THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
11/12/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 20, Whole Number 2197
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Puzzle (puzzle by Tom Russell)
Mini Reviews, Part 2 (SHIVA BABY, THE MEANING OF HITLER)
(film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME (film review by Mark R. Leeper
and Evelyn C. Leeper)
Variations in Middle English (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
Byzantium (letter of comment by Keith F. Lynch)
This Week's Reading (THE FOOD OF THE GODS) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: "Pythy" Puzzle (puzzle by Tom Russell)
This should be attempted without using any device or even pencil
and paper:
The sides of a certain right triangle are all of integer length.
The shortest side is 7. What are the other two sides? [-tlr]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 2 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)
Here is the second batch of mini-reviews, on Jewish-related themes.
SHIVA BABY: SHIVA BABY is a comedy of Jewish manners that looks at
what goes on under the surface of a shiva (a "Jewish wake" which
takes place after the funeral). Directed and written by Emma
Seligman, it focuses on Danielle (played by Rachel Sennott), who is
about to graduate from college, and her extended family and
friends. Her father is played by Fred Melamed (best known for the
Coen Brothers film A SERIOUS MAN); the other actors are relatively
unknown but worth watching. Perhaps as one sign of her confusion,
Rachel claims to be a vegetarian but eats lox and other non-
vegetarian fare. Rachel and the people she interacts with are all
hiding secrets from each other. Not surprisingly, many of these
come out.
Released 04/02/21; available on Blu-ray. Rating: low +1 (-4 to
+4), or 5/10.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11317142/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/shiva_baby>
THE MEANING OF HITLER: This is the story of the life of Adolf
Hitler and the Nazi Party, as well as a look at their influences
and parallels today. It tries to examine the meaning of Hitler
(what else?) in terms of what caused his rise, how he maintained
it, and what the continuing effect of it is. The director tells us
about the history of Jewish and Nazi relations, and one example of
the influences today is footage of a tour led by Holocaust denier
David Irving to Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek, in which
Irving explains how everything history tells us about those camps
is wrong. Other footage shows neo-Nazi marchers and YouTubers.
The film is eclectic in scope, covering even subjects like how a
particular microphone work, which probably does not greatly improve
the information content of the explanation. The film draws many
parallels between Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump over the belief
that they have many psychological parallels. As one witness
concludes, the problem is not that the Nazis were abnormal, but
that the Nazis were *not* abnormal.
Released theatrically 08/13/21. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4), or
8/10.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13490106/reference>
What others are saying: <
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_meaning_of_hitler>
[-mrl/ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME (film review by Mark
R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
In KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME, a biography of Kurt Vonnegut,
most of his early life is told mostly with home movies. Later the
narrative is composed from photos of his articles, books, first
pages of manuscripts, and footage shot by director Robert B. Weide
and others. Weide took almost forty years to make this film (he
started planning in 1982, and shooting in 1988). Weide is best
known for documentaries about famous comedians, and for the movie
and series CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM.
After Vonnegut is introduced as being either insane or the only
person not insane, the documentary reverts to a more traditional
biography. His family was fairly well-to-do, but they were wiped
out by the Depression. They lost their home, and he had to leave
private school. In public school, he became immersed in pop
culture, and a fan of comedians such as Laurel and Hardy. Vonnegut
was the family comedian from when he was young, and described his
books as "screamingly funny." During World War II, he was a POW in
Dresden during the fire-bombing there. (Vonnegut claimed he
actually saw Dresden in a premonition before it happened.) He went
to work after the war for General Electric as a publicity writer,
but finally had to choose between an industrial career at GE or a
career of writing. It was not much of a fight. He quit GE and
wrote full-time.
Vonnegut seemed to live by phrases he uses repeatedly in his
writing. "Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time." "So it goes."
It is not clear that they mean much beyond Vonnegut's attachment to
them.
At the end of his life, Weide says, all of Vonnegut's books were in
print. One person said of him, "Vonnegut was championed by the
people, not by the critics," although eventually he was given
critical acclaim by the literary establishment. Either way,
Vonnegut was a writer whose outlook was shaped by his fear of
failing. Some of his books made it and some did not. So it goes.
Releases theatrically 11/19/2021. Rating: high +1, or 6/10.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1461238/reference>
What others are saying: <
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kurt_vonnegut_unstuck_in_time>
[-mrl/ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Variations in Middle English (letter of comment by Fred
Lerner)
In response to Evelyn's comments on the differences between the
Middle English of Chaucer and the Gawain poet in the 11/05/21 issue
of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes:
Chaucer lived and wrote in London, where the local English dialect
had been infiltrated for three centuries by Norman French. The
Gawain poet wrote in the Midlands dialect, where Anglo-Saxonisms
had persisted. When Caxton set up his printing press in London in
1476, he naturally favored the London dialect, which established
that as the dominant form of English.
In most parts of Europe where two languages contended for
dominance, it was the one in which the Bible was first printed that
prevailed. (One reason that Welsh is still a living language today,
while Scottish Gaelic is barely hanging on, is that the Bible was
translated into Welsh in the 1580s, but there was no complete
Gaelic version until two centuries later. Now that the BBC has
full-time radio broadcasts in both languages, we can hope that
their chances for survival will improve.) [-fl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Byzantium (letter of comment by Keith F. Lynch)
In response to John Hertz's comments on Byzantium in the 11/05/21
issue of the MT VOID, Keith F. Lynch writes:
"Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business
but the Turks'." [-kfl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE FOOD OF THE GODS AND HOW IT CAME TO EARTH by H. G. Wells (many
different publishers, as well as Project Gutenberg) was our bi-
monthly book discussion choice.
One thing that struck me was that THE FOOD OF THE GODS has more
sarcasm/irony than most of Wells's better-known science fiction
works. This is in addition to the Skinners (particularly Mr.
Skinner and his heavy lisp). It was indeed a great relief when
Skinner and his lisp vanish from the narrative.
There also doesn't seem to be much consideration of how much more
of a strain on Earth's resources a race of giants would be. I
guess back when Wells was writing, Earth's resources seemed
infinite, much as the bison to the first white people to cross the
plains and the whales did to Melville. Melville wrote, "Though so
short a period ago--not a good lifetime--the census of the buffalo
in Illinois exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at
the present day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that
region; and though the cause of this wondrous extermination was the
spear of man; yet the far different nature of the whale-hunt
peremptorily forbids so inglorious an end to the Leviathan. Forty
men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for forty-eight months
think they have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they
carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the old
Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when the far
west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and a
virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of
months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have
slain not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact
that, if need were, could be statistically stated."
For years, Dover Books used to have a hardback edition of SEVEN
SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS OF H. G. WELLS, which included THE WAR OF
THE WORLDS, THE TIME MACHINE, THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE ISLAND OF DR.
MOREAU, THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, THE FOOD OF THE GODS, and IN THE
DAYS OF THE COMET. Later there appeared SIX SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS
OF H. G. WELLS from Canterbury Classics (and possibly others),
dropping IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET. Now Dover has a boxed edition
of six Thrift Editions, having dropped IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET and
THE FOOD OF GODS and added a volume of short stories. I predict
the next to go will be THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
A full belly makes a dull brain.
--Ben Franklin
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