Subject: Re: Revisionist history -- a bane against Truth From: "Paul Rhoads" Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 23:45:26 +0200 To: "Gan Uesli Starling" Gan, >>I cannot address what may have happend anywhere else but during that >>weekend. Alun did put pressure on Jack, polite pressure, but insistant >>pressure none the less. Jack gave his first reply in the negative and a >>respectful thing for Alun to do would have been let the matter rest. Yet >>he would not. It was obvious that Jack then wanted to move on. It was, I >>would guess a small matter to Jack. But even his smallest whim should >>have been taken as gospel. No second question ought have been asked. Nor >>yet a third or forth. I do not call into question that the events you describe took place. However, I happen to know that they had zero effect on the title change. Jack was concerned about the title prior to the existance of the VIE, and he contacted me about the change many months after the Oakland meeting. People are constantly asking or telling Jack Vance to do this or that with his work. It does not add up to anything. >>I know that I was not part of the committee to make these decisions. Nor >>did I want to be so long as I labored under the delusion that EVERYBODY >>had it as their utmost goal to preserve Jacks true original work. That >>is the only reason I chimed in on the email list none to very long after >>that weekend. Do research it if at all possible. There was no committee. I laid down the ground rules for the VIE, and those rule are being followed. The basic rule is this, and it is based on a personal agreement between Jack Vance and me: I do the VIE the way Jack would do it, or the way he tells me to do it. >>If email archives yet remain for the month or two following, my >>recollections will be born out. John Vance himself stepped in with >>Jack's second reply (2nd to my knowledge, anyway, admittedly limited >>though it is) which re-confirmed the Wankh original. Kindly research >>these if they may have been preserved. I no nothing about such mails. I never saw them. I had no part in them. If there was any speculation about changing any title based on an outside intiative, I would have cut it short. That fact that people may have discussed such things is neither here nor there. Such discussions, if they took place, had zero relationship to the change that was made. Jack took the opportunity provided by the VIE to do something he wanted to do with his work. >>The reason for my adamance is that I remember it VERY distinctly since >>it was a cause for no small personal alarm. I took very great relief in >>the result of that discussion. It was just talk. >>For me that was several computers and two operating systems ago. It was >>on my old Gateway 2000 laptop running Windows 98, of which no records >>remain as I now run Unix. >> >>I have threaded in your own informative reply along with John's for the >>sake of ballance. Where this page resides on the Internet is between two >>links. My original link to the VIE now points there as a go-between, >>with the VIE's link moved to the bottom of said page. The point is that >>whowever comes to the VIE by way of my page shall thereby also be >>informed of my opinion on this very signular topic. You remember a conversation. You assume that this conversation had some sort of effect on Jacks deciding to change a title. This is just not true. I have heard people suggest all kinds of things to Jack. >>It is the solid gold truth as I most clearly remember it. Revisionist >>history is the one dread thing of which I hold the utmost disfavor. Jack >>may indeed have had reservations about the title prior till then. But >>the impetus to make a change came from Alun and within my direct >>observation. Nonesence. Perhaps ten other people made such a suggestion to Jack prior to the existance of the VIE. Maybe other people were present who protested the descigion with force. There is absolutely no call to give so much importance to this event. >> I clearly saw Jack to recieve it cooly. So what are you saying, that Jack does NOT want to change the title??? And yet, in the spring of 2000, several months after the Oakland meeting, Jack called ME and asked if he could change the title. He then took a year comming up with a title he liked. >>And absolutely it >>was discussed and resolved in favor of the original by via group email >>not long after. Gan, 'group-e-mail' has ZERO say in this matter. All the titles in the VIE are the titles Jack asked for. I went over all the titles with him many times. The VIE titles are Jack's titles. >> It is the absolute truth and I did not mistake it. That you heard Alun say something in Oakland in January 2000? Ok. That some sort of 'group' decided to change the title is piffle. Anyway, if this is so why did you not complain about it then? Why make a fuss now? >> Nor >>could I respect myself to simply allow an abject revision of history to >>go unilluminated by truth. You are making totally unfounded inferences from a conversation you heard. The idea that some e-mail group decided anything is foolishness and not true. Paul >> >>Gan >> >>Paul Rhoads wrote: > >>>> If pressure of any kind was ever put on Jack in this regard, I never knew >>>> anything about it. When Jack came to France in 1998, 2 years prior to the >>>> VIE gathering in 2000, he mentioned his unhappiness with the title. > >> >>-- >> >> Mistera Sturno - Rarest Extinct Bird >> >> <(+)__ Gan Uesli Starling >> ((__/)=- Kalamazoo, MI, USA >> `||` >> ++ http://starling.us >>