THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/04/11 -- Vol. 30, No. 19, Whole Number 1674
Heckle: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Jekyll: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups (NJ)
Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Book Lovers
An Interactive Guide To NPR's Top 100 SF&F
Animation Checklist (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Same Story, Different Contexts (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
COSMIC VOYAGE (1935) (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)
TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY (television review by Nick Sauer)
THE FINAL KEY by Catherine Asaro (audiobook review
by Joe Karpierz)
EINSTEIN'S HEROES by Robyn Arianrhod (book review
by Gregory Frederick)
Predator vs. Prey (letter of comment by Frank R. Leisti)
Number Shortage and IP Addresses (letter of comment
by Peter Rubinstein)
Mark Twain's Autobiography (letter of comment by Kip Williams)
Science Museums (letter of comment by Tim Bateman)
This Week's Reading (existentialism) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups (NJ)
November 10 (Thu): QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (a.k.a. FIVE MILLION
YEARS TO EARTH) and CHILDHOOD'S END by Arthur C. Clarke,
Middletown (NJ) Public Library, film at 5:30PM, discussion
after film
November 17 (Thu): HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL
UNIVERSE by Charles Yu, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
December 8: HOGFATHER by Terry Pratchett, Middletown (NJ) Public
Library, film at 5:30PM, discussion after film
December 22: THE HIDDEN LIFE OF DOGS by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas,
Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
==================================================================
TOPIC: Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Book Lovers
http://tinyurl.com/void-bookstore-film
==================================================================
TOPIC: An Interactive Guide To NPR's Top 100 SF&F
http://www.sfsignal.com/interactive/npr100.htm
==================================================================
TOPIC: Animation Checklist (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
We saw an animated film with the characters being toucans. They
are not really so different from penguins, but penguins have been
used multiple times. I think someone must be using a checklist to
make sure that two filmmakers do not choose too many of the same
cute animals. I think that by 2014 we will be down to cockroaches
and naked mole rats. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Same Story, Different Contexts (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
[I referred to some of this material in my recent review of the
film MONEYBALL, but I thought the additional would be of interest
to readers.]
Statistics is the science of taking a large number of observations,
often far more than anyone can understand just by looking at the
data, and presenting them in a way that is (more) easily
comprehensible. One powerful statistical tool for understanding
data is regression analysis. With it one can take a large volume
of data and find the optimal simple formula that comes closest to
explaining all the data. One Orley Ashenfelter did an analysis on
wine production data trying to determine what factors created the
best wine. Now there is no end of expert tasters who have their
own ideas of what it takes to make a great wine. These are people
who have experienced wine and each has seen what he or she thinks
is the complex set of conditions that lead to great wines. People
make their buying decisions based on what wine critic they trust
the most. Ashenfelter knew that the experts used a lot of
subjective criteria. He collected wine production statistics and
the quality of the results and fed them to a computer that
performed a regression analysis. In the end most of the factors
proved to be unimportant. The regression analysis said it came
down to this simple formula:
Wine_Quality = 12.145
+ 0.00117 * winter_rainfall
+ 0.0644 * avg_growing_season_temp
- 0.00368 * harvest_rainfall
[My source does not give the units or conversion factors.]
The formula is not intuitive. Nobody could have thought of it from
the collected data. It took a computer to run some hefty
computations to find the best formula. But that formula is the
optimum description of what that particular data seemed to be
saying.
The reaction to letting a computer predict where good wine would be
produced was exactly what could have been expected. The wine
experts like a single voice said that the formula was useless and
laughable, and that it took an expert who could taste wine and a
lot of experience to know what were the best wines. Ashenfelter
used his formula to choose what the formula predicted would be the
best wines. To make a long story short Ashenfelter proved that
statistics trumps even expert experience.
I read this story a year or so ago in a review of a book called THE
SUPER-CRUNCHERS by Ian Ayers. That book is entirely about how
regression analysis is being used for real world applications. The
same story has happened multiple times in different fields. If the
story sounds familiar, you may have seen the film MONEYBALL. The
plot is the same. What happened in wine production happened again
in just about the same way in baseball.
In the film MONEYBALL, the Oakland Athletics are dying a slow
death. Apparently they are strapped for cash, and in baseball
having the best team is all about money. The players who look the
best go after the highest salaries. Oakland can afford only second
and third-rate players. Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, the general
manager of the Oakland As. When he goes negotiating player trades
with the Cleveland Indians hew sees their general manager is
listening and taking advice from an over-weight young man, barely
more than a kid. This is Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill).
Beane is intrigued by the question of why anyone would listen to
this guy. (By the way, while most of the story is true, the
fictional Peter Brand is really the much thinner and better-looking
(resembling Guy Pearce) Paul DePodesta, who was a Harvard graduate,
not a Yale graduate as he was in the film. But beyond that, what
DePosesta did pretty much what we see in the film.) The story
plays out much like it did with the wine. DePodesta championed a
statistics-base approach called "Sabermetrics" to evaluate players.
It uses the formula:
Runs_created = (Hits + Walks) * (Total_Bases)/(At_Bats + Walks).
It is fascinating that in wine and in sports so much comes down to
recognizable mathematical patterns and that a formula like the one
above can be derived from the data and give results more successful.
For more information, see http://tinyurl.com/void-regression.
Use of regression analysis is still somewhat debated in baseball.
See http://tinyurl.com/void-baseball.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: COSMIC VOYAGE (1935) (film retrospective by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A professor, a woman, and a Young Pioneer are the first to
travel to the moon in a Soviet science fiction film rarely seen in
the United States. The story is only mediocre, but some of the
visual effects are just stunning. The film seems to be a Soviet
response to Fritz Lang's FRAU IM MOND and while it is not as
effective, it provides its own rewards. Included at the end of
this review is a link to Google so the reader can (probably) stream
this film to a computer. Rating: unrated due to language barrier
As a fan of early science fiction films I, of course, have long ago
seen France's A TRIP TO THE MOON (1902), Germany's FRAU IM MOND
(1929), Britain's THINGS TO COME (1936), and the US's DESTINATION
MOON (1950), each one of the first major science fiction films from
of its country and each involving travel to the moon. Somehow I
was only vaguely aware that there was a Soviet film that belongs on
that list. That film is known in the West as COSMIC VOYAGE, SPACE
VOYAGE, or KOSMICHESKIY REYS: FANTASTICHESKAYA NOVELLA, released in
1935 after three years in production. Ironically, while each of
these films was from a major industrialized country, the US was the
last to send people to the moon in cinema, and the first to send
people to the moon in reality.
While this film was made in the sound era, released the same year
as THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, it was made as a silent film,
probably to save expense. COSMIC VOYAGE is an adaptation of a
screenplay by Aleksandr Filimonov and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
Tsiolkovsky was a noted rocket engineer and visionary who
championed the idea of space travel in the Soviet Union. He
consulted on and contributed to the project just as rocket engineer
Hermann Oberth worked as an advisor for FRAU IM MOND. I will not
give a detailed plot because I have yet to see a version with
English-language inter-titles. (Though Sinister Cinema offers one
for sale.) I watched with a phonetic knowledge of the Russian
alphabet and with a Russian dictionary. However Wikipedia gives
the following description of the plot: "In the year 1946, the
Soviet space program is undergoing turmoil. Professor Sedikh, who
is planning to lead the first manned exploration to the moon, is
denounced by his rival Professor Karin as being too old and too
mentally unstable for the mission. Professor Sedikh, aided by his
assistant Marina and a youth named Andryusha, disregard Prof.
Karin's authority and make a successful landing on the moon.
Although a few problems occur at the moon, including the discovery
of a damaged oxygen tank and Professor Sedikh's becoming trapped
under a fallen boulder, the expedition is a success and the
cosmonauts return to Moscow." [It was my impression that it was
Karin who goes to the moon. It certainly is the older man. But I
am hampered by the language barrier.]
COSMIC VOYAGE shows strong influence of FRAU IM MOND, the earlier
and generally superior effort. Both films have a boy along, giving
the children in the audience a character they could identify with.
It both cases the boy is somewhat mischievous to make him more
enjoyable. COSMIC VOYAGE is the first film I know of that portrays
people floating in zero gravity. FRAU IM MOND acknowledges that
that there is no gravity on the space ship, but provided stirrups
on the floor for passengers to put their feet in to keep them from
floating. COSMIC VOYAGE has the travelers having a good time
enjoying floating around the cabin. The filmmakers could not do
the effect accurately and instead have the actors swing from wires
in arcs like the ends of pendulums. The plot is much simpler than
that of FRAU IM MOND, but then the German film runs typically about
162 minutes and COSMIC VOYAGE a mere 65 minutes.
The futuristic visuals of COSMIC VOYAGE are its main attraction.
The film shows immense architectural vistas, somewhat like THINGS
TO COME would give us a year later. Scenes over the massive launch
facility have little model cars moving to help the feel of scale.
The launch facility and the interior of the space ships show a lot
of steel girders to give a technological feel. The spaceships, and
we see two of them, are long cylinders tapered toward the back
where the engines are. Three giant fins run almost the entire
length of the ship--hardly very useful for space and lunar
traveling, but they do look impressive. There are several scenes
from floor level of the giant rockets moving down their rails and
this is one of the best effects in the film. One scene has a
spaceship moving down the track directly at the viewer and does not
stop until the nose of the spaceship apparently strikes the lens of
the camera. The rocket is launched horizontally from raised rails,
not unlike the later V-1 rocket and the ship in WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE
(1951).
The crew wears what appear to be leather flight suits with matching
leather headgear looking a little like early football helmets. One
bizarre notion is that to protect the travelers from the
acceleration of take off they are submerged in tanks of water for
the launch. Generally the effects are created with models that
occasionally show their true scale, but are majestic anyway. To
show scenes of people jumping long distances in the low lunar
gravity stop-motion photography is used. Pressure suits for
walking on the moon appear much like deep-sea diving suits with
additional hoses that stick out dangerously to the side. For
scenes on the moon itself the foreground and background too
frequently shift with respect to each other spoiling effects like
that of the Earth looming in the lunar sky.
I am not sure if the musical score on the version I saw is
original, but it seems to have very little original music. Most of
the score is cobbled from Felix Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and
especially from Liszt's Les Preludes. It might be noted that Les
Preludes was used extensively as Ming's Imperial March in the old
Flash Gordon serials as well as in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN the
same year as COSMIC VOYAGE was released.
On one hand this is not a film that is very well executed, but it
makes an interesting curio. It is surprising that so many years
after its production there is not a version generally available in
English. This certainly should be a milestone in the history of
the science fiction film. With a version in a language I
understood I would probably give COSMIC VOYAGE a rating in the rang
of +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10, but will not because I missed
too much of the plot.
There may not be a reliable source of the film on the Internet, but
if one follows the Google page below (which searches for the title
in Russian Cyrillic) and looks for video of about 65 minutes or
more, one can see the film with Russian inter-titles. (I am
grateful to Bill Higgins who discovered this arcane way of finding
watchable versions of the film.)
http://tinyurl.com/mrl-cyr-cosmic
[-mrl]
Bill Higgins had written:
Digitized copies of the Soviet film *Cosmic Voyage*, directed by
Vasili Zhuravlyov, can still be found on the Web if one searches on
its name in Russian, [not reproducible in ASCII]. Three examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqCY7UIXCL4
http://vimeo.com/14634945
http://io.ua/ve76b1329254c82f3746571b046bdaecc
It seems to pay careful attention to the details of spaceflight,
better than Western films of its era. I'm surprised it isn't
better known, and it is nice to see you mention it in *MT VOID*.
[-wh]
==================================================================
TOPIC: TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY (television review by Nick Sauer)
TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY is the most recent season of this Doctor Who
spin-off series. The show was jointly produced by the BBC and the
US Starz network. This season follows the adventures of the
initially defunct secret British organization known as Torchwood.
They are a group whose function was/is to investigate and deal with
supernatural threats to society. The series stars John Barrowman
as Captain Jack Harkness and Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper.
While this would be the fourth season of TORCHWOOD, it is to some
extent, a pilot season as Starz network launched this as a new
series to their US audience. The show stars the two leads and a
few supporting actors from the previous series as well as
introducing a number of new characters played by American actors.
Being a co-production with an American company there is an obvious
concern of the series being "Americanized". There were some
elements clearly added for the United States audience but, the show
did retain enough of its original character to be recognizable as
TORCHWOOD. There were plenty of moments of the distinctly British
black humor common to the show. The series also doesn't pull any
punches with the cast, thus following the tradition of Torchwood
membership potentially being a severe limitation to one's life
expectancy.
The simple premise of MIRACLE DAY is that one day, in the near
future, everyone stops dying. This is one of those things, that
while sounding good on paper, leads to a lot of problems that
society has to deal with. This is especially the case as this new
form of immortality, like that of the Swift's Stuldbrug's, is not
perfect. Unlike the Struldbrug's people do stop aging but, damage
(almost no matter how extreme) to one's body is still painful and
heals at a normal rate regardless of the severity of the wound. As
a result, the pharmaceutical industry runs out of pain killers in
record time and, diseases that were normal mitigated by being fatal
now have the potential to become new pandemics as victims who would
otherwise die become a new generation of Typhoid Marys. People can
still die if their bodies are completely destroyed (such as being
incinerated) but, they will, of course, feel every second of this
death.
One of the things I respected most about this series was that it
really wasn't scared to look at the ugliness that could ensue under
the premise of the human death rate dropping to zero over night.
Even though the resolution of the Miracle turns out to be something
fantastic, the initial half of the series really feels like some
very solid science fiction. There are a couple gaps of one and two
months over the course of the series during which time we get to
see famine, a global economic collapse, and some pretty horrific
new laws passed by the world's governments.
One of the other things I really liked about the series was the
non-sanctity of the main characters as mentioned earlier. The fact
that you really didn't know who is going to survive from one
episode to another really amped up the dramatic impact of the
series. If you need the "good guys" to win each episode, TORCHWOOD
may not be the show for you.
MIRACLE DAY was not without its faults. The pacing might bother
some people as it can vary from episode to episode. I actually
found this to be a positive myself in that I felt it contributed to
the feel of the rather sweeping nature of the story line. I'm fine
with a slower style of story telling myself so that probably made
me more tolerant of the overall movement of the story but, if you
are more of an action oriented watcher you should be warned that
some of the episodes feature a more sedate True Blood style of
pacing.
While overall the acting was excellent, there was one bit of
characterization I found particularly annoying. The character
Jilly Kitzinger, played by Lauren Ambrose, is a PR woman who comes
across very much as a hyperactive caricature that is somewhat out
of place given the rest of the performances in the series. I know
from the excellent show Six Feet Under that Lauren is an actress
more than capable of a much deeper and effective performance so,
I'm guessing that either the writing or directing are to blame
here.
While the overall premise for this TORCHWOOD story arc was
something that hasn't been overdone there was one element of the
series that was cliché enough to bother me. There is a group
introduced that is your classic Illuminati style global conspiracy
type organization. They are introduced fairly early on so I don't
feel that this is a spoiler and while their presence ultimately
didn't take away enough from the show to ruin my overall favorable
opinion, if they were to never materialize again in a future
TORCHWOOD series I doubt I would miss them.
One thing that did surprise me was the Doctor Who references that
appeared in the series. Given that this was a "new" series for
American audiences and a co-production for the BBC, I figured that
this sort of dialogue would be avoided. So, I was pleasantly
surprised by the occasional name drop as they appeared. The
handful that were made were not plot critical elements that would
be confusing to new viewers and, resulted in what I felt was a good
balance for the new audience and the returning fans.
For the long-time TORCHWOOD fans I would suspect that MIRACLE DAY
would be a love/hate season. I thought it was very good but, I
also tend to compartmentalize the series somewhat. For me there
are almost three alternate universe Torchwoods. The first two
series were your standard Kolchak/X-Files type of show with the
idea of keeping the supernatural hidden from the general public.
The third series, CHILDREN OF EARTH, turned this completely around
by introducing a very public (read: Earth-spanning) event. This
shocking change of pace kind of makes me file CHILDEN OF EARTH in a
different universe from the earlier TORCHWOOD. MIRACLE DAY
definitely falls into this category as well but, the lack of
references to the events of the previous season gave me the same
sort of alternate Torchwood universe vibe.
MIRACLE DAY, to me, is the strongest season yet of the series. One
of the yardsticks I use to rate this is whether I feel the need to
own the series for my collection or not. While I do not own the
first three seasons of TORCHWOOD, I see myself very likely
acquiring a copy of Miracle Day when it becomes available. [-ns]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE FINAL KEY by Catherine Asaro (copyright 2006 Catherine
Asaro, 2009 Audible, Inc.; 12 hours, 5 minutes; narrated by Suzanne
Weintraub) (audiobook review by Joe Karpierz)
I found that I was completely burned out on reading and reviewing
books at the end of the Hugo voting period. I really wanted
nothing more to do with either activity. I read back issues of
magazines, watched TV. And then when I finally thought I was
ready, I turned to THE FINAL KEY, the second book of the "Triad"
duology by Catherine Asaro. I was looking for something that was
more to my tastes and speed. Not set here on earth, but out there.
Not something that moved at a snail's pace, but something that
moved along nicely. I wanted space ships, battles, alien bad guys,
and well, stuff that I like while I was growing up. I find myself
doing that a lot in life, listening to 30 to 40-year--old music,
getting in touch with old friends, stuff like that.
And THE FINAL KEY fit the bill perfectly.
There's a lot going on in the Skolian Imperialate. Soz is in
training on Roca's Pride, the ship named after her mother. The
problem is that her mother has been kidnapped by the children of
the Aristo that had captured Eldrinson last book and who was
eventually killed by Shannon. Shannon, after a chance meeting with
the Blue Dale Archers, finds out he *is* a Blue Dale Archer, and
those guys can interact with the mesh without any fancy technology.
Eldrin, son of Eldrinson (yeah, you read that right), finds himself
addicted to phorine. Kurj is deathly ill from some malady that is
unknown to the empire. And the Eubian Concord is attacking, trying
to take down the Imperialate by some pretty clever means, the
nastiest of which is destroying the mesh in Kyle Space, which will
leave the Skolians helpless and defenseless.
It's difficult to say much more about what goes on in this book
without spoiling the plot. We do find out just why this duology is
called "Triad", thus alleviating the confusion. The good guys win
the day, but things have changed, as they should.
Like SCHISM, this book is all about changes and growing up.
Eldrinson accepts Althor for who he is, even though it goes against
every grain in his body. He also accepts that Soz, who helped save
the meshes along with Kurj and Eldrinson, is going to be a
Jagernaut, and a darned good one. He even accepts that not only
are such things as Blue Dale Archers, but that Shannon is one.
Asaro wraps things up very nicely at the end of this book. She
pulls at the heartstrings with how everything ends up, and I
completely fell for it. The only thing I found a bit annoying was
her handling of Althor's homosexuality and Eldrinson's eventual
acceptance of it. I really felt like I was being lectured, which
was a good trick considering that she talked around it without ever
mentioning the word.
Finally, we get to the reader, Suzanne Weintraub. She still
mangles words, and her reading is not very dynamic. I'm getting
used to her, but I don't know if that's a good thing.
I'm back in the saddle for the time being. Let's see how things go
from here. [-jak]
==================================================================
TOPIC: EINSTEIN'S HEROES: IMAGINING THE WORLD THROUGH THE LANGUAGE
OF MATHEMATICS by Robyn Arianrhod (book review by Gregory
Frederick)
Here is the most recent book report I have. I just finished a book
titled EINSTEIN'S HEROES: IMAGINING THE WORLD THROUGH THE LANGUAGE
OF MATHEMATICS by Robyn Arianrhod. It covers the development of
physics through the efforts of three scientists who preceded
Einstein and who also greatly influenced Einstein. They are Isaac
Newton, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell. Newton's
accomplishments were the model or template for latter scientific
theories because his was the first comprehensive math based
theories of physical phenomena. His theory which concerned gravity
(acting on planetary orbits and the motion of objects on the Earth)
was so successful and correct within limits that it influenced many
theories after it.
Many after Newton used his action-at-a-distance idea (this is how
Newton explained that gravity worked on an object) to try and
explain other physical events like electrical or magnetic effects.
But Faraday (who was not well educated in mathematics but was a
great and inventive experimenter in electro-magnetic physics)
suggested that a field of force existed between the magnet and a
piece of iron and that field was there even if there was not a
piece of metal for the magnet to act upon. Faraday thought this
was also true for an electric charge effecting another electric
charge. A Newton-based (action-at-a-distance) theory would assume
that the magnetic effect just traveled from the magnet to the piece
of iron without any intervening field between them. Faraday
suspected this field because of seeing iron filings forming curved
lines of force around a bar magnet. Faraday also discovered in his
experiments that electricity and magnetism were really one
interconnected phenomena.
Maxwell believed in Faraday's ideas and brought his advanced
knowledge of mathematics to bear on this problem. He developed and
enhanced this idea with help from his mathematically educated
friends into the well excepted electro-magnetic theory used today.
Maxwell used the just created math of vector calculus (3D) to base
this electro-magnetic theory on. Later Einstein would take this
same concept of a field of force to create his theory of gravity
contained in General Relativity. Einstein replaced Newton's action
at a distance gravity concept with a field theory. Einstein also
used vector calculus (4D) in this field theory of gravity. So this
book helps to reveal how great men take the good ideas of those who
preceded them and advance our scientific understanding even
further. It is a very well-written book for those who want to
understand how math plays such an important role in science. [-gf]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Predator vs. Prey (letter of comment by Frank R. Leisti)
In response to Mark's comments on predators and prey in the
10/21/11 issue of the MT VOID, Frank R. Leisti writes, "I wonder if
the individual considered flounder fish which have both eyes on one
side to be a Predator that we Prey on?" [-fl]
Mark responds, "I wonder how much she has considered the children
in the 'Miss Peach' comic strip." [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Number Shortage and IP Addresses (letter of comment by Peter
Rubinstein)
In response to Mark's comments on the number shortage and IP
Addresses in the 10/28/11 issue of the MT VOID, Peter Rubinstein
writes, "This is what IPv6 was intended to address (pun intended),
although any such architectural extension will be a temporary fix
at best." [-pir]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Mark Twain's Autobiography (letter of comment by Kip
Williams)
In response to Keith F. Lynch's letter of comment (on how Kip
Williams could have read parts of Mark Twain's recently-released
autobiography many years ago) in the 10/28/11 issue of the MT VOID,
Kip writes:
Subsets of the autobiography have been coming out since 1906, when
Twain published twenty-five chapters in a magazine. The first book
publication was 1924. Bernard DeVoto used material from the
autobiography for MARK TWAIN IN ERUPTION, and Charles Neider edited
another version about fifty years ago. Some of it is available at
Project Gutenberg. As I say, the huge size of the newest edition
makes it an uncomfortable read, even right here in my usual chair.
I've found it easier to make progress in Neider's edition, a
paperback in a size that actually used to seem big to me. (Ah,
those simpler days.) [-kw]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Science Museums (letter of comment by Tim Bateman)
In response to Mark's comments on science museums in the 10/28/11
issue of the MT VOID, Tim Bateman writes:
[You write that] "the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago ...
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. ... 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."
Perhaps to conserve energy, reverse the effects of pollution and
stop global warming? [-tb]
Mark responds:
Those would certainly be among the problems. That cannot be
changed for the foreseeable future. But the approach called for in
the film is less one of lamentation and more one of innovation.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I am doing the reading for a University of California at Berkeley
called "Existentialism in Literature and Film" (taught on podcasts
by Professor Hubert Dreyfus). One problem is that so far as I can
remember, he never defines existentialism--nor does anyone else.
Even Wikipedia is not very useful.
[Can anyone out there take a stab at it? -mrl]
The first book in the syllabus was FEAR AND TREMBLING by Soren
Kierkegaard (ISBN 978-0-140-44449-0). Originally written in
Danish, it apparently has no good translation, probably because
even in Danish it is difficult to follow. (Example: according to
Dreyfus, there is only one word in Danish for "particular" and
"individual", which have different meanings in English.
Translators have apparently been choosing one or the other English
word at random.) So I spent a lot of time slogging through what--
without benefit of clear definition--he calls "knights of
resignation" and "knights of faith" and it wasn't until lecture
eight that things started to make sense. Kierkegaard talks about
Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, and this somehow connects
with existentialism. Dreyfus finally got around to explaining this
in plain(er) English as that Abraham is driven to do something that
he knows is wrong, but knows he must do it anyway. It is
inexplicable, and we are not to attribute this to insanity on
Abraham's part, nor to some higher ethic.
For example, Dreyfus contrasts Abraham's decision with Agamemnon's
decision to sacrifice Iphigenia. The latter *is* explicable--the
higher ethic of Agamemnon doing what he must as a king overrides
the ethic of doing what he wishes as a father. Another example
Dreyfus gave (suggested by a listener to earlier podcasts) is that
of Huck in THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN when he decides not
to turn Jim in. Huck is not claiming a higher ethic; indeed, he
says:
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't
know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll
go and write the letter--and then see if I can pray. Why,
it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather
right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a
piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set
down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway n****r Jim is down here two
mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and
he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck
Finn.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time
I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray
now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper
down and set there thinking--thinking how good it was all
this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and
going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking
over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all
the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes
moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along,
talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't
seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but
only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top
of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping;
and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the
fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there
where the feud was; and suchlike times; and would always
call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could
think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I
struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had
smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was
the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the
only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around
and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my
hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide,
forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied
a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to
myself:
"All right, then, I'll go to hell"--and tore it up.
Unfortunately, most of Dreyfus's examples in the course (other than
Abraham, who was Kierkegaard's original example) were people whose
motivations we would now see as of a higher ethic than what they
turned their back on. We see Huck's decision as the more ethical
of his choices (turn Jim in or not) because we have come to believe
that slavery is bad, slaves are people, etc. But Kierkegaard is
attempting to justify the decision even if there is no higher
ethic. He does not give God's will as a higher ethic for Abraham--
he just says that Abraham knew he had to sacrifice Isaac, and as a
result, he got to keep Isaac. (This decision is called "suspending
the ethical" based on some sort of "unconditional commitment.")
If existentialism leads to claims like this, I'm not surprised that
no one can explain it. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
--Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire