Steve Jobs is dead. We knew it was going to happen, when you have pancreatic cancer, you don’t make a lot of five year plans. He managed 7. Good for him. The world of MacUsers went nuts, and it’s kinda under- standable, he was the symbol of Apple and especially of things like the iPod, iPad and iMac. He was amazing at making himself a part of a technology he didn’t invent. That’s not a knock, though I know it sounds like one. Jobs was one of the great evangelists of the Computer Age. He didn’t invent much, though he did have a solid understanding of what he worked with, especially the Macintosh back in the mid-1980s, but he could make you believe, no, make you KNOW you needed whatever he was introducing. It was an amazing talent, and the single best other example would have to be Adm. Grace Murray Hopper. Grace Hopper worked on a number of committees and worked on a couple of very early electrome- chanical computers. She discovered a moth in a relay and joked that it was the first actual example of a com- puter bug. But she wasn’t a great inventor. She is often noted as the Mother of COBOL, and she was on the com- mittee to define the standard, but she wasn’t the inventor. She did, however, speak about COBOL a lot, made appearances around the world talking about the nanosecond and the like, and would talk about the use of computers. She was an amazing evangelist, and many have attached significance to her that doesn’t really be- long, but her role as the one who got computers into the minds of people. Jobs did that for the PC. He got the Apple ][ into schools, which led people to kids growing up with the Apple brand as their preference. He brought out the Macintosh and using brilliant marketing and one of the smartest give-away pro- grams ever, made it into the choice for designers and artists. He made it cool to own a computer, he attached a significance to the Macintosh that has managed to stick with it even after Windows machines have caught up in most of the areas that Macs were first pushed in. There are many great arts and design programs for windows, some of them more powerful and easier to use than the ones for Macs, yet still Macs have the hold over those realms. Go figure. And TAFF has started! The race this time is between Jacq Moynahan out of Vegas, Kim Kofmel from Texas (by way of Canada?) and the guy I nominated - Warren Buff! I would hope that all our gentle readers would hop on and become members of The Warren Commission and get Buff to Eastercon next year! He’s a good guy, and a damn fine wit. He’s also just evil enough to be entertaining! TAFF.org.uk has the ballot so that you, yes YOU!, can go and vote for him! OK, so what’s this issue of The Drink Tank about? Solaris is the 52 Weeks film, we’ve got a piece of John The Rock Coxon’s TAFF report, and the conclusion of Taral’s article from last issue. And there’s this, of course. I’m working on issue 300, which is a tough one. I’m about 1⁄2 way through with the layout, but I’ve still got to write the bios and such, and do the index. Indexes are hard. It takes time. It should be ready right about the time when issue 299 is complete. So much to do!!!!! John Coxon’s TAFF Trip Report Chapter This One 10:00, 17/08/11 ‚ South Lake Tahoe, California

So, I could pretend I’m writing this in South Lake Tahoe, with the sun shining down on me and the serene tranquility of our motel (Super 8, not to be confused with Motel 6 or Lucky 7 or National 9 or whatever all the others are‚ seriously, why are there so many motel chains with numbers in the name, and why are all of them dif- ferent?!). Unfortunately, I’m not. I’m writing this, in fact, almost a full month after the events I’m describing, whilst sitting in a Starbucks in Peterborough (hey, it’s the closest to the US you can get over here!). I blame this, roundly speaking, on Worldcon, for reasons which I will attempt to detail in my con report. However, since it’s officially 10am on the first day of Renovation, and since I am still not at the convention yet, I don’t know anything about that, and so I shall stop ruining the journalistic (and structural!) integrity of this TAFF report and start writing about things that I would know about at this point. I flew out from Seattle on the Monday morning at some un- godly hour (10am counts as ungodly, right?). Janice Murray, who took me around the Museum of Flight, had very kindly offered to give me a lift to SeaTac airport, and so she picked me up around 8am, for which I was very glad. The reason I was very glad was that we had originally arranged for 8:30, but I had had a nightmare that I’d miss the flight, and had awo- ken early as a result. Her spontane- ous offer of arriving half an hour early did a great deal to placate my sleepy brain, so that was very much a boon! We drove to the airport and then she very kindly bought me a coffee from Starbucks before I went through security to board my flight, along with my ridiculously heavy rucksack (I put all my books and fanzines in it, as my suitcase had nearly been over the limit flying Toronto to Seattle). SeaTac airport is a bit odd (and, according to the Museum of Flight, about as far from downtown Seattle as Heathrow is from Zone 1 London, although the fact you can catch the Tube to Heathrow from King’s Cross kinda obscures that). It claims to have free Wi-Fi but I’ve been twice now and I’ve never managed to get any out of them, despite the multiple unsecured networks that my iPhone told me were present. This is always a bit of a pain, since airports are not naturally thrilling places and having the Internet would be great. However, on the Mon- day, it was even more of a pain than usual, since it was my mother’s birthday and I wanted to call her via Skype, like I had done in the city earlier in the week. Fortunately, the 3G signal from AT&T was fairly strong (remind me to rant about Americans and their mobile networks‚ sorry, cellphone networks‚ elsewhere in the report...), and I was just about able to call on it. The lag was about five seconds, which made protracted conversation almost impossible and shouting at each other the order of the day, but I was able to communicate my desire to wish her a happy birthday successfully, which was the main thing. The flight from Seattle to Sacramento was alright. I wasn’t lucky enough to be sitting next to an empty seat, like I was on the two flights between Toronto and Seattle, but my seatmates were quiet and the dude next to the aisle let me go to the john without much complaining, so I had no grumbling to do. I believe I finished Cryo- burn on that flight, which marked the second Hugo nominee to crumble before my reading skillz. I enjoyed it a great deal, actually, although if I’d known it was part of an ongoing series I probably would have tried to locate the first book, rather than starting at the end, as it were. But, more on the Hugo nominees elsewhere in the report, I think. The best part of arriving in Sacramento airport was seeing the one, the only, Christopher J. Garcia. I know, I know‚ you’d think baggage claim would be the highlight, but you’d be totally wrong! He got my suitcase wedged into his car (I have no idea how, since there was no room whatsoever for massive suitcases anywhere in said car) and we rode into the historic part of Sacramento. They have buildings that are really, really old there. Like, thirty- six years old, or something! Arrival in Sacramento heralded us walking in a massive circle. Chris swore blind he knew exactly where we were going and where we were meeting Linda, but the massive circle kind of undermined his authority on the matter, and so eventually we resorted to the miracle of the mobile telephone, but not before we got vouchers for saltwater taffy. So, I should explain something about the old part of Sacramento at this point. The important thing to note is that 98% of the world’s total number of sweet shops are in the town. Seriously. Chris and I counted them, and it’s definitely 98%. Well, even if I am lying, there are many, many sweet shops. After rendezvousing with Linda suc- cessfully, we went into one, and purchased two bottles of a delightful beverage called Leninade, which is a must for any thirsty communist. As a Briton, I count as a Communist in the USA (my father works for the NHS, I’m practi- cally a member of the Communist Party), and so I enjoyed it greatly. I even saved the bottle! Out of a sense of monogamy, we didn’t visit any of the other sweet shops, not even the one that we had vouchers for. We’re that dedicated. We also visited a costume shop. Top tip: if you want to have the most fun you’ve ever had whilst shopping for clothes, go shopping with Chris and Linda as they rush around a costume shop squeeing. It’s brilliant. Chris found an old arcade machine (one of the ones that’s a shooting range with 25 shots) and exclaimed as to how much he loved this one before proceeding to suck at it on two separate occasions, which was also pretty fun. No idea what the arcade machine was doing in the middle of the 1920s gangster section, but hey, it was just that kind of place! We also had donuts. For a sort of pre-lunch snack (this was necessary, since I had not had break- fast and had been walking around in the sun and just generally felt like putting calories in my belly would be a good plan before I keeled over from a mixture of hunger and an English reaction to the sunshine). Eventually, it became time for James Bacon to enter the story, and so he did, smiling and greeting me warmly and, I think, quite glad to hear an accent that wasn’t American. It’s weird, but speaking as a Briton, whenever I go to the States, just hearing British and Irish accents makes me smile. It’s like there’s an instant camaraderie between you, caused by some weird side-effect of the Atlantic Ocean. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the American accent. I have visited the USA on previous occasions, and I’ve now finally visited Canada as well, and I’m very fond of both of them. But there’s something about where you’re from that creates a bond between two people in a foreign land, regardless of how epic a time you’re having. When it’s an old mate, well, it just throws everything into relief, somewhat. After having met with James, I met Katrina Templeton for the first time, who you may know better as Kat- ster. She’s a Sacramento-based fan, so it makes sense to meet up with her when in Sacramento! We decided that we needed food, and so we headed down some stairs next to a building that promised all-you-can-eat pizza for $7 (or something ridiculous), because we’re classy. The all-you-can-eat pizza came in three varieties: pepperoni, meat and vegetable. The pasta next to it came in three varieties, too: red, green and yellow. The soda came in brown, brown, brown, BRIGHT ORANGE or yellow. Gotta love USA food colouring, it is so much more vivid than the colours that are legal to give to human beings in the UK! The red pasta was particularly yummy, and the pizza was actually much better than it could’ve been for the price we paid. Over dinner we asked Kat if she wanted to run for TAFF, talked about board games, asked Kat if she wanted to run for TAFF, talked about comics, asked Kat if she wanted to run for TAFF, talked about beer, asked Kat if she wanted to run for TAFF, talked about how stupid it is that Mountain Dew in Canada doesn’t contain caffeine and asked Kat if she wanted to run for TAFF. Hey, you can’t say I wasn’t plugging the Fund when I was on my trip! I would’ve asked the other people eat- ing whether they wanted to run for TAFF, but given that James and Chris are previous delegates and Linda joined Chris on his TAFF trip, that would’ve seemed a little disingenuous. It became time to leave James and Kat to make their way forward on their own journeys. Linda went back to her car, Chris and I piled into his, and we had a road trip to South Lake Tahoe, where the majority of this story is allegedly set (although given we just passed the 1500 word mark I guess I had more to say about SeaTac and Sacramento than I thought!). The drive down was pleasant, although the nature of TAFF is that you end up a lot more tired than you thought you would be and, as such, I slept in the car until Chris stopped somewhere that sold Mountain Dew. Then, unsurprisingly, I was a lot less sleepy, and we chatted animatedly about God knows what until we reached the motel in South Lake Tahoe, checked in, got the Internet working (priorities are important, folks) and waited for Linda to arrive. When she did arrive, we had a blast. I don’t quite remember the order in which the evening happened, but we definitely played Guillotine that night, which was immense fun. Whilst I am in Leicester I am a gamer, not an SF fan, mainly due to the incredibly prone-to-schism university SF society looking less awesome than the incred- ibly prone-to-going-to-the-pub university gamesoc, aka the Leicester Sabres. As a result, I love playing card games. However, I had not played Guillotine before, despite it being a fairly popular card game. Although I got thrashed in the first game by an all-conquering Chris, I gained enough knowledge that I managed to claw my way to a win in the second game via some sneaky underhanded tactics (my hand was so ready for me to be a total dick, it was awesome). As well as playing cool card games, we went to the hot tub and the pool. It turned out that the pool was pretty cold, though, so mostly the hot tub. I was busy reading John Scalzi’s ‘The Last Colony’, which was a very good book, in between reading Mira Grant’s ‘Feed’ on my iPhone (which I didn’t feel like exposing to a hot tub, owing to it being expensive, and all). The final thing we did that night was go out for dinner to a place called Fire + Ice, which is a Mongolian barbecue restaurant in the town. I’ve never done Mongolian barbecue before, because I rarely eat outside of Peterborough and/or Leicester, and neither of those cities has one, but I am usually raring to try new stuff, so it was all good. For those that don’t know (I have no idea how many of you there might be, so I’ll forgive you if you skip to the next paragraph!), Mongolian barbecue consists of ingredients that you put in a bowl. You then get a smaller bowl and fill it with a sauce, and then you take it to two crazy men with paddles who put it on some fire ‘til it’s ready for you to eat. You get to choose from a variety of meats, and vegetables, and stuff like kidney beans and noodles and whatnot, and they bring rice and tortillas to your table for you to have with whatever it is you concocted. The menu has some suggestions for things that are nice. My first was a noodle-based thing with steak, prawns (or shrimp, depending on your nationality) and sweet chilli sauce that was really very nice indeed. My second was a chicken-based thingy with kidney beans and whatnot, which I was aiming to eat with the tortillas. I deliberately tried to emulate a fajita with that one, and it was awesome! The third one was interesting... the dude got my sauce mixed up with the other guy standing around the fire, and so we decided we were gonna swap dishes and I had the ingredients he’d picked with my sauce, and he had my ingredients with his sauce. The guy serving thought this was brilliant, and shouted delightedly to his manager that we were nuts. I dunno what the other guy picked, but whatever it was, it was good! Chris wanted to go gamble some money after we’d eaten, and so we walked the block to Nevada in order to visit Harrah’s casino in South Lake Tahoe. Now, the border between California and Nevada used to be delin- eated by a line on the ground, but the line’s no longer there and the sign saying ‘Nevada’ is hidden behind a tree, so the only signal that the state is different is the FOUR HUGE CASINOS that line the road. Harrah’s is big, and it has many, many flashing lights, and it had people gambling in it. Chris went to the roulette table and put chips in different places until he didn’t have any chips left. Some other men came and got lots and lots of chips and so he was allowed to put them in many different places in stacks of five. As is probably evident from the whole of this paragraph, I have no real clue as to how roulette actually works, but hey, people seemed to be enjoying it, and there was a spinny wheel thing which kept me occupied just fine (ah, simple pleasures!). The next morning was the day of going to Heidi’s. Heidi’s, Chris reliably informed us, was a mile away from the hotel, and so we were going to drive. Everything was dandy until we pulled out of the hotel’s drive and realised than when Chris had said ‘mile’, what would have been more accurate was ‘block and a half’. We promptly chris- tened a short walkable distance as a Garcia mile, and things were a Garcia mile or two away for the rest of the trip. For instance, “the Chinese place near Chris’ apartment is about a Garcia mile’s walk”. I urge fandom to adopt this as a great unit of measurement! Heidi’s was pretty cool. There was Wi-Fi (with the password written on paper that looked at least ten years old) and friendly people and what looked like a building decorated in the Netherlands. I had a burger patty and over-medium eggs and hash browns and toast (which is my favourite American breakfast, right up there with Eggs Benedict). Chris had something or other which he then followed up with what is apparently called a biscuit and country gravy. As a Briton, I call bullshit. Biscuits are about, oooh, five centimetres in diameter and gravy is made from gravy granules. Whatever he had, it was not in any way a biscuit and gravy. It looked more like a scone that had gone soft covered in a thin custard, and I instantly decided I never, ever want to try it (which is an extremely rare reaction to any food, for me). It looked horrible. Still, Chris enjoyed it, so I guess that’s the main thing... After Heidi’s we went to Lake Tahoe, via a post office which took far too long to find given that we started from where it was, drove around a bit and then eventually no- ticed it was where we’d set off from in the first place. Whilst Chris and Linda did other shoppingy things, I bought stamps and sent wave #1 of postcards. It’s important to send postcards to people, but I figured since fandom was getting a trip re- port out of me, I wouldn’t send any to fans, so don’t be upset or hurt if you didn’t get one! The drive to Tahoe was in- teresting since it was all mountain and cliff and no-safety-barrier-next- to-the-road. We parked the car and I got to fill in a form, which is one of my favourite things to do (there’s something satisfying about filling in all the boxes, alright?!). We put the form in an envelope with a $5 bill, tore off a stub to put in the car’s window and posted the envelope in a box, which apparently meant we were good for parking. This reminds me to mention something‚ in Seattle, before we went to the Elysian, we parked and there was a parking meter which required the user to poke bills into a hole. So, if you were in parking spot #27, you’d be poking the bills into hole #27. And then in Tahoe, you had the system I just described. In Britain, I literally cannot remember ever having seen a non-electronic parking meter. Here, you put coins into a machine that then spits out a sticker which you put in your car window, letting the authorities know that you paid. We don’t even have the parking meters lining the pavement (or sidewalk) for on-street parking. Are there any manual parking meters in the UK? I’d be curious to know, so please write me! Tahoe was beautiful. I can’t really write about how beautiful it was, so this journal entry is probably going to be surrounded by a lot of photographs when I actually lay the report out. What I can tell you about is walking in the extreme heat, 6000m above sea level, up a massive hill. Now, I’m from a place called Peterborough, which is in a place called East Anglia. East Anglia is, it will not surprise you to learn, in the East of England. The defining features of this area of the world are threefold: it’s not very warm (except for a few weeks of summer), it’s at sea level, and it’s entirely flat (great for arable farming!). As such, I am probably one of the least prepared people on the planet for going up massive hills in extreme heats at large distances above sea level. On the way down the massive hill, everything was fine because gravity was happy to help, and I figured I could buy drinking water at the bottom. Whilst, at the bottom, I did manage to procure both two postcards and a bookmark, drinking water was not to be seen, and so Linda and I took the walk back up the huge mountain at a rather leisurely pace (especially because I’m clumsy and didn’t want to be the first TAFF delegate to die by falling down a steep incline/thirst/ex- haustion on his TAFF trip). Fortunately, as you may have gathered, I survived without dying, which I greatly appreciated. On going back to the hotel, we chilled out, and I finished the Scalzi book by the hot tub. Then, we all decided to go grab some Mexican food, and so we headed to a chain restaurant whose name eludes me. Unfortunately for Linda it was Tuesday, not Wednesday, and thus the cheap margaritas weren’t on, but I really like Mexican food so I thoroughly enjoyed it! In the evening, we watched a film called ‘OSS 117’, which is a French parody of James Bond films. It was decidedly odd, but it provided a catchphrase which Chris and I quoted to each other for the rest of my trip, and it’s probably odd enough that you should watch it, even if that’s just so you understand just how odd it is. That night we got to bed early because this morning, we’re off to Reno! (Well, not really, because I’m in Peterborough, but remember, we’re maintaining the integrity and suspension of disbelief, here.) I am very, very excited for Worldcon ‚ my first American convention, my first convention outside the UK and my first Worldcon! I cannot wait to see what it’s like, and to see the sights. I must also confess I’m looking forward to having a hotel room to myself, it’ll be nice to have a space to call my own. I hadn’t realised how non-stop my trip would be before I came out here, which is absolutely fantastic, but it’ll be a relief to have a little oasis of calm that I can retreat to. Next stop: IHOP, and pancakes (yum!). Stop after that: Reno, baby! We come to “The Smurfs.” Everybody hates Smurfs, right? Why shouldn’t we? Isn’t their happy little song in itself enough to inspire bloody thoughts and black, brooding depression? Never mind the words. There’s only one anyway – “La la la la la laaah, la la la la laaaaaah!” Smurf again and again until your brain smurfs. The funny thing is that I don’t hate Smurfs. Oh, it’s very fashionable to run the little blue bug- gers down. I knew one jackass who made a shtick of it for years. It was the nearest thing to humour he could think of, is my guess. I’ve also seen a VW van with blue and white smears painted on a bum- per. When I asked the driver what it was, I was told Smurfs. It was rather funny, at that. Here’s where public opinion is wrong. The Smurfs that most of you saw were the animated Hanna-Barbera cartoons on TV in the ‘80s. Even those are not so bad as they might have been, since they are based on someone else’s thinking rath- er than the studio’s. Had Joe Barbera thought up the Smurfs, they would no doubt solve mysteries and have a comic talking dog. Nevertheless, the TV Smurfs are adulterated. Rough corners have been knocked off and characters added to make the Smurfs more conventional. The Smurfs I like are the actual Les Sch- troumpfs from the Belgian comics by Peyo, a.k.a. Pierre Culliford. It isn’t as though the two are drastically dif- ferent. There were small changes made in translat- ing the books to animation, such as eating sarsa- parilla leaves in Peyo’s books, but “Smurfberries” on TV – only a nitpicker would worry about them. There was an addition of a few non-canonical char- acters like Grandpa Smurf and Clockwork Smur- fette (a wooden robot), but surprisingly few. And their name, of course. “Smurf” is the name given the little blue gnomes in English only. The story goes that Peyo was speaking to a friend and momentarily forgot the French word for “salt,” and just said “schtroumpf” instead. The friend thought this hilarious and began using the word himself, until both of them were speaking fluent “Schtroumpf.” But it was quite a mouthful, and in English the “Schtroumpfs” have been cut down to a more manageable sound-bite. What distinguished the Smurfs was the writing. Even watered down for television, the stories weren’t as condescending or simplistic as much of kid’s TV is. Still, it goes without saying that the original comics were better still. One of the most interesting tells the origin of the Smurfette. To start with, there is only one Smurfette, but originally there were none. But she was created by an evil wizard to bedevil the Smurfs. He made her vain, petty, self-centered, shallow minded and demanding – rather the way all pretty girls were viewed in the male chauvinist world of not-actually-all-that-long-ago, when Peyo first became a cartoonist. Sure enough, Smurfette did spread trouble and dissension among the Smurfs. They acted the fool around her, to get the Smurfette’s attention, fought with each other, and disobeyed Papa Smurf. The final straw came when one love-smitten Smurf allowed himself to be talked into opening the floodgates of the dam, to show how manly he was, and nearly washing away the entire village. Papa Smurf put her on trial for reckless endangerment, but found that no jury would con- vict! So the exasperated Papa Smurf took Smurfette in hand himself to try and cure her of her penchant for mischief with his magic books. It worked to the extent that Smurfette emerged from Papa Smurf’s hut a much prettier figure. Her lanky black hair had become wavy and blonde. She seemed to have had her nose bobbed as well. But, though her heart was now in the right place, she still couldn’t avoid causing jealousy and foolishness among the other Smurfs. In the end, Smurfette ran away into the forest to live by herself and spare the village further trouble. In the Hanna-Barbara version, it would be unthinkable that any real harm could come to the Smurfette. In Peyo’s original version, though, there is no such guarantee. The forest was full of dangers, not the least of which was the wizard who made her. Smurfette had no idea how to shelter herself, how to find food, or how to avoid being eaten by a fox. For the good of all, she went into exile inspite of the risk to her own life. Petty serious stuff for a kid’s story, I’d say. So, next time you think of putting down Smurfs, remember the Smurfette, dead under a bush somewhere, then joke about them. But, as it happens, Peyo relented eventually. A few books later, Smurfette did return, and eventually settled down in the village after all. There was still a lot of foolishness and inattentive Smurfs putting their foot in their work, but everyone seems to have learned to live with it. For better or worse, now there’s a digitally animated movie. I haven’t seen it yet, but from trailers I get the impression that it has some of the plot elements of the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie. In both, strange little people turn up in the real world, totally flabbergasting an uptight, regular-sort-of-guy who regards them mainly as a nuisance – until, finally, they make friends and solve their mutual problem with each other’s help... the only variation being whether the computers are animating Chipmunks or Smurfs. The “Chipmunks” movie wasn’t actually all that bad, truth be told. For what it was, it made its point and guided us along a short stretch of Memory Lane that was pleasant enough. Inevitably, the old Dave Seville numbers were updated to current tastes in plastic, formation-dancing boy-bands, but I was not entirely put off. (But on no account must you subject yourself to the revolting “Squeakquel,” not even to see the Chipettes.) How the Smurfs movie will measure up by comparison, I don’t know. I can only hope it’s at least mildly entertaining, because I’m going to have to see it. I never told you about my secret crush on the Smurfette, did I? She looked cute as a button in the trailers. I’m not opening up any dams for her, though.

If there was one Disney movie I hated above all others, it was “Pocahontas.” I so despised “Pocahontas” that I bought a used videotape, watched it once, and have never been tempted to look at it again. The thought of it makes me want to scatter smallpox-infected blankets in an Indian village and trap small cuddly animals to turn them into fur hats. In the original story told by Captain John Smith, we had a gripping story about the first vulnerable English colonists struggling for a foothold in the New World, and their encounter with a powerful na- tive civilization. The fate of both peoples hinges on the personal relationship between the English leader and a 13-year-old-daughter of the tribal chieftain. Think what Shakespeare could have done with it! But what did Disney reduce these powerful issues to? The studio turned them into a dishonest moral lesson about the White Man’s greed for gold, and the Indian love of nature. Hello? I call that racism. As if the Elizabethan poet had no appreciation of nature! Any Restoration squire could tell you of the beauty of his country garden. The grandeur of the King’s forest inspired awe in Sheriff and Robin Hood alike. Disney falsely grafted the sins of 20th century capitalism onto a thousand years of English History, producing nothing better than an overworked cliché. The Native American knew greed too, although he had not invented cash yet. Nor was Powhattan’s village confederacy a tree-hugging group of do-gooders. It was a sophisticated political structure carved out of the realpolitik of the Algonquian-speaking world at the expense other equally expansionist-minded chieftains. What justification did Disney have to turn a potentially dramatic story full of passion, conflicting loyalties and the struggle for survival in a strange new world into a sappy moral? The belief that it made better box-office, apparently. It seems that decision was a mistaken one, as well. And what was the moral, anyway? That gold is evil? I never heard of the Disney studio giving it away, or of making a movie for any other reason than the desire for it. We white guys have been bad enough without giving us even worse motives than we actually had. In reality, nobody in John Smith’s Virginia colony was looking for gold. The Virginia coast is almost the last place it could be found, as well the English knew. The Appalachians aren’t known for gold mines, and the alluvial plains beneath them are good only for what the colonists really came for – to farm. In other words, the English wanted the land for exactly the same reason the Indians wanted it... to live on the bounty of nature. As if the unspoiled beauty of broad flowing rivers and stately emerald forests wasn’t pretty enough, stu- dio artists had to paint the New World landscape in ethereal pastels. The mere hills and valleys of Virginia must have been a disappointment to the artists as well – they added 10,000-foot waterfalls! Coloured lavender. And what’s a story about nature if you tell it just the way you find it? Who could love real animals? Best to make the animals too cute to even think about thwacking them over the head, stripping their pelts off and cooking their meat. Perhaps the biggest lie is Pocahontas herself – she’s a looker and easy on the eyes, I concede. But how did a natural supermodel come to live among the natives of the New World? Tall, willowy, long shining hair, her nails trimmed, not a smudge of dirt on her bare feet, nor any sign that she had ever any need of a dentist. Her hair flows like a cataract of thick, black oil, and must have required hours of work daily to keep clean and brushed. Most Indian women wore their hair in pigtails for just that reason. Nor, oddly, does Pocahontas much resemble a typical East Coast Woodlands Indian, who usually had noses a Roman Emperor would be proud of. If I had to guess, I’d say the exotic, slanted eyes and high cheek bones of Disney’s Pocahontas was more likely Polynesian. Perhaps she washed up on the beach as an orphaned child? That isn’t all that’s “wrong” with this Pocahontas. But I guess you just couldn’t make an animated movie for a family audience about a 13-year-old, topless girl, tattooed all over and covered in bear grease to keep away the blackflies and mosqui- toes. Much less could Dis- ney tell a story about how her canny old man outfoxed the newcomers, and how he made them ally themselves to his suzerainty over the local tribes. Most likely that was what the whole Pocahontas story was about. Not White Man’s greed for Gold or the Nobility of the First Nations. Not even John Smith’s silly romantic fib. Just politics. We could try to give this version of “Pocahontas” back to the Indians, I sup- pose... but they’d only give it right back to us. “Put it in your pipe and smoke it, Walt!”

52 Weeks to Science Fiction FIlm Literacy - Solaris

Russia has a long tradition of science fiction. A very long tradition, stretching back almost as far as it does in the US and England. Some of the legends of the field have been Russian authors, painters or filmmakers. Russian SF has a distinct flavor, one that is strongly informed by not only Com- munism, but also by the earlier regimes and Tsars, by revolutions, by Eastern Orthodox church and, especially, by ‘Literary’ writers who often crossed boundaries. There’s good stuff from Tolstoy and Nabakov that would qualify as SF. Russian SF film dates back a long way. While most of the silent masters of Soviet cinema were less inter- ested in subjects scientifictional, preferring realist or political narratives that kept them funded, many of the early Melies films found some of their strongest audiences in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They were also the ones who most pirated the various films of Melies and Edison, not to mention copying the camera technologies. Early Russian cinema was often fantastical. One of the finest of all the directors that Russia ever produced was Andrei Tarkovsky. The man had an amazing eye and an even better sense of story and how it can flow through different paces and methods. Imme- diately before filming Solaris, Tarkovsky made a film about 15th Century Icon painter Andrei Rublev. It was one of the finest films of the 1960s for my money. After completing it, and a couple of other writing projects, he started in on adapting Stanilaw Lem’s Solaris. Lem’s novel Solaris was one of the biggest hits of Eastern European Science Fiction of the 1960s. It was an amazing novel and it was translated first from Polish into Russian and French, and then from the French version into English. Lem hated the version that was translated into English, perhaps going through a third language was not the right way to go. There is a direct-from-Polish translation into ENglish that was made into an Audio Book on Audible.com. I listened to a bit of it and it seemed pretty good. Solaris is a story about communication, or more importantly, about the limits of communication. You can not break away from the bounds of your species biological make-up to communicate with something that isn’t of the same make-up. That’s the big picture thing, the kind of thing that you pick up from a set of Cliff’s Notes. It’s not what I took away from either the novel (who I haven’t read in more than a decade) or the film. What I took away from both is that the creation is as much of a product of the world as it is of the creator. OK, you’ll have to stick around for that. The film opens with languid nature images of a stream with moss and grass flowing in its waters. This is a complete break with the concept of what Solaris is. While Tarkovsky loved using nature images in his films, often in long, slow takes. Here, we’re shown all of this as a way of reminding us what Kris Kelvin will be leaving behind when he goes up into Solaris’ orbit. The book doesn’t start with Kelvin on Earth, but Tarkovsky, like any filmmaker with great material to work from, realizes that there’s more story to tell and a series of ways to tell the story. The changes were right to give us a better view into Kelvin, especially since after those shots of nature, and of kids and of horses. Kelvin is also visiting his father, which will be the last time they will see each other. It’s kinda poignant. Starting with Kelvin’s last day on Earth was a smart way to tell the story. Henri Burton visits, bringing with him a filmed questioning of Burton where he describes what he saw while over Solaris. He reported seeing a giant child while flying his craft over the giant ocean that covers the entire planet. The cameras didn’t catch that, but there are those who argue that this was a hallucina- tion that was guided. This scene, lasting more than ten minutes, is so hugely important to the concepts that Tarkovsky is presenting that it can’t be over-looked. Here, Burton is arguing that what he saw was real while the establishment was arguing that it wasn’t, relying on evidence and facts. Tarkovsky’s argument was that film was an experience that is shared and can not be duplicated. Every viewer has an experi- ence that can not be measured or duplicated or truly observed. It is a singular experience. Viewing the interrogation is equal to the experience that those view- ing Solaris. It’s a great scene, slow and layered, and it feels like Tarkovsky is also making a comment about working in the Soviet film system. They are examining the film within the film, looking for whatever can be found that might be of importance. It is obvious that those viewing the film are of a different opinion than of those who are in the film. They are the officials, the viewers are the audience. It’s an interesting dichotomy. This is followed by Kelvin burring his belongings. I’ve heard folks say that this has to do with the abandon- ment of all things traditional film, but I don’t see it. It really just provides a brilliant segue between the natural and the scientific. Then comes another hugely important scene, portion of the film, again about ten minutes, where we see Kelvin driving to Moscow. These were shot in Tokyo and it was amazing. The cinematography changes from black- and-white to color a couple of times, features long runs through tunnels, and eventually an impressive series of shots of a nighttime series of freeways. Some of it is a multiple exposure, making it seem like a highway network in a Megaopolis. It’s an amazing effect and one of the reasons that you should see Solaris on as big a screen as possible. Eventually Kelvin gets to the Space Station which is a decrepit, nearly derelict station. Every film in the last forty years where we’ve encountered a space station in disarray has been influenced by the Solaris station. The art direction in Solaris is just about the best I’ve ever seen. It is so realistic it feels right. Watching films like Destination Moon and even 2001 give you one feeling, but to me, Solaris feels like what we will really get. 2001 is what we hope for, and maybe what we’ll get the first go-’round, but not what will last, not what will be the reality of much of our time in space. THey even had a mainframe, which I believe was a BESM-6. It might have been another one, you don’t see a lot of it, but I’m pretty sure it was a BESM. Kelvin finds a station where everything has gone to hell, where Kelvin’s contact has died. They tell him not to worry if he sees weird stuff, and Kelvin sees other people who aren’t the other researchers. It starts to get strange for him, and Tarkovsky uses a fluid camera-style and a slow series of scenes and slow editing to increase the oddness and ramp it up. Oh yeah, and then Kelvin sees his dead wife. That wasn’t expected. Hari, Kelvin’s wife, is there, but she had killed herself more than a decade prior. Kelvin has to figureout what’s going on, and they eventually come to the realization that Solaris has taken notice of them, and that has led to people coming to ‘life’. The station-people’s brainwaves are beamed to the planet’s surface and then their visions are manifested as people on the ship, possibly made out of neutrinos. They figure that if they’re made of neutrinos, they can ‘kill’ them. Kelvin explains to Hari that she is not real and she tries to kill herself again, but as if she had been on Riverworld, she is simply reformed, though incompletely. Hari is the most important figure in the film. She is what makes them realize what’s really going on. We discover that she has the ultimate choice in the film: accept that she is a projection and go on or just end it all. Of course, she had ended it all before, the real Hari, that is, and that is an important factor. She killed herself, and the new Hari goes the same direction. Why? Because there is no other way to do it? Is this a hint towards fate? Perhaps, but there’s another possibility - that the only way to rid yourself of pain is to end it all, and that’s what happens more than once. Fascinating thoughts swirl there... The planet, it turns out, is a living entity, and it thinks. After Hari has herself killed by the Solaris station scientists, the Planet starts to change and islands appear. This gives Kelvin his decision, which makes me feel like the entire idea of the film exists in this moment. Kelvin must either return to Earth, make the final report on the planet, or go down to the islands that have formed and there he can live out his life with things that were his on Earth. This choice is the pivot. Is the illusion the important thing, or the reality? Hari had her choice and chose a reality which happened to be death. The audience has this same choice to make every time they watch a film. Is the false reality of the film as important as the real reality that exists outside the theatre? Solaris shows everyone what they want, or at least what they have in their head, in much the same way that the filmmaker shows the audience what he has in his head, which is a product of being a part of that audience at one point, of having the experience of the environment. Solaris is, in a way, a planetary filmmaker. It picks thoughts from the environment and puts it into action, creat- ing a visual representation. It’s ex- actly what a filmmaker does, and when Kelvin chooses Solaris, it is Tarkovsky saying that the world of film is so much more impressive than the reality of the world out- side that theatre. Solaris is pretty much a film that uses contrasts to make each point more cromulent. The natural brushes against the scien- tific. The real brushes against the created. The lost against the found. Tarkovsky works with all sides, but he shows us where the truth lies, and where it came from. One thing that doesn’t get over-looked is the music. Tarkovsky worked with Eduard Artemyev to create an amazing soundtrack that started with a choral section by JS Bach. That set the main theme, but then Artemyev made some won- derful electronic music, including a theme for the planet Solaris that was way ahead of most of what we were getting in soundtracks at the time. Science fiction film music had always been on the cutting edge, but Artemyev was a part of the Russian electronic movement to a degree and it worked beautifully in the score to Solaris. It’s a long flick, almost three hours, but it’s also gorgeous