Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/25/20 -- Vol. 39, No. 13, Whole Number 2138
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, *mleeper@optonline.net *
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, *eleeper@optonline.net *
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An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at
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Topics:
Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in October (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
MACHINE by Elizabeth Bear (book review by Joe Karpierz)
Gender-Reveal Update (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Tarzan Movies (letter of comment by Kip Williams)
Monsters (letter of comment by Dorothy J. Heydt)
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) (letters of comment
by Gary McGath and Paul Dormer)
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) and Translation (letters
of comment by Paul Dormer, Tim Merrigan,
Scott Dorsey, Dorothy J. Heydt, Steve Coltrin,
and John Halpenny)
This Week's Reading (THE HAUNTING OF H. G. WELLS and
SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE SPIRIT BOX) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
Needless to say, everything here is tentative. The Old Bridge
group did hold a socially distanced meeting at one of the
members' homes on July 23 to discuss ROBUR THE CONQUEROR,
and a Zoom meeting on September 24 for THE DARK FOREST.
All Middletown meetings cancelled/postponed until further notice
November 19, 2020: Rudyard Kipling:
"A Matter of Fact" (1892)
*https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16578
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16578*
"The Ship That Found Herself" (1895)
*https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2569
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2569*
".007" (1897)
*https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2569
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2569*
"Wireless" (1902)
*https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9790
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9790*
"With the Night Mail [Aerial Board of Control 1]" (1905)
*https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29135
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29135*
"As Easy as A.B.C. [Aerial Board of Control 2]" (1912)
*https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13085
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13085*
"In the Same Boat" (1911)
*https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13085
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13085*
Old Bridge Public Library, 7PM
===================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in October (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) is imprinted on our
cultural psychology perhaps only surpassed by King Kong and
Godzilla. The creature himself is an icon more recognizable than
any number of screen monsters that have appeared in the two-thirds
of a century intervening. The science of the script is laughably
problematic, but does not seem much of a flaw. What is remembered
is a short sequence with Julie Adams swimming on the surface while
unknown to her the creature is swimming a symmetric dance. This is
certainly one of the most fondly remembered of the science fiction
films of the 1950s. It probably is not for the script, which
frankly is flawed, but some the visual images work well in the
film. Still the film is a classic.
[A full retrospective on this ran in last week's MT VOID.]
[CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, Monday, October 12 @ 2;00 PM]
Also, every Monday evening in October TCM is running a Peter
Cushing festival:
October 5:
8:00 PM Cash on Demand (1961)
9:30 PM End of the Affair, The (1955)
11:30 PM Time Without Pity (1957)
1:15 AM John Paul Jones (1959)
3:30 AM Hamlet (1948)
October 12:
8:00 PM Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960)
9:30 PM Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)
11:00 PM Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)
12:30 AM She (1965)
2:30 AM Violent Playground (1958)
4:30 AM In Saigon: Some May Live (1967)
October 19:
8:00 PM Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1959)
9:30 PM Horror of Dracula (1958)
11:15 PM Mummy, The (1959)
1:00 AM Curse of Frankenstein, The (1957)
2:45 AM Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
4:30 AM Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed! (1970)
October 26:
8:00 PM Nothing But the Night (1972)
9:45 PM Madhouse (1974)
11:30 PM From Beyond the Grave (1973)
1:30 AM Scream and Scream Again (1970)
4:45 AM Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)
===================================================================
TOPIC: MACHINE by Elizabeth Bear (copyright 2020, Gallery Books,
$15.99, hardcover, ISBN: 9781534403017) (book review by Joe
Karpierz)
MACHINE is the second book in the White Space series, the first
being 2019's ANCESTRAL NIGHT. I will confess to not having read
ANCESTRAL NIGHT, but it is sitting in my to-be-read
pile/stack/list/whatever. The good news is that the reader need
not have read the first book to enjoy and understand MACHINE.
While there are references to the first book (I am given to
understand), and a few people and things from that book appear in
MACHINE, knowing the intricate details of those things--and people-
-is not necessary to the enjoyment of this book.
Doctor Brooklynn Jens is a rescue specialist. If there are
entities that are in trouble, she will not hesitate to jump out an
open airlock of a spaceship to help those in need. And, in fact,
that's how MACHINE starts off. The ship Jens is assigned to is
responding to a distress signal. When Sally--Jens' ship--arrives
at the signal they discover that the signal is emanating from a
ship that is docked (or attached to, take your pick) to an ancient
generation starship that departed Earth hundreds of years earlier,
from the time before humans joined an interstellar civilization
called the Synarche and before they were able to overcome all the
sorts of things our civilization was afflicted with. The process
is called "rightminding", and just the name makes be a bit
squeamish, although those who are rightminded are certainly more
civilized than those who aren't. It's quite the complicated issue,
and one that still has me thinking about being rightminded. While
it may be for humanity's own good, it is somewhat frightening that
our future selves would possibly allow themselves to have their
minds meddled with in the name of better behavior.
In any event, Jens and her team enter the generation ship first, as
that one is friendly to oxygen breathers while the other is not.
What they find is that the entire crew is in cryogenic sleep
containers, while their creepy caretaker, Helen (whose full name is
a take off on Helen O'Loy), is somewhat confused and scary. The
job is to get the crew of the generation ship *and* Helen on to the
rescue ship and then somehow get the crew of the second ship taken
back to the medical station Core General as well.
And that is probably the most straightforward piece of this
entirely enthralling space opera. It turns out that Core General
itself is the victim of sabotage, and Jens' assignment has changed
from dealing with the survivors on the generation ship to finding
out exactly what is going on at Core General. The weird thing is
that several of Jens' colleagues and superiors are aware of what's
going on, but there's nothing they can do about it. And they're
the ones that have assigned Jens the job of finding out what's
going on.
While it's clear to many long time readers of SF and space opera
that MACHINE owes a lot to James White's Sector General stories,
Bear also credits C. J. Cherryh as an inspiration in writing this
novel. That inspiration shows as well.
MACHINE is a highly entertaining space opera that has, in Bear's
own words, a Rube-Goldbergian plot. Just when the reader thinks
they have figured out what's going on, Bear sends the story off in
yet another direction that keeps that reader entertained until the
very end. There have been a lot of space operas that have been
written recently, all attempting in their own way to update the
subgenre to make it relevant to the 21st century. Bear has done a
terrific job in doing just that. MACHINE is highly recommended.
Now I guess I'd better go read ANCESTRAL NIGHT. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Gender-Reveal Update (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
G. Willow Wilson said that 10,000 acres were burned because of a
gender-reveal party. The number is now 21,000 and there has been
one fatality. (A previous gender-reveal party had the first
fatality, so this makes two.) There has also been at least one
plane crash. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Tarzan Movies (letter of comment by Kip Williams)
I have a definite favorite in the series: TARZAN'S NEW YORK
ADVENTURE (1942) gives us the Ape Man in the Big Apple, climbing
around in the concrete jungle, mostly wearing a business suit. And
I'm pretty sure other stuff happens as well. There's a circus
involved. I'm glad I have a recording of it that I can
(theoretically) find and watch, since we don't have cable any more.
Other than that, I have preferences. The ones where he fights Nazis
are always good, and TARZAN AND HIS MATE will always be watchable
for me, for a reason I probably need not mention. [-kw]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Monsters (letter of comment by Dorothy J. Heydt)
In response to Mark's comments on the Creature from the Black
Lagoon in the 09/18/20 issue of the MT VOID, Dorothy J. Heydt
writes:
[Mark writes,] "They are really pushing convergent evolution
particularly making the creature attracted to Kay. Consider how
many more people know what the creature looks like and how few can
picture the Martians from WAR OF THE WORLDS." [-mrl]
Oh. I remember that Martian vividly, although one sees it only
for a few seconds. It's one of those etched-onto-the-retina
images. YMMV. Note, if you can remember it, that the Martian is
terrified of either the humans or their flashlight ... I'll have
to get out the DVD and watch it again. [-djh]
[Mark writes,] "Does the writer think he himself could be attracted
to a female gorilla, no matter how cute? [-mrl]
John Collier wrote a novel called HIS MONKEY WIFE. Although (mind,
I haven't read it) the bride appears to be a chimp, not a gorilla.
[-djh]
Evelyn adds:
"Rachel in Love" by Pat Murphy. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) (letters of comment by Gary
McGath, Paul Dormer, and Keith F. Lynch)
In response to Evelyn's comments on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) in
the 09/18/20 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:
I love that movie.
[Re Running the film backwards] Clever. The trick of running the
film backwards is also used in the silent version of THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS for the parting of the Red Sea.
[Re this being a lookist film] Is it? Belle regards the Beast as
hideous, even if that isn't well conveyed, and learns to see beyond
that.
The ending felt like a letdown to me. The special effects
overwhelm the characters.
[On the Beast lapping up water] I think the idea is that he's
beastly in psychology as well as appearance. [-gmg]
Paul Dormer writes:
I haven't seen that film for years, but I did watch Cocteau's
ORPHEE again last year. (I'd just been to see the Philip Glass
opera and I wanted to see it again.)
Another simple special effect in that. Someone puts their hand
into a mirror. It was actually a bath of mercury and the image was
rotated so it looked like a vertical mirror.
At least the person was wearing gloves when they did that. Even in
the Sixties we were handling mercury with bare hands in school
chemistry lessons.
Actually, I think it was part of the plot. A special pair of
gloves was needed in order to enter a mirror. [-pd]
Keith F. Lynch demurs:
Metallic mercury isn't particularly dangerous. One nurse attempted
suicide by injecting herself with about a kilo of it. It didn't
hurt her at all. It did make her x-rays look a lot more
interesting.
You wouldn't want to sleep every night on a bed made of it, as a
few rich people did. But the real danger is from methyl mercury.
One person died because she got a single drop of that stuff on the
outside of the latex gloves she was wearing. [-kfl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) and Translation (letters of
comment by Paul Dormer, Tim Merrigan, Scott Dorsey, Dorothy
J. Heydt, Keith F. Lynch, Kevin R, Steve Coltrin, and John
Halpenny)
In response to Evelyn's comments on translation in BEAUTY AND THE
BEAST (1946) in the 09/18/20 issue of the MT VOID, Gary McGath
writes:
[Regarding the horse being told to go] "Va ou je veux aller, Le
Magnifique. Va! Va! Va!" (Accent mark omitted for the sake of
sticking to ASCII.) [-gmg]
Paul Dormer writes:
I am reminded of a subtitling problem I saw in a French film shown
on the BBC, it must have been back in the Eighties.
It was a slightly surreal policier. The detective finds a woman
standing over the corpse of her husband. Instead of arresting her,
he spends the night with her. The next morning, he's getting
dressed, she's still in bed.
"Did you sleep well?"" he asks, according to the subtitle.
I could hear the actual French of the reply:
"Oui. Et vous, uh, tu?"
The subtitle was just something like, "Yes, and you?" [-pd]
Tim Merrigan responds:
Considering that standard English doesn't use the informal, so most
people wouldn't understand the significance of "Yes, and you, uh,
thou," how would you have translated it? [-tm]
Paul Dormer answers:
Yes, my point was that it was untranslatable and you have to bear
in mind when dealing with a translated text, you are not always
getting the full picture.
There's a rather fun book called IS THAT A FISH IN YOUR EAR? by
David Bellos on the joys and pitfalls of translation. [-pd]
Evelyn adds:
I reviewed Bellos's book in the 01/20/2012 issue of the MT VOID,
with more comments in the 07/12/2019 issue; they are available at
*http://leepers.us/evelyn/reviews/rev-b.htm#fish
http://leepers.us/evelyn/reviews/rev-b.htm#fish*. [-ecl]
Scott Dorsey replies:
It goes both ways. I remember watching GO WEST--a Marx Brothers
film--with French subtitles. Groucho asks a Native American if
he's the chief that goes from Chicago to Los Angeles in two days
(which is a joke about a train which would not translate well to a
European audience). The subtitles replaced it with a completely
different joke altogether.
And then there is Jerry Lewis. The guy who dubs Jerry Lewis into
French is actually funny and his jokes are much better than Lewis'
too. [-sd]
Paul adds:
I have heard a report--possibly apocryphal--as told by an
Englishman watching the film Cross of Iron being shown in a Paris
cinema. The film opens with an extended action sequence with no
dialogue. Then a head peeps over a parapet and see a line or
armoured vehicles approaching.
"Tanks!" he cries.
The subtitle read, "Merci". [-pd]
Dorothy J. Heydt suggests:
The closest thing we've had in English for several centuries now is
use of first name vs. last name. Miss Manners gave the example of
a 19th-century gent saying to his beloved, "Miss Smith ... may I
call you Martha?" It's the equivalent of the Spanish "vamos a
tutearnos," which I saw in my second-year Spanish text, in which
the two start using "tu" to one another *and* simultaneously start
using first names.
But switching from last to first name is going out rapidly, at
least in the US; everybody first-names everybody else, or so it
sounds to a casual ear. [-djh]
Keith F. Lynch replies:
I agree. "They call me Mr. Tibbs" in the 1967 movie, IN THE HEAT
OF THE NIGHT has aged badly. To modern audiences, Mr. Tibbs sounds
very stuck up. [0kfl]
Kevin R disagrees:
An African-American professional demanding a form of respect
normally only accorded to white folks from a white law enforcement
officer?
I'd say that would resonate, today.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6n8VyqaCQ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6n8VyqaCQ4*
[-kr]
Keith responds:
I know the context. Do you really think there are any major movies
about wrongful accusations that I haven't watched?
But today, regardless of race, everyone would address everyone else
by their first name, and nobody would take offense at it. On the
other hand, the cop's casual use of the N-word would get him fired,
unlike merely killing an innocent person or three. [-kfl]
Kevin counters:
There are sure to be some reading the group who hadn't seen the
film, or read the book.
Having just spent the last 10 years doing customer care by phone,
and ~25 years before that in brick and mortar retail, perhaps I
have different experiences and sensibilities. I have interacted
with people who are fine with "hey, you!" all the way to folks who
are very bristly when they are not addressed with honorifics they
feel are their due.
My default has always been to start out with formal address, then
to use less formal forms if invited to.
I have worked in cube farms where all co-workers were on a first-
name basis, and I'd rack my brain sometimes trying to find out a
last name when I needed one.
In '67, Gillespie's use of that word might get him elected to the
state legislature. [-kr]
Paul Dormer responds to Dorothy:
I remember hearing recently a piece of comic verse the gist of
which was a conversation between Jerome K. Jerome and Ford Maddox
Ford about the problems they have with their names. If some just
says "Jerome" are they being stand-offish or unnecessarily
informal. [-pd]
Steve Coltrin suggests:
And as a second-order phenomenon there's full first name vs. brief
vs. diminutive. (Viz. Russian, with full-first-name-and-patronymic
vs. three different forms of diminutive, one of which only entered
wide usage in the Nineties.) [-sc]
John Halpenny relates:
I was in Texas some years ago with some older gentlemen who
addressed me as "you all" until they got to know me well enough to
just use "you". [-jh]
Dorothy J. Heydt responds:
And there's the story of the Yorkshireman who said to his
underling, "Don't tha thou me afore I thous thee!" [-djh]
Steve writes:
There's a scene in "Your Name." where one of the protagonists is
stumbling over what pronoun they should use for themselves during a
conversation. The subtitles are something along the lines of "I
(wrong for X reason) ... I (wrong for Y reason) ... I". No idea
how the English dub handled it--I won't watch dubs. [-sc]
Dorothy asks:
What was the original language? Japanese maybe? (About which I
know not much, but I believe there are various honorific grades of
pronouns; does this include first-person singular?)
Steve answers:
'Twas. Japanese has *oodles* of classifiers (they aren't pronouns)
for first and second person, encoding things such as absolute
social position, relative position between speaker and hearer, etc.
(None for third person. For third, you use name, job, etc. And
yes, there's a whole flotilla of honorific suffixes.)
(Also, Japanese doesn't really have grammatical number. In a very
real sense, all Japanese nouns are mass nouns - you have to add a
suffix to turn one into a count noun before you can specify how
many there are. And the suffix depends on (mostly) what shape the
thing is. (This is still simpler than what Navajo does.)) [-sc]
Evelyn notes:
John McWhorter's "Lexicon Valley" podcast from 09/15/20 covers
similar topics--in particular, the use of different language (and
not just pronouns) depending on to whom you are speaking. [-ecl]
[More at
*https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.fandom/c/RMzuQ_mCPhc
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.sf.fandom/c/RMzuQ_mCPhc*.
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE HAUNTING OF H. G. WELLS by Robert Masello (47North, ISBN 978-1-
542-09378-1) is an odd mixture of historical fiction, romance, and
the supernatural. Well, maybe to others it would not seem odd; I
realize there are lots of supernatural historical romance novels.
But it is not something of which I have read a lot.
The romance is the relationship between Wells and Rebecca West, as
well as his relationship with his wife Jane.(whose real name was
Amy Catherine, in case any of you TIME AFTER TIME fans was
wondering). The historical part is World War I and the social
movements of the time. And the supernatural ... well, that's a bit
trickier. [SPOILERS] Masello keeps throwing red herrings at us,
starting with the "Angels of Mons", a genuine story/urban legend of
a supernatural event during the war. After pretty much dismissing
that, he hands us another possibility in the "ghouls" of the
battlefield. And so on. He does eventually get to genuine
supernatural happenings, but only after several "false starts."
You will either find this clever, or you will want to strangle him.
I found the historical aspects of far more interest than the
romance, and the supernatural aspects of interest only insofar as
they served the historical part. Masello does have Arthur Machen
and Alistair Crowley as characters, along with Wells and West, and
Winston Churchill, but since one cannot tell how much of their
characters are fictionalized, there's always the possibility of the
unreliable narrator. Well, okay, we *know* the main plot is
fiction. But it is the sort of "enemy agent" plot that one can
accept in an historical fiction novel.
If you want a better World War I historical novel involving a
famous character and possible supernatural goings-on, read SHERLOCK
HOLMES: THE SPIRIT BOX by George Mann (Titan, ISBN 978-1-781-16002-
2). Mann has written several books in the supernatural alternate
history of Newbury & Hobbes, and Newbury appears here as well.
Again, we have a German plot against England, this time more
centered on espionage, and the question of whether there is
anything supernatural going on runs throughout the book. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
*mleeper@optonline.net *
The analysis of variance is not a mathematical theorem,
but rather a convenient method of arranging the
arithmetic.
--Ronald Fisher