Semaphore Signals:
Messages from Readers
Jun. 1, 1999 - Dec. 31, 1999
You too can write to us:
magellan@texaschapbookpress.com
Dear Magellan,
Your little tags ("CUL", "ART", and so on) that you put at the
beginning of each blurb are helpful, but you need to add a new one: "DAN", short
for "DANGER!" I almost fell out of my chair laughing at your report from the 42nd century. Not
only did I almost injure myself physically, I came close to doing some damage to my
employment status. I was reading the piece at work, a place where some managers do not
react well to out-of-control, gasping-for-breath guffaws.
Breathless in South Beach, USA.
Dear Magellan,
Cool fresh air breath. That you do for me. I really like you graphic stuffs. The
nice musics and pictures make me feel so good.
XJT, Singapore.
Dear Magellan,
Your piece on drab
work spaces opened my eyes. As a lowly IT person, I can't do much to change the
puke-puce around me (anyway, it's a kind of muted, very pastel puke-puce). But yesterday I
did go out and buy one very large ficus which now sits over in the corner quietly talking
to me whenever I want to look and listen.
Puced Out, Fargo, USA.
Dear Sylvia Sikeston,
Wow! I can't tell you what it's like to find someone who hates the same books I
do [Books I Wish I Hadn't Read, Magellan's
Log 10]! Okay, now tell me what you LOVE & I promise I'll give 'em a fair try.
Thanks,
Janet Kagan
P.S. Oh, one minor grouch---I don't think it's quite fair to exclude anything made into a
TV movie. All to often these days the writer doesn't have any say-so on that. I see
they're about to do "Flowers for Algernon" as a TV movie. I'll watch it,
probably, but nothing is ever going to live up to the original novella.
Dear Magellan,
Having raised two "Baby Puritans" myself, I heard where Cassandra was coming from so
clearly, and I have the two SUV's in my garage to prove it. But I think she's way too
harsh and unforgiving. This generation of parents is no different. We're just stumbling
through the dark like everybody else. Maybe our mistakes are a little more visible in this
over-examined, over-reported world.
May Beth Williams
Irvine, CA
Dear Magellan,
Usually on the web I find the signal-to-noise ratio to be around 0.05 to 100.
You're one of the few sites I've found where the ratio is reversed. What an oasis you are
in this cyber-Sahara.
San Mateo Nerd, USA
Dear Magellan,
i am so glad to find your web so nice.
i really keep enjoying reading and seeing it.
thanks.thanks.thanks.thanks.
thanks.thanks.thanks.thanks.
thanks.thanks.thanks.thanks.
a.s.
Iran
Dear Magellan,
"Saltlick"
(Magellan's Log V) is something else. It's rare gems like that that make hours
and hours of otherwise pointless web-surfing worthwhile. I don't know how you can afford
to just give away something so valuable.
Marilynn Daimogn
Montreal, CA
Dear Magellan,
I think you got it. "The 75 Years' War": I can't imagine a better lasting epitaph for
that bloody century we just left behind. Thanks for finally naming it.
M.E. Cranston
London, UK
Dear Magellan,
You predict the 22nd century will still be reading Kinky Friedman. I predict that by this time next year you will have
OD-ed on Prozac.
Jan DeGroot
Capetown, SA
Dear Magellan,
Your content is the first big clue confirming the old claim that there is no life
west of the Hudson. Your e-mail address only cements this conclusion. May I attempt some
constructive criticism (notwithstanding my strong desire to loose some healthful
invective)?
FUHGEDDABOUTIT! Please, please spare us any more of your
"global" glop. Just stop. Now.
As I certainly don't want search engines turning up my name at your
ill-conceived site, just sign me:
Weary NY Intellectual, USA
Ed. note: The writer is a well-known, aging art critic who was
invited to sup more than once at the Reagan White House, and loved every minute of it.
Dear Magellan,
"Cars and
Crystal Balls" (Magellan's Log VII) was a brilliant piece of social
analysis. As an industrial designer of some 20 years, I've found in more and more
difficult even to get on the freeway. Just being surrounded by so much derivative design
is worse than depressing. Thanks for giving me a context in which I can begin to
understand it.
Jeff Dayborn
Santa Monica, USA
Dear Magellan,
What a waste of bandwidth! What are you guys? The queer quorum? The feminist
frenzy? I found you when I was doing an AOL search on Magellan for a geography term
project. My dad nearly blew away my monitor when he caught me looking at one of your cartoons. He's watching
me write this and he wants me to tell you that your stuff makes him want to puke.
Raymond J. Watson, Jr.
Boise, Idaho
Dear Magellan,
I think I've figured out your hidden agenda. Behind the dirty jokes, the dirty
cartoons, the biting satire, you're really a bunch of beauty freaks at heart. What's with
all these beautiful pictures you keep putting up? I mean, the Internet's supposed to be
the dernier cri in Late Capitalist economic exploitation, ain't it? I wish you
guys would get with the program and stop interrupting our focus on MAKING MORE MONEY with
all these lovely pictures and beautiful music.
Hammond Smith
Auckland, NZ
Dear Magellan,
Thanks for a breath of fresh air on the Web. It's the rare site that holds
surprises for a jaded surfer like myself. And Magellan's Log certainly surprised
me. Repeatedly. I especially liked "The
Edges of Divinity" and can hardly wait to see the letters you're going to
get from the zealots. A fine piece of work (whatever they may say to the contrary) that
made me re-think some of my own prejudices.
George Manteo
Buenos Aires
Dear Magellan,
Huh. Whachew guys think you're doing? Taking up bandwidth with this kinda
garbage? Too many big words, man, way too many. And your puzzles are way too hard. Lighten
up, guys. Grab some suds and go get laid or somethin, fer Chrissake.
Wesley Protchard
Indianapolis, USA
Dear Magellan,
I don't often find dirty jokes anything to laugh at, or about. But you did it.
And the China story showed me stuff I
haven't seen anywhere in the American media.
Sherry Ault
Couer d'Alene
Dear Magellan,
Puzzles, jokes, plus endless games with neat, provocative ideas! A great zine.
Keep it up.
Joyce Calardic
East Hampton
Dear Magellan,
Did you ever read Swiss Family Robinson? There's a great scene near the
end where the family donkey is consumed by a giant snake, a python that wraps itself
around the donkey, crushes it and then swallows it whole. Then the snake just sort of lies
there waiting for the donkey to work its way through the digestive system. This large
bulge reminds me of the Baby Boom generation working its way through society.
M.G.
Austin, USA
Dear Magellan,
No way Western scum ever understand China.
You seem sad by the temple in Guangzhou. Why sad? Good riddance with old priest
sodomicities. Sorry I waste my time with you. Please do not write again with my glorious
country.
Ming Lam
Beijing, CN
END OF 1999 LETTERS
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