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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 03/27/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 39

MEETINGS UPCOMING:

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

_D_A_T_E _T_O_P_I_C

04/01 LZ: Book Swap
04/22 LZ: WONDERFUL LIFE by Stephen Jay Gould (Science non-fiction as a
source of ideas)
05/13 LZ: ONLY BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER by James Morrow (Books we heard are
very good)

_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.
03/28 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: Robert Fenelon
(Japanese animation) (phone 201-432-5965 for details)
(Saturday) (NOTE DATE CHANGE)
03/30 Hugo Nomination Forms due
04/11 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: Nicholas
Jainschigg (artist) (phone 201-933-2724 for details)
(Saturday)

HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1D-505A 908-834-1259 mtuxo!jrrt
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 homxc!11366ns
LZ Librarian: Lance Larsen LZ 3L-312 908-576-3346 mtfme!lfl
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3D-441 908-957-5619 mtgzy!leeper
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-329 908-957-2070 mtgzy!ecl
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.

1. Lincroft, having decided people just aren't reading the books
they have, has decided that the time has come to give everyone a
chance to read books that other people want to get rid of, so
they're having a book swap. This is an opportunity to
buy/sell/trade new and used books and other material. Bring in
those paperbacks that have been collecting dust; those hardcovers
you can bear to part with, even records (after all, you probably
can't get a new turntable when your old one dies anyway), posters,
or commemorative buttons. There will be ongoing discussions about
books, movies, and so forth, so your intellect, as well as your

THE MT VOID Page 2

wallet, can be stimulated! (The book swap will be in the usual
meeting room on April 1--no joke!) [-ecl]

2. I talked a while back about "American" cheese and how far it was
from really being cheese. I notice that as things you buy to eat
get further and further from actually being food, the name has to
get longer and longer because the FDA insist that this junk not get
the same name as real food. I kid you not, the Kraft company has
sent a coupon to my house for--are you ready for this?--"KRAFT
LIGHT American Flavored Singles Pasteurized Process Cheese
Product." What a mouthful! But I think I would rather have a
mouthful of their words than of KRAFT LIGHT American Flavored
Singles Pasteurized Process Cheese Product. Is "Singles" a noun or
an adjective? I am not sure I would know how to diagram the
sentence: "I like KRAFT LIGHT American Flavored Singles Pasteurized
Process Cheese Product." And I think I would rather diagram it
than say it.

Now let's look a little closer at that name. This isn't even the
American Cheese I talked about. They have taken something else (In
a moment I will get to what!) and flavored it American. I assume
they don't mean that it tastes like an American. ("Yes we have big
chunks of genuine American in our cheese.") I guess that it really
means that means they have flavored it to taste like the terrible
abomination we call American Cheese. It is kind of like saying you
can now get imitation hemorrhoids. And what is it that comes
American Flavored? Pasteurized Process Cheese Product. I guess I
have no particular objection to it being Pasteurized, but aren't
all dairy products you buy in the grocery story Pasteurized? "Hey,
we thought someone else would sell you LIGHT American Flavored
Singles Process Cheese Product that hadn't been Pasteurized, and we
just wanted you to be sure that you would not get botulinus from
our product." Pasteurization is a big selling point, I think. Let
me give you a clue. You see the word "process" in the name. By
the time they process it, any self-respecting botulinus bacillum
would gag rather than live in that stuff.

Now we get to the meat of the matter. It is Cheese Product.
Whoever puts on their shopping list, "cheese product?" That's real
specifying, isn't it? "Hey, Mom, we're all out of cheese product.
Oh, and can we get some food wrapped in cellophane?" It's like the
cans of generic food in REPO MAN.

3. Reminder: Hugo nominations forms must be postmarked by next
Tuesday, March 31, to count.

4. And speaking of Hugos, it's still early in the year but I've
already got one dramatic presentation that I want to nominate next
year: "Fool's Fire" on American Playhouse (described briefly in
last week's MT VOID). For those of you who missed it on WNET, WNYC
will be running it Thursday, April, at 9 PM. [-ecl]

Mark Leeper
MT 3D-441 908-957-5619
...mtgzy!leeper

THE FACE OF THE WATERS by Robert Silverberg
Bantam Spectra, 1991, ISBN 0-553-07592-6, $20.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

_T_h_e _F_a_c_e _o_f _t_h_e _W_a_t_e_r_s seems to be an attempt to combine an
introspective character study with an adventure story focusing on
the weird biology of a strange planet. Even with Silverberg's not
inconsiderable talent, it's not entirely successful.

The planet is Hydros, a world that is almost entirely water.
The small human population lives (by sufferance) on the floating
islands built by the native intelligent species, the "Gillies." But
the Gillies allow no spaceport to be built, so traveling to Hydros
is a one-way trip in a drop-capsule. (One wonders how humans found
out that Hyros was livable, or how they negotiated with the Gillies
for permission to settle humans there, since the implication is that
no spaceport means that _n_o ship can ever take off if it lands, plus
of course there's no place to land anyway.) The original humans
were criminals sent into permanent exile; now the new arrivals are
mostly misfits who choose this particular permanent exile. (The
social structure in which descendents of the original convict
settlers becomes the elite, proud of their ancestry, is reminiscent
of Australia, reinforced here by the image of islands, though
Australia is a _m_u_c_h bigger island than any of these.) One community
of 78 humans lives on Sorve Island, but when one of the members
offends the Gillies, they are all evicted. (This week I've also
seen _M_i_s_s_i_s_s_i_p_p_i _M_a_s_a_l_a and _C_o_m_e _S_e_e _t_h_e _P_a_r_a_d_i_s_e, so stories of
people getting evicted from their homes are getting repetitious--I
wonder if the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of the Moors and
Jews from Spain is one reason for this seeming trend.)

Anyway, Valben Lawler, the community's doctor and descendent of
one of the original settlers, wants to keep the group together
instead of scattering it to several of the other islands. This
leads to difficulties and eventually an epic voyage to Hydros's one
land mass, called the Face of the Waters.

When I say "epic voyage," I have this on good authority--one of
the characters is writing an epic about it even as it is going on,
and another keeps quoting Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." Yet all
their adventures have a certain sameness to them: they encounter a
weird life-form which either 1) they know to be dangerous, or 2)
looks harmless, but in either case _i_s dangerous. They fight it,
possibly suffering some losses, and then go on to the next. With
all this adventure, the character study of Lawler gets somewhat lost
in the shuffle, reserved mostly for scenes between Lawler and
Sundira Thane, a woman who intrigues Lawler because she has traveled
widely on Hydros, as contrasted with his having lived only on Sorve

Face of the Waters March 20, 1992 Page 2

(his entire experience off Sorve was a single day spent on another
island as it drifted close by).

At the end, however, the book switches to a more philosophical
tone, not effectively (in my opinion). The switch is too abrupt and
the message--of casting aside the past and embracing the future--is
not so much demonstrated as announced. In both this book and _R_a_f_t
(by Stephen Baxter), artifacts are used as powerful symbols of the
past, but here Silverberg doesn't carry through with the metaphor.

_T_h_e _F_a_c_e _o_f _t_h_e _W_a_t_e_r_s isn't a bad book, but it is a
dissatisfying one. I can see the necessity of conveying the
impersonal hostility of the world, but by using the "weird alien
biology" motif, Silverberg undercuts the mood the reader needs for
the philosophy. And to be honest, the fact that I was not
comfortable with what Silverberg seems to be saying in his ending no
doubt affected my opinion--but that you would have to decide for
yourself if you read the book.

SHADOWS AND FOG
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: Beautifully filmed and
intriguing tribute to German Expressionism and in
general the Central European sensibility between the
World Wars. The story and the director's intentions
are never better than vague. Rating: high 0 (-4 to
+4).

Out in the fog a killer--a tall bald man in a long frock coat
reminiscent of Orlok in _N_o_s_f_e_r_a_t_u--is strangling people. A
deputation of vigilantes drags Kleinman (played by Woody Allen) from
his bed. He must fulfill an important role in their plot to catch
the killer, but there is no time to explain to Kleinman what his
role is to be. To prove his support he must go out into the fog and
perform an unexplained but dangerous function to catch the killer.
There he meets a beautiful sword swallower (played by Mia Farrow)
who is married to a thoroughly unpleasant clown (played by John
Malkovich).

With the dissonances of Kurt Weill's music under the credits,
Woody Allen opens _S_h_a_d_o_w_s _a_n_d _F_o_g, his tribute to Central European
culture and mindset between the two World Wars. The unwary viewer
might expect this film to do to German and Czech culture what
Allen's _L_o_v_e _a_n_d _D_e_a_t_h did to Russian culture. To a large extent,
that is what Allen is doing, playing his poor schnook character in
the middle of a cultural milieu and making it look silly. We have
the allusions to film and to literature. Here there is a scene
inspired by _N_o_s_f_e_r_a_t_u or _M. There there is Kafka-esque situation or
some characters out of Brecht. As a character drops into a saloon,
the soundtrack plays Weill's "Show Me the Way to the Next Whiskey
Bar." But in _L_o_v_e _a_n_d _D_e_a_t_h the point of it all was good-natured
and fun. There is fun in _S_h_a_d_o_w_s _a_n_d _F_o_g, a carrot to the lovers of
Allen's earlier films, but the point of this bleaker film is
introspection and abstract philosophy. It also can be read as an
elliptical allegory about anti-Semitism. Its main character, a
little Jew named Kleinman, wanders in the fog caught up in
circumstances darker and more complex than he can understand. And
where he goes there are allusions to medieval accusations against
Jews as well-poisoners. And there are allusions to the Holocaust to
come as he is betrayed and sold by the Church, or told be a one-time
fiancee to "Get out there and die." All this to music by a Jewish
Kurt Weill in situations originally created by the Jews Fritz Lang
and Franz Kafka. _S_h_a_d_o_w_s _a_n_d _F_o_g is certainly a black followup to
_L_o_v_e _a_n_d _D_e_a_t_h.

Shadows and Fog March 24, 1992 Page 2

It has been suggested that _S_h_a_d_o_w_s _a_n_d _F_o_g is purely an
exercise in using the photographic conventions of German
Expressionist and horror films. Certainly the photography is the
film's strongest suit. Scene after scene is visually striking, even
if the action of the scene is not so striking. The film is top-
heavy with major actors, many of whom have only cameos. In the
search for faces you will find Madonna, Donald Pleasence, Lily
Tomlin, Jodie Foster, Kathy bates, John Cusack, Kate Nelligan, Fred
Gwynne, Julie Kavner, Kenneth Mars, David Ogden Stiers, and Wallace
Shawn. the film is short and there really is not enough time for
seventeen major actors. Clearly there are lots of actors willing to
settle for tiny roles in a Woody Allen film and Allen is willing to
create a role for any recognizable name. In this case this cast has
only gotten itself roles in a rather vague and elliptical allegory.
I rate _S_h_a_d_o_w_s _a_n_d _F_o_g a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.

Capsule review: _T_h_e _M_a_m_b_o _K_i_n_g_s shows us a
period of entertainment history rarely if ever
dramatized on film. But the people we see are just
of tepid interest and the story, while nicely
textured, does not engage the viewer. Rating: low +1
(-4 to +4).

There are by now _a _l_o_t of films about popular music in the
1950s. They are nearly all about rock and roll, and treat the
coming of rock with a reverence usually accorded only to major world
events. The impression you get is that music before rock and roll
was all pretty dull stuff like opera and "How Much Is That Doggie in
the Window?" though there are begrudging nods to jazz. It is true
that Latin music was also very popular in the Fifties and I do not
remember seeing a post-1960 film that has ever acknowledged that
popularity. _T_h_e _M_a_m_b_o _K_i_n_g_s breaks the mold and tells the story of
a middlingly popular Latin band, their ups and downs.
Unfortunately, there is somebody in your family whose life was every
bit as interesting as the life of Cesar Castillo (as played by
Armand Asante). The story has some action, but it is almost all in
the first ten minutes. The rest of the film is just a bland story.

The year is 1952 and Cesar and Nestor Castillo (the latter
played by Antonio Banderas) are playing good music in a Havana
nightclub. Unfortunately, the boss has eyes for Nestor's girl,
Maria. Maria decides to go with the boss after some arm-twisting.
The boss is ready to kill Nestor to be rid of him, and gives this
message to Cesar. Not wanting to see his brother's throat cut,
Cesar convinces Nestor to come with him to New York. Cesar succeeds
in impressing Tito Puente (playing himself forty years younger), but
fate steps in to screw up the Castillos joining Puente's band.
Instead, we see the Castillos forming their own band. The film
follows their career, their loves, and their disagreements. The
story is at best lackluster and occasionally descends into soap
opera. This sort of laid-back story-telling may appeal to fans of
_T_h_e _F_a_b_u_l_o_u_s _B_a_k_e_r _B_o_y_s.

I personally have only limited interest in Latin music so quite
surprised myself by enjoying some of the numbers. But the story is
just too little about too many things. It tells of the Castillos'
love lives and their family lives. It shows them doing a little
creating of their music. It shows them deciding if they should give
control to a promoter who could give them big-time bookings, but who
will insist on being a boss. And we see them at their day jobs in a
meat-packing plant. Meanwhile, Nestor pines for his Havana

Mambo Kings March 22, 1992 Page 2

girlfriend, forever rewriting a song dedicated to her. Armand
Asante goes a long way to make this film watchable. He is a fine
actor, certainly, though I would more recommend that the viewer find
his _B_e_l_i_z_a_i_r_e _t_h_e _C_a_j_u_n, which was a much better film that this
condensation of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel. Also notable in the
cast are Celia Cruz as a popular entertainer and Roscoe Lee Browne
as the semi-sinister promoter.

_T_h_e _M_a_m_b_o _K_i_n_g_s starts well, but never really says much of
interest. I would give it a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.