• MT VOID, 08/27/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 9, Whole Number 2186

    From evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Aug 29 07:07:27 2021
    THE MT VOID
    Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
    08/27/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 9, Whole Number 2186

    Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
    Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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    Topics:
    NPR Summer Books Poll: The 50 Best Science Fiction and
    Fantasy Books of the Past Decade
    FRANKENSTEIN and DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (comments
    by Evelyn C. Leeper)
    Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
    Lectures, etc. (NJ)
    My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in September (comments
    by Mark R. Leeper)
    Bond Songs (letter of comment by Kip Williams)
    Latin (letters of comment by Dorothy J. Heydt,
    Keith F. Lynch, Scott Dorsey, Andy Leighton,
    Gary McGath, Tim Merrigan, and Paul Dormer)
    This Week's Reading (THE PLAGUE) (book comments
    by Evelyn C. Leeper)

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: NPR Summer Books Poll: The 50 Best Science Fiction and
    Fantasy Books of the Past Decade

    <https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1027159166/best-books-science- fiction-fantasy-past-decade>

    [I'm not printing the whole list here. -ecl]

    There was also a short piece on three YA fantasy novels on "NPR
    Sunday Edition" last Sunday:

    <https://www.npr.org/2021/08/22/1029750946/these-3-ya-novels-will- transform-your-summer-into-something-fantastic>

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: FRANKENSTEIN and DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (comments by Evelyn
    C. Leeper)

    Coincidentally, both the Boris Karloff FRANKENSTEIN and the
    Frederic March DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE started filming on the same
    day: August 24, 1931.

    Even more coincidentally, the 90th anniversary of that was last
    Tuesday (which is today as I write this), but alas, I did not
    discover this until it was too late to be put in last week's MT
    VOID.

    FRANKENSTEIN filming wrapped October 3; DR. JEKYLL & HYDE filming
    wrapped October 20. [-ecl]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
    Lectures, etc. (NJ)

    Both groups have returned to the B.C. (Before Covid) schedules, and
    the films will be shown as part of the Middletown meetings.

    September 2 (MTPL), 5:30PM: Ray Bradbury Centennial: three short
    films & stories:
    "I Sing the Body Electric!" ("The Electric Grandmother")
    <http://raybradbury.ru/library/story/69/2/0/>
    "There Will Come Soft Rains"
    <https://tinyurl.com/BradburyComeSoftRains>
    "The Veldt"
    <https://tinyurl.com/BradburyTheVeldt>
    See <http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?194> for lists of the
    many books that also include these stories.
    September 23 (OBPL), 7:00PM: THE FOOD OF THE GODS by H. G. Wells

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in September (comments by
    Mark R. Leeper)

    This column was originally intended to point out to the readers
    good films they have not seen before or to comment on films they
    have seen but were still interesting. Since that time my purpose
    has strayed and wandered. I see that TCM is going to show one of
    the great and iconic science fiction films of all time. I have
    never written my comments on this film so it is about time.

    Turner Classic Movies has shown the visionary FORBIDDEN PLANET, one
    of the most imaginative and influential science fiction films ever
    made, but I have never actually made it my pick of the month. I
    guess that was on the theory that everyone already knew about it.
    It has been (inaccurately) claimed to be the first science fiction
    film to ever take place entirely in space. No scenes of this film
    take place on earth or even in our solar system, though the
    characters are all humans or one of a couple of zoo animals. Well
    ... that is if we disqualify a robot from being a character. And
    sadly it does not even hold the distinction of being the first
    truly space-bound film. That distinction probably goes to CAT
    WOMEN OF THE MOON.

    FORBIDDEN PLANET is probably the best science fiction film of the
    1950s. It is the closest to the quality of contemporaneous written
    science fiction, a genuine scientific puzzle with a sophisticated
    problem solution. Along the way we really are given all the clues
    necessary to solve the murder. Visually the film probably shows
    the greatest imagination of any Fifties film (in any genre) and
    when seen in its widescreen format, much of it still looks very
    good sixty-five years later. The beautiful planet-scapes and
    space-scapes would not be surpassed until STAR WARS. For the pre-
    digital age, the effects are very impressive. And the scenes are
    all the more impressive in widescreen format. And this in spite of
    the fact that what was released was only a rough-cut of the film
    with what we shall see are plenty of errors. Not that it is so
    much a tribute to this film, but when Gene Roddenberry was planning
    the original "Star Trek" series, he pitched it as being "'Wagon
    Train' to the stars," but what he was really planning was
    "FORBIDDEN PLANET: The TV Series." The film is almost a template
    for the original "Star Trek." Bits of the ideas show up throughout
    science fiction to come like bits of the props showed up in
    "Twilight Zone" episodes.

    The characters are a little stereotypical and 1950s-ish in their
    sensibilities and their morality. Much has been made of the idea
    that the story was built around the plot of Shakespeare's TEMPEST.
    That may be true, but little more than the basic situation and some
    of the characters are taken from the Shakespeare. The murder
    mystery, which is the main thrust of the plot, and the character's
    motivations, are entirely different from the Shakespeare. For
    those who have not seen it, the story, in short, deals with a
    rescue mission to the planet Altair IV. An expedition to the
    planet two decades before had disappeared without a sign. From
    Earth United Planets Cruiser C-57D captained by Commander Adams
    (played by Leslie Nielsen) comes to investigate and discovers the
    sole survivor living on the planet with his daughter. Nearly
    everyone else from the expedition had been killed under very
    mysterious circumstances, ripped apart by an unseen force. Only
    Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) and his wife survived, and the wife
    died of what we are told were natural causes a year or so later.
    (In the light of the denouement one wonders if that is actually
    true.) Morbius's only company is his daughter Altaira (Anne
    Francis) who was born on this planet and Robbie, a fascinating
    robot who talks but prefixes every speech with the sound of an old-
    fashioned mechanical adding machine.

    Connected with the mystery of what happened to the original
    expedition is the fact that the planet was at one time millions of
    years earlier inhabited by a super-scientific civilization that
    were called the Krell. One of the points of the story was to show
    the immense power that the Krell had, and for once, what we see
    really seems to confirm the fact. The great set piece of the film
    is a visit to one of four hundred Krell power shafts. We see four
    or five levels of what we are told are 7800 levels. So what we are
    seeing is a tiny fraction of what the film claims the Krell had,
    but what we do see is dumbfoundingly immense. This is a film that
    really dwarfs the human and overwhelms the viewer with the
    magnitude of what is possible.

    This is a film with beautiful effects that rely in large part on
    matte paintings and not models. That approach gave the effects
    department much more artistic freedom in the images it could
    create. Mostly the effect was used for planet-scapes and space-
    scapes, but they are impressive. Then there is Robby, the most
    famous film robot outside of the "Star Wars" universe. Over the
    years the suit became almost a star in itself. The design is
    incredibly creative, a flurry of moving parts and flashing neon to
    make it look more a mechanical device than man in a robot suit.
    Each time the robot speaks it is prefaced by the noise of a cash
    register as if it is computing mechanically. The voice is Marvin
    Miller, a familiar voice often used for narration and dubbing at
    the time. And those who remember 1950s television may remember him
    as Michael Anthony in the television series "The Millionaire."

    Special mention should be made of the electronic music by Louis and
    Beebe Barron. It was the first totally electronic score in a
    feature film and the MGM music department would not even allow it
    to be called a score. They were somewhat disappointed that there
    was not more interest in their new musical form, "electronic
    tonalities." In 1976 Louis Barron decided that there might be a
    market for the soundtrack on record. He still had LPs so packed
    some cases at his own expense. He brought a case to MidAmeriCon,
    the World Science Fiction Convention, in the hopes that there might
    be some interest in the record. He told himself that some people
    might still be interested in the unusual score after twenty-one
    years. After selling in the huckster room for an hour he put in an
    emergency call home to Beebe saying to ship him the all rest of the
    cases as quickly as possible. He had no idea the demand that there
    would be either for the record or for himself. He suddenly found
    himself to be a celebrity. For years I remember seeing copies of
    the record for sale. I believe it is even on CD. I hope the
    latter-day popularity of the score helped the Barrons in their
    later years.

    Leslie Nielsen plays his role straight, as he would his roles for
    many years to come. But it is hard to see him in this film without
    being reminded of his later slapstick comedy roles. Walter Pidgeon
    is clearly a bit uncomfortable in a role very unlike what he is
    used to playing. Of course that quality may be just what Morbius
    needs. Anne Francis in an ingenue role is somewhat better than
    many young starlets have been in similar roles. Les Tremayne who
    played a general in WAR OF THE WORLDS narrates three or four
    sentences at the beginning.

    This is one of the great science fiction films of all time. I give
    it a full +4 on the -4 to +4 scale.

    [FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956), September 21, 6:15 PM]

    (But even so great a film as FORBIDDEN PLANET has a few flaws, and
    I will talk about them next week.)

    Turner is also running two "festivals" of special interest:

    Magic/Witchcraft (September 17):
    6:00 AM The Magician (1926)
    7:30 AM The Magician (1958)
    9:30 AM Miracles for Sale (1939)
    10:45 AM Fingers at the Window (1942)
    1:45 PM La Main du Diable (1943)
    3:15 PM The Hypnotic Eye (1960)
    4:45 PM Death Curse of Tartu (1966)
    6:15 PM The Devil's Own (1966)

    and

    Lewton/Lewtonesque (September 23):
    7:30 AM The Ghost Ship (1943) [Lewton]
    8:45 AM Isle of the Dead (1945) [Lewton]
    10:00 AM The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
    12:00 PM Dead Men Walk (1943)
    1:15 PM Scared to Death (1947)
    2:30 PM Bedlam (1946) [Lewton]
    4:00 PM The Mysterious Doctor (1943)
    5:00 PM Cat People (1942) [Lewton]
    6:30 PM The Curse of the Cat People (1944) [Lewton]

    as well as another on September 10:
    8:00 PM Seventh Victim, The (1943) [Lewton]

    [-mrl]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: Bond Songs (letter of comment by Kip Williams)

    In response to Mark's comments on James Bond songs in the 08/20/21
    issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:

    Something in the current look at Bond lyrics reminds me that "Gold"
    in the various book titles is (apparently in Fleming's glossary) a
    rather childish reference to a familiar smelly substance. Sorry, I
    don't know where I picked this up, though I'll speculate it was in
    reading the second series of Legman's RATIONALE OF THE DIRTY JOKE,
    which I could never quite motivate myself to buy, because so much
    in it was merely disgusting and not much else.

    Another thing comes to mind as I follow the discussion, and that's
    the filk I wrote on "You Only Live Twice":

    You only live once, that's how it goes.
    One life and you're gone, most evidence shows.

    You live for your years, you turn your wheel
    Some say you get more, but that's not the deal

    Your life is the least the world puts on your plate
    Be fast to the feast, or be late for your fate!

    One life all your own, and you're the price.
    One more would be nice, but you don't live twice.

    (ca 2014)

    [-kw]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: Latin (letters of comment by Dorothy J. Heydt, Keith
    F. Lynch, Scott Dorsey, Andy Leighton, Gary McGath, Tim Merrigan,
    Paul Dormer, and Kevin R)

    In response to Evelyn's comments on Latin in the 08/20/21
    issue of the MT VOID, Dorothy J. Heydt writes:

    There is a man at the Vatican who invents such [new] words as
    needed. It's been years since I read the article about him, but I
    bet he (or his successor) is still there.

    ["Do Catholics with no other common language converse in Latin?"
    -ecl]

    They used to, but since the vernacular Mass came in, Latin among
    the laity has become like whatever language you and I had to learn
    in high school (mine was Spanish) and mercifully forgot immediately
    after graduation.

    Pope Francis recently came down on the Latin Mass, still clung to
    by conservative Catholics, who complain (a) that the initial
    English translations were in very clumsy English (true) and that
    the Latin Mass united the congregation with the Church worldwide
    (not true: the closest thing we have to a world language at present
    is English).

    I miss the Latin Mass, but then, I understand Latin.

    And there's a letter set in WWII from Lord Peter Wimsey (who, let's
    remember, is fictional) to his wife, which says (reconstructing
    from memory): "Like the fellow in the hymn, I have seen a wonder
    sight: an Anglican padre and a Greek Orthodox ditto discussing the
    persecution of the Jews under the Nazi regime. I have never heard
    such expressions of sympathy or so many false quantities."

    [-djh]

    Keith F. Lynch responds:

    I've heard that Church Latin would have been incomprehensible to
    the ancient Romans, due to misunderstandings about pronunciations.
    For instance "Caesar" was pronounced "Kaiser" (which is where the
    Germans got that word), and "veni, vidi, vici" was pronounced
    "weenee, weedee, weesee." Which pronunciation is taught in schools
    today, and does it differ between public schools and church
    schools? Thanks. [-kfl]

    Scott Dorsey answers:

    I can say that the pronunciations taught in schools today in
    England and in Italy are very different. [-sd]

    Dorothy adds:

    Yes. I studied Classical Latin but sang in Church Latin, which is
    as near to Italian as makes very little difference.

    Andy Leighton responds:

    The C in vici was hard--so more like wiki (with the 'I's sounding
    like the 'I' in machine)

    Quintilian wrote that 'K' should not be used at all in words as 'C'
    maintains its force in conjunction with all the vowels.

    Also Veni would have a 'eh' sound for the first vowel. 'E's never
    had a 'ee' sound in Latin. [-al]

    Gary McGath elaborates:

    My familiarity with Church Latin is mostly through classical music, specifically the Mass and Requiem texts. The northern and southern
    European pronunciations have noticeable differences. German choirs
    pronounce "pacem" as "pahtzem," and Italian ones pronounce it as
    "pahchem." Ancient Romans, if I'm getting this right, pronounced it
    "pahkem."

    Those pronunciations aren't "misunderstandings"; the pronunciation
    of Latin just shifted over the centuries.

    "Caesar" was pronounced roughly "Kah-es-ahr" in ancient Rome, so
    not the same as "Kaiser" though close.

    I saw a video claiming that the Latin hard 'C' sound has less of a
    puff of breath than our 'K' sound. The best I can approximate what
    I heard is to pronounce the first syllable as "Gah" with an
    unvoiced G. How did they figure out such fine differences in
    pronunciation? [-gmg]

    Dorothy replies:

    Correct. Sound-changes over the centuries with minimal chances to
    *hear* the other regions pronunciation.

    Classical Greek distinguished between aspirated and unaspirated
    consonants. "pi" was pronounced [p], and "phi" was pronounced
    [p(h)]. Similarly "tau" [t] and "theta [t(h)] and "chi" [k(h) and
    "kappa" [k].

    And there's a poem by Catullus* about a man who would say
    "chommoda" when he meant "commoda," because that was his local
    accent. The poem ends with his visiting the Ionian Sea, which
    promptly became Hionian.

    So that's a clue that at least "c" and "ch" were the unaspirated
    and aspirated versions of the same stop.

    (*) Which I can't quote just now, because my complete Catullus is
    in the fiction room, where (as all know) I can't go without letting
    the cats in. [-djh]

    Keith answers Gary:

    In the old rasff tradition, I'm disagreeing with you just to be
    polite.

    Live languages evolve. Dead languages don't, but are held to have
    been correct at some specific past time and place. For Latin,
    that's usually whatever dialect Augustus spoke.

    Latin evolved, but people today in the former Roman Empire are
    neither speaking Latin wrong nor speaking Latin right; they're
    speaking Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian, or whatever right.

    Similarly Old English and Middle English are no longer evolving.
    They were replaced by Modern English, which is still evolving.
    Anyone who speaks Old English in a way that couldn't have been
    understood by even one person living in England before 1066 is
    doing it wrong.

    Similarly, dinosaurs are extinct, hence no longer evolving. The
    living descendants of dinosaurs aren't being a dinosaur wrong, nor
    are they being a dinosaur correctly. They're being birds
    correctly. [-kfl]

    And Gary responds:

    Latin was used for over a millennium after Augustus's time as a
    scholarly language. Newton wrote his major works in Latin. That
    had to involve coining new words, so I don't think you can call it
    a dead language until the 18th century at the earliest.

    It was used as a written language much more than it was spoken,
    which is a situation that would encourage changes in pronunciation.
    Against
    that, the Church was trying to maintain tradition, and it may have
    been the main area where Latin was still spoken. Even so,
    pronunciation shifted to reflect Italian pronunciation. [-gmg]

    Scott observes:

    I was looking up a number of mathematics papers from the *late*
    19th century to find they were all in Latin.

    Although of course all the chemistry papers from that era were in
    German.... [-sd]

    Evelyn notes:

    As Gary explains (I think), he isn't saying that Spanish is not
    just Latin pronounced differently, but rather that Latin
    pronunciation, as it is spoken, has changed over the years. There
    are many words in English that are pronounced differently than they
    were even a hundred years ago, but Modern English is still Modern
    English. (Another example would be Spanish, with the "s" sound
    pronounced differently in Spain than in Latin America. And Hebrew
    is pronounced differently between Askenazim and Sephardim.) [-ecl]

    Tim Merrigan also responds to Gary:

    ["'Caesar' was pronounced roughly 'Kah-es-ahr' in ancient Rome, so
    not the same as 'Kaiser' though close." -gmg]

    And not the same as T/Czar which is also descended from it. [-tm]

    And Tim responds to Keith:

    My understanding is that when The Church adopted Latin as their
    official language in the 4th century C.E., around the time of the
    Council of Nicaea, there was a debate as to whether it should be
    Classical Latin, which was still, and pretty much only, used in
    legal documents, or Vulgate Latin which was spoken in the streets
    of Rome. They decided on Vulgate because that way the word of God
    could be spread more easily. [-tm]

    Paul Dormer writes:

    There's a bit in the 1939 film GOODBYE MR CHIPS where Chips
    complains about the new pronunciation of Latin that he now had to
    teach. Of course, he taught at what in the UK is called a public
    school and therefore you had to pay to go there. [-pd]

    Evelyn responds:

    Paul beat me to it, but honestly, that is the one thing I remember
    best from that film. [-ecl]

    Dorothy recalls:

    A looong, long time ago my mother was in a chorus who were
    rehearsing a song in Latin. She told me how the conductor very
    pointedly said they did not want to hear *any* Classical
    pronunciation (and I wouldn't be surprised if they had been looking
    at my mother when they said that--if the conductor was who I
    suspect they were (it's been a while), he knew she had a son who
    took Latin at a school that taught Classical pronunciation).

    Diverging wildly....

    The text of Stravinsky's opera "Oedipus Rex" is in grammatically
    medieval Latin. But the instructions are to use Classical
    pronunciation. (Since when I first heard it I'd had a couple years
    of singing Church Latin, it came as a bit of a shock.) [-djh]

    Keith asks:

    Shouldn't it be in classical Greek? Or, given Stravinsky's
    nationality, modern Russian? [-kfl]

    Paul Dormer replies:

    He had his reasons, and apparently even consider ancient Greek.
    '... but [he] decided ultimately on Latin: in his words "a medium
    not dead but turned to stone."'

    The libretto was actually written by Jean Cocteau in French and
    then translated into Latin. There is also a narrator who comes on
    from time to time to explain what is happening in the audience's
    local language. [-pd]

    Kevin R notes:

    On the rare occasion we in our children's choir sang a hymn in
    Latin rather than English, we used "church Latin" pronunciation.
    Soft "g" in "Regem angelorum" in "Adeste Fidelis/O Come, All Ye
    Faithful," exempli gratia. We didn't turn "venite" into wehn-ee-
    tay, either.

    My two years of Catholic School Latin were in 1970-71 and 1971-72.
    We leaned classical pronunciation from Sr Thomas Aquinas. She
    briefed us on the difference between that and "church Latin," which
    had adopted pronunciations that eventually led to Italian becoming
    its own language.

    What I was told was that, especially prior to Vatican II, with
    priests from all over the world, sometimes when two met the only
    language they had in common was Latin. I suspect this happened
    much less often between two lay Catholics. [-kr]

    Gary remembers:

    I remember learning that song in school, but I think the teacher
    didn't get the pronunciation right by any version of Latin. We
    pronounced "Bethlehem" with the English "th," which I don't think
    Latin has ever done. [-gmg]

    Kevin responds:

    Since "Bethlehem" isn't of Latin/Roman origin, not pronouncing
    it in a Latinate way didn't bother me. Who knows how close
    to Hebrew or Aramaic we got, though?

    Since we have the intern et, we can find people quibbling over it:

    <https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/17591/how-to- pronounce-bethlehem-in-adeste-fideles/p1>

    [-kr]

    ===================================================================

    TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

    Towards the beginning of the pandemic, I read (well, re-read)
    Samuel Pepys's diary entries about the plague in London in 1665 and
    Daniel Defoe's JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR (written about 1665, but
    in response to the plague in Marseilles in 1720). I finally got
    around to (re-)reading THE PLAGUE by Albert Camus (translated by
    Stuart Gilbert) (Vintage, ISBN 978-0-679-72021-8). First, my local
    library was completely closed. Then it was open for curbside
    pickup, but it did not have the book and was not doing inter-
    library loans. It was only when the library in the next town was
    re-opened to people from other towns that I could find it. (Even
    then, it wasn't easy--it was not in the "Fiction" section, but a
    "Classics" section peculiar to only that library.)

    Camus writes about a fictional plague--the bubonic plague, in
    specific--that strikes the city of Oran sometime in the 1940s.
    (Based on internal evidence, and assuming it is set in the future,
    it must be 1947.) He often makes reference, however, to the 1720
    plague in Marseilles, so all these books tie together. (I also
    (re-)read Connie Willis's DOOMSDAY BOOK, but that does not tie in
    to the others.)

    In speaking of Oran, our narrator claims that "social unrest is
    quite unknown us." One has to remember that Camus wrote this
    before the Algerian War, which began in 1954 and lasted eight
    years.

    While Camus wrote THE PLAGUE as a metaphorical and philosophical
    work, much of what he wrote is quite accurate vis-a-vis the current
    pandemic.

    For example, there is the initial reaction to the plague: "Our
    townsfolk ... thought that everything still was possible for them;
    which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on
    doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How
    should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which
    rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of
    views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free
    so long as there are pestilences."

    Even the claims to freedom sound spot on.

    There's the claim that something that sounds like herd immunity is
    the answer, because nothing else would stop it, so why bother
    trying: "The only hope was that the outbreak would die a natural
    death; it certainly wouldn't be arrested by the measures the
    authorities had so far devised."

    One character insists he should be given special privilege to leave
    the quarantined town, because he was just visiting and is in love
    with someone on the outside. He feels he should get this because
    "public welfare is merely the sum total of the private welfares of
    each of us." The problem being, of course, that he is only looking
    at the positive side of what he wants--his private welfare. He is
    not considering the negative side, the people who may get sick and
    die because of his actions, particularly if he spreads the plague
    to the rest of the world.

    We talk about COVID fatigue; Camus writes, "The truth is that
    nothing is less sensational than pestilence, and by reason of their
    very duration great misfortunes are monotonous," and "[people] who
    hitherto had shown a keen interest in every scrap of news
    concerning the plague now displayed none at all."

    And regarding the actions of some politicians as contrasted to
    their words, Camus says, "But the most dangerous effect of the
    exhaustion steadily gaining on all engaged in the fight against the
    epidemic did not consist in the relative indifference to outside
    events and the feelings of others, but in the slackness and
    supineness that they allowed to invade their personal lives. They
    developed a tendency to shirk every movement that didn't seem
    absolutely necessary or called for efforts that seemed too great to
    be worth while. Thus these men were led to break, oftener and
    oftener, the rules of hygiene they themselves had instituted, to
    omit some of the numerous disinfections they should have practiced,
    and sometimes to visit the homes of people suffering from pneumonic
    plague without taking steps to safeguard themselves from
    infection..."

    And some observations are perennially applicable: "Stupidity has a
    knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so
    wrapped up in ourselves." [-ecl]

    ===================================================================

    Mark Leeper
    mleeper@optonline.net


    I just love dogs, and there really is no better
    companion than an animal.
    --Rita Rudner

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to eleeper@optonline.net on Sun Aug 29 13:48:49 2021
    On 8/29/21 10:07 AM, eleeper@optonline.net wrote:
    FORBIDDEN PLANET is probably the best science fiction film of the
    1950s. It is the closest to the quality of contemporaneous written
    science fiction, a genuine scientific puzzle with a sophisticated
    problem solution. Along the way we really are given all the clues
    necessary to solve the murder. Visually the film probably shows
    the greatest imagination of any Fifties film (in any genre) and
    when seen in its widescreen format, much of it still looks very
    good sixty-five years later. The beautiful planet-scapes and
    space-scapes would not be surpassed until STAR WARS. For the pre-
    digital age, the effects are very impressive. And the scenes are
    all the more impressive in widescreen format. And this in spite of
    the fact that what was released was only a rough-cut of the film
    with what we shall see are plenty of errors. Not that it is so
    much a tribute to this film, but when Gene Roddenberry was planning
    the original "Star Trek" series, he pitched it as being "'Wagon
    Train' to the stars," but what he was really planning was
    "FORBIDDEN PLANET: The TV Series." The film is almost a template
    for the original "Star Trek." Bits of the ideas show up throughout
    science fiction to come like bits of the props showed up in
    "Twilight Zone" episodes.

    There's a Twilight Zone episode where an inventor is working on a secret project in the basement. I cracked up when the invention was shown to be
    Robby.


    --
    Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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  • From Kevrob@21:1/5 to Gary McGath on Sun Aug 29 12:33:37 2021
    On Sunday, August 29, 2021 at 1:48:52 PM UTC-4, Gary McGath wrote:
    On 8/29/21 10:07 AM, ele...@optonline.net wrote:
    FORBIDDEN PLANET is probably the best science fiction film of the
    1950s. It is the closest to the quality of contemporaneous written
    science fiction, a genuine scientific puzzle with a sophisticated
    problem solution. Along the way we really are given all the clues
    necessary to solve the murder. Visually the film probably shows
    the greatest imagination of any Fifties film (in any genre) and
    when seen in its widescreen format, much of it still looks very
    good sixty-five years later. The beautiful planet-scapes and
    space-scapes would not be surpassed until STAR WARS. For the pre-
    digital age, the effects are very impressive. And the scenes are
    all the more impressive in widescreen format. And this in spite of
    the fact that what was released was only a rough-cut of the film
    with what we shall see are plenty of errors. Not that it is so
    much a tribute to this film, but when Gene Roddenberry was planning
    the original "Star Trek" series, he pitched it as being "'Wagon
    Train' to the stars," but what he was really planning was
    "FORBIDDEN PLANET: The TV Series." The film is almost a template
    for the original "Star Trek." Bits of the ideas show up throughout
    science fiction to come like bits of the props showed up in
    "Twilight Zone" episodes.
    There's a Twilight Zone episode where an inventor is working on a secret project in the basement. I cracked up when the invention was shown to be Robby.


    --

    3 eps of "Lost In Space" featured Robby.

    "When Tin Cans Clash!" {War Of The Robots}

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0636256/

    Also:

    Ghost in Space (1966)

    Condemned of Space (1967)

    Robby has "worked" into this century!

    https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1119475/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm

    Over 50 years of credits!

    --
    Kevin R

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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to Kevrob on Sun Aug 29 20:18:08 2021
    Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> wrote:
    3 eps of "Lost In Space" featured Robby.
    "When Tin Cans Clash!" {War Of The Robots} https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0636256/
    Also:
    Ghost in Space (1966)
    Condemned of Space (1967)

    I'll have to rewatch Ghost in Space. I knew Robby was in the other
    two LIS episodes you mention, but not that one.
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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  • From Kerr-Mudd, John@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Mon Aug 30 12:09:05 2021
    On Sun, 29 Aug 2021 20:18:08 -0000 (UTC)
    "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

    Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> wrote:
    3 eps of "Lost In Space" featured Robby.
    "When Tin Cans Clash!" {War Of The Robots} https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0636256/
    Also:
    Ghost in Space (1966)
    Condemned of Space (1967)

    I'll have to rewatch Ghost in Space. I knew Robby was in the other
    two LIS episodes you mention, but not that one.

    Danger! Will Robinson! IIRC,WIMN

    --
    Bah, and indeed Humbug.

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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Fri Sep 3 02:36:40 2021
    Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
    Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> wrote:
    3 eps of "Lost In Space" featured Robby.
    "When Tin Cans Clash!" {War Of The Robots}
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0636256/
    Also:
    Ghost in Space (1966)
    Condemned of Space (1967)

    I'll have to rewatch Ghost in Space. I knew Robby was in the other
    two LIS episodes you mention, but not that one.

    Okay, I just rewatched it, and technically you're right. Each episode
    ended with a brief teaser for the following episode. The last two
    seconds of "Ghost in Space" show Robby, as they're a teaser for the
    following episode, "War of the Robots."

    That reminds me of the nitpick about when Curly and Shemp appeared
    together, creating a Three Stooges short with four stooges. Most
    sources say that only happened in "Hold that Lion!" It also happened
    in "Booty and the Beast," but that used the exact same footage as
    "Hold that Lion!"
    --
    Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
    Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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  • From Kevrob@21:1/5 to Keith F. Lynch on Fri Sep 3 02:41:19 2021
    On Thursday, September 2, 2021 at 10:36:42 PM UTC-4, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
    Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
    Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
    3 eps of "Lost In Space" featured Robby.
    "When Tin Cans Clash!" {War Of The Robots}
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0636256/
    Also:
    Ghost in Space (1966)
    Condemned of Space (1967)

    I'll have to rewatch Ghost in Space. I knew Robby was in the other
    two LIS episodes you mention, but not that one.
    Okay, I just rewatched it, and technically you're right


    ...which, on USENET, is sometimes the most satisfying way
    to be right. :)

    Each episode ended with a brief teaser for the following episode.
    The last two seconds of "Ghost in Space" show Robby, as they're a
    teaser for the following epide, "War of the Robots."


    Those teasers bugged me, but they were supposed to, borrowing
    the movie serials' "cliffhanger" chapter endings. They fit better on
    the Wednesday night showings of BATMAN, which, when it was
    cut back to one weekly episode for the final season, shifted to teasers.
    IMS, THE TIME TUNNEL used them, too, as Doug and Tony always
    escaped one horrible fate at the end of an episode,only to be switched
    to another era with its own dangers to be confronted. Both TTT and
    LIS were Irwin Allen shows.

    That reminds me of the nitpick about when Curly and Shemp appeared
    together, creating a Three Stooges short with four stooges. Most
    sources say that only happened in "Hold that Lion!" It also happened
    in "Booty and the Beast," but that used the exact same footage as
    "Hold that Lion!"
    --

    Some of the Stooges shorts had only 2 Stooges, arguably:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemp_Howard#The_%22Fake_Shemps%22_and_legacy

    I was a big Shemp fan.

    --
    Kevin R

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