MT VOID, 12/31/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 27, Whole Number 2204

[evelynchim...@gmail.com]

THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
12/31/21 -- Vol. 40, No. 27, Whole Number 2204

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Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, ele...@optonline.net
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Topics:
Science Fiction (and Other) Discussion Groups, Films,
Lectures, etc. (NJ)
My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in January (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
CYRANO (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE PAST IS RED by Catherynne M. Valente (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
FALLING FOR FIGARO (letters of comment by Gary McGath,
Dorothy J. Heydt, and Paul Dormer)
This Week's Reading (James Fenimore Cooper, my family
and books, editions of Bibles, and AUTHORIZED: THE USE
AND MISUSE OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)

===================================================================

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

Both groups have returned to the B.C. (Before COVID) schedules, and
the films will be shown as part of the Middletown meetings.

The November MTPL meeting was postponed due to scheduling conflicts
with several members.

December 2 (MTPL), 5:30PM: NIGHT OF THE DEMON, short story
"Casting the Runes" by M. R. James
<https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9629>
January 6, 2022 (MTPL), 5:30PM: Stanislaw Lem Centennial:
PILOT PIRX'S INQUEST (1979), short story "The Inquest"
by Stanislaw Lem
<https://tinyurl.com/Pirx-More-Tales>
January 27, 2022 (OBPL), 7:00PM: THE TIME MACHINE by H. G. Wells

===================================================================

TOPIC: My Picks for Turner Classic Movies in January (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER was released in 1958 and up until 1997 it was
the iconic film telling the story of the sinking of the RMS
Titanic. It was over-shadowed by the 1997 TITANIC and now is
rarely ever seen. The 1997 version had guns blazing and even a bit
of nudity. I still prefer the earlier film. The more recent film
has lots of digital effects work, but the older film has familiar
British actors including Kenneth More, Honor Blackman, Michael
Goodliffe, David McCallum, and Alec McCowen. It was directed by
Roy Ward Baker who later also directed QUATERMASS AND THE PIT.

[A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, Monday, January 3, 2002, 12:45PM]

TCM also has a day of horror on January 28:
01/28/2022 11:30 AM Them! (1954)
01/28/2022 01:15 PM The Mummy (1959)
01/28/2022 03:00 PM The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
01/28/2022 04:30 PM The Fly (1958)
01/28/2022 06:15 PM House of Wax (1953)

And finally, TCM will be running the rarely shown Kenju Mizoguchi
epic, THE 47 RONIN, on January 17 at 2:00AM.

[-mrl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: CYRANO (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)

There were many adaptations of classic literary works in 1990, but
for both production quality and pure entertainment value I gave the
edge to that year's CYRANO DE BERGERAC, giving it a +3 (-4 to +4
scale), and said that that was likely to remain the best adaptation
of the story to film we would see in our lifetimes and very likely
the most entertaining, even if we included Steve Martin's popular
modern reframing ROXANNE. I still stand by that.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC, and this year's film of similar title, CYRANO,
are of course adaptations of Edmond Rostand's popular play, first
presented in 1897. (Rostand took some poetic liberty,
incidentally, but Cyrano was a genuine historic figure who was
soldier, expert swordsman, poet, playwright, philosopher, and even
a science fiction writer. His best-known literary work today is A
VOYAGE TO THE MOON, which is why Rostand put so many references to
moon travel in the play. Cyrano suggested several means of extra-
terrestrial propulsion, mostly absurd, but on one he got lucky.
Cyrano de Bergerac was the man who first suggested that space
travel might be possible using rocket propulsion.) The story is of
the noble swordsman who would like to woo his beautiful cousin but
is stigmatized by his own prodigious nose. When it turns out that
an inarticulate but handsome soldier under Cyrano's command also
loves her, Cyrano agrees to help the soldier. The soldier will
provide the good looks and Cyrano will provide the words. The
story packs into a surprisingly small space comedy, tragedy, drama,
action, and adventure.

This year's version, titled simply CYRANO, it does everything it
can to make the nobility repulsive, visually as well as character-
wise. We see the Count De Guise (played by Ben Mendelsohn) giving
instructions and orders to his fiancee, Roxanne (played by Haley
Bennett). De Guiche does not know that he will soon be losing his
safe control over the woman in his own coach. Let De Guise rest in
peace.

Cyrano is played by Peter Dinklage, and as a result, almost all the
nose jokes are dispensed with in favor of remarks about his height.
This means, among other things, that the marvelous scene in which
Cyrano comes up with dozens of insults to his nose. Apparently
screenwriter Erica Schmidt (Dinklage's wife) did not feel she could
do that scene justice with height jokes--or maybe decided that
height jokes were a bit too insulting in real life to put a whole
scene of them on the film. Dinklage is immensely talented but his
singing voice leaves a lot to be desired. (On the other hand, the
same could be said of Rex Harrison in MY FAIR LADY.) Christian is
played by Kelvin Harrison, Jr., with no comment being made about
his race--I'm not sure if we are supposed to acknowledge it or not.
(One reviewer felt that having a Black character be inarticulate
and rescued by what is in some sense a white savior was a bad
choice.)

Kudos for the very detailed sets and production design.

Released theatrically 12/31/21. Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4), or 7/10.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12889404/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cyrano>

[-mrl/ecl]

===================================================================

TOPIC: THE PAST IS RED by Catherynne M. Valente (copyright 2021,
tordotcom, 150pp, hardcover, $20.99, ISBN 978-1-250-30113-0) (book
review by Joe Karpierz)

The world was introduced to Tetley Abednego in the short story "The
Future is Blue", which first appeared in Jonathan Strahan's
anthology DROWNED WORLDS, published in 2016. (Is it that old
already? It's still on my to be read stack.) I'd read it in one
of the "year's best" anthologies, and liked the story enough that
it did stick with me for a period of time (and let's be honest, I
think that it's true for most people that read enough of this stuff
that after a short period of time, most works drop out of memory,
especially short works).

The setting is a Earth devastated by climate change. As implied by
being included in the "Drowned Worlds" anthology, the planet is
essentially entirely covered by water. Tetley lives on a floating
clump of junk called Garbagetown. Tetley is generally happy, given
her plight. However, while she may be happy, no one is happy with
her. "The Future is Blue", included in this volume, not only sets
up the world that Tetley lives in--including, for example, how
children get their names--tells the story of just *why* people are
unhappy--check that, *very* unhappy--with her. And while the story
is more than five years old at this point, there may be readers out
there who have not read it, and so I won't spoil then end of the
story, but suffice it to say that she does a thing that is not ...
well-received.

I would not have expected that there was much more to tell about
Tetley, but that is after all why writers write and people read: to
tell and experience stories. "The Past is Red" picks up many years
later. Tetley is still reviled for her deed at the end of "The
Future is Blue". She is 29, lives on a pontoon boat moored to a
port, and doesn't venture on land because of a law enacted--
although given the society she lives in it's unclear how the law
came into being and how it's enforced, but it probably doesn't
matter given the state of the world--back when she did the thing.
She loves her world, just as much as she did when she was young and
just getting her name, and the world hates her just as much as it
did then.

"The Past is Red" opens the wings of Tetley's story more than the
original. She finds technology, love, a friend or two, and
surprisingly, a husband. Her husband is a character from "The Past
is Blue", and I can't say much more than that without spoiling the
thing that Tetley did. Yep, it all comes back to that. But the
technology she finds leads to a surprising discovery that I sure
didn't see coming. It's a discovery that makes the plight of those
on Earth that much more sad, I think, and at the same time makes
whoever is left angry, if they were to find out. Given that I
didn't see it coming, the reveal worked for me, although I can see
why it might take some readers out of the story.

It's been hard to describe the book without giving anything away,
which is probably the best kind of story. Sure, stories can be
summarized enough to give readers an idea of what's going on
without spoiling them, but some are better just left to be
discovered on their own. This is one of those. [-jak]

===================================================================

TOPIC: FALLING FOR FIGARO (letters of comment by Gary McGath,
Dorothy J. Heydt, and Paul Dormer)

In response to Mark and Evelyn's review of FALLING FOR FIGARO (and
people falling asleep during operas) in the 12/24/21 issue of
the MT VOID, Gary McGath writes:

There's a filksong about someone who always falls asleep watching
Wagner's "Goetterdaemmerung". Understandable, since it's one of
the longest operas in the regular repertoire. [-gmg]

Dorothy J. Heydt responds:

Indeed.

I'm blanking on the name of the famous 20th-century conductor who
habitually conducted without a score, having memorized the whole
enchilada.

One day he was preparing to conduct "Goetterdaemmerung" (where
"preparing" consisted of things like finding his cufflinks and
checking to make sure the soloists had all shown up), and a friend
of his suggested that he have the score on hand "to keep track of
all the tempo changes."

"My dear Ermintrude," he answered, "there *are* no tempo changes in
'Goetterdaemmerung'. It plods along from 7 p.m. to quarter past
midnight like a damned old cart-horse." [-djh]

Paul Dormer adds:

Which reminds me of the comment by an American music critic: "'Parsifal' is
one of those operas that start at 6 p.m. Four hours later, you look at
your watch and it's a quarter after 6." (I now like "Parsifal", but it
took me a long time to get into it.) [-pd]

Gary also adds:

[Mark and Evelyn write,] "The film has a nice selection of operatic
arias, with the ones "sung" by the two leads actually voiced by
Stacey Alleaume and Nathan Lay."

Marnie Nixon's ghost is glad they got credited. [-gmg]

Evelyn notes:

The contractual requirements for credits have changed a lot since
Marnie Nixon's day. That's why ending credit sequences last
forever--even the company that supplies the Porta Potties has to
get credit. [-ecl]

===================================================================

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

The "Classical Stuff You Should Know" punted last week on a
full-length podcast in favor of a reading of Mark Twain's
"Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses". It's a good choice, but it
got me thinking more about my family and books than about Fenimore
Cooper per se.

What started that train of thought was the fact that my father
mentioned only three books he really liked: THE LAST OF THE
MOHICANS (James Fenimore Cooper), MY ANTONIA (Willa Cather), and
LOST HORIZON (James Hilton). The latter was a lifetime love, but
the first two were more books of his younger years, and he didn't
own a copy of either of them.

For that matter, we didn't have a lot of books in the house, just
two small bookcases with an odd assortment of books and magazines.
These including a four-volume set of Homer in Spanish as well as
Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, also in Spanish, with the Dore
illustrations. He also had a couple of books that ended up as
mine: Jules Verne's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND and Franz Werfel's STAR OF
THE UNBORN. The latter was a science fiction novel by an author
best known for THE SONG OF BERNADETTE; how my father ended up with
I never did find out.

However, my parents respected books, and we always had library
cards. (I think I was five when I got my first library card.)
Accumulating books when you were in the military and moving a lot
was inconvenient, and there was always a base library, as well as
town libraries and school libraries. But we never talked about
books that I can recall--reading was a solitary avocation. And in
any case, I doubt I would have shown Twain's comments on Fenimore
Cooper to my father.

(The only time I can recall talking to my father about my reading
was when I wanted to know if the "compass" ["brujula"] in Jorge
Luis Borges's "Death and the Compass" was the navigational device
or the geometric tool. It was the navigational device.)

Our house was also one which did not have the King James Version of
the Bible like everyone else had, but rather the Revised Standard
Version. It occurs to me only now that this was probably not a
real conscious choice by my father to spurn the KJV, but the effect
of his growing up in a Spanish-speaking environment. Because there
was not the entrenched use of quotations from the KJV version in
everyday speech, and no history of its use in his family, there was
nothing that made that the obvious choice. (I came to this
realization reading AUTHORIZED: THE USE AND MISUSE OF THE KING
JAMES BIBLE by Mark Ward (Lexham Press, ISBN 978-1-683-59055-2.)
[-ecl]

===================================================================

Mark Leeper
mle...@optonline.net


There were so few people at the concert that if one
more person were missing, there wouldn't be any room
for him.
--Guillermo Juan Borges

[Gary McGath]

On 1/2/22 11:35 AM, ele...@optonline.net wrote:
> TOPIC: CYRANO (film review by Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper)
>
> There were many adaptations of classic literary works in 1990, but
> for both production quality and pure entertainment value I gave the
> edge to that year's CYRANO DE BERGERAC, giving it a +3 (-4 to +4
> scale), and said that that was likely to remain the best adaptation
> of the story to film we would see in our lifetimes and very likely
> the most entertaining, even if we included Steve Martin's popular
> modern reframing ROXANNE. I still stand by that.

I'll stick with the wonderful Ferrer version until I hear there's a
better one. I hated Steve Martin's take on it.

>
> This year's version, titled simply CYRANO, it does everything it
> can to make the nobility repulsive, visually as well as character-
> wise. We see the Count De Guise (played by Ben Mendelsohn) giving
> instructions and orders to his fiancee, Roxanne (played by Haley
> Bennett). De Guiche does not know that he will soon be losing his
> safe control over the woman in his own coach. Let De Guise rest in
> peace.

De Guiche, in the original play, isn't a total villain. He shows courage
as a military leader and recognizes Cyrano's worth in the last act.

> Cyrano is played by Peter Dinklage, and as a result, almost all the
> nose jokes are dispensed with in favor of remarks about his height.
> This means, among other things, that the marvelous scene in which
> Cyrano comes up with dozens of insults to his nose.

What's the point of Cyrano without the nose?

Apparently
> screenwriter Erica Schmidt (Dinklage's wife) did not feel she could
> do that scene justice with height jokes--or maybe decided that
> height jokes were a bit too insulting in real life to put a whole
> scene of them on the film. Dinklage is immensely talented but his
> singing voice leaves a lot to be desired.

I've seen a musical version of Cyrano, with Christopher Plummer in the
title role. It played in Boston in the eighties; I don't know if it made
it to Broadway. It's biggest mistake was rendering the dialogue in
Alexandrine rhyming verse, as in the original French. It sounded
ridiculous to my ears. Christian was poorly characterized, lacking not
only charming words but any desire to be more than a dumb soldier. The
songs mostly didn't work well.

I went with a bunch of friends. The ones who hadn't read Rostand's
Cyrano gave it enthusiastic applause; the ones who had (including me;
I've read it in French and in multiple translations) were unimpressed.


--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

[Kevrob]

My two favorite Cyranos: Miguel Ferrer and Quincy Magoo.

> Cyrano is played by Peter Dinklage, and as a result, almost all the
> nose jokes are dispensed with in favor of remarks about his height.

Magoo was short, but the nose references stayed in his version.

https://youtu.be/qxUjFets8mQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Famous_Adventures_of_Mr._Magoo

> ===================================================================
>
> TOPIC: THE PAST IS RED by Catherynne M. Valente

....

> up the world that Tetley lives in--including, for example, how
> children get their names--

I would hope some one so-named didn't end up in hot water. :)

> Our house was also one which did not have the King James Version of

> the Bible like everyone else had,...

Not if they were part of the largest Christian denomination, in which case a
translation from the Vulgate such as Douay-Rheims would have been in order,
prior to Vatican II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible

I had to get a Jerusalem Bible for my Sophomore year high school
religion class.

--
Kevin R

[Jeff Urs]

I'd have thought that just such circumstances would be what it took to
bring out their real strength.

--
Jeff

[Kevrob]

That H2O would have to be just at the boiling point, no?

--
Kevin R