The Mankind View

Editorial by John Thiel

       Among the first writings of man were some Egyptian figures stained with cinnamon-water on a piece of flotsam from the Nile River.  Since that time, mankind has had opportunity to improve on this early thought in various ways, and writing has gone into literature and mass-produced books, up until every man is a reader and will discuss what he has read, be it in some out-of-the-way place or a public inn.  Writing has gone from edicts to records to histories, then into speculation, fiction, novels, even anti-novels, and finally the Net.

          A Net magazine is a sort of apparition, with an air of impermanence about it that belies the earlier significance of the printing press.  It's more transient than the daily newspaper (which keeps records of its previous editions on microfilm these days). You'd expect a Big Blow to be the contents of Net printed matter, but actually you'll find some of the most subtle intellectualisms ever on the Net. Yes, they're here today and gone tomorrow, but what can you name about which the same thing might not be said?  Everything is here today and gone tomorrow. A Web magazine, however, is particularly here today, and should be especially appealing to existentialists and hipsters who live in the moment.  We get our Netzine up, and there it is, a shining reality for its term of existence, suspended aloft in its place in space.

          Roscoe was quick to say “This is one of the best Net SF zines I ever saw.”  We're happy with it, and the proof of this is that my editorials have concerned little other than the existence of this Webzine, although now I will add that the SF fans are shucking and saying it's a good zine too.  They like it because it's appallingly good SF.  There may be no tomorrow, as SF often says, but things are really happening in the present; and besides, if there is no tomorrow, SS won't be here today and gone tomorrow, because tomorrow will be gone.  Tomorrow never comes anyway, it's like Achilles and the tortoise—when it does come, it's today. But today is like John Jones' dollar, it really multiplies—and we here have a lot of interest in it.

          So, having this zine, we are going to investigate the major issues and topics of the day.  We shan't be gone long, you come too.  What's this Nuclear Brinksmanship?  What's so good about Hollywood women, if anything?  How's comes there's no life on Mars—or is there, keeping itself cannily concealed from us and our explorations?  What's the secret meaning of Time, is it actually relative, or is it something else?  Is there, unbeknownst to us, life after death, or before it, for that matter?  Is there life before birth, as various reincarnationists suggest, and if there is, why aren't we ever cut in on it?  Pshaw, there is no issue we won't explore, except maybe an issue of another magazine.  But SF Websurfers will know from the Forums that Yeed does read the SF magazines.  Always interested in other people and their ideas.

           Nobody from Ecclesiastes to Hemingway or Aiken or Sartre needs to tell me that things proceed in cycles and thus the empire is maintained.  My name is “Cycle of Weariness” Mulligatawnry.  I know that there's a season to every purpose under heaven and I know that things have been no longer than usual, as Aiken puts it, in coming to this place.  But I pass it all off with a wave of my hand.  What we are doing is important WHEN we are doing it.  If something we do today doesn't last, it is ONLY done today and we can have that exclusive enjoyment of it.  Whereas if it recurs, it DOES last, albeit with intervals of nonexistence between it, and we can enjoy its lastingness if we know about it.  So don't call our mag a flash in the pan. That makes you look like the type of person who carries a pan around looking at the sun flashing in it, which is not, of course, true of any of our readers.

          Now, ye's may be wondering what I will write about in my editorials if I stop talking about the magazine itself.  I've given a hint of it in this editorial.  I lean heavily toward existentialism, without falling over, and as having an editorial space gives me a chance to discuss my views, I think you are going to find those expressed in forthcoming editorials.

          Now, if you would and will, read on, and see what some other people have to say in this issue.

Contents