THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/20/15 -- Vol. 33, No. 38, Whole Number 1850
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
R.I.P. Ib Melchior (17 September 1917-13 March 2015)
Another Science Fiction Fan
Mini-Reviews of 2014 Films, Part 6 (BOYHOOD, ART AND CRAFT,
MANILA METRO, STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS,
NIGHT MOVES, REMOTE AREA MEDICAL) (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Downton Abbey (Spoilers Ahoy!) (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE WALKING DECEASED (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Enceladus (comments by Greg Frederick)
Super Pi Day (letters of comment by Lee Beaumont
and Andre Kuzniarek)
Fractals and Surface Area (letter of comment
by David Goldfarb)
Sally Hemings (letter of comment by Philip Chee)
This Week's Reading (MIDDLEMARCH, AMERICAN PULP, and INTERN
NATION) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: R.I.P. Ib Melchior (17 September 1917-13 March 2015)
We have lost another famous name of science fiction films, Ib
Melchior. He wrote several science fiction films, best known of
which was ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS.
http://tinyurl.com/mtv-melchior
===================================================================
TOPIC: Another Science Fiction Fan
From Salon.com:
"The 2013 election of Pope Francis marked a number of firsts for
the Catholic Church: the first Jesuit pope, the first from the
Americas, the first to have worked as a nightclub bouncer, and the
first non-European to lead the church in 1200 years.
He's also the first pontiff to heartily recommend LORD OF THE
WORLD, Robert Hugh Benson's trippy dystopian novel from 1907--a
strange, intense and not entirely successful book about the rise of
the anti-Christ, the demise of the Church and the end of the
world."
More at: http://tinyurl.com/papal-sf-fan.
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini-Reviews of 2014 Films, Part 6 (comments by Mark R.
Leeper)
BOYHOOD
It took many months for me to get an opportunity to see BOYHOOD.
It is not the kind of film that plays in Central New Jersey I
guess. Thanks to NetFlix I finally got a chance to see the film.
This was the film that was shot over the course of twelve years
showing a boy developing over that length of time. There was one
segment shot each year. In the first the boy was in first grade.
The second was shot when he was in second grade, and so forth. The
shooting title supposedly was 12 YEARS, but it had to be changed to
avoid confusion with 12 YEARS A SLAVE. BOYHOOD is a decent film,
but by its very nature it has to be episodic. The filmmakers took
a great risk that they would not lose one of the main characters,
somebody crucial to the production during the shooting. I am told
that a film contract can only be seven years or less, so any of the
actors could have easily scuttled the project by leaving,
voluntarily or not.
BOYHOOD could be considered a series of stories but perhaps without
enough connective tissue between them. Some of the plotlines are
not tied up until the next segment and then the viewer must pick up
how the plot ended from context. To shoot a film this way is a
real accomplishment, but that does not mean the end result is
ideal. The plotline needs a little more narrative thrust to pull
the viewer along. Ellar Coltrane plays the boy, but he does not
develop into an actor with stage presence. Ethan Hawke as his
father steals the film from him. To make a twelve-year story
short, against the odds, the film did get made.
I think that the film took an impressive effort and it is
surprising that Linklater did not win an Oscar as Best Director.
BOYHOOD is an example of someone who did not win Best Picture but
deserved Best Director. So Barbra Streisand was wrong when she
complained that a film nominated for Best Picture was not nominated
for Best Director. The Best Director does not necessarily make the
Best Film, so the converse has to be true also. I liked BOYHOOD
for its originality, but it does not really have a strong story.
Also, I think that at 165 minutes it is a trifle long. Ethan Hawke
played the boy's father and in an un-father-like gesture stole the
film from Ellar Coltrane as the growing Mason. In the end the
story just did not amount to much. Rating: high +1 on the -4 to +4
scale or 6/10.
ART AND CRAFT
This is a whimsical documentary about Mark Landis, the bane of art
museums. Landis gives away art to art museums. The art is
beautiful. Landis makes it himself. He is an extremely proficient
art forger. He forges great art and then gives it away to museums
as the real thing. If he were to charge the museum fifty cents he
would be guilty of fraud and would have to play for his crimes.
But he is not guilty of fraud; he is guilty of hoax. Hoax is
maddening, but it is not illegal. He takes no money, but the
museums, thinking they are getting great art as a gift, treat him
very nicely.
Matthew Leininger is on Landis's trail. Leininger was an art
museum employee who is trying to track down and stop Landis. He
was so obsessed that he lost his job and now tries to put a stop to
Landis and to alert art museums to the danger of hoax gifts.
Landis even has exhibitions of his art. He is very open about what
he does, but unless it becomes illegal he is just a living
admonition to art museums. Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and
Mark Becker direct the documentary. Rating: high +2 on the -4 to
+4 scale or 8/10.
MANILA METRO
This film is a cross between BICYCLE THIEVES and an action heist
film. Oscar Ramirez is a Filipino farmer who can no longer make a
living farming. He decides that there is much more opportunity in
the big city of Manila. With desperately little money he takes his
wife, his nine-year-old, and his baby to try their luck surviving
in the big city. All that happens is that they get cheated and
swindled so what little money they had drops to a small fraction.
After a nightmarish town Oscar gets a dangerous but decent-paying
job with a security courier. In the second half of the film the
plot twists on just how good a job Oscar has gotten. Meanwhile his
wife has the only job she can get: dancing in a sexy bar. This job
also turns out to be a bad idea. The plot starts to have some bang
with its whimper. The film mixes street realism with what turns
into a crime plot. Rating: +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS
STAND CLEAR creeps up on the viewer. The camera crew just seems to
be following a few people around as if to make a documentary.
Little by little the viewer gets engrossed in the story. Only then
does one realize that these are really actors and some of the
scenes had to have been set up and rehearsed. Ricky is about ten
years old and autistic. His habits like peeing on the toilet with
the lid down are driving his family crazy. One day his sister
forgets to pick him up after school and the autistic boy goes
wandering off over the Rockaway's and in the subways. Ricky's
mother is desperately searching for him. Ricky is in particular
danger as a super storm named Sandy is headed for the area. The
pacing is slow, but one has a setting that seems authentic because
it really is. Rating: +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
NIGHT MOVES
This is a credible account of a small group of environmentalists in
Oregon who want to blow up and ecologically unfriendly dam. The
film makes a good case that this is not as easy as it sounds. And
these are amateurs doing nearly everything wrong, obvious from the
start. If anything one comes away from the film wondering how
likely was it that things did not go much worse for them. The film
stars Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard. Kelly
Reichardt directs a screenplay co-authored with Jonathan Raymond.
The film is talky with not much action for the most part. That
really slows the pace. Rating: high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or
6/10.
REMOTE AREA MEDICAL
There are legions of people in this country who live too far from
medical services or who cannot afford medical care. In order to
help such people there are volunteer doctors and traveling medical
facilities. In Bristol, Tennessee, the traveling clinic comes once
a year for three days and sets up shop in the NASCAR speedway,
giving free medical care to the legions of people who show up.
This is no comfortable three days for doctors or patients.
Numbered tickets are given out each morning at 3:30 AM to handle
the crowds. With the patients who show up later there is no
guarantee that they will get treatment. Many people have to wait
days to see a doctor. Few of the patients have all their teeth;
many clearly ignore doctors' orders, particularly on smoking. Some
people wait 14 or 16 hours just to get a ticket to see a doctor.
Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman direct. Rating: high +1 on the -4
to +4 scale or 6/10.
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Downton Abbey (Spoilers Ahoy!) (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
Does it seem like one of the goals of the writers of "Downton
Abbey" is to show how the rich spend their time making messes that
their servants and others of the lower classes have to clean up?
I don't mean this only in a literal sense (though I am sure that
the Crawleys never emptied their own chamber pots or cleaned their
toilets), but in a broader sense.
During the first season, a Turkish diplomat dies in Lady Mary's
bed. She and her mother have to enlist the help of her maid to
move the body.
Lady Edith has an illegitimate child. First she leaves her with
people in Europe, then takes her back and arranges for some tenants
to adopt her. Later she changes her mind and first persists in
pushing herself into their lives, and ultimately she reclaims the
child leaving the foster mother--who was told the mother was dead
and this was a permanent arrangement--consumed by grief.
Lady Mary wants to have a week with a lover, so she sends Anna out
to buy a contraceptive device, and afterwards insists that Anna
keep the book and device in her own closet. Not surprisingly,
Bates discovers them
James is being chased by one of the Crawleys' upper-class friends.
She is staying at Downton, and pressures James to visit her room.
There is a fire, and he is discovered. He gets sacked; nothing
happens to her.
I could go on, but basically the upper class seem at some level to
feel that the lower-class are not worth worrying about, and that
they are there, among other reasons, to serve as a buffer, or
perhaps a car bumper is a more apt analogy. [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: THE WALKING DECEASED (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: THE WALKING DECEASED is a wildly uneven zombie film
parody. It takes a lot of pot shots at other familiar films,
zombie and otherwise, but it soon loses steam and by the final act
neither the jokes nor the plot of the film are working. Freshman
Scott Dow directs a script from freshman screenwriter Tim Ogletree.
There are better, funnier film parodies of the zombie subgenre.
Rating: high +0 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
The IMDB tells me that the original title of this film was WALKING
WITH THE DEAD. Do you get it? Like WALKING WITH DINOSAURS? But
my guess is that probably made the title seem a little sepulchral
and most people would not get it was a joke. So the film got the
more obviously humorous title THE WALKING DECEASED. If one gag is
not working, just remove the joke and drop another one in. Jokes
are a major fraction of the dialog; there is little that can be
taken at all seriously. That is sort of symbolic of the whole
film. The plot is weak as a story but wherever things are not
working the filmmakers just drop in another joke. Unfortunately
their humor becomes wearing and not very funny. They at least try
to take jabs at WARM BODIES, WORLD WAR Z, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, DAWN
OF THE DEAD, ZOMBIELAND, 28 DAYS LATER, and of course THE WALKING
DEAD. All the jabs leave little room to develop characters. You
do not need a zombie attack premise to spend several minutes
showing people getting stoned on drugs, but it seems thrown in to
help the film reach feature length.
Our story opens as Sheriff Lincoln (played by Dave Sheridan) awakes
in a hospital coming out of a coma and finds the world he knew has
come to an end while he was unconscious. (Note the reference to 28
DAYS LATER, and to THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS.) Soon we are jumping
around "two weeks later," "five weeks earlier"... Lincoln has
formed a small band of survivors killing zombies and roving around
the countryside. Joining the band is a closet zombie, Romeo (Troy
Ogletree), who decides not to be antisocial to the living. We hear
his thoughts as a sort of inner monolog, so the viewer may think he
is the main character until he notices there is another of the band
whose inner monologue appears in texting language as printed in
air. The band finds Safe Haven Ranch ruled over by a mysterious
couple who want to serve them Kool-Aid.
This is a film with minimal characterization beyond jokes and with
even less plot to it. By the last half hour it has lost its
narrative momentum. The movie is all sugar and no tension and is
stretched to feature length with excessive drug sequences and a lot
of politically incorrect humor. With all the zombie films being
made, by now there have been some decent films parodying the zombie
subgenre. Two of the better ones are FIDO and WARM BODIES. This
one I cannot recommend. I rate this one a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 4/10.
If you want to see the blooper clips of the actors having a good
time, they run under the closing credits. But nobody involved with
this film has the wit of a Jackie Chan.
Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3499458/combined
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_walking_deceased/
[-mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Enceladus (comments by Greg Frederick)
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn and imaging the
moons of Saturn since 2004. One of the smaller moons of Saturn
named Enceladus (diameter of 314 miles) is especially interesting.
This ice-covered moon has a liquid ocean under the outer ice layer.
Geysers of water vapor and organic chemicals have been seen coming
off the surface ice layer on Enceladus by Cassini. Cassini flew
thru one of the geyser plumes and studied the water vapor and
organics in it in 2008. It was found that these organic chemicals
are part of the essential building blocks of life.
Just recently scientists on the Cassini mission released their
findings about the very small silica (silicon dioxide) particles in
Saturn's' outer E ring. These 4-16 nanometer sized silica
particles can only form under very specific conditions; they need
water which is at least 194 degrees F in temperature, at depths of
at least 25 miles. Cassini scientists know that the silica
particles are coming from the geysers of Enceladus. We find such
specific conditions on the Earth at the hydrothermal vents deep
under our Oceans. These deep hydrothermal vents on Earth are
teeming with life. This form of life uses the chemicals from the
vent and the warmer waters to exist. So, now the data from Cassini
is telling scientists that deep hydrothermal vents are at the
bottom of Enceladus's Ocean. Enceladus obtains this internal heat
from the gravitational pull of Saturn. Though not conclusive, the
mounting evidence suggests there could be life in Enceladus's
ocean. [-gf]
[By the way, it's pronounced "en-SEL-uh-duss". -ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Super Pi Day (letters of comment by Lee Beaumont and Andre
Kuzniarek)
In response to the comments on Super Pi Day in the 03/13/15 issue
of the MT VOID, Lee Beaumont writes:
Of course I am looking forward to super pi day, however I do
have a concern.
If Pi is approximately 3.14159265359, truncating this to 10 digits
gives: 3.141592653 which can be expressed as 3/14/15 9:26:53.
However rounding it to 10 places gives: 3.141592654 which can be
expressed as 3/14/15 9:26:54.
I don't want to start the celebration a second too soon! [-lrb]
Mark replies:
Look, Lee. I see your problem and I feel your pain, but your
problems are of your own making. Pi time is not a second but an
instant of time. It is just one point of time in the huge gulf of
time that falls between the two times you have given me. By
rounding pi you have labeled yourself as someone willing to settle
for the almost right time. You are doing this for your own
convenience. 3/14/15 9:26:53 is way too early to celebrate pi, and
by 3/14/15 9:26:54 you are way too late and the boat has sailed.
You are picking convenient times and missing pi altogether. Maybe
for a while you can get away with that, but I warn you, the
Universe IS NOT MOCKED. [-mrl]
Lee responds:
Thanks for this totally rational reply about a famously irrational
number! [-lrb]
And Andre Kuzniarek writes:
You might enjoy this: http://mypiday.com. [-ak]
[This is a web page that will find where any given numeric string
occurs in the decimal expression of pi. -mrl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Fractals and Surface Area (letters of comment by David
Goldfarb and Keith F. Lynch)
In response to Mark's comments on his surface area in the 03/13/15
issue of the MT VOID, David Goldfarb writes:
[Mark wrote: 'My knowledge of fractals tells me I have infinite
surface area.']
Infinite surface area of a fractal depends on the space it's
embedded in being continuous, doesn't it? The space we're in is
(to the best of our knowledge) quantized. That would set an upper
bound. [-dg]
Keith Lynch responds:
Yes [infinite surface area of a fractal depends on the space it's
embedded in being continuous].
[But as to the space we're in being quantized]:
No. As far as anyone knows, only action, spin, and charge are
quantized.
Your surface area depends on the application. Perhaps "capture
cross-section" would be a more precise term. It's different for
different forms of radiation, and it also varies with your
orientation. It's very small indeed for neutrinos, and even
smaller for gravitational waves.
If the question is how much heat you would radiate in a cold
vacuum, then it's the area of your convex hull that's relevant,
i.e. the area of the smallest sack that could hold you. Again,
this varies with your orientation. If you ever find yourself naked
in interstellar space, I recommend the fetal position to minimize
heat loss. (Of course you'd also have other problems.) [-kfl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Sally Hemings (letter of comment by Philip Chee)
In response to Evelyn's comments on Sally Hemings in the 03/13/15
issue of the MT VOID, Philip Chee writes:
[Evelyn wrote: 'As for Sally Hemings, there is merely a brief
mention of how Jefferson acquired "the noted Hemings family, who
were mostly 'bright' mulattoes" from his wife's family's estate.
In this case, again, words have changed or lost meaning--"bright"
did not mean intelligent, but light-colored.']
Being a life-long SF fan I immediately imagined this as some sort
of bluish radioactive glow as seen in e.g. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. [-pc]
Evelyn adds:
You can see the original report by J. T. Callender at
http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/documents/ih195822z.htm.
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I re-read MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot (ISBN 978-0-14-043388-3) and
was struck by how contemporary Fred Vincy is. He is the
irresponsible university student who is constantly borrowing money
because he has no sense of how much money he has to spend. He just
feels that there is an unending supply of money because, after all,
he wants it:
Fred had at first given a bill with his own signature.
Three months later he had renewed this bill with the
signature of Caleb Garth. On both occasions Fred had
felt confident that he should meet the bill himself,
having ample funds at disposal in his own hopefulness.
You will hardly demand that his confidence should have
a basis in external facts; such confidence, we know,
is something less coarse and materialistic: it is a
comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the
wisdom of providence or the folly of our friends, the
mysteries of luck or the still greater mystery of our
high individual value in the universe, will bring about
agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good
taste in costume, and our general preference for the
best style of thing. Fred felt sure that he should have
a present from his uncle, that he should have a run of
luck, that by dint of "swapping" he should gradually
metamorphose a horse worth forty pounds into a horse that
would fetch a hundred at any moment--"judgment" being
always equivalent to an unspecified sum in hard cash.
... The Vincys lived in an easy profuse way, not with
any new ostentation, but according to the family habits
and traditions, so that the children had no standard of
economy, and the elder ones retained some of their
infantine notion that their father might pay for
anything if he would.
Vincy manages to get most of the money to cover the loan, but then
loses most of that in an episode of horse-trading referred to
above. The result is that Garth has to take the money he had
worked for years to save for his son's apprenticeship, and give it
to Vincy.
This is all so like so many people's financial decisions in the
last few decades. They keep buying stuff they cannot afford
because they want it, and they convince themselves that the money
will come from somewhere. Then one day it all crashes down and
they lose their children's college fund, or their retirement fund,
or their house. And if the bank or insurance company has "co-
signed" enough bad mortgages, they go down as well.
An even more explicit description of what many people now
experience is found later:
Eighteen months ago Lydgate was poor, but had never
known the eager want of small sums, and felt rather a
burning contempt for any one who descended a step in
order to gain them. He was now experiencing something
worse than a simple deficit: he was assailed by the
vulgar hateful trials of a man who has bought and used
a great many things which might have been done without,
and which he is unable to pay for, though the demand
for payment has become pressing.
Eliot sees perfectly how people can tell everyone else how to
manage their problems without ever applying that advice to
themselves:
It is true Lydgate was constantly visiting the homes of
the poor and adjusting his prescriptions of diet to
their small means; but, dear me! has it not by this
time ceased to be remarkable--is it not rather that we
expect in men, that they should have numerous strands
of experience lying side by side and never compare them
with each other?
Of course, Eliot is hardly the first to note this:
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy
brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is
in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy
brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye;
and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou
hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own
eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the
mote out of thy brother's eye. [Matthew 7:3-5]
Rosamund Lydgate is particularly detached from reality. Not only
does she absolutely refuse to understand that they are in serious
financial difficulty, but she also deludes herself about how
people--specifically, men--see her:
She had felt stung and disappointed by Will's resolution
to quit Middlemarch, for in spite of what she knew and
guessed about his admiration for Dorothea, she secretly
cherished the belief that he had, or would necessarily
come to have, much more admiration for herself; Rosamond
being one of those women who live much in the idea that
each man they meet would have preferred them if the
preference had not been hopeless.
She reminds me of Mrs. Bennet and of Lydia in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE--
neither of them seems to have the slightest notion of the
impropriety of Lydia's running off with Wickham. For example,
Mrs. Bennet bemoans the fact that Lydia and Wickham married before
returning, rather than coming back for a big wedding. In these
days when one frequently sees an obviously pregnant bride in a
white wedding gown, it may not be clear to readers what a shocking
idea this would have been then. Similarly, Lydia does whatever she
pleases, with no concern about whether it is wise or not.
All this is usually not considered the main story of MIDDLEMARCH
but in fact, there are several stories other than that of Dorothea
and Casaubon that have as much "page time."
I only read part of AMERICAN PULP: HOW PAPERBACKS BROUGHT MODERNISM
TO MAIN STREET by Paula Rabinowitz (ISBN 978-0-691-15060-4)--
specifically, the chapter titled "Senor Borges Wins! Ellery Queen's
Garden". A sample of the writing may give you a clue why: "In an
enclosed landscape with a 'mythical' city filled with a world of
languages rendered into English, the sun never sets on the British
Empire, even if in the Palermo neighborhood he lived in, filled
with streets named Thames (pronounced Thomas), he gloried in its
exuberant sunsets and "a bar, shelter of criminals." She also uses
the word "demotic" (meaning popular) twice in consecutive
paragraphs and says that the Falklands/Malvinas War "sundered
forever whatever Anglophilia lurked among most of Argentina's
populace." "To sunder" is to break apart or into two, and while
one might sunder a bond or a friendship, one cannot sunder
Anglophilia.
While Rabinowitz mentions Brian Aldiss's EARTHWORKS on page xi of
the Preface, she says next to nothing about science fiction for the
rest of the book, just three mentions in the context of cover art,
and Aldiss is not even in the index. Oh, and the term "passim"
recurs in the index (e.g. "labyrinths, 161-83 passim"). I had to
look it up; it means "here and there"--a useful term, but not one I
recall ever seeing in an index before.
INTERN NATION by Ross Perlin (ISBN 978-1-84467-686-6) is an expose
of the internship system, including the (illegal) use of unpaid
interns to replace paid workers, the lack of training for interns,
the total disregard for labor laws covering interns, and the use of
green cards to intimidate foreign interns. This book is now three
years old, though, and a lot of these abuses have been covered in
the media since then. (However, it is not clear that anything has
improved.)
The book could have used a better proofreader (possibly a job for
an intern? :-) ). One book title cited spans a page break and only
the part on the first page is italicized. Another time, there is a
reference to the "Wage and House Division" (rather than the Wage
and Hours Division) of the Department of Labor. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
The world is full of magical things patiently
waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
--Bertrand Russell