THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/19/02 -- Vol. 20, No. 42
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
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Topics:
Damon Knight Obituary
Hugo Nominations
Sentinel Foods (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
CHANGING LANES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
ENIGMA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Damon Knight Obituary
Damon Knight died 14 April 2002 at the age of 80. He was the
author of many short stories (the best-known of which is probably
"To Serve Man") and novels, but was also an influential reviewer
and critic. His most important influence, however, was as an
editor, particularly for his "Orbit" series of original
anthologies.
A full obituary can be found at
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/17/obituaries/17KNIG.html. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Hugo Nominations
BEST NOVEL (486 ballots cast)
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (HarperCollins/Eos)
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (Morrow)
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (Macmillan (UK)(2000);
Del Rey)
Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod (Orbit (UK)(2000); Tor)
Passage by Connie Willis (Bantam)
The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
BEST NOVELLA (300 ballots cast)
"May Be Some Time" by Brenda W. Clough (Analog 4/01)
"The Diamond Pit" by Jack Dann (Jubilee, HarperCollins/Voyager
Australia; F&SF 6/01)
"The Chief Designer" by Andy Duncan (Asimov's 6/01)
"Stealing Alabama" by Allen Steele (Asimov's 1/01)
"Fast Times at Fairmont High" by Vernor Vinge (The Collected
Stories of Vernor Vinge, Tor)
BEST NOVELETTE (292 ballots cast)
"Hell Is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang (Starlight 3, Tor)
"Undone" by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's 6/01)
"The Days Between" by Allen Steele (Asimov's 3/01)
"Lobsters" by Charles Stross (Asimov's 6/01)
"The Return of Spring" by Shane Tourtellotte (Analog 11/01)
BEST SHORT STORY (331 ballots cast)
"The Ghost Pit" by Stephen Baxter (Asimov's 7/01)
"Spaceships" by Michael A. Burstein (Analog 6/01)
"The Bones of the Earth" by Ursula K. Le Guin (Tales from
Earthsea, Harcourt)
"Old MacDonald Had a Farm" by Mike Resnick (Asimov's 9/01)
"The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's 10-11/01)
BEST RELATED BOOK (252 ballots cast)
The Art of Richard Powers by Jane Frank (Paper Tiger)
Meditations on Middle-Earth by Karen Haber, ed. (St. Martin's
Press/A Byron Preiss Book)
The Art of Chesley Bonestell by Ron Miller & Frederick
C. Durant III (Paper Tiger)
I Have This Nifty Idea...Now What Do I Do With It? by Mike
Resnick (Wildside Press)
J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey
(HarperCollins (UK)(2000); Houghton Mifflin)
Being Gardner Dozois by Michael Swanwick (Old Earth Books)
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (452 ballots cast)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Monsters, Inc.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Once More, With Feeling"
Shrek
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR (382 ballots cast)
Ellen Datlow (SCI FICTION and anthologies)
Gardner Dozois (Asimov's)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor Books; Starlight anthology series)
Stanley Schmidt (Analog)
Gordon Van Gelder (F&SF)
BEST PRO ARTIST (323 ballots cast)
Jim Burns
Bob Eggleton
Frank Kelly Freas
Donato Giancola
Michael Whelan
BEST SEMIPROZINE (283 ballots cast)
Absolute Magnitude, edited by Warren Lapine
Interzone, edited by David Pringle
Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown
The New York Review of Science Fiction, edited by Kathryn Cramer, David
Hartwell & Kevin J. Maroney
Speculations, edited by Susan Fry, published by Kent Brewster
BEST FANZINE (237 ballots cast)
File 770, edited by Mike Glyer
Ansible, edited by Dave Langford
Challenger, edited by Guy Lillian III
Mimosa, edited by Richard & Nicki Lynch
Plokta, edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies & Mike Scott
BEST FAN WRITER (248 ballots cast)
Jeff Berkwits
Bob Devney
John L. Flynn
Mike Glyer
Dave Langford
Steven H Silver
BEST FAN ARTIST (177 ballots cast)
Sheryl Birkhead
Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Frank Wu
BEST WEB SITE (365 ballots cast)
Locus Online, Mark R. Kelly editor/webmaster (www.locusmag.com)
SciFi.com, Craig Engler, executive producer (www.scifi.com)
SF Site, Rodger Turner, publisher/managing editor (www.sfsite.com)
Strange Horizons, Mary Anne Mohanraj, editor-in-chief
(www.strangehorizons.com)
Tangent Online, Dave Truesdale, senior editor; Tobias Buckell,
webmaster (www.tangentonline.com)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Sentinel Foods (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Every culture seems to have some small number of "sentinel" foods
that are there to scare away those who are not meant for this
culture's cuisine. They separate the really dedicated from the
casual dabbler in that cuisine. Now I have often said, with
apologies to Will Rogers, that I have never met a cuisine I didn't
like. I like just about all the cuisines of the world. But just
about every cuisine seems to have some food that is there to chase
away those that have the effrontery to only pretend to be a fan.
I call these "sentinel" dishes that stand at the gateway to the
cuisine. Some cuisines don't need real sentinel dishes. With
Thai food, just about everything tastes good, but frequently this
food is just spiced so it burns the mouth and stomach. I suppose
that is sort of the same idea, but not really. A real sentinel
dish does not work by pain, it works because its very concept is
revolting. The thought of the food brings a sort of horror.
Frequently these sentinel dishes are made of or with fish. The
Norwegians have Lutefisk. This is dried codfish that has been
soaked in a water and lye solution before cooking. Now lye is
caustic and used in making things like soap. If you splash it on
yourself you can be in big trouble. It is a very strong base.
That is, it is the opposite of an acid. It is not actually toxic
in the usual sense. Still, it is very nasty stuff to deal with
and few of us would think of putting it on our hands, much less in
our mouths. In Norway, they eat cod fish that has been soaked in
lye water, skinned, filleted, and boiled. Uff da!!!
Jewish culture's scare-'em-off sentinel food is also a fish
product. It is Gefilte Fish. Literally it means filled fish, but
it is minced fish and filler made simmered in fish broth and
served in a fish gravy aptly named Yuch. Yuch seems to
spontaneously gel even at room temperature. This dish is served
with horseradish. The hotter the horseradish, the better since
there is a lot of flavor it has to mask and the pain of the
horseradish is preferable to the taste of the fish. The Jews are
a cautious people and they have a backup disgust food, namely
chopped chicken liver and hard-boiled egg. I was pleased to
discover that chopped chicken liver is one of the very few foods
that not only taste bad, it actually is unhealthy. Your natural
instincts to avoid chopped chicken liver are healthy ones.
Actually there are too few foods like that, with a taste that
warns you away. I think the same is true diesel fuel. You should
not eat it and you would not want to. But chopped chicken liver
is something that you might actually be served. More likely you
will see it on a buffet. At least you can ALWAYS beg off of
eating chopped liver and pretend like you were worried about your
health. It is very high in cholesterol, though it poses danger
only to the really dedicated and people whose taste buds have been
dissolved by things like lye.
Speaking of cholesterol, the place where I have been where the
diet is highest in that substance is Africa. They eat a lot of
meat in Africa, though the "they" might possibly refer to tourists
only. I don't know what the local people eat, but it probably
includes something called Foo-foo. It is eaten like bread but it
is something like fermented cassava pulp pounded into an elastic
dough. It is sort of the consistency of the marshmallow covering
a Hostess Snowball, but even more elastic. (A Hostess Snowball,
by the way, may be one of our own sentinel foods. It is also
unhealthy. It is pretty much an extravagant, cellophane-wrapped,
heart attack on a piece of cardboard. But I digress. (Deal with
it.)) Foo-foo is eaten like bread, but requires good teeth. It
has to be swallowed all at once, not just the bit at the back of
your mouth since it is so elastic and does not separate easily.
You may take a bite, but if it is more than you can swallow in one
big gulp you are in trouble. You may think you broke it up by
chewing off a smaller piece in your mouth but when it goes down
you suddenly find your esophagus and your teeth are doing a tug-
of-war on it dragging it over your tonsils. I have had good
gustatory experiences in the past and this was not one of them. I
don't know if Foo-foo is always this way since I tried it only
that once, homemade by a friend. It is pretty tough when this
stuff is stuck in your throat, you are gasping for air, and there
are tears running down your face to smile and say it is "tasty." I
have stayed away from it since. I figured it was the dish itself.
Well, I have found the dish that separates the men from the boys
(and the women from the girls) in Chinese cuisine. At least I
have found one of them. I am trying to find healthier things to
eat on my diet at home. One of the things I am allowed as a
freebie is boullion soup. That is not very exciting eating, but I
am also allowed vegetables in any quantities I want. I started
added Chinese Pickled Cabbage to the bullion and it is not too
bad. You get it in Chinese groceries in jars pickled in chili oil
and it is quite flavorful. Eventually I decided I wanted to
branch out and so I got some Pickled Mustard Greens to add to the
soup and some tofu. Tofu is also called "bean curd." All this
stuff was in jars and is easy to find in Chinese groceries. I
figured the tofu would add a little protein. Tofu generally does
not have much flavor. I did not realize that the Fermented Tofu
is a whole new ballgame. Fermented Tofu stands sentinel to scare
away those who would eat what you find in westernized Chinese
restaurants but who don't want to eat the real Chinese cuisine
with its snakes, sea cucumbers, and--where I draw the line--dogs.
I hasten to add, it is very unlikely that any Westerners would
come in contact with any of these foods and this should not be
used as an excuse to not appreciate Chinese cuisine, perhaps the
most diverse and subtle of cuisines in the world. I am talking
here mostly about Fermented Bean Curd. This is tofu that has been
fermented in rice wine or salt.
Fermented Bean Curd looks like normal cubes of tofu in a chili
sauce. It has a texture that you are not expecting, however. In
the mouth it is sort of the consistency of cubes of toothpaste.
It does not so much melt in your mouth as smear over your tongue.
When it does you are in for a surprise. It is anything but
tasteless. The flavor is very much like Bleu Cheese. In fact,
researching this article, some places called Fermented Bean Curd
"cheese." Though, of course, bean curd is made of soy bean milk
and calcium carbonate and not a dairy product. When Evelyn heard
that it tasted like Bleu Cheese she wanted to try it, expecting
that it would have a light cheese flavor. Bleu Cheese, though,
has a strong flavor and Fermented Bean Curd is every bit as strong
in flavor. As one site tells me, "The production of fermented
bean curd dates to the mid-Qing dynasty. It has been very famous
in China since that time for its softness and unique taste." The
taste is, indeed, unique. It is a product of Guilin, an area of
China with very beautiful scenery, but which has a cuisine that
frequently does not appeal to most western tastes. When we
traveled in China in 1982 we found that we liked ALL the food, but
probably least in Guilin.
Fermented Bean Curd is high in Tyramine, a substance that has been
shown to trigger cluster headaches. Some people have been known
to get a particularly negative reaction to Fermented Bean Curd.
However unless you are on Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOI's),
there is no need to worry. For everyone else, I do recommend it
for people who want an experience they will not soon forget. If
you live near me, let me know. I have some I may be getting rid
of. Perhaps I am not ready for the full Chinese cuisine. Then
again, I did like sea cucumber. Thousand-year eggs? Now that
might be a different story. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: CHANGING LANES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Two men have a small-scale war following an auto
accident. In spite of some intriguing action the film does
nothing unusually well until the final third. Then suddenly the
dialog and even the plot improve markedly. Most of the story of
note and most of the intelligence is toward the end of the film.
There is decent acting from Samuel L. Jackson and particularly
from the little-known Kim Staunton. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1
(-4 to +4)
We are seeing a number of films like COLLATERAL DAMAGE and BIG
TROUBLE that were originally scheduled for an earlier release, but
after September 11 had to be postponed. The distributor felt that
they would remind the public a little too much of current events.
Actually, the film that really has bearing on today's world is
CHANGING LANES. This is a film about an escalating conflict that
engulfs and destroys both sides of the quarrel. Each side has
power over the other, moral and non-moral. Each side has its
weapons and its gambits. The first act sets up the conflict, the
second shows the escalation. And if the third act merely tied up
the plot ends and brought the film to a conclusion, this would be
a standard mainstream film. In fact the entire film is probably
the third act. If the viewer misses the first two acts he does
not miss much. (In fact, if the viewer has seen the trailer that
may be a sufficient surrogate for the first hour of the film.)
CHANGING LANES does not really begin until the two main characters
try to resolve the situation. Certainly it is in the resolution
that we learn the most that is non-cliche about the principles and
their situation.
One of those two main characters is Gavin Banek, a junior partner
in an upper echelon Wall Street law firm (played by Ben Affleck).
The other is Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson), a recovering
alcoholic struggling to put enough of his life back together so
that his wife and two sons do not slip from his grasp. Even
before they clash each is doing everything he can to destroy
himself in some significant way. Banek is selling his ethics to
his law firm in return for advancement. Currently he is wresting
a charitable fund from the control of the family of the recently-
deceased man who set up the charity. Gipson, a failure filled
with anger, has been using alcohol to quench the fire of his
bitterness and fury. The quenching did not work when he was
drinking and it certainly is not working now that he has quit.
When Banek fights he fights smart and dirty. When Gipson fights
he detonates with rage. Banek is subtle, Gipson is explosive.
Their war begins with a traffic accident. Banek is rushing to
present some important papers at a hearing. Gipson is on the way
to his own hearing to maintain access to his two sons. By leaving
the scene of the accident Banek destroys Gipson's chances. But he
has unknowingly left some all-important papers at the scene of the
accident with Gipson. He has stolen what might have been the most
important twenty minutes of Gipson's life, but at the same time
accidentally left the key to his life in Gipson's hands. Now the
games begin.
Jackson and Affleck are good actors and their conflict brings out
both good and bad in the characters they are playing. Jackson can
be polished when the role calls for it, here he looks dragged out
and defeated just as the character demands. Ironically, however,
I was more impressed by the acting from the supporting women in
their lives. Kim Staunton as Valerie Gipson is an actor I do not
remember seeing before. Her face is eloquent of a hard life and
the determination to transcend it. She may not play many romantic
leads, but I am looking forward to seeing her again. Another
unusual face is that of Toni Collette as Banek's secretary and
sometime mistress.
CHANGING LANES has its rewards, but they come late in the film.
In the meantime the film will please that segment of the audiences
who like to see people fight beyond all sanity. This is quite a
change of pace for director Roger Michell whose last film was
NOTTING HILL. I rate it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on
the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Most of this Mexican film is a road trip with two
teenagers and a woman in her 20s. Much of the trip is discussion
of sex and some minor sexual adventures. On a deeper level this
film is really about the uses of sex in relationships. There is
more going on than meets the eye and when all is revealed the
viewer will certainly think back over what has been said. Rating:
7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to +4)
Tenoch and Julio (played by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) are
two Mexican teens having a long boring summer even more so with
their girl friends visiting Italy. Their time is spent hanging
around, taking drugs, and talking about sex. They invite Luisa,
the young and attractive wife of Tenoch's writer cousin, to join
them on a trip to visit a secret beach, Heaven's Mouth. At first
she refuses politely, amused by the boys. But when she discovers
her husband has cheated on her she changes her mind and offers to
accompany the boys. The beach does not really exist, but the boys
set out with Luisa to find a similar spot they can call Heaven's
Mouth.
The film becomes a road picture for most of its length as the trio
travel the interior of Mexico. They see the poverty and the crime
in Mexico's back country. But most of what is on the boys' minds
is sex. As they travel Tenoch and Julio whisper to each other
little sexual thoughts, mostly about their girlfriends. But Luisa
is inquisitive and soon the three are talking openly about sex.
They start revealing secrets and each talks about their sex lives.
The boys even do a little spying on Luisa, which she seems not to
mind. Luisa is suffering great pain when alone and does a little
flirting with the boys. She seems anxious to share her wisdom of
about ten more years of age with the boys. Not everything she is
doing or why will be obvious until the final scenes of the film
and perhaps not even then.
Alfonso Cuaron directs a script he co-wrote with his brother
Carlos. By American standards the style is a little raw.
American films doing a similar story would try to titillate with
language, limiting the nudity, and showing what nudity they had
artistically. Cuaron opts for a more natural approach, freely
showing frontal male and female nudity. He seemingly just puts
the camera on his characters and lets them do what they would do
in the scene. If the camera catches full frontal male or female
nudity, so be it. It is neither to be flaunted nor avoided. What
the car passes on the road and the passengers see is given the
same realistic feel. What appears to be a police drug bust is
passed without comment. One stylistic touch: occasionally the
story is narrated by Tenoch, apparently from a point of view years
later.
Cuaron gives the film a light and frivolous feel as if it is a
throwaway. It appears to be almost a teenage sex comedy. That is
because the Cuarons know something about their characters that the
audience does not. Puzzle pieces that the viewer did not realize
were puzzle pieces fall into place at the end, turning the film
from light to bittersweet. I rate Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN a 7 on the 0
to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ENIGMA (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
(This review originally ran in the 5 Oct 2001 issue of the MT VOID,
but is being re-published since the film is just being released in
the United States today.)
CAPSULE: Dark and complex espionage thriller based on the Robert
Harris novel. March 1943 the British lose their former ability to
decode German messages to their submarine fleet. They must either
get it back or lose an important shipping convoy. An intelligent
thriller perhaps a little too reserved to be thrilling. Rating: 7
(0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to +4)
For thirty years after the end of the World War II Britain's most
secret weapon remained secret. Like the US had done with the
Manhattan Project, Britain had put many of their best minds onto
their own scientific wartime project. What they found could well
have saved the war for Britain. At minimum it shortened the war
by at least two years by negating the Germans' most effective
weapon, the U-boat. The Germans communicated with their men in
the field (or in this case the sea) with an incredibly complex
code called Enigma. The code was encrypted and decrypted with a
device of mechanical and electronic components that created an
unimaginably large number of possibilities that has to be
considered in decoding the message.
The mathematics necessary for decoding Enigma was considered to be
orders of magnitude beyond what any country could accomplish, even
if the closely guarded Enigma boxes fell into the hands of the
enemy. What the Germans did not know was that an Enigma box had
fallen into allied hands and teams of puzzle solvers and
mathematicians were recruited for the purpose cracking the code.
The team was installed at Bletchley Park under the direction of
Alan Turing. For the first time rudimentary electronic computers
were used to search for and test solutions. By July of 1941 the
work had already borne fruit and supply convoys from America were
saved from submarine wolf packs. It typically took two days to
decode a message, but for many of the messages that was short
enough time.
Then in February 1942 the code changed. It was still Enigma, but
a new order of complexity had been added. The code could not be
solved. At the same time the strategy of the submarine packs
changed. The Germans could not know how great a setback it was.
By December the Allied shipping losses had quadrupled. It took
ten months to recover the old capabilities and the Battle of the
Atlantic again turned in favor of the Allies. And so it remained.
All this is history. It is history filmmakers have not made much
usage of, though code breaking was an important part of World War
II. The film U-571 told the fictional story of Americans
capturing an Enigma box and set it much later than the British
actually did. The film MIDWAY tells a little about the Americans
efforts at code breaking. Robert Harris wrote the novel ENIGMA, a
mystery story set in and around the Bletchley Park project. Tom
Stoppard has adapted the novel into a screenplay and Michael Apted
directs.
The premise is that in March 1943, the Germans changed the code
again. The British have just four days to break the modified code
before an important convoy from New York will be entering waters
that may have German U-boats. Without knowledge of where the U-
boats are there is no way to avoid these waters. With nary a
mention of Alan Turing in the screenplay, sullen mathematician Tom
Jericho (played by Dougray Scott) who had left the Bletchley Park
project has been brought back onto the project. He had been
instrumental in breaking the code the last time, but had since
suffered a nervous breakdown. That breakdown was brought on by
being rejected by lovely co-worker Claire (Saffron Burrows). She
was a fellow project member with whom Tom had fallen in love. Now
there is evidence that Claire intentionally broke project security
and perhaps was spying for the Germans. Tom has a double problem
of resolving the new German code and looking for the now missing
Claire. Helping him is Claire's swatty and bookish housemate
Hester Wallace (Kate Winslett). Making life even more difficult
is sinister and polished intelligence operator Wigram (played
nicely by Jeremy Northam).
Tom Stoppard's adaptation is better than one might have expected
retaining some reasonable explanation of the history and the
mathematical issues involved without obvious expository lumps,
though by the end of the film some technical problems are going by
too fast to comprehend. Perhaps in deference to Apted the script
has some feminist touches that I do not remember from the book.
It also has one gratuitous car chase. John Barry has provided a
score that is by turns lush and ominous.
An interesting chapter in history could have made for a better
thriller, but as it stands it is reasonably exciting if reserved.
I rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4
scale.
People interested in the efforts to break the Enigma can find a
lot of intriguing material at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/decoding/. This is information to
accompany the excellent episode of Nova "Decoding Nazi Secrets."
Included is a transcript of that broadcast. [-mrl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Always forgive your enemies -- nothing annoys them
so much.
-- Oscar Wilde
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