MT VOID 06/30/23 -- Vol. 41, No. 53, Whole Number 2282

MT VOID 06/30/23 -- Vol. 41, No. 53, Whole Number 2282


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06/30/23 -- Vol. 41, No. 53, Whole Number 2282

Table of Contents

      Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net Sending Address: evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com All material is copyrighted by author unless otherwise noted. All comments sent or posted will be assumed authorized for inclusion unless otherwise noted. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to eleeper@optonline.net The latest issue is at http://www.leepers.us/mtvoid/latest.htm. An index with links to the issues of the MT VOID since 1986 is at http://leepers.us/mtvoid/back_issues.htm.

The Algebra Wine Club (comments by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper):

If we have the TCM Wine Club and the NPR Wine Club, we should have the Algebra Wine Club, especially as both mathematics and wine have the specialized term "sec". [-mrl/ecl]


Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films, Lectures, etc. (NJ):

Meetings in Middletown are in-person; meetings in Old Bridge are Zoomed. The best way to get the latest information is to be on the mailing lists for them.

July 6, 2023 (MTPL) FERMAT'S LAST TANGO (2001) & novel 
      THE LAST THEOREM (2008) by Arthur C. Clarke & Frederik Pohl
      https://tinyurl.com/LastTheorem-Clarke-Pohl
July 27, 2023 (OBPL) THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR 
      by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
August 3, 2023 (MTPL) FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966) & novel 
      FANTASTIC VOYAGE by Isaac Asimov
      https://allnovel.net/fantastic-voyage/page-1.html

My Picks for Turner Classic Movies for July (comments by Mark R. Leeper):

A film that was much admired during its lifetime (it was released 1962) was DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, with a cast headed by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. It told the story of two very likable people whose lives were ruined by alcoholism. The film is rarely seen these days. It was based on a live television play from PLAYHOUSE 90, also called DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, which starred Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie. The actors in the film were not well known to audiences and some of the acting is the best of the early 1960s. Lemmon's performance, both when his character is drunk and when he is sober, is as powerful as any we are likely to find today, and in fact both he and Remick were nominated for Academy Awards for their work. Lemmon in particular has to convey the nightmarish nature of his delirium tremens.

The film was directed by Blake Edwards, known these days for his comedies: VICTOR/VICTORIA, THE PARTY, and the "Pink Panther" movies. But before these, he directed several detective films and other dramas.

[DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962), Wednesday, July 19, 5:45 PM]

Other films of interest:

SUNDAY,  July 2
 2:00 AM    Soylent Green (1973)
 4:00 AM    Westworld (1973)

MONDAY,  July 3
 1:00 AM    Flesh and the Devil (1926)

THURSDAY,  July 6
11:30 AM    Angels in the Outfield (1951)
11:00 PM    Secret of the Blue Room (1933)

FRIDAY,  July 7
12:00 PM    Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932)

SATURDAY,  July 8
 6:00 AM    Forbidden Planet (1956)

MONDAY,  July 10
10:00 PM    Harvey (1950)

THURSDAY,  July 13
 9:30 PM    Dead Man's Eyes (1944)

FRIDAY,  July 14
 7:30 AM    The Leopard Man (1943)
10:30 AM    The Swarm (1978)
 1:15 PM    The Pack (1977)
 3:00 PM    Night of the Lepus (1972)
 4:30 PM    Of Unknown Origin (1983)
 6:15 PM    Razorback (1984)

FRIDAY,  July 21
 3:45 AM    The Great Dictator (1940)

SATURDAY,  July 22
 4:45 AM    Network (1976)

SATURDAY,  July 22
10:00 PM    The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959)

SUNDAY,  July 23
 4:30 PM    The Boy with Green Hair (1948)

TUESDAY,  July 25
 6:00 AM    The Invisible Menace (1938)

SATURDAY,  July 29
 6:15 PM    The Omega Man (1971)

SUNDAY,  July 30
10:15 PM    Being There (1979)

MONDAY,  July 31
 2:15 AM    Daisies (1966)
 6:00 AM    Them! (1954)

FINNEGANS WAKE (correction) (letters of comment by George Phillies and Jim Susky):

In response to Evelyn's comments on FINNEGANS WAKE in the 06/23/23 issue of the MT VOID, George Phillies writes:

There seems to be a missing line in your discussion of FINNEGANS WAKE.

Evelyn responds:

Yes, there was, though it was missing only in the PDF version, and there was a missing close quotation mark in all versions. It should have read:

... And Marion Turner's THE WIFE OF BATH: A BIOGRAPHY (2023) talks about "FINNEGAN'S WAKE", which should not have an apostrophe. According to "The Guardian", Thomas Flanagan, a professor in the English department at UCB, "the insertion of an apostrophe would presuppose that Finnegan is an individual and that he is dead (hence his wake)."

Flanagan's reading allowed plural Finnegans (a collective of Irish people), and the implied exhortation that they wake from their slumbers, precipitated by the weight of their history and the strictures of Catholicism." [The quote is from "The Guardian", not directly from Flanagan.]

[Jim Susky also pointed this out.]


This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):

After Martin Amis died, I re-read his "science fiction" novel, TIME'S ARROW (Vintage International, ISBN 978-0-679-73572-4). I put "science fiction" in quotes, because there is no real science fiction premise, just the idea that time runs backward. There is no scientific explanation for this--it just is.

As with COUNTER-CLOCK WORLD (by Philip K. Dick), one difficulty of writing a novel with this premise is the dialogue. In COUNTER-CLOCK WORLD, the conversations started with "good-bye" and ended with "Hello" but otherwise proceeded in the same time flow as in our world. Amis goes further, with conversations also running backwards, the words and sentences are still shown in our time direction. But his narrator, who at least some of the time seems to understand that everything is reversed, early on gives an example of how the dialogue really sounds: "Dug. Dug." "Oo y'rrah." And so on.

Why they do this is not clear, since they also say, "I have noticed in the past, of course, that most conversations would make much better sense if you ran them backward." This implies that they don't realize that their world the the backwards one, so why they give the conversations in our world's pronunciation order is not clear.

And the description of "progress unrolling" (syringes no longer disposable, a color television being replaced by a black-and-white one) given as a series of short statements is so similar to Baoshu's "What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Reveal" that one is tempted to see an influence there, although it seems unlikely. [-ecl]



                                          Mark Leeper
                                          mleeper@optonline.net

Quote of the Week:

          I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
                                        --Samuel Butler

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