Moshe Flato. The Power of Mathematics (1990)

     Moshe Flato. The Power of Mathematics (1990) This could be read as an extended gloss on Wigner’s well-known paper on the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics as a model of the physical universe. How can such an abstract, human-invented system of symbolisms become such an accurate and powerful tool for explaining and predicting the behaviour of the material world?
     Flato limits himself to a few themes, especially misunderstandings of what mathematics is and what it can do. Like many mathematicians, he stresses that mere calculation is not a mathematician’s work. Unlike many earlier pure mathematicians (eg, Hardy), he finds the interplay of physics and other sciences with mathematics to be essential to both.
     The translation limps. One can tell that Flato’s original French was idiomatic and plain, but the translator was unfamiliar with English idioms. He’s also unfamiliar with mathematics, so that too often he translates the French terms literally, not into the corresponding English mathematical terminology. These faults make the book difficult to read, which may explain the fact that I found it on a remainder table a few years ago. I shall not keep it. ** (2006)

Ruth Rendell. Means of Evil and Other Stories (1979)

     Ruth Rendell. Means of Evil and Other Stories (1979) All of these have been made into episodes in the Wexford TV series. Rendell says they should be read “as if each was a little novel in the series”, i.e., the reader should flesh out the tales with his or her knowledge of the characters. This, the TV series did very well, so I read with the video images in mind. This helped, for the stories are sparse in character and detail, and heavy on exposition. All the same, they are good entertainment on a summer afternoon. *** (2006)

Bill Watterson. Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (1992)

      Bill Watterson. Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons (1992) Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes strips catch the essence of childhood, but their strength is touching on the questions that we start asking as children and still can’t answer as adults. Or don’t want to answer, since we like to keep our amour propre intact.
     Calvin just wants to do what he wants to do. He has glimpses of his own evil, but his morality is simple: Don’t get caught. Hobbes is both his alter ego, providing sage advice, and moral insight and guidance; and his id, ever ready to pounce, trounce, and not quite devour Calvin. Calvin imagines himself as a tyrannosaurus rex, or as Spaceman Spiff, to escape the realities of his existence, but reality always intrudes. We may make ourselves out to be heroes in our fantasies, but we know they’re only fantasies after all. I like Calvin and Hobbes. It’s a strip with a huge range, from straightforward comedy and farce to subtle plays on words and ideas. It’s a pity but not surprising that Watterson ended the strip. It’s impossible to keep such high standards for very long. **** (2006)

Lynne Truss. Eats, Shoots and Leaves (2003)

     Lynne Truss. Eats, Shoots and Leaves (2003) Great book; well written, witty disquisition on punctuation, and I agree with 98% of what Truss says about the rules. Should be on every teacher’s desk, and should be reread frequently while reviving oneself with a cup a coffee. I do wish she'd make a distinction between the hyphen, which is a spelling mark, and the dash, which is a punctuation mark. **** (2006)

Ron Brown. The Last Stop (2002)

     Ron Brown. The Last Stop (2002) Brown specialises in Ontario historical nostalgia, which makes his books valuable (though often incomplete) resources for information not otherwise easily available. This book lists and comments only on those stations designated “heritage buildings” under Jesse Flis’s 1984 private member’s bill, which mandated the Environment Minister to review any building under federal jurisdiction for possible designation before demolition was permitted. From that point of view, the book is a success, but a list of all stations extant in 2002 would have been a useful supplement. A few more, and better reproduced, photos would also help, but would probably have raised the price beyond that which rail fans (a notoriously cheap bunch) would be willing to pay. As it is, I found the book on Coles’ remainder table, at $3.99, and a bargain at twice or three times the price. **½ (2006)

Technology, customs, ethics, morality, and economics (Comment)

Technology, customs, ethics, morality, and economics

     Technologies change our values. Every new technology changes the range, and some the type, of choices we can make. New choices raise new ethical and moral questions. Customs yield and bend to new technologies.

     The printing press cheapened books. The industrial revolution needed and expanded literacy. That created a market for fiction, which in turn prompted the adaptation of the romance to the more literal tastes of the new reading classes. Hence the novel, which presents the old tropes as imitations of real life. As more and more people took up reading, they began to translate the ideals of the romantic novel (derived from courtly love) into actual behaviour. Jane Austen’s books crystallised the new genre. They adumbrated the tension between the practicalities of money and social status on the one hand, and the desires of the heart and mind on the other. She showed that while money and status could provide creature comforts, they could also destroy the soul.
     In the new marriage ethic, it wasn’t enough for people to enjoy the same social status and similar wealth; they should also be compatible in intellect, interests, and above all in passion. Every one of her books contrasts the ideal marriages of people whose primary bond is mutual attraction and common interests, and those whose primary bond is money and respectability. Her imitators simplified and spread the message. Their sentimentality made their books more popular, and the concept of marriage began to change.  It  was always primarily a commercial and social transaction, but now people began to talk as if it were a personal contract. Once people begin to talk about a social convention of polite pretense as if it referred to reality, the convention sooner or later becomes a social fact.

     The bicycle accelerated the changes. Middle class courtship customs became more personal when couples could escape the oversight of a chaperone just by cycling away. Where family approval had been imposed (and often desired), now young people began to choose their own partners. The shift from marriage as a social obligation to marriage as a personal choice accelerated even more when the car became cheap enough for most families to own one. The car prompted the invention of the motel, which could make a profit for the owner even when it was small. Motels provided cheap temporary accommodation for families touring the country, and for couples wanting affordable privacy for sex. What later was noticed as the sexual revolution was well under way, in fact nearly complete, by the time Reader’s Digest reprinted hand-wringing discussions of the End of Civilisation As We Know It in the 1960s.
     Examine any technology, and you’ll find social and economic change that raises ethical quandaries. Most of these changes aren’t recognised until long after they’ve taken hold. People resist the necessary shifts in values. The young, who’ve grown up with the new techno-economic landscape, often find themselves at odds with their parents and grandparents, which causes a good deal of pain on both sides. This is especially true when values are confused with their expression, as in courtesies and fashions. We need to be polite to each other, for politeness is the casual daily acknowledgement of each person’s dignity and value as a fellow human. But any particular form of politeness, any particular etiquette, is more a matter of fashion than of deep conviction, or even superficial necessity.
 

     But some values are deeply ingrained. Technology may make revaluations necessary, but that doesn’t mean they’ll happen. Mechanised production has made workers into tools, mere flesh-and-blood extensions of the machines they operate. As machines become more complex and subtle, workers lose economic value. They become more valuable as consumers than as producers. But our economic values are still attached to notions developed in the several thousand years of scarcity that have marked civilisation. Our economic choices haven’t caught up with that new reality. Worse, sacred texts enshrine the old economy. That makes people reluctant to even think about what an economy of abundance implies, let alone examine economic judgments masquerading as moral ones. In our economy, the truly lazy man is rare, and precious. The mere producer is a dime a dozen. 2013-07-18

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) (Movie Review)

     A Fish Called Wanda (1988) [D: Charles Crichton. John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin] Third or fourth time |I’ve seen this film, and it wears extremely well. The multiple multi-crosses keep us focussed, but that’s not enough to make a good movie. It’s the acting and editing that raise this movie up a notch or two.
      Every character acts several parts, mostly to deceive others, so when we see his or her true thoughts and feelings, it not only makes a plot point, it encourages us to root for the good guys. They are Archie Leach (Cleese, a lawyer, a stuffed shirt imprisoned by his respectable profession, respectable wife, respectable life style; Wanda Gershwitz (Curtis), con-woman, who falls in love with the lawyer despite herself; Otto (Kline), con-man, who is deathly afraid of being thought stupid, which he is, but not in the way he fears; and Ken Pile (Palin), animal-loving small-time crook and hit-man assisting Kline and Curtis in their scam. The mcguffin is a pile of diamonds, proceeds from a robbery, stashed in  locked storage area, and the key to gain access to it.
     All’s well that ends well. Archie and Wanda fly off to S. America for a life of blissful hedonism, which with careful management of the money may well last for several decades.
     The editing has to be just fast enough to prevent us from thinking about the wobbly plot, and slow enough to let us relish the jokes, the deceptions, the relationships (past, present, and developing), the satire, the references to other movies, and so. Editing starts with the director’s vision, but it’s the editor that must cut the movie to realise that vision. Well done here.
     Ken Pile has a crush on Wanda, and has named a fish for her. It lives in Palin’s aquarium. Otto swallows it. I told you he was stupid. ****

Terry Mosher (Aislin). Oh, Oh! (2004)

     Terry Mosher (Aislin). Oh, Oh! (2004) When you can’t imagine how to satirise the excesses of our pols and business elites, Aislin does it. Wonderful collection; makes me think I should subscribe to the Montreal Gazette just to get Aislin’s commentary.
     Some of my faves: the panel shows a newspaper clipping against a black background (Aislin’s use of black in inspired). The cutline is “Hey! Here’s a headline we never see...” The headline on the clipping reads: “Agnostics slaughter Atheists!!!” – A duck with one leg and Chretien’s face (which doesn’t need much distortion to resemble Disney’s famous quacker): “Lame duck.” – A voter depositing his vote; the poll clerk says, “Good.. Now wash your hands.” – The Canadian flag flies from a hockey stick, published as comment on the women’s and men’s hockey wins at the ‘02 Olympics. (Aislin’s sports cartoons are as affectionate as they are sharp. He clearly loves the Habs). **** (2006)

Steve Lee. Sloane (1974)

     Steve Lee. Sloane (1974) Sloane barely survives a vicious attack on his family, learns martial arts from a Chinese immigrant, and sets out to avenge his parents’ deaths. He succeeds of course, but not before Lee has indulged a taste for violence and gore in his readers. The plotting is OK, the characterisation uneven. The book focuses on brutality and killing. It’s a type of pornography, one that the guardians of public and private morality don’t ever seem to get too het up about. Since its publication some 30 years ago, movies have upped the graphic gore quotient. This book was a distant early warning signal, but I doubt it was seen as such at the time. The irony is that books (and movies) with far less graphic description often convey a much greater sense of evil. (2006)

Brian Greer, ed. The Times Crossword, Book 1 (2000)

     Brian Greer, ed. The Times Crossword, Book 1 (2000) Doreen Fowlston gave me this, as well as Book 2, as a birthday gift. I must say that I find the Times crosswords a pain. I don’t mind obscure words, or thoroughly English (and dated) slang, for after all the puzzle is set for English solvers, not North American ones. But I do mind clues that depend on indirect and metaphorical links that aren’t clear until after you have the answer, and sometimes not even then. A fair percentage of the clues are apposite and witty, as well as difficult; but too many are merely mechanically generated rebuses, with far too much use of initials. IMO, a rebus on single letters in the answer must use proper, that is widely accepted, abbreviations. It’s a bit much when figuring out how the clue fits the answer is more of a puzzle than finding the answer. In almost every puzzle, there were clues that made no sense to me at all. All the same, I kept at it. In most cases, I found half or more of the answers on my own, including some whose cryptic clues made no sense, but which crossed enough letters that the definition was obvious. And that it was possible to solve a clue this way indicates how far-fetched and pointless some of the clues are. It didn't help that when the puzzle setter(s) alluded to American slang or catch phrases, they usually got them wrong.** (2006)

M. Greenberg et al, eds. Murder, My Dear Watson (2002)

     M. Greenberg et al, eds. Murder, My Dear Watson (2002) A nice collection of nicely done pastiches. As always, the trick is not so much to imitate the plots and stay within the canon as to capture the tone and above all the language of Doyle. Apart from a few glaring anachronisms, the writers have done an admirable job on all four counts. Good entertainment, and no doubt an Essential Work for all serious fans of Holmes and Watson. ** to *** (2006)

Ngaio Marsh. Grave Mistake (1978)

     Ngaio Marsh. Grave Mistake (1978) A gardener appears in a small village, and seems to be a paragon. A rich widow dies, apparently a suicide, and her unpleasant stepson sidles about snooping and prying. A very valuable stamp has been missing since the war, when its owner died when his train was bombed. Alleyn decides the lady’s death is murder. And the paragon turns out to be a psychopath. But all ends happily, with the lady’s daughter on her way to a happy marriage with a father-in-law who approves not only of her but also the lovely house in which he will be a frequent guest and no doubt a doting and conscientious grandfather. Marsh provides a nice helping of plot and character, and plays fair with the clues. What more could one ask? **½ (2006)

The Notebook (2004) (Movie Review)

     The Notebook (2004) [D: Nick Cassavetes. Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, Gena
Rowlands] Garner reads to his wife Rowlands from a notebook recounting the story of an unsuitable love match that ends happily. Sort of. Rowlands is suffering from dementia, and Garner hopes that reading the notebook will “bring her back.” It does, of course, for a few minutes, but the revelation that they are the couple in the notebook doesn’t surprise the audience, who has twigged to this when the first flashback appears on the screen.
     So we know how the story will turn out long before it reaches its first crisis. Why keep watching, then?  To find out how Nicholas Sparks, who wrote the source-novel, embellishes the tale, and how well the movie team does its job. The acting is very good throughout. The handful of awards won by this movie were all for the acting. The photography is always good and sometimes so good it distracts you from the story. Which may be a good thing, since the narrative rhythm is lackadaisical and slow.
      A shorter movie would have been better, I think. At any rate, there were a few places where I yielded to the temptation to yawn. Perhaps Cassavetes wanted to linger over the romantic moments to nudge our nostalgia into high gear. It’s a movie aimed at both the very young and the elderly, both of whom like to indulge in nostalgia, the young for what they haven’t experienced yet, and the old for what they wish they had experienced. Faux nostalgia, in other words.
     Like the curate’s egg, this movie is excellent in parts. The parts add up to less than a satisfying whole, however. I suspect the book reads better. *½