THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/28/11 -- Vol. 30, No. 18, Whole Number 1673
Heckle: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Jekyll: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
The Victorian Hugos
COSMIC VOYAGE (comments by Mark R. Leeper
and Evelyn C. Leeper)
The Number Shortage (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for November (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
MONEYBALL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
SEEING FURTHER edited By Bill Bryson (book review
by Gregory Frederick)
IMAGINE IT! (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Mark Twain's Autobiography (letters of comment by Kip Williams
and Keith F. Lynch)
This Week's Reading (SO MANY BOOKS) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Victorian Hugos
On IO9, Jess Nevins says he will be "reviewing science fiction and
fantasy works from 1885 to 1930 and deciding which novels and short
works would have received the Hugo had a Worldcon been held that
year and which novels and short works should have received the
Hugo--often not the same thing."
See the first installment at:
http://io9.com/5851505/the-victorian-hugos-1885.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: COSMIC VOYAGE (comments by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)
The Russian film KOSMICHESKIY REYS (1935)--called in English either
COSMIC VOYAGE or SPACE VOYAGE--is a film about a trip to the moon
by rocket ship. It has some very good model work and even some
stop-motion for exterior scenes on the moon. Also impressive are
some massive vistas of buildings and people reminiscent of the
later THINGS TO COME (1936). Production was started in 1932 and
the film was not released until 1935 or 1936. In spite of the fact
that it was made after sound was introduced, it was done as a
silent film with music from different pieces of classical music.
Sadly, the inter-titles are in the Russian language, but most of
the film can still be followed. COSMIC VOYAGE is sort of a Soviet
response to Germany's FRAU IM MOND (1929). I was unaware the film
was available anywhere in this country, but never underestimate the
power of YouTube.
You can read about the film at
http://tinyurl.com/void-cosmic-desc.
The complete film has been available on YouTube, but that has
disappeared. Currently you can find it at
http://xitv.ru/10940-kosmicheskiy_reys.html.
WARNING: This page has ads that are NSFW (Not Safe for Work) and
which play obnoxious sound as well. Adblock seems to solve both
problems. Or you can get rid of the obnoxious fight sounds by
killing the sound altogether since it is a silent film and there is
no authentic original score.
Enjoy. [-mrl/ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Number Shortage (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I understand that those who use the Internet, and that is just
about everybody, are running out of IP addresses. An IP address is
sort of the phone number of your terminal or other device.
Actually an IP address is a number. We live in a world of
shortages. There are energy shortages, money shortages, talent
shortages, teacher shortages, and the list goes on and on. I have
always said there is one thing that there are no shortages of it is
numbers. God, the universe, or whoever the "powers that be" are
gave us more numbers than we could ever need. If there is a
shortage of numbers it is the work of human bunglers. The vast
majority of numbers have never even been conceived by the mind of
us humans. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for November (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
It is time for my monthly column on which films coming up on Turner
Classic Movies do I think I can recommend. Making these choices
each month is not always easy. I have seen a lot of films so the
probability that I will be able to find films that 1) I have seen,
2) I think are good, 3) I have not covered previously, and 4) most
readers will not know. I could recommend something like SLEEPER,
which is playing this month, but I think too many readers do know
this Woody Allen comedy. Since I started this monthly report I
have been able to find each month enough films to write about to
make a reasonable sized column, but in part because TCM does tend
to rerun films of interest multiple times, perhaps just a few
months apart, there are fewer exciting films I have not written
about in previous columns. This month I am having trouble finding
enough films that are good, new, and obscure. I will cheat a bit
on obscurity. Probably people will know of these films, but they
come the closest to being good candidates. Sadly, all three are
rather downbeat films, shot in glorious black-and-white.
The first film Turner lists for this month is getting off to a good
start. DETOUR (1945) is often considered one of the best B-movies
ever made. It is directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, who previously had
directed one of Universal's best horror films, THE BLACK CAT
(1934). The story is at the same time contrived and compelling. A
piano player hitchhiking across the United States gets pulled into
an inevitable chain of events in which he ends up accidentally
killing someone in a way that makes it appear to be murder. The
conclusion the film draws is that if Fate has decided you are going
to be unlucky, there is not much you can do to avoid it. Fate
wins. You lose. That is probably true, but Fate is not usually so
bizarre in the way it traps us. The film was shot imaginatively on
a very tiny budget as much of Ulmer's work is. There are only
seven actors in the entire film. It was shot in six days, and runs
a fast 68 minutes. Some scenes are shot in rather obvious rear
projection. But DETOUR has what it takes to make itself memorable
and has become a cult classic. (Tuesday, November 1, 6:00 AM)
If you are at all interested in ghost stories on film, you probably
already know THE INNOCENTS (1963). I would say that it together
with THE UNINVITED and THE HAUNTING comprise the three best ghost
stories on film. If I were to make it four I would add THE
CHANGELING. (One might consider THE SHINING and THE ORPHANAGE, but
I guess I would rule out POLTERGEIST because, of course, the title
is not of the form "THE {spooky noun}".) Director Jack Clayton is
probably best known for this film, though he also directed a very
good film version of SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. The
screenplay is Truman Capote, based on Henry James's novel A TURN OF
THE SCREW. Deborah Kerr stars as Miss Giddens, a repressed
governess put in charge of two children who at first look angelic
and slowly turn more sinister, at least in appearance. Are they
coming under the influence of two ghosts or is Miss Giddens's
imagination just running wild? This film was also the film debut
of Pamela Franklin who was featured in films as THE LEGEND OF HELL
HOUSE and the excellent THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE. A ghost
story is probably more effective if shot in black and white. But
few create a mood as dark as cinematographer Freddie Francis
created with the old mansion seeming built out of shadow. If you
like horror and particularly ghost stories, I would say THE
INNOCENTS us what TCM calls "an essential." (Sunday, November 6,
10:00 AM)
Another dark black-and-white film is Stanley Kubrick's PATHS OF
GLORY. This is my personal favorite among Kubrick's film. It is a
film usually interpreted to be anti-war but I think that it is not
really anti-war so much as it is anti-military. Kirk Douglas plays
Colonel Dax, a commanding officer in the French Army in World War
I. His commander is tired of not looking good in reports and
orders an impossible attack knowing that it will gain little and
will kill most of his men. Douglas is ordered to execute the
attack. When some of the men refuse to cooperate in the face of
enemy machine guns the attack fails. The upper command insists
that the men were cowards and deserve to be punished. Dax--a
lawyer in private life--is chosen to defend the men. The film is
very effective and the final sequence--at first enigmatic--becomes
the most powerful scene in the film. The dialog by crime novelist
Jim Thompson just sizzles. (Monday, Novermber 21, 3:00 PM)
The best of these films is PATHS OF GLORY. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: MONEYBALL (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Brad Pitt plays the general manager of the cash-strapped
Oakland As who ignores his scouts and turns to the recommendations
of an inexperienced statistician to hire a winning team. In spite
of strong opposition the statistical approach proves to be a
phenomenal success for the team. Jonah Hill plays the odd
mathematician and Philip Seymour Hoffman is very good as an
uncooperative manager with fears of his own. Bennett Miller of
CAPOTE direct Steven Zaillian's and Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of
Michael Lewis's book MONEYBALL: THE ART OF WINNING AN UNFAIR GAME.
There are lots of films about baseball and only a handful of films
about mathematics--even fewer showing mathematics in a favorable
light. It is surprising to get such an entertaining film that
combines both. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
Our world is awash in numbers. We collect and can have available
all kinds of statistics. What is difficult is collecting and
understanding all the numbers, learning lessons from them, and then
deciding if the lessons can be trusted. I read a review of the
book SUPER CRUNCHERS by Ian Ayers. It told how Orley Ashenfelter
used a statistical approach called regression analysis to predict
the quality of certain wines. He determined that he could collect
three numbers: average growing season temperature, winter rainfall,
and harvest rainfall, and from them simply generating a number that
would be expected quality of wines. There are wine experts who use
very subjective approaches and a great deal of experience to
predict wine quality. They laughed at Ashenfelter's simplistic
approach. But a simple mathematical formula turned out to be a
better predictor than trusted experts with years of experience at
predicting wine quality.
If that story sounds oddly familiar, it is almost exactly what
happened when Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland Athletics
baseball team realized he did not have the budget to hire new and
promising players or even to hold on to the better players whom he
already had. Instead he hired Paul DePodesta who was a Harvard
graduate who applied statistics to hiring a team. In MONEYBALL
Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) hires Yale graduate Peter Brand
(played by Jonah Hill with a name change from DePodesta) to pick
unrecognized candidates. And the story of MONEYBALL is very much
like what played out with the wine predictions.
The scouts were paid well for their gut reactions of who would and
would not be good players for the team to hire. They criticize the
new statistical approach to selecting new players. And initially
that approach does not work at all. The problem, however, is not
in the statistics but in the lack of faith in the mathematics by
the manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, who unexpectedly
seems like he was made for the grouchy role). The statistical
approach to baseball (elsewhere the approach has been named
"sabermetrics") makes everyone feel a little insecure, and they
resist it. When Beane seems more interested in Brand's assessment
than that of his scouts, one can see why they are insecure. But
even Hoffman's Howe finds his career riding on Beane and Brand's
radical ideas. And what happens is the story of MONEYBALL.
One arguably bad touch is the use of relatively short and stocky
Jonah Hill for the statistician. Apparently director Bennett
Miller was exploiting a stereotype of what the public expected a
statistician would look like. In fact, the real Paul DePodesta
resembles Guy Pearce and is quite unlike Jonah Hill. Admittedly
Pitt and Hill do play reasonably well off each other as opposites,
but the pairing is cinema, not reality. There is some drama to
Hill's portrayal of a man who loves a game that he is clearly not
physically suited to play. Unlikely as it seems the man still
manages through mathematical skills to make himself an important
figure in baseball history. It is nice to see Robin Wright in a
small role as Beane's ex-wife. Pitt gives a solid performance.
Miller seems to have a natural directing style if a little uneven
at times. He will occasionally have realistic overlapping dialog,
but does not use it uniformly.
MONEYBALL is a true story about a cash-strapped baseball team that
was able to intelligently become a winning team on limited
resources. Maybe that makes it a perfect film for these times of
failing economy. I rate MONEYBALL a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/moneyball/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: SEEING FURTHER: THE STORY OF SCIENCE, DISCOVERY, & THE
GENIUS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY edited By Bill Bryson (book review by
Gregory Frederick)
I finished SEEING FURTHER, a relatively new book about the 350-year
history of the Royal Society of London. It is a collection of
essays from twenty-two writers about the Royal Society's history
and some of its members most important developments. Many of the
world's most famous scientists and engineers were members of the
Royal Society. The list includes Isaac Newton, Christiaan Huygens,
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Robert
Hooke, Robert Boyle, Humphry Davy, John Locke, James Watt, Michael
Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Stephen Hawking. It was always
an international Society which did not care if you were well
educated, titled, and/or wealthy even from its beginnings in the
mid 1600's. Antoni Leeuwenhoek submitted some two hundred papers
to the Society about his findings in the newly discovered world of
the microscope. Leeuwenhoek was a retired Dutch linen draper who
was without title, and formal education.
Scientific accomplishments were the most important aspect of a
member's dealings with the Society. Even politics was not too
important to the Society. Ben Franklin was still an esteemed
member when he was speaking out against Britain during the
Revolutionary War. Humphry Davy (an Englishman) could travel
freely across Europe during the Napoleonic Wars due to a letter he
carried with him from Napoleon. The French Societe Philomathique
(France's own version of the Royal Society) had arranged for this
special letter of dispensation.
There are many interesting stories about the contributions from
individuals of the Society some of whom most people have never even
heard of. One example is the contribution of Thomas Bayes. He was
a member of the Society and his full-time profession was that of a
preacher but he was also a brilliant mathematician. He created
Bayes Theorem, which was not very useful in his lifetime during the
early 1700's. But today with super-computers his theorem is used
routinely to model climate change, weather forecasting, stock
market analysis, astrophysics, and radiocarbon dating. It is a way
of statistically predicting something based on partial information.
Bayes himself did not think much of this theorem so he did not
publish it but members of the Society saved it and many other
articles and items from their 350-year history and it turns out
this theorem is very important to us today. There are many other
stories about evolution, engineering, material science, and
crystallography. This is a great book if one wishes to explore the
beginnings of science.
My next book just arrived; it's EINSTEIN'S HEROES by Robyn
Arianrhod and is about scientists who inspired Einstein. [-gf]
==================================================================
TOPIC: IMAGINE IT! (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This is a 52-minute high-spirited film, a motivational pep
talk, intended to excite a mostly youthful audience in the thrill
of science and innovation. It also asks its adult audience how we
stimulate young people and seed them with a passion for math and
science. The world is providing the problems; we need the next
generation to find the creative solutions. Rating: low +2 (-4 to
+4) or 7/10
Among my earliest memories was running around the Museum of Science
and Industry in Chicago. There were all kinds of buttons to press
and colorful exhibits to see. Generally I made myself the world's
most pestiferous two-year old. I always had fond memories of the
museum and the excitement of science. I returned to that museum
considerably older and found the spirit had changed. It was not so
much about the wonders of science any more. Now it was about the
damage being done to the wetlands and how to conserve energy and
the effects of pollution. I am sure later they also had exhibits
on global warming. In short the tone had gone from seduction to
sermon. Of course the sermon was about very real concerns. And
this was by no means the only science museum to have this shift in
tone. Science at it was represented became uncool and a bore and
dangerous and above all depressing. But a generation or so was
lost to science.
A new up-beat motivational film called IMAGINE IT! by Rudy Poe and
Richard Tavener is running counter to that trend, trying to make
science and creativity exciting again. This is a high-octane 52-
minute challenge for young people to use their brains and their
imagination to come up with ideas to change the world. It is one
long, fast-paced ad for imagination and creativity attended by some
of the great luminaries of our world. Presenting their ideas are
people like astronaut Sally Ride, visionary Ray Kurzweil, and
Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering.
Entrepreneur Peter Diamandis talks about the multi-million-dollar X
Prizes he founded to be awarded for certain engineering goals like
building and flying a vehicle that can carry three passengers into
space. Even multi-million-dollar prizes are a small price to pay
to foster inventions that can change the world. The film is on
shakier ground when it suggests that the Blue Man Group, creative
as these entertainers are, are really a big part of the same
innovation movement that is needed to solve engineering and
environmental problems.
The message is that we need new ideas to avert or solve the
problems of today and to invent a better future. As one luminary
puts it "we are in a race with catastrophe and catastrophe is
winning." The film suggests ways that the rest of us can at least
promote creativity.
The pace of the film is at the same time fast and slow. The
editing is appropriate for a music video with rapid cuts and speed-
up-slow-down photography. But the message is repetitive. It is
really just "Hey, kids, go out there and innovate." "Science is
art and art is science." "Asking questions is more important than
answering them."
Hosting, with a t-shirt that says "+>-", is comedian Iliza
Shlesinger, whose exaggerated facial expressions are cute fun at
first but wear out their welcome well before the 52-minute film is
over.
Youngsters may leave the film wondering why the film tells them to
innovate but not how to how to be innovative. Of course, that
would defeat the whole purpose. Will this film have its intended
effect? Will it inspire young people to be more creative and to be
excited about mathematics and science? Will it attract the best
minds to the most pressing problems? We will know better in the
next 20 years. Not all of this film works for me, but then I am
not the intended audience. I rate IMAGINE IT! a low +2 on the -4
to +4 scale or 7/10. We can all hope its message gets across and
that IMAGINE IT! becomes an important influence. IMAGINE IT! was
released on DVD on October 25 and is also available for digital
download.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1525382/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Mark Twain's Autobiography (letters of comment by Kip
Williams and Keith F. Lynch)
I've been slowly going through the first volume of the new edition
of the autobiography. It's slow because the book's as big as two
bricks. I have older versions of the work that I have done much
better with. There's one on my Reader, and a paperback in my pack
(which I took out and read while waiting at the Genius Bar, 'cuz
I'm a Luddite). No doubt I'll end up reading some parts twice, but
it's certainly enjoyable reading--having Mark Twain talking to me
without the intercession of a plot to slow things down.
I'll get serious and finish the large book through a device that
often works wonders: I'll put it in the bathroom. It will have to
wait until I'm done with a Max Shulman anthology of campus humor
(mostly) from the 1940s and 50s, as far as I can tell. Nothing
carries a date, possibly to make it all seem more current. [-kw]
Keith F. Lynch responds:
What older versions? I thought it had only just been published, as
per his wishes that it not be published until a hundred years after
his death. [-kfl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
SO MANY BOOKS: READING AND PUBLISHING IN AN AGE OF ABUNDANCE by
Gabriel Zaid (ISBN 978-1-58988-003-X) was written in 2003 in Mexico
City. The latter leads to some ambiguity: when Zaid says that one
can finance any book if 3000 readers are willing to pay six hours'
minimum-wage salary, one wonders if that is United States minimum
wage or Mexico minimum wage.
"Today it is easier to acquire treasures than it is to give them
the time they deserve."
In his chapter "The End of the Book", Zaid gives his reasons why
books will not be replaced by films, television, audiobooks, or
even e-books:
- Books can be skimmed.
- A book is read at a pace determined by the reader.
- Books are portable.
- You don't need to make an appointment to read a book.
- Books are cheap.
- Books permit greater variety.
Given the state of things in 2003, it is not surprising that most
of these reasons are in contrast to films, television, audiobooks.
Regarding the e-books, Zaid writes, "There is no advantage to
reading novels on a screen that is barely portable and displays
text of minimal contrast and primitive typography." He also says,
"In practice, for rapid consultations it may be more work to get
the disc, bring it to the machine (if it is not being used by
someone else), and turn the machine on or switch from one program
to another than to pick up the printed volume and consult it
directly."
Well, clearly the mode of operation of e-books has changed in eight
years. The screen of an e-reader is portable, contrast is
reasonable, typography is much improved, and one does not carry
discs around. However, one thing he did not mention that just
occurred to me is that an e-reader does not allow you to have
multiple books open in front of you at once: to compare
translations, for example, or to look up further information on
some statement made in one book in others.
He does, however, mention some drawbacks that are basically still
true: "On the most basic level, there is no need to have a machine
running in front of you, with the text up on a screen. This
practical advantage, and many others (portability, the lesser
likelihood of theft, the impossibility of lending a book to a
friend without the proper reading device, author's rights), tend to
be ignored in futuristic fantasies, but they influence the
decisions readers make." [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
--George Gordon, Lord Byron