THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/03/08 -- Vol. 27, No. 14, Whole Number 1513
El Honcho Grande: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
La Honcha Bonita: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Backstage Drama (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Position on the SNL Issue (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Editorial Written on an HP COMPUTER While Drinking a DIET
BARQ'S ROOT BEER Which Foamed onto the Keyboard
(comments by Mark R. Leeper)
GHOST TOWN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
IDENTITY THEFT AND OTHER STORIES by Robert J. Sawyer
(book review by Joe Karpierz)
THE MAN FROM EARTH (letter of comment by Dave Anolick)
Macs and PCs (letters of comment by Ed Kreighon
and James E. LeBarre)
Fifty States (letter of comment by Frank Leisti)
Sword and Sandal (letters of comment by David Shallcross,
Taras Wolansky, and John Purcell)
THE HANDS OF ORLAC (letter of comment by Taras Wolansky)
Polish Film Posters, the Economy, and THE HANDS OF ORLAC
(letter of comment by John Purcell)
This Week's Reading (CONSTANTINE'S SWORD, THE ENGINES
OF NIGHT, and THE ECONOMIC NATURALIST)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Backstage Drama (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I just read a real profile in courage. This would make a good
movie. You ought to visit the White House press release at
http://tinyurl.com/4tcaxz.
This is where George W. Bush reveals how he himself warned of
exactly the financial crisis we are having right now. He began
these warnings apparently in 2001 and the web page shows you year
by year since then how urgently he tried to warn of the financial
situation.
This was the President of the United States, leader of the party
that had the majority of Congress, the man whose party had
appointed much of the Supreme Court, and the man who appoints the
country's chief financial officers. And here he was trying
desperately to get his message to someone who might have a little
influence. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: My Position on the SNL Issue (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I discuss politics with a friend and we were discussing media
coverage of Sarah Palin. He told me he had not seen the "Saturday
Night Live" sketch on Palin. I shrugged it off. Later he
announced to me that he had now seen it. I did not ask him, but I
will ask here. Why is the "Saturday Night Live" sketch so
important that it is getting so much national attention? What
Palin believes and her ability to reason and to be coherent is
important. At some point I may talk about that, or maybe not. But
I want to take a non-partisan stand right now and say that what
"Saturday Night Live" does to try to be funny and to entertain is a
total irrelevancy to my politics. It may be good for a laugh but
it has no political importance whatsoever. How far have we fallen
as a country that so many people think "Saturday Night Live"
sketches are part of the national political debate? [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Editorial Written on an HP COMPUTER While Drinking a DIET
BARQ'S ROOT BEER Which Foamed onto the Keyboard (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Back when I was very young I used to watch a situation comedy
called "The Phil Silvers Show: You'll Never Get Rich." It is more
fondly remembered under the syndication title of "Sergeant Bilko."
It took place on an Army base and was the comic adventures of a
likable but amazingly self-serving sergeant. But the most self-
serving thing that would happen on a regular basis is that the
characters would just be standing around talking about the story
without the plot advancing. And in a few seconds the plot got
around to a particular brand of cigarette and how good it is and
how popular. It was not actually part of the show; it was an ad
cleverly disguised to make the viewer watch. Even if you knew it
was a commercial, you generally listened because is was the same
characters that you were watching the program to see. But there
was a certain feeling that you had been hoodwinked into watching an
advertisement. I later heard that the FCC banned this practice.
Commercials could not be made to blend in with the program. Over
the years the advertising industry has been chipping away at this
ruling. They no longer shoot a separate commercial with the same
characters. But they discovered that is they were a little more
subtle about it they could work their product into the main line of
the story. As you probably know this is known as the "product
placement" or "embedded advertising."
Films abound with product placements these days. They very
blatantly show you characters drinking cans of soda with the name
positioned perfectly for the audience to read. Or a character will
jump aboard a certain company's package delivery trucks. Generally
a product placement indicates it was put there by a filmmaker who
does not respect his audience and is willing to prostitute the
integrity of his film for a few extra dollars. An argument that
has been given in defense of the product placements is that the
money payoff was necessary to produce the film or that it is
realism to show some product names because we would see them in the
real world. In the real world you rarely see a product's label
positioned just perfectly to easily read, but it happens in bad
movies all the time.
James Bond films were a natural for product placements because in
the books Bond is supposed to have refined taste and Ian Fleming
mentioned certain products Bond preferred, though presumably Ian
Fleming never got paid off for any of these specific product
mentions. The Bond films, at least for a while, went into product
placements in some unsubtle ways. In the film MOONRAKER there is a
chase down a hill past three billboards. Each billboard advertises
a specific product. And each of those products also gets a mention
elsewhere in the dialog of the film. Clearly the producers were
selling a pre-defined package, one showing on a billboard and one
mention in the dialog, for anyone who wanted to pay the price. The
practice has not gone away in current Bond films. (According to
Wikipedia "when reviewing DIE ANOTHER DAY, [the] BBC, Time and
Reuters referred to it as "Buy Another Day." When you buy your
ticket for QUANTUM OF SOLACE you can expect that you are playing to
see a fancy ad for Ford, Omega, Sony, Virgin Atlantic, Heineken,
Coca-Cola, and Smirnoff.)
Even Steven Spielberg has gotten into the act. Part of the point
of MINORITY REPORT was to give a vision of the future and where
advertising specifically was going. But that particular artistic
decision was a profitable one with product placements like American
Express, Reebok and The Gap. Of course this is in the tradition of
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I do not know if they were paid for all the
obvious product names that show up in the visuals.
[Note: I lied about drinking the Barq's Root Beer, but I did start
this article back in June and at that time I did use an HP PC.
I'll accept cash from Barq's or HP. But I am willing to.]
Some of the information in this article was taken from the article
"A Quantum Leap in Product Placement" from "Marketing Week":
http://tinyurl.com/3t38sz
(I have to point out that the author may know advertising but does
not realize that a "quantum leap" does not mean a large change as
the term is frequently used, but actually the smallest possible
change.) One thing that will not change next week is my topic. I
will be discussing some legislation the FCC is considering in
limiting product placement. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: GHOST TOWN (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A dentist who died for seven minutes on the operating
table finds that he now can see dead people. Half of Manhattan has
favors they want of him and making matters worse, it is the dead
half. Ricky Gervais, popular star of BBC TV's "The Office", plays
the man who doesn't like living people and now has also to deal
with the dead. He is asked by a dead husband to break up his
wife's relationship with a new fiance. The first half has some
very good writing, but the film loses its center and wanders in its
second half. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
GHOST TOWN is a supernatural comedy-drama for which the comedy
elements, mostly connected with the premise, are pointed and work.
The dramatic elements are a little unfocussed. This makes for a
film with a great first act, and good but faulty second act and a
weak conclusion. The film was co-written and directed by David
Koepp. Koepp has been connected with some major fantasy films,
usually as a writer. Koepp's writing can be found in JURASSIC
PARK, THE SHADOW, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, STIR OF ECHOES, SPIDER-MAN,
WAR OF THE WORLDS (Spielberg version), ZATHURA, and INDIANA JONES
AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Those are fairly major
fantasy films. Here he tells a romantic story seemingly based on
the premises of GHOST and especially THE SIXTH SENSE.
Like Cole Sear of THE SIXTH SENSE, Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais)
sees dead people. It is the after-effect of dying on an operating
table for nearly seven minutes before being revived. Bertram sees
the dead like Sear does, but there are not just a few unquiet
spirits like we saw in THE SIXTH SENSE. This is Manhattan and
there are throngs of the dead who have been waiting around for some
living person to get the power to hear them. Each has a mission
before he or she moves onto the next existence. Bertram just has
to do one or two little things for each of them. Bertram could
spend the rest of his life performing important services for the
unquiet dead. Complicating matters is the fact that Bertram is
just not someone who does a lot of favors. In fact, Bertram is a
self-obsessed jerk who would just rather not be around people. He
chose being a dentist as a profession because sticking cotton or
metal into a patient's mouth generally ends conversations. He has
a hard enough time putting up with the living people in his life,
and he is less than happy about being the key man for so many dead
people. They hound him and they follow him around. The novelty of
this situation somewhat compensates for the overuse of the old gag
of someone trying to cover up the fact that he is talking to
someone that nobody else sees. That one got old along with the
"Topper" films.
Chief among Bertram's haunters is Frank Harley (Greg Kinnear). On
the day that Frank's wife Gwen (Tea Leoni) discovered Frank was
leading a double life, both lives came to an end. Frank wants to
make sure that the Gwen does not marry a certain creep, but being
dead his options are limited. He stalks and hounds Bertram hoping
to use him to save his wife. Not too surprisingly Bertram finds he
has an interest in her himself. In the second half the film loses
impetus and direction. We have three main characters, one living,
one dead, one lost a little in between. But none of these
characters seems to know what he or she wants. Instead, the
tension comes from not knowing if Gwen will find out that Bertram
is seeing her dead ex-husband (literally seeing him).
Fans of Ricky Gervais--and some people who do not care for him--
know him as the boorish office manager in the BBC comedy series
"The Office." Koepp gets a somewhat more restrained performance
from him for most of GHOST TOWN'S runtime. There are moments when
his TV persona does seem to creep back on him. This is a film that
takes the idea of THE SIXTH SENSE and makes a passable comedy out
of it by examining what it would mean to an average man to have the
power. As long as we are getting clever ideas about what it would
mean to see the dead, the GHOST TOWN is a lot of fun. When it
tries to become more serious the film falters and loses its center.
Still I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0995039/
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: IDENTITY THEFT AND OTHER STORIES by Robert J. Sawyer
(copyright 2008, Red Deer Press, $15.95, 284pp, ISBN
978-0-88995-412-0) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
It's no secret here that I'm a fan of Rob Sawyer--I like his
writing style, his story telling, and his ability to come up with
more ideas in one novel than many writers do in several. What
seems to fly under the radar is that Sawyer is a fine writer of
short fiction as well. Here's what I wrote about ITERATIONS, an
earlier short story collection from Sawyer: "ITERATIONS is full of
short stories the way I remember short stories were written when I
was younger--short, sweet, with some impact and with something to
make you want to go 'hmmmm'. Maybe I've been looking in all the
wrong places (I think there's a song title in there somewhere) for
short fiction, but I just don't find much like this any more."
This is the second time I've used that quote in another review of a
book of Sawyer's short work, the other being RELATIVITY. It holds
true here as well.
I've seen a bunch of these stories elsewhere (again, in both
ITERATIONS and RELATIVITY, as well as chapbooks and other places),
and those stories still make for good reading the second or more
time around.
Still, it's other stories that I don't think I've talked about in
prior reviews (maybe I have, but I can't seem to find them in my
other reviews, so I think I'm good): "The Stanley Cup Caper",
wherein the championship trophy of the National Hockey League goes
missing, and the detectives looking for it realize that it's in a
very unlikely place; "Mikeys", in which the title refers to those
astronauts who orbited the moon but never landed there, and which
tells the tale about two Mikeys who got the scoop of a lifetime
when they didn't land on Mars; "Driving a Bargain", a nice little
horror piece that will have criminals think twice about their
getaway cars; "Postscript: Emails from the Future", which
portrays the future of business extremely accurately, in my mind,
that I laughed out loud several times; "Flashes", about a bleak
future wherein contact with an alien species has a very undesired
side effect; "The Good Doctor", another entry into a traditional
series of SF stories that ends in an awful pun that will have you
groaning and shaking your head; "Biding Time", another story in the
"Shed Skin" universe where our hero detective solves another murder
case involving uploaded personalities; "Come All Ye Faithful",
about a priest sent to Mars to investigate a Blessed Virgin
sighting; and my personal favorite, "On the Surface", where Sawyer
revisits the far future of earth from H.G. Wells' THE TIME MACHINE,
and just how bleak *that* is.
Sawyer says that he will no longer be writing short fiction--he
much prefers novels, and that he doesn't have much time for the
shorter works. In that case, I suggest you pick up IDENTITY
THEFT, along with ITERATIONS and RELATIVITY. You'll have all of
Sawyer's short fiction, and you will really enjoy it. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE MAN FROM EARTH (letter of comment by Dave Anolick)
In response to Mark's review of THE MAN FROM EARTH in the 09/19/08
issue of the MT VOID, Dave Anolick writes:
I recently re-started exercising in the morning, watching DVDs from
Netflix as I ride a stationary bike. I normally stick to TV shows
because the time of a single show is the right amount of time for
my exercise routine. I know to stay away from movies, because if
it is a good movie, I often can't wait until the next day to
finish. Then my morning routine is blown to heck as I watch TV
long after I'm off the bike.
Well, this morning I broke my rule based on your +3 rating for "The
Man from Earth" and am now way behind in my day. But it was so
worth it, I figured I would spend another few minutes sending email
to thank you.
I never would have found this incredible gem of a movie without
your review and the MT VOID. I appreciate how good you are about
spoilers, but sometimes I like going into a movie knowing as little
as possible. So I actually only read the Capsule originally and
said that's enough for me and put it at the top of my queue. It
was so cool seeing a movie of such though provoking quality without
any preconceived notions about what to expect.
Thanks again! [-da]
Mark responds:
This has happened before. At the University of Massachusetts the
science fiction club took my suggestion and had a public showing of
FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH (aka QUATERMASS AND THE PIT).
Afterward the projectionist complained that he had intended to put
on the film and then study for his French exam the next day.
Somehow his French could not compete with the movie. (I still
consider it the best science fiction film I know.)
Thanks Dave. It messed up your day but it made mine. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Macs and PCs (letters of comment by Ed Kreighon and James
E. LeBarre)
In response to Evelyn's comments on Macs in the 09/26/08 issue of
the MT VOID, Ed Kreighon writes, "Long time VOID reader here...
Just read your article on the Mac and PC that you wrote. What I
have done on my MacBook Pro, is I used Apple's BootCamp to install
XP on a partition on the Mac to allow me to boot up into XP when I
need to. And I installed a program called Parallels on the Mac
side, that allows me to run a virtual XP machine while I am running
MacOS (and it uses the existing BootCamp partition, so you don't
need another XP license). With Parallels I get the best of both
worlds at once (and I can even create Linux virtual machines as
well). Just thought you might want to check it out..." [-ek]
In response to the particular observation about some characters
showing up either as "?"s or wacko character combinations, James
LaBarre writes, "You are right that this is likely not a 'Mac'
thing. Rather, it is an artifact of people composing pages in MS
appliucations like MSWord. The various MS applications will
attempt to imbed MS-specific formatting codes into the HTML source
code, partially to create formatting closer to the original
document, partially to make it easier to import the file back *in*
to a MS product. The problem with this is that MS Internet
Exploder [sic] is the only browser that can render these codes
correctly; they violate a large part of the W3C standards, and
serve to split the web into 'us' and 'them'. The solution to MS'
superfluous characters in the HTML code has generally been to run
the file through a "demoronizer" script (there was once a script
actually called "demoronizer", the concept has been incorporated
into other applications since then)." [-jel]
Evelyn responds, "The problem with a 'demoronizer' script is that
several different characters seem all to be mapped to the same
character (when things become question marks). I can actually run
a script when they become the wacko three-character combinations I
mentioned in my comments." [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Fifty States (letter of comment by Frank Leisti)
In response to the quiz of naming all fifty states mentioned in the
09/26/08 issue of the MT VOID, Frank Leisti writes, " The
Animaniacs do this in about 3 minutes--with the capitals of the
states as well: http://tinyurl.com/4p4f3m. That is how my second
son, Niles, learned his states and capitals. He sang that song
enough times to remember it that way." [-fl]
Evelyn notes, "I did it in 2 minutes, 19 seconds. (This means
typing them all correctly, by the way.) I could probably do all
the capitals, too." [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Sword and Sandal (letters of comment by David Shallcross,
Taras Wolansky and John Purcell)
In response to Mark's article on sword and sandal films in the
09/26/08 issue of the MT VOID, David Shallcross writes, " The movie
you have called CIBERIA is available from Kino on Video, under the
name 'Cabiria'. Maciste was just a supporting character, neither
the protagonist nor the romantic male lead, but was apparently so
popular that a long sequence of Maciste movies were made. The
silent-era 'Maciste all'inferno' is interesting, although not,
strictly speaking, a peplum film. [-ds]
Mark replies, "I wonder why my spell checker didn't catch
'Ciberia'. I have seen CABIRIA. Maciste is not the main character
but he certainly steals the show. And considering the sets that
takes some doing." [-mrl]
Taras Wolanksy writes:
Mark's story about the Italian sword and sandal flicks brought back
some nostalgic memories. I remember liking HERCULES UNCHAINED as a
kid, and my fond memories are preserved by not seeing the film
since then. The handsome color cinematography was flattering to
the pink, rounded limbs of the busty young Italian actresses in
their shorty robes that, even then, I suspected were not entirely
historically accurate. In those pre-steroid days, Steve Reeves was
big and muscular as the demi-god, but not a grotesque monster.
For many people, I'm sure, these films were their introduction to
the strange, strange world of ancient Greece. One strong,
beguiling impression that HERCULES UNCHAINED left behind--one thing
it may have gotten right about the ancient world--was that these
people lived most of their lives outside, in roofed structures open
to the wind, and in atria open to the sky. [-tw]
Mark responds, " You are right that some people probably did get
interested in mythology through these films. Today some kids are
getting into mythology through books. I talked to one boy who was
very excited about Greek myth having gotten interested though a
series by Rick Riordan starting with THE LIGHTENING THIEF.
Apparently it is about a young adult who as adventures centering on
the gods of myth." [-mrl]
And John Purcell writes:
On to a more fun topic: Sword and Sandal films are one of my guilty
pleasures. I have always enjoyed those; much fun to heckle and
laugh at over a bowl of popcorn while guzzling a pitcher of
KoolAid. I have never heard the term "pepla" used before to
describe these films. Your explanation of where this comes from
was most helpful, and I like the idea of combining it with "Fusto".
Yeah, I like it. Fusto Pepla. Sounds like the name of some
Italian pro wrestler.
At any rate, this article was also neat to see the connection
between how those Godzilla flicks found their way into the American
late-night television movie time slots. When I was a kid in
Minneapolis, the local CBS station (WCCO) had this thing called
"Horror, Incorporated" which showed some classic horror films from
the 1930s and 1940s mixed in with a liberal dollop of 1950s and
1960s schlock films. The program started at midnight and would run
double-features--sometimes triple-features--until 4:00 or 4:30 in
the morning. I'd stay up all night watching them, too. Loved that
kind of stuff then; still do, in fact
So I thank you for running this "pepla" film article. Very
illuminating and entertaining, and I agree with you that it would
be great if TCM would air more of them. Once in a while they have
Ray Harryhausen or SciFi or Horror film fests running all day and
night on either a Friday or Saturday night. Mix in these Sword and
Sandal flicks from time to time and they'd have a nice rotation of
celluloid abominations running. It almost makes me miss Mystery
Science Theater 3000. Almost. [-jp]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE HANDS OF ORLAC (letter of comment by Taras Wolansky)
In response to Mark's review of THE HANDS OF ORLAC in the 09/26/08
issue of the MT VOID, Taras Wolansky writes:
For me, Conrad Veidt will always be the evil Grand Vizier, Jaffar,
in Michael Powell's glorious Technicolor THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD
(1940), with Sabu as the Thief, and Rex Ingram as the genie. When
Jaffar looks at the heroine, his eye filled with a passion the
wimpy, forgettable hero of the movie cannot match, I'm sure many
women in the audience, in their heart of hearts, dreamed of being
pursued by him to the ends of the earth.
After making that film in England, Veidt moved to America, made
CASABLANCA in 1942, and died of a heart attack in 1943. (Veidt had
previously made THE MAN WHO LAUGHS in America in 1928, but he was
still based in Germany at the time.) [-tw]
Mark responds:
I should have mentioned THIEF OF BAGDAD as a role for Veidt. By
the way, it seems older versions of the film, like the 1940 Veidt
version spell the city BAGDAD. Newer versions use the spelling
BAGHDAD.
Actually Veidt was (I have heard) the center of an international
incident. As it is reported at
http://www.monsterzine.com/200010/conradveidt1.html:
"Late in 1933 Veidt was back in Berlin acting in William Tell, when
the German government learned that Gaumont-British planned to star
Veidt in the forthcoming film JEW SUSS, based on a novel by Lion
Feuchtwanger, in which a Jewish man named Suss is persecuted in
18th century Germany. The Nazis didn't want the film made, and they
definitely didn't want Veidt to star. A note was sent to Gaumont
claiming that Veidt was too ill to return to England. Meanwhile,
Veidt was detained as a 'guest of the state,' in a hotel room with
a bed and a bath. He was not physically abused, but received
regular verbal abuse from a Nazi officer, who demanded that Veidt
decline the role in JEW SUSS, and demanded that Veidt supply the
names and addresses of his associates in Germany. Veidt refused
both demands.
Veidt's British producer, Michael Balcon, managed to get a British
doctor to Veidt's place of detainment, where the doctor certified
him in good health and fit to travel. Then Gaumont-British and the
British Consulate brought pressure to bear on the Nazi government,
which eventually released him. Veidt returned to Lilli, having
satisfied none of the Nazis? demands. The Nazis banned him from
returning to Germany, and he never did."
Veidt should have been the successor to Lon Chaney and would have
probably made an excellent Dracula. It is a pity that his career
in America did not pan out that way. [-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Polish Film Posters, the Economy, and THE HANDS OF ORLAC
(letter of comment by John Purcell)
In response to the 09/26/08 issue of the MT VOID, John Purcell
Writes:
That link to those Polish film posters was fun. It is always
interesting to note how other folks around the world perceive
American films. I think my favorite poster of this bunch was that
one of TOOTSIE; the caricature of a heavily bearded, hairy-chested
male putting on brilliant red lipstick is quite the shocker. I
certainly don't recall Dustin Hoffman looking that hirsute in the
movie. The poster was more like Jessica Lang's titular costar in
that abysmal KING KONG remake. That definitely makes more sense
Somehow, all this economic turmoil and Prez Shrub's response
reminds of what caused that catastrophic German inflation of the
early 1920's. They kept making deutschmarks in bigger and bigger
increments until finally the entire German financial institution
imploded, and things got REALLY bad. Boy, those Germans sure were
lucky they had that Hitler guy ready to step in and get their
country back on track...
Yes, I am being cynically facetious beyond belief, but the
parallels between the German economic crisis and the current
American one are frightening. Hopefully, things won't turn out
THAT bad, but this does not bode well for our nation for many a
moon. Treasury Secretary Paulson scares me--much as Bush and
Cheney have for eight years--and should not be trusted with being
in charge of this 'bailout' which could easily be the result of
some of Paulson's own policies and decisions of his time in this
position. Geez, I would hate to be the person taking over these
problems come January 20, 2009. Let's hope some cooler, more
intelligent heads take over. Keep as many of your digits crossed,
folks.
[John's comments on sword and sandal films are included among other
letters on the same topic above.]
Rounding out this movie-themed issue of MT VOID is your review of
THE HANDS OF ORLAC. I do remember seeing this once at a long-
forgotten con, and loved it. Again, since TCM has their Silent
Sunday movie, this would be a good one for them to show. In fact,
TCM's series has me watching these almost on a regular basis. It's
a lot of fun to watch these films; quite a treat sometimes. [-jp]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
CONSTANTINE'S SWORD: THE CHURCH AND THE JEWS by James Carroll
(ISBN-13 978-0-618-21908-7, ISBN-10 0-618-21908-0) covers an
important topic--the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards
Jews through the ages. Unfortunately, it seems completely
unfocused. Carroll will talk about some historical period, then
veer off into a description of how he met Pope John XXIII, or
seeing some Catholic ceremony in Germany when he was a child, or
being in the anti-(Vietnam)-war movement. I can't help but feel
that he should have written two books: one a memoir of his life and
the other a history of anti-Semitism in the Church.
This anti-Semitism went through several phases. At times, the
belief that the Jews must remain to witness the final days was a
dominant factor. Other times, the drive to convert Jews was based
on the idea that if they just heard the "truth", they would
convert. A particularly counter-productive phase was the belief
that the Jews *knew* that Jesus was the Messiah, but refused to
convert out of contrariness and/or wickedness. (I find it ironic
that a few years ago I heard a variation of this argument from a
Jew, who argued that gays and lesbians *knew* that what they were
doing was wrong, but did it anyway out of wickedness.)
One of the digressions was actually fairly apt in its depiction of
how people turn history to their own ends. Carroll was constantly
told about his great-uncle in Ireland for whom he was named. "It
was the year of the Rising against the British, and he died an
Irish hero," his mother would say. So when Carroll went to
Ireland, he went to his ancestral town, and asked about whether his
great-uncle was buried there. Sure enough, he was directed to the
churchyard. "I pushed away high the grass away to read the
inscription: 'James Morrissey, RIP.' Sure enough, the date of his
death was 1916. [But] I now made out before his name the letters
'Pvt.,' and below it was the seal of the British Empire. I read
the words 'Killed in France.' I was confused only for a moment.
Private James Morrissey 'died an Irish hero in the year of the
Rising against the British,' but instead of as an Irish Republican
Brotherhood rebel, he died as a British soldier, fighting for the
king in the Great War."
In one of the essays in THE ENGINES OF NIGHT: SCIENCE FICTION IN
THE EIGHTIES (ISBN-13 978-0-385-17541-8, ISBN-10 0-385-17541-8),
Barry N. Malzberg says, "Truthful as this material is, if there is
any audience for this book (in truth, there is no other) it is one
comprised of aspirant writers...." This master wordsmith makes two
mistakes in one sentence, one grammatical and one substantive. The
grammatical is in the use of "comprises" (it should be "it is one
comprising aspirant writers"), but more important, Malzberg fails
to reckon with people who are not aspirant writers and still want
to read this book. I don't always agree with Malzberg (he has far
too pessimistic world view for me), but I do find his writing
stimulating.
THE ECONOMIC NATURALIST; IN SEARCH OF EXPLANATIONS FOR EVERYDAY
ENIGMAS by Robert H. Frank (ISBN-13 978-0-465-00217-7, ISBN-10
0-465-00217-X) proposes answers to such questions as "Why do
drive-up ATMs have Braille keypads?" and "Why do most states
enforce mandatory kindergarten start dates?" Some of the answers
are obvious, and others are arguable, but on the whole this is at
least an amusing book. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
My mind's terrain has become exceedingly rough.
Emotional scars are changing my internal
geography faster than the mapmaker can keep pace.
Wrong turns and dead ends abound, and I'm afraid
someday I'll drown in a river I didn't know was
there.
-- D.H. Mondfleur