315 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
315 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
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From Providence: The city that made 3/4 of the Talking Heads what they are
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today!
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it's....
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******************
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ASTRAL AVENUE
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******************
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Number 4 Feb 1987
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BUMPER STICKER OF THE MONTH: "My other car is a piece of shit, too."
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The 1st time, tragedy; the 2nd time, farce; the 3rd time, docudrama
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CURRENT NEWS AND VIEWS
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The Fortnight's Pen Pictures Illustrating the Dark and the Bright Side of
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Civilization! The Search For Big Bucks
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Reading time 11 minutes 35 seconds
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Publisher's Note
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At the Post Office, we mail our overseas copies of ASTRAL AVENUE as
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"Printed Matter," to take advantage of cheaper rates. (Every cent counts
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around here. Literally. We only finished out Christmas shopping by rolling
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2000 pennies and cashing them in.) Are we lying to the postal clerks? AA is
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produced, after all, on a Smith-Corona TP-II PRINTER, which makes it 'printed
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matter,' right? But that's only stage one; after, the original is xeroxed...
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Is xerox 'printing'? Or is printing only what happens at a printshop,
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or at a Giant Conglomerate like Books And Sausages, Inc.? We suspect that
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such questions are going to rapidly take on more importance, as desktop
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publishing proliferates.
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Today, semantics -- tomorrow, lawsuits!
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AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY UNANTICIPATED
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I had planned to subject you all to another of my stupefyingly cogent
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essays, here in this space. But making my point required hunting down a
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quote in COUNT ZERO, and when I couldn't find it after half an hour, I gave
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up. Your reprieve is only temporary, tho. I'm still looking.
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Meanwhile....
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THE OLD SF THE NEW SF
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-------------- -------------------
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Frederick's of Hollywood..........Victoria's Secret
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Elvis P. .........................Elvis C.
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Ripple ...........................Bruce Juice
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Popsicle .........................Tofutti
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Mom 'n' Pop Store ................The Mall
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Underwood.........................Laserwriter
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Moon Landing......................Challenger
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Eggbeater.........................Cuisinart
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"Nerves"..........................Chernobyl
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P. F. Flyers......................Reeboks
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John Wayne........................John Waters
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Marilyn...........................Madonna
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Cadillac..........................Hyundai
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Analog............................Digital
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The Clap..........................AIDS
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Einstein..........................Hawking
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Vietnam...........................Nicaragua
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Walter Winchell...................Hunter S. Thompson
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"The Untouchables"................"Miami Vice"
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The Crash of '29..................The Clash of '77
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Hungary...........................Afghanistan
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Velveeta.........................."Blue Velvet"
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Stalin............................Gorbachev
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Moxie.............................Slice
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Nazis.............................Contras
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Phlogiston........................Oxygen
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Zap guns..........................Rail guns
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Davy Crockett.....................Bernie Goetz
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Valium............................Beta-Blockers
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THE DEMISE OF YOUR BASIC ROCK LEGEND
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1960's: Clapton is God.
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1970's: Eno is God.
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1980's: Prince talks to God.
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Pet Peeve
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I am going to share this with you because I am cruel and sadistic. Once
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you are sensitized to this common grammatical error, you will hear it or read
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it a hundred times a day. It will begin to drive you as crazy as it has
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driven
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me.
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Pay attention.
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The word "as" has many uses. One is to form similes. For example: "As
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stupid as Reagan, Meese is more malevolent."
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"As" can also substitute for "although." Consider the following
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sentence: "Although he is stupid, Reagan is not THAT stupid." Make the
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substitution, and this becomes:
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"Stupid as Reagan is, he is not THAT stupid." The adjective moves up
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front for emphasis.
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No second "as" is necessary. There is no comparison being made. It
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would be redundant to have it. YOU DO NOT NEED IT. DON'T PUT IT THERE.
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TELL FRIENDS AND STRANGERS NOT TO DO IT. SOON, ENLIGHTENMENT WILL O'ERSPREAD
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THE GLOBE....
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Accepting The Award For Militaristic Propaganda Will Be....
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It has recently come to my attention that the Cannes Film Festival
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offers an award for "Supreme Intellectual Achievement." This is a marvelous
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award. (I'm sure it sounds even better in French.) What I want to know is:
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Why doesn't SF, the "literature of ideas," have such an honor?
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What good do the Hugo and other awards do, even assuming they represent
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honest polls? Novels with nothing in common are tossed into the same ring
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and forced to fight it out. Why not establish different categories,
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depending on the author's intentions and results?
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Herewith, my divisions and
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nominations:
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SUPREME INTELLECTUAL ACHIEVEMENT: No award this year
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SCALDING FEMINIST RHETORIC: Russ
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WHIMSICAL LADIES' ROOM BANTER: Willis
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SENSITIVE MALE INSIGHTS: Robinson (K.S.)
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BIG COJONES: Pournelle
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MOST TIMES THROUGH THE FOOD-CHAIN: Zahn
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CLOSEST APPROX. TO ANTHRO. THESIS: Le Guin
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LEGEND IN HIS OWN MIND: Robinson (S.)
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------------------------------------------------------------
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The Artist As RNA: Don't pro-scribe / Don't pre - scribe / Just tran - scribe
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------------------------------------------------------------
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***** CONTEST ***** CONTEST ****** CONTEST ****** CONTEST *
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WIN embarrassing picture of The Publisher by being the first to finish this
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story in 500 words or less, being careful to take account of Edward Teller
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and of Jack and Neal driving through the test
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range.
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INSTABILITY
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by Rudy Rucker and YOUR NAME HERE
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Jack and Neal, loose and blasted, sitting on the ramshackle porch of Bill
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Burroughs' shack. Burroughs is sitting catatonic in his orgone box, a copy
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of the Mayan codices in his lap; he's already fixed H twice today. Neal is
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cleaning the seeds out of a shoebox full of maryjane. Time is thick and slow
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as honey. In the distance the shrimp-packers' noon whistle blows. Burroughs
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rises to his feet like a figure in a well-oiled Swiss clock. "There is
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scrabbling," he tells Jack. "There is scrabbling behind the walls. Bastards
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made a hole somewhere. You ever read Lovecraft's 'Colour Out Of Space,'
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son?"
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"I read it in prison," says Neal, puffing up his chest with pride.
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"Dig, Bill, your mention of that document ties in so exactly with my most
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recent thought mode that old Jung would hop a hardon."
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"Mwheee-heee-heee," says Jack. "The Shadow knows."
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"I'm talking about this bomb foolishness," says Burroughs, stalking
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stifflegged over to stand on the steps. "The shrimpers' noon whistle is
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getting us all ready for WWIII, and if we're all ready for THAT, then we're
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ready to be a great civilian army, yes, soldiers for Joe McCarthy and Harry
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Anslinger, poised to stomp out the reds 'n' queers 'n' dopefiends. Science
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brings us this. I wipe my queer junkie ass with science, boys. The Mayans
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had it aaaaall figured out a loooong time ago. Now take this Von Neumann
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fellow...."
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"You mean Django Reinhardt?" asks Neal. "Or Wilhelm Reich?"
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"William Bendix," says Jack. "Man, this is your life, their life, my
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life, a dog's life, God's life, the Life of Riley. Von Neumann of the
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desert, Neal, it was in the Sunday paper we were rolling sticks on in
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Tuscaloosa, I got an eidetic memory flash of it, brother, just before you
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nailed that cute Dairy Queen waitress who wanted to rim you with her
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retrousse Joan Crawford nose."
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=======================================
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THANX, RUDY, for your contribution. We're sure that after our readers
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ingest enough Industrial-Strength Brain-Drano, they'll be up to the
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challenge. Results in future issues. Be there, or be square!
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PEOPLE YOU NEVER SEE TOGETHER, BECAUSE THEY'RE REALLY ONE AND THE
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SAME
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Ed Bryant ..................... Father Guido Sarducci
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Robert Heinlein ............... King Hussein of Jordan
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Michael Bishop ................ Leonard Nimoy
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Robert Silverberg ............. Martin Scorsese
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ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS ::: All inquiries on subjects of general interest
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will be answered in these columns
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BRUCE STERLING: ASTRAL AVENUE is your chance to offend your contemporaries
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and coworkers.
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-- We know Bruce speaks from his own tragic experience as Locker Room
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Attendant under Vinnie O. of CHEAP TRUTH, but still we can't believe that
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anyone would take umbrage at our harmless rag. The whole SF community is
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one happy brotherhood of dedicated, selfless, joshing -- HOLY SHIT, someone
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just crept up behind me and stuck a fuckin' machete in my back! Hold on, we
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shall return...
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COLIN GREENLAND: What's a quahog anyway?
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-- We would call this a typical Anglo-American mixup, Colin -- except that
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no one outside of the Northeast knows what a quahog is either. We're sure
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that you were the only one honest enough to admit it. A quahog is a big
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tasty bivalve indigenous to RI. It makes a great stew, or, if its guts are
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taken out, cooked, mixed with a bread-stuffing, and reinserted into the
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half-shell, a "stuffy." Its shells form nifty ashtrays or pseudo-gravel for
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driveways. It is our pride and joy, kind of like the Queen's Corgis.
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Several dozen stinking, dripping samples are on their way via mail to your
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doorstep.
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MISHA CHOCHOLAK (by the way -- it was just a flesh wound, folks) sends a
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non-verbal response, consisting of a sheet of paper covered with gunpowder
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burns, punctuated with bullet-holes, and bearing the name of this mag smeared
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in what appears to be blood.
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-- Thanx, Misha. We hope it's a compliment. (When they boost the reward for
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her to $10,000, we have dibs.)
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ORSON SCOTT CARD: ASTRAL AVENUE looks like it's going to be a wonderful
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zine, but I couldn't find any information in it on how to go about
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subscribing.
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-- AA searches out people on its own, Scott, no matter where they hide, and
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no amount of sweet-talkin' will get it otherwise. However, large sums of
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money will secure it just fine.
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YOSHIO KOBAYASHI: I like this kind of fanzine. -- And we like you, Yoshio.
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We also like Yoshio's dot-matrix printer, which is really Hi-Quality.
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MARC LAIDLAW ... a glimmer of light in the general blear! ... out of milk
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here, but eggnog tastes just fine on shredded wheat... I would like to order
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one of your reader's doze alarms altho fantasy does not strike me as the
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greatest offender. I would reserve that position for ANALOG.
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I don't buy the superiority of SF over fantasy. I think the two should
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be considered not as separate entities, but as a ratio. We could talk in the
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future of the F/SF ratio, and diagnose the field in these terms, just as a
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doctor diagnoses one's immune status in terms of the ratio of helper T-cells
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to suppressors....
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Fantasy plays stupid, SF pretends to be a know-it-all. Each can be
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equally irritating...
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My personal favorite grafitto: METHADONE ZENSLAVES....
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Your depiction of the timeshared world was dead-on. Authorship is a
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lonely profession... Perhaps someday, on a computer net, half-a-dozen
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writers can unroll the word-music from their fingertips simultaneously while
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some Eno filters the sentences, weaves them together, and squeezes them into
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mass-marketable little cubes. In that case, would you rather be the engineer
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or the writer?
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....Costello fan? Have you noticed the imagistic similarity of "Tokyo
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Storm Warning" to Gibson's futuristic Japan?
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The appearance of Annie Lennox on a Jo Clayton novel should hardly
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surprise anyone -- I believe she's signed a contract with DAW to present a
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showcase of tough feminist novels, "Annie Lennox Presents..."
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... this trend in literature is simply the trickling down of corporate
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advertising policies long apparent on TV and audible on radio... I truly
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believe that one day soon we'll be wading through the latest Stephen King
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by-product only to find that -- as the flashlight dies and the carbuncular
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kid finds himself alone on the haunted path -- it's an ad for Duracell
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batteries.
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I'm hoping to get Emilio Estevez and Roseanna Arquette to star in my
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next book, which will actually be an elaborate plug for Tiparillos.... MARC
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LAIDLAW
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-- Marc sent us a letter longer than the average issue of ASTRAL AVENUE, from
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which we've excerpted. As to your points, Marc: I am an inveterate lover
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and writer of fantasy, and have been the former for approximately twenty
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years, long before the boom. I will let your ingenious analogy stand for my
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feelings too. Not only has Costello doubtlessly read Gibson, but probably
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also Mick Jones (cf: BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE's "Sony"). We look forward to
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reading your sell-out novel, Marc. May we propose the title: "Desperately
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Seeking Cash Before the Repo Man Comes"?
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JOHN KESSEL: "Astral Avenue" should be on the Monopoly Board.
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-- We are the property that pays low rents, throws noisy parties, leaves
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empty beer bottles in the yard, and has a '69 Cadillac up on cinder blocks in
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the driveway.
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TERRY CARR: I thought the line "You can lead a whore to culture, but you
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can't make her think" was sexist.
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-- Terry sent a much longer letter, which will be featured next issue, but we
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wanted to deal with this now. Terry, we generally favor Wit, Abrasiveness,
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and Shock Value over Politically Correct Androgyny, but you've completely
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misread us here. By "whore" we meant everyone from Eleventh Avenue street
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tarts to Port Authority male hustlers, and we were using "her" in the
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feminist sense of subsuming all humanity, just as "his" has been
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traditionally used. So you see our little epigram was actually sly feminist
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propaganda!
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*********************
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ASTRAL AVENUE
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Paul Di Filippo
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2 Poplar Street
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Providence, RI 02906
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*********************
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