Philip K Dick Month: Ubik

For this month's meeting of the Science Fiction Book Club, namely Philip K Dick month, I have chosen Ubik, because 1) it is a Dick classic and 2) there is no movie of it. In Ubik, telepathy is commonplace and the privacy of the common man is threatened, so there has arisen a breed of men, called inertials, who can cancel the psionic talents of telepaths. The second feature of this future is half-life, a state of preservation in which the deceased (or, rather, the nearly-deceased) slowly fades away. The third thread of this novel is the ubiquitous "Ubik," a product of a thousand uses, which hardly ever seems to be used the same way twice. The plot follows Joe Chip, the ace but broke tester of Runciter's company, which supplies inertials to privacy-seekers, in a Dickian examination of reality, perception, and decay. Dick's telepathic dystopias seem to have less external freakishness than Bester's, and fewer circus geeks, but there is a greater emphasis on alternate realities and pharmaceutical abuse.

Earth Days

It was a busy weekend, but that's normal for Earth Day. Although our merry band pioneered (pun intentional) the Good Turn, its adoption by the District and Council is a mixed blessing. The powers that be decreed that the Good Turn should take place on the weekend of Earth Day, so we went down to Milagra Ridge between South San Francisco and Linda Mar to remove Scotch broom. There were fewer of us than I had hoped, but I assume the absent contributed to Earth Day elsewhere. Scotch broom has vivid yellow flowers and is much prettier than the bane of my early service project days, ice plant, but it grows quickly and the native animals and insects do not recognize Scotch broom as a suitable habitat. The natural enemy of Scotch broom, sheep (Scottish or otherwise), are not a good solution, since they would eat much more than the Scotch broom. I remember when I first saw Scotch broom in its native Caledonian habitat - it took a moment to remember that in these lands it was not a weed to be exterminated. The sheep, with their heavy wool coats and tendency to block the road, were a much greater threat to humanity.

The ridge was steep, although not forbiddingly so, and covered in both Scotch broom and poison oak. Certain members of our party, being more sensitive to poison oak, were not eager to charge into the thicket, much less rig a hammock and nap there. I'm not terribly sensitive to poison oak, so I was not greatly worried, but the GGNRA volunteers had magic outerwear called TYVEK suits. These suits reminded of hazmat suits without helmets, but they were made of paper, albeit a sturdy kind. The clearing took more energy than I had anticipated, but the results of our labor were satisfyingly visible.

After we had finished our share of weeding, we hiked to the cliff edge and ate lunch. We could see Linda Mar, the controversial golf course, and Pacifica in the distance. The tunnel through the hill below us was not yet open, but its presence prompted much conversation. Our return to the city ended a simple outing, but one that has inspired the attendees.

On Sunday, I went to church, where one of our own, rather than the absent pastor, preached the Word. Apparently I am more comfortable than she with Atonement theology, but the ability to disagree is a wonderful feature of my home church. The one thing that really bothered me, however, and this is not the fault of the church per se, since the words were Bob Marley's, was the reference to "the Daughter" in the communion hymn. I have no problem with emphasizing the maternal qualities of the Godhead - it serves as a reminder that God "the Father" is way of describing God's behavior so that our finite minds can grasp it - nor do I object to the nurturing, maternal qualities of Jesus, who, after all, compared himself to a mother hen, and the Holy Ghost always seems too abstract (for lack of a better term) to cause gender-bending chaos, but I cannot understand why anyone would describe Jesus as "Daughter." Provocation? Perhaps I am looking at this through a prescriptivist lens, when it is meant as a stimulation to discussion.

After church, I went downtown for a concert at Notre Dame des Victoires (I had forgotten about the plural article). I stopped at the church, but not to pray - I could not see the crowd thronging into the church for the concert. As it turned out, the concert was in the school auditorium, not the church proper. I had never been inside NDV before, and never before had I realized how cramped the facilities were for jocks (I was a bookish child and would have been fine).

Trials and Tribe-ulations

A while ago, I purchased a small book on the "pidgins" of Oceania - I put "pidgin" in quotes because the languages in question are actually creoles, but pidgins often develop into creoles and retain the former name. Creoles have a characteristically simple grammar, such that a small book could thoroughly describe them; some languages, such as Quechua, are not so learner-friendly. Since all the creoles, except one, are English-based and derive from a common ancestor, the booklet read more as a comparative grammar than a guidebook. The phonologies were blessedly simple, all basic five-vowel systems, although the pronunciation of /o/ and /e/ varied from language to language.

My fascination with these creoles is honest, but the history of exploitation and racism has poisoned any discussion of these languages. This poison is exacerbated by the linguistic ignorance of most people, who automatically equate simple grammar with simple minds. I have to roll words on my tongue to truly absorb the vocabulary, grammar, and phonaesthetics, but whenever I do this with these languages, I am afraid of charges of racism.

Sehen Sie den "N"?

German class last night! We studied the dative, and the bizarre dative plural -n. In general, German declension seems to be "tattered," filled with remnant consonants and half-declined adjectives which are driving my fellow students crazy. Dative is a hard concept for many English speakers, especially since den Mann is accusative masculine singular, but den Frauen is dative feminine plural. 'The young woman" is die junge Frau and "the young women" is die jungen Frauen, but "young women" is junge Frauen. And all adjectives in the dative have n - der jungen Frau, den jungen Frauen.

And then there are the pronouns! Sie and ihr (the Germans may use capitals, but you can't hear a capital letter) overlap a great deal, and ihnen only partially ameliorates this. In context, however, the meaning is usually clear.

Big Kitty, Rare Kitty

Down at the Commonwealth Club, I attended a lecture on mountain lions by Zara MacDonald, advocate for the Felidae Conservation Fund. The pictures, of course, were enthralling, but MacDonald highlighted the plight and rarity of felids. Large cats need large ranges, and many migration routes are blocked or hindered by highways or suburbs. The average size of California cats are about two-thirds the size of the average American cats, which may be reflection of the smaller territories, but could equally well reflect some genetic quirk of the local population. The Felidae project has activities for every age group - the one for kids is a game called PumaWild, where you play as a puma trying to survive.

http://www.felidaefund.org/
http://www.bapp.org/

Nos Spectaturi Te Salutamus

On a recent Monday, I found myself down at the Commonwealth Club for a talk, "The Ancient Roman World on Film" presented by the Humanities Forum. Dr. Gary Devore from Stanford was the speaker. He spoke about the way directors manipulated the image of cinematic Romans to present them as Us, Them, Both, and Neither. The Romans were Them in The Sign of the Cross (1932), a bland Victorian pseudo-historical piece spiced up and sexed up as only Cecil B. deMille could do. Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) presented a remarkably pro-Communist message for its day, while being aggressively pro-family. Allegiance to a cause and its leader spans the political spectrum. In Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire, which Devore described as the "thinking man's epic" in contrast to Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000), the Romans are both Us and Them, and serve as a warning to our era. Fellini's Satyricon (1969) absolutely rejects the possibility of identifying with the ancient Romans; Satyricon is a reaction to Fascist use of Roman symbols and the Mussolini-penned Roman epic Scipione l'Africano.

Empires and Images

On Thursday, I went with a Meetup group to the art galleries (small but numerous) at the 49 Geary, focusing on the 4th and 5th floors. The art was modern, which meant most of it did not move me, but two galleries caught my attention and my favor.

The Robert Koch Gallery was exhibiting an exhibit called "Photos of Fallen Empires," created by the Israeli photographer Shai Kremer. The Middle East has seen so many empires and kingdoms rise and fall that the detritus from their structures is abundant whenever the next empire did not reuse the materials. The juxtaposition of Iron Age ruins and Israeli military bases raises some questions about the permanency of the current State of Israel.

The other exhibit I liked was in the Gregory Lind Gallery. "Remainders" is an exhibit of Leigh Wells' work in collage. I had never considered that collage could be aggressively three-dimensional: the image of "collage" in my head has always been an image composed of two-dimensional paper. I asked Ms Wells if there were a theme to the exhibit; she said there was not, but that she had listened to the materials and shaped the displays accordingly. I found that interesting, since that is not the way my mind works. I feel the need to impose some degree of order on whatever academic materials I am examining.

I considered buying a copying of Fred Lyon's San Francisco Then, but decided I need to investigate further before buying.

Afterwards, the group went to Pomodoro Pizza, but I'll save those comments for YELP.

Movie Review: "Footnote"

On Wednesday I went to the Clay Theater and watched Footnote, the 2011 Cannes film from Israel by Joseph Cedar about the conflict between two Talmudic scholars, father and son. I assume that the Clay was airing it because it is Passover. The tension between the father and the son is vividly portrayed, and the score dramatizes the highly intellectual scenes. My favorite is a scene shows the elder scholar feverishly researching an insight critical to the plot. A flurry of images, like a mental montage, adds vibrancy to the scene and reflects the way the brain of many scholars function when they are high on research work. I had trouble empathizing with a father who found his son's accomplishments a slight to himself - I am more familiar with stage parents than the reverse. I did NOT like the abrupt ending - it seemed intellectually dishonest.

I plan to return to the Clay to watch The Lady, about Aung San Suu Kyi. I have read about the recent election in Burma and read Guy deLisle's The Burma Chronicles to better understand the conditions inside the country. If they show Monsieur Lazhar at the Clay, I will go there; otherwise, I shall have to find a theater that is showing it.

Gefunden

Another poem (this time German) for your edification and delight
Goethe

Gefunden

Ich ging im Walde
So für mich hin.
Und nichts zu suchen
Das war mein Sinn.

In Schatten sah ich
Ein Blümchen stehn
Wie Sterne leuchend
Wie Äuglein schön.

Ich wollt es brechen
Das sagt es fein
Soll ich zum Welken
Gebrochen sein?

Ich grub's mit allen
Ein Würzlein aus,
Zum Garten trug ich's
Am hübschen Haus.

Und pflanzt es wieder
Am stillen Ort
Nun zweigt es immer
Und blüht so fort.

A Germanic Fly In Amber

I've been taking a German course over in Berkeley, and my memories of the difficulties are coming back, even if I like the language more than Mark Twain. Cases and genders are like bread and butter for me, but the truly bizarre feature of German is the Separable Prefix, a grammatical abomination in a linguistic Limbo between adverbs and prepositions. The infinitive of the verb "to call (on the phone)" is "anrufen", but "I call the doctor" is "Ich rufe den Artzt an." This example is not so bad, but a sentence with the verb "aufpassen" produces the bizarre sentence "Passen sie auf den alten Hund auf?", "Are you taking care of the old dog?" in which the last "auf" refers to the "passen" at the beginning and the first "auf" governs "Hund" - at least there are no reflexives combined with it!