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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 01/30/98 -- Vol. 16, No. 31
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2D-536 732-957-6330 rlmitchell1@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-933-2724 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets on the third Saturday of every month in Belleville; call
201-432-5965 for details. The Denver Area Science Fiction
Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of every month at
Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week: http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-
bin/translate. This amazingly useful tool does translations
between English and any one of French, Spanish, Portugese, or
German. They're not great translations, they're not very literary
translations, but they are sufficient to convey the meaning fairly
well. (I tried it on the beginning of Zola's "J'Accuse" and found
it useful. I *really* could have used it when I was getting error
messages from systems in France, or submissions in french to the
newsgroup I moderated.) [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. Remember when they used to say that the American President is
the most powerful person in the world? I remember back to those
days when he actually was. I guess he is not any more. At least I
overheard a conversation today in which a woman was saying she
really felt betrayed by Clinton. I am now hearing calls to impeach
him. All this and there is no credible evidence of any wrong-
doing. So far there is no real evidence against him. There is
only an accusation. No, I guess that is not even accurate. At
this writing there is an accusation that there is an accusation.
There is a potential accusation. It is the test of twenty hours of
illegally obtained tapes of private conversation, and very likely a
tall tale. But then I guess the impeachment is still in the
potential phase also.
But I guess the important question is whether he is guilty. No,
let's be more precise. The question is whether he is effectively
guilty and the answer is a resounding "yes." What does
"effectively guilty" mean? Well, let me give you an example.
Would you vote for William Kennedy Smith for President? I have
heard that in a poll most people who remembered his name said that
they would not. Wasn't he involved in a rape case? Yup, he sure
was. He was accused of rape, in fact. It went to trial and was
found innocent. The law said he did not do it. In fact, here is a
real trivia question for you, who was his accuser? I bet you don't
know. I know I don't know. That is because if you bring a charge
of rape you can legally choose without revealing your name to the
public. Alan Dershowitz points out in an editorial that in France
if you make a false accusation you are given the punishment that
the accusee would have gotten, but in the United States the only
option is countersuit. No countersuit is going to clear William
Kennedy Smith's name. I don't know if William Kennedy Smith even
had political aspirations, but if he is as innocent as he has been
found to be in a court of law, the power of sexual accusation has
legally destroyed any political career he might have had. It may
be for very good reason that the law has been set up this way, but
it certainly seems like the net result has some problems. In spite
of legal innocence, William Kennedy Smith has effectively been
found guilty. Neither he nor Clinton can ever really clear his
name. Once the accusation has made, it is effectively true.
But even though the President is effectively guilty by accusation,
do I think the actual misconduct really took place? I have no
idea, myself. The question I ask myself is whether it is probable
that a President in office--someone fairly intelligent--who is
already accused of sexual misconduct would have so little self-
control? There are those who would like to believe that men are
not responsible for their actions when it comes to the opposite
sex. It has about as much validity as accusations of PMS behavior.
But I can tell you that I myself have been told that I have
absolutely no self-control when it comes to sex. As this point
anybody who knows me just swallowed their bubble gum. It sure
makes me sound like I have a more interesting past than I remember.
Anyway, I was told it by a woman who knew absolutely nothing about
me or my behavior; she made the judgment strictly based on the fact
that I was a male. And I expect for her there would be little that
plausibility arguments would accomplish. The woman who said it is
convinced that all men are out to abuse all women, and one can
never prove that assertion false. For my part I am going to wait
for some hard evidence before I draw any conclusions. After all
this is the President who has had two or three new accusations a
week and still nothing has been proven. That means either he is in
league with the Devil or he is just plain milquetoast innocent.
But in either case next month he will be accused of having sex with
someone like Tawana Brawley.
But now what is the next move for the woman in question?
Regardless of the truth she has two options. She can tell the
American public that that it was all just a romantic fantasy.
Nobody will ever trust her again. Her career will be ruined. She
may even feel that she has discredited her whole gender in
politics. And people across the country will assume that she has
been bought off and really has had an affair with the President.
Or she can present herself as a 90s professional woman who like
many another has had an indescretion with the boss. She might even
give it the spin of striking a blow against imposed, paternalistic
mores. I bet you a nickel I know which she'll do. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. This week John Updike final novel in his five-installment novel.
The title is RABBIT IS HASEN PFEFFER. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. Top Ten Films of 1997 (film commentary by Mark R. Leeper):
The following is the list of the ten films that I enjoyed most over
the year. I have to admit living in the wilds of New Jersey I have
not been as active as I might have been in seeking out more obscure
films that might have been more qualified. This was a year in
which the multiplexes around me seemed particularly preoccupied
with getting films that had large explosions. In addition there
are films that will come to my area in the next few weeks that
might have made it onto my list. With that in mind, here are the
ten best of what I saw this year.
1. L. A. CONFIDENTIAL: This is a dense, complex, multi-layered
crime story that may just be one of the best films of its kind ever
made. Great dialogue, very good plot, great characters, good
musical score, great photography. This is one of the most engaging
film script we have seen in a while. This is a film to rank with
THE MALTESE FALCON and CHINATOWN among the best of the crime.
Rating: 9 (0 to 10), high +3 (-4 to +4)
2. THE ICE STORM: Ang Lee adapts the novel by Rick Moody. Two
neighboring families, each in its own way dysfunctional, are the
study of this film set over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973. Both
families seem obsessed with sex, but different people use it in
different ways and react differently. Lee very finely defines his
characters and the film adds up to a powerful experience. Rating:
9 (0 to 10), +3 (-4 to +4)
3. CONTACT: The first contact with an alien race has a huge impact
on society. We see that impact through the eyes of one woman who
devoted her life to the search for extraterrestrial life. The film
adaptation of Carl Sagan's CONTACT is in some ways a betrayal of
Sagan's philosophy and has some hefty revisions to the book.
Knowing that I would like to down-rate CONTACT, but I have to admit
what remains is a substantial and intelligent film. CONTACT was
produced by Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan, and that may be why so
much of the film was on-track. While not perfect, it is the best
science fiction film we have gotten in a good long time. Rating: 8
(0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4)
4. THE SWEET HEREAFTER: An opportunistic lawyer comes to a rural
Canadian town in which a school bus accident has killed many of the
town's children. With a smooth sincere-sounding line he turns
grief into anger in the hopes of building a class action lawsuit.
Atom Egoyan's non-linear telling gets in the way a little, but this
is a powerful statement about the law and about grief. Rating: 8
(0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4)
5. ROSEWOOD: This is a powerful historical account with an epic
feel made on a subject that has never been adequately covered by
film. This story of a race massacre in 1923 Florida is intelligent
and exciting, a difficult mix. Stylistically similar to MATEWAN
and perhaps even better, John Singleton's film changes the truth a
little, but brings a an important incident in American race
relations to audiences who would not know about it otherwise.
Rating: 8 (0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4)
6. AMISTAD: Steven Spielberg's account of the slave mutiny of 1839
and its legal aftermath is certainly a good historical film, filled
with facts and historical details. Occasionally it is actually
powerful. But it lacks some of the emotional impact of THE COLOR
PURPLE and SCHINDLER'S LIST and its pacing is off. Still, it is a
useful and engaging source of historical perspective. Rating: 8 (0
to 10), high +2 (-4 to +4)
7. EVITA: The on-again, off-again history of attempts to bring this
Webber and Rice musical to the screen finally culminates in a
spectacular film starring Madonna, Antonio Banderas and Jonathan
Pryce. By now the music is mostly familiar. The politics are
superficially explained, but the visuals give the film a great epic
feel. It is hard to imagine Madonna will ever have as powerful a
role or be as good in another film. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), high +2
(-4 to +4)
8. EVE'S BAYOU: A ten-year-old Creole girl grows up during one hot
Louisiana summer. Director and writer Kasi Lemmons draws some very
nicely defined characters for whom the viewer has real interest and
empathy. One of the most touching and engrossing films of the year.
It is also very well photographed with some very memorable images.
Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4)
9. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE: One of Henry James's lesser novels makes
one of the more entertaining films based on his works. A woman
whose guardian will not let her marry her poor lover plots to have
the lover seduce a dying heiress so he will inherit her money. The
story meanders a bit in going where the viewer knows it eventually
will, but the view is nice along the way. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2
(-4 to +4)
10. CHASING AMY: A pair of 20-something buddies who co-author a
comic book are split over one's interest in a gay woman. Kevin
Smith takes what could have been rather trivial and self-important
material handles it with a light touch, making a film that is both
engagingly serious and genuinely funny. Fans of Kevin Smith will
not be surprised that the film is also at times fairly raunchy.
The frank and often sexual dialog is realistic, but will be a
turnoff to some. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4)
[-mrl]
===================================================================
5. Three Books by Russell Hoban: THE MOMENT UNDER THE MOMENT,
Jonathan Cape, ISBN 0-224-03314-X, 1992, 260pp, L14.99; THE SECOND
MRS. KONG, Universal Edition, ISBN 0-900938-75-7, 1994, 35pp, no
price indicated; THE LAST OF THE WALLENDAS AND OTHER POEMS, Hodder
Children's Books, ISBN 0-340-66766-4, 1997, 80pp, L10.99 (book
reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper):
By looking at the header you can see my user interface doesn't even
provide me with a way to type the British "pound sterling" symbol
(or is it sterling still), so why, one might ask, am I reviewing
books priced in them?
Welcome to the world of global commerce.
The fact is that books published anywhere are pretty much available
anywhere (assuming censors aren't busy opening packages). In the
last month, I've ordered books from three continents, including a
British book from Australia and a Czech book, written in English,
from a bookseller in the Netherlands. So it is actually possible
for you to get these books, even if you live in a keyboard-deprived
country.
Aside Number 1: Why do I find myself ordering Britisher Stephen
Fry's book from Australia, while the only place to get Aussie Greg
Egan's new work is Britain?
Aside Number 2: My palmtop, on which I write this, does actually
have international currency symbols. Unfortunately, I can't upload
it to my mainframe and have it work.
THE MOMENT UNDER THE MOMENT
This collection of eight stories, fourteen essays, and a libretto
is a must for any Hoban fan. For one thing, it's the only time
I've seen his non-fiction available anywhere. The best piece to
start with is probably "The Bear in Max Ernst's Bedroom or The
Magic Wallet," the keynote address for the Sixth Annual Literary
Conference of the Manitoba Writers' Guild in 1987. In this Hoban
talks about fiction and reality, and writing and risk. Other
essays relate Hoban's early life--his background, what he read,
what he thought about what he read, and how all that shaped him
into what he is today. One or two have implied prerequisites; for
example, his introduction to HOUSEHOLD STORIES by the Brothers
Grimm would have meant more to me if I had read the stories, but my
childhood was squandered on Jules Verne and Franz Werfel (don't
ask). But even here, I found something remarkable: Hoban quotes
Goya as saying, "The dream of Reason produces monsters" (Los
Caprichos, Plate 43 in my edition, though it is noted that it may
have been intended as the frontispiece, and may appear as such
elsewhere). Hoban then disagrees, saying, "I think it's when
reason is *not* allowed to dream that it acts out its dreams while
awake, and then it is that monsters are produced." But what Goya
said in Spanish is actually ambiguous: "El sueno de la razon
produce monstruos" can also mean "The *sleep* of reason produces
monsters." In fact, Goya elaborates on the caption by saying, "La
fantasia abandonada de la razon, produce monstruos impossibles:
unida con ella, es madre de las artes y origen de sus marabillas"
("Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters:
united with her, she is the mother of arts and the origin of their
marvels"). So Goya actually agrees with Hoban: reason must unite
with dream; one cannot eliminate the other.
The libretto, "Some Episodes in the History of Miranda and
Callisto" reminded me very much of a performance of Risako Ataka's
"Tempest" sponsored by the Performance Exchange at the 1995
Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Maybe it was that the latter had a
single actor playing many roles, and Hoban's work, while not quite
that sparse, does have each actor in his time playing many parts.
The stories have a range of styles, though certain ideas do recur.
Sphinxes and lions seem particularly common, as well as general
references to mythology and that other realm which can be called
mystical or fantastical or spiritual, depending on your conception.
THE SECOND MRS. KONG
This opera has been set to music by Harrison Birtwhistle, but I
haven't heard it. (I know it exists, because an AltaVista search
turns up four references to the opera in various university music
department libraries.)
The cast includes "Kong (the idea of him)" and "Death of Kong" (two
separate characters), Vermeer and his Girl with a Pearl Earring,
Orpheus and Eurydice, Anubis, and "Madame Lena, the customary
sphinx." Hoban certainly has a thing about sphinxes.
THE LAST OF THE WALLENDAS
This is an interesting experiment. Many of the poems are suitable
for children, but some are clearly more aimed at adults. Now "by
suitable for children" I do not mean that it is in whatever
sanitized, dull state the MPAA in the United States seems to mean
in its strange, unfathomable rating scheme, but rather that a child
can appreciate it. "The Plughole Dragon," for example, has a basic
meter and rhyme that a child can follow, and a straightforward
method of expression ("Down the plughole winking, blinking,/No one
knows what he is thinking./No one knows why he should be/living
there so blinking free."). At the other end of the spectrum if
"K219," about the death of Sergei Preminin, and if the introduction
to it doesn't give you nightmares, nothing will.
I don't know if the name "Crystal Maze" is a reference to the
television show of the same name or just coincidence, but I am
reasonably sure that there are echoes of "Albert and the Lion" in
its content. (I assume the show is British, though we watched it
while traveling in India. "Albert and the Lion" is probably best
known in its Stanley Holloway rendition.)
I believe that THE MOMENT UNDER THE MOMENT may be out of print, but
www.bibliofind.com occasionally has copies. THE LAST OF THE
WALLENDAS should be orderable from a British bookseller. As for
THE SECOND MRS. KONG, you could try contacting the publisher
directly. [-ecl]
===================================================================
6. ARGUING THE WORLD (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: The American socialist movement is
traced following the trajectories of four
Jewish intellectuals who were friends at CCNY
in 1937. Each went in a different direction
after leaving school, but each continued the
tradition of argument. This is not so much a
contrasting of opinions as four different
biographies showing how different events let
them to different political conclusions. The
biographies are mixed with archive films
covering half a century. The film is good at
what it does, but it really should have given
us a better idea of what constituted each man's
philosophy and why he believed what he did.
ARGUING THE WORLD barely gets beyond the
superficial. The film is strong on its
explanation of history but weak on philosophy.
Rating: 6 (0 to 10), 1 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 5 positive, 0 negative, 2
mixed
ARGUING THE WORLD is a chronicle of political thought in the United
States from the late 1930s though the 1980s. More precisely it is
a study of four 20th Century political philosophers--Daniel Bell,
Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe, and Irving Kristol--who began their
careers in political philosophy as friends at CCNY, the City
College of New York, in 1937. They all came from similar
backgrounds. They lived in New York City where the sidewalks were
often decorated with political street speakers, and even before
college each was immersed in political thought. One tells how his
sister would take him to see Clifford Odets plays, another how in
front of his home were two buildings, the synagogue and the Young
People's Socialist League. Born into poverty, all four turned to
Marxism as the hope for the poor of the world. This was a time
when the revolution in Russia was fresh and new. Many Americans,
from a distance of thousands of miles, thought that Communism was
in the process of saving the Soviet Union. Take four young radical
thinkers, already drunk with politics, and send them to CCNY and
what develops is just what one would expect. CCNY was then one of
the radical campuses of the day. It was boiling over with excited
political debate. As writer/director Joseph Dorman seems to imply,
the teachers were mediocre, but the best education was to be had in
the cafeteria where there were constant agitated debates. The room
had a series of alcoves and different groups chose specific alcoves
as their turf. Alcove One was where the pro-Trotsky students
congregated. Alcove Two was where the pro-Stalin students
gathered. (One wonders what became of them.) Another alcove would
be the ROTC candidates. These four Jewish intellectuals were
Alcove One regulars.
ARGUING THE WORLD traces the four through the war years with two
going into the military. With the conquest of Nazism it seemed
that the world was ready for the Socialist ideal. However, their
view of Stalin and of Communism changed with the Moscow trials and
the purges and executions of military leaders. They started
founding and/or writing for magazines like "The Partisan Review"
and "Commentary." Irving Kristol started having a significantly
different view from the others during the McCarthy anti-Communist
Movement. While he did not think much of Joseph McCarthy as a
person, he defended McCarthyism.
What has been a minor irritation with the film to this point
becomes more obvious and at the same time more serious. One would
not write a biography of Charles Darwin without a detailed
explanation of evolution. Dorman does not seem prepared to
actually present the beliefs of his four subjects in any great
detail. While the four substantially agreed, it would have been
useful to be told the substance of their beliefs, but it was not
important to understanding their history. But at this point, when
they start to diverge in opinion it becomes frustrating just to be
told that Kristol agreed with McCarthy's goals and Howe did not.
These are deep and complex men with complex ways of thinking, and
to reduce their thought to so superficial a level is a
disappointment for the viewer. Dorman wants to tell us about the
four men but not bother to tell us really who they are. We want to
know Kristol's reasoning that led to his agreement with McCarthy.
We want to know the reasoning the others had for their different
viewpoints.
There is a further dividing of the ways in the 60s protest
movements and particularly in the relationship with the Students
for a Democratic Society. The SDS was the self-styled successor of
the previous generation's intellectual movement. But the four saw
the SDS as naive and utopian. Instead of endorsing the SDS, each
found himself disagreeing with the SDS and Tom Hayden, the leader
of the SDS, attributed this to stodginess and de facto
conservatism.
There was further divergence of opinion based on experience of the
late 60s student protest movements. Nathan Glazer by this point
was a professor at Berkeley where the students were able very much
to disrupt the academic environment with impunity. Glazer was
called upon to negotiate and in the process lost most of his
respect for the protesters. His views became more conservative as
a result, though not so far to the right as Kristol's. Daniel Bell
was at Columbia where the protests were put down with more force by
the police and came out of the experience more left-wing than
before.
Dorman recreates the period with archival footage showing New York
and California at the time of the events, but what is on the screen
frequently is just a scene without much obvious relevance to what
is being said. There are also interviews with various political
figures who interacted with the four political thinkers. The film
is entertaining and enlightening, but it leaves one wanting to be
in on a discussion among the men to find out what the real
differences in their opinions and reasoning styles were. Without
that there is something dramatically missing from the film. I rate
ARGUING THE WORLD a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4
scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
It is necessary for me to establish a winner image.
Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
-- Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)
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