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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 07/09/99 -- Vol. 18, No. 2
Chair/Librarian: Mark Leeper, 732-817-5619, mleeper@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper, 732-332-6218, eleeper@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist: Rob Mitchell, robmitchell@lucent.com
HO Chair Emeritus: John Jetzt, jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian Emeritus: Nick Sauer, njs@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
201-447-3652 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. You can tell that it is summertime and I don't have a whole lot
to talk about this week. I heard an old song on the radio the
other day. It is one of these things where you have heard a song
thousands of times and never really thought much about it. Like
"Ring Around the Rosie" it has a different meaning than what you
had thought about it. We even used to sing it at summer camp. It
goes:
Michael rowed the boat ashore.
Hallelujah.
Michael rowed the boat ashore.
Hallelujah.
Sister helped to trim the sail.
Hallelujah.
Sister helped to trim the sail.
Hallelujah.
The River Jordan is deep and wide.
Hallelujah.
Milk and honey on the other side.
Hallelujah.
The River Jordan is chilly and cold.
Hallelujah.
Chills the body but not the soul.
Hallelujah.
Michael rowed the boat ashore.
Hallelujah.
Michael rowed the boat ashore.
Hallelujah.
It is a very simple song. It sounds sort of sad. It makes
absolutely no sense if taken literally. Taken at face value, it
obviously cannot be taken at face value. Most people I asked
thought that the song just got its facts wrong. They think the
song is talking about this big cold river that you cross with a
boat to get into Israel. Would that it were so. That is desert
country and of course you have countries fighting over what little
water there is there. A big river would be mighty handy. But
there is none.
The meanings are all symbolic, and someone who has never seen the
River Jordan writes it. I mean the real River Jordan is not chilly
and cold. It is really very warm and shallow. It is too shallow
to float a boat, God knows. But people seem to interpret the song
as saying that it requires sacrifices to get to the Holy Land, but
it is worth it.
So let me set the record straight. In fact, as one realizes on
some reflection, it is not this pleasant little song, it is more a
morbid dirge. It is a song about longing for death. Crossing the
River Jordan into the land of Milk and Honey is dying and going to
heaven or Gehenna or what have you.. It says that the body dies
and the soul continues. It is a song appropriate to the followers
of the Reverend Jim Jones, maybe. This is perhaps not the most
appropriate song to have children singing at summer camp. But then
it may be no worse than "The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out."
Any of those out there who thought of this as a simple and innocent
song, I just wanted to disillusion you rather than leave you with a
mis-impression. Okay. Not a big thing. That is just the thought
for the week. [-mrl]
===================================================================
2. SUMMER OF SAM (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Capsule: New York City, the summer 1977, the
local Son of Sam killings hang over everybody's
lives in the Italian-American community. But
this story is really about popular hairdresser
friend and his wife. The climate of paranoia
from the killings will only bring out the worst
in Vinny. Spike Lee's portrayal of Italian-
Americans is just about like it has been in
films likes like DO THE RIGHT THING, in such a
big dose it looks a lot like racism. Rating: 5
(0 to 10), high 0 (-4 to +4)
Spike Lee co-produces and co-directs this story of a group of
people living in Bedford Stuyvesant section of New York. The film
is not really about the Son of Sam murders themselves but about the
atmosphere of dread created by the killings. Central to the story
is Vinny the hairdresser (played by John Leguizamo), his wife
Dionna (Mira Sorvino), and Vinny's boyhood friend Ritchie (Adrien
Brody). Vinny is flashy and flamboyant, a local favorite in the
club disco scene. Vinny is living the life of easy sex, illegal
drugs, loud music, and too much drinking. His wife dotes on him
but admits to herself that she somehow failing to satisfy him and
is disappointing him. Ritchie has affected a British punk
hairstyle and a phony British accent. Most people in the
neighborhood cannot understand what Ritchie is doing but Vinny
defends his friend.
Meanwhile the paranoia over the killings is getting to the
neighborhood. There is a general assumption that the Son of Sam is
someone from the neighborhood and someone they all know. With the
tacit approval of the police vigilante groups form to try to track
down whoever is doing the killing. In a witch hunt atmosphere
anyone who seems out of the ordinary, even ball-player Reggie
Jackson, can be suspect. All the while we see little bits of the
Son of Sam himself living in torment from his personal demons then
striking like some Angel of Death. He is just tangential to the
story but hangs over all that goes on.
Spike Lee has structured the film a lot like his DO THE RIGHT
THING. There is a violent incident toward the end of the film and
virtually every scene is buildup to this moment of violence. In DO
THE RIGHT THING; however, it was a mystery where the story was
going. In SUMMER OF SAM it is very obvious what is going to happen
and the viewer is left to wonder only how long it will take and how
will it happen. The answer the second question is "longer than you
think." Until then you will be putting in a lot of time with some
generally unpleasant people. Lee orchestrates all this with the
music of the summer of 1997. He uses the time-tested but hardly
original technique of creating period feel by just finding out what
the popular songs stations were playing and salting them all over
the soundtrack. Sex in the film is kept frequent, explicit, but
using camera angles so that little explicit is shown to the
audience.
What is disturbing is that Spike Lee's view of the Italian
Americans in this part of New York is not very deep. If it is
beyond stereotype, it is not by much. His portrayal is certainly
not very pleasant or understanding. Lee has, in the past, accused
other filmmakers of using stereotypes. But it may well instead be
a result of just the same sort of rushed and poorly observed
writing that is starting to appear in his own work. In fact there
have always been unflattering portraits of non-blacks that he has
not written well and which do not fall far beyond the
stereotypical. During the film he complains about a double
standards toward blacks, but he himself would complain if another
film had black characters so poorly characterized.
The paranoiac aspects of the film and a good and sympathetic
performance by Mira Sorvino make this otherwise wandering and
pointlessly over-long film considerably more watchable than it
would be otherwise. And as with DO THE RIGHT THING we do see a
good, credible build of events that make an unthinkable incident
believable. I give SUMMER OF SAM a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a
high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale. Gee, a film about the summer of 1977
and not one mention of STAR WARS. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
HO 1K-644 732-817-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform to nonconformity.
-- Eric Hoffer