THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/14/03 -- Vol. 22, No. 20
Big Cheese: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Little Cheese: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe, send mail to mtvoid-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe, send mail to mtvoid-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Topics:
Accounting for Taste (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Letter of Comment on SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET (by
David Shallcross)
Letter of Comment on CALCULATING GOD (by Richard Horton)
GAME OVER: KASPAROV AND THE MACHINE (film review by
Mark R. Leeper)
THE STATION AGENT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
MILWAUKEE, MINNESOTA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
ONE LOVE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (TO WALK THE NIGHT, ENGLAND UNDER
HITLER, FAHRENHEIT 451, and COSMOS LATINOS)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Accounting for Taste (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I don't think I would like to be a surgeon. One of the things
that does not get mentioned about the practice of surgery that I
wonder about is the smell of the whole process. Cutting open
bodies to repair them from the inside must be an incredibly
malodorous occupation. Usually the occupations that require you
be around things that smell bad are at the bottom end of the
economic ladder. They are vocations like cleaning bathrooms,
caring for people who cannot care for themselves, and picking up
garbage. But it seems to me that surgeons must also work in
rather unpleasant and rank conditions.
I judge that the insides of people must smell bad because just
about anything that has been inside and comes out smells bad. I
do remember the line from early in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Han
Solo smells the inside of a creature and remarks that he had
thought they smelled bad on the outside, but apparently they smell
worse inside. I suspect there may be an evolutionary reason for
this. Most things that smell really bad to us really are bad for
us. Dead bodies are an example. It really is not a good idea to
be around dead bodies and it is an even worse idea to eat them.
For one reason, parasitic organisms that are well adapted to
attacking other humans, even dead ones, are well adapted to
attacking us as well. It is best to keep away from dead humans.
The primitive mind seems to come up with a lot of its own reasons
for attitudes that the more knowledgeable mind might agree with.
Incest was a taboo among some long before the mechanisms that make
incest a bad idea were known. Not for Pharaohs and Caesars,
perhaps, but for the common people there was usually some urge to
keep the genes of offspring diverse.
There seems to be some sort of evolutionary basis for our
aesthetics. Things that smell good to us or taste good to us are
well correlated to what is healthy for us. Or perhaps they are
not so much healthy to us now, but they were when we were
evolving. Sugar is a high-energy food that at one time was useful
for survival. Now that large quantities of sugar are available
and we live longer and we need our teeth longer, eating sugar is
not the good sense survival strategy it once was. But evolution
has left us with a sweet tooth from the days when eating the few
sweet things when we found them was a good idea. High energy was
important for survival. We discussed recently the taste of milk,
which has calcium compounds that should taste very bitter. Yet
milk was good for us so somehow we evolved to like the taste of
milk. The mechanism that was used was that the presence of some
other chemical in the milk turned off our ability to taste
bitterness at all. Only now are we discovering what that chemical
is. I suppose if a reptile has tastes at all analogous to ours
milk would taste bitter and unpleasant to the reptile. The
reptile did not evolve with the flavor of milk being at all useful
so instead it would be repellent. (So much for the snake who
likes milk in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Speckled Band." And
in fact, snakes do not like milk. But that story has
more than enough other problems nobody seems to have noticed. I
commented on this in a previous editorial, available at
http://fanac.org/fanzines/MT_Void/MT_Void-1821.html.)
I have often wondered why cows have a taste for bitter grass.
Does the grass taste bitter to a cow, but it is a bitter taste
that the cow likes? Or does the grass not taste bitter at all?
Has the cow evolved with something like our bitter-blocker that
makes the grass actually taste sweet to the cow. We are now
getting to some testable situations. Perhaps we cannot test them
at the moment, but it seems like science is moving in a direction
in which we might. Can we tell from electronic impulses in the
cow's nervous system if grass stimulates the bitter sensors in the
tongue? What sort of activity is going on in the bitter sensors
in the brain of the cow? We could ask the same question about us
and drinking milk. Does tasting milk strobe the bitter sensors in
our tongue? Does it strobe the bitter sensors in our brain?
My suspicion, for what it is worth, is that the cow does not have
only a taste for different flavors than we do, the cow actually
tastes things very differently. The way the grass tastes to the
cow may well be a flavor we would enjoy. But grass just does not
taste that way to us. Cows and humans have a common ancestor and
that creature tasted things the way it did. But once we both
split off from each other the tree cows' taste modified in one
direction and ours in another. Probably we cannot eat grass and
get the same flavor from it that the cow does. I probably cannot
get the same flavor that you can. So on a deeper level there
really may be accounting for taste, but we just do not have
sufficient data.
Perhaps in time surgeons would evolve to like the smell of people
on the inside. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Letter of Comment on SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET (by David
Shallcross)
David Shallcross writes in response to a review of Evelyn's:
Just a comment on your review of SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET, in
particular your words on "A Case of Insomnia".
(1) A lunar eclipse takes place at a particular time, as measured
by, say, Greenwich Mean Time, independent of the position of any
observer, depending only on when the face of the moon is in the
earth's shadow. England and Egypt are not so far apart on the
globe as to always prevent the moon from being seen from each
country at the same time. So a lunar eclipse could be seen
simultaneously from England and Egypt. Local clock time would be
different.
I have a couple books by Fred Espenak of NASA, on eclipses. For
the solar eclipses, there is detailed information about the times
and locations of the track of the moon's shadow on the earth, where
the total eclipse may be seen. For lunar eclipses, there is just
information about the times of the various stages of the eclipse,
and the hemispheres of there earth from which the moon can be seen
at each of these times. So, in principle, the visibility of any
particular lunar eclipse could be checked.
(2) On the other hand, you are right that, barring supernatural
effects, it is no darker during the night of a lunar eclipse than
during the night of a new moon. Nothing blocks the stars, and
there is probably a little light available from the moon, since
the eclipsed moon is still visible, although dim. [-ds]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Letter of Comment on CALCULATING GOD (by Richard Horton)
Richard Horton writes in response to another review of Evelyn's:
I read your CALCULATING GOD review in the latest MT VOID. Judging
from past reviews I gather that you like Sawyer rather more than I
do, and especially calibrated in that way, I think you got it
exactly right.
I definitely thought the "gun-wielding fanatics" part was
unnecessary -- my interpretation was that he included it to bulk
the book up to some contractual requirement (100,000 words,
maybe?), but your suggested reason may well be right. At any rate,
it's a completely distracting and silly subplot. I also agree that
much of the plot is too clearly orchestrated by the author (a
common flaw for Sawyer, I think). And I would agree that the
philosophical discussions are the best part of the book -- if they
weren't so damn sophomoric! At least Sawyer's aliens are cleverly
designed.
(I did review the book, in my SFF-Net topic, capsulated somewhere
on Amazon.) [-rh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: GAME OVER: KASPAROV AND THE MACHINE (film review by Mark
R. Leeper)
Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4)
[Preface: This film review is particularly topical this week since
Kasparov is currently duking it out with a successor to Deep Blue
called X3D Fritz. The first game of a four-game series was a
draw; the second was won by X3D Fritz. We wait to see the
results.]
This documentary by Vikram Jayanti looks at the defeat of World
Chess Champion Gary Kasparov by the IBM computer Deep Blue.
Kasparov says of the competition, "It's about the supremacy of
human beings over machines in purely intellectual fields. It's
about defending human superiority in an area that defines human
beings." But it also implies that machines may be more useful and
powerful tools than Kasparov would like to admit. Is machine
intelligence surpassing human intelligence and if it does, is this
a bad thing or a good thing? That is the major underlying
question of GAME OVER. But the focus is on Kasparov and the
question of whether IBM played him fairly.
Chess is a game with which cheating seems impossible. All the
moves are right on the board. However, Kasparov is convinced the
Deep Blue team indeed cheated. There was certainly the motive to
cheat. Deep Blue's success had strong positive implications for
IBM's stock and their pubic relations. The claim is that in one
game the computer made a move that could have been from a chess
master, but one which is not characteristic of a brute force
computer. The claims, as presented in the film, cannot be
evaluated by layman, but Kasparov is convinced that his response
was the most important move of his career. It was followed by
Deep Blue making a big mistake that would have led to a draw
rather than a victory, but Kasparov was still so distracted that
he missed that error and took a loss rather than a draw. His play
on those few moves have overshadowed his chess-playing ever since.
Adding to the suspicion of IBM cheating is the fact that Deep Blue
was disassembled shortly after the series of games of the match
leaving no possibility of a rematch. Other strange behavior on
the part of IBM can be interpreted as highly suspicious, but no
strong conclusion can be drawn.
Jayanti interweaves the story of the competition with film footage
of THE CHESS PLAYER, a 1927 film about von Kempalon's Turk. The
Turk was an automaton that supposedly could play chess and was
nearly unbeatable. Eventually it was revealed it was a fraud and
was operated by a dwarf inside the machine who was a chess genius.
The film also liberally uses scenes with a modern recreation of
the Turk. Its invocation seems to be an unspoken implication that
IBM's Deep Blue was also a fraud. Aside: The audience sympathies
seemed to be Kasparov. I was hoping Deep Blue was really a
successful chess player. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE STATION AGENT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Peter Dinklage plays a dwarf who comes to live in a small
New Jersey town and in spite of efforts to the contrary becomes
involved in the lives of two of the residents. There is much in
this film that is reminiscent of THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER.
Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4)
Finbar McBride (played by Peter Dinklage of LIVING IN OBLIVION) is
a dwarf who works at a hobby shop. He is tired of people coming
into the shop look at the miniature Fin like they look at the
miniature trains. Fin's stature has led him to live by himself
and to avoid people since so many are rude and insensitive to him.
He works with storeowner Henry (Paul Benjamin). It is not a life
style Fin likes much, but it seems to be the best available to
him. Then Henry keels over and dies in the store. Fin is left
without a job. But Henry has left a bequest to Fin in his will.
Fin is to inherit an abandoned train station in Newfoundland, New
Jersey. (The film never comments on how odd it is that Henry
would own such a building. Perhaps it is connected with the mania
that both Henry and Fin shared for railroads and trains.) Fin
decides to move into the station where he can pursue that one
great interest in life, his fascination with trains. There
perhaps he can escape the irritating scrutiny of the curious.
Joe Oramas (Bobby Cannavale) runs a snack truck near the
Newfoundland abandoned train station and is fascinated by its new
owner, this solitary dwarf who rudely rebuffs him when he tries to
make friends or even to start a conversation. Joe takes on the
befriending of Fin as if it were a challenge. He wants to pull
this man out of his shell and give him more of a life. Olivia
Harris (Patricia Clarkson) also is fascinated by the dwarf. She
is a terrible driver who twice in one day nearly drives into Fin.
She also wants to befriend the new resident of the town, though
Fin wants nothing to do with these two people or anybody else.
All he wants is to be left alone to indulge his passion for
trains. But these two strangers seem determined to insinuate
themselves into his life. Eventually Fin relents and Fin gets
involved in their lives. Each has his problems. Joe has to care
for his ailing Cuban immigrant father. Olivia has recently lost a
son she doted upon. The three make a triple, caring for each
other.
Fin also reluctantly attracts the attention of Cleo (Raven
Goodwin), a local child Fin's size. Cleo is confused by Fin's
stature, not even knowing what a dwarf is. This is a film about
stigma and about friendship.
THE STATION AGENT is a simple story. At times it reminds one of
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER. But few films have so effectively
shown the isolation of those people who get not enough attention
of the right kind and too much attention that is either
unpleasantly curious or simply patronizing. Some people treat Fin
as an object. One woman takes his picture without permission as
if he were a carved stone. As pat as it sounds, this is not so
much a movie about the problems of a dwarf as about the function
of friendship. We have a warp portrait of three people who
develop a real affinity for each other. The film's best moments
are not Patricia Clarkson almost slapstick driving problems but in
the warm moments when the three friends can simply talk to each
other. Fin becomes less the focus of the film but one piece of a
friendship that nourishes each. The film is written and directed
by Thomas McCarthy, who is usually an actor and who successfully
resisted the temptation to put himself in his own movie.
This is a simple, short (88 minutes), and low-budget ($400,000)
film. But it is warm and at the same time real. This is a film
the viewer can settle into and be comfortable. I rate it a 7 on
the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: MILWAUKEE, MINNESOTA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4)
Albert (played by Troy Garity, son of Jane Fonda) is a childlike
man living in dingy and cold Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His mother
treats him like a little boy, which is just about what he is. She
ferries him to and from his job in a photocopy shop run by an
overly sympathetic supervisor (Bruce Dern). His one claim to fame
is that he is a terrific ice fisherman and wins tournament after
tournament. His autistic mind picks up on the subtleties of fish
behavior.
Albert's mother Edna forcefully manipulates Albert. She is not
happy when two young drifters, Tuey (Alison Folland) and her
brother Stanley, come to town and Tuey flirts with her Albert.
She knows they are up to no good. Another stranger comes to town,
Jerry (Randy Quaid). Then Edna is killed in a hit-and-run
accident and Albert suddenly falls heir to a fair amount of money.
Tuey wants to get her hands on that money and perhaps Jerry wants
to beat her to it, or perhaps Jerry has another reason for being
around. Bruce Dern's character also claims to be interested in
Albert's welfare. Just what is going on? Whatever it is, it
seems to have deep roots in the past.
The film, written by R. D. Murphy, nicely keeps the audience
guessing in this feeding frenzy of crooks. A particularly nice
scene has all the no-goods come together at one dinner.
Allan Mindel is a first-time director. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ONE LOVE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4)
Rick Elgood, the co-director (with Don Letts) of ONE LOVE, claims
this film is a real departure because it is set in Jamaica but is
not a gangster film. That is as may be, but the plotting of this
film is never going to win any prizes for originality. The main,
character is a Rasta with deep spiritual values. He is part of a
music band and they really need money. There is a competition
coming up with a US$20,000 prize and they really need to win it.
Kassa knows his group can win the prize if only they can get
Selena to sing for them. But the lovely Selena is the Christian
pastor's daughter and he will not allow her to have anything to do
with Rastas. On top of that, Selena is engaged to the obnoxious
Aaron who is the pastor's choice for a husband for Selena. Making
matters worse, there is an unscrupulous businessman who will stop
at nothing to get Kassa's music to sell and insists on the right
to modify it to take out the political message.
If you haven't noticed, this is not the world's most original
plot. Nor is it the most unpredictable. This one is improved a
little because it mentions the rarely publicized friction between
Christians and Rastafarians. It is surprising to see such a
cliched plot at a film festival. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Correction to last week's column: HERLAND is by Charlotte Perkins
*Gilman*, not by Charlotte Perkins.
William Sloane's TO WALK THE NIGHT is a classic horror novel, but
as with many older classics, it will probably seem predictable to
today's readers. (Personally, I found myself wondering if the
film UNEARTHLY STRANGER was somewhat inspired by this.) While the
writing style is good, the familiarity probably works against this
book for modern readers.
A few months ago, there ran on some PBS stations something called
"Hitler's Victory." It was promoted as alternate history, but
there was only about twenty minutes of fictional alternate
history. The rest (over an hour) was an discussion of documents
discovered describing the German plans for after a successful
invasion, and interviews with people about what plans had been
laid in place on both sides. Well, the whole thing could have
been based on Comer Clarke's ENGLAND UNDER HITLER, though it
apparently wasn't. Clarke's book is precisely this discussion of
documents, interviews, and extrapolations from German actions in
other conquered countries, and in the occupied Channel Islands.
Clarke's book is over forty years old, but it didn't seem like the
TV movie/documentary added much new to the story.
We just recently heard a radio dramatization of Ray Bradbury's
FAHRENHEIT 451 from the BBC and I was wondering how accurate it
(or the movie) were to the book. The answer is, sort of. For
example, in the movie, everything is done with sound or pictures,
with no writing, even in people's personnel files. The
implication is that no one can read any more. But this doesn't
make any sense when you consider that Montag makes off with books
and reads them, and it isn't stated or implied in the book. The
radio version has a lot of emphasis on children's nursery rhymes--
in the book there is poetry, but on a much higher level. There is
also more of Bradbury's story "The Pedestrian" in the radio
version than in the book, though there is some even there. The
ending of the radio version is more accurate to the ending of the
book (though I don't think the basic idea of how to save books
holds up. The idea that people memorize books and then destroy
the physical copies rather than burying them somewhere seems just
plain foolish. Bradbury also seems to want to declare with a wave
of his hand that people have photographic memories and could
relatively easily memorize whole books, but I don't think that's
the case. However, one point worth noting is that Bradbury
specifically says the problem is not that radio and television are
inherently worse media than the book, but that their nature as
*mass* media makes it more likely that one will find a degraded
level of discourse in them.
Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilan's COSMOS LATINOS is a
good idea badly executed. I was really looking forward to the
idea of seeing a sample of Latin American and Spanish science
fiction, but the editors decision to put twenty-seven stories
(each with a full-page biography of the author) in only 330 pages
means that what you get are mostly short shorts. The longest are
36, 22, and 22 pages, meaning that many of the ones left are only
three or four pages long. Jorge Luis Borges and Frederic Brown
could do a great story in that length, but not many others could.
(Ironically, Borges is omitted, probably because his stories are
more fantastical than science fiction.) If this is a
representative sampling, then my conclusion is that these authors
need to work at longer lengths. If it's not, then I would have
preferred longer works by fewer authors, or even (gasp!) a longer
book. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The will to win is not nearly as important
as the will to prepare to win.
-- Bobby Knight
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/J.MolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
mtvoid-unsubscribe@egroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/