FFI: (612) 721-5959
Folks,
Second Foundation is a speculative fiction book discussion group
that's met about every six weeks for 25 years (since January 29,
1983). In recent years we've met in a member's house with limited
space, so we've been low-key about advertising the meetings. We're
now trying the experiment of meeting in a public place, so I'm
trying the further experiment of notifying a wider range of friends
and acquaintances.
Hope to see you there.
Respectfully Submitted for Your Consideration,
Eric M. Heideman, 612-721-5959; eheideman@dhzone.com
*They serve a British Isles breakfast till 2:00 p.m., so if
that strikes your fancy you might want to show up a few minutes
early.
Sunday, October 24: Flannery O'Connor (our annual horror-related discussion)
Sunday, December 5: Our annual "Persons Read Favorite Stories by Writers Other Than Themselves" meeting.
Both will be 2:00-4:00 p.m. at David Christenson's, 3728 Longfellow Av S, Minneapolis, 612-722-9764. The formal meeting will be followed by dinner (probably ordering of pizza) and viewing of films.
January 25, 2004 meeting jointly with The Rivendell Group, a discussion group devoted to Fantasy. Topic: The Peter Jackson-directed RETURN OF THE KING. 2 p.m. Location: at the Roseville Public Library (Ramsey County Public Library), Co. Rd. B and Hamline Ave. A few block south of highway 36 (Hamline exit), or about 4 blocks east of Snelling Avenue. The photos below were taken at that meeting.
2003 MEETINGS:
Meeting on Sept. 22
TOPIC: The works of C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner
On Oct.
TOPIC: Mervyn Peake.
December
TOPIC: Annual Readings meeting (companion meeting to the annual
"Readings from Rivendell" program in which members read
their own stories). In this meeting, people bring stories or passages
to share aloud, NOT written by the readers.
January 26 Topic: The Two Towers movie, joint discussion with The Rivendell Group. 1:30 p.m. At Dreamhaven Books 912 West Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408 (612-823-6161) Plenty of free parking located behind the store http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com. It's also been suggested that we should recognize the eleventy-first birthday of JRRT--.
Usually meetings are at David Christenson's, Minneapolis,
612-722-9764.
photos from Jan 04 discussion of LOTR film Return of the King
from Last Homely Hearth #10, used by permission of the author
Second Foundation, a group for the serious discussion
of sf as literature and social speculation, grew out of a vacuum
in the Twin Cities reading community. The Minnesota Scienti-Fiction
Socieity (MINN-STF), while a warm and supportive social group
for its members, has almost nothing to do with discussion of the
one interest that presumably links all of those members, science
fiction. The Rivendell Group has done an elegant job for, lo,
these many years of talking about mythopoeic fantasy. But there
had been, to my knowledge, no recent local discussion groups organized
around SF.
The line between fantasy and SF is of course a slippery one. Where
do Leiber and Lovecraft, Wilhelm and L'Engle fit? What about Shirley
Jackson? Even Tolkien, often called the best practitioner of twentieth
century fantasy, created in Middle-earth an alternate world as
fully developed and internally consistent as anything in SF. Nonetheless,
following Damon Knight's dictum, "Science Fiction is what
you're pointing at when you say 'science fiction'," there
are certain writers who feel like natural Second Foundation types,
others who feel like Rivendell types. If we discuss some of the
same writers from the unique angle of vision that each group offers,
more power to both of us!
Second Foundation began on January 29, 1983, when Eleanor Arnason,
Marianne Hageman and Kevin Stahl met at my then-apartment to talk
about John Varley's fiction. The group moved to the Coffeehouse
Extemporé, to the Loft, and to the new Loft (2301 Franklin
Ave. E., Mpls.), which is looking like our permanent home. At
approximately six-week intervals we've discussed Larry Niven (Niven
was present, at Minicon), Ursula K. Le Guin, Fritz Leiber, Robert
A. Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov,
"dystopias," with special emphasis on George Orwell
and Aldous Huxley, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (again at Minicon, with
the writer in attendance), Arthur C. Clarke, and "neglected
SF writers," Clifford D. Simak, Ray Bradbury, and Harlan
Ellison. We've made occasional forays to see SF films, and had
one VCR session, with videotapes of Forbidden Planet and
Dark Star.
Our meetings, while considerably more structured than MINN-STF
discussions, tend to ramble more than Rivendell meetings, veering
off in to wild digressions, then circling back to the official
author or theme. (This is partly due to the fact that we've tended
to roam across the whole body of a writer's work, rather than
focusing on two or three particular titles, as Rivendell does.)
When Niven showed up for our discussion of his work at the 1983
Minicon, the meeting fragmented into two groups, one discussing
his work while the other asked Niven questions. By 1984 we'd gotten
more sophisticated at including the subject (Yarbro) in our discussion,
alternating between people reacting to her work and asking her
questions about it.
There was a very satisfying moment at the Yarbro discussion when
a man, asked for his opinion of the Yarbro books he'd read, said
"I don't go in much for literary criticism." I said,
"We're not doing literary criticism, we're just shooting
the shit," and he began to talk, learning as he did so that
he did, indeed, have opinions about Yarbro's work. Groups like
Rivendell and Second Foundation appeal to the intelligence and
sensibility of the Common Reader, avoiding both the shamanic approach
of academic criticism (You are helpless to understand this book
unless I tell you what it means) and the anti-intellectualism
of much fandom (all too often fans, while enormously well read,
are unwilling to examine why they like or dislike certain authors
or titles in this "literature of ideas.")
At our Simak discussion, most of us expressed great enjoyment
of his work, liking some stories better than others but finding
nearly all of them worthwhile. Most of us liked Bradbury and Ellison,
but we had a hard time making concrete statements about them;
the unique qualities of their work eluded us. Heinlein inspired
controversy, as he alsways has, but rather than dividing into
pro- and anti- factions, we all seemed to love and hate different
aspects of his work. John Rezmerski suggested that, while Sturgeon's
characters seem exceptionally real, we don't tend to remember
particular Sturgeon characters, perhaps because of his ability
to make us feel that he is writing about us. Asimov intrigued
us by being quite a different writer than most of us remembered
him to be-subtler, predominantly interested in ideas and with
little interest in traditional adventure. Arsen Darnay suggested
that Dick's The Man in the High Castle mirrors reality:
Germany and Japan did win WW II. Le Guin inspired our largest
non-Minicon attendance (14 people), and out liveliest discussion.
Some praised her without reservation; Eleanor Arnason held Le
Guin up to Le Guin's own high standards and suggested that she
is capable of still more.
The people attending Second Foundation periodically shift, but
the group's chemistry seems to consistently work. We stimulate
each other, each seeing a book or writer from a personal angle,
helping each other see the many different ways a good book can
mean. I, for one, am learning that SF is an even richer field
than I had suspected, full of an amazing range of talents and
visions. And in [three years] we've barely scratched the surface.
We meet formally from 1:00to 4:00 pm, then those so inclined meander
over to a local bistro for more freewheeling discussion. The whole
adventure is great fun. [See calendar for list of future meetings.]
For more information contact Eric Heideman. 825-9353.
[Note of 1/17/98 by David Lenander: Although this introduction
is hopelessly out of date, Second Foundation continues to meet
regularly, I try to list them above here, even if I don't think
to update this note. I will try to list their meetings on our
Activity Calendar, and they're always
in Einblatt http://www.ddb.com/Minn-StF/einblatt/.]