early movie review

Finding myself at loose ends at the end of the afternoon quite near a theater that was the only one showing a movie being released today that I had some interest in, I decided to go see it.

Operation Finale (2018)

The immediately preceding trailer was for the re-release of Schindler's List, in which Ben Kingsley plays the Jewish clerk who helps Schindler compile the list. In this movie, Ben Kingsley plays Adolf Eichmann. It's a change.

This is a movie about the Israeli operation to abduct Eichmann in Buenos Aires in 1960. Oscar Isaac plays the impossibly noble chief Israeli agent, a composite character. I didn't know much about the details of the operation, and after seeing the movie I still doubt that I do. The abduction itself occurs about halfway through; the agents then have to hide Eichmann in a safe house for over a week because of some bureaucratic snafu regarding scheduling the departure of their airplane (which is on a cover mission).

I don't know if this happened in reality or not. According to Wikipedia the delay in transporting Eichmann was spent confirming his identity. In the movie Eichmann steadfastly denies being Eichmann until he suddenly caves and admits it, and this doesn't have much to do with the delay. Also in the movie, but perhaps not in reality, the Israelis twice narrowly escape being captured by a posse of Argentine police who are after them. And as I watched those scenes, what was inevitably running through my head was this.

Kingsley speaks in something of the same odd sing-songy accent he used for the role of Dmitri Shostakovich in Testimony.

Conclusion: Not as boring as Bridge of Spies, but not as exciting as an undercover spy movie ought to be, either.

book found in the worldcon dealer's room

Where Memory Hides: A Writer's Life by Richard A. Lupoff (Bold Venture Press, 2016)

When I was a young sf fan in Berkeley, among the older people I met and got to hang out with a bit were Dick and Pat Lupoff. (Not the only fannish couple I've met named Dick and Pat, none of whom were in any other way like the Nixons.) They were known for having once published a Hugo-winning fanzine called Xero, an anthology of which was subsequently published by Tachyon, and Dick under his formal byline had become a professional fiction writer of note.

In that capacity he was protean, capable of everything from homages to pulpsters like ERB and HPL to the most esoteric New Wave style science fiction or exotically Japanese-influenced epic fantasy. Perhaps because he didn't have a single definable authorial personality, Lupoff's sf/fantasy career never gained traction, and he subsequently sailed off into the friendlier waters of detective/mystery fiction.

With a few small exceptions, I found that I bounced off most of his fiction, or it went into areas I just wasn't interested in following, but I really enjoyed Dick and Pat themselves and their company. I was consequently a good audience for a book Dick wrote a couple decades ago called Writer At Large, a collection of essays about various experiences, in particular his stint teaching writing to inmates at San Quentin. It was highly illuminating and worth reading for anyone with an interest in inmate life or indeed in adult education.

There's a bit more about that in this memoir, which I think was compiled by stitching together various autobiographical writings. It rambles around with little regard to chronological order and repeats the same anecdotes in different places, even acknowledging that it does so. It talks about his sf and fantasy, his mysteries, how an old white male writer created a young black female detective character (by observing the black women he'd known over his life, he says), his dealings with editors and publishers, his fanzines, his childhood, his time in the army and as a bureaucrat in a soulless government department, teaching at Q and working as a radio personality and in a fabulous independent bookstore. It also contains a chapter attempting to argue, by use of selected quotes, that there is absolutely no difference in literary quality between high literature and pulp fiction, which I find hard to credit from a writer with such sensitivity to differences in style, but let that pass.

I doubt this book would be of much interest to anyone not as fond of Dick Lupoff the man as I am, unless they were really powerfully interested in his fiction. So why am I writing about it? Because I find from its pages that today - this very day! - is Dick and Pat's 60th wedding anniversary. I haven't seen either of them in several years, but I hope they're doing OK, and I wish them a very merry anniversary.

outings

Having been released from hospital duty by the successful discharge of the patient, I had the time for a couple of artistic outings.

First to Stanford, for a concert by a series of student pianists who played Louis Andriessen, Frederic Rzewski, and a whole big wad of Schubert. A rather peculiar combination.

Then to the Livermore Performing Arts Center for the latest Lamplighters production of The Pirates of Penzance. I liked the theater, which I hadn't been to before. Though likewise arena-sliced, it's smaller and more focused than Lesher in Walnut Creek, and consequently sounds better. Nor is it any farther from here to drive to. Excellent singing, especially from Michael Desnoyers as Frederic and Erin O'Meally as Mabel. But the innovations in staging, largely intended to update the Stanley daughters to 1890s "new women," sat incoherently with the plot.

A missed turn on the drive home sent me zooming off towards Pleasanton, which at least is not far out of the way, so I decided to take the opportunity to stop off at the Inklings coffee & tea shop there, just because of the name. If you order your strawberry-mint lemonade, which is just about the only thing they had that wasn't either coffee or tea, from the side of the counter with the menu on it, they'll direct you over to the other side where the computer is, then direct you back again to the original spot to pick up the drink. Confusing.

There were lots of small tables and comfy chairs around. The walls were lined with bookshelves, but a close look suggested something a bit of the poseur quality to it, as despite a few Lewis and Williams volumes scattered about, most of the contents were yard goods: a volume of Winston Churchill's war history here, Zane Grey and Tom Clancy novels there, a bunch of law textbooks over there, and lots and lots of Readers Digest Condensed Books. In one spot by some branded t-shirts and coasters and the like is a sign indicating two books are for sale. One is by Lewis, Perelandra, and the other isn't. The hand-lettered sign gives the title as Voyage to Articus. Jiminy Cricket and all the little fishes, it's supposed to be Arcturus.

Also on the walls are some nicely-done pencil portraits of the four principal Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien, Williams, and Barfield) and on the opposite wall some framed quotations, one real one from Tolkien and two ones falsely attributed to Lewis that are actually spoken by his character in the Shadowlands movie or play. Tsk.

it's Bernstein's centenary

As you'll know if you've seen today's Google doodle, it's the centenary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein, who grew up in the Boston area and attended Harvard before going off to New York and making his name as a young composer and conductor.

The tension between those professions defined Bernstein's professional life. He wanted to buckle down to serious work as a composer, but even though he resigned his position as music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1969, kept finding that conducting - and his related need to educate, both in mentoring younger conductors and performers (many of whom are at the top of the profession today) and in giving public, often televised, talks in music education - kept distracting him.

As a conductor, Bernstein was highly emotional and a bit eccentric. He liked to exaggerate the structural joins in large compositions, which actually made him a good choice for a young enthusiast learning his way around the standard repertoire, which is what I was in the 1970s when Bernstein's recordings of it - just about all of it; he was insanely prolific - dominated the record-store shelves.

I also weaned on Bernstein's musical education programs and writings, particularly those geared to children. I later came to disagree with some of his views, but there's no question he was gifted as an educator and imaginative as a pedagogue as well as learned in musical theory and history. But not all of it was that simple. I'd like to direct your attention to this video from a Harvard lecture, a virtuoso five-minute whirlwind summary of the development of tonal harmony. It's perfectly clear technically though historically oversimplified, but I wonder if it makes sense to those uneducated in musical theory or does it fly over your heads?

As a composer, Bernstein was most at home in musical theater or other works with at least a whiff of the stage about them. He made his name with stage shows in the 40s and reached his pinnacle in that form in the 50s with West Side Story (which was a hit in its first production) and Candide (which was not - largely due to the book, the spoken-word part, which was later replaced and the show's done better in revivals). After that, Bernstein tended to feel he wasn't devoting enough time and thought to his compositions and wished he had more to give, but he was too busy and too distracted.

Nevertheless he did get some fine works done, although his magnum opus as a composer, Mass of 1971, received some scathing reviews for its "vulgar" populism, which damaged the composer's self-confidence you may be sure. It's not really until since Bernstein's death in 1990 that Mass has come to be accepted as the giant achievement in early postmodern art that it really is, and one of the few truly great spiritual choral-orchestral masterpieces of its century.

A good introduction to Bernstein's work as a composer is this little summary here. I like its choice of clips, though the sound quality of the one from Mass is poor, and I'm not sure how well an excerpt works out of context, as Mass is very much a work of its cumulative power.

If you're ready for some first-rate full-length performances of Bernstein's staged masterpieces, I have two of them online here: an impressive Mass from the BBC Proms, conducted by Kristjan Järvi,

and an utterly delightful Candide from the NY Philharmonic (the one from which Kristin Chenoweth's "Glitter and Be Gay" is excerpted in the introduction piece linked above), conducted by Marin Alsop (a Bernstein protege).

buzzer in my pocket

Those who read closely a certain blog may be able to deduce that much of my time since the Worldcon has been spent in aid of a friend from out of town who was taken from that convention to a hospital and is now at a different hospital, recuperating from surgery. I've run errands and spent time on cheering bedside visits. Others helped from the convention end, but then they had to go home; my particular virtue is being local.

Both this, and keeping in touch with B. during the con itself, have put a lot of usage on my cell phone, particularly the messaging function. I count myself fortunate that the Great Disappearing Act of July which disposed of a newish phone I didn't much like enabled me to replace it by reverting to the previous model which is much easier to use. For one thing, I didn't have to use any absurd or complex Bluetooth to add my preferred ringtone. All I needed was to open the browser and type in the file's URL. The phone downloaded the file automatically and then asked if I wanted to set this as my ringtone. Why, yes I do, and that took care of that.

But I haven't actually used the ringtone much, and not just because most of my calls are texts, which use a different, pre-set sound. Experience at the convention rapidly convinced me that it makes more sense to most of the time leave the phone on vibrate mode. I can feel that in my pocket better than I can hear the ringtone in a noisy room, and I don't have to constantly be turning it on and off as program items end and begin. The only catch is that it buzzes the same way regardless of whether I've received a call or a text, and I'm still training myself to look properly to determine which it is.

I'm also still getting used to typing messages by the system by which you type in a word's numerical equivalent and the phone guesses what matching word you want. No, I want 7378464 to mean "resting," not "serving." That sort of thing. The challenge is ignoring the phone's various guesses on the screen as you type digit after digit and try to remember where in a long or messy word you are.

Worldcon panels with Tolkien in them

The two best panels I attended at Worldcon 76 were both relatively sparsely attended, perhaps because they lacked famous names at the table. Instead, the panelists were young writers unfamiliar to me, representing a variety of ethnicities and gender/sexual identities. They were as articulate and interesting as any more famous names would have been, probably more so. The topics were intriguing, which is why I was there.

And both panels discussed Tolkien, in rather different contexts.

The panel on "Fantasy Canon from the Margins" had originally been titled "Tolkien from the Margins" (actually "Tolkein from the Margins," so it's a good thing it was changed). But this attempt to broaden the remit wasn't broad enough, as the works discussed represented pop culture in general, not specifically an established fantasy canon. And the margins considered were just ethnic/racial ones; sexual or gender issues were barely mentioned.

The theme of the panel was dealing with works you personally love, or which you respect as superbly crafted, but which perpetuate negative stereotypes. Suzanne Walker (Lebanese-American) told of how as a child she loved Disney's Aladdin because it had a princess who "looked like me," but she came to realize that it's full of unfortunate stereotypes. It's two things at once. SL Huang (Chinese-American) agreed that it was the same for her with Mulan. And that summed up the panelists' dilemma: They weren't going to drop these works that they loved, but they couldn't avoid acknowledging the glaring problems.

Tolkien came in with Walker discussing the Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. She liked the first one, but the second dismayed her. Nor was she familiar with just the movies, but compared them with the book. Jackson could have made different choices, she said, but instead elevated the stereotypes that were already there.

Note the assumption that the source material, Tolkien's novel, is fundamentally racist. Libia Brenda (Mexican) was explicit on this point, describing herself as "heartbroken" by the racism in Tolkien, Harry Potter, Star Wars. Though she also emphasized that these were good works with admirable qualities that should not be avoided. Just acknowledge the flaws and be critical: don't stop reading the canon, but expand upon it.

Fine, but I wondered just what Walker and Brenda found so racist in Tolkien. They didn't elaborate on the point. Is it just that the bad guys are described as swarthy? Is it the hierarchy of ethnic groups? The entire book is a demonstration that this hierarchy in no way dictates virtue or nobility of character. Does Tolkien's depiction of the good guys as ethnically diverse bear no weight here? Do the fact that he's not lecturing you on ethnic virtue, and his personal opposition to racist policies, at least place him in a different category than authors who use fantasy as a tool to advocate racism? There was no way this question could be asked on the panel, so I let it go, at least for now.

A panel asking "What Does a Nontoxic Masculinity Look Like?" intrigued because it's a question often avoided in discussions of the toxic kind. But there was no evasion on this panel, which featured four persons of a wide variety, not fully expounded in the introductions, of gender identities. The best I can say is that three seemed to fall somewhere in the female realm and the fourth in the male.

What I was not expecting was for Tolkien to make an appearance in the discussion.

To the panel's topic question, Reuben Baron immediately responded, "Mr. Rogers," and was rewarded with a burst of audience applause. "He's the bingo free space in discussion of non-toxic masculinity," said Baron.

But Leigh Ann Hildebrand had an objection. The problem with all these Sensitive New Age Guys, she said (not that Mr. Rogers was in any way New Age, but it was clear what she meant), is that - at least to her taste - they're not sexually attractive. She wants a tough guy with sensuality who yet avoids misogyny. Her examples were men from her personal life, but she found a well-known example later.

All of these were real-life. The question was posed: what about in fiction? and Reuben Baron immediately slapped the buzzer down again with Sam Gamgee. He's emotionally expressive, but a fighter. As for his relationship with Frodo, Baron said, "If you think it's gay, write your fan fiction. But it's still a positive role model for platonic male friendship."

Others added more examples from Tolkien or elsewhere. Foz Meadows mentioned characters in The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) and the Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells, among others, in this context, and then brought in Tolkien's Faramir, "a man who is trying to do the right thing," in contrast with his father Denethor. Baron mentioned Legolas and Gimli as characters who overcome their mutually hostile racism and become friends. And Hildebrand added the winning entry by describing Gandalf in his fight with the Balrog as a great moment of "dynamic masculinity" (her term), the quality that she's looking for. To which moderator Vanessa Rose Phin added, from Tolkien's posthumously-published material, that Gandalf also has the estimable ability to listen, as shown by his having learned patience and pity from the female Vala Nienna.

Good panels.

76th World Science Fiction Convention

Informally only "Worldcon 76" - the traditional city-name-inspired titles by which the previous San José Worldcon was called "ConJosé" seem to be on the way out. Because it was so local I was inevitably drawn into its orbit and attended, although my interest in these events has been rapidly decreasing, and this is the first Worldcon I've been to since the last one within reasonable driving distance, Reno seven years ago. I'm not expecting another in my time.

Like its local predecessor, the con was held at the city's convention center, a corridor extending along a long city block, anchored by attachments to major high-rise hotels at each end, with programming rooms - most of them far too small for the numbers who wanted to attend items - at either end and a giant ballroom and an even vaster concrete exhibit hall in the middle. The latter had art show at one end, dealers at the other, and miscellaneous exhibits and lounges in between.

My principal interest was in the dealers' room, into which I immediately disappeared and emerged with eight books, to which I added four more later. Most of them were single-author short-story collections, my favorite kind of box to consume science fiction from, though one of late only much available from small-press publishers.

Saturday's costume presentation in the giant ballroom was mostly notable for the number of times that tech failed to play the presenter's chosen music, and for the on-stage nervous breakdowns these glitches gave the emcee.

The Hugo Awards, Sunday, same venue, went smoother. The winners were inspiring, especially N.K. Jemisin with her unprecedented third consecutive Best Novel win. She's the big cheese in SF writing now, no question. But despite noble intentions I hadn't read any of the nominees or voted, so I viewed it from a figurative as well as literal distance.

Of the other evenings' ballroom events, Friday's series of concert sets - mostly songs with guitar - by the convention's various musically-enabled Guests of Honor was very pleasant. But of Thursday's original stage musical inspired by Snow White, the less said the mercifully better. Perhaps I should have gone to that night's alternative programming, a reception presenting the 1943 Retro Hugos, even though it was to be immediately followed by the truly shudder-inducing prospect of an 80s dance. (Why not a 40s dance? Bring on the Andrews Sisters!)

I didn't attend a lot of programming, and indeed was prevented from a few by lack of seating. Not all were worth attending.

1. A talk by the author of a forthcoming biography of famous old-time SF editor John W. Campbell featured his explaining how his publisher had persuaded him to focus on some of Campbell's authors as well, and he'd picked Asimov, Heinlein, and Hubbard as both important and central to Campbell's own story. This was followed by cluelessly name-collecting audience members asking why not Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, Eric Frank Russell? To all of which the author gave the same reply, which he'd already given before they asked.

2. A panel on the future of libraries, at which I'd hoped to learn something, was half-filled by the panelists giving detailed accounts of their vitas, and didn't say anything of note in the other half either.

3. A memorial panel for Harlan Ellison ran with the accepted mixed view of his legacy. I wrote down some of the quips. "Harlan never met a deadline he really liked"--Christine Valada. "I knew Harlan for about fifty years. I think we were friends for about thirty of those years"--David Gerrold. "When he was good he was very good. You know the next line"--Robert Silverberg.

A couple panels that actually discussed Tolkien were more intellectually productive, and I'll write about those in a subsequent post.

Fortunately I had something else to occupy a lot of otherwise dead time. I attended the Business Meeting, something I don't often do. Last year's Hugo Administrator, Nicholas Whyte, had proposed a technical constitutional amendment in the Hugo rules, and not planning to be present this year had sought out co-sponsors. As a former Hugo Administrator myself, I liked his proposal and volunteered. Of the three co-sponsors, one wasn't present at the meeting when it was considered (though he was at the con) and one was the sergeant-at-arms, so I was the principal speaker in its favor at the brief schedule-setting session. The motion was rejected from full consideration by a vote of 59-26, which is closer than it looks because it requires 2/3ds of those voting to do so. This continues my unbroken string of being on the losing side of any Worldcon Business Meeting motion I speak on, but besides being based on only 5 or 6 data points over many years, it's neither bad luck nor malevolence, as I am not a skilled parliamentarian and only speak when the arguments I support are not being presented more ably by someone else. Which means they're probably going down.

SF cons are famous for their room parties, but I only attended one such party during the entire con, hosted by my friend and former editing/publishing colleague Lisa Harrigan in memory of her late husband (also a friend, and a mighty mentor in computer hardware) Harold. It was quiet, mostly people who knew Harold. I spent most of it in detailed conversation on reading-reception issues with the erudite John Hertz.

One other perception enlivened Worldcon, best conveyed in a quick exchange I had with a passing personage on Thursday, the first afternoon of the convention.
ME: So far, sir, I have been mistaken for you twice.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN: Hah!

concert review: Cabrillo Festival

Every few years, I'm sent over the hills to Santa Cruz to review a concert in the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. This year I got one with two composers I'd heard there before, John Corigliano and Anna Clyne, the latter of whom I'd actually first discovered at Cabrillo, five years ago to the day.

It's kind of tough to cram in five new works into a short space, but I found some recurrent themes, and the result is here. I'm not kidding when I speak of "the accomplishment and powerful assurance" in Clyne's music: the weight and force in the music was palpable from the start, even in the quiet first movement. So if you ever see any ads for her music with the blurb

One of the great composers of our time - San Francisco Classical Voice

you'll know where it comes from.

About the Corigliano work I felt a little unsure. It's an early work, sounding not at all like the later ones I'm more familiar with. I could tell what it sounded like to me, but I wanted to triangulate that against what he thought he was writing like. I was anticipating having to go to the library to find detailed discussion of his origins as a composer, but I didn't have to: I was able to buttonhole the man himself after the concert. After saying I liked his piece (which I did) and noting his change of style, I asked what were his inspirations and influences when he was starting out. He replied by naming Copland, Stravinsky, Bernstein. I said, "OK. I'm reviewing this concert, and was was thinking of saying the concerto had an American populist style with a harder edge, and it looks like I was on the right track." So that's what I wrote.

Stopped on the way down at the grocery in Boulder Creek that carries sour cream & chive Pasta Roni, a flavor I've never seen anywhere else. Once in Santa Cruz, had dinner around the corner at a Thai place whose lamb dish turned out to be mostly green beans with what tasted more like beef than lamb. Wasn't bad, though. Encounter on the way back with a maniac who didn't like me changing lanes to get to my exit. Sorry, fella, but there's only a limited amount of space in which I can get over, and I did have my turn signal on: what do you think it means?

queuing up

or "getting in line," the more usual expression over here.

Urgent need for DMV visit. Appointments not available for two months, and non-appointment lines infamously long. What to do?

On checking website for hours, find that, while most offices open at 8 AM, there's a few that open at 7. And one is down in the San Jose industrial warehouse district, between the zoo and the county fairgrounds.

So I go there and arrive at 6:15 AM. There are 14 people already lined up. This turns out to be not too many, though the line soon becomes much longer. I spend 45 minutes reading, and then am in and have completed my business by 7:35.

It's the recent move to TSA-compliant ID (which they call "Real ID" as if others weren't real) that's causing the backups. At the DMV, you visit first a front desk, which is where they give you the customer number that you then wait to be called for being helped at one of the windows where your business will really be done.

But just to get everything ready so you don't waste time at the windows, it's at the front desk that they go through and make sure you have all the documentation necessary, line it up, and put a paper clip around it. This, as you can imagine, takes time, and makes the front desk line build up dramatically.

While you were still in the outside line, clerks went down giving out copies of the list of acceptable documents. It looks like this (PDF). Many of the people around me look as if they've never seen it before. I have; I copied it from the web site. In fact everything they say is news to some people but I already had it from the web site. It's an informative website.

What I wasn't sure was whether some of my old original documents would satisfy the 21st century sense of security. My original birth certificate - this is the same negative photostat copy my parents were given when it was filed a month after I was born, and which they solemnly handed over to me at a tender age - states authoritatively, in the frame section around the photostat, that it is only certified if it has the official seal affixed. The official seal was affixed in the form of a rubber stamp with blue ink. That piece of 1950s security, relievingly, turns out to be good enough.

Henry Clay Work: a great American songwriter

While listening to a performance of Four Australian Folksongs yesterday, it seemed to me that one of the songs I didn't know, "Click Go the Shears," had a particularly catchy tune. On investigation, I found that that tune had been lifted directly from "Ring the Bell, Watchman," a Civil War-era song that was one of the lesser known hits of Henry Clay Work.

Work has somehow been forgotten while his similar contemporary, Stephen Foster, is remembered, and that's a shame, because Work was just as good a songwriter and has had a deeper cultural impact than is realized. He was born to an anti-slavery Connecticut family in 1832, while his namesake was running for President against Andrew Jackson (he lost). That made Work 6 years younger than Foster, and he lived 20 years longer, until 1884. I'm here today to pay tribute to him. Here's some of the best of Work's works, mostly as sung by performers of note:

Johnny Cash sings My Grandfather's Clock:

This is the one Work song that may be considered to have lasted the course in American popular culture, at least as far as my own childhood, when I was familiar with it, though not with the composer's name attached. Allan Sherman wrote a parody version.

Tennessee Ernie Ford sings Marching Through Georgia:

This Civil War boast ballad was Work's biggest hit during his own lifetime, to the extent that General Sherman grew sick of it, because it was played at every public appearance he made. The tune is incredibly catchy, and I'm stunned that I never heard it until, curious about frequent references to the song in books about the war, I looked it up.

Doc Watson sings The Ship That Never Returned:

Does this sound vaguely like "The Wreck of the Old 97" or even more vaguely like the Kingston Trio's "MTA"? It should. This is the original from which those more famous spinoffs were altered.

Ken Burns Civil War documentary soundtrack version of Kingdom Coming:

Yep, this piece of Burns background music is a Work song. You don't want to hear the lyrics to this one, because it's in "darkie" dialect. Stephen Foster did some of these too. Oh dear.

Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band sing Ring the Bell, Watchman

Or, since this grouping specializes in nonconformist hymn tunes, you might prefer a less dirge-like rendition, like this one:

This is the song whose tune (and some of the words, actually) were lifted for the Australian sheep-shearing ballad "Click Go the Shears," which you may hear sung by the Australian national child-molesting balladeer, Rolf Harris, here. Sorry, but it is the best version I found online.