THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/24/06 -- Vol. 24, No. 35, Whole Number 1323
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:
Preface (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Immanuel Kant and Evelyn's Left Turn Signal (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Downhill (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Ten Best Lists (letter of comment by Daniel Kimmel)
This Week's Reading (THE EMPEROR OF GONDWANALAND
AND OTHER STORIES, GUYS AND DOLLS, "Rita Hayworth
and the Shawshank Redemption", and EVERY BOOK
ITS READER: THE POWER OF THE PRINTED WORD TO STIR
THE WORLD) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Preface (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I went to a classical concert and the pianist finished the
evening with a Chopin Prelude. Everyone just accepted that was
how he was ending his concert. They all got up and left and
there I was sitting there. What is the point of writing a
prelude if it is not a prelude to something that comes after?
Everyone seems to just accept it. I guess that is more or less
how it is. If Chopin can do it, so can I. This article is a
preface. It is not a preface to the rest of the issue. There is
nothing in particular following it. It is just a preface. Take
that, Frederic. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Immanuel Kant and Evelyn's Left Turn Signal (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
I was driving with Evelyn recently and we came to a busy road
wanting to make a left turn onto that road. There was a queue of
cars facing us from the other direction, most of them also making
a left turn onto the busy road. The car directly facing us was
not signaling a left turn. In fact, it was not signaling at all.
We passed up a space in the traffic to avoid a collision with
this car and then it turned out it was making a left turn--it
just hadn't signaled it. Evelyn made a nasty comment and asked
why this guy didn't signal a turn if he was intending it. I gave
it some thought, which is frequently a mistake, and realized that
there really was a philosophical principle here.
I asked her, "Would you pay a dollar if somebody picked at random
would be awarded five dollars?" Evelyn is resigned to the fact
that I frequently look for philosophical principles in situations
where a more normal person would just utter an expletive and move
on with his life. She asked "Would I know the person?"
"Probably not." She said that she wouldn't. I said that that
was the reason that the other driver did not signal. Why invest
the effort to signal a turn if you reaped no obvious immediate
benefits from the action? Well, there are multiple reasons, why
you might. First, it is the law that left turns have to be
signaled, so in effect signaling may be in the person's best
interests. He might want to signal a turn to avoid being
punished. But what if there was no law or the law exists but is
not enforced. To signal the turn is an investment in the smooth
running of society. If nobody ever signaled their turns then the
traffic would probably snarl. The driver would be worse off
because other people would not signal him. People frequently do
things that benefit themselves but lower the general quality of
life for society. Littering is another example. Even driving a
car which pollutes the atmosphere is harming others in the world,
and even contributing to global warming. It is bad to steal since
if everybody did it then it would badly damage society. People
vary only to the degree to which they are willing to harm the
general state of the world to improve their own lot.
One might say that in general people should avoid taking courses
of action that if everybody elected the same course of action it
would damage society. Immanuel Kant expressed that idea, and he
called it the Categorical Imperative. He stated it as "Act as if
the maxim from which you act were to become through your will a
universal law."
Of course, I think there is a hole in the Categorical Imperative.
(Sorry, Immanuel.) If you should abstain from any action that
would cause problems if everybody did it, you could not choose to
live in, say, Boise, Idaho. Think what would happen if everybody
chose to live in Boise. The rest of the world would be empty and
Boise would be extremely overcrowded. So some things can be done
in the safe assumption that most other people will not do the same
thing.
This fits into another question, something I refer to as the
"Penny Box Problem." Suppose you had a box in front of you with a
button. If you pressed the button a million dollars would drop
out of the box and automatically everybody in the United States
would be one cent poorer. The question is, would you press that
button? I asked Evelyn and she thought she probably would. Now
there are about three hundred million people in the United States
so there would be three million dollars taken by the machine and
one million would be given back. It is hard to resist pushing
that button and becoming so much richer without harming anyone
more than a penny's worth. On the other hand, if penny boxes
became universally available to anyone who wanted them, there
would soon be no money left. With each button press the general
wealth of the nation decreases by two million dollars. And with
a reward of a million dollars a lot of people would press the
button. So it looks like Kant was right after all.
This applies to decisions we make every day. The bind is that it
may be impossible to exist without violating the Categorical
Imperative. Am I going to give up my car because it contributes
to global warming?
As an aside, I know there are readers who disagree that the car
does contribute to global warming to any serious degree. There is
more data supporting it now than when I had those discussions with
readers, so it would be interesting to know if some of those
readers have changed their mind. Michael Crichton's STATE OF
FEAR argues against global warming being a real phenomenon. But
agreement or disagreement with Crichton's point of view is pretty
much falling on party lines. Liberals believe that global warming
is real; conservatives believe that it is a myth. That may shift
with time. I personally believe that global warming is real, so
that probably makes me a liberal.
In any case I suppose it is difficult to live without breaking
the Categorical Imperative in some ways. The more time I waste
in the car the worse I violate Kant's dictum. So, dammit, if you
are going to turn left, signal. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Downhill (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
[If Mark gets to do editorials, why shouldn't I?]
Everything seems to be going downhill these days. Connections
drop for no reason in the middle of phone calls. Books returned
to the library end up back on the shelves without actually being
checked back in (four times in two weeks, twice for our books,
and twice with books we took to check out). In the grocery, I
ask for an item that's advertised on sale, and the clerk points
me to a very similar item which is not, however, on sale.
Another item has a shelf label saying $1.99, but rings up at
$3.99. A third item says $1.99 *on it*, but rings up at $3.99.
(That one, at least, I got for free because of that.) The "olive
oil" on sale turns out to be "vegetable oil enriched with olive
oil." A piece of electronics we bought in one of those horrible
hard plastic cases had a CD-ROM hidden between the front and back
cardboard pieces (which looked like just one piece), so when we
cut it open, we cut *into* the CD-ROM. (Luckily, the store
agreed to exchange it.) A DVD we bought that claimed to have
MUTINY and CAPTAIN SCARLETT has MUTINY and THE SCARLET LETTER--a
very different movie! And our DVD of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
decided to get "DVD-rot" (the first instance we have seen). And
worse still, it decided to get it on the letterbox side. Why not
the pan-and-scan side, which we never use anyway? (Okay, I
suppose it's possible that we have DVD-rot on another DVD on the
pan-and-scan side--how would we know?)
I don't have any pithy observations about all this, except that
the notion of quality in service seems to have become obsolete.
Of course, the same is true of quality in products.
Of course, the argument is that consumers do not care about
quality any more, just the lowest price, and that is why they buy
goods imported from China instead of the same objects made in the
United States. The implication (or sometimes the explicit
statement) is that the United States goods are of higher quality.
But in a sense the manufacturers have done it to themselves. It
used to be that the consumer would look for quality, because a
purchase was expected to last a long time. But when technology
got to a certain pace--and when the manufacturers started using
that to build in obsolescence--then consumers started reasoning
that they did not need to buy something to last thirty years, if
it was going to be obsolete in five.
And because nothing is repairable for much less than the price of
a new item, the consumer figures that the chances are that they
will have to buy a new one in a few years anyway.
And even if none of that is true, the mobility of people means
that the consumer considers that if he moves in another few
years, he won't be taking a lot of items with him. So why buy
something that will last twenty years if you expect to get rid of
it in five? I think that we are in a situation where quality in
most items has become far less of a priority to people, and the
manufacturers are just going along with that. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Ten Best Lists (letter of comment by Dan Kimmel)
In response to Mark's editorial on Top Ten lists in the 12/17/06
MT VOID, Dan Kimmel writes:
First, I've said this to Mark but his readers should know hear it
too. I've been a professional film critic now for more than
twenty years. While I do not always agree with Mark I believe
that despite his "amateur" standing--the old Hollywood joke is
that everyone has two jobs, their own and being a film critic--he
could earn a living at this trade if he so chose. The clarity of
his writing and the depth and breadth of his knowledge surpasses
many of my professional colleagues. While we might disagree as
to the merits of a particular movie, if Mark cites a fact about
some obscure movie my assumption is that a) he is correct and b)
he has actually seen the film.
[Dan has told me this in private in the past, but I *LOVE* the
fact that I now have witnesses. This is particularly true because
I do highly respect the source. -mrl]
Second, as to the substance, Mark's support for this merging of
ten best lists is valid insofar as it produces a ranking of
movies that critics have praised. If BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN appears
on most ten best lists, that makes it a *noteworthy* film. It
does not necessarily make it a good one. (In this case, it
happens to be a very good one, but I have no desire to offer a
more apt example and then get into a debate about those
unwatchable Tolkien movies that many other critics seemed to
like.)
Ten best lists are even more subjective than reviews. Some
critics make it a list of personal favorites. Some a ranking of
their best reviews. Some order them by release dates, some from
best to tenth best. A grouping of ten best lists will tell you
what were the best reviewed movies of the year, but won't tell
you anything at all as to whether you will enjoy them. There are
good films that are reviewed poorly, and vice versa. (Look up
BLADE RUNNER in Leonard Maltin's usually reliable "Movie Guide"
if you want to see an example of a good critic not getting an
important film.)
Where Mark finds the statistical data of the ten best lists--and
the Tomato meter at rottentomatoes.com--to provide useful
information, I see it as having very limited use. It lets you
know the trend of the reviews, but provides little in the way of
useful guidance. Moviegoers who want to know whether they should
buy tickets (or rent videos) of a particular film would do far
better to cultivate some knowledge about a critic or critics
whose views seem simpatico with theirs. Is this a critic with
whom you generally agree, or who offers insights into films that
you find especially meaningful? I think a good review from that
person will tell you far more about whether you will enjoy a
given movie than a meter rating or collective ten best listing.
I don't know that Mark and I are actually in disagreement here.
It may be more a matter of emphasis.
Or, it could be that he's wrong. :-) [-dk]
[I think we disagree mostly on emphasis. I said last week that
a compilation of ten best lists tells me mostly what films are
important, less what films are good, and even less what films I
will like. I just saw NORTH COUNTRY and had the feeling it was a
story I had seen many times before. I did not care much for it
and thought it was a well-made cliche. But because many people
rate it well I wanted to see it. Certainly I would have liked to
have seen a film I liked, but it was worth watching because other
people have liked it and I considered it important to know if I
agreed or not.
Much like betting on the stock market I find it safer to
diversify the set of critics I believe rather than going with a
single winner. Actually I have not had a single critic whose
taste seemed to be well-correlated with my own since Baird Searles
died.
Dan Kimmel is the author of THE FOURTH NETWORK : HOW FOX BROKE
THE RULES AND REINVENTED TELEVISION, a definitive history of the
Fox Network. -mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In the 09/09/05 issue of the MT VOID, I talked about Jorge Luis
Borges at some length including a long commentary on "Tlon,
Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". At one point I suggested that if someone
wanted to do a theme anthology, they could do worse than one of
stories inspired by Borges. Well, they can add the title story
of THE EMPEROR OF GONDWANALAND AND OTHER STORIES by Paul
Di Filippo (ISBN 1-56025-665-6) to their table of contents. In
"The Emperor of Gondwanaland", Mutt Spindler starts looking at
web pages for micro-nations and finds a site for Gondwanaland.
This site was far more elaborate than other micro-nation sites,
with a wealth of detail and dozens of boards discussing all
aspects of life in Gondwanaland. At first Mutt thinks that these
are all people who are even more fanatic than Civil War
re-enactors or Renaissance Faire types, but soon he begins to
think there is something more. Certainly even at this point the
elaborate imagined world is reminiscent of Borges's story about
Tlon, but when Spindler goes to Buenos Aires to find the "Funes
district of Tlun" I think we can conclude that Borges was a major
inspiration for this story. (Strangely, Di Filippo mentions a
Steely Dan song as inspiration in his introduction, but not
Borges.)
Damon Runyon is a much-neglected author. Oh, lots of people have
heard of him, but I suspect most of them have not read him. He
is probably best known in connection with the film GUYS AND
DOLLS, based on his stories. At least that is a good
representation of Runyon's style. THE LEMON-DROP KID with Bob
Hope is a terrible adaptation of the story of the same name.
First of all, the movie has none of Runyon's distinctive
cadences. And second, it completely changes the tone of the
ending, turning a tear-jerker into a comedy. For a sample of
Runyon's style, I'll give you the same excerpt William Kennedy
quotes in his introduction to GUYS AND DOLLS (ISBN
0-14-017659-4): "He is a big heavy guy with several chins and
very funny feet, which is why he is called Feet. These feet are
extra large feet, even for a big guy, and Dave the Dude says Feet
wears violin cases for shoes. Of course this is not true,
because Feet cannot get either of his feet in a violin case,
unless it is a case for a very large violin, such as a cello."
If I had to describe what characterizes Runyon's writing, it
would be that his narrators 1) talk in the present tense, 2) use
the present progressive a lot, and 3) never use contractions.
(Mark pointed out the latter when we first started talking about
Runyon.) So the narrator would not say, "So we went to the race
track, and whom did we see there but Dave the Dude." He would
say, "So we are going to the race track, and whom are we seeing
there but Dave the Dude." For a while Runyon was mostly out of
print, but now he is much more available, with GUYS AND DOLLS
being perhaps the best place to start.
[Mark adds, "Runyon was a popular 1930s author whose characters
are mostly fancy dressers whom you might see on Broadway and in
betting parlors and the occasional crap game (like maybe every
night). They are not exactly criminals most days, and they are
not exactly law-abiding citizens neither. And Runyon lovingly
makes them hilarious." -mrl]
"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King (in
DIFFERENT SEASONS, ISBN 0-451-16753-8) is another story eclipsed
by its film adaptation (THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION). The film is
very good, but it did make a lot of changes from the story.
SPOILERS AHEAD: For example, the film tightened up a plot hole
about one of the characters, added a revenge plot, and put Morgan
Freeman in the role of the Irish narrator. (Before someone asks,
yes, I've heard of the "Black Irish" but this is not what is
meant.) Interestingly, another novella in this collection, "The
Body" was also made into a respected film (STAND BY ME).
The title for EVERY BOOK ITS READER: THE POWER OF THE PRINTED
WORD TO STIR THE WORLD by Nicholas A. Basbanes (ISBN-13
978-0-06-059323-0, ISBN-10 0-06-059323-7) comes from
S. R. Ranganathan, who was appointed the chief librarian at the
University of Madras in 1924, and who wrote "The Five Laws of
Library Science":
1) Books are for use.
2) A reader's time is precious.
3) Libraries are growing organisms.
4) Every reader his book.
5) Every book its reader.
(Unfortunately, I cannot find a copy of the complete work "The
Five Laws of Library Science".)
Basbanes's book covers a variety of topics: lists and collections
of "great books," censorship and book monitoring, books owned by
famous people, marginalia (a term brought into English by Samuel
Taylor Coleridge), translating and translations, the Bible and
related works, the Library of America, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Harold Bloom, the writings of physicians, and reaching the public
with books. As such it is more accessible than some of
Basbanes's earlier books, which focus more in depth on single
topics. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Where it is duty to worship the sun,
it is pretty sure to be a crime to
examine the laws of heat.
-- John Morley