drink tank pi

7/31/2019 Drink Tank Pi

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The last few weekshave been rough. I have a USB

stick that had a bunch of art

on it that went bad. All the

les on it, not only the artbut the Podcasts, audio andvideo les, were all corrupt.This was a bad thing. Luck-

ily, I found good versions ofa lot of it (Thankfully thewonderful pieces that SteveStiles have sent me, includ-ing that -> abstract which is

one of my all-time favoriteof his pieces. I love abstractart, you all know that, andIm so excited that Steves

sent me a few of these.

And luckily Mo sentme the covers again. AND

I still have the DVDs that

Ditmar sent me with his art,so I didnt really lose much,mostly older stuff, but still...WAH!!!!!

So, this issue is a littlelate, but I hope its worth it.Weve got a piece from theHugo Award-winning Ur-

sula Vernon in favor of the

YA Hugo. I loved her work

Digger and I was so happy she won Best GraphicStory. She makes some good points, and I thinkthey are things we should be thinking about, nomatter what our general thinking on the subject

is.

Now, Ive got a piece about Pi, one of my

favorite movies that is often over-looked as SF.

Also, its Crocktoberfest! Ive been us-

ing my Crockpot all month long! My favorite sofar is Flat Iron steaks, marinated in black pep-

per, cayenne, garlic, ginger, and Tamari. That wasit, then I put it in the crockpot with a bit of the

sauce I made from a Spicy roast I did last week-end. It was awesome!

So, heres the stuff for this issue! And,I will call on you to send something along forJourney Planets James Bond issue, deadline No-vember 1st!

LoCs and Such to [email protected]


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Ursula Vernons Take on The Hugo Award for Best YA Book

I suppose the best place to begin is byputting a collar and a nametag on my dog in thisparticular ght.

Im a middle-grade author.

That means, in the arcane realms of kidsction, that I am writing for 8-12-year-olds, andalso means that technically my current work isnot eligible for the proposed YA Hugo. A broadrange of kids read my work, from the young andercely precocious on up, but the primary target

is a group called reluctant readers who tendto view books as an instrument of torture rath-

er than pleasure.I think these kids are important. I think

reaching these kids is important. Some of themwill come to reading later in life, but many ofthem wont.

During the debates about YA books, weheard a lot of versions of what I call the geekorigin story. (Bitten by a radioactive copy of

Heinlein, young Peter Parker grew up to be THEAMAZING FANDOM-MAN...) It goes some-

thing like this: There I was, a social mist ingrade school, and books were my only escape,and I read at an insanely high level for my ageand I went to the library and checked out X(X is usually Heinlein, sometimes Asimov orBradbury, depending on age may even be PiersAnthony or Mercedes Lackey, but ll in your

chosen book here) and it CHANGED MY LIFEand then I grew up and discovered other people

like me and now this is where I live.And this is a good and true story, andthere is absolutely nothing wrong with it, as longas it is not treated as universal.

Because its not universal. For every oneof us who picked up The Hobbit at age eight/nine/ten/third trimester, theres a kid who gotve pages in and said This is boring, and wentand fooled around on the computer or read acomic book or went back to Legos.

And yet, this same kid may pick up Hun-ger Games or Harry Potter and read the entirething. (I say may. I am actually speaking of a spe-

cic kid, my boyfriends son, who would chewground glass rather than read The Hobbit, andwho has plowed through all kinds of middle-grade and YA books. But Im trying to speak in

generalities rather than go THAT KID RIGHTTHERE, YES, YOU, WITH THE GLASSES, YES,IM TALKING ABOUT YOU, AND ALSO PICKYOUR LAUNDRY UP OFF THE FLOOR, ITLOOKS LIKE A BOMB WENT OFF.)

I believe that these kids could--if we let

them--contribute extraordinarily to fandom.I think fandom will be poorer if it leaves themout and sticks to a single origin story, where youmust be a precocious reader and nd adult SF in

the library because nobody will sit with you atlunch.

I think in order to get them to contrib-

ute, we need to talk about their books. I thinkwe need to acknowledge the worth and value

of those books. And I dont think thats going to

be an unpleasant task, because frankly, a lot ofreally exciting stuff happening these days is hap-

pening in YA. Its a eld thats willing to take risksright now. Many, many adults, self included, readYA because theres so much fabulous going on

there.

Theres a lot of other things to be said,and a lot of arguments one could make on both

sides, but rather than write something that maysoon be eligible for novella status, Ill end here. Ithink this is important, I think it hurts no one togive it the four-year trial run that comics got, andI think we might see some very positive results.

Art from Espana Sheriff


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52 Weeks to Science Fiction Film Literacy - Some science ction lms have all the

markers ying high. Theyll feature a ying car inthe rst moments, or a Martian walking around ina business suit. Some will be a bit more sly aboutit. Theyll follow someone making the morningpaper delivery only to pull back and show thatthere are two suns or the hull of a spaceship.And some go even deeper, only revealing thatthe sci- is in the DNA of the story and not inthe presentation across the screen. To me, thats

what Pi represents. It wasnt until months after Irst saw it that I realised it was a science ctionlm, and it was months after that when I took itto heart as one of the truly great SF movies ofall-time.

Lets start with the story. Max is a num-ber theory guy who is also something of a savantas he can do HUGE math problems in his head.He also suffers from terrible migraines. He is

non-social, save for a girl who he does math forlike a performing poodle, and his former math

teacher. Max has a computer called Euclid. UsingEuclid, he nds that theres a 216 digit numberthat he uses to pick a stock. Its an awful pick, andhe throws away the printout Euclid made, butthe next morning nds that it exploded in value!That starts the lms major story. The numberis the focus of a lot of people, as a Wall Streetrm and a Torah scholar approach him for hiswork. He is offered a computer chip called MingMecca, which he installs into Euclid, which Max

uses to analyze the Torah for patterns. It eventu-ally nds the same 216 number pattern. Euclidrefuses to print out the number, so as he startswriting it down, he realises that he already hasthe pattern and he basically becomes The Godof Numbers!

And, of course, he has a sudden head-ache thats so bad he passes out.

The rest of the lm is Max showing howhe can visualize the stock market and other sys-tems without the help of Euclid, and the agents

of the Wall Street rm trying to force him toexplain the number. Lenny, the Torah scholar,tries to get Max to tell them, insisting that Thatnumber belongs to G_D! and represents theunspeakable name of God.

It turns out that his former math teacher,who he had a falling out with, has died, and whenMax visits his apartment and nds that hed beenworking on the number too! This leads to Maxhaving a serious headache, not taking his meds

and basically he goes on a trip and then giveshimself a power-drill lobotomy.

Yeah, its that kind of movie.This was the sort of coming out party

for director/writer Darren Aronofsky. The guywas a sort of genius, his lm school thesis proj-

ect, Supermarket Sweep, was up for the StudentAcademy Award. Thats actually harder to getnominated for than a regular Academy Award as

there are so many student lm made every year(one estimate Ive heard from folks in the festival


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world is that 20 thousand student lms are madeevery year) and while he didnt win, it got himsome notice. The 1990s were the years of self-nanced tiny lms. Kevin Smith did Clerks, andRobert Rodriguez El Mariachi, on tiny budgets,each putting up the money themselves, Rodri-

guez famously getting the money by putting him-

self through a clinical drug test. Out of this worldcame Aronofsky, who took 100 dollars eachfrom various friends and family on the promiseof giving back 150 if the movie made money. Thiswas a HUGE risk, as there was no way he couldafford to hire name actors, but still, he managedto sell it to a distributor, Artisan Entertainment,for a Million Bucks! That was huge! It came outin the theatres and made roughly three millionbucks. That was good, in line with what a lot of

the other big-time self-nanced lms of the timewere doing. True, it was no Blair Witch Project,but what else was?

The success of Pi got him the right to

direct Requiem for a Dream, which was one ofthe best lms of the last twenty years. Not SF atall, it was a psychosexual thriller, and one of the

best.Pi represents the start of what Aronof-

sky excels at: the unreliable narrator with ques-

tions of what is real. Thats a classic SF theme,and one which writers like Philip K. Dick havemastered. Here, you have to wonder who muchof what Max does is real, who in the story is real,and what the path of the narrator is. Its a toughroad to play in, as we think that the narrator isreliable at the start, but then it turns out that

he isnt, or maybe he is. Its hard to tell. This issomething that marks Requiem for a Dream sothoroughly. There is a question as to what is realall over it, and the reason for the creation of thealternate realities plays a central role.

What is very interesting with Pi is thathere, theories are central, and theories are pre-

sented as universals that interact with one an-other in all realms. High-level mathematical sys-

tems are equated with religious systems, whichare contrasted with game theory, economicmodeling and especially, Go. These things are allshown to be equal in that all are effected by thenumber, all perform in accordance with it, and allare shown to be specically destructive if theyare not properly understood when executed. Infact, its an interesting theory of mine that thisis really a story of the individual over the cor-

poration. Max is a genius, a singular genius, andwhen he was given the Ming Mecca chip by theBig Corporation, he was able to use it not onlyto his advantage, but to solve problems well out-

side of his realm. When the Corporation triesto use the number they get from the print-outthat Max misplaces, they make a mess of it. Thisis easily seen as a metaphor for the condition

of the American tech industry. The majors likeMicrosoft and HP were caught at-footed by theweb, for the most part, and they were behindsmall teams, and some individuals. If you look atthe way the web was progressing, you see thatgroups like Amazon and eBay come out of smallteams who got buy-in and assistance from bigtechnology companies and seldom from big techgoing out to make things happen.

And, even better, you could tie it to the

world of lmmaking at the time.


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The auteur theory of lmmaking is pret-ty simple: the director is the author of the lm,and that the directors vision is enough. All other

parts of the lmmaking process are bent to thewill of the director. Thats actually not a perfectdescription, but its perfect enough for this appli-cation. There are actually deep legal connections,

at least in the European Union, tied in with it all.So anyhow, Pi, and most of Aronofskys works, aredeeply tied to Aronofsky himself, his ngerprintsare all over his movies, and none so much as Pi.The reason? Well, he didnt have anyone elsesopinions in mind. He got the money, he made themovie he was going to make, and it turned outto be one of the most brain-enhanced lms ofthe decade. Aronofsky is Max, and the produc-

ers of lms like Armageddon, Deep Impact andGodzilla were in control of their productionsuntil the guidance of a study and all of that washolding the directors vision in check. Pi basicallysays the small is better than the large both inand out of the formalist concept of the lm.

The lm was shot in black & white, whichgives it a very particular imagery. I think, thoughIm not 100% sure, that by 1997 or so, the pricefor b&w reversal lm was higher than that of

regular color Kodak lm. I want to say that wasone of the things that happened a few years af-ter Clerks. In this case, the black and white isplaying off the concept that were sure what tobelieve from Max. There is no great cinemato-graphical trickery, its shot pretty straight for-ward, but were not in the world that we live in.By 1998, a black & white world was so foreignthat it made viewers uncomfortable. Kevin Smithused B&W because he could afford it, but it also

t in as the concept of security camera foot-

age. Schindlers List was shot B&W, but that wasSpielberg being a jackass as that lm would haveworked beautifully in color of black and white.The more recent B+W explosion, with greatSF lms like The Ghastly Love of Johnny X andShufe, use the cinematography to great effect,and Id argue that Shufe is strongly tied to the

vision and imagery of Pi. You can see the threadsof inuence upon Aronofsky here as well, par-

ticularly in the form of The Elephant Man. Whilethere are certainly thematic ties, the best tie isin the use of black and white to achieve mood

and to make the audience uncomfortable. Lynchis a master of setting the audience at a table of

unease, and Aronofsky is inuenced by none somuch as Lynch.

The best part of Pi is that it is withoutquestion a science ction lm and so few wouldendeavor to call it such. Theres a computer thathas powers beyond what we know today. Theresa character who is basically der Uber-mensch.Theres a level of teechnology that is not knownto us. Mot importantly, its built around humanbeings, with a human problem, and a human so-

lution, which would not have happened at allwithout its scientic content. Thats Theodore

Sturgeons denition of science ction, so thatsgood enough for me.

There was a serious wave of science

ction that took a more subtle route. You candraw a line from Pi to lms like Eternal Sunshineof the Spotless Mind or Genius & Madness (ane lm I wrote about in 2005 in an early DrinkTank and which feels so closely tied that it mayas well) and the more serious, adult sciencection strain weve been seeing in lm festival

line-ups certainly comes from Pi. Theres always

been top-notch, thoughtful adult science ction,but for the mainstream of cinema, its seldombeen brought to the front. This was a pretty darnmainstream lm, Art House, yes, but betweenPulp Fiction and Kill Bill, Art House was prettyMainstream. This was one of the most originalvisions of the 1990s, and it showed a lot of what

wed be seeign in the next decade. This, alongwith our next 52 Weeks entry, The Iron Giant,show a lot of what would make up early 21stCentury science ction.

Art from Espana Sheriff


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AND NOW, MR. JOHN PURCELL!

Well, thats a bit of serendipity: take thisissues number and multiply the rst two digitsto get the third digit. Impressive. *wheeze* Mostimpressive.Arent those called Amicable numbers,

or somthing like tha!

This is gonna be one quick loc since Ihave a class in a few minutes to teach, so heregoes:

Well see abou that!

I totally love The Fifth Element. It is sim-ply a FABULOUS (say that with a swish in yourvoice) movie that is simply a lot of fun both visu-

ally and plot-wise. To me, Chris Tucker steals themovie with his over the top role. He obviouslyhad a lot of fun doing it. Theres also a more se-

rious side to this lm thats hidden under thewealth of special effects and action scenes, andthat is the role of the individual in society, howwere forced to conform to a certain behavioral

pattern and position in the world society. Thentheres the obvious environmental message.

Overall, though, this movie remains one of myfavorite science ction movies. Ive been a big fan of it for ages and

theres a lot of layers to it, which is agreat sign for any lm!

Id like to really sink my teeth into thecomments about ChiCon 7, so I think Ill take abreak for now - go teach my class, that is - thencome back to write an addendum loc that ad-

dresses your commentary about how fraction-alized and insular WorldCon and fandom havebecome. This topic denitely needs more atten-tion and is worth discussing. Until then, heres

the rst part of this loc.Its OK, Well wait...

Okay, I am back.And I notice that 3 x 2 still = 6. Consis-

tency helps.At least one thing in The Drink Tank has

some consistancy...

So Chris Barkley made some very inter-esting comments about ChiCon 7, and it doesnt

surprise me that I agree with much of what hesaid. While an attendance estimated at between

5000 and 5500 is small compared to the mam -moth crowds at DragonCon (held over thesame weekend) or ComicCon San Diego, thosetwo media events are large focused on exactlythat: media events. As he noted, the attendancelevel at WorldCon has for the most part stag-

nated. Case in point: the two WorldCons I at-tended (MidAmeriCon in 1976, and IguanaCon1978) both registered in the mid-4000 range, soover the 34-36 years since then, to see a cen-

trally located WorldCon like Chicago only drawa thousand more attendees denitely signies astagnation in numbers, while those who do at-tend the World SF Convention are denitelygraying. Plus, a great number of fans have passedon to the Great Consuite in the Sky while new,younger fans are not entering the fold at the rate

they did during the 1970s and through the mid1980s. Yes, I agree: active SF fandom as we knowit has denitely leveled off.The thing is between 1980 and 1996

(roughly) we were bigger, I think we av-

eraged about 2500 more attendees be-

tween those years and that we have

since.

His other observation - The divide be-tween the various fan groups and Worldcon at-

tendees has grown wider than ever over the pastdecade - is a sad development. The fandom that

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nition of what we are). I dont mind that youngfans have different interests from mine, but thenagain, in recent years I have discovered some fungenres, such as Steampunk, Alternative History,and even Supernatural Romance. The works of

Joe Lansdale belong in some kind of slasher-

punk-mystery or Gothic-Western genre mashup,

and its all good stuff, too. If anything, maybe usOld Phart Phans need to remember how open-minded we were back in the day when we wereyoung and full of energy, wanting to see this, dothat, try whatever-the-hell THAT is, and so on.

sometimes well see things like Steam-

punk groups popping up within an es-

tablished convention and they end up

bringing people into both folks. Weve

caught some great folks to BayCon who

rst encountered it through one of the

costuming groups that had a meet-up.

It might not happen everywhere, but itdoes happen, and the more open we are

to that happening, were gonna have to

be as open as we can.

Hope that makes sense. It does to me,but I wrote that batch of drivel, so it reectsmy frame of mind about fandom right now. Like Iwrote in the latest issue of my fanzine (Askance#27, Summer 2012), what we could call Sci-ence Fiction Fandom At Large is frigging huge,and fanzine fandom is but one small corner ofthat fannish universe. Sometimes I like the other

vortexes of fan activity swirling around, but I stillcome back to what I enjoy the most: fanzines.Fandom is both huge and insular. Its a

bunch of islands in the same archipeligo.

I had a wake-up call recently. Fanzine

fandom is a small part of the fandom we

know that goes to cons, maybe 1% or less.

Apparently, Convention-going fandomis 1 or 2% of On-line Fandom that par-

ticipates on the blogs and so on. Thats

roughly 3 to 5% of the total SF Reading

population. And that is roughly 5 to 10%

of the SF Movie audience.!

With that, I bid adieu. Many thanks for athoughtful issue.

All the best,John Purcell

I entered was open and inviting, offering an op-

portunity for me to nd my niche within its folds.Besides having a large local club (Minn-stf) to beactive in, there were some conventions insidea one-days drive from Minneapolis. Nowadays,there are so many subfandoms that it is easy fora new science ction fan to wander in and nev-

er come close to the core of what formed tradi-tional sf fandom. It saddens me to hear that fans

act rude to each other, even acting exclusionaryto neo fans who might have otherwise become

really good fannish fans (for lack of a better de-

Seems as if weve for-

gotten our youthfulways. *sigh* I may be58 now, coming up on

my 40th anniversaryof discovering fandom,but I dont feel like an

old phart. Its all in ourperspectives of howwe see others as we

used to be.

I believe that Neos

are our future! Se-

riously, thereve

been times whenits been almost

impossible to

bring together old

groups and the

new. Then again,

theres a lot of

great cross-overs.

There are a big se-

ries of things thatwork. For example,

THE SUN!*(&*#@!#& IS GLITCHED*(@#$&$*(PO by Steve Mix

drink tank pi

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