THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/24/08 -- Vol. 27, No. 17, Whole Number 1516
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
In Defense of the Amoeba (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Fascinating and Beautiful Talk (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
We Are ALL Moses Now (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Goya (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (THE GIRLS' GUIDE TO HUNTING AND
FISHING, MAN IN THE DARK, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE
NORTH, TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: In Defense of the Amoeba (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
You know what word bothers me a lot? It is the word "pseudopod".
I mean what does it mean? It means literally a "false foot". It
is like a foot, but is not one. And an amoeba gets around
extending out a part of itself and pushing itself along as if it
were a foot. But it is a false foot. At least that is the modern
point of view. I will tell you what bothers me. Amoeba were among
the earliest protozoa. And they are essentially unchanged since
they first existed. That means way back when about the only forms
of life were protozoa they had pseudopodia. So there were
pseudopodia hundreds of millions of years before the first thing
that we would call a foot. And the coming of feet was my no means
fore-ordained. So how can you have a false imitation of something
that might have never come along? What was it imitating? Nothing!
It was a thing on its own. May I strongly suggest that the proper
wording would be that what amoeba have are "podia". Those stiff
things under your ankles are "parapodia". [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Fascinating and Beautiful Talk (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
If you want to see an impressive show about subatomic particles and
symmetries and why the Large Hadron Collider was built, see
"Garrett Lisi: A Beautiful New Theory Of Everything." Don't expect
to understand it all, but it shows the beauty and symmetry of the
cutting edge research in sub-atomic particle. The film runs about
21 minutes. Even if you cannot understand everything (and don't
expect to) you can appreciate the beauty.
http://tinyurl.com/garrett-particles
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: We Are ALL Moses Now (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I have to tell you that I have always felt like something of a
misfit. I feel out of place. It is like there was something going
on and I just had not been told about it. And I knew it was
terrible. Things just did not seem right around me. Time was out
of joint. I had this creepy feeling that there was some huge
injustice being done. And partly as a result of this I have felt
that I have had a sort of kinship with those oppressed. It is sort
of like the Charlton Heston Moses in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. But I
did not until recently know just how much it was like that. Okay,
I know I am not making any sense. Let me explain.
Some of you may remember that just about five years ago I found a
cause that I could be deeply committed to. In the 10/03/03 issue
of the MT VOID I explained the situation. It can be found at:
http://fanac.org/fanzines/MT_Void/MT_Void-2214.html
The editorial was entitled "Not in MY Name". I explained just
what this nasty situation was. As I said at that time:
"We grew up with [the] Sagittarius [Galaxy] in the sky. It is about
one-tenth the diameter of the Milky Way but weighs less than one-
thousandth as much as the Milky Way. It is just a little shy thing
up there. It had to feel intimidated being so close to a
heavyweight galaxy like the Milky Way? We now know that Milky Way
galaxy has been eating pieces of our little friend [the Sagittarius
Galaxy]. It probably has been going on for years. Thousands of
stars have been ripped from our friend are coming to our part of
the Milky Way galaxy. Milky Way is outright stealing this matter
from its near neighbor to send our way. Why? Because it can.
Because it is big and massive and has pull. Because it wants to
throw its weight around. I feel just terrible. I mean at one point
I was proud to say I was a citizen of the Milky Way galaxy. I mean
in spite of the bucolic name, I felt I was a part of something
bigger than myself. Well, it's big all right. Milky Way is really
big. It is big enough to steal matter from other galaxies that it
has no right to. It just is not big enough to know it is wrong,
Wrong, WRONG! Astronomers from the University of Virginia and the
University of Massachusetts did the study. You can see the press
release at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=12630.
"It's clear who's the bully in the interaction," said Steven
Majewski, University of Virginia professor of astronomy and primary
author of a paper revealing the discovery? Astronomers from the
University of Virginia and the University of Massachusetts did the
study. '" This study is called the Two-Micron All Sky Survey
(2MASS). [I think the name "2MASS" is an allusion to "UMass" since
the project is led by my alma mater, the University of
Massachusetts.]
But there is more to the story. Something the same study found
more recently is dynamite. Last year the awful truth was
discovered. And this is what the Powers that Be are keeping from
you. (In fact none of the four Presidential candidates has even
mentioned it.) Get this. They say "If we originated from the
Milky Way, we ought to be oriented to the galaxy's ecliptic, with
the planets aligned around our Sun in much the same angle as our
Sun aligns with the Milky Way. Instead, as first suggested by
researcher Matthew Perkins Erwin, the odd angle suggests that our
Sun is influenced by some other system. Together with data from
the Two-Micron All Sky Survey we now know what it is. We actually
belong to the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy."
http://www.mondovista.com/milkyway.html
Let me repeat that last part again. "WE ACTUALLY BELONG TO THE
SAGITTARIUS DWARF GALAXY." What does that do to your loyalty to
the Milky Way? What do you think of your galaxy now? Boy, you
were upset about Pluto not being a planet. Here we were taken in
bonds of gravitational force from our true galaxy, WITHOUT OUR
CONSENT. Is it any wonder things are screwed up and out of
balance?
And even if we had intergalactic drives, we could not go home
again. There is no home to go back to. The Milky Way is ripping
up our home galaxy so that there will be nothing left by the time
we can get there. This is it. We are pretty much in the Milky Way
for keeps. Don't be fooled by the cutesy, maternal name the Milky
Way, it is one heck of a mean, greedy, and vicious galaxy. It
probably would not let us go back even if we tried. But I tell you
this. The Milky Way may think it has the human race under its
proverbial thumb. It maybe has us for the time being. But it is
not going to get one ounce of cooperation from me. I am going to
resist it in any way that I can. Well, I am not actually sure what
I can do right now. But I am open to suggestions.
But I suggest your remember your true heritage. When you see that
white band across the sky look up defiantly. That is the Milky
Way. Those are your captors. Start thinking of yourself as a
brave Sagittarian and no longer as a simpering Milky Wayian. And
you share that heritage with some of the most noble people in
history. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Goya (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In response to Mark's comments on Goya in the 10/17/08 issue of the
MT VOID, Evelyn writes:
I would like to add a few of my own comments on some of the prints.
For example, I was stuck by the technical excellence of "Mala
noche" (number #36) which shows a couple on a very windy night--and
everything about the clothes, the hair, etc., make you really
*feel* the wind. And "Miren que grabes!" ("Look How Solemn They
Are!") (number 63) has amazing detail.
See http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Goya__Caprichos.pdf and add two to
the sequence number.
In the "Donkey Series" (numbers 37 through 42), "Asta su abuelo"
(number 39) shows a donkey showing off a book of his genealogy.
This is obvious satire on its own, but there is more to it. In
Spain, there had been for centuries the concept of "Limpieza de
Sangre" ("Cleanliness of Blood")--proofs that one was descended
from "old" Catholics and not from converted Jews or Moors. These
records were kept in large books, and the book that the donkey is
displaying makes one think of these "books of blood". A later
print, "La filiacion" (lineage) (number 57), is on a similar
theme.
"Los chinchillas" (number 50) has a character whose head is
surprisingly shaped like that of Universal Studios Frankenstein,
and also has similarities to scenes from the film BEDLAM (about
the notorious Bethlem Royal Hospital of London, a insane asylum).
(Since the latter came from Hogarth engravings, there might be a
link through them.)
If you want to get children interested in Goya, show them "Sopla"
("Blow") (number 69). I'll bet they never thought that great art
included scenes of creatures lighting torches with flatulence!
In addition to the Goya prints, there was a section titled "Legacy
of Goya", which included works by Pablo Picasso, Yinka Shonibare,
and Enrique Chagoya, all inspired by "Los Caprichos". Chagoya's
are the closest to Goya, with copies of eight prints. For example,
he has copied "Se repulan", but with Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms,
and the purple Teletubby. His version of "A caza de diontes" has
Snow White and Rat Fink. And all of Chagoya's prints have a stamp
that says "Museo de canabalismo y technologia macrobiotica". I
have no idea what that signifies, but it reminds me somewhat of the
Museum of Jurassic Technology. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
My regular book discussion group chose THE GIRLS' GUIDE TO HUNTING
AND FISHING by Melissa Bank (ISBN-13 978-0-140-27882-8, ISBN-10
0-140-27882-6) for this month. It is supposedly a humorous novel
(or rather, a collection of related humorous stories) but I didn't
find it funny at all. I just found the characters either boring or
annoying.
MAN IN THE DARK by Paul Auster (ISBN-13 978-0-8050-8839-7, ISBN-10
0-8050-8839-3) is an alternate history--sort of. The narrator Owen
Brick (well, one of the narrators--the book has multiple first-
person narrators) wakes up in a pit and soon discovers that he is
in an alternate world and has been brought there to be given
instructions to kill someone. The other narrator, August Brill, is
entangled in this story in a very unusual way, and what makes
things even odder is that the alternate history aspect vanishes
entirely from the final third of the book. Given that the book is
only 180 pages long, Auster has a lot going on in such a small
space. As an alternate history, it's okay, but its real appeal is
its convoluted structure rather than the alternate history aspect.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE NORTH by Philip Pullman (ISBN-13
978-0-375-84510-9, ISBN-10 0-375-84510-0) is another "sort of"
alternate history. It is set in Pullman's "His Dark Materials"
universe, which has a fairly substantial alternate history basis,
but ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE NORTH itself uses very little of that.
It is basically a Wild West (or perhaps Northwest) story, with some
fantasy elements added (e.g., armored talking bears, balloons), and
tells an early story in the life of Lee Scoresby. It is mostly
notable, I think, for the engravings by John Lawrence, and the
letters, book extracts, newspaper clippings, bills of lading, and
so forth, reproduced as informational illustrations, and also for
the general quality of the physical book itself. Though issued as
a book, it is really only novella-length (I estimate about 20,000
words). As such, it is similar to the previously published LYRA'S
OXFORD. Either of these would be a nice present for a teenager who
enjoyed the trilogy; I'm not sure there is enough depth for adult
readers.
I liked TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY by John Steinbeck (ISBN-13
978-0-142-00070-0, ISBN-10 0-142-00070-1) so much that I
recommended it for my afternoon reading group. In the 1960s,
Steinbeck traveled across the United States and back, making
observations about the country and how much things had changed in
his lifetime. Reading it now, one gets a second level of
realization--that of how much things have changed since the 1960s.
(Charley, by the way, was Steinbeck's dog.) [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap,
soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
-- Samuel Butler