THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
06/26/09 -- Vol. 27, No. 52, Whole Number 1551
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Acknowledgement (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Powder River (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Good Radio Drama Site (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
How Does 3-D Work in Films? (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE RISING: BALLAD OF MANGAL PANDEY (film review
by Mark R. Leeper)
THE BEGINNINGS OF WESTERN SCIENCE by David C. Lindberg
(book review by Greg Frederick)
Sports Films (letter of comment by Dan Kimmel)
Lost in Translation (letters of comment by Steven H Silver,
Dan Kimmel, John Jetzt, Janice Gelb, Charles Harris,
and Dave Anolick)
IFC in Theaters (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
ROCKY (letter of comment by Dave Anolick)
This Week's Reading (short novels) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Acknowledgement (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
This week's MT VOID is brought to you by the Pre-Owned-Humvee
Owners Exchange. Buy a used Humvee today. It's the tank of the
American Road. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Powder River (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
In Wyoming they have the Powder River. That name always seemed
like a joke to me. What is a Powder River? If you want to
reconstitute it you just add water, lots and lots of water. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Good Radio Drama Site (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
You may remember I track sites that have free radio drama. I
maintain the site:
http://www.geocities.com/markleeper/radio.htm
19 Nocturne Boulevard is another find. Julie Hoverson is twice a
month releasing great new half-hour plays in the old-time-radio
tradition. The stories are fully dramatized with a touch of fun in
the acting and are science fiction, horror, and suspense. There is
even a Western with the continuing character The Deadeye Kid. The
genres are a mixed bag, but the quality is quite high. There is
also an archive of the older programs:
http://www.19nocturneboulevard.net/Episodes.htm
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: How Does 3-D Work in Films? (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
It looks like the mainstream filmmakers are going in for three-
dimensional films in a big way. What is pushing the trend is the
improvement in home video. People are getting big TVs with high-
definition clarity. They are getting a theater quality picture
without going to the theater. In the 1950s home video went from no
picture at all--they called it "radio"--to a note card sized black
and white picture of Milton Berle dressing like a woman. Theaters
had to give the public something they could not get a home. That
was a three-dimensional image.
3-D works by showing two different images on the screen, one
intended for the right eye and one for the left. 3-D films work
not just by how they let the right eye see the right eye image and
the left eye see the left eye image. They work by how they hide
the left eye image from the right eye and vice versa.
Red-Blue Separation
With the Red-Blue system a single strip of film had both images on
the film side by side. They were split with an optical system and
both images projected on the screen separately. One image was blue
and one was red. The projectionist had to be sure the two beams
met just right on the screen. The audience wore glasses with red
cellophane over one eye and blue over the other. Looking through
blue cellophane blue looks white and red looks black. Looking
through red cellophane red light looks white and blue looks black.
Essentially the system discriminated by color or wavelength of
light.
The Red-Blue 3-D had several drawbacks. It did not work with a
color film. If the two projection beams were not perfectly
synchronized it could lead to eyestrain. If the viewer tipped his
head sideways the images would not have the proper separation.
Since each eye was throwing away half of the picture definition
from the film frame the picture has only half the definition of a
normal film frame. This caused eyestrain and headaches.
Horizontal/Vertical Polarization
A much better scheme was to use light polarization. Light can be
made to travel in parallel sheets (like pages of a book). Plastic
can be polarized to let through only light that comes in horizontal
sheets. It is much like you can pass a horizontal pencil through
an open Venetian blind, but not a vertical one. Glare reflected
off a wet road is polarized horizontally. This is why sunglasses
polarized vertically cut down on road glare, but if you tip your
head sideways you see the glare. With standard polarized 3-D
projection one eye sees through a lens polarized vertically and one
horizontally. This process allows for 3-D film to have color since
color is independent of polarization. But it still has the problem
of tipping the head. If the viewer tips his head 90 degrees his
eyes will each be seeing the image intended for the other eye.
Circular Polarization
A far superior way of projecting 3-D is used today. It is called
"Real D Cinema." First everything is digital projection now and
there is just one beam of light going to the screen. That beam
actually contains both the left-eye image and the right-eye image.
But the two images are projected with different kinds of light.
The process uses what is called "circular polarization." Like
light can be made to travel in sheets, it can be made to travel in
a spiral (or a helix, like a bed spring). To get technical for a
moment, light travels like an oscillating wave, or as a sum of
waves. If it is travelling horizontally it can be made to
simultaneously oscillate left-right and up-down, just 90 degrees
out of phase. The sum is a circle, but it is moving forward so it
is more like a corkscrew. And it can corkscrew clockwise or
counter-clockwise (or "widdershins" as a European would say).
Polarized lenses can be made that allow one kind of spiral light to
pass through but not the other. A lens can be made that lets
through only light with a left-hand spiral or only light one with a
right-hand spiral. This is much more sophisticated than the old 3-
D projection systems. The viewer can tip his head to the side and
each eye is still seeing the intended image. Instead of the
standard 24 frames per second, 72 frames per second per eye are
projected and brighter light is used, but even frames projected are
for one eye and odd frames are for the other. Now 3-D projection
is no more difficult than to project a non-3-D movie and the two
images are perfectly placed.
3-D Without Lenses
A question that is frequently asked is when we will have a 3-D
process that does not require the viewer to wear glasses. The
answer is that it must use an entirely different approach. Without
use of lenses to select images the problem is entirely different.
The left-eye image coming from the screen would have to seek out
the viewers' left eyes and the right-eye image would have to seek
out the viewers' right eyes. The right eye image has to be blocked
from the naked left eye in some way and vice versa. While I
hesitate to say that is impossible, it does seem to be very
unlikely that such a technology exists. Picture two people sitting
in two adjacent seats. Both people's left eyes have to be seeing
the left-eye image while the right eye sitting between them would
see the right-eye image without a trace of the left-eye image
between them. The process would have to know where every left-eye
is in the house and also where every right eye is. It seems like
only immobilizing the head of each member of the audience could do
that. If you think that using the glasses is inconvenient
immobilizing heads would be much worse.
The current approaches to 3-D could possibly be improved marginally
by increasing the number of frames per second projected, but the
improvements would be only minimal if noticeable at all. Beyond
that the current process, Real-D, appears to be about as far as the
technology can be pushed.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_D_Cinema
You might want to listen to: http://tinyurl.com/NPR-3-D
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE RISING: BALLAD OF MANGAL PANDEY (film review by Mark
R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This 2005 film tells the story of the roots of the 1857
Sepoy Mutiny in India done as history writ large. This colorful
epic tells the story of the friendship of an East India Company
soldier and his commanding officer who reluctantly find themselves
on opposite sides of India's nascent conflict to throw off
British rule. Mangal Pandey becomes the father of his country's
independence movement ninety years before India finally became
independent. This is a serious film based on true events but with
just a little more singing and dancing. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4)
or 8/10
[The mutiny is also known as India's First War of Independence, the
Great Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, the
Uprising of 1857, and the Indian Rebellion of 1857.]
While staying within the conventions of Bollywood films, THE
RISING: BALLAD OF MANGAL PANDEY proves to be as colorful a
historical epic film as KHARTOUM and some of the adaptations of
Kipling, but here the British are the villains and the Indians are
the heroes. The story is told in flashback from the day that
Mangal Pandey (played by Aamir Khan) is to be executed by the
British army for instigating mutiny among the Indian troops.
While the British East India Company fights in Afghanistan, Sepoy
(or Indian soldier) Mangal Pandey saves the life of Captain William
Gordon (Toby Stephens). The two become close friends. Gordon
seals the friendship by giving Pandey his pistol. Ironically it is
a gun that will separate them. The British are importing and
arming themselves with the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rifles.
Loading the rifles requires adding the gunpowder, which was
provided in greased cartridges that had to be bitten to open. In a
controversy that still has not been settled today the belief
spreads among the Sepoys that the cartridges were greased with beef
and pork fat. The Hindus lose their caste position if they taste
beef, and the Muslims may not taste pork. The East India Company
takes the high-handed position that soldiers must do what they are
ordered to do even if using the cartridges goes against their
religion. Gordon is told simply to deny the rumor and Pandey,
trusting his friend, makes an example of himself by demonstrating
in front of a company of Sepoys his faith in his friend. When
evidence is found that the rumors about the grease prove to be true
Pandey feels betrayed by the man he treated as a brother. This new
outrage added to pre-existing discontent among the Sepoys fans the
fires of rebellion.
The production is colorful, but perhaps the color shown most often
is the bright red of the British uniform. To get in some different
bright color and more song opportunities we have a long sequence of
a Holi spring festival. This is the festival of color highlighted
by the custom of people throwing handfuls of brightly colored power
at each other. (One wonders if it is historically accurate that
the brightly colored powder was so available in 1857.) I suppose
the sequence is a sort of semi-comical relief from the otherwise
serious and straightforward plotline.
Occasionally one is not really sure of director Ketan Mehta's
intentions. The British policy seems absolutely negative except in
one sequence in which Gordon breaks up a Suttee ceremony of widow
burning, saving the life of the widow. Presumably that that action
is intended to be shown in a light favorable to the British but as
the one positive aspect of British rule shown, it is not clear.
Because elsewhere the film is anti-British, to the point of being a
polemic, this one breach is puzzling. The British East India
Company is excoriated for dealing in human slavery. But later one
of the slaves is in a Bollywood production number of dubious taste
in which she sings "I am a slave of your charms."
A utilitarian touch is notable. This film is in English and Hindi.
But when there is a scene in English that is important to the plot
the distinctive voice of the distinguished Indian actor Om Puri
narrates explaining in Hindi what is happening. This is
occasionally almost word-for-word what the dialog tells us, but it
is a reminder that this film is made for a Hindi-speaking audience
who may not be fluent in English. (Also, subtitles on the DVD are
available in seven different languages of India as well as in
English.)
This is a big, spectacular film that may even be an education for
American audiences. We see little historical spectacle from
Hollywood these days and hopefully Bollywood will help fill the
gap. I rate THE RISING: BALLAD OF MANDAL PANDEY a high +2 on the
-4 to +4 scale or 8/10.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0346457/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005643-rising/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE BEGINNINGS OF WESTERN SCIENCE by David C. Lindberg (book
review by Greg Frederick)
This is considered to be by many a very comprehensive coverage of
the beginnings of science until 1450 A.D. Knowledge transfer
occurred many times in this period of history. An example of
knowledge transfer involving mathematics and astronomy occurred
when the Mesopotamia civilization in the 2nd and 3rd century B.C.
transferred this knowledge to ancient Greece. This transfer
provided the Greeks with information of an exact mathematical
astronomical model with numeric predictive capability. From that
time until today astronomy has been simultaneously geometric and
numeric.
The early Middle Ages in Europe were influenced strongly by ancient
philosophy firstly from Plato. And then after the reconquest of
Spain by Christian Europe more of the lost ancient science
philosophy including Aristotle's philosophy was recovered in the
former Islamic libraries of Spain. Then by 1200, it was translated
into Latin. It was interesting to see that even though Christian
Europe found pagan ancient philosophy distasteful it adopted this
knowledge since it provided them with knowledge, which was
increasing important to them. This knowledge included logic,
astronomy, medical techniques, and mathematics.
Aristotle's philosophy once introduced to Christian Europe
surpassed and replaced Plato's influence. The dominance of
Aristotle over European philosophy during the Middle Ages caused a
backlash by the Catholic Church authority. This occurred because
some of Aristotle's philosophy did not fit into church dogma as
well as Plato's philosophy had. This challenge to Church dogma
caused the Church to issue various condemnations of Aristotle's
philosophy. These events occurred in 1270 and 1277. The eventual
outcome of these condemnations allowed others to challenge the
dominance of Aristotle. Many of Aristotle's ideas in the fields of
physics and cosmology were not correct and had lead European
science in the wrong direction for years but because of the
Church's condemnations other philosopher's could start to explore
new ideas in these areas. For example, Aristotle did not believe
in the atomic nature of matter or that the universe had a beginning
and an end and that a void or vacuum could exist. The Church
challenge allowed alternate ideas to gain some study and
acceptance. This seemingly ironic event actually helped the
development of modern science.
I truly enjoyed learning more about the evolution and development
of science as portrayed in this book. [-gf]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Sports Films (letter of comment by Dan Kimmel)
In response to Mark's answer about sports films in the 06/16/09
issue of the MT VOID, Dan Kimmel writes:
Sorry, Mark, BEN-HUR isn't a "sports film" by any stretch of the
imagination. It has the famous chariot race, but the movie isn't
ABOUT chariot racing or the lives of charioteers AS competitive
racers. It would be like saying "Bringing Up Baby" is a sports
film because a sequence takes place on a golf course. Yes, the
chariot race is the film's big set piece, but that doesn't make
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN a "merry-go-round film" or NORTH BY NORTHWEST
a "national monuments" film because of their most memorable
sequences. (Indeed, by your definition STRANGERS would be a sports
film because of the few scenes at a tennis match.)
Were you to say that BEN-HUR belongs on a list of films famous for
a racing sequence you'd get no argument from me. But *defining* it
by the one sequence seriously distorts the movie. [-dk]
Mark responds:
Have you seen the film recently? This question was inspired by my
recent viewing of the film and by being surprised by how much of
BEN-HUR does revolve around the race, the centerpiece of the film.
Were there just the race, I might almost agree with you. MY FAIR
LADY is not a sports film. But take a look at the poster (or the
cover of the DVD) and what do you see? No crosses. No ships of
the Roman navy. You see the giant words BEN-HUR as part of the
racetrack with a chariot and four racing horses in the foreground.
Turn the DVD over and you see four stills from the film, two of
which come from the race in action.
Pretty much from the time Judah is adopted until the race is over
the film revolves around both him trying to get back to his family
*and* his racing. He talks about how to rearrange Sheik Ilderim's
horses. This makes him a friend of the Sheik. He meets each of
the horses. He goes to see Messala and Messala is practicing his
whip for his horses in the race. Then there is more of the non-
sports story and then there is the sequence of the placing of the
bets for the race. From the start of the scene of the placing the
bets until the end of the race (about 34 minutes) the film is about
nothing but the race. That is a heck of a lot more than one
sequence. I haven't tallied all the pieces, but I suspect more
than an hour of the film is devoted to the race.
The whole point of the question was that while it is a Biblical
epic, it is also a sports film and just about all the advertising
about the film sells it that way. Watch it again, Dan. [-mrl]
And Evelyn adds:
Since at least one other person mentioned it, at least *some*
stretch of the imagination results in it's being a sports film.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Lost in Translation (letters of comment by Steven H Silver,
Dan Kimmel, John Jetzt, Janice Gelb, Charles Harris, and Dave
Anolick)
Mark's question in the 06/16/09 issue of the MT VOID about
translating "you say goodbye; I say hello" into Hebrew generated
these responses:
Steven Silver said, "Same way you translate it into Hawaiian?"
[-shs]
Dan Kimmel said: "I don't have the fluency to answer but I remember
the old joke (I know it from a David Frye album) where Nixon is
learning some Hebrew in advance of meeting Golda Emir and learns
that "shalom" means both "hello" and "goodbye." Nixon asks, "Well
how well I know which it is?" And he's told, "If she leaves after
you've said it, you've said, 'Goodbye.'" [-dk]
John Jetzt suggests, "When translated as song lyrics, it probably
works well with two shaloms. The different intonations would
convey the meanings." [-jj]
Janice Gelb (who has actually lived in Israel) said, "I'd probably
go with 'L'hitraot' and 'Shalom'." [-jg]
And Charlie Harris also said, "I can't supply a complete
translation, but an online Hebrew-English dictionary says that an
alternative translation of goodbye is 'l'hitraot', which I
recognize from the familiar folksong/round 'Shalom Chaverim'. It's
literally equivalent to 'au revoir'. And one of the Hebrew
synonyms for hello is ... 'helo'." [-csh]
Dave Anolick writes, "That was clearly the best laugh of the day.
Of course, 'Shalom', while often used as a greeting 'Hello' or
parting 'Goodbye', really means peace. As I remember it there
really isn't a Hebrew word equivalent for 'hello' or 'goodbye'. A
real Hebrew song would probably use 'l'hitraot' (see you soon) for
'goodbye'. 'Hello' is harder to guess what might be used, since
there are many different types of greetings available. None of
that matters, you clearly didn't want an answer to how it would be
translated. I loved what you said enough that I'm sure I'll still
be grinning and singing "I don't know why you say shalom. I say
shalom" all weekend." [-da]
==================================================================
TOPIC: IFC in Theaters (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
In response to Mark's review of DEAD SNOW in the 06/16/09 issue of
the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes, "What is 'IFC in Theaters'?"
[-fl]
Mark replies, "I had never heard of it before it was mentioned in
the materials with the screener, but it is apparently a way to
stream films currently playing in theaters to your home and
probably watch them on your television: http://tinyurl.com/lot4gc
and http://tinyurl.com/IFC-in-theat." [-mrl]
In response to those articles (which indicate that the price per
movie is $7.99), Fred writes, "Thanks. But they haven't made a
movie yet that I'd pay eight dollars to see." [-fl]
Mark asks, "'They' meaning IFC or the film industry as a whole? In
any case there are films I might be willing to pay that much to
see. I have certainly paid that for a DVD. Actually this works
like the drive-in movies. It is one admission price for as many
people as you can pack in your living room." [-mrl]
Fred replies, "'They' meaning the film industry as a whole. I find
Netflix a cost-effective way of seeing films, as I'm not interested
enough in cinema as an art form to care whether I have to wait six
months or a year to see a movie. I prefer watching films at home
(even on a small TV screen) for several reasons: I can pause the
film when I want to get a snack or go to the bathroom, I can review
a scene that particularly interests me--and there's a better class
of people in the audience! But these are my personal crotchets,
and I'm well aware that they are as defensible (or indefensible) as
someone else's disdain for science fiction or a refusal to take it
seriously would be. I certainly enjoy reading your film reviews and
commentary--give me a very good sense of whether I would want to
see a film, and of what I should look for when I do see it." [-fl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: ROCKY (letter of comment by Dave Anolick)
In response to John Purcell's comments on ROCKY in the 06/16/09
issue of the MT VOID ("My favorite spoof of the 'Rocky' movies was
a movie poster for ROCKY XXVIII (or something like that) in the
background on the second AIRPLANE! movie (I think). Or was that in
SPACEBALLS? Geez, I forget which. Either way, it was a great
sight gag." [-jp]), Dave Anolick replies: "That was pretty good
from memory. I had to look it up. It was indeed AIRPLANE II, and
John was very close on the roman numerals. It was XXXVIII. See
http://img442.imageshack.us/i/rocky38ya0.jpg/." [-da]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In Praise of Shorter Novels
Recently someone in Usenet's rec.arts.sf.written asked whether
novels were getting longer or it just seemed that way. This led to
a discussion of long versus short novels, and got me to thinking
about how a lot of the shorter novels I have read are much better
than the doorstops.
Now admittedly a lot of novels may appear to be longer or shorter
depending more on font and margin size than on word count. Almost
all the Agatha Christie novels I have are under 200 pages, but they
are also older editions. That said, however, I decided to look
through my (obsessive-compulsive) list of books read over the last
ten years (complete with page counts--I did say obsessive-
compulsive, didn't I?) and see what novels of note were under 200
pages. I also took a lower bound of 86 pages (to eliminate
novelettes, etc.). Why 86 pages? Well, that just happened to be
the length of the edition of Wells's TIME MACHINE that I read. And
I stuck to novels--no non-fiction, drama, poetry, or short fiction
collections.
So what did I find?
Well, as I said, pretty much all of Agatha Christie is under 200
pages. In fact, a lot of mystery authors write or wrote novels of
under 200 pages; M. C. Beaton, John Dickson Carr, Raymond Chandler,
Dashiell Hammett, John P. Marquand, Alexander McCall Smith, Dorothy
Sayers, Robert Van Gulik, and Israel Zangwill wrote good--and in
some cases, great-novels in under 200 pages. Hercule Poirot, Sam
Spade, and Philip Marlowe all came alive without hundreds of pages
of development. Michael Chabon's THE FINAL SOLUTION is 131 pages.
There's something about a mystery that is almost impossible to
sustain for 900 pages, let alone a trilogy.
A lot of canonical authors had no problem expressing themselves at
shorter length. Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, SENSE AND
SENSIBILITY, and NORTHANGER ABBEY were all under 200 pages (at
least in my editions). (I'm not giving specific page counts for
all books, because many have varying editions.) Charles Dickens
managed to write the canonical Christmas story, A CHRISTMAS CAROL,
in 136 pages. Henry James managed to write a classic ghost story,
THE TURN OF THE SCREW, in 100 pages and THE ASPERN PAPERS in 88.
John Steinbeck need only 117 pages for the memorable CANNERY ROW.
Grahame Greene did THE THIRD MAN in 120.
Science fiction, too, has its share of short quality fiction. Even
eliminating novellas published only in magazines or anthologies,
and looking only at individually published volumes, we have all of
Barry Malzberg's novels, and Stanislaw Lem's, and C. S. Lewis's.
Add to these William Golding's THE LORD OF THE FLIES, Pierre
Boulle's PLANET OF THE APES, Fritz Leiber's THE BIG TIME, James
Morrow's CITY OF TRUTH, and Connie Willis's INSIDE JOB and REMAKE.
Olaf Stapledon is thought of as writing at length (in LAST AND
FIRST MEN, for example), but SIRIUS is only 151 pages, ODD JOHN
158, and STAR MAKER 188. And Stephen King's RITA HAYWORTH AND THE
SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (at 102 pages) is far better than a lot of his
longer works.
Is there anyone who thinks that Thorton Wilder's THE BRIDGE OF SAN
LUIS REY would be improved by turning it into a 500-page novel?
Should Charlotte Perkins Gilman's HERLAND become a trilogy? Should
Oscar Wilde have spent lots of time describing Dorian Gray's meals
so that THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY met what seem to be today's
standards for page counts? Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING, James
Joyce's PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, and F. Scott
Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY are all classics as they are.
Admittedly, many of these are older works. But even among novels
of the last ten or fifteen years we have Paul Auster's MAN IN THE
DARK, Alan Bennett's THE UNCOMMON READER, Peter Carey's THE FAT MAN
IN HISTORY, Guillermo Martinez's THE OXFORD MURDERS, Cees
Nooteboom's THE FOLLOWING STORY, C. S. Richardson's THE END OF THE
ALPHABET, Philibert Schogt's THE WILD NUMBERS, Will Self's COCK AND
BULL, and Luis Fernando Verissimo's BORGES AND THE ETERNAL ORANG-
UTANS and THE CLUB OF ANGELS.
Admittedly, sometimes the short novels are part of a bigger
structure. For example, Philip Pullman's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE
NORTH works only because Pullman had his trilogy to base it on.
But I think it's clear that one does not need a doorstop to have a
good book. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding
to baptism.
-- Samuel Butler