Autor Wątek: Help needed!  (Przeczytany 15278 razy)

Artur

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Help needed!
« dnia: Kwietnia 29, 2005, 10:58:41 pm »
Dear Lem experts,
I would highly appreciate it if someone kindly gave me a hint on where to find a Lem story I read years ago and simply can't remember in which book of his. It's all about a guy who visits a foreign planet and his friends there invite him to go to the cinema, promising him what we would call an adult or XXX-rated movie. But the only thing the movie actually shows is the extraterrestrians eating, which arouses their sexuality (which is set on a different level than ours) much the same way as watching a porn movie would do to us.
I've always found this idea (imagining alien species with a totally different sex life, i.e. through and by means of bodily parts and processes that are similar to ours, but serve a completely different function) fascinating, and I'd want to employ it in a seminar on the cultural meaning of eating that I am about to give, so I'd really be grateful to anyone able and willing to tell me where in Lem's oeuvre it is to be found.
Regards,

Artur

peskanov

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #1 dnia: Kwietnia 30, 2005, 12:54:52 am »
I think this tale comes from Ijon Tichy stories, probably "Star diaries", but I am not totally sure.
The style certainly matchs "Star diaries" and it's sequel.

Artur

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #2 dnia: Kwietnia 30, 2005, 07:40:21 pm »
Thanks for your quick reply. I'll go and look them through again at once.
Best,

Artur

peskanov

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #3 dnia: Kwietnia 30, 2005, 08:30:25 pm »
BTW, there is an author who has toyed a lot with the idea of alien sex life, Philip Jose Farmer.
Checkout his biographies and books, he obtained much fame for this topic.

Terminus

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #4 dnia: Maja 01, 2005, 03:30:46 am »
Jeez... I checked in Star Diaries but as far as now, I found nothing...

Btw, there was an epizode in Futurological Congress where the participants were enjoying food on a party, where every meal was made in such way, that food looked like a particular sexual male/female organ. Forgive me for not giving  examples :)  

Cheers

NEXUS6

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #5 dnia: Maja 02, 2005, 03:47:02 am »
That wasn't in "Star Diaries" for sure! And in "Futurological Congress" was other story... ;). My guess is "Wizja Lokalna" ("Inspection at the scene of the crime" -don't know english translation of title), one of Tichy adventures... but that's just a guess...

Terminus

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #6 dnia: Maja 24, 2005, 02:44:28 am »
It just came across my mind, that this must have been Sex Wars... I don't know if it was published in English, but nevertheless

cheers

togataran

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #7 dnia: Maja 27, 2005, 03:32:43 am »
I'm looking for a story too. I made a post of it entitled 'I Need Help.'

admiral_lebensraum

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #8 dnia: Marca 03, 2006, 08:18:24 am »
I'm not at home, so I can't check, but I'm positive that story is from Kurt Vonnegut's book "Breakfast of Champions".  Vonnegut's trademark character, the failed writer Kilgore Trout, has written that story and remembers it at one point during the book.

miazo

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #9 dnia: Marca 05, 2006, 01:30:55 pm »
Kilgore Trout Stories from "Breakfast of Champions" - check the "Untitled - (Dirty Movies)".

Kagan

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Re: Help needed!
« Odpowiedź #10 dnia: Maja 13, 2006, 01:07:34 pm »
My guess: Doskonala próznia (A Perfect Vacuum)
Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1971
Edited by: Urszula Srokosz (1974 ed. by WL).
A coll. of essays in form of reviews of books, which have never been written.
Translated by: M. Kandel as A Perfect Vacuum (NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978).
Contains: Simon Merrill "Sexplosion"