THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/18/11 -- Vol. 30, No. 21, Whole Number 1676
Heckle: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Jekyll: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
More Number Fun Related to 11/11/11
Caveat (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Answers to Last Week's Puzzle (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
The Anti-Psychic Friends Network (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
TREE OF LIFE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
PROJECT NIM (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Words (letters of comment by Charles S. Harris,
Gregory Benford, and Tim Bateman)
THE WINDS OF DUNE (letter of comment by Todd V. Ehrenfels)
Regression Analysis and Cheap Ballplayers (letter of comment
by Jerry Ryan)
THE STORY OF ONE HUNDRED GREAT COMPOSERS (letter of comment
by Tim Bateman)
This Week's Reading (HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE
FICTIONAL UNIVERSE) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: More Number Fun Related to 11/11/11
Andre Kuzniarek sends the following URL (to wolfram.com) with
number fun for last week's notable date:
http://tinyurl.com/void-111111
==================================================================
TOPIC: Caveat (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Brian Greene has a program on PBS called "The Fabric of the
Universe." He keeps saying that there are ideas out there that are
hard to get your head around. I am not sure I like that wording.
There are many things I do not *want* to get my head around.
Foremost among them is a baseball bat. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Answers to Last Week's Puzzle (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Answers to last week's puzzle:
Last week I gave two decimal patterns and asked for what are they
represented as fractions in lowest terms. The answers are:
1) 37/3003 = .0123210123210123210.
2) 109/89911 = .012 123 234 345 456 567 678 789 ..
The best explanation of technique came from Dan Cox:
0.012321012321012321... = what fraction?
Let x = 0.012321012321...
Then 1,000,000 x = 12321.012321012321...
and 999,999 x = 12321
Both sides divide by 111.
An easy test for divisibility by 111 is to add the 3-digit
groups of the number (counting from the right), and if the
result is divisible by 111 then the original number is
divisible by 111. In this case, 012 + 321 = 333, which is
divisible by 111.
9009 x = 111
Both sides divide by 3
3003 x = 37
3003 does not divide by 37
The same test works for divisibility by 37. In this case,
003 + 003 = 006, which is not divisible by 37.
So, in lowest terms,
x = 37/3003 = 0.012321012321...
And the problem is solvable with no computation harder than
12321/111.
The divisibility tests used here work because 37 and 111 are
factors of 999, which is 1000 - 1. It is the base 1000 equivalent
of adding a number's digits to see if the number is divisible by 3
or 9.
----
0.012 123 234 345 456 567 678 789 ... = what fraction?
Let x = 0.012 123 234 345 456 567 678 789 ...
Then 1000 x = 12.123 234 345 456 567 678 789 ...
And 1000x - x = 12.111 111 111 111 111 111 111 ...
999x = 12+1/9
999x = 109/9
9 * 999x = 109
8991x = 109
x = 109/8991
Now 8991 = 9 * 999 = 81 * 111 = 243 * 37 = 3^5 * 37
Neither 3 nor 37 divide into 109, so the fraction is in lowest
terms.
It's not a coincidence that 243 is a factor of 8991, the
denominator in the fraction that represents this decimal, given
that this train of thought started with
1/243 = 0.004 115 226 337 448 559 ...
and both decimals have the same "sets of 3 digits increase by 111"
pattern.
Other people who had solutions were David Shallcross, Peter
Rubinstein, and Andre Kuzniarek. The latter did not really solve
the problem so much as handed it off to Wolfram which will do
automatic conversion of decimals to fractions.
Special kudos to those who derived the answer for themselves.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
I have now watched Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS four or five times
and I think I respect it more each time I see it. Initially I
rated it low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10. I don't like Tom Cruise as the
blue-collar hero who is smarter than everyone else. That reminds
me too much of Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's THE THING. But I
do think that Spielberg created more of a feeling of immediacy in
the action. Besides being so smart, Tom Cruise is just a typical
flawed Joe caught in the invasion. He is not a star scientist as
Pal made him. Spielberg manages to make the action more immediate
and realistic-feeling than any other version. There are
interesting details like when the tripod opens at the end you don't
just see an alien arm. Apparently the aliens have rotted and have
liquefied and all that liquid dumps. Earlier, unable to shut up
Robbins, Cruise is forced to murder him as a matter of pure
survival. Putting that in the film was taking a risk. And the
design of the tripods is also impressive. I would rather consider
it a tribute to the Wells than an adaptation, but it is a fairly
strong alien invasion film. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Anti-Psychic Friends Network (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
Some of my closest friends are looking at me a little strangely
these days. I am behaving in a way they do not approve of and they
probably did not expect of me. Longtime readers of the MT VOID
know that I frequently poke fun at people who claim to have psychic
powers. In particular I am extremely skeptical and not very polite
to people who claim that they can see the future. This just does
not fit into my view of the physical universe. I think it is very
unlikely that we will ever be able to send useful information
backward in time. If you could then you would have time paradoxes
arise. The "Grandfather Paradox" is the most familiar of these.
(See Wikipedia if you are not sure what that is.) If sending
information backward in time you could get messages from the future
telling you to take some action that would make that future
impossible. So then does that future actually happen or not? So
it seems unlikely to me that the physical universe allows
information to go backward in time. And that really is what
happens with psychic messages.
Frequently in the MT VOID I poke fun at psychics, especially the
old "Psychic Friends Network" on cable. They went bankrupt in 1998
due to bad business decisions and a lack of foresight. Similarly
there was a self-proclaimed psychic in my town who put up a big
illuminated sign on a pole advertising her supernatural services.
It bothered me like a sore tooth that she was so brazenly making
money off of people's ignorance. Then we had a bad windstorm and
it blew right through her sign. It was an expensive sign. A
couple of pieces of cheap plywood would have saved it. But the
self-proclaimed psychic just did not see bad weather coming. It
became a big visible sign that this psychic had real problems
seeing the future. My feeling is that all professional psychics
are frauds. Further I guess I believe deep down that all psychics,
professional or not, are either frauds or self-deluded.
Years ago one of my relatives told me that my grandmother had been
psychic. If I remember right the story was that she saw John
Kennedy on television shortly before the Dallas trip and said, "My
God. There's death in his eyes." I nodded when I was told this
and did not let on that I really thought it was another case of
self-delusion. You get into paradoxes right out of Philip K. Dick
if you start thinking about what if she had been able to convince
someone to cancel Kennedy's Dallas trip. Until recently I had not
thought of this for years.
I have another relative who I rarely see--maybe about once a
decade. He is a fairly accomplished professional. I just saw him
recently with some time to talk to him. He told me that he had
inherited my grandmother's psychic powers. This was the first I
knew that any living member of my family claimed to have such
abilities. I was puzzled and thought that maybe he was a little
more of a kook than would have thought. He told me that it is not
often, but he gets visual premonitions of major events before they
happen. It is like seeing a short video in his mind. He generally
just tells a few close family members and other people he sees
frequently. Now I supposed he could be lying and trying to fool
me, but my feeling is that that is unlikely. In any case if his
premonition seems to be a true prediction more than coincidence it
either happens or it does not. I don't see how he could be lying
in any manner that would not be obvious.
Now I have a quirk of my own. When some people discover that other
people have a very different worldview they take offense to varying
degrees. To me there is little in life as exciting. I asked my
relative to e-mail me describing the premonitions when he has one.
I guess deep down I expected that I would be able to explain what
he was experiencing some logical way. That prospect seemed
intriguing to me. And even more exciting is the possibility that I
might find out something completely inconsistent with my worldview.
So things stood for a few days.
On Wednesday, October 19th, I got a message from my relative.
"Building collapse. Brick facades will fall away and people in the
openings, confused, will evacuate just before structural collapse.
It may be in a big city, multiple stories. I get the premonitions
as a small moving image of about 3-5 seconds and have to figure out
what I have seen. It usually takes place within 3 weeks. Some
happen the next day, others the same week, but most by the third
week."
"Next day" or "three weeks" is a fair leeway. That argues that it
could be a probabilistic trick. Two questions are germane. Does
an event occur that could match his description? How often do
events occur that fit that description?
On Sunday, October 23, Evelyn asked me did I think the earthquake
in Turkey was what my relative has seen. The quake just hit the
news hours before. It was not in the news that morning or I would
have seen it. That was four days after I had gotten the
description. As Evelyn pointed out we were in Turkey years ago and
really did not see any brick facades. Google Images does show
some. There are stone facades that could look similar. It could
be beyond coincidence.
I realized that the prediction lost all its statistical value as
soon as a possible fulfillment occurred. For all you know, reader,
I might be lying about the above. I could have concocted this
story after the quake. I am not lying, but I do not ask anyone to
take my word for that. And I am still doing my best to prove that
nothing unexplainable has happened. The value of any evidence
against my worldview dies with age. That is how it would be with
so-called premonitions. Given time they are at best "monitions."
Realizing this, I sent mail to a small number of friends asking
them when/if I get another premonition report if they would be
witnesses just that the premonition has been reported. Witnesses
are the only way I know to get a grip on evidence. In return one
tried to send me where I could read about tricks that fraudulent
psychics use. (Actually I wrote an older VOID editorial telling
just how fraudster psychics operate.) Another believes that this
data point is not statistically significant. I will say that there
was one event that sort of fulfills the prediction and it was four
days after I was told. In the interval of time after that I have
not seen another prominent news story of an event occurring that
seems to fit the description. My self-claimed psychic relative
seems to me to have had to have been quite lucky if he was only
playing the odds. But I am glad to get the assistance of others
who are skeptical. I now have a small handful of people whom I
have asked to watch for disaster reports that are prominent in the
news. Personally I am fence sitting. I hope that we either get a
reasonable, logical explanation for what is happening consistent
with my worldview or that we get statistical evidence that
something beyond coincidence is happening that does not square with
my worldview. One or the other will be of solid interest.
And that is how things stand. If anything interesting happens I
will report it. [-mrl]
[Postscript: there was a second earthquake, again in Turkey on
November 9. This was the first time after October 23 that I saw in
the news an event that arguably matches the prediction. That is 17
days later. This is a much smaller quake. -mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: TREE OF LIFE (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Mystical and yet holding a solid drama, TREE OF LIFE is
the chronicle of a 1950s family living near Waco, Texas, placed in
a context of all life going back to the creation of the world and
later the age of the dinosaurs all to the tune of Wagner's "Tristan
und Isolde". What appear to be hundreds of apparently random
inconsequential shots, presented in almost stream of consciousness;
of the texture of everyday family life eventually add up to a plot
both sentimental and bitter. A father, played by Brad Pitt,
transforms from loving to strict to abusive and leaves a deep mark
on his two sons. Terrence Malick has a feel for the textures of
life. At the same time he features some spectacularly beautiful
nature photography. This film is visually beautiful but still not
for all tastes. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4 scale) or 8/10
If this review seems cryptic and bizarre it is because so is the
film reviewed.
It takes a remarkable filmmaker to take what appear to be little
bits and pieces of reminiscence, place them in a continuum going
back to formation of the Earth and forward to its destruction,
season it with Bible quotes, and not have it seem at least a little
pretentious. Even Terrence Malick (BADLANDS, DAYS OF HEAVEN, THE
THIN RED LINE) is not quite that good, but at least he comes close.
Yes, the film is pretentious. Jack O'Brien (played by Hunter
McCracken as a boy and Sean Penn as a man) contemplating his past
with a mind that wanders to the distant past and the far future.
(There is some very nice dinosaur animation, by the way.)
Yes, it is a very strange film but, cutting Malick some slack for
artistic license, his film is also compelling and hypnotic.
Malick's images of a Waco, Texas, family are extremely naturalistic.
His mixing of sound with the constant background of insect chirping
together with the languorous pacing gives the audience a feel for
the texture of the setting. To keep his audience's attention he
uses unexpected camera angles and frequently sweeping camera moves.
There is something indefinable in Malick's writing that makes the
scenes we see seem at once taken at random yet are believable as
what someone like Jack might feel were key memories of his past.
Through Jack's eyes we see his father slowly poison the
relationship between him and Jack. The affectionate father of the
very young Jack become a disciplinarian and when not stopped
becomes an abusive tyrant. The film returns to slightly false notes
extrapolating the relationship into some heaven-like future--heaven
here has no clouds but appears a bunch the dear departed walking on
a metaphysical beach. Malick just does not quite avoid the
saccharine.
But for the scenes of pure fantasy the film feels like it is less
the art of a storyteller and more the observations of a
documentarian. He gives us not so much a plot as a chronicle of
the life of an American family. Brad Pitt as the father of the
family has come a long way in his acting ability. With THE CURIOUS
CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, MONEYBALL, and TREE OF LIFE Pitt has
become much more than a pretty face. The film also stars Sean
Penn, but he does little more than stand around for his second-
billing role. More active is Jessica Chastain as the mother of the
family whose life philosophy expressed in an early voiceover is
that we have two choices "the Way of Nature" and "the Way of
Grace." After Malick's tribute to the beauty of nature, it is a
little ironic that the Way of Nature is to have no self-discipline
and give in to temptation and impulse. The Way of Grace--to be
self-denying and moderate--is considered the better path. As
Katherine Hepburn's Rose Sayer says in THE AFRICAN QUEEN, "Nature
... is what we were put on earth to rise above."
It is surprising that such a diffuse film works. But it is only
because Malick remains so obscure that he avoids falling into the
valley of pure hokum. What does the death of a brother really have
to do with distant galaxies or dinosaurs? There are definitely
parts of this film where it is recommended one just looks at the
pretty pictures and not worry about what Malick is trying to say.
But even then there are places where the images are awe-inspiring.
One does not have to accept the metaphysical messages to appreciate
the art of the film. Malick has crafted a film that is at once a
beautiful work of art and a strong human drama. If he believes
that after death we walk on pristine beaches, well, that is what
suspension of disbelief is all about. After all, even an atheist
can appreciate the beauty of Michelangelo's Pieta. In any case, I
rate the film a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478304/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_tree_of_life_2011/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: PROJECT NIM (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: PROJECT NIM is a documentary about a scientific project
that was intended to show how a chimpanzee raised has a human would
become a communicating near-human. Instead the story turns
decidedly Dickensian. It is the sad story of an animal whose fate
is left in the hands of people--some well-meaning, some not so
much--who are error-prone, unprepared for dealing with a
chimpanzee, and often uncaring. It is also the story of the price
that the chimpanzee pays. Nim Chimpsky was mishandled most of his
life. Documentary footage and interviews recreate the life of Nim
who was chosen to be a training subject in Columbia University's
animal language acquisition program. It is a moving lament for the
treatment of animals at the hands of humans. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4)
or 7/10
Much of what this film is about is how human society treats mature
and aging chimpanzees and inconvenient animals in general. When
you see a cute chimpanzee in a film or on TV, you should be aware
that that is probably a very young animal. Young chimps are
cooperative, inquisitive, and cute. As chimps grow up, nature
takes over much of their temperament. They become independent,
subject to rages, often violent for reasons that will not
necessarily be evident to humans. And when they become angry they
will be dangerous. There is a lot of muscle in a mature
chimpanzee--enough to make one six times as strong as a man. A
chimp will live to be as old as fifty, but their cuteness deserts
them by about age ten. Then they can be put in a sanctuary that
may or may not work out and may or may not have the animal's best
interests at heart. All too frequently mature chimpanzees are used
for medical research, frequently under terrible conditions.
Project Washoe had previously been a reasonably successful attempt
to teach the female chimpanzee Washoe to use sign language and to
communicate with humans. The University of Nevada sponsored it.
In an attempt to repeat the attempt and carry it further a human
family adopted a very young baby chimpanzee intending to raise it
as a member of the family. Significantly they chose a male, who
was more likely to turn aggressive than a female. It was the first
of many bad calculations for which the chimp, named Nim Chimpsky,
would pay the price later in his life. We first see Nim in the
arms of his mother unaware that these are their last moments
together. The mother knows because six of Nim's previous siblings
had been taken away. Nim was taken to a project that was almost
completely unprepared for a relationship with a chimp.
We see from footage taken to document the project how Nim was
raised. Cute gives way to larger, stronger, and often violent.
Nim does learn language at first and seems intelligent, but at the
same time unmanageable. Unlike a dog that looks for his place in a
pecking order and then resigns himself to staying at that level,
chimps are more confrontational trying to raise higher in the
ladder. Nim unexpectedly attacks people, sometimes doing serious
injury. Afterward Nim would frequently appear contrite. He would
sign that he was sorry, but perhaps he interpreted the sign simply
that this was merely the token of payment for his action. When Nim
actually rips open the side of the face of one of the people caring
for him the language experiment was terminated. The film then
follows Nim's fate. He is repeatedly handed off to shelters, often
dismal and inhumane. Eventually he is sold for medical research
under barbaric conditions only to be rescued by Cleveland Amory's
sanctuary for equine animals. He is the only chimpanzee and this
proves to be just another lifestyle that does not fit him.
Throughout the film there are interviews with the people cared for
him or experimented with him, piecing together the story of Nim's
life. It was a life that was intended to advance science and
instead just turned an animal's life into a living nightmare. This
is a film that very rightly questions the value of animal research
but even more the values of the animal researchers. I rate PROJECT
NIM a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1814836/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/project_nim/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Words (letters of comment by Charles S. Harris, Gregory
Benford, and Time Bateman)
In response to Evelyn's comments on words in the 11/11/11 issue of
the MT VOID, Charles S. Harris writes:
Evelyn wrote, in her list of wonderful Spanish words that have
no corresponding word in English:
2. Consuegro/-a: My child's spouse's father/mother. In
Yiddish, the corresponding word is "mishpochah".
I think the corresponding word is actually "machatainista" (mother
of your child's spouse) or for the father "machitin" (a term I've
never heard spoken). "Mishpocha" is the whole extended family--
everyone you ought to invite to the next wedding. That includes
the machatonim. (Your spellings may vary.)
Evelyn replies:
Ooops! I knew that somewhere in the back of my brain, but had
either a senior moment or a brain fart. [-ecl]
Gregory Benford writes:
On words that need to be in English, how about Weltschmerz from
Deutsch, meaning world-pain or world-weariness?
I use it all the time ... also, gemutlich. But then I speak German
from living three years in the Occupation long ago. [-gb]
Evelyn replies:
I occasionally see the word Weltschmerz, and Wikipedia thinks it
has been adopted into English, but I would say it is still used
only by a small group of people (i.e., professional philosophers),
hence not a true English word yet. Schadenfreude, on the other
hand, is more widely used and is as English a word as doppelganger
or angst. As James Nicoll said [can.general, March 21, 1992], "The
problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
the English language is as pure as a crib-house wh*re. It not only
borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other
languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled
their pockets for new vocabulary." This is often seen as "English
doesn't just borrow words from other languages; English follows
other languages down dark alleys, thumps them over the head, and
riffles though their pockets for new words," and attributed to all
sorts of other people. [-ecl]
[I had to put the asterisk in the previous paragraph. There are
some nanny-filters that would refuse to deliver the VOID if we had
(gasp!) freedom of expression. -mrl]
And Tim Bateman writes:
"Concunado/-a: Either the spouse of one's spouse's sibling, or
the sibling of one's sibling's spouse. The (non-)word "brother-in-
law-in-law" would be the equivalent."
I am sure that the word "concunado" has come up before in the MT
VOID--in the last year or three.
4. Friolero/-a: Someone who is always cold.
We do have a word in English for this one. It's "woman".
Evelyn replies:
Yes, I mentioned "concunado" in my column in the 09/17/11 issue.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE WINDS OF DUNE (letter of comment by Todd V. Ehrenfels)
In response to Joe Karpierz's review of THE WINDS OF DUNE in the
11/11/11 issue of the MT VOID, Todd V. Ehrenfels writes:
While I agree that the book is particularly dreadful, the reviewer
is mistaken in one regard: Bronso of Ix appears briefly in the
original DUNE MESSIAH. The book opens with the interrogation of
the captured Bronso of Ix, who is awaiting execution (said
interview appears in the book THE WINDS OF DUNE as well to tie the
two books together). Additionally, several of the chapter headings
in both DUNE MESSIAH and CHILDREN OF DUNE contain passages from
Bronso of Ix.
Other than that, Joe is spot on, and I would hazard that the
attempt to make more money off of various franchises is the only
thing that keeps Kevin J. Anderson employed. When the only
complement that you can tender to an author is that his work is
serviceable enough to be readable, that really does demonstrate
that the poor fellow really doesn't have the imaginative chops to
really be doing great science fiction. [-tve]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Regression Analysis and Cheap Ballplayers (letter of comment
by Jerry Ryan)
In response to Mark's response to his comments on regression
analysis in baseball in the 11/11/11 issue of the MT VOID, Jerry
Ryan writes:
You're correct that regression analysis could help to point out the
value of the OBP statistic ... but the true value was that nobody
saw the value of a good OBP at that time, therefore players with a
good OBP were available for cheap. [-gwr]
==================================================================
TOPIC: THE STORY OF ONE HUNDRED GREAT COMPOSERS (letter of comment
by Tim Bateman)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE STORY OF ONE HUNDRED GREAT
COMPOSERS in the 11/11/11 issue of the MT VOID ("I'm just trying to
envision a world in which people are so enamored of concert music
that they would carry around this book the way some people carry
around a Bible or New Testament"), Tim Bateman writes:
If only, Evelyn, if only.
I suspect that this book was part of the British Government's
attempts to ensure that the world after the war was a better one
than the world before the war. There was quite a lot of this sort
of thing about--you may recall Spike Milligan's CSM advising him
that an officer was going to give them a lecture on Keats. [-tb]
Evelyn responds:
It's an interesting theory, but the book appears to be American,
with no British antecedents. I assume "CSM" is Company Sergeant
Major? [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Our science fiction group's book this month was HOW TO LIVE SAFELY
IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu (read by James
Yaegashi) (ISBN 978-0-307-37920-7, audiobook ISBN 978-1-449-83487-
6). I had read this book before, so this time I listened to the
audiobook. Yaegashi did an excellent job, with a very believable
delivery as the first-person narrator, sounding as though he were
talking directly to the reader rather than reading off a page.
This is another example of a science fiction novel written outside
the field. Yu is more concerned with the emotional content than
with the technical aspects of his novel, so the mechanics of
building a time machine are somewhat glossed over, and instead we
get more reflections on emotional states and family relationships.
This is not to say Yu is unfamiliar with the science fiction
field--one character has named a time machine part a "Niven ring",
and another in a moment of excitement shouts, "Holy Heinlein!"
One of Yu's ideas is so clever I almost hate to quibble over its
accuracy. (But you know me--I'll do it anyway.) He has a problem
with his time machine and finds himself in a Buddhist temple with
his mother. But not his mother as she was, or as she will be, but
as she might have been, a perfect mother, the Platonic ideal of his
mother. This, he concludes, is neither the past nor the present,
but the subjunctive:
She turns to me, and I see at once that this woman is exactly
like my mother. She is The Woman My Mother Should Have Been.
She is not a could have been. Could have beens are women who
are not exactly like my mother. For any given mother, for
any given person, there are many could have beens, maybe an
infinite number.
No, this woman standing in front of me is something else, she
is the one and only Woman My Mother Should Have Been, and I
have found her. Looking for my father, I have found this
woman, I have traveled, chronogrammatically, out of the
ordinary tense axes and into this place, into the subjunctive
mode.
While he recognizes that the subjunctive is not on the same axis as
past and present, he does not address the problem that the
subjunctive is not a tense, with some chronological position, but a
mood. One can have the past subjunctive, the present subjunctive,
or the future subjunctive, just as one can have the past, present,
or future indicative. So the question of whether a *time* machine
could invoke the subjunctive is problematic.
But I suppose that one can even have this discussion indicates that
Yu has put more into this book than one usually finds in a time
travel novel. And while there are good time-travel novels marketed
as science fiction, Yu's style makes this a refreshing change from
the usual. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
--Samuel Butler