THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/18/05 -- Vol. 23, No. 34 (Whole Number 1270)
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.
All comments sent will be assumed authorized for inclusion
unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe, send mail to mtvoid-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe, send mail to mtvoid-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Topics:
Puppy Starter Kit (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Those Eyes That Follow You Around (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Computer Auctioning (letter of comment by Frank R. Leisti)
Computer and Internet Security (letter of comment
by Bill Higgins)
KINDLING by Mike Farren (letter of comment
by Joseph T. Major)
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (letter of comment
by Kenn Barry)
ZEBRAMAN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
IMAGINARY HEROES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading ("THE THINKING MACHINE", CANNERY ROW,
PERICLES, and CORIOLANUS) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Puppy Starter Kit (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
A pet dealer was advertising what they called a "Puppy Starter
Kit." I think what they send you is two older dogs. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Those Eyes That Follow You Around (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
I was reading an article recently and somebody talked about
seeing a photograph of somebody who had died many years before.
The author used a phrase that I often find applied to paintings
and to photographs that always gets my goat a little. What the
author said was that the woman in the photograph had an ethereal
quality with a strange smile and eyes that looked at the viewer
and mysteriously seemed to follow the viewer around the room. It
is that last part that I want to comment on. We have all seen or
heard of pictures in which one of the subjects has eyes that
mysteriously follow the viewer around the room. For reasons I
will explain this never struck me as being at all mysterious. I
will tell you why not. The person I have to thank for making it
all clear to me is a gunslinger named Paladin.
Some of you may be old enough to remember in the late 1950s on
CBS the Saturday night lineup included back-to-back two Westerns.
Everyone I knew watched these two programs every Saturday
evening. One was HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL, and the other was
GUNSMOKE. That was always our Saturday night TV fare. HAVE GUN,
WILL TRAVEL starred Richard Boone as Paladin, "a fast gun for
hire" with an aristocratic air. He dressed entirely in black and
carried at his waist a black, single-action Colt .45 with a long,
rifled barrel. Each program would start with a teaser. The
program opened with the camera gazing at Paladin, but not his
face. You were looking side-on at Paladin's midsection and the
Colt hanging from his gun belt. (As just a wee lad, the Freudian
symbolism in the picture never would have occurred to me.) Then
Paladin draws his gun and aims it right at the viewer and delivers
a teaser. The teaser is some dramatic line of Paladin's dialog
from the script. Something like "You came to this town with no
plan but to use that pistol of yours. You have two choices. You
can leave town the way you came or you can use it--NOW." Hot
Dang that was dramatic! I tell you Richard Boone can really
deliver a line like he is throwing a dart. But as I say the gun
is aimed right at the viewer. Wherever you are in the room it
looks like he is aiming the gun directly at you. My brother and
I used to run around the room for those ten seconds and verify,
"Yeah he's aiming it at me here." "Yeah, he's aiming right here."
Even then we knew why that worked. When they filmed Richard
Boone (or perhaps his body double) he was aiming the gun directly
dead square center at the lens of the camera filming him. They
filmed the front of the barrel but not the sides. And that was
what was on the screen. We could run around the room as much as
we wanted and we would never see the side of that barrel because
it simply was not there on the screen.
And the picture with the mysterious eyes works by much the same
principle. The mysterious woman in the photograph is short or in
the painting is painted looking directly at the viewer. There was
white painted in her eye was on either side of her pupil. If from
one angle she is looking directly at the viewer, she is looking at
him or her no matter from what angle she is being seen. As long
as the picture is flat there is no mystery. The eyes either
always look directly at the viewer or they never do.
Now in the Haunted Mansions at Disneyland and Disneyworld they
manage to do something the same in three dimensions. They have in
the mansion three-dimensional reliefs of human faces and as you
move to the right, they move to the right to follow you. This is
actually a very clever trick. How do they do this? It looks like
the face sticks out of the wall and is lit from the left when it
is really sunken into the wall and lit from the right. You are
really looking at a hole in the wall, like the negative of a
life-mask. Suppose you are right in front of it and moving to the
right. Remember the face is sunk into the wall. The near cheek
is disappearing behind the rim of the hole. You are seeing the
far cheek more square on. The effect is that head has not just
followed you but has gone beyond you. The near cheek is
disappearing and you are seeing more of the far cheek. The eye
sees that as the head having turned to follow you.
The effect will be somewhat better if you are looking with only
one eye. If you are two close and looking with two eyes your
depth perception will give the illusion away. Depth perception
is a funny thing. It can easily be fooled. I have heard it
claimed many times that if you have only one eye you do not have
depth perception. That is absurd. It is true that when you look
with two eyes the fact that your eyes are looking from two
different angles gives you a lot of your perception of depth.
But someone who has lost an eye has not really lost all of his
depth perception. If he had he probably would be unsafe to
drive. Your brain gets a lot of clues about depth from parallax,
that is seeing from two different angles. But how the light plays
on an object and what your eye sees as being in and out of focus
will also give you clues about depth. And if your eye is moving
relative to the object you basically are getting parallax from a
single eye. I am told one benefit that pigeons get from bobbing
their necks when they walk is that they get depth perception.
Their eyes are set in such different directions that almost none
of their field of vision is being seen with two eyes at once.
But when they walk they bob their heads and essentially are
constantly changing the angle from which they are seeing the
world around them. That gives them a much better sense of depth.
Your mind determines information about depth of information based
on the best data it has. When you look at a photograph it looks
flat to you because while focus and light are giving you
information about depth. But your other eye is seeing the
photograph from a different angle and since it is seeing the same
scene it tells your brain to ignore the lighting and just pay
attention to the angle information. That tells your brain that
the image is really flat. You frequently get a better feeling of
three dimensions by looking with only one eye.
I actually use this principle sometimes when I am watching a
film. Particularly if a scene is spectacular I will close one
eye and see it only with one eye. Having lost its parallax, my
brain makes sense of the scene figuring depth based on lighting,
etc. The picture pops into a better 3-D image than I have ever
gotten with special 3-D glasses. For some reason I have not
determined the picture looks smaller. But it also looks like a
three dimensional image. And because the picture does not look
flat, it is even more convincing if the eyes follow me around the
room. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Computer Auctioning (letter of comment by Frank R. Leisti)
I read your description of computer auctioning [02/11/05 issue]
and recalled that there was a book written by Cordwainer Smith
called THE PLANET BUYER. The plot covers a person who has an
extremely smart computer system, which when given direction to buy
something big (the owner was a little drunk), spends the next 24
hours wheeling and dealing, and finally when the drunk computer
owner wakes up, he discovers that he now owns the Earth. The rest
of the story deals with his visit to Earth to see what it was that
he purchased. [-frl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Computer and Internet Security (letter of comment by Bill
Higgins)
Mark wrote [in the 02/04/05 issue], "I asked if Netscape Navigator
(Evelyn's choice) and Opera (mine) are safe browsers to use.
Netscape 4.2 was fairly secure. (What are we talking? 1997?);
later versions of Netscape are not. The Opera Browser actually
has pretty good security, the panelists thought. That's a relief."
Bill Higgins responded, "Opera may be free of data-mining,
aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional
Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking
components. But beware. It could still have a Phantom." [-bh]
===================================================================
TOPIC: KINDLING by Mike Farren (letter of comment by Joseph
T. Major)
In response to Evelyn's comments on KINDLING in the 02/11/05
issue, Joseph T. Major writes:]
I bought THE KINDLING at Noreascon, for half-price (someone was
selling a review copy). Won't get the second book unless I hear
it's much better. First off, it's one of those books where "The
Evil Overlord is going to crush the Free People and the only ones
who can stop him are a disparate band of adventurers gathered
together in the face of adversity." Was this The Plot of The
Year the editors were buying? There must have been a dozen books
published with this plot recently. Trying to imitate Tolkien
without doing the work? Second, [SPOILER] I figured out that
the Evil Overlord and the Secret Good Guy are both swapping
bodies to stay alive as they do. Nice work if you can get it.
At the climax it'll probably turn out that they were brothers but
one went Good while the other went Bad, like in those sappy
family sagas. [-jtm]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (letter of comment by
Kenn Barry)
[In response to Mark's review of THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH
HILL in the 02/11/05 issue, Kenn Barry writes:]
I'd heard of the flock, but not the film. Since I now live out
in Albuquerque, I guess I'll have to wait for cable or DVD, but
it sounds like something I'd like.
The way I hear it, conures were often called parakeets before
Americans started using that name for Australian budgerigers. I
hear (not authoritative) that "parakeet" can be applied to any
small parrot with a long tail.
[Mark: "I had to do a little research for the article.
wikipedia.com calls them 'large New World parakeets.'"]
There are many local legends as to where the parrots came from,
but nobody knows for sure. They were probably born wild, were
captured by the pet industry and taken as pets, and then escaped
somehow. Either that, or were born in captivity for the pet
industry, and escaped. Importing of wild parrots has been
outlawed here for many years, and most parrots sold as pets were
born and raised in captivity.
[Mark: "That is possible, I suppose. The film seems to say they
were born in the wild, but I am not sure why they say that. It
is something the subject character says."]
The film is released at a time when avian intelligence is a very
topical subject. There was a good article in the NY Times about
this in the past couple weeks. Don't have a URL, but it's recent
enough you could probably find it.
[Mark: "I was thinking of putting a reference for that article
with the review. But I did not think it would stay around. The
NYT makes them available for a week or two and then charges for
access. If the subject interests you, you might like MIND OF THE
RAVEN: INVESTIGATIONS AND ADVENTURES WITH WOLF-BIRDS BY BERND
HEINRICH. I was a little disappointed that it talked
more about behavior and not a lot about the implications, but you
might find it interesting."]
The idea that birds' brains are simple is giving way to
increasing respect. Last year a crow was observed to actually
forge a tool to solve a problem. This week I read an article
that said that by some measures birds have been seen to show
intelligence beyond that of non-human apes. There are birds,
notably crows and parrots, that are now thought to rival
chimpanzees for intelligence. Not just corvids and parrots. The
starling family (which includes the Mynah) are very intelligent
as well. Anyway, no news there to those of us who own (or, as we
often say, are owned by) parrots. We've got a Congo African Grey
named Jane.
[Mark: "Some African Greys demonstrate supposedly strong (human)
language skills. Does Jane talk?"]
Bittner finds the birds to be very emotional animals, considered
by some to be a controversial observation. Again, no news to
parrot owners. Greys can be especially moody, more so than other
breeds. Anyone who has owned a parrot knows they have feelings.
Indeed, I'm surprised this is considered controversial. Sure,
it's understandable that we doubt the intelligence of other
species, but emotions?
[Mark: There is a strong and self-serving urge to treat animals
as little machines who almost never have feelings and emotions.
Certainly it is felt that their feelings need not take much
consideration. I am not very active or even adamant about it,
but scratch me deep enough and I think that animals are treated
extremely immorally by our society. By humanity in general."]
I suspect the study of birds has been too long left to hobbyists
and amateurs, people who can be ignored. I for one am glad
they're becoming more a subject of serious study. I sometimes
feel that knowing a bird is the closest I'll ever come to knowing
an extraterrestrial. They certainly do think and feel, but the
*way* they think is so different from us, different even from
dogs and cats, that it remains interesting and mysterious to me
to try to reason back to their thoughts from their behavior. I
will never figure them out.
[Mark: "I think my wife and I may be too lazy to have pets :-).
I envy your having Jane. She must be fascinating. You know what
is a really fascinating animal? Very intelligent, very alien?
The octopus. Now there is a really clever and curious (in the
sense it has curiosity, not that it is one)."]
Other issues concerning the birds is if they should be allowed to
stay in the city or removed because they are a non-native and
invasive species. As I understand it, that Telegraph Hill flock
has been around for many years, and has not grown noticeably.
But I suppose that wouldn't stop some misdirected do-gooder from
deciding Something Must Be Done.
It sounds like you must have already heard of Dr. Irene
Pepperberg and her famous African Grey, Alex, but I mention them
just in case.
[Mark: "Yes, but never in great detail. I want to read more. I
think it was her work that I was talking about above."]
Anyway, thanks for posting the review, and I'll definitely keep
my eye out for the film. [-kb]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ZEBRAMAN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Capsule: An elementary-school teacher sews for himself a suit of
a 1960s superhero and through a weird chain of events
accidentally elects himself to become that superhero. This is a
dark and yet playful look at the superhero genre. ZEBRAMAN is a
kick. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
The year is 2010. Shinichi (played by Sho Aikawa) is a second-
rate third-grade teacher who gets no respect from his family and
little from his students. It is not a pleasant life and he
escapes it with his hobby, a sort of media fandom. It seems that
in 1978 there was a TV superhero named Zebraman on a show that
was cancelled after only seven episodes. But unlike most of the
rest of the world, the young Shinichi became fascinated by the
hero. The show was set in 2010 so Shinichi is particularly
fascinated this particular year. He sews himself a makeshift
Zebraman costume. All this is intended to be just a little
harmless escapism allowing him to dress up like a superhero. But
he did not know that the stories of Zebraman and his strange
alien enemies were actually prophecy and that by making his
Zebraman suit he elected himself the fulfillment of those
prophecies. Now he must be the super-hero of his fantasies or
let the Earth fall to cute little green aliens bent on conquering
our green world. In a way the plot is reminiscent of GALAXY
QUEST. Somehow his story ties in with a series of crimes
perpetrated by an evil man in a crab mask. The two connect with
a secret government investigation into little green alien men who
are just head, arms and legs and who can melt into a sea of
protoplasm. What can it all mean? In some ways the film's
surreal style evokes a sort of BUCKAROO BANZAI feel.
This is a film that takes a psychologically dark yet whimsical
(and sometimes very funny) aim at Japanese superhero films and
comics with a well-placed zebra hind-kick. The world it is set
in straddles the gap between a realistic one and the world of
Japanese superhero TV, a gap similar but much bigger than the one
our Spider Man bridges. Watch for some little film references
for films like THE RING.
Takashi Miike directs from a screenplay by Kankuro Kudo. Miike
has directed a multitude of films in many styles, but most
recently bizarre and tongue-in-cheek films that are popular in
Japan. Until now his best know film from the United States has
probably been the really bizarre satire THE HAPPINESS OF THE
KATAKURIS though several of his (yakuza) crime films are also
popular, including ICHI THE KILLER. Most of his films seem to go
in for graphic violence. Here the violence is more comical and
never graphic enough to be more disturbing than what is in a
Roadrunner cartoon. Toward the end of the film the words stop
coming and the story is told mostly by images. My recommendation
is not to expect too much logic. Just take the ride for the fun
of it.
As of February 2005, ZEBRAMAN has officially shown only at film
festivals in North America, but it is a lot of fun and deserves
to be seen in release. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or
7/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: IMAGINARY HEROES (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
[This review originally ran in the 12/17/04 issue of the MT VOID,
but is being re-run since the film is opening this week.]
CAPSULE: Like ORDINARY PEOPLE, this is a film about how the loss
of one son in a family affects the entire family, but particularly
the surviving son. Unlike ORIDINARY PEOPLE, the parents are
really just a little too weird and the whole film is hard to warm
up to. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
A suicide in a well-to-do suburban family reveals weaknesses under
the surface that threaten to destroy the family. The film written
and directed by Dan Harris strongly recalls Robert Redford's
ORDINARY PEOPLE but comes a long way from measuring up. The title
almost sounds inspired by that film. This family is even more
severely dysfunctional. Sigourney Weaver plays Sandy Travis, a
woman who is irrepressible, irresponsible, and self-indulgent.
Ben Travis (played in a rare unsympathetic role by Jeff Daniels)
has lived through his older son Matt's glory as a champion
swimmer. He never asked if Matt wanted to be a swimmer. With the
loss of Matt he emotionally disconnects himself from his family.
Between the two parents there was little support for Matt who
eventually ends his own life. But the focus of the story is on
Sandy Travis and on Tim Travis (Emile Hirsch), the Travis's other
son--the one not a star at anything--who is neglected by the
parents for being just average. Nobody in the family connects
with anyone else and each person takes drugs of some sort to avoid
his own emotional problems.
Sandy and Ben each believe in no rules but his own. Ben insists
that reverence be shown for the dead Matt by serving portions for
him at every meal. Sandy is shocked when her neighbor buys a new
gas grill. "She doesn't have a husband and she buys a new grill!"
In fact, there is a small war brewing between Sandy and the
neighbor. Sandy is cold to her family but defends them like a
mother bear. In one case when she thinks her son is being bullied
she goes to his home and is absolutely savage attacking the bully
and his mother.
Dan Harris who wrote and directed seems like an unlikely author
for this material. He co-wrote the script for the film X2: X-MEN
UNITED. He is working on screenplays for SUPERMAN RETURNS,
LOGAN'S RUN, and ENDER'S GAME (also science fiction). Here he
directs a film that in spite of the title is a drama rather than a
fantasy. Occasionally his direction seems a little gimmicky. We
see one subjective shot from the inside of a microwave oven, for
example. It is not a grievous fault, but it was a distraction as
I asked myself, "What am I doing in a microwave oven?"
IMAGINARY HEROES solicits our emotions but never really delivers
the impact the film needed. The people do not really seem to know
each other and at the end of the film I was not sure I knew any of
them either. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Jacques Futrelle's "THE THINKING MACHINE" (ISBN 0-8129-7014-4)
(edited by Harlan Ellison) includes the most famous of the
stories about Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen ("The
"Thinking Machine"), "The Problem of Cell 13", as well a
selection of other stories. While some of the stories have
interesting twists, none of them are up to "Cell 13", and all of
them are pretty unlikely if you think about them. For people who
are curious about the evolution of the detective story (and the
puzzle story), I suppose this as good a selection as any, but I
think the average reader could give this a miss. (Ellison
apparently wanted to re-title many of the stories, but in several
cases his suggested title gives away the "twist". so if you read
this, I'd suggest not reading his list until after you read the
stories.)
Our discussion group read John Steinbeck's CANNERY ROW (ISBN 0-
14-018737-5). One thing that stuck me of interest to fantasy
fans was that Steinbeck's description of the "Chinaman" in
Chapter 4 seemed like the inspiration for Jack Finney's Dr. Lao.
When I finished Plutarch's life of Pericles, I said, "I don't
remember Shakespeare telling that story," so I re-read
Shakespeare's PERICLES (ISBN 0-140-71469-3), and it was
completely different--just the name was retained. Plus
Shakespeare had the usual set of anachronisms: references to
being within pistol-shot, Latin mottoes on shields, a whole
feudal structure of knights that never existed in ancient Greece,
a reference to the title page of a book (in ancient Greece?), and
so on. But with CORIOLANUS (ISBN 0-140-71473-1) Shakespeare
sticks reasonably close to the historical figure. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
--Goethe