Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
12/20/19 -- Vol. 38, No. 25, Whole Number 2098
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Mini Reviews, Part 2 (THE REPORT, HOTEL MUMBAI)
(film reviews by Mark R. Leeper)
THE AMERICANS: The Seduction of Paige Jennings: A Coda
(television review by Dale Skran)
Capsaicinoids (letters of comment by Scott Dorsey and Peter Trei)
This Week's Reading (THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 2 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper)
More mini-reviews, this time of narrative films based on actual
events:
THE REPORT: The flavor of the month in true stories of
international spying is the whistle blower. Recognizable names like
Julian Assange, Mark Felt, Eric Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg become
national known figures. Less familiar perhaps is Dan Jones, who
reported to Congress about the CIA's use of torture to interrogate
prisoners. Adam Driver plays Dan Jones, who endangered his career
and likely his own life spending five years writing a mammoth
report on the subject of the US CIA's usage so-called "enhanced"
interrogation techniques to collect what they hope is strategic
intelligence in the Iraq War. The story is all too real. Central
to the atrocities is the CIA's investigation of the supposed
"science" of interrogation trying to get reliable information from
captured enemies. Be warned, the story involves explicit
descriptions and graphic depictions of torture. The verbal and
visual recreations are as strong as I have encountered in 2019.
The issues of the policy are batted back and forth between the
agencies of the government. While the film takes effort to help
the viewer follow it is powerfully written and right now it stands
as one of the best films of a quickly closing year. Rating: +3 (-4
to +4).
HOTEL MUMBAI is a very familiar formula and it usually makes for
dramatic goings-on. The story is inspired by real events (the 2008
attack on the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai), often involving machine
guns. The viewer sees one or more members of the hotel staff
risking their lives to save the innocent and usually kill some of
the terrorists. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4).
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE AMERICANS: The Seduction of Paige Jennings: A Coda
(television review by Dale Skran)
One interesting thread in THE AMERICANS is Paige's journey toward
being a KGB agent. Paige is a bit of a "Nancy Drew" and runs
several "operations" to figure out what is going on with her
parents. Of course, the highly skilled Phillip and Elizabeth out
maneuver her in each case, but she is clearly inclined toward
seeking information via risky actions. Her judgement about danger
is not the best, as when very early in the series she and Henry
take a ride home from the mall with a young man who may be a would-
be rapist or even a serial killer. Working together, Paige and
Henry are able to escape, but even from a very young age Elizabeth
has been exposed to life and death situations.
Still, what draws Paige toward the spy life? Some examples
include:
- Paige spies on Pastor Tim, eventually finding and reading his
diary. This is key to her alienation from the Church, as the diary
reveals that what Pastor Tim thinks of Paige and what he tells her
he thinks of her are not the same thing. In addition to suggesting
that even the most trusted people in your life (your parents, the
pastor you turned to because you did not trust your parents) cannot
be trusted, the incident suggests that only through spying can the
truth be known.
- Eventually, Phillip and Elizabeth hit on the idea of getting
Pastor Tim out of their life by asking the KGB to have a "friend"
offer him a far-away job he can't refuse. With Paige's approval,
they implement this plan, but Paige is more than a little impressed
that the KGB has the ability to make something like this happen.
It is perhaps at this moment that she starts to understand the
power of working for a large team with vast resources.
- When Paige watches her mother kill a would-be rapist, her eyes
are opened both to the random danger of the world, and her own
inability to deal with those dangers. In contrast, she is stunned
to find her mother is a world-class killing machine, who dispatches
the criminal like you or I might stomp on an ant. This inspires
her to ask her mother to teach her how to "defend herself."
- But of course, that is not the end of things. Paige does learn
how to fight, and eventually takes out two horny college students
who lay hands on her in a bar. This is her first real fight--the
first time she has actually hit someone with the intention to hurt
them--and she is more than just successful. The boys are utterly
overwhelmed by her offense, and are left bleeding on the floor.
There is a sense of power that comes from knowing you can defend
yourself, but perhaps a greater high from actually doing so. It
must occur to Paige that although there are rules about being a KGB
agent, it is to a large degree a license to hurt and kill at will.
- Paige is deeply isolated from her peers and her boyfriend once
she learns at about age 16 that her parents are KGB agents. Once
she has put Pastor Tim behind her, she is drawn to the "sisterhood
of spies"--Claudia and Elizabeth, and to some degree another woman
who works for Elizabeth and appears to also be a deep cover
illegal. Claudia, Elizabeth, and Paige spend long hours watching
Russian movies, cooking Russian food, talking about sex, and
drinking vodka the KGB way. This intense, adult relationship is,
of course, intended to seduce Paige into working for the KGB, but
that does not make it any the less seductive.
- Paige seems both attracted and repulsed by the idea of using sex
to get information. She is angry her mother seduced a college
student, but also defies her mother to sleep with a Congressional
aide. There seems to be a part of her that is drawn to the power
of sex over others, just as she is drawn to having physical power
other others. Her anger at her mother may be just that she felt
her mother should have let her seduce the younger men, or anger at
herself that she is drawn to the idea of seduction for information.
- Paige is shown as participating in a significant number of KGB
operations her mother organizes, including one where she is tasked
to take pictures of targets in a hotel hallway using a camera
concealed in a purse. She makes some mistakes in these missions,
but as Phillip says, the issue is not can she learn to be a spy, it
is should she learn to be a spy. However, Phillip seems to have
accepted that Paige is on a path to being a full-fledged agent.
- On thing is certain, although Paige may not have received the
full range of KGB training, when it comes to real deception of
people close to her, she has years of experience hiding from
Matthew, her first boyfriend, Stan Beeman her FBI neighbor, and
Pastor Tim. These events are not classroom excises, but everything
on the table interactions with people who could destroy her life
and put her parents in jail, or worse. In effect, in terms of what
really matters about being a deep cover agent, Paige has years of
training from two of the best, Phillip and Elizabeth, and that
training was far more than academic.
- What does Paige make of the final confrontation with Stan?
Phillip denies some killings Stan accuses him of, and sounds
sincere, but Elizabeth remains silent. Stan is perhaps a bit of a
sexist, and may not be ready to accept that Elizabeth's body count
greatly exceeds that of Phillip. Does Paige feel revulsion, or
admiration for her mother? Does she fully understand some of the
implications of the confrontation? The most important question is
how much does Paige understand about the schism in the KGB, and how
her parents have taken Gorbachev's side? It is entirely possible
that, assuming she does understand and believe what her parents may
have told her, that she decides in the end to remain in the US to
serve Arkday and Oleg's faction of the KGB.
Because Paige's situation is so twisted and difficult, there is
clearly another story to tell, although I think virtually no chance
the creators of THE AMERICANS will return to it [they claim they
are done with the characters]. How could Paige figure out who to
trust in the KGB? How could she get in touch with Arkady, who she
almost certainly does not know exists? Would she try to help Oleg
in some fashion? Would she try to engineer a detente with Stan?
How could she complete her training, and how obedient to the KBG
would she be? What would she do when the Soviet Union collapsed,
return to a private life or seek to employ her skills in another
cause? Would she grow tired of being alone? Would she ever see
Henry, or her parents again?
It is, of course, possible that Paige would be alienated from the
KGB, but still seek a cause. It is December 1987. You are a
junior KGB illegal, without a support network, with only your wits
and your training to rely on. You know too much--and too little--
about the world. If it were 2001, it is easy to imagine her
getting drawn into the "War on Terror" but that moment lies well in
the future. One possibility is to spurn fixed affiliations with
national spy agencies, but to develop an independent group works on
projects as Paige sees fit. This is a modest extension of the
established KGB pattern of building teams of local partisans to
support KGB operations. Precisely because this project seems so
challenging also makes it interesting to think about. It amounts
to a more realistic version of MODESTY BLAISE. It would be very
hard to do right, but just as the search for a cause draws Paige
onward, the challenge makes it more interesting. However, THE
AMERICANS seems like the last word on down-beat spy shows, so a
sequel ought to seek a new tone, one appropriate for the more
hopeful era after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The thing that might give impetus to THE AMERICANS: PAIGE'S STORY
could be just this conflict--to serve the KGB, to seek a new cause,
or to seek a new life outside the spy game. Season One almost
writes itself. Paige would need to gather resources and complete
her training, with or without help from the KGB. She might claim
loyalty to Claudia's faction while building a separate network of
her own, and seeking to contact Oleg, who is the only connection to
Arkady's faction she might know about. Stavos might be her first
recruit. And how would she get to Oleg?--almost certainly by using
Stan Beeman in some fashion.
The new series would start in January 1988, and continue to the
1991 KGB coup against Gorbachev, a period of four years. Paige
would no doubt play a key role in thwarting the KGB coup against
Gorbachev, as would her parents, and the series might conclude with
a reunion with her parents [and Henry] outside of Russia, something
that would only be possible after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The final scene might the four of them sitting down for a meal in
Vienna, perhaps with Oleg and his family, symbolizing the
possibilities for them--and for Russia--in the new era. [-dls]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Capsaicinoids (letters of comment by Scott Dorsey and Peter
Trei)
In response to Peter Trei's comments on capsaicinoids in the
12/06/19 issue of the MT VOID, Scott Dorsey writes:
[Peter Trei wrote,] "I think the critical insight is that birds
can't taste capsaicinoids, but mammals can." [-pt]
Coco the electus parrot loves eating habaneros. She will eat
habaneros, and then preen herself so that she is covered with
habanero oil. When my wife takes her into the shower, she flaps
her wings spraying burning toxic capsaicinoids all over the
bathroom, often into one's eye. [-sd]
Peter responds:
I had no idea that showering with a parrot was a thing. [-pt]
Scott replies:
Parrots LOVE the shower! They would spend all day in there if they
could! It's just like a rainforest! [-sd]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
As I noted last week about the film GETTYSBURG, on re-watching (or
re-reading) something, one can always find something new
one had not noticed before. So here are some more comments about
THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Edward
Gibbon (Penguin, ISBN 978-0-307-70076-6).
I will divide my comment into three parts, corresponding to the
first three volumes of Gibbon.
Book I:
"Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers
of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and
afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude."
E: When Gibbon refers to the "citizens" of a democratical
government, he is using the term as it was used in ancient Greece,
the Roman republic, and the England of his time (mid-18th century).
For example, in Gibbon's England, less than 3% of the population
was eligible to vote. When the United States was created, racial
and economic limitations meant only about 6% of the population
could vote. So Gibbon's distinction between "citizens" and an
"unwieldy multitude" had real meaning then. By comparison,
currently in the United States roughly 70% of the population is
eligible to vote.
"The deification of Antinous, his medals, his statues, temples,
city, oracles, and constellation, are well known, and still
dishonor the memory of Hadrian. Yet we may remark, that of the
first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in
love was entirely correct."
E: One editor of Gibbon, the Reverend H. H. Milman, felt obliged
to note that Hadrian's passion for Antinous was not that unique
among the emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
"Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland
traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious
researches of modern criticism; but if we could, with safety,
indulge the pleasing supposition, that Fingal lived, and that
Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and manners of
the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind. The
parallel would be little to the advantage of the more civilized
people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of Severus with the
generous clemency of Fingal; the timid and brutal cruelty of
Caracalla with the bravery, the tenderness, the elegant genius of
Ossian; the mercenary chiefs, who, from motives of fear or
interest, served under the imperial standard, with the free-born
warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king of Morven;
if, in a word, we contemplated the untutored Caledonians, glowing
with the warm virtues of nature, and the degenerate Romans,
polluted with the mean vices of wealth and slavery."
E: When Gibbon wrote, Ossian was widely accepted as an authentic
third-century poet and his poems as based on historical fact,
although we can see that even Gibbon had some skepticism. Now we
know they were at best James Macpherson's retelling (with many
additions and modifications) ancient Gaelic folk tales, and
comparing the personalities of Fingal and Caracalla is doubly
meaningless: Fingal is fictional (even if there was some historical
person on which he was based--not unlike Malory's Arthur), and both
personalities were constructed by Macpherson in Gibbon's time. One
of the editors does indeed comment on the implausibility of all
this even then:
"[Footnote 14: That the Caracul of Ossian is the Caracalla of the
Roman History, is, perhaps, the only point of British antiquity in
which Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Whitaker are of the same opinion;
and yet the opinion is not without difficulty. In the Caledonian
war, the son of Severus was known only by the appellation of
Antoninus, and it may seem strange that the Highland bard should
describe him by a nickname, invented four years afterwards,
scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor,
and seldom employed by the most ancient historians. ... Note: The
historical authority of Macpherson's Ossian has not increased since
Gibbon wrote. We may, indeed, consider it exploded. Mr.
Whitaker, in a letter to Gibbon ... attempts, not very
successfully, to weaken this objection of the historian.--M.]"
E: All this reminds me that among the many anachronisms in the film
within the Coen brothers' HAIL, CAESAR! is a reference to the Baths
of Caracalla hundreds of years before their construction.
"The old emperor [Septimus Severus] had often censured the
misguided lenity of Marcus [Aurelius], who, by a single act of
justice, might have saved the Romans from the tyranny of his
worthless son [Commodus]. Placed in the same situation, he
experienced how easily the rigor of a judge dissolves away in the
tenderness of a parent. He deliberated, he threatened, but he
could not punish; and this last and only instance of mercy was more
fatal to the empire than a long series of cruelty."
E: This is proof that those who do not learn from history are
condemned to repeat it: Septimus Severus's son was Caracalla. Both
Commodus and Caracalla are universally considered among the five
worst emperors Rome ever had.
"[A] woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great
kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the
smallest employment, civil or military. ... a female reign would
have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in the eyes of those primitive
Romans..."
E: Yet somehow no one in Gibbon's time, though perfectly accepting
of a female monarch (Mary, Elizabeth, and Anne all pre-dated Gibbon
in England), seemed capable of drawing any progressive conclusions
about extending from this to civil or military employment.
"What in that age was called the Roman empire, was only an
irregular republic, not unlike the aristocracy of Algiers, where
the militia, possessed of the sovereignty, creates and deposes a
magistrate, who is styled a Dey. Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid
down as a general rule, that a military government is, in some
respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor can it be said
that the soldiers only partook of the government by their
disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the
emperors, were they not at length of the same nature as those
formerly pronounced to the people by the consuls and the tribunes?
And although the armies had no regular place or forms of assembly;
though their debates were short, their action sudden, and their
resolves seldom the result of cool reflection, did they not
dispose, with absolute sway, of the public fortune? What was the
emperor, except the minister of a violent government, elected for
the private benefit of the soldiers?"
E: This is an interesting take on military governments, which does
presume that the rank-and-file of military have some freedom of
choice in the matter. This may have been true in Imperial Rome,
but it is no longer so in the modern armies of today.
"A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters,
arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in
the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom,
since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of
despotism."
E: There are a couple of ways to interpret or apply this. One is
that without real estate or large amounts of tangible property, the
Germans could pick up and move whenever the need arose. The other
is that if the Germans possessed real estate or tangible property,
the fear of losing it through confiscation would prevent them from
opposing a despot.
"Heroines of such a cast may claim our admiration; but they were
most assuredly neither lovely, nor very susceptible of love.
Whilst they affected to emulate the stern virtues of man, they must
have resigned that attractive softness, in which principally
consist the charm and weakness of woman."
E: Gibbon was a man of his time, who apparently considered
"attractive softness" more desirable in a woman than the "stern
virtues" that he lauds in men. But why he concludes the women were
neither lovely nor capable of love is just pure prejudice--he has
no evidence whatsoever of this.
"[The] emperor Probus constructed a stone wall of a considerable
height, and strengthened it by towers at convenient distances.
From the neighborhood of Newstadt and Ratisbon on the Danube, it
stretched across hills, valleys, rivers, and morasses, as far as
Wimpfen on the Necker, and at length terminated on the banks of the
Rhine, after a winding course of near two hundred miles. This
important barrier, uniting the two mighty streams that protected
the provinces of Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space through
which the barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could
penetrate with the greatest facility into the heart of the empire.
But the experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed
the vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. An
active enemy, who can select and vary his points of attack, must,
in the end, discover some feeble spot, on some unguarded moment."
E: So apparently throughout history, attempts to fortify a tract
of, say, 1,954 miles (just to pick a number at random) are doomed
to failure.
"Such extravagant compliments, however, soon lose their impiety by
losing their meaning; and when the ear is once accustomed to the
sound, they are heard with indifference, as vague though excessive
professions of respect."
E: This may explain why some people find it necessary to exaggerate
even what is good--if they are used to be fawned over, merely good
is not good enough.
"[Licinius's] ambassador Mistrianus was admitted to the audience of
Constantine: he expatiated on the common topics of moderation and
humanity, which are so familiar to the eloquence of the vanquished;
represented in the most insinuating language, that the event of the
war was still doubtful, whilst its inevitable calamities were alike
pernicious to both the contending parties; and declared that he was
authorized to propose a lasting and honorable peace in the name of
the two emperors his masters."
E: I am reminded of the scene in A BRIDGE TOO FAR in which a German
approaches the outnumbered and surrounded Allies and says his
general wishes to discuss terms of surrender. The Allied officer
replies, "We haven't the facilities to take you all prisoner!
Sorry!" In neither case is the bluster effective.
"... the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of
human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms."
E: Gibbon is quite up front about his bigotry here, though of
course he saw it as a plain statement of fact. Europe's pre-
eminence in the arts and learning is apparently the judgment of ...
Europeans. If one asked an Arab scholar, or a Chinese scholar, one
might get a different opinion.
As Ali A Olomi said on Twitter recently, "Your God is a Middle
Eastern Jew, your theology North African, your science is Arabic,
your numbers Indian, and most of your politics southern
Mediterranean. Western Civ is a lie you tell yourself to avoid the
reality that all you've got you stole from the rest of the world."
This is an overstatement, yet it is clear that the European
civilization Gibbon so vaunts was built on the art and learning of
the rest of the world as well.
"And yet, since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the
reality, and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of
miraculous powers, it is evident that there must have been some
period in which they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn
from the Christian church."
E: The logic of this is indisputable, yet I cannot recall ever
seeing it sufficiently addressed in Christian theology. Clearly
the Catholic Church asserts that miracles still exist, but
Protestant theology (at least initially) seemed to say that the age
of miracles was over. Does anyone put a specific date on when the
last miracle was?
"But it is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the inferior
ranks of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp
and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The
virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans,
was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance."
E: This is otherwise known as "sour grapes."
"About a century afterwards, Ossian, the son of Fingal, is said to
have disputed, in his extreme old age, with one of the foreign
missionaries, and the dispute is still extant, in verse, and in the
Erse language. See Mr. Macpher son's Dissertation on the
Antiquity of Ossian's Poems, p. 10."
E: See my comments, above, on Ossian
[Eusebius writes,] "'They presume to alter the Holy Scriptures, to
abandon the ancient rule of faith, and to form their opinions
according to the subtile precepts of logic. The science of the
church is neglected for the study of geometry, and they lose sight
of heaven while they are employed in measuring the earth. Euclid
is perpetually in their hands. Aristotle and Theophrastus are the
objects of their admiration; and they express an uncommon reverence
for the works of Galen. Their errors are derived from the abuse of
the arts and sciences of the infidels, and they corrupt the
simplicity of the gospel by the refinements of human reason.'"
E: In other words, Eusebius is objecting to trying to make any
logical or scientific sense of the scriptures.
"Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a
celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a
preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event,
which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the
devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and
history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder
Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received
the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these
philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great
phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors comets, and eclipses,
which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and
the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which
the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A
distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an
extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself
with describing the singular defect of light which followed the
murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of a year, the orb
of the sun appeared pale and without splendor. The season of
obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the preternatural
darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated by most of the
poets and historians of that memorable age."
E: The idea that maybe none of the philosophers, poets, or
historians of that era witnessed or heard of such a thing, and that
maybe it never actually happened, does not seem to cross Gibbon's
mind at all. Or maybe he is just following Eusebius's philosophy.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac who
stays up all night wondering if there really is a Dog?
--Unknown