THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
06/13/08 -- Vol. 26, No. 50, Whole Number 1497
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
2^29's Missing Digit (puzzle by Mark R. Leeper)
Dangers of Having an Older Father (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
The United States' Best Kept Travel Secret (part 3)
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Predictions (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
BRASYL by Ian McDonald (book review by Joe Karpierz)
TRUMBO (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Southern Utah (letter of comment by Jerry Ryan)
This Week's Reading (THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES;
BONE SHARPS, COWBOYS, AND THUNDER LIZARDS;
SUSPENDED IN LANGUAGE; and GRAPHIC CLASSICS)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: 2^29's Missing Digit (puzzle by Mark R. Leeper)
The number 2^29 (that is the product of 29 twos) is a nine-digit
number and all nine of the digits are different from each other.
That means exactly one digit does not occur. Using only pencil
and paper, figure out the digit that does not appear. I will
publish the answer next week. We will publish the name of anyone
who sends me a solution. Note: we do not want just the answer. A
good calculator will give you that. You have to tell how you
could figure out the answer with only pencil and paper. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Dangers of Having an Older Father (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
Drudge Report has a headline that read "DANGERS OF HAVING AN
OLDER FATHER REVEALED..." I think we are just going to have to
live with the danger. Everybody has an older father. That is
just how it works. Wish him well on Sunday. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: The United States' Best Kept Travel Secret (part 3)
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
This continues my description of the parks in the Canyon Country
of Southern Utah. We moved along and got a room in Moab, Utah.
On Thursday we visited Arches National Park.
Arches National Park is known and named for its natural stone
arches. Arches are really formed from fins. Fins are formed when
water running over a rock face splits. The two streams carve the
two sides of what becomes a long narrow slice of rock. Over time
the cuts become deeper and deeper. Water and wind and sand blast
one or both sides until they wear a hole through the narrow
stone. The wind carries water and sand through the hold drilling
it wider. Eventually all you have is a stone arch. The most
famous arch in the park is Delicate Arch.
http://tinyurl.com/5u9g8w
The above is the official arch of Utah. Even license plates in
Utah show this arch. Not that I consider it the most beautiful
arch in the park. I would say that Landscape Arch is more
impressive and more delicate. In fact, it looks like it will
fall apart any moment.
http://tinyurl.com/3oqf9n
Now it may be just me, but there are so many odd formations in
the park that the arches are not really the main attraction.
Wind, rain, and sand have carved a lot of impressive and/or weird
shapes. One can get an idea of the scale by the size of the road
in this picture:
http://tinyurl.com/4sr9t3
One of the peculiar features that turn up in a lot of tourist
pictures of the area is a balancing rock. It will appear to be a
huge boulder balanced delicately on the top of a rock spire.
http://tinyurl.com/5to8fj
How did the boulder come to rest there? It didn't come. It was
always there. At least it was there as long as it has been a
separate boulder. A balancing rock together with the spire it is
on is an extreme case of a hoodoo, as I described last week. You
will have a column of rock with harder rock supported by softer
rock. Erosion will trim the softer rock below and one is left
with a less scathed rock on top of a spindly column. The rock
probably will fall some day. In fact, it will probably fall
soon. But that soon is measured in geological terms. If it
falls in a thousand years, that is soon. Just the same, it is
probably not a good idea to climb these rocks.
Friday our first stop was at Dead Horse Point State Park. The
park with this sepulchral name is best known for its promontory
lookout over a canyon.
http://tinyurl.com/5mg38
Canyons are more impressive from the base than from the top, but
the picture above I just a detail of a canyon that goes on and
on, wrapping around the viewer for at least 180 degrees of angle.
Last trip I figured if I wanted a panoramic view it would take at
least seven photographs. The photo above shows what river water-
-in this case the Colorado River--does to sandstone when it
washes it away for longer than there has been life on earth. It
took a long time to prepare this show for you. The river is
something like 2000 feet below the rim where the park is. It is
not has deep a canyon as Zion is and you do see it from the top,
but it is still pretty darn impressive.
Last trip I think this was what I considered the most impressive
view of the trip. However, we saw the parks in a different
order. Dead Horse Point was near the beginning of the trip. It
is still really great, but it has more competition from things we
have seen in the days before.
More to come next week. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Predictions (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
If you asked people in 1948 (sixty years ago) to give the
probabilities of each of the following in 2008, would the answers
look anything like today's world? (Terminology is of 1948 as
well.)
- Negroes and whites will be allowed to intermarry in all 48
states.
- No one would care that Negroes and whites will be allowed to
intermarry in all 48 states.
- Homosexuals will be allowed to marry each other in the United
States.
- A woman will mount a creditable bid to become the Presidential
nominee of one of the two major parties.
- A Negro will be the Presidential nominee of one of the two
major parties.
- Staunch segregationist and Ku Klux Klan Kleagle Robert Byrd
would endorse the Negro Presidential nominee.
- Truman would be considered one of the best Presidents ever.
- Most of our cars would be made by Japanese companies.
- Most of our consumer goods would be made in Red China.
- We will have a colony on the moon.
- We will have flying cars.
- We will have a twenty-hour work week.
(In the late 1990s, each of us was asked at a diversity meeting
at work how likely we thought it was that a "person of color"
could be elected President by 2010. I said I thought it was
reasonably likely that one could, though almost everyone else
said it was very unlikely. One of the black people immediately
asked me, "Do you really think a black man could be elected
President?" I pointed out to her than a "person of color" could
be Hispanic, and I certainly thought a Hispanic could be. This
was definitely a conversation-stopper, and proved (to me, anyway)
that this whole "person of color" thing is as full of holes as a
sponge. But it was clear that even ten years ago, the idea of a
black Presidential candidate was not in people's crystal balls.)
[-ecl]
Postscript: The following is from the transcript of the June 8
MEET THE PRESS.
MR. RUSSERT: Which, which leads me to Robert F. Kennedy. We're
going to talk about him in our "Meet the Press Minute". But look
at this. He gave a speech to the Voice of America all around the
world forty years ago. And despite what was going on in the
country, particularly in Alabama, Bobby Kennedy said this: Things
are "moving so fast in race relations a Negro could be President
in forty years." This is in 1968, we're now in 2008. "`There's
no question about it,' the attorney general said. `In the next
forty years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother
has.' ...
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: BRASYL by Ian McDonald (copyright 2007, PYR, $25.00, 357pp,
ISBN 978-1-59102-543-6) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
So, every year there is one book on the list that all the critics
love. There just don't seem to be enough good words to say about
it. It's on all the awards' nominee lists. It seems like a
shoe-in to win the award, at least if you believe the critics.
And invariably, I hate it.
This year is no exception.
In an odd turn of events, Evelyn and I actually agree on a book.
The thing is, she's the smarter one--she decided not to finish
it. I did.
This was painful. It was painful because, as Evelyn pointed out,
you have to keep going to the glossary to look up a word that you
don't understand (it's kind of like JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR
NORRELL, in that you have to read footnotes in teeny tiny print
on a great number of pages, but at least in that book you
understood the words). It was painful because it spent too much
time immersing you in the culture and country of Brazil and not
enough time on the story itself. You do remember my rant about
good storytelling, don't you? It was painful because the book
was nearly half done before anything interesting happened and you
started to get the idea of what the *real* story was that was
going on. It was painful because there was no real resolution to
the storyline--if there was much of one. By the end I was left
scratching my head as to why I should even *care* about what was
going on in this book, let alone want to know what happened to
the characters we were following throughout this novel.
As an aside, I literally just went and read my review of the last
Ian McDonald Hugo nominee, RIVER OF GODS. If you want how I
really feel about BRASYL, read that review and ignore the bits
about the plot of that book and insert the ones I'm going to tell
you about this one.
Our story takes place in three timelines: 2006, 2032, and 1732.
In 2006, we follow Marcelina Hoffman, a television producer who
is looking for the next killer show to enhance her career. She
intends to find the Brazilian soccer goalie who lost the Fateful
Final and sent the Brazilian nation into disgrace (apparently the
story of the Fateful Final is true--it *has* to be more
interesting than this novel). In 2032 we follow Edson, a sort of
talent scout who falls into the world of, get this, *illegal
quantum computing*. In 1732, we follow Jesuit Father Luis Quinn
as he attempts to track down and apprehend a rogue priest who
apparently is doing something very naughty in the dark depths of
Brazil. So, what's the hook? Quantum computing, that's the
hook. There's something very sinister going on in all three
timelines that revolves around quantum computing (although the
folks in 1732 don't know it as that). Things start to get
interesting when we first encounter a "Q-blade", a knife that
will cut through anything. As it turns out, that in and of
itself is a clue to a revelation that occurs later in the book
that is interesting but is never really followed up on.
I was trying to decide whether I should spoil the main idea here
just to show you how interesting this book could have been had it
actually cared enough to care about the idea and work with it as
oppose to teasing us with it, saying "here look at this very neat
idea that I'm going to give you a peek at, but look quick because
I'm going to put it away right away and oh by the way I'm going
to show it to you at the end of the book". Once I saw the idea,
I thought "okay, NOW we can get started". Nope we were done.
I decided to let you read it yourself and decide.
I think this was a huge waste of my time. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: TRUMBO (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: The story of Dalton Trumbo's career is told, based on
the play of the same name by Dalton's son, Christopher Trumbo.
The story is illuminated by Trumbo's writings, particularly his
correspondence dramatically read by major actors of the film
industry. Actors recreate the moods of this always tremendously
well-spoken man. This may be the last film to feature Trumbo's
writing and it has some of his most powerful prose. It is may be
the best film that has ever been made about the Hollywood
blacklist and the Hollywood Ten. Rating: low +3 (-4 to +4) or
8/10
The darkest chapter of the American entertainment industry was
the years of the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy era.
People accused of disloyalty to the government--usually for
actions that were completely within their Constitutional rights--
could not confront their accusers, but would suddenly find that
nobody would hire them. Careers were destroyed by innuendo.
Ten Hollywood screenwriters refused to cooperate with the House
Un-American Activities Committee's investigation into whether as
anonymously accused, there were Communist influences in the film
industry. In most cases this lack of cooperation was a refusal
to betray their friends and give names of people who could be
accused of being Communists. Unchecked the accusations would
have spread in a chain reaction. If each person accused gave the
names of two others the entire film industry could have been
consumed. Ten screenwriters refused to cooperate. These were
the Hollywood Ten.
One screenwriter among the ten was Dalton Trumbo. Before the
years of the blacklist he was a successful screenwriter with an
eloquent and powerful command of the English language. Like the
others of the Ten, he was sentenced to a year in prison on the
charge of contempt of Congress. When he was released he had
become an un-person as far as his Hollywood career was concerned.
Studios could not hire him for fear of being accused themselves
of hiring Communists. Trumbo could submit only very few scripts
he had written and then only under a pseudonym or by the use of a
front man whom Trumbo would allow to claim credit for Trumbo's
work. In 1956 a Trumbo script--submitted under the fictitious
name Robert Rich--was given an Academy Award that could not be
claimed. Then in 1960 two major films were released, SPARTACUS
and EXODUS, each written by Dalton Trumbo. The producers and
directors of these films risked the wrath of the American public
and gave Trumbo screen credit for his own work. It was an
extremely risky action. The decision to use Trumbo's name was
made by Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger respectively of these two
films. When there was little fuss from the public. Hollywood
columnist Hedda Hopper was a notable exception calling SPARTACUS
"A story sold to Universal from a book written by a Commie
[Howard Fast], and the screen script was written by a Commie
[Dalton Trumbo], so don't go see it." When the public did go see
it it was generally acknowledged that the blacklist was dead.
Trumbo, Preminger, and especially Douglas had tested the waters
and demonstrated that the government hunt for supposed Communist
influences had lost the support of the American people.
The story of Trumbo is important and moving enough. But nine
major actors give dramatic readings to his correspondence: Joan
Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan
Lane, Josh Lucas, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, and Donald
Sutherland. In addition Kirk Douglas also talks about his
relationship with Trumbo and the history of the period. In
addition there are filmed interviews with Trumbo to fill in gaps
and interviews with family and friends still living.
The story covered by the film goes from Trumbo's career in the
1930s to his final acceptance back to public approval in 1960
(with a bit of a postscript in the 1970s). In the 1930s the
Communist Party seemed to be the only American party that had a
direct policy of opposing Fascism and confronting dictators.
During World War II, the Soviets were at least nominally
America's allies. But when the war was over the fear and hatred
of the Soviets turned into a vicious anti-Communist witch-hunt.
Some actors, afraid for their positions, willingly cooperated
with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The
first who did not cooperate were called the Unfriendly Ten.
Later they were re-dubbed the Hollywood Ten. The film follows
Trumbo through his time in prison and then to his self-exile to
Mexico to find work that he could not find the United States.
The actors dramatize his many moods reflected in his
correspondence including Paul Giamatti's very funny reading of a
letter from Dalton to son Christopher on the subject of
masturbation, a letter that probably ranks with Mark Twain's
1601. The film follows Trumbo through times when he was taking
any work he could get and when he returned by screenwriting, the
career he had promised himself he would never enter again. He
used fronts and pseudonyms to sell his scripts while hiding his
name. All of this is described with great eloquence in his
correspondence. It is also illustrated with scenes that he wrote
for the movies, which take on new meaning in the context of
Trumbo's life.
There is a certain continuity across the many actors who read his
words. They can be funny or sad or serious and heavy, but it is
the same voice behind them and the same carefully and powerfully
wrought prose. TRUMBO is among other things a lesson in how two
say volumes with an economy of words. As a sort of grand finale
the actors all share a reading with overlapping segments so each
can get a part of this one reading.
As admirable as TRUMBO is, and as powerful in his convictions,
Dalton Trumbo is not the hero of this story. Dalton Trumbo is a
man whose strong character was more important to himself than his
sense of self-preservation. By being a person of character he
knowingly (or mostly knowingly) allowed himself to be the victim
of dangerous political forces. The real hero of this film is Kirk
Douglas. He is present and speaking through stroke-slurred
speech, but he obviously wanted to participate. Another hero is
Otto Preminger who also credited Trumbo's work. These two men
risked losing heir careers to make a stand against the Hollywood
blacklist. TRUMBO is essentially the story of a rescue against
high odds. And more than just Trumbo's career was rescued.
Douglas and Preminger are the rescuers. This film concentrates on
why that rescue was necessary, why it had to be done, and why all
Americans are the beneficiaries of the rescue of one articulate
contrarian with a bushy moustache. I rate TRUMBO a low +3 on
the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.
Kirk Douglas gives a good account of his part in the events in
his autobiography THE RAGMAN'S SON. The film TRUMBO gets its New
York City release on June 27.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0889671/
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Southern Utah (letter of comment by Jerry Ryan)
In response to Mark's articles on southern Utah in the 05/30/08
and 06/06/08 issues of the MT VOID, Jerry Ryan writes, " My
brother lives out in Scottsdale, and we have hiked a lot of that
part of the world. I could not agree with you more about the
amazing beauty of that part of the world. I've hiked the Paria
Canyon, which is one of the slot canyons in Southern Utah. Once
you are about an hour or so in, the only choice is to finish the
hike. You have to check the weather before you start, though.
if there is a chance of rain, you should not enter the canyon
because of the risk of death due to flash floods. In the right
time of the year, ou can camp by putting a tarp on the ground and
just getting into a sleeping bag! My obligatory science fiction
reference: ever been to Goblin Valley [State Park] out there? My
brother took me and I was struck by how familiar it seemed to
me... and then I realized, it was the site of the location shoot
for the rock-monster-planet scene in GALAXY QUEST. The
"monsters" occur naturally: they are these astounding rock
formations that needed only a little CGI to attack Tim Allen!
Mark responds, "This trip we did not do much hiking. We had my
mother with us. And truth be known, we are getting a little fat
and lazy ourselves. On previous trips we hiked. And, yes, we
did see Goblin Valley back in May of 1995, before GALAXY QUEST.
And we did recognize the area when we saw the film. I am not
sure I would use the word 'beauty' for the area I am talking
about. It is not so much beautiful as majestic and even
baroque." [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES: ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF CHINESE
FOOD by Jennifer 8. Lee (ISBN-13 978-0-446-58007-6, ISBN-10 0-
446-58007-4) began in 2005 when the Powerball lottery had 110
second-place winners instead of the expected 3 or 4. Why?
Because five of the six winning numbers were printed on thousands
of slips in fortune cookies, and 110 people picked them in the
lottery. Lee started out trying to find out the origins of the
fortune cookie, and along the way also discovered the truth about
General Tso's Chicken, what "chop suey" really is, why Jews like
Chinese food (and at least something about the Kosher Duck
Scandal of 1989), what the connection is between Chinese
restaurants and illegal immigration, and why no one can agree on
what soy sauce is. Eventually, Lee does track down the fortune
cookie, but the digressions are actually more interesting than
that particular search.
I got several "graphic novels" from the library. Well, not
graphic novels precisely, since a couple are non-fiction. (So
what do we call graphic books that are non-fiction?)
BONE SHARPS, COWBOYS, AND THUNDER LIZARDS: EDWARD DRINKER COPE,
OTHNIEL CHARLES MARSH, AND THE GILDED AGE OF PALEONTOLOGY by Jim
Ottaviani & Big Time Attic (ISBN-13 978-09660106-6-4, ISBN-10
09660106-6-3) is about ... well, what the title says. At 165
pages, it covers the subject fairly well with a straightforward
approach done in sepia tones. It does not deliver the dinosaurs
that the cover seems to promise, except as museum skeletons and
isolated fossils, but it does give the reader an idea of what
paleontology was like in the Gilded Age. Readers should be sure
to read the "Fact or Fiction?" section at the back to find out
where Ottaviani took liberties with the truth.
[If none of this makes any sense to you see
http://www.150.si.edu/chap7/dinos.htm -mrl]
SUSPENDED IN LANGUAGE: NIELS BOHR'S LIFE, DISCOVERIES, AND THE
CENTURY HE SHAPED by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis (ISBN-13
978-0-9660106-5-7, ISBN-13 0-9660106-5-5), on the other hand, is
318 densely packed pages of physics. (Indeed, at times Ottaviani
and Purvis abandon the graphic style for solid paragraphs of
text--and hard-to-read text at that, with closely spaced san
serif typeface with normal, bold, *and* italic fonts, all in the
same paragraph. This would be difficult to follow even as a
regular biography, but the added graphics make it even more
difficult. (Indeed, one of the points it makes is that the
"solar system model" of the atom is the last one that people
could visualize--and it is wrong. Part of the Heisenberg
Indeterminacy Principle is that one cannot see some things, so
there is a certain irony in the graphic format here.
Eureka Productions has a series called GRAPHIC CLASSICS, each of
which has six to ten short pieces by the featured author, each
done by a different person (or people). For example, the
H. P. LOVECRAFT volume (ISBN-13 978-0-9746648-9-7, ISBN-10
0-9746648-9-8) has "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" adapted by Alex
Burrows and illustrated by Simon Gane, "The Shadow Out of Time"
adapted and illustrated by Matt Howarth, and so on. This means
that if you do not like the style of one piece, you may like the
next. "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" had (in my opinion) too many
panels that were almost entirely black and dark gray. "Dreams in
the Witch-House" has a very stark (one might almost say harsh)
black and white look. "Sweet Ermengarde" uses a much lighter
touch, with thinner lines and more detail. "The Cats of Ulthar"
is basically a text story with one large illustration on each
page. And so on. Similarly, the MARK TWAIN volume (ISBN-13
978-0-9787919-2-6, ISBN-10 0-9787919-2-4) has a variety of styles
as well. I would love to see GOTHIC CLASSICS (ISBN-13
978-0-9787919-2-2, ISBN-10 0-9787919-2-4), which features
NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen and THE MYSTERY OF UDOLPHO by Ann
Radcliffe, among others. How they manage to condense a full
novel down to forty pages or so is perhaps something I do not
want to see--even CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED had more pages than that,
I think--but I am still curious.
Of course, a large part of the attraction of both Lovecraft and
Twain is their language, and what the graphic form often does is
to sacrifice some of the text for pictures. As such, it's more
comparable to a film made from the story, rather than the story
itself.
Oddly, the Lovecraft volume is catalogued as fiction, but the
Twain appears to be given Dewey Decimal number 741. I have no
idea why, but it is no wonder that books go missing on the shelf.
It would not surprise me that someone might end up shelving these
two together, and then one becomes unfindable. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
It's better to know some of the questions
than all of the answers.
-- James Grover Thurber