In SWILish things upcoming. Peter Wagner is organizing the St.
Valentine's Day Massacre. He needs people to sign up to be
waitrons, diningtrons, and thugtrons. The sign-up sheet is on the
SWIL board in Parrish. He is also looking for guns for the
thugtrons to use. The great dying will occur at 6pm next Thursday
in the middle room of Sharples. BEM needs you to submit to Fran!
You can submit work you want to be considered for BEM, or you could
submit to being on the editorial staff. Melissa Shaner has already
agreed to be Fran's slave. (Or at least, so says Fran.) The
deadline is still undecided. Not undecided is the deadline for
submissions for SWIL shirt designs. Submit designs to Nao before
the March 2nd meeting. The big vote will be on the 2nd. Once the
design is picked, orders will be taken until the 1st of April. (No
fooling.)
     Pterodactyls may appear this spring. We are still uncertain
about their migratory patterns and so aren't sure if they'll be
landing in Swarthmore on the way north. Well, actually we're
haven't decided whether we want to try and organize a spring hunt
and the issue was moved to the great, "To be decided later" zone.
In Birdwaner news, our budget has been cut in half. No one knows
why, but it seems that BC cut everyones book budget. However there
seemed to be general agreement that some of that money should be
used to purchase a copy of Samuel R. Delany's autobiography, _The
Motion of Light in Water_.
     Other bookish type news. Judith Moffatt will be signing copies
of her first novel, _The Ragged World_ this Saturday from 3 - 5 pm
at Leisure Time Books in the Ville. A couple of her earlier shorter
pieces have been nominated for Hugos and/or Nebulas.
     An attempt was made to restart the science fiction discussion
table, but only two people showed up at the decided time. Since I
got the impression at the meeting last Saturday that there was
definite interest in the idea another attempt will probably be
made. Look for further details on the SWIL folder on the VAX.

Review:
Stations of the Tide by Michel Swanwick. I found this book rather
disappointing. While the plot seems to be internally consistant,
it's often very cloudy. Swanwick seems to be playing with the rules
he has set up, but he doesn't seem to be that interesting in
explaining those rules to the reader. As a result, many interesting
plot developments are wasted for lack of sufficient background.
However this may just be a matter of my personnal tastes; your
mileage may vary. [SotT was serialized in two recent issues of
Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Review by Jeff Hildebrand, copy
available for borrowing.]

Attendence:
Aaron "I've never been first before!" Brockett, Susannah "one more
week and I'll be ready for dismemberment" Hauze, Andy "This is the
first time I've signed my name to one of these things in, like, a
year" Perry, Peter "Getting shot at the bank" Wagner, Joel, Joshua
"elsewhere" Mackay-Smith, Deb "back to cumquats perhaps?" Holtzman,
jere7my "Mein Fuhrer! Ah, sorry, Mr. President." tho?rpe, Josh
"Start a coup! Start a coup!" Smith, Stephen "What's this about
cerebal aneurisms?" Sample, Deb "I got a package" Barolsky, Jed
("Wait - is this the t-shirt list or the Massacre list?") Hartman,
S"C"RUFF, Jim "Watch this space" Moskowitz, Janislaw Brozczierw [or
something close to that], Nao "the anonymous" Parkhurst, Peter
"We'll met again, don't know how, don't know when..." Wong, Fran
"I'm not here", Maeghan "Late but here" Maloney, Sniffling Master
of SWILdom.
     If Susannah shows up at the meeting on Saturday she'll be the
first to be dismembered this semester. Don't miss the fun.

                                                  SMOS