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Voice of the Imagination, Denvention Special, 1941
Page 15
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VOICE OF THE IMAGI-NATION! 15 Would you like to hear one? Yes? O.K. I'll tell one: In the biblical days the prophets wrote of the future and recorded that they were inspired by a divinity. This supposed mysterious power of the ancients is believed even today. 'How else could such existing prophecy be written or uttered?' is the general trend of the believer's argument. Today, a man is not recognized as the chosen servant of a divinity if he predicts the state of future weather, but is known instead as a meteorologist and is given no credit as to being in receipt of divine power; he is accepted as being a specialist of a certain craft. (How am I doing?) A man like Jules Verne who predicted the use of the aeroplane and submarine is not considered the chosen satellite of a deity, but is known as a science fictionist; and there is no record that he considered himself divinely inspired. I think that if the biblical prophets were inspired by divinity and were the chosen servants of a deity, then so are our contemporaries; men whose predictions are equally as precise as those of the ancients, and, like Jules Verne, make no fabulous claims of divine inspiration. What then of our pulp magazine contributors in the realm of science fiction and fantasy? (I think I'm doing O.K. Don't you?) Lots of us believe that the art of prophecy is the deduction of a series of a events following a beginning and do not entertain the belief that today's prophecies are the results of spiritual inspiration. My theory is that scientifantasy and the predictions of the ancients of biblical days, originate from the same source--the brain of the predictor--by means of deduction. (What a great idea for an article for 'Voice of the Imagi-nation') '' So much for one of my theories. Would you like to hear another one? No? O.K. I'll let you off this time with only the one." [Signed Phil] BRONSON, who is skedded to become an Angeleno after the Denvention: "After admiring the excellent cover pic (PAUL) for about 5 mins, I proceeded to read VoM thru, covertocover (that's the third time I've said that in letters to fmz lately, but 'sokay 'cause I read all of 'em covertocover upon receipt). A gripe: all the letters look too run-together, as Mr. Speer mentioned, and I believe separating more effectively would make for much easier reading. (We are going to seek suggestions from U gripers in pusson at the D.) '' When are you going to change colors of ink as if I didn't know? (Surprised?) The green is becoming positively sickening! Even black would I like better. Joquel's mags I like because they're not in green ink, for one reason. Purple, orange, red, blue; anything but green. '' Speaking of Joquel, I have it on good authority that he employs ZOMBIES to publish his fan mags for him while he takes it easy guzzling malts and smoking Martian Milkweed. '' Letters in VoM all interesting as usual, but there weren't enough of them. Should have at least sixteen pages. '' C U 4-5-6 July! '' toodleoo." [Signed Harry Warner Jr] 303 Bryan Pl, Hagerstown, Md, 4 Jun: "In the midst of putting out Bonfire and Spaceways and just recovering from the last-minute rush of getting Horizons off to Elmer in time, (for the FAPA mailing) I'm calling intermission to write to you. Why I do these things is more than I know. '' Two VoMs to hand. Only one immediately to hand, though, for the other one is filed away. Thus I can't remember anything I'd intended to say about it, except to suggest that you give your readers a chance to decide on the green vs. black ink question--after all, they should have a hand in it, too. If you don't, I'm going to get a copy of your subscription list somehow and start out a petition for a change back to black. A number have said they'll cooperate with me on it, so watch out! Sometimes I envy Elmer. '' I believe the dicta-typewriter story Bob Tucker is thinking about was 'The Lost Language' by Doc Keller, which appeared seven or eight years ago in Amazing, if memory serves. It concerned a little boy who grew up unable to learn English and speaking some strange language no one had ever heard of, and they had this thing made in order to see what the language looked like in writing. Quite fallacious, of course, but a good story, as I recall. The idea does seem to have possibilities. It wouldn't work for any 'natural' language, quite obviously, but that shouldn't stump anyone. Esperanto might do, but I don't know. There's probably a whale of a lot of difference in the way it's spoken all over the world; the vowels especially probably vary quite a lot as spoken by people of different native tongues. Unless the dictyper were adjusted for the inflections and variances of those with the various native languages, there might be trouble. On the whole, I think that such a machine made to write the international system of phonetics would be most practical. They're in use over most of the world, almost everyone who studies a foreign language today learns them, they resemble written
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VOICE OF THE IMAGI-NATION! 15 Would you like to hear one? Yes? O.K. I'll tell one: In the biblical days the prophets wrote of the future and recorded that they were inspired by a divinity. This supposed mysterious power of the ancients is believed even today. 'How else could such existing prophecy be written or uttered?' is the general trend of the believer's argument. Today, a man is not recognized as the chosen servant of a divinity if he predicts the state of future weather, but is known instead as a meteorologist and is given no credit as to being in receipt of divine power; he is accepted as being a specialist of a certain craft. (How am I doing?) A man like Jules Verne who predicted the use of the aeroplane and submarine is not considered the chosen satellite of a deity, but is known as a science fictionist; and there is no record that he considered himself divinely inspired. I think that if the biblical prophets were inspired by divinity and were the chosen servants of a deity, then so are our contemporaries; men whose predictions are equally as precise as those of the ancients, and, like Jules Verne, make no fabulous claims of divine inspiration. What then of our pulp magazine contributors in the realm of science fiction and fantasy? (I think I'm doing O.K. Don't you?) Lots of us believe that the art of prophecy is the deduction of a series of a events following a beginning and do not entertain the belief that today's prophecies are the results of spiritual inspiration. My theory is that scientifantasy and the predictions of the ancients of biblical days, originate from the same source--the brain of the predictor--by means of deduction. (What a great idea for an article for 'Voice of the Imagi-nation') '' So much for one of my theories. Would you like to hear another one? No? O.K. I'll let you off this time with only the one." [Signed Phil] BRONSON, who is skedded to become an Angeleno after the Denvention: "After admiring the excellent cover pic (PAUL) for about 5 mins, I proceeded to read VoM thru, covertocover (that's the third time I've said that in letters to fmz lately, but 'sokay 'cause I read all of 'em covertocover upon receipt). A gripe: all the letters look too run-together, as Mr. Speer mentioned, and I believe separating more effectively would make for much easier reading. (We are going to seek suggestions from U gripers in pusson at the D.) '' When are you going to change colors of ink as if I didn't know? (Surprised?) The green is becoming positively sickening! Even black would I like better. Joquel's mags I like because they're not in green ink, for one reason. Purple, orange, red, blue; anything but green. '' Speaking of Joquel, I have it on good authority that he employs ZOMBIES to publish his fan mags for him while he takes it easy guzzling malts and smoking Martian Milkweed. '' Letters in VoM all interesting as usual, but there weren't enough of them. Should have at least sixteen pages. '' C U 4-5-6 July! '' toodleoo." [Signed Harry Warner Jr] 303 Bryan Pl, Hagerstown, Md, 4 Jun: "In the midst of putting out Bonfire and Spaceways and just recovering from the last-minute rush of getting Horizons off to Elmer in time, (for the FAPA mailing) I'm calling intermission to write to you. Why I do these things is more than I know. '' Two VoMs to hand. Only one immediately to hand, though, for the other one is filed away. Thus I can't remember anything I'd intended to say about it, except to suggest that you give your readers a chance to decide on the green vs. black ink question--after all, they should have a hand in it, too. If you don't, I'm going to get a copy of your subscription list somehow and start out a petition for a change back to black. A number have said they'll cooperate with me on it, so watch out! Sometimes I envy Elmer. '' I believe the dicta-typewriter story Bob Tucker is thinking about was 'The Lost Language' by Doc Keller, which appeared seven or eight years ago in Amazing, if memory serves. It concerned a little boy who grew up unable to learn English and speaking some strange language no one had ever heard of, and they had this thing made in order to see what the language looked like in writing. Quite fallacious, of course, but a good story, as I recall. The idea does seem to have possibilities. It wouldn't work for any 'natural' language, quite obviously, but that shouldn't stump anyone. Esperanto might do, but I don't know. There's probably a whale of a lot of difference in the way it's spoken all over the world; the vowels especially probably vary quite a lot as spoken by people of different native tongues. Unless the dictyper were adjusted for the inflections and variances of those with the various native languages, there might be trouble. On the whole, I think that such a machine made to write the international system of phonetics would be most practical. They're in use over most of the world, almost everyone who studies a foreign language today learns them, they resemble written
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