THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/21/11 -- Vol. 30, No. 17, Whole Number 1672
Heckle: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Jekyll: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Western United States Trip Logs Available
Look Up. Look Down. Look Right. Look Left. (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Horror Audio Drama Archive (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Optimism (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Predator-Prey (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Socrates (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
50/50 (letter of comment by Wendy Sheridan)
This Week's Reading (AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN: VOLUME 1)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Western United States Trip Logs Available
The trip logs for our trip to parts of Nevada, California, and
Oregon before the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno this
year are available at:
http://leepers.us/renotrip.htm
http://www.leepers.us/evelyn/trips/reno.htm
My convention report will eventually appear. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Look Up. Look Down. Look Right. Look Left. (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
The Space Shuttle Program is over, so this seems to be getting to
us a little late, but there is a 360 virtual-reality view of "Space
Shuttle Discovery's flight deck during decommissioning in the
Orbiter Processing Facility" at
http://tinyurl.com/void-flight-deck.
You can look at the flight deck completely surrounding you. You
can float in close or just sit and spin. You should note the
simulation controls at the bottom of the screen.
If you prefer you can see Times Square at Midnight, New Year's Eve
2010 at http://tinyurl.com/void-times-square. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Horror Audio Drama Archive (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The Radio Drama Revival website is a great site for new and
original audio drama. It features a weekly podcast covering new
and original recordings of drama. These are usually well-produced
presentations. The whole site is worth exploring at
http://www.radiodramarevival.com/. However, for Halloween they
have set up an archive of four years of horror stories they have
featured. This is by my count 48 plays, typically half an hour
each free and downloadable as MP3s, or they can be played right on
the site. The archive is at
http://tinyurl.com/rdr-horror-archive.
Enjoy. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Optimism (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Off the computer, off of television, in newspapers just about
anything I read about the world is downbeat. After seeing all
sorts of pessimistic predictions around me there is always a place
I can go to for solid optimism. The most optimistic thing in my
life is a common device. My old GPS is constantly optimistic in
figuring drive times. I believe the policy is that it cannot
predict traffic jams and traffic lights so it just gives me the
time it would take if I didn't have to stop for lights and never
got in a traffic snarl. My GPS measures the drive time in PBP
hours and minutes. That is it estimates arrival times assuming
there had been a biological pandemic and there are only a handful
of people left in the world--or perhaps just me and my car. It is
what drive time would be like in one of these old post-Holocaust
movies like WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. Streets like at Times Square are
deserted. I can tell a friend my GPS says I will arrive in one PH
hour. (Note: PH is the abbreviation for "post holocaust.") You
can see these days I am desperate for any glimmer of optimism.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Predator-Prey (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Several years ago I told a sort of upbeat story in one of my
editorials. We were leaving work one day and there in the middle
of the road was a large turtle. Whenever a car came by he pulled
into his shell. Cars went by mostly trying to avoid the turtle.
When there were no cars coming the turtle would stick out his six
appendages and would make a little more progress across the road.
But being a turtle his progress was slow. I could see his path
would take him (or her?) across the path that tires usually use. I
could see disaster on the horizon. We stopped the car and I got
out determined to avert a nasty fate for the turtle. The turtle
apparently wanted to handle the situation his own way and
demonstrated several defense mechanisms from hiding to hissing to
avert an imagined fortune that was worse than the one he was
arranging for himself. In seconds he found himself safe on the
ground again, out of danger, and just where he was intending to be
and several minutes ahead of schedule. He probably did not
appreciate the assist, but at least I knew he would live to see
sundown.
My story today does not have a happy ending. In fact it had a
tragic ending, and probably because I learned how to handle a
situation just a few days too late. The real point of this comment
is what I learned so others might not make my mistake.
I was walking on the sidewalk of a busy street near my house and
there just ahead of me I saw a rabbit sitting on the sidewalk. I
smiled and looked at the rabbit as I walked. This so frightened
the rabbit that he (she?) panicked and ran right into traffic. I
wont go into detail, but I was the last creature that the rabbit
came in contact with in his life. People who know me will know how
much this would disturb me. If I could have done anything to save
the rabbit I would have.
Just ten days later I listened to an episode of Stuart and Glory
Jaffe's Eclectic Review Podcast on how animals see other animals
and I found it fascinating.
In nature there are two rough categories of animal. There are
predators and prey. An animal can tell by looking at another
animal whether it is a predator or prey. How? What did the rabbit
see in me that made it think I was a predator?
First there are the eyes. A predator has eyes in front of his
face. In this way the predator's eyes have overlapping fields of
vision. This and the fact that the eyes aim from two slightly
different angles give the predator depth perception. That is
important in attacking a prey animal. You do not want your attack
to fall short or to overshoot. A prey animal has eyes on the side
s of the head. This allows the animal to see in very nearly a 360-
degree circle. That is useful for seeing attacks from anywhere in
a wide angle. So just the shape of my head made me look like an
aggressor. But how I looked at the rabbit confirmed it. Looking
straight at an animal is threatening. Animals are much more
trusting if you turn your head to the side and watch them with one
eye. That means you are not sizing them up to pounce. I made the
mistake of showing my rabbit both of my eyes. He thought I was
sizing him up for an attack.
My path was also an unintentional threat. Predator animals walk in
straight lines. That saves energy and time and is useful in an
attack. Prey animals wander non-linearly. That makes it harder
for a predator to predict where they will be for an attack. I was
walking straight on the sidewalk. I was not aiming directly at the
rabbit, but it still made me look more formidable.
Finally I may have smiled which for some reason is how human show
friendliness. Previously I have commented in this column I have
commented on how ugly and threatening a human smile must look to
some animals. It is showing off our most threatening feature, our
teeth.
So now I feel even worse. I unintentionally looked to the rabbit
as if I was threatening the rabbit and drove it into traffic. I
sent the exact opposite message to the one I wanted to. But at
least I know what I did wrong. And I may try to use what I learned
from the Eclectic Review on the animals I feed in my back yard.
And if I see a rabbit on a sidewalk I will have a better idea how
to look at him. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Socrates (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
In response to Mark's comments on Plato and Socrates in the
10/14/11 issue of the MT VOID, Pete Rubinstein writes:
I think that Plato supposedly got the quote from Socrates.
The quote, "An unexamined life is not worth living." does,
indeed, come from Plato's "Apology", which is a recollection
of the speech Socrates gave at his trial. Socrates is attributed
with these words after choosing death rather than exile from
Athens or a commitment to silence. [-pir]
==================================================================
TOPIC: 50/50 (letter of comment by Wendy Sheridan)
In response to Mark's review of 50/50 in the 10/14/11 issue of the
MT VOID, Wendy Sheridan writes:
Thank you for your review of 50/50. I just wanted to say that
Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance in 500 DAYS OF SUMMER was much
more "expressive" than in INCEPTION (also his face seemed to be
pretty expressive when he was in the ensemble case of "3rd Rock
from the Sun"). My guess is that it has to do with the director
and the character he's playing than his skill as an actor. [-ws]
Mark replies:
He may have been more expressive in 500 DAYS OF SUMMER or he might
just smile more. (Actually my chief memory of that film is that
the days are impossible. They are inconsistent with any possible
calendar. Apparently nobody checked that. It was a sloppy bit of
writing.) It is true that in 50/50 he bottles his emotions up most
of the film. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I am currently reading the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN: VOLUME 1 by
Mark Twain (ISBN 978-0-520-26719-0).
I believe the answer to the most commonly asked question about it
is, "760 pages in eight-point type, with block quotes in six-point
type."
[I guess most people know point of type better than I do. I would
have thought the answer to the most common question would have been
"paper and ink." -mrl]
In another case of synchronicity, something I read in the
AUTOBIOGRAPHY ties in with DEATH OF A SALESMAN (which I commented
on in last week's column). Twain describes an incident with
Charley Langdon (his brother-in-law?). Langdon was one of the
three partners in a company in difficulty. Twain was not involved
with the company, but they prevailed upon him to go to Henry
W. Sage and arrange a loan for the company. Twain spent a lot of
time learning to understand the balance sheet, and then went to
Sage and explained it all to him. Sage was very complimentary
about Twain's business acumen and arranged for the loan. But five
years later when Langdon told the story, it was *he* and not Twain
who talked to and was praised by Sage. As Twain wrote, "The
appropriation of my great achievement had without doubt been
embedded in Charley's mind for a good many years, and I never could
have gotten it out by argument and persuasion. Nothing but
dynamite could do it."
In DEATH OF A SALESMAN, Biff says, "How the hell did I ever get the
idea I was a salesman there? I even believed myself that I'd been
a salesman for him! And then he gave me one look and--I realized
what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been! We've been talking
in a dream for fifteen years. I was a shipping clerk." And later
he has this exchange with his father:
"Who was it, Pop? Who ever said I was a salesman with Oliver?"
"But you were practically--"
"Dad, I don't know who said it first, but I was never a
salesman for Bill Oliver. ... I was a shipping clerk."
And why was Langdon this way? "His mother had indulged him from
the cradle up, and had stood between him and such discomforts as
duties, studies, work, responsibility, and so on. He had gone to
school only when he wanted to, as a rule, and he didn't want to
often enough for his desire to be mistaken for a passion. He was
not obliged to study at home when he had the headache, and he
usually had the headache--the thing that was to be expected. He
was allowed to play when his health and his predilections required
it, and they required it with a good deal of frequency, because
*he* was the judge in the matter. He was not required to read
books, and he never read them. The results of this kind of
bringing up can be imagined. But he was not to blame for them.
His mother was his worst enemy, and she became merely through her
love for him, which was an intense and steadily burning passion."
And why was Biff the way he was? "And I never could get anywhere
because you blew me so full of hot air I could never stand taking
orders from anybody!" [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers
and divines.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance