@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 10/02/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 14, Whole Number 2452
Table of Contents
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: CHASING THE MOON (TV mini-series review by Evelyn C. Leeper):
A few comments on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: CHASING THE MOON:
One of the disillusionments that happens with time is that we find that our heroes have feet, not just of clay, but often of some even baser material.
It's not clear when the general public knew the true background of Werner von Braun, for example, but it is claimed that it was primarily after his death in 1977. However, Tom Lehrer's song about him (which opens the third episode) was written in 1965, so it was definitely in the air. By now, though, I would assume it is fairly well known.
So some of what was covered in this program was old news, but some was not.
For example, you find out that there was an African-American astronaut in the first set of Mercury astronaut candidates, but he was basically screwed over by NASA in general and Chuck Yeager in particular. Yeager, it turns out, was a very unpleasant person, and definitely a racist.
You also discover that the sexism faced by the first women technical staff visible to the public may have been as bad (or worse) from the press as from NASA, because the press seemed to be incredibly condescending when interviewing them. (I am reminded of the exchange in HIDDEN FIGURES, when the State Trooper says, "Had no idea they hired ..." and Dorothy Vaughan replies, disingenuously, "There are quite a few women working in the Space Program, sir.")
And of course, a lot of what in general was covered up at the time has since become known. For example, at the time of the Apollo 1 fire, NASA said the astronauts had died instantly; this was not true, and known by NASA at the time not to be true. And the various suicides are at least mentioned (e.g. Buzz Aldrin's mother, who committed suicide because she didn't want to have to deal with the fame again, having already experienced it when Aldrin was a Gemini astronaut).
In the shots of families watching lift-offs and landings in their homes, there always seemed to be a clergyman hanging around in the background.
For whatever reason, the show jumped directly from Apollo 11 to Apollo 17, without even mentioning the missions in between, other than to say that people lost interest in the Apollo program once Apollo 11 had succeeded. There is, of course, an irony to this--the producers also decided that nothing after Apollo 11 was interesting, and so went directly to von Braun's Mars proposal (rejected), and to where the technical people went and what they did afterwards (at least in a general sense).
Just as he did for the Soviet position in the film THIRTEEN DAYS (about the Cuban Missile Crisis), Sergei Krushchev (the son of Nikita Krushchev) provides information and commentary about the Soviet space program for the period from Sputnik through Apollo 17.
We also see footage from such films as DESTINATION MOON, FRAU IM MOND, I AIM AT THE STARS, and MOONWALK ONE. [-ecl]
The Rest Of October on TCM (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
As is becoming common, TCM didn't provide the listings for the entire upcoming month before I needed to publish the beginning, so here's "the rest of the story" (as Paul Harvey used to say).
As noted, being for October, and especially Halloween week, it is chock-a-block with horror films. Note the documentary on Carl Laemmle (Friday, October 23, 8:00PM) followed a half dozen Universal classics.
Note particularly the new 2026 documentary on Vincent Price (Friday, October 30, 8:00PM) followed a half dozen of *his* films.
FRIDAY, October 23 12:15 AM Torture Garden (1967) 2:00 AM From Beyond the Grave (1973) 3:45 AM Kwaidan (1965) 8:00 PM Carl Laemmle (2019) 9:45 PM Frankenstein (1931) 11:00 PM The Invisible Man (1933) SATURDAY, October 24 12:15 AM The Black Cat (1934) 1:30 AM The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) 3:30 AM The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) 5:00 AM Cat People (1942) 6:15 AM Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) 8:00 AM Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) SUNDAY, October 25 2:00 PM The Canterville Ghost (1944) 3:45 PM Sylvie and the Ghost (1946) 5:30 PM What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) MONDAY, October 26 12:00 AM The Lodger (1927) 2:00 AM House (1977) TUESDAY, October 27 8:00 PM Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) 10:15 PM I Married a Witch (1942) THURSDAY, October 29 4:00 PM Tarzan and His Mate (1934) 8:00 PM The Beguiled (1971) 11:45 PM I Walked with a Zombie (1943) FRIDAY, October 30 1:00 AM Bedlam (1946) 2:30 AM Carnival of Souls (1962) 4:00 AM Corridors of Blood (1958) 7:45 AM Chamber of Horrors (1966) 9:30 AM Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told (1967) 11:00 AM White Zombie (1932) 12:15 PM The Walking Dead (1936) 1:30 PM Mad Love (1935) 2:45 PM Eyes Without a Face (1960) 4:30 PM The Haunting (1963) 6:30 PM Curse of the Demon (1958) 8:00 PM Vincent Price: What Keeps Us Alive (2026) 9:45 PM The Fly (1958) 11:30 PM House of Wax (1953) SATURDAY, October 31 1:15 AM House on Haunted Hill (1958) 2:45 AM The Mad Magician (1954) 4:00 AM The Tingler (1959) 5:30 AM The Bat (1959) 7:00 AM The Hypnotic Eye (1960) 8:30 AM Doctor X (1932) 10:00 AM Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) 11:30 AM Transylvania 6-5000 (1963) 11:40 AM Corn on the Cop (1965) 11:50 AM A-Haunting We Will Go (1966) 12:00 PM Pufnstuf (1970) 1:45 PM Dracula (1931) 3:15 PM The Mummy (1932) 4:45 PM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) 6:30 PM Bride of Frankenstein (1935) 8:00 PM Dracula (1979) 10:15 PM Phantom of the Paradise (1974) SUNDAY, November 1 12:00 AM The Leopard Man (1943) 1:15 AM The Seventh Victim (1943) 2:30 AM Cat People (1942) 4:15 AM Night of the Living Dead (1968)
[-ecl]
AI (letter of comment by Richie Bielak):
In response to Paul S. R. Chisholm's comments on AI and fear mongering in the 09/25/26 issue of the MT VOID, Richie Bielak writes:
Please read Cal Newports editorial in NYT:
Here is Cal Newport on Hugging Face hack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0u78gg26vU
For links to other people talking sensibly about this see my page:
https://rbielak.substack.com/p/a-small-guide-for-ai-critics
Also, I believe many people on this list will remember the Morris Internet Worm that crashed the internet in 1988. It also "escaped" its containment :-)
[-rb]
Evelyn adds:
The Guardian has provided an "essential reading list" on AI: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/sep/17/ai-doom-books-reading-list
I don't believe this is paywalled. [-ecl]
MATINEE, THE BAD SEED, BBC Raymond Chandler, THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) (letter of comment by Kip Williams):
In response to Evelyn's comments on TCM picks for October in the 09/25/26 issue of the MT VOID, Kip Williams writes:
MATINEE (October 7) is a terrific little movie that came along and vanished. Siskel & Ebert liked it. It's got John Goodman as a William Castle-like producer with a new 'special process' to flog at a small town in the Florida Keys on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Robert PIcardo plays the movie theater owner, and William Schallert is in a movie within the movie, MANT ("Half Man-- Half Ant-- ALL TERROR!"). My favorite bit is where they dispose of a disposable Disney-style kiddie comedy our hero has to take his little brother to in about sixty seconds, and yet you feel like you've seen the whole thing ("THE SHOOK UP SHOPPING CART!!").
THE BAD SEED (October 11) is a movie I wanted to see so badly for so long. I'd read the script and all! When I finally saw it, I was disappointed by how very arch and artificial all the performances are. When they remade it for TV, David Carradine played the handyman, and he's a mean learning-disabled sleaze who has the one good scene in the remake where he convinces the little guilty child that the police have a special bloodhound just for finding sticks with blood on them, and being too convincing for his own good.
I forget which of the BBC Chandlers I was listening to that knocked me out of my willing suspension by suddenly throwing a post-1970 dial tone into a Marlowe story.
Speaking of Marlowe, I have no fondness for the adaptation with Elliot Gould in it [THE LONG GOODBYE (1973)], but I was rather pleased to find out that the audiobook versions he's recorded of Chandler stories are perfectly fine.
Pardon my rambling, please.
[-kw]
Evelyn responds:
No problem--we love rambling! [-ecl]
Michael Caine (letter of comment by Steve Coltrin):
In response to Evelyn's comments on Michael Caine in an uncredited role in THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE in the 09/25/26 issue of the MT VOID, Steve Coltrin writes:
Caine also had an off-screen, uncredited cameo in DUNKIRK (2017). I made him right away [by his voice]. [-sc]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
THEODORA: EMPRESS OF BYZANTIUM by Paolo Cesaretti (translated by Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia) (Vendome, ISBN 978-0-865-65237-8) is an attempt to rehabilitate the Empress Theodora, about whom little was written, and that by her enemies. (Shades of Richard III!) Unfortunately, Cesaretti goes a bit overboard in this, first hypothesizing that when the Emperor Justinian was very ill, Theodora might have made a vow promising her life for his, and then later writes as though that vow was a known fact, not just speculation on Cesaretti's part.
Cesaretti also keeps referring back to Theodora's childhood and young adulthood, but again he has very little historical basis for how he describes it. AS with the vow, he first speculates about what it might have been, and then later treats those speculations as fact.
Obligatory copy-editing/proofreading complaint: This error originated with the translator, not the author; it was the translator who decided to use "born" when the correct choice would have been "borne".
And on a completely different subject, I happened across this quote from FOUNDATION by Isaac Asimov: "... Anacreon no longer has an atomic-power economy. ... Back to oil and coal, are they?"
I found myself wondering a couple of things. First, even given Asimov's "universe-building" with thousands of planets habitable by humans, but no other intelligent races in the galaxy, would every planet necessarily have oil and coal? A quick search indicates that the formation of these fossil fuels is by no means guaranteed even if there is life on the planet. And second, can you really power faster-than-light ships with oil and coal? [-ecl]
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Quote of the Week:
Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about
tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today.
Charlie Brown: No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping
that yesterday will get better.
--Charles M. Schulz
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