THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/20/09 -- Vol. 28, No. 21, Whole Number 1572
C3PO: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
R2D2: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Heinlein Timelines (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Wired Magazine's Readers' Favorite Science Fiction Films
(comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Simple Math Problem (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Sad Joke (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
42! Excellent, Excellent! (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Belated Happy 50th Birthday, TZ (letter of comment
by Pete Brady)
The Continental Op (letters of comment by Kip Williams,
Alan Winston, and Tim McDaniel)
This Week's Reading (THE WAY OF CHUANG TZU, THE GUERNSEY
LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY, SCAT, and
THE HITCH HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Heinlein Timelines (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
There is a timeline for Robert A. Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps" at
http://dwrighsr.tripod.com/heinlein/Bootstraps.gif and another
one for "All You Zombies" at
http://dwrighsr.tripod.com/heinlein/Zombies.gif. Not
surprisingly, they contain spoilers. These are complex time
travel stories involving someone moving forward and backward in
time. It is tough to keep it straight without a timeline. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Wired Magazine's Readers' Favorite Science Fiction Films
(comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
A list of Wired Magazine's readers' favorite science fiction films
can be found (complete with great illustrations) at:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/reader-sci-fi-flicks/
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/gallery-reader-sci-fi-2/
(The first is through the 1950s; the second is for the 1970s and
1980s. I have no idea why the URLs differ that much.)
This list was in response to Wired's own lists, which can be seen
At:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/08/sci-fi-flicks/
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/09/scifi-flicks-2/
(Again, I have no idea why the URLs differ that much.) [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Simple Math Problem (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
We have a movie coming out with making the inaccurate claim that
the Mayans predicted the world will end. Actually the Mayans
predicted no such thing. But here is a nice little math problem
for you. There have over the years been a lot of predictions that
the world coming to an end. Figure out to three decimal places
what percentage of these predictions have proven true. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Sad Joke (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
An article in the New York Daily News says that students are
getting to college without basic algebra skills. "During their
first math class at one of CUNY's four-year colleges, 90% of 200
students tested couldn't solve a simple algebra problem, the report
by the CUNY Council of Math Chairs found." The author declined to
say how many students that was.
Note: Yes, I made a joke, but I consider it no less a serious
problem.
http://tinyurl.com/CUNY-math
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: 42! Excellent, Excellent! (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Our library discussion group is reading THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO
THE GALAXY. As a whole it is a lot like sitting down and reading
JOE MILLER'S JOKE BOOK, page by page. But it turns out that there
is something that makes this book important and vital reading for
everyone. When characters in the book find the answer to the
ultimate question they are apparently correct that it is 42. It
now seems mind-numbingly improbably that 42 is not the ultimate
number and hence the answer to the ultimate question. The reason
is that the constructor fleet that built the entire universe left
us signs in pi that
-- 42 is really the Ultimate Answer,
-- that they like us had ten fingers,
-- and that hidden somewhere on every planet are tickets that we
can use to go to JAI{space}.
JAI{space} being the real center of what is happening in the
universe. The cards unfortunately say "Go directly to JAI{space}.
Do not pass Go; do not collect $200." Sadly the cards whenever
found have been assumed to be just printing errors on cards from
some sort of board game.
But as for the sign of the 42, realize that 4=2^2. And two and
four have been given the magical relationship that 2^4=4^2, that
now other two integers have. But if you take two twos and two 42s
and arrange them as 242422 and go that many places past the decimal
point of pi, the universe construction people left a little sign to
reward you much like dropping a piece of cheese to a mouse in a
maze. There you will find in the decimal expansion of pi the
string "42424242". Now you may at this point be unimpressed and say
it really was really not worth the journey to find "42424242." And
the fact that you are so disappointingly disappointed is the reason
why you will probably spend the rest of your life earth-bound on a
planet that is slowly exchanging its environment for a different
and nastier one and you will tick off the rest of your life in
seconds from your digital watch.
If you want confirmation of this sign, and are not particularly
quick with numbers, you can find the same observation about pi and
42 made buried in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(number)
Like you, the Wikipedia people had no idea what to make of this odd
observation.
For those of you who are unimpressed about the super-colossal fact
that the universe constructors left the clue about 42 just lying
around where anyone with a ginormous super computer to find it,
class is dismissed and you may go out to the playground and I ask
you to play nicely. But for the rest of you realize that the sum
of 4 and 2 is 6. And it happens that 42 is the sixth cake number.
Mathematicians are very fond of cake. I know I am. 42 is the
maximum number of pieces of cake you could get by taking a cake in
one piece and cutting it with six cuts.
If you really want to get technical, 42 is also the smallest number
that is abundant and odious and tiresome. What does that mean?
The number n is abundant if the sum of all its positive divisors
except itself is more than n. 21, 14, and 7, all divisors of 42,
sum to 42 all by themselves. And that still leaves 1, 2, 3, and 6.
The sum of its divisors is 54. I am sure there is some
significance to 54 that will become more apparent with time,
assuming there is time before the environment changes.
The number n is odious if it has an odd number of 1's in its binary
expansion. The binary expansion of 42 is 101010. There are three
zeros and three ones alternating, in perfect balance.
42 is the first abundant number that is odious and the first odious
number that is abundant.
42 is tiresome because I am sick of talking about it. [-mrl]
[See also http://www.angio.net/pi/bigpi.cgi to search pi for
other strings. -ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Belated Happy 50th Birthday, TZ (letter of comment by Pete
Brady)
In response to Mark's comments on "Belated Happy 50th Birthday, TZ"
in the 11/06/09 issue of the MT VOID, Pete Brady writes, "When I
read that, I thought at first you meant the Tappan Zee Bridge!
(Which just passed its 50th also.) [-ptb]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Continental Op (letters of comment by Kip Williams,
Alan Winston, and Tim McDaniel)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE GASLIGHT GRIMOIRE in the
11/13/09 issue of the MT VOID (in which she referred to the
Continental Op as a Raymond Chandler character), Kip Williams
wrote:
The Continental Op was Hammett, not Chandler. Chandler was the one
whose character would say how he was feeling about something.
Hammett chose instead to describe the actions of characters in a
way that told you how they were feeling. It's a little like
mistaking Ravel and Debussy. [-kw]
To which Alan Winston replied:
Hadn't thought about it that way, but you're right.
Other differences: Chandler is self-consciously poetic; Hammett
(despite a short story with a detective who actually *is* poet) not
so much. Hammett's plots generally make sense (partly because he
wrote his novels of a piece, rather than as cut-and-paste jobs,
partly because he was more of a craftsman). [-aw]
And then Kip responded:
Hm. I know you aren't setting it up as art versus craft, but
sometimes it seems a little like it, with Chandler consciously
going for the art side, and Hammett crafting every detail. I have
a tough time choosing between them, because Hammett finds the
emotional peaks as memorably when he chooses to, as in the ending
of "The Gutting of Couffignal" or the blood-simple nightmare of RED
HARVEST.
Chandler's plots may sometimes show the stress of having been short
stories stitched together, but for me that's only in retrospect and
when compared with the original stories. I'm glad he was unable to
bury those stories. They're a wonderful body of work, and make a
very entertaining and readable apocrypha alongside the canon
enshrined in the stories selected for the Library of America
collection. The fact that things come out differently in them
helps keep things fresh, even in repeated reading. [-kw]
And Tim McDaniel wrote:
YASID [Yet Another Story Identification]: I think it was a
Continental Op story where the dick was trying to get to an
offshore casino boat, and found a guy named Red to ferry him out
surreptitiously. As I remember, Red was one of the few all-around
good guys that the C.O. encounters ... but I also thought, when I
read it, that the text implied that C.O. was rather attracted to
Red. What story was it, and did anyone else get that impression?
[-tm]
Kip said:
It was Chandler. I think the situation occurs in "The Man Who
Liked Dogs," which was a Carmady story later cannibalized into the
Marlowe novel FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. I'm hedging, because all of a
sudden, neither one of my precious copies of KILLER IN THE RAIN can
be found, so though I have the novel at hand to verify, I can't be
100% on the details of the short story, which I've only read a
couple of dozen times.
As far as being attracted to Red, it's one of those manly things,
where somebody who is sufficiently noble recognizes someone else of
similar nobility. Red seems like someone who would be a lead
character in some other book and somehow is only a player in this
one. He encounters Anne Riordan in the same book, who's one of the
few all-around good women Marlowe ever met, but the chemistry
wasn't there, or he was saving himself.
I suppose after I hit send, I'll poke around and try to find the
book again. Damn irritating, this. It was always kept in my
bedside bookshelf, as befits one of my favorite and most re-
readable volumes. [-kw]
And after someone sent him a copy of the story
(http://tinyurl.com/ykh3mrz), Kip added:
This confirms that it was Carmady and that other details I
remembered were accurate. This is comforting, in contrast to the
fact that I can't find one of my favorite books, of which I have
two copies.
The novel is right here, in the Library of America collection,
which honors Chandler's wish to suppress the stories he
"cannibalized" to construct his novels. With all due respect, I
like these stories too much not to keep them around, and wish the L
of A had gone ahead and fit them in somehow.
[SPOILERS for Raymond Chandler's "The Man Who Liked Dogs" and
FAREWELL MY LOVELY]: On the subject of being manly and butch,
Chandler paints dismissive portraits of effeminate men in both the
story and the novel. In the story, it's the veterinarian ("pretty
little man"), and in the novel, it's Lindsey Marriot. He doesn't
like either of them, and neither one has a nice end--the vet gets
his throat torn out, and the gigolo gets his brains smashed out.
Not every death in fiction is indicative of an author's views
toward the victim, of course, but these seem to me the results of
something other than impersonal Fate at work. [END SPOILERS]
[-kw]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE WAY OF CHUANG TZU (translated by Thomas Merton) (ISBN-13 978-0-
87733-676-9, ISBN-10 0-87733-676-6) is one of those "Shambhala
Pocket Classics". (Unlike convention "pocket programs", these
truly are pocket-sized. There is something odd about the fact that
one can fit the wisdom of Chuang Tzu in a pocket, but not the
schedule of a science fiction convention.)
A sample: "To organize is to destroy."
Or: "Of safeguarding property Chuang Tzu wrote: 'For security
against robbers that snatch purses and rifle bags, people stow
their possessions in trunks and bind them with ropes and bolts and
strong locks. This is what the world calls wit. But in reality it
is only saving up for the strong thief, who hoists the trunk on his
back and runs--fearing only that the ropes and bolts will not hold
or that the lock will break. Isn't everything we do to secure
ourselves against future loss a little like this? ...
The invention of weights and measures
Makes robbery easier.
Signing contracts, settings seals,
Makes robbery more sure.
Teaching love and duty
Provides a fitting language
With which to prove that robbery
Is really for the general good.
A poor man must swing
For stealing a belt buckle
But if a rich man steals a whole state
He is acclaimed
As statesman of the year."
The "high concept" description for THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO
PEEL SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (ISBN-13 978-0-
385-34100-4) would be "84 CHARING CROSS ROAD meets FOYLE'S WAR".
It is an epistolary novel between a writer in England and the
members of a literary society on Guernsey shortly after World War
II, with the Guernesias in the Helene Hanff role, talking about the
books they have read and loved (or not), and asking her to send
books they have been unable to get, and writer Juliet Ashton in the
role of book dealer Frank Doel.
Shaffer and Barrows have combined all this with the Guernesias'
stories of the German occupation of Guernsey during the war, as
related to Ashton, and later as re-told by Ashton to her publisher
and her friends. There is also a romantic sub-plot which I though
completely unnecessary--aren't books *and* the German occupation
enough?
But more of a problem with the book was that while it was good, I
kept hitting spots where I found myself thinking, "This character
is writing something that sounds great. In fact, it sounds just
like Helene Hanff might write." And then I realized that it was
reading too much like a copy of Helene Hanff. It all made me think
of Hanff's comment (after reading Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES) about
how she prefers non-fiction to fiction: "Wasn't anything else that
intrigued me much, it was just stories. I don't like stories. ...
I'm a great lover of i-was-there books." (11/09/63) It's not that
any of the characters say it--it's how I felt reading this. Unlike
Hanff, I do like stories, but when I was reading 84 CHARING CROSS
ROAD, I felt like 'i-was-there', while with THE GUERNSEY LITERARY
AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY I was reading a character's made-up
feelings. I wanted to like this, and I did like parts of it, but I
also felt I was being manipulated into it.
For those who like Carl Hiassen's writing but find many of his
novels too strong, I recommend his young adult novels. SCAT by
Carl Hiassen (ISBN-13 978-0-375-83486-8), for example, has the same
themes of preserving the environment against those who would
despoil it for commercial gain, and also has a typical Hiassen cast
of wacky characters, such as a substitute teacher who always
teaches from the same page of whatever textbook the class is using,
only depending on what day of the week it is, and a pyromaniac
student who ate the teacher's pencil in class.
THE HITCH HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams (ISBN-13
978-0-345-41891-3, ISBN-10 0-345-41891-3) was the choice for the
joint meeting of the general book discussion group and the science
fiction book discussion group this month. (The science fiction
book discussion group normally meets the fourth Thursday of each
month, a problem in November.) This time through I noted all the
cultural and literary references. For example, Chapter 10 ends
with Arthur Dent saying, "Ford! There's an infinite number of
monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for
'Hamlet' they've worked out." Or in Chapter 5: "He was
experiencing the aural equivalent of looking at a picture of two
black silhouetted faces and suddenly seeing it as a picture of a
white candlestick." [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Common sense is the collection of prejudices
acquired by age eighteen.
-- Albert Einstein