THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
08/09/02 -- Vol. 21, No. 6
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
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Topics:
Fish and Psychics (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
An Answer to a Question with a Twist? (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
SIGNS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Fish and Psychics (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
We were driving past a little house with a big sign out in front
that said "psychic." I started to wonder what the local psychics
thought of the government closing down the notorious Miss Cleo,
the Queen of Psychics. You used to see her all the time on TV a
few months ago. She was the one with the island accent in spite
of having been born and grown up in Los Angeles. Eventually the
government got after her for an incredible number of illegal and
fraudulent practices.
I wondered out loud if the local so-called psychics were happy or
sad to see Miss Cleo put out of business. Were they happy to see
a competitor go away? Were they unhappy because it showed that at
least one psychic was a fraud and sort of discredits the whole
psychic "industry." Evelyn leaned toward the latter belief. I am
not so sure. I think that the clientele of psychics know that
some psychics are frauds but will still believe in the one they go
to.
It is like fish. They can be swimming the water. "Oh, look.
There is a big piece of wriggling food over there. Right there at
the end of that line. And there goes Thelma to get it. There she
goes. She got it. Well good for her. Whoop! Did you see that?
Thelma just shot straight up. Isn't that the strangest thing?
She's gone. I don't even see her up in the higher water. Where
the Shark did she go? That was the strangest thing I ever saw.
Well, I'm sure she'll be back. She always is. Oh wow. Where did
that come from. There is another piece of food there dangling in
front of me. Let's see if I can get it. Just have to pull it
free from that string it is on." You can pull that trick over and
over. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: An Answer to a Question with a Twist? (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
Last week my editorial asked a question. It is really a question
that had bothered me for many years. The question combined the
fields of mathematical topology and the biology of reproduction.
The question is really a simple one even if the answer is not. If
indeed DNA is a double helix, which it has been established that
it is, the two chains in the helix wrap around each other some
very large number of times. The winding number is, I have been
told, something like 100,000. Now, most descriptions I have seen
of DNA reproduction say these two chains that are in some sense
complements of each other, just separate and each is used as a
pattern for a new complementary chain to be made. Since the
complement of a complement is identical to the original you now
have two identical double helix chains with the same information
content. However, my question involved the mathematical logistics
of separating two single chains that are twisted around each
other.
I measure the success of my editorials in part by how much comment
they generate and by that measure this is certainly one of my more
successful efforts. This appears to be a question that captured
many people's attention and interest. It is one of those
imponderable questions that stick at the back of the mind for
years, an itch difficult to scratch.
Let me somewhat rephrase the question. Take a yard of white
thread and a yard of black thread. Place them lengthwise next to
each other and then twist them together into twisted pair or a
cable. Actually their form is now a double helix, just like DNA
is a double helix, though with DNA there are connection between
the two chains. Your goal is now to separate the two threads
again. In specific, you would like to do it in a way similar to
the way DNA actually separates its double helix. (Note: This week
I am not directly asking how does DNA do it because they gets you
involved in discussions of what specific enzymes are involved.
That in interesting information, but does not get us really closer
to understanding the topology of the splitting process. In some
cases it gives a false impression you have gotten an answer to the
question when you have merely gotten technical detail. It is sort
of like the fellow who thought he had answered the question when
he said that an enzyme does it.)
Just grabbing each thread and pulling is not as good an idea as it
might first seem. There is a law of conservation of twists that
can only be dissipated where the thread is cut or broken. You end
up shoving twists down the cable in each direction where they
become denser and kink up the cable. One person suggested that is
because you are pulling apart only in one place and if you do it
at several points it will separate the threads more easily. Try
it and you quickly see that is not what is happening. Twists just
get denser between separating points, they do not cancel each
other out. The only way to get rid of twists is at endpoints of
chains. And when you do that you dissipate energy. Simply put,
if you dissipate that much energy from the endpoint of a DNA chain
you damage the cell. That cannot be how DNA handles this problem.
There is some bacteria DNA that does not even have an end to use.
You get the double helix but it all forms a loop or circle.
I got some side comments from one person who suggested there is a
scientific orthodoxy who can dictate what is the official explanation
whether that is a logical explanation or not. He felt that once it was
stated that the DNA comes apart in 30 minutes, nobody would
question what the mechanism is. I doubt that that is what has
happened here. From the answers I got clearly people at some level
had examined this question and had answered it. It was just that the
answer was known by surprisingly few people. I got what are
probably the most definitive answers from a biology professor
emeritus who is the father-in-law of a longtime member.
Imagine you have the ability to cut and rejoin the threads. Every
few twists you snip the white thread. This creates many endpoints
and allows the pieces to separate with only a few untwists each
segment. Then they are rejoined in the same order. But by the
same token each has to solve only a tiny piece of the problem.
The energy is being dissipated all over the length of the DNA, not
just at the very ends.
The organization to do this is incredible, but that is, after all,
what enzymes do for a living. I don't know how many breaks there
are to get rid of all the twists. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: SIGNS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Mel Gibson plays a farmer and ex-minister in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania. He must protect his family from something
real or imaginary that has not shown its face but seemingly has
left signs of its presence around the world that are causing
international anxiety. From the first shot of the film, M. Night
Shyamalan suffuses the film with tension, dread, and a feeling of
alienation. The worldwide crisis almost remains of little import
in the backdrop as the story focuses on the effects of fear and
panic and on the relation of the Gibson character with his faith.
This is a beautifully crafted and edited film that leaves the
viewer very edgy. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2 (-4 to +4)
Newspapers sometimes run a certain type of puzzle. They give you
extreme close-up photos of common objects. It may be part of a
cheese grater or a vacuum cleaner. But when we see this extreme
close-up it looks unfamiliar and strange. The point is for the
reader to try to identify the object from the close-up. M. Night
Shyamalan plays the same game with close-up details of plots we
have seen before. He will do a fascinating study embedded in what
could be a familiar situation from other films. What is important
is the texture of the detailed picture. He did that with
UNBREAKABLE and he does it again with SIGNS. SIGNS is an in depth
look within a specific type of familiar story. But it is a close-
up on one terrified group of people in that bigger story. Alfred
Hitchcock told this sort of story with his THE BIRDS, focusing on
one unimportant household. George Romero did it with NIGHT OF THE
LIVING DEAD, looking at one besieged group in a farmhouse.
Shyamalan does it in even closer detail then Hitchcock or Romero
in SIGNS. The outside story has a familiar ring once it is pieced
together, but we are too interested looking at one small group of
people who are affected by the events of the story.
As the film opens we are looking at the yard of a house. But as
we watch the scene undulates as if what we are looking at is not
real or not what it seems. It looks like we are seeing a
distorted digital image. Almost instantly we realize we are
merely looking through a window that is slightly imperfectly made
and which warped something that perfectly familiar so that it
looked wrong and disturbing. This one shot sets the tone for this
film. Things that are normal will look subtly incorrect and
disquietingly distorted. Shyamalan tells us that something is
very wrong is happening to the world. Time is out of joint. Even
normal things seem distorted and wrong. Shyamalan manages to keep
the tension from flagging even while keeping the plot relatively
static.
As the film begins Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), formerly Father
Graham Hess, is already living an agonized life that destroys his
sleep and warps his view of the world. (Perhaps he is in the same
physical condition that the Pacino character is in INSOMNIA.) Why
he is so tortured we will piece together later, for now we just
know he is fighting demons of many types. As in Daphne Du
Maurier's original story "The Birds," we do not know how much of
what is happening is real and how much is the result of the main
character's damaged mind.
Hess does not need on top of his emotional damage the strange
abstract pattern that appeared in his cornfield like crop circles.
"Nerds," is the explanation he uneasily settles on. Guys who
cannot get a date put that pattern in his field as a joke. That's
neat but unconvincing and other people have other ideas. The
viewer does not know what to think. Every theory for what is
making these patterns is ridiculed by someone. No sane
explanation makes much sense for the system of crop patterns that
is showing up worldwide. Meanwhile Graham is facing intruders on
his farm which may or may not be making the Triffid-like tapping
noises that Graham is hearing at odd moments. Hearing them at odd
moments is almost as scary as hearing nothing. Maybe sometimes he
almost gets a glimpse of part of one of these things in his
cornfield. I was reminded of the old William Allingham poem about
fairies:
Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Through much of SIGNS we are not sure what it is we are afraid of,
but we know something is out there. Shyamalan is a genuine
craftsman composing scenes with strange camera angles and symbolic
symmetries. His subject here is fear, and he impressively paints
something as invisible as fear on the screen. So little is clear
through much of the story yet we feel it is somehow scary. Even
Hess's motivations for leaving the church and losing his faith are
only revealed though many clues as the story progresses. Little
things from his background are left unexplained, and must be
pieced together. When one frustrated character shouts "What in
God's name is going on?" much of the audience is wondering the
same thing. Shyamalan populates the film with strange, out-of-
whack characters like an Army recruiter who enthusiastically
explains with an enigmatic smile on his face what strategy alien
invaders would use. Shyamalan writes one character as a pickup-
truck-style redneck named Ray, then the Indian director plays him
himself very much against type.
This is not an action film. It is not even so much a film where
nasty things jump out at the audience. It is a film with a cold
metaphysical chill. I would like to say all this fine style
actually built to a good story, but the story is less important
and actually less interesting than the style. The explanation of
what is going on is a bland cliche and Hess's own story builds to
a platitude. It is like Rembrandt had illustrated a Sunday
installment of "The Family Circus." The real subject is not the
plot. The real subject is fear and M. Night Shyamalan has given
us a film of unwavering weirdness and intensity. I give it an 8
on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Enlightened people seldom or never possess a
sense of responsibility.
-- George Orwell
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