DIMENSION X - Requiem (Robert A Heinlein)

DIMENSION X
Requiem
September 22, 1951
Robert A Heinlein was a popular and well respected science fiction author in the 1950s. He drew on his real life experience as an aeronautical engineer to ensure that his stories had a feel of accurate science. His short story Requiem was published in the magazine Astounding in their January 1940 issue. His later novella The Man Who Sold the Moon was a prequel to this short story.
Ernest Kinoy, who adapted Heinlein's story into a radio play, was a writer for radio, television, screen and stage with a career spanning from the 1950s to the 1990s.
The story opens with a reference to the epitaph carved into Robert Louis Stevenson's grave marker located in Samoa. The same quote is "scrawled on a tag from an oxygen bottle" laying on the surface of the moon. But why? And for whom?
HISTORICAL GLOSSARY
A quick note about the announcer's opening. He says, "A large black cabriolet limousine stood at the side of the road, thirty-two cylinders purring quietly." From this 1950s prediction of a future luxury vehicle we can see that they thought cars would be improved by adding cylinders to increase power. Actually cylinders decreased. In the 1950s V-8s were the norm, but by the 2000s many popular cars boasted four cylinders to save gas.
When Harriman is exiting his thirty-two cylinder limo he asks Henry to help him "get this confounded buffalo robe off my legs." A buffalo robe, or buffalo blanket, is a fur throw blanket, very exclusive, like a mink coat. Being buffalo and not ermine or mink, develops Harriman's character. Unlike the narrative today about the near extinction of the buffalo in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the perspective in the 1950s was that the decimation of buffalo populations was a direct negative result of necessary progress. The stereotypical leaders of the progress that "settled the West" were men of industry who were self-made, scraping their way to wealth through hard work and sacrifice, with little care for the people or environment (buffalo) around them. So Harriman having a fur throw blanket over his legs shows us his wealth and the reference to it being buffalo hints at the harmful ambition that lead him to attain that wealth. In other words, he is being characterized as a hard hearted capitalist.
When the doctor asks McIntyre (Mac) how things are going with their rocket tour business he says, "Slow. We're not drawing as much as the cooch tent." A typical 1950s carnival, in addition to games and rides, had tents with attractions that cost money to go in and see. Cooch dancing originally described belly dancing but by the 1950s the term referred to fan dances, and other dancing that WAS NOT stripping but was sexy nonetheless. So a "cooch" in the 1950s was a sexy dance performance, and the "cooch tent" would be the tent where people paid to go in and watch erotic dance performances.
When Harriman invites McIntyre and Charlie to dinner, McIntyre who is referred to as Mac by other characters throughout the play, addresses Harriman with this question, "You're serious, mac? You want Charlie and me for dinner?" It might seem odd that someone whose actual nickname is Mac would be calling someone else mac. The moniker "mac" was used for a male whose name you didn't know. Depending where you are from, the equivalent today could be "dude". The author chose this word purposefully to show us that McIntyre and Charlie don't know Harriman's name when they agree to have dinner with him, therefore it makes sense when they learn his identity after they are already at his home and have finished dinner.
When Harriman is going out to the desert to see the ship he faints and McIntyre and Charlie search for his medicine. You may imagine they were pulling out a pill or a liquid, but suddenly they break glass to access this medicine and then they "hold it under his nose". This is not a nasal inhaler. They are not sticking it up his nose, just holding it where, when he breathes, he will smell it, like essential oils in aromatherapy. Harriman's medicine is ammonium carbonate, or something similar, that when breathed in irritates the nasal and lung membranes causing a person to breathe faster and thus get more oxygen to the brain. It was sealed in glass that had to be broken to open it because it is so irritating to smell that if any scent escaped and people were exposed to it long term they would get headaches. It isn't healthy, but they didn't know that in the 1950s and it was a common over the counter medication used it to waken someone prone to fainting or passing out.

มุมมอง: 29

วีดีโอ

DIMENSION X - Marionettes, Incorporated (Ray Bradbury)