translight3

Hubris

Deanne E Gwinn — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:56:28 +0000

This is related to the Senders theme of radioactive contamination of our environment.
mcvoices.info post

Senders roots 6

Deanne E Gwinn — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:12:04 +0000

Sometime in 1992 KTEH transmission changed. We were no longer able to get channel 54, and didn’t want to take on the monthly payments of cable. No more science fiction nights, no more PBS, no more Sesame Street for my youngest. However, the era of Bill Clinton was ushered in, and negotiations over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty began in 1993. I renamed ditsy me “Jane Malthus” and began my off-the-wall campaign to persuade Bill to support ratification of the “Seedy Bee Tea.”

Senders roots 5

Deanne E Gwinn — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:03:24 +0000

August 30, 1990 (scribbled notation says “mailed 8-22-90″)

George Sampson
KTEH 54
100 Skyport Drive
San Jose, CA 95110-1301
Dear Mr. Sampson:
Hi, it’s me again. OK. This is what I figured out.
If your station is going to be Earth’s official welcoming comittee for beings outside of the Solar System, maybe you can borrow some tactics from traditional welcoming committees. Important dignitaries visiting a foreign country can usually expect to be greeted by dancing schoolgirls (of course, we always have cheer leaders), bouquets of flowers, baskets of cookies, those little purple canides no one likes, access to people with important information, military music, newspaper photographers, and a series of boring speeches.

Now since your greetings need to be sent over a relatively long distance, there is no way you can send a basket of cookies, (which is a disappontment to Maud Clemens, who loves to bake, but she insists that cookies must be fresh). You can’t even send a newspaper photographer. But you can broadcast PHOTOGRAPHS, you can broadcast MILITARY MUSIC (though I can’t think why you would want to), and long boring SPEECHES would be a snap (especially around early June). However, as Lucy pointed out, the welcoming gift which would be most appreciated by the Senders of Shaula would be IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

r i g h t, you might think, and how do we know just what information the Senders would consider important, and how would they know it is being broadcast as a gesture of goodwill?

That may be easier than it sounds. You see, although the Senders don’t seem to know yet that we are receiving their messages, they’ve been asking for information all along. Something like Leonardo da Vinci scribbling messages to the future in the margins of his notebooks “Tell me if anything ever was done. Tell me if anything ever was done.”

Mostly the Senders seem to want technical information, information about cars and rocket engines and steam locomotives and skateboards that hover over water (ddi you broadcast “Back to the Future II” by any chance?) They were also very interested in the wind farm at Altamont Pass. They couldn’t figure out if it was designed to stabilize the rotation of the Earth or to process carrots on a massive scale. (The commentary for that program must have been wiped out by static.)

So Lucy and I thought, if we receive a request for specific information and right away you broadcast programs containing that information, (and maybe rebroadcast it three or four times to make sure they get it), well, we think they would be intelligient enough to get the idea that we hear them and are willing to cooperate.

The most recent requests seem to be for information on the propulsion systems of the space shuttle and how we got the Hubble Telescope into that postiion. (Technological wonder that is.)

Is there any chance you could broadcast, repeatedly, somehting along those lines? Or maybe that segment from “The New Yankee Workshop” on jet-propelled tea carts (I think that was from “The New Yankee Workshop.)

We know you’ll do your best and even if you can’t find anyting appropriate, we appreaciate your efforts.

Sincerely,
Deanne Gwinn
P.S. Drive very carefully. Those school kids can get vicious (also viscous, especially at crosswalks and during lunch).

Senders roots 4

Deanne E Gwinn — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:25:37 +0000

But the buzz I got from the first contest stayed with me, and I ran with the concept of communicating with extra-terrestrial beings. The contests stopped, but I kept writing to George Sampson anyway, and by August of that year had established key characters in the Senders saga: Maud Clemens, Lucy (Lisa, Lysa, Leeza Meitner), and a ditsy me later to be named Jane Malthus. I had also established that the Senders were seeking information, and the only way to give them the information was through broadcasting, probably derived from Ray Bradbury’s story about helpless astronauts spinning away from their spaceship, drifting through a “cloud” of Earth’s radio transmissions bearing snippets from a world they would never see again. My letter to George Sampson in August of 1990 indicates an on-going, one-sided correspondence:

Senders roots 3

Deanne E Gwinn — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:08:30 +0000

My efforts in subsequent KTEH Science 54 Fiction Night contests did not fare as well. In particular, one contest provided us with an imaginary time machine and asked what we would do with it. I put together a team of linguistic experts who travelled back to biblical times and used their influence to amend the Bible to include commandments on using birth control. From comments made by George Sampson’s vacation time stand-in, I gathered that was not a popular response.

Senders roots 2

Deanne E Gwinn — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 22:02:51 +0000

My t-shirt-winning response to the KTEH challenge was as follows:

Question One: How can we establish permenant, peaceful, and mutally beneficial communication?

Question Two: Can you provide me with documents written in Earth English which explain in detail your physiological and psychological make-up, the entire history of your species, including the location of your planet, and the physics and mechanics behind your mode of interstellar/interplanetary travel?

Question Three: Would you like a cup of tea?

Senders roots pt 1

Deanne E Gwinn — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:54:18 +0000

Looking back through the files relating to The Senders of Shaula I’ve accumulated over the years, I came across letters that reminded me of the true origin of the characters. In 1990 the television station KTEH 54 had a weekly “Science Fiction Night” hosted by George Sampson. We regularly tuned in for “Dr Who” “Blake’s 7″ “Red Dwarf” and “The Prisoner.” To increase viewership, George started a series of small contests, in which viewers sent in responses to various instructions. I was jazzed when I got “First Runner Up” for the first contest (and won a “Prisoner” t-shirt.) The first contest was “Aliens who land in your backyard will talk only to you and have only enough power to answer three questions. What are your questions?”

Treeology version 2.3

Deanne E Gwinn — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:57:37 +0000

The content of this version of Treeology is essentially the same as the first upload (yes, proof copies of that first version still exist. I ordered more than one.) Since the Amazon “Search Inside” feature insisted on highlighting the section containing verse I wrote in early grade school, I decided to move that section to the end of the volume to give later work a little light. I reformatted it so only one poem appears per page, making each more readable. I added “Synopsis” and “In Defense of a Keatsian Dame” (both dating from my college years) becaue they’ been left out the first time around, and a few of the first offerings from Corjay (which I wrote this past year to post in mcvoices.info) .

Side note: several of the poems (or fragments thereof) in Treeology were included in early versions of the Translight Trilogy (copyright registrations 1990, 1991, 1994.) When I rewrote the trilogy I removed most of the poems because I was trying to cut back on the word count, and articles I’d read warned that including that type of thing bogs down the reader’s experience.

Considering the lack of readership the latest version has received, I should have just left things alone. (Other than me, Wanda Sue Parrott is the only person who has admitted reading the enitre trilogy since Bill Appel read the first version back in 1989. If anyone else has ever read it, they are just too chicken to admit it.) Oh well. If anyone ever needs to investigate the matter, my poems are there within the text of the trilogy, registered, copyrighted back when my kids were little and I didn’t get out much.

Lurts

Deanne E Gwinn — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:08:31 +0000

LURTS*
by Grandcestor* Deanne E Gwinn .
(*For definitions of these terms, see the glossary on the site mcvoices.info)

Their venomous vulturous visages hover
above every avenue you can discover
with faces voracious and morals long shriveled,
their manners reproachless, but motives uncivil,
craving your substance.

It’s murder.

Like crows will conspire to dismember the songbird,
these pirates cast lots to lay claim to your strong words,
then silent as sharks circling scent of success
spread slime and distortion, distraction and stress,
carving your substance.

It’s murder.

With skillful pretense of unselfish concern
weave webs of deception, so those who discern
what’s evil from good are completely confused,
agree to stand by and allow the abuse
crunching your substance.

It’s murder.

Update on an Old Favorite

Deanne E Gwinn — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 01:47:20 +0000

Actually, I wrote the first version of this sometime last year during a “let’s experiment with prosery since it’s so much faster to write than poetry” phase.

Psych 401

Lord, save us from the psychologists,

and puppet masters —

manipulators,

self-appointed life coaches,

sneaky behind-your-back operatives,

who claim your mind as their playground.

Inventing games of subtle coercion,

enlisting hoards in conspiration

to force all pieces of the puzzle

into the picture they want to see –

without ever considering

interference

will only destroy what you’re trying to build,

because what you work for is not important

to them.
A gossip says you need adjusting –

and that’s all the license they need to spy and to stalk,

to traffic in rumors and conclusions based

on scraps they’ve gleaned

from false friends and family

who have agendas of their own,

their true motives never questioned,

their greed never made known.
They cobble-up scripts, recruit players for parts,
spring little dramas on you in one ambush after another,
until every social setting is another threat, and you second guess
every move, wondering what will be the set-up this time?
Wondering if you’ll ever be allowed to be simply one of the crowd.
Wondering if it’s even worth it to attend.
They force to you “open up,” go public,

believe desire for privacy abnormal,

and “sharing” is therapeutic.

They invite prying eyes in,

handing keys to the thieves,

not concerned by your distress

that your privacy’s been invaded again,

again, and again, and again, and again.
Certain they know everything,

wallowing in the belief

they’ve outlined every nuance of your soul

and understand all reasons for all your actions,

they seize an image and shove it in your face

again again again again again again again again again

until they’ve created full-blown phobias.

The truth is, they don’t know s***.
Certain they can only do good,

like God,

the manipulative wizards team up like dogs

trying to herd a clump of stupid wool

into a pasture they’ve picked out.
Exhilarated by the challenge,

proud of a job well done,

they lounge grinning in the sun, panting,

listening to their own voices say Good Dog

after they’ve destroyed the rest of your day,

after they’ve driven you into depression,

made you crash again again again

against the walls they’ve built,

prevented you from accomplishing

what you need to do.

And all they’ve truthfully accomplished

is obstruction of honest communication

(because that terrifies them

above all else, robs them of control,

would require the charlatans to step out

from behind the curtain, to confess

what they’ve done.)
Maybe we should help

all the psychologists and the puppet-masters,

all the jump-on-the bandwagon

flash mob bullies,

all the know-it-all do-gooders

who once read an article in

“Let Psychology Tyrannize the World Today.”

Let’s help them overcome their compulsion

to manipulate; give them all little signs

they can paste to their mirrors,

so every morning the message drills in:

“Attempted Brainwashing is Unconstitutional.
Make someone happy. Mind your own f****** business.”