HoodedHawk

Went to see the film “A Scanner Darkly” today. It’s based on the novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick. Whoa. Great movie. I knew the movie was coming out this week, so I recently re-read the book; I found the movie to be really faithful to the book.

The movie uses a neat type of animation, “rotoscoping”; it is shot live-action, and then “animated” over that. The effect is really neat – you can definitely tell the “live” actors underneath. It’s especially appropriate for this movie because the plot revolves around a set of people addicted to a (new) drug, called Substance D.


Keanu Reaves plays Bob Arctor in the film; Arctor is an undercover cop, living with a couple of stoners. His girlfriend (Winona Ryder) is his dealer, and he’s basically trying to find out who her supplier is. The problem is Arctor is also taking Substance D (hey, he’s undercover and has to fit in), and it starts to affect his brain.

It’s not an “action” movie – it’s got great dialog, and I found the pace just right. Robert Downey Jr. is over the top as Barris the pseudo-intellectual, and Woody Harrelson is hysterical as Luckman. The scenes involving conversations and interactions between Barris and Luckman are hilarious. But the movie is quite serious. Dick based a number of the characters in the book on the people/friends made during his own drug-experimentation phase.

Highly recommended.

The Tango Singer, by Tomas Eloy Martinez.

I enjoyed this slim volume – mostly, I think, because Kirsten and I vacationed in Buenos Aires, Argentina in Feb. of this year. The book follows NYU grad student Bruno Cadigan as he goes to Buenos Aires to work on his thesis. He is trying to find the elusive Tango Singer, Julio Martel, rumored to have one of the greatest voices in Argentina.

He’s helped in his quest by “el Tucomano” – someone he meets at the airport. This thread is what holds the novel together; it is basically a number of vignettes about Buenos Aires’ past and present. Bruno arrives at the end of 2001, as Argentina’s economy takes a nosedive. A lot of the historical vignettes are “as told to” Bruno by Martel’s female companion, Alcira.

What really held my interest, however, were the stories and descriptions of various places in Buenos Aires that we actually visited. It was like being there again. Even though the images the author invokes are very detailed, they became even more vivid since I didn’t have to imagine them.

Wednesday night I went to hear Christopher Moore give a talk (and booksigning) at Olsson’s bookstore in Arlington, VA. I’ve only read “Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal” so far, but it was hysterical, so I’ve grabbed “Fluke” (a whale), “The Stupidest Angel“, and his latest, “A Dirty Job“. I recorded his talk – give it a listen; he is a really funny guy and a lively speaker. At right, he’s showing the backside of the page in a local newspaper where the ad for his book, “A Dirty Job” ran. Escort Services. Hilarious!

The wonderful Polish Science Fiction writer Stanislaw Lem has died. Great writer, whose works include:

• 1961 Pamietnik znaleziony w wannie (Memoirs Found in a Bathtub); Powrot z gwiazd (Return from the Stars); Solaris (Solaris)
• 1964 Niezwyciezony (The Invincible); Summa Technologiae
• 1965 Cyberiada (The Cyberiad)
• 1966 Wysoki Zamek (Highcastle)
• 1968 Opowiesci o pilocie Pirxie (Tales of Pirx the Pilot); Glos Pana (His Master’s Voice)

No, other than the setting, the movie “Solaris” (even though “based on the novel”) is nothing like Lem’s book. The book is so much better!

I must have missed something when I went to hear Michael Crichton give a talk a few months ago. I didn’t think he really hit on anything I took as controversial. He did touch on global warming, but I didn’t come away with the idea that he didn’t believe it was happening; at worst he thought it wasn’t happening as much as the “media hype”. He focused more on complexity and complex systems. I need to go back and listen to his talk again. Or, I can just read his talk, since a copy is on his website. I do know that while he mentioned his book a few times, he didn’t focus on it.

What made me think of this and resolve to find the time to read his book, “State of Fear”, (hey, I have a copy already) was something I read in Locus: “‘State of Fear’ – which denies the existence of global warming – received a journalism award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists“. Sheesh! Global warming does exist, as any rational person will agree. There’s a big difference between denying the existence of global warming, and debating the amount of warming. The National Academy of Sciences states unequivocally in it’s report (see summary):

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs.