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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 01/26/90 -- Vol. 8, No. 30

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are on Wednesdays at noon.
LZ meetings are in LZ 2R-158. MT meetings are in the cafeteria.

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

02/14 LZ: Science Fiction and Romance
03/07 LZ: THRICE UPON A TIME by James Hogan (Affecting the Past)

_D_A_T_E _E_X_T_E_R_N_A_L _M_E_E_T_I_N_G_S/_C_O_N_V_E_N_T_I_O_N_S/_E_T_C.

02/10 Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Ellen Steiber
(editor from Cloverdale Press)
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)

HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 834-1563 hocpa!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell LZ 1B-306 576-6106 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 957-5619 mtgzx!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3D-225A 949-5866 homxa!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 lzfme!lfl
MT Librarian: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1. Wednesday, November 8, 1989, I woke up with an odd yen. I
suddenly remembered that I had voted the previous day and I was
curious what the results were. I mean, it is easy enough to find
out the results of the New York City mayoral race. Just about
every local station runs New York City news because they just about
all are broadcast from New York City anyway. But my yen was to
find out how the local races went. This is apparently an unusual
desire.

The first thing I thought of was _t_h_a_t cable station. Old Bridge is
a sort of a connected community, you see. At the town's insistence
we get one less cable station than everyone else on the same
system. We are missing one that tends to show old movies--which I
would have liked to see. But instead that station is given over to
the township to broadcast Old Bridge news. Never mind the fact
that there rarely is any news to broadcast in Old Bridge. Usually

THE MT VOID Page 2

the sort of thing you see is that the Boy Scouts are going to have
a pancake breakfast or the Elks are going to have a buffet dinner.
Locally our "service" organizations seem to define "service" as if
it meant serving tables. Every service organization from the Girl
Scouts on up seem to have answered the call to civic duty by
feeding people sugar and carbohydrates and cholesterol. I'm
waiting to see just one Boy Scout Gala Brussel Sprouts, Broccoli,
Spinach, and Bean Sprout Dinner, but I am not holding my breath.

So I rushed to my television set, telling myself, "Here at last I
will make use of that silly cable channel. I knew it would come in
handy some day." Now where is that silly station? The cable guide
is somewhat less than clear on where to find this "inferstation,"
or perhaps "infestation" is a better word. But I have forgotten
the name of the station it replaces. This clearly isn't working.
I turn on the television and start flipping through channels--the
old time-honored technique for finding what you want. And there at
last it is! Up-to-the-minute Old Bridge news. Right! I can
report to my readers that the Elks Club is planning not one but two
different dinners as documented on two different computer-generated
panels. A local church is going to have a drive-through Christmas
story. There was a statement by the Grand Exalted Ruler of the
Elks (that's his name for himself. Does it conjure up images of
the big stag in _B_a_m_b_i? I know he wasn't an Elk, but that's what I
see) who is pledging some sort of Elk support for quake victims in
California. I didn't have time to read it but they may be sending
unsold pancakes to patch the Bay bridge. Well, it is clear that
our local station does not consider election results news. Somehow
in reporting high school football results the broadcasters dropped
the ball.

I guess I have a special problem in getting local news. I actively
try to avoid getting the local newspapers. When I was young and
delivered the "Shopping News" at a penny a paper--no lie, that's
what I was paid--I had to deliver to the front door, and I always
got posh homes at the tops of hills. I don't know what the going
rate is to deliver papers these days, but front-door delivery has
gone the way of the passenger pigeon and the dodo. I guess the
dodo only went recently because, delivering a newspaper to the top
of a hill for a penny, I certainly must have been one.

Anyway, most people get their local news from these unasked-for
local newspapers. In these little freebies, finding actual news of
interest among the ads is a feat like finding the structure of DNA.
Actually, the main function of these little beauties is to keep
neighborhood kids employed. Some kids deliver the papers. Some
kids shovel driveways after snowblowers get fouled on newspapers
hiding inder snow. If you are interested to know what it takes
(and costs) to repair a snowblower that tried to eat a hidden
freebie newspaper, feel free to contact me.

THE MT VOID Page 3

One more way these papers keep kids in my neighborhood employed is
that they tend to pile up on driveways when people go on vacation,
so some neighborhood kids who need extra money for essentials such
as beer and drugs always know good places to get it.

You might ask if these little papers are so much trouble, why don't
people just have the publisher stop delivery? Try it. "Miss, I
have called you five weeks in a row asking to stop delivery and the
paper shows up regular as clockwork every week."

"Well, yes, out delivery boys are _a_l_l _b_o_y and sometimes they can be
naughty. I will tell him again."

Now I have seen this guy delivering the papers. I can't vouch for
if he's all boy, but the car he's driving is all car.

If you really want the paper stopped, you don't complain to the
newspapers. You complain to the stores that buy the full-page ads
and you send copies to the circulation and advertising editors.
You want to see an entire newspaper staff snap to attention?
That's the way to do it.

So here I am without the local freebie paper that is useful only
just after elections. And they are usually delivered on a rainy
day. The good news is that they are now delivered in clear plastic
bags to protect them. The bad news is the bag fills with water and
the newspaper just marinates until it comes apart in your hands.

Well, the papers are no good for election info and the mail is no
better. Just before the election the mail is full of literally
tons of election propaganda. Do you get one piece of mail telling
you the results ? No! I think Federal law should require the
winner to send a postcard to every future constituent just to say,
"I won."

I think that Kurt Godel, who proved in any system certain
propositions will be undeterminable, may have been inspired by
election results in my town.

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzx!leeper

Man invented time to keep everything from happening
at once. It isn't working.
-Mark Leeper

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT ALMOST BLANK

THE MUSIC BOX
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: One of 1989's better films concerns
a successful and occasionally unscrupulous lawyer
defending her own father against a charge that he
collaborated with Nazis and committed war crimes in the
Hungarian police during World War II. What made the film
powerful was not the question of guilt or innocence but
the family relationships under stress. Rating: high +2.

It looks as if most of the distinguished films of 1989 waited until
year end to be released. In the case of _T_h_e _M_u_s_i_c _B_o_x it seems to have
been a miscalculation, because the latest from political filmmaker
Costa-Gavras is getting a very lukewarm reception from critics. And
that is understandable, since the story is predictable. Nonetheless, I
found myself liking the film. In spite of the fact that I knew what was
going to happen, I was anxious to see how it was going to happen and how
the main characters would react when it did.

Jessica Lange plays successful lawyer Ann Talbot. She is brought
up short, however, when extradition proceedings are brought against her
father for Holocaust atrocities and he insists on having his own
daughter defend him at the hearing. Her job is made all the more
difficult by the opposing counsel's apparent over-anxiousness to make an
effective case against her father. But what is most disturbing is that
as she learns more and more of the sadistic war crimes committed by the
man her father is accused of being, she is better able to visualize her
father as being the man described. She notices circumstantial
similarities. She eventually has to decide if she really wants to fight
to save her father.

Costa-Gavras, of course, always has a political message in his
films, usually at least a bit left of center. In this case, much of the
political message centers around Talbot's father-in-law, who helped find
sanctuary for Nazis after the war in an attempt to use them against
Communist governments.

The music was provided by Philippe Sarde and, being made up mostly
of Hungarian violin music, adds a touch of Eastern European atmosphere
to the film. This will not be considered one of the best Costa-Gavras
films but I have to say I found it worthwhile. I give it a high +2 on
the -4 to +4 scale.

[The next paragraph will contain spoilers.]

Music Box January 20, 1990 Page 2

I find what I liked about the film was not the suspense of whether
Talbot's father was guilty. There was never any doubt in my mind that
he was guilty. (Well, not much anyway.) I knew that eventually Talbot
was going to have to see her father for what he was. When she did she
was going to have to make a choice between decency and family loyalty.
It was that conflict that I was looking for and I wanted to see how
Talbot would react. Lange plays that conflict very well. In a sense,
this story is an expansion of the relationship of Adam Kelno and his son
in _Q_B _V_I_I.

Capsule review: Good but disappointing story (after
its reputation) of a cantankerous, aging Southern woman
and the chauffeur hired for her over her protests. Good
performances but the mechanics of the play that should
make us care for these characters and convince us that
two decades are really passing are strangely absent.
Rating: low +2.

Daisy Werthan is at war with the world and the world does not even
notice it. At 72 she is still desperately holding on to her dignity,
but she is having increasing problems interfacing with the world. Her
response is to lash out at anyone around and then go back to her lonely,
insular world. As the film opens she is preparing to drive herself
somewhere, only to end up wrecking her car instead. Her son decides it
is time to hire someone to do her driving for her, but she wants no part
of the plan. Her son hires Hoke Colburn for the job, but Daisy refuses
to give him anything to do, at least at first. _D_r_i_v_i_n_g _M_i_s_s _D_a_i_s_y
covers in all too short a span of minutes the next two decades of so of
the relationship of Daisy and Hoke. We see both reacting to the
prejudice around them against each's group: racism against Hoke's race,
anti-Semitism against Daisy's religion. Hoke tries to be sympathetic.
Daisy does not try as hard. Most of her impulses are selfish.

_D_r_i_v_i_n_g _M_i_s_s _D_a_i_s_y seems to be a sentimental favorite for Oscar
nominations this year, but in some ways it is a disappointment. The
film's screenplay is by Alfred Uhry, based on his Broadway play and it
is perhaps his writing that gives the film both its best aspects and its
greatest flaws. In the course of the film it is obvious why Daisy,
portrayed by Jessica Tandy, is so unpleasant. But the unpleasantness is
so rarely relieved that understanding why she is the way she is is not
enough. It perhaps is realistic that Daisy is so rarely likable, but it
is dramatically unsatisfying. Perhaps she is more than one-dimensional,
but she is less than three. Perhaps the story is really more Hoke's
story, but here too the writing is lacking. Morgan Freeman does as much
with a smaller supporting role in _G_l_o_r_y as he does with Hoke in this
film. Perhaps at the beginning he is a little more countrified and
later he is a little more dignified, but he too seems pretty much fixed
in time. Time is shown to pass very awkwardly in _D_r_i_v_i_n_g _M_i_s_s _D_a_i_s_y.
There is a change of props, a graying in the makeup, but we are told of
rather than feel the passage of time. By comparison, in a film like
_S_a_m_e _T_i_m_e, _N_e_x_t _Y_e_a_r (also adapted from a Broadway play), the passage of
time is keenly felt, and in that film the characters do change and are
not so fixed in time.

Driving Miss Daisy January 21, 1990 Page 2

This is not to say that the film does not have its tender moments,
but every time Daisy shows some consideration for Hoke, they seem
dramatically to be saying it is a major victory, and frankly it just is
not satisfying enough. Freeman turns in as good a performance as the
story allows him. So does Tandy. Aykroyd turns in his best performance
ever as Boolie, Daisy's son, but none of these performances makes for a
character one really wants to know, not even Freeman's. There just is
not enough to turn this from a good film into a truly memorable one. My
rating is a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.