Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

“Understand”

(view spoiler)[As noted by Lena, this story belongs with any number of stories dealing with the sudden enhancement of human intelligence, an idea going back at least as far as 1931 with Edmond Hamilton’s “The Man Who Evolved”. Chiang does a good job (far better than most authors) of conveying in relatively clear terms what the transformative experience of becoming super intelligent might be like. (hide spoiler)]

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Thanks for sharing, J.

J said: Babylon 5: The Road Home

I have fond memories of Babylon 5. I’m pretty sure it was the first television series that I binge watched. (I had recorded the bulk of the episodes on VHS.) And yet it’s not a show I’ve revisited in the same way I’ll occasionally revisit other shows I’ve liked. I’m not quite sure why. And I don’t think that this trailer is going to make me reconsider. This sequel is animated and direct-to-video. The animation may in part be dictated by the age of the actors after the passage of all of this time, but still…the whole endeavor just looks kind of cheap. I’m curious how others here feel about the original show and the sequels.

Lena said: I’m in a daze this week looking down the barrel of temperatures soaring to 109° plus humidity.

I am right there with you! Highs for the foreseeable future all over 100.

“Unbashed, or: Jackson, Whose Cowardice Tore a Hole in the Chronoverse”, Sam J. Miller

(view spoiler)[In many time-travel yarns, time travel serves as sort of a fixer-upper, whereby past mistakes are magically rectified. Miller’s story serves to remind us that some mistakes can never truly be erased. (hide spoiler)]

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“The Difference between Love and Time”, Catherynne M. Valente

This is the kind of story that encapsulates my feelings about the author — it’s well-written and fairly effective, but somehow comes off as more clever than is necessary.

✭✭✭½

“The Tower of Babylon”

Like a lot of Ted Chiang’s stories, I grew to like this one more the more I thought about it. (view spoiler)[The tale is a kind of oddball mix of practical construction engineering married to older and (to our modern conceptions) fantastical cosmological theories. The behavior and actions of the celestial bodies in the story conform somewhat to models developed by Plato, Ptolemy, and the like. Except, in the end, our main character, Hillalum, determines that the construction of the cosmos is far more complex that previously believed. You can find on-line a fair amount of theorizing on exactly what non-Euclidian topology Chiang had in mind here (if any), but the math was largely over my head, and such discussions perhaps miss the point the author was trying to make. In our own universe, there was a fair amount of consternation in Western religious circles following the Copernican revolution, but ultimately people didn’t stop believing in God. Something similar occurs in this story: Hillalum notes that the titanic effort to pierce the vault of heaven, while successful, in the end fails to reveal “any more of Creation than they already knew”. But Hillalum ends by believing that, while Yahweh’s work or existence remains largely hidden, the insight gained into how His world is constructed nonetheless provides evidence of His hand at work. “Thus would men know their place.” (hide spoiler)]

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My other computer is going through its lengthy update process, so while waiting, hereʼs some of the stuff Iʼve listened to over the past few days.

The Best Years of Our Lives [Original Motion Picture Score], Hugo Friedhofer (1946) ✭✭✭½
Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys (1966) ✭✭✭✭½
Black and Blue, The Rolling Stones (1976) ✭✭✭✭
Emotional Rescue, The Rolling Stones (1980) ✭✭
Can’t Slow Down, Lionel Richie (1983) ✭✭✭✭
Still Life (Talking), Pat Metheny Group (1987) ✭✭✭✭✭
Copland: Old American Songs, Michael Tilson Thomas & Utah Symphony Orchestra (1990) ✭✭✭✭
Sneakers [Original Motion Picture Score], James Horner feat. Branford Marsalis (1992), ✭✭✭✭✭
11 Tracks of Whack, Walter Becker (1994) ✭✭✭✭½
Red Heat, Jimmy Haslip (2000) ✭✭✭✭✭
Tough on Crime, Rebecca Pidgeon (2005) ✭✭✭✭
Energy, Fourplay (2008) ✭✭✭
Circus Money, Walter Becker (2008) ✭✭✭½
Islands, Bear’s Den (2014) ✭✭✭½
v2.0, Gogo Penguin (2014) ✭✭✭
Blue Hours, Bear’s Den (2022) ✭✭✭✭
Everything Is Going to Be OK, Gogo Penguin (2023) ✭✭✭½
At First Light, Ralph Towner (2023) ✭✭✭½

Not that anyone here particularly cares, but the Tony Awards are being handed out tonight! What follows are my hastily thought-out predictions for some of the major categories — what/who will win and what/who should win.

Musicals

Best Musical
Will: Kimberly Akimbo ✅
Should: Kimberly Akimbo

Best Musical Revival
Will: Parade ✅
Should: Into the Woods

Best Actress
Will: Victoria Clark (Kimberly Akimbo) ✅
Should: Sara Bareilles (Into the Woods)

Best Actor
Will: J. Harrison Ghee (Some Like It Hot) ✅
Should: Ben Platt (Parade)

Best Featured Actress
Will: Bonnie Milligan (Kimberly Akimbo) ✅
Should: Bonnie Milligan (Kimberly Akimbo)

Best Featured Actor
Will: Alex Newell (Shucked) ✅
Should: Alex Newell (Shucked)

Plays

Best Play
Will: Leopoldstadt ✅
Should: Leopoldstadt

Best Revival
Will: A Doll’s House ❌
Should: The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window

Best Actress
Will: Jodie Comer (Prima Facie) ✅
Should: Audra McDonald (Ohio State Murders)

Best Actor
Will: Stephen McKinley Henderson (Between Riverside and Crazy) ❌
Should: Sean Hayes (Good Night, Oscar)

Best Featured Actress
Will: Crystal Lucas-Perry (Ain’t No Mo’) ❌
Should: Miriam Silverman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window)

Best Featured Actor
Will: Brandon Uranowitz (Leopoldstadt) ✅
Should: Brandon Uranowitz (Leopoldstadt)

Some stuff I’ve watched in the past week.

Max Fleischer’s Superman (1941-1943) ✭✭½
The Robe, Henry Koster (1953) ✭✭✭
Ulisse (Ulysses), Mario Camerini (1954) ✭✭
The Vikings, Richard Fleischer (1958) ✭✭✭
Last Train from Gun Hill, John Sturges (1959) ✭✭✭✭
Equus, Sidney Lumet (1977) ✭✭✭
The Final Countdown, Don Taylor (1980) ✭✭✭
Saturn 3, Stanley Donen & John Barry (1980) ✭✭
Crimes of Passion, Ken Russell (1984) ✭½
Scream, Wes Craven (1996) ✭✭✭½
Scream 2, Wes Craven (1997) ✭✭✭
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman (2018) ✭✭✭✭
John Wick: Chapter 4, Chad Stahelski (2023) ✭✭✭½
Misanthrope (alternate title: To Catch a Killer), Damián Szifron (2023) ✭✭½
Ted Lasso, Season 3 (2023) ✭✭✭✭

Lena said: They all hold up except 2. 2 was on the cringy side.

I agree that the second film in the franchise was the worst of the lot (and by a pretty wide margin). I remember that critics at the time were kinda surprised because John Woo had such a big rep as an action director. Unlike you Lena, I didn’t really care much for the third or fourth movies either. I actually think that the last two, Rogue Nation and Fallout, were the best of the series.

Lena said: Now I want to see The Yakuza, the stills look like Kill Bill.

It’s not a perfect or even great film, but it’s something of a guilty pleasure that I’ll re-watch every once in a while. It suffered from a troubled production, performed poorly at the box office, and was largely panned by critics. On the other hand, it has gained something of a cult following since it was released; one the film’s admirers happens to be Quentin Tarantino.

Some stuff I’ve watched in the last week…

Lonely Are the Brave, David Miller (1962) ✭✭✭✭½
Duel at Diablo, Ralph Nelson (1966) ✭✭✭
Marlowe, Paul Bogart (1969) ✭✭✭
Harold and Maude, Hal Ashby (1971) ✭✭✭✭
Clarence Darrow, John Rich (1974) ✭✭✭✭
Shampoo, Hal Ashby (1975) ✭✭✭
The Yakuza, Sydney Pollack (1975) ✭✭✭✭
Being There, Hal Ashby (1979) ✭½
Gardens of Stone, Francis Ford Coppola (1987) ✭✭✭½
Hamburger Hill, John Irvin (1987) ✭✭✭
The Late Shift, Betty Thomas (1987) ✭✭✭½
Private Parts, Betty Thomas (1997) ✭✭
Get Carter, Stephen Kay (2000) ✭✭½
Schmigadoon!, Season 2 (2023) ✭✭✭½

J. said: I think of it as a "What if" movie.

Agreed. Or a better writer.

J. said: If so, it will be retreading a lot of material covered in Fat Man and Little Boy.

It’s been a long time, but I remember that one as a fairly bad movie.

Randy said: I haven't read the book, but I did read two of the novellas that form the book, "The Unicorn Tapestry" aaaaaaand the other one I can't recall the name of.

I’m guessing “The Ancient Mind at Work” (1979). I vaguely remember first reading that one in a Terry Carr anthology.

Lena said: The Vampire Tapestry - now I have to read that. Chris Buehlman, a favorite author of mine, gave it a glowing review.

I spent some time perusing the Goodreads review for this book and noted with interest the pronounced split in opinions expressed, with some readers loving Tapestry , while others absolutely hated it. It’s perhaps worth knowing before picking up the book that Charnas wasn’t interested in creating another brooding, Byronic vampire in the mold of those created by Anne Rice and that Charnas’ POV characters are not always likable.

I was saddened today upon learning that Suzy McKee Charnas died earlier this year at age 83 (cause of death was a heart attack). Charnas was, according to her obituary in the New York Times, best known for her science fiction, specifically The Holdfast Chronicles, a four-volume series in which a post-apocalyptic, male-dominated society is overthrown by an army of women. I remember reading and liking the initial volume in the series, Motherlines (1978), but for some reason never managed to catch up with the rest of the series. My favorite of her works (she was not terribly prolific) was The Vampire Tapestry (1980), a collection of loosely connected novellas (iirc, most were initially published separately in either magazines or anthologies) all featuring the vampire Dr. Edward Weyland. In the aforementioned obit, writer and director Guillermo del Toro called it “her masterpiece”.

Some things I’ve listened to in the past week:

The Cat, Jimmy Smith (1964) ✭✭✭½
Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, B. J. Thomas (1969) ✭✭✭✭
Everybody’s Out of Town, B. J. Thomas (1970) ✭✭✭✭
Black Market, Weather Report (1976) ✭✭✭✭½
New Clear Days, The Vapors (1980) ✭✭✭½
Sports, Huey Lewis and the News (1983) ✭✭✭✭½
Points on a Curve, Wang Chung (1983) ✭✭✭½
Procession, Weather Report (1983) ✭✭✭½
Crash, The Human League (1986) ✭✭✭½
Mosaic, Wang Chung (1986) ✭✭✭✭
The Best of Al Stewart, Al Stewart (1986) ✭✭✭
Mountains of the Moon [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack], Michael Small (1990) ✭✭✭✭
Like a River, Yellowjackets (1992) ✭✭✭✭½
Together, The Vapors (2020) ✭✭✭½
Drifting, Mette Henriette (2023) ✭✭✭½
Alive at the Village Vanguard, Fred Hersch & Esperanza Spalding (2023) ✭✭½

Some stuff I’ve watched recently:

The Big Sleep, Howard Hawks (1946) ✭✭✭✭
Good Morning, Miss Dove, Henry Koster (1955) ✭✭✭½
This Island Earth, Joseph M. Newman & Jack Arnold (1955) ✭✭✭
The Lost World, Irwin Allen (1960) ✭✭½
Chato’s Land, Michael Winner (1972) ✭✭✭
The Big Sleep, Michael Winner (1978) ✭✭
Martha Clarke Light & Dark: A Dancer's Journal, Joyce Chopra (1980) ✭✭
Dune, David Lynch (1984) ✭✭
Conrad Veidt - My Life, Mark Rappaport (2020) ✭✭✭
A Man Called Otto, Marc Forster (2022) ✭✭✭½
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Peyton Reed (2023) ✭✭✭
Ghosted, Dexter Fletcher (2023) ✭✭
The Mandalorian, Season 3 (2023) ✭✭✭½
Star Trek: Picard, Season 3 (2023) ✭✭½