THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
12/05/03 -- Vol. 22, No. 23
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:
Puzzle (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Hot Tip (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Letters of Comment (by Fred Lerner, Jospeh T. Major,
and Charles Harris)
21 GRAMS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
THE SNOW WALKER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
BON VOYAGE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (ANDROIDS, HUMANOIDS, AND OTHER
SCIENCE FICTION MONSTERS; BARKER STREET REGULARS;
MURDER, MRS. HUDSON; and OMEGA) (book comments by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Puzzle (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Here's a contest. If you mail me the answer before December 10, I
will publish your name as a solver in the MT VOID. Sorry, there
is no prize but fame. Answers next week. (This is inspired by
the Will Shortz puzzle each week on Sunday mornings on NPR Weekend
Editions.)
This is the puzzle: Find the name of a world-famous American
writer. This writer has a first and last name. Reverse the order
of the two names. Remove one or more letters from the end of the
first name and one or more letters from the end of the last name.
The result is the name of a famous writer of science fiction,
horror, or fantasy. Who are these two writers? [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Hot Tip (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
It seemed like a joke. People were talking about the August heat
waves and how badly they had hit Europe. Britain had something
like twelve actual deaths from the heat wave. (I don't remember
the number). France had more than 11,000.
First reaction: Huh? What is this? You don't get numbers like
that for deaths from a heat wave. They are reporting something
wrong. Perhaps they are taking every death in France and blaming
it on the heat wave. Isn't that number pretty high for all deaths
in France?
Well, a little reading and that thought was quickly dispelled.
The people who died, died of heat. The heat wave actually did
kill over 11,000 people in France. (Some sources are putting the
figure at 15,000.) Jean-François Mattei, French Minister of
Health, has confirmed 11,435 people in France died during the
first two weeks of August. That is more than twice the number of
people killed by terrorism on September 11. How can that be
possible? How did it kill so many people? The reason sounds like
something out of a 1950s science fiction story.
For those of you that don't know, the heat wave was in August when
most of France is on vacation. The French consider it a tradition
that everybody goes on vacation in the month of August. The
elderly who lived by themselves were the most likely victims when
the heatwave came in August. Many just were not alert enough to
know they were getting too hot. Many just could not do anything
about it. They were as helpless as babies left in cars. Even
those that were alert could not find air-conditioned places to
go. And most of the people who could have helped with the problem
were on vacation and could not be reached.
Well, the French had not been following Immanuel Kant's
Categorical Imperative. What is that? Well it has a complex
formulation, but one way to say what it says is don't do things
that if large numbers of people did the same thing society would
be in trouble. Now I would qualify the imperative that there
also has to be some reasonable probability that large numbers of
people in society would do it. I feel I can tell people to call
me "Mark" without worrying too much about the chaos it would cause
if a very large percentage of society asked to be called Mark.
Nobody would know which person was being called when someone calls
my name. Shoplifting, on the other hand, even if I could get away
with it would be against Kant's Categorical Imperative since if
large numbers of people did it, it would cause a lot of trouble
for a society.
Now let's look at what happens in France. France is a country
that takes its leisure time very seriously. Everybody takes
vacation at the same time. They take off the month of August.
There are just skeleton crews around to provide emergency services
and do the really indispensable jobs. The national attitude is "I
am vacation in August and someone else will handle the problems
back at home." That is usually a fairly efficient way of doing
things since the other eleven months of the year you can be pretty
sure that your coworkers will not be on long vacations. They took
their long vacation in August. But I think nobody saw the
downside of having everybody take his vacation at the same time.
This year the butcher's bill came due.
This was the year of the heat wave. Temperatures rose to 40 C
(104 F). The French just did not have the people to handle the
crisis and a lot of workers died as a result. Large numbers of
people were simply unreachable. And many people died because they
could not afford the fairly expensive technology that air
conditioning is. I would like to take this opportunity to get the
word out a little more about a claim that I have made for years.
I think this could save lives.
When I was in grad school I had to study in an apartment that was
something like 105 F, temperatures like they had in France. I
soaked a T-shirt in warm water, put it on, and if possible sat in
front of a fan. That is a really cheap heat pump and it worked.
In a hot apartment I was relatively comfortable. When I travel
and have to sleep in a room that is too hot, I use the same
principle. Just sleeping in a wet T-shirt keeps me cool. I
ignore the salacious implications, we are talking health issues
here. This would not have helped the people too feeble to set it
up for themselves, but it would have saved some from the heat.
Oh, and the French might consider staggering their vacations.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Letters of Comment
We got a lot of comments on last week's "This Week's Reading"
column last week. [My comments on their comments are in
brackets.]
In it, I said that the Fadimans "could all be science fiction
fans from some of their traits." Fred Lerner responded:
"Clifton Fadiman devoted a couple of his 'Party of One' book
columns in 'Holiday' to science fiction. In June 1952 he
recommended nine books and three magazines (ASTOUNDING, GALAXY,
and F&SF). In May 1957 he described Arthur C. Clarke as an example
of a new profession: "futurians", people whose occupation it was
to think about the future, and to create fictional and
nonfictional projections of what the future might bring. Other
'Holiday' columns about SF were written by Kingsley Amis, Robert
C. O'Brien, and Alfred Bester. I believe that [Alfred] Bester was
an editor at 'Holiday' during the 1950s, which may have something
to do with this." [-fl]
I talked about how Plutarch actually paired his subjects. Joseph
T. Major responded:
"The parallels in Plutarch are: Crassus with Nicias, [and] Pompey
with Agesilaus. The comparison for Julius Caesar is lost, but the
essay on him is preceded by the essay on Alexander. Another
paired comparison that might usefully be read is the two essays
from the 'Moralia': 'On the Virtue or Fortune of Alexander' and
'On the Fortune of the Romans', which latter ends with the comment
that the greatest bit of fortune the Romans had was not having to
fight Alexander. This is probably a reference to Livy's essay in
'The History of Rome' (Book Nine) about how the Romans could have
beaten Alexander because they had a bigger army and better
commanders. This last is considered the first work of alternate
history. " [-jtm]
Major also asked, "Could the copy of LOST IN A GOOD BOOK be a set
of proofs? I've bought bound proofs before. Once bought a copy
of a Robert Jordan book, which spared me wasting money on the
'Wheel of Time' series (it just keeps on rolling along)." [-jtm]
[No, the Fforde is not a set of proofs, and in fact the reverse of
the title page indicates it is a third printing. On the back
cover, in addition to the ISBN, there are two numbers in white
blocks: 1145296 and 75261. The latter is part of the ISBN, but
the former may be some book club code. -ecl]
And Charles Harris said, "You wrote, regarding Tracy Chevalier's
GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING: 'I wish I could say I liked it....'
You *did* say you liked it (albeit not overly much, and not as
much as the reviews lead one to expect)! I even remarked at the
end of the meeting that, as far as I could recall, this was the
first time *all* of the attendees agreed on a book; i.e. lukewarm
liking. And there was no gender difference." [-ch]
[Well, yes, I guess I liked it lukewarmly, but not enough to
recommend it in a review. Or perhaps just didn't dislike it. I
know I read more than most people, so something has to be a little
more than lukewarm for a recommendation, but I probably could have
phrased it better. -ecl]
Charles continues, "You also wrote: 'Since most reading groups are
either all-female or mostly female, the books popular with them
seem to have a preponderance of female protagonists.' Out of
curiosity, I did a tally of the Old Bridge group's picks. Out of
159 that I have a record of, the protagonist is:
male 68
female 32
both 38
neither 10
I have no recollection whatever of the book 11
My categorizing was weighted toward female: if there was a
woman playing a major role, that was counted as 'both' or even
'female'. 'Neither' covers straight nonfiction with no single
prominent person. Biographical and historical books were
treated as if they were fiction." [-ch]
[When I look at what books are described as popular with reading
groups, or have reading group guides, they do seem somewhat
slanted, but I may also have been biased by Oprah's picks, which
seemed to be universally female protagonists (and almost
universally female authors). We may be an atypical group. -ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: 21 GRAMS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is an intense (if somewhat melodramatic) story told
in a chronologically shuffled order. Sean Penn plays a college
professor who receives a heart transplant and feels compelled to
become involved with the widow of the donor and the man who
accidentally killed the donor. The strange story is made even
stranger by the convoluted telling. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4
to +4) Warning: My review contains minor plot spoilers. This film
makes the viewer work for every plot detail, so any detail of the
story is a spoiler.
21 GRAMS is not a film to sit and relax in front of after a hard
day. Well, maybe it is if one wants a distraction. In any case,
this is not your movie if you want things laid out simply in front
of you. 21 GRAMS is a film that would be a fairly extreme drama--
though somewhat macabre--even if it was shown with scenes in
chronological order, but director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
shuffled the scenes so he could present the story both as a drama
and as a puzzle. By making the film a puzzle the viewer can feel
a sense of accomplishment when she or he has put the whole story
together and can step back from it and look at it. It is not
unlike seeing a Vermeer for the first time in the form of a jigsaw
puzzle. Is the strange order a gimmick? Yes, it really is. But
it sets this drama apart from many others and makes the viewer
strain at paying attention to details. In MEMENTO, the reverse
order of the sequences helped us to see what was going on in
Leonard Shelby's amnesiac head. It helped us to understand his
situation. Here the story is scrambled not to help tell it, but
simply to make it an enigma that viewers will have to study and
perhaps want to see multiple times.
Following a strong performance in MYSTIC RIVER Sean Penn gives one
of his most powerful performances as Paul. As the film begins
Paul sits in an intensive care unit looking at the near dead
people around him and thinking about how he came to be here. Paul
is a professor with heart problems--well people call him
"professor" and he has an interest in mathematics. He has
received a heart transplant and then becomes obsessed to know
about the donor of the heart. His wife Mary (Charlotte
Gainsbourg) finds that this disrupts her plans to have a child by
Paul. The donor's widow is Christina (Naomi Watts from other
popular puzzle films MULHOLLAND DR. and THE RING). This somehow
ties into the life of an evangelical Christian, Jack (Benicio Del
Toro). Saying more would be going too far.
This ordering of the events of the story may seem haphazard at
first, but it is carefully calculated to confuse and surprise the
viewer. Theories about what might actually be happening fall by
the wayside as the film progresses. I remember thinking that one
sequence must have taken place much before another sequence and
realized after about half an hour that I had the order reversed.
Events seem like ridiculous coincidences until one realizes there
is more going on and they are not mere coincidence.
The story of 21 GRAMS allows for some powerful performances,
particularly from Naomi Watts as the widow whose life is shattered
and who turns to drugs. The shuffled order of the telling is a
gimmick, but it is one that works reasonably well and perhaps even
works to rivet the viewer's attention. This dark story will have
an impact, but perhaps more for the unconventional telling. I
rate it 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE SNOW WALKER (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: +2 (-4 to +4)
Back in 1983 I had pretty much given up on any film from what is
today one of the major studios. Disney Films had not made a good
film I could remember in more than a decade. They preferred to
make juvenile films like SUPERDAD and THE LOVE BUG. Then they
adapted NEVER CRY WOLF, based on the book of the same name by
Farley Mowat. The film skillfully balanced humor and breathtaking
nature photography with a serious and poignant plot. The film
announced the studio's return to quality entertainment. Many of
the same elements that made that a good film recombine THE SNOW
WALKER. The film is directed by Charles Martin Smith who played
the character based on Farley Mowat in NEVER CRY WOLF. At that
time he apparently decided to continue his relationship with Mowat
stories and the frozen North. Farley Mowat reportedly contributed
his story "Walk Well My Brother" to Smith to adapt into a
screenplay and then to direct.
The story deals with a bush pilot Barry Pepper as Charlie Halliday
in the Arctic who reluctantly agrees to take a young, but very
sick, Inuit woman to medical care. Engine trouble forces an
emergency landing off course and lost in the tundra. The radio is
destroyed as part of one piece of bad luck after another. The
story follows a predictable arc with Kanaalaq (Annabella
Piugattuk) at first seeming to be no more than useless cargo to be
dragged back to civilization. As time goes by Charlie learns that
Kanaalaq's Iniut skills may be all that stand between him and
death. Charlie's approach to food is to hope the cans will hold
out while Kanaalaq knows how to hunt, even with the minimal
materials that they have. As time goes by Charlie soon learns to
simply accept Kanaalaq's decisions, even to adopting some of her
superstitions. Meanwhile James Cromwell as Charlie's boss does
all he can to find the two before time runs out.
Like NEVER CRY WOLF this film offers majestic arctic vistas. This
film they are underscored with Mychael Danna's music. This film
does little that is unexpected, but what it does, it does
beautifully. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: BON VOYAGE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Rating: +1 (-4 to +4)
This film is sort of an adventure and comedy of several people
with intertwined lives trying to escape from the jaws of the
German occupation. The approach of the screenplay, as with other
French farces, is to define many characters and plot lines and to
let the various plot lines collide and intersect as the story
progresses. We have a selfish movie star (played by Isabel
Adjani) who has convinced a writer to go to jail for a murder she
committed. We have the writer who escapes in the chaos of the
advancing Germans. We have the French diplomat (Gerard Depardieu)
who is entranced and manipulated by the star away from the
government ministers' discussion of the French surrender. We have
the prisonmate of the actor who escapes at the same time. One
character (played by American actor Peter Coyote) heads a German
spy ring. We have a young physicist who is attracted to the
writer. She is traveling with an older physicist who has a load
of heavy water to be gotten to the British for the war effort.
It may seem to be inappropriate to set a light comedy against the
backdrop of France falling to the Germans in World War II.
Somehow it is hard to be greatly amused by antics set against the
background of the panicking French clogging the roads. The
knowledge of what will happen to many of these French under the
hell of the Germans in the next few years also cast a pall over
the antics.
Gabrial Yared's score is lush and a pleasant change from the
discordant film scores so common in American films. Director and
writer Jean-Paul Rappeneau gave us the 1989 version of CYRANO DE
BERGERAC, which I considered the best film I had seen that year.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Per Schelde's ANDROIDS, HUMANOIDS, AND OTHER SCIENCE FICTION
MONSTERS is the sort of book one wants to fling against the wall--
often. Schelde sees himself as a pioneer in studying science
fiction film, but he gets so much wrong that one cannot really
trust the rest.
(Page numbers are in brackets.)
As for his being a pioneer, Schelde claims, "There still is not a
book-length study of sf movies that is not a picture book or a
picture-book history." [1] (As of 1993, the date of this book,
one presumes.) This just isn't so: a quick scan of our shelves
shows Michael Benson's VINTAGE SF FILMS, 1896-1949; Carlos
Clarens's AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE HORROR FILM, Donald Glut's
CLASSIC MOVIE MONSTERS and THE FRANKENSTEIN LEGEND, Douglas
Menville's THE HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE FICTION FILM, and Bill
Warren's KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES. (In spite of the title, Clarens
is not a picture-book history, and covers many of the same films
that Schelde covers as science fiction.) While it's true that
most such books have focuses on subsets of science fiction, one
can fairly claim the Schelde does the same.
When Schelde attempts to define "sf" ("Danger, Will Robinson!
Danger!"), he says, "Movies about the future are by definition sf
because they more often than not focus on science and technology."
[27] "More often than not" does not justify including the entire
range as science fiction.
He also gets movie plot details wrong--or in the case when he
claims ON THE BEACH has a tidal wave [58], more than just a detail
wrong. He seems to think that the Creature in Frankenstein rapes
the little girl [46] when it's clear from the uncut version--and
much discussed in the literature--that he does not. He calls the
town where INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS takes place "Santa Mara"
instead of "Santa Mira" [98]; he calls the character "Harry
Jekyll" instead of "Henry Jekyll" [47]. He refers to THE THING as
being directed by "Christian Nyby, alias Howard Hawks" [92] but
Howard Hawks was not an alias for Christian Nyby. (Maybe this was
intended flippantly, but it didn't come across that way. and he
repeats the claim in the index.) He quotes Zellerby in VILLAGE OF
THE DAMNED as saying, "They are one mind to the 12th pi." [108]
It should be "They are one mind to the 12th power."
Schelde notes that "sf science is almost invariably disastrous"
[43]. Well, if it weren't, there wouldn't be much of a plot,
would there? That's the inherent problem with all fictional
portrayals--there must be conflict. So there are no films about
happy families in suburbia without problems, inventors whose
inventions work perfectly and cause no distress, or explorers who
climb a lost plateau and find nothing special.
A couple of books inspired by Sherlock Holmes are Susan Conant's
BARKER STREET REGULARS and Sydney Hosier's MURDER, MRS. HUDSON.
The former involves a murder, dogs, and Sherlock Holmes
aficionados. The latter is the second book in a series that has
Mrs. Hudson as the detective and would be okay except for the fact
that Hosier has decided to give her a friend who can travel out of
her body. This is presumably explained more in the first book of
the series, but I'm not going out of my way to find it.
Jack McDevitt's OMEGA is apparently the *third* book in a series
preceded by CHINDI and DEEPSIX, though there is no indication
anywhere on the dust jacket or facing the title page. It stands
moderately well on its own, but I kept getting the feeling that I
was supposed to be getting more out of some of the references than
I was. The premise of clouds that travel through the galaxy
destroying all signs of civilization was intriguing, but the
geometry was all wrong. That is, it was claimed that they looked
for right angles, which don't appear in nature, but there are in
fact crystal forms that have right angles. In addition, an
artifact called a "hedgehog" was described as having a lot of
right angles, but the description made it sound more like
something with spikes that were more like tall pyramids stuck on
the central piece, and as such would have a lot of obtuse and
acute angles, but few right angles. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
I don't believe in heaven. To believe in
Divine reward for one's good deeds is to
deny the possibility of altruism. I prefer
to believe in altruism rather than in
rewards.
--Mark Leeper
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