Tilly Dillehay’s My Dear Hemlock is her concept of a female
version of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. For those who are not familiar
with that novel, it is a series of letters from a senior demon named Screwtape
to junior demon Wormwood on how to tempt a particular man. What Dillehay has
done is pen a series of letters from a senior demon who has taken female form, Madame
Hoaxrot, to a junior demon who has also taken female form, Hemlock. Hoaxrot
gives her best advice to Hemlock on how to tempt a particular woman.
Objections to the very idea of the book have been juvenile.
· - The writing cannot be on a level with C.S. Lewis’.
Dillehay does not pretend that it is.
· - We don’t need another Screwtape Letters.
Dillehay firmly believes there are temptations particular to women.
Having dismissed the objections to the very existence of the
book, I have to say that for the most part it didn’t really reach me. I don’t think
this is mostly because I am not a woman. Although I like the concept, the insights
it gives on how a woman might be tempted did not strike a cord with me that
much.
But here is a part where she does sound like C.S. Lewis:
You asked which is better: to encourage your woman to
start a fight with the husband about what he did, or to encourage her to ignore
what he did and punish him with silence. The answer is—yes. Honestly, it’s
little matter to me which she does, as long as her heart is cooled and hardened
toward her husband and the Enemy. (p.17)
The concept of demons not caring which opposing choice a
human takes, so long as it is wrong, is much like The Screwtape Letters.
Since this is an updated version, we find out the demons like
smartphones. “Social media has made it possible for her to do something, to
take concrete steps to pursue the fame she desires.” (p. 38) “And her husband’s
eyes will never provide the inflation of regard she requires.” (p.39) Serious
articles have been written on how too much smartphone use can erode
relationships, but this captured it nicely.
The letter I found most interesting was “On Envying the
Pastor’s Wife.” A new pastor comes to the woman’s church, and the pastor’s wife
is kind, wise, and attractive. She is constantly invited to dinners. The other women
of the church are paying attention to the pastor’s wife, not to the woman being
tempted. Madame Hoaxrot finds this to be “Pure comedy.” (p. 133) The hope is
that this woman will become envious. The ways that envy can become hatred were
insightful.
Hoaxrot’s letters seesaw back and forth between the woman
falling for a temptation, or completely avoiding it or even repenting. I suspect
that despite my tepid reaction to it, many will find it interesting.
Dolly Parton has been in the news a lot recently. In October,
the State Department granted her the 2024 PEACE Through Music Award. Then in
November, she was #1 in Billboard’s 100 Greatest County Artists of All Time.
This gives me enough reason to reprise my 2020 post, Dolly
the Vampire Slayer.
________________________________
Or this could be called “Slay Belle.” So this is the
convergence between Dolly Parton, country music star, and Buffy the Vampire
Slayer.
Dolly Parton rocketed to fame with her hit song “9 to 5,”
which was the centerpiece of the 1980 movie of the same name. She became famous
not only as a country singer, but as a symbol of what nowadays is called female
empowerment.
Then there is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the
TV series that jumpstarted the subgenre knows as urban fantasy. Were there some
urban fantasy novels before Buffy? Sure. But it was the Buffy
series that made urban fantasy an overwhelming subgenre in novels, movies, and
TV shows.
So how did that happen? It turns out Dolly Parton was an
uncredited producer of the original movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
That’s right. And Dolly’s company financed the TV series. It was Dolly Parton
behind it all the time!
But what if Dolly hadn’t done that? See my post What if Buffy had Never Been? to see how life as we know it would be different.
Meanwhile, you can see every season opening for Buffy below, including
the musical episode.
These stories are from the November/December 2024 Asimov’s
Science Fiction magazine, and the November/December 2024 Analog
magazine. If these are not still in your bookstores, you can order them from their
publishers.
In Asimov’s, the cover story is “Murder on the Orion
Express” by Peter Wood. It’s a catchy title, but other than the fact that it’s
a mystery, it bears no resemblance to an Earthly train. It’s on a one-hundred-and-twenty-five-year
trip to Orion, and it’s Ava Martin’s shift to be out of stasis as a ship cop.
And it’s just her luck that a murder occurs on her watch. The ship is divided
between two political parties, neither of which listens much to Ava. The leader
of one party is missing. A recording shows the other leader killing him with a
photon gun and shoving the body off the ship. But the other leader points out none
of the photon guns have been removed from the armory in years. So what is going
on?
Wood deftly goes from segments on the murder mystery to segments
on the mutiny, thirty years before. The mutiny isn’t that important; Ava mainly
has roommate problems. Her roommate purposefully stays out of stasis long
enough to outrank her. This does not help when the roommate comes out of stasis
again and tries to one-up Ava during the murder investigation. This story works
well as a collision of different personalities.
I think the best story in Asimov’s is a much shorter
one, “Deep Space has the Beat” by Mary Robinette Kowal (and yes, it’s another
catchy title). This is a contemporary story, wherein Isolde, an engineering
major, has opened a dance club. The title has to do with how all the wall
screens show images of deep space. But someone is sabotaging her opening night
by turning some of the wall screens into porn. And a big investor is going to
show up in fifteen minutes.
Isolde has psoriasis on the back of her neck, which acts up
during stress. She has to constantly fight the urge to scratch the itch, which
turns into a crawling burn as she tries to figure out who is sabotaging her. This
is a good story for people (like me) who don’t know what that condition is like,
and for people who like the club scene.
In Analog, the best story is another mystery, “Mirrorstar”
by Sean McMullen. The Mirrorstar is a massive space telescope, wider than the Earth.
Only three dozen people are in the Habitat area. The main character is Dr.
Connell, who is a doctor and had been a forensic pathologist, so he can serve as
a detective if the need arises. It certainly does when one of the crew in a distant
part of the telescope has her body temperature go down to minus one-twenty Celsius.
This appears suspicious when a distant camera show her to be naked. But then it
turns weird when her body is shown to be covered in brown fur.
Things get even stranger in “Mirrorstar” before there is
some resolution. I can’t say I find it completely satisfying. Also, there is
the overall attitude that people still on Earth are somewhat barbaric compared to
the people in the telescope. But McMullen has an interesting style, combining careful
investigation with terse conversations with co-workers.
I have not seen Megalopolis. I know that a lot of
people walked out on it, while some critics found some artistic merit. This is
not a negative blog, so I will draw no conclusions about it. My point is that
it is a labor of love.
Francis Ford Coppola spent decades working on this movie.
Instead of a production company shouldering the cost, he reportedly sold part
of his wine business to finance it. This is what makes a movie a labor of love:
A man considers himself a visionary (women don’t tend to do this), he spends years
working on a project, and he cannot convince people in the business to pony up
the funds for it.
These labors of love usually don’t work. The visionary isn’t
as great as he thinks he is. Years of work poured into a project doesn’t make
it great. And there are usually good reasons why people in the business do not
want to invest in it.
Having said that, I have seen two labors of love that have
worked.
The older one is The Apostle. This was written by,
directed by, and starred Robert Duvall. He had had a career high when he won an
Oscar for Tender Mercies. He then had a good but ordinary career after
that. Somewhere in there he was working for years on this labor of love. Producers
turned him down because they said audiences didn’t want to see a movie about
religion, so he had to use his own money.
He plays a holy roller preacher who is a raving egomaniac.
No matter what he does, he considers himself a servant of God, though he admits
he is a “womanizer” and commits a horrific act of violence. Farrah Fawcett
gives a surprising turn as his wife, who wants a divorce. Contrary to what some
people have said, this is not a story of redemption. He christens himself The
Apostle and starts a new church.
Critics and audiences alike consider it a masterpiece. I was
astonished by Duvall’s fearless acting. You really need to see Robert Duvall as
a holy roller in the rural South.
The other triumphant labor of love that I have seen is Coriolanus.
This was directed by and starred Ralph Fiennes. I believe he spent five years
on this project. He didn’t pony up his own money, so I may be contradicting
myself here. But he made the controversial decision to show the story in modern
dress, using modern military equipment. I usually detest such things (there was
one modernized version of Hamlet that I truly hated). But I was suitably
impressed by this version of Coriolanus.
Purists will note that whole swaths of dialogue from the play were left
out, as they decided to make a trim, taut story. His mother (Vanessa Redgrave)
and his wife (Jessica Chastain) are turned into fierce women, which is fine by
me. Warning: One character commits suicide, which was not in the play, and may
be disturbing.
Reagan is a biography of Ronald Reagan, an actor who
became a two-term governor of California and a two-term president of the United
States. This is a more traditional sort of biography: There is no attempt to go
smoothly from one major part of his life to another. Instead, it focuses in
great detail on certain strategic moments. For instance, it completely skips his
negotiating with Congress to pass massive tax cuts that made the economy prosper.
But it focuses in surprising detail on the Reykjavik summit with the Soviets to
reduce nuclear weapons, down to his wearing an ordinary suit despite the cold,
to look more like a leader.
The movie wisely does not cover the fifty-three films he
made. Instead, it focuses on his successful attempts to prevent Communists from
taking over the Screen Actors Guild, a struggle that many of his fans are not aware
of.
The theme of Reagan is his unfaltering opposition to
Communism. He did what he could when he was governor of California, but it was
when he became president that the movie compellingly shows his victory after
victory.
Reagan was completed in 2021. Dennis Quaid, who has had
quite the film career, had reached the level of gravitas by then to portray the
president. There are uncanny scenes in the film when he sounds like Reagan, and
he even looks like Reagan for a few moments. Penelope Ann Miller does a sprightly
job of portraying his wife Nancy. For fans of Kevin Sorbo, he does a brief appearance
as the minister of the Disciples of Christ church where Reagan was raised.
Some have accused this movie of hagiography. (The proper use
of this term has to do with pious accounts of the lives of saints. In movies
and literature, it is a highly critical term that means a biography that portrays
the subject as someone who can do no wrong, and which leaves out any problems.)
This is not true. Reagan spends a surprising amount of time on his making
schlock commercials at the bottom of his acting career, so that he bitterly
referred to himself as a “clown.” It also shows the Iran-Contra scandal, and
Reagan finally admitting in a speech that his administration had indeed traded
arms for hostages. And it does show the tragic nature of his Alzheimer’s, when
he could not remember he had once been president.
This movie should be recommended to everyone who is too
young to remember those years.
The funniest line in the movie occurs after Soviet Premier
Brezhnev dies, followed in quick succession by Andropov and Chernenko. A frustrated
Reagan slams down a phone and asks, “How can I establish communications with
them when they keep dying on me?”
These were crucial and dangerous times, and the movie shows
us Ronald Reagan’s role in them.
The Best High School Book Report on The
Great Gatsby
(public domain)
Any book report on The Great Gatsby or its sequel, Tendonitis,
must answer these key questions:
1) When Jay Gatsby
says Daisy’s voice sounds like money, is that a compliment?
John Steinbeck gives
the best answer: “We can’t prove the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg symbolize
God.”
2) Did Gatsby make
his fortune by bootlegging during Prohibition?
Hemingway, as he
rowed, chanted: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
3a) When Gatsby demands
that Daisy say she never loved her husband Tom, what does she answer?
George Orwell replied:
When Scarlet O’Hara said “Fiddle-dee-dee,” she was not referring to the Scarlet
A on her chest, but to The Red Badge of Courage.
3b) When Daisy
strikes Myrtle with Gatsby’s car, is she trying to kill her, or just preserving
her own life by not bothering to swerve enough?
Gilgamesh retorts: “Why
does Nick Carraway have a bigger part than Jay Gatsby? Why does Faulkner think
his mother is a fish?”
4) Why were the
soccer leagues underwater in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?
Jane Eyre insists, “The
harpooner was varsity, not JV.”
There we have it.
The definitive high school book report on The Great Gatsby.
One of my manuscripts is Day 10K, a science fiction novel
for adults with some humorous elements. On the advice of a couple of professional beta readers, I need to
get people down from their spaceship to a colonized world faster.
The main problem was chapter 4. The entire chapter has good
writing, but much of it was getting in the way. A difficult decision for a
writer is not so much getting rid of bad writing, but getting rid of good
writing.
So after taking out chunks, chapter 4 went from nineteen
pages to nine pages. More work will be done on chapter 5, but the changes to
chapter 4 were the largest.
This is a random collection of … well, you’ll see.
Ducks
I didn’t do much on the 4th of July, since it was
on a school night, as the saying goes. I took a walk in a park in Bellevue (a
suburb of Seattle) and took a picture of ducks.
Click to enlarge
Debris
There was a collision at an intersection near where I work.
Some of the debris ended up on a sidewalk. I told a coworker that one of the
cars must have spun around a good amount, for part of the bumper to end up
there. She replied that someone could have pulled it onto the sidewalk to get
it out of the way. She was probably right.
Prices
I looked at a copy of Tolkien and the Great War by
John Garth in a used bookstore. On the back, the price was listed as $14.00.
The sticker for the used price was $15.99. Huh?
Later, I looked for some vitamin water in a grocery store.
They were being sold at four for $5.00. I bought one and was surprised when it
cost only $1.10. Those who flunked basic math won’t see the silliness of this.
Skybridge
I saw this sign on a skybridge in Seattle. At first I
thought I had to be careful about gaining 8,000 pounds. But it obviously concerns
loads of supplies. Shouldn’t the sign be inside?
Click to enlarge
But the only sign I saw inside was this one. How did I get
out? How am I writing this?
The long-time actor Donald Sutherland passed away on 6/20.
Most young people will think of him as the head bad guy in The Hunger Games
franchise. If he intimidates you, then good.
Such people might be surprised to know that before that, he
was generally viewed as a nice guy. One hotel worker said he was very humble.
He was so well-favored, for a long time his voice was used for a series of orange
juice commercials.
I remember him most for his role in Invasion of the Body
Snatchers (1978). He was the protagonist, so the audience was supposed to
be rooting for him. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but neither is The Hunger
Games franchise.
So I was sad to hear of his passing. He was quite the actor.
As usual, Norwescon featured some Roman Legionnaires:
They just can’t help but get in fights.
I did not take many pictures this year of people in their
costumes. I did in 2022, and took me an immense time to crop and post them all.
So with apologies to people who put so much effort into their cosplay, here are
a few examples.
This couple just looked too good to ignore.
And we had an impressive swordswoman.
To my delight, Captain Kangaroo made a surprise appearance.
And what do we think? With the blonde hair, is she half Human,
half Vulcan?
Here is Torrey Stenmark in her competition costume. To see
her floor costume, click here.
She seems to be a female Han Solo. Agree? Disagree?
So with a blaster in the holster and a light saber held
high.
Ken Scholes and Kristi Charish held a workshop where, among other
things, they answered common questions. I asked whether it is considered fair to
let an agent who sold a novel to keep getting the proceeds from it, even if the author
leaves the agent. They said it was not a matter of fairness; it is part of the
agreement.
It was autographed by Peter Capaldi! He was the Twelfth Doctor.
He was definitely my favorite. (Actually, I don’t watch Doctor Who much.
It was his standoffish look that intrigued me.)
Torrey Stenmark was also there in her floor costume. Serious
cosplayers often have one costume for walking around on the floor of the
convention, and another one for competition.
Norwescon is the biggest science fiction/fantasy convention
in the Pacific Northwest that has a good emphasis on writing.
First of all, each session has chairs at the front set aside
for people who have difficulty walking. The chairs have a variety of signs on
the back. Here is one example:
A number of authors had small sessions wherein they read
portions of their latest works. Try to make time at a convention to go to at
least one. It boosts the morale of the author to have an audience show up. Here
is D.L. Gardner, a fantasy author.
One of the most instructive sessions was “Young Adult vs.
Middle Grade” with authors Marta Murvosh, Camden Rose, and Tom Llewellyn. Here are some of the highlights:
MG is more about saving the world and family.
YA is more about the individual and identity.
MGhas MG characters
that targets 4th to 6th graders.
YA has high school to college-age characters.
MG coming-of-age involves realizing one is part of a
community.
Extended YA is a real industry term for college-age protagonists.
This will not be a detailed review of Spy x Family: Code:
White. Imagine mashing Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Spy Kids. The
father, Loid, is actually Agent Twilight. The mother, Yor, is actually the
assassin Thorn Princess. Neither knows the other’s true identity. They go by the
family name Forger. Anya is their pretend daughter, who was actually an orphan.
But Anya is secretly a telepath, so she knows her parents’ true identities.
The story starts out in a fairly credible manner. Anya needs
to make a dessert as a school assignment. Loid has inside information that the
principal likes what looks like a meringue, so they go on a trip to a restaurant
in the town the principal was from.
Then everything turns into kooky fun. Anya accidentally swallows
a chocolate that contains something crucial for Cold War-esque tensions, and it’s
off we go. It alternates between serious and childish scenes, but there is
never a dull moment.
The background seems to be an alternate Europe, with much of
the plot taking place in what looks like an alternate Switzerland. The story is
pre-cell phone: There is even an old-style rotary phone in one scene.
Spy x Family: Code: White (the x is silent) is rated PG-13 for violence
and occasional foul language. There is also an extended “poop god” dream that
would be unimaginable in an American-made film, but is run-of-the-mill in
Japan.
I recently saw the 1984 version of Dune in a movie
theater. It was thrilling to see on a big screen Princess Irulan introduce the
story, House Atreides emerge onto Arrakis, blue-eyed Paul Atreides speak in a
declamatory voice, and of course, the worm riding.
The main difference in terms of characters from the more
recent movies is that 1984 Paul Atreides is clearly a hero. It is easy to
sympathize with him as he struggles to free people and fulfill his destiny. The
2021-2024 Paul is more of an anti-hero.
In terms of plot, the main difference is the weirding way.
In the 1984 Dune, this is a form of marital arts, but they also have weirding
modules. Paul and others can shout into a weirding module, and a pulse of force
emerges. This was almost inevitable after other science fiction space movies had
ray and beam weapons. And it was shown as crucial in going up against armies
with automatic weapons. The 2021-2024 Dune has the weirding way remain a
form of martial arts, which is closer to the novel.
So without casting aspersion against the new version, I still
have great affection for the 1984 movie. One needs to see the expanded version
shown on TV to see the widow of Jamis, and also the wacko source of the water
of life.
Instead of showing a typical trailer, here is funny story by
Patrick Stewart, who played Gurney.
I don’t remember who came up with the idea of two-sentence
movie summaries that are both accurate and sardonic. Here is my take on this
concept.
The Last Samurai: An American soldier decides Japan
is more spiritual than America. So he joins a rebellion against the emperor.
The Wizard of Oz: Trying to get home from Oz, Dorothy
almost dies on a mission to steal a witch’s broom. Then she finds out she only
had to click her heels.
Aliens: A platoon of Colonial Marines gets wiped out
fighting the monstrous aliens. Ripley emerges triumphant by using a forklift.
Saving Private Ryan: A small group of soldiers goes
behind enemy lines in World War II to retrieve Ryan, whose brothers have all
been killed in the war. He decides not to go with them.
Titanic: A couple falls in love on the RMS Titanic.
The ship sinks.
Pride and Prejudice (1995): Lizzy must decide who is
truly guilty of pride and prejudice as she contemplates the seemingly
hardhearted Mr. Darcy. When she sees him wet after a swim, she takes off.
Shane: The gunslinger Shane hangs up his guns to live
a peaceful life with a family, including a little boy. He shoots a couple men
to death in front of the boy.
The Lord of the Rings: Frodo must destroy the great
ring of power to save Middle Earth. He claims the ring for himself, but his
finger is bitten off, so happy ending.
Romeo and Juliet (1968): Although their families are
literally feuding with each other, Romeo and Juliet decide to marry for love.
They both die.
Freud’s Last Session.
Directed by Matt Brown. Written by Matt Brown and Mark St. Germain. Starring
Anthony Hopkins, Matthew Goode, Jodi Balfour. Rated PG-13 for language, sexual
material, bloody/violent flashbacks, smoking. Runtime 2 hr. 2 min.
Freud’s Last Session is a
fictional account: What if C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud met each other on the
eve of World War II? This would be just weeks before Freud’s death, and after
he was awarded the prestigious Goethe Prize for intellectual achievement. And
this was before Lewis’ radio lectures on Christianity during the war, which
became the basis for his famed apologetic work Mere Christianity.
Those who are looking for a
shootout between the atheist and the Christian will be disappointed. Freud
(Anthony Hopkins) does most of the talking. Lewis (Matthew Goode) mostly
listens. And thereby hangs an interpretation of the title.
Freud unloads on Lewis tirades not
just against Christianity, but often on his personal life. He strides around,
gesturing with his arms, dogmatic and arrogant. Lewis listens cooly, sometimes
sharing about his personal life when relevant, and giving mild rejoinders. In
the third act, Freud occupies the famous couch in his office, while Lewis sits
at the desk. Yes, this is Freud’s last session, with Freud as the patient.
The movie is disjointed, with a
rejoinder from either man sometimes much later than the question, and with
vivid flashbacks interrupting seemingly at random. So the following is a
stitching together of scenes that may not have been shown consecutively.
Lewis shares that after his mother
died, his father did not know how to deal with Lewis and his brother, so he
sent them off to boarding school. Freud concludes that the distant father led
Lewis to his superstitious longing for God. Lewis responds that actually, he
reconciled with his father. He then points out that Freud hates his father, so
perhaps that is why he rejects God. Freud dismisses that with a wave of his
hand.
Towards the start of the movie,
Freud criticizes Lewis for being late, seeing that as a flaw. However, Lewis
was late because of trains shipping children away from London to the safety of
the countryside. The compassion shows plainly on Lewis’ face as he sees the
children, and later when they both hear on the radio that twenty thousand are
dead in Poland. Freud shows no such reaction. But Freud is concerned about
those close to him—a daughter and grandson who died. He shows Lewis a
photograph of them. Freud asks about their deaths and his own pain and
suffering. Why does God allow it? And frankly, that is the question that most
non-intellectuals feel is most important about God.
At first Lewis says, “I don’t know,”
and Freud thinks he has a victory. But then it becomes apparent that Lewis was
talking about the particular suffering his family has gone through. Lewis goes
on to say that if pleasure is God’s whisper, then pain is God’s megaphone.
Freud constantly says Christianity
is just superstition, an "insidious lie," and at the start he says he is surprised an intelligent
man like Lewis believes in it. Later, we briefly see a flashback to Lewis’
writing group the Inklings, and we are shown an achingly short glimpse of a
page of Tolkien’s work. Tolkien witnesses to the then-atheist Lewis, saying the
Gospel is different from the world’s mythologies. He challenges Lewis to study
this. We then see Lewis doing so, going back to the original Greek of the New
Testament.
Fans of both Freud and Lewis will
be disappointed at some truncated versions of their arguments. Lewis says that
all the religions that Freud denounces teach about doing what is right and not doing
what is wrong. It leaves out Lewis’ argument that one can only know what is
wrong from a sense of right, can only know what is bent from knowing what is
straight, and that knowledge is what God puts in everyone. Freud gives a brief
mention of his belief in the stages of sexual development, but it is so garbled
by his oral cancer, it is hard to understand.
Freud is portrayed as getting the
better of Lewis over fear of death. During an air raid alarm that turns out to
be false, they go to a church basement for shelter. Freud not only shows no
gratitude, he is rude to the clergyman. But Lewis has a bad moment, which he
says was a flashback to The Great War. Freud needles him about that moment,
saying he showed no joy about meeting his God, and therefore Lewis had a lack
of faith. Lewis looks stunned for seconds, and he has no reply. Later, on the
train home, Lewis looks afraid again at distant lights that either remind him
of war or show the preparations for war.
Overall, Freud’s Last Session
has an unsavory air. Freud’s daughter Anna, considered the founder of child
psychoanalysis, is accused by more than one person of having attachment
disorder towards her father. This is shown in a series of flashbacks that turn
out to be beyond creepy. And the movie implies she had a lesbian relationship (which is shown briefly in a hallucination),
for which there is no evidence and which Anna always denied.
A lengthy flashback show the pact
between Lewis and a friend during The Great War, which Lewis did write about.
They both had single parents. If the friend were killed, Lewis was to take care
of his mother for the rest of her life, and if Lewis were killed, the friend
would take care of Lewis’ father for the rest of his life. The friend is
killed. In the most horrific scene of the flashback, hunks of shrapnel are
pulled out of Lewis’s leg without anesthetic. But when one puts together a few
scenes in the movie, it clearly portrays Lewis as having a sexual relationship
with his friend’s mother. There is no evidence for this.
So because of these and other
scenes, I cannot recommend Freud’s Last Session. Is this a biased
review? Perhaps. But were we all meant to interpret the movie the same way?
Unlikely.
