THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/24/06 -- Vol. 25, No. 21, Whole Number 1362
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:
I Have Special Powers (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
CASINO ROYALE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
OPAL DREAM (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Subtitled Books (letter of comment by Charles S. Harris)
This Week's Reading (THE WOMAN AND THE APE,
THE CLUB OF ANGELS, and THE LADIES OF GRACE ADIEU)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: I Have Special Powers (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Maybe the superhero comic books are not so far-fetched. I know I
have special powers. I think I have a sense that the vast majority
of other people do not have. I am quite serious about this.
Not long ago I was talking to a friend about animals and their
ability to know when things like earthquakes and tsunamis are
coming. My friend thought these stories were all folklore. I
said that it was true that some animals have senses that we do
not have. My friend assumed I was joking. The truth is dogs
have some ability that some have called "air-tasting" that allows
them to know things about their environment that we cannot
detect. Where I read about this--and I am not sure where--they
said that dogs have a sixth sense. Whether there is a sixth
sense they have or whether they have only the same five senses
and some are just more sensitive than our version is not clear.
Well, certainly, there are animals that do not have all our five
senses. It is quite conceivable that we do not have all the
senses that another animal might have. Brains are complex things
and they are not all wired the same way. It seems to be quite
likely that we do not have all the senses that exist out there.
But even within a species some members may have a sense that
other people do not have. And maybe there are some that some
people have that others do not. Well, let me tell you my story
in this regard. When I was about seven or eight, my brother had
a game called Electric Baseball. It had an electric vibrator in
the board and that would make the plastic player pieces run the
bases. If you drummed your fingers on the board they would move
forward also. I noticed, however, that when the game was plugged
in I could feel the electricity in the board.
Now what do I mean by that? If my hand was stationary I could
not tell if it was getting power or not. But if I gently ran my
fingertips along the metal when it was turned on I felt something
that I can only call a vibrating sensation. If it was unplugged
I got no vibrating sensation. I decided at first that it was
somehow related to the fact that the board had a vibrator in it.
Actually I now think it was just that the game had cheap wiring.
Perhaps there was a small short in it. But for several years I
just thought that everybody could feel electricity in some
appliances.
Let us flash forward to me somewhere about age thirty. We were
having problems with a refrigerator not working in our kitchen.
It just did not seem to turn on. And we had some sort of a
repairperson in. He said that the problem was probably that the
outlet we had it plugged in. The refrigerator was probably just
not getting any current. I said, no, it was getting power
because I could feel it running my hand over the refrigerator. I
wish I could describe the look I he gave me. He clearly thought
I was a loony. Evelyn was convinced I was joking. I said, no,
you know you can feel the current in some appliances when you
just run your hand over them. It turned out I was right that the
refrigerator was getting power, but both thought it was just a
lucky guess. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Later I asked Evelyn if she could not feel the electricity in
some objects. No, she said she could not and I could not either.
I said it was like the fan in the other room. I could feel
whether it was plugged in or not by running my hand over it, even
if it was turned off. I guess wives are supposed to be skeptical
of husbands. If Lois Lane actually married Superman she would
probably immediately start to question whether he really could
fly.
But we decided to set up a test. Evelyn would plug and unplug the
fan behind my back and I would tell her by feeling the fan
whether it was getting power or not. She, of course, would try
to fake me out by pretending to plug in the fan when she had not
or unplug it without my realizing it. Or leaving it plugged in an
unplugging something else. We were going to do something like
twenty trials, but Evelyn stopped it earlier when I was never
wrong. She grudgingly accepted that I could feel some sort of
surface current on some appliances that she could not.
I know of one other person who seems to have this power. A co-
worker at Bell Laboratories said he could do the same thing. And
he is someone that most people who knew him considered a reliable
witness. Apparently there are some people, a small percentage,
who are sensitive on that level and some who are not. I know
that I am not noted for any particularly sensitive fingers in
other regards. I just seem to have this one sense, a subset of
the many senses to go together to make the group-sense we call
"touch."
Now my question is, are there other people out there who have
unusual senses that you know most other people do not have?
(Okay, I know I am asking for a bunch of moonbats to come out of
the woodwork, but some of you may really have special powers.)
This should be something that is considered a useful sense.
Detecting six-foot-tall invisible rabbits does not count. If you
accept that I have this talent--which I do--any idea what
proportion of the population might have it?
Or do you all think I am nuts?
Or both? [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: CASINO ROYALE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is probably the best James Bond on film and
probably the best James Bond film. Daniel Craig's James Bond is
gritty and mean and a lot more real, albeit still too much a
superhero. He has human fallibility and he gets hurt. The
story, closer than usual to the novel for a Bond film, is more
like a serious spy novel and less like a children's television
show. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
On the Internet some fans complained when Daniel Craig was
announced as the next James Bond. He seemed wrong for the part.
I was not one of them. Now there is serious discussion as to
whether or not he is the best Bond. I vote that he is.
In THE ROAD TO PERDITION one of Tom Hanks's boys asks Paul
Newman's troublesome son why he is always smiling. He responds
"'cause it's all so f*ckin' hysterical" with a smile that chills
your blood. I do not think I had ever noticed this particular
actor before that though I had undoubtedly seen him. But I knew
in those few seconds that I would be seeing this guy again. I
did not think of him as James Bond necessarily. Actually I was
rather expecting that Clive Owen would be the next Bond but when
Daniel Craig was chosen I was optimistic. Daniel Craig is a guy
who is not handsome in the traditional sense. And I do not want
a Bond who is particularly handsome--effective spies do not draw
too much attention to themselves. In most of the films Bond is a
fop who can fight well. My impression of Bond from the books was
that he was a thug who could wear a tuxedo. Timothy Dalton was
probably my favorite Bond to this point because he looked like he
could be mean. But Craig's face is craggy and a little scary at
the best of times. When he smiles he looks like he is
remembering tearing wings off of flies.
The Eon Production Company people (who made all the "main line"
of James Bond films) have just about driven the Bond character
into the ground. He had some edge in DR. NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH
LOVE. But by GOLDFINGER he was back to getting a lot of lucky
breaks and serendipity like he did in DR. NO. By the time YOU
ONLY LIVE TWICE came along he was the world's champion at most
things he tried. And ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE had the
last worried looks we ever saw on his face. Well, there was some
decent stuff at the very beginning of DIE ANOTHER DAY when he is
held prisoner by the North Koreans, but by the middle of the film
he was back to Superman, perhaps without the cape but with an
invisible car. So what was the choice for the franchise? Back
in the 1960s nobody wanted a hero who could kill and not feel
bad. 007 with a license to kill actually killed in cold blood
once in DR. NO and once in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. But times have
changed and British crime films have gotten more violent with a
large body count, Eon probably asked itself why hold back on the
license to kill in the Bond films? The newly reborn James Bond
is a much more realistic Bond who can kill in cold blood a lot
more easily, and does so even before the opening credits. The
sequence before the credits is done it stark black and white to
establish the grittier feel before going to the bright colors of
the credit sequence almost as if they are signaling a rebirth.
The credit sequence is as flashy as the old Maurice Binder
sequences, but shows far less female flesh. That is in keeping
with the new Bond character who is less womanizer and more
action. What else is different about the new Bond? He does not
come with a perfect tuxedo. He makes mistakes (big ones that
damage the government). He gets hurt (frequently and painfully).
He bleeds and he breathes hard after exertion. The villain is
very much as Fleming wrote him. And the villain is a desperate
man. The villain has real motivation. He has a mathematical
mind and asthma rather than something like razor metal teeth.
This is not the kind of film that will end with the Queen
accidentally seeing Bond making love to the female lead. One
definitely has the feeling at the end of the film that whatever
happens next, it will not be lovemaking.
What is the same? Well, he is still too much of a superman in
the action sequences. There are overly long chase sequences
where he shows the agility of a spider monkey and the energy of
strong eight men. He still is phenomenally lucky, getting just
the right clue at the right time. He also has just the right
piece of equipment in his car to get him out of serious trouble.
It is current technology, but it is ridiculous to think that
anybody carries emergency equipment like this in his car. That
was plain bad writing. But not all the writing is as bad. In
many ways this film makes fun of the absurdities of the older
screen Bonds. (I liked Bond's reaction when asked if his martini
should be shaken or stirred. The new Bond is clearly making war
on the old Bond.)
The plot will be familiar to Bond fans since it is loosely based
on the novel of the same title. This one is actually an origin
story for James Bond. James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) has to
prove himself to MI6 and M (Judi Dench) in order to get a double-
0 classification. He has to kill two people on assignment to be
licensed to kill more at his discretion. One he kills with brute
force and one with finesse. Vacationing afterward he gets
involved with people who are involved with people who are
involved with financier to terrorists Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen,
in the role previously played by Peter Lorre and Orson Welles).
But the plan is not to kill Le Chiffre but to bankrupt him at the
gaming tables. Bond is given an assistant, Vesper Lynd (Eva
Green), but she is definitely not a "Bond Girl." For this task
MI6 funds Bond to the sum of ten million. (I do not believe we
are ever told ten million what.) To any but the fans of
Celebrity Poker it is difficult to make card gambling very
interesting, but there is almost always something else going on
at the same time.
Now what I would like to see is all the Fleming books redone in
order with Craig as James Bond as he was written in the books. I
wonder if we will see that. In any case this film gives us a
chance to rediscover James Bond on the screen for the first time.
I rate it a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10. It is a
little strange to see a Columbia logo on a James Bond film.
For those who are interested, this is my listing of the 21 Eon
James Bond films from best to worst.
1. CASINO ROYALE (2006)
2. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
3. ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
4. THUNDERBALL
5. DR. NO
6. LICENSE TO KILL
7. GOLDFINGER
8. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
9. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
10. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
11. THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS
12. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME
13. OCTOPUSSY
14. TOMORROW NEVER DIES
15. GOLDENEYE
16. DIE ANOTHER DAY
17. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
18. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
19. A VIEW TO A KILL
20. MOONRAKER
21. LIVE AND LET DIE
[NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and CASINO ROYALE (1967) are not included
in this list because they are not Eon productions.]
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: OPAL DREAM (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: When a nine-year-old's imaginary friends go missing, her
father humors her by pretending to look for them and gets himself
into trouble doing it. This is a somewhat low-energy telling of
a simple children's story set in the opal-rich desert of
Australia's Outback. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
What South Africa is for diamonds, the deserts of the
southwestern Australia are for opals. Most of the opals in the
world come from the town of Coober Pedy in Australia. And there
is where opal hunters lead a bleak existence in the solitary
profession of digging in the ground to find what are essentially
pretty stones. In this dusty setting we find the Williamson
family. Rex (Vince Colosimo) has a checkered past and a dream of
some day hitting the jackpot by finding a treasure in opals.
Meanwhile his two children lead a lonely existence. Nine-year-
old Kellyanne (Sapphire Boyce) is so lonely that her life
revolves around her two imaginary friends Pobby and Dingan. In a
manner reminiscent of HARVEY they are more real to her than the
visible people around her. Somewhat over Rex's objections the
family humors her giving deference to the two invented members of
the family.
One day the two go with Rex to the digging. Rex's idea is to
start weaning Kellyanne of her delusion by giving her a day
without them. His own delusion that he will some day strike it
rich maybe does more damage to the family than the imaginary
friends do, but he would like the family to live with one less
delusion. There is a cave-in and Rex barely escapes alive. Soon
Kellyanne is informing them that Pobby and Dingan are now
missing. She demands the family search for the missing friends.
Kellyanne even insists that Rex search near a neighbor's mine
diggings. Rex is caught trespassing and accused of "ratting."
Though it is not explained, apparently ratting is stealing from
someone else's diggings and is a crime hated like horse thieving
or cattle rustling was in the American West. The Williamsons now
have two crises: Kellyanne and the ostracism of the town. OPAL
DREAM itself "rats" a little on a classic Christmas film to
resolve the problems.
Peter Cattaneo, the director of the popular film THE FULL MONTY,
had his work cut out for him filming the novella "Pobby and
Dingan" by Ben Rice. Cattaneo and Rice co-authored the
screenplay. The film is a United Kingdom and Australian co-
production.
OPAL DREAM is a film that may work better in Australia than it
does in the United States. The setting is not just unfamiliar to
Americans, but is also an extremely uninviting one. Robert
Humphreys's cinematography emphasizes the ugliness and not the
beauty of the land. The setting seems more appropriate to a
WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND post-Holocaust sort of story than to a
children's film that is trying to sell itself on the basis of
charm. Similarly, the names of the two imaginary characters
Pobby and Dingan in Coober Pedy will be unfamiliar to children
and lacking in the lyrical qualities that we find in the names in
the "Harry Potter" sort of films. Children and adults might well
have problems understanding the thick Australian accents or even
realizing that in Australia Christmas comes in early summer.
This film requires some fore-knowledge and effort for the
audience to be at the point they can sit back and enjoy. Any of
this could be overcome by a really engaging story, but even there
the film's offerings are very slight. Under the story one feels
this is a subtext about a family leading an unpleasant life
apparently due in large part to the father's obsession with the
unrewarding profession of opal hunting. The family nurtures the
delusions of two of its members. The film never really comes to
terms with why the Williamson family is living this nomadic,
ramshackle existence in such unappealing surroundings. In the
end this film has a sort of Bret Harte tone of people in
adversity making the best of it at Christmas time.
OPAL DREAM is a sentimental film, and such a film needs more
charm than it evokes in the United States. I rate it a +1 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 6/10. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Subtitled Books (letter of comment by Charles S. Harris)
In response to Evelyn's comments on subtitled books in the
11/17/06 issue of the MT VOID, Charlie Harris sends the following
blog excerpt by Michael D. Lemonick:
"Anyway, I hated pigeons too, until I read a terrific new book,
appropriately enough titled PIGEONS: THE FASCINATING SAGA OF THE
WORLD'S MOST REVERED AND REVILED BIRD, by Andrew D. Blechman.
. . . I tend to be cynical about books like this with one-word
titles and grandiose subtitles. (You know the type--"Cheese: The
Fermented Dairy Product that Toppled Empires"; "Elastic: The
Twangy Stuff That Transformed Underwear Forever." I leave it as
an exercise for the reader to decide whether these particular
versions of that badly overworked, copycat genre are real)."
The full blog is at:
http://time.blogs.com/eye_on_science/2006/11/dont_you_just_l.html
[I don't know if cheese ever toppled empires, but I do know that
it was Parmesan cheese that made Italy grate. -mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE WOMAN AND THE APE by Peter Hoeg, translated by Barbara
Haveland (ISBN 0-374-29203-5) was chosen as the book for joint
science fiction and general discussion groups meeting. (The
general group meets the third Thursday of each month; the science
fiction group meets the fourth Thursday. But in November the
fourth Thursday is Thanksgiving, so we try to pick a science
fiction book with general appeal. In 2004 it was THE EYRE AFFAIR
by Jasper Fforde; in 2005 it was BRING THE JUBILEE by Ward
Moore.)
Anyway, someone in the general group suggested THE WOMAN AND THE
APE a few months ago, so we tagged it for the joint meeting. The
premise is that someone has discovered "a highly developed
anthropoid ape, the closest thing yet to a human being." Adam
Burden names him Erasmus and brings him back to London, where
Adam's wife Madelene falls in love with Erasmus, and helps him
escape. This book reminds me of a lot of books with similar
themes: HIS MONKEY WIFE by John Collier, YOU SHALL KNOW THEM by
Vercors, or even DAISY, IN THE SUN by Connie Willis. THE WOMAN
AND THE APE, though, has a strong emphasis on how the protagonist
is not understood by her spouse, etc. Lest you think it is a
"males-are-bad" thing, the spouse's sister and female secretary
are no prizes either. It is just another level of "humans are
bad."
There are more compound and complex sentences (one might even say
run-on sentences) than I usually see in novels these days.
(Example: "But the world has changed, now was the time to study,
present and preserve, and he had said this with the gravity that
comes from knowing that your family goes back seven hundred
years, that you have had splendid ancestors and that you are
yourself even better." I do not know if that is true in the
original Danish, or whether that is an artifact of the
translation.
Hoeg has one of his characters claim, by the way, that London has
more non-human animals per square mile than any other area of
Great Britain, and more than "Mato Grosso in the dry season." I
have no idea if this is true. I do know that this should not be
read as a completely realistic novel--several plot points strain
credulity beyond what would be expected in a science fiction
novel. Whether it should be considered magical realism, or a
fable, or what is not clear, but it is not strictly a classical
science fiction novel.
THE CLUB OF ANGELS by Luis Fernando Verissimo, translated by
Margaret Jull Costa (ISBN 0-8112-1500-8) is about a club of ten
diners who get together once a month for a dinner. One year
someone comes along who offers to cook all the dinners, but then
each month one person dies right after the dinner. There are
some elements of mystery in it, but it is not a traditional
mystery story, nor is it as good as the author's latest book,
BORGES AND THE ETERNAL ORANGUTANS. As Verissimo's BORGES AND THE
ETERNAL ORANGUTANS, this book also has delightful cover art by
Fernando Botero. This picture, "The Supper", is more matched to
its book's subject matter than his "Hombre Fumando" was to BORGES
AND THE ETERNAL ORANGUTANS.
THE LADIES OF GRACE ADIEU by Susanna Clarke (ISBN 1-596-91251-0)
is a collection of stories by the author of JONATHAN STRANGE AND
MR NORRELL. The stories are set in the same milieu as that
novel, with some of the same characters. If you liked the novel,
you will like these, and if you found the novel too intimidating
due to its size, these provide a more manageable introduction to
that world. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon,
but that we wait so long to begin it.
-- Anon.