On Monday, October 24, 2022 at 4:36:03 PM UTC-6, Ahasuerus wrote:

> It would be hard to argue that the New Wave was clearly better or
> clearly worse than the Golden Age because it tried to move in a
> different direction.

Well, on the one hand, it was more profound and more literary; on the
other hand, it was less entertaining to many of those in the fandom that
the works of the Golden Age had caused to gather.
Writers... are going to have something to say, and a desire to express
their own originality and creativity. This is natural.
And other art forms have suffered a natural death due to this process.
Many of Beethoven's contemporaries found his music to be too wild,
and to have too many discordant notes and such... as strange as such
a criticism might sound to us today.
But we all know what happened after Beethoven. Wagner. And then
Schoenberg.
At which point, classical music died as a popular art form; serious
novel classical music became the province of academics only... while
musical works that broke no new ground, but merely rehashed the
style of classical music of Beethoven and his predecessors did recieve
popular attention, from Gustav Holst to John Williams.

If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
and for that matter, so could classical music.

I know it may seem like an exaggeration to say that science fiction has
been dead, perhaps for the last two or three decades, or maybe more...
and that I have been horribly unfair to an extremely talented composer
whose works I indeed do very much enjoy, John Williams... but while
he _is_ original (despite having grabbed the odd motif from Holst and
others) in his _works_, he *is* composing within an existing musical genre,
not pushing it into the future, the way the classical composers from
Bach to Beethoven were doing.

But is this necessarily a _bad_ thing? Wagner and Schoenberg
killed classical music because they pushed forwards too far.
Once the bounds of what is acceptable to the ear of the general public
are established and known, is it not entirely appropriate to create
new music within those bounds?
Maybe this will work for music.
But we all know what this would mean for science fiction. From Lin Carter's
pastiches of Burroughs to various attempts to "go home again", in the sense of
"you can't go home again". Perhaps useful for satire or nostalgia, but not much
else.
To make science fiction that is... not dated, not hopelessly derivative... and
yet at least analogous to the science fiction of the peak of the Golden Age...
one needs an audience, preferably including some twelve-year-olds, to whom
it would be engaging and relevant.
Because if one judges the "life" or "death" of an art form by the size of
the audience, then it must follow that the audience is an essential element
of a living art form. One that is new and which is finding its way, breaking
new ground at every step - and yet _not_ losing touch with its audience
by doing so. Yet. Eventually it will; thus, art forms are mortal.

John Savard

On Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 9:25:33 PM UTC-6, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> I think Samms
> hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy.

Exactly - that's what made me think of cocaine, which is said to
give people the gratification of being successful in every way, the
ego-gratification sought by certain high-pressure businessmen and
artists.

John Savard

On Friday, 4 November 2022 at 03:25:33 UTC, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> >like that from cocaine.
> More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
> hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
> hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
> few years.)

Put like that, I think of Sam Gamgee seeing himself
as Gardener of all Middle-Earth, or something like that.
But if I have the dates straight, that was published
later than _First Lensman_. I wouldn't claim that
Tolkien invented the temptation to do good, anyway.

> Along with the cocaine-like high, and the physical cravings from
> just one dose.

On Fri, 4 Nov 2022 19:42:22 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:

>On Friday, 4 November 2022 at 03:25:33 UTC, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
>> In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
>> >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
>> >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
>> >like that from cocaine.
>> More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
>> hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
>> hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
>> head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
>> few years.)
>
>Put like that, I think of Sam Gamgee seeing himself
>as Gardener of all Middle-Earth, or something like that.
>But if I have the dates straight, that was published
>later than _First Lensman_. I wouldn't claim that
>Tolkien invented the temptation to do good, anyway.

However, in Sam's case, the Ring corrupts so he might begin as doing
good but would end as a cruel tyrant.

It is not clear from the above that the drug under discussion would
have done that.

>> Along with the cocaine-like high, and the physical cravings from
>> just one dose.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Friday, November 4, 2022 at 8:42:25 PM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> Put like that, I think of Sam Gamgee seeing himself
> as Gardener of all Middle-Earth, or something like that.

He should know better; he even *met* Tom Bombadil.

John Savard

In article <0294beac-be41-47eb-ad0a-78cdda148993n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
>also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
>the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
>in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
>in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
>Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
>and for that matter, so could classical music.

(Hal Heydt)
If the local classical station--KDFC--is anything to go by,
classical music is gathering in styles that didn't used to be
considered classical, such as Ragtime. They also play chunks of
music from films--plenty of John Williams, who they have to
announce carefully as there is an Australian classical guitarist
named John Williams--and also from video games.

Not sure if you'd fit it in or not, but this morning they played
Gershwin's "An American in Paris".

They've also been known to play Sousa.

On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 4:38:24 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <0294beac-be41-47eb...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
> >also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
> >the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
> >in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
> >in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
> >Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
> >and for that matter, so could classical music.
> (Hal Heydt)
> If the local classical station--KDFC--is anything to go by,
> classical music is gathering in styles that didn't used to be
> considered classical, such as Ragtime. They also play chunks of
> music from films--plenty of John Williams, who they have to
> announce carefully as there is an Australian classical guitarist
> named John Williams--and also from video games.
>
> Not sure if you'd fit it in or not, but this morning they played
> Gershwin's "An American in Paris".
>
> They've also been known to play Sousa.

If Quaddie thinks Phillip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, and Vaughn Williams
are rehashing Wagner and Beethoven, we've just discovered yet another
area of knowledge in which he's deeply ignorant, but utterly confident
of his knowledge.

Pt

On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 3:52:07 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 7:20:35 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
> >
> >> A stalwart Galactic Patrol officer and his fellow Lensmen discover
> >> what they thought was a cabal of pirates is in fact a force far
> >> more organized and much larger than mere pirates.
> >
> >Thionite is _not_ so quickly and inevitably fatal that it's impossible
> >to make money pushing the stuff.
> >
> >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> >like that from cocaine. He passes the test by not taking a _second_
> >dose to continue his high, which is placed accessible to him,
> >and which _would_ have been fatal.
> >
> >So all the pushers have to do is carefully regulate what they sell to
> >their clients, since most people don't have the resistance to drugs
> >of a Lensman.
> (Hal Heydt)
> That was--IIRC--Virgil Samms in _First Lensman_. All things
> considered, it may not have been Samms
> own--considerable--willpower that prevented him from taking the
> second dose, but a bit of an Arisian nudge in the right
> direction.

Could be...but on balance probably not. For one thing, Mentor _really_ hates intervening directly when they don't absolutely _have_ to. It's risky, any time they do that they might draw Eddorian attention, and it's inelegant. Better to so manipulate things long term that it isn't necessary.

Samms was the First Lensman precisely because the breeding program had _finally_ reached the stage of L1 stability. He had bred for ages to be capable of things like turning down that second thionite hit. _Barely_ capable, admittedly. But he was so capable. That's why he was the first Lensman.

On Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 10:25:33 PM UTC-5, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> >like that from cocaine.
> More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
> hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
> hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
> few years.)
>

Yeah, he hallucinated that. Along with a lot of other stuff, including things that left him nauseous and self-loathing afterward. Smith made the point (without going into detail) that the hallucination included _every_ desire Samms had ever experinced, all of them, including the base ones, stuff he had deceived himself into thinking he didn't desire. That's one of the psychological aspects of the stuff, it tends to wipe out self-respect by wiping out self-deception. Which in turn undercuts the ability to resist it afterward.

On Friday, November 4, 2022 at 12:05:25 AM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Monday, October 24, 2022 at 4:36:03 PM UTC-6, Ahasuerus wrote:
>
> > It would be hard to argue that the New Wave was clearly better or
> > clearly worse than the Golden Age because it tried to move in a
> > different direction.
> Well, on the one hand, it was more profound and more literary; on the
> other hand, it was less entertaining to many of those in the fandom that
> the works of the Golden Age had caused to gather.
> Writers... are going to have something to say, and a desire to express
> their own originality and creativity. This is natural.
> And other art forms have suffered a natural death due to this process.
> Many of Beethoven's contemporaries found his music to be too wild,
> and to have too many discordant notes and such... as strange as such
> a criticism might sound to us today.
> But we all know what happened after Beethoven. Wagner. And then
> Schoenberg.
> At which point, classical music died as a popular art form; serious
> novel classical music became the province of academics only... while
> musical works that broke no new ground, but merely rehashed the
> style of classical music of Beethoven and his predecessors did recieve
> popular attention, from Gustav Holst to John Williams.
>
> If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
> also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
> the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
> in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
> in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.

It depends, in part, of course, on how you define 'classical music', and 'science fiction'.

But I agree with you that it's a fundamental truth that 'canons close'. A given art form tends to specific to a given time and place and cultural background. This becomes more visible with distance in time, the underlying similarities become visible in thing that, in their time, seemed radically different.

For a newer example, it is my contention that it is no accident that 'transhumanist/singulairty SF stories' became big during the same general historical period that the 'vampire/werewolf romance novel' became big, and no coincidence that both are looking dated now. On the surface they look like totally different things, but they both embody 'autonomy fantasy' on one level or another, the fantasy of escaping from the limitations of the human condition, which was an aspect of much popular culture in the periods 70s-through-lately.

This too shall pass.

> But is this necessarily a _bad_ thing? Wagner and Schoenberg
> killed classical music because they pushed forwards too far.
> Once the bounds of what is acceptable to the ear of the general public
> are established and known, is it not entirely appropriate to create
> new music within those bounds?
> Maybe this will work for music.
> But we all know what this would mean for science fiction. From Lin Carter's
> pastiches of Burroughs to various attempts to "go home again", in the sense of
> "you can't go home again". Perhaps useful for satire or nostalgia, but not much
> else.
> To make science fiction that is... not dated, not hopelessly derivative.... and
> yet at least analogous to the science fiction of the peak of the Golden Age...
> one needs an audience, preferably including some twelve-year-olds, to whom
> it would be engaging and relevant.

I don't think it's impossible, but I do think it would require a change in the larger culture that underlies the fiction.

On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 10:52:26 PM UTC-5, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 4:38:24 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <0294beac-be41-47eb...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > >If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
> > >also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
> > >the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
> > >in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
> > >in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
> > >Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
> > >and for that matter, so could classical music.
> > (Hal Heydt)
> > If the local classical station--KDFC--is anything to go by,
> > classical music is gathering in styles that didn't used to be
> > considered classical, such as Ragtime. They also play chunks of
> > music from films--plenty of John Williams, who they have to
> > announce carefully as there is an Australian classical guitarist
> > named John Williams--and also from video games.
> >
> > Not sure if you'd fit it in or not, but this morning they played
> > Gershwin's "An American in Paris".
> >
> > They've also been known to play Sousa.
> If Quaddie thinks Phillip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, and Vaughn Williams
> are rehashing Wagner and Beethoven, we've just discovered yet another
> area of knowledge in which he's deeply ignorant, but utterly confident
> of his knowledge.
>
> Pt

The question is not whether they are rehashing Beethoven or not, it's whether they are doing anything that will prove lasting in the same sense as Beethoven. A century from now, will the canon be Wagner and Beethoven and Vaughn Williams, or Wagner and Beethoven and 'x'?

On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 11:29:43 AM UTC-5, Ahasuerus wrote:
> On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 9:20:35 AM UTC-4, James Nicoll wrote:
> > Galactic Patrol (Lensman, volume 3/Lensman, volume 2) by E. E.
> > "Doc" Smith
> _Galactic Patrol_ was the first novel in the core Lensman series.
> _Triplanetary_ and _First Lensman_ were prequels put together
> after the main series had been completed. I always recommend that
> new readers start with _Galactic Patrol_.
> > A stalwart Galactic Patrol officer and his fellow Lensmen discover
> > what they thought was a cabal of pirates is in fact a force far
> > more organized and much larger than mere pirates.
> >
> > https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/holy-klono
> [snip]
> > Perhaps the issue was that the book, and the series, were dated.
> > It’s a long long time between 1950 and 1973.
>
> It was top of the line stuff when it was serialized in 1937-1938.
> Then the Golden Age started a year later and the field was very
> different by 1950.

It is a point of pride among science fiction fans that, long before the
civil rights movement came to public consciousness, written science
fiction consistently although not universally supported the equality
of intelligent beings. This included of course non-human beings and
also Earth humans of all races and religions, and sometimes even
both sexes.

In Anthony Boucher's 1943 short story _QUR_ a character mentions
that having a Black as leader of the world government, as they do,
would have been unthinkable to many people back in the unenlightened
twentieth century. Robert Heinlein is famous for giving details in stories
that show a character is Jewish, of Filipino, or otherwise non-WASP.
Edward E. Smith does the same thing in the first paragraphs of
_Galactic Patrol_. Courtesy of the Gutenberg Project, this is from
the 1950 book edition:

"Dominating twice a hundred square miles of campus, parade-ground,
airport, and space-port, a ninety-story edifice of chromium and glass
sparkled dazzlingly in the bright sunlight of a June morning. This
monumental pile was Wentworth Hall, in which the Tellurian
candidates for the Lens of the Galactic Patrol live and move and have
their being. One wing of its topmost floor seethed with tense activity,
for that wing was the habitat of the lordly Five-Year Men, this was
Graduation Day, and in a few minutes Class Five was due to report in Room A..

"Room A, the private office of the Commandant himself; the dreadful lair into
which an undergraduate was summoned only to disappear from the Hall and
from the Cadet Corps; the portentous chamber into which each year the
handful of graduates marched and from which they emerged, each man in
some subtle fashion changed.

"In their cubicles of steel the graduates scanned each other narrowly, making
sure that no wrinkle or speck of dust marred the space-black and silver
perfection of the dress uniform of the Patrol; that not even the tiniest spot
of tarnish or dullness violated the glittering golden meteors upon their collars
or the resplendently polished ray-pistols and other equipment at their belts.
The microscopic mutual inspection over, the kit-boxes were snapped shut and
racked, and the embryonic Lensmen made their way out into the assembly hall..

"In the wardroom Kimball Kinnison, Captain of the Class by virtue of graduating
at its head, and his three lieutenants, Clifford Maitland, Raoul LaForge, and Widel
Holmberg, had inspected each other minutely and were now simply awaiting, in
ever-increasing tension, the zero minute."

Raul LaForge reappears at least once in later books. There is no connection
with Geordi La Forge of _Star Trek the Next Generation_, who was named in honor
of George La Forge, a quadraplegic fan of the original _Star Trek_.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

On Sunday, November 6, 2022 at 8:51:24 PM UTC-6, peterwezeman@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 11:29:43 AM UTC-5, Ahasuerus wrote:
> > On Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 9:20:35 AM UTC-4, James Nicoll wrote:
> > > Galactic Patrol (Lensman, volume 3/Lensman, volume 2) by E. E.
> > > "Doc" Smith
> > _Galactic Patrol_ was the first novel in the core Lensman series.
> > _Triplanetary_ and _First Lensman_ were prequels put together
> > after the main series had been completed. I always recommend that
> > new readers start with _Galactic Patrol_.
> > > A stalwart Galactic Patrol officer and his fellow Lensmen discover
> > > what they thought was a cabal of pirates is in fact a force far
> > > more organized and much larger than mere pirates.
> > >
> > > https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/holy-klono
> > [snip]
> > > Perhaps the issue was that the book, and the series, were dated.
> > > It’s a long long time between 1950 and 1973.
> >
> > It was top of the line stuff when it was serialized in 1937-1938.
> > Then the Golden Age started a year later and the field was very
> > different by 1950.
> It is a point of pride among science fiction fans that, long before the
> civil rights movement came to public consciousness, written science
> fiction consistently although not universally supported the equality
> of intelligent beings. This included of course non-human beings and
> also Earth humans of all races and religions, and sometimes even
> both sexes.
>
> In Anthony Boucher's 1943 short story _QUR_ a character mentions
> that having a Black as leader of the world government, as they do,
> would have been unthinkable to many people back in the unenlightened
> twentieth century. Robert Heinlein is famous for giving details in stories
> that show a character is Jewish, of Filipino, or otherwise non-WASP.
> Edward E. Smith does the same thing in the first paragraphs of
> _Galactic Patrol_. Courtesy of the Gutenberg Project, this is from
> the 1950 book edition:
>
> "Dominating twice a hundred square miles of campus, parade-ground,
> airport, and space-port, a ninety-story edifice of chromium and glass
> sparkled dazzlingly in the bright sunlight of a June morning. This
> monumental pile was Wentworth Hall, in which the Tellurian
> candidates for the Lens of the Galactic Patrol live and move and have
> their being. One wing of its topmost floor seethed with tense activity,
> for that wing was the habitat of the lordly Five-Year Men, this was
> Graduation Day, and in a few minutes Class Five was due to report in Room A.
>
> "Room A, the private office of the Commandant himself; the dreadful lair into
> which an undergraduate was summoned only to disappear from the Hall and
> from the Cadet Corps; the portentous chamber into which each year the
> handful of graduates marched and from which they emerged, each man in
> some subtle fashion changed.
>
> "In their cubicles of steel the graduates scanned each other narrowly, making
> sure that no wrinkle or speck of dust marred the space-black and silver
> perfection of the dress uniform of the Patrol; that not even the tiniest spot
> of tarnish or dullness violated the glittering golden meteors upon their collars
> or the resplendently polished ray-pistols and other equipment at their belts.
> The microscopic mutual inspection over, the kit-boxes were snapped shut and
> racked, and the embryonic Lensmen made their way out into the assembly hall.
>
> "In the wardroom Kimball Kinnison, Captain of the Class by virtue of graduating
> at its head, and his three lieutenants, Clifford Maitland, Raoul LaForge, and Widel
> Holmberg, had inspected each other minutely and were now simply awaiting, in
> ever-increasing tension, the zero minute."
>
> Raul LaForge reappears at least once in later books. There is no connection
> with Geordi La Forge of _Star Trek the Next Generation_, who was named in honor
> of George La Forge, a quadraplegic fan of the original _Star Trek_.
>

I have found that this section is unchanged from the 1937 magazine edition
in _Astounding Stories_, also available from the Gutenberg Project:

"In the wardroom Kimball Kinnison, captain of the class by virtue of graduating
at its head, and his three lieutenants, Clifford Maitland, Raoul LaForge, and Widel
Holmberg, had inspected each other minutely and were now simply awaiting, in
ever-increasing tension, the zero minute."

During World War 2 there was an official "Good Neighbor to the North" policy
promoting relations with Mexico, including favorable portrayals of Mexico
and Mexicans by Hollywood, but this predates that by several years.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

In article <c14fa931-5689-4ae0-bb1b-50b3a3f95f27n@googlegroups.com>,
Johnny1A <johnny1a.again@gmail.com> wrote:
>Yeah, he hallucinated that. Along with a lot of other stuff, including things that left him nauseous and
>self-loathing afterward. Smith made the point (without going into detail) that the hallucination included
>_every_ desire Samms had ever experinced, all of them, including the base ones, stuff he had deceived himself
>into thinking he didn't desire. That's one of the psychological aspects of the stuff, it tends to wipe out
>self-respect by wiping out self-deception. Which in turn undercuts the ability to resist it afterward.

Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about that part of it.

--
Mike Van Pelt | "I don't advise it unless you're nuts."
mvp at calweb.com | -- Ray Wilkinson, after riding out Hurricane
KE6BVH | Ike on Surfside Beach in Galveston

On Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 10:25:33 PM UTC-5, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> >like that from cocaine.
> More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
> hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
> hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
> few years.)
>
> Along with the cocaine-like high, and the physical cravings from
> just one dose.

From _First Lensman_, courtesy of the Gutenberg Project. Virgil Samms
is undercover, posing as Olmstead, an existing relative of his with a
remarkable family resemblance a la _Prisoner of Zenda_. Morgan and
Herkimer seem to have accepted as fact that a member of the Samms
family could have turned to a life of crime:

"I see. You will do, Olmstead, if you live. There's a test, you know."

"They told me there would be."

"Well, aren't you curious to know what it is?"

"Not particularly. You passed it, didn't you?"

"What do you mean by that crack?" Herkimer leaped to his feet; his eyes,
smoldering before, now ablaze.

"Exactly what I said, no more and no less. You may read into it anything you
please." Samms' voice was as cold as were his eyes. "You picked me out
because of what I am. Did you think that moving upstairs would make a
boot-licker out of me?"

"Not at all." Herkimer sat down and took from a drawer two small, transparent,
vaguely capsule-like tubes, each containing a few particles of purple dust.
"You know what this is?"

"I can guess."

"Each of these is a good, heavy jolt; about all that a strong man with a strong
heart can stand. Sit down. Here is one dose. Pull the cover, stick the capsule
up one nostril, squeeze the ejector, and sniff. If you can leave this other dose
sitting here on the desk you will live, and thus pass the test. If you can't, you die."

Samms sat, and pulled, and squeezed, and sniffed.

His forearms hit the desk with a thud. His hands clenched themselves into fists,
the tight-stretched tendons standing boldly out. His face turned white. His eyes
jammed themselves shut; his jaw-muscles sprang into bands and lumps as they
clamped his teeth hard together. Every voluntary muscle in his body went into a
rigor as extreme as that of death itself. His heart pounded; his breathing
became stertorous.

This was the dreadful "muscle-lock" so uniquely characteristic of thionite; the
frenzied immobility of the ultimately passionate satisfaction of every desire.

The Galactic Patrol became for him an actuality; a force for good pervading
all the worlds of all the galaxies of all the universes of all existing space-time
continual. He knew what the Lens was, and why. He understood time and space..
He knew the absolute beginning and the ultimate end.

He also saw things and did things over which it is best to draw a kindly veil,
for every desire—mental or physical, open or sternly suppressed, noble or
base—that Virgil Samms had ever had was being completely satisfied.
EVERY DESIRE.

As Samms sat there, straining motionlessly upon the verge of death through
sheer ecstasy, a door opened and Senator Morgan entered the room. Herkimer
started, almost imperceptibly, as he turned—had there been, or not, an
instantaneously-suppressed flash of guilt in those now completely clear
and frank brown eyes?

"Hi, Chief; come in and sit down. Glad to see you—this is not exactly my idea of fun."

"No? When did you stop being a sadist?" The senator sat down beside his minion's
desk, the fingertips of his left hand began soundlessly to drum. "You wouldn't have,
by any chance, been considering the idea of...?" He paused significantly.

"What an idea." Herkimer's act—if it was an act—was flawless. "He's too good a
man to waste."

"I know it, but you didn't act as though you did. I've never seen you come out such
a poor second in an interview ... and it wasn't because you didn't know to start with
just what kind of a tiger he was—that's why he was selected for this job. And it
would have been so easy to give him just a wee bit more."

"That's preposterous, Chief, and you know it."

"Do I? However, it couldn't have been jealousy, because he isn't being considered
for your job. He won't be over you, and there's plenty of room for everybody. What
was the matter? Your bloodthirstiness wouldn't have taken you that far, under
these circumstances. Come clean, Herkimer."

"Okay—I hate the whole damned family!" Herkimer burst out, viciously.

"I see. That adds up." Morgan's face cleared, his fingers became motionless.. "You can't
make the Samms wench and aren't in position to skin her alive, so you get allergic to
all her relatives. That adds up, but let me tell you something." His quiet, level voice
carried more of menace than most men's loudest threats. "Keep your love life out of
business and keep that sadistic streak under control. Don't let anything like this
happen again."

"I won't, Chief. I got off the beam—but he made me so damn mad!"

"Certainly. That's exactly what he was trying to do. Elementary. If he could make you look
small it would make him look big, and he just about did. But watch now, he's coming to."

Samms' muscles relaxed. He opened his eyes groggily; then, as a wave of humiliated
realization swept over his consciousness, he closed them again and shuddered. He had
always thought himself pretty much of a man; how could he possibly have descended
to such nauseous depths of depravity, of turpitude, of sheer moral degradation? And yet
every cell of his being was shrieking its demand for more; his mind and his substance
alike were permeated by an over-mastering craving to experience again the ultimate
thrills which they had so tremendously, so outrageously enjoyed.

There was another good jolt lying right there on the desk in front of him, even though
thionite-sniffers always saw to it that no more of the drug could be obtained without
considerable physical exertion; which exertion would bring them to their senses. If he
took that jolt it would kill him. What of it? What was death? What good was life, except
to enjoy such thrills as he had just had and was about to have again? And besides, thionite
couldn't kill him. He was a super-man; he had just proved it!

He straightened up and reached for the capsule; and that effort, small as it was, was enough
to bring First Lensman Virgil Samms back under control. The craving, however, did not decrease.
Rather, it increased.

Months were to pass before he could think of thionite, or even of the color purple, without a
spasmodic catching of the breath and a tightening of every muscle. Years were to pass before
he could forget, even partially, the theretofore unsuspected dwellers in the dark recesses of
his own mind. Nevertheless, from the store of whatever it was that made him what he was,
Virgil Samms drew strength. Thumb and forefinger touched the capsule, but instead of picking
it up, he pushed it across the desk toward Herkimer.

"Put it away, bub. One whiff of that stuff will last me for life." He stared unfathomably at the
secretary, then turned to Morgan and nodded. "After all, he did not say that he ever passed
this or any other test. He just didn't contradict me when I said it."

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

On 9/11/22 10:32, peterwezeman@hotmail.com wrote:
> From _First Lensman_, courtesy of the Gutenberg Project.

That was an enjoyable excerpt. I have never read Smith but now have that
Gutenberg ebook. Thank you.

On Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 10:25:33 PM UTC-5, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> >like that from cocaine.
> More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
> hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
> hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
> few years.)
>
> Along with the cocaine-like high, and the physical cravings from
> just one dose.

I came across some information about recreational drug use in Britain
that may be of interest here. This is from a single source, and I have
not seen anything to support or refute it, but it is consistent with what
I know of physiology. I am interested in any comments, pro or con.

According to what I read, hallucinogens bind with and stimulate
dopaminergic receptors in the brain. They are thus classed as
dopaminergic agonists, as opposed to dopaminergic antagonists,
which would also bind with dopaminergic receptors, but which would
inactivate the receptor. The best known drug antagonist is probably
naloxone, which is used to treat opioid overdose.

In Britain drug laws cannot prohibit entire classes of drugs such as
hallucinogens, but can only forbid specific chemicals. This has resulted
in a cycle of action and reaction where recreational drug users try
various plants and fungi looking for new hallucinogens. When they find
one that gives them their desired effect others in the recreational drug
community learn of it and also start using it. With enough users this may
come to the attention of the authorities. If they deem the new drug to be
undesirable researchers find out what the active molecule is, lawmakers
pass legislation against it, and the drug law enforcement apparatus goes
into action to suppress its use. At that point the users look for another
new hallucinogen.

Over the years this process has resulted in a wide variety of hallucinogens
being used by the recreational drug community. We are accustomed to
thinking of various drugs in a given class as being stronger or weaker than
others. For example, among opioids, heroin is twice as strong as morphine,
fentanyl is fifty times as strong as heroin, and carfentanyl is 100 times as
strong as fentanyl. However, this one-dimensional model does not really
work with hallucinogens. There are several different types of dopaminergic
receptors, each with its own distribution in various tissues in the brain
and with differences in the actual receptor site. Hallucinogen A might
bind more strongly than hallucinogen B to one type of receptor but
more weakly than hallucinogen B to another type of receptor. The
upshot is that two hallucinogens will activate different subsets of
the dopaminergic receptors giving users experiences that are
qualitatively different. People who have used a variety of these drugs
find that they produce hallucinations of specific character. This is quite
similar to how Edward E. Smith described the effect of thionite in the
_Lensman _ series.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

On Friday, November 11, 2022 at 4:41:21 AM UTC, peterwezeman@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 10:25:33 PM UTC-5, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> > In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> > >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> > >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> > >like that from cocaine.
> > More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
> > hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
> > hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> > head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
> > few years.)
> >
> > Along with the cocaine-like high, and the physical cravings from
> > just one dose.
> I came across some information about recreational drug use in Britain
> that may be of interest here. This is from a single source, and I have
> not seen anything to support or refute it, but it is consistent with what
> I know of physiology. I am interested in any comments, pro or con.
>
> According to what I read, hallucinogens bind with and stimulate
> dopaminergic receptors in the brain. They are thus classed as
> dopaminergic agonists, as opposed to dopaminergic antagonists,
> which would also bind with dopaminergic receptors, but which would
> inactivate the receptor. The best known drug antagonist is probably
> naloxone, which is used to treat opioid overdose.
>
> In Britain drug laws cannot prohibit entire classes of drugs such as
> hallucinogens, but can only forbid specific chemicals. This has resulted
> in a cycle of action and reaction where recreational drug users try
> various plants and fungi looking for new hallucinogens. When they find
> one that gives them their desired effect others in the recreational drug
> community learn of it and also start using it. With enough users this may
> come to the attention of the authorities. If they deem the new drug to be
> undesirable researchers find out what the active molecule is, lawmakers
> pass legislation against it, and the drug law enforcement apparatus goes
> into action to suppress its use. At that point the users look for another
> new hallucinogen.
>
> Over the years this process has resulted in a wide variety of hallucinogens
> being used by the recreational drug community. We are accustomed to
> thinking of various drugs in a given class as being stronger or weaker than
> others. For example, among opioids, heroin is twice as strong as morphine,
> fentanyl is fifty times as strong as heroin, and carfentanyl is 100 times as
> strong as fentanyl. However, this one-dimensional model does not really
> work with hallucinogens. There are several different types of dopaminergic
> receptors, each with its own distribution in various tissues in the brain
> and with differences in the actual receptor site. Hallucinogen A might
> bind more strongly than hallucinogen B to one type of receptor but
> more weakly than hallucinogen B to another type of receptor. The
> upshot is that two hallucinogens will activate different subsets of
> the dopaminergic receptors giving users experiences that are
> qualitatively different. People who have used a variety of these drugs
> find that they produce hallucinations of specific character. This is quite
> similar to how Edward E. Smith described the effect of thionite in the
> _Lensman _ series.
>
> Peter Wezeman
> anti-social Darwinist
The government did eventually notice that chemists were getting past restrictions on specific drugs and moved to a system of banning very general categories - if https://www.drugscience.org.uk/drug-policy-explained-legalisation-decriminalisation-and-prohibition/ is indeed correct, in 2016 they banned such a wide range that they had to make specific exemptions to keep alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and various medicines legal.

On Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 11:24:38 PM UTC-6, mcdow...@sky.com wrote:
> On Friday, November 11, 2022 at 4:41:21 AM UTC, peterw...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 10:25:33 PM UTC-5, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> > > In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> > > Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > > >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> > > >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> > > >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> > > >like that from cocaine.
> > > More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
> > > hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
> > > hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> > > head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
> > > few years.)
> > >
> > > Along with the cocaine-like high, and the physical cravings from
> > > just one dose.
> > I came across some information about recreational drug use in Britain
> > that may be of interest here. This is from a single source, and I have
> > not seen anything to support or refute it, but it is consistent with what
> > I know of physiology. I am interested in any comments, pro or con.
> >
> > According to what I read, hallucinogens bind with and stimulate
> > dopaminergic receptors in the brain. They are thus classed as
> > dopaminergic agonists, as opposed to dopaminergic antagonists,
> > which would also bind with dopaminergic receptors, but which would
> > inactivate the receptor. The best known drug antagonist is probably
> > naloxone, which is used to treat opioid overdose.
> >
> > In Britain drug laws cannot prohibit entire classes of drugs such as
> > hallucinogens, but can only forbid specific chemicals. This has resulted
> > in a cycle of action and reaction where recreational drug users try
> > various plants and fungi looking for new hallucinogens. When they find
> > one that gives them their desired effect others in the recreational drug
> > community learn of it and also start using it. With enough users this may
> > come to the attention of the authorities. If they deem the new drug to be
> > undesirable researchers find out what the active molecule is, lawmakers
> > pass legislation against it, and the drug law enforcement apparatus goes
> > into action to suppress its use. At that point the users look for another
> > new hallucinogen.
> >
> > Over the years this process has resulted in a wide variety of hallucinogens
> > being used by the recreational drug community. We are accustomed to
> > thinking of various drugs in a given class as being stronger or weaker than
> > others. For example, among opioids, heroin is twice as strong as morphine,
> > fentanyl is fifty times as strong as heroin, and carfentanyl is 100 times as
> > strong as fentanyl. However, this one-dimensional model does not really
> > work with hallucinogens. There are several different types of dopaminergic
> > receptors, each with its own distribution in various tissues in the brain
> > and with differences in the actual receptor site. Hallucinogen A might
> > bind more strongly than hallucinogen B to one type of receptor but
> > more weakly than hallucinogen B to another type of receptor. The
> > upshot is that two hallucinogens will activate different subsets of
> > the dopaminergic receptors giving users experiences that are
> > qualitatively different. People who have used a variety of these drugs
> > find that they produce hallucinations of specific character. This is quite
> > similar to how Edward E. Smith described the effect of thionite in the
> > _Lensman _ series.
> >
> > Peter Wezeman
> > anti-social Darwinist
> The government did eventually notice that chemists were getting past restrictions on specific drugs and moved to a system of banning very general categories - if https://www.drugscience.org.uk/drug-policy-explained-legalisation-decriminalisation-and-prohibition/ is indeed correct, in 2016 they banned such a wide range that they had to make specific exemptions to keep alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and various medicines legal.

Thank you for your reply. It would seem that the information I came across predates
2016. I had the impression that, at the time, the new recreational drugs coming into
use in Britain were being found in natural products rather than being synthesized.

The big news about hallucinogens this year was that study using psilocybin to
treat severe depression:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8864328/

It seems the British law has provisions for the medicinal use of psychoactive
drugs.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 10:38:56 AM UTC-5, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Nov 2022 19:42:22 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> >On Friday, 4 November 2022 at 03:25:33 UTC, Mike Van Pelt wrote:
> >> In article <e9fa14d7-deb6-4588...@googlegroups.com>,
> >> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >> >There is a scene in one of those books, quite possibly Galactic
> >> >Patrol itself, where a Lensman seeking to infiltrate the criminals
> >> >is administered a dose and feels its "high", described as somewhat
> >> >like that from cocaine.
> >> More like an LSD trip, if an LSD trip reliably gave you detailed
> >> hallucinations of your deepest desires coming true. I think Samms
> >> hallucinated massive success for the Patrol, with himself at the
> >> head, Doing Good for the entire galaxy. (But it's been quite a
> >> few years.)
> >
> >Put like that, I think of Sam Gamgee seeing himself
> >as Gardener of all Middle-Earth, or something like that.
> >But if I have the dates straight, that was published
> >later than _First Lensman_. I wouldn't claim that
> >Tolkien invented the temptation to do good, anyway.
> However, in Sam's case, the Ring corrupts so he might begin as doing
> good but would end as a cruel tyrant.
>

Rings corrupt, and the One Ring corrupts absolutely.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 3:38:24 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <0294beac-be41-47eb...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
> >also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
> >the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
> >in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
> >in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
> >Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
> >and for that matter, so could classical music.
> (Hal Heydt)
> If the local classical station--KDFC--is anything to go by,
> classical music is gathering in styles that didn't used to be
> considered classical, such as Ragtime. They also play chunks of
> music from films--plenty of John Williams, who they have to
> announce carefully as there is an Australian classical guitarist
> named John Williams--and also from video games.
>
> Not sure if you'd fit it in or not, but this morning they played
> Gershwin's "An American in Paris".
>
> They've also been known to play Sousa.

I read a piece claiming John Williams and others are not just the best film music
composers but the best contemporary composers. "Modern" composers, for
whatever reasons, do not use what the author called the symphonic form, which
has great and possibly unique emotional resonance for people. This emotionality
is needed for film, stage, and television scores, so those industries continue to
support the creation of new music that people find emotionally engaging, whereas
"pure" composers have moved on to new forms.

YMMV of course. I always enjoy Bernard Herrmann's score for
_The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad_.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 3:18:59 AM UTC, peterwezeman@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 3:38:24 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <0294beac-be41-47eb...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > >If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
> > >also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
> > >the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
> > >in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
> > >in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
> > >Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
> > >and for that matter, so could classical music.
> > (Hal Heydt)
> > If the local classical station--KDFC--is anything to go by,
> > classical music is gathering in styles that didn't used to be
> > considered classical, such as Ragtime. They also play chunks of
> > music from films--plenty of John Williams, who they have to
> > announce carefully as there is an Australian classical guitarist
> > named John Williams--and also from video games.
> >
> > Not sure if you'd fit it in or not, but this morning they played
> > Gershwin's "An American in Paris".
> >
> > They've also been known to play Sousa.
> I read a piece claiming John Williams and others are not just the best film music
> composers but the best contemporary composers. "Modern" composers, for
> whatever reasons, do not use what the author called the symphonic form, which
> has great and possibly unique emotional resonance for people. This emotionality
> is needed for film, stage, and television scores, so those industries continue to
> support the creation of new music that people find emotionally engaging, whereas
> "pure" composers have moved on to new forms.
>
> YMMV of course. I always enjoy Bernard Herrmann's score for
> _The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad_.
>
> Peter Wezeman
> anti-social Darwinist
I listen to a BBC Radio 3 program called "The Early Music Show" which is as you would expect - but also runs competitions for modern composers writing in the style of early music, and for period instruments. Alas, Sunday's program featured the winning compositions (admittedly by competitors still learning to be composers) and I wasn't impressed by the pieces, or by the high-flown language about what the composer was trying to achieve. I suspect that one reason why I like early music is that it was written for patrons who (unlike Radio 3 judges) did not have particularly refined tastes.

On Sun, 13 Nov 2022 19:18:57 -0800 (PST), "peterwezeman@hotmail.com"
<peterwezeman@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 3:38:24 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <0294beac-be41-47eb...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> >If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
>> >also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
>> >the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
>> >in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
>> >in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
>> >Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
>> >and for that matter, so could classical music.
>> (Hal Heydt)
>> If the local classical station--KDFC--is anything to go by,
>> classical music is gathering in styles that didn't used to be
>> considered classical, such as Ragtime. They also play chunks of
>> music from films--plenty of John Williams, who they have to
>> announce carefully as there is an Australian classical guitarist
>> named John Williams--and also from video games.
>>
>> Not sure if you'd fit it in or not, but this morning they played
>> Gershwin's "An American in Paris".
>>
>> They've also been known to play Sousa.
>
>I read a piece claiming John Williams and others are not just the best film music
>composers but the best contemporary composers. "Modern" composers, for
>whatever reasons, do not use what the author called the symphonic form, which
>has great and possibly unique emotional resonance for people. This emotionality
>is needed for film, stage, and television scores, so those industries continue to
>support the creation of new music that people find emotionally engaging, whereas
>"pure" composers have moved on to new forms.

So "pure" that nobody can stand to listen to it, no doubt. Although
the elitists, of course, pretend to like it.

>YMMV of course. I always enjoy Bernard Herrmann's score for
>_The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad_.

Indeed.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 11:41:28 PM UTC-6, mcdow...@sky.com wrote:
> On Monday, November 14, 2022 at 3:18:59 AM UTC, peterw...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 3:38:24 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > > In article <0294beac-be41-47eb...@googlegroups.com>,
> > > Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > > >If *classical music* can die, surely the idea that science fiction can
> > > >also die is not an outrageous one. While science fiction is not dead in
> > > >the sense of being absolutely nonexistent, I would say that it was dying
> > > >in the period of the New Wave, and today it indeed is dead, living on
> > > >in movies, in mil-sf, and in various other dying embers.
> > > >Not being a biological entity, though, science fiction could be reborn,
> > > >and for that matter, so could classical music.
> > > (Hal Heydt)
> > > If the local classical station--KDFC--is anything to go by,
> > > classical music is gathering in styles that didn't used to be
> > > considered classical, such as Ragtime. They also play chunks of
> > > music from films--plenty of John Williams, who they have to
> > > announce carefully as there is an Australian classical guitarist
> > > named John Williams--and also from video games.
> > >
> > > Not sure if you'd fit it in or not, but this morning they played
> > > Gershwin's "An American in Paris".
> > >
> > > They've also been known to play Sousa.
> > I read a piece claiming John Williams and others are not just the best film music
> > composers but the best contemporary composers. "Modern" composers, for
> > whatever reasons, do not use what the author called the symphonic form, which
> > has great and possibly unique emotional resonance for people. This emotionality
> > is needed for film, stage, and television scores, so those industries continue to
> > support the creation of new music that people find emotionally engaging, whereas
> > "pure" composers have moved on to new forms.
> >
> > YMMV of course. I always enjoy Bernard Herrmann's score for
> > _The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad_.
> >
> > Peter Wezeman
> > anti-social Darwinist
> I listen to a BBC Radio 3 program called "The Early Music Show" which is as you would expect - but also runs competitions for modern composers writing in the style of early music, and for period instruments. Alas, Sunday's program featured the winning compositions (admittedly by competitors still learning to be composers) and I wasn't impressed by the pieces, or by the high-flown language about what the composer was trying to achieve. I suspect that one reason why I like early music is that it was written for patrons who (unlike Radio 3 judges) did not have particularly refined tastes.

It could be worse. What if chefs were no longer interested in preparing food
that people actually wanted to eat?

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

On Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 9:52:26 PM UTC-6, pete...@gmail.com wrote:

> If Quaddie thinks Phillip Glass, Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, and Vaughn Williams
> are rehashing Wagner and Beethoven, we've just discovered yet another
> area of knowledge in which he's deeply ignorant, but utterly confident
> of his knowledge.

No, I don't think that; while I have much praise for the music of film composer
John Williams, he is the sort of musician I would put in that category. But
"rehashing" is too strong a word; it is simply that he is composing music in
their genre without moving on into unexplored territory.

Of course there is still some classical music going on. Alan Hovanhess,
Einojuhani Rautavaara... just to name a couple. But it's not a major part of the
culture any longer.

John Savard