@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
08/10/07 -- Vol. 26, No. 6, Whole Number 1453
Table of Contents
The Face on the Cutting Room Floor (comments by Mark R. Leeper):
In the 07/13/07 issue of the MT VOID, we mentioned that "Cereal Thriller" would be broadcast on History TV in Canada, and that Mark Leeper had been interviewed for this. Well, they gave me a thank in the end credits, but did not use any of the taped interview. I guess fame is elusive. I am still waiting to hear back from AMERICAN IDOL. [-mrl]
The Changing of the Guard (comments by Mark R. Leeper):
I was talking to a teenager who told me nobody really watches black-and-white movies any more. Monochrome films are passe. It seems black-and-white movies are the new books. How long will it be before the teens are saying that nobody bothers to play PC games any more since it is too much trouble and they are just what people played until the new thing came along? [-mrl]
Zombies and Mnemonics (comments by Mark R. Leeper):
I wrote about I AM LEGEND in the 07/20/07 issue of the MT VOID and the numerical mnemonic technique in the 07/27/07 issue. I have follow-ups on both of those editorials.
There was an article in the February, 2007, edition of REASON magazine, a well-known libertarian periodical, on horror movies about flesh-eating zombies. REASON is a somewhat respected outlet of libertarian views. Now having REASON magazine writing about flesh-eating zombie movies is itself a little surprising. REASON probably is more a place you would look for political statements and not a place one generally would look for discussion of films about flesh-eating zombies, even if freedom from death is the ultimate libertarianism. Tim Cavanaugh, who wrote the article, was talking about the political implications of these films. And certainly there are some zombie films that do make some political jabs. This is a tradition going back to THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. That was one of the first popular films to have a black hero. I have seen it interpreted that the ending of that film is a comment about racism, though I would more have interpreted it as a statement against vigilantism.
But even with REASON's fact checking this article got some of the facts wrong. The article assumes that this newly invented monster, called "the zombie" is a variant on the traditional voodoo zombie. In fact, its origins are with the vampire and not to the zombie.
The article attributes the origins of the flesh-eating creature in current horror films to William Seabrook's sensationalist accounts of voodoo in Haiti. Films like WHITE ZOMBIE, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, and KING OF THE ZOMBIES were indeed inspired by the Seabrook accounts. But there was never a suggestion that these zombies in any way fed on humans. In fact they were not particularly monstrous, except from the fact that they had come back from the dead and had eyes like a dead people. Nobody likes the idea of people returning from the dead. But the voodoo zombies were not really threatening. Seabrook zombies were just a cheap and rather odious form of inexpensive labor. Zombies were people called back from the dead as cheap plantation workers. They came across the border between life and death to take the jobs that the living did not want. They were obedient to the commands of someone controlling them.
However, the flesh-eating so-called zombie films takes its origins from the film THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Romero did not call his voracious, dead creatures zombies. He just called them simply "the dead." But Italian releases inaccurately introduced the word "zombie" to describe them. . DAWN OF THE DEAD was released in Italy as ZOMBI. I don't know where they got that name from, but that was where the whole connection with zombies was formed. Perhaps aiding the misconception is the fact that Romero's dead seem considerably less alert and bright than Dracula does and move more like zombies do.
Then Lucio Fulci made a sequel called ZOMBI 2, which was released in the United States as ZOMBIE. Since then Italy, the United States, and Britain then made what must be dozens of these films because the concept was effective and the budget required was very modest. Put just about anybody in an old suit and have them put on a slack jawed expression and they make a very effective flesh-eating zombie. The films were a good investment.
But George Romero has said his inspiration for THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was from the Italian film THE LAST MAN ON EARTH by Ubaldo Ragona. That film was based on Richard Matheson's novel I AM LEGEND. That was the film I discussed in the 07/20/07 issue of the MT VOID in which there is a new pandemic plague that only seems to be fatal. Its victims appear to be dead but are only metamorphosing into a state that is much like that of the traditional vampire. Matheson takes many of the characteristics of vampires in Bram Stoker's DRACULA and explains them in scientific terms. But the main character in the film, Robert Morgan (Robert Neville in the novel), is besieged by hordes of vampires (or something much like them).
So there is more of DRACULA and much more of I AM LEGEND in the origins of the flesh-eating zombie than there is of William Seabrook's Haitian voodoo zombies. Don't believe everything you read in REASON magazine.
Now, for the other follow-up: Just before I left for my Canada vacation I wrote a piece on the mnemonic system I use to memorize numbers; this piece appeared in the 07/27/07 issue. It turned out to be quite useful once again. In Canada, of course, they measure temperatures in centigrade. Given a temperature in centigrade I would want to quickly convert to Fahrenheit so I would know if a forecast of 32 degrees was terrible or pleasant. I know 0C is 32F. What would be useful is to know the last two digits of the Fahrenheit temperature for 10C, 20C, ..., 50C. I can take it from there interpolating the approximate temperature.
10C = 50F 20C = 68F 30C = 86F 40C = 104F 50C = 122F
For those who remember the technique I outlined for memorizing
numbers (or review it at
That translates the tens digit. The ones digits I just double
and add. (This is not precise, of course.)
For example: 32C is (30+2)C or about 30C+4F which translates to
86F+4F or about 90F.
Got that? Simple, huh? Well, it is with a little practice.
[-mrl]
School Supplies (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
Schools are not what they used to be. I don't mean just the
obvious things (such as the fact that no one seems to be learning
very much), but also that "free" education doesn't seem to be
free anymore.
When I was in school in Illinois in the early 1960s, parents were
required to rent or buy their children's textbooks. (Rental for
a year was one-third the purchase price.) Even then, young as I
was, this did not seem fair, although I imagine that there was
some provision for subsidizing lower-income families.
But as far as general supplies, all a student needed to provide
was a pencil (and later a pen), a ruler, and eventually paper or
notebooks. Now, schools send out long lists of supplies that
parents are expected to provide. For example, a list for public
school second graders in a town in Ohio includes not just eight
#2 pencils and a big eraser, but also a large pencil bag ("11-
inch by 7-inch with zipper closure"). And each child needs to
supply Elmer's white glue ("no washable, gel, or no-run"), four
glue sticks, four dry erase markers, a package of fine point
washable markers, a package of colored pencils, crayons ("box of
24"), and eight Crayola twistable crayons. (I don't even know
what those are!) Then there are scissors, easy-zip Hefty bags,
tissues, etc. When I was young all this stuff was provided by
the school, but now each parents has to buy all this stuff--and
notice that often specific brand names are given, making it hard
to save money by buying generics. Is there some subsidy given to
lower-income families for all this? I suspect not. (And they
keep saying, "NO TRAPPER KEEPERS," in capital letters. What *is*
a trapper keeper?)
Admittedly, by junior high the list shortens down to notebooks,
folders, scientific calculator, and minimal art supplies. But
the idea that every student has to supply his or her own glue,
instead of the school supplying larger containers that are
shared, seems like a step in the wrong direction. I realize that
budgets are tight, but the notion that every student has to have
a personal pair of scissors is a new one. (And given the weapons
policies one is seeing, it is surprising that "pointed tip metal
Fiskars scissors" are allowed, let alone required.) [-ecl]
[As the loyal opposition I will comment that most of these items
are buy-once, and if the student is careful with them they can be
used for years. If parents find they are buying the same supplies
year after year, they are implicitly being informed that the child
is not taking responsibility for his/her things. Kids frequently
vandalize supplies provided by the school, but are less likely to
do so with their own property. This system teaches
responsibility. -mrl]
RATATOUILLE (film review by Mark R. Leeper):
CAPSULE: RATATOUILLE has an engaging enough premise, but does not
really have a good story to tell. The first third of the film is
much more engaging than the remainder. The furry rat who is the
main character is expressive and winning, but the human
characters do not give him much support and the story pulls in
too many directions. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) was born with a taste for the
finer things in life. He knows food and not only has a highly
cultured palette; he has a supernatural talent for cooking French
haute cuisine. You can just tell that Remy is headed for a lot
of frustration since he is, after all, a rat, and kitchens are
off limits to rats. Most people who see a rat in a kitchen
immediately go after it with a cleaver or sometimes a shotgun.
Remy's chances of ever getting to test his talents in a kitchen
seem small, but hey, this is a cartoon. A chain of events chases
Remy away from a farmhouse kitchen and washes him into a storm
drain and out again. He finds himself in the center of Paris and
at the very foundation of the restaurant founded by Remy's hero,
the famous Chef Gusteau. But Remy still has to overcome the
whole rat-in-a-kitchen problem. Luckily the garbage boy at
Gusteau's discovers Remy. Linguini (Lou Romano) has been hired
reluctantly by the tyrannical Chef Skinner (Ian Holm) on the
specific proviso that Linguini never tries to cook. But Remy can
cook using Linguini as his hands.
The story of RATATOUILLE is a good cut beneath previous
Pixar/Disney animation films. It almost feels as though whenever
writer/director Brad Bird could not figure out how to make the
plot work, he added a contrivance or a coincidence to push the
plot along. Remy idolizes Chef Gusteau and a flood and a storm
drain contrive to deposit him in Paris exactly at the chef's
restaurant. How can a rat silently direct Linguini's cooking?
Well, it just turns out that Linguini has a peculiar muscular
reflex that no other human has ever had, but it turns out to be
just precisely what Remy needs to run the show. At various
points various people know that Gusteau's restaurant has what
appears to be a rat problem. Only one person does anything about
it, and that is unrealistically insufficient. Yet Gusteau's
Restaurant's fine reputation is never damaged. This is a film
that has too many bad guys doing too many different things. The
bad chef is victimizing Linguini while the bad critic is
victimizing the restaurant. A villain is vanquished two-thirds
the way into the film in what seems like a big climax, but he
still hangs around threateningly without doing very much. There
is a romance, but neither the boy nor the girl is particularly
likable.
A film like this needs a nice well-defined plot. FINDING NEMO, a
previous Pixar/Disney film, had a clear, clean plot. Nemo is
taken and the film is about the how Nemo is rescued. RATATOUILLE
does not have such a clear plot. Remy wants to cook and eat what
he cooks. Linguini is not sure what he wants other than to hold
onto his job and get the girl. Chef Skinner is nasty and may
want to be rid of Linguini, but his chief goal does not clearly
connect with the main characters. The villainous, egotistical
critic just wants people to know where to get good food and is
willing to be a little sarcastic along the way. That actually
should help Linguini and Remy, not threaten them.
RATATOUILLE is funny and imaginative. I will not say the
animation is great, not because it isn't, but because *every*
Pixar film has great animation and breaks new ground. The visual
element is very fine, but the script was frequently unsatisfying.
On balance it is a good film and I rate it a high +1 on the -4 to
+4 scale or 6/10. As is becoming the custom with animated
releases, RATATOUILLE comes packaged with a supporting cartoon.
In this case it is "Lifted", in which an incompetent teenager-
like alien tries to abduct a human with a levitation beam. It
was funny enough, though younger children in the audience were
asking why aliens would kidnap humans, and come to think of it so
was I.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0382932/
[-mrl]
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (film review by Mark R. Leeper):
CAPSULE: Harry Potter returns in his most complex and political
story, not to mention his darkest and least cute one. Harry,
Hermione, and Ron have to fight a two-front war against a
takeover of Hogwarts and the return of Voldemort. Davis Yates
directs. The films get more intelligent and more adult as Harry
also does. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10
I suppose I should admit that I have a problem with the Harry
Potter films. I have read only the first book and while I have
seen each movie in the series, I have seen each only once. With
each film the plot becomes more complex and there are more names
to remember. A film should stand on its own, and the Potter
films definitely do not, which does not mean that they do not
make for an enjoyable watch. Enough of the plot is
comprehensible with some reminders. And there is a constant
array of visual surprises that keep the film engaging. The
producers know the right way to use digital effects. Here there
is an intriguing visual image; there there is an interesting
allusion to Dr. Who. And not only does every major British actor
since Joan Greenwood seem to show up at some point, so do all the
favorite British TV series, a little Monty Python here, a little
James Bond there.
As the film opens Harry (played by Daniel Radcliff) is again
staying with the Dursleys, his wretched foster parents. An
attack by some evil magical Whatsises forces Harry to use his
magical powers in the real world. This is an unauthorized
liberty and he is apparently expelled from Hogwarts. This turns
out to be "expelled pending a hearing." And we are off and
running. It seems the Ministry of Magic has it in for Dumbledore
and for the students loyal to him, including Harry. And the
conflict makes headlines over and over in the magic industry
trade papers. (We see a lot of newspaper headlines this time.)
A new teacher at Hogwarts is Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton),
who is an agent for the now evil and bureaucratic Ministry of
Magic. She rules Hogwarts with a large set of new draconian
rules to further the ends of the Ministry, playing into the hands
of Voldemort (a waste of the unrecognizable Ralph Fiennes).
If you are a newcomer to Harry Potter stories at this point you
are totally lost, but this is not a film made to stand by itself.
It is a chapter in a much longer story. The story over five
films already and two more coming covers a long arc in the
maturing of the wizard Harry Potter and his friends. They are
played by actors who are unavoidably also maturing. The
character of Harry is showing signs of romantic interests, and
this film features no less than three young women who could
become amorous interests and for the first time Harry seems to
notice. He also may be discovering things about his parents he
perhaps did not want to know.
The passing of time has other problems implicit. Daniel Radcliff
was cute as a child but has matured into unexpected blandness.
If he were starting acting at this age he might not have had the
appeal to be chosen for the lead of a major film series. But, of
course, he is now the Harry Potter everybody expects to see.
The plot seems to have political implication not just for Harry's
two worlds but also for our world with the villains being a
bureaucratic ruling force who use torture (I am told somewhat
toned down from the book) to get their ends. The good guys form
a secret insurgency. The government is doing everything it can
to disarm the learning wizards and take away their spells because
they never know where the secret group will strike. Make of that
what you will.
But people come to the Potter films to be swept into the world of
magic and every single Potter film is magical. Now they also
seem to be getting more intelligent also. I rate HARRY POTTER
AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.
And for once there is not even a mention of Quidditch.
I will note that this was my first experience seeing a feature
film in IMAX and also in seeing the new three-dimensional
process. While I can appreciate films on small screens, I grew
up in the time that filmmakers were anxious to exploit the sheer
size of the image on the movie theater screen. Somehow seeing
films on a really big screen seems like the right way to see
them. I have to say I thought the film experience was more fun
watching a really large image. I do not think that I rated the
film any higher for seeing it on the IMAX screen, but it improved
the experience.
As for the twenty-minute segment of spectacular battle in 3-D, it
was a mixed blessing. Yes, the 3-D was a nice gimmick. It did
not entirely work. One eye saw a ghost, so somehow it was not
quite properly blocking the second image. The distraction of
having to manage the glasses through much of the film was
probably more effort than the twenty minutes were worth. The
filmmakers seem to realize that they can sink the image into the
screen and the 3-D works its best. It would be more dramatic to
bring the image out of the screen and toward the viewer, but that
is much harder to make work than sinking into the screen. Three-
dimensional films rarely try to have more than one or two scenes
in which objects come out of the screen and at the viewer.
IMAX is a good choice for 3-D viewing, since somehow any of the
standard 3-D processes make the screen look smaller.
If you want to see this or any film in 3-D there is a trick that
can allow you to do that. If you watch any film merely with one
eye closed, the other eye will see the screen image to at least
some degree as three-dimensional. In the absence of binocular
vision your brain naturally translates an image we see into one
with depth. This is particularly true for images not filmed with
a deep focus lens and, I notice, for computer generated images.
Seeing with two eyes gives the brain more data on depth and the
image becomes two-dimensional.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0373889/
[-mrl]
ROLLBACK by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor Books, 2007) (book review
by Tom Russell):
This book was on the "New Arrivals" shelf at our town library. I
picked it up as a vacation read; it's worth a recommendation.
Part "hard science fiction" (which I prefer) and part fantasy
(which is the fun way some hard science fiction stories end).
The library's on-line catalog lists three "subject terms" for
this book: (1) rejuvenation - fiction; (2) human-alien
encounters - fiction; (3) ethics - fiction. (Pause ... Isn't
"fiction" redundant?)
"Rollback" is a plausible-sounding, not-too-distant-future,
fountain-of-youth medical procedure, one element of the story in
ROLLBACK. The book's story parallels Carl Sagan's CONTACT
initially (the leading SETI researcher is a woman), but then goes
off in another direction (not another dimension...) after she is
selected for the rollback procedure.
ROLLBACK includes the SETI researcher's (presumably Robert
Sawyer's) opinion of CONTACT as a book and as a movie. Also
her/his commentaries on SETI, medical ethics and other matters.
Interesting. [-tlr]
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (film review by Mark R. Leeper):
CAPSULE: Jason Bourne is hot on the trail of the people who know
why he was made a deadly assassin. There are a few cracks in the
wall of his amnesia and he is starting to see the picture beyond.
The last of Bourne trilogy of films should have been the most
satisfying of the three with the loose ends tied up and the CIA
closing in. Will it be BOURNE DEAD or BOURNE FREE? But this
film is less interested in good plot than it is in having long,
drawn-out action chases of which there are entirely too many.
Bourne's powers of reasoning and prediction are a little too
magical to make for good dramatic tension. By not having a
satisfying closure on the series, the entire trilogy suffers.
Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
Played by Matt Damon, who no longer looks too young for the role,
Jason Bourne is back. He is again trying to piece together who
he is and what his background has to do with the CIA whom he now
knows to be his real enemies. English reporter Simon Ross (Paddy
Considine) seems to have found out what the whole carnival is
about. Ross has found from other sources what was the operation
that Bourne was involved with and why the killer that Bourne is
was created. This is information the CIA desperately wants to
suppress and which Bourne is even more desperate to get. CIA
high operative Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) will kill to keep
Ross's information from becoming public. Vosen wants to kill
Ross and, of course, Bourne. The running assassin picks up a
sidekick in Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles). And sympathetic
opponent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) returns from THE BOURNE
SUPREMACY.
It is not very hard to write a Jason Bourne chase. Bourne just
starts things rolling by doing something provocative. The CIA
people run around doing all the logical things to try to catch
him. But wherever one of these guys goes, there is Bourne to
bash him on the head or knock him down. This is because Bourne
is such a brilliant and formidable enemy he knows exactly what
his enemies will be doing and even what path they will be
walking. Bourne just cannot lose a fight. He is too well
trained for that. With a few clues he can jump to all the right
conclusions. If you tell him something in code he immediately
knows the code and understands you. In the course of this film
Bourne is hit by a nearby bomb explosion, in a car crash, and has
a multitude of other mishaps which should at the very least put
him in a hospital. You or I would be headed for the Emergency
Room. James Bond would just pick himself up and dust himself
off. Bourne is a little more realistic than Bond, but not much.
Bourne is so well trained that he can just limp off. Five
minutes later he has lost his limp and ten minutes later he is
jumping between buildings. But that is just how a Bourne action
chase goes. And THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is just one extended action
chase after another. Bourne only stops to flit between
countries. You or I would have problems with security, but did I
tell you Bourne was well trained?
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is notable for tying up the Bourne trilogy.
The missing threads are tied up in exactly the knot that everyone
was expecting. Except for his amnesia, Bourne's origin is not a
whole lot differerent from that of the hero of another series of
action books (which shall remain nameless here).
Then there is the issue of title. THE BOURNE IDENTITY really was
about the Bourne Identity. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY's title may just
refer to the fact that Bourne is very good at what he does, so he
does maintain a sort of supremacy. There is no ultimatum and no
evidence in the film where the title comes from. Perhaps the
book THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM was about an ultimatum that did not
make it to the film script.
Where is this a good script? Well, when we are allowed to see
Bourne's reasoning and his machinations, some of them are
actually very clever. Sadly, we too rarely let into Bourne's
confidence. We just see what he has done and it looks like his
reasoning was probably brilliant or perhaps occult. But there is
entirely too much jumping between buildings and smashing cars
together and all the other cliched scenes of action films. The
final Bourne film suffers from an excess of action and a shortage
of plot. I rate it a highly dissatisfied high 0 on the -4 to +4
scale or 5/10.
Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0440963/
[-mrl]
Chili Peppers (letters of comment by Steve Goldsmith, David
Goldfarb, and Budd Benner):
We got several letters in response to Mark's two-part article on
chili peppers in the 07/06/07 and 07/13/07 issues of the MT VOID.
Steve Goldsmith writes to let us know that there is an article in
the May 2007 edition of "National Geographic" describing the
Dorset naga pepper, rated at 923,000 Scoville units. (A jalapeno
is 5,500; a Scotch bonnet is 75,5000.) See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_jolokia for details.
[Mark notes, "The Scotch Bonnet is my limit. Anything beyond that
is more the subject of horror stories. Thanks for the page. -mrl]
David Goldfarb writes, "From what I've read, capsaicin is
intended to keep *animals* (perhaps specifically mammals) from
eating the peppers. Like all fruiting plants, pepper plants get
mobile creatures to spread their seeds by bribing them with
nourishment. Birds, being more mobile than land creatures, are
better at spreading seeds. So the pepper plants "prefer" to be
eaten by the birds; they have come to produce a substance that
animals don't like but that doesn't affect birds." [-dg]
[Well, some animals don't like it. Some humans do and birds
apparently don't taste it. -mrl]
David continues, "You seem to be arguing that this strategy has
failed when it comes to humans, because humans eat the peppers.
But then again, humans are even better at spreading seeds than
birds are. Hot pepper plants are now grown all over the world.
Surely that isn't failure at all, but spectacular success!"
[-dg]
[Like the legendary Phoenix, peppers' death is part of the
rebirth process. (Do I hear strains of Wagner's "Liebestod"?) I
would think that a better strategy would be to be liked by a
broader scale of animals--like apples are. I would think the
adding of humans to the system is too recent to have had much
affect on the plants' natural genetic "behavior". Of course
these days the plants that have a nice my-mouth-and-throat-are-
on-fire, please-kill-me-now effect will be cultivated for
gustatory sado-masochistic purposes. So the plant will survive,
even if my marriage won't if I again say "spicy" when ordering
Thai food. -mrl]
And Budd Benner says, "You might want to rephrase what you said
about eating hot peppers and never having an ulcer unless you
want to pay my $22,000 hospital bill. I use to eat jalapeno
peppers, and I don't anymore. About half my blood went into my
stomach, [and] I was almost dead, so peppers will not stop an
ulcer even if they didn't cause it." [-bb]
Mark replies, "I assume you are talking about the following
quote. Nobody would say it prevents ulcers altogether. It
improves your odds against getting an ulcer.
I have known another hot food fan who ended up with an ulcer.
Capsaicin is not a guarantee against getting ulcers. It has been
shown to inhibit the pylori. In your case it probably did not
inhibit it as much as was needed. Once you have the ulcer, it is
painful to eat hot foods, so they are not recommended.
Capsaicin was not the cause of your ulcer; it was an ally in
unsuccessful efforts to prevent it." [-mrl]
MT VOID, Cereal Premiums, and Chili Peppers (letter of comment by John Purcell):
In response to the 07/13/07 issue of the MT VOID, John Purcell
writes:
When I saw this issue's number it hit me that you two would pub
your 1500th issue at the end of next June. What a remarkable
achievement! [-jp]
[I guess that is true. Thank you very much. -mrl]
Did you ever think that your little fmz would ever last so long?
[-jp]
[Not to add a political point but it shows what happens when you
start something without having an exit strategy. For me it has
sort of taken the place of me having a diary. -mrl]
Even without doing any research, I would think that this is some
kind of fan publishing record already. Words fail me. [-jp]
[I have not given it a lot of thought. When I think of how long
we have been doing it I am surprised, but it is just part of our
normal routine. -mrl]
"Free Inside" was fun, and had me scurrying to the breakfast
cupboard to see if any of our cereal boxes offered any free gifts
inside. Nope. None of them do. There was a lot of reading
material on the back of each of them, however. The All-Bran and
Cheerios boxes had lots of nutrition information, while the
Kroger brand Frosted Wheat Puffs has an "American heroes word
search" game on the back, complete with one paragraph summaries
of each hero's name embedded in the search box. There's enough
reading material there to get you through two bowls of cereal.
At least kids would learn some American history in the process.
They have to learn it somewhere. [-jp]
[For the most part it was considered not profitable. The
supersize boxes you find at warehouse stores still occasionally
have special premiums or did so more recently. Not too long ago
General Mills had G-rated movies on special DVDs included in the
package. I know that was how I saw BUDDY and THE MUPPETS TAKE
MANHATTAN. The also did some 1960s television situation comedies
that way. -mrl]
The lack of free gifts inside cereal boxes nowadays is probably
the result of a shift in marketing focus, especially considering
what the modern stone-aged kid is most interested in. I have
noticed that lots of cereal boxes now have secret codes printed
on the inside of the box that you have to enter at a website
listed on the back of the box; once that's accomplished, then
you're entered into a drawing for tickets to Schlitterbahn water
park or Six Flags, or something like that.
It is also much cheaper to print messages like this than to make
toys to shove into each box. I remember when Cap'n Crunch was
brand new, and a teensy-tiny plastic captain's telescope was the
free gift. That was cool. Apparently these "free gift inside"
days are gone, but not forgotten.
[They also had the now infamous Bos'n's Whistle whose tone turned
out to be just the right frequency to fool the phone system and
get free long distance calls. -mrl]
Your commentary about chili peppers got me to remembering
something else buried deep in my past. I love peppers, too,
especially bell peppers--both green and red--and jalapeno; we
used to grow a small variety of peppers in our garden when we
lived in Iowa. But I remember that my mom, God rest her soul,
used to make fried green pepper sandwiches. You might wrinkle
your nose at that concept, but they were actually pretty good.
[-jp]
[No, I wouldn't. It is not all that different from a Chili
Relleno, particularly if you melt some cheese. I was a very
picky eater when I was young, but these days I want to try
anything recommended to me. The shift from picky-eater to
omnivore came about naturally, but I am afraid that my mother
interpreted it as a comment on her cooking, which it certainly
was not. In Asian restaurants I delight in ordering items that
they do not bother to translate to English because they think
Americans wouldn't like them. -mrl]
The main drawback of them was that their sharp aroma would linger
throughout the house for days. When I think of mom standing in
the kitchen, slicing and cooking two whole green peppers with a
bit of onion for what seemed like hours, I can still smell the
aroma. I told you the smell lingered for awhile!
Many thanks for the zine and the trips down memory lane and the
SF Museum (great stuff, Evelyn! I gotta see that place). I will
chat with you two later. [-jp]
[Well thanks again for writing. And for the kind words which
really do fuel the VOID. -mrl]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
I re-read WONDERFUL LIFE by Stephen Jay Gould (ISBN-10
0-393-30700-X, ISBN-13 978-0-393-30700-9) as part of our recent
trip to the Canadian Rockies, which included Yoho National Park,
home of the Burgess Shale. (We got to see the area, but only
from a few miles away, from across a lake several thousand feet
below.) One reason that Gould is so readable is that he is not a
narrowly focused scientist. He can write about the translation
of Milton's PARADISE LOST for a German opera, and use the poetry
of the Bible to illustrate a point: "The sources of
[evolutionary] victory are as varied and mysterious as ... the
way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the
way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with
a maid." [Proverbs 30:19; WONDERFUL LIFE, page 236]
The Royal Tyrrell Museum (of Paleontology) had the usual display
on the descent of the horse from Hyracotherium (Eocene),
Mesohippus (Oligocene), Merychippus (Miocene/Pliocene), and
finally Equus (Pliocene/Holocene). Gould talks about how this is
a rather poor example of evolution, since it implies to many
people a directed progression, rather than (for example) the
diversification of Darwin's finches. Gould sees the single
descendent of the Hyracotherium as an example of failure, not
success.
Gould also talks about how Charles Doolittle Walcott (the
discoverer of the Burgess Shale) attempted to "shoehorn" the
creatures of the Burgess Shale into existing groups of
arthropods. While Gould says it is in part the difficulty of
looking at things in a new way, there was a more basic
philosophical reason. Walcott said, "It is a sublime conception
of God which is furnished by science, and one wholly consonant
with the highest ideals of religion, when it represents Him as
revealing Himself through countless ages in the development as an
abode for man and in the age-long inbreathing of life into its
constituent matter, culminating in man with his spiritual nature
and all his God-like power." Gould then says, "If the history of
life shows God's direct benevolence in its ordered march to human
consciousness, then decimation by lottery, with a hundred
thousand possible outcomes (and so very few leading to any
species with self-conscious intelligence), cannot be an option
for the fossil record. The creatures of the Burgess Shale must
be primitive ancestors to an improved set of descendants." But
why? Walcott was willing to accept that Tyrannosaurus rex
existed, yet T. rex left no improved set of descendants (that we
know of).
I also re-read parts of WANDERING LANDS AND ANIMALS: THE STORY OF
CONTINENTAL DRIFT AND ANIMAL POPULATIONS (ISBN-10 0-486-24918-2,
ISBN-13 978-0-486-24918-6) by Edwin H. Colbert. He talks about
the fauna of isolated islands, and says (on page 255) that the
native fauna of Australia consists of "marsupials, of some
monotremes, and of such placental mammals as rodents, bats, and
the dingo." If the native fauna of Australia includes the dingo,
and "it is obvious that the dingo was brought to the continent by
aboriginal immigrants," then doesn't that make the aboriginal
immigrants part of the native fauna, and in particular a native
placental mammal along with rodents and bats?
One might also note that the "tradition" of a North American
invasion into South America which drives many species to
extinction is not a twentieth century phenomenon. During the
Pliocene (a million years ago or so), the Panama land bridge was
re-established between North America and the previously isolated
South America, and the fauna of the latter --marsupial
borhyaenids, litopterns, notoungulates, ground sloths, and
glyptodonts--were decimated by the invading species.
Also s part of our recent trip to the Canadian Rockies, we
listened to "Books That Made History; Books That Can Change Your
Life", an audiocourse from The Teaching Company (a.k.a. Great
Courses). While looking at great works and how they addressed the
themes of God, life, and so on was thought-provoking, I have
several problems with this particular course. The lecturer,
Professor J. Rufus Fears, is quite irritating at times. First of
all, he has a definite Christian agenda and tries to shoe-horn
works like "The Iliad" into delivering a basically Christian
message, or at least supporting Christian ideals.
Fears also makes annoying slips that did not get corrected, such
as saying Desdemona is a senator's wife (rather than a senator's
daughter), or that Athena is Kronos's daughter (rather than
Zeus's), or that the main character of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN
FRONT is the prototype for its author, Erich Maria Remarque. In
his lecture on the Oresteia, he pronounces "Oresteia" as if it
were spelled "Orestaia", and "Orestes" as if it were spelled
"Oriestes". He also keeps prefixing the definite article to
titles. "The Oresteia" is fine, but "The Othello" or "The
Prometheus Bound"? And he attempts to quote from the works, but
without notes, because he gets some very famous lines wrong.
And lastly, Fears is self-contradictory. He sees Biblical
connections everywhere they are convenient, and ignores them
otherwise, no matter how obvious they are. In "The Oresteia" he
talks about how Agamemnon was told by the gods (whom Fears often
refers to as "God" in other lectures) to sacrifice his daughter
before sailing to Troy. Fears makes a big point of how Agamemnon
did not have to do this; he could have said, "No, this is an
immoral act and I will not do it." But he never draws any
connection between this and the story of Abraham and the sacrifice
of Isaac, perhaps because it would put Abraham in the wrong. He
does something similar later with Pericles, Lincoln, and Remarque:
after talking about how Pericles and Lincoln both promote what
appears to Fears to be the important virtue of the nobility of
dying for one's country to defend its way of life, he then
praises Remarque for pointing out that sometimes it is not a
virtue. (And he does not even address that the Nazis, whom he is
often holding up as bad examples, also were dying for their
country to defend its way of life. Should that be considered
noble and good?) Fears gives the dichotomy of those who respond
to their country's call and those who say, "War is bad; I am a
pacifist." He does not acknowledge a third response: "Some wars
are just, but this one is not." This ties in with his binary
notion that there is such a thing as absolute good and absolute
evil. (In fairness, in a later lecture he does talk about just
and unjust wars, so perhaps he is just being an agent provocateur
at times, but it is quite annoying.)
(He also claims that Lincoln's goal from the beginning was to end
slavery. This can best be described as a load of hooey.
Lincoln's goal was to preserve the Union.)
And one more minor quibble: Fears keeps referring to previous
courses he has done, assuming everyone has heard those as well.
("As we saw in our previous course on the famous Romans, ....")
Mark is even more annoyed at Fears than I am, I think, but it did
give us something to discuss as we drove.
[Actually I have mellowed a bit. I think he might be presenting
obviously contradictory viewpoints to act as a Devil's Advocate.
-mrl]
I recently watched the BBC "Mystery!" adaptations of Agatha
Christie's NEMESIS and AT BERTRAM'S HOTEL, both of which bore
astonishing little resemblance to the novel. Oh, Miss Marple was
actually in the two novels. (Don't laugh--the "Mystery!"
adaptation of BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS added Miss Marple to a
story that did not originally have her in it.) But in NEMESIS,
hardly anyone else in the production is from the novel, the
situation is greatly changed, ... even the size of the legacy has
shrunk considerably. In fact, the only things retained are the
motive (although somewhat modified) and the name of the killer.
In AT BERTRAM'S HOTEL, whole subplots have been removed and new
ones added, innocent characters changed to criminals, and so on.
When "Mystery!" started adapting classic works, they seemed to
feel some responsibility to stick to the original work, but that
seems to be a thing of the past. [-ecl]
Go to my home page
Less translates to 50F.
Jiffy translates to 68F.
Fudge translates to 86F.
Sorry translates to 04F (which I translate to 104).
Nan translates to 22F (which I translate to 122).
As I explained last week most drugs generally are not really
good to become addicted to. Capsaicin was thought to cause
stomach ulcers, for example. Certainly people who had
stomach ulcers had a lot of pain when they ate spicy foods
and put irritants into their stomachs. And yes, putting an
irritant on anything as pain sensitive as an ulcer is going
to hurt. The conclusion that somebody drew was that the
irritant had actually caused the ulcer in the first place.
Nope. We now know that the bacteria Helicobacter pylori
cause most stomach ulcers. There are various
substances you can put in your diet to inhibit the
Helicobacter pylori. One of the best is . . . capsaicin. If
you eat a lot of hot food, you are actually less likely to
develop ulcers. In fact it has been at least twenty years
since I have seen anyone with any medical background who had
a bad word to say about eating hot peppers.
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Quote of the Week:
Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life.
The only completely consistent people are dead.
-- Aldous Huxley