THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/14/05 -- Vol. 23, No. 29 (Whole Number 1265)
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:
Disneyworld Grows Up (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The Seductive World of the Obsessive-Compulsive
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE DA VINCI CODE and THE AVIATOR (letter of comment
by Joseph T. Major)
On-Line Film Critics Society Awards
DOWNFALL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
TRAVELLERS AND MAGICIANS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (LONGITUDES & ATTITUDES, ANARQUIA,
and LORD PETER) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Disneyworld Grows Up (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Walt Disney built his empire on appealing to children and the
child in all of us. For adults his parks are an escape to the
world of the child. But when in Rome do as Romans do. When in
the child's land I thought you were expected to do as children do.
You should see the world as a child.
This is why I found it jarring that on New Years Eve the
television showed scenes of people celebrating at Disney World.
They were drinking alcoholic beverages that are not even supposed
to be served to minors. I don't think I would want to go to a
drinking party at Disney World. It would feel like a desecration.
On top of which I would be a little afraid that somebody would
slip me a Mickey. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Seductive World of the Obsessive-Compulsive (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Hi, my name is Mark and I am an obsessive-compulsive. At least I
think I may be. But not in a bad way. I mean I don't repeat
phrases over and over the way Howard Hughes did or any of that
sort of thing. (Actually when I think of a good pun it is hard
not to keep repeating it to myself.) I am not even like Tony
Shaloub, you know, Monk on television, though that is getting
closer to my "problem." I think I am just systematic to an
extreme. I like to use tools to organize myself. Even more I
like to invent tools to organize myself.
Well, what can I say? By nature I am a slob, sort of like Oscar
Madison in Neil Simon's THE ODD COUPLE. The world is made up of
Felix Ungers and of Oscar Madisons. But I recognize I cannot live
that way forever. And I am a lover of tools. So I like to create
tools and mechanisms that compensate for my Oscar Madison
tendencies. I have made a bargain with my tools. They will
prevent me from being a slob and in turn I turn myself over to
them. Well, let me give an example. I have a checklist of things
I have to do each morning when I wake up. And this is no small
checklist. I have something like 37 action items on the list.
And I lovingly rearrange the order of the items on the list to
make the routine faster and more and more efficient. Rarely do
three days go by that I have not modified the list to fine-tune
it. Well, the sort of thing I do is that when I am getting
dressed in the morning I am also rebooting my PC. That way I
don’t have to wait for the PC, it is ready when I am.
I have recorded on a cassette player a five-minute cycle where I
read off the number of minutes that have passed on the minute, I
say "30... 1 minute... 30... 2 minutes..." at the 30-second
points. This way when I take a shower I can hear the improvised
clock. I race it to save time and water. If I save five minutes
a day for a week, that is more than half an hour I can spend doing
something else.
In the morning I have to wash the mask of my CPAP (an air pump for
sufferers of sleep apnea). This involves first carefully washing
my hands. But the water takes a certain length of time to warm up
so I start the water running earlier in the routine so when I get
to wash my hands it is just getting warm. As I wash I sing to
myself "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." To give yourself a really
thorough washing you should wash for 20 seconds which is the time
it takes to sing that song. There are 37 steps to straighten the
house and reboot the PC and bring up the news pages I check each
day, etc. etc. etc. I make a copy from my master list on my PDA
and as I do items I remove them from the list. Every morning.
Every morning.
What else? Oh, I have a card box with a divider for every day in
the month. It reminds me about chores that I have to do. Things
like cleaning mirrors. Every week I [disagreeable household chore
deleted]. I will have a card in the card box telling me to do it
and it has "+7" in the upper right hand corner. I add the chore
to my To-do list and move the card back seven days in the card
box. Okay, so far it does not seem too weird. Well...
The tasks that I have to do each are kept in a spreadsheet on my
PDA. Each one is labeled with a zone in another column. Actually
zone 0 is out in the yard. Each task line in the spreadsheet has
a zone of the house that I have to do it in. I live in a ranch
house that essentially is a long snake. So I can sort the
spreadsheet by zones. Everything I have to do in the den, for
example, gets sorted together. It organizes me so that I can move
from room to room getting everything done that I need to do with
minimal backtracking.
I do much of the managing of these lists when I am on the
exercycle. I will be watching a movie or MEET THE PRESS, but that
and the exercise are not taking my full attention so I will be
organizing my life on my PDA at the same time. But I am not
neglecting the exercise while this is going on. I have a separate
spreadsheet that tells me at each instant of time how far I should
have gone in pseudo-kilometers if I am going to reach my distance
goal. If the odometer is reading lower than that I have to speed
up until I am going at the proper speed to achieve the distance
goal that I have set for myself. By the way, did you know that
MEET THE PRESS has one long commercial break and a short one? The
long one takes 23 seconds to get through with our VCR fast-scan.
The short break takes 6. By knowing these numbers I can be doing
something else when I am fast-scanning past the commercials. I
just have to count down the seconds in my head. I have these
numbers memorized just like I know that when I am making coffee
for Evelyn and pouring water from the tea kettle into the coffee
funnel it takes just four seconds of pouring to get the amount of
water Evelyn likes. I can't see the contents of the cup but I
know without looking into the cup that that is just about the
right amount of water.
Oh, there is too much to tell you about here. Maybe I will make
another column on the subject. I can tell about how I have a
quota for a minimum average amount of reading time each day. I
have a program on the PDA that keeps track of reading time so if I
cut it short one day; I have to compensate for it the next day.
And I could go on and on.
Anyway, I was looking at all the tools and processes I have
created to manage myself and I realized that looking at them
individually every single one of them seems like a really good
idea to me and certainly makes sense. But I am coming to the
conclusion that taken as a whole all these process and tools
constitute a fairly large eccentricity. Somewhere along the line
I have exited from that set of behaviors we consider normal and I
am headed off into that region that most people would call "the
unnatural." I looked at the whole set and just said to myself,
"Myself, you have become one weird dude." I would cut back on all
these peculiarities and foibles, but I hate to do that. Every one
makes sense to me. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE DA VINCI CODE and THE AVIATOR (letter of comment by
Joseph T. Major)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE DA VINCI CODE, Joseph
Major writes:
You say in regard to "The Da Vinci Code": "(HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL
by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln is probably
the best known book about the subject)."
The character Leigh Teabing is named after the authors of "Holy
Blood, Holy Grail"; "Leigh" is obvious and "Teabing" is an anagram
of "Baigent".
Those books aren't the most extreme of Gnostic Grailism, either.
Look for "Bloodline of the Holy Grail" and "The Forgotten Monarchy
of Scotland", books which claim that the Stuart kings of Scots
were the heirs of Jesus by authority as well as by blood (the
usual comment about Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene, etc.) and that
the direct descendant of the Stuarts is living in Edinburgh today.
The second book is by the alleged heir, or at least his name is on
the cover.
And in response to Mark's review of THE AVIATOR, he responds:
You complain about "The Aviator" not getting into Howard Hughes's
thoughts. I've been reading books about him, and while there is a
certain scandalous gosh-wow attitude about him, the impression I
get is that there was no there there--there was no inside, just
collection of phobias and compulsions.
His aversion to "germs" may have been exacerbated by his getting
gonorrhea from one of his actress playmates. After he got the
clap he destroyed all his clothing, for example. [-jtm]
===================================================================
TOPIC: On-Line Film Critics Society Awards
The winners of the 8th Annual On-Line Film Critics Society Awards
are as follows:
Best Picture: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Best Director: Michel Gondry, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS
MIND
Best Actor: Paul Giamatti, SIDEWAYS
Best Actress: Kate Winslet, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, SIDEWAYS
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, THE AVIATOR
Best Original Screenplay: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND,
screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, story by Charlie Kaufman and
Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth
Best Adapted Screenplay: SIDEWAYS, screenplay by Alexander Payne
and Jim Taylor, based on the novel by Rex Pickett
Best Cinematography: Hero, Christopher Doyle
Best Editing: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND,
Valdís Óskarsdóttir
Best Score: THE INCREDIBLES, Michael Giacchino
Best Documentary: FAHRENHEIT 9/11
Best Foreign-Language Film: HERO (China)
Best Animated Feature: THE INCREDIBLES
Breakthrough Filmmaker: Zach Braff, GARDEN STATE
Breakthrough Performance: Catalina Sandrino Moreno,
MARIA FULL OF GRACE
===================================================================
TOPIC: DOWNFALL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is an excellent dramatic account of the last days of
the fall of the Third Reich seen from the inside. Rating: +3 (-4
to +4) or 9/10
There have been a lot of films about World War II but only a
handful become part of the public consciousness. Mention the
submarine warfare and most people will probably think of DAS BOAT.
Mention D-Day and people will remember images from THE LONGEST
DAY. DOWNFALL is certainly a very good film. Whether it will
stand with the handful of great war films like DAS BOOT remains to
be seen. This is probably by a wide margin the best film that
examines Adolf Hitler and his close associates during the fall of
the Third Reich. This is not the first time the story has been
told. In 1981 Anthony Hopkins played Hitler in THE BUNKER and
Alec Guinness played the role in HITLER: THE LAST TEN DAYS. In
DOWNFALL it is Bruno Ganz as Hitler. But what sets this version
apart is the detail, much of which was gleaned from the testimony
of Hitler's personal secretary. The script is based on the 2002
documentary BLIND SPOT: HITLER'S SECRETARY.
The plot is no surprise to anyone who is familiar with WWII
history. As the Russian troops inevitably close in on the city,
Hitler will not allow himself to be evacuated from Berlin. Nor
will he surrender. His feeling is now that it is the German
people who have most betrayed him. Der Fuehrer considers those
who will be survivors as traitors, people who sacrificed his dream
for their own petty lives. To him the weak deserve to die. He
gives impossible orders to troops hoping they will either
miraculously prevail or be slaughtered. Either way he feels good
will have been done. And still when he is not raging he is torn
by self-doubts and conflicting emotions. The film generates a
real excitement as it builds to its inevitable and harrowing end.
If the film has a weakness it is that it concentrates too much on
what is happening in the bunker. Perhaps for budgetary reasons
this film shows us too little of what is happening on the
battlefield that is quickly becoming Berlin. We are told what is
happening there rather than being shown it. Ironically at two and
a half hours, the film is frustratingly short. There should have
been another hour dramatizing the collapsing military situation
and the futile defenses of the German people, military and
civilian. That certainly would have made this one of the great
war films on a subject that has not been sufficiently covered.
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel previously directed THE EXPERIMENT.
That was a film with a very interesting premise, but it fell into
being a more traditional action film in the second half. This
time he has a much more important subject and he manages to make
it intriguing throughout. I rate the film a +3 on the -4 to +4
scale or 9/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: TRAVELLERS AND MAGICIANS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: The second film ever shot in Bhutan has two connected
stories. One is about a Buddhist monk who wants to go to America.
Within that story is the tale of an aspiring magician whose lack
of character drops him into a world of deceit. The film is not
profound and the resolution not entirely satisfying, but it a
pleasant enough experience. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Six years ago Khyentse Norbu wrote and directed the first
Bhutanese film ever made. It was PHORPA, or THE CUP. The story
dealt with some Bhutanese monks who were enthralled with soccer.
The film follows the whimsical and Olympian efforts to which the
monks go in order to get a television and an antenna at the
monastery to watch the World Cup competition. The film was a
joyful look at the juxtaposition of the Eastern and Western
cultures. Western culture seems both desirable and out of place.
That relation is again Khyentse Norbu's theme in TRAVELLERS AND
MAGICIANS. Norbu shot the film on 16mm and with steadycam. The
film was shot in Dzongka with English subtitles.
Tsewang Dandup from THE CUP plays Dondup, a Buddhist monk with a
secret. His secret is that he is fed up with the life of a monk
in Bhutan. He dreams of going to America and of living life in
the fast lane. The lanes of his native Bhutan are anything but
fast, as we shall soon learn. It is not hard to spot the young
monk's fascination because his walls are covered with ads for
running shoes and with pictures of pop stars that, well, you might
not expect to see at a monastery. Dondup is sent to a religious
festival not far from his home, but he decides he is going to
change his destination form nearby Thimpu and cross the waters to
go to the land of his dreams. Soon he has missed a bus and is on
those slow lanes of Bhutan--the ones that wind among forested
mountains under the moody skies of Bhutan. Soon he is not alone
and he is able to talk to the strangers on the road and to hear
stories. Another monk tells him the story of Tashi (Lhapka
Dorji), a man not dissimilar from Dondup. The stories of Dondup
and Tashi run parallel and the story of Tashi has obvious morals
for Dondup. Tashi wants to study magic and like Dondup wants to
travel, but he gets stranded in the woods where he becomes the
guest of an old woodcutter (Gomchen Penjor) and his attractive
wife (Deki Yangzom) who is Tashi's age. Tashi's story unfolds to
be roughly a Bhutanese retelling of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS
TWICE.
The viewer has a strong sense of where this story is going, but
curiously it does not go there. In fact while Western audiences
might find the story of Tashi a little cliched, the story of
Dondup is more open to interpretation. It is really has an
ambiguous ending where not all is tied up for the viewer. One had
the feeling in THE CUP that Khyentse Norbu is cautiously embracing
Western ways rather than rejecting them. In fact as a filmmaker
he must be. In TRAVELLERS AND MAGICIANS his attitude is less
clear and more ambiguous.
Perhaps this film is more a showcase for Bhutan itself than a
well-formed story. Certainly the trip through the mountains is
one worth taking. We get to see a little of the customs including
some of a housewarming ceremony. The watching the film is a
pleasant experience even if the stories themselves are not
entirely satisfying. The film is valuable as an opportunity to
see what life is like in the kingdom of Bhutan. It is more so
that THE CUP which dealt mostly with monks. With TRAVELLERS AND
MAGICIANS we have a better look at the common people. I rate
TRAVELLERS AND MAGICIANS a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Thomas L. Friedman's LONGITUDES & ATTITUDES (ISBN 1-400-03125-7)
is a collection of Friedman's essays about the world situation,
from shortly before 9/11 to the present. Friedman's position in
brief is that the Arab world in general, and Saudi Arabia in
particular, needs to accept that the conditions in their countries
are what led to the 9/11 terrorists, and that they need to start
thinking about providing better living conditions for their
people, which means better education, which will inevitably mean
more freedom and democracy as well. He is strongly critical of
Yasser Arafat because Arafat failed to work on any sort of
infrastructure for a Palestinian state, but instead focused on the
conflict with Israel. At the same time, Friedman says that it has
been an enormous mistake for Israel to allow, or even worse,
encourage, settlements in the occupied territories. Since all
Friedman's columns were written before Arafat's death, it will be
interesting to see how that situation plays out. The main problem
with the book is that because it is a collection of columns
written about the same subject, there is a fair amount of
repetition. Whether or not Friedman is correct in his conclusions
is impossible to say, but it is clear that he has studied and
thought about the situation enough to be worth listening to.
And if you want a science fiction connection, how about this? You
remember the Babel fish, about which Douglas Adams said, "If you
stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand
anything said to you in any language. ... Meanwhile, the poor
Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication
between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier
wars than anything else in the history of creation." Well,
Friedman writes, "Thanks to translation services like those of
MEMRI or 'Middle East Mirror', you now get instant feedback on
what commentators in Arab newspapers are saying about you and vice
versa. The Saudi ambassador to London publishes a small poem in
praise of a Palestinian suicide bomber in and Arabic paper in
London, and I've got a translated copy in my e-mail the next
morning. We are all right up in each other's face now, with no
walls from behind which we can refine our messages at home, or
scream to ourselves in private and then communicate calmly with
each other. Instead, I write something in a white-hot rage and it
gets right into someone's face in the Middle East or Europe, and
then they write back in a white-hit rage, and we both end up
angrier than we might have been had we not been so easily
connected." Or as he summarizes, "It's as though God suddenly
gave us all the tools to communicate and none of the tools to
understand."
ANARQUIA by Brad Linaweaver and J. Kent Hastings (ISBN 0-918736-
64-1) is an alternate history set in Spain, Hollywood, and Germany
in 1936 and 1937. The idea of an alternate Spanish Civil War is
certainly promising, but it gets sabotaged by the heavy-handed
approach all too common when authors try to write books with
political agendas. (It seems particularly bad among Libertarian
authors.) At times the book seems to be almost entirely
expository lump, and it has two dozen pages of background material
and another page of URLs. So the mistakes are even more annoying
than they would be otherwise. For example, on page 9, in July
1936, pulp writer Howard Davidson is talking about Orson Welles's
voice as the Shadow. The only problem is that Welles did not
become the Shadow until September 1937. (And even the name Howard
Davidson is a bit cutesy--a melding of Robert E. Howard, Howard
Philips Lovecraft, and Avram Davidson.) When Kim Newman did
Hollywood in "Coppola's Dracula", he got all the details right; I
agree that Linaweaver and Hastings have a different agenda, but
for a media fan, it's still grating. Add to this the authors'
unfortunate use more than once of lines from the Tom Lehrer song
in discussing Werner Von Braun (e.g., at one point they write,
"'That's not my department,' said Werner Von Braun."), and you get
a book that's more annoying use of famous characters than
thoughtful alternate history.
Dorothy L. Sayers's LORD PETER (ISBN 0-060-91380-0) is a
collection of all Sayers's short stories featuring Lord Peter
Wimsey. I'm not a big Wimsey fan--I guess the whole upper-class
thing does not work for me, and she seems to feature less of the
puzzle aspect than, say, Agatha Christie. However, I enjoyed the
short stories more than her novels, maybe because of necessity
they have a higher proportion of puzzle and less of the setting
than the novels. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Smolin's First Law: Genuine advances are rarely
made by accident; in fact, the outcome of a
scientific investigation is usually less dramatic
than originally hoped for. Therefore, if you want
to do something really significant in science, you
must aim high and you must take genuine risks.