of books, Journey Press now has three excellent titles for your reading pleasure! Why not pick up a copy or three? Not only will you enjoy them all — you'll be helping out the Journey!]




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Movies

[April 20, 1965] Less Satanic Than Expected (John Sturges' The Satan Bug)

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by Erica Frank

When I heard about the new movie, The Satan Bug, I was excited. I have a deep interest in the occult and "lunatic fringe" religions, so I was looking forward to something exotic. I expected it'd be a horror movie with no real research behind it, but I hoped for a verse or two of Aleister Crowley's poem, Hymn to Satan, or perhaps a mention of Anton Lavey's occult workshops in San Francisco.

Poster for The Satan Bug with the tagline, Since time began, man has hunted the ultimate evil... now the search is over!
Maybe it involves alchemy? An evil sorcerer's laboratory? Souls extracted from bodies and poured into a beaker?

Alas; it was not to be. Once I saw the trailer, I realized this is not a story about a giant demon-possessed insect, nor is it a hellish romance inspired by Roy Orbison's song, With the Bug. Instead, it's a mystery-thriller centered around a bioengineered killer disease.

Middle-Aged Men in Suits

The story opens in a remote government scientific laboratory with extensive security measures. (Station 3 is "the most secret chemical warfare establishment on this hemisphere," we discover later.) Mr. Reagan (pronounced ree-gan, not ray-gan like the actor from last year's The Killers) is the "Washington guy." He arrives by helicopter and gets checked in at the gate, and the guards know him personally. Doctor Ostrer is just leaving as Reagan arrives, but arranges to speak with him in the morning. Reagan goes through multiple checkpoints inside as well. The actual lab has thick vault doors with a timer at night; there's no way to get in once they shut.

Three doctors are present: Doctor Baxter, who is in charge, Doctor Hoffman, and Doctor Yang. I hoped this wouldn't be a case of "the Asian fellow is the villain" – and it was not! Instead, we see Doctor Yang for less than thirty seconds and he never appears again.

After showing off the security measures for several minutes, we get a moment of suspense: Reagan tells Dr. Baxter that Washington is worried. Doctor Baxter points to the flask on his desk and says, "What they're really worried about is that." Reagan asks him to get some rest, and warns him that mistakes could be worse than deadly here.

Two men talk in a science lab. One of them indicates the red-topped flask on the table in front of him.
We don't yet have a name for the red-topped flask, just the awareness that a very tired scientist is staring at it in frustration.

By morning, although they don't know all of this yet, Reagan is dead, Ostrer is dead, Baxter is dead, several flasks are missing, and they've called in a special investigator: Lee Barrett. He's a former US Intelligence officer who quit because "war had aged him so fast" he felt "too old to play with toys." Barrett is a rebel, an extremely competent man who doesn't cooperate with authority. Coincidentally, he formerly worked at Station 3.

The Handsome Hero

The subterfuge of Barrett's introduction is a delightful lagniappe of a spy-thriller story: To bring him into an active case, first they had to test his loyalty with a fake job from the World Peace Organization: "Deliver this flask of botulinus vaccine–don't ask how we got it–to this address in Europe." Barrett is very clever and immediately spots the scam: Vaccines aren't stored at Station 3 and he personally knows the loathsome fellow who's behind the World Peace Organization.

Once he's established as "loyal, although insubordinate," he's brought to Station 3, where he chats with one of the security guards before looking at the crime scene. This shows that Barrett has true investigator talents: He knows who notices the details that will matter, and he trusts Johnson's judgment.

Barrett talks with his friend Johnson, a Black security guard
Jonhson: "Mr Tasserly says, and Mason, he swears, that nobody got into E Lab. But I don't think Reagan committed suicide in there." Barrett agrees.

Barrett quickly establishes how the murderer escaped, and realizes he must've gotten in through the crates of "lab equipment" that came in yesterday. That means there was inside help, but sorting that out can wait. The real risk is not the lives of the base personnel, but the release of the chemical weapons being developed in E Lab. Dr. Hoffman insists the lab must be destroyed immediately, before opening the vault doors.

Our Villain: A Small Jar

Hoffman first discusses the dangers of the previously mentioned botulinus. He explains, "We have 1200 grams in six flasks. If ten grams of it were allowed to contaminate a city, that city is a morgue in four hours. It is an… ideal weapon, God forgive the phrase, because it destroys only people. And it oxidizes itself, in effect, dies–disappears–after eight hours."

Any persons with medical training should be warned not to laugh, as the music here indicates tension and danger. A virus that vanishes literally overnight cannot reach all the people in a city unless the initial distribution is perfectly and widely dispersed; air does not instantly reach all places in a city. After an initial tragic wave of deaths, people hiding indoors would avoid the rest of the attack. People driving to hospitals might never arrive, and not have the chance to infect anyone else in the few hours they have. It would indeed be a super-weapon, but not the catastrophic one the movie seems to imply.

Such a virus could never happen in nature, as it would kill its host and then die itself. The disease cannot spread by normal routes–eight hours is not a very long contagious period, if it can be spread by bodies. Four hours for spreading via a living host is even less time. 

Barrett points out this means the base is safe; the vault door was closed last night. Dr. Hoffman then reveals a new danger: "It is only three weeks since Doctor Baxter refined it, and only three days since he communicated its existence to anyone." Another chemical weapon, an airborne virus, but unlike botulinus, this one is "self-perpetuating, indestructible," and may last forever. "To this virus," he says, "we have given a highly unscientific name, but one which describes it perfectly: The Satan Bug."

Hoffman continues: "If I took the flask that contained it and exposed it to the air, everyone here would be dead in a few seconds. California would be a tomb in a few hours. In a week, all life, and I mean all life, would cease in the United States. In two months, two months at the most, the trapper in Alaska, the peasant from the Yangtze, the aborigine in Australia–dead. All dead, because I crushed the flask, and exposed a green-colored liquid to the air."

Barret holding the Satan Bug flask while standing in a river.
This must be some newfangled definition of "green" with which I am unfamiliar. But you can still tell it's worse than the other flasks of deadly disease, because the cap is red.

Satan Must Be Anti-Science

At this point, I questioned Dr. Hoffman's medical credentials, because the idea of an airborne virus that would kill all eighteen million people in California in hours is ridiculous. It really doesn't matter how deadly the disease is, nor how resilient: the air just doesn't move that fast.

California spans over a thousand miles from north to south. At five hours–a reasonable estimate of "a few"–the bug would need to travel at 200 mph to cover the state. I don't know where my readers reside, but I assure you: California is not normally wracked by 200-mile-an-hour winds. Perhaps he means "if it started in the middle." In which case, we only need 100 mph winds, which are also exceedingly rare. Or we could say that 20 hours is "a few," but still short enough from a day that he wouldn't use that. To cover 500 miles in 20 hours, the bug needs to travel at 25 mph. Certainly we get winds that fast… but not constantly, and not covering the full length of the state.

Moving on to his claim about a week to cover the entire United States: 2800 miles wide, 168 hours: 16.666 miles per hour. (AHA! There's our Satan reference!) But the wind does not consistently blow at that speed, nor do breezes from one area reach every other part of the country.  Winds from the California coast reach Oklahoma and New York, sometimes quickly – but they hardly get to Montana at all.

Jet stream picture from Palm Sunday, 1965
The Jetstream on April 11, showing the cause of one of the worst tornado incidents in history: 12 tornadoes touched down in 4 hours; over 50 people were killed and several hundred injured.

Danger! Action! Gunshots! (but no blood)

Having established the extreme danger, our hero Barrett (you know he's the hero; he's younger and better-looking than all the other men in the movie) volunteers to go into the lab to find if there's a spill. He makes sure the other men are armed and ready to shoot him if he is exposed. How they're going to kill him and close the glass doors if the disease kills "in seconds," I don't know. But it doesn't matter, because of course the disease has not been spilled in the lab; it's been stolen. They identify the mastermind behind the theft as a Mr. Ainsley, a mysterious wealthy man who vanished several months ago.

Thus begins the chase-and-action portion of the film: tracking down leads, car chases, abductions, and a hint of romance. (An old friend of Barrett's shows up; she sometimes has a useful suggestion, but mostly serves to give him someone to explain what he's figured out.) One flask of botulinus is rigged with a bomb, somewhere in Los Angeles. The men assigned to help Barrett mostly die, because he is faster, smarter, and luckier than they are. Ainsley's goons assigned to kill Barrett mostly die, for the same reasons. The red-topped flask changes hands a few times, but every time Barrett or his allies get it, the villains quickly recover it.


How to search a baseball stadium for a bomb: assign one cop per row and have them walk through the seats. Also, you check the results by yelling, because nobody carries a radio on a search.

At one point, Barrett, his girlfriend, and a couple of lawmen are captured. I have no idea why they're not all immediately killed–the goal is to release a virus that kills thousands nearly instantly with the threat of killing millions as leverage… why would they hesitate at killing a small handful of people who might escape to undermine their plans? You'd think that an evil mastermind would find less squeamish goons.

Does Everyone Die?

As one might expect, the plans are foiled. Ainsley is revealed to be Someone We've Known All Along, and there is an energetic fight scene for control of the deadly flask. This takes place in an out-of-control helicopter, with both people and the flask at risk of falling over Los Angeles. Our hero prevails! (I hope I haven't spoiled the ending for you, but he really is just too pretty to die by an evil plot.) Of course he knows how to fly a helicopter (he admits he's "a little rusty") so, he heads off to LAX to be reunited with his team.

Autopsy Report

In the end, while there's nothing particularly wrong with this film, there's nothing outstanding about it either. The science at its core is deeply flawed, reduced to being a plot gimmick instead of anything an educated person could believe possible. The cast is: one handsome hero; one good-looking ladyfriend; a swarm of distinguished white guys in suits (the cops/federal agents); a swarm of somewhat-ugly white guys in casual clothes (the goons); a sparse handful of non-white people who mention a few details and then vanish; one villain who's pretending to be one of the good guys. None of them is unique or even memorable. The plot is so simple that there's no room for nuance: if the hero succeeds, all is well; if he fails, all human life will be destroyed. 

The poster lies: this is not about "the ultimate evil." There is no evil at all in the "Satan bug" itself; it's a mindless organism with no motivation of any sort. All the evil is in the men trying to use it for gain… and they don't fail due to incompetence or greed. Good triumphs, evil fails–because "good" happens to include the former special ops agent with a law degree who can take over a helicopter in mid-flight and safely land it. This is not a lesson about the folly of evil; it's a lesson that talented, handsome heroes can beat aging, sour-faced villains.

If you enjoy this kind of action-thriller with the barest hint of science fiction, this movie won't disappoint. The acting is good, if a bit emotionless (these are stoic government agents, for the most part); the settings realistic; the action well-paced. But if this is not your normal fare, it won't convince you to seek out similar films.

Three stars out of five.

Our last two Journey shows were a gas!  You can watch the kinescope reruns here).  You don't want to miss the next episode, April 25 at 1PM PDT featuring flautist Acacia Weber as the special musical guest.





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Book

[April 4, 1965] A Future of Rainbows: Psychedelic-40, by Louis Charbonneau

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by Erica Frank

With psychotropic drugs having arrived in the national consciousness, it's not surprising that they are starting to be the subject of mainstream science fiction books:

Cover art
“1993—A frighteningly prophetic novel of the U.S.A. ruled by the Syndicate—Men with super-minds who can probe the ordinary citizen's thoughts at will.”

I suspect the publisher insisted on the name for this one, because the word "psychedelic" only appears once in the book, and it's not referring to the drug PSI-40 that's the focus of the story.

The prologue nicely sets up the conflict: A young boy and his father are on the run, living in a remote rural location and trying not to be discovered by the Syndicate. They have incredible psychic powers, so they can maintain communication and view each others' surroundings, and the father insists on keeping their distance from each other to keep the boy safe. Their powers come from a drug, PSI-40, and the father makes sure to give his son the formula before the Syndicate catches up with him.

The Ultimate Drug

PSI-40 is, as one might guess, a pill that can awaken a person's psychic abilities. It doesn't work that way for everyone—just for the rare "Sensitives" and even rarer "Specials." For most people, its effects seem to be a blend of marijuana, LSD, and Aldous Huxley's "soma": rainbow lights, mellow mood, lowered inhibitions, heightened sensation, and a sense of peace and bliss.

Like marijuana, it causes relaxation and softens the emotions. Like LSD, it causes mild hallucinations: rainbow afterimages, distorted proportions, brighter lights and darker shadows, but nothing appearing real when it's not. And like soma, it has no unpleasant side effects and causes no disabilities—except for Sensitives, who are prone to intense headaches from the psychic powers it awakens.

Among the normal users, some people have religious experiences; some are overwhelmed with sensuality. It's only the Sensitives and Specials who get more than that—they gain telepathy, clairvoyance, and sometimes telekinesis. They also don't get much of the "normal" effects of the drug, so their thinking and reaction times aren't impaired from it.

The book is set in the near future; most of the events begin on the day of the presidential inauguration of 1993. (I wonder what current junior businessman or class president will be elected in 1992?) Jon Rand, security agent for the Syndicate that manufactures and controls PSI-40, is sent to Baja on a manhunt: find the rogue Special who's been eluding them for 17 years. At this point, the reader becomes aware that the hero of the prologue—young Kemp Johnson—is the target of the main story. A bit of math determines that he's probably born next year, sometime in 1966.

Picture of a soldier lying down near a tree and laughing
I wonder if that means the Syndicate is already testing drugs on people, looking for the ones who awaken hidden powers? (Image: of one of the British Marines being tested for the effects of LSD, 1964.)

Of Kemp, we know nothing except that he has mental powers, and he is filled with rage against the Syndicate. Rand is not so much a cypher, but he is very much a company man, striving to make sure his faction is in the limelight when the current aging president loses control. It's not immediately apparent if he is a "good guy" working within a corrupt and power-hungry organization, or someone who happily supports their regime.

Rand Discovers the World

On his travels to look for Kemp, he encounters a woman who speaks harshly of the Syndicate but does not seem to be one of the "Antis" who object to all uses of PSI-40. He also barely escapes a murder attempt, attends a funeral with people so doped they can't grieve, infiltrates an Anti activist group, and discovers the covert machinations within the Syndicate itself. Through these adventures, Rand is shown to be a good sort of fellow.

He tries to be honest, and he is supportive of the Latino people in Baja whose connection to PSI-40 is very different from his own. He is sympathetic to their hardships, which are eased by the drug, but concerned about both a society without mourning and other deep emotions. He is troubled that the Syndicate pulls strings far beyond what's needed for a business with a product in high demand. He is increasingly uncertain about the purpose of his chase and nervous about the secrets being withheld from him, but with no obvious way to find out more, he has no choice but to move forward as assigned.

Rand starts out contemptuous of the Antis: why would anyone object to a medicine that eases sorrow and enhances joy? But as he encounters more people outside of the Syndicate, he realizes its effects aren't that simple, and there are reasons to be wary of it. Still, he recognizes foolish propaganda when he hears it—the Antis aren't concerned with PSI-40's subtle influences as much as they're caught up in hating the corporate powers that create it.

Formulaic but Not Boring

I found the story compelling and easy to follow, other than losing track of a few people's names. (Several characters were introduced in the first chapter, and not mentioned again until more than halfway through the book, and then only by their surnames.) I found the obligatory romance plausible but unnecessary. I believe that, had the "interesting but maybe-opposition" character been a man, they would've developed a friendship rather than falling in bed together. I did enjoy Rand's innate suspicious nature, and that he aimed it at his own organization as easily as he directed it at outsiders.

I both admired the world building and found it a bit dry: Jon Rand, experienced agent of the Syndicate, is apparently prone to musing over what he knows of PSI-40 when he visits seedy nightclubs, nude beaches, or churches that use the drug as a sacrament. I would like to know more about the world; several characters complained that the Syndicate rations PSI-40, but the method of rationing and the purchase price are both opaque to us. Since the poorest of laborers can afford some (although not as much as they usually want), presumably the wealthy could pass their days in a rainbow-smeared fog of euphoria. Yet we are led to believe that their world works much like ours, albeit with a few technological enhancements brought on by 30 years of peace and prosperity.

The Firebird IV: GM's turbine-powered “Car of the Future” debuted at the 1964 World's Fair. (There are no actual turbines yet.)

While the story was interesting enough, most of the characters were a bit flat. Even the ones with mixed loyalties were complex in predictable ways. There were questions of who will betray him but none about which of these people might be the deceiver? Honest folk were honest, and shifty people with hidden agendas seemed to be hiding something, although it wasn't immediately apparent what.

What's Missing?

Psychedelic-40 was an enjoyable read, a nice consideration of "what if LSD really did expand consciousness, to such an extent that it gave mind-reading super powers to some users?" However, it's less of a science fiction book than a spy thriller with mental instead of physical technology. The psychic powers were a tool in Rand's arsenal, like Oddjob's weaponized hat or James Bond's tricked-out car. He was a super-agent, not super-human.

We saw normal people living distorted lives under the shadow of PSI-40, but it was treated like alcoholism–people using a party drug for everyday life–rather than something that caused an actual shift in perspective or life choices. Some of that can be excused as Rand's passing contact with them, but I would've liked to get a sense of how their communities differed from ours. The Baja of Rand's world seems too much like ours. Its jobs, entertainments, and religious factions seemed very similar to our own. While we did see a church dedicated to PSI-40, it was treated as just another drug den, albeit one with religious-themed accessories.

The book missed the opportunity to consider how a society that welcomed euphoric drug use might change over time, and I wish I'd gotten to read that story, too.

Also, the cover is boring. There is amazing psychedelic and surrealist art available today! Why couldn't Bantam have found an artist in the style of René Magritte or Mati Klarwein to do the cover art?

Two pictures, one surrealist and one psychedelic.
Left: Magritte's High Society; Right: Klarwein's Adam.

Three and a half stars out of five: quite engaging, but lacking something.  See for yourself and tell me what you think.

We had so much success with our first episode of The Journey Show (you can watch the kinescope rerun; check local listings for details) that we're going to have another one on April 11 at 1PM PDT with The Young Traveler as the special musical guest.  As the kids say, be there or be square!

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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine/Anthology

[February 10, 1965] A Gay Old Time (March 1965 ONE, February-March 1965 The Ladder, March 1965 Drum)

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by Erica Frank

As I've been looking into news and literature sources away from the beaten path, I've run across several magazines that aren't likely to show up on your local newsrack: They're published by homophile organizations. They face tremendous prejudice and sometimes outright bigotry, despite their focus on nothing more objectionable than human relationships.

The term "homophile" was first proposed by Harry Hay, one of the founders of the Mattachine Society. It is widely used by gay rights groups to indicate that their identity is not centered around sex. However, the terms homophile, homosexual, gay, and lesbian are all used frequently throughout the periodicals.

ONE was created by members of the Mattachine Society and has been published since 1958. The Ladder is from the Daughters of Bilitiis, a lesbian organization; it's been around almost as long. Drum is the newcomer that began only last year, published by the Janus Society; it has a less serious approach, with more light-hearted content. All three have a letters section and book reviews, which I will cover at the end.

ONE: The Homosexual Viewpoint

One Incorporated is "A non-profit corporation formed to publish a magazine dealing primarily with homosexuality from the scientific, historical and critical point of view." A few years ago, it won a landmark lawsuit, establishing it as not obscene material, and therefore legal to send through the mail.

Cover for ONE, March 1965

ONE has the highest production values of the three magazines I found. The text is neatly set in two columns for main articles and it has both photographs and line art. It has a mix of content types: interview article, fiction, poetry, news, and essays. It also has book reviews. All of them have news and book review sections, as any misunderstood and often-persecuted group needs both an awareness of how society treats them and an understanding of their own communities.

Interview with Elmer Gage, Mohave Indian

Mr. Gage is known as a homosexual in his local community, and they accept him. His photo, instead of showing him making the beaded belts he sells to tourists, or at home with his grandmother, is a publicity picture of him in his Bird Dancer outfit. He wears it for ceremonial dances and sometimes for lectures at universities, but it's not what he wears at home. (Of course not. Shakespearean actors may be portraying traditional British cultural entertainments, but nobody expects them to wear Renaissance-era garb all the time.) Despite the hardships he faces, he is at peace with himself; he says life is "too short to spend your time being something you don't want to be… I'm true to myself and my own nature."

Uncomfortable Fiction, Poetry

The short story, "Somebody Else All of a Sudden, Somebody New," by K. O. Neal, is short, and not an easy read. It involves Jeffy–probably a teenager–and a man called "Old Rocker," who pays him for sex: usually a silver dollar, but two dollars this time. (There are no prurient details in the story.) I'm left wondering if Old Rocker would seek other partners if doing so didn't risk arrest or even murder.

The poem that follows the story, "Lines for the almost gone," is not any less distressing. It's directed to either someone dying or someone on the edge of suicide. The other poem in this issue, "frankincense: three letters to c" by Abel Jones, reminds me of both e.e. cummings' style, with few capital letters and broken lines arranged carefully on the page, and Ginsberg's "Howl," with a mix of evocative imagery and coarse irreverence.

Poetry excerpt: in My yellow room surrounded by empty shoes and horrid unfiltered cigarettes that i smoke for your sake Charlie / when you die i iwill sing for you requiems in our common grave-house
I'm sure this poem is deeply meaningful to someone, but that someone is not me.

Transvestites: Not the same as gay

The article "Silks and Satins" by Charles Elkins is a plea for understanding. Men who wear traditionally women's clothing are not a unified group, nor are they all either gay or straight. Some would prefer to wear dresses and heels in public and be accepted as women; others only want them for bedroom activities. They are often very lonely, rejected even by other fringe communities, and told by psychiatrists that they should repress their harmless interest in looking and feeling feminine. I say: if someone wants to wear a silk dress and heels in public, let them. As Jefferson said, "it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

This and That

It also has a "news and views" column, "Tangents," which is a roundup of short synposes: Homosexuals in the media (a British tv show about lesbians on January 7th, Macleans magazine planning an article about them in the future); cops falsely accusing political candidates of homosexuality in California; one of Freud's theories about Leonardo da Vinci's homosexuality has been debunked. (Whether da Vinci was homosexual is unknown, but if so, it wasn't proven by a childhood memory of a vulture.)

picture of kittens in button-up shoes, and caption "High button shoes are old fashioned! But the so are many concepts of reasoning toward homosexuality.
Is that Puss in Boots?

The Ladder: A Lesbian Review

The Daughters of Bilitis is "a women's organization for the purpose of promoting the integration of the homosexula into society" by education, participation in research, and promotion of changes to the penal code."

Cover for The Ladder, Feb-March 1965

The Ladder's production quality is the lowest of the trio. Most of it is typed, and the text isn't always aligned evenly with the headings. There are no photographs and no line art. Still, it contains solid news articles (impressive, as it does not rely on a clippings service) and thoughtful essays.

Homophile Activists

This issue has several articles about public events. One called "After the Ball…" about the police raid on a New Year's Eve costume ball organized by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, comprised of members of six homophile organizations. The police harassed attendees and photographed most of the 600 guests, and when they were told they needed a warrant to enter, they arrested the four people trying to stop them.

Attendees of the SF New Year's Eve ball
While the police were attempting to intimidate, they did capture some amazing pictures. Picture from Lewd & Lascivious.

The other activism news was not as well covered in newspapers: Last December in New York, Dr. Paul R. Dince gave a lecture entitled "Homosexuality, A Disesase." Four picketers showed up to protest, handing out free homophile literature and holding signs saying "WE REQUEST 10 MINUTES REBUTTAL TIME." They made their request to the chairman of the forum – and it was granted!

After the lecture, during open questions, one of the picketers was allowed 10 minutes with a microphone. He pointed out that "experts" have contradictory theories about homosexulity. He mentioned they mostly study unhappy individuals, and they start with the assumption that homosexuality is a disease. (It's easy to "prove" something you already believe.) He also noted that most people in the "disease" camp say little against scams that charge ridiculous fees, claiming they will "cure" homosexuality. After the protesters received great applause, Dr. Dince conceded some of their points.

The E.C.H.O. (East Coast Homophile Organizations) report is five pages about the recent conference in Washington, D.C. This issue holds Part Four: "Act or Teach," based on recordings of the event. In this part, Dr. Franklin Kameny pointed out the flaws in approaching the public with information instead of demands for change. He said it is naive to assume information will overcome prejudice, but that when new laws establish civil rights, "public sentiment has then attempted to accommodate itself to the new situation."

Dr. Koneitzko disagreed with him, saying that acceptance from communities and churches is more important than technical legal rights. Kameny does not disagree, but he says that the acceptance will come after the laws change, not before.

Dr. Frank Kameny in a suit
Dr. Franklin Kameny, a WWII veteran who was fired from his post-war job in the Army Map Service because of his orientation. Photo circa 1956.

Essays and Poetry

"I Hate Women: A Diatribe by an Unreconstructed Feminist" is a rant about the repulsiveness of meek, timid, compliant femininity. The compelling title is rather tongue-in-cheek: The author, of course, does not hate women, since she is a lesbian. She hates, however, the notion that all women are destined to be servile wives and mothers, and decries that those who want a different path are often sent to a psychiatrist to "Find Out Why she Rejects the Feminine Role."

She goes on to talk about the risks of over-population, and quotes Arthur C. Clarke from the 1958 Harper's Magazine article, "Standing Room Only":

…the time may yet come when homosexuality is practically compulsory, and not merely fashionable. It will indeed be a piquant paradox if— in the long run and taking the survival of humanity as a whole as our criterion— this controversial instinct turns out to have a greater survival value than the urge to reproduce.

The other essay is considerably less angry. "To Tell or Not To Tell," by Vern Niven, is a short article about wrestling with secrecy, about the choice of whether homosexuals should tell their parents about who they love, or could love. The author says most parents can be accepting, but it may take some effort to prepare them for the truth. She encourages readers to be honest with their families. This can bring support and welcome for both themselves and partners, especially important when they consider their relationship a marriage.

The essays, while subjective, are directed to a broad audience. The four short poems seem more targeted in their appeal. Two have strong nature imagery; one is religious; one relates to music. None of them are overtly lesbian: they do not mention gender at all. But they are lyrical and intense, with hints of secrets being shared between the authors and readers.

And you, my subtle friend
Come counterpoint,
Offer me softly
          of your melodic
Talents.

The tone of The Ladder is down-to-earth and almost wistful; the articles are laced with hope and perseverance. Not all of the homophile magazines are so sober.

Drum: Sex in Perspective

The name is inspired by a quote by Thoreau: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."

Cover for Drum, March 1965

I saved the fun one for last. Drum has more lively content than the others: the longest article is the 12-page "Beginner's Guide to Cruising," which is as much playful as informative. Indeed, its very first news article includes a picture of Tony Sabella kissing Robert Kennedy.

The caption reads: "A group of New York lawyers is studing the possibility of having sodomy charges brought against Senator-elect Robert Kennedy for allegedly committing a public indecent act in the Fulton Fish Market to demonstrate the importance of Penal Law reform."

Tony Sabella kissing Robert Kennedy
Is a public kiss between men acceptable as long as neither of them is believed to be gay?

Dating Guide

The feature article, "The Beginner's Guide to Cruising" by George Marshall, bypasses any question of inner speculation or the gay identity within a heterosexual community. It is focused on a single goal: sexual conquest. While the methods described border on predatory, it is clear that the purpose is great fun for both men involved; this is not a primer for seducing people who aren't interested.

It spends some time discussing which men should not be pursued: Those who are "superbly dressed," as they are more interested in themselves than you; those wearing very tight slacks, indicating bitterness and a lack of feeling; those with white shirts and pastel pants, who will take you to court if things go badly; those with political causes, who will involve you in their mania; those who are drunk or drug addicts, who are, at best, walking complications.

It gives several possible approaches to avoid clichés like, "Care for a coffee?" It then goes on to discuss socializing after an introduction at a party, how to convince him you are a clever conversationalist (mostly by agreeing with him), and the importance of setting a future meeting date. While the tips in the article are very much focused on gay men who are seeking other gay men, they are the same methods used by salesmen and politicians: know your target, make yourself interesting, follow through with more contact.

Spy Stories

"I Was a Homosexual for the FBI" (by P. Arody) is a short article crammed full of hilarious stereotypes. It is ostensibly by someone who saved the country from "the deadliest conspiracy ever to rock the United States": To convince straight people that gays are really no different from their neighbors. The author had access to the FBI's extensive resources, including the Homo-o-dors that smell "suspected perverts" and flash a lavender light on detection. His "training" included "how to talk with a lisp" and "how to swish when walking, drink like an alcoholic, and organize orgies." (If the FBI knows how to organize orgies, I demand it release that information to taxpayers!) The result of all that hard work: "we caught every homosexual in the entire country and now all twelve of them were on trial!"

In keeping with this month's unstated "super spy" theme, we have several pages of artwork showing Harry Chess, that man from A.U.N.T.I.E ("Agents' Undercover Network To Investigate Evil) and his team. This is an an obvious play on the new Man from U.N.C.L.E spy-thriller tv show.

Harry Chess - line art
Not shown here: his sidekick "Mickey Muscle," their informant Big Bennie, girl bartender, and villain Lewd Leather, the leader of M.U.C.K. (Maniacal Underworld Control Corp).

The puzzle is probably not connected to the spying, since one was included last month, and another will be shared next month. The "cryptogayme" cipher is a nice stretch-your-mind exercise in a magazine mostly devoted to casual enjoyment.

Cryptoquiz puzzle
The solution will be in next month's issue.

Pretty as a Picture

Speaking of casual enjoyment… the "Portfolio" covers four pages of the magazine: Full-page photos of young men wearing very little clothing. The portfolio is accompanied by ads from the photographers: $6 sent to an address in Germany will get you 8 black and white photos of two models, or 6 color slides. Alternately, $1 sent to a post office box in Detroit will get you "samples," which presumably will contain information on how to order more.

"More like this" is a recurring theme in all three magazines. Each contains contact information, mentions of homophile organizations (Drum has a full page listing more than 20 of them), and letters from the community.

The letters columns are compelling. Over and over, they say: Thank you. Thank you for helping me understand myself, my community. Thank you for helping me understand the truth about my loved ones. Thank you for showing me we can fight for better acceptance, for the rights our heterosexual neighbors take for granted.

The book reviews, while useful enough on their own, showcase one of the problems all homosexuals face: There is so little representation of them in literature and movies that they must accept any depictions of their existence as other than "evil" or "perverted" as a benefit. Books that draw on stereotypes are approved if they are not too inaccurate. Those that are well-written, in which the only homosexuals are background characters, are still recommended. This is a community eager to see their reality in print, and each of the magazines provides that to its audience.

Not So Different

The real truth shown by these magazines is this: These people are not so different from everyone else. Some gay men, like some straight men, go "cruising" for casual partners. Some gay men, like some straight men, would rather find a single person for a long-term committed relationship. Lesbians, like straight women, chafe under legal and social constraints. Lesbians, like straight women, fall in love and hope their trust will not be betrayed. Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, worry about what their families think of their career choices, their hobbies, and their partners.

With all these revelations of homophile lives and interests, the biggest discovery is that they are just people: some shallow, some passionate, some thoughtful, some clever, some angry, some shy. If they have an agenda, it's to be allowed to live and love in peace, just like their neighbors.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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