Pixel Scroll 1/2/20 Pixellate In Glorious Scrollovision

(1) NETWORK ANALYSIS OF RWA/MILAN CONTROVERSY. Mikki Kendall did a breakdown for NBC News: “The Romance Writers of America racism row matters because the gatekeepers are watching”.

…Let’s talk about the power of romance. There’s power in the written word, even in a genre that we tend to consider — because of sexism — less intellectual than some others. And it isn’t just about hearts and flowers and candy; this is cold hard cash: Romance as a literary genre represents a quarter of all fiction sales and more than half of all paperback sales, and it brings in over a billion dollars in sales annually.

The impact of romance books on the culture is outsize because everyone is interested in romance, whether they admit it publicly or not.

…But there’s inevitably a small contingent of writers who simply can’t handle being criticized, whether directly or indirectly. Vitriolic responses to critics are hardly limited to well-known writers; those who aspire to become household names are equally prone to them. Having your work dissected, discussed and sometimes even demeaned, however, is part of putting it out into the world. All writers know this — or at least they should — and writing romance novels is no exception.

(2) FOLLOW THE MONEY. Jason Sanford continues releasing interviews he conducted with sff magazine editors in conjunction with his well-researched report #SFF2020: The State of Genre Magazines.

Jason: You said Fireside pays its editors a fee for each issue of the print magazine, with the fee based on Fireside’s word rate and the revenue to pay for this coming entirely from subscribers. Was there a break-even point with subscribers where this started to work? Do you still rely on any fundraising to support the magazine?

Pablo: I think using a word like ‘fundraising’ is misleading. Fireside is not a non-profit, and it’s not a charity – so we’re not ‘raising funds’ for anything. Using vocabulary linked to non-profits and charities implies that the people who support us are doing so out of the kindness of their heart, without receiving any direct value in return. The stories, artwork, and publications that Fireside publishes have value, our customers recognize that, and are willing to pay money for it.

But I digress. To answer your question…

Jason: According to this year’s Locus Magazine survey, Escape Pod has an audience size of 37,000 people, making it one of the largest English-language SF magazines in the world. What percentage of your audience supports the magazine with donations? Any  thoughts on how to convinces more genre readers and listeners to support the magazines they love?

Mur: I believe we have the typical 1% rate of donation. We have no funding but our listeners, and the couple of times we’ve been in trouble, we’ve been honest with saying, hey, we can’t keep delivering the show to you if you don’t support us, and they’ve always stepped up. With Patreon it’s much easier to allow people to donate on a sustaining level and get rewards as well!

(3) ROSE IS STILL MISSING. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Washington Post, Michael Cavna discusses the controversy over whether Kelly Marie Tran deserved more screen time in The Rise of Skywalker, noting that screewnwriter Chris Terrio has withdrawn his explanation that Tran would have had many scenes with Carrie Fisher had Fisher lived to not much of an explanation at all: “Many Star Wars fans are upset the new movie sidelines Kelly Marie Tran’s character. The writer is trying to explain.”

…On Monday, Terrio walked back that explanation, saying that the real issue with Rose had nothing to do with visual effects.

He told Vulture: “I badly misspoke if in an earlier statement I implied that any cut scenes between Rose and Leia were the fault of our VFX team and the wizards at ILM. In that earlier interview, I was referring to a specific scene in which Leia’s emotional state in ‘Episode VII’ [‘The Force Awakens’] did not seem to match the scene we wrote for use in ‘Episode IX’ [‘Rise’] and so it was cut at the script stage before the VFX work was done.”

Terrio underscored to the Hollywood Reporter on Monday that the issue did not involve “photorealism,” as he earlier stated. “I would sometimes come and sit at the VFX reviews and my jaw would drop at seeing Leia live again.”

(Representatives from the film have not yet responded to a request from The Post to speak with Terrio.)

(4) FAVES OF 2019. Hot off the blocks with the New Year, SF² Concatenation has its team’s annual choice for the Best SF books and films of the previous year. They have advance posted “Best Science Fiction of the Year – Possibly?” ahead of their spring edition of news and reviews (which is slated for mid-January).

Every year, around Christmas and New Year a round-robin is sent to many members of the SF² Concatenation team asking for their favourite SF/F/H books and films of the previous year.  If just two or three nominate the same work then it gets added to a list of Best SF/F/H works of the previous year.  This list appears in the Spring (northern hemisphere academic year) edition’s news page.  It is simply a bit of fun and not meant to be taken too seriously but as a pointer for our regulars to perhaps check out some recent works.  Yet over the years, each year sees a few from these lists go on to be short-listed, and even win, a number of SF awards.

Spooky, huh?

(5) BITES JUST RIGHT. “Dracula: Critics applaud ‘energetic and fun’ revival of vampire classic” – BBC has a roundup.

The BBC’s new take on Dracula is a hit with critics, one of whom says it is “the meatiest, goriest, most energetic and fun version” she has ever seen.

“Previous versions now look anaemic,” writes The Times’ Carol Midgley.

The Mail’s reviewer hailed “a Dracula to delight horror movie fans of all stripes” in his five-star write-up.

The Telegraph’s reviewer, meanwhile, praised Danish actor Claes Bang for his “witty, outrageous and thrilling” portrayal of Bram Stoker’s vampire.

“It might not have been faithful to the original, but it was a scream,” writes the paper’s Anita Singh.

The BBC One mini-series has been written and created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the duo behind the award-winning Sherlock.

(6) BREATHE IN. IGN interviews the midwives…. “Galaxy Quest: How the Thermians Were Born”.

…Parisot remembers Colantoni’s audition inventiveness setting the tone for the Thermians. After a solid read, the direct says he could tell the actor was holding back on his way out the door.

“For some reason I said, ‘Rico, it seems like you’ve got something on your mind,’” recalls the director. “He goes, ‘Well, I have this voice. I don’t know if it works.’ I said, ‘What is it? Try it.’ He did it and I just went, ‘Oh my God, that’s it!’

“The Thermians came out of that voice,” Parisot continues. As more actors were added to the Thermian ranks, that voice became the reference point with every addition, including Missi Pyle (Laliari), Jed Rees (Teb), and Patrick Breen (Quellek).

“We had alien school and we would come up with things like the walk,” Parisot remembers. “Rather than swinging in the direction most people do, we went the opposite direction with the arms, and the posture because they’re basically giant calamari hiding in human shape.

(7) THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN. It might be this year.“Chandrayaan-3: India plans third Moon mission”.

India has announced plans for a third lunar mission, months after its last one crash landed on the Moon’s surface.

The chairman of India’s space agency, K Sivan, said work was going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 unmanned mission.

He said the country was aiming to launch the mission in 2020 but that it “may spill over” to 2021.

If successful, it would make India the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, and boost its credentials as a low-cost space power.

(8) BUT WAIT — THERE’S MORE. “India Announces Plans For Its First Human Space Mission”.

India’s space agency says that four astronaut candidates have been selected for its first human mission, targeted to launch by 2022, but they’ve not been publicly named or identified.

India hopes to join the United States, Russia and China as the world’s fourth nation capable of sending people to space. It has been developing its own crewed spacecraft, called Gaganyaan (or “sky vehicle” in Sanskrit), that would let two to three people orbit the Earth on a week-long spaceflight.

K Sivan, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, held a press briefing on New Year’s Day and told reporters that the four astronauts would start their training in Russia in a few weeks.

(9) NATIONAL SCIENCE FICTION DAY. There’s even a Wikipedia entry – unfortunately, one that makes it sound like a big commercial. That attitude would make more sense to me if I’d ever seen a Hallmark card for the occasion.  

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • January 2, 1996 The Demon Headmaster aired the first episode of its three seasons. Based on the children’s series by Gillian Cross of the same name, the later books were based off the screenplays for the series which Cross wrote. The cast included Terrence Hardiman, Frances Amey, Gunnar Atli, Cauthery and Thomas Szekeres. A sequel series was done. 

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born January 2, 1920 Isaac Asimov. I can’t possibly summarize him here so I won’t. My favorite novels by him are the original Foundation novels followed very closely by his Galactic Empire series and I, Robot. I know I’ve read a lot of his short fiction but I’ll be damn if I can recall any of it specifically right now. (Died 1992.)
  • Born January 2, 1940 Susan Wittig Albert, 80. She’s the author of The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, a series of mysteries featuring that writer. Really. Truly. Haven’t read them but they bear such delightful titles as The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood. She has non-genre series involving an herbalist and a gardening club as well. 
  • Born January 2, 1948 Deborah Watling, Best known for her role as Victoria Waterfield, a companion of the Second Doctor. She was also in Downtime, playing the same character, a one-off sequel to a sequel to the Second Doctor stories, The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear. No Doctors were to be seen. If you’ve seen the English language dubbed version of Viaje al centro de la Tierra (Where Time Began, based off Verne’s Journey to the Center of The Earth), she’s doing the lines of Ivonne Sentis as Glauben. (Died 2017.)
  • Born January 2, 1952 Caitlín Matthews, 68. Fiction writer. Well she sure as Odin’s Beard isn’t a scholar in any meaningful sense. With her husband John, she’s written such works as King Arthur’s Raid on the Underworld: The Oldest Grail Quest, The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures and on her own, Mabon and the Mysteries of Britain: An Exploration of the Mabinogion. They’re entertaining as long as you accept that they’re really mostly fiction. 
  • Born January 2, 1959 Patrick Nielsen Hayden, 61. Wiki in a fit of exuberance list him as a “editor, fan, fanzine publisher, essayist, reviewer, anthologist, teacher and blogger”. Which is true. He’s won three Hugo Awards for Best Editor Long, and he won a World Fantasy Award for editing the Starlight 1 anthology. 
  • Born January 2, 1967 Tia Carrere, 53. Best remembered for her three-season run as Sydney Fox, rogue archeologist on Relic Hunter. She’s been in a lot of one-offs on genre series including Quantum Leap, Hercules, Tales from The Crypt, Airwolf, Friday the 13th and played Agent Katie Logan for two episodes on Warehouse 13.
  • Born January 2, 1979 Tobias S. Buckell, 41. I read and enjoyed a lot his Xenowealth series which he managed to wrap up rather nicely. The collection he edited, The Stories We Tell: Bermuda Anthology of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, is well worth reading, as is his own Tides from a New World collection.
  • Born January 2, 1983 Kate Bosworth, 37. She’s Barbara Barga in the SS-GB series done the superb Len Deighton novel. She’s both a producer and a performer on The I- Land Netflixseries where she’s KC, a decidedly not nice person. For a more positive character, she portrayed Lois Lane in Superman Returns.

(12) SOLAR TO BLAME. Mark Lawrence’s “Star one stars!” features bad reviews that Amazon customers gave books, complaining about things that aren’t in the writer’s control. His first example —

I was recently the lucky recipient of this 1* review on Amazon. It struck me as worthy of note because not only is it not a review of the book, it’s not even a criticism of Amazon. It’s more of a critique of the customer’s own life skills…

“1*: Can’t remember ordering these books. Not my type of subject. Unable to find a method of cancelling the transaction”

(13) LIGHT ‘EM UP. Cora Buhlert tells how she celebrated a “Happy New Year 2020” in Germany, where fireworks are part of the tradition – but for how long?

…However, this year some organisations are calling for a complete ban on private fireworks. The initial reasons given were environmental – fireworks release smoke and microparticles, but then other reasons like animal welfare and health and safety were also given. Plus, there is a call – echoed by various charities – that fireworks are a waste of money and that the people should rather donate the money spent on fireworks to charity. One figure that’s often bandied about is that in 2018, 130 million Euros were spent on fireworks in Germany. That sounds like a lot – until you do the calculations and realise that this figure means that every person in Germany spent 1,57 Euros per year on fireworks on average. And 1,57 Euros per person is not a lot of money, especially if you consider that the total figure of 130 million Euros also includes money spent on professional fireworks.

So why are fireworks suddenly so controversial, especially since they are limited to one night of the year – with the occasional firecracker going off a few days before or after? IMO, the underlying reason is just that some people find fireworks annoying, because they are noisy, frivolous and the wrong kind of people (teenagers, immigrants, poor people) are having fun. In recent times, there has been a resurgence of the kind of joyless moralism that dominated the 1980s. And not coincidentally, the “Give to charity rather than buying fireworks” campaign originally also dates from the 1980s.

(14) IN TIMES TO COME. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Nature points out “The science events to watch for in 2020”. This includes… 2020 will see a veritable Mars invasion as several spacecraft, including three landers, head to the red planet. NASA will launch its Mars 2020 rover, which will stash rock samples that will be returned to Earth in a future mission and will also feature a small, detachable helicopter drone. China will send its first lander to Mars, Huoxing-1, which will deploy a small rover. A Russian spacecraft will deliver a European Space Agency (ESA) rover to the red planet — if issues with the landing parachute can be resolved. And the United Arab Emirates will send an orbiter, in the first Mars mission by an Arab country. Closer to home, China is planning to send the Chang’e-5 sample-return mission to the Moon.

Attached is a pic of the forthcoming Mars lander being tested.

(15) ONLY 3600-SOME-ODD SHOPPING DAYS ‘TIL. In “The 2030 Last-Minute Christmas Gift Guide” on Vice, Tim Maughan foresees what the hot holiday items of ten years from now will be, including Barron Trump’s rap albums and Marvel Vs. Star Wars VI: The Final Conflict.

…Want to take a low flying helicopter ride over the Texas Refinery District Toxic Exclusion Zone? Try urban scuba deep under what was once the Miami waterfront? Or maybe you want to take a leaf out of your favorite influencer’s book, and get your photo taken on the rim of the crater that was once the Space X test facility? The Unlimited Dream Company can make it happen, with its range of exclusive, customizable tourist trips. You’ll be given full safety training and orientation—including an entry level handgun course for trips in disputed states—and will be accompanied by medical staff*, Darklake certified security agents, and tour guides with unmatched local knowledge.

(16) RESOLUTIONS. At Brain Pickings, Maria Popova selects “Elevating Resolutions for the New Year Inspired by Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds” (2016). A long Ursula K. Le Guin excerpt crowns the middle of the list – but the Vonnegut is short enough to quote —

In 2005, Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922–April 11, 2007) — a man of discipline, a sage of storytelling, and one wise dad — penned a short and acutely beautiful remembrance of his friend Joseph Heller, who had died several years earlier. Originally published in the New Yorker, it was later reprinted in John C. Bogle’s Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life (public library).

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!

(17) ART LARP. “One Night In An Edward Hopper Hotel Room? It’s Less Lonely Than You Might Think”.

It isn’t hard to imagine yourself inside an Edward Hopper painting — having a coffee at a late-night diner, or staring out the bedroom window at the bright morning sun.

Now, for $150 a night, you can sleep in one — or a reproduction of one — at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. Designers have constructed a 3D version of Hopper’s 1957 Western Motel, and invited Hopper fans to sleep over.

It feels a little funny getting undressed for bed in a museum. (There are plenty of nudes on the walls, but you don’t expect to be one yourself.) But suddenly there you are, in your jammies — a guard outside in the hallway — turning off the goose-neck lamp on the bedside table, tucking yourself under a deep burgundy bedspread, and looking out the big picture “window” at a green Buick parked outside.

(18) THE NEXT MARVEL FIRSTS. “Marvel to get first transgender superhero”. And that’s not all.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is set to get its first transgender superhero.

“And very soon. In a movie that we’re shooting right now,” Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige said during a Q&A at the New York Film Academy.

Asked by a fan whether there were any plans for more LGBT characters in Marvel’s films, “specifically the T, trans characters”, Kevin said: “Yes, absolutely. Yes.”

This year, The Eternals will introduce Marvel movies’ first gay character.

There have been reports since 2019 that Phase 4 of the MCU – the films following the Avengers Infinity saga – would star a trans character.

Marvel has also said it will introduce its first deaf superhero in The Eternals and its first Asian-American superhero, in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

“You look at the success of Captain Marvel and Black Panther. We want the movies to reflect the audience and we want every member of our global audience to see themselves reflected on the screen,” Kevin Feige previously said.

(19) DIY. “Invasion Planet Earth: Sci-fi filmed in Birmingham” — video, with clips and interviews.

Since being a teenager Simon Cox loved science fiction, especially Star Wars.

He wanted to make his own blockbuster, and he has finally realised his dream to write and direct his own film, which is called Invasion Planet Earth.

It’s taken 20 years, crowd funding and several campaigns to fund the small budget film.

Much of the sci-fi epic was filmed in Birmingham with 900 Brummies acting as extras.

The movie, which has been shown in mainstream cinemas, is available on DVD and available to download.

(20) LOOKING AHEAD. Sounds like they’re not going with Jubal Harshaw’s solution. BBC covers “Writing a ‘national anthem’ for Mars” — video, with performance.

An Indian former software analyst who’s now a rising star in the opera world has written a new “national anthem” for Mars.

Oscar Castellino was commissioned to give the Red Planet its own anthem by the UK’s Mars Society – to promote the idea that if humans ever live there then they will need their own musical identity.

(21) THESE ARE THE DROIDS I’M LOOKING FOR. Philadelphia channel 17 captured the highly stfnal “Fralinger String Band at the 2020 Mummers Parade” on video.  

Love the Fralinger String Band?  Then you came to the right place.   We’ve got Fralinger’s 2020 Mummers Parade performance video of their “Lunar Effect” theme and some photos below.

[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Michael J. Walsh, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Michael Toman, Martin Morse Wooster, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ingvar.]

52 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/2/20 Pixellate In Glorious Scrollovision

  1. (11) One of my high school teachers caught me reading a collection of Asimov essays under my desk during class – I got better at not getting caught after that.

  2. @11 (Asimov): I remember several of the robot stories, but a different story sticks in my mind, one in which humor turns out to be an alien experiment that is withdrawn when a couple of ?psychologists? figure this out. “Nightfall” is the famous one, but the last time I read it it seemed massively padded; I haven’t tried “The Ugly Little Boy” to see whether it is also.

    @20: Harshaw’s solution was my first thought; given its drive, the “Mars” movement couldn’t have been any worse than this no matter what words they came up with.

    edit: Fifth!

  3. @Chip
    Yes, “Nightfall” hasn’t weathered as well as some of his others – but I wasn’t as fond of Asimov as I was of some other writers.

  4. Since the birthday list usually includes the date of death where relevant, it should probably mention that Deborah Watling died in 2017.

  5. [11] PNH was also the co-winner (with the incredible TNH) of the 1985 TAFF run. As I recall, one of their nominators was some hard-of-hearing chap…? No signs of the rest of their promised trip report, though, since the 1987 fragment subtitled “”Pages from the middle of a TAFF report in progress”.

  6. (13) Fireworks can be a major problem for domestic animals, who rather unavoidably live with or near people.

    And who have no idea at all that the explosives are supposed to be “celebratory.”

    My tolerance tends to be really low when I’ve had to spend the night wrapped around my dogs to keep them calm, or they’ve been hiding in the bathroom because it’s the only place that feels “safe.” I’ve had dogs in the past, and friends have dogs now, who need to be sedated to prevent full-blown panic attacks.

    I used to love fireworks, but that was before the first dog who needed active care to get through July 4th. Now, I only enjoy them when I can see them through the window, far enough away that the sound isn’t affecting us.

    They can be really enjoyable, no question, but people who wish they weren’t happening, aren’t necessarily just trying to kill your fun. They may be people with animals who don’t understand what’s going on, or combat veterans with PTSD. Or any number of other reasons.

    If it’s just one night, in Germany, that’s fantastic, but it’s still not going to be fun for the people who have genuine problems with it. In the US, it’s been spreading out further and further in both directions from the 4th, as well as New Year’s, and assorted other holidays that didn’t used to be fireworks holidays. 🙁

  7. 13) My city launches its fireworks perhaps half a mile from my home; on years when I don’t go to Westercon, I watch from my driveway. This year, during the display I noticed my two younger cats in a window, absolutely fascinated by the sight and apparently not minding the kabooms. I expect my oldest was under a bed.

    20) Someone once commissioned Leslie Fish to write a planetary anthem for Mars. She wrote it in 3/4 time specifically so nobody would ever march to it. I pointed out to her that Heinlein’s Martians had three legs in their adult phase…

  8. @ Lis Carey:

    In the UK, we tend to have about a week of assorted fireworks beginning of November. Turns out Guy Fawkes tend to be close to Diwali, both involve fireworks. Then we get another night of it right at the end of December.

    The cats mostly go hide, but when we had an anxious staffie as well, it was Not Fun, he really didn’t like it, and I pretty much had to hold him to keep him from knocking everything over, as he was trying to find safety in a dog bunker.

    Of course, he also didn’t like thunderstorms.

  9. 13) A fair few cats ago, an evening in early November, our young tom Madmardigan was just about to come in – I stood with the door open – when one of our neighbours set of a very loud firework. Madmardigan took off in a panic and disappeared in the night. We never saw him again.

    I enjoy public fireworks, because they occur on a pre-announced time and in a known area, and because they are generally better designed and planned than the set-stuff-off-at-random performances private individuals tend to deliver.

    14) That picture reminds me of the Boston Dynamics robots being prodded with ice hockey sticks. Is that how all robots are hardened these days?

  10. @Christian Brunschen–I think Cora is distinguishing between Chinese lanterns/sky lanterns and fireworks on the grounds that the lanterns are quiet (i.e., not explosives), and already illegal in Germany anyway.

    I’m not sure I buy the idea that legal amateur fireworks are completely safe. Or the argument that looks an awful lot like “if guns are banned, only criminals will have guns,” except applied to fireworks.

    What is wrong with fireworks shows be scheduled, official events that people for whom fireworks are a problem can plan around? Even with New Hampshire “legally” selling amateur fireworks to Massachusetts residents, and complete amateurs making their own bottle rockets, we have a lot fewer fireworks injuries than when they were legal here, and there are still lovely official fireworks shows to go to. And I can look up the schedules for those, and greatly reduce potential problems for myself and my dog.

  11. @ Lis Carey:

    Properly and responsibly used, amateur fireworks are safe. However, I don’t believe for a red second that “properly and responsibly” is the majority of amateur fireworks setting-off.

    I’ve personally mostly stopped buying the fireworks available on the general consumer market, but that’s because I (for about 5-6 years, in the distant past) used to be on a crew setting off professional-grade fireworks and I no longer find the consumer-grade stuff that interesting. I think the last time I bought any was in 2002 or 2003 and that was (essentially) a big cake of roman candles going off in sequence (because that’s quite pretty even on a small scale).

    I think that’s as close as I can come to saying “proper fireworks shows are more fun than small things individuals can sensibly do”.

  12. 11) Today’s Birthday MST3k Addendum

    Tia Carrere’s first role was in Zombie Nightmare opposite the pleasantly corny Adam West and the horribly corny Jon Mikl Thor. A terrible movie somewhat relieved by the MST riffing and a surprisingly decent soundtrack.

  13. In my youth I was peeved at fireworks restrictions, even though somebody just down the country road I grew up on had space and a license to perform every 4th; the restrictions were especially visible because the DC side of Western Avenue (part of the border between DC and Maryland) had wall-to-wall fireworks stands directly opposite places where my family shopped. But I got involved in model rocketry a few years later and learned a bit about rocket safety, and was much less peeved when I considered how weakly fireworks were made compared to the engines I mail-ordered — and ISTM that rockets disappeared from professional shows some time ago in favor of mortars. Not that even professionals are immune to error (I saw a couple of performances of the world fireworks contest during the 1990 Worldcon at The Hague; the occasional low explosion made me happy the performers were on the far end of a long pier), but leaving shows in their hands seems saner to me.

    I occasionally wonder when the very loud explosions (heard after many individual mortar shells finish spraying color) became common; leaving them out might make shows less hurtful without much affecting the display.

    I was wondering about the zoo fire; the headlines I’d seen blamed “Chinese lanterns” without saying that this was a term for floaters. They’re pretty, but I can see why they’re banned; even a rocket firework has more control of where it ends up than one of those devices.

  14. @ Chip Hitchcock:

    When I was doing it (late 80s, early 90s), it was predominantly mortars. Well, anything that was air-launched was mortar-launched, but we also had some ground-level small stuff, for a variety of effects, that essentially stayed at ground level.

  15. Los Angeles bans non-professional fireworks, including the “safe and sane” type, but people can drive across the city limits/county line and buy them.
    I wish the local HS would notify the area in advance of their pyrotechnic events. I’m sure they think “everyone knows”, but they’re audible, and annoying, half a mile away.

  16. I was going to mention the Krefeld Zoo fire — my father was born in Krefeld and I’m going to visit next year, so I keep an eye on the news there. When I first read about it I imagined teens in leather jackets, but it turns out the damage was done by a mother and her two adult daughters. Which should teach me not to make assumptions, I guess.

  17. (11) Charles Beaumont (Jan 2 1929 – Feb 21 1967)
    A regular writer for The Twilight Zone (over 20 episode credits). His first published work was in Amazing Stories in Jan 1951 (“The Devil You Say”, later adapted to a Twilight Zone script). The first published short fiction in Playboy was by Beaumont (“Black Country”, 9/1954). His scripts for the films “Night of the Eagle” (alt title “Burn Witch Burn”) and “The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao”) were Hugo Best Dramatic finalists in 1963 and 1965, respectively.

  18. I thought the Foundation series was an excellent concept, but I was much less impressed by the execution. For my money, Asimov’s best were the robot mysteries, The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun.

    @Matthew Johnson: excellent one! 😀

  19. @gottacook: Thanks for the Gunn article. I will nitpick it ever so slightly – it implies that Asimov dropped zoology before having to dissect a cat, but according to Asimov’s autobiography, he found a stray and dissected it (which was apparently the practice at the time) (and still felt horrible about it decades later).

  20. That fireworks are an issue for animals, both domestic and wild, is a known problem and pet owners, farmers, etc… usually have ways to help them cope. Dogs seem to be affected worse than cats, probably because their hearing is more sensitive. At any rate, the neighbourhood cats always seem rather blasé about fireworks. And one of the more enthusiastic fireworks users in the neighbourhood is the owner of a dog BTW.

    As for veterans with PTSD, most German veterans are WWII veterans in the 90s. Civilian WWII survivors are in the late 70s at the very least. And the reason why fireworks are banned near hospitals and care homes is concern that they might trigger PTSD in elderly WWII survivors both military and civilian. Of course, fireworks may also trigger PTSD in refugees from war zones (and when I was teaching German to refugees, I always told them, “There will be fireworks on New Year’s Eve, so don’t be surprised when things get noisy.”). Oddly enough, none of the anti-fireworks people ever worry about them.

    As for why scheduled public fireworks are not a replacement, some cities do have scheduled professional fireworks. For example, the fireworks at the Brandenburg gate in Berlin are a professional display and private fireworks are banned in the crowded party zone along the Straße des 17. Juni.

    But banning all private fireworks and having only public ones means that people who want to watch fireworks have to drive to get there or use public transport, provided they live somewhere where public transport actually operates through the night (where I live, the last bus goes at 8 PM). Which means crowded streets, parking problems, making it difficult to impossible for disabled people to attend. And since German New Year’s Eve customs also involve drinking champagne at midnight (and often a lot more), making a lot more people drive home at 1 AM or so would likely cause more drunk driving accidents. Plus, there are people living in rural areas, where the next public fireworks might 50 or more kilometres away. Don’t these people deserve to celebrate, too?

    About the Krefeld zoo tragedy, that was caused by a Chinese lantern/sky lantern/floater, which have been banned in Germany for several years now because of their tendency to cause fires when they go down uncontrolled. Though the ban was not very well publicised and in fact, my first reaction upon hearing the new was, “Weren’t they going to ban those already?”

    The three women who launched the lanterns will likely be held solely responsible for the fire. Never mind that the lanterns were freely sold via Amazon, eBay and other online sellers, even though they are actually banned (and mind you, this is the same Amazon that regularly freaks out about dodgy erotica, even though dodgy erotica does not cause fires), without even as much as a note that such lanterns are banned. In fact, the lanterns were even marketed as an environmentally friendly alternative to fireworks.

    And while the Krefeld zoo apparently passed a fire inspection last, the roof of the ape house was made from transparent acrylic glas, a material that is known to be highly flammable and has been involved in several serious fires, including the 1973 Summerland disaster, which killed 50 people, and happened two years before the Krefeld ape house was even built. And firefighters reported that the fire spread extremely fast, too fast to rescue all but two chimps.

  21. @Cora Buhlert–

    That fireworks are an issue for animals, both domestic and wild, is a known problem and pet owners, farmers, etc… usually have ways to help them cope.

    My dog uses my tiny, no-windows bathroom as her “safe room.” I have friends whose dogs need sedation–and the medication needs to be given before the start, to be effective. This works just fine, for scheduled fireworks, and nearly useless for random amateur self-indulgence in unscheduled fireworks.

    Dogs seem to be affected worse than cats, probably because their hearing is more sensitive. At any rate, the neighbourhood cats always seem rather blasé about fireworks.

    How do you figure this observation is even a tiny bit relevant to people who have dogs who are terrified by fireworks? Even if we also have cats who are indifferent to them? As I have had, in the past–dogs who needed to be sedated or held, and cats who ignored the kabooms. The cats being calm about didn’t actually help the terror the dogs were experiencing.

    And one of the more enthusiastic fireworks users in the neighbourhood is the owner of a dog BTW.

    Oh, please. You ought to be embarrassed to have typed that line. Not all dogs react badly to fireworks. Very true! And not everyone is allergic to peanuts–and that has exactly zero relevance to the fact that it’s dangerous for me to eat them. And I grew up with cousins who were sure peanuts accounted for an entire food group, in a region that has a traditional sandwich, the fluffernutter, for which peanut butter is a ,major ingredient. Doesn’t have any relevance to my inability to eat peanuts or peanut butter.

    Likewise your neighbor’s dog who doesn’t care. Doesn’t matter to the people whose dogs are badly affected.

    But banning all private fireworks and having only public ones means that people who want to watch fireworks have to drive to get there or use public transport, provided they live somewhere where public transport actually operates through the night (where I live, the last bus goes at 8 PM). Which means crowded streets, parking problems, making it difficult to impossible for disabled people to attend. And since German New Year’s Eve customs also involve drinking champagne at midnight (and often a lot more), making a lot more people drive home at 1 AM or so would likely cause more drunk driving accidents. Plus, there are people living in rural areas, where the next public fireworks might 50 or more kilometres away. Don’t these people deserve to celebrate, too?

    Here’s a wild and crazy idea. More towns could have scheduled, professional fireworks. This is strangely not uncommon in the US, lots of towns having their own professional fireworks.

    New Year’s Eve involves drinking, here, too–and at least in Boston, but I suspect also in other places that do have public transit, it runs much later on New Year’s. There are a variety of “call for a ride” operations for New Year’s, and not just New Year’s in all cases, that will provide free rides home for people who get intoxicated.

    Some of these even have the primary purpose of reducing the crush of cars in the event area, not just preventing drunk driving. Especially the late-running public transit that may even be free after some cut-off time.

    The point is, if it’s that important, there are ways to create solutions. There are alternatives to random amateurs setting off fireworks wherever and whenever because they can’t get to one of the apparently tiny number of professional fireworks displays you currently have.

  22. @Lis —

    There are some good arguments for banning amateur fireworks — safety issues chief among them — but the existence of phobic animals and/or people are not.

    You might as well argue that dog owners should not be allowed to walk their pets in public because some people are afraid of dogs. Individual phobias do not create responsibilities for others unless they are acting with malicious intent.

  23. When I was a child, my family used to go next door for Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night (5th of November) for their bonfire and privately set off fireworks (also: boardgames) (also also: homemade bonfire toffee) rather than try and haul three small children up a steep hill late at night to the very crowded and very dark heath to watch the big professional display. I can’t really fault them; I had a terrible habit of wandering off at the slightest provocation and that would have been a nightmare to deal with under those conditions, even ignoring the enormous fun of getting three extremely overtired and overstimulated children home again without it ending in tears. But in the UK fireworks do tend to be a specific date thing, mainly Bonfire Night and a little bit New Year’s. You might occasionally hear some idjit who decided to get some for their birthday, but they’re not all that easy to buy out of season so it doesn’t happen often (not because they’re restricted, they’re just not profitable so you don’t see them in shops). You’re fairly unlikely to be caught by surprise.

    I don’t remember ever hearing anyone with pets saying they had problems, but I’m not sure I remember anyone on our bit of the road having a dog, either. Most people nearby worked longish hours.The next door neighbours had cats but they just stayed inside and seemed fine. And of course they checked the bonfire for hedgehogs before lighting it. No idea what the urban foxes thought of it all.

    (Er, full disclosure, if you’re not familiar with Bonfire Night, the origins are in sectarianism, the Guys (cloth/cardboard/paper dummies which we put on the bonfires to burn) are often… a bit dubious… even aside from naming the thing you ritually burn once a year after a person… and the unexamined-at-best anti-Catholic sentiment bit really didn’t end up in the past all that long ago, if at all, so. That’s a thing. But people are mainly in it for the pretty fire/lights and bangs these days.) (And, yes, depending on where you live there’s definitely overlap with Diwali for some years. Still, Diwali has set dates, even if you have to look them up if you’re not familiar with the tradition, so you can still plan for it.)

    I don’t remember amateur-made fireworks being a thing at all, all the fireworks I ever saw set off were from the shops and made by businesses for the home market, typically the same businesses that make pro fireworks. Not that that makes them safe, exactly: there are yearly awareness campaigns in the run up to November about firework safety for a reason (retreat to a minimum distance after lighting it, don’t touch it after you’ve lit it even if you think it didn’t work because it might still go off unexpectedly, what to do if something goes wrong, etc). Explosives are never going to be 100% safe, however small or aesthetically pleasing. But they’re not generally being made by random amateurs, at least in the UK. I find that whole idea extremely worrying..!

  24. @Contrarius–It’s not just dogs. It’s also people, combat veterans, who are affected by unscheduled, unpredictable, amateur fireworks. I’m really astounded that you would say, basically, who cares about the combat veterans. And they’re a real fire hazard.

    But also, there are an awful lot of places we can’t bring our dogs, unless, like Dora, they are service dogs, Because People Might Be Offended. And I’ve been yelled at while picking up Dora’s poop because she has pooped in public and is “spreading disease.”

    And I know I don’t have to tell you that dogs are family members.

    Also, let’s go back to the peanut butter thing. For too many years, the advice on how to avoid your kids developing food allergies was exactly backwards, resulting in a big upswing in such allergies–especially to peanut butter, which is a really dangerous allergy. Peanuts and peanut butter got banned from schools, day cares, and of course planes, because it can create real problems, even though for those not allergic, it’s a tasty, nutritious, convenient food,

    Yes, we do tell people not to do certain not inherently unreasonable things in public places because of the effects on other people, even when it’s a minority of people. And sorry, but I’m by no means convinced that amateur use of real explosives, in public, for entertainment, is in the “not inherently unreasonable” category.

  25. @Lis Carey

    Speaking as a person with a brain that occasionally responds to long periods of boredom and low-stimulation by creating new phobias to torment me with (and yes, that is a less-than-excellent mix with being mostly-housebound, thank you for asking – I like to say that it eats itself without sufficient enrichment), phobias aren’t really the same kind of category as allergies. I might be made utterly miserable for a brief period but short of fleeing into speeding traffic I’m unlikely to end up rapidly dead. People with allergies can and often do end up rapidly dead. There have been several recent and high profile cases in the UK of ineffectual allergen reporting by food vendors leading to people ending up dead. It really isn’t quite the same thing. Highly unpleasant and distressing and a miserable experience, yes, high likelihood of being near-instantly fatal or rapidly leading to permanent brain damage, no. I don’t think equating them is appropriate, and I don’t think they should have the same legislation applied, either.

    (Accommodations protections at work, public amenities and other events, sure, where the phobia or condition-with-triggers rises to the definition of disability, same as most other disabling conditions should get. General bans and enclosed public place restrictions? Probably not.)

    (Also, did you realise that you just responded to the example of dog phobias by coming back with “Because People Might Be Offended”? Because. Hm. I don’t think you meant to make a flippant and dismissive remark about people with phobias at all, and that kind of ended up sounding a bit like one. I winced.)

    Most (all?) privately set off fireworks in the UK are on private property. That private property might be a wall or a fence away from someone else’s private property, but private nonetheless. People aren’t really going to parks or other public areas to do it (and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be allowed to do so, either.) Germany might be different! But it’s not really a thing here so far as I’ve ever seen.

  26. @Meredith–It’s an analogy. Like all analogies, no, it’s not perfect.

    No, I was pointing out that with our dogs, people don’t have to claim an allergy or a phobia to keep our dogs out of places, no matter how well-behaved the dog is. They just have to object. They may not even need to be pushy about it.

    The experience of a three-hour indulgence of large, loud, amateur fireworks reducing my two dogs and a foster dog to terrified wrecks, who afterwards had difficulty even with thunderstorms (a new problem for all those dogs) used up my patience with “but it wasn’t on your property” as an excuse for being willfully indifferent to the effects on other people. And it’s not even as if I could have put three dogs in the car and gone someplace else away from the fireworks, not at night with the places who would have let the dogs in closed.

    Directly in front of my house. No wall, except the wall of my house. A tiny patch of lawn. And no way to get away from it. Three hours of dogs barking would not have been tolerated. That would have been, you know, a public nuisance.

    We are not talking about people being “offended” by fireworks. Or at least I’m not. I’m talking about real problems that, for the entire month of July, has affected every decision I make regarding my dogs, for many years. I didn’t used to live so close to the New Hampshire border, where they happily sell fireworks to people in cars with Massachusetts plates, i.e., people who are planning to break the law.

    Just another thing I’m expected to paste a smile on my face and be “nice” about, no matter how it’s affecting me and my dogs, because, after all, “it’s just a dog.”

  27. 18) First MCU transgender superhero:
    They’re lagging behind DC’s televised Arrowverse: Supergirl has had a transgender superhero for a whole year now. (No, not the title character.)

    BTW, Mike: I notice that this entry is tagged “Pablo Defedini”, along with two others on the site. All three should probably be corrected to “Defendini”.

  28. @Lis —

    @Contrarius–It’s not just dogs. It’s also people

    Read again what I already wrote — “phobic animals and/or people”.

    I’m really astounded that you would say, basically, who cares about the combat veterans.

    Straw man. I never said any such thing.

    And they’re a real fire hazard.

    Again, read what I already wrote — “There are some good arguments for banning amateur fireworks — safety issues chief among them”.

    But also, there are an awful lot of places we can’t bring our dogs, unless, like Dora, they are service dogs, Because People Might Be Offended.

    Yeah, no. There are many places we can’t bring dogs, because of safety and sanitation issues.

    But since you bring up limitations on where we can bring dogs, I’ll mention as an aside that there are already many limitations on where people can shoot off amateur fireworks — inside any buildings and so on. In fact, I dare say it’s legal to walk dogs more places than it is legal to shoot off fireworks. So you’re not actually making any points for your side of the argument here.

    And I’ve been yelled at while picking up Dora’s poop because she has pooped in public and is “spreading disease.”

    Irrelevant to the current discussion.

    And I know I don’t have to tell you that dogs are family members.

    Also irrelevant to the current discussion.

    Also, let’s go back to the peanut butter thing

    Let’s not. Phobias are not the same things as allergies, as Meredith already pointed out.

    Yes, we do tell people not to do certain not inherently unreasonable things in public places because of the effects on other people, even when it’s a minority of people.

    You’re back to safety issues here, and I think we can all agree that safety is a legitimate concern in the context of amateur fireworks.

    But you haven’t produced a single justification to differentiate between people who are phobic of dogs, and animals or people who are phobic of fireworks — and until you can do that, your argument against amateur fireworks isn’t going to get anywhere.

  29. @Contrarius–

    Yeah, no. There are many places we can’t bring dogs, because of safety and sanitation issues.

    No. In fact the “safety and sanitation” justifications for banning dogs from restaurants and food stores by law are mostly nonsense. Dora is a service dog and allowed, but in terms of safety and sanitation, there is no magic difference between her and any other well-trained, well-behaved dog. Humans are a far greater source of disease to other humans.

    But even granting the safety and sanitation argument for those legal bans, that’s not, for instance, why you can’t take a well-behaved dog into a mall to walk in bad weather. It’s not illegal. It’s just banned by the mall because People Might Object.

    I’m really astounded that you would say, basically, who cares about the combat veterans.

    Straw man. I never said any such thing.

    Yeah, you did, really. Combat is a major cause of human phobia about fireworks. If you don’t care about how it affects human beings, that’s at least the largest single category of humans that you’re affecting. Possibly not in Germany, but you and I aren’t in Germany, and the US unfortunately has rising numbers of combat veterans. (Quite probably about to rise even more, given Trump’s Wag The Dog actions of the last couple of days.)

    And my dog experiencing real fear because idiots feel entitled to set off real explosives directly outside my home and having that dismissed as irrelevant is never going to be irrelevant to me. Nor is the combat veteran with PTSD ever going to regard its effects on them irrelevant.

    I’m not ever going to be able to regard fireworks the way I used to, after some of the experiences I’ve had over the decades since my first kaboom-sensitive dog. Fireworks are enjoyable in their proper place, but that place is not “wherever the hell some fool feels like setting them off because there’s a holiday this month.” It’s not unreasonable for people to want to be able to plan around them without writing off an entire month as one where they really need to go to another country that has its explosives holiday in a different month. With their dogs, if it’s the dogs rather than themselves that has the problem.

  30. @Lis —

    No. In fact the “safety and sanitation” justifications for banning dogs from restaurants and food stores by law are mostly nonsense.

    You’re wrong here — but this point is irrelevant in any case, since, as I’ve already pointed out, dogs are legal in public more places than fireworks are.

    Yeah, you did, really.

    No, I didn’t, really.

    There’s a huge difference between “who cares” and “we care, but it doesn’t justify new laws”. Refer back to people with dog phobias. Are you saying that you don’t care about people with dog phobias just because you insist on walking your dog in public?

    I’m not ever going to be able to regard fireworks the way I used to

    And that’s okay. It’s okay for you to hate fireworks. It’s okay for you to resent the need to protect your dog from the effects of fireworks. But that’s not the same thing as justifying a ban on them.

    Again: you have not provided any reason why people with dog phobias are any less deserving of protection than people or animals with fireworks phobias. Again: why is it okay for you to walk your dog in public, but not for people to shoot fireworks in public?

    Until you can answer that question, you don’t have any legs to stand on.

  31. @Lis Carey

    Do you… realise you’re continuing to be (doubling down on being!) really dismissive of dog phobias? Which is a really interesting tack to take when you’re trying to argue that one specific phobia should influence legislation and policy, even more so than allergies do (peanuts are not actually banned from private use or most public spaces, you know). But-what-about these people who are just unreasonable about dogs! is not… you know what, never mind. You obviously have strong opinions about this topic, that’s fine, you’ve clearly had deeply upsetting experiences, but you’ve swiftly moved on to accusing everyone else of not caring about people, dogs, etc etc, based purely on whether or not they agree with you about banning fireworks, and at that point a reasonable discussion cannot possibly be had.

  32. @Contrarius–

    Again: you have not provided any reason why people with dog phobias are any less deserving of protection than people or animals with fireworks phobias. Again: why is it okay for you to walk your dog in public, but not for people to shoot fireworks in public?

    In practice, of course, a well-behaved, leashed dog is a lot safer to be in the general vicinity of than fireworks in the hands of amateurs.

    And of course, I don’t insist on people meeting and petting my dog. If I see that they’re nervous or worried about my dog, I try to maintain a significant difference. Versus, you know, people having their fireworks fun directly outside my home, so that the only way to avoid it is to leave my home and go elsewhere, except that fireworks are used mostly at night, when there are very few options for going elsewhere.

    @Meredith–I’ve spent most of my life being told that other people’s feelings matter, and mine don’t. That I need to be extremely deferential about what upsets other people, and that I’ll just upset and annoy people if I want any consideration at all for what upsets me. Or, God forbid, my dog.

    There are the people who think they’re entitled to pet my working service dog without even asking. And there are the people who claim to be sincerely horrified by the presence of my well-behaved, leashed, nine-pound working service dog, who is across the room, and would still be ignoring them if they were closer.

    I don’t know what the law is in the UK, but in the US, if the other person has either a phobia or an allergy, which is severe enough to constitute a handicap, the business has to find a way to accommodate both of us. Out on the street, often, that is easily done by one of us crossing the street. It may even by clear that one will find it easier to cross than the other.

    But with fireworks being set off outside my home, there is no way to get away from the sound, which is not at all staying outside my home. It’s coming right in and making itself comfy.

    And I’m supposed to accept that the legal principle of “quiet enjoyment” of my home carries a secret exception for fireworks.

  33. @Lis —

    In practice, of course, a well-behaved, leashed dog is a lot safer to be in the general vicinity of than fireworks in the hands of amateurs.

    Nope, nope, nope. We already agreed that safety is a valid concern with fireworks. Again, our only disagreement is over the question of whether fireworks phobias are a valid reason to consider legally banning them. Again, statements about safety are irrelevant to phobias. So, again, you’re not doing your argument any favors here.

    And of course, I don’t insist on people meeting and petting my dog.

    Irrelevant.

    Nobody is forcing anyone to meet and pet fireworks, either. Just being in the vicinity of a dog is enough to terrify phobic people.

    Why don’t you care about people with dog phobias, Lis?

    Versus, you know, people having their fireworks fun directly outside my home

    You are much farther away from people shooting off fireworks outside your home than you are from a person you pass on the sidewalk with your dog.

    Why don’t you care about people with dog phobias, Lis?

    so that the only way to avoid it is to leave my home and go elsewhere

    The only way for people with dog phobias to avoid dogs in public is if they themselves stay out of the public — no sidewalks for them! No public parks!

    Why don’t you care about people with dog phobias, Lis?

    And there are the people who claim to be sincerely horrified by the presence of my well-behaved, leashed, nine-pound working service dog, who is across the room, and would still be ignoring them if they were closer.

    Now you’re even calling phobic people liars!

    Why don’t you care about people with dog phobias, Lis?

    But with fireworks being set off outside my home, there is no way to get away from the sound

    Of course there is. It’s called soundproofing.

  34. Guy Fawkes Day / Bonfire Night here in the San Francisco Bay Area (yes, it’s part of our history, too, even though most ‘Merkins don’t remember, remember) is primarily celebrated on Muir Beach, Marin Headlands. There’s always a large, cheery crowd and the requisite bonfire, foods people bring, and some few small fireworks. Many people bring dogs, presumably are not the ones spooked by firecrackers. Dress warmly!

    Back home in British Hong Kong (of blessed memory, etc.), Guy Fawkes day was the distinctly lesser but still notable fireworks occasion — next to Chinese New Year, of course, which was always epic. And a small crowd of us Yanks would also gather for fireworks on July 4th on one of the ocean-side beaches on the far side of HKI.

    If memory serves, all of the people I saw in HK setting off the fireworks were still able to do arithmetic in base 10, the safety training and precautions there being above average.

  35. @Jim Reynolds: that was the point of @OGH’s comment about Harshaw — although even Heinlein, who created some doggerel for Rhysling, didn’t try to put words to a piece in 5/4 time. (There is at least one sung piece in 5/4, but it’s for professional solo (“Sensitivity”, from Once Upon a Mattress) rather than a popular chorus.) But that’s a hell of a performance (both music and the video work).

  36. No, Jubal Harshaw didn’t use Holst’s “Mars”. He used the Mars movement of something called “the Nine Planets Symphony”, which Heinlein made up.

  37. @ Rick – love that beach! And I see the fire is organized by the Pelican Inn, the nearby Brit-themed pub. Which I was also quite fond of :).

  38. One of you is technically correct — but my reading was that Heinlein assumed somebody would have added movements to the existing work, as the description of the music sounds very much like Holst.

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