Blakes7 March 2001

blakes7@lists.lysator.liu.se

96 participants
1067 discussions

Re: [B7L] "That" issue
by Ashton7＠aol.com 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

In a message dated 3/27/01 1:27:54 AM Eastern Standard Time, rilliara(a)juno.com writes: << And then there's all that "Give me liberty or give me death" stuff that I couldn't help absorbing as a kid (hey, it was in the air). The feeling that those things need to be said. >> The concept of empathy really seems to be eluding some members of this list. I don't know how I can make it any plainer than I already have. A number of people certainly didn't like it when I freely expressed *my* opinion of *their* religion... even though it is my true opinion and I meant no personal attack on them on at all. Hey, I felt it "needed to be said" because it's the way I feel. If it's okay for others to attack *my* beliefs and traditions and lifestyle openly on the list, why do they feel that they are immune from hearing my thoughts on *their* beliefs and traditions and lifestyle in return? You can say anything you darn well please and I'll stand up for your "right" to do so. But please don't act all put out and surprised when you receive an answer IN KIND. I believe in treating people the way they have asked me to treat them. And I don't believe in letting people insult my way of life with impunity. I don't have to justify my existence to anyone and I don't have to defend my way of life. But if people here are going to freely attack an entire group of people I'll be darned if I'm just going to sit back and let them do it without saying anything. Some folks said that *they* weren't offended by Kathryn's original post because she said it all so "politely". So, I went back and reread the post (reproduced below) just to see if I was completely out of line. Nope. I'm just as offended at 2nd and 3rd readings. I don't think it's polite at all to blithely inform a large list of Blakes 7 fans that adultery (of Avon and Anna) isn't half so bothersome as gay sex because, of course, gay sex is soooo much more sinful. Annie Kathryn said (in 2 separate posts): If characters I respect and like are made by the author to do something very wrong, and it is treated as something right, then I hate what the author has done to the characters. It's character assassination at the least. (*) To refine: I find slash stories more upsetting than hetsmut because of the moral issue, even though I don't like reading either one; for me, het sex out of wedlock is, while not good, not half as sinful as gay sex. (Particularly if the het sex is monogamous; at least they're being faithful...) So it upsets me to see characters I admire suddenly having gay sex. That's where my compass is set, and if that upsets anyone, then go ahead and call me insulting names if it makes you feel better.

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Interpretation (was Re: [B7L] reasons)
by Fiona Moore 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

>From: Betty Ragan <ragan(a)sdc.org> >Oh, dear. I *swore* I wasn't going to post any more on this topic, or >anything relating to it, because, overall, I would very much like to >just see it die a quiet, ignominious death. <sigh> Me too. > But my name has come up >several times here, and I feel like my own position is being very >slightly mischaracterized, Great, now I feel bad :(. You're right, I should have left you out of it-- but I did want to make the point that we were playing the game *together,* and it wasn't just one person talking about interpretation and the other about canon. >(This is entirely about interpretation-of-canon, though, not about >slash, so that'll be my excuse.) See my change of subject heading :). >Responding to snippets from a couple of different posts by Fiona here: > > > This comment was made in regard to Betty's and my argument-from-canon > > postings. Now, both of us, as I said, were keeping our interpretations as > > much out of the picture as possible, and neither of us were particularly > > making any claims to our own interpretations being the One True Way. We > > were, however, taking the premise that there is a "reality," i.e. the canon, > > and I think we're both agreed that as far as canon is concerned the > > situation is *not* anything-goes; one can't see what's not on the screen. > > And that as far as interpretations of characters are concerned, there are > > some that are closer to what's on the screen than others. So to say that all > > interpretations are equally valid (which is what the phrase "....no single > > one of which is the One True Way" does suggest) is actually not true within > > the context of arguing from the canon. > >Actually... To begin with, I feel the need to point out that the main >reason why I was keeping my own interpretations out of the picture and >restricting myself to canon were a) that that seemed to be the sort of >discussion Fiona wanted, and the kind that many other people on the Lyst >(though by no means all!) were primarily interested in, Yes, as I said my impression was that that was what other people wanted too. As for my own wishes.... and 2) that >canon was really the only main point of intersection that we had in >common *to* discuss. ...this was why I wanted to keep it as canon. As we've all been saying, interpretation is a very subjective thing, and I think Neil was more than a bit right when he said that we all have "versions" of the programme in our heads, some of which get very personal. My feeling was that if we'd included intepretation, before long we'd've come down to the point where we were upsetting each other-- perhaps I was wrong, but it wasn't a risk I wanted to take, especially given the volatile tone of the lyst (which was moreso then than now). On a side but related point: Neil spoke about how some people (himself apparently included) do exclude certain episodes they don't like from their own "altercanon." I think there's truth in that, but I think there's something more subtle to it, in that in my experience people tend to watch the episodes they like over and over and not watch the ones they don't like. So in a sense, while I would include, say, "Stardrive" in the canon, and if it came up in the context of a discussion on canon I would use it, I have in a sense excluded it from my "altercanon" in that I watch it so little that it would probably be my *last* choice as an example in a discussion. Basically, I think Neil's right but that the same process is often subconscious. I certainly could have started going on about my >own interpretations of things, but I image that Fiona (not unreasonably) >would have dismissed those as irrelevant in the same way that I >dismissed as irrelevant her points about the intentions of the show's >creators. So, we discuss things based on canon because the simple facts >of what's-on-the-screen are the one thing we have even a hope of >agreeing on (and even there, I think it was obvious that agreement >didn't always happen). Agreed, which is why I personally thought that a good way to handle the discussion without bloodshed. And also, in the case of disagreement about what's onscreen, we did actually have something there at which we could go back and look. Thing is, too, interpretations change, which is a fine thing-- but what's on the screen is on the screen, mistakes and all. >However, I must admit that, although I can find such discussions >interesting (the Blake-and-Inga argument was certainly a fun >intellectual game), I *do* also find them limited and generallty not >terribly fruitful, precisely because what's-on-the-screen is so >limited. Again true, but I still think that the subject matter was too volatile to go any further. In fact, I'm surprised we got as much mileage out of it as we did :). > Most of the really interesting stuff, like character >motivations, isn't explicit on the screen at all. IMHO, the show >*requires* active, creative participation fromt the viewer to really >come to life, and I personally regard that as a very positive thing. Likewise, or I wouldn't read fanfic, or have those many-drinks-down conversations with mates over whether Egrorian did fancy Servalan, was cynically trying to get a hold over her, or both. If we limited *every* discussion to canon, it would be a very boring lyst, and I do like speculating over things like what happened to Marriott's family (or I did until I heard "The Mark of Kane"--brr). But that was an entirely different sort of discussion, and I do think that arguing from canon can be interesting in the same way that (to use the example I gave Harriet) sifting through historical evidence to try and come up with a picture of what *did* actually happen in a disputed case can be absolutely fascinating. > > When Betty convincingly pointed out, from onscreen evidence > > alone, that Blake and Inga could not have been having a sexual relationship, > > I didn't say "That's your opinion" or "Well, *I* sense sexual tension > > between them," I admitted that the onscreen evidence was for Betty. > >The thing is, though, if you *had* said that, I wouldn't have been in >the slightest offended, or upset, or even taken aback (except by the >fact that it would have seemed out of character for you :)). Tee hee! Well, I'm glad to hear it--that you wouldn't have gotten offended, I mean :). These days it's hard to tell what would upset somebody. >Indeed, I >would have been extremely interested, even delighted, as that would >likely have taken us off into an entirely different -- and, to my >tastes, more interesting -- type of discussion. It doesn't seem in the >least ridiculous to me (no matter that I *totally* don't see it) to say >"Well, yes, but I look at that kiss on the screen, and I see real >passion and sexual chemistry there, and I can't escape the conviction >that there *was* a romantic connection between them." If you'd said >that, I wouldn't feel insulted or frustrated that you'd ignored all my >careful mathematics. Instead, I would have wanted to hear your theory >for explaining why those mathematics might *not* apply. How do you get >around that argument? (And there are certainly ways of doing so -- I >think it was Neil who pointed out that Inga might have lived on Earth >most of her life and only come to stay with her father recently.) One reason I didn't pursue the Inga thread, actually, was because so many other people--Neil, Dana, etc.-- were coming up with much more interesting explanations as to why they *could* have had a relationship that I felt any comment I could make would be pretty banal. > And >if your explanation was particularly interesting, I would have >enthusiastically given the standard FC response: write it! > >Personally, I find that kind of speculation, of the opening up of >canonical possibilities, to be *much* more interesting and fun than the >kind of debate we were doing. Agreed, and I didn't mean to imply in my response at all that you necessarily like arguing from canon as much as I do :)-- just that that *was* what we were doing, and for good reasons. The kind of analysis we were doing >involves a certain amount of theoretical extrapolation from canon, true, >but it seems to mainly consist of an attempt to find the simplest and >most likely possible explanation for everything onscreen and declaring >that the "canonical" explanation. Which is certainly worth doing, >particularly if that's the sort of thing that interests you, but to me >it *does* seem rather limited. Agreed, and moderately agreed-- there's less room for flights of fancy in that game than in the speculative one, but I certainly don't think it's sterile-- or even limiting of fanfic, as witness the number of excellent stories that seemingly would fit seamlessly in with the canonical ones, if only one could go back in time and have them commissioned as scripts. I'm more interested in interacting >*creatively* with the show, and with understanding how other fans >interact creatively with the show, often in very different ways that I >do. IMHO, then, there *is* no One True Way. In that sense, yes-- but in the context of fitting or not fitting the canon, as I said, there's more and less plausible. Sure, some interpretations >are closer to canon, and some seem to stretch it a bit. Some are less >parsimonious than others. Some require a lot more creativity on the >part of the viewer than others. But I would not say that some are more >*right* than others, because that requires a blanket judgment that I'm >totally unwilling to make. No, I don't believe in moral (or literary) absolutes myself. However, I also don't believe, as I said, that all interpretations are necessarily equally valid *in the context of their being made.* As I said, in the context of an interpretation from the canon, some interpretations are more valid than others in the sense of fitting the canon better. However, to take a different example, in the context of publishing a zine in which all stories spin off from A:ATA (has anyone done this? Would they dare?), the Letts-type interpretation of the young Avon as a sadistic lecher would definitely not fit, and a story about Avon and Madame Gaskia at the Purple Nightingale would get put in the pile for a "Dear Contributor, thank you..." letter. So I'd still say there *is* a case to be made as to some interpretations being more valid than others, but in the sense that any genre of writing or type of essay is going to start from particular premises, which some interpretations of the series are going to fit better than others. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Open to interpretation at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [B7L] Re: something green
by Fiona Moore 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

>From: Stephen Date <stephend999(a)yahoo.co.uk> >I tried Absinthe once in Prague. You brave soul. . A minature of the stuff drunk >in conjunction with a couple (ahem) of glasses of wine >produces the mother of all hangovers. Mind you, same can be said of mixing Black Russians and cider (just don't ask, OK). >I'd be surprised if Cally was drinking it in Gambit >because she was on duty, as it were, and I suspect >she'd have more sense. Or maybe Auronar are better able to metabolise absinthe than humans. >So the Green Stuff is either Creme de Menthe or >Chateau System 37. Another possibility could be that there's two or three different but similar-looking green things out there. Servalan drinks something which is, it is implied, fairly strong in "Weapon," which is green; Cally's drink in "Gambit," unless you buy my theory about the Auron metabolism, could be something less strong or even nonalcoholic. A Cuba Libre looks exactly like a Coke until you drink it... Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Drinking exotic cocktails at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Perceptions (was Re: [B7L] Lost in France ...)
by Tavia 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

Stephen & Neil wrote: >>Fandom, like SF, like punk, like radical politics, >> strips reality down to >> its bare essentials and asks fundamental questions. >> That, I think, is the >> root of its appeal. That the answers are not always >> adequate underlies much >> of the deficiencies of all four. >Hmm. The same could probably be said of religion. When I received this message, I was engaged in flicking through Mark looking for the following text... "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." Mark 10 v14,15 (NIV) Tavia

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Perceptions (was Re: [B7L] Lost in France ...)
by Fiona Moore 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

>From: "Neil Faulkner" <N.Faulkner(a)tesco.net> To snip an absolutely magnificent post down to its conclusion: >So Sally's got a point - there is no universal canon, shared by all viewers, >because we each individually extract different elements of focus *prior to* >the construction of our individuated altercanons. Our attention is >consciously or subconsciously pulled in particular directions. This was >pointed out very clearly to me by Iain's performance workshop at Redemption, >where he - as an amateur actor - could point to an instance of appallingly >bad acting that I've never noticed before despite seeing it a dozen times or >more. He could look up and see the stork, while my eyes were firmly glued >to the pavement. It's very true-- I'm reflecting too on what I said about the visual conventions of one culture's films being more or less lost on viewers in another culture. What *is* interesting, though, is that there do sometimes seem to be shared elements of perception with regard to a show, rather than simply individual experience. For instance, for a very long time B7 was regarded to have been totally masterminded by one Mr Nation-- he was solely responsible for the characters, the tone, the morally ambivalent "Che Guevara in Space" feel, etc. etc. Then, gradually, even before Nation died, the words "Chris Boucher" began to be heard more and more, and right now it seems to me (correct me if I've got this wrong) that most people regard him as being at least partially the one responsible for the directions the show took over the years. Now, these views have both been held by a large number of people, so it can't be just individuals' experiences, shaped only by their professional and personal interests, that are at issue here. I keep mentally going back to that image from Bacon-Smith of the older fan talking a newbie through a show. I would very much doubt that it happens quite so blatantly for many (or even 9/10ths of us), but it's an interesting image. Our perceptions vis-a-vis B7, including what we see and what we miss, are also influenced by collective dialogue among ourselves and input from other fans. Another example: seeing "Project Avalon," as a non-fan, I quite liked it and thought it was a clever, well-paced story. When I first joined fandom, the people I hung about with, the mags I read, etc., all favoured the opinion that it was actually a naff, tired reiteration of *Star Wars.* Gradually, I began to focus less on the good bits and more on the naff bits, or the bits that resembled *Star Wars,* and the bits that I still saw as good I tended to keep fairly quiet about. More recently, rewatching it with people who didn't have an axe to grind vis-a-vis "Avalon", I've begun noticing the good bits again. So I think it's worth noticing that while some of us may watch B7 in a vacuum vis-a-vis fandom :), just by being involved in the Lyst our perceptions of the show are being shaped and even changed daily. To some extent, at least, perception seems to be a learned activity. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Recently rehabilitated at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [B7L] zine editing
by Ellynne G. 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

On Wed, 28 Mar 2001 23:50:50 +1000 Kathryn Andersen <kat(a)foobox.net> writes: > On Wed, Mar 28, 2001 at 12:45:26PM +0100, Una McCormack wrote: > > > I'm not trying to be controlling of behaviour, I'm not trying to > > insist that people behave in a way which makes them feel > > uncomfortable. I thought this kamikaze atmosphere would dissipate, > but > > it's gone on for two months, and people are getting hurt and are > > leaving. > > > > Can we stop? > > <more applause> > > If this were another fandom, I'd suggest we burn some virtual sage. > As it is, let's all sit back, raise our glasses of adrenaline and > soma, > and drink a toast to the best darn SF TV show ever made! (*) > > To Blake's 7! > (clink) Well, I don't know if it's adrenalin and soma, but I found something green in the fridge. (clink) Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Re: [B7L] looking for a home for you fanfic or artwork?
by Tavia 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

Carol 'Hondo' wrote: >Not sure if I am overstepping the line with this post. Can't speak for Calle, but seems useful to this reader. More than one person has approached me of late to ask whether there are any zines currently taking submissions, so it seems to fill an information need. One thing I'd personally be interested in (as a potential contributor) -- what kind of things do the editors of Chronicles and The Other Side actually *like* ? (Feel free to tell me to buy a copy or five, but bear in mind that isn't as easy as all that from the UK...) Tavia

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Re: [B7L] Re: something green
by Bizarro7＠aol.com 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

In a message dated 3/30/01 5:38:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, stephend999(a)yahoo.co.uk writes: << 'd be surprised if Cally was drinking it in Gambit because she was on duty, as it were, and I suspect she'd have more sense. If they had stocks on the Liberator I imagine Blake would have flushed them out of the airlock in order to stop Vila from drinking himself to death. So the Green Stuff is either Creme de Menthe or Chateau System 37.>> Heh. Not to forget that Cally was an alien. So she could just as easily have been drinking minty mouthwash. Leah

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Re: [B7L] Re: something green
by Fiona Moore 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

>From: Tavia <tavia(a)btinternet.com> >Jacqui asked: > >What is the green liquid the characters in B7 drink ? > >Water coloured with green food colouring for that essential science fiction >feel? (Is absinthe green? I fear my closest encounter with the drink is the >eponymous Degas painting...) I had some Pernod once (which is more or less absinthe without the hallucinogens) and it was kind of yellow IIRC. But in "The Sun Also Rises" the narrator refers to the same drink as "greenish imitation absinthe"-- dunno if that means absinthe is more or less green than Pernod. In "Gambit" Cally appears to be spooning sugar into the green substance, which might suggest that it *is* absinthe (or meant to be absinthe) cos that seems to be how people in 1920s novels always drink it. But then again, she might have been spooning some other white, grainy substance into a totally different drink. Then again, maybe they're drinking creme-de-menthe. Fiona The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Sloshed to the eyeballs at http://nyder.r67.net _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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dwarf of the gods
by Alison Page 30 Mar '01

30 Mar '01

Neil said - >And a load of > tripe about bald > dwarfs. Hey I like that bit! By my standards it's sparkling repartee. Alison ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com **********************************************************************

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Blakes7 March 2001