THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
12/12/08 -- Vol. 27, No. 24, Whole Number 1523
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Spam Message (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
John Thain's Decision (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Forrest J. Ackerman, R.I.P. (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
1776 (book review by Mark R. Leeper)
The Class of 2100 (letter of comment by David Shallcross)
INDEPENDENCE DAY (letter of comment by Kenneth Howard)
Alternate Histories (letter of comment by Mike Glyer)
This Week's Reading (book purchases) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Spam Message (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I'm sorry. It may be a cruel form of humor, but I have to say
that every once in a while I take a perverse pleasure in seeing a
really incompetent piece of spam in my email box. This was a lot
of fun. Only the phone digits have been edited.
Subject: BAD economy? Low salary? Buy an University
Dip1oma/Bacheelor from us, No Study/Exam needed vus iby
Would You like to: Increase your Salary? Increase your
Marketability? Increase your Ability To find other work?
Increase your Desirability?
Please call: x-xxx-xxx-xxxx
(Inside USA) +x-xxx-xxx-xxxx (Outside USA) is an University
Dip1oma/Degree Holding you back? Kindly call us To
inquire about Our degree programs. Whether you are Seeking a
Bacheelor, Diploma, M B A /P h D We can provide you
credentials to Get you better career No exam, Study, test, or
courseworks required Please call: x-xxx-xxx-xxxx
(Inside USA) +x-xxx-xxx-xxxx (Outside USA)
Please Leave us your "Name, Country and Phone No. with
Countrycode" Our Staff will call You back soon
[Where were these guys when I was in school? -mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: John Thain's Decision (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
John Thain is the chairman and CEO of Wall Street bank Merrill
Lynch, which was given $10,000,000,000 in aid this year taken from
your pocket as a taxpayer. Some quotes tell a story. (References
at end of article. Words in full caps are my emphasis.)
"John Thain, who took the reins of Merrill Lynch A YEAR AGO, has
suggested to its directors that he be payed [sic] the multimillion-
dollar 2008 bonus but the company's compensation committee is
resisting, according to The Wall Street Journal." His company
"lost 72 percent of its stock market value this year." "A proposal
had been sent to Merrill's compensation committee a few months ago
for Thain to be paid more than 30 million dollars for the year
including bonuses, but that figure has since been pared down." A
little later "Mr Thain had let it be known to the board's
compensation committee that HE DESERVED a $5-$10m bonus. The
report suggested that he felt he had EARNED THE MONEY." "Meanwhile,
for the second year running, Mr Thain's opposite number at Morgan
Stanley has also decided to pass on his bonus." New York Attorney
General Andrew Cuomo said "The performance of Merrill's top
executives throughout Merrill's abysmal year in no way justifies
significant bonuses for its top executives." Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid condemned Thain's bonus request, "Americans
deciding which bills to pay this month just to make ends meet do
not want their hard-earned money even indirectly spent rewarding
executives from banks that are largely responsible for the economic
crisis." "The newspaper said the committee and full board were to
meet Monday to hear Thain's bonus requests for himself and other
top executives of the firm that suffered billions of dollars in
losses this year and narrowly avoided collapse by selling itself to
Bank of America."
Mr Thain "on Monday night told the board that HIS DECISION not to
take a bonus was appropriate 'given current economic and market
conditions'."
http://tinyurl.com/5s6gam
http://tinyurl.com/6o3bgr
http://tinyurl.com/63ottk
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Forrest J. Ackerman, R.I.P. (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I guess it is time to say good-bye to Forrest J. Ackerman. I knew
that he was very highly regarded among the fans. I just did not
realize how many people in how many news media were his fans. I
thought there were a few monster geeks like me who knew of him, but
I am seeing tributes come from all over the country. Apparently
there were legions of us who owe a debt to Forry.
I didn't need Forry to become a monster geek myself. I loved
monsters from the age of five or six. When I was nine or so I
heard another kid say that he *had* to get a copy of "Famous
Monsters". As soon as I knew there was a magazine called "Famous
Monsters" (more accurately "Famous Monsters of Filmland") I wanted
to get some for myself. "Famous Monsters" indeed turned out to be
what I was hoping for, a magazine devoted to horror and science
fiction movies, generally with some kind of monster. And the
magazine had a host. "Time Magazine" or "The Saturday Evening
Post" did not have a host. Most magazines don't. But "Famous
Monsters" was created by Forry. He put it together. All the
pictures from monster movies were from his collection. And he
wrote the text. It was full of bad puns. Now usually when you
call something a bad pun you really mean that it was a good pun.
His bad puns were genuinely lame. He would say things like "that's
Poe business." Or he might turn a phrase like these films coming
along "will separate you from your sheckles like Hyde from his
Jekylls." They might be more colorful than understandable. He
created an alter-ego for himself--Dr. Acula--perhaps so he could
pretend to be another voice but more to try to look clever. When
you saw pictures of him, usually I remember he was clowning around
making faces, maybe dressed in a Dracula cape. I mean there was no
attempt on his part to write or act like an adult. He got away
with being a kid all his life.
The writing in the magazine was usually by him and usually not so
hot. One of the policies of the magazine--I later found out it was
imposed by his publisher--was that he liked *every* film. Or at
least he pretended to like every film. Which meant when he gave
you a recommendation for a film you could take it to the bank. And
any bank would give you for it exactly what it was worth. He
recommended films like THE FLESH EATERS (mostly boring) and THE
CREEPING TERROR (orders of magnitude more inept than PLAN 9 FROM
OUTER SPACE). But when you are a kid like I was or like Forry was
you don't notice these editorial problems. You want the pictures.
Oh, I mentioned the pictures. They were wonderful. I guess he
lived in Los Angeles and could get stills directly from the studios
who I am sure were glad to provide materials to a popular magazine
that would claim to love every film, even THE CREEPING TERROR.
Most issues of "Famous Monsters" had beautiful color renderings of
images from horror and science fiction films. They were probably
based on his collection of stills, but they were individually
painted and, I think, generally looked better than the photographs
they were based on. I wish I had some of those paintings.
I don't think that I needed "Famous Monsters" to know I wanted to
see the films FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA. But Forry told me the
greatest science fiction film ever made was METROPOLIS. So I had
to see it. It was in black and white? So what? A silent film?
Hey, if it is a good science fiction film I want to see it. Today
most kids don't want to see a black and white film much less a
silent one. But I wanted to see the silent film METROPOLIS. I
really wanted to see it. And after that I wanted to see THE GOLEM
and NOSFERATU and a lot of other silent films. And foreign horror
films. I think it was Forry who taught me that there were films I
would be missing out on if I decided no subtitled films, no silent
films, and no monochrome. If it weren't for Forry I would probably
not have the broad taste in cinema I have today.
I could list some of his other accomplishments. I could say how he
discovered Ray Bradbury, how he was a literary and sometimes acting
agent for some of the most famous names associated with the
fantastic like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, Curt
Siodmak, and L. Ron Hubbard. I could tell you how he supposedly
invented the term "sci-fi" which turned out to be a mixed blessing
for science fiction. Well, "Famous Monsters" was a mixed blessing.
Much about Forrest Ackerman was a mixed blessing. Those things
affected me, but it was only indirectly. But for every fan of
fantasy and science fiction who grew up in the 1950s or 1960s he
was sort of an unofficial uncle. He was the funny uncle who never
become adult and dull.
Forry turned 92 years old on November 24. He died of heart failure
December 4, 2008. There is nobody out there who can replace him.
Rest in Peace, Forry. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: An 18-year-old street boy tells the story of his life to a
police commissioner. He has been arrested on suspicion of cheating
for answering too many questions on a television quiz show. Each
episode in his life explains how he knew one of the questions he
was asked on the show. Together the chapters form a mosaic of the
life of a Muslim street child on the streets of Mumbai, India.
Much of the story seems distorted for melodramatic effect. The
concept of the film makes it seem light, but the first reel is very
violent and perhaps harrowing. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is a look at life in modern day India from the
bottom up. The main character is Jamal Malik, who at an early age
was a "slumdog." Slumdogs seem to be parentless children living
wild in the streets who frequently die early or grow into
gangsters. Jamal has a chance at something a little better. He is
on the Hindi version of the popular quiz program "Who Wants to be a
Millionaire?" In fact, he has gone higher in the program than
anyone else ever has. And the police want to know how can a
slumdog without an education do so well without cheating? But
Jamal claims he really knew all the answers. Each question he
answered he knew from some chapter in his life. He tells the
police this story of his life by telling them the incidents from
which he knew the answers to the questions. We flash back and
forth from the recent past on the quiz show where he is browbeaten
and manipulated by the show host to the more distant pass when
Jamal's integrity and character are formed by the beatings he gets
in school and the predators he has to fight off and escape from.
The chapters Jamal describes add up to a very disturbing view of
lives of crime, violence, and religious strife. We see an
operation that turns healthy children into maimed beggars. We see
some of the Bombay Riots of 1992 and 1993. There is slavery.
Eventually the film turns into more of a crime film. The crime
portion of the film reaches his climax at the same time that Jamal
is one step away from the highest prize on the quiz show. Even
when we get to the quiz show, where we would be expecting more
civilized behavior, Jamal still has to defend his life against a
system that is rotten throughout.
Eclectic director Danny Boyle has given us such diverse films as
TRAINSPOTTING, 28 DAYS LATER, MILLIONS, and SUNSHINE (2007). To
make this film in India he can leverage from the lower costs and
use the resources of the largest film industry in the world, the
Bombay (a.k.a. Mumbai) film industry. He even incorporated a
Bollywood-like dance production number. Most of the actors are
Indian and will not be familiar to American audiences. One
exception might be the Police Inspector played by Irfan Khan. Khan
has been in several major films seen internationally of late. His
keystone performance as far as the international audience is
concerned was as Ashoke the husband in Mira Nair's very fine film
THE NAMESAKE. Since then he has also been seen in A MIGHTY HEART
and THE DARJEELING LIMITED.
The premise of the film is extremely contrived. Jamal does not
have broad knowledge. He just happens to learn the answers to each
question, each in a different chapter of his life and each in the
same order the questions were asked on the quiz show. The odds
against this happening must be colossal. The fact that his
personal story and the story of his stint on the quiz show both
reach their climax at the same time is also seems a bit artificial.
This is a minor point of the film, but it really stands out for me.
Not only does the Mumbai police kidnap the main character, but he
is (semi-graphically) tortured. And he is arrested and tortured
only on a suspicion of cheating on a quiz show, and the charge is
based on an accusation of just one person who has no official
standing. It is bad enough if the police routinely torture
suspects, but if they do this on only one person's biased
accusation then something is rotten in the state of Maharashtra.
It may cause even more controversy because, though the film was
shot in India, it is a British/American co-production directed by
Danny Boyle. So SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is made by outsiders but it is
based on a novel by an Indian, Vikas Swarup.
It is hard to tell if the brutality of the system is entirely real,
but the story is engaging. I rate SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE a +1 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Film Credits: http://tinyurl.com/67b7tj
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Generally clever screenwriter Charlie Kaufman directs for
the first time. That should make for a fascinating film, but
somehow it does not. A community director wins a grant and stages
a play of his own life including the staging of the play in an
infinite regression. This makes the film interesting in concept
but disappointing in execution. And surreal touches added
throughout that just do not add up to anything but a film more
challenging than rewarding. A good cast cannot make this exercise
engaging. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10
I have to be honest. As much as I have liked and admired BEING
JOHN MALKOVICH, THE ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, and even
parts--not all--of ADAPTATION I do not think Charlie Kaufman's new
film does much for me. Kaufman is on his way to being a real name
brand in film writing. But I have to say that whatever Kaufman was
trying to say with SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, the message was just not
intercepted.
The first puzzle of this film is its title. There is no
Synecdoche, New York. Perhaps the title is a corruption of
Schenectady, where part of the action takes place. But nothing is
ever explained. A "synecdoche" is a figure of speech, as I discuss
at the end of this review. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden
Cotard, a director of local community theater. Through casting
necessity or artistic design he has a young man playing Willie
Loman. The production has dubious success. Meanwhile his wife
(played by Catherine Keener), a successful artist, is taking their
daughter to visit Germany. But secretly she is planning to dump
Caden and just not to come back. Meanwhile Caden wins a MacArthur
"Genius" Grant and stages a play of his own life. He rents a big
open space warehouse in New York City and inside makes his own
replica of New York City. There he stages the story of his life
including the staging of the play itself. So real people are
mixing actors playing themselves or actors playing the people
around them. Then when real people interact with actors in the
play new actors must be added to the play to dramatize those
interactions.
The confusion increases exponentially as players play players in
the play. The production drags on and on for years without ever
opening to an audience. Yes, there is surrealism going on, but
Kafka, wherever he is, has nothing to worry about. The complexity
increases more like the Marx Brothers' stateroom scene, but not
nearly so amusingly. And if all this is not strange enough Kaufman
throws in a burning house that like the Burning Bush in the Bible
burns but is not consumed. One of the characters lives in the
house oblivious to the unusual nature of the building. There is
also some strange sh-t going on with strange sh-t. And at least
once there is something creepy with his peepee. Delightful. If
there is such a thing as organized surrealism, this is not it.
There is no obvious connection between the plays being staged and
the tutti-frutti human waste. They are just there.
Kaufman has assembled a very good cast with Samantha Morton,
Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Tom Noonan, Hope
Davis, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. But in so surreal and obscure a
story the actors cannot have been inspired since it is not clear
even what their performances meant. It is difficult to contribute
to a film that does not know what it is doing.
Something clever could come out of the symmetries of the situation,
but it never really does. When the film finally ended one woman
from he audience came over to me and asked if I understood it. I
said no and that while I like to come into a film not knowing what
it is about, I hate leaving a film that same way.
Somebody must be getting something from this film because it is
getting some very positive (and a few very negative) reviews. But
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK seems like a long drawn out shaggy dog story
with no punch line. It is more an interesting idea for a film than
an interesting film. I rate it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.
(When I asked for my wife's hand in marriage I really wanted to get
the whole woman. A "synecdoche" is a figure of speech in which the
part is used to represent the whole. I suppose I could read into
the film that the play being produced somehow represents the whole
life. It seems to me what we are seeing is less like a synecdoche
than like those magazine covers that show someone holding that very
magazine whose cover shows someone holding that magazine, etc.
There is also probably such a thing as a false-synecdoche where the
part is not actually part of the whole. I would explain that in
detail but now I have to get my tail out of here.)
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0383028/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: 1776 (book review by Mark R. Leeper)
Pulitzer Prize-winning David McCullough is both America's best-
known historian himself and also a familiar narrator of historical
documentaries. He frequently narrates historical documentaries by
Ken Burns and many times on PBS's "The American Experience." In
addition he writes (mammoth) popular histories himself, which not
unusually become bestsellers. One of his histories was JOHN ADAMS,
which sold over a million copies in hardcover and became an HBO
docudrama series. It of course told of the writing and signing of
the Declaration of Independence.
As a companion piece he wrote 1776 (ISBN-13 978-0-743-22672-1,
ISBN-10 0-743-22672-0). The purpose of 1776 was to give a military
history of when an action went from a revolt to a full-scale
revolutionary war that year. Little mention is made of the
wrangling in Philadelphia, as it would be redundant. McCullough
instead chronicles the state and fortunes of George Washington's
army, under-provisioned and incompetent. He also covers the war
from the British perspective.
One perhaps might have expected that this would be a story of a
glorious year in the fight for independence, but that would simply
not be an accurate view. In fact, 1776 was a terrible year for the
Continental Army. Following a few lucky victories around Boston,
it was an almost unremitting string of setbacks and defeats
pointing to what must have seemed an almost inevitable failure.
Had such a failure occurred, as it appeared to be doing, most of
the major figures of the revolution would have died on the end of a
British rope. This book is really about the courage of these
people to continue fighting, often with support from their own side
that was insufficient or non-existent.
Were it not for the comfort of the successful Battles of Trenton
(12/26/76) and Princeton (01/03/77) at year's end this would be
indeed a very dark book. However the battles of Trenton and
Princeton were no small comfort. They very well may be the turning
point of the Revolution as Gettysburg was to the Civil War and
Midway was to the Pacific War. It was there that the Continental
Army had its proof of concept. Victory of this ragtag band of
malcontents against the most powerful military force in the world
became a real possibility. The significance of these battles could
not be seen at the time.
The British earlier in the year had captured Boston, but Washington
seized Dorchester Heights and forced General Howe to retreat from
Massachusetts. The defense of New York was similarly ill-fated,
with the loss to the British of Fort Washington and Fort Lee.
General Charles Lee, the most powerful general under Washington was
captured in November. 1776 was very much a bleak year of defeats
and mistakes for Washington. The British war effort after the
retreat from Boston was hampered, but their goals were all or
nearly all achieved over the remaining nine months.
McCullough covers all this at great length. The continental army
was slovenly, frequently drunk, often AWOL, and their camps smelled
badly of human waste. McCullough does not lionize Washington. The
Virginian general (temporarily) bars blacks from enlistment. His
strategy and tactics were less than ideal (or even incompetent).
He made huge errors in judgment and was frequently indecisive. But
he was the right man in the right position and he did inspire his
men to keep fighting and to not accept failure.
Where McCullough falls down is in conveying the texture of battle
in this pivotal year. One percent of the new country was killed in
the course of the Revolutionary War. We can read a Michael Shaara
and get some feel for what it is like to be in battle.
McCullough's descriptions are factual but colorless. Perhaps at
the time few of the participants gave emotional accounts of battle.
Nearly every other detail seems covered but getting inside the
men's heads. His ability to collect volumes of detail seems to go
beyond the possible.
Another fault is the strictures that McCullough has placed on
himself. We join the rebellion in progress at the beginning of
1776 and leave the rebellion in progress less than a week into
1777. Not much background is given before that year and we are
assumed to know how it all comes out. It is almost as if the
author is leaving the way for volumes 1775 and 1777.
Still, the book is a treasury of historic detail and we can almost
hear the words being spoken in the author's own voice. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Class of 2100 (letter of comment by David Shallcross)
In response to Evelyn's comments on the mindset of the Class of
2010 in the 12/05/08 issue of the MT VOID, David Shallcross writes:
I assume it was a mistyping when you wrote:
The first item on the Beloit College "Mindset List for the
Class of 2100" is "What Berlin Wall?"
(I suspect the list in question was really for the class
of 2010, 2011, or 2012), but it would be interesting to
speculate what would be on such a list.
For optimists:
(x) The moon has always been inhabited.
For pessimists:
(x) It has never snowed in Wisconsin.
[-ds]
Evelyn responds: "As noted, I meant '2010' but transposed two
digits. I do like your suggestions, though. Would other people
like to contribute to a 'Mindset of the Class of 2100'? Noting
that there will be a revolt in it will mark you as a Heinlein geek.
:-)" [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: INDEPENDENCE DAY (letter of comment by Kenneth Howard)
In response to the on-going comments about INDEPENDENCE DAY in the
11/07/08 issue of the MT VOID, Ken Howard writes, "I had considered
writing a note commenting on your INDEPENDENCE DAY article, but the
mistake of mixing the mothership and the city-destroyer ships was
well discussed. I did not see any discussion of your comments on
the tides. You did a good job of describing the tidal force that
could be generated by the mothership, but neglected to point out
that it would not cause "tides" in the usual sense, because the
Earth would not be rotating underneath the geo-synchronous ship.
It would cause a distortion of the oceans of approximately the
magnitude you described, but it would be static. This could still
be catastrophic, so it does not detract from your point, but us
dweebs like to nit-pick." [-kh]
Mark replies, "It is a semantic question. Tides have always moved.
If you have a mountain of water that does not move, is that still a
tide? An interesting physics problem is whether the tide would be
larger because it is static. Does a moving tide dissipate some of
its umph by moving? A tidal thickening must pull in water from the
sides. Once that water is moved it does not have to be pulled in
again in a static tide. You might get less friction, for example,
if the tide is not moving at the same time it is pulling in water."
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Alternate Histories (letter of comment by Mike Glyer)
In response to Evelyn's comments on alternate histories in the
12/05/08 issue of the MT VOID, Mike Glyer writes:
[Evelyn wrote] "The answer to 'Are alternate histories really
science fiction?' seems to be yes, though the explanation varies."
I was thinking about this not too long ago, and some of the "yes"
arguments on your list occurred to me too.
I also remembered back in the 1970s hearing SF authors (Poul
Anderson most memorably) hinting that their science fictional
future histories borrowed heavily from the mundane history of the
Byzantine, Roman or British empires, the Hanseatic League, etc. In
Anderson's case, I believe as he thought of a hard SF idea that
could drive a short story, in fleshing it out he would appropriate
motivations conflicts, and character types from historical
situations.
So while Anderson did "hard SF", in hindsight it's harder to deny
the alternate history subgenre's attachment to the larger science
fiction genre because all along SF writers have been borrowing from
history to create traditional SF stories. Alternate history was
implicit in "future history."
Greg Benford objects to the trend to do SF without hard science.
But thinking back to a lot of Poul Anderson stories set in the
Polesotechnic League or the Terran Empire, the scientific ideas are
just part of the attraction, with charismatic protagonists and
military or espionage situations being no less important to their
success. It's not a big jump from that kind of story to alternate
history. [-mg]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Once again, just as I could see the light over the top of my "to-
read" stack, life conspired to change that. Philcon was opposite
the local book warehouse sale, so I didn't go to the latter, but we
did stop at the Cranbury Bookworm on the way to Philcon and bought
a couple of "Da Vinci Code"-like books (Paul Christopher's
MICHELANGELO'S NOTEBOOK and Brad Meltzer's BOOK OF FATE), as well
as JUNG: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION.
Then at Philcon, I bought a couple of books (Avram Davidson's
ADVENTURES IN UNHISTORY and Mary Gentle's CARTOMANCY). I also
picked up a few books from the freebie table/book swap: a couple of
advance reading copies of science books, Nigel Calder's book about
Halley's Comet, and Isaac Asimov's NEMESIS. (Since I put eighteen
books out on the table, at least I did have a net outflow of
books.)
So far, so good. But then Cranbury Bookworm announced a half-off
sale on *everything* last weekend. Well, they are so inexpensive
to start with (the fiction books I bought before Philcon were fifty
cents each!), that with half-off they are practically giving the
stuff away. So we trundled off to Cranbury (well, drove, actually)
last Friday and bought three dozen books for ourselves and another
dozen for others (more on that later).
In our books were a dozen "old" mysteries (from the 1930s and
1940s) re-printed by Rue Morgue Press in nice trade paperbacks, on
sale for $1 each. There were also a dozen Alfred Hitchcock
anthologies for twenty-five or fifty cents each. (Even at full-
price these would have been ridiculously cheap.)
We got a few science books, Dashiell Hammett's THE CONTINENTAL OP
and a couple of more current mysteries, GI JEWS, and a first-year
Latin text. (I still hope to teach myself Latin.)
And for $2 we got THE ADVENTURE OF ARCHAEOLOGY by Professor Brian
M. Fagan, a coffee-table book on ancient civilizations which will
be an excellent adjunct for the Teaching Company course "Human
Prehistory and the First Civilizations"--taught by Professor Brian
M. Fagan.
I got a large-print edition of General Schwartzkopf's biography for
my father for $1.75, as well as some Agatha Christie and Sherlock
Holmes for a quarter each. A children's sign language book for my
niece was $1.
The most unusual purchase, though, were the six copies of Poul
Anderson's THE ENEMY STARS. These were from the back porch, where
the books are normally six-for-a-dollar, so with the sale they were
about eight cents each. Why buy six? Because that's just about
the right number for our science fiction book discussion group,
which often has a problem in finding enough copies of a book in the
library.
I spent a fair amount of time looking through all the foreign-
language books for books in Spanish. The foreign-language books
are supposedly sorted by language, but there are two factors which
have lead to this turning into a more chaotic arrangement. First,
customers don't reshelve books properly. Second, when the shelves
were labeled, the proportions of French, German, Spanish, etc., may
have been accurate, but as books come in and go out, these have
changed. (All it takes is the purchase of a single substantial
library in any one language to throw this out of whack.) And I
thought I had found an Isabel Allende novel (EVA LUNA), but on
opening it I discovered it was a German translation! [-ecl]
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Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Most people are born originals but die copies.
-- Anonymous