File 770

I’ve known since those magical days in June the two posts that would finish 2008 with more hits than any others: obviously, the two that John Scalzi listed as “Whateverettes.” As Crotchety Old Fan Steve Davidson often observes, being plugged into the worldwide Scalzi media empire gives your readership a tremendous shot in the arm. Whateverettes scroll off, unlike links embedded in a blog post, but for a week in June this place was clicking like a horror movie Geiger counter.

Yet, surprisingly, those are not my all-time record-setting posts. Just a couple of days ago I wrote about a CNN news items blaming mass extinctions on a comet. Someone at CNN added a pointer to my article and within hours I rang up more hits from that referral than the combined total of hits received by 2008’s top two posts.

Now, the other eight posts got there the old fashioned way, they earned it. A few generated numerous comments, and people repeatedly viewed them as the discussion progressed. Others were of sufficiently broad interest that a continuous trickle of new readers were led to them by search engines.

1. The Unpredictable Best Novel Hugo
2. This Week in Words: Nerdgassing
3. The Hugo and Gender Controversy, A Year Later
4. Where Real Writers Work
5. This Week in Words: Coining “Sci-Fi”
6. Roberta “Bert” Carlson Killed in Highway Fatality
7. Mars Geological Features Named for Williamson, Zelazny, C.S. Lewis & Fredric Brown
8. Top 50 Novels of All Time Poll
9. There Will Come Soft Rains
10. 100 Best Movie Villains

The passing of Forry Ackerman, and the mark he left on the history of science fiction (correction, sci-fi!) received the most attention here last month. The Top 10 lists the most-viewed posts of December 2008, according to Google Analytics.

1. This Week in Words: Coining “Sci-Fi”
2. Forry Ackerman Passes Away
3. Ackerman Tributes All Over the Net
4. Keeping an Eye on Sea World
5. New Orleans, After the Hurricanes
6. Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (1932-2008)
7. Anthology Builder
8. Elliot Shorter’s New Location
9. Continuing a Forry Tradition?
10. Pulpcon Torn Apart

Blame a swarm of comets striking North America 12,900 years ago for the environmental disaster that caused the extinction of mammoths and many other species, say scientists quoted in a CNN report.

“The nanodiamonds that we found at all six locations exist only in sediments associated with the Younger Dryas Boundary layers, not above it or below it,” said University of Oregon archaeologist Douglas Kennett. “These discoveries provide strong evidence for a cosmic impact event at approximately 12,900 years ago that would have had enormous environmental consequences for plants, animals and humans across North America.”

An earlier theory advanced to explain the mass extinction in North America of half of the animal species weighing more than 100 pounds is that when Man migrated over the Bering land bridge, he ate all of them. Not on the very first day, of course.

I don’t know if I’m ready to abandon that theory, either. I find it incredibly easy to believe after a nonstop week of Christmas-to-New-Year’s feasting.

While the rest of the world celebrated December 31 as New Year’s Eve, Diana and I (and Sierra!) celebrated the date as our 14th wedding anniversary. We had dinner at a Japanese steak place where the chef prepares the food in front of you most entertainingly, beginning with a sheet of flame on the griddle (that gets your attention) and later turning a small stack of onion rings into a smoking volcano.

Not too many couples pick this date to get married, I’m sure, it overlaps a holiday and it’s tax planning poison. But in 1994 we were looking to spot our wedding on the first Saturday after College of the Ozarks let out for Christmas vacation so we could make the most of the break as a honeymoon.

Earlier in the day Diana and I had an anniversary bonus after lunching in Claremont. As we walked back to our car, Elst Weinstein, a member of our wedding party, saw us as he drove past and pulled over to say hello.

David Klaus points to an article about “reals”, people who dress like superheros and patrol their communities looking for crime to report. (Some even list themselves online at the World Superhero Registry.)

The Real rules are simple. They must stand for unambiguous and unsponsored good. They must create their own Spandex and rubber costumes without infringing Marvel or DC Comics copyrights, but match them with exotic names – Green Scorpion in Arizona, Terrifica in New York, Mr Xtreme in San Diego and Mr Silent in Indianapolis.

David added a justified complaint about the coverage:

What annoys me is that the Times Online editors think “related stories” are the bastard who shot and firebombed his in-laws and the eight-year-old boy who shot and killed his father and another man. Neither has anything to do with these people at all.

This was my first year of blogging, and the hundreds of posts added since January represent a certain amount of work, occasional sheer terror, and a great deal of fun. I decided to make a list of the 10 blog posts I most enjoyed writing in 2008.

The ones I picked seem easily cataloged into two types. The first group are intentionally humorous or just plain silly:

Why Spock Can’t Grok

A Humble Dissent

That’s great! The solution has finally been revealed. Get rid of the corrupt dimbulbs who have been voting for Hugo Awards all these years. Yes, turn the rascals out! I hereby fire myself as a voter. Finally the Hugos will work as Tucker and nature intended. High quality replacement voters will be imaginative enough to select the best professional artist each year, who will nevertheless always be a different person than has ever won it before! Cue Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” — we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden!

Roddenberry’s Son on His Way to Vulcan

Spock Days/Galaxy Fest gives people a more compelling reason to visit this small town than when its fame depended on being “the point in the British Empire from which the largest number of bushels of grain is shipped direct from farm to rolling stock. Which wasn’t much to work with, especially since none of it was quadrotriticale.

When the Cover is Worth More than the Book

Alan Frisbie showed off a Houston phone book at a LASFS meeting in the original clubhouse (so, sometime after October 1973), allowing us to enjoy finding the hilarious details hidden within an elaborate pen-and-ink drawing of the Port of Houston shipping channel and surrounding city. A closer inspection revealed bits of business worthy of Mad Magazine, like a tiny Viking ship rowing downriver, and a 19^th century steam engine under attack by Indians on horseback.

(A great moment when I had a whim to find something I’d only seen once in my life 35 years earlier, and Google pulled the needle out of the haystack.)

The others all explore an aspect of fanhistory, some addressing mysteries that required imagination and research to solve:

How Tall is the Hugo?

A lot of fans thought it was perfectly fine for a Japanese Worldcon to honor an icon from its country’s sf tradition. But for or against, all fans seemed to take for granted that the figure of Ultraman was exaggerated. No one ever asked whether Ultraman and the rocket might, in fact, be in proper proportion to one another, or how to find that answer.

First Fannish Enough

They say you can never be thin enough or rich enough, although I’ve never noticed these being particular concerns of anybody in science fiction fandom. We reserve our anxiety for another subject altogether — any attempt to actually define science fiction fandom. If anyone hints that our fanac might be on the wrong side of the line, our petulance knows no bounds

A Salute to Tim Kirk

The Unpredictable Best Novel Hugo

How valuable are SFWA’s Nebula Award and the Locus Awards for predicting the Hugo-winning Best Novel?

They aren’t worth a darn, as it turns out.

A Footnote to Fanhistory

Before Mapquest, fans depended on Kevin Standlee’s feet.

Make That Only 3 SF Clubs Owning Clubhouses

Many fans heard in 1997 about the South Florida Science Fiction Society (SFSFS) joining the ranks of sf clubs with their own clubhouse. Fewer heard that in 2001, due to a lack of funds, SFSFS moved out of its clubhouse and resumed a nomadic existence. Despite the Fanac.org site having posted that information, it doesn’t register because the main page on the history of the original 1997 clubhouse leaves readers with the impression that there is a clubhouse to this day.

Who Owns the Moon?

Unfortunately, the governments of the world bigfooted all over the Little Men’s claim in January 1967 when they signed the Outer Space Treaty declaring that the Moon belongs to all mankind.

Science fiction fandom did not take this lying down. At a December 1970 meeting of the New England Science Fiction Association, “[Tony Lewis] showed the moon map… As a result of this increase in cultural knowledge it was [moved, seconded and passed] that the Moon be designated NESFA’s Moon and that the Aerospace Cadets protect it.”

Terry Pratchett has been knighted for his services to literature in the annual Queens’ New Year Honours list. Writing dozens of popular novels, including 36 in the Discworld series, might have been enough to attract such an honor, but he has also taken on the role of a public spokesman for greater attention and research into Alzheimer’s since being diagnosed with the disease.

This BBC profile of Pratchett includes two videos, one responding to news of his knighthood, the other discussing the stigma of dementia.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

The US Postal Service will honor two fantasy writers on postage stamps next year: Rod Serling and Edgar Allan Poe.

I checked — neither was on the list of historic sf figures Chris Barkley gathered petitions to honor ten years ago (see File 770:133, page 18).

That Serling should be selected ahead of everyone else on the list is a little bit ironic because it validates one of Chris’ own arguments  — he told Science Fiction Weekly that the writers he named deserved recognition because they laid the foundations for currently-popular sf tv series and movies:

We know that without the influences of E.E. “Doc” Smith, Murray Leinster, Leigh Brackett and Edmund Hamilton, it’s doubtful you would be enjoying Star Trek, Farscape, Babylon 5 and Star Wars today. Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg might have well been sitcom producers without them.

In case you’re curious, here are the leading lights Chris wanted to see on stamps:

Artists: Frank R. Paul, Chesley Bonestell, Hannes Bok, Virgil Finlay, Vaughn Bode, Roy Krenkel, Ed Emshwiller, Jack Gaughan. Editors: John W. Campbell, Jr., Judy Lynn Del Rey, Anthony Boucher, Terry Carr, T.E. Dikty, Geoff Conklin, Terry Carr. Authors: E.E. “Doc” Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, Paul Linebarger (Cordwainer Smith), Will Jenkins (Murray Leinster), Theodore Sturgeon, C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, Edmund Hamilton, A. Merritt, Alfred Bester, Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.), Philip K. Dick, Cyril M. Kornbluth, James Blish, Fritz Leiber, Frank Herbert, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Pangborn, Stanley Weinbaum.

It’s still a good idea, Chris!

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

It’s been 70 years since Popeye creator Elzie Segar died, and on January 1 the spinach-eating sailor will fall into the public domain in Britain under an EU law that sets the limit on copyright. News reports encourage the belief that beginning Thursday anyone can print and sell Popeye art and paraphernalia without paying any royalties.

Then again:

The Popeye trademark, a separate entity to Segar’s authorial copyright, is owned by King Features, a subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation — the US entertainment giant — which is expected to protect its brand aggressively.

Mark Owen, an intellectual property specialist at the law firm Harbottle & Lewis, said: “The Segar drawings are out of copyright, so anyone could put those on T-shirts, posters and cards and create a thriving business. If you sold a Popeye toy or Popeye spinach can, you could be infringing the trademark.”

My musical instincts tell me:

Lawyers will fight to the finish
Over rights to the spinach
From Popeye the Sailor Man (toot-toot!)

[Thanks to Taral Wayne for the link.]

Something I didn’t know about the cruise experience is that apparently passengers are incessantly spied upon. News coverage about the woman who went overboard from the Norwegian Pearl, far from expressing surprise, treated it as a welcome development:

The Coast Guard spokesman called the three-hour search “standard operating procedure for them, when they aren’t certain that someone has actually gone overboard.” He also said that the videotape, which is being analyzed by the FBI, is “crucial” to search efforts. According to Orlando, Fla., TV station WFTV, there were about 1,000 surveillance cameras aboard the Norwegian Pearl, raising hopes that more images might help authorities figure out what happened to Ellis-Seitz.

I knew that was standard in Las Vegas (remember the Corflu Silver progress report that warned warned against the hotel’s intrusive security?)

Coincidentally, the Norwegian Pearl is operated by the Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL). The company’s passenger fleet once included the S.S. Norway, proposed site of the 1988 Worldcon. Mike Resnick witnessed the birth of the Bermuda Triangle bid at L.A.con II:

That night I went out onto the lanai with John Guidry. After awhile we found a couple of empty chairs and sat down to visit with Neil Rest, who was busy fantasizing about making a Worldcon bid for a cruise ship. Before long he had attracted a hell of a crowd, and by daylight hundreds of people were urging him to make it a real bid. John walked away thinking if there was so little serious support for any Central Zone cities that people actually would support a cruise ship, maybe it was time to put together a New Orleans bid. So that evening saw the birth of two bids: Nolacon II, which won the 1988 Worldcon; and the Boat, which came in second in a field of four.

The committee’s letter of agreement with NCL called for $1.8M to be paid before the boat left the dock. That would have been a sobering thought if sobriety had been much valued by Hurricane-drinking site selection voters.

A final bit of trivia: the S. S. Norway was retired by NCL in 2001. Today it is beached at Alang, India, ready to be broken up. The courts have spent two years reviewing environmental reports and finally given permission for it to be scrapped.