THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
06/30/06 -- Vol. 24, No. 53, Whole Number 1341
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:
Tap-Tap (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
How to Kill Bookstores (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Are We Helping the Wrong Students? (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Time Travel on Television (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Meet Cute? (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
Robots (letter of comment by Chris Garcia)
SUPERMAN RETURNS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN
THE NIGHT-TIME, THE SPEED OF DARK,
THE SECRET DOCUMENTS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES,
EXPLORERS OF THE NEW CENTURY) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Tap-Tap (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I was listening to an old radio show. The hero had found someone
who was unable to speak. The stranger was answering questions by
tapping on the table. Depending on the question he was tapping
once or twice. The hero says "I get it. You are tapping once
for yes and twice for no. Is that right?" The stranger tapped
once. Somehow the hero assumed that they had established
communication. My question is how did the hero know that the
stranger wasn't answering "no"? [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: How to Kill Bookstores (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In the July 3/July 10, 2006, issue of U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT,
Newt Gingrich is interviewed about his reading habits, and he
says, "Every 10 days I walk through a bookstore, call my
assistant, and say, "Would you order [these] for me, please?"
Well, shame on him--does he expect the bookstore to stay open as
a convenient browsing location if no one actually buys books
there?
(It's not exactly like he's a poor student or on a limited
income.) [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Are We Helping the Wrong Students? (part 2) (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Last week I was talking about the deteriorating state of
education and the changing position of the United States in its
standing as the source of technological change.
Why are our students falling behind the best from other countries?
A big problem in school is that the schools are not making effort
to develop the better students. I have been asked multiple times
by lower-achieving students why they really need mathematics.
They are not fools. Most see that their parents have at most one
use for their high school math. That is helping *them( do their
homework. To them the mathematics is as arcane, as useless, and
as divorced from their lives as if they were learning ancient
Babylonian writing. Incidentally, I generally respond to the
question of why take mathematics with a question. Why take
physical education if they are not going to be professional
athletes? The truth is that the medium achievers in mathematics
may be better equipped to face life. But the lower achievers will
probably never use it that way. A grocery clerk or a bulldozer
operator does not really use algebra. They may be a little better
at making financial decisions, but it would be hard to demonstrate
such ability.
The lower achievers may actually have something of a point. Yes,
if they put in the effort to learn the mathematics, they might
have use for it later in life. But if they were the sort to put
in that effort they probably would not be the lower achievers.
Yet more resource is put into training them so they are not "left
behind" than in developing the advanced students who might be able
to really use the training. I am finding in my teaching
sixteen-year-olds who cannot multiply 7 times 8. If they do not
know their times tables by the time they are sixteen years old
they have never had sufficient motivation to learn them. It is
unlikely they will learn much more before the school system can no
longer force them. The mistake is to let them soak up resources
that they have no intention of benefiting from. I am not saying
to remove all the effort to help the low-achievers, but putting
much emphasis on them may not be the most effective way to use
those resources.
Spending time with the brighter students is more likely to give a
better return on that time. The eleven-year-old that I am
developing is learning and grasping concepts beyond what a
significant proportion of students from my high school ever
learned. I was not taught these concepts until I was a sophomore
and I was an advanced student in what was considered one of the
best schools in Western Massachusetts. I suspect that there are
more students who could comprehend the ideas much earlier than
our school systems get around to teaching them. But it would
take having the schools look for talent and put the effort and
resource into developing those abilities.
I think it is imperative that we stop neglecting the talent in
students who have the capability to make a real contribution to
this country. We need to have our better students develop all
the talent they have. We need to invest the time to access what
their capabilities, to give them homework, and to challenge them
academically in every way possible. We have to give them a
learning environment that is positive and encouraging. But
traditionally we have not done that and I do not expect to see it
happen now. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Time Travel on Television (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
We just finished watching "Texas Ranch House" (or as Mark calls
it, "Prairie Dog House") on PBS, and I have concluded that there
are some major underlying problems to the whole notion of putting
modern people in historical living conditions.
For those who do not follow these shows, "Texas Ranch House" is
the latest in a series that includes "1900 House", "1940s House",
"Manor House", "Regency House Party", "Frontier House", and
"Colonial House". The first four were done by the BBC; the last
two and "Texas Ranch House" by PBS. In all of these, a group of
people "travels back in time" to live in the conditions of that
period. In the end they are rated by experts as to how well they
adapted. However, as I will discuss later, they do not actually
interact with people from that era, which is a major difference.
Still, these shows are to some extent time-travel exercises.
One problem from the start is that although a 21st century person
can put on 1900-style clothes, cook a 1900-style meal, and use
1900-style plumbing, they are still walking around with their
21st century brain. Now, from what some of the participants have
said in interviews, they are told that the experiment is to have
21st century people try to live in a previous era--they are not
expected to abandon all their 21st century beliefs and ideas.
Assuming this is true, the problem is that the narration does not
indicate this at all, but rather implies the opposite.
For example, in both "Frontier House" and "Texas Ranch House",
the women are given clothing of the time to wear, which consists
of about seven layers, including a corset. By the end of the
shows, some of the women in both shows are running around in only
a couple of layers. Their attire is perfectly acceptable by 21st
century (Western) standards, but the narrator makes the point
that they are appearing in public in their underwear, and the
evaluators give them negative points for this.
In "Colonial House", the 1620 colony is set up as a religious
colony, but one couple decides not to attend the Sunday services
and goes skinny-dipping instead "to commune with Nature." Just
what did the producers give as the rules regarding religious
worship and the actual beliefs of the participants, versus what
they imply on the show--namely, that these people are not living
up to their agreement?
In other words, what the participants are told is allowed seems
to be more permissive that what the viewers are told, which makes
the participants look bad. (The viewers may not be told this
explicitly, but it is certainly implied, especially when the
narration tells the viewer, for example, that what the person has
just done would be totally unacceptable in the time period they
are recreating.)
(I have also read that the producers of the American series not
only try to pick people who will create conflict, but also
sometimes even encourage them to break the rules. It has been
claimed, for example, that someone on the show's staff who
suggested to the women in "Frontier House" that they sew hidden
pockets into their skirts so that they could smuggle im cosmetics.)
In the American shows, there is always some interaction with
Native Americans. But since the whole dynamic is different, it
is no wonder that the participants cannot manage to barter
successfully. First, the Indians are using a couple of hundred
years’ experience to drive much harder bargains than they would
have back then. They have no interest in what they would have
accepted as trade goods in 1620, or 1867, or 1883. And the
participants have their 21st century sensibilities that force
them to treat the Indians fairly--not something the original
settlers would necessarily have done.
Another problem is the question of how much training the people
get. It seems to be less and less with each succeeding show, but
in any case it is not a lifetime. No wonder the women in "Texas
Ranch House" have problems maintaining a cooking fire, or the
people in "Colonial House" do not know how that oysters are
valuable. Two weeks of training cannot compare with having lived
this way 24-7 since childhood. (If you want a science fictional
parallel, read Poul Anderson's short story "The Man Who Came
Early", available in a variety of anthologies and collections.)
Another problem--and perhaps the biggest one--is the issue of
how much commitment the participants have to their "goal", either
the big goal (e.g., making enough to repay the Company for one's
passage) or a subsidiary goal (e.g., getting the cowboy back from
the Indians). The original settlers would realize that if they
did not earn enough on the cattle, they would lose the ranch, and
may very well starve. This would encourage them to work as hard
as possible. But since the only negative result for the
programs' participants is a bad evaluation, they often decide to
work a few hours in the morning, take a long siesta, and maybe do
a few chores in the afternoon. And there would have been a sense
of real menace in the dealings with Indians in Texas, which
clearly was not present in "Texas Ranch House".
The original series was "1900 House" in which a family lives as a
family would have in 1900, in a house retrofitted to 1900. That
worked reasonably well, and I think that was because there was
only one family, and they got the most preparation. Even there,
the 21st century ideas practically did them in--not their ideas,
but the producers' (and the British equivalent of OSHA's). The
biggest error was putting the boiler further away from the stove
than would have been the case in 1900, resulting in a full week
before the family had hot water. Anyone from 1900 would have
known how to fix this problem in less than a week, assuming it
arose at all.
And while we are talking about problems introduced by the
producers, the American shows all suffer from an anachronism that
is usually attributed to the perceived left-wing bias of PBS: no
one is allowed to have guns. In all three American time periods,
guns would have been ubiquitous, and hunting a major part of
providing the food for the settlers. But PBS would not allow
guns, citing both hunting laws and the refusal of the insurance
companies to allow them. (Given how angry some of the people were
getting at each other in "Texas Ranch House", this may have been a
wise idea!) The result is that everyone is always hungry
throughout the project. Someone in an Internet discussion has
suggested that there could be some sort of target range where
participants could go and if they scored at a certain level, they
could be given some amount of meat to take back. (Though it
should be in the form of a whole animal that they still have to
carry back and dress themselves.)
I am still somewhat interested in the notion of these shows, but
I think the implementation is faulty—-and getting worse. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Meet Cute? (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
In response to Mark's review of THE LAKE HOUSE in the 06/23/03
issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes, "I know that "meet cute"
is a Term of Art in film criticism, but I don't know precisely
what it means. Can you enlighten me?" [-fl]
Mark replies, "I had never heard the term until Bob Devney was
writing a description of Evelyn and me that mentioned how we 'met
cute' at UMass. Apparently I had been oblivious because once he
explained it to me I started seeing it in multiple places and now
I guess I have started using it. Actually the words say it all.
In romantic comedies it seems to be applied to a potential
'breeding pair' and is used to mean to meet in some cute manner.
If they work in the same office and become attracted to each
other, that is not meeting cute. If they meet in the hallway by
one walking into the other and accidentally spilling each's lunch
onto the other and then discover the attraction, that is 'meeting
cute.' Wikipedia says: 'In the genre of romantic comedy film, a
Meet Cute is the encounter of two potential romantic partners in
unusual circumstances, a comic situation contrived by the
filmmakers entirely in order to bring them together. Sometimes
used as a verb, 'to meet cute,' or uncapitalized, 'the meet
cute,' or hyphenated, 'the meet-cute.'" [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Robots (letter of comment by Chris Garcia)
In response to Mark's article on the Robot Hall of Fame in the
06/23/06 issue of the MT VOID, Chris Garcia responds:
Chris: "The Robot Hall of Fame is one of those things that
doesn't get enough coverage around. I'm a big robot guy (the
museum where I work has a large collection, including this year's
entry, SCARA, and Shakey, a 2004 Inductee to the RHoF) and I'd
totally forgotten that they were announcing the new nominees
until I read MT VOID. Maria is a good choice. German in design,
so it's efficient and well-designed."
Mark: "I believe that Maria is the first robot in film that was
not clunky. It was intended to be a little attractive."
Chris: "Gort is a good choice, and yes, it's all about peace and
love and gooey feelings, but you must remember that Gort was a
much more realistic robot than 90% of the movie bots around the
time."
Mark: "Well, Gort was the militant arm of peace and love and
gooey feelings. He represented the feeling of 'Be nice. Don't
fight. The first one who fights, I break his head.' What I find
most notable about him was the supposedly metal casing that bent
like rubber at the joints. This definitely was not the usual
hard-cased robot."
Chris: "Don't get me started on David. A.I. was slow as molasses
and completely ruined by Spielberg. If it had been done by my
late man Stan Kubrick, it would have been longer, slower and
incredible. David as a character wasn't even the most
interesting robot in the film! That teddy bear was far more
interesting."
Mark: "I am in a small minority, but I liked it. I thought that
it explored an interesting issue. But I had recently retired and
the concept was particularly relevant to me and people I knew.
From my review: 'Permanence is a major theme of A.I. I am told a
glass bottle takes a million years to biodegrade. The purpose of
that existence may end after a month--essentially its first
moments of life, but the bottle goes on. Its whole reason for
existence is just the barest beginning of its journey. This is
bad for the environment, but not really for the bottle because it
has no feelings. But what if a machine could be given feelings
and told to love one person? What happens to a machine that has
emotions, but also longevity far greater than that of its reason
for existence? And can a machine really have feelings? If not,
why not since an accumulation of biological cells, what a human
is, can have feelings? These questions are the heart of A.I.'
[http://us.imdb.com/Reviews/285/28594]"
Chris: "Fictional [robots] that deserved to be in the Hall before
David include Johnny-Five from SHORT CIRCUIT, the Gunslinger from
WESTWORLD, Twiki from BUCK ROGERS and Marvin the Robot from H2G2.
Hell, even the Data Analyzing Youth Lifeform (D.A.R.Y.L. from the
movie of the same name).
Mark: "Johnny-Five is a bit too sentimental for me. And what
made him different is something magical, not something from the
real world. The Gunslinger is best known for malfunctioning.
Twiki? :-P I'll give you Marvin. I probably have seen
D.A.R.Y.L., but don't remember it well. If we allow magic, what
about the Golem of Prague? He is the father to them all."
Chris: "SCARA's one of the most important industrial arms and
I've even used it! The Aibo, well I'd rather have seen them
elect one like the BIPER series of Japanese Bi-Pedal walkers, the
Stanford Arm, or one of the Pluto/Neptune/Uranus bots. Not to
mention that there's always BigTrac, Armitron, Gyrobot and the
Omnibot all introduced a generation of kids to robotics. Good
issue. Thanks for covering the bots."
Mark: "Thanks for the comments."
===================================================================
TOPIC: SUPERMAN RETURNS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Brandon Routh steps into the cape of Superman for the
first film in the series in nineteen years. Though it does not
seem to hurt the film's box-office prospects, the writing of
SUPERMAN RETURNS is full of holes and the film is poorly edited.
Audiences may respond to the film's look at Superman's personal
life, still superficial, but at greater depth than in the past.
The film's subdued colors just do not work for a Superman film.
Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
Spoiler Alert: following the review is a spoiler section in which
I will discuss problems I found with the film.
The new Superman film has dim colors and dim characters. The
first television program I remember being filmed in color was
"The Adventures of Superman" with George Reeves. That was a good
choice on the part of the producers. Superman is a colorful
character. You need to see the bright blue suit and the bright
red of the cape and of the insignia. The colors really are part
of the character. Every version of Superman I remember since
then made since that time has the bright colors . . . until
SUPERMAN RETURNS. The entire film is shot with color muting
filters. The blues are drab and the reds are sort of maroon.
Back in those 1950s episodes occasionally Lois Lane might wonder
if perhaps Clark Kent could be Superman, but then would cast the
idea aside because they acted differently. The characters were
not bright enough to figure it out, but the program was aimed at
children. In SUPERMAN RETURNS, Lois and Jimmy Olson (Kate
Bosworth and Sam Huntington) notice that Kent and Superman have
the same height and build. Physically they look a lot alike. On
top of that, they each just disappeared mysteriously for five
years and each has now returned just as mysteriously. And one
point in the plot of SUPERMAN RETURNS, Superman goes through a
period of about a week when everybody in the public knows exactly
where he is (I will not say where that is.). Daily Planet editor
Perry White (played by Frank Langella) tracks his reporters
fairly closely but does not notice that for that week he does not
know where Kent is. The writers just seem to feel that they have
handled the issue and never have to worry about it again. The
staff of the Daily Planet is just going to be assumed to be
terminally dense. You have to love them because they are stupid.
Lois Lane is a reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper and
she asks how many F's there are in "catastrophic." Lex Luthor
(Kevin Spacey) on the other hand is not just an evil genius; he
is also (gasp!) an intellectual. You can tell he is an
intellectual because he listens to opera and to classical music.
[At the risk of sounding like an evil genius myself, I have to
admit that I myself am partial to opera and classical music.]
The title has a double meaning. In the real world it has been
almost since two decades since the last (regrettable) Superman
film. The loss of Christopher Reeve to play the role essentially
seemed to have ended the series. Now a new actor, Brandon Routh,
who sometime even seems to resemble Reeve, is cast as the new
Superman and Clark Kent. Admittedly Routh lacks much of Reeve's
natural charm, but then who doesn't? So, after a long hiatus
Superman is returning to the screen. In the plot Superman and
Kent are also returning, but for them it was only a five-year gap
while Superman returned to the remains of his home planet Krypton
to make some dubious connection to his own lost people. Finding
the destroyed remnant of his planet and people has left him as
emotionally empty as he started. He returns from space crashing
his crystal ship on the front lawn of Ma Kent's farm. Eva Marie
Saint (of ON THE WATERFRONT, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and EXODUS,
incidentally) plays Martha Kent. Seeing one of the most elegant
women in Hollywood still acting is probably the high point of
SUPERMAN RETURNS. Apparently in his absence Superman has learned
to use his powers to levitate, so the trip was not wasted.
Meanwhile Lex Luthor has returned to his plans to create and to
own lots of beachfront property. He forms an expedition to
Superman's Fortress of Solitude to steal crystals. The fortress
still looks majestic, but in the muted colors of Newton Thomas
Sigel's photography at the same time it looks a bit dismal.
Perhaps it needs a new coat of ice.
The screenplay seems to be rather confused and confusing. The
film opens with the explosion of Krypton and the escape vehicle
that carries the future Superman. Under the credits it flies to
Earth through interstellar space, as an amusement park engineer
would envision space. When it crashes to Earth we expect to see
a baby Superman emerge. Instead we see a grown man. Somewhere
there was a switch and we are looking at Superman returning after
his pilgrimage. Between the script and the editing the viewer is
frequently confused about just what he is seeing. Much of the
script is just bad writing as some of the problems in the spoiler
section below indicate.
There are lots of little homages to previous Superman stories
sprinkled throughout the film. Once again Superman saves airline
passengers from certain death and reminds them, as the
Christopher Reeve Superman, did that flying is still the safest
way to travel. And he should know. Of course, for Superman
there are no unsafe ways to travel. Another inside joke is to
have Jack Larson as Bo the Bartender and Noel Neill as Gertrude
Vanderworth. In the 1950s they played Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane.
The new musical score by John Ottman borrows heavily from the
1978 score for SUPERMAN by John Williams.
Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris's screenplay lays on the
Christian symbolism a little thick. Superman, we are told, is
everybody's savior who will always be around. I should also
mention some of the good aspects of the script. Superman is much
more a three-dimensional person in this film and goes through
some very human moments. In addition, Lois Lane is the vertex of
a love triangle between Superman and Richard White (James
Marsden), Perry White's nephew. The standard cliché would be to
make Richard an obviously bad choice. In fact, Richard is a very
decent person and also a good member of the team.
I suppose this is a reasonable attempt to jump-start the series
again. I would rate it as better than were three of the four
Christopher Reeve Superman outings. BATMAN BEGINS, however, did
a much better job in restarting its series. There was a lot that
was wrong with the plot of SUPERMAN RETURNS, but I will go into
that in a spoiler section after the review. I rate SUPERMAN
RETURNS a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10.
SPOILER WARNING...
These are additional script problems bothered me about the film.
-- I thought Superman flew between planets on his own. Was this
crystal spacecraft his original one as a child, or did he build
another one? We are not sure how it fits into the plot.
-- This story simply does not need a cannibal dog. Where did
that come from?
-- EMP (Electro-magnetic pulse) would simply destroy all the
computers in range and lots else beside. These computers just
seemed to go away for a few minutes and then return to the exact
screens they left.
-- I might believe that Lois Lane would break into a boat where
she thinks some evil doing is going on. Would the door be left
open for her? Would she bring her young son into danger with
her?
-- What kind of a hoodlum is assigned to watch two prisoners and
then sits down to play a piano (!) with one where he cannot see
the other?
-- The Man of Steel is going to have sex with a human partner?
Think of all the problems that causes. First they are not even
the same species. Then he is the Man of Steel. Wouldn't she be
ripped apart? Larry Niven wrote "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex"
a collection of the problems such a union would have.
http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
-- Superman flies up an elevator shaft and the next thing we see
he is out of the building. What does he do, fly through the
roof? I doubt the top of the shaft is open to the weather.
-- There is a huge disaster happening in Metropolis. Is saving
Lois Lane and a couple of other people really the best use of his
powers? Hundreds or thousands may be dying. Isn't he more
needed elsewhere? [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a most pleasant film that lets the audience see
a live performance of the radio show, has a little bit of plot
and some nice dialog, but not much extraordinary. It is just a
restful interlude, and perhaps that is enough. Rating: +1 (-4 to
+4) or 6/10
Everything about A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION seems to run against
the tide. It is a film based on an internationally popular radio
show. How many films have been based on radio shows since the
1940s? How many popular radio shows are there any more? And how
many of current radio shows have a feel of old-fashioned, down-
home values? And how much do we see of old-fashioned values in a
film? I almost want to rate this film highly just for the sheer
audacity of its lacking any sort of audacity. For those who did
not already know the radio show is the brainchild of American
humorist and performance artist Garrison Keillor, a tall, beefy
man with docile boxer-dog looks. It is hard to apply such a
modish label as "performance artist" to such a folksy, soft-
spoken man, but that is really what he is.
It probably is not fair to penalize the film A PRAIRIE HOME
COMPANION because the radio program it is based on is good. But
the truth is that most of the entertainment value of the film is
just seeing an episode of the radio program, or a reasonable
facsimile thereof, done on film. Still, one wants there to be
more value here than there is of just listening to the radio
program. Indeed there is, but it is not enough to justify the
price of a movie ticket. What else do you get? You get to see
some of how an episode is performed, and many of the faces you
see are the real people who produce the show. You get some
dialog spoken by good actors like Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Lily
Tomlin, Kevin Kline, and Tommy Lee Jones. The dialog is
reasonably well written, with a script by Keillor that has some
okay character development. You get the lightest soupcon of a
story.
The story is that this is the very last performance of A PRAIRIE
HOME COMPANION. The big money interests from Texas actually own
the show and have decided that they want to end the show's
thirty-year-run. Everybody in the cast is under the cloud of
knowing this is the last time they will have the pleasure of
getting up and doing the show. Only the host, G.K. (Garrison
Keillor), seems unfazed by the finality. But still the
production of the show is just getting some people together to
have a good time, and somehow the show gets made. In that regard
the production of the show is like the production of the films of
the films of Robert Altman, who just happens to be the director
of this film.
The film plays a little with the show. Guy Noir (played by Kevin
Kline), who in this story is a real person rather than a weekly
character, is the security man for the program. He knows there
is something strange going on at the set. There is a mysterious
beautiful woman (Virginia Madsen) in a white raincoat roaming
around. He knows she should not be there, but does not know what
she wants.
Most of the film takes place during the performance of the
program. The camera is on the stage during the humor sections
and its attention wanders away during the musical sections, which
is more or less how most people experience the radio program.
The viewer often wanders into the middle of conversations in
progress and wanders out before they are done. We listen in on
the backstage conversations of Guy Noir and the singing sisters
Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Tomlin and Streep). There are two
bad-boy cowboys, Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John
C. Reilly). Yolanda has brought her daughter, Lola (Lindsey
Lohan), a singer and poet who for no apparent reason is fixated
on suicide. All the characters talk little like Keillor. Many
of the functionaries putting on the broadcast are the real people
from the radio show.
The movie is a lot like everything Keillor does, reliable and
pleasant, but nothing very exciting or even remarkable. It is
the cinematic equivalent of a dish of vanilla ice cream. Keillor
and Altman give us just 105 minutes of quiet pleasure. I rate A
PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Incidentally, conspicuously absent is the "News from Lake
Woebegon" section, really the centerpiece of the radio show.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
The regular book group this month read THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF
THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME by Mark Haddon (ISBN 1-400-03271-7);
the science fiction group read THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth
Moon (ISBN 0-345-48139-9). I have already commented on both of
these (THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME by Mark
Haddon in the 04/23/04 issue of the MT VOID and THE SPEED OF
DARK by Elizabeth Moon in the 03/28/03 issue), but I have to add
that on second reading, the Haddon stands up much better than the
Moon. One problem is that Moon's autistic characters have
undergone a science-fictional treatment, "early intervention",
which made them basically less "autistic" and more "normal".
(Yes, I realize that the terms "autistic" and "normal" are both
politically incorrect and medically inaccurate. But I am trying
to keep this column short.) This treatment makes the story
easier, but less interesting. Haddon's character is more
authentic, which ultimately makes him more interesting. (I will
note that other people thought the Moon was more interesting than
the Haddon.) One thing everybody agreed on was that many of the
symptoms displayed by the autistic characters in both books were
characteristics of a lot of (presumably) non-autistic people that
they knew. A lot of the discussion time, in fact, was spent
discussing just what autism is and how one arrives at that
diagnosis.
THE SECRET DOCUMENTS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by June Thomson (ISBN
0-7490-0407-X) is the fourth in Thomson's series of Sherlock
Holmes pastiche collections. (The first three are THE SECRET
FILES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE SECRET CHRONICLES OF SHERLOCK
HOLMES, and THE SECRET JOURNALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.) These are
among the best pastiches being written now, staying true to the
tone of the originals. (Too many of today's authors feel
compelled to add sex, or violence, or twenty-first sensibilities,
or humor, or something else inappropriate for a Holmes story.)
These seven stories (or most of them) also are based on asides or
references in the original Doyle stories, giving them additional
authenticity. There are also a lot of footnotes, giving this the
appearance of an annotated edition, except of course, the
footnotes are by the same person who wrote the text.
EXPLORERS OF THE NEW CENTURY by Magnus Mills (ISBN 0-15-603078-0)
starts out as a straightforward exploration story, with two
competing teams trying to reach the AFP ("Agreed Furthest
Point"). The two groups land their ships on a desolate shore,
unload their mules and their supplies, and start out. Some
events seem almost pastiches of the Shackleton and other polar
expeditions. (For example, Shackleton's ship was the Endurance;
one in the book was the Perseverance.) However, as the groups
progress, the similarities are fewer and various anomalies start
to appear. (Actually, the changes are fairly predictable,
assuming one does expect the book to eventually make its own
way.) Even so, it is also a nicely compact story (at 184 pages),
and I would recommend it. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The trouble with doing something right
the first time is that nobody appreciates
how difficult it was.
-- Walt West