THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/11/22 -- Vol. 40, No. 33, Whole Number 2210
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
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Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
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Topics:
Locus Magazine 2021 Recommended Reading List
Mini Reviews, Part 9 (AILEY, MLK/FBI, ROADRUNNER)
(film reviews by Mark R. Leeper
and Evelyn C. Leeper)
COMFORT ME WITH APPLES by Catherynne M. Valente
(book review by Joe Karpierz)
PASSING (film review by Mark R. Leeper
and Evelyn C. Leeper)
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Star Trek Economics (letter of comment by R. Looney,
Kip Williams, and Jim Susky
Movies, Books, Bible Translations, and the MT VOID
(letter of comment by Guy Lillian III)
This Week's Reading (THE TIME MACHINE) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Locus Magazine 2021 Recommended Reading List
The list is at <
https://locusmag.com/2022/02/2021-recommended-reading-list/?s=02>.
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mini Reviews, Part 9 (film reviews by Mark R. Leeper and
Evelyn C. Leeper)
Here is the ninth batch of mini-reviews, more biographies.
AILEY: AILEY is, not surprisingly, a documentary about Alvin Ailey,
but also a documentary about creating a dance that celebrated his
life. The biography part begins with his birth in Texas during the
Depression. There are a lot of period photographs and footage,
with turn out to be somewhat misleading. We see film of a woman
with two children carrying another when Ailey talks in a voice-over
interview about being "glued to his mother's hip." But late we
find out that Ailey was an only child, so the film is just stock
footage; this puts all the older footage in question. The Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater began with no money and one bus for
everyone. Eating on the road was a problem--this was before there
was fast food--and the multi-racial troupe had problems finding
hotels where they could all stay. (This is, of course, similar to
the situation in THE GREEN BOOK.) Ailey's dances were modern
dance, but also very political (e.g., "Masekela Language", about
both South African apartheid and Fred Hampton, and his most famous
piece, "Revelations", about Black liberation). My problem is that
I find it difficult to relate to dance, but clearly this is worth
seeing for those who have an easier time of it.
Released theatrically 07/23/21; available on various streaming
services. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4), or 6/10.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13622084/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ailey>
MLK/FBI: In the 1950s and 1960s was a (usually) quiet war between
Martin Luther King, Jr. and J. Edgar Hoover. Some of the most
interesting pieces in MLK/FBI are taken from the mass media of the
time. For example, King is seen being interviewed by people like
Merv Griffin. At the same time, Hoover appeared in propaganda
pieces with names like "Espionage Target--You!" to stir up
paranoia. This seems to cover mostly familiar material, at least
for older viewers. It does have some newly declassified material,
but the focus is more on the legality and morality of what the FBI
and other agencies were doing rather than the bare facts.
Released theatrically 01/15/21; available on various streaming
services. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12801356/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mlk_fbi>
ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN: This seems to be the
year for documentaries about celebrity chefs, although Bourdain is
also known as a world traveler and author. It is interesting that
this film should be released at the same time as WOLFGANG.
However, Bourdain has a natural feeling for the obnoxious and while
we can compare the two, Bourdain's manner defeats his style.
Bourdain became famous with his memoir, KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL. Then
someone suggested "A Cook's Tour", but as a television show rather
than just a book. Bourdain's ideas of travel up to this point was
from books and movies, not actual travel. When he started
traveling, he was very introverted and had difficulty engaging with
other people. He seems to have undergone a change when he found
himself in Lebanon during the civil war there. His show also
changed, and became more about eating weird food.
Bourdain was apparently always difficult to work with. Towards the
end of his career (and life) he brought in Asia Argento as director
in Hong Kong and also started a personal relationship with her.
After this, his attitude changed and he started doing things like
insisting on retakes of (often) heart-breaking documentary scenes
with directions as to how the people should deliver their
(supposedly unscripted) lines. He also fired his long-time
cameraman in a dispute between the cameraman and Argento.
Some people are taking his philosophical pronouncements as profound
but he barely seems able to apply them to himself, and they often
do not seem to say anything of any value in any case. For example,
he sees some profundity in how he confronted his heroin addiction.
Hey, Anthony, you might have been better off not taking the heroin
in the first place. His capacity for self-indulgence was immense.
Criticism that has been made is that the Bourdain voice-overs are
not always Bourdain, but rather AI-generated voice-overs (of
Bourdain's actual words) using real Bourdain clips as input. A
more serious criticism might be that the dramatic conclusion
(involving a friend defacing a Bourdain mural) was completely
staged. The friend had jokingly suggested that Bourdain would not
approve of all the murals with his picture, and the filmmakers
asked him (six months later) if he would agree to deface a mural
specially commissioned by them for that purpose. That this might
suggest to people that defacing other people's public artwork is a
good idea apparently never occurred to any of them.
Released theatrically 07/16/21; available on various streaming
services. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4), or 4/10.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14512538/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/
roadrunner_a_film_about_anthony_bourdain>
[-mrl/ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: COMFORT ME WITH APPLES by Catherynne M. Valente (copyright
2021, tordotcom, $17.99, hardcover, 103pp, ISBN 978-1-250-81621-4)
(book review by Joe Karpierz)
"Comfort Me With Applies", the latest novella from Catherynne
M. Valente, is a slow burn, a book that creeped me out at times, and
by the end had me thinking "well, THAT was an interesting twist
that I didn't see coming'.
The story takes place entirely in a housing development called
Arcadia Gardens, and follows the story of Sophia who just recently
moved in with her husband. She thinks Arcadia Gardens is perfect,
she thinks her house is perfect, she thinks her husband is perfect,
and she thinks her marriage is perfect. Arcadia Gardens is a
typical development, with a set of Home Owners Association rules
that are slowly revealed throughout the book in short, separate
chapters. The HOA rules are part of the slow burn mentioned
previously. The more of the rules we learn, the less we want to
live there. But that's all okay as far as Sophia is concerned
because her husband, no matter how much he is gone on business,
always comes back to her and is always faithful to her. In fact,
Sophia believes she was made for him.
Still, there are strange things going on in Arcadia Gardens and in
her house. The house is too big for her, and not in the way we
typically mean. Everything is just too tall. It's as if it were
made for giants. Then Sophia starts finding things in her bedroom
and kitchen that are sinister. This, combined with a visit with
her neighbors as well as a gala night planned especially for her,
makes her realize that things just aren't as perfect as they seem.
And it all comes to a head when she meets a mysterious stranger in
a location in the Gardens she doesn't recognize, a stranger who
tells her the truth of what's going on.
"Comfort Me With Apples" is a good, fast read. Not that I read it
in one sitting; I never read anything in one sitting. But most
people should be able to devour it quickly. I found it interesting
and engaging and found myself really wanting to know what was going
on. It's not often that I can't see where a book is going, but
this is one of them. The story could be one that polarizes
readers, and maybe that's the best kind. There's nothing like
(well okay there probably is, but let's just go with it, okay)
sitting up late at night with a friend and a favorite beverage
discussing a book that the two of you have a different viewpoint
on. I enjoyed this book, and I hope you do too. [-jak]
===================================================================
TOPIC: PASSING (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
In PASSING, two old friends meet; both are African-American, but
Irene (Reenie, played by Tessa Thompson) is married to an African-
American man and living in Harlem as an African-American. Clare
(played by Ruth Negga) is married to a white man and "passing" as
white--even her husband John, a vocal racist, does not know the
truth. When John meets Reenie in the company of his wife, he
obviously thinks Reenie is white. (This in spite of Reenie's skin
color and facial structure, which would seem to have given him some
pause. To the audience of the film, Reenie looks like an African-
American passing as white.)
The film has crisp black and white photography like something out
of classic "Life" magazines. Is this a bit of a pun, an attempt to
evoke 1929, a way to make it easier to use lighting and/or make-up
to emphasize or conceal race, or a bit of all of them? The
director also uses camera angles, such as when Irene and Clare are
climbing some stairs the director has them look down in the center
of a spiral moving inwards, paralleling both their confinements
imposed on them by a racist society.
This is, I believe, the first film about "passing" that is not
written and directed entirely by white Americans. It is based on a
work by an African-American writer (the book by Nella Larsen), and
the writer/director Rebecca Hall has English, Dutch, and African-
American origin. The three best-known films on this topic before
this were IMITATION OF LIFE (1934 and 1959) and PINKY (1949).
Released on Netflix 11/10/21. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4), or 7/10.
Film Credits:
<
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8893974/reference>
What others are saying:
<
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/passing_2021>
[-mrl/ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Watching LAWRENCE OF ARABIA again, a couple of things struck me.
In the film's narrative, Lawrence survives all sorts of dangers in
Arabia, then is killed (in a motorcycle accident) when he returns
to England. In England, Lawrence drives through a construction
zone with all sorts of warning signs posted and has no problems,
but then is killed further down the road in a perfectly safe area.
Was the latter true, or just made up to make a parallel to the
bigger story?
Also, Lawrence claims that probably no one in the Arab Bureau knows
that the Arabs have attacked Medina (because it is reported only in
the Arabic newspapers), but in the next scene we see Dryden holding
an Arabic newspaper and talking General Murray about it. Clearly
Lawrence has a somewhat incorrect opinion of the Arab Bureau.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Star Trek Economics (letter of comment by R. Looney,
Kip Williams, and Jim Susky)
In response to various comments on Star Trek economics in the
01/28/22 and 02/04/22 issues of the MT VOID, R. Looney writes:
Enjoyed your post-scarcity Trekonomics discussion, and shared it
with my brother, who's a more intense fan than I. Talk of
replicators reminds me of Damon Knight's A FOR ANYTHING and its
Gismo. Had to point out that my brother corrected your second
mention of Noonian ("Of course, we didn't spend the 1990s fighting
Kahn Noonian Soong")--that's actually a different Noonian, Kahn
Noonian Singh (aka Ricardo Montalban), not Data's creator. But I'm
guessing your inbox is now overflowing with messages about this,
from pedantic Trekkers.
More interesting to me is comparing biblical translations,
specifically in Ecclesiastes. I was raised a Methodist and issued
a Revised Standard Bible. Its second verse of this book matches
the King James: "Vanity of vanities, said the Preacher, vanity of
vanities; all is vanity." I find the New International Version
strange, the one-word change altering the meaning significantly:
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly
meaningless! Everything is meaningless" which is more of a Buddhist
notion IMO, and doesn't address the human urge for adornment and
narcissistic mirror-gazing the way the former does, and I'm
surprised I see no other reactions and objections like mine, to the
NIV (or at least its Ecclesiastes). [-rl]
Kip Williams writes:
The Star Trek universe lost lots of cred for me with the Quatloos
bit. The Triskelion gamesters are wagering, and it goes something
like this:
A: I will wager twenty quatloos on the champion!
B: I will wager a million billion quatloos on the challenger!
A: Jeez, Larry! Get a grip! You always do this. Nobody's going to
take us seriously!
The net effect, for me, was of someone winging it with no thought
of making sense, and it pulled me right out of the story back in
the day. [-kw]
Jim Susky writes:
Having seen 98% of the 1996-68 series, about half of "Next
Generation" and at most 1/3 of "Enterprise", my sample is limited
and I may not be part of his audience, but I can't help but think
that the likes of Manu Saadia (as recounted by the redoubtable Dale
Skran) give too much credit to the world (various worlds) of Star
Trek.
Given the multiplicity of writers, producers, and showrunners, one
should hardly expect coherency. When you add the pervasive demands
of network television along with "Standards and Practices" nannies,
it's no suprise that little in Trek addresses the concerns of
grownups and their vices.
I invite the better informed to "correct the record" which follows:
Did anything in Trek come even close to the ultimate addiction
(excepting the possession and excerise of unchecked power)? That
is, direct stimulation of cranial pleasure centers (as the Tasp in
Ringworld Engineers.) The portrayal of Louis Wu as a "wirehead"
suggests that this stomps holodeck addiction as a means of
disconnection.
What about drug use via "derms" (see Gibson's Spawl
novels)--already in current use?
What about *any* drug use--(excepting, of course, various
"liquors")?
As for economics, I credit Skran for correctly characterizing the
Ferengi as (at best) unsavory and not as "capitalists".
I thank him for "taking one for the team" and suspect that he (or
an actual economist) would better succeed with richly
characterizing current economic worlds and future Trek Worlds.
[-js]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Movies, Books, Bible Translations, and the MT VOID (letter
of comment by Guy Lillian III)
In response to the MT VOID in general and various specific comments
in the 01/28/22 issue of the MT VOID, Guy Lillian writes in ZINE
DUMP #54:
Only the latest e-zine from Evelyn and Mark; there's more out by
now. Over the weeks the Leepers and their contributors review and
review and review. Along with such regular contributors as Gary
McGath riding their lettercols, they provide witty and perceptive
opinions, up-to-date, popular and obscure: movies (the Japanese
DOOR INTO SUMMER, animated CRYPTOZOO, Arthurian films, 1938's
Yiddish gem THE DYBBUK), books (THE ECONOMICS OF STAR
TREK--huh?--PROJECT HAIL MARY, LEVIATHAN FALLS), both (that great
science fiction classic, BILLY BUDD--portrayed by William Shatner
in an early TV version). They even hit on the differing
translations of the Bible (the KJV or the Revised Standard; I
shrink from the so-called New English). [-gl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Our science fiction discussion group chose THE TIME MACHINE by H.
G. Wells (available in more editions than you could shake a stick
at). This is obviously not the first time I have read this, but I
can still notice new things in it.
The Time Traveler (from hence forth to be known as TTT) says he was
in the future for eight days, then later talks about a fruit being
"in season all the time [he] was there." Unlike the Mariphasa
Lupina Lumina, most fruits stay in season more than eight days.
The future is not totally idyllic: TTT says when he arrived, "A
pitiless hail was hissing round me..."
One runs across the question, "What if in this interval the race
had lost its manliness and had developed into something inhuman,
unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful?" These characteristics
re-appear in the Martians in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS.
Wells has TTT initially see the world of the future as the triumph
of communism. (Reminder: THE TIME MACHINE was written in 1895, a
full decade before even the 1905 Russian Revolution, and over two
decades before the 1917 Revolution.) And one result is the
blurring of boundaries: "... or the strength of a man and the
softness of a woman, the institution of the family, and the
differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an
age of physical force..." Also, "strength is the outcome of need;
security sets a premium on feebleness." The TTT points out the
benefits of selective breeding in plants and animals, and assumes
that selective breeding has been used on humans--which of course is
true, though not in the way TTT thinks, and not with the "happy"
results he at first perceives.
Eventually he discovers the truth and also concludes that the Eloi
are not even human any more. Speaking of Weena, he says, "She
always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she was, perhaps
because he affection was so human." This is how some people talk
about their dogs. And of the Morlocks he says, "... it was
impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity in the things."
Our group spent a lot of time discussing why Wells included the
sequence with the crabs and whether they liked it. One person
mentioned that another discussion group he was in read THE TIME
MACHINE in conjunction with "Homefaring" by Robert Silverberg an
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot. [-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have
to do it himself.
--A. H. Weiler
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