Sailbourne

Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, one of the last of the Von Braun team of rocket scientists who came to America from Germany at the end of World War II, has died at the age of 94. He left this world even as the latest NASA space probe successfully landed on Mars; and yet, Dr. Stuhlinger’s legacy includes the invention of ion propulsion engines, a means of transport which made it technically feasible for humans to travel to Mars themselves — an invention made nearly 40 years ago.

So much of what is still science fiction should, by all rights, be science fact by now. Especially when it comes to space exploration. There are plenty of reasons why the space program stalled in low Earth orbit in the early 1970s, reasons which are explained and debated by people far better informed and experienced in the subject than I am, and I would encourage you to seek these out. One of the most enduring arguments on the subject follows the theme “Why should we spend money on space when there are so many problems here on Earth?”

It’s a valid question, one which has been posed for a long time. In a posting at the excellent NASA Watch blog, Keith Cowing reproduces a letter written by Dr. Stuhlinger sometime in 1970 or 1971, answering the question in great, careful, thoughtful and thought provoking detail.

Dr. Stuhlinger enclosed a copy of the famous picture shown above with his letter. He said of it:

The photograph which I enclose with this letter shows a view of our earth as seen from Apollo 8 when it orbited the moon at Christmas, 1968. Of all the many wonderful results of the space program so far, this picture may be the most important one. It opened our eyes to the fact that our earth is a beautiful and most precious island in an unlimited void, and that there is no other place for us to live but the thin surface layer of our planet, bordered by the bleak nothingness of space. Never before did so many people recognize how limited our earth really is, and how perilous it would be to tamper with its ecological balance. Ever since this picture was first published, voices have become louder and louder warning of the grave problems that confront man in our times: pollution, hunger, poverty, urban living, food production, water control, overpopulation. It is certainly not by accident that we begin to see the tremendous tasks waiting for us at a time when the young space age has provided us the first good look at our own planet.

We didn’t send humans to Mars in Dr. Stuhlinger’s lifetime. If more people heed his words, we might just get lucky … and send them in mine.

You will no doubt have read the sad news in many other places by the time you read it here, but if you haven’t seen it yet, go take a look at Sydney Pollack’s obituary. 

I’m hardly qualified to comment much on Pollack’s career, having seen few of the movies he directed, and even fewer of those which he acted in, but I can comment on one of them.  Since it’s one of the movies which ends up in the “other stuff” list in his obituary, maybe the contribution is worth making — lots of people will talk about Out of Africa or Tootsie or Michael Clayton, but not so many, I guess, will talk about The Yakuza.

Sydney Pollack directed The Yakuza in 1974.  Like Shogun five years later, it was an American/Japanese co-production, and most of it was actually shot in Japan.  I first saw it on video in 1985 or early 1986.  On the shelf, it looked like just another action movie, but I was particularly curious about the Japanese element (having just recently become fascinated with Japanese history and culture). 

I wasn’t expecting all that I found — the carefully layered plot full of double-crosses and genuinely unexpected twists, the depth of the characters, the explanations of and real respect paid to the Japanese culture and traditions which underlie the story.   One of its themes — a fall from grace and the effort to achieve redemption — is one of my favorite kinds of story.

And so many of the elements of the film just plain work, even if on the surface you might not expect them to:  casting Robert Mitchum in the lead, Brian Keith as a bad guy, a triple clash of culture (American vs. old Japan vs. new Japan), a score by Dave Grusin.  Under Pollack’s guiding hand, it all works.  The Yakuza became one of my favorite movies, though I rarely had a chance to see it again, until last year when it (finally!) came out on DVD.

The film further fueled my interest in Japanese culture and was a direct influence in quite a bit of my writing, particularly my work in the Chamber of Mystery game and my original and principal character in the ISA Phoenix game, Yoshino Marina.  It led me to Zatoichi, Lone Wolf & Cub (the movies and the manga), and Musashi.  A novel still only in my head, about a cursed katana, probably owes its conception to The Yakuza.  And there will no doubt be more, as the years go by.

Many of the people involved with the movie are gone now, sadly — Pollack, writer Leonard Schrader, Mitchum, Keith, Richard Jordan — but some are still around, including the Japanese leads Takakura Ken and Kishi Keiko, writers Paul Schrader and Robert Towne, and composer Grusin.

When looking up The Yakuza on the Internet Movie Database, I learned that there is a remake in the works; with all respect to those working on that movie, I hope it’s never finished.  Sydney Pollack’s The Yakuzais an oft-overlooked masterpiece — better that it stay such, and be left to stand on its own.  If you haven’t seen it, at least go rent The Yakuza — even if you aren’t normally one for action movies, this one will be more than worth your time.

I subscribe to one of the online comic syndicators, and my subscription list includes “Bloom County” (which has, over the past few years, seemed every bit as relevant as it did 25 years ago).  Today’s strip was one of the all time classics:

Indeed, the exclamation “Bozo!” has become a part of my vocabulary when referring to annoying politicans and other aggravating people.