Time to Interview Obsessed Indy Fans

Riding the coattails of the new Harrison Ford movie, a Seattle paper predictably ran this story about an obsessed Indiana Jones fan.

The genial and otherwise normal Kirkland man is a fan-extraordinaire of Indiana Jones and his celebrity alter-ego, Harrison Ford — and he’s got the movie posters, golden fertility idol, Indy pinball machine, miniature Ark of the Covenant, action figures and autographed photos to prove it.

It’s no longer surprising when I don’t know the subjects of these articles. Science fiction is the mainstream in America.

Once this type of thing was more uncommon, and I admit I did know the fan with the humongous collection of Star Wars stuff. And I had seen the fellow who changed his name to James T. Kirk and always wore gold velour shirts. Kirk also decorated his white Ford van to mimic a shuttlecraft, which attracted unfortunate attention from fascinated Canadian border guards when he drove to a Vancouver Westercon. They pulled him over to be searched while hundreds of other vehicles, including the van I was in, got waved right through.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]

US/Egypt Cultural Exchange Adds Bradbury Novel

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 will be featured in a cultural exchange with Egypt, reports The Guardian.

In association with the US State Department, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced details of a literary cultural exchange with Egypt as part of the NEA’s Big Read campaign to encourage reading among American citizens.

The Big Read Egypt/US will involve reciprocal promotions of three celebrated American writers in Egypt, and just the one Egyptian writer in the States. Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs will be America‘s reading book, while Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath will be the focus of reading groups and other events in Cairo and Alexandria. In America, parallel events will take place in New York, Miami, Huntsville, Alabama and Brookings, South Dakota. The events will take place in both countries between this September and June 2009.

What could be a more appropriate choice than a Bradbury novel that’s already in the Library of Alexandria?

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]

Nelson Bond Remembered

Nelson Bond’s alma mater, Marshall University in West Virginia, has not only archived his papers, it recently dedicated a room which recreates the office in his home where he wrote his stories.

Though Nelson didn’t live to see it — he died in 2006, just shy of his 98th birthday — Marshall University unveiled the Nelson Bond Room last month. It’s on the third floor of the James E. Morrow Library, behind a plate glass window. The same metal shelves that once lined the walls in his basement display copies of the magazines that hold his stories, with cover art ranging from the elegant paintings adorning issues of Bluebook magazine to the garish science fiction scenes fronting copies of Weird Tales and Thrilling Wonder Stories. Also displayed: the cumbersome Dictaphone set that Nelson used to compose his stories….

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]

John Pomeranz Meets the Press

John Pomeranz, Washington D.C. area fan, is quoted in the May 19 issue of Tax Notes Today (subscription required.)

An attorney with expertise on tax-exempt organizations, he was asked to comment on the Alliance Defense Fund’s plan to persuade clergy to defy federal tax law and preach about candidates from the pulpit the weekend of Sept. 27-28:

John Pomeranz, a partner at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg LLP, Washington, who represents churches and other section 501(c)(3) organizations, said he would discourage pastors from engaging in ADF’s protest. Although Pomeranz said he’s interested in seeing the results of ADF’s “experiment,” he also said he’s not advising any of his clients to serve as “guinea pigs.”

Clarke’s Last Novel

The Bookseller.com reports HarperCollins has acquired U.K. and Commonwealth rights to the late Arthur C. Clarke’s final book, The Last Theorem, co-written with Frederik Pohl.

The book had originally been scheduled for publication [in the UK] by Gollancz, but the rights recently became available. The book will be published later this year in hardback and as a deluxe collectors’ edition. HC also plans to relaunch its Clarke backlist.

The U.S. hardcover is still announced as forthcoming from Del Rey in August 2008.

(In an interview with Clarke the spelling of “theorem” was different than used by Thebooksellertheorum  — and at this writing I don’t know whether that is a typo or just a difference in U.S. and U.K. spellings.)

 [Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]

PW Cuts Reviewer Fee

Critical Mass reports a National Book Critics Circle member received this letter from Publishers Weekly’s reviews editor announcing pay rates are being cut in half:

Dear Reviewer,

We are under constraints to reduce our expenses and must reduce the fee we pay to reviewers. Any reviews assigned after June 15 will be billed at $25 per review. However, you will be credited as a contributor in issues where your reviews appear. Please know that we value the work you do for us. Your astute reading and writing are what make our magazine so valuable in the industry and we regret this necessary action. All of us here are also experiencing change but we expect that we will continue to be the gold standard in book reviewing.

Interestingly, not long ago PW put out a call for more reviewers. Michael Scharf, PW Fiction Reviews Editor, blogged on May 13 that they received over a thousand applications. And this, in response to an online ad that didn’t even mention a pay rate. It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to make the connection. PW thinks it will have no problem finding people to write reviews at the reduced rate.

Isn’t that the Internet’s usual deal-with-the-Devil – the lure of a big audience, but good luck making any money on your writing? I predict some of these applicants will be surprised when they don’t have to pay PW to get published. (Oops, forget I mentioned that.)

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the tip.]