Having finished the Van Flandern, I've started a new book : "The Tower of Babel Moment" by Dr. Joseph Farrell. The subtitle is "Lore, Language, Leibniz and Lunacy", and right now - in mentioning the book - it is language I am interested in, because in the early chapters, Doctor Joe is giving an overview of linguistics as it relates to the Tower of Babel myth of the Bible and many other religious texts. Hey Elizabeth! You were a linguistics major. You obviously know about linguistic taxonomy, the classification of languages into families. You're likely also aware of the theory of monogenesis, that all languages on Earth derive from a single, ancient language that is untraceable up to this point. Have you ever heard of a linguist named Merritt Ruhlen? In 1994 he wrote a book called "The Origin of Language" which according to Farrell was somewhat heretical at the time because Ruhlen sought to go beyond the Indo-European Family, the limit of classification for most mainstream linguists, to identify linguistic traits that he believed would lead to the discovery of a monogenetic "original" language. Ruhlen was influenced by his teacher, Joseph Greenberg, who in turn was influenced by the work of Alfredo Trombetti.
I learned all of this today and it's blowing my mind, because Dr. Farrell is correlating the linguistic information into his own study of the Tower of Babel story, in which God decided to scatter the singular language of man after seeing man's progress in constructing a Tower that rose to the heavens. If completed, the Tower would give man the power to "do anything he desired", according to the Bible. This was perceived as a threat to God's authority, and so - according to the myth - He "came down" and not only "confused the tongue" of man, so that man's one language became many, but also prevented man from completing the Tower, because now, with the multitude of languages, no one could understand anyone any longer. The Tower of Babel story is known worldwide. It has variations in every religion and on every continent, so - like the story of the Flood - it somehow gained a foothold among the traditions of all peoples, suggesting that there is some truth to it, disguised within the myth.
In other words, what the Tower of Babel story is saying, is that there was, in the beginning, a single language in use by all of mankind. According to Farrell, modern linguistics is not willing to go there, because mythology is antithetical to the scientific method. But apparently the linguist Ruhle went around this barrier, armed with new evidence to suggest there was indeed once an initial, single language spoken by mankind. Farrell's book seeks to unravel the Babel myth, to understand why the single language was broken up. It's a short book, only 135 pages, so I should be finished with it in a few days, but it's extremely interesting, a mindboggler so far. I'm bringing it up because it made me think of you and your original major of linguistics, of which Dr. Joe goes into quite a technical analysis. :):)
Well, now on to tonight's movie. It was another Veddy Brrittissh production, entitled "The Night Caller", which sounds more like a mystery than a Sci-Fi Flick, but that's the English for you, at least as far as their movies go. You never know what you're gonna get. What starts off as a straight ahead military/ufo scenario, of the type we've seen in a dozen American movies, turns into a crime caper with a possible serial killer on the loose, except the psycho is probably an Alien.
Inside a radar station, John Saxon is tracking a meteor, along with his colleagues "Dr. Morley" (Maurice Denham) and "Ann Barlow" (Patricia Haines). It's moving at 10,000 miles per hour and is about to hit the Earth, not far from their installation. When they drive out to locate it, the Army is already there, headed up by the "Major" (John Carson). Similar to last night's "Beginning of the End", he's established a blockade and no one is allowed in. Also similar, the scientists talk their way in, on the pretext that they know more about meteors than an Army Major. Traveling by Jeep, again like last night, they locate the meteor, but it's a lot smaller than expected, about the size of a basketball. It's also very cold, the opposite of what would be expected. Perhaps it's not a meteor after all?
The three scientists bring "the sphere", as they refer to it, back to their laboratory (la-BORE-a-tory). The Major is in tow. Under examination, the sphere proves not to be an atomic weapon, easing the fears of the Major, who suspected it was launched by the Russians. So if it's not a meteor and it's not a bomb, what is it? Ann Barlow stays late to find out. After Morley and Saxon have gone home, she's alone with the sphere late at night, when suddenly it begins to glow. As Barlow peers at it through the safety glass, a door creaks open.......then a Hand appears, clawlike and large. It slowly closes around Barlow's wrist. "Helllllllllp"!!
She manages to get away and locks Whatever It Was in the room with The Sphere, but when the Major comes running in, it's gone. "I swear to you there was a Hand", Barlow tells him, but the Major is skeptical. He's military, they don't believe in Clawlike Hands that reach from doorways, so he reacts in the customary way that skeptics do in these movies : by telling Barlow she's been working too hard. "Why don't you go home and get some sleep"?
"But I'm telling you it was there"!
The next day she tells her story to Morley and Saxon, who are slightly more accepting. Morley suggests an experiment. "You say you were stricken with a severe headache just after the sphere began glowing. I would like to recreate the conditions this evening. This time I will be alone in the lab, but you two will be stationed outside. We will equip ourselves with microphones for communication and I will describe what, if anything, takes place". That night at 9pm, Dr. Morley locks himself inside the lab with explicit instructions to Barlow and Saxon that he is not to be interrupted. It's a variation on the old "No matter what I say, even if I cry out for help, don't let me out of this room" theme. Soon enough, the Sphere, which must be capitalised now, begins to glow. Morley reports that he, too, is feeling pain in his head. It becomes so severe that he falls to the floor and loses his glasses. We now see from his blurred POV as a Tall Being appears in the room, as if it's been beamed in ala Star Trek. The blurry Being approaches Morley, he screams and it's all over ; he's dead. Maybe he should've allowed his pals to let him out of the room after all (but then I suppose it would've violated that Cardinal Movie Rule mentioned above).
Okay, it's me here, butting in. So far we've had an excellent Sci-Fi setup. We've got a landed sphere, origin unknown. We've got a radar station and Army involvement. We've got skeptics and believers, and we've got an emergent Clawlike Hand and Blurry Being. Now we have our first death. But for whatever reason, the movie's gonna make a sharp turn of genres, keeping the sci-fi but placing it in the back seat, while giving the steering wheel to crime thriller. I use the automotive metaphor because of what happens next. After killing Dr. Morley, the Being breaks a window, jumps out, runs across the parking lot and steals a car. Yep, he knows how to drive, and fast too. All we see is his Hand on the steering wheel, clawlike and large, as he peels away.
Now we switch to the police station. John Saxon is there with the Major. Without any prior exposition of this subject, the detectives are giving them the rundown on several local girls who have gone missing. "It looks like we've a madman on the loose"! (Madman pronounced "MAD-mn", no vowel in second syllable). At this point I will need to condense details to encapsulate a very complex investigation, otherwise we'll be here all day. By interviewing one girl's parents, detectives learn that she answered an ad in a "figure magazine" called "Bikini Girl". "She's always wanted to be a model", says her father. They track down a copy of the mag, locate the advertiser - a gentleman named Medra - and pay him a visit, but he's not at the office. Next, they discover that almost all of the missing girls had answered ads in "Bikini Girl". They go to a local bookshop where the magazine is sold and interview the owner, a fidgety weirdo who dislikes coppers. Under pressure, he reveals to them that, yes, many girls have come in to the shop to buy that very magazine. And also, some of them met a man there, a tall, quiet person who always wore a scarf over his face. Now maybe they're on to something!
Two things happen next that will bring the story to a crescendo, but keep in mind that all of this takes 45 minutes to unfold, which is why I'm condensing it for you. Ann Barlow, the radar scientist, volunteers to be a guinea pig for the killer. She answers the ad in "Bikini Girl" and arranges to meet "Medra" at the bookshop. When she gets there, the Creepy Owner is dead. Now she is trapped with Medra in the shop. The other thing that happens is that John Saxon, working furiously back at the lab, has discovered that the Being comes from Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. He knows this because of radiation data around the planet. Using the Brilliant Deductive Techniques the British are known for, the lead detective surmises that Medra and the Being are one and the same! Holy smokerinos, good people! Who would've guessed?
I mean, no wonder the killer's been getting away with it for so long. Who would ever imagine that a guy from Ganymede would come to Earth and put ads in a girlie magazine? Now, it's not as sleazy as it sounds. He's got reasons for doing so, and they aren't what you're thinking. You may still be reeling from the ending to "The Maze" a couple of nights ago, and so I won't describe the grand finale of "The Night Caller". It's nowhere near as weird but it's got a similar level of "you've gotta be kidding me". Having said that, if you're willing to accept a hybrid film, made up of one third classic science fiction and two thirds crime story, with an ending that's unusual (and a slight letdown), then you'll probably enjoy "The Night Caller", which is very well made, well acted and never drags. I liked it, enough to give it Two Solid Thumbs Up and to recommend it for originality. You can also look for it under it's American title "Blood Beast From Outer Space". Give it a shot and see what you think. ////
That's all for the moment. The curfews are over thank goodness, so I can take my time today with all outdoor activity. Yesterday I did get a short hike at Santa Susana, and today I will go to Aliso for a more leisurely stroll. I see on Facebook that today is the sixth anniversary of my discovery of the place, so an Aliso Hike seems fitting. Have a great day and I'll see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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