• MT VOID, 11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196

    From evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 7 06:54:24 2021
    THE MT VOID
    Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
    11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196

    Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
    Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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    Topics:
    Mini Reviews, Part 1 (PLAYING WITH SHARKS, BECOMING COUSTEAU)
    (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
    THE RESCUE (film review by Mark R. Leeper
    and Evelyn C. Leeper)
    Wolfgang Puck (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
    ENTANGLED LIFE by Merlin Sheldrake (book review
    by Gregory Frederick)
    Halloween Binge Watching (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
    Wolfgang Puck (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)
    Oysters, CASINO ROYALE and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, Latin,
    and the Eastern Roman Empire (letter of comment
    by John Hertz)
    This Week's Reading (SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT,
    THE FALL OF ARTHUR, THE HISTORY OF COINED WORDS,
    SEVEN CONVERSATIONS WITH JORGE LUIS BORGES)
    (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

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

    TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 1 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
    Evelyn C. Leeper)

    It is that time of year again when I vote on awards for films.
    This is one very nice perq of my hobby of writing film reviews and
    being a member of the Online Film Critic Society. Filmmakers and
    publicists *want* me to see their films in the hopes that they (the
    films, not the people) will be considered for awards. I get to see
    new films either on-line or I get discs (or used to--these seem to
    be on the way out).

    I cannot write my usual format for every film I see, but I can
    write brief reviews for many. I do not know where these films will
    play. These films may play in local theaters or in Manhattan art
    houses. But I can let people know what to look for on Amazon Prime
    and/or NetFlix.

    This year is a bit closer to a standard year, though the releases
    did get started later than usual. Far fewer films were released to
    theaters, and they split the difference on the Academy Awards (the
    focus of the awards season) by having it at the end of March 2022
    (they used to be at the end of February; in 2021 they were at the
    end of April).

    But here is the first batch, two documentaries about the oceans
    and the people who study them.

    PLAYING WITH SHARKS--THE VALERIE TAYLOR STORY: This National
    Geographic film tells the story of Valerie Taylor, who has worked
    to educate the world about sharks, and to promote conservation
    efforts for them. It (and Taylor) are saying that the activity of
    the title is not nearly as dangerous as it suggests. (Taylor at
    one point says, "It's more dangerous to have a backyard pool" than
    to go swimming in the ocean.) One problem, of course, is that the
    world wants its monsters even if they are not true monsters.

    Valerie Taylor has studied sharks since the 1950s. (She is now 85
    years old and still diving.) The camera's eye shows you scenes
    from the early days of profligate hunting of sharks and one knows
    that the anti-shark attitude will be coming along soon.

    Fueled by curiosity, Valerie Taylor and a group of other divers
    went searching to film a great white shark under water, something
    that had never been done before due to the lack of cameras and
    camera operators who could dive. Some of this footage was used for
    the film BLUE WATER, WHITE DEATH. Taylor was also involved in the
    making of JAWS, and there is some information on that as well.
    (When he realized that JAWS resulted in a massive increase in shark
    hunting, Benchley regretted writing it. Taylor does not say she
    regrets her involvement, but rather emphasizes that the film is
    fiction.) In general, between the divers portrayed and the sharks
    the attitude now seems to be pretty much live and let live.

    [I hope there are subtitles, because many of the interviewees had
    fairly strong Australian accents.]

    Released on Disney+ 07/23/21. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4), or 8/10.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11226258/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/playing_with_sharks>

    BECOMING COUSTEAU: This is a biography of Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
    Just like Valerie Taylor in PLAYING WITH SHARKS, Cousteau started
    with spear fishing and dynamiting to count fish, but ended as a
    strong environmentalist. Cousteau describes being underwater like
    being in heaven, where you have no gravity; it is utterly
    fantastic. His earliest interests were in flying (also in a sense
    a realm of decreased gravity), but a bad accident convinced him to
    change track to deep-sea diving and brought him to a fascination
    that would obviously last his whole life.

    Although the photography is in monochrome at the beginning (due to
    the constraints of early underwater photography), some shots or
    parts of them are then colorized, either realistically or in a more
    psychedelic fashion. Interviews with Stuart Paton (20,000 LEAGUES
    UNDER THE SEA (1916)), and Louis Malle discussed some of the
    constraints. Malle's film with Cousteau, THE SILENT WORLD, won the
    Oscar for Best Documentary, though Cousteau says, "Our films are
    not documentaries. They are true adventure films."

    The demands of the environment under the sea suggested to Cousteau
    technical inventions for better exploring and understanding that
    environment, including the aqualung. World War II interrupted his
    diving but when it was over, new opportunities with the Navy came
    along in terms of exploring sunken ships and planes. When diving
    using the aqualung, he could see much more under the water, but
    there were dangers from "Rapture of the Deeps". His dedicated
    ship, Calypso, a refurbished mine sweeper, first sailed in 1951.
    In 1953 he was offered a job in oil research, and found (among
    other things) Abu Dhabi's oil. Later he found himself regretting
    some of these choices.

    Cousteau made many films and television shows. The first episode
    of "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" was about sharks;
    Cousteau was far less sanguine than Valerie Taylor about sharks'
    natures, though his attitude was never that there should be a mass
    slaughter of them. Cousteau also once foresaw a time when people
    would live in cities under the sea, but came to reject that idea.
    BECOMING COUSTEAU goes into how Cousteau's views evolved and how he
    got involved in saving the ecologies of the seas and oceans. These
    days nearly every documentary about nature will contain a downbeat
    note that the world we see is being destroyed by the selfishness of
    people, and this film is no different.

    Caveat: The subtitles for French-speakers are very badly done, with white-on-white making them hard to read.

    Released theatrically 10/22/21. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4), or 6/10.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10334438/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/becoming_cousteau>

    [-mrl/ecl]

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

    TOPIC: THE RESCUE (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn
    C. Leeper)

    THE RESCUE is a documentary about the rescue of a Thai boys' soccer
    team trapped in Tham Luang Cave in June 2018, when an early monsoon
    rainfall blocked many of the entrances and would soon flood the
    cave. The team was trapped behind lower passages that had filled
    with water. The main "narrator" is Vern Unsworth, a British cave
    diver who had mapped a lot of the cave.

    The first step was to assemble a rescue team. These were not
    professionals, but men whose hobby was cave diving, and they were
    acknowledged to be the best in the world. They were also
    introverts, did not play team sports when they were young, and
    often had been bullied as children. Even though they were experts,
    few cave divers have experienced conditions like this where the
    only path out includes extensive underwater navigation in a very
    strong current of murky water.

    Their first dive found three additional trapped workers, men who
    had been working the pumps but had been caught by the rising
    waters. Their rescue gave the cave divers valuable information
    about how to accomplish their main goal.

    The Thai Navy SEALS did some of the original rescue work including
    exploring the cave, then they turned it over to the British cave
    divers. At one point, the British felt it was hopeless--they had
    had great difficulty in bringing the pump workers out in thirty
    seconds under water, and could not see how they could bring
    children out in what would be a multi-hour trip. However, the
    SEALs refused to give up and took back the job until one died. At
    that point, the British realized they could not give up, and
    resumed their task. On Day 10 the dozen soccer players were found
    deep within the cave. Food was brought in, but the oxygen level in
    their section of the cave was down to 15%, below what would sustain
    life for long.

    Having rescued someone from a cave is like no other caving
    experience. No place is the experience valuable except in going
    through the experience for another flooded cave. Because of the
    problems with the pump workers, one suggestion was to sedate the
    boys and bring them out unconscious. Although everyone agreed this
    was a terrible plan, ultimately they agreed this was the only plan
    that had any chance of working. Ultimately, they brought all the
    boys (and their coach) out on Days 15 through 17. And within hours
    of the last rescue, the cave flooded completely.

    The same directors, E. Chai Basarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, previously
    made the documentary FREE SOLO, so they are familiar with filming
    tense outdoor scenes, which here was dramatic cave photography.
    Obviously a lot of the rescue operation footage was obviously
    recreated later, though authentically by the original participants,
    but there were at least fifteen minutes of original footage taken
    from almost 87 hours that the Thai SEALs had captured on cameras
    they carried. There is also an interesting animation style for
    telling of the legend of the cave and the end credits.
    Unfortunately, while the rescue was a momentous rescue, the film
    ended up just average, with perhaps too many scenes of people
    outside the cave that did not convey new information.

    Released theatrically 10/08/2021. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4), or
    7/10.

    Film Credits:
    <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9098872/reference>

    What others are saying:
    <https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_rescue_2021>

    [-mrl/ecl]

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

    TOPIC: ENTANGLED LIFE: HOW FUNGI MAKE OUR WORLDS, CHANGE OUR MINDS
    & SHAPE OUR FUTURES by Merlin Sheldrake (book review by Gregory
    Frederick)

    This is a great science book by Merlin Sheldrake, a mycologist who
    studies underground fungal networks. There are more than 2 million
    species of fungi. Most take the form of multi-cellular filaments
    called hyphae, which grow at their tips, and branch in many
    directions, mate, fuse, and tangle, creating the networks known as
    mycelia. What we see above ground are the mushrooms, brackets and
    molds, which are the fruiting bodies that sprout from the mycelia
    to release spores. 50 megatons of spore a year are released.
    Spores float and concentrate in the atmosphere, sometimes changing
    the weather for example when a water droplet forms on one, this
    becomes the nucleus of a raindrop or hailstone.

    White rot fungus can help solve our problems with too much waste
    and with toxic spills. Researchers have found that this fungus can
    devour used paper diapers when the plastic covering is removed.
    And the mushrooms produced from this action were healthy and free
    from human diseases. This fungus can also quickly decompose used
    cigarette butts, which normally do not decompose quickly due to the
    toxic chemicals in them that slows down decomposition. Even toxic
    herbicides can be metabolized when the fungus is given a diet of
    only that herbicide. Fungi can also degrade pesticides, synthetic
    dyes, explosives (like TNT), crude oil, some plastics, and human
    and veterinary drugs not removed by wastewater treatment.

    Fungi have survived calamitous times and extinction events. And
    are so robust that radiotrophic fungi can even harvest energy
    emitted by radioactive particles. This is the first book from this
    author and it is a very interesting read. [-gf]

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

    TOPIC: Halloween Binge Watching (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

    For Halloween this year we binged the Universal horror cycle. We
    did not watch *every* Universal horror film (there are about 150 of
    them!), and we stuck pretty much to the main through-line. So we
    did not include films such as DRACULA'S DAUGHTER or THE INVISIBLE
    AGENT (though it is not clear why the mere use of the name
    "Griffin" should get THE INVISIBLE MAN'S REVENGE included). At any
    rate, the schedule ran as follows:

    Thursday, October 28:
    Carl Laemmle
    Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943)

    Friday, October 29:
    DRACULA (1931)
    FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
    THE MUMMY (1932)
    THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)
    SIX MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT (2021)
    THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)
    THE WOLF MAN (1941)

    Saturday, October 30:
    SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939)
    THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942)
    THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS (1940)
    THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940)
    THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942)
    THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944)
    THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944)
    THE INVISIBLE MAN'S REVENGE (1944)

    Sunday, October 31:
    HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945)
    HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1945)

    Then rather than proceed to the "Abbott and Costello" films, we
    switched to haunted house films (and music):
    THE UNINVITED (1944)
    THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973)
    POLTERGEIST (1982)
    The Cincinnati Pops "Chiller" album

    We watched the Universal films mostly in chronological order, but
    putting SON OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN together,
    and also running the four "Kharis" films consecutively.)

    A few observations: A lot of music gets re-used. Quite a few
    actors get re-used, some in the same role, but many in different
    roles, even in the same thread. Michael Mark, for example, was
    Maria's father in FRANKENSTEIN, a councilor who is killed in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, a (presumably different) councilor in GHOST OF
    FRANKENSTEIN, and one of the men who sent Niemann to prison in
    HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, not to mention many roles in other Universal
    horror films. (Think of him as the Michael Ripper of Universal
    Studios.)

    One note on HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN: There are no sympathetic
    characters, except for possibly Larry Talbot, and he's the Wolf
    Man. Daniel might have been one, but he's a murderer, as is
    Niemann. Ilonka is shallow, and cruel to Daniel. Dracula and the
    Monster are, well, Dracula and the Monster (now shorn of any
    sympathetic characteristics).

    I don't have to point out that the "Kharis" movies are a mess, with
    Mayan temples, southern California landscapes, and a swamp in New
    England that apparently connects through a wormhole to one in
    Louisiana. (Oh, and a character who confuses werewolves with
    mummies.) [-ecl]

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

    TOPIC: Wolfgang Puck (letter of comment by Pete Rubinstein)

    In response to Mark and Evelyn's review of WOLFGANG in the 10/29/21
    issue of the MT VOID, Pete Rubinstein writes:

    [Mark and Evelyn wrote:] "Puck changed that. For example, he
    apparently invented the Asian chicken salad. He also started the
    whole celebrity chef/food show culture." [-mrl/ecl]

    I always thought Julia Child came first. (Or doesn't she count as a
    celebrity? Or did she fail to "change the culture"?) [-pr]

    Evelyn responds:

    A bit of both. Child was a chef on television, but on public
    television, and did not start up a chain of restaurants, a brand of
    food in supermarkets, and the sort of following that rock stars
    get. [-ecl]

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

    TOPIC: Oysters, CASINO ROYALE and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, Latin, and
    the Eastern Roman Empire (letter of comment by John Hertz)

    In response to various comments previous issues of the MT VOID,
    John Hertz writes:

    In MT VOID 2182 (07/30/21) "Rogue oysters threaten to disrupt Tokyo
    Olympics after officials shelled out $1 million for repairs" seems
    to be Mark's. Evidentaly no commenter noticed how raw this was.
    They otter.

    About the 1967 CASINO ROYALE (J. Huston et al dirs.), and the 1983
    NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN (I. Kershner dir.), which Evelyn can't stand
    (MT VOID 2183, 8/6/21), I'm reminded of leaving the theater with
    Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle after RETURN OF THE JEDI (R.
    Marquand dir. 1983). Pournelle found fault at length--not without
    justice. Niven answered, "Well, *I* liked it."

    Much can be, has been, and should be said about Latin (MT VOID
    2185, 8/20/21; 2186, 8/27/21). I did in VANAMONDE 1454 (7/5/21;
    the poem is acrostic, like Japanese tanka):
    Later it would fall,
    Although its power, beauty,
    Took evil no turn.
    In its day our minds, our speech,
    Nourished, seemed universal.

    Latin was the language of the West for two millennia. The
    Romans brought it. The Church maintained it. Neither it nor
    anything else could or did go on so long merely by command;
    people found it helped communication. From Poland to
    England, from Sweden to Spain, you could write to anyone, and
    travelers could talk; in itself it was considered expressive,
    indeed using it was felt to improve thought. Much of it has
    been influenced and been adopted into English--not at all
    incidentally, those (and "incidentally") are Latin words.
    "E pluribus unum" ("Out of many, one")--which I wish the
    United States had not replaced as a motto in 1956--is Latin;
    so is the warning I still must keep in mind, "Brevis esse
    laboro obscurus fio" ("When I labor to be brief, I become
    obscure"). Let us treat with respect even what we do not
    care to resume.

    About the Eastern Empire (MT VOID 2187, 9/03/21), I was a good boy
    at Loscon XXIII when, moderating "Twenty Questions for Harry
    Turtledove" who was Pro Guest of Honor, and finding we'd run out of
    questions submitted in advance, I got some from the audience, added
    a few myself, and in a magisterial exercise of self-restraint did
    not ask "Why did Byzantium fall?" He has ever since been suitably
    grateful. [-jh]

    Evelyn responds:

    The articles on animals were pretty much mine, not Mark's.

    Why did Byzantium fall? Because the Arabs invented/built a cannon
    strong enough to breach the Theodosian walls. That's pretty
    straightforward. A more complicated question is why the Western
    Empire fell. [-ecl]

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

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

    As I write this, I have not yet seen the new movie, THE GREEN
    KNIGHT, but I figured I should re-read the original, especially
    since I last read it back in college fifty years ago. The
    "Classical Stuff You Should Know" podcast had an episode and read
    some of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT translated by Simon
    Armitage (Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-06048-5). This is a wonderful
    translation that preserves the alliterative form of the poem. Note
    that I do not say it preserves the alliteration of the original; in
    fact, most of the lines seem to have been considerably changed.
    (For example, in lines 150 through 159, only one line of the
    translation has the same alliterative sound as the original.)
    Armitage notes this in his introduction (which is very informative
    about English poetry of the 14th Century), saying that the need to
    choose words in modern English determined the patterns.

    However, I sometimes find Armitage's word choice odd. "Ebullience"
    (line 86) is a modern word, but seems out of place in this epic.
    "Inveigle" (line 804) may have a French/Latin origin, but still
    sounds out of place. "He leaps from where he lies at a heck of a
    lick" (line 1309)--a heck of a lick? Really? "Snooty" (line 1496)
    also seems a bit informal.

    Sometimes Armitage abandons modern English altogether. For
    example, I don't think "gralloching" (line 1340) or "nithering"
    (line 2002) are words much in use today. But oddly, they are not
    the original words either. I have no idea how Armitage came up
    with them.

    Obviously some of these observations depend on seeing the original.
    Luckily, this edition has the original Middle English (*not* Old
    English--it was written around 1400) and the Armitage translation
    on facing pages. I had the idea of reading the original--after
    all, I had read all of THE CANTERBURY TALES in the original in
    college, and it was written at the same time. But it is like
    comparing William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway (or Gabriel Garcia
    Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges). Just because two works are in the
    same language does not make them equally accessible.

    So you can see what I mean, here are the Prologue from THE
    CANTERBURY TALES, and the opening lines of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN
    KNIGHT:

    Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
    The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
    And bathed every veyne in swich licour
    Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
    Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
    Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
    The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
    Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
    And smale foweles maken melodye,
    That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
    So priketh hem Nature in hir corages,
    Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
    And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
    To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
    And specially, from every shires ende
    Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
    The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
    That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
    [--THE CANTERBURY TALES]

    Sithen the sege and the assaut watz sesed at troye,
    The bory brittened and brent to brondez and askez,
    The tulk that the trammes of tresoun ther wroyt
    Watz tried for his tricherie the trewest on erthe.
    Hit watz Ennias the athel and his highe kynde
    That sithen depreced prouinces and patrounes bicome
    Welneye of al the wele in the West Iles:
    Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swythe,
    With gret bobbaunce that burye he biges vpon first,
    And neuenes hit his aune nome as hit now hat;
    Ticius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes;
    Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes vp homes
    And fer ouer the French flod Felix Brutus
    On mony bonkkes ful brode Bretayn he settez
    Wyth wynne,
    Where werre and wrake and wonder
    Bi sythez hatz wont therinne,
    And oft bothe blysse and blunder
    Ful skete hatz skyfted synne.
    [--SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT]

    [The capitalization and punctuation of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN
    KNIGHT are Armitage's, as well as the substitution of "th" for
    "thorn" and "y" for "yogh".]

    As for the poem itself, I still have the same problem--the fantasy
    elements seem out of place for the time and setting. Yes, I know
    Arthurian legend is full of fantasy--the sword in the stone,
    Excalibur (*not* the same sword!), Merlin's prophecies and
    imprisonment in a tree, etc.--but those don't seem as wildly at
    odds with the medieval Christian context as someone who disguises
    himself as totally green and survives having his head cut off. Or
    that no one at the dinner where that happens seems even surprised
    by it.

    [Merlin living backward seems to be the invention of T. H. White in
    THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING.]

    For those who enjoy the old alliterative style, there is a
    translation by J. R. R. Tolkien of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT
    in that style. I have not read that, but Tolkien also wrote an
    original poem in that style, THE FALL OF ARTHUR by J. R. R. Tolkien
    (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 978-0-544-11589-7). The poem
    itself is rather short (and apparently unfinished), but there are
    several essays about its creation and so on to fill out the book.
    Here are the opening lines:

    Arthur eastward in arms purposed
    is war to wage on the wild marches,
    over seas to Saxon lands,
    from the Roman realm ruin defending.
    Thus the tides of time to turn backward
    and the heathen to humble, his hope urged him,
    that with harrying ships they should hunt no more
    on the shining shores and shallow waters
    of South Britain, booty seeking.
    [--THE FALL OF ARTHUR]

    And speaking of booty, THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF COINED WORDS by Ralph
    Keyes (Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-046676-3) notes in
    the introduction that one needs to be careful in citing first uses,
    and especially when automated methods are used. For example,
    Google's Ngram says "booty call" was used in an ancient hymn in
    Sanskrit. It turns out the quotation was "Men in the strife of
    booty call on Indra."

    I got THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF COINED WORDS from the library primarily
    for the chapter on neologisms from science fiction, which turned
    out to be distressingly skimpy--it included "robots" and
    "robotics", "genetic engineering", "pod person", "Stepford wife",
    "Manchurian candidate", "thoughtcrime", "doublespeak" (and other
    "-speak" forms)", "grok", and a variety of space and space travel
    terms", but oddly *not* "Big Brother" or "terraforming".

    Shakespeare is known to have coined a lot of words, but Milton is
    almost as prolific percentage-wise in PARADISE LOST, having coined
    several hundred words and phrases, including "advantage", "damp",
    "fragrance", "obtrusive", "sectarian", "all hell broke loose", "by
    hook or by crook", and of course "Satanic".

    After I gave Borges as an example of "easy" reading (in the review
    of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT above), I read the following
    statement by him in SEVEN CONVERSATIONS WITH JORGE LUIS BORGES by
    Fernando Sorrentino (translated by Clark M. Zlotchew, Paul Dry
    Books, ISBN 978-1-589-88060-3): "The truth is that to reach the
    point of writing in a more or less uncluttered manner, a more or
    less decorous manner, I'd had to reach the age of seventy." In
    another interview, Borges says, "I believe in my latest books there
    is a certain simplicity, a deliberate poverty of vocabulary or ...
    a certain economy of vocabulary which could be beneficial." Even
    so, it is clear that he abandoned an overly baroque style fairly
    early on.

    Borges once said, "I do not believe that the entire dictionary is
    fit for literary treatment. We can take (for example) three words:
    'azulado', 'azulino' and 'azuloso', [all meaning 'bluish']. I
    believe that 'azulado' can be used in writing because it is in our
    oral usage. 'Azulino' and 'azuloso'. on the other hand, are words
    that are in the dictionary, but not in our mouths. Thus it is
    better not to use 'azulino' or 'azuloso', stumbling blocks to the
    reader and small surprises that the writer gives.") [pages 155-
    156, "Borges ante el espejo"] In "The Aleph" he writes, "[Danieri]
    had revised them following his pet principle of verbal ostentation:
    where at first 'blue' had been good enough, he now wallowed in
    'azures', 'ceruleans', and 'ultramarines'. The word 'milky' was
    too easy for him; in the course of an impassioned description of a
    shed where wool was washed, he chose such words as 'lacteal',
    'lactescent'' and even made one up--'lactinacious'." [-ecl]

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

    Mark Leeper
    mleeper@optonline.net


    Most people eat as though they were fattening
    themselves for market.
    --E.W. Howe

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  • From Keith F. Lynch@21:1/5 to eleeper@optonline.net on Sun Nov 7 15:55:58 2021
    eleeper@optonline.net <evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com> wrote:
    About the Eastern Empire (MT VOID 2187, 9/03/21), I was a good
    boy at Loscon XXIII when, moderating "Twenty Questions for Harry
    Turtledove" who was Pro Guest of Honor, and finding we'd run out of
    questions submitted in advance, I got some from the audience, added
    a few myself, and in a magisterial exercise of self-restraint did
    not ask "Why did Byzantium fall?" He has ever since been suitably
    grateful. [-jh]

    "Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but
    the Turks'"
    --
    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 eleeper@optonline.net on Wed Nov 10 14:23:43 2021
    On Sunday, November 7, 2021 at 9:54:25 AM UTC-5, eleeper@optonline.net wrote:
    THE MT VOID
    Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
    11/05/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 19, Whole Number 2196

    Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mle...@optonline.net
    Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, ele...@optonline.net

    [snip]

    Sometimes Armitage abandons modern English altogether. For
    example, I don't think "gralloching" (line 1340)

    Removing the guts from an animal, something hunters do.
    "Field dressing" would be a less obscure term.

    ObSF:

    [quote]

    You needed a tree to gralloch a deer properly. Hanging it up by the hind legs made it drain thoroughly and it also made it easier to gut and quarter.

    [/quote]

    https://smstirling.com/samples/the-scourge-of-god-chapter-10/

    I don't hunt, though I have friends that do, and the word comes up
    when discussing hunting or reading about it.


    or "nithering" (line 2002) are words much in use today. But oddly, they
    are not the original words either. I have no idea how Armitage came up
    with them.


    Both more common in Scots, so, perhaps, gralloch would be more
    apt for a tale of Arthurian Britons than any pure Anglo-Saxonism?

    Nither has off-island roots.

    https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/nither

    Kevin R

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  • From Paul Dormer@21:1/5 to Kevrob on Thu Nov 11 10:56:00 2021
    In article <53f0cc23-d32a-4472-83e2-5f7d52a21ea5n@googlegroups.com>, kevrob@my-deja.com (Kevrob) wrote:


    Removing the guts from an animal, something hunters do.
    "Field dressing" would be a less obscure term.

    I would have thought a field dressing was what was applied to a wound on
    the battle field, but I see it can also refer to gralloching.

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  • From Tim Merrigan@21:1/5 to Paul Dormer on Thu Nov 11 11:57:55 2021
    On Thu, 11 Nov 2021 10:56 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
    prd@pauldormer.cix.co.uk (Paul Dormer) wrote:

    In article <53f0cc23-d32a-4472-83e2-5f7d52a21ea5n@googlegroups.com>, >kevrob@my-deja.com (Kevrob) wrote:


    Removing the guts from an animal, something hunters do.
    "Field dressing" would be a less obscure term.

    I would have thought a field dressing was what was applied to a wound on
    the battle field, but I see it can also refer to gralloching.

    Both work, depending on the definition of "dressing" one is using.

    Wouldn't want to confuse them though. While a shot deer might
    appreciate an EMT's field dressing, I very much doubt a wounded
    soldier (with the possible exception of a Sontaran) would like a
    hunter's field dressing.
    --

    Qualified immuninity = virtual impunity.

    Tim Merrigan

    --
    This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
    https://www.avg.com

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