...that Lady Beauty in whose praise thy hand and voice shake

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu]

A note of refleKTion for all like-minded fans:

   Rossetti was also divided between his commitment on the one hand
   to introspection and self-discovery -- to painting his soul as
   it was -- and his belief on the other hand that the ideal of the
   self must not lie within the self. There must be an external ideal
   around which it can move in order and harmony. "Seek thine ideal
   anywhere except in thyself," he wrote in his notebook. "Once fix
   it there, and the ways of thy real self will matter nothing to
   thee, whose eyes can rest on an ideal already perfected".

      -- from Barbara Chalesworth, "Dark Passages: The Decadent
         Consciousness in Victorian Literature"

-- Andrew


>From @EDDIE.MIT.EDU:motcid!marble!meadley@uunet.UU.NET  Mon Oct  9 
12:12:16 1989
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 89 09:31:12 CDT
From: motcid!marble!meadley@uunet.UU.NET (A. Meadley)
Subject: Ambiguous music

Here follows a quote from Robert John Godfrey, of The Enid,
which I think is of great relevance to Doug and IED's recent
discussions.

"Ambiguity is the great instrument which the composer has at
his disposal. Ambiguity stirs people's hearts and is capable
of kindling the flame which enlightens our inner selves. Music
at its best is a spiritual language which communicates directly
with the soul. It bypasses all other languages, races, creeds 
and opinions. One thing which humanity can reasonably expect 
to share with life elsewhere in the universe is music."


Ant in Chicago.




>From @EDDIE.MIT.EDU:nrc@cbnews.att.com  Sat Sep 22 06:00:48 1990
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 90 05:41:17 EDT
From: nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)
Subject: Kate Writes Great Science Fiction


I often wonder just what makes Kate's music so special.  I doubt that 
there's any one answer to that question but the other day I ran across 
something in the introduction to a book of Philip K. Dick short stories 
that offered a some insight.  Dick attempts to identify what makes good 
science fiction.  In the process I think he touches on some ideas that 
apply just as well to other forms of art and specifically to Kate's 
music.

        Now to define _good_ science fiction.  The conceptual 
        dislocation -- the new idea, in other words -- must be truly 
        new (or a new variation on an old one) and it must be 
        intellectually stimulating to the reader; it must invade his 
        mind and wake it up to the possibility of something he had 
        not thought of.  Thus "good science fiction" is a value term,
        not an objective thing, and yet, I think, there really is
        such a thing, objectively, as good science fiction.

        I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University 
        at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true 
        protagonist of an sf story is an idea and not a person.  If 
        it is _good_ sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, 
        probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction 
        of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-
        speak unlocks the reader's mind so that that mind, like the
        author's, begins to create.  Thus sf is creative and it 
        inspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large 
        does not do.  We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, 
        not a writer) read it because we love to experience this 
        chain-reaction of ideas set off in our minds by something we 
        read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best 
        science fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration
        between author and reader, in which both create -- and _enjoy_ 
        doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science 
        fiction, the joy of discovery of newness.

                                           Philip K. Dick
                                           May 14, 1981


/l


---
rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill)
NetRunner's Paradise BBS, San Diego CA