THE MT VOID
11/29/24 -- Vol. 43, No. 22, Whole Number 2356
Co-Editor: Mark Leeper,
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Topics:
Middletown (NJ) Science Fiction Discussion Group
Mark's Picks for Turner Classic Movies in December
(comments by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
Wooden Satellites and Brick Moons (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper
Synchronicity (letter of comment by Jay E. Morris)
This Week's Reading (SPECTACLE ENTERTAINMENTS OF EARLY
IMPERIAL ROME) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Middletown (NJ) Science Fiction Discussion Group
Dec 5 Xmas Bonus: Dr Who: THE CHRISTMAS INVASION (2005) and
TWILIGHT ZONE: "The Star" (1985)
& short stories: "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke (1955)
<
https://sites.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/TheStar.pdf>
"Rebuttal" by Betsy Curtis (1956)
<
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67455>
===================================================================
TOPIC: Mark's Picks for Turner Classic Movies in December
(comments by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
TCM has, of course, a plethora of Christmas films for December.
They are running the Reginald Owen version multiple times, but the
Alistair Sim version not at all. Whether or not that is an issue
over the rights, it's a shame, as the Sim version is the classic.
But they are also running an excellent non-Christmas film, BLACK
ORPHEUS. They haven't totally abandoned the holiday
concept--BLACK ORPHEUS takes place during Carnaval (a.k.a.,
Carnival, beginning the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday and
ending at noon on Ash Wednesday; in the U.S. the parallel holiday
is Mardi Gras, which is a single day, the day before Ash
Wednesday).
The film is the re-telling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice,
set in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. Known for its soundtrack,
featuring what have become classic bossa nova songs, it won the
Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1959 and the Academy Award and Golden
Globe Awards for Best Foreign Film in 1960. But in keeping with
the trend at the time, its soundtrack was not even nominated.
It should be noted that many Brazilians (and scholars) feel it
reinforces negative stereotypes and "exoticizes" Brazil. It
should also be noted that these criticisms could be applied to
many of the films of that era. [-mrl/ecl]
[BLACK ORPHEUS, Tuesday, December 10, 3:00AM]
There is also a 24-hour "Andy Hardy" festival stating on December
26 for those so inclined:
THURSDAY, December 26
8:45 AM Judge Hardy's Children (1938)
10:15 AM Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
12:00 PM Out West with the Hardys (1938)
1:30 PM The Hardys Ride High (1939)
3:00 PM Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939)
4:30 PM Judge Hardy and Son (1939)
6:15 PM Andy Hardy Meets Debutante (1940)
8:00 PM Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941)
10:00 PM Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941)
FRIDAY, December 27
12:00 AM The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942)
1:45 AM Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942)
3:30 AM Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944)
5:30 AM Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946)
7:15 AM Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958)
And a "Thin Man" festival on December 31:
TUESDAY, December 31
9:15 AM The Thin Man (1934)
11:00 AM After the Thin Man (1936)
1:00 PM Another Thin Man (1939)
2:45 PM Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
4:30 PM The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
6:15 PM Song of the Thin Man (1947)
Other films of interest include:
THURSDAY, December 5
8:00 PM A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
FRIDAY, December 6
4:00 PM Knights of the Round Table (1953)
10:00 PM Hamlet (1948)
SATURDAY, December 7
10:07 AM Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949)
SUNDAY, December 8
11:45 AM A Christmas Carol (1938)
1:00 PM Ben-Hur (1959)
5:00 PM King of Kings (1961)
MONDAY, December 9
6:00 AM Safari Drums (1953)
8:30 AM Rhino! (1964)
10:15 AM Mighty Joe Young (1949)
6:00 PM Tarzan, The Ape Man (1981)
TUESDAY, December 10
3:00 AM Black Orpheus (1959)
5:00 AM Sylvia and the Phantom (1946)
6:45 AM The Glass Slipper (1955)
WEDNESDAY, December 11
10:00 AM The Crimson Pirate (1952)
THURSDAY, December 12
3:45 AM The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)
SATURDAY, December 14
10:09 AM Bomba on Panther Island (1949)
MONDAY, December 16
5:00 AM The Funeral (1984)
8:00 AM The Terminal Man (1974)
10:00 AM The Omega Man (1971)
11:45 AM Westworld (1973)
1:30 PM Soylent Green (1973)
3:30 PM Logan's Run (1975)
5:30 PM Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
THURSDAY, December 19
4:30 PM The Extraordinary Seaman (1969)
SATURDAY, December 21
7:30 AM The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
10:30 AM A Christmas Carol (1938)
TUESDAY, December 24
5:15 AM A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)
8:45 AM A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)
WEDNESDAY, December 25
12:00 AM A Christmas Carol (1938)
1:30 AM Beyond Tomorrow (1940)
6:00 AM Star in the Night (1945)
10:15 AM The Great Rupert (1950)
10:00 PM Topper (1937)
THURSDAY, December 26
12:00 AM Cabin in the Sky (1943)
2:00 AM Blithe Spirit (1945)
6:00 AM A Family Affair (1936)
7:15 AM You're Only Young Once (1938)
SATURDAY, December 28
12:15 AM Blood Simple (1984)
10:08 AM The Hidden City (1950)
12:00 PM Xanadu (1980)
MONDAY, December 30
12:45 PM The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
TUESDAY, December 31
4:00 AM House on Haunted Hill (1958)
5:30 AM The Exterminating Angel (1962)
7:15 AM Judex (1963)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Wooden Satellites and Brick Moons (comments by Evelyn
C. Leeper)
The Japanese have launched a wooden satellite (unlocked links):
<
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/science/japan-wooden-satellite.html?
unlocked_article_code=1.cU4.kLhZ.EZPIaXazG57S&smid=url-share>
or
<
https://tinyurl.com/wooden-moon>
This reminded me of Edward Everett Hale's story "The Brick Moon",
published in 1869, and considered the first science fiction story
with an artificial satellite. This novella was the subject of the
book discussion of the Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society on
01/03/96; here is what Mark wrote at the time:
"Our next book discussion goes back to the origins of American
science fiction. In fact it is a remarkable short novel written
just four years after Jules Verne's FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON and
turns out to be a surprisingly inventive piece of science fiction.
In one fell swoop it invents the the concept of not just the
earth satellite, but the synchronous satellite and the space
station. All this written in 1869. The author is Edward Everett
Hale. Now many of us know that name because in seventh grade we
were forced to read his story "The Man Without a Country." What
we were not told is that the same man wrote science fiction. The
short novel is "The Brick Moon." The story deals with a plan to
put into orbit an artificial moon that could be used for
navigation. To resist the heat of being hurled into space it is
to be made of brick and covered with rock dust that will melt and
make it airtight. The story goes into detail on the building of
satellite and an unforeseen accident that sends it into space
before its time with passengers who find they must learn to live
on this new artificial world. Much of the science in this story
is well thought out. (Of course, much is also completely wrong as
well.) [-mrl, MT VOID, 12/29/95]
Not surprisingly, it is available in Project Gutenberg
(<
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1633>). [-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Synchronicity (letter of comment by Jay E. Morris)
In response to Evelyn's comments on EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982) in
the 11/22/24 issue of the MT VOID, Jay E. Morris writes:
I think this is the third time you've posted a review within two or
three days of me watching the movie. [-jem]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
SPECTACLE ENTERTAINMENTS OF EARLY IMPERIAL ROME by Richard C.
Beacham (Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-07382-9) is
admittedly a highly specialized book. One way you can tell is
that the references to original sources use some arcane set of
abbreviations that scholars of ancient Rome will probably
immediately understand, but the average person will not. E.g.,
Tac. Ann. 12:42.3-4; Dio 60.33.2. (Actually, I could probably take
a stab at it, though I wonder if what I think it means depends on
the edition. Or are editions of the Annals of Tacitus all
numbered exactly the same, like the Bible? But some of the
references are not as obvious as "Tacitus".)
But if I don't write about specialized books, I will have weeks
when I can't fill this column. And we can't let that happen, can
we? Can we?
Anyway, Beacham goes into great detail, not just about the obvious
spectacles (gladiatorial battles, chariots race, wild beast
hunts), but also the various dramatic and artistic presentations.
Indeed, he spends almost all his time on those entertainments, and
on funerals, triumphs, and other "spectacles" than on the ones
people think of first.
Some of his claims are a bit unorthodox. For example, he seems to
think that Nero was genuinely talented and won all his awards on
the basis of his skill.
He also looks at the position of the emperor in all this. Rather
than being in total control, the emperor had to perform for the
crowd as much as the actual performers. Beacham says, for
example, that much of Tiberius's unpopularity was due to his scorn
of the games, and emperors needed to support the games with
enthusiastic attendance.
As for the details about the various specialized forms of drama,
poetry, music, and so on, I doubt most people who are not already
familiar with them, will be able to follow everything, but one can
certainly get the gist of it.
(By the way, the book actually starts with the late Republic;
"early Imperial Rome" itself seems to be Julius Caesar through
Nero, that is the Julio-Claudian dynasty.)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net No experiment should be believed until it has been
confirmed by theory .
--Sir Arthur Eddington
MT VOID, 11/29/24 -- Vol. 43, No. 22, Whole Number 2356