From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.fandom
THE MT VOID
08/28/26 -- Vol. 45, No. 9, Whole Number 2447
Editor: Evelyn Leeper,
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
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Topics:
Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group
Picks for Turner Classic Movies in September (comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Some Art Doesn't Age Well (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This Week's Reading (MOBY-DICK) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
===================================================================
TOPIC: Middletown (NJ) Public Library Science Fiction Discussion
Group
Note that the "2010" meeting was postponed one month, and will
take place (Lord willing and the creek don't rise) in September.
Sep 3: 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT (1984) & novel
2010: ODYSSEY TWO by Arthur C. Clarke
<
https://archive.org/details/2010odyss00clar/page/n5/mode/2up>
Oct 1: THE WILD ROBOT (2024) & novel (2016) [book 1]
by Peter Brown
<
https://bookreadfree.com/book/147149>
Nov 5: undecided, either:
THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2019) and short story THE COLOUR
OUT OF SPACE by H. P. Lovecraft [Halloween selection]
or
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and ???
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Picks for Turner Classic Movies in September (comments by
Evelyn C. Leeper)
I've included a lot of non-genre films in the list below, because
I think they're worth seeing.
ATLANTIC CITY is one of Burt Lancaster's later films, showing him
not as the acrobatic actor he was in such films as THE CRIMSON
PIRATE and TRAPEZE, but as an aging minor gangster trying to
maintain his dignity.
[ATLANTIC CITY (1980), Wednesday, September 2, 8:00 PM]
THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and STRIKE are two classic films by the
great Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. In particular, THE
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN was terrifically influential, being referenced
directly in 105 feature films, 57 TV episodes, and 13 TV movies,
not counting videos, shorts, and probably ads as well.
[THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925), Friday, September 4, 2:30 AM]
[STRIKE (1925), Friday, September 4, 4:00 AM]
I recommend THE ARTIST as a great example of "outside-the-box"
filmmaking. Mel Brooks attempted something similar in 1976 with
his SILENT MOVIE, but he did not copy the style of the silent era,
and he made his film in color(*). THE ARTIST was in
black-and-white, and presented in the old 1:33 Academy ratio. (Mel
Brooks had made a black-and-white film in 1974 with YOUNG
FRANKENSTEIN, and executive-produced THE ELEPHANT in 1980, so he
was not adverse to black-and-white per se.)
(*) A variety of searches and AIs claim SILENT MOVIE was in
black-and-white. They lie. I can only attribute this to the fact
that the phrases "silent movie" and "black-and-white" appeared
close together in the vast majority of texts fed into them that
mentioned one or the other.
[THE ARTIST (2011), Thursday, September 10, 1:15 AM]
And speaking of Mel Brooks, he is part of TCM's rather ...
peculiar Rosh Hashonah line-up on September 25: THE TRAMP AND THE
DICTATOR (a documentary about the parallel lives of Charlie
Chaplin and Adolf Hitler), THE GREAT DICTATOR (the classic Chaplin
film where he plays the dual roles of a Jewish barber and a
Hitleresque dictator), TO BE OR NOT TO BE (a Chaplin film set in
occupied Poland), and THE PRODUCERS (Mel Brooks's film about the
making of the musical "Springtime for Hitler").
There is also a Stanley Kubrick festival every Thursday night,
which includes several shorts not usually seen. I have mentioned
below only the genre films, but if you're a Kubrick fan, you will
want to check out TCM's full listings.
And on September 29, they are showing three double features of
classic silent genre films and their first sound remakes: DR.
JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1920 and 1931), THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
(1923 and 1939), and THE UNHOLY THREE (1925 and 1930). (Well, THE
HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and THE UNHOLY THREE are
"horror-adjacent"--the presence of Lon Chaney makes them so.)
I mention THE GRADUATE and GIGI because I comment on them in the
article below this one.
[THE GRADUATE (1967), Wednesday, September 16, 8:00 PM]
[GIGI (1958), Thursday, September 24, 3:45 PM]
Other films of interest:
WEDNESDAY, September 2
8:00 PM Atlantic City (1980)
THURSDAY, September 3
4:15 AM The Hunger (1983)
8:00 AM Modern Times (1936)
FRIDAY, September 4
2:30 AM The Battleship Potemkin (1925)
4:00 AM Strike (1925)
SUNDAY, September 6
7:45 AM The Bad Seed (1956)
WEDNESDAY, September 9
3:15 PM Fingers at the Window (1942)
THURSDAY, September 10
1:15 AM The Artist (2011)
6:00 PM The Haunting (1963)
FRIDAY, September 11
2:15 AM Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb (1964)
4:00 AM Metropolis (1926)
SATURDAY, September 12
7:30 AM The Time Machine (1960)
SUNDAY, September 13
2:15 PM Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
6:00 PM Crossing Delancey (1988)
WEDNESDAY, September 16
8:00 PM The Graduate (1967)
THURSDAY, September 17
6:15 PM Soylent Green (1973)
8:00 PM 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
10:30 PM A Clockwork Orange (1971)
SUNDAY, September 20
10:00 PM Being There (1979)
WEDNESDAY, September 23
6:15 PM Forbidden Planet (1956)
THURSDAY, September 24
3:45 PM Gigi (1958)
8:00 PM The Shining (1980)
FRIDAY, September 25
1:00 AM Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
7:45 AM Bewitched (1945)
9:00 AM Bedlam (1946)
8:00 PM The Tramp and the Dictator (2002)
9:00 PM The Great Dictator (1940)
11:15 PM To Be or Not to Be (1942)
SATURDAY, September 26
1:00 AM The Producers (1967)
SUNDAY, September 27
2:30 AM Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
4:15 AM Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)
6:00 AM Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975)
8:00 AM King Solomon's Mines (1950)
8:00 PM Arabian Nights (1942)
9:45 PM Cobra Woman (1944)
MONDAY, September 28
10:00 PM Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
TUESDAY, September 29
12:00 AM Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
9:30 AM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
10:45 AM Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
12:30 PM The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
2:15 PM The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
4:30 PM The Unholy Three (1925)
6:15 PM The Unholy Three (1930)
WEDNESDAY, September 30
8:00 PM The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
10:00 PM Silent Running (1972)
11:45 PM No Blade of Grass (1970)
THURSDAY, October 1
1:30 AM Them! (1954)
3:30 AM The Swarm (1978)
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: Some Art Doesn't Age Well (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Eddie Hodges, that clean-cut kid who appeared with Col. John
Glenn, that clean-cut Marine, made the song "I'm Gonna Knock On
Your Door" famous; it was considered romantic.
When we read the lyrics now, they sound more like stalker behavior:
I'm gonna knock on your door *knocking*
Ring on your bell *ringing*
Tap on your window, too *tapping*
If you don't come out tonight
When the moon is bright
I'm gonna knock and ring and tap until you do *ringing*
I'm gonna knock on your door (ah-ha)
Call out your name (ah-ha)
Wake up the town, you'll see (ah-ha)
I'm gonna hoo-hoot and howl
Like the lovesick owl
Until you say you're gonna come out with me
...
Hey little girl (hey little girl) this ain't no time to sleep
(ah-ha)
Let's count kisses 'stead of countin' sheep (ah-ha)
How (how-how), how can I hold ya near (ah-ha)
With you up there and me down here?
I'm gonna knock on your door *knocking*
Ring on your bell *ringing*
Tap on your window, too *tapping*
If you don't come out tonight
When the moon is bright
I'm gonna knock and ring and tap until you do *knocking*
I'm gonna knock and ring and tap
And knock and ring and tap
And knock and ring and tap
And knock and ring until you do
[end song lyrics]
These days, this would get the police called.
Tying in to next month's TCM offerings, Mark once pointed out that
THE GRADUATE was a stalker movie, with Benjamin stalking Elaine.
The plot of GIGI, another of TCM's September films, is that Gigi,
a young girl coming of age in turn-of-the-century (1900) Paris, is
being groomed as a courtesan by her grandmother and her great
aunt." One definition of "courtesan" is "a woman prostitute,
especially one whose clients are members of a royal court or men
of high social standing." (For those old enough to remember
Christine Keeler, I think that makes her a courtesan.) And the
film GIGI gets a 'G' rating! One YouTube comment: "A child
prostitute is groomed to court older men in Paris and everyone
sings songs about it. This somehow won a lot of Oscars. WTF" One
of the songs is "Thank Heaven for Little Girls". WTF, indeed.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
As I have on previous occasions, I'm giving myself a bit of a
break and giving you another chapter's-worth of commentary on
MOBY-DICK.
CHAPTER 6: The Street
Ishmael's description of cannibalsrCo"savages outright; many of whom
yet carry on their bones unholy flesh"rCoreminds me of the lines
from ANTONY & CLEOPATRA:
... on the Alps It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on:
[Act I, Scene IV]
This is usually taken to refer to cannibalism. But there is also
Jude 1:7: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them
in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going
after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the
vengeance of eternal fire." (Recall that the preacher's text
earlier was also from the first chapter of Jude.)
Ishmael refers to "the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans,
Pannangians, and Brighggians." The best I can figure out, these
are what we would call today (respectively) Fijians; Tongans;
natives of Erromango Island, Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides);
natives of either Penang (Panang), Malaysia, or of Pango Pango
(there is some dispute as to which Melville meant); and (possibly)
a native of the New Hebrides. Some feel that Melville is just
making these up, but given the bizarre spellings distant lands had
in the 19th century, these could well be as indicated.
The green Vermonter "wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat,
girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here comes another
with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak." The former is clearly
improperly dressed for the rigors of a whaling ship (one can just
imagine those long tails flapping in everyone's face in a brisk
wind!), and bombazine is a dressy fabric, as opposed to the
bearskin of Ishmael's "shaggy jacket".
THE COMPACT EDITION OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY says that
"Hay-Seed" is a humorous name for a rustic used in the United
States, but also gives the first use as being 1889. MOBY-DICK
pre-dates that by almost forty years.
"Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?" This is proof that
one must check every reference. I thought this was a reference to
Alexander the Great, but apparently it refers to the German
magician Johann Friedrich Alexander Heimburger who, though now
totally forgotten, was internationally famous at the time
MOBY-DICK was written. The obvious analogy would be a reference to
someone in 2150 reading what was a reference to "David
Copperfield" and thinking it referred to Charles Dickens's
character.
In New Bedford, people are so rich, "they have reservoirs of oil
in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in
spermaceti candles." Spermaceti candles give a very steady, good
light and don't melt or soften in hot weather, but were much more
expensive than tallow candles or other cheaper forms of
illumination.
Ishmael reports, "And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like
their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the
fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the
seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot,
save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such
musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as
though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the
Puritanic sands." The reference to the effect of the women of
Salem seems to be a veiled suggestion that they are (still) using
witchcraft, but there is also a more mundane explanation. The
Moluccas (now the Maluku Islands) were also known as the Spice
Islands, they had exported spices for at least two thousand years,
and Salem had become enormously successful in the spice trade. (In
1790 it was the sixth-largest city in the United States.) The odor
Ishmael refers to would have been primarily pepper, nutmeg, and
cloves.
[-ecl]
===================================================================
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child: and when I was a man
I decided how foolish it would be to give all that up.
--Mark R. Leeper
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