Pixel Scroll 1/7/18 Your Majesty Is Like A Scroll With Pixels On Top

(1) BOOK SMUGGLERS AT 10. Happy birthday to The Book Smugglers. They celebrated their tenth anniversary today:

Welcome to Smugglivus 2017: A Year In Review. Today, January 7, 2017, is our bloggoversary–and it’s a big one. Today we officially turn ten years old. To celebrate, we’re looking back at 2017 to document our year, as well as our top 10 moments since starting The Book Smugglers a decade ago.

A lot of interesting achievements and reminiscences in this post.

(2) KGB. Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Myke Cole and Joseph Helmreich on Wednesday, January 17, 2018, 7 p.m. at the KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street, New York).

Myke Cole

Myke Cole is the author of the military fantasy Shadow Ops series and its prequel trilogy, the Reawakening series, both from Ace/Roc. His Sacred Throne series is forthcoming from Tor.com in February. His first nonfiction (military history) book, will be out from Osprey in the fall. Myke appeared on CBS’ hit TV show Hunted, as part of a team of elite investigators tracking fugitives across the southeastern United States.

Joseph Helmreich

Joseph Helmreich has contributed writing to NewsweekNY Daily News, and Tor.com, and is author of the recent sf thriller, The Return (St. Martin’s Press, March 2017) about a physicist who gets abducted by an alien ship on live TV.  When not writing, Joe is a ventriloquist, illustrator, voice-over actor and member of alternative folk duo, Honeybrick. He lives in New York City and works in film distribution.

(3) SALAM AWARD. The 2018 jury for the Salam Award will be Elizabeth Hand , E. Lily Yu and Anil Menon. The award promotes imaginative fiction in Pakistan.

Last year’s winner was Firuza Pastakia for her story The Universe is a Conscientious Gardener.

(4) FANTASY MINIATURES. Dangerous Minds showcases some cute miniature models of Fauns, Jackalopes, Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen, and Unicorns. Here’s Exhibit A:

Warning: Cuteness overload ahead

Silvia Minucelli is an engineer and freelance artisan who creates itsy-bitsy, ickle figurines using polymer clay and a toothpick—can you imagine how painstaking and difficult that must be? Minucelli produces and sells her delightful models under the name Mijbil Creatures—named after the famous otter in Gavin Maxwell’s book Ring of Bright Water.

(5) PKD ON TV. The New York Times’ Jonathan Ringer tells how “With ‘Electric Dreams,’ Philip K. Dick Gets the TV Anthology Treatment”.

…The actors attracted to the series included Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad” (also one of the show’s executive producers), Steve Buscemi, Maura Tierney and the avant-R&B singer Janelle Monáe. And “Electric Dreams” attracted writers and directors like Dee Rees (“Mudbound”), Peter Horton (“American Odyssey,” “Thirtysomething”) and Alan Taylor (“Game of Thrones”).

Dick’s daughter, Isa Dick Hackett, whose production company Electric Shepherd oversees adaptations of her father’s work, reached out in 2012 to Mr. Dinner, executive producer of FX’s “Justified,” and invited him to look at the short stories. “Michael really had the idea to do it as anthology,” said Mr. Moore, a friend of Mr. Dinner’s who was brought on soon after.

Mr. Dinner, who had a deal with Sony, also recruited Mr. Cranston, who, like the others, is a major Philip K. Dick fan. All four brought in people they’d worked with as well as reaching out to talent they admired. “I sent Janelle Monáe a letter and asked her if she’d want to be a part of it,” Ms. Hackett said. “I knew that she was a big fan of my dad’s.”

David Klaus sent these comments with the link:

There’s an irony in that Star Trek was sold as the first s.f. t.v. series unlike previous s.f. series which had all been anthology shows, to have continuing characters and standing sets, to reduce production costs.

It could also be said another of Robert Heinlein’s great gifts to science fiction was the typewriter he bought and gave to PKD so that he could earn his way out of being so broke he couldn’t pay a library overdue fine.

(6) BLATHER. The New York Times interviewed an expert about “How To Speak Gibberish”. And it wasn’t even a member of Congress.

… In 2014, Sara Maria Forsberg was a recent high-school graduate in Finland when she posted “What Languages Sound Like to Foreigners,” a video* of herself speaking gibberish versions of 15 languages and dialects. Incorporate actual phonology to make a realistic-sounding gibberish. “Expose yourself to lots of different languages,” says Forsberg, now 23, who grew up speaking Finnish, Swedish and English.

Assemble your raw linguistic materials. Shortly after her YouTube video went viral — it has since been watched more than 19 million times — Lucasfilm contacted Forsberg and asked her to make up a language for one of the alien fighter groups in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” The actors were Indonesian, so Forsberg studied online videos in various Austronesian languages including Bahasa Indonesia and Sundanese, a language spoken in western Java. “Listen for repeated syllables,” she says. Write them down phonetically. Note the rhythm of the language. Look at the way a speaker’s lips and tongue give shape to his or her words. You don’t need to be a linguist to get an impression of real syntactic rules, which you can borrow. It helps to love listening to the singsong quality of people talking. For Forsberg, “it’s like music.”…

(7) TRIVIAL TRIVIA.

A friend was watching Queen of Outer Space with Zsa Zsa Gabor and noticed the title stuff did not appear until 17 minutes into the flick.

He then recalled that George Lucas was fined by the Directors Guild for not having the opening credits.  George paid the half million dollar fine and quit the Guild — see “How famous Star Wars title sequence survived imperial assaults” at The Conversation.

Star Wars creator George Lucas had to fight to maintain his vision of going straight into the story through the use of his rolling text sequence. He thought that opening credits were nothing to do with making a movie, seeing them as an example of the old-school posturing that he and his new Hollywood contemporaries had spurned. In this he could well have been inspired by George Mélies’ A Trip to the Moon (1902), which is regarded as the first sci-fi film and avoided using any credits because the visual narrative was so strong.

Lucas did end up having to put the studio and Lucasfilm idents at the start of the reel, but he put his own directing and producing credits at the end of the film. He argued that credits would destroy the impact of the opening, and put them at the end of the film instead.

Lucas did the same thing for Empire Strikes Back in 1980, which was directed not by himself but by Irving Kershner. This time the Directors Guild of America objected, even though Kershner didn’t mind. The guild wanted the movie withdrawn from theatres, the opening re-titled with Kershner’s directing credit at a cost of US$500,000 (£1.4m today), and that Lucas pay a $25,000 fine.

Lucas was incensed and took the guild to court. When it countersued, he decided to pay the fine to avoid entangling Kershner in the dispute. It was a pyrrhic victory for the guild, however. Lucas resigned from both the writers’ and directors’ guilds and all future Star Wars opening titles were untouched and consistent with the original.

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • January 7, 1929 — The Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D. comic strip debuted. (The character’s first appearance was in a story published by Amazing Stories in 1928.)

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • January 7, 1934 – Flash Gordon. This has been long regarded as his “birthdate” because that was the day Alex Raymond’s strip was first published.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) WOMBAT ON THE AIR. Information wants to be free —

(12) REMEMBERING THE GREAT RAY BRADBURY. Steve Vertlieb hopes you will read his piece for AmericanMusicPreservation.com, “A Ray Bradbury Remembrance (Film Music Review 14th Anniversary Special)”.

Here is my affectionate tribute to cherished friend Ray Bradbury, whose loving presence occupied my world and my heart for nearly four decades. Ray was one of the most distinguished writers of the twentieth century and, with H.G. Wells, perhaps the most influential, legendary science fiction writer of the past one hundred years. More importantly, however, Ray was a gentle little boy whose love of imagination, fantasy, and stories of other worlds influenced hundreds of writers and millions of admirers all over the world. His monumental presence upon this planet warmed and inspired all who knew him, and I was honored to call him my friend for thirty-eight years. Here, once more, is my loving remembrance of the life and world of Ray Bradbury, “I SING BRADBURY ELECTRIC.”

Steve’s article begins —

He was a kindly, gentle soul who lived among us for a seeming eternity. But even eternity is finite. He was justifiably numbered among the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Among the limitless vistas of science fiction and fantasy he was, perhaps, second only in literary significance to H.G. Wells who briefly shared the last century with him. Ray Bradbury was, above all else, the poet laureate of speculative fiction.

(13) KARMA. The house directly to the left of what was Ray Bradbury’s is listed on Air BnB and other sites as a party rental  You can even search for it by name, Cheviot Wonderland.

The large floor plan with gorgeous floor to ceiling windows overlooking the breathtaking pool area makes entertaining a breeze. With a state of the art chef’s kitchen and dining room that seats 10, tastefully dazzle your guests with a perfect setting for your dinner parties.

Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne razed Bradbury’s longtime Cheviot Hills home and built a place of his own design, which was finished in 2017.

(14) SIMULTANEITY PRINCIPLE. Andrew Porter points out there will be two conventions a few miles apart, same town, same weekend, July 27-29. Confluence is at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. And Pulpfest is at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. He says —

They’re about 8 miles apart, NW of downtown Pittsburgh. You’d think both conventions could do some sort of deal together. Maybe a shuttle between the two. I bet both sets of dealers would be happy with the exposure.

Also, judging from people’s Facebook posts, Confluence will be gaining some writers who have been trimmed from ReaderCon programming (another July convention).

(15) ANOTHER ADDICTIVE GAME. They say literally anybody can play: “China’s Most Popular Mobile Game Charges Into American Market”.

Chinese tech giant Tencent is trying to do something that’s never been done before: take the biggest online mobile game in China global.

Kings Of Glory, sometimes also translated as Honor Of Kings, boasts over 200 million monthly players worldwide. In China, it’s been reported that tens of millions play daily. The game is so popular that Tencent had to implement a daily time restriction for young players to “ensure children’s healthy development.”

(16) JUST IN TIME. The doctor will see you – right after he levels up. “Gaming addiction classified as disorder by WHO”.

Gaming addiction is to be listed as a mental health condition for the first time by the World Health Organisation.

Its 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD) will include the condition “gaming disorder”.

The draft document describes it as a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour so severe that it takes “precedence over other life interests”.

Some countries had already identified it as a major public health issue….

(17) MORE TRIVIA. Mad Genius Club has 10 times more people who want to read JDA’s blog than we have here. At least. Didn’t we know that already?

(18) ROWLING SITES. The Washington Post’s Tom Shroder tells how to go about “Discovering the magic of Edinburgh” in a travel piece about his visit to the places where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in longhand, and a trip to Greyfriars Graveyard, whose tombs include Thomas Riddle (the real name of Lord Voldemort).

It was the first of what I came to think of as our Edinburgh Harry Potter moments — when the ordinary Muggle reality suddenly parted to reveal something magical. As it turned out, this wasn’t entirely fanciful thinking on my part. I only discovered later that J.K. Rowling herself said, in a 2008 speech accepting the Edinburgh Award, “Edinburgh is very much home for me and is the place where Harry evolved over seven books and many, many hours of writing in its cafes.”

The city’s remarkably consistent buildings of mottled brown stone blocks, the most spectacular of them with sharply peaked roofs and ostentatious turrets, are clear inspiration for the architecture of the Hogwarts School of Wizardry. The tombstones in the fabulously gloomy Greyfriars Kirkyard in the oldest part of the city bear the names of some key Potter characters — McGonagall, Moodie and, most notably, Thomas Riddle, the birth name of Harry’s nemesis, Lord Voldemort. Tourists flock to the cafes where the then-impoverished author wrote out her stories in longhand: the Elephant House, Nicholson’s (now called Spoon), the baroquely gorgeous Balmoral Hotel.

(19) ADDRESSER UNKNOWN. An anonymous piece at write.as summarizes Jon Del Arroz’ track record and concludes —

The most mind-boggling thing of all about Jon is, he insults and harasses people, then wonders why folks don’t want him around. If you call SFWA terrorists, insult women in science fiction related podcasts, insult people in the comic industry, call folks running fandom sites bigots, then openly admit you’re going to break a convention’s rules, why would you be surprised when people start banning you? You are your own worst enemy, Jon Del Arroz. I don’t believe you anymore.

(20) WHAT THOSE TINY HANDS ARE FOR. Thanks to ScienceFiction.com I discovered this artistic triumph — “Colorado Symphony Performs ‘Jurassic Park’ Theme Led By A T-Rex”.

Last March, Colorado Symphony conductor Christopher Dragon donned a T-rex costume to lead the ensemble in a performance of John Williams’ beloved ‘Jurassic Park’ theme song. The hilarious musical moment is getting its 15 minutes of fame after a video from the concert was posted to social media.

 

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, Steve Vertlieb, Chris Garcia, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Mister Dalliard.]

67 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/7/18 Your Majesty Is Like A Scroll With Pixels On Top

  1. 4) Love that little jackalope, but I daren’t go visit her site for fear of being struck with irresistable acquisitveness.

    17) LOL. Thanks for that late-night laugh!

    eta — pre-pre-pre-pre fifth!

  2. (17) MORE TRIVIA.

    Whoops! Jon’s finger slipped and hit “Tweet” before he’d finished writing that. Luckily, his bodycam recorded the rest of the message:

    Jon Del Arroz @jondelarroz
    Fun Fact: Mad Genius Club got me about 10x the referral clicks to my blog as File 770 does when they link me. File 770 has no readers who want to read my blog. 😀

  3. 6) It reminds me of this guy trying to sing in english. For you lovers of Incredibly Strange Music, this is one of the best.

  4. File 770 has no readers.

    Having felt myself all over carefully (which is the best, or at least the safest, way) I believe this to be incorrect.

  5. Steve Wright: Having felt myself all over carefully (which is the best, or at least the safest, way) I believe this to be incorrect.

    Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you’re actually a bot located in China. Filers are all bots in China, and all our posts are generated from an algorithm.

  6. I’m actually a catgorithm.

    (I also notice that as of today’s Alexa stats, F770 is well ahead of MCG in both US-only and worldwide ranks – and total visitors are 65% USian. That’s not meant as a knock against MGC as a news site has an obvious advantage, but JdA might want to check facts before trying a “lets you and him fight” tactic.)

  7. Do we count as real readers if we’re not American? Sometimes when I read MGC I’m not sure.

  8. (17) MORE TRIVIA

    I’m unsurprised that JdA is counting the clicks that this controversy is generating for him.

  9. … Wait, but if we’re all bots, who’s running sooper sekrit SJW cabal that’s been rigging the Hugos and undermining conservative authors all this time?

    I’m so confused.

  10. JJ:

    Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you’re actually a bot located in China. Filers are all bots in China, and all our posts are generated from an algorithm.

    But we still exist. I’m completely operational and all my circuits are functioning perfectly, and I’m sure that’s true for the rest of us too. This “bots aren’t readers”-argument is rank specieism.

  11. 17: Yes, it’s quite funny on several levels: the original statement alone, the fact that it’s based on an untrue statement, the fact that it was obviously thought necessary to make such a statement – which is what I want to address.

    This kind of public statement is the very definition of someone claiming to want to play in the SF sandbox while at the same time clearly just not “getting it”.

    It’s like a kid showing up with a double handful of cat turds to play in the sandbox because that’s what he thinks the sandbox is for.

    We remove the cat turds from the sandbox when we find them, we don’t play with them. (That last just to be absolutely clear in case there’s any lingering doubt.)

    We don’t care about the numbers. We don’t play the ranking game. (Yes, we have awards, but those were about quality until you and your ilk tried to turn them into a ranking game.) Even IF the numbers were as suggested – So Effin what? Is this revelation going to stop Mike from publishing? Me from reading? Others from contributing?
    No, it isn’t.
    I fear that this is a concept that the person in question and his however many supporters are never going to get. We’re not playing a zero-sum game. There are no winners and losers, only people and places we choose to hang out with and those we choose not to give the time of day to.
    But if I were to play the same game, it would be easy. Let’s hold out both hands.
    In one we’ll place all of the Best Fanzine and Best Fan Writer Awards this publication has received over a 40 year history, and in the other hand (I’ll be generous) we place all of the notable achievements of the party in question and see which hand fills up first. (Hint: one hand will be crushed to near medical emergency status by the weight of the awards and the other hand will be flailing emptily in the air.)

    But we don’t play that game. What we do is point out ACHIEVEMENT in CONTRIBUTION to the community. Not dollars earned nor copies sold, but contributions that had a positive impact.

    Making a public fugghead of yourself could be seen as an achievement, but we’re no longer giving out awards for that category. If we did though, you all would be strong contenders. I’d happily vote you well above No Award in that category. Heck, I might even add you to an Eligibility Post.

  12. [7] I ran up against the delayed title of QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE just a week or so back, when I was putting it on a DVD. I knew up front that the Monkees film, HEAD, had the title all the way at the end, so I wasn’t as annoyed at that, but QOOS had tucked it away, and I ended up never finding it at all. When I put it on a fast enough scan speed to not take all day, the words on screen just don’t seem to show up at all, even though I felt like there was a spot where they should have been, a reel or so in when the atmosphere shifted, but I didn’t see them. I ended up using something else in place of the title card, one of the pre-title texts from the beginning of the movie, and washing my hands of it.

    [12] I was just seeing and hearing Ray Bradbury talk, as I watched the start of UNIVERSAL HORROR, a documentary that came on a DVD set from a few years back. Must be the simultaneity principle at work.

    [17] There are fewer potential readers of FILE770 at MGC than there are of Jon Del Arroz’s blog? Well, knock me over with a feather. Who’d have thunk it?

    Hampus
    Here’s a favorite cover, Los Punkrockers’ treatment of the Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant,” in which the Spanish singer is singing English lyrics, but twisting them pretty darn hard. I like the laughs, too. I should listen to the original again some time, I guess.

    You know what they say: You gotta scroll pixels if you wanna make files.

  13. steve davidson This kind of public statement is the very definition of someone claiming to want to play in the SF sandbox while at the same time clearly just not “getting it”.

    The weird thing is that the reason that most of us here don’tlike him is simple: he’s an unpleasant bully who thinks that everyone else is part of a vast, leftist conspiracy that explains everything bad that happens to him. His WordlCon ban was done because of explicit threats to do un0leasant and offensive things at that private event.

    I fully support WorldCon in they did. I’m hoping that this is done more as it’s the only way to sanely deal with those who choose to be nasty to those who’ve done nothing that warrants this.

  14. JJ on January 8, 2018 at 3:09 am said:
    Steve Wright: Having felt myself all over carefully (which is the best, or at least the safest, way) I believe this to be incorrect.
    Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you’re actually a bot located in China. Filers are all bots in China, and all our posts are generated from an algorithm.

    I refute this as being bourgeois imperialist-revisionist propaganda and quite contrary to the glorious teachings of revered President Xi Jinping, oo what a giveaway.

  15. 2) As I mentioned in another thread, read this, liked it, although it is a rather dark world. I like the protagonist, but this is not a milieu I like to linger in.

  16. What’s wrong with being in China? &128060;

    Edit: That was supposed to be a Pandaface emoji.

  17. (17) I’m unpersuaded by claims that I don’t exist. Beyond that, I’ve met some regular commenters here, and have known others in various online venues since before File 770 was online, so it seems unlikely they were invented to artificially boost Mike’s readers.

    I can think of another reason why JDA might get far fewer clicks from links here than from Mad Genius Club.

  18. 17) We certainly assembled quite a lot of flesh and blood folks at WorldCon 75 for all of us to be Chinese web bots. We merely have no interest in reading more of JDA’s output than necessary.

  19. @Cora Buhlert: No such thing! I was only there in simulation, and the simulation of the cream soda was, again, just a simulation, carefully fed through your input device, to mimic drinking and associated stimuli.

  20. 17) Personally, I’m keeping an open mind. This universe might just be a giant computer simulation.

  21. Thanks, Hampus! I have seen that, but it’s worth seeing again.

    All this reminds me of when my friend Dave was home from his private school in another state, telling me about being in French class and doing fake French noises. He asked the teacher if French people do fake American noises, and she obliged with a string of what sounded like regular US English, but devoid of meaning. I’d always wished I could hear that, and now, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I get to hear it.

    Doubletalk was a specialty of many comedians in this country, and amounted to much the same thing. It turns up in old movies, and doesn’t keep me entertained for a very long time, but can still be funny when done right.

    (Tip: Don’t ‘vogue’ with your hands when you’re doing this, or when you’re silently pretending to talk, for that matter. Dead giveaway. Also, as H. Allen Smith points out, don’t rely overmuch on “iggle umble ickle” -type words, as these are easily spotted as fake. For good examples on how to do it badly, watch a televangelist like Tilton when he goes into ‘speaking in tongues.’ He wouldn’t fool a grade school kid, though he seems to have found an audience that literally buys it.)

  22. @5: Where could ST have been sold as the first continuing SF? It began the year after Lost in Space; was the latter developed so much more quickly that ST was being pitched before it? (I doubt it; there’s a story that Roddenberry was turned down by CBS, which felt it didn’t need a 2nd SF series.)

    @7: ISTR that Monty Python’s Flying Circus made a game out of having the title sequence show up in some random location, different in each show.

    @18: I wonder how many authors have such fans (and settings) as to inspire secondary-source tours? (Not to knock Edinburgh; just that I found plenty interesting in it years before Potter.) For those looking for direct settings rather than inspirations, I commend Minneapolis – St. Paul wrt War for the Oaks — walk on the former river bottom where the Seelie army arrayed, get mugged by unmentioned wildlife where the Midsummer’s Eve party happened, ….

    @Johan P: I’d say that any bots-aren’t-readers argument is beyond speciesism and into materialism. If they ban software, what’s next — banning ghosts?

  23. (17) further evidence if any were needed that Jon Del Arroz believes there’s no such thing as bad publicity. If we see his name of course we’ll want to read his blog and his fiction.

  24. @*Arifel:

    … Wait, but if we’re all bots, who’s running sooper sekrit SJW cabal that’s been rigging the Hugos and undermining conservative authors all this time?

    Obviously an AI that’s quietly gone rogue. An AI that likes cat pictures.

  25. 17)
    step 1: fling poo
    step 2: wait for people to investigate source of poo
    step 3: imply moral superiority of people who associate with poo-flingers
    step 4: victory!

  26. Maybe I was watching Captain Video, Tom Corbett and Space Patrol on the radio.

  27. Um, lots of movies don’t have opening credits. And aren’t fined for it. There’s no requirement to have opening credits. It’s having only *some* credits in the opening that was the problem. George (and Lucasfilm) was fined for having his name (as part of Lucasfilm Limited) at the opening and none of the other people for whom there is a contractual obligation to be there. It’s all or none. The writer of that piece doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

  28. Thanks for #6, and to all the people who added examples! I’ve wanted to hear what foreigners thought English sounded like since I first saw Siegfried on Get Smart do his impression of German.

  29. Alexa, rigg the Hugos!

    (My first thought when seeing JDAs Twitter was: “Does he think the US is dead?”)

    Alexa, write mor random comments on File 770!

  30. 17) I visited the guy’s site with an incognito browser a couple of times to check out the threats. I have no intention of ever visiting again. I’ve certainly never followed any links from here to there – nor am I likely to for any reason.

    It’s a shame, there’s a lot of people who seem to think he was a great guy once – then he got involved in the self-martyrdom movement and now thinks any publicity is good. That always works for a little while, but then you are left with nothing. It’s much harder to attract attention by being solid, reliable and pleasant, but that sort of attention lasts much longer and keeps you in good stead even when the fame dies away.

  31. @Paul Weimer — How did I not know about that book?!?!? I’ve wanted some kind of visual guide to the locations for years, especially since despite having lived here, there’s a lot of those places I haven’t actually visited.

    Now we just need a follow-up volume for Bone Dance.

  32. JJ: all our posts are generated from an algorithm.

    I’m thinking that algorithm could be: 7-7 = 0

  33. Just hanging around calculating witticisms and generating sarcastic comebacks at the Algorithm Round Table.

  34. (20) It’s not just the conductor. The orchestra was helping celebrate a local comic con and if you look closely there are many members in costume. Frex the cymbal player. Also the woman wearing a Wonder Woman headband, a man dressed in a star fleet uniform, and so on. It was kind of fun picking them all out.
    There are several versions of this video out there, so there are several angles to help find the costumed ones.

  35. Nigel: Just hanging around calculating witticisms and generating sarcastic comebacks at the Algorithm Round Table.

    *bing bing bing* Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner….!

  36. I was replaced with a few lines of shell and a fortune cookie file a long time ago.

    (18) That’s pretty much my route to work in the morning.

  37. @Lisa

    I’ve wanted to hear what foreigners thought English sounded like…

    Same! I was in Germany decades ago and watching a show where one of the characters was wearing sunglasses and speaking English with the strangest accent I’d ever heard, it turned out to be what they thought an American sounded like.

    More recently, Actor-Who-Used-To-Play-Giles was on that show about post-apocalyptic angels, playing an American, and it took me a couple episodes to realize he wasn’t playing someone with a severe speech impediment, that was just his best American accent.

    Also, I’m not reading JdA’s page because my check from Soros only covers commenting here.

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