THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
06/16/06 -- Vol. 24, No. 51, Whole Number 1339
El Presidente: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
The Power Behind El Pres: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
The American Film Institute's Top 10 Inspirational Films
(film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Various Topics (letter of comment by Taras Wolansky)
The Water-Fueled Car (letter of comment
by George MacLachlan)
Big Explosions in Chemistry (letter of comment
by David Goldfarb)
ACCELERANDO by Charles Stross (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
This Week's Reading (bookstores, library book sales,
SUPERHEROES AND PHILOSOPHY, LINT, and
"Impossible Dreams") (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: The American Film Institute's Top 10 Inspirational Films
(film comments by Mark R. Leeper)
According to Wikipedia, "The American Film Institute (AFI) is an
independent non-profit organization created by the National
Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the
Arts and the Humanities Act. . . . The American Film Institute
focuses on training through hands-on experience with established
figures in the AFI Conservatory, as well as on preserving old
film, which is subject to degradation of its film stock." I am
sure it does all sorts of good things behind the scenes, but the
AFI gets the most attention as the creators and publishers of
film lists. They make lists of the greatest movies, the greatest
film quotes, etc. Every year or so they come up with a list that
gets a double-page spread in “USA Today”. To find a large set of
top 100 and top 10 lists go to
http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/100yearslist.htm. (And
don't miss the top of the column on the left for a bunch more
lists.)
This week the AFI has announced their list of the ten most
inspirational films. Being both a cynic and a film fan, it has
inspired me to comment on each member of this list starting with
number 10. Many of these films are inspiring to the general
public, but not particularly to me since, as I say, I am a cynic.
I notice however that none of these is an overtly religious film.
They all fall into general secular inspiration.
Also I note that as much as it seems to be the general opinion of
the public that Steven Spielberg makes manipulative films, he
still has directed three of the ten films found by the AFI
members to be the most inspirational. I should say that I think
this list should not be the ten best films that happen to have an
inspirational message. It should be the ten films that have
greatest inspiration. And they have to be inspirational in a way
the viewer can use. It is hard to be very inspired by anything
that Superman does, because we all know that Superman rarely
risks anything. He has superpowers and it is nice that he uses
them for good, but he is not my idea of a hero, in spite of him
being called a super-hero.
10. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, 1998
I think this film really was inspiring, but not for the scenes
most people think. It was not the talk after the slam-bang
opening of the film that impressed me with our veterans. It is
the slam-bang opening. All those John Wayne World War II movies
portrayed war to be a noble life with some occasional danger.
Nobody I knew had ever showed the horrifying, chaotic confusion
that war can be. Steven Spielberg shows us what something like
the D-Day landing could have been like. Not many people knew
what war could really be like until they saw this film. The only
other film with a sequence of comparable impact was with the
airdrop in the second episode of "Band of Brothers." The people
who went through that breed of hell certainly have my respect.
9. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, 1947
I have to say that before I could even consider this film as
being inspirational I would have to know what it is inspiring.
Is it suggesting that we all believe in Santa Claus and
everything will work out. This is a nice enjoyable post-War
Christmas film but it does not do a lot more for me than that.
People who fought in World War II were looking for something
light, not something inspirational. It is, by the way, based on
a book by Valentine Davies, who also wrote the book IT HAPPENS
EVERY SPRING. That latter book was faithfully adapted into one
of the very few sports films I like.
8. BREAKING AWAY, 1979
And this is not one of the sports films I like. I cannot claim I
remember it really well. I seem to remember there was some good
comic writing, but the bicycle racing did not do a lot for me.
It seems to be it is another sports film that builds up to the
big game, or in this case a race.
7. THE GRAPES OF WRATH, 1940
John Steinbeck was a great American writer. I would put him up
in the range of Twain. THE GRAPES OF WRATH is a great document
of the pain that some of our fellow country-people experienced.
I am not sure I see a lot of inspiration in the film other than
to have compassion for others in need. It is more a document of
pain. This is not to say anything against the film, which is a
great one, but I am not sure I know what it is inspiring. What
does the main character determine to do at the end? Apparently
to be one of "the people." He actually already was one. I would
say it is a good film, but I do not get much inspiration from it.
6. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, 1982
I find even less to be inspired about in E.T. THE EXTRA-
TERRESTRIAL. It seems to have a lesson to be compassionate to
cute aliens in need. Perhaps the message here is to do what you
think is right and not what people in authority tell you to do.
I am not sure that parents would be all that happy that their
kids are getting that message. Overall, I would say it is hard
to be inspirational in a world where wishing makes things so.
5. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, 1939
This is not an inspirational film. There is nothing very
inspirational about seeing that your government is thoroughly
corrupt and you have to nearly kill yourself to do some good. At
the same time is seems unlikely that this weirdo--and the film
does make him a weirdo--could change the tide of the United
States government. I guess that it shows what one man can do if
he starts by being a political appointee who is expected not to
use his power. I guess that is inspirational in a way, but he is
one more hero exerting a power the viewers do not have. He does
have character, I suppose.
4. ROCKY, 1976
I was ahead of my time in not thinking much of the “Rocky”
series. I did not think much of the first film even back when
the Academy was giving it the Best Picture. Here is the message:
you can redeem your life if you have will and determination and
someone picks your name out of a hat and then likes your name.
Remember, Rocky got his shot at the title only by a very unlikely
piece of luck. I suppose you can say that he had the character
to redeem himself and so could take advantage of a highly
unlikely opportunity.
3. SCHINDLER'S LIST, 1993
Oskar Shindler was through much of the film more of an anti-hero
than a hero. He was acting in self-interest in what turned out
to be a win-win situation. He was in an unlikely position to do
the good that he did, but historically he was in that position.
He slowly matures into a person of great character. Yes, I have
to agree with a few reservations that this is for me an
inspirational film.
2. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, 1962
No doubt about it, this film has earned its right to be on this
list. Atticus Finch was the top of the AFI list of film heroes
and he certainly is that. This is probably Gregory Peck's best
role as a man both of justice and of humanity. Everybody has two
or three scenes in this film that make them go misty. For me one
is when the two children after having said that their father was
not much good at anything important see that all the blacks in
town stand up to show their respect when their father walks by.
This is probably the most inspirational film on this list.
1. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, 1946
Here is where I lose myself some fans. This film is okay, but it
is highly contrived. George Bailey, on the verge of suicide,
gets a chance to see how the world would have been different had
he not been alive. And--guess what--every single difference is
for the worse. You don't see the kid who was so disappointed
because George Bailey beat him at a spelling bee. Or perhaps the
kid who wanted the job delivering for the drugstore and could not
because George got the job. Sam Wainright does not seem very
hurt that George got his girl. Everybody in town seems to owe
George for something. George really has a lot of friends.
Now that I have criticized so many of these films, I hope I still
have friends.
Oh, if there are films I would take off the list, there would
have to be films I think deserve to be on the list. Who are the
most inspirational figures for me? I would say Atticus Finch
should stay on the list. So should Oskar Schindler. And the
soldiers who go through hell doing their duty. I would add Sir
Thomas More from A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS as a man of great
integrity who thinks preternaturally clearly even under the worst
circumstances. And I would add a dark horse: the character
Mr. Singer from THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER.
[Thanks go to Nick Sauer for pointing out this list and asking my
opinion.] [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Various Topics (letter of comment by Taras Wolansky)
Taras Wolansky writes on various topics in the 06/09/06 issue of
the MT VOID:
A stimulating issue. (I don't think I read the previous one yet;
but I may yet LoC it, too.)
When I looked into the "water engine", the trick appeared to be
using the battery to get hydrogen and oxygen, and burning it to
give the engine a boost. It improved efficiency--if you didn't
count the charging of the battery!
On the subject of rats, I think of Bertram Chandler's magnificent,
Retro-Hugo nominated novella, "Giant Killer", and Tiptree's "The
Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats".
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING was one of the funniest books I ever read
but (as many reviewers pointed out) by the time the movie came out
twelve years later it was hardly cutting edge. N.B.: Nick Naylor
gives up shilling for tobacco at the end of the movie.
The fact the movie never actually shows anybody smoking lost it
one of the book's funniest scenes, when Nick tries to go back to
chain-smoking, after surviving nicotine terrorism. In the movie
he's simply told he can't smoke any more. Which, since you've
never seen him smoke in the first place, has no impact at all.
The central theme of ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL is the lack of any
real standards of excellence in modern art. Thus, the professor
and the class idolize the primitive daubs of an undercover
policeman pretending to be an art student. (Funny scene where the
art school weirdos call this whitebread character a weirdo.)
Representational art, like that of our hero, is devalued.
"More from wishful thinking than from the real world" (50 WAYS OF
SAYING FABULOUS): I call it the Hollywood Rule of Inversion.
David Duchovny complained that, on "The X-Files", he would often
lose his fights and get knocked out--while his diminutive female
partner (not much more than half his weight) would always win.
The Rule of Inversion. In heist movies, the electronics expert is
Black; on "Mythbusters" it's an Asian guy--because it's real.
Police movies: in the training scene, the woman beats up the
guys. Real life: a policewoman gets involved in a fight with a
robber, because the policeman who would normally escort her to her
car (!) was unavailable that evening, and, unable to take down the
robber, she has to shoot him. (I read about this in "New York
Magazine" a few years ago.) At least he didn't overpower her and
take her gun, as in the Atlanta case last year.
Of course, I didn't like MOBY DICK when I read an abridged version
in high school. More recently, I listened to it on tape,
unabridged, and liked it very well. The sheer hardihood of the
whalers is jaw-dropping. It's full of scenes that cry out for the
camera, though some may be too politically incorrect or, in
details of whaling techniques, too horrifying for a modern
audience. (Yes, horror movies depict horrifying things being
done--but only to people!) [-tw]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The Water-Fueled Car (letter of comment by George
MacLachlan)
In response to Mark's comments on the water engine in the 06/09/06
issue of the MT VOID, George MacLachlan writes:
"I believe I saw the CNN report you are referring to as someone
emailed the thing to me. After reading your article on this
subject, it wasn't clear that you had a chance to see the news
reel being referred to (I've attached a copy to this email,
for your reference). [Temporarily at
http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/WaterFuel.wmv -mrl]
Mr. Klein's use of water to help fuel his car is apparently only
possible because he is using it as a supplement to his gasoline
engine. The gas engine provides the electricity necessary to
support his electrolysis process and the resulting "Brown's Gas"
is then used by his engine in a manner not explained by the news
clip. The news clip also does not go into any details as to
whether the process results in any net savings of gasoline
consumption. My guess would be that the additional energy needed
to produce electricity to generate Brown's Gas is not to far from
the additional burden placed on an engine to run an air
conditioner--both resulting in a decrease in net MPG. An
interesting news clip though." [-gfm]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Big Explosions in Chemistry (letter of comment by David
Goldfarb)
In response to Mark's comments on the water engine in the 06/09/06
issue of the MT VOID, David Goldfarb writes, "If you haven't seen
http://www.bestofgooglevideo.com/video.php?video=327, then I
highly recommend that you do so. It's essentially the old 'alkali
metals in water' bit from high school, but . . . scaled up a
little. Lots of fun. (And relevant to your "water engine" article
because the explosive agent involved is in fact hydrogen gas.)"
[-dg]
Mark answers, "Well, it is no wonder we are falling behind other
countries in science. Britain shows their people why they should
be interested in science." [-mrl]
(Related site: there is a Flash Version of the Periodic Table,
with illustrations, no less at
http://www.chemsoc.org/viselements/pages/pertable_fla.htm.
===================================================================
TOPIC: ACCELERANDO by Charles Stross (copyright 2005, Ace,
$24.95, 390pp, ISBN 0-441-01284-1) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
We come to the conclusion of my reviews of this year's Hugo-
nominated novels with a very different, very strange novel called
ACCELERANDO. (Before you say, "Wait a minute, he didn't review
the Martin,” let me say that I didn't read the first two or three
doorstops in the series and I'm not about to read them, and then
the new one, now.) ACCELERANDO is a lot like CUSP by Robert
Metzger in that this is either one of the most brilliant novels
I've ever read, or one of the biggest messes I've ever read. In
this case, it's one of the most brilliant, and it's certainly
much better than CUSP is.
ACCELERANDO is a tied-together set of stories that Stross had
published in ASIMOV’S over the last several years, some of which
were Hugo-nominated as standalones when they first appeared. It
tells the story of three generations of the Macx family as they
live through the Singularity--Manfred, his daughter Amber, and
her son Sirhan. I read somewhere that most writers avoid the
issue of the Singularity itself, and tell stories that happen
*after* it. Stross took it head on, going right through it to get
to his end. And yet, we're not sure if it ever happened, but it
does seem like it.
Manfred is an entrepreneur who comes up with what seems like a
million ideas a minute, and gives them away so that others can
profit from them. He has a great "good will" rating, if you will.
He doesn't have any money, and doesn't need any--he gets
everything given to him by folks who have benefited from his
ideas. He has an on-again, off-again relationship which
eventually ends up in marriage and divorce with Pamela, with whom
he has a daughter named Amber. Pamela works for the IRS and is
trying to get Manfred to pay back taxes, and turns into quite the
domineering mother after the divorce, trying to keep her from her
father. He works a complicated (heck, *everything* in this book
is way too complicated to explain--just go with it) to keep her
out of Pamela's clutches. Amber ends up in orbit around Saturn
(I think), becoming the queen of her domain.
Things get complicated after that.
You see, the Solar System is being dismantled by the Vile
Offspring in order to turn dumb matter into computronium (yeah, I
had a little trouble believing that word) to turn the Solar
System into one vast computer and move the human race into its
next stage of development. Or something like that.
Are you with me so far?
So, Amber and her crew, by now uploaded into some sort of
cyberpunkian virtual environment, spawn backups of themselves
before going off in search of a router orbiting a brown dwarf
that supposedly will connect mankind into the galactic network.
Or something like that.
With me?
Amber and the crew come back, and, well, the backups had lives of
their own. Amber now has a son named Sirhan. Oh yeah, the Amber
who went to the router is called Sirhan's "eigenmother". Anyway,
Pamela and Manfred are still around, and there is some effort to
get what's left of humankind out of the Solar System before the
Vile Offspring dismantle it altogether.
Did I tell you about the mechanical cat name Aineko?
In the end, this isn't a light read. You have to concentrate on
it. But there are so many outstanding ideas and things that make
you want to go "hmmm" that when all was said and done, I decided
I loved the book. This isn't a book heavy on characterization,
but it doesn't need to be. It just works.
-------------------------
Okay, as I said, I'm done reading and reviewing the Hugo
nominated novels. In the true spirit of free information, here's
how I'm voting for the Hugo:
1) ACCELERANDO
2) SPIN
3) OLD MAN'S WAR
4) LEARNING THE WORLD
5) NO AWARD
In reality, I'd be happy if *any* of them won. But, since I have
to rank them, there you are.
In the next installment I'll talk about my choices in the short
categories as well as the Dramatic Presentation categories.
[-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I was recently in a superstore book chain that shall remain
nameless (but it is not Barnes & Noble), and noticed that they
had a section labeled "Untranslated Section". This seems like a
very odd example of political correctness, because this would
certainly have been called the "Foreign Language" section a few
years ago. (Assuming that it even existed, which it probably
would not have.)
The title "Untranslated Section" would not be so objectionable
were it not also just plain wrong--and for two reasons. First,
it implies that the rest of the store is translated, but of
course it is not. Yes, in the literature section you will find
Borges and Flaubert and Tolstoy in translations, and in the
philosophy section Plato and Aristotle, and in the religion
section Thomas Acquinas and the Bible, but the vast majority of
the books in the store were written in the same English they
appear in. Okay, but you may say that the "Untranslated Section"
means "Untranslated *Non-English* Books". Then what are Edgar
Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, and Tom Clancy doing there translated
into Spanish (or whatever--I happened to be looking at only the
Spanish section)?
I should not complain too much, I suppose. Back even twenty
years ago, one would not have found any books in Spanish in a
general bookstore. (I suspect even the Barnes & Noble
headquarters store in New York would have directed you to Macondo
or Lectorum bookstores for that.) Now, yes, a lot of what is in
the suburban superstore is popular fiction translated *into*
Spanish from English, German, or whatever. But the store I was
in also had what appeared to be all the works of Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Isabel Allende. They even had
"El club dumas" by Arturo Perez-Reverte. (But no Jorge Luis
Borges, a real disappointment since I am looking for him in
Spanish. For that matter, even the Borges in translation was
limited to his four best-known works.)
I just wish they would label it the "Foreign Language Section".
Or, if they prefer, the "Non-English Section".
Our local library had its annual book sale this week, but we
found only five books to get. Actually, we found four at the
sale and one in the room where they have the on-going sale. This
room is probably the main reason why the annual sale was so
disappointing--rather than saving up all the books for a year and
then having a humungous sale, the Friends of the Library sell
them year 'round. And certainly if I add up what I have bought
there over the past year, it probably comes to a couple of dozen
books. But the thrill of a major book binge has vanished. But
this book sale also demonstrated the same trend we saw at the
Bryn Mawr book sale--higher prices. The general paperback and
hardbacks at the library sale are about the same price as before
(fifty cents for most paperbacks, etc.), but a lot more books are
labeled as "coffee-table" or "collector's" books and priced
higher than they used to be. (I have to admit that three to five
dollars is not an unreasonable price for a three-inch-thick Norton
anthology in good condition, but I've been spoiled by finding them
at the thrift shop for ten cents.)
(By the way, does anyone know of a site that has the tables of
contents for the various Norton anthologies in electronic form?
I would love to be able to search them when looking for a
particular poem or essay.)
SUPERHEROES AND PHILOSOPHY edited by Tom Morris and Matt Morris
(ISBN 0-8126-9573-9) is a collection of essays that is volume
thirteen in a series called "Popular Culture and Philosophy",
whose earlier volumes cover Seinfeld, the Simpsons, the Matrix,
Buffy. "Lord of the Rings", baseball, the Sopranos, Woody Allen,
Harry Potter, Mel Gibson's "The Passion", and more. This volume
deals with superheroes, primarily comic book superheroes. (That
is, there is not much talk about Hercules or Mercury except in
conjunction with such comic-book parallels as Superman or The
Flash.) The most interesting essay (to me, anyway) was
Christopher Robichaud's "With Great Power Comes Great
Responsibility: On the Moral Duties of the Super-Powerful and
Super-Heroic", which analyzes the superhero's responsibilities
in terms of Jeremy Bentham's and John Stuart Mills's
utilitarianism and Immanuel Kant's "categorical imperative".
Another essay worth pointing out is Michael Thau's "Comic-Book
Wisdom", which analyzes the disappearance of wisdom in comic
books, due (Thau says) to our skepticism and cynicism about
wisdom. For example, the original Captain Marvel takes on both
the strength of Hercules and the wisdom of Solomon, while the
more recent version acquires the strength of Hercules but *not*
the wisdom of Solomon—his wisdom becomes merely an external voice
giving advice. For fans of comic books, this book is certainly
highly recommended, but I am not a fan and even I enjoyed this
enough to recommend it.
LINT by Steve Aylett (ISBN 1-56025-684-2) is a novel, a purported
biography of the (fictional) author Jeff Lint. I emphasize the
fictional aspect, because this book comes with all the
paraphrenalia that would make you think that Lint was real and
that this is a real biography--footnotes, bibliography, index,
.... But certainly an early hint is that Lint's mother has him
reading Pierre Menard (a fictional author created by Jorge Luis
Borges). Another is that he sells a couple of stories under the
pseudonym "Isaac Asimov". And while Lint sells some stories to
real editors such as John W. Campbell and real magazines such as
"Astounding" and "Startling", he also sells to magazines such as
"Baffling", "Useless", "Terrible", "Bewildering", "Confusing",
"Frazzling", "Scalding", "Mental", "Marginal", "Fatal", "Made-
Up", "Meandering", "Appalling", "Tales to Appall", "Daring
Adventure Stories", "Troubling Developments", "Maggoty", "Maximum
Tentacles", and my favorite, "Way Beyond Your Puny Mind". A
little of this goes a long way, though, and this book is best
taken in small doses. While I managed to get half-way through
(with the promise of a Lintian "Star Trek" script mentioned in
one review luring me on), I only skimmed the rest. As one
reviewer noted, a problem is that it is not just Lint who is
bizarre, but everyone (including the narrator), so there is no
respite from the surrealism. Aylett may have intended this, but
to me it is overkill.
One more thing: If you are a film fan, run, do not walk, to read
Tim Pratt's "Impossible Dreams" in the July 2006 issue of
ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
-- Francis Bacon