THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/09/12 -- Vol. 31, No. 19, Whole Number 1727
Nick Charles: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Nora Charles: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Announcement and Corrections
Storm Diary, Part 1 (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
IN THE FAMILY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Psychology as a Science (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
Supertasters (letter of comment by Tom Russell)
This Week's Reading (AMIDST THE RIPPLE OF A FLEETING MOMENT
AND OTHER STORIES, A RANDOM WALK IN SCIENCE
FICTION, WORLDCON STORIES, OMNE IGNOTUM PRO
MAGNIFICO, "Sail to Success" promotional booklet,
and LOST CHRISTIANITIES) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Announcement and Corrections
Neither rain, nor wind, nor staying at remote cabins with no Wifi,
nor travel to South Africa, nor week-long power outages after
post-Hurricane Cyclone Superstorm Sandy (or whatever the heck its
name is) will stay the MT VOID from its appointed rounds. In other
words, you can run but you can't hide.
You received the last MT VOID a day early because we had WiFi on
Thursday (not at home!) but did not know if we would have it
Friday. Here in NJ, we had no power at home, though some areas
near us did. We had plenty of food, batteries, etc., so we were
doing okay. However, we had to go to specific restaurants to get
WiFi, and recharging our netbook was iffy.
However, the outage did mean we could not proofread the last issue
as much as usual. As a result, all the issue references were off
by a week (e.g., when we referenced the issue of 10/12/12, we
meant 10/19/12, and when we referenced the issue of 10/19/12, we
meant 10/26/12). The on-line HTML copy has the correct dates and
links. (There may have been other typos as well.)
By the way, we now have power back, after a nine-day outage, so
things should be better. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Storm Diary, Part 1 (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
When I travel I try to keep a log of my travels to tell people what
the trip was like. Maybe people will be interested in my
experiences before, during, and after I got hit by a Hurricane and
Superstorm Sandy.
Prologue:
I first heard about Tropical Storm Sandy several days ago. It had
hit Haiti fairly hard and killed dozens of people. My next door
neighbor was in Haiti and I thought he could bring me some stories
about the hurricane. Later people were suggesting that the same
storm was going come north and hit the eastern seaboard. That is
where I live, in Old Bridge, New Jersey and it does not sound good.
Hurricane Irene hit us hard just fourteen months earlier. We lost
power for 94 hours (four days). Most of our friends were out for
longer. I was hoping we did not go through that again. Though I
have to say that toward the end I was getting into the swing of
things. If we had been without power another day, it did not seem
to me to be too bad. I had plenty to listen to on my iPod. I had
lots of tapes with radio drama. I could keep myself entertained.
There are a lot of books in my house and I am way behind on reading
them. It is almost like going camping.
Really what makes power failures seem so long is that I just do not
know for sure how long the power would be gone.
If you expect the power to be restored in an hour, five hours seems
like a long time. If you expect to have it back by evening, noon
tomorrow seems like a long time. It is expectation and hope and
being kept in the dark figuratively as well as literally that makes
a power outage drag on. It makes the power outage seem to go on
forever. If I just consider the outage a new temporary way of
life, I can live with it. That was how I felt toward the end of
the Hurricane Irene experience. Life goes so much easier if you
abandon hope. As Bernard Shaw says, "What is hope but a form of
responsibility?"
So I was not too worried about Hurricane Sandy. After all, how
could a storm with such a simpy name as "Sandy" be much bother?
Sandy is short for Alexander. Now a Hurricane Alexander could be a
conqueror, but not a Hurricane Sandy. It sounds a little prissy.
(Apologies to all the macho men out there named Sandy.)
[Sandy Koufax thanks you. -ecl]
Every time someone mentioned Hurricane Sandy on the news it was to
make it sound worse and worse. First it was going to hit the
United States at Florida. Then it was going to go on from Florida
and up the Eastern Seaboard. Then it was going to take a left turn
at New Jersey. (Well, maybe it *was* going to be another Irene.)
Then they started calling it a "superstorm." (I don't know what
qualifies a storm as a superstorm, but it does not sound good.)
Then it was going to suck in other storms. Then it was going to
hit land at the time of the full moon when tides are highest. Then
it was going to make landfall at high tide during a full moon. And
the path of the storm looked very much like it was headed for
central New Jersey, where I live. It was going to hit with full
force at 2 AM Tuesday. I would be asleep for the worst part.
Nope, now it had speeded up and would hit at 6:30 PM. At least it
was going to be centered on southern and not central New Jersey.
The eye of the storm was southern New Jersey but the storm is a
disk 900 miles in diameter. I was sure we were in for it.
10/29/12
Now it is 7:23:56 the night of the storm. I am being precise about
the time since a super-hurricane, reinforced by the fact this is
the time of the full moon, is ripping a hole through southern and
central New Jersey. It seems to be aiming just a little way south
of my home.
I was afraid I would lose power in the height if the storm. Where
I live it doesn't try so hard. At 3:38 this afternoon our
electricity said, "I'm outta here" and has not been seen since.
The storm itself did speed up. Landfall was supposed to be 8 PM.
It came ashore less than an hour ago, but at 6:30 PM, and the
nastiest part will be over about 10:00 PM. So far it is scary but
the worst it is doing directly to me is knocking out the power.
For several days I will not be able to do much but listen to my
iPod and have poor meals. I cannot heat anything and I can get
very little out of the fridge without letting out the cold. I will
have things like room temperature pizza (and be glad to have it).
I am hoping that in a few days some local stores, restaurants, and
libraries will get their power back. Then at least I can get out
of the house and do something. But I am not betting on it. The
damage will be very widespread. For previous storms we could draft
repair people from surrounding areas. But we are the center of a
900-mile-diameter disk of destruction. There are not too many
people we can call on and a lot of other areas will be calling on
the same people. This is not going to be a four-day fix.
From what I see it is just very windy and rainy. Strong trees are
being pushed around like reeds.
Until we get the repairs done I will be listening to recorded
novels and plays on cassette. I am writing this by flashlight and
candlelight. [P.S. At least I don't need to work. A lot of people
will be out of work, laid off because there is no work for them to
do. If this goes on for three weeks, as some suggest it will, we
could have a crime wave. On the other hand people will get work
who might otherwise be unemployed. We shall see.]
To be continued. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: IN THE FAMILY (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A gay man fights to regain the custody of his son who is
the biological child of his deceased life partner. IN THE FAMILY
is a moving film that will remind viewers of the emotional tugs of
a KRAMER VS. KRAMER. This is a very good 165-minute film, but it
could have made a better 105-minute film. The newcomer producer,
director, and star Patrick Wang starts out making one of the best
films of the year. Rating: low +3 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
Currently legally there is a difference between the rights of a
spouse and of a gay life partner. IN THE FAMILY is a drama that
takes place in that gap. For years Cody and Joey (played by
director/writer/producer Patrick Wang) were effectively a married
couple living in Martin, Tennessee. Together they raised Cody's
delightful biological son, Chip (Sebastian Brodziak). But then
Cody is badly injured in a traffic accident and the hospital will
not even give Joey permission to see Cody. When Cody dies his
family wants to pretend that Joey never existed. An out-dated will
names Cody's sister Sally (Park Overall) as Chip's guardian, and
Joey finds he will lose Chip to Sally. It takes a while before
Joey can seriously take all the changes in. Then he realizes the
law is on Sally's side and he is going to have to fight if he wants
to raise Chip. The film takes the time to show us in flashbacks
how Joey and Cody's relationship developed. But Joey is usually
center stage through the entire film and Wang is able to keep that
compelling enough that it does not seem like a director favoring
his character.
In large part the film lives or dies on Wang's ability to present
us with an extraordinary and compelling view of Joey. For almost
the entire film he does that flawlessly. Only in the very late
part of the film does he make Joey seem just a little too perfect.
Rare is the actor who could present a character so sincerely
without going a little bit over the top. But this is an emotional
film and audiences will be reminded of films like KRAMER VS.
KRAMER. That film was about fathers' rights (or more accurately
the lack thereof) in a legal system that overly favored the mother
over the father in child custody conflicts. This film is very much
a KRAMER VS. KRAMER for our time, but centering on gay rights and
unmarried spouse rights.
The characters are civil to each other in a thin veneer of
politeness that betrays certain prejudices of an earlier time.
Wang has cast himself as Chinese in his origins but having lived
his life in the South. One suspects that that is true of Wang
himself. It is interesting that Wang goes through almost the whole
film without mentioning that Wang's character Joey is Chinese in
origin. Nobody mentions it. But the fact he is Chinese and is gay
is behind much of what people think of Joey. There is not a trace
of Chinese accent in his speech. His Joey is able not just to
convince us that his character would be a good father, but that he
would be a near perfect father. That is not easy to do on the
screen without making him cloyingly sweet.
Wang draws the viewer emotionally into the situation and makes the
one mistake of the production. He is a long film with what is at
times some very slow pacing. Not every film has to be a speed
chase to be under two hours, of course. But Wang occasionally
drags a wordless scene on without much action on the screen for
what turns into a long take. Perhaps he is conveying an emotion,
but he can do that without creating an artificially slow pacing.
Through much of this the viewer knows what is going on in the
characters' head. Different editing could have conveyed the same
emotion in a shorter space of time. That is part of the point of
editing. The film could have been better in a trimmer form that
could have been even more potent in 105 minutes than it was at 165.
This is a poignant story of a legal situation in which both sides
are trying to find what is right and wrong under a great deal of
emotional stress.
The unknown but excellent cast of actors and director. It is an
affecting experience. I rate IN THE FAMILY a low +3 on the -4 to
+4 scale or 8/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1845804/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_ the_family_2011/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Psychology as a Science (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
In response to Mark's comments on what is science in the 11/02/12
issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes:
You wrote "Psychology rarely would get into measurements. I will
not say never, but I would think it would be rarely."
I spend my days indexing literature on posttraumatic stress
disorder, and much of that literature is produced by
psychologists. They do a great deal of measuring--at last count
there were 8,537 assessment instruments that have been used in the
PTSD literature that has come across my desk. One of the leading
issues addressed by peer reviewers in the psychology literature is
the soundness of the statistical methodology employed.
Had you used the term "Psychoanalysis" in your remarks I would not
be able to disagree with you. But people who do not measure
things would have a hard time getting published in any of the
major psychology journals. [-fl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Supertasters (letter of comment by Tom Russell)
In response to Mark's comments on vampire blood types in the
10/26/12 issue of the MT VOID, Tom Russell writes:
Regarding your comment about my fun "Return of the Vampire Blood
Types" piece, the human taste and vision variations I mentioned
were taken from the PBS NOVA "Mystery of the Senses" series which
aired a few years ago.
The term "supertaster" was used in that series. You might check
supertastertest.com (watch the video). Apparently the proper term
for a person with the gene variation for fewer taste buds is "Non
Taster"--not "Hot Pepper Eater" (which I made up and prefer...).
[-tr]
Mark replies:
I know all about supertasters. I was commenting not on the science
but on the choice of "hot pepper eater" as a synonym for non-
taster. It is a mistake to assume that people who like piquancy in
their food from people who taste foods less. Sometimes a fan of
piquancy is just a fan of piquancy and not a non-taster. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
What I read during the Sandy (and post-Sandy) power outage:
AMIDST THE RIPPLE OF A FLEETING MOMENT AND OTHER STORIES by
Claudio Chillemi (translated by Vincent Simonetti, special Chicon
7 edition) was one of four special editions from Edizioni Della
Vigna di Petruzzelli Luigi that I got at Chicon 7. The title
story, "Amidst the Ripple of a Fleeting Moment" is a somewhat
traditional science fiction idea about people buying time from
other people, but reasonably well done. "I Visited a Cemetery of
Aliens", "The Pink", and "Night Doctor" are a little more "off-
beat" (or maybe it is just that they are more European). "The
Last and the First Ones" is a "time police" sort of story, a bit
preachy, and with not quite enough explanation at the end to
satisfy. "The Great Mistake" has another somewhat familiar idea,
but (as in several stories here) with a twist at the end.
One general complaint I have is that the translations are not
very good, at times having awkward phrasing in English, and
occasionally having the wrong homonym (e.g., "peak" instead of
"peek").
A RANDOM WALK IN SCIENCE FICTION by Antonio Bellomi (translators
unlisted, special Chicon 7 edition) consists of twelve stories by
Bellomi (one co-authored with Walther Bellomi), all previously
published in English. "The Bonfire" is one of that rare sub-genre
of science fiction, mathematical science fiction (though just
barely so). Several are "gimmick" or "puzzle" stories that
reminded me of many of Isaac Asimov's "Wendell Urth" stories or
Arthur C. Clarke's "Tales from the White Hart". (And as a further
similarity, two of the stories in this volume are from a series
that features a lunar-based crime solver named Uriel Qeta.)
Unfortunately, the stories suffer from the problem of a lot of
puzzle stories: the solution depends on some completely unlikely
circumstance. For example, years ago there was an Ellery Queen
story with five suspects, and the victim had dialed a seemingly
random phone number as he was dying. The solution depended on
there being one and only one name that could be translated into a
phone number on an alphanumeric dial. Or the victim grabs a
bottle of wine which just happens to be the translation in English
of the killer's German name. And so on.
WORLDCON STORIES by Massimo Ferri ("Symphonic Theorem", translated
by Massimo Ferri), Renato Pestiniero ("Night of the Id",
translated by Joe F. Randolph), and Veronika Santo ("The Venetian
Clock", translated from the Croatian By Aleksandar Ziljak) was
another Chicon 7 special edition. "Symphonic Theorem" is another
piece of mathematical science fiction. "Night of the Id" is the
basis of the film PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES {a.k.a. DEMON PLANET,
a.k.a. TERRORE NELLO SPAZIO).
I did *not* read OMNE IGNOTUM PRO MAGNIFICO by Donato Altomare and
Mike Resnick (translated by Roberto Bianchi, special Chicon 7
edition), because the translation was into Latin, a language in
which I am not fluent. Bianchi included a Latin-to-
Italian/English glossary for all the words he had to coin (or
possibly he got some from papers issued by the Vatican). This is
not a co-authored novel, but rather four stories by Altomare and
one, "Article of Faith", by Resnick. "Article of Faith" was first
published in JIM BAEN'S UNIVERSE and then translated into Italian
for an eBook prior to this publication.
Another unusual "anthology" I picked up at Chicon 7 was the
promotional booklet to "Sail to Success", a writers' workshop to
be held on a cruise of the Bahamas. It contained previously
published stories by three of the workshop faculty (Mike Resnick,
Paul Cook, and Nancy Kress) and a preview of an upcoming novel by
a fourth (Kevin J. Anderson). I haven't seen anything like this
since Lands End including a Ray Bradbury story in one of their
catalogs.
I also listened to the Teaching Company (a.k.a. Great Courses) LOST
CHRISTIANITIES: CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES AND THE BATTLES OVER
AUTHENTICATION (Professor Bart D. Ehrman) (ISBN
979-1-56585-555-6), a 24-lesson course I had on cassette which I
listened to on my Walkman. (I did not even waste any batteries,
as I find that when the batteries that we use in our palmtops are
too weak for that purpose, I can still get several hours of
Walkman use out of them.) This course is heavily based on the
Nag Hammadi library and also Gnostic writings and teachings, with
only minor attention to other "heresies". [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible
whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned
upon the connection of its parts.
--David Hilbert