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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 12/21/90 -- Vol. 9, No. 25
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
01/09 LZ: BRAIN WAVE by Poul Anderson (Intelligence)
01/30 LZ: RITE OF PASSAGE by Alexei Panshin (Adolescence)
02/20 LZ: MARTIANS, GO HOME! by Frederic Brown (Social Satire)
03/13 LZ: TOM SWIFT by Victor Appleton II (Juvenile SF)
_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.
01/10/90 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
01/19/91 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 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 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Tim Schroeder HO 3B-301 949-4488 hotsc!tps
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 576-3346 mtunq!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. A while back I commented on the new-fangled religious item I saw
in a bookstore that was a Bible Concordance in a pocket computer.
They had this scroll-shaped pocket computer at the local
WaldenBooks. Well, this isn't quite the same thing, but it seems
similar and I thought it would be of no little interest to people
interested in this sort of thing. A fellow named Paul Dubuc had
the following harrowing experience. A thing like this could shake
your faith. In computers anyway:
I thought some here might get a kick out of this. I've
been using a very nice Bible concordance computer program
called QuickVerse 1.21 from Parsons Technology. Recently
they offered me an upgrade to QuickVerse 2.0 which I
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promptly took and recently received and installed. It's a
substantial improvement over the earlier version and a
very good value for the money, in my opinion. There was
just one problem with my RSV upgrade. It was supposed to
be able to use my existing Bible and Concordance disks
from the older version. Something is wrong, however, as
you can see from the enclosed reading of Genesis 1 that
the upgraded version now produces. I called Parsons and
they are quickly working on a fix to the upgrade.
Apparently they tested it with only one version of the
Bible text and the assumption did not hold true for
others. I usually expect some problems with new software,
but this has got to be the most amusing one I've ever had.
Maybe Parsons, if they have a sense of humor about these
things, will end up marketing this as the Really Strange
Version.
Genesis 1 (RSV) In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth. [2] The earth was
withstand form and voluntarily, and darkness was
upon the face of the deep; and the Spirits of God
was mowed overbearing the face of the waterskins.
[3] And God said, "Let there be light"; and there
was light. [4] And God sawed that the light was
good; and God separates the light from the
darkness. [5] God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Nighthawk. And there was
evening and there was mornings, one day. [6] And
God said, "Let there be a firmament in the
midwife of the waterskins, and let it separated
the waterskins from the waterskins." [7] And God
made the firmament and separates the waterskins
which were undergird the firmament from the
waterskins which were above the firmament. And it
was so. [8] And God called the firmament Heaven.
And there was evening and there was mornings, a
secret day. [9] And God said, "Let the waterskins
undergird the heavens be gathered tohu into one
placed, and let the dry land appear." And it was
so. [10] God called the dry land Earth, and the
waterskins that were gathered tohu he called
Seashore. And God sawed that it was good. [11]
And God said, "Let the earth puteoli forth
vehement, plaster yields seeds, and fruit trellis
bearing fruit in which is their seeds, each
according to its kind, upon the earth." And it
was so. [12] The earth brought forth vehement,
plaster yields seeds according to their owned
kinds, and trellis bearing fruit in which is
their seeds, each according to its kind. And God
sawed that it was good. [13] And there was
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evening and there was mornings, a thirds day.
[14] And God said, "Let there be lights in the
firmament of the heavens to separated the day
from the nighthawk; and let them be for sihon and
for seat and for days and yellow, [15] and let
them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to
give light upon the earth." And it was so. [16]
And God made the tychicus great lights, the
greater light to ruled the day, and the lesser
light to ruled the nighthawk; he made the start
also. [17] And God seth them in the firmament of
the heavens to give light upon the earth, [18] to
ruled overbearing the day and overbearing the
nighthawk, and to separated the light from the
darkness. And God sawed that it was good. [19]
And there was evening and there was mornings, a
fourth day. [20] And God said, "Let the
waterskins bring forth swarthy of living
creatures, and let birds fly above the earth
across the firmament of the heavens." [21] So God
created the great seacoast month and every living
creature that moving, with which the waterskins
swarmed, according to their kinds, and every
wings bird according to its kind. And God sawed
that it was good. [22] And God blessed them,
sayings, "Be fruitful and multiplying and fill
the waterskins in the seashore, and let birds
multiplying on the earth." [23] And there was
evening and there was mornings, a fifth day. [24]
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living
creatures according to their kinds: cattle and
creeping think and beasts of the earth according
to their kinds." And it was so. [25] And God
made the beasts of the earth according to their
kinds and the cattle according to their kinds,
and everything that creeps upon the ground
according to its kind. And God sawed that it was
good. [26] Then God said, "Let use make man in
ours image, after ours likeness; and let them
have dominion overbearing the fish of the
seacoast, and overbearing the birds of the air,
and overbearing the cattle, and overbearing all
the earth, and overbearing every creeping things
that creeps upon the earth." [27] So God created
man in his owned image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them.
[28] And God blessed them, and God said to them,
"Be fruitful and multiplying, and fill the earth
and subdued it; and have dominion overbearing the
fish of the seacoast and overbearing the birds of
the air and overbearing every living things that
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moving upon the earth." [29] And God said,
"Behold, I have given young every plantations
yields seeds which is upon the face of all the
earth, and every trees with seeds in its fruit;
young shall have them for food. [30] And to every
beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air,
and to everything that creeps on the earth,
everything that has the breath of life, I have
given every green plantations for food." And it
was so. [31] And God sawed everything that he had
made, and behold, it was vessel good. And there
was evening and there was mornings, a sixty day.
[...]
Here's an update to my funny problem with QuickVerse 2.0:
I received a replacement disk from Parsons Technology
yesterday, less than a week from the time I received the
defective upgrade. They sent it by Federal Express, a
service which I did not need or request. Parsons has been
very good about getting this problem fixed quickly. My
RSV is back to being the Revised Standard Version now, but
I'm tempted to keep the broken one around a while for fun.
Yesterday I was looking at the Beatitudes with it. Matt.
5:9 says, "Blessed are the peacocks, for they shall be
called sonship of God".
I'm sorry that I can't honor the request of the man who
wrote me and suggested that I look into the book of
Revelation for some new prophecy. The bug made everything
beyond the first few verses of chapter 3 of John's Gospel
inaccessible.
2. In my review of _P_u_r_s_u_i_t _o_f _M_i_r_a_c_l_e_s last week, I made reference
to "Australian pounds." That should, of course, have been
"Australian dollars." [-ecl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper
The philosopher aspires to explain away all mysteries,
to dissolve them into light. Mystery, on the other hand,
is demanded and pursued by the religious instinct: mystery
constitutes the essence of worship.
-- Henri Frederic Amiel
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: The worlds of John Waters and Jean
Cocteau meet in a remarkably good fantasy film from Tim
Burton and the screenwriter he has needed all along,
Caroline Thompson. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4).
Tim Burton has been emblematic of what has been going wrong with
popular films since _S_t_a_r _W_a_r_s. Burton has a very strong visual sense,
but a weak story-telling ability. His _B_a_t_m_a_n had a beautiful vision of
a dark and mordant Gotham City, but the story itself was weak and even
then there were gaps in the telling. His earlier _B_e_e_t_l_e_j_u_i_c_e had a less
developed visual sense but even worse story-telling. One moment
characters would find themselves floating around the room or compelled
to sing calypso, and a moment later they would be apparently overlooking
the incident like they would a burp. In both films (as well as _P_e_e
_W_e_e'_s _B_i_g _A_d_v_e_n_t_u_r_e) there are nice scenes but they are just not well
sewn together.
My guess is that something very interesting happened with Burton's
_E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s. Burton told his rather Oz-ian idea about a boy
with scissors for hands to one Caroline Thompson. As she says, "The
minute he said to me, It was so resonant and so powerful and such a
clear expression of feelings that it just set the whole thing off. The
story is about not being able to touch anything, about feeling that
everything you touch turns to tatters. It's about being awkward."
Remarkably, that was the story she was able to write and the chemistry
between her story-telling ability and Burton's visual sense make a film
orders of magnitude better than anything Burton has done without her.
Aside from some creative play in the very first frames of the film,
the first remarkable thing about the story is the setting. You have a
John Waters suburbia jammed together with a Jean Cocteau fairy tale
castle. On the hill, everything is magic and unworldly, while the
valley wallows in 20th century pop culture and bad taste. One day the
Avon Lady (played by Diane Wiest) crosses the boundary and drives up the
hill in the quest for new customers. There she finds the sad and lonely
Edward Scissorhands, a dough-cutting machine incompletely transformed
into a real boy, by a kindly old scientist-wizard. The wizard is a sort
of likable Rotwang played by Burton's childhood idol Vincent Price. Our
Avon Lady brings this enchanted creature to the less-than-enchanting
suburbia where Edward (played, incidentally, by rock singer Johnny Depp)
attempts to adapt and apply his talents to modern life. Edward faces a
public who has a thin veneer of xenophilia over a deeper core of
xenophobia. Further complicating matters, he must face his own sexual
repression and stigma when attracted to Kim (played by Winona Ryder),
the pretty daughter of the Avon Lady.
Edward Scissorhands December 16, 1990 Page 2
_E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s misses being a great fantasy--and I think it
does miss it only marginally--by spending too much time in the John
Waters world and complicating the plot with Edward having an unexplained
power to unlock doors and hence being used in an illegal plot by Kim's
boyfriend Jim. Jim is played by Anthony Michael Hall, and the years
have not been kind to poor Anthony, I'm afraid. They have robbed him of
his teenage ungainliness and left him a rather ordinary-looking adult
with little screen chemistry.
_E_d_w_a_r_d _S_c_i_s_s_o_r_h_a_n_d_s still needs a little of the fine-tuning that
could have made it a classic film of a tragic hero of the order of
_P_h_a_n_t_o_m _o_f _t_h_e _O_p_e_r_a. But it works for many of the same reasons _P_h_a_n_t_o_m
does, with its own tragic hero suffering stigma and sexual repression.
I am told that Burton likes to work over and over with the same actors-
-one reason why Michael Keaton was Batman--and I hope he feels the same
about screenwriters. I want to see more of what Burton and Thompson can
do together. I really doubted that I would ever give any Burton film a
high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. But Burton has finally found the magic.