THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
07/19/19 -- Vol. 38, No. 3, Whole Number 2076
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Canine Perception (Part 3) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
ASTRONAUT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CREATING WOODSTOCK (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Canine Perception and G. K. Chesterton (letters of comment
by Gary McGath and Dorothy J. Heydt)
IS THAT A FISH IN YOUR EAR? and Lectoring (letter of comment
by Paul Dormer)
This Week's Reading (EXHALATION, PUDD'NHEAD WILSON,
THE TURN OF THE SCREW, and "The Yellow Wallpaper")
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Canine Perception (Part 3) (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Continuing on my perceptions of canine perception, I have always
wondered a little why canine intelligence has seemed so similar to
human intelligence. One gets the intuitive belief that dogs think
very much like us. A dog's mind seems not all that different from
that of a human or at least what a human would have if he also had
a dog's anatomy. Why I find that strange is that I most definitely
do not feel that all humans are that similar to us. We humans, it
seems to me, have a tendency to overrate the difference between
humans and dogs and tend to underrate the degree of variation in
humans. The Disney idea that it is a small world after all and we
are all really alike is far more the product of wishful thinking
from an armchair philosopher than one based on actual observation.
In fact, I think the aborigine of Australia *living in his own
society* has a very different mind from my own. Yet I get just the
opposite feeling for a dog living in our society. I had a hard
time resolving those two opinions. But I am coming to accept both.
First, the dog is much more similar than the expectation is that he
would be. The aborigine is much less similar than the expectation
says he would be. But of course they are two very different
expectations.
Last week I was discussing why a house dog might think more like
you think than an Australian Aborigine would.
But that does not account for the entire phenomenon. The key is
that dogs raised in human society in China understand a tonal
language and I do not. Dogs raised in China will have similarity
to Chinese people. Dogs raised in America are not wolves and wild
dogs in different surroundings. They pick up our culture and
really are, like Moreau's creation, an amalgam of the animal and
the human. Having been raised in our society they may actually
have minds closer to ours than have the aborigines who were raised
and adapted to a very different culture. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: ASTRONAUT (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: ASTRONAUT seems like it ought be an appealing story for
young and old alike. Retired Engineer Angus is too old to be sent
into space, but that is his one great wish. By chance, a space
industrial company will send a contest winner into space, but Angus
is clearly to old to qualify. Now, also by chance, he knows a
deadly flaw in the launch plan that is being used by a private
space entrepreneur. This story could have been more exciting.
Unfortunately, the plot falls apart under the weight of too many
overly contrived coincidences. Director & writer: Shelagh McLeod.
The film is also honored with the presence of actor Graham Greene.
Rating: low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
This is a film with two or more themes that are unlikely
companions. On one hand, it is about private companies with their
own space programs. Private enterprise is getting into the act in
doing their own space development and exploiting space outside
Earth's atmosphere. On the other hand, it is about relationships
among the elderly and also it has a little for young and old about
hope.
Angus (played by Richard Dreyfus) is in his 80s and lives to see
his grandson growing up and getting fascinated with the world
moving into space. Angus once wanted to travel into space himself,
but he was born just a little too early. Then private entrepreneur
Marcus (Colm Feore) announces his space development company will
run a contest in which one member of the public will win a free
ride into space. If Angus could win the contest it would be a
fulfillment of his most powerful dream. But Angus is about two
decades too old to be doing any trips into space.
ASTRONAUT has a bittersweet tone. As a film meant to appeal to
kids it does not make any moral judgments about Angus at times
cheating and being unconcerned that his actions involve fraud. But
it also tells the young to have an indomitable spirit.
Angus in the film has a deep love of space and passes that interest
to his grandson. There is an overly familiar cliche in film story
telling. If an older person wants to inspire a younger one to love
science he demonstrates it with a telescope. Films like CONTACT
frequently have such sequences.
Incidentally, Dreyfuss himself will be 72 years old this year and
appears to be a science fiction fan. He has written alternate
history science fiction so he more or less fits the role.
At times the director too obviously shows this to be a film for a
younger audience. Other times the drama may be a bit strong for
some children. I rate ASTRONAUT a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Film Credits:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7890550/reference
What others are saying:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/astronaut_2019
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: CREATING WOODSTOCK (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: I have to give a full disclosure here. I have never been
a fan of rock music. In 1969 as well as now I would have preferred
music by Puccini. I still do not find rock music melodious. But
that is why I like this film. It is not about the music; it is
about how a group of unprepared people produced one of the biggest
music events in history, the Woodstock music festival. It is not
about grooving to a mellow scene, it is about talented people
solving problems as they arose and when they were not tied down by
their problems they were grooving to the scene. Directed by: Mick
Richards. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
I saw CREATING WOODSTOCK as an outsider of the rock scene. Guess
what. I did then and still do prefer Puccini scene. At least
twice that I can remember I tried to watch the film WOODSTOCK. It
did not do much for me and I gave up on it twice. So I approached
seeing another documentary about the concert not expecting to like
it much, but still I was determined to give it a try.
Rather than documenting what the musical performances were and what
celebrities were on the stage, instead it was about problem
solving. It was about people who put the show together, the
problems that came up, and how they were circumvented well or not
so well. Even without a strong interest in the music and the
performers I intend to watch the film again. It is an education of
who the organizers were and to show documentary film of people a
concert. CREATING WOODSTOCK has a good collection of interviews
with organizers and performers and of the event. Much of what is
covered includes more anecdotes or even gossip. It gives more
information or how this massive task of putting on the three-day
super-concert. We see how organizing the concert was accomplished.
Many of the special problems of Woodstock came with problems of
scale. Typically performers would arrive and have no instructions
what to do next. Then they would disappear into the crowd and
could not be found.
Perhaps the film is most engrossing as it tells of mistakes and
near-mistakes that were made by the organizers. Maybe the
organizers really were being watched over by angels. If a few
fewer people showed up, there would not have been enough
volunteers. If a few more attendees had arrived, the crowds would
have been too large to manage. There were still problems when too
many or too few attendees showed up. But the problems were still
manageable.
As an example, the organizers were already admitting people and
collecting admissions before attendees stormed them. Then they
realized that there was no way to collect admissions as fast as
would have been necessary. Reluctantly they announced that the
attendance was now free. They really had no other choice.
Under time pressure the sanitary facilities were thrown together.
Then the state government sent an inspector. This would have been
sufficient cause to shut down the show before it really got
started. But as it happened the inspector brought his 15-year-old
daughter. She ran off at her first opportunity and melted into the
crowd. The inspector spent the rest of the weekend looking for his
daughter and never did the inspection.
The hero of the film and of the entire celebration is one Max
Yasgur, a Jewish farmer. When it looked to the organizers like
there was no place acceptable to set up the concert stage, Yasgur
heard about the problem and contacted the organizers suggesting one
of his fields. It turned out to be perfect. Yasgur merits a
special memoriam in the closing credits.
Over all the film provides several engrossing footnotes to history.
I rate CREATING WOODSTOCK a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10
Incidentally claims are made to the crowd that Woodstock was the
largest public gathering in history. However, it attracted 400,000
attendees. That was in 1969. Mahatma Gandhi's funeral attracted
between 2.5 and 3.5 million attendees in 1948. That was roughly
five times as many people attending the funeral
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10161666/reference
What others are saying:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/creating_woodstock
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Canine Perception and G. K. Chesterton (letters of comment
by Gary McGath and Dorothy J. Heydt)
In response to Mark's comments on canine perception in the 07/12/19
issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
[Mark writes,] "Dogs do not have the rods and cones in their eyes
that would allow color perception." [-mrl]
Dogs do have rods and cones. That's how all mammalian eyes work.
According to several Internet sources, dogs have a higher rod-to-
cone ration than humans. Rods are monochrome perceptors, but
they're more sensitive than cones, which can differentiate colors.
This gives dogs better low-light vision.
The ability of dogs to differentiate colors to some extent is no
more a mystery to science than the ability of the bumblebee to fly.
According to one source, dogs have only two types of cones instead
of the three humans have, so they can't differentiate as many kinds
of color. [-gmg]
Dorothy J. Heydt writes:
[Mark writes,] "The other thing making even domesticated dogs very
different is the very different sensory balance and the fact that
dogs are probably not even aware that they have a different
balance. I wonder if bloodhounds ever get frustrated with humans
that we don't just sniff out things for ourselves." [-mrl]
https://tinyurl.com/void-quoodle [G. K. Chesterton's "The Song of
Quoodle"]
[-djh]
Evelyn adds:
Note that the Chesterton poem has anti-Semitic overtones. This was
not Chesterton's original wording, as Dr. Denis J. Conlon notes:
"Chesterton never seems to have collected his own poems. ...
Either [his wife] or the publisher, influenced by the libel case
against his brother resulting from the Marconi affair, changed
lines to avoid any further prosecutions. In 'The Song of Quoodle'
'Old Gluck' (Sir Isidore Gluckstein) was censored and replaced by
'The Jew', thus making a valid comment on the exclusion of the
public from parkland seem like an anti-Semitic diatribe."
[-djc/ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: IS THAT A FISH IN YOUR EAR? and Lectoring (letter of comment
by Paul Dormer)
In response to Evelyn's comments on IS THAT A FISH IN YOUR EAR?
TRANSLATION AND THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING in the 07/12/19 issue of
the MT VOID, Paul Dormer writes:
I read that book many years ago. (I appear to have got it as a
Christmas present in 2012.) The two bits I remember best were the
problem about the EU regulation and the bit about "lectoring".
Apparently there was some court case over whether a company needed
a licence to transport animal carcasses. The EU regulation in
English had an ambiguity and the lawyers searched all the
translations of this regulation and found that the Dutch wording
didn't have this ambiguity, so they used this to prove their case.
Lectoring apparently started in synagogues possibly as long ago as
5th century BC. By then, Hebrew wasn't the spoken language in
Palestine and as the rabbi read the text in Hebrew, someone else
gave a commentary in Aramaic.
Bellos points out that a variant of this process now occurs in east
European TV and cinema. It's expensive to do a full dub of a
foreign film for the eastern European market, so instead they turn
the soundtrack down and have a single voice giving a translation.
You can hear the original soundtrack in the background.
Bellos is English by birth and is old enough to remember the
eastern European TV programmes that would appear on the BBC in the
Sixties, of which the most famous was the East German 'The Singing
Ringing Tree'. The BBC used exactly the same technique. I well
remember how as the single voice gave an English translation, you
could hear the German (or Russian, or Czech) in the background.
But Bellos doesn't actually mention this.
Of course, the extreme example of this was the French show shown in
the UK as 'The Magic Roundabout'. Eric Thomson (father of Emma and
Sophie) spoke no French. He'd watch the French version and make up
the dialogue with absolutely no idea as to what was going on in the
original. [-pd]
Evelyn responds:
We have experienced lectoring when we saw DELUGE (1933) at the Film
Forum in New York back in the 1980s. The film was originally in
English, but the only remaining print had been dubbed into Italian,
so they had a lector in back reading either the original script, or
a translation back into English.
The lectoring (which Word keeps trying to auto-correct to
"lecturing"!) of "The Magic Roundabout" sounds like the English-
language version of WHAT'S UP, TIGER LILY?, which totally ignored
the original dialogue of the Japanese film KEY OF KEYS, from which
the visual aspect was taken. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
EXHALATION by Ted Chiang (ISBN 978-1-101-94788-3) is Chiang's
second collection. His first, STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS,
had eight stories; this contains nine. The two comprise Chiang's
total output to date, covering a period of thirty years. Clearly,
Chiang takes time to craft each story, so the idea of including
every one of his stories in a collection is perfectly reasonable
in a way it is not for many authors.
Chiang's stories are "idea stories"--but not the usual science
fiction ideas. He doesn't ask what would happen if aliens
arrived, or if we have faster-than-light travel, or any of the
usual science fiction ideas. No, he asks, "What if the universe
*were* the result of intelligent design?" or "What if we could
prove that there is no such thing as free will?" or "Just as
writing affected how we communicate, what would universal eidetic
memories do?" In other words, he is writing philosophical fiction
which just happens to be science fiction.
Absolutely positively highly recommended!
I haven't been writing much about the Great Courses course on
"Classics of American Literature" lately. The authors covered in
the interim were Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain (TOM SAWYER,
HUCKLEBERRY FINN, and PUDD'NHEAD WILSON), Henry James, Stephen
Crane, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Of these, I will note that
PUDD'NHEAD WILSON has some science content, making it "science
fiction" by some definitions. For example, Theodore Sturgeon
said, "A science fiction story is a story built around human
beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not
have happened at all without its scientific content." But I also
note that no one would consider PUDD'NHEAD WILSON science fiction,
any more than C.S.I. would be science fiction. It merely points
out the flaws in this definition. (The original counter-example
was ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis, but while the example was well-
known in Sturgeon's day--James Blish quotes it in THE ISSUE AT
HAND (1964)--no one now would understand the reference.)
Henry James, of course, wrote THE TURN OF THE SCREW, which may or
may not be a ghost story. Indeed, much of the studies about it
center on trying to determine whether James intended it as a ghost
story, or a story of the governess's repression and (perhaps)
incipient insanity.
And regarding Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the professor talks about
the influence of Poe on her work, or more specifically, "The
Yellow Wallpaper". When I read it, many of the images seemed
similar to those in H. P. Lovecraft's work. Of course, Gilman
pre-dated Lovecraft by a couple of decades, and it is unlikely
that Lovecraft was heavily influenced by Gilman, so maybe they
both come from Poe. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I
should have been more specific.
--Lily Tomlin