THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
08/30/13 -- Vol. 32, No. 9, Whole Number 1769
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in September (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2017 (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
ORPHAN BLACK (television review by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
Podcasts (letter of comment by Kate Pott)
Klingon (letter of comment by Sam Long)
National Epics (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
This Week's Reading (TRSF: THE BEST NEW SCIENCE FICTION)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
September 12: ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS and ROBINSON CRUSOE by Daniel
Defoe, with the optional alternative FIRST ON MARS (a.k.a. NO
MAN FRIDAY) by Rex Gordon), Middletown Public Library, 5:30PM,
discussion after the film
September 26: THE TIME SHIPS by Stephen Baxter, Old Bridge (NJ)
Public Library, 7PM
October 3: THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Old Bridge Public Library,
6:30PM
October 10: CYPHER and UBIK by Philip K. Dick, Middletown Public
Library, 5:30PM, discussion after the film (rescheduled from
August)
October 24: THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT by Steven Pinker, Old Bridge
(NJ) Public Library, 7PM
November 7: Film (TBD), Old Bridge Public Library, 6:30PM
November 14: Film (TBD), Middletown Public Library, 5:30PM,
discussion after the film
November 21: DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? by Philip
K. Dick, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
December 19: THE MOON AND SIXPENCE by W. Somerset Maugham,
Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
January 23, 2014: THE RAPTURE OF THE NERDS by Cory Doctorow and
Charles Stross, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 7PM
Speculative Fiction Lectures:
September 7: Ellen Datlow, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 12N
October 5: Nick Kaufman, Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library, 12N
Northern New Jersey events are listed at:
http://www.sfsnnj.com/news.html
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in September (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
Time for my monthly look at what is coming up on Turner for the new
month. These are the films that I would recommend in September.
Remember all times are given for the Eastern Time Zone. If you
live out West you have to make allowances.
Sadly, today THE GENERAL (1926) will probably be unfamiliar to many
readers, though it is one of the major films from the silent era,
at once a historical epic and a comedy. It is a terrific and
accurate visual recreation of the Civil War. It is based on a real
incident from the war. On April 12, 1862 Union Army spies stole a
trail in Georgia and drove it toward Chattanooga, Tennessee,
destroying the track behind them. They were chased by locomotives
trying to recapture the train before it could do too much damage to
the line connecting Atlanta to the rail hub at Chattanooga. Buster
Keaton chases the stolen train with plenty of those Buster Keaton
gags and scary stunts. The climax has a train crossing the Rock
River Bridge with collapses under its weight. It is no special
effect. They actually intentionally collapsed the bridge and
wrecked the train. At the time it was released it was pretty much
a financial failure, probably because Civil War stories were still
rather depressing. Today it is considered one of the greats.
[Monday, September 9, 11:15 PM]
GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE (1933) I choose not because it is a
good film or even a well-made film, but it is politically an
interesting artifact. Walter Huston is a corrupt President of the
United States who is in a car accident. The angel Gabriel
possesses his body and governs the US presumably the way God would
like to see the country run, frequently with tough love. He fires
his cabinet and defies Congress, giving himself much extended
powers. In 1933 the political climate was somewhat innocent and to
the average filmgoer what the President was doing sounded good. A
few years later it was obvious what damage this kind of a leader
could do. The film was sort of hidden away and was a rare film for
a while. [Thursday, September 12, 8:45 AM]
I seem to remember that when THE ANDERSON TAPES was released it was
considered something of a shocker. Sean Connery is a long-time
professional criminal who is released from prison and is
immediately planning a large and very profitable heist. He figures
his old skills will be plenty good enough for his current big
score. What he does not realize is that while he has been in
prison and a little out of touch, the world has changed under him.
Everywhere he goes there are surveillance cameras and monitoring
devices that are spying on him. The government knows every move he
makes and is hoping to use him to bring down his organized crime
contacts. Today there is more surveillance than ever and we now
see the NSA collecting information on every citizen. This film was
timely as an expose when it came out, but it probably more timely
or perhaps even passe today. Directed by the great Sidney Lumet.
Sean Connery stars. [Tuesday, September 10, 2:00 PM]
BICYCLE THIEF (a.k.a. BICYCLE THIEVES) is perhaps the best film of
the classic Italian neo-realism movement. Following WWII life in
Italy is terrible. The vast masses of the unemployed must do
anything they can to survive and keep their families alive.
Antonio is a beaten down man who has a chance to save his family.
He is offered a job traveling all over town putting up movie
posters. He can get the job just because he has a bicycle. But on
his first day on the job his bicycle is stolen from him. He is
told by a fortune teller that he will get the bicycle back "soon or
never." He takes his son Bruno on a hunt all over Rome to find his
stolen bicycle. This is a wonderful and a tragic film. It was
voted an ad hoc Academy Award seven years before there was an Oscar
for Best Foreign Film. If you like BICYCLE THIEF you would
probably also like UMBERTO D by the same director, Vittorio De
Sica. Both films are very moving. On the filming crew both as an
assistant director and in one scene as an actor was one Sergio
Leone. [Wednesday, September 11, 12:15 AM]
What would be my choice for best film? Probably THE GENERAL.
Black-and-white and silent with a musical accompaniment, it is one
of the greats. But BICYCLE THIEF is a very fine film also. If you
have seen only one of these films, see the other. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2017 (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
The Mindset List was created at Beloit College in 1998 to reflect
the world view of entering first year students. It started with the
members of the class of 2002, born in 1980. This year, they seem
to have changed authors or something, because the entries are not
nearly as striking. Nevertheless, here are my ten favorite entries
from the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2017:
3. GM means food that is Genetically Modified.
8. Having a chat has seldom involved talking.
9. Gaga has never been baby talk.
10. They could always get rid of their outdated toys on eBay.
16. A tablet is no longer something you take in the morning.
17. Threatening to shut down the government during Federal budget
negotiations has always been an anticipated tactic.
21. Spray paint has never been legally sold in Chicago.
29. Java has never been just a cup of coffee.
48. Kevin Bacon has always maintained six degrees of separation in
the cinematic universe.
54. Washington, D.C., tour buses have never been able to drive in
front of the White House.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: ORPHAN BLACK (television review by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
What is it about those Canadians? I've previously reviewed the
excellent Canadian TV series CONTINUM, now in its second season,
and described it as possibly the best hard SF TV show currently
running. There is, it turns out, a competitor in the form of
ORPHAN BLACK, another Canadian series, starring Tatiana Maslany as
the title character. ORPHAN is hard SF, harder than CONTIUNUM, as
it involves only "just over the edge" technology. It also brings
to the small screen a number of traditional and cyberpunk SF tropes
as described below.
The main character is Sarah Manning (Maslany), a small time
confidence woman and grifter separated from a young daughter, Kira,
who lives with Sarah's foster mother, Siobhan Sadler (Maria Doyle
Kennedy). Sarah hangs with her foster brother, Felix ("Fee")
Dawkins, a gay artist and clubber played by Jordan Gavaris. Sarah
is walking in a subway station when she spots an incredible
opportunity. A woman (later we find her name is Elizabeth Childs)
who looks just like Sarah commits suicide by train, leaving her
purse and shoes on the platform. Sarah picks up the purse with the
intention of adopting Childs' identity long enough to steal some
money.
In the grand tradition of DOUBLE STAR, Sarah finds that although
she wants to play a part, the part takes over her life, as she
gradually finds herself having to function as policewoman Childs
and falling in love with Childs' boyfriend, Paul Dierden (Dylan
Bruce) while she attempts to get a sack of money back from her
partner, Detective Art Bell (Kevin Hanchard). This little set
piece is only the beginning of Sarah's troubles, as it turns out
Beth had a secret - she is one of a large number of clones, each
with different lives, all apparently created as part of an
underground experiment.
As the plot spirals deeper and deeper into a secret history where
one hidden force seeks to protect and control the clones, while
another works toward their destruction, Sarah bonds with her
sisters in "The Clone Club." The clones are quite different, but
oddly similar. They all seem to be naturals with guns, and Sarah
easily learns to shoot well enough to pass as Beth. They are all
physically active, and share a tendency toward psycho-active
substances and risk-taking. And they are all pretty good actors,
with varying degrees of experience. Finally, they seem to share
what might be called a "talent for violence" coupled with a fierce
desire to protect their children, natural or adopted. The clones
are, as some men would say, "healthy looking" but lack the kind of
perfect beauty we've come to expect in the movies, providing a
realistic look to the series.
As you may suspect, Maslany plays all the clones in a tour de force
of acting. ORPHAN is impressive just as a kind of one-woman show,
but there is so much more here. Set in a generic English/Canadian/
American future, the exact location is never described, although
filming is in Toronto. The effect is a bit odd as apparently
American characters are juxtaposed with apparently British
characters. We are gradually introduced to an increasingly exotic
world reminiscent of William Gibson, with clubs full of body-
modifiers and techno-freaks, henchwomen with different eyes, a
psychopathic female assassin, and bad guy with a tail. Matt
Frewer, the crazy Australian from EUREKA, eventually appears as
Dr. Aldous Leekie, a Neolutionist, and apparently the brains behind
the clone experiment.
I'm holding back a lot of the plot details, but ORPHAN BLACK works
well as both a thriller and as SF. Like a lot of the great SF of
the 1950s, there are layers and layers to this reality. The science
background seems very strong, and cloning is treated realistically.
One can question whether a patent on a clone would hold up in
court, or whether a secret organization would apply for a patent on
a clone, but this is certainly as reasonable area for speculation.
Towards the end of the series, it begins to seem that Sarah's
daughter, Kiri, may be the real point of the entire experiment, as
she starts to display some unexpected abilities. How grounded in
realistic science this development turns out to be remains to be
seen, but normally I wouldn't expect children of clones to be any
different from any other children. The title refers to the fact
that Sarah was an orphan of unknown background, hence, ORPHAN
BLACK. Black refers partly to the unknown, and partly to the fact
that she is the product of a "black program." But Sarah is also
unknown to the cloners as well, and she becomes a wild card they
did not anticipate.
The only TV show that seems similar to ORPHAN BLACK is the Sarah
Micelle Geller vehicle RINGER, but ORPHAN has all the thrills and
duplicity of the canceled RINGER, which concerned twin sisters,
laid over a solid SF backbone. ORPHAN BLACK is a hard-R type of TV
show, with pretty explicit sex scenes, and some tough violence,
especially the self-surgery one clone performs and another scene of
a clone torturing someone with a glue gun. Definitely for adults
and very old teens, but not all that different from the SOPRANOS or
GAME OF THRONES in terms of what you see. The violence is more in
the Hitchcockian vein, with gritty, realistic scenes rather than
spurting blood or chopped off heads.
You can see ORPHAN BLACK on DVD or on BBC America. It's coming
back in the fall for a second season, which is a good thing as the
finale leaves many unresolved plot threads. Like all TV SF shows,
it may go wrong in the second season, but ORPHAN BLACK so far seems
like the best "clone" TV or movie I've seen, easily besting THE
BOYS FROM BRAZIL, my previous nominee in this category. A tip of
the hat to Josephine Gopin for recommending ORPHAN BLACK to me.
[-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Podcasts (letter of comment by Kate Pott)
In response to Mark's articles on podcasts in the 08/09/13 and
08/16/13 issues of the MT VOID, Kate Pott writes:
Great article on podcasts. Please mention "Movies on the Radio" on
WQXR. I'm sure there must be other Voiders who enjoy film music
and many episodes feature genre or associated themes. I especially
recommend the Aug. 10th episode which included a suite from Hugo
Freidhofer's ABOVE AND BEYOND. Beautiful music from a composer
whose work is really hard to find. I have only found one of his
scores, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, and only on vinyl. [-kbp]
Mark responds:
New York radio station WQXR has a weekly radio show--not available
as a podcast, unfortunately--about film music. They leave the
programs up several up for several weeks for listening to, but they
cannot be downloaded. This is their description of the program:
"Saturday nights at 9:00 pm, host David Garland presents new and
old film scores, emphasizing the delights and uniqueness of movie
music, and sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of the field.
"Film scores can be full of emotion, suspense, and surprises, and
use a rich variety of musical languages to help tell the movie's
story. From the classics by Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, and
Bernard Herrmann, to new scores by Thomas Newman, Carter Burwell,
and Danny Elfman, the panorama of movie drama will be heard."
http://www.wqxr.org/#!/programs/movies/
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Klingon (letter of comment by Sam Long)
Sam Long reports to us (and to File 770):
Klingon is taking over.
For your edification & amusement:
The Illinois Department of Employment Security's website now
appears in Klingon, as well as in Spanish, Russian, and
[Simplified] Chinese, as well as other languages. So says this item
from yesterday's Chicago Tribune: http://tinyurl.com/n5u5yua.
[-sl]
Evelyn adds:
The article also notes:
"The unique language doesn't cost the department any money: Rivara
said the Microsoft translation service is free. While the 280 or
so pages on the department's website can be automatically
translated, department staff members review each page in each
language for accuracy and nuance. The department did not take time
to review Klingon--so some words, like 'appeal' and 'unemployment,'
don't translate on the site."
See also http://file770.com/?p231.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: National Epics (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
In response to Evelyn's comments on THE LUSIADS in the 08/23/13
issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes:
I read "The Lusiads" in a verse translation, which did nothing to
improve on the essential weirdness of the thing. You asked
parenthetically "Do we have a national epic? Why not?" I know of
two attempts to provide one, and no doubt there are many more.
Stephen Vincent Benet's "Western Star" is an unfinished book-length
poem on the settling of the American West. John Myers Myers knew
it, and it may have given him the idea of tackling the same subject
in verse. Myers said of "Maverick Zone" (1961), "This group of
three narrative poems about as many stages of the Western frontier
was my most ambitious and best effort." Deciding "to expand my
series of Western narrative poems into a continent-spanning one",
he began with the novel-length "Song of Raleigh's Head" because
"the true primary American frontier town was London, England, and ...
Walter Raleigh was its skookum citizen." That work remains
unpublished, and I fear that it will remain so. I've read it in
manuscript, and I suspect that of the few readers willing to tackle
a modern epic, fewer still would be comfortable with the (now-
dated) slang that Myers chose to use in his telling.
(The quotes from Myers are taken from "The Inside Scoop on John
Myers Myers" in the NESFA Press edition of "Silverlock".) [-fl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Our discussion book last month was TRSF: THE BEST NEW SCIENCE
FICTION (No. 1) edited by the editors of the "MIT Technology
Review" (no ISBN, UPC 09281-01333, order direct from MIT Technology
Review). Normally, we try to pick something with enough copies
available from the library system, but this is difficult to do: one
cannot use inter-library loan for newer books, and too many of the
older books have been purged from the libraries. This was cheap
enough (and short enough) that we decided to go for it.
TRSF consists of a dozen stories, each tied to a specific
technology, along with artwork by Chris Foss. While I like the
artwork, I think the layout does it a disservice. As you are
reading a story, you come across a page in the middle containing a
beautiful painting by Chris Foss, and you spend a minute or so
looking at it, admiring it, and trying to figure out what the heck
it has to do with the story. Eventually, you realize that the
answer is, "Nothing"; the artwork is just randomly placed in the
middle of the various stories.
By the way, the cover says "12 Visions of Tomorrow" and then lists
the twelve authors represented. Chris Foss's work, arguably more a
"vision" than any story of words on paper, apparently does not
count as a "vision of tomorrow."
What struck me the most about the stories was that they all seemed
to be re-working of older (often classic) stories.
"The Brave Little Toaster" by Cory Doctorow (Communications) is in
some ways a re-imagining of Robert Silverberg's "The Iron
Chancellor". The big difference is that when "The Iron Chancellor"
was written the situation was science fictional; today "The Brave
Little Toaster" seems all too close to reality.
(Our own recent interactions with technology support Doctorow's
underlying theme of progress having its drawbacks. Our old VCR
could be programmed up to a year in advance; our DVR can be
programmed only about a week in advance. Twenty years ago we got a
can opener that attached to the bottom of the cupboard; now you
have to take up counter space for one.)
Cory Doctorow seems to be making a project of re-using classic
titles for completely different stories, by the way, and Doctorow's
"Brave Little Toaster" has little, if anything, to do with Thomas
M. Disch's story of the same name.
"Indra's Web" by Vandana Singh (Energy) seems to have its roots in
"Dial F for Frankenstein" by Brian W. Aldiss, but with a more
positive spin. For that matter, there are also similarities to "A
Subway Named Moebius" by A. J. Deutsch. In all these stories, an
entity of one sort becomes sufficiently complex to make a quantum
leap to another sort of entity.
"Real Artists" by Ken Liu (Computing) has some interesting ideas
about film-making, but I do not think it bears closer examination.
For example, the time required to do the sort of development would
seem to be too long--the computer parts would be fast enough, but
the human interactions can run only in real time. It also harkens
back to Connie Willis's REMAKE. It was ultimately disappointing,
strangely, because Ken Liu has written some very thoughtful works,
and I was hoping for something of that sort.
"Complete Sentence" by Joe Haldeman (Computing) has what has been
referred to as a "virtual sentence" as its gimmick. This one
reminded me of a story (whose name and author I cannot remember) in
which Hitler is resurrected and executed over and over, with the
goal of executing him six million times or eleven million times or
whatever. These executions were not virtual, but both fall in the
category of technologically enhanced punishments.
"The Mark Twain Robots" by Ma Boyong (Robots) is explicitly based
on Isaac Asimov and his three laws of robotics, but also connected
with Asimov's "Jokester", about the origin of jokes, and "Liar",
about the application of the First Law.
"Cody" by Pat Cadigan (Biomedicine) reminded me of Chris Lawson's
"Written in Blood", which also used the notion of encoding text in
one's DNA.
"The Surface of Last Scattering" by Ken MacLeod (Materials) has as
its central conceit "the Rot", a bio-weapon that has destroyed all
paper in the world. One is reminded of such works as Kit Pedler's
MUTANT-59. (And the existence of a lot of historical documents on
parchment would seem to undermine the protagonist's father's
intentions.)
"Specter-Bombing the Beer Goggles" by Paul Di Filippo (Web) is a
fairly lightweight story about using technology and something like
Google glasses to change how you see the world--and more
specifically, other people. Whether it addresses the issue of how
this objectifies other people is not clear. This almost seems more
interested in the vulnerabilities of the technology than the
morality of it in the first place. A much better story on a
similar idea is Ted Chiang's "Liking What You See".
"Lonely Islands" by Tobias Buckell (Energy) is a short-short about
two people matched up with each other on opposite sides of the
environmental issue of cars. Eh.
One reviewer thought "The Flame Is Roses, the Smoke Is Briars" by
Gwyneth Jones (Communications) was the best in the anthology. I
could barely understand it.
"Private Space" by Geoffrey A. Landis (Spaceflight) is a story with
a beginning and a middle, but no end, and seems as though it were
lifted from ANALOG.
"Gods of the Forge" by Elizabeth Bear (Biomedicine) looks at
"right-minding", which one could consider as psychological
modification taken to another level--and whether that is something
we should do.
Though this is described as the first annual anthology, it came out
in 2011, and a second volume was never produced. [-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity
and pride and arrogance.
--Samuel Butler