1. First, a few housekeeping items. (a) My apologies for forgetting to put dates at the top of the page of the print issues as promised. In the chaos that has been my working environment since Ben's death, I've overlooked that for two cosecutive issues. I'll try to not forget it again. (b) I've just discovered that -- because I haven't been putting the address list in the "blind carbon" slot -- I've been sending all of you the complete address list with every bulletin. I'm sorry; you should have told me. If it happens again, please let me know, so I don't go on doing it year after year and causing trouble with your inboxes. (c) Several of you have asked me the same three questions; I'll answer them here. Do I prefer to be called Dr. Elgin? That's not necessary for L&SF members; just Suzette will do nicely. Is there an extra charge for the L&SF online bulletin? No -- it's included in your membership. (c) Is there a way to get the print edition of L&SF by email? No, we're not set up to do that at the moment; if that changes, I'll let you know.

2. Report on our "nonlocal phenomena" experiment.... I'm totally baffled. As you will recall, on January 1st at 10 PM I was to "project" three items: two different images and one word. People were to mail their responses. I can only report that so far as I know Marilyn Berry's was the only response, and it had no hits. (Thank you, Marilyn!) I would not have been surprised to get a dozen messages saying "Suzette, I didn't get a thing," or suggesting items that weren't hits. I *was* surprised by what actually happened. Perhaps you can shed some light on this before we try anything of the kind again....

3. Several of you have asked for reviews of science fiction genuinely worth reading; I know the feeling. Jeanne Gomoll writes that a cumulative list of Tiptree Award winners and shortlisted titles is available through her (c/o SF3, Box 1624,Madison WI 53701-1624) for $1.00 and a self-addressed stamped envelope.

4. Frances Green sent me a Dell 1978 copy of Vonda McIntyre's *Dreamsnake,* requested in the last L&SF newsletter. I re-read it and found it just as wonderful as I had remembered it to be. Very fine work; the sort of book you hate to come to the end of. I don't know what later editions are available; it's worth searching for. The protagonist (a healer named Snake) is another woman I would characterize as the antithesis of the women Prof. Deborah Tannen describes in *You Just Don't Understand.* Snake makes sense to me as a woman; I would enjoy her company; and she would never, ever worry about having an adequate supply of secrets to share with her best friend.

5. I'm thinking about trying to find a slot in my work schedule to write an academic paper on the use of science fiction in the teaching of linguistics (and other subjects); I am thinking about trying to sneak such a paper onto the program of a linguistics conference, right between "The Retroflex Consonant Through the Ages" and "Short Pauses -- Are They Phonemic?" (Or whatever constitutes the same kind of thing in related disciplines. This is the sort of slot I was always given in the days when I professored for a living.) I would welcome your input. I would welcome information about conferences (since I don't get any linguistics journals on a regular basis I don't know which ones are coming up or how to submit papers to them.) And I would welcome any examples from your own experience that you'd like to share with me. (For instance, there's a lovely baby morphophonology example in the rabbit language in *Watership Down.*) The point of trying to get such a paper accepted at a conference is to help me persuade more academics that joining the L&SF Network and getting its publications would be a good investment for them.

6. My schedule: I will be in Lincoln, Nebraska on February 23rd for a medical seminar on psychoneuroimmunology, at Bryan Hospital; I'll be in Tulsa for a book signing at The Novel Idea bookstore on February 17th. I will -- if they don't cancel later this afternoon -- be doing a Genderspeak seminar in Chicago on February 10th. We travel by car, with George as road manager, which adds travel days on either side of these dates; if you have trouble reaching me in February, this is why. You can always leave a message on my answering machine, from which I pick up messages daily; I'm not set up to pick up email by remote, however.

7. I recently subscribed to the Project McLuhan list; I'm an authentic original McLuhan Fan, from day one. His work has been tremendously helpful to me. I want to pass on an item or two from the most recent posting, to show you what they're doing...

• ** Direct Marketing people online know that there will be a lot of resistance and flaming. They don't care. "An acceptable response/flame ratio has already been worked out, and is a closely guarded secret."
• ** We are losing our sense of private identity because "electronic perceptions are not related to place, time, or geography. His <i.e., "man's"> body remains in one place but his mind is empowered with the ability to float out into the electronic void... <where> he is no longer flesh and blood; he is now merely a data entry, a creature fairly ill-tempered...subliminally violent (violence is, McLuhan noted, fundamentally a quest for identity)..."
• ** "Flamers are in effect the 'white blood cells' of the Net. In the absence (for now) of a centralized policing system, <they> swarm and cluster around enemy attackers, striving mightily to keep the Net pure, simple, and relatively uncluttered. We wish them well."

The list is moderated, and about one posting a month; to subscribe send the message "subscribe McLuhan-list" to majordomo@astral.magic.ca (I have no idea what might be the connection between McLuhan and astral magic, if any.)

8. I gave a talk at the U. of Arkansas recently on the link between verbal violence and physical violence, and was asked why so little research exists on that subject. I explained that there exists no mechanism for the objective measurement of hostility in spoken language, nor any unit of measurement (like an erg or calorie); this makes research almost impossible. Then, at three o'clock the following morning, I woke up and realized that I've been out of the Distinguished Linguist Loop for fifteen years -- maybe I was wrong. I then, with much trepidation, posted a query about the matter to the Linguist List; I'll report on the responses I got in a later print issue. What fascinated me most was the number of linguists who responded that the question was absurd because hostility in English is in *the words spoken.* I was flabbergasted. No wonder the general public is confused about this matter. More later.

In the meantime, I can say that I have asked literally thousands of people to give me even one example from their personal experience (or from personal knowledge) -- excluding incidents during an actual war -- in which physical violence took place without there first being angry words. Over the years I've had a couple of people mention being whacked over the head by a mugger without warning, but that's it. This seems to me to be strong evidence for the link between verbal violence and physical violence, even though you have to go at it in reverse.

9. Magazines that we get regularly here at OCLS (so that you won't mail me copies .... I don't want you wasting money on postage or depriving others of potential goodstuff) include: Time, Harper's, Reason, Family Therapy Networker, College English, Emergency Medicine Systems, New Age Journal, Forbes, Arkansas Times, National Geographic. (I had to drop Computational Linguistics, Parabola, and Atlantic Monthly for business reasons.) Magazines sent to me in batches by subscribers include Analog, Asimov's, JAMA, Discover, New Scientist, Publishers Weekly, Language, and Journal of the American Medical Association; these reach me later (sometimes many months later) than they appear, but they do reach me. My thanks for everything sent, and if I've left something off this list that you send regularly, my apologies -- that doesn't mean it's not appreciated and put to use.

10. To those of you who've ordered copies of The Gentle Art of Communicating With Kids -- the book is out, and copies have been ordered; as soon as they get here, we'll send yours out. It shouldn't be much longer.

11. If details can be worked out, we will hold an L&SF meeting while we're at MiniCon (Easter weekend, Minneapolis) and at WisCon (Memorial Day weekend, Madison, Wisconsin.) I'll keep you posted.

12. My current plan is to continue this bulletin as essentially an informal personal letter from me to you, with no more elaborate structure than one-thing-after-another. If you have limited inbox space that may be a problem for you. Please don't hesitate to notify me if you want to be removed from the list -- I'll do it immediately.

Regards,

Suzette Haden Elgin