THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
12/10/04 -- Vol. 23, No. 22 (Whole Number 1260)
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:
A Simple Question (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
A Simple Plan (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Letter of Comment on SALAVADOR ALLENDE (by Hugh McGuinness)
RED DUST (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
9 SONGS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
BOLLYWOOD AND VINE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE APPARITION TRAIL; UNTANGLING MY
CHOPSTICKS; THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF EGYPTIAN
WHODUNNITS; EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES; and REVELATIONS)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: A Simple Question (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
When I decide to lift my arm there is a first atom in my arm that
moves. What force is acting on that atom and how am I creating
that force? (No, I am not asking about muscles and nerves. On
the level of the atom, what is happening? Is my mind creating
some sort of electromagnetic force?) [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A Simple Plan (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
As you probably know by now, in running for re-election President
Bush promised a major overhaul of the Social Security system. He
has said that one new feature would be the allowing of personal
investment accounts under each citizen's Social Security. This
will give people much more of the control they desire over what is
essentially their own money. What could be fairer? Rather than
letting the government make financial decisions for people, treat
the people as adults. They can make their own investment
decisions probably a great deal more wisely than some government
official. They are worried about their own welfare and the
government really is not. Who cares more about the people than
they do themselves?
I have a friend who is really interested in this issue and I think
what he said is enlightening. Here is our discussion:
Me: What do you think about the President's plan to partially
privatize Social Security by allowing people to invest their own
account money in Personal Investment Accounts?
Friend: That is privatizing Social Security?
Me: Yup. Isn't it?
Friend: Nobody thinks of it that way. But it is a good idea in
any case. I like to make my own decisions about my own money. I
mean what could be fairer? It will give people much more of the
control they desire over what is essentially their own money.
What could be fairer? Rather than letting the government make
financial decisions for people, treat the people as adults. They
can make their own investment decisions probably a great deal more
wisely than some government official. They are worried about
their own welfare and the government really is not. Who cares
more about the people than they do themselves?
Me: I never thought about it quite that way. Okay. So how would
you invest your money?
Friend: Oh, I got big things planned if they let me do it. I
know a lot better than anyone else where to put my money. If I
can invest the money wherever I like. I want to first of all make
back all that money I lost on the 401(K) thing. Little Petunia
[name changed to protect the innocent] wasn't able to go to
college. Now maybe she can hang up that WalMart smock and go back
to school. I think we can be living pretty good again.
Me: Oh, yeah. I do remember you got pretty badly socked by the
stock market fall. I remember the bologna sandwiches you were
bringing to work.
Friend: Well, I still do that, but these days, what the heck, I
take two slices of bologna. I mean, life is meant to be enjoyed.
Things are better. And they are going to get even better when I
can make my own investment decisions with my Social Security
money.
Me: What happens if your new investments don't work out? I mean
it was you who decided to put your money into the 401(k).
Friend: That's negative thinking. You have to think positively.
And on the 401(k) thing, well lots of people made the same mistake.
Me: Well, what if lots of people make the same mistake on your
next.... Well, okay, I will think postively. What if a whole
bunch of people definitely lose their shirts? Aren't we going to
have a lot of people hurt?
Friend: Don't we have the government to bail us out? Isn't that
why we pay taxes?
Me: Not actually.
Friend: Well, I have been thinking about that. How is this for an
idea? What if everybody who gets a personal account also has to
buy an annuity so that even if they lose that investment they
still have money coming in? That way nobody starves.
Me: What would this cost?
Friend: Well, you got the 10% of Social Security you won't be
paying each month. How about putting that 10% into this annuity?
That pays off to fill in that 10% of your social security benefit
you are not getting. You buy the annuity to make sure you are
safe, you are free to invest the 10% of your social security any
way you want.
It sounded good to me. I thought I would share it. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Letter of Comment on SALAVADOR ALLENDE (by Hugh McGuinness)
In response to Mark's review of SALVADOR ALLENDE in the 11/19/04
issue, Hugh McGuinness writes all the way from Australia to say:
"I think the general consensus is that Allende was executed,
rather than having committed suicide. The father of my cousin's
boyfriend claims to have actually seen him dragged into a
building by soldiers during the coup. The involvement of the
Henry Kissinger also seems to have been downplayed, according to
your description of the film. Another interesting angle is the
innovative work that was being carried out by Stafford Beer prior
to the coup; one of his projects was to automate an information
collection system from all the factories in Chile, which would
have given the government unprecedented information levels on
many sectors of the economy. Some have surmised that this was
too big a threat to right-wing factory owners who didn't want the
government knowing how much money they were actually making."
Mark responds: "It is interesting that they did not mention such
doubts in the documentary. I suppose it is possible that since
the filmmaker was Chilean, he fell short of actually accusing the
Pinochet regime of the murder."
Evelyn notes: "However, these days, accusing the Pinochet regime
of murder is not exactly out of bounds."
===================================================================
TOPIC: RED DUST (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Taking the form of a courtroom drama this film looks at
the atrocities of the South African apartheid government and at
the possibility of reconciliation. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or
8/10
This is courtroom drama (actually a hearing room drama) is set
around a hearing of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. Tim Hooper directs a script by Troy Kennedy-Martin
based on the novel by Gillian Slovo.
The film is set in the year 2000 in the Great Karoo of South
Africa. Hilary Swank plays Sarah Barcant who grew up in South
Africa but now practices law in New York. She is returning to the
town of her youth to represent Alex Mpondo. Alex and his friend
Steve Sizela were imprisoned and tortured several years earlier in
the racial struggles. Sizela disappeared and never returned from
that imprisonment. Now Alex wants to find the truth of what
happened. He also needs to know if he helped in the death of his
friend by breaking under torture.
Barcant is less than happy to return to a land where even as a
liberal white she was persecuted. She is troubled by holes in
Alex's account of his imprisonment: details he claims to remember
that she knows were impossible. The viewer may be also troubled
that in the name of reconciliation witnesses are pressured to name
names of other perpetrators in return for lighter treatment. The
chief person accused, Hendricks (Jamie Bartlett) really turns out
to be the most ambiguous and complex character of the story.
My one objection is the film supposedly has a theme of the
importance of forgiveness in healing the country, but the script
really is into the getting of revenge on the real villains. It is
not surprising that some of the good guys are not so forgiving,
but the script just lets it pass. Barcant's efforts to get
Henricks to lessen his punishment by naming names of others to
blame had a chilling effect that may not have been intended.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: BOLLYWOOD AND VINE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A low-budget film has its moments but insufficient
emotional core. It makes enough mistakes along the way to keep
reminding the viewer that this is not a fully professional
production. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10. There are minor
plot spoilers in this review.
BOLLYWOOD AND VINE is an ambitious attempt at a screwball comedy
made on a tiny budget. The film comes near the mark, but just
misses it. Edward Jordon writes and co-directs (with Donald
Farmer) this uneven story about a Hindu tour guide in Beverly
Hills. Bhuvan Bannerji (played by Jamey Schrick) leads van tours
of star homes in Beverly Hills. But he lets his fixation with one
actress run away with him. Delilah Leigh (Skye Aubrey) starred in
a series of bad sci-fi and horror film in the 1960s and 1970s.
Now she is an aging actress who hides from the public. When
Bhuvan repeatedly brings his van around to Delilah's house she
decides to give the tourists a thrill. Her cross-dressing gay son
Devin (J. R. Jones) looks a lot like she did in the 1970s, so she
has him dress like herself in the 1970s to excite the tourists.
This has the same effect on Bhuvan that seeing Bela Lugosi had on
Ed Wood. Bhuvan has dreams of making Delilah into a Bollywood
star and he writes an unintentionally bad script for her comeback.
He offers the central role to Devin, the man he thinks is Delilah.
Bhuvan falls in love with Devin/Delilah. Then as a gift for her
son, the real Delilah locks Bhuvan in an attic with the fake
Delilah.
The film looks like an inexpensive videotape production without
much polish in the filming or the sound recording. Jamey Schrick
and Skye Aubrey are competent actors, but most of the other actors
in the film seem more like they were drafted for their roles
rather than chosen. Line readings are not up to professional
standards. Bhuvan and particularly the sulking Devin have
stereotyped mannerisms. There are too many hackneyed Indian or
gay mannerisms. The bad actress neighbor is also a stereotype.
Bhuvan is supposed to really believe Devin is Delilah, but he
cannot be convincingly Delilah because he is extremely
unconvincing altogether as a female. He looks and sounds like a
man in drag, which is exactly what he is. And Bhuvan never
questions why he/she does not appear to have aged since the 1970s.
The film has a number of these small flaws, but one very big one:
the major characters are only mildly sympathetic. Perhaps is it
that they do not seem in any way noble or funny or even just
likeable. The last part of the film requires a great deal of
indulgence on the part of the viewer as the characters get out of
their problems and find happiness. Jordon has failed to get me
sufficiently invested in these characters. I don't wish them
harm, but I don't greatly care if they find happiness either.
The plot does get strange, but not really in a humorous way. A
host of additional characters are added, but they cannot really
deliver the jokes written for them in a way so they are funny.
Nor are the exaggerated satires of old horror films very funny or
even on the mark.
The script, the characters, and the story could be made to work
with more effort. But the film was probably shot before the
script was ready. I would rate BOLLYWOOD AND VINE a low +1 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 5/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: 9 SONGS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Sex, ice, and rock and roll repeat over and over in this
short but still very slow story of an doomed and very sexual
romance. Rating: -2 (-4 to +4) or 1/10
Mike Winterbottom brings us a 65-minute film that tells the story
of a short ill-fated romance between a London rock band member and
an American girl. The scenes rotate among rock concert scenes,
scenes about Antarctica (which is a fascination the guy has and
may or may not be where he is remembering his affair), and very
explicit sex scenes. This is sort of a signature film by Mike
Winterbottom since "Mike" reminds us of the rock band singing.
"Winter" reminds us of the scenes from the land of constant ice.
And "bottom" . . . oh, well "bottom" . . . .
Seriously, I prefer a film that shows a little more effort. There
are short stretches of dialog and a little voice-over narration.
Even the dialog is in part just a reading directly from a book.
The rock concert required camera setups but no real writing. It
is hard to imagine much less effort going into creating a feature
film. The characters are fairly flat and not well-developed. I
mean that in the writing sense. The photography is murky and the
rock music was for me unpleasant. This is a film short on
storytelling. It is a real step down from Winterbottom's CODE 46
last year. That film was highly flawed, but it was far less
boring and far superior to 9 SONGS. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This seems to have been the week for culture shock, or at least
books set in other cultures.
First was Lisa Smedman's THE APPARITION TRAIL (ISBN 1-894063-22-
8), a fantasy set in the Pacific Northwest in the late 19th
century. The main premise is that native magic works, or works
again, since the striking of the moon by a comet seems to have
brought it back. It also seems to have made perpetual motion
machines possible and changed the moon's rotational period (though
Smedman keeps talking about how the "dark side" is coming around
to face Earth). The native magic aspect would have been
sufficient--I have no idea why Smedman felt she had to add the
rest and they really detract from the story. I suppose it is
possible that she thought they would set the book apart from all
the straight fantasies about Native Americans (or, since she is
Canadian, First Nations). However, if you concentrate on the main
story, about the coming of the "Day of Changes", it works fairly
well.
Victoria Abbott Riccardi's UNTANGLING MY CHOPSTICKS (ISBN 0-7679-
0852-X) is the story of the author's year in Japan learning "tea
kaiseki", a very specialized cuisine style served as part of the
tea ceremony. Riccardi explains the history and meaning of the
tea ceremony, the various foods, the utensils and methods, and
just about everything else connected with the tea ceremony, as
well as a fair swath of Japanese culture as well. Recipes are
included. My only complaint is that it may go into more depth
about tea kaiseki than you really want to know.
THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF EGYPTIAN WHODUNNITS edited by Mike Ashley
(ISBN 0-786-71065-9) is a collection of mysteries set in ancient
(and not so ancient) Egypt. As in Ashley's other anthologies, the
stories are all well-written, although these are a little harder
to follow because of the alienness of the setting, and the
occasionally unwieldy (to modern ears) names. Recommended for
mystery fans with an interest in Egypt (obviously).
Lynne Truss's EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES (ISBN 1-592-40087-6) has been
getting rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, and there is a
lot to be said for it. But for all her vigilantism about
punctuation, she manages to make mistakes. For example, she
claims that Americans are taught to put all ending punctuation
with quotation marks that occur at the end of a sentence, but that
just is not true. Americans are taught to write, for example:
Did he really say, "If nominated, I will not run;
if elected I will not serve"?
We do *not" put the '?' inside the ending quotation marks.
Truss does make some interesting observations about Biblical
inerrancy when she points out that punctuation as we know it did
not appear until the 15th century. So consider Luke 23:43:
"Verily I say unto thee this day thou shalt be with me in
Paradise."
Protestants render this as: "Verily, I say unto thee, this day
thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
Catholics render this as: "Verily I say unto thee this day, thou
shalt be with me in Paradise."
(Yes, the originals are not in English, but they did not have
punctuation either, and one presumes that either interpretation is
consistent with the original text.)
Years before there was "Kung Fu" (with David Carradine), there was
"Mad" magazine's humorous suggestion of "Frontier Buddhist". And
years before there was Jerry Springer, Barry Malzberg suggested a
similar show in his novel REVELATIONS (ISBN 0-380-00905-6).
REVELATIONS is also one of Malzberg's novels that takes a cynical
look at America's program, with an astronaut who seems to claim
(at times) that the whole program was a hoax. Whether it all
holds together is not clear, but Malzberg's observations about
television seem remarkably prescient. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Rees's Law: As cosmological theories advance,
they will draw more concepts from biology.