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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 05/01/92 -- Vol. 10, No. 44

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

05/13 LZ: ONLY BEGOTTEN DAUGHTER by James Morrow (Books we heard are
very good)
06/03 HO: THRICE UPON A TIME by James Hogan (Time Travel) (HO 1N-310)
06/24 LZ: RAFT by Stephen Baxter (Gravity)
07/15 LZ: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SCIENCE FICTION by David Pringle (SF
reference books)
08/05 LZ: THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien (Alternate Mythologies)

_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.
05/09 SFABC: Science Fiction Association of Bergen County: TBA
(phone 201-933-2724 for details) (Saturday)
05/16 NJSFS: New Jersey Science Fiction Society: TBA
(phone 201-432-5965 for details) (Saturday)

HO Chair: John Jetzt HO 1E-525 908-834-1563 hocpb!jetzt
LZ Chair: Rob Mitchell HO 1D-505A 908-834-1267 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. Okay, listen up all you people who read the MT VOID for the
latest and best in financial news. There is good news for the
building industry and for the insurance industry. It's good news
for most of the rest of us also, but it also is a bit sobering. I
am talking, of course, about the latest from the Hubble Orbiting
Space Telescope.

You may or may not have heard that the Hubble has been trying to
focus on the star Capella. I say trying because of that little
grinding error that makes the universe look to it like it looks to
you when you wake up on New Year's Day. But never mind that. It

THE MT VOID Page 2

has been looking at Capella to see what is going on between here
and there. What it is doing is using a spectrograph to measure
absorption lines between here and there. This helps to give them
the hydrogen to deuterium ratio in the universe. Hey, you there.
I see you starting to fidget. No wonder the Japanese are whipping
our butts in the world market. If you can't see how something is
useful to you right away, your minds start to wander.

Well, the ratio is about 15 parts per million. That means that
there is less matter in the universe than we thought. That means
we probably going to escape the Big One. The huge collision ain't
gonna happen. Lots of us like Stephen Hawking have been expecting
the expanding universe to stop expanding at some point and then all
come together in a huge collision that would set off another Big
Bang. I hear you. You still don't see why this is good news for
the housing industry. That's why you're still driving a Honda and
some jackass on Wall Street is driving a Porsche.

You see, I've thought this collision was coming for a long time. I
maybe have just come to accept it a bit too much. So my house
needs painting. So what. It is all going to be mashed into a
single point singularity anyway. Who's going to know or care?
Well, it ain't in the cards. We now can be pretty sure we are here
for the long haul. Now I guess I've got no excuse for not fixing
the place up. I can't hope to insure my house and collect big when
it all comes crashing together. Well, Allstate would probably have
said it was an act of God anyway.

On the other hand, this is it. This is what we made of the
universe. There was a common theory that there are a sequence of
Big Bangs, after each of which things fly apart and then come
crashing back together. When everything crushes back together,
there is another Big Bang and it all starts over with a fresh start
on the universe. Well, it may be we can't count on that as much as
we all do. When I was playing with clay as a kid and didn't like
what I got, I just sort of mashed it all together and started over.
I guess I had hoped nature was holding open that same option with
the universe. Now I'm not so sure.

2. The 1992 Nebula Award winners are:

Novel: _S_t_a_t_i_o_n_s _o_f _t_h_e _T_i_d_e by Michael Swanwick
Novella: "Beggars in Spain" by Nancy Kress
Novelette: "Guide Dog" by Mike Conner
Short Story: "Ma Qui" by Alan Brennert

3. Last week we gave a schedule for the May 2 WBAI science fiction
programming. So naturally the next day they changed it. The
_c_u_r_r_e_n_t schedule (subject to more change, of course) is as follows:

THE MT VOID Page 3

5:00 AM Terrence McKenna
7:00 AM As I Please: Jorge Luis Borges
8:00 AM "13 Clocks," Radio dramatization
10:00 AM History of SF on WBAI
noon Philip K. Dick interview
1:00 PM "Star Pit," dramatization/reading by Samuel Delaney
4:00 PM That Time of Month: Women in Science Fiction
5:00 PM Soundtrack: science fiction in the movies
7:00 PM Golden Age of Radio: classic science fiction radio drama
9:00 PM Reading at Dixon Place: James Morrow, Rachel Pollack,
and other authors reading their own works
11:00 PM Hour of the Wolf: Terry Bisson (guest)

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

Do not be afriad of enemies; the worst they can do is
to kill you. Do not be afriad of friends; the worst
they can do is betray you. Be afraid of the
indifferent; they do not kill or betray. But only
because of their silent agreement, betrayal and murder
exist on earth.
-- Bruno Yasienski

PASSED AWAY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper

Capsule review: When the patriarch of a large
Irish family dies, the whole brood comes to the
funeral to be wacky together, to work out their
personal problems, and to learn to endure. _P_a_s_s_e_d
_A_w_a_y is a warm pleasant comedy with no great insight,
but with an amiable eye for human behavior. Not bad.
Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).

One of the film industry's more common tactics is the warmedy-
bait-and-switch. Well, that's what I call it anyway. The idea is
that you take a comedy "with heart" (as they say in _T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r) and
promote it as if it were a wild screwball comedy. Warm human values
just do not hack it at the box office. And with at least two cast
members in common with last year's hilarious _O_s_c_a_r, the advertising
could well have been intended to give the impression that _P_a_s_s_e_d
_A_w_a_y was cut from the same cloth. It wasn't, but it is quite a
pleasant film on its own. In spirit, _P_a_s_s_e_d _A_w_a_y is much more like
_O_n_c_e _A_r_o_u_n_d.

The basic plot is simple enough. Jack Warden plays Jack
Scanlon, the patriarch of a large Irish family. His four children
are grown and leading entangled lives of their own. As the film
opens, Jack has just recovered from a heart attack and is helping
his oldest son Johnny (played by Bob Hoskins) through a mid-life
crisis. Then Jack dies suddenly and Johnny finds himself the new
head of a rather eccentric household and at the same time is
responsible for arranging for his father's wake and funeral. Johnny
has a house full of family ranging from very human to just this side
of totally wacky. And one more mourner shows up: Cassie Slocombe
(played by Nancy Travis, who looks a lot like Julia Roberts). Jack
always had a wandering eye and often other parts wandered as well.
Johnny himself is attracted to Cassie and suddenly Johnny knows what
he wants to do with his mid-life crisis.

Charlie Peters, previously a screenwriter with such dubious
credits as _P_a_t_e_r_n_i_t_y and _T_h_r_e_e _M_e_n _a_n_d _a _L_i_t_t_l_e _L_a_d_y, this time
directs his own screenplay and gets a killer cast, including
Hoskins, Warden, Blair Brown, William Petersen, Tim Curry, Peter
Riegert, and Maureen Stapleton. All he really needed for this film
about the dignity of being a regular person in America was a score
by Georges Delerue. Richard Gibbs's music just does not quite hit
the right spot. I give _P_a_s_s_e_d _A_w_a_y a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

THE MAKING OF THE MESSIAH by Robert Sheaffer
Prometheus Books, 1991, ISBN 0-87975-691-8, $19.95.
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

This book came at, if not a good time, at least a very
coincidental one. (Well, it came a while ago, but it just came to
the top of my stack.) I read this right before a Jehovah's Witness
came to the door to engage Mark in further debate. (I think because
he doesn't throw them out, they figure there's hope.) While I
hadn't given Mark a summary in time to help him this time around, I
was able to give him more information for next time.

The premise of the book is that the start of Christianity
served a definite political agenda, that political agenda was in
large part the _c_a_u_s_e of the rise, and that the documents on which
Christianity is based reflect that agenda. Sheaffer's arguments
fall into three categories: arguments based on the contents of the
New testament, arguments based on the contents of other documents,
and sociological arguments.

To me, the most important of the categories is the first (for
reasons I will explain later). Sheaffer covers all the
contradictions found in the New testament. For example, in the
gospel of Matthew there are twenty-seven generations between David
and Joseph; in the gospel of Luke there are forty-one (and the names
are very different, even for Joseph's father). And there are many
other contradictions to be found. To me, as I said, these are the
strongest arguments against Christianity, since Christianity is
based (in large part) on the infallibility of the New Testament.
Take away the story of Abraham and Isaac, the story of Moses, the
story of Jericho, and you still have Judaism because it is based on
the ethical and social admonitions of the Old Testament rather than
on the individual people. But take away the virgin birth, the
miracles, and the resurrection, and you no longer have Christianity.

Sheaffer's second type of argument is based on documents
outside of the New Testament. Here he uses these documents to
support his assertions rather than to dispute Christianity's. While
this is appropriate and even useful in a discussion with impartial
scholars, it is less powerful in a debate with Christians, since
they can dismiss as forgeries any non-canonical documents, but
cannot be as blithe about the canonical ones. Still, to the general
scholar these documents are of interest even if the average reader
is unable to make an informed judgement on their likely veracity.

The third type of argument actually runs parallel to these two
in that it attempts to explain why the religion was pushed in a
certain direction. I am perhaps most skeptical of this part--not

Making of the Messiah April 24, 1992 Page 2

that the arguments are not convincing, but because I suspect that
one can construct convincing, and contradictory, _e_x _p_o_s_t _f_a_c_t_o
arguments for almost anything. Yes, it's possible all that Sheaffer
suggests is true, but it could as easily have been a different set
of reasons for what happened, or pure chance. So far as I can tell,
we can't even agree on the true causes of the American Civil War,
only 130 years ago; it is highly unlikely we will ever understand
all the causes for the rise of Christianity.

It seems to me, by the way, that Sheaffer goes a bit out of his
way to offend. Maybe it's a given that Christians will take offense
at this--though even that is debatable for the majority of them--but
starting out in the introduction by saying, "Many Christians will
find this book as offensive as Moslem fanatics did Salman Rushdie's
blasphemous _S_a_t_a_n_i_c _V_e_r_s_e_s," and reiterating this several times,
does have the appearance of waving the red flag. And one reference
to the "cruci-fiction" can be allowed on literary grounds; repeated
use of the neologism smacks of intentional and gratuitous insult.

In spite of the overly strident tone, however, _T_h_e _M_a_k_i_n_g _o_f
_t_h_e _M_e_s_s_i_a_h does collect in one concise volume a summary of the
arguments against a belief in a literal Christianity based on the
infallibility of the New Testament. What is left remains for the
reader to decide.

Capsule review: A new film about how back-
stabbing and unforgiving Hollywood is, from the
director of _B_u_f_f_a_l_o _B_i_l_l _a_n_d _t_h_e _I_n_d_i_a_n_s, _Q_u_i_n_t_e_t,
and _P_o_p_e_y_e. There are some nice self-referential
touches but over all the film is just a little too
much into muck-raking. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).

Hollywood's worst-kept secret is that there is a lot wrong with
the film industry. It seems that everybody who has ever had
everything to do with film-making cannot wait to tell anyone who
will listen how everybody else in Hollywood--especially a close
friend or co-worker--is a back-stabber. The key quote from last
year's documentary _N_a_k_e_d _H_o_l_l_y_w_o_o_d was that Hollywood is a town in
which people wish you well only if you are dying. People just love
to write about Hollywood Babylon. I suspect that the Hollywood
restaurants have to close at noon for lack of business considering
how many people "can never do lunch in this town again." And nobody
loves stories of how bad things are in Hollywood as much as people
actually in the industry. They hear the stories, they tell the
stories, they build the stories into tall tales and folklore. I
seriously doubt that there is much wrong with the film industry that
is not wrong with the auto industry, or the chemical industry, or
the clothing industry. It is just that of these industries only the
film industry's primary business is telling stories. Hollywood has
always turned out a lot of bad films and a few very good films. It
certainly appears that there are fewer good films coming out than
there are were at one time. But how many theatrical films these
days are as bad as a "Blondie" or "Mexican Spitfire" film? For that
matter, how many pre-1950s films have the impact of _T_h_e _K_i_l_l_i_n_g
_F_i_e_l_d_s? I guess that is why I have never had a strong interest in
Hollywood's dirty linen. And even in the days I think Hollywood was
its greatest, it was making films about how far Hollywood had
deteriorated. _S_u_n_s_e_t _B_o_u_l_e_v_a_r_d was a pretty good dirty linen film.
_T_h_e _B_a_d _a_n_d _t_h_e _B_e_a_u_t_i_f_u_l, _A_l_l _a_b_o_u_t _E_v_e, _H_o_l_l_y_w_o_o_d _B_o_u_l_e_v_a_r_d, _T_h_e
_B_i_g _P_i_c_t_u_r_e, _B_a_r_t_o_n _F_i_n_k, and _T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r are all decent Hollywood
dirty linen films. But _T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r is what I should be writing
about.

_T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r is a deep-focus film. You are expected to keep an
eye both on the foreground and the background. In the foreground we
have a story of murder in the film industry; in the background we
see Hollywood with all of its faults and blemishes. We hear writer
Mitchell Tolkin's criticism of the film industry coming a bit at a
time out of dozens of mouths. They describe a typical bad film.
And sure enough the foreground story has everything the characters

Player April 27, 1992 Page 2

in the background complain about. The film moves in a tight circle
describing all the faults of modern Hollywood films and then
exemplifying them.

Tim Robbins plays Griffin Mill, a somewhat slimey film
executive being eased out to make way for Larry Levy (played by
Peter Gallagher), another slimey executive. This might be enough to
put Griffin's nerves on edge, but Griffin is also getting sinister
postcards with death threats because of the shabby way he has
treated writers. It is when Griffin decides to try to play
detective and find the angry writer that he really becomes
embroiled.

_T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r is not just about the film industry, it is about
film itself. Wherever Griffin goes, he is surrounded by film
posters and lobby cards that match his mood or the plot. There are
references to the long tracking shots of _T_o_u_c_h _o_f _E_v_i_l and _A_b_s_o_l_u_t_e
_B_e_g_i_n_n_e_r_s during a long tracking shot in _T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r. And there are
the now famous cameo appearances. _V_a_r_i_e_t_y lists 65 famous people
who play themselves in this film. Identifying people in the
background becomes a major distraction.

Robert Altman has through most of his career been a maverick
filmmaker, but I cannot help feeling that this film is a little
ungracious albeit with good nature. Altman has done some good films
and a few real stinkers. He certainly cannot blame the failure of
_Q_u_i_n_t_e_t on the studio trying too hard to make it commercial. And
even after having made losers, he seems always to find work. This
alone shows that the film industry has not always been so unkind to
him. And on top of that, _T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r was made only a short time
after a similar and in some ways better film, Christopher Guest's
_T_h_e _B_i_g _P_i_c_t_u_r_e. That film is recommended for fans of _T_h_e _P_l_a_y_e_r.
I rate Altman's film just a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.

Capsule review: Peter Yates directs and William
Goldman writes this far-fetched romantic thriller.
The story is of a chase for a bottle of wine that may
only be worth a million dollars or may be worth much
more. The story is mediocre, but the scenery is
nice. Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4).

Penelope Ann Miller plays Margaret Harwood, a savvy wine expert
who has had to fight to be given any responsibility in her faily's
fine wine business. The first serious task she is given is to
travel to a castle on the Isle of Skye and to inventory the castle's
wine cellar her father has purchased. The good news is that the
cellar turns out to have the most valuable wine bottle in the world-
--not to mention one of the biggest. It is a three-foot tall bottle
of Chateau Lafitte from 1811, the "Year of the Comet."
Unfortunately, the castle also houses a comic-book-style villain
Philippe (played by Louis Jourdan) who is doing something scientific
and evil elsewhere in the castle. Soon also on hand at the castle
is Oliver Plexico, the agent of the purchaser of the wine bottle.
Based on one previous experience, Margaret finds Oliver to be just
about the most obnoxious man in the world. Guess who she has to
have as an ally in her escape from the clutches of Philippe.

I have to admit being anxious to see this film from the moment
I heard the story and screenplay were by William Goldman. Goldman
is probably best known for _T_h_e _P_r_i_n_c_e_s_s _B_r_i_d_e, but he also has been
responsible for the novels and screenplays of _N_o _W_a_y _t_o _T_r_e_a_t _a
_L_a_d_y, _M_a_r_a_t_h_o_n _M_a_n, and _M_a_g_i_c. He also wrote the screenplays for
_B_u_t_c_h _C_a_s_s_i_d_y _a_n_d _t_h_e _S_u_n_d_a_n_c_e _K_i_d, _T_h_e _G_r_e_a_t _W_a_l_d_o _P_e_p_p_e_r, _A_l_l _t_h_e
_P_r_e_s_i_d_e_n_t'_s _M_e_n, and _A _B_r_i_d_g_e _T_o_o _F_a_r. His name almost guarantees
good writing. Almost. This is way below par Goldman with flat
uninteresting heroes and far-fetched villains. The film was
directed by Peter Yates (_B_u_l_l_i_t_t, _B_r_e_a_k_i_n_g _A_w_a_y, _T_h_e _D_e_e_p, _T_h_e
_F_r_i_e_n_d_s _o_f _E_d_d_i_e _C_o_y_l_e), who claims to have had in mind a Cary
Grant/Grace Kelly sort of adventure with younger stars.
Unfortunately, Ms. Miller is no Grace Kelly and Tim Daly as Plexico
is even further from Cary Grant. The action is more predictable
than exciting. The scenery does add a little needed gloss.
Scotland is certainly beautiful and Southern France at least looks
pleasant. But as romantic thrillers go, _Y_e_a_r _o_f _t_h_e _C_o_m_e_t is warm
beer. I rate it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.

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