I still feel the same way now as I did when I read the version you gave me. I still think Saara has an issue here that speaks a little sourly of her point of view. I point to the scene where she is folding the pop can into things. The whole scene was safe as a look into a powerful person letting everybody in the room know how tired she was of listening to this guy's point of view. I've seen the same thing with play-bills and fliers. But when she balled the thing up into a small sphere and then tosses it away in a trash can on the other side of the room, the sensation became a pointed display of annoyance by a superior. The, "I could crush you like a bug, little man," line felt like it was right around the corner.

I think that this is why I responded in the manner that I did. I don't know how I would have wrote it such that her character wouldn't have ended up seeming like she wanted him to be afraid or in awe of her casual strength. It's also kind of sad that she's not having as much fun as you seemed to be having at the con. Girlfriends never seem to enjoy anything we're trying to do eh?

I think you read the gesture a little strongly. I meant it more along the lines that she was only had half a mind on the conversation, and the other half was so bored it was negligently fooling around with whatever was at hand. It would have the effect you noted on other people though... if they were at all pereceptive. As Gene Avissen evidently wasn't.

Saara never did get into the spirit of conventions. She wouldn't have read much science fiction -- it would have seemed like stories about flying carpets and magic spells to make biospheres on Mars. She was mainly drawn to contributing to some fanzines in the 70's, but as most of the people at conventions (even then) had little or no contact with the fanzine scene, she didn't find much in common. In time I came around to her way of thinking, actually... I'm not as keen on cons as I was when I wrote that thing.

I too see much metaphor in the destruction of the soda can. The effect is amplified by the fact that it is not something that human hands can do. Emphasizing the nimble form of her fingers in the operation of this task only heightened the presence. But the presence it heightened was something that was terribly ominous... She wasn't interested in her superiority; she wasn't acting superior or feeling superior, or attempting to express it whatsoever--the content of the activity is that humans are inferior and don't understand. It's not something that can be spoken; only something that can be heard. A display of the respect we owe, presenting a vacuum.

in the end, it feels like a well-meaning pat on the head. First, emasculating. Second, patronizing... but in such a way that you'll feel like a jerk for taking offense to it, because you just know it's right.

Shucks. We really wouldn't have what it takes to live in the stars.

Yessss.... I guess that's there. We bring stuff up out of our subconscious when writing or drawing, but I have to admit that I never analyzed it that far.

It's not so much the activity that I analyzed, but really the feeling it evoked... Trying to plumb the depths of an emotional result so subtle most probably contains a fairly large range of error. It was subtle, but still profound.

All in all though, I have to admire how well it worked. I'm still struck how much it wasn't like her flaunting, and how much it was like a tap on the shoulder from the universe...

I think that's why we call them the Arts rather than a science. So much is evoked or suggested that you can never lay out the parts like a dissassembled Chevy. In fact, the viewer or reader brings have the effect with him. Much of the rest is the collective unscious. There is nothing really new under the sun, including this expression.

"It’s not true? Chilw!"



oh.....don't worry.....I believe you.......




so......did you follow saara mar to lollipop land or the rainbow junction?.......HA HA HA!