THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/22/10 -- Vol. 28, No. 30, Whole Number 1581
C3PO: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
R2D2: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Bad Starts (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Chopsticks or Knife and Fork? (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (film review
by Mark R. Leeper)
Meta-Problem (letters of comments by Pete Rubinstein
and Pete Brady)
Yet More on the Linguistic Problem (letters of comments
by Michael Haynes and Pete Brady)
This Week's Reading (LINGER AWHILE, ISLAND OF LOST SOULS/THE
ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Bad Starts (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I was at a panel in which they were talking about book
recommendations and introducing people to new authors. "What
book," they asked, "is it a bad idea to start with for a given
author?" For example someone suggested that THE SILMARILLION by
J. R. R. Tolkien is a bad book to introduce his works. Do not
choose that book for your first book by Tolkien. My answer was
that a bad first book to start reading Ayn Rand was anything at all
by Ayn Rand." [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Chopsticks or Knife and Fork? (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
When I was a kid a company my father dealt with would send a bag
each year as a Christmas gift. The bag was full of joke items.
One that comes to mind was a fork with a loose handle and a crank.
The idea was facetiously that you could use this to eat spaghetti.
By turning the crank you could reel up the spaghetti. This was
supposed to be a big improvement over the usual fork. It brings to
mind the fact that we tend to assume that the standard knife, fork,
and spoon we use is a constant. It is not the sort of thing that
we think of improving upon. We almost come to think that that is
the most natural set of eating implements possible.
A co-worker once made a comment that occasionally comes back to me.
I guess we were discussing Asian restaurants. He said he was
surprised that the Chinese and we still use different eating
utensils. Not absolutely sure what he meant I asked did he mean
that they should use knife and fork or that we should use
chopsticks. I should have been able to guess since he was the kind
of person whose tastes could be expected to be provincial. Indeed
he thought that a knife and fork were clearly superior to
chopsticks. He, in fact, seemed to think that knife and fork were
obviously the most efficient eating utensils.
There are a lot of Americans who seem to think that knife and fork
are the ideal eating implements. Evelyn and I always find it a
little patronizing when we go to a Chinese restaurant and the staff
gives us forks. Sometimes it is only forks and sometimes they will
give chopsticks but also put down a fork. We usually push off the
forks to an unused corner of the table with a look of disdain. It
is an interesting situation where we feel very liberal saying we
accept their culture, but there is also just a hint of
snobbishness. Silently we are saying, "We look down our noses on
Americans who have not learned to use chopsticks. Pish. Tosh. We
eat like Chinese."
Actually, there are very good and selfless reasons to reach for the
forks. Forks have to be washed and this uses energy. But much
worse for the environment is cutting down forests, lathing
chopsticks, packaging them, using them for one meal, and then
tossing them. Using reusable forks is much better for the
environment. Another reason why forks are better is that
chopsticks are not really very good for the joints of the hand.
They have been implicated in causing arthritis.
Another advantage of knife and fork eating is that it is
considerably more versatile. One can eat Gung Pao Chicken very
easily with a knife and fork. Try eating a steak with chopsticks.
Chinese food tends to come in small pieces. The reason for this
may be that small pieces of things take less energy to cook. If
they eat steak they cut it in bite-sized pieces before it is
cooked. Some things like spring rolls are served in large pieces,
but you can break them up with chopsticks. I think just about
anything served in Chinese cuisine can be eaten one way or another
with chopsticks (or a spoon). There are times I have seen on menus
whole crab in the shell and in sauce. I am not sure how an expert
would eat that without getting sauce all over everything. Then
again I am not sure how you would eat it with knife and fork.
Shellfish requires special near-surgical instruments to efficiently
get the meat out.
But one should not get the idea I am saying knife-and-fork eating
is superior to chopsticks. In some senses chopsticks are far more
natural. I do eat things by grasping them and taking them to my
mouth much like I do with chopsticks. There is nothing I eat by
sticking four straight, parallel fingers in and picking it up that
way. The fork is a little unnatural.
I am reminded of a scene in MURDER BY DECREE in which James Mason,
playing Dr. John Watson, is chasing the last pea on his plate
around with a fork. He is unable to pick it up. Christopher
Plummer as Sherlock Holmes takes the fork and smashes the pea,
making it possible to be picked up on a fork. Watson is a little
irritated that he did not want a smashed pea. For once it is
Watson who is right and Holmes who is wrong. Watson was robbed of
the little pop from his pea. Had Watson been eating with
chopsticks he would have picked up the pea with ease.
Next week I will take a look at other eating utensils and try to
draw some conclusions as to which are the most convenient,
efficient, and effective. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (film review by Mark
R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Terry Gilliam's new film is a lot like his previous
imaginative films, only perhaps more so. A small tacky traveling
show in a caravan hides real magic. It has a gateway to a
subjective land created by the visitor's own imagination. The
show's owner is also genuinely immortal do to a pact he has made
with Satan himself. The actual story is muddled, but the
imagination of the visual imagery is very good. And Gilliam
deserves admiration for having brought this film to fruition in
spite of nearly impossible circumstances. Rating: high +1 (-4 to
+4) or 6/10
In Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS he had a boy in his bedroom when
suddenly a knight on horseback breaks though the bedroom wall and
flies into the room. It is amazing. Gilliam's style is to
astonish with the unexpected happening very suddenly. That has
become his trademark. He did not have a strong coherent story for
that film, but he did have the sudden surprises. That has become
his trademark and it really seems to be the really point of his
films. To much too great an extent his films are very similar.
They do not tell their story well but they do have great big
stunning visual surprises. That does not quite compensate for a
story that is not entirely coherent.
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS is pretty much what we expect
from Gilliam. His visuals outdo Gilliam's previous work, but are
along similar lines. The story has something to do with a series
of bets between the title character (Christopher Plummer) and the
Devil (Tom Waits). Somehow the good doctor is saving souls by
trapping their owners in what appears to be a dimension of
imagination on the other side of a gateway which appears to be
sheets of mirrored plastic. One can be pleased when the good guys
are winning, but that is not as good as understanding the game.
(Of course, don't take my word. I still don't follow Quidditch.)
The film begins one night with a weird and shabby little wagon-
bound show appearing in an ugly neighborhood of London all too near
the raucous pubs. The show appears to be obviously a cheap fake
only a little better than the sidewalk buskers. Ah, but looks are
deceiving. This is a real magic show in the tradition of Charles
Finney's THE CIRCUS OF DR. LAO, Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED
THIS WAY COMES, and Tom Reamy's BLIND VOICES. The mirror on the
stage really is a gateway to a mysterious world or set of worlds
where what one sees is based on one's own imagination. Later,
while the show is traveling the performers see a mysterious figure
dancing on the River Thames. It turns out to be the reflection of
a man hanging from a bridge. (It makes no sense that the
reflection would look like that, but there you have it.) The
hanging man, rescued in a nick of time, is Tony (Heath Ledger). He
travels with the show and starts suggesting innovative ways to
modernize their image and make the show more profitable. But
Doctor Parnassus resists,
We never really get a feel for what the show the traveling company
puts on is really all about. It is supposed to have some magic,
but the real magic is behind a gateway that the audience is
supposed to stay away from. We never see much magic in the show
beyond a little juggling. So what is the audience supposed to see?
The audience is told about the magic of the mirror, but that makes
for a show duller than having an impresario tell an audience how a
giant ape was captured. Just telling an audience stories makes for
very dull showmanship.
I suppose that no review of this film would be complete without
mentioning that it was a marvel that it was made at all. Heath
Ledger had done all the real-world scenes but none of the fantasy-
world scenes when he died of a drug overdose. Terry Gilliam had
the clever idea that everybody's appearance would change once they
entered the magic world. So Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin
Farrell completed the rest of Ledger's scenes. Curiously enough,
most people find that the idea works.
Terry Gilliam makes the magical world in this film very magical
indeed. And the part that takes place in the un-magical, mundane
world is very mundane and un-magical indeed. I rate this film a
high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1054606/
What others are saying: http://tinyurl.com/y9nhd2t
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Meta-Problem (letters of comments by Pete Rubinstein and
Pete Brady)
In response to Mark's question on the doors and the goats in the
01/15/10 issue of the MT VOID, Pete Rubinstein writes, "This is
very complicated. In the vanilla Monty Hall problem we would need
to assume that if a Ph.D. correctly understood the Monty Hall
Problem, his explanation would be correct. My experience with
Ph.D.'s indicates that even if the explanation was correct, it
would be unintelligible. I have seen several explanations of the
solution to the Monty Hall Problem and they aren't really clear.
As I understand it, there is a 1/3 chance (when you picked the
right Ph.D.) that you'd be switching away from the correct
selection. But there is a 2/3 chance (you didn't pick the correct
Ph.D.) that you will be switching to the correct one, since the
remaining bad selection will have been eliminated. But all the
explanations I've seen seem to be much more complicated than that."
[-pir]
Mark responds, "No, that is pretty much the explanation. Maybe
other people don't explain it so clearly." [-mrl]
And Pete Brady writes, "It is easy to demonstrate, using a Monte
Carlo method, that the correct choice is to change your mind after
Vanna White (a.k.a. Monty Hall) opens the door with the goat.
[comment on linguistic problem here--see below] Now you can go
back to your math. And don't tell me that I'm wrong about Monty
Hall. " [-ptb]
Mark responds, "You're wrong about Monty Hall. My brother tried to
prove the correct answer to my father that way. The player won
more than half of the time but less than 2/3. My father insisted
that the probability was 1/2 and the amount off was experimental
error. It was not easy to demonstrate. " [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Yet More on the Linguistic Problem (letters of comments by
Michael Haynes and Pete Brady)
In response to Sam Long's comment on languages in the 01/15/10
issue of the MT VOID ("The chief meaning of the German word
'heimlich' is 'secret'"), Michael Haynes writes, "Sounds like the
setup for a story of a confused spy who keeps trying to find out
what the "secret maneuver" is that English (or Americans,
Australians, etc.) are using to save lives..." [-mh]
Pete Brady writes, "This is really a minor point. The D-Major
Singers are about to embark on new songs, one of which is "Warnung"
(Warning) by Mozart. Irene will sing it in English except for a
rhyming couplet at the end of the first verse:
Mädchen haben frisches blut,
und das naschen schmeckt so gut!
(Maidens have fresh blood, and the nosching tastes so good.)
"Naschen" is from the Yiddish, an import to both German and English
(although not in everybody's vocabulary). But the more interesting
word is "blut", which translates literally as "blood," but really
means an inner personality, a driving force. The waltz "Wiener
Blut" is usually translated "Vienna Life" rather than "Vienna
blood" because "life" is closer to the meaning of "blut". [-ptb]
Evelyn notes, "This might explain why everyone seems to say "The
blood is the life." [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
LINGER AWHILE by Russell Hoban (ISBN-13 978-1-56972-326-1) is
Hoban's first return to science fiction since FREMDER (1996).
Hoban uses a dozen points of view in this short novel, which makes
it a bit hard to follow, but fits in well with the central idea of
bringing a movie star to life from the "visual DNA" in the magnetic
bits on a videotape of one of her films. (Okay, maybe this is more
magical realism than science fiction, though the science fiction is
really no less realistic than stuff that was written back in the
pulps.) Because everyone has a different perspective on Justine
Trimble, having the multiple points of view allows the reader to
experience this, but it's hard work. However, Hoban crafts his
writing to make it a joy to read:
"My eyesight was failing. Age-related macular degeneration was the
diagnosis. The macula is that part of the eye that gives detail
and depth perception. I frequently mistook flat surfaces for
raised ones and shadows for substance."
I recently watched ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (based on ISLAND OF
DR. MOREAU by H. G. Wells). One thing that struck me was its
similarity in at least one regard to A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. How,
you may well ask. Well, in ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, Laughton is
basically a god to his creations, and he has provided them with
"The Law":
Not to eat meat, that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to go on all fours, that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to spill blood, that is the Law. Are we not Men?
When Laughton/"God" tells Ouran to kill Captain Donahue, he says
that the Law does not apply this time. But Ouran and others take
this, and extend it, and decide that the Law no longer applies at
all.
Now, in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, Thomas More asks Will Roper, "[Would
you] cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?"
Roper replies that he would "cut down every law in England to do
that." And More says, "And when the last law was down, and the
Devil turned round on you, where would you hide .., the laws all
being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to
coast ..., and if you cut them down ... do you really think you
could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give
the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
And there are still plenty of examples in real life where people
have decided that the laws--divine or man-made--do not apply in
their special case. ("I'm saying that when the President does it,
it is not illegal.")
Is all this in Wells's novel? Not in this form. The Law there is:
Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
But Moreau makes the same mistake. He shows one of the creatures,
his servant, how to skin and cook a rabbit, and that is how they
taste blood. But there is more the implication of the creatures
being overcome by their animal nature than by having the Law
explicitly nullified by Moreau. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The description of right lines and circles,
upon which geometry is founded, belongs to
mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw
these lines, but requires them to be drawn.
-- Isaac Newton, 1687