Pixel Scroll 2/25/16 The Scrolls My Pixellation

(1) BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA. In 1936 the Marshall College Archaeological Review accepted Professor Jones’ journal article, but asked for a few teensy changes – in “Why Professor Indiana Jones Was Hated By His Colleagues” at Cracked.

The Title

Though your findings are certainly incredible and we understand your enthusiasm, we must say that the title “God Melted Some Nazi Faces In Front Of Me” simply doesn’t fit our journal’s aesthetic. I am only more distressed by the title when I read the first sentence of your abstract, which states “At least I think that’s what happened. Really, I just closed my eyes for a while, and when I opened them, all the Nazis had melted.” As men of science, it is our academic duty to at least entertain the notion that there was a corrosive substance inside the Ark of the Covenant that killed them. Or perhaps there was some sort of violent squabble that erupted while you and Miss Ravenwood had your eyes shut. Or anything, really. Any explanation beyond “God did it” should, at the very least, be mentioned. This segues nicely into my next concern.

(2) REVOLUTIONARY CASTING IDEA. Here’s your next singing and dancing chimney sweep — “’Hamilton’ Creator/Star Lin-Manuel Miranda Signs On For ‘Mary Poppins’ Sequel” reports ScienceFiction.com.

Walt Disney’s new ‘Mary Poppins’ film, directed by Rob Marshall with Emily Blunt portraying everyone’s favorite magical nanny has found its male lead.  Broadway wunderkind Lin-Manuel Miranda, the mastermind behind Broadway’s hottest show, ‘Hamilton’ (It’s sold out through 2018!) will play Jack, a lamplighter, a part similar to Bert the chimney sweep, played by Dick Van Dyke in the classic 1964 film.

The new movie is set 20 years after the original, in Depression-era London and will pull from one P.L. Travers’ seven other ‘Mary Poppins’ novels.  (The 1964 film was based on the first, with hopes of turning them into a series, but Travers despised the film and nixed those plans.)

(3) IN TAVERNS TO COME. Rob Ehlert and Cathy Mate, the subjects of “Know Your Neighbors: Rob Ehlert of Dark Rogue Tavern” at Around Berwyn, are long time Chicago fans. Cathy’s husband, “Clash” DJed many Windycon dances prior to his death in 2013.

People will know it’s a tavern because in Chicago there will be snow around the entrance half the year…. (File 770 inside joke.)

DRT-Logo-300x200When an opportunity arises to receive a $10,000 endorsement from Bar Rescue’s Jon Taffer, you take it. That’s what Berwyn resident Rob Ehlert did when he entered his bar concept, Dark Rogue Tavern, into a nationwide entrepreneurial contest sponsored by the famous TV personality.

Dark Rogue Tavern will be Berwyn’s newest bar and grill scheduled to open in July 2016. The concept is the brainchild of Amy Mate and Rob Ehlert, who felt inspired to create “a ‘Cheers’ for nerds.” According to Ehlert, Dark Rogue Tavern will be a place for geeks, gamers, comic book collectors, sci-fi fans, and fantasy role-players to come together and enjoy a space dedicated to them. They can come with friends, or make new ones, and watch their favorite shows and movies, play their favorite games and enjoy craft beers, cocktails, and elevated bar food.

After pitching this idea to Taffer’s entrepreneurial contest, Mate and Ehlert made it into the top 10 but ultimately did not win the contest. But never fear! Dark Rogue Tavern will eventually be here, even without the $10K grant. “We will make this bar open regardless of the support from Jon Taffer,” said Ehlert.

(4) THE BRANDENBURG GREAT. Neil Clarke is the guest fiction editor of a science and sf theme issue of The Berlin Quarterly, a European print review of long form journalism, literature, and the Arts. Clarke says —

Their budget permitted me to select four reprints, so in this issue you’ll find:

  • “Slipping” by Lauren Beukes
  • “Tying Knots” by Ken Liu
  • “A Brief Investigation of the Process of Decay” by Genevieve Valentine
  • “The Best We Can” by Carrie Vaughn

(5) MEOW MIX. George R.R. Martin alerted readers of Not A Blog that Meow Wolf will be open to the public for the first time on March 18 and 19. He also linked to an LA Times story about the project, “Art collective builds a dream house in Santa Fe with millions of dollars – and junk”

Calling themselves “Meow Wolf,” they have earned a reputation for using whatever materials they can scavenge to build fantastical exhibits that are part haunted house and part jungle gym — giant artwork that people can step inside.

These immersive shows — a psychedelic cave, a junk-filled dome — have grown progressively more elaborate. Now, after years of surviving on shoestring budgets, Meow Wolf has persuaded investors to pour millions of dollars into something even bigger.

The Santa Fe group has procured an abandoned bowling alley in a struggling part of town to house a massive, permanent exhibit. King and his friends call it a dream come true, but it comes at a price.

Martin has invested $3.5 million in the project, says the LA Times.

(6) BERLITZKRIEG. I have it on the highest authority that Vox Popoli isn’t a result of an inability to spell vox populi, it’s a combination of the Latin phrase with the Italian la voce dei popoli.

And Vox Day isn’t “the voice of God” either. It’s a trilingual pun, Latin-Greek-English.

Vox Day
Vox Dei
Vox Theos
Theo’s Voice

There will be a quiz.

(7) TWISTING IN THE WINDS OF WINTER. IGN has posted a video interview with George R.R. Martin and Colony co-creator Ryan Condal in which Martin delivered an intriguing bit of news.

George R.R. Martin has officially decided to write in the big twist he planned for his new book, The Winds of Winter. The twist on the twist? The Game of Thrones TV show won’t be able to pull it off, because it’s already killed off a key character involved in the storyline. Watch Martin give us the scoop in the video above.

This is just one awesome moment from our full 27-minute sit down with Martin and Colony co-creator Ryan Condal, where we talk the suggestions that changed their series completely, the sci-fi/fantasy properties that made them fans, dream casting and how to end a story.

(8) CONTINUING COVERAGE OF MARK OSHIRO AND CONQUEST. Selina Rosen and Mark Oshiro exchanged comments on Facebook, and Oshiro said he appreciated Rosen’s apology.

[Selina Rosen:] It was never my intention to make you uncomfortable. I am not aware of touching you but know that if I did it was not meant as an insult or to make you uncomfortable. FYI till Monday of this week I did NOT even know that you were the one who turned me in. I apologize for any perception you had that I was in any way sexualizing or trying to demean you. I will be more aware in the future that fandom has changed and I must change with it or stay home.

[Mark Does Stuff:] Thank you very much for this, Selina. For what it’s worth, I believe you in that you may not have even known you were touching me. I appreciate your apology. I wish ConQuesT had just TOLD you about this so that you didn’t have to find out this way. Regardless, I genuinely thank you for posting this.

[Selina Rosen:] Not knowing who had told made it imposable for me to address the issue with you directly. Only know I am not that person and never have been.

Rosen further commented on a different Facebook post.

[Selina Rosen.] Seriously I’m so sorry that I did this mostly because it’s the joke that will not die. I played to the audience. The joke is so old I have to go to the banks of antiquity to ask permission to use it. I will not do it again. I am sorry that he was so upset in any way. No one should be uncomfortable.

(9) RABID PUPPIES MARCH ON. Vox Day’s slate for another Hugo category — Rabid Puppies 2016: Best Short Story.

The preliminary recommendations for the Best Short Story category:

  • “Tuesdays With Molakesh the Destroyer”, Megan Grey, Fireside Magazine
  • “Asymmetrical Warfare”, S. R. Algernon, Nature Nr. 519
  • “Seven Kill Tiger”, Charles Shao, There Will Be War Vol. X
  • “The Commuter”, Thomas Mays, Amazon Kindle Single
  • “If You Were an Award, My Love”, Juan Tabo and S. Harris, Vox Popoli

(10) SAD PUPPIES 4 REPORT. Kate Paulk checks off “the big two” Hugo categories in a short Mad Genius Club post.

I’m wrapping these two together because they’re the big hitters of the Hugos even though the Campbell isn’t a Hugo. They’re also, well… kind of obvious. The Campbell website even has a list of eligible authors….

As for what to nominate, well, that’s up to you folks. I can guarantee that what shows up on my ballot will not be what bubbles to the top of the List, because I’m doing the List as a service to anyone who’s interested and trying to boost interest and involvement in the entire Hugos process. Also because I’m just weird.

Now the administrative stuff:

I will start closing comments on the Sad Puppies recommendation threads starting around 5pm US Eastern Time on Monday 29th February. This is so I don’t have new recommendations coming in while I’m trying to collate what’s there.

(11) BOOK PROMO. At the SFWA Blog, Cat Rambo lists “10 Ways SFWA Can Help Promote Your New Book”.  Here are the first three:

  1. The Featured Book section of the website appears on the righthand side of the website’s front page and is open to new books at the time of their release. While filling that out, you might also fill out the Featured Author section.
  2. The New Release Newsletter is a recent addition that lists forthcoming publications by SFWA members. It is not limited to books, but can encompass shorter fiction and alternate forms. Backlist books being newly released can be listed in the newsletter.
  3. The SFWA Discussion Forums have multiple ways to promote your book. Mention details in your personal thread, list interviews and reviews in the Self Promotion section, where you can also find a link to Don Saker’s The Dealer’s Room, where SFWAmembers can list free book promotions.

(12) CONSTRUCTION TOYS. These items come from Andrew Porter.

Meccano was the British equivalent of the US Erector Set. The history of Meccano Magazine is available here at the Meccano Indexes and Information Home Page.

James May (not the Puppy James May) hosts the BBC show James May’s Toy Stories, where he built a Meccano bridge which supported a man, in Liverpool — part of a series which included running electric model trains for five miles in open country, building a two-story house out of LEGO, and creating a life-size plastic Airfix Spitfire model.

You can download issues of Meccano Magazine as PDFs here

(13) SPINNING SHIELD. ScienceFiction.com has the story: “ABC Releases Synopsis For ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Spinoff ‘Most Wanted’”.

Back in January, ABC gave the green light to Marvel Television’s ‘Most Wanted’ after a period of will they/won’t they. Since then, the ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ spinoff starring Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood has been ramping up. First, Delroy Lindo joined the cast as the swashbuckling adventurer Dominic Fortune. Now, we have our first description of the series that gives us a glimpse at Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter’s new mission.

The first official synopsis for the latest show set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was recently shared and as anticipated, we learn about Mockingbird and Hunter’s less than ideal situation where they find themselves with bounties on their heads. But there’s also some new information about Fortune’s role in the whole thing and how the three will come together…

(14) OLD FEDEX COMMERCIAL. Saw this getting replayed today…

[Thanks to Steven H Silver, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Nigel.]

180 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/25/16 The Scrolls My Pixellation

  1. @Jim Henley

    I’m really not sure if it’s worth saying SPOILER, but erring on the side of caution, another alive-in-books but dead-in-show is Fgnaavf

    The Hound’s fate, in either source, is ambiguous.

  2. snowcrash on February 26, 2016 at 7:51 pm said:

    @Jim Henley

    I’m really not sure if it’s worth saying SPOILER, but erring on the side of caution, another alive-in-books but dead-in-show is Fgnaavf

    That makes it a triple spoiler – which I suppose is why you Rot13’d that three times.

  3. @Zil: I’m a little bit in love with Zen Cho after reading “Monkey King, Faerie Queen” and I’ve been meaning to read more of her short fiction (maybe even get around to Sorcerer to the Crown one of these days. And I still can’t spell sorcerer without wanting to put an o where that second e is.

    Sadly I’ve been in a bit of a bookslump recently after struggling through Alchemist of Souls, which just felt kinda flat and lifeless for the most part.

  4. Oh, there ain’t no rest for the hivers
    Pixels don’t grow on trees
    I got files to scroll
    I got books to read
    I need to find a wi-fi spot that’s free
    I can’t nom things
    That I have not read
    Cause you know I’m not a pup
    No there ain’t no rest for the hivers
    ‘Til the nomination time is up

  5. @Oneiros
    I loved Sorcerer to the Crown. It’s got me checking out Zen Cho’s short stories.

    The trick to spelling sorcerer is copy & paste (I’ve got it in my Hugo memo) or spell it the way others in the thread do & if wrong I have someone to blame. 😉

  6. So my silly story about the spelling of sorcerer isn’t actually about the spelling of sorcerer. As a kid, I was one of those precocious “whole word readers” who picked up a much larger passive reading vocabulary than I’d encountered in spoken use. And at some point while my age was still in single digits, I read about this fascinating sport involving kicking balls around that was called “sorcerer”. Which somehow made the game sound much more romantic than it would if I’d correctly read the name as “soccer”.

  7. Jim Henley:
    Quite possibly.

    Heather Rose Jones:
    Originally, the game was “philosopher,” but they changed it when it crossed the Atlantic.

  8. @Kip W:

    Originally, the game was “philosopher,” but they changed it when it crossed the Atlantic.

    [chortle]

  9. Apropos of nothing (Well, of the Hugos ultimately), I just ended up with a very big pile of stuff from the library.
    Specifically, 5 graphic novel collections (Ms. Marvel Vol 2, Thor: Goddess of Thunder, The Divine, Descender: Tin Stars, and Moonshot — still pending arrival are Autumnlands, Lumberjanes, and Apocalyptigirl. I own the Sculptor and intend to read Stand Still, Stay Silent online.),
    The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Not so much as a possible best novel nominee, based on some of the disappoint here, but as a possible Campbell nominee. I am woefully underread for the Campbell so far.),
    You’re Never Weird on the Internet (almost),
    The Shepherd’s Crown (Which, since I do not expect it to unearth any of my top picks for nominees, is being held off to second last as more of a reward than a duty)
    Nurk (Purely as reward).

    The nice thing about Graphic novels is that one can go through them fast.

    Ms. Marvel impressed with the story, but less so with the art. I found the problems I had with the first collection only got worse – mostly people not shaped like actual people. In the first collection I was glad at the ways the artist could add in all kinds of little quirky details and some actual, or so it felt from here, awareness of New Jersey as a place. I also liked what looked like an attempt at body diversity. This second outing, I found myself noticing the cartoony flaws far more, and having fewer small in jokes to keep me going. I should not look at Wolverine and think “Spongebob Squarepants doing cosplay”.

    Thor, Goddess of Thunder was pretty awesome, and beautifully drawn, but is kinda standard comic book stuff fare. it does what it does well, I’d recommend it, but I’m less confident I’d vote for it..

    The Divine is a disturbing story about black ops, child soldiers, a country with ongoing internal warfare, and of course, giant gods and dragons and dire magic, mostly via those child soldiers. It creeped me out, the art was amazing, and unpleasantly gory. I don’t want the subject matter softened, and yet …. I also don’t feel the need to see a person’s spine pulled out their back. This feels award-worthy but I’m not sure whether it will make *my* nomination ballot.

    Still working on the Fifth Season and Weighing Shadows. The former is pretty locked in on my ballot (It doesn’t hurt that i was spoiled by glimpsing the last word of the book and have been reading it all with that in mind as a destination.), the second probably won’t make it and yet is by all means a pretty good book.

  10. Stevie: Glad to know you’re out of the hospital. Very pertinent comment to mark your return, too.

  11. Lee: Am I the only one who found the plot line of Saving Mr. Banks to be skeevy as shit?

    Oddly, you’re making this point about the Travers-Disney story rather than the Travers childhood flashback, which I did get that vibe from.

    The Travers-Disney line is business — she wants the money. When she eventually signs over the rights, the studio does things with her book she doesn’t want done. Which is bad from her point of view, true enough. It didn’t strike me as skeevy.

  12. @Tasha Turner
    Wow TT looks more like a symbol doesn’t it?
    My partner’s middle name is “Pi”–but the symbol, not the letters. Most of her credit cards and such use “Pi” instead, but the DOL put “TT” on her license to look like the symbol.

  13. Re the Turkish tense to express hearsay: It’s really more like a mood than a tense. And it can also be used to express things like surprise. (And there’s a re-duplicated use that expresses disbelief in the reported testimony).

    Turkish is fun.

  14. In the graphic works field, I very strongly recommend Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s The Wicked + The Divine. The setup is simple: every ninety years, a bunch of gods from various mythologies reincarnate into humans (mostly young adults) of the time. They’ve got power, but they’ll all die within two years. That’s just how things work for them.

    What we get, this being Gillen writing, is a lot of hidden depths rising up over time. The characters are really well drawn, with nobody ever being just what they seem. Sometimes what’s lurking is unexpectedly good, too – Gillen doesn’t go in for the “deep inside, everyone is actually a shit, and here, I’ll show you” way of thinking. Also, this being McKelvie, it’s freakin’ gorgeous.

    Volume 2, collecting issues #6-11, was published in 2011, and I think it’s worthy. You can check out the series at Comixology.

  15. Re: Soccer = sorcerer

    @ Kip W *snrch* And again I say *snrch*

    @ Tasha Turner The game lost its magic once I figured out I’d read it wrong. But that mis-reading happened at a time in m life when I was discovering the concept of magic in everyday life. (Mostly through a lot of portal fantasies.) So the notion of a magical ball game made sense.

  16. @Bruce Baugh

    I very much second your recommendation for The Wicked + The Divine. I thought that Vol 2 was brilliant and I bought the third story arc in single issues – it’s continued to impress.

  17. I heard recommendations for the Wicked and the Divine; I may have got some of them tangled with The Divine when I was doing my library search. Added now, though. (And Sandman: Overture while I’m at it, but unlike all of these save Autumnlands, I expect a wait before it shows up.)

  18. Regarding artists; I realised I never replied to Doctor Science in a long forgotten thread. So:

    Me:
    Another possibility might be to have one award for Best Illustrator, and another for Best Original Artist. The first would capture the original intent of Best Pro Artist, which is still implied by the wording of the rule; the second would cover all art on science-fictional and and fantastic themes that doesn’t fit that category. Would that work? It might come quite close in effect to the present division, but save us the agonising over whether a particular person’s work was really fannish.

    Doctor Science:

    The trouble with the Illustrator vs. Original Work distinction is that it doesn’t leave room for what I’d call actually fan art. Things like Hannah Holloway’s Welcome to Night Vale tarot, for instance.

    There could be a 3-way split, between Illustration, Original, and Fanart — the latter being “transformative or illustrative work done without coordinating with the creator of the source” — or maybe “originally done”, because of things like the WTNV Tarot now being sold via WTNV itself.

    Me, now:

    I wonder if we should perhaps drop the term ‘fan’ entirely. Using it to mean ‘transformative’ puts it out of step with the other fan Hugos, and with the way WorldCon people have been using the word ‘fan’ for eighty years. But using it to mean ‘non-professional’ is confusing to all the people, now a large community, who use it to mean ‘transformative’.

    As to whether there should be an award specifically for transformative art, I’m inclined to say not, because that sort of art is very fandom-specific, and so the nominations are likely to be very divided.

    So what should the award for non-illustrators be called? ‘Best Independent Artist’. perhaps? Or just ‘Best Artist’, with ‘other than an illustrator’ being supplied by context? Basically I think the current division makes sense – one award for illustrators, and one for people who produce SFF-inspired art in other contexts – it’s just that it doesn’t map neatly onto intuitive meanings of ‘pro’ and ‘fan’.

  19. It might be worth having a look at the categories in the annual illustration awards of a place like the Society of Illustrators.

    They do not classify the *artists*, but rather the *work*, so that one category is “Book” illustration, another “Editorial” (magazines). They have a category, I believe for posters and limited edition prints and “Unpublished”, a catch-all for some of what might be considered fan work.

  20. According to that James May show about Meccano, the manafacturers would deliberately put mistakes in the instructions to force kids to figure out the final steps on their own. Which is kinda evil, and kinda brilliant at the same time.

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