Inhospitable versus Lethal Environments

As I am doing research for a new short story my mind has been working on the concept of humans living on an alien planet and that brings up the difference in my mind between inhospitable environments contrasted against lethal ones. My working definition of a lethal environment is one where absent direct technological intervention will kill a person outright; vacuum, poisonous atmospheres, and the like are examples of such environments while an inhospitable environment may be deadly it is not so immediately. A desert here on Earth is very inhospitable and if I dropped you in the middle of one you may last days before you die from exposure and if you were very lucky very smart or both, you may be able to find the essential resources to survive. Clearly an alien desert would be inhospitable for the exact same reasons as an earthly one, but I think that analysis is faulty and in that it is too generous. I think that all alien ecosystems with be inhospitable to terrestrial life.

Often alien planets are presented as Earth analogs, the exact nature and shape of the animals and plants may vary in interesting ways but essential a person walking their lands is exploring fun house version of out home. This ignores a number of very basic biological factors.

Consider Allergies.

Your immune system when it encounters a foreign substance in your tissues classifies it as either invader or something to be ignored. (Clearly it is a lot more complicated than that but the simplification works for this exercise.) Harmful bacteria, viruses and the like provoke and immune response to defend out health but sometimes the immune system identifies something that should be ignored as an invader and it reacts when it should not. For commonly encountered substances, such as dander and pollen, when this happens we call that reaction an allergy. Even if you suffer from common allergies your immune system ignores quite a lot of material floating in the wind. It encounters this material, recognizes it and ignores it. However on an alien would all that material will be substances that your system is not keyed to ignore and it is very likely that humans, and any animal we bring with us, may suffer allergic reactions to nearly everything in an alien ecosystem. At least one Apollo astronaut is thought have had an allergic reaction to lunar dust.

Eating will be out of the Question.

In the episode of Star Trekthe original series The Way to Eden(S3E20) when the flower-children analogs reach Eden and eat of the fruit they find that is poisonous. The truth of the matter is that alien plants and animal are, at best, gong to be indigestible to Earth life. Digestion is a complex series of chemical reactions facilitated by very specific enzymes. A simple and well-known example is lactase the enzyme that allows people to digest the lactose found in dairy, once a person stops producing lactase they can no longer digest milk products. Think about all the things found on Earth that you cannot eat. By far there are more inedible substances in nature than edible ones and that is in an ecology that humans have evolved within. Without the specific enzymes required plants and animals from an alien ecology will be inedible.

A human stranded on an alien world will suffer massive allergic reactions and slowly starve to death.

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Movie Review: Widows

Yesterday my sweetie-wife and I had a lunch and then caught an early afternoon showing of Widows.

The story of four women, suddenly indebted to the mob after their criminal husbands are killed in a botched job, the film is more personal and darker than what many expected. Though not expressly marketed as a ‘heist’ movie in the vein of Ocean’s Elevenor Logan LuckyI have heard from many sources that people are expecting the sort of light entertainment that genre is known for. (As we walked out of the theater I heard one person behind me comment ‘I thought it was supposed to be a comedy.’) Widows, inspired by an ITV television series, is a crime more and while it is not a noiror even a neo-noirit is a film about flawed people and violent lives where trust is an impossible commodity.

Viola Davis leads the cast as Veronica the leader and driving force of the assemblage and while the other actors. Michelle Rodriguez, and Cynthia Erivo, gave fine performances it is Elizabeth Debicki, whom genre fans would recognize if she were painted gold as she was in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which supplies the film standout portrayal as Alice the beautiful woman who goes from someone manipulated and pushed around by everyone to confident and capable individual. Beyond our protagonist team the film is rounded out by Collin Farrell as an rising and but flawed Chicago politician, Robert Duvall as his overbearing father, and Daniel Kaluuya inhabiting a villain commands the screens with cool, cruel, indifference.

I enjoyed the movie and anytime it focused on the four women and the struggles is worked quite well but when the plot strayed in to side quests dealing with the internal issues of either the mob or the politicians I found the results generated questions that undermined my suspension of disbelief. I suspect director Steve McQueen’s original cut may have been sustainably longer and answered these issues but I can only judge what was screened. If you go be aware while not visually graphic the film is violence and depicts that with a cold eye that avoids glamorization.

Overall the film was enjoyable but nothing I will add to my home media collection.

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Recent Podcast Discoveries

I listen to podcasts while I do my work at the day-job and I have discovered a couple of new shows, new to me that is that I think are well worth sharing.

First up is the Revival Theater Playhouse. The Revival Theater started up a fan run podcast to fill the void when we were left without any version of Mystery Science 3000 that later expanded to start producing radio plays comedies, under the Playhouse podcast. Their brand is to take something well knows to fandom and give it a strange twist. Productions include Plan 9 From Outer Space as written by William Shakespeare a strange and hilarious mash-up of Soylent Green with A Christmas Carol, and a lovely homage to War of the Worlds. With lively voice actors and a willingness to go nearly anywhere for a gag, including comedic commercial interludes, the productions are a fun way to kill a few hours.

The second discovery is You Must Remember This, a podcast dedicated to the Hollywood history. The host Karina Longworth creates themes for her seasons, such as exploring the cycle of horror films by following the lives of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, or an entire season dedicated to ‘Dead Blondes.’ Karina presents the history in a comfortable conversational manner while exploring interesting nooks and crannies of tinsel town.

If you are into the Podcast you should give both a spin.

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Streaming Review: Black Christmas (1974)

A couple of months ago I attended Film Geeks San Diego’s Secret Morgue where they presented a 13-hour horror film marathon. The titles were undisclosed and that made a game of showing trailers before each feature that hinted at the film they were about to screen. Before the Ozplotation movieTurkey Shootstarring Olivia Hussey they played the trailer for Hussey’s horror film Black Christmas a movie I had zero experience with. Recently I discovered the film available on streaming through Shudder and decided to give it a go.

Black Christmas, stars, in addition to Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder of Superman, Kier Dullea of 2001: A Space Odysseyand John Saxon of well John Saxony things. Directed by Bob Clark, who gave use the timeless holiday magic of A Christmas Story, the movie is about a sorority house of young ladies that are terrorized by an obscene phone caller and stalked by homicidal maniac. Through the course of the film victims fall prey to the unknown killer as the mostly incompetent police fail to deal with the escalating crisis. This sounds fairly standard for any number of movies that followed in the wake of the phenomenally successful Halloween; oh I’m sorry I didn’t get that title correct, John Carpenter’s Halloween. Except there is a wrinkle here, Halloweenwas released in 1978 and Black Christmas hit theaters in 1974.

While Black Christmasdid quite well at the box officer, netting over 4 million dollars on a budget about $600,000 it certainly did not explode into public awareness nor did it drive a sea change in horror films that followed. I cannot explain this and no one really can, that is part of the risk and eternally unknowable intersection of art and commerce. Of the pair I consider Black Christmas, possessing better realized characters and a more active plot, to be the better film and yet it is Halloweenthat spawned sequel after sequel, and scores of pale imitations.

In the end no artists can know what will strike fire and what projects will sink without a ripple. The best creative artists can do is work on what fires their passion and not worry about the rest.

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Picking and Choosing Your Acts of God

This morning as consumed my breakfast scanning the political stories at the sites, both left and right, that I habitually visit at the start of my day; I spotted a headline over at the American Conservative linking global warming and God’s Judgment. The author Rod Dreher is a devout Christian and tends to tie nearly all of his political thinking back to his religious beliefs. Today he had column title ‘Judgment By Fire‘ portraying global warming as a divine judgment and that included this little humdinger, ‘I believe that there is a direct connection — not causal, but still a connection — between the exploitation of the natural world that is causing the earth to revolt, and the destruction of the concept of the natural family, of sex, and even of the human person.‘

Wow, divorce, gays, and abortion are contributors to God’s displeasure and thus him stands aside and permits physics to warm the Earth.

He clarified his position with; ‘Judging from the comments, lots of folks misunderstand what I mean by “God’s judgment.” It’s not a matter of God pointing his finger at us from a cloud and ordering the climate to change to punish us. It’s a matter of Him giving us what we asked for, so to speak. For example, the Civil War was God’s judgment on America for slavery, in my view.’

That’s a very interesting perspective and it prompts me to wonder what other man-made calamities are to result of ‘God’s Judgment’ and just who was that judgment was against?

The annihilation of the native population of the Americas, was that a judgment?

The Soviet induced Ukrainian Famine, what that a judgment?

The Armenian Genocide, what that a judgment?

Pol Pot’s campaign of mass murder, was that a judgment?

The Holocaust, was that divine judgment?

It seems to me that when you get to pick and choose which calamities are expressions of divine disfavor the divine is going to reflect your personal prejudices and to paraphrase the great scientist Niels Bohr, “Stop telling God what to judge.”

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Post LosCon 45 Report

It’s Monday morning and LosCon 45, The 45th Los Angeles Area Science-Fiction Convention, has receded into history. While attendance this year seemed lower, it fluctuates from year to year; personally the convention was a success. I reconnected with several friends that I only see at this convention, attended fun and interesting panels, pretty much splitting my panels this year between informative and entertainment, and popped in a few parties and actually socialized with people. In addition to that usual convention activities, I also managed to do a revision edit to a short story that I think brought the entire piece to another level. All in all the weekend hit all the marks I wanted it to pan on.

Of course because of the nature of my day-job I missed the first day of programming. Getting the Friday after Thanksgiving off at my employer is a matter of seniority and it takes a very long time to work up enough to be considered. One of my teammates just scored Black Friday off and he has worked here 18 years. However considering the stability, the compensation, and the Union representation, I am perfectly happy to trade away some convention days for this job.

I also received inspiration during the convention that helped break through a couple of future stories. Sometimes it is just a simple word or phrase uttered by a panelist that breaks a logjam and allows a story to start unfolding.

It is sad that the convention is over and I am back at my day-job but there are more conventions in the coming and year and I smile for the future.

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The Devil is a Comfort

Last night I watched about half of Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist, not to be confused with Exorcist: The Beginning, which is the film that resulted when the studio discovered that director Paul Schrader had delivered a thoughtful exploration of faith and evil prompting the executives to turn to Renny Harlin to make them a jump scare movie without any deep questions.

As I watched the young Father Merrin grapple with the evil in the world it occurred to me that the existence of the Devil makes for a strange sort of comfort. If evil exists outside of people, as some directed malicious force constantly tempting, tricking, and deceiving humanity into acts of base cruelty that in some manner absolves humanity of their agency and responsibility. Without the weird sisters Macbeth is simply a bloodthirsty, ambitious, noble willing to murder countrymen and kin alike for his own ends, but with the witches the web of responsibility becomes tangled.

If you reject the theology of a god and his demonic counterpart then you are left with the inescapable and cold conclusion that all evil lies without us, that any one of us is capable of terrible acts. It takes not Prince of Lies to lead us into greed slaughter, and cruelty and that the only things holding our society together is the willingness to be socialized. It must be comforting to be able to hold oneself as inherently good and place all blame for humanity’s evils on some disgruntled rebellious celestial.

There is comfort in the non-deistic view as well. For even thought all that great evil lurks beneath the skin of all of us so does the potential to be great, to do good.

As always the choice is ours. How will you choose?

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I Once Dallied With Acting

There was a time in my life when I played with acting. Not professionally but I came close to chasing that at one point, I had met with an agent and she seemed to like me but I had no money for the all important headshots so I never followed up.
However there was one amateur stage production of ‘Pool’s Paradise,’ an English farce, the summer after I graduated from High School and that was a load of fun. When I got out of the US Navy and attended community college here in San Diego I took as an elective an introduction to acting course. That was a great class and I met one of my best friends there. When the end of the semester came around and it was times for finals the member of that class released their governors and people who throughout the course had seemed of modest or little talent suddenly in their monologues found reserves of talent that left the rest of us dumb struck with the suddenly powerful performances. It was during those finals that I had the best experience on a stage.
We had to perform two monologues, one comedic and one dramatic. The less said about my comedic monologue the better but for my dramatic performance I selected a scene from Schaffer’s Amadeus. The film had been released earlier in the semester and quickly became one of my favorites. In the play Salieri summons the ghosts of the future, the audience, and has several monologues pointed directly to them. The one I performed had been split into two different elements in the film where he was confessing to the priest his crime. It starts with the description of Mozart’s music on the page, in the lay Mozart’s has brought sheet compositions to Salieri in hopes of winning a commission for her husband, and transitions into Salieri’s bitter hatred of Mozart, his talent, and culminates with Salieri declaring war upon God.
While I performed the theater’s house lights were down so the class scattered among the rows remained invisible to me. I threw myself into the monologue, using a manila folder as a prop for the sheet music that Salieri was commenting on. When I got the declaration of war with God, I threw the folder down and growled by threats to the heavens and from the darkened theaters I heard one of my female classmates gasp. That was my proudest public performance and it is a memory I treasure.

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I Feel Cheated

I recently learned that a piece of American lore has been withheld from me and it has me feeling left out. How is it no one told me that the Cannonball Run is real?

Hailing from 1981 the movie The Cannonball Run was an over the top farce about teams speeding from coast to coast in an unsanctioned and illegal road race. The racers use a number of visually comic and implausible vehicles in this movie that has more in common with cartoon animation than cinema.  I have seen the movie and it is a silly comedy that was a pleasurable was to pass an hour and a half, which also has the distinct of the introduction to American Cinema of Jackie Chan, though he is criminally underused in a stereotypical and borderline racist character.

Recently as I have explored new podcasts to listen to while working I discovered that the film is based on an actual race. While the characters and the exaggerated cars are products of Hollywood there is an illegal competition for the fastest time driving between New York and Los Angeles. The current winning time is 28 hours and 50 minutes with the driver and his team averaging over 1000 miles per hour throughout the entire trip.

The podcast with the story is It Seemed Smart, and it is dedicated to wacky stories from the field of sports. Yes it is odd that I found myself listening to a sports podcast but this one is certainly worth the time. The first episode I listened to was the one about the Cannonball Run and the current record holder. However the other episodes dealing with cheating in professional baseball and college football are also quite amusing, but it’s the race that stays with me.

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The Illusion of Strength

In the spring of 1918 Germany, dominant nation of the Central Powers launched a massive assault on the Western Front, smashing through defensive trench lines and advancing miles. From one perspective this looked as though it may change the course of the war and could possibly force the Entente Powers to agree to a peace on terms favorable to Germany and the Central Powers. However this display of strength was an illusion. German’s offensive soon lost momentum, stalled, and then was reversed by the Entente and in November of that same year the Central Powers, wracked by shortages, mutinies, and revolution, capitulated. On the surface during that offensive Germany had appeared powerful but this masked critical shortages of food, fuel, minerals, and men. Senior official in the Kaiser’s government had warned in 1917 that Germany could no longer win the war with a military strategy but these warning has been ignored for a futile show of strength.

I’ve been thinking about illusionary strength and how that may apply to the current state of the Republican Party and Conservatism in general for American politics. The most recent election gave the House of Representative to the Democratic Party and what looks to be a two seat addition for the Republicans and there is a tendency to read this as a slit decision but like the German military in early 1918 I think behind the stern facade the Republicans are starving for resources.

In every demographic category save one, white males without a college degree, the Republican Party is bleeding support. The suburbs, once an unassailable Republican redoubt and even Orange County home to Reagan and Nixon, has moved to supporting the Democratic party, and this has happened during a period of relative peace and with unemployment under four percent.

There is a tendency to blame Trump for this dismal showing in the midterms, and his unpopularity is a critical factor but the party tiled the soil to make Trump not only possible but also inevitable. In 2020 it is very unlikely that Trump will be substantially more popular and should there be an economic reversal or some other calamity he could be an even greater drag on the Conservatives as they head into an election to will determine the districts for a decade.

But beyond Trump what do they have to offer? I can think of no policy position that popular with the general electorate. I do not know if it is too late for the Republicans to change course, electoral politics tends to move slowly and change over generations, but I do believe that they must try and or they will end up on the shoals.

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