THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
01/18/13 -- Vol. 31, No. 29, Whole Number 1737
Popeye: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Olive Oyl: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Sign of the Times (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Doctor Who Timeline
Follow the Spirit (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
NASA Johnson Style (Gangnam Style Parody) on YouTube
GODZILLA VS BIOLLANTE (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Has Godzilla Advanced Paleontology? (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Wendy (letter of comment by Peter Rubinstein)
LIFE OF PI (letter of comment by Gregory Benford)
This Week's Reading (OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS,
THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN: HISTORY AND MYTH, and
69 A.D.: THE YEAR OF FOUR EMPERORS) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
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TOPIC: Sign of the Times (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I saw a sign on the road that said "ADD child in ". [-mrl]
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TOPIC: Doctor Who Timeline
From howtogeek.com:
http://tinyurl.com/void-drwho-timeline
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TOPIC: Follow the Spirit
This is a seven-minute film that follows the Spirit Mars
Exploration Rover from rocket firing to sending back pictures from
the planet Mars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRCIzZHpFtY
Thanks to Sherry Glotzer for pointing this out.
==================================================================
TOPIC: NASA Johnson Style (Gangnam Style Parody) on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sar5WT76kE
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TOPIC: Jasper Morello (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I notice that THE MYSTERIOUS GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORATIONS OF JASPER
MORELLO is available on YouTube. If you have not seen it this is a
28-minute animated film about the adventures of a sort of Jules-
Verne-style adventurer. I guess you could say the story is "steam
punk." The film was nominated for an Oscar and has won a number of
awards.
If you liked THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE, you should like
this. I recommend it.
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: GODZILLA VS BIOLLANTE (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My local Shop-Rite had GODZILLA VS BIOLLANTE on DVD for a crazy price
of $4.99. It was near the produce section, appropriately enough. I
thought the description on the back was funny. It says that
Dr. Shiragami has "a rare supply of Godzilla cells." There should
be a lot of Godzilla cells around. He's eighty meters tall and
comes to Tokyo every Tuesday, where he gets fired upong by the
pride of the Japanese Defense Forces. How hard can it be to find
Godzilla cells? Granted I would not want to be the one to have to
walk up and collect them, but there would be scrapings. He must
have a hard time squeezing past buildings. He'd have to face that
problem every day. [-mrl]
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TOPIC: Has Godzilla Advanced Paleontology? (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
There is an article on the Oxford University Press's website that
lists nine scientific terms that we think of as being part of
science but which really come from science fiction. The terms they
give are:
- Robotics, coined in 1941 in the story "Liar!" by (who else?)
Isaac Asimov
- Genetic Engineering, from the novel DRAGON'S ISLAND (1941) by
Jack Williamson
- Zero-gravity and Zero-G, the source is Arthur C. Clarke's novel
ISLANDS IN THE SKY (1952)
- Deep Space, coined by E. E. "Doc" Smith in 1934
- Ion Drive, created by Jack Williamson for the story "The
Equalizer" from 1947
- Pressure Suit, another invention of E. E. "Doc" Smith.
- (Computer) Virus, from David Gerrold for the novel WHEN HARLIE
WAS ONE (1972)
- (Computer) Worm, first used in SHOCKWAVE RIDER, written by John
Brunner in 1975
- Gas Giant, coined by James Blish in his story "Solar Plexus"
See http://blog.oup.com/2009/03/science-fiction/.
I would say they missed the term "Atomic Bomb" which was first used
by H. G. Wells in his 1914 novel THE WORLD SET FREE. I might even
include the term "Time Machine" which comes up in discussions of
modern physics.
Why has science fiction contributed so many terms to science?
Well, because it had to. It is one of the purposes of science
fiction is to look at what may be the science of the future and in
doing that it needs a vocabulary to describe just what is going on.
It may be only for the sake of entertainment. H. G. Wells had no
reason to believe that in the future physics really might look at
the theoretical possibility of moving particles or whole bodies to
other times. He just had a fantasy that he might want a device
that could transport him to another time. It would be a machine
that could move him to another time, so he called it a "time
machine." Theoretical physics now has caught up to him in looking
at the concept. And they have a vocabulary ready-made for them
from science fiction.
Scientists would undoubtedly have their current conceptions of
paleontology changed if they really could observe real dinosaurs.
They cannot. But I suspect that just looking at Godzilla movies
has brought up issues that they had not thought about just studying
what science knew.
Now I am not sure this is documented by I think we learned
something substantial about real life dinosaurs from the 1954 film
GOJIRA or GODZILLA.
There is not a whole lot of science in Godzilla movies. And what
science there is ridiculously wrong. Yet I have a strong suspicion
that the original Godzilla movie may have shown up an error in what
was thought to be good science. I think it has pointed out a
misconception that science had about dinosaurs.
In the original film early in Godzilla's rampages there is an
overhead view of a beach where Godzilla had walked when he was
returning to the sea. The point of the scene is that the size of
the footprints is supposed to be impressive. You see the
footprints and between them there is a deep furrow in the sand.
Godzilla drags his tail when he walks just as dinosaurs were
usually depicted as doing at the time. It was thought that
dinosaurs kept their tails on the ground for stability. That was
the way skeletons were set up in museums. Dinosaurs almost always
rested their tails on the floor or ground. So there were the
footprints and there was a trench dug by his monstrous tail.
The problem was that the image was not accurate to dinosaur
footprints seen at the time. There are lots and lots of rocks with
fossilized dinosaur footprints. There is never (or hardly ever) a
mark between them left by the tail. Why not? Well, the only
explanation was that dinosaurs must not have dragged their tails.
Bipedal dinosaurs apparently balanced on their feet with their
spines nearly horizontal. Quadrupeds lifted their tails also. So
that is how museums depict dinosaurs today. I think somebody could
have seen the film with the footprints on the beach separated by
the furrow and it clicked not just that it looked wrong, but that
it was still accurate to the understanding of the day. But real
dinosaur footprints usually do not have a furrow. Dinosaurs like
sauropods did not drag their tails but held them off of ground.
Was it really a Japanese monster movie that led to the realization?
To tell you the truth I really don't know. That is conjecture.
Everything else is true. The Godzilla part is conjecture. But if
you have seen real dinosaur footprints you cannot look at that
scene and not recognize something is wrong with the assumption that
dinosaurs dragged tails.
So Godzilla films might be good for something, huh?
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: Wendy (letter of comment by Peter Rubinstein)
In response to Evelyn's comments on BORGES' TRAVELS, HEMINGWAY'S
GARAGE in the 01/11/13 issue of the MT VOID, Pete Rubinstein
writes:
Wendy's is not an imaginary name. It is the name of the owner's
daughter.
And to remove the probably, from the question of Fig Newtons, they
were named after the town of Newton, Massachusetts. The
manufacturer named a number of their products after local towns.
Fig Newtons happened to be one that became popular. [-pr]
Evelyn responds:
I guess I wasn't entirely clear in what I meant. Obviously there
are also people named Romeo and Athena as well. But as a *famous*
name, there are no famous Wendys that I can think of (well, other
than Wendy Hiller), and composing these sorts of stories about how
Romeo Montague started a pizza parlor just wouldn't work. [-ecl]
Mark adds:
Wendy is actually a name that is steeped in controversy. The
argument was whether J. M. Barrie invented the name for PETER PAN.
See http://www.wendy.com/wendyweb/history.html. [-mrl]
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TOPIC: LIFE OF PI (letter of comment by Gregory Benford)
In response to Mark's "Top Ten Films" list for 2012 in the 01/11/13
issue of the MT VOID, Gregory Benford writes:
Liked your movie views, but wonder if you saw LIFE OF PI ... my
fave of the year. Fantasy as metaphor. And how about ZERO DARK
THIRTY? [-gb]
Mark replies:
Good to hear from you again. I hope we are doing right by having a
fanzine with the name of VOID.
Ironically, I think I did not like it because of the spirituality.
I think of myself as being much more empirical than spiritual.
(And I think I would have guessed that you were even more that way
than I am, since in our writing you stick to well-known hard
science.)
I was bothered that the film promises that the story will make you
believe in God. Just from a philosophical viewpoint I would have
been interested to see how they did that. Even if it were a true
story I would not have felt shaken from my agnostic viewpoint. I
am not sure what it would take to do that, but this story did not
even seem to be trying very hard.
But someone else wrote me saying it should have been in my top ten.
My review is at
http://www.fanac.org/fanzines/MT_Void/MT_Void-3122.html#4.
ZERO DARK THIRTY just opened yesterday around here. I have not
seen it yet. I will just have to make it eligible for my next
year's top ten list.
Thanks for writing. [-mrl]
Gregory responds:
I ignored the religious cast to the film. The metaphor switch at
the end was good and made me rethink the whole film. I don't
rethink the God issue much.
I had read your review; just forgot it. BTW, skip HYDE PARK ON
HUDSON--weak. [-gb]
Mark responds:
Too late. It is weak, though at the heart it makes the interesting
point that FDR's paralysis could have been an important political
advantage when forming an alliance with the King of England. [-mrl]
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TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I was never all that taken by OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS
by T. S. Eliot (with drawings by Edward Gorey) (ISBN 0-15-668568-
X), figuring it appealed mostly to "cat people" (and not of the
Simone Simon kind). But I picked up a copy mostly for the
illustrations, and discovered things I had not noticed before.
For example, "The Naming of Cats" is something I thought of as
"that poem that Peter Ustinov recites in LOGAN'S RUN." But reading
it, I noticed the last five lines:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and incrutable singular Name.
In particular, the penultimate line reads as "Eff-in' ineffable",
or "F---in' ineffable."
And it seems clear that Old Deuteronomy the cat is a symbol for the
Old Testament and Eliot's negative view of it (and its followers).
"His numerous progeny prospers and thrives/And the village is proud
of him in his decline" and makes sure nothing disturbs Old
Deuteronomy even as he sleeps, oblivious to everything around him.
"The digestive repose of that feline's gastronomy/Must never be
broken, whatever befall." Translated, Old Deuteronomy represents
the Jews and his progeny the Christians. While the progeny prosper
and thrive, Old Deuteronomy himself is useless and decrepit, but
everyone ignores this and caters to him in spite of it. This is
probably a pretty fair summation of Eliot's attitude toward
Christians and Jews.
THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN: HISTORY AND MYTH by Lloyd Lewis (ISBN
978-0-8032-7949-3) was written in 1929, so a lot of the conclusions
Lewis comes to may have been superseded by new evidence. Then
again, Lewis often seems purposely to come to no conclusion, as for
example when discussing the rumors that Booth was not shot in the
barn, but rather escaped and lived on.
69 A.D.: THE YEAR OF FOUR EMPERORS by Gwyn Morgan (ISBN 978-0-19-
512468-5) is a popularized, but fairly thorough, analysis of the
tumultuous "Year of Four Emperors" (Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and
Vespasian). While that sounds dramatic, after one realizes that
there was a "Year of Five Emperors" (A.D. 193: Pertinax, Didius
Julianus, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus, and Septimus Severus)
and a "Year of Six Emperors" (A.D. 238: Maximinus Thrax, Gordian I,
Gordian II, Pupienus, Balbinus, and Gordian III), it sounds a bit
like a mere practice run.
However, the argument can be made that the four emperors of 69 were
somewhat more substantial than the five of 193 and the six of 238.
When you have two emperors that ruled (jointly) for only twenty
days, and another two (again jointly) for 99 days, it's hard to
take them entirely seriously.
My one "complaint" about 69 A.D. is that it is too "Latinized".
While Morgan does give the current English name for all the places
on first mention, he refers to them afterwards only by their Latin
(Roman) names, and when one pops up after a long interval, I cannot
always remember where it is.
I do like that Morgan discusses his sources (there are basically
only four: Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius), and attempts
to sort out which are probably accurate on various points and which
are not. In particular, Morgan spends an entire appendix
discussing each of the sources in detail, and attempting to
reconstruct the original source from which they may have drawn.
69 A.D. is probably best read by someone who is only lightly
familiar with the period, since to a great extent it covers
familiar ground. But as a follow-up for people who have watched I,
CLAUDIUS, it will certainly suffice. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
--Samuel Butler