Recent viewings
Bowery Buckaroos (1947). Silly, lightweight comedy in which the Bowery Boys -- comical, wisecracking, "ethnic" denizens of the Bronx -- head west to find a lost gold mine and solve a murder... or, rather, a "moider". Mainly notable as an example of the "Bowery Boys" schtick of Leo Gorcey and company. Gorcey's cocksure, nasal-voiced persona may well have been the prototype for the character of Bugs Bunny. A couple of bit players from the movie looked familiar. Norman Willis (Black Jack, the villain) played numerous other roles, mostly bit parts in television series. "Iron-Eyes" Cody (the inevitable Indian sidekick) likewise appeared in dozens of shows, but achieved fame for his shortest role, as the Crying Indian of the famous 1970s anti-pollution advertisement.
Trivia: This is almost certainly the only film in which a Native American says "This not look kosher to me."
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Recent reads:
True Grit, by Charles Portis. The most notable and captivating characteristic of this 1968 western is the distinctive voice of its narrator, one fourteen-year old Mattie Ross "of near Dardanelle, Arkansas". The novel is told as if she is relating it in her later years, and Portis stays true to her precise, formal, and firmly opinionated voice even when conveying the words of very rough frontier characters who, the reader well knows, probably spoke in much looser and saltier terms. Mattie never glosses over the harrowing events of her tale, though, and the result is a captivating slice of 19th-century adventure, which gains rather than loses authenticity by being filtered through the mind of a believable person of that time and place.
The "true grit" of the title is what Mattie says she is looking for when she goes to Fort Smith, the seat of the nearest territorial court, to seek out a US Marshall or some other champion to help her avenge her father's death at the hands of an outlaw. The man she hires to track him into the untamed Indian Territory to the west is "Rooster" Cogburn, an aging, overweight, profane, whiskey-snorting, one-eyed veteran of Civil War guerrilla fighting who is, by modern standards, barely one step above the outlaws he hunts. But, Mattie concludes, he does have "true grit". Subsequent events prove that she, too, possesses this quality, as she insists on accompanying Cogburn and a Texas Ranger on their bounty hunt for the miscreant and the gang with which they think he may be associated.
The book was, of course, made into a movie in 1969, with John Wayne playing the role of Rooster Cogburn, a role for which he was perfectly suited in his later years. I haven't seen the movie (yet), but I note that New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby spoke slightingly of a scene in which Cogburn, facing multiple armed opponents, responds by charging them on horseback, blasting away with a revolver in each hand. This is pure fantasy, says the reviewer. And yet historians of the Civil War guerrilla fighting, such as Thomas Goodrich (Black Flag, et al) report that this was in fact a tactic frequently used by the Confederate partisans of that bloody conflict. Partisans, armed with a revolver in each hand (and sometimes several more stashed about their person), would seek situations from which they could charge on horseback, from relatively short range, at the more conventionally armed soldiers, taking advantage of their greater mobility and faster rate of fire to startle, disorient, and decimate larger and nominally more powerful forces. A Federal soldier armed with a relatively slow, clumsy long gun and only one pistol had little chance, at short range, against a mounted partisan in full charge, firing at will from dual revolvers and, when his ammunition was exhausted, discarding them to draw out a second, and then a third pair of such revolvers. It's already been established, in the novel, that Cogburn was among these guerrillas. And in one of his rare forthcoming moods, he's spoken thus to his teenage employer:
True Grit, by Charles Portis. The most notable and captivating characteristic of this 1968 western is the distinctive voice of its narrator, one fourteen-year old Mattie Ross "of near Dardanelle, Arkansas". The novel is told as if she is relating it in her later years, and Portis stays true to her precise, formal, and firmly opinionated voice even when conveying the words of very rough frontier characters who, the reader well knows, probably spoke in much looser and saltier terms. Mattie never glosses over the harrowing events of her tale, though, and the result is a captivating slice of 19th-century adventure, which gains rather than loses authenticity by being filtered through the mind of a believable person of that time and place.
The "true grit" of the title is what Mattie says she is looking for when she goes to Fort Smith, the seat of the nearest territorial court, to seek out a US Marshall or some other champion to help her avenge her father's death at the hands of an outlaw. The man she hires to track him into the untamed Indian Territory to the west is "Rooster" Cogburn, an aging, overweight, profane, whiskey-snorting, one-eyed veteran of Civil War guerrilla fighting who is, by modern standards, barely one step above the outlaws he hunts. But, Mattie concludes, he does have "true grit". Subsequent events prove that she, too, possesses this quality, as she insists on accompanying Cogburn and a Texas Ranger on their bounty hunt for the miscreant and the gang with which they think he may be associated.
The book was, of course, made into a movie in 1969, with John Wayne playing the role of Rooster Cogburn, a role for which he was perfectly suited in his later years. I haven't seen the movie (yet), but I note that New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby spoke slightingly of a scene in which Cogburn, facing multiple armed opponents, responds by charging them on horseback, blasting away with a revolver in each hand. This is pure fantasy, says the reviewer. And yet historians of the Civil War guerrilla fighting, such as Thomas Goodrich (Black Flag, et al) report that this was in fact a tactic frequently used by the Confederate partisans of that bloody conflict. Partisans, armed with a revolver in each hand (and sometimes several more stashed about their person), would seek situations from which they could charge on horseback, from relatively short range, at the more conventionally armed soldiers, taking advantage of their greater mobility and faster rate of fire to startle, disorient, and decimate larger and nominally more powerful forces. A Federal soldier armed with a relatively slow, clumsy long gun and only one pistol had little chance, at short range, against a mounted partisan in full charge, firing at will from dual revolvers and, when his ammunition was exhausted, discarding them to draw out a second, and then a third pair of such revolvers. It's already been established, in the novel, that Cogburn was among these guerrillas. And in one of his rare forthcoming moods, he's spoken thus to his teenage employer:
"I had to fly for my life [from New Mexico]. Three fights in one day. Bo was a strong colt then and there was not a horse in that territory could run him in the ground. But I did not appreciate being chased and shot at like a thief. When the posse had thinned down to about seven men I turned Bo around and taken the reins in my teeth and rode right at them boys firing them two navy sixes I carry on my saddle. I guess they was all married men who loved their families as they scattered and run for home."Is it any wonder if, faced with a tight spot, an aging guerrilla would revert to tactics that had worked in the past? Perhaps the reviewer from Noooo Yooorrk Ciiiity should have familiarized himself with his subject before labelling it a "fantasy".
"That is hard to believe."
"What is?"
"One men riding at seven men like that."
"It is true enough. We done it in the war. I seen a dozen bold riders stampede a full troop of regular cavalry. You go for a man hard enough and fast enough and he don't have time to think about how many is with him, he thinks about himself and how he may get clear out of the wrath that is about to set down on him." (pp. 143-144, book club ed.)
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Silence is golden
Or should I say, silents are golden? Lately, I've been on a sort of mini-binge of watching old silent films on DVD. Huzzah for Buster Keaton and D.W. Griffith! Unfortunately, I didn't find out about the Great Lakes Cinephile Society and their annual silent-film convention until just now. Oh well, maybe next year, if I'm still in the area.
I wonder -- If I listen to radio programs that feature sound-without-sight, and watch movies that feature sight-without-sound, do the two cancel each other out?
Or should I say, silents are golden? Lately, I've been on a sort of mini-binge of watching old silent films on DVD. Huzzah for Buster Keaton and D.W. Griffith! Unfortunately, I didn't find out about the Great Lakes Cinephile Society and their annual silent-film convention until just now. Oh well, maybe next year, if I'm still in the area.
I wonder -- If I listen to radio programs that feature sound-without-sight, and watch movies that feature sight-without-sound, do the two cancel each other out?
Recent viewings
Intolerance. D.W. Griffith's 1916 silent opus is, by any measure, a gigantic undertaking. The phrase "cast of thousands" is literally true; the sets are gargantuan; and both the plot and the structure of the movie are ambitious even by modern standards.
For three and a half hours, Griffith interweaves four separate storylines in four separate settings in a manner that's still regarded as avante-garde and challenging in modern films. Each storyline deals in some fashion with the problems caused by religious and social intolerance. Griffith cuts back and forth between the storylines like a composer interweaving musical themes, and even though the VHS copy of the film I saw is a wretchedly poor transfer, even though a couple of the stories are underdeveloped and all are marred by melodramatic excesses, even though Griffith has a tendency to preach at the audience in the title-cards as well as through the script, and even though his portrayal of Babylon and the conquering Persians is historically bizarre, I still found myself getting caught up in the flow of his titanic epic, especially toward the end as each storyline accelerates toward its conclusion in a crescendo of ever-shorter, ever-more-urgent scenes that bounce back and forth between storylines like a tennis ball in a four-way Wimbledon match.
It's one of the tragedies of cinematic history that when Intolerance proved a flop at the box office, it was recut into two separate, shorter movies and much of the excised footage was lost for good. However, what I saw was impressive enough, even in a dark, murky, blurry transfer with a monotonous and sometimes ludicrously inappropriate soundtrack, that I've ordered a copy of Kino's highly-regarded DVD release. I look forward to seeing the three-hundred foot tall walls of Babylon in something approaching their original glory.
An oddity of the film: it's the only silent movie I've ever seen which actually includes footnotes to the titlecards. Fortunately, the Kino release reportedly leaves the titlecards on the screen long enough that one can actually read them without stopping and rewinding and pausing.
Intolerance. D.W. Griffith's 1916 silent opus is, by any measure, a gigantic undertaking. The phrase "cast of thousands" is literally true; the sets are gargantuan; and both the plot and the structure of the movie are ambitious even by modern standards.
For three and a half hours, Griffith interweaves four separate storylines in four separate settings in a manner that's still regarded as avante-garde and challenging in modern films. Each storyline deals in some fashion with the problems caused by religious and social intolerance. Griffith cuts back and forth between the storylines like a composer interweaving musical themes, and even though the VHS copy of the film I saw is a wretchedly poor transfer, even though a couple of the stories are underdeveloped and all are marred by melodramatic excesses, even though Griffith has a tendency to preach at the audience in the title-cards as well as through the script, and even though his portrayal of Babylon and the conquering Persians is historically bizarre, I still found myself getting caught up in the flow of his titanic epic, especially toward the end as each storyline accelerates toward its conclusion in a crescendo of ever-shorter, ever-more-urgent scenes that bounce back and forth between storylines like a tennis ball in a four-way Wimbledon match.
It's one of the tragedies of cinematic history that when Intolerance proved a flop at the box office, it was recut into two separate, shorter movies and much of the excised footage was lost for good. However, what I saw was impressive enough, even in a dark, murky, blurry transfer with a monotonous and sometimes ludicrously inappropriate soundtrack, that I've ordered a copy of Kino's highly-regarded DVD release. I look forward to seeing the three-hundred foot tall walls of Babylon in something approaching their original glory.
An oddity of the film: it's the only silent movie I've ever seen which actually includes footnotes to the titlecards. Fortunately, the Kino release reportedly leaves the titlecards on the screen long enough that one can actually read them without stopping and rewinding and pausing.
Recent viewings:
Our Hospitality and Sherlock, Jr.. I've seen The General several times, and enjoyed it each time, but I never realized until I watched these other two Buster Keaton films how much the man must have liked trains. Either that, or he just liked the physical-comedy and stunt-performing possibilities inherent in large moving objects like locomotives.
In Our Hospitality, Keaton is a nebbishy New Yorker of the early 19th century who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a rural Southern family feud when he goes to reclaim some inherited property. There are some sly gags about the backward and primitive state of civilization, as when a mother fearfully cautions her son to "watch out for the Indians out around Trenton [New Jersey]". Keaton takes advantage of the character's journey from New York to Virginia to throw in an extended sequence involving an early railroad trip. You know irony is afoot when a titlecard refers to "The Great Iron Monster", and immediately afterward you see a couple of ordinary-sized men casually pushing a diminutive, spindly, primitive little locomotive along the tracks with no apparent effort. The train trip itself is a masterpiece of escalating sight gags. Just when you think that the self-importance of the train driver (played by Keaton's father), or the decrepitude of the ancient conductor, or the jerkiness of the ride, or the crookedness of the tracks, can't get any more absurd... they do. Along the way, our hero makes the acquaintance of a lovely young miss whose hospitable invitation to dinner with her family drives the rest of the plot. Another short sequence allows Keaton to introduce another characteristic, but anachronistic prop -- his flat "porkpie" hat.
The rest of the film, as his hereditary enemies uncomfortably alternate between their familial obligation to kill him and their social obligation to respect the sanctuary of Their Hospitality -- but only so long as he is inside their house! -- is entertaining, but can't quite match that bizarrely hilarious train trip. Perhaps I'm just biased.
Keaton, as usual, remains the deadpan "Great Stone Face", the still point around which absurdity swirls. His character's emotional reactions are shown through his actions and posture, and sometimes through short fantasy-sequences interjected into the film. And yet the character doesn't come across as cold or unemotional at all. In fact, the contrast between his stoicism and the histrionic mugging of the other actors helps establish him as the viewer's reference point and alter-ego, no matter how farfetched the situations in which he finds himself, or the physical feats he performs.
In Sherlock, Jr., our hero is yet again a nebbishy young man, this time a theater projectionist who would much rather be a detective. As a result, a real life mystery and romance become comically intertwined with their somewhat more grandiose counterparts on the screen. And things just keep getting weirder....
I was startled to realize just how many bits of Sherlock Jr. have been lifted or echoed by subsequent movies. Woody Allen's on-screen persona is frequently similar to Keaton's, although more openly emotive and less prone to casual feats of physical impossibility. The "out-of-body experience" in which Keaton's consciousness gets up and walks away from his sleeping body was echoed by a famous scene in Annie Hall, and a key scene from The Purple Rose of Cairo is recognizably related to a similar scene in Sherlock, Jr. The surreal confusion of the worlds inside and outside the silver screen -- such as the sequence in which Keaton's character finds himself helplessly blundering from one inhospitable film set to another -- has been echoed time and again, perhaps most notably by Mel Brooks & Co. in Blazing Saddles.
Pay attention to the notice, "Passed by the National Board of Review", which appears very prominently at the beginning of the movie. It helps to explain the final scene of the film, in which Keaton's character appears befuddled by a certain sequence of cause-and-effect that the film censors of the time would not permit movies to portray completely.
And yes, there is a train scene! It's not as extended as in Our Hospitality, but apparently Keaton couldn't resist the urge to incorporate a train into a chase sequence. Wikipedia's entry states that in doing one of the stunts in this sequence, he broke his neck and didn't even notice it until years later. Whether that's true or not, it seems typical of his at-all-costs approach to physical comedy.
I find it entirely believable that Jackie Chan was inspired by watching Keaton. Anyone who enjoys marvelling at the stunts performed by Chan should check out Keaton as well. It would be nice to think that perhaps in some filmic afterlife, Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton will have a chance to sit down and compare their scars while trading stories.
News noted
College accreditation requirements and procedures may be destined for significant changes in the near future, according to the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Should higher education be judged solely on whether its current crop of students can pass this year's professional licensing exams? Or is there also a responsibility to maintain access to the whole body of intellectually & historically significant material?
Also from the Chronicle: the Georgia Baptist Convention has severed ties with Mercer University, apparently in reaction to a gay/lesbian symposium that was held there last year. Usually it's the Baptist-affiliated colleges and universities that want to break loose from fundamentalist-controlled state Baptist associations, rather than the other way around.
College accreditation requirements and procedures may be destined for significant changes in the near future, according to the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
"Right now, accreditation ... is largely focused on inputs, more on how many books are in a college library, than whether students can actually understand them," Ms. Spellings said in a speech here in September after the report's release. "Institutions are asked, 'Are you measuring student learning?' And they check yes or no. That must change. Whether students are learning is not a yes or no question. It's how? How much? And to what effect?"Will this lead to more colleges & universities consigning their libraries to the dumpster in favor of administrative happy-talk about "student learning outcomes"?
Should higher education be judged solely on whether its current crop of students can pass this year's professional licensing exams? Or is there also a responsibility to maintain access to the whole body of intellectually & historically significant material?
Also from the Chronicle: the Georgia Baptist Convention has severed ties with Mercer University, apparently in reaction to a gay/lesbian symposium that was held there last year. Usually it's the Baptist-affiliated colleges and universities that want to break loose from fundamentalist-controlled state Baptist associations, rather than the other way around.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Recent listens
The 60 Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century, selected and introduced by Walter Cronkite.
Or, rather, 24 of them, since I haven't had time to listen to the rest. Standouts, i.e., ones I remember clearly enough to comment on them:
The Adventures of Philip Marlowe: Red Wind, 06-17-1947. A serviceable adaptation of the classic noir detective.
The Baby Snooks Show: Report Card Blues, 05-01-1951. Truly horrible. A whiny, self-righteous brat and two incompetent parents who lie to each other and other adults as well as to their kid. How did anyone manage to grow up listening to such dreck without being scarred for life?
Escape: Leinengen vs. the Ants, 01-14-1948. A classic macho jungle-adventure tale, told to good effect. Billions of army ants are on the march, devouring everything in their path. Stubborn plantation boss Leinengen vows not to evacuate, but to defend his property against the unstoppable horde. Will he succeed? And will there be enough left of him to fill a teacup afterward?
Fibber McGee and Molly: I Can Get It For You Wholesale, 12-09-1941. The progenitor of ten thousand family sitcoms in which someone hatches crazy money-making schemes that always go wrong. Yes, the famous closet makes an appearance. (So to speak).
On a Note of Triumph, 05-13-1945. A firsthand glimpse into history: a "you are there" moment, listening to a triumphal May 1945 broadcast reviewing the history of the war in Europe. Nazi Germany has just surrendered. What should be done with captured and surrendered Nazis? At the time of broadcast, no one knew what decision would be made.
Suspense: Sorry Wrong Number, 08-21-1943. Classic tale of suspense. It's been made into a movie also, but the subject matter -- a bedridden woman who accidentally overhears a mysterious and threatening telephone conversation -- remains particularly appropriate to radio storytelling.
Grand Central Station: Miracle for Christmas, 12-24-1949. The best part of this show is the introduction. The story itself is impossibly sappy, something about a mysterious doctor who shows up for work on Christmas Eve and goes around miraculously curing everyone in sight. Then at the end we find out -- shock! awe! -- that the doctor died in a wreck earlier that night. Gosh, says the cynical ambulance driver, that means.... he must be... (fade into celestial music.) Followed by the sound of Your Humble Correspondent gagging on glurge.
Philco Radio Time: The Road to Hollywood, 01-29-1947. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour yuck it up telling an improbable tale about how the three of them came to be in Hollywood, with occasional self-aware, half-mocking references to the show's corporate sponsors. Irony isn't a modern invention. Neither is commercial co-opting of irony.
The Saint: The Corpse Said Ouch, 08-06-1950. Vincent Price is a suave Simon Templar. He has Eyebrows Of Power, just like another famous Simon Templar. You can't see them on radio. But you can hear them.
Have Gun, Will Travel : From Here to Boston, 11-27-1960. A western with a touch of gritty detective noir. In this episode, an alluring lady and her brother lay sinister plans for lonely hero Paladin. Will he realize the danger he's in before it's too late? Unfortunately, the radio show does not feature the theme song used for the television program, which ranks among my favorite such songs.
Lum and Abner : Christmas Show, 12-19-1948. Cloying, stereotypical country bumpkins with really annoying exaggerated cornpone accents.
Arthur Godfrey Time, 10-21-1953: Please, can we move the clock forward to escape this vacuous, pointlessly-prattling snob? If not, can someone break a champagne bottle over his self-absorbed head? Did Americans in 1953 really think that this represented "sophistication"?
The Walter Winchell Show, 03-20-1949. The man has become a legend and a stereotype recognized by "Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea", even if few now recognize his name. He's the prototype of the pompous, aggressive, egotistical broadcaster whom we all know and loathe. His fast-paced, rushing style of "Flash!" news stories, one piled on top of another with scarcely time to breathe in between, is the prototype for the teasers run by today's more superficial news and celebrity-gossip programs. They titillate the listener while never supplying quite enough information, always leaving the audience wanting more as he jumps -- "Flash!" -- to the next three-second soundbyte.
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to listen to the radio versions of Nightfall, the origin stories of Superman and The Lone Ranger, The Martian Chronicles, or the episodes of I Love Lucy and The Shadow that appear on other tapes. Perhaps some other time.
The 60 Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows of the 20th Century, selected and introduced by Walter Cronkite.
Or, rather, 24 of them, since I haven't had time to listen to the rest. Standouts, i.e., ones I remember clearly enough to comment on them:
The Adventures of Philip Marlowe: Red Wind, 06-17-1947. A serviceable adaptation of the classic noir detective.
The Baby Snooks Show: Report Card Blues, 05-01-1951. Truly horrible. A whiny, self-righteous brat and two incompetent parents who lie to each other and other adults as well as to their kid. How did anyone manage to grow up listening to such dreck without being scarred for life?
Escape: Leinengen vs. the Ants, 01-14-1948. A classic macho jungle-adventure tale, told to good effect. Billions of army ants are on the march, devouring everything in their path. Stubborn plantation boss Leinengen vows not to evacuate, but to defend his property against the unstoppable horde. Will he succeed? And will there be enough left of him to fill a teacup afterward?
Fibber McGee and Molly: I Can Get It For You Wholesale, 12-09-1941. The progenitor of ten thousand family sitcoms in which someone hatches crazy money-making schemes that always go wrong. Yes, the famous closet makes an appearance. (So to speak).
On a Note of Triumph, 05-13-1945. A firsthand glimpse into history: a "you are there" moment, listening to a triumphal May 1945 broadcast reviewing the history of the war in Europe. Nazi Germany has just surrendered. What should be done with captured and surrendered Nazis? At the time of broadcast, no one knew what decision would be made.
Suspense: Sorry Wrong Number, 08-21-1943. Classic tale of suspense. It's been made into a movie also, but the subject matter -- a bedridden woman who accidentally overhears a mysterious and threatening telephone conversation -- remains particularly appropriate to radio storytelling.
Grand Central Station: Miracle for Christmas, 12-24-1949. The best part of this show is the introduction. The story itself is impossibly sappy, something about a mysterious doctor who shows up for work on Christmas Eve and goes around miraculously curing everyone in sight. Then at the end we find out -- shock! awe! -- that the doctor died in a wreck earlier that night. Gosh, says the cynical ambulance driver, that means.... he must be... (fade into celestial music.) Followed by the sound of Your Humble Correspondent gagging on glurge.
Philco Radio Time: The Road to Hollywood, 01-29-1947. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour yuck it up telling an improbable tale about how the three of them came to be in Hollywood, with occasional self-aware, half-mocking references to the show's corporate sponsors. Irony isn't a modern invention. Neither is commercial co-opting of irony.
The Saint: The Corpse Said Ouch, 08-06-1950. Vincent Price is a suave Simon Templar. He has Eyebrows Of Power, just like another famous Simon Templar. You can't see them on radio. But you can hear them.
Have Gun, Will Travel : From Here to Boston, 11-27-1960. A western with a touch of gritty detective noir. In this episode, an alluring lady and her brother lay sinister plans for lonely hero Paladin. Will he realize the danger he's in before it's too late? Unfortunately, the radio show does not feature the theme song used for the television program, which ranks among my favorite such songs.
Lum and Abner : Christmas Show, 12-19-1948. Cloying, stereotypical country bumpkins with really annoying exaggerated cornpone accents.
Arthur Godfrey Time, 10-21-1953: Please, can we move the clock forward to escape this vacuous, pointlessly-prattling snob? If not, can someone break a champagne bottle over his self-absorbed head? Did Americans in 1953 really think that this represented "sophistication"?
The Walter Winchell Show, 03-20-1949. The man has become a legend and a stereotype recognized by "Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea", even if few now recognize his name. He's the prototype of the pompous, aggressive, egotistical broadcaster whom we all know and loathe. His fast-paced, rushing style of "Flash!" news stories, one piled on top of another with scarcely time to breathe in between, is the prototype for the teasers run by today's more superficial news and celebrity-gossip programs. They titillate the listener while never supplying quite enough information, always leaving the audience wanting more as he jumps -- "Flash!" -- to the next three-second soundbyte.
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to listen to the radio versions of Nightfall, the origin stories of Superman and The Lone Ranger, The Martian Chronicles, or the episodes of I Love Lucy and The Shadow that appear on other tapes. Perhaps some other time.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Goodbye to Jesus Camp?
No time for proper investigation here, just a quick link to Mark Maynard's post on the subject.
No time for proper investigation here, just a quick link to Mark Maynard's post on the subject.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Recent reads
You're stepping on my cloak and dagger, by Roger Hall. A humorous look at the recruitment and training of a WWII secret agent. The author was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to today's CIA, in 1943, and only participated in a couple of real missions late in the war. (Or at least, those are the only ones he tells us about.) Consequently there's relatively little actual blood and danger in the book, but a lot of satirical description of the military bureaucracy and the OSS's spy-training program, which included not only physical training in military technique and parachuting, but a continual series of psychological games designed to force the students to be constantly on the alert lest they betray their cover.
Some of the OSS's training techniques, as described by our author, sound less like well-planned professional training then seat-of-the-pants improvisation. Does today's CIA train its future agents by dropping into a strange city with an open-ended assignment to penetrate a sensitive target and retrieve something from inside it as proof of their success? Should it? This exercise proves to be quite dangerous for one of his classmates, who actually gets caught by counter-agents. The police, you see, know nothing of the OSS's Wild-West, sink-or-swim training methods. For all they know, he might actually be an enemy spy.
I got a chuckle out of recognizing some of the programs and places described. When the OSS's training program in cryptography was mentioned, I was reminded of a relative who served in a position involving cryptography during the war, and wondered if he went through a course of training similar to the one described. And then we have the following passage, as a group of spies-in-training travel to their next appointment:
Given the kinds of jokes and excursions that the author and his classmates were able to get away with during their training, one can't help but wonder how the country could possibly have survived any widespread campaign of espionage and sabotage.
On the other hand, it's possible that the author's casual, jokey tone is at least partly disinformation intended to decieve 1957 readers about the actual capabilities and seriousness of American spycraft. Deception is, after all, the business of a spy!
You're stepping on my cloak and dagger, by Roger Hall. A humorous look at the recruitment and training of a WWII secret agent. The author was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to today's CIA, in 1943, and only participated in a couple of real missions late in the war. (Or at least, those are the only ones he tells us about.) Consequently there's relatively little actual blood and danger in the book, but a lot of satirical description of the military bureaucracy and the OSS's spy-training program, which included not only physical training in military technique and parachuting, but a continual series of psychological games designed to force the students to be constantly on the alert lest they betray their cover.
Some of the OSS's training techniques, as described by our author, sound less like well-planned professional training then seat-of-the-pants improvisation. Does today's CIA train its future agents by dropping into a strange city with an open-ended assignment to penetrate a sensitive target and retrieve something from inside it as proof of their success? Should it? This exercise proves to be quite dangerous for one of his classmates, who actually gets caught by counter-agents. The police, you see, know nothing of the OSS's Wild-West, sink-or-swim training methods. For all they know, he might actually be an enemy spy.
I got a chuckle out of recognizing some of the programs and places described. When the OSS's training program in cryptography was mentioned, I was reminded of a relative who served in a position involving cryptography during the war, and wondered if he went through a course of training similar to the one described. And then we have the following passage, as a group of spies-in-training travel to their next appointment:
If anyone was jittery, it wasn't in evidence on the way up. I had my hands full with Gordon and our ever-present blackjack game. Mitch and Ossian sat across the aisle creating a certain amount of consternation by carying on a heated discussion in German, which they both spoke fluently. Not content with the harvest of suspicious glares this reaped, they waited until the train was passing the Glenn L. Martin aircraft factories, a huge camouflaged plant area half an hour out of Baltimore. Then Ossian leaned across, and in a stage whisper which rattled the car, asked, "Hans, haff you gott de planz?"In 1943 or 1944, it's quite likely that Grand-dad B. was working away at his drop-hammer, banging aircraft parts out of sheet aluminum inside that plant, as the would-be spies rolled by making their jokes.
The question was accompanied by a significant glance out the window. I was busy playing aces back to back at the time, but Gordon had the presence of mind to answer with a guttural "Ja."
I don't know precisely what effect this brief exchange had on the other passengers, but it was enough to make certain of our classmates hurriedly move to other parts of the train. (p. 88)
Given the kinds of jokes and excursions that the author and his classmates were able to get away with during their training, one can't help but wonder how the country could possibly have survived any widespread campaign of espionage and sabotage.
On the other hand, it's possible that the author's casual, jokey tone is at least partly disinformation intended to decieve 1957 readers about the actual capabilities and seriousness of American spycraft. Deception is, after all, the business of a spy!
Recent Reads
Thud!, by Terry Pratchett. Sam Vimes, the stubbornly straitlaced head of the Ankh-Morpokh city guard, is faced with a touchy and potentially deadly situation. Relations between the city's dwarfs and trolls, never very good, are on the point of exploding into open riot as the anniversary of an ancient battle approaches and a group of fundamentalist "deep-down dwarfs" seems intent on provoking confrontation with their hereditary enemies. A murdered dwarf and an accusation that a troll is responsible may be the final spark, unless the indefagitable Vimes can smoke out the truth. In between episodes of detective work, Vimes tries mightily to keep up with his newfound domestic duties, including most notably the ritualistic daily 6-o-clock reading of an illustrated storybook to his young son.
The blending of Sam Vimes' hardboiled detective outlook and the comical absurdities of the city and its eccentric inhabitants makes for an enjoyable light read.
Thud!, by Terry Pratchett. Sam Vimes, the stubbornly straitlaced head of the Ankh-Morpokh city guard, is faced with a touchy and potentially deadly situation. Relations between the city's dwarfs and trolls, never very good, are on the point of exploding into open riot as the anniversary of an ancient battle approaches and a group of fundamentalist "deep-down dwarfs" seems intent on provoking confrontation with their hereditary enemies. A murdered dwarf and an accusation that a troll is responsible may be the final spark, unless the indefagitable Vimes can smoke out the truth. In between episodes of detective work, Vimes tries mightily to keep up with his newfound domestic duties, including most notably the ritualistic daily 6-o-clock reading of an illustrated storybook to his young son.
The blending of Sam Vimes' hardboiled detective outlook and the comical absurdities of the city and its eccentric inhabitants makes for an enjoyable light read.
Recent Reads
The Gateway Trip : Tales and Vignettes of the Heechee, by Frederik Pohl. As the subtitle suggests, this is not a novel or even a collection of short stories. "The Merchants of Venus", the tale of a cynical, hardboiled type who takes a couple of wealthy Earth tourists on a search for alien artifacts on and below the surface of Venus, qualifies as a novella. Its tone and language suggest that it may have been written long before this book's publication date of 1990. The remainder of the book reads like a scriptwriter's "bible", an authorial outline and set of rules for a long-running story arc. It contains several interesting vignettes, but no characters whose stories extend beyond a few pages outside of the novella mentioned above.
As such, it would be of great interest to fans of Pohl's various Heechee novels and stories, or to anyone who wants to get the gist of their setting without spending a lot of time reading multiple volumes. Readers looking for more traditional SF storytelling might want to start with Pohl's published stories and novels dealing with the Heechee, and then explore this volume if they're curious about the timeline and background that underlies them.
The Gateway Trip : Tales and Vignettes of the Heechee, by Frederik Pohl. As the subtitle suggests, this is not a novel or even a collection of short stories. "The Merchants of Venus", the tale of a cynical, hardboiled type who takes a couple of wealthy Earth tourists on a search for alien artifacts on and below the surface of Venus, qualifies as a novella. Its tone and language suggest that it may have been written long before this book's publication date of 1990. The remainder of the book reads like a scriptwriter's "bible", an authorial outline and set of rules for a long-running story arc. It contains several interesting vignettes, but no characters whose stories extend beyond a few pages outside of the novella mentioned above.
As such, it would be of great interest to fans of Pohl's various Heechee novels and stories, or to anyone who wants to get the gist of their setting without spending a lot of time reading multiple volumes. Readers looking for more traditional SF storytelling might want to start with Pohl's published stories and novels dealing with the Heechee, and then explore this volume if they're curious about the timeline and background that underlies them.
Recent Reads
Doc Savage: Secret in the Sky, by Kenneth Robeson. Doc Savage: the bronze superman with the strangely flecked eyes, the super-scientific lab atop the tallest skyscraper in New York, the proto-James Bondian gadgets, and the crew of superlative sidekicks, against which no evildoer stands a chance!
This series is enough of a legend in the pulp world that when a reprint of a 1935 episode of Doc's adventures showed up in the library's stack of unwanted donations, I picked it up to explore his world.
Unfortunately, the book has all the worst characteristics that I've come to associate with old-time serial pulp fiction. Stiff, clunky dialogue and awkward prose, and a story that doesn't really grab my attention or make very much sense. (Especially once it lost my attention and I started skimming chapters.)
The most interesting part of the book is the first page, upon which one finds the following passage:
No, it really doesn't make sense that the fabulously wealthy Doc Savage couldn't afford to retain a secretary. Nor does it make any sense that such a prominent enemy to evildoers everywhere would leave his headquarters unattended by a trusted human agent. But the description of an automatic answering machine supplied the 1935 reader with a concrete, understandable example of a technological advance which -- unlike rayguns and spaceships -- might conceivably be available in the near future and useful to an ordinary person. In doing so, might it have prompted some of those readers to take an interest in the electrical and engineering sciences, and thus indirectly contributed to the advancement of science in following years?
Doc Savage: Secret in the Sky, by Kenneth Robeson. Doc Savage: the bronze superman with the strangely flecked eyes, the super-scientific lab atop the tallest skyscraper in New York, the proto-James Bondian gadgets, and the crew of superlative sidekicks, against which no evildoer stands a chance!
This series is enough of a legend in the pulp world that when a reprint of a 1935 episode of Doc's adventures showed up in the library's stack of unwanted donations, I picked it up to explore his world.
Unfortunately, the book has all the worst characteristics that I've come to associate with old-time serial pulp fiction. Stiff, clunky dialogue and awkward prose, and a story that doesn't really grab my attention or make very much sense. (Especially once it lost my attention and I started skimming chapters.)
The most interesting part of the book is the first page, upon which one finds the following passage:
At exactly noon, the telephone buzzer whirred in Doc Savage's New York skyscraper headquarters. Noon, straight up, Eastern Standard Time.So there you have it, a 1935 description of an analog telephone answering machine. It sounds quaint today, but was probably something of a novel idea when first published. Whether such a device was built in the 1930s, either commercially or experimentally, is unknown to me. The text fails to explain exactly how the message was recorded. Wax cylinders, perhaps? Acetate disks? Was magnetic recording tape available at that time?
The buzzer whirred three times, with lengthy pauses between whirs, which allowed time for anyone prsent to have answered. Then an automatic answering device, an ingenious arrangement of receiver, voice recorder, and phonographic speaker -- a creation of Doc Savage's scientific skill -- was cut in automatically. The phonograph record turned under the needle and sent words over the telephone wire.
"This is a mechanical robot speaking from Doc Savage's headquarters and advising you that Doc Savage is not present but that any message you care to leave will be recorded in your own voice and will come to Doc Savage's attention later," spoke the mechanical contrivance. "You may proceed with whatever you wish to say, if anything."
"Doc!" gasped a voice...
(...text omitted....)
...Then came silence, followed by a click as the receiver was placed on the hook at the San Francisco terminus of the wire.
The mechanical device in Doc Savage's New York office ran on for some moments, and a stamp clock automatically recorded the exact time of the message on a paper roll; then the apparatus stopped and set itself for another call, should one come.
No, it really doesn't make sense that the fabulously wealthy Doc Savage couldn't afford to retain a secretary. Nor does it make any sense that such a prominent enemy to evildoers everywhere would leave his headquarters unattended by a trusted human agent. But the description of an automatic answering machine supplied the 1935 reader with a concrete, understandable example of a technological advance which -- unlike rayguns and spaceships -- might conceivably be available in the near future and useful to an ordinary person. In doing so, might it have prompted some of those readers to take an interest in the electrical and engineering sciences, and thus indirectly contributed to the advancement of science in following years?
It's not that I'm so cheerful, though I'll always raise a smile
and if at times my nonsense rhymes then I'll stand trial....
Matthew Fisher and Gary Brooker go to court over A Whiter Shade of Pale.
Thanks to Carlos for the link.
and if at times my nonsense rhymes then I'll stand trial....
Matthew Fisher and Gary Brooker go to court over A Whiter Shade of Pale.
Thanks to Carlos for the link.
On destroying books
Saith Sir John Collings Squire:
Saith Sir John Collings Squire:
"It says in the paper" that over two million volumes have been presented to the troops by the public. It would be interesting to inspect them. Most of them, no doubt, are quite ordinary and suitable; but it was publicly stated the other day that some people were sending the oddest things, such as magazines twenty years old, guides to the Lake District, Bradshaws, and back numbers of Whitaker's Almanack. It some cases, one imagines, such indigestibles get into the parcels by accident; but it is likely that there are those who jump at the opportunity of getting rid of books they don't want. Why have they kept them if they don't want them? But most people, especially non-bookish people, are very reluctant to throw away anything that looks like a book. In the most illiterate houses that one knows every worthless or ephemeral volume that is bought finds it way to a shelf and stays there. In reality it is not merely absurd to keep rubbish merely because it is printed: it is positively a public duty to destroy it. Destruction not merely makes more room for new books and saves one's heirs the trouble of sorting out the rubbish or storing it: it may also prevent posterity from making a fool of itself. We may be sure that if we do not burn, sink, or blast all the superseded editions of Bradshaw, two hundred years hence some collector will be specialising in old railway time-tables, gathering, at immense cost, a complete series, and ultimately leaving his "treasures" (as the Press will call them) to a Public Institution.....(More here.)
Sunday, November 12, 2006
All your colors are belong to us, part II
A few months ago I noted a lawsuit in which the a US district court upheld a university's assertion of trademark ownership over the use of certain combinations of colors on clothing, even when the university itself was not actually named. At the time, I wondered how long it would be until the universities' grasping legal departments tried to expand their ownership of colors.
Until now, apparently. The U. of Alabama has filed suit to prevent a sports artist from depicting a well-known moment in its sports history, on the grounds that the artist is not permitted to reproduce their trademarked color scheme of crimson and white.
Sports Artist Sued for Mix of Crimson and Tide (NY Times)
I can't help but be leery of large institutions, or any other entity, that seek to prohibit depiction or commentary on public events by invoking trademarks. What's next -- a ban on news photographs that "violate trademark" by including a banner or football uniform in a trademarked color scheme, or some well-known campus landmark? A total ban on any references to the institution at all, except for those scripted by the PR department?
A few months ago I noted a lawsuit in which the a US district court upheld a university's assertion of trademark ownership over the use of certain combinations of colors on clothing, even when the university itself was not actually named. At the time, I wondered how long it would be until the universities' grasping legal departments tried to expand their ownership of colors.
Until now, apparently. The U. of Alabama has filed suit to prevent a sports artist from depicting a well-known moment in its sports history, on the grounds that the artist is not permitted to reproduce their trademarked color scheme of crimson and white.
Sports Artist Sued for Mix of Crimson and Tide (NY Times)
I can't help but be leery of large institutions, or any other entity, that seek to prohibit depiction or commentary on public events by invoking trademarks. What's next -- a ban on news photographs that "violate trademark" by including a banner or football uniform in a trademarked color scheme, or some well-known campus landmark? A total ban on any references to the institution at all, except for those scripted by the PR department?
Saturday, November 11, 2006
RIP, Jack Williamson
One of the last of the Golden-Age SF writers has departed the stage at the age of 98. His Seetee Shock and Seetee Ship, which I picked up in a tattered secondhand omnibus edition sometime before I was ten years old, were among the first serious, book -length science fiction stories I ever read. By all accounts, he was an excellent teacher and a generous and wise man as well as a talented writer who knew how to combine real science and plausible speculation with exciting storytelling.
Reported by Locus, the Alberquerque Tribune, etc.
One of the last of the Golden-Age SF writers has departed the stage at the age of 98. His Seetee Shock and Seetee Ship, which I picked up in a tattered secondhand omnibus edition sometime before I was ten years old, were among the first serious, book -length science fiction stories I ever read. By all accounts, he was an excellent teacher and a generous and wise man as well as a talented writer who knew how to combine real science and plausible speculation with exciting storytelling.
Reported by Locus, the Alberquerque Tribune, etc.
More on the Bush administration's war against environmental data
Senators question closing of EPA libraries (From a blog affiliated with the DePaul University law school) Quoted there:
Senators question closing of EPA libraries (From a blog affiliated with the DePaul University law school) Quoted there:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is sharply reducing the number of technical journals and environmental publications to which its employees will have online access, according to agency e-mails released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This loss of online access compounds the effect of agency library closures, meaning that affected employees may not have access to either a hard copy or an electronic version of publications.Smoke and mirrors. Claim that the physical libraries aren't needed because "everything's on the Internet", while simultaneously shutting down researcher's electronic access. Smoke and mirrors. Will a Democratic Congress be willing to look behind the curtain?
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