Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 17:28:52 -0400
To: _swat.org.swil @ cc.swarthmore.edu
From: jthorpe1 @ cc.swarthmore.edu
Subject: SWILnews #4 on the Floor

        Seatings and Gralutations, oh me droogs.  This here SWILnews
will
tell you all you need to know about the happenings of last week, so
gather
round and listen up, y'hear?  (Multiple conflicting dialects free of
charge.)

        We visited the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire on Sunday
(huzzah!),
and I'll be durned if we didn't have a good time.  None of us went in
costume, which was really too bad, but the Faire was fun enough without
them.  There was a Live Chess match (with _real_ choreographed combat)
which made ours look like a bunch of college students standing around on
pieces of carpet; there was jousting and single combat; there was the
honest-to-god world's UGLIEST pig in the petting zoo.  We ate cheese
curds
and bought hats, and I was cured of the ague.  You may find it a little
hokey if you don't let yourself relax and go with the flow, but all in
all
I think we had a good time.

        George may honestly have a home now.  To quote Jim quoting Tedd:

> I have learned from Career Planning that Tarble 312 is the one they
use
> least, and therefore the best one for "George."  Perhaps you would
like to
> go and take a look at it to make sure it is suitable for your
purposes.
> 
> Tedd

        I say we take his advice and go look at it (before Saturday),
and
then decide at this coming meeting whether it is "suitable".  If it is,
we'll need some folks to help us move George down the hall.  (Hint,
hint,
blatant hint.)

        FYI, Ben Salter is writing an article about the Pterodactyl Hunt
for the Phoenix, and will be interviewing me next week sometime.  This
means a) if you'd like me to say anything you should tell me, and b)
maybe
on Saturday we'd better decide when the Hunt will be.  This means Lesley
will show up (as she has promised to do) and we can all discuss Hunty
type
things this Saturday.  Be prepared to sign up to be monsters if you plan
to.

        There will, alas, be no Prisoner episode this Saturday, since
there
is a non-official SWIL trip to the Franklin Institute/Museum of Natural
Sciences/Art Museum on Saturday (all of these places are FREE to college
students on that day).  Episodes will recommence next week.

        Hey--this is SWILnews #4, and we haven't missed a review yet.
Here
goes...

REVIEW by jere7my tho?rpe: _The Gap Chronicles_, by Stephen R. Donaldson
(including _The Real Story_, _Forbidden Knowledge_, and _A Dark and
Hungry
God Arises_.  Two more books to follow.)  For those of you who were
turned
off by the flowery language of Donaldson's wordy _Chronicles of Thomas
Covenant_, the Gap series may be the answer.  The language is best
described as terse--he never wastes a word.  Set in a dark future
controlled by an interplanetary mining corporation, and actually loosely
based on Wagner's Die Ringen Das Nibelungen [forgive any spelling
errors],
the Gap series is a portrait of three humans bound together by ties
which
are at times horrible, at times expedient, but never blatantly noble. 
Angus Thermopyle is introduced as an ore pirate, and one of the most
despicable characters I've seen in a novel.  Morn Hyland is the
innocent,
ravishing policewoman who is kidnapped by Angus.  And Nick Succorso is
her
dashing, passionate pirate rescuer.  Or so you might think.  The first
novel is called _The Real Story_ because it shatters these notions which
the reader brings to the book, and delves deep into the, well, real
story
behind all of their motives and actions.  After the scene is set, the
next
two books follow the three of them in their lives, never failing to
leave
the reader both exhilarated and disturbed.
I won't mislead you--_The Real Story_ is a hard book to read.  It is,
like
the life of primitive man, nasty, brutish and short.  (The next two,
_Knowledge_ and _God_ are somewhat less shock-driven, and considerably
longer.)  But once you get past the surface atrocities, you can see that
the book is actually a fine piece of exposition, and the books that
follow
don't fail to explore all the paths left open to them.  (I'm currently
waiting for book 4, and am on the edge of my seat.)  All three are
available in my room, and #4 is due out, um, sometime.

        Thank you, Mr. tho?rpe, for that fine review.  [You're welcome.] 
Now, if there is nothing else, we have time for the TWO attendance
lists,
including the one from last week which I thought was lost.  Huzzah!

ATTENDANCE for 9:18:93
Josh "(lambada (x) kiwis)" Burdick [But kiwis are a scalar? --O]; Kendra
"HET DRAGODUBY" Eshleman; Colin "soya beans can demonstrate rationality
too" Schatz; Jacob "Multiculture? I hardly even know her!" Mattison;
Kathy
"All I want is some fucking skim milk!" Davis; Lesley "Ducks! On a lake!
Ahhh" Tsina; Beth "It will hurt less next time" Bruch [Promises,
promises. 
--O]; Geoff Noer "Quote on the end this time"; b(R)ad "The big guy with
the
equipment" Gabe; EVAN "INDIGO BEVERAGE" DORN ["Hello!  My name is Indigo
Beverage!  Prepare to--oh, never mind." --O]; Larry "In some dimension,
they erect statues of me and worship me as a God" Miller [What do you
mean
SOME dimension?  Obviously, you haven't been to Cleveland. --O]; Charles
"Bare with me here, there are technical difficulties" Danforth; Jim
"Getting naked with Charles" "Ich habe einen Berliner." M.; Sam "Argh!
Blackmail!" Weiler; Andrea "I blackmail you all the time, Sam" Hall
[Okay,
kids, not here. --O]

ATTENDANCE for 9:25:93
Andrea "Driving _to_ Renn Faire--I hope" Hall; Larry "Let's Not Talk
About
Food" Miller; Jeremy "Resident of Sharples" Dilatush; Incom
"U-Boats...can
be fun" Cado; Adam Bucky; Josh "detcahable earlobes" Burdick; Elizabeth
"carousing member forever" Christian [But there's always rule 4...heh
heh
heh. --O]; Sophia Sarafora (alumna :( ); Kathy "Get the cool van" Davis
[I
don't know if it was cool, but it had jellybeans wedged into the back
seat.
--O]; Sam "So we can wreck it" Weiler; Kendra "food, food, food"
Eshleman;
Charles "1/R^2" Danforth; Robert "Thwap, stab" "ook" Richardson; Heather
"eeek" Brinkhous; Geoff "polyphonous" Noer; Lisa "does Geoff play
1st&2nd
violin simultaneously?" Stefanowich; b(R)ad "many,many more phones than
Geoff would ever have!" Gabe; Julianna Patrick; Robert "Walking Walrus
Snake" Richardson II [sounds like an Ulik from that Chalker series...
--O]

        Be seeing you.

                                                ----Praefecti Quondam
                                                      Praefectique
Futuri