Pixel Scroll 2/9/17 Scroll-A-Post, Scroll-A-Post, Will You Do The Fendango?

(1) CON CRUNCH. Crunchyroll has announced it will launch a new anime convention called Crunchyroll Expo (CRX). The con will be held August 25-27 in Santa Clara, California at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Assuming CRX is repeated in 2018 on a comparable weekend, it would take place in Santa Clara on the weekend following Worldcon 76 in the San Jose McEnery Convention Center on August 16-20, 2018.

It would be worse if CRX was going to precede the Worldcon (and far worse if it was on the same weekend), but there’s always a question of how much time and money fans in an area have to devote to conventions, and which one they’ll choose.

(2) ALWAYS TO CALL IT RESEARCH. Paste Magazine names “6 Classic Sci-Fi Stories That Inspired This Week’s Supergirl.

  1. Invasion of the Body Snatchers Are your friends and loved ones acting strangely? Are they acting a bit too much like themselves? Are they too understanding, too calm, too patient, too willing to listen to you whine about how they’ve let you down without defending themselves? Bad news, my friend: They’ve been body snatched.

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers franchise encompasses several movies, thematic connections to multiple authors—including Robert Heinlein, whose 1951 novel The Puppet Masters provided the loose inspiration for the film version—and even a Bugs Bunny cartoon. (It’s called Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, and it’s perfect.) All revolve around the paranoia that the people we know could one day be replaced by identical alien life forms with no discernable difference. So when M’gann, Winn, and later Alex turn out to be white Martians in disguise, those feelings of uncertainty and paranoia come straight out of the Body Snatchers bag of tricks.

Originally meant as a metaphor for communism and the Cold War—and, really, when was anything not originally meant as a metaphor for communism and the Cold War—Supergirl ups the ante on Snatchers by taking a more personal route. It’s a horrifying idea: That you could be spilling your most difficult-to-process and embarrassing feelings to a person you think is your closest friend, only to find out that the person literally isn’t who you think he is. Try hard not to think about it the next time you’re talking to your crush.

(3) OUTSIDE THE MILSF BOMB BAY. “Military science fiction doesn’t have to just be about space battles and glory,” says the blurb. “It can examine why we, as a culture, choose to make war—and how we can change.” Elizabeth Bonesteel discusses “The Future of War, Peace, and Military Science Fiction” at Portalist.

…And paradoxically, when we define soldiers as bigger than life, it makes it easier for us to point fingers if something goes wrong. They’re trained. They should know better. It can’t possibly be our fault.

It is our fault. It’s always our fault. War is a choice. But the more we blunt our perception of the people we send to do this work, the easier it is for us to abdicate responsibility for how serious the decision really is.

Fiction of all types is a game of what-ifs. Military science fiction takes a particular angle: What if this was what a futuristic military force looked like? What if this is what it was used for? What is it like for the soldiers themselves? Even the most jingoistic military science fiction puts the reader in the mind of a soldier, and that in itself is a humanizing act.

But I think more than humanizing the soldiers themselves, military science fiction has a role to play in illuminating why we choose war. As with all speculative fiction, the power lies in being able to set up an impossible scenario, and ask concrete questions about it. Government and military can be structured in any way at all, or even be at odds with each other—weapons are, after all, a uniquely dispassionate way of upsetting the balance of power. Add to this a government with complex motives for choosing to deploy their defenses, and you can examine our current society through an infinite number of lenses.

(4) MORE ON WAR. David Brin and Catherine Asaro respond to the question “Can science fiction help prevent a nuclear war?” at PRI.

Long before David Brin became a scientist and author, he practiced duck-and-cover drills in his elementary school classroom. And because the threat of nuclear war hung over his childhood, it has become a big part of his fiction.

“The teacher would be talking away, and suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, say, ‘Drop!’” Brin recalled. “That’s how much time you’d have if you noticed the flash of a nuclear blast.” He was so conscious of nuclear risks that he wanted his own fallout shelter. “I wanted my mother to buy a used tanker car from the railroad, and bury it in our backyard.”

In a recent conversation with Catherine Asaro, a physicist and sci-fi writer, Brin said his most famous book, “The Postman,” brought about a kind of catharsis for him. “I used that book, deliberately, to discharge a lot of the stress of having grown up all my life, wondering — is this the day mushroom clouds appear on the horizon?” Brin said.

…“I don’t think that fear has gone away,” said Asaro, who has written many “hard science fiction” novels about space, technology and the military. In her opinion, readers today are even more aware of the dangers that society faces. But she believes the fear of catastrophe no longer centers on nuclear weapons.

“It’s increased, to the point where it’s not just nuclear winter anymore,” Asaro said. In recent years, many sci-fi writers have explored the dangers of climate change, cyberwarfare and advanced artificial intelligence.

(5) PRATCHETT SPECIAL AIRS SATURDAY. Boing Boing has the story — “The BBC will air a docudrama on Terry Pratchett’s life and his struggle with Alzheimer’s” .

Paul Kaye plays Pratchett in Back in Black, based on Pratchett’s unfinished autobiography; it will air on Saturday.

The doc covers the frustrations, discrimination and discouragement that Pratchett encountered as a working class pupil with a variety of speech impediments, and on what Neil Gaiman called Pratchett’s ‘quiet rage’, which fuelled him to literary stardom and enabled him to write seven novels even as Alzheimer’s stole his mind.

The irreverent trailer hints at a programme that will treat Pratchett with the kind of anger and compassion he brought to his own work and life.

 

(6) ASK HURLEY. Kameron Hurley participates in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session today at 8 p.m. EST, which will be over by the time you read this but the transcript will be online.

(7) JUST SAY KNOW. And Hurley has a new blog post – “Yes, You Can Say No to Your Editor(s)”. Well, if you’ve negotiated your contract correctly…

Listen. I’m going to tell you a secret, which you should already know if you’re a pro writer, but is especially useful for new writers to hear. Nobody tells you what to write in this business. They may say, “Hey, I’d like to see a space opera from you,” or “Hey, you know, the gay guy dies here and that’s not a great trope. Sure you want to do that?” but no one will make you change anything. I mean, if you really can’t come to an agreement, you can publish that shit up on Amazon tomorrow, easy peasy. I know writers who actually argue with their copyeditors in the manuscript comments, and this always makes me roll my eyes. Why are you arguing? You’re the author. It will say in your contract, if you and your agent are diligent, that no changes can me made to the manuscript which you don’t approve of. That’s a pretty standard clause that has been in all of my contracts. Now, if you’re like, “I totally want to load a bunch of typos in this book!” you could also, even, do that for stylistic reasons! I know, it’s amazing.

(8) CRAWFORD AWARD. Charlie Jane Anders has won the 2017 Crawford Award for All the Birds in the Sky.

The award will be presented at the 38th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts taking place March 22-26 in Orlando, Florida.

(9) DS9 REMEMBERED. The makers of a documentary about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are crowdfunding some production costs through Indiegogo. They’ve raised $114,777 of their $148,978 goal with a month to go.

Now, over twenty years later, fans all over the world are rediscovering Deep Space Nine and embracing the show with an enthusiasm rivaling the affection they feel for any other Star Trek series. Critics are even calling the show the Jewel in the Crown and the best of the Star Trek franchise. A devoted sci-fi fan might rightly ask themselves; “What the hell happened?”

Our documentary film, What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, will take a detailed look at this historic series and consider the reasons Deep Space Nine went from a family outcast to a Star Trek mainstay.  The film will also contain a “what if” segment in which the original writers brainstorm a theoretical 8th season of the show.

Spearheaded by original show-runner Ira Steven Behr, directed by Adam Nimoy (For the Love of Spock), and with a handful of key interviews already ‘in the bag,’ the #DS9Doc now needs YOUR HELP to reach completion by finishing filming, editing, and post-production.

(10) TODAY’S DAY

Crack cultural researcher John King Tarpinian assures me this is Pizza Day. Quoting his source —

History of Pizza Day

You can say that Pizza Day started in the 10th century in Naples, Italy. This is when records first show the presence of pizza….

Pizza made its mark on America in 1905. In New York City, a pizzeria called Lombardi’s created the spark that would light hearts across the country from then until now — and with no conceivable end in sight! Amazingly, they are still in business! If you want to taste that first real pizza to hit American shores, head over to Little Italy in Manhattan and check them out.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • February 9, 1928 — Frank Frazetta

(12) FROM PHONE AGE TO STONE AGE. The BBC asks “What if the internet stopped working for a day?”. Sounds tempting to me… And I love that the name of the researcher is “Borg.”

…For a start, the impact to the economy may not be too severe. In 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security asked Borg to look into what might happen if the internet went down. Borg and his colleagues analysed the economic effects of computer and internet outages in the US from 2000 onwards. Looking at quarterly financial reports from the 20 companies that claimed to be most affected in each case, as well as more general economic statistics, they discovered that the financial impact of an outage was surprisingly insignificant – at least for outages that lasted no more than four days, which is all they studied.

“These were instances where enormous losses were being claimed– in the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars,” Borg says. “But while some industries like hotels, airlines and brokerage firms suffered a bit, even they didn’t experience very big losses.”

(13) ENDLESS REPLAY. Be your own “grateful dead” concert. Nerdist reports “A Company Will Press Your Ashes into a Working Vinyl Album”. Sounds like something Connie Willis would list in that section of her GoH speech about things science fiction predicted (that everyone in the audience recognizes it didn’t.)

When the final track of your life finishes playing, how would you like to be remembered? Do you want to be buried and forgotten like a bad solo album? Or would you like to be encased for posterity like a big platinum record? Or maybe you hope to continue being heard, like a legendary musician that lives on forever. Well, if you hope to have your song play long after you’ve left the recording studio of life, there’s a way for that to happen–literally–by having your ashes pressed into a vinyl record.

(14) LATE SHOW SF NAME-DROPPING. While bantering with Paul Giamatti, Colbert reels off a library’s worth of his favorite sf writers – begins at the 6:28 mark in this clip from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS-TV). Authors mentioned include Asimov, de Camp, Dick, Ellison, Heinlein, Kuttner, Niven, Cordwainer Smith, Tolkien, Vance…

(15) BILL IS BACK. And Netflix has got him.

Bill Nye – science guy, educator, mechanical engineer, and curator of curiosity – returns with a new show. Each episode of Bill Nye Saves the World tackles a specific topic or concept through lively panel discussions, wide-ranging correspondent reports from a crackerjack team, and Bill’s very special blend of lab procedure and sly personality.

 

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Petréa Mitchell, JJ, Standback, Chip Hitchcock, Andrew Porter, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Stoic Cynic.]

100 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/9/17 Scroll-A-Post, Scroll-A-Post, Will You Do The Fendango?

  1. @Kip W: ‘east of Fort Collins on Highway 14’ was how you got to the Charco Broiler
    When my wife and I first moved to Boulder (25 years ago, hard as it is to believe that) we used to regularly drive up to Fort Collins just to eat at the Charco Broiler. Fantastic steaks.

  2. When we left Fort Collins, I saw it as a temporary setback. Figured I could endure being away for about a year. That was in 1980.

    But I did get to eat at the Charco Broiler last year, for what may have been the first time. It cost money. I do remember eating at the Tender Steer in the 60s once, which I remember as being affiliated with the C.B.

  3. There was a Filer had a Scroll,
    and Pixel was its name-o.
    P-I-X-E-L
    P-I-X-E-L
    P-I-X-E-L
    and Pixel was its name-o.

  4. One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible pixel.

  5. Hampus’s client query makes me think of the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen R. Donaldson, several of which I read in the 1970s. If I’m not mistaken there were giants, and sickness, and certainly a depressed/depressing feel.

  6. I had a friend from high school who went to college and came back with the crazy idea that sausage and sauerkraut was an acceptable form of pizza. Strange ideas the kids pick up at those expensive private schools.

    I’m really happy to eat bad cheap pizza so I really don’t get to comment too much about what is true pizza.

  7. As I have noted above, and many of you know anyway, I am an expat New Yorker. So I will admit that the place I bring out of towners to for pizza here in the Twin Cities, Pizzeria Lola, is not a true NY Style Pizza at all. It’s a place run by a Korean Family that DOES have a NY slice operation at a different location (although, grr, not enough cheese on em).

    But one of the featured pizzas at Pizzeria Lola has kimchi and Korean sausage as toppings. Reader, I admit to liking it. A lot.

  8. Just wanted to note that few things make browsing so reliably unpleasant as people angrily getting their hate on about genuinely harmless matters of personal entertainment, when I’m slogging through severe depression and all-too-warranted panic about when and how I may end up left to die in the streets after a few more policy shifts. It’s no break from being hated and feared by authorities to be hated and browbeaten for my tastes in junk food, pop music, and the like.

    I’ll try again some other time.

  9. @StephenfromOttawa

    Hampus’s client query makes me think of the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen R. Donaldson, several of which I read in the 1970s. If I’m not mistaken there were giants, and sickness, and certainly a depressed/depressing feel.

    I had forgotten about the sickness that affected the giants, but you’re right; this is probably what he’s talking about.

    @Hampus Eckerman
    Ask if it’s Lord Foul’s Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever #1) and following stories.

  10. @Greg

    I had forgotten about the sickness that affected the giants

    I had forgotten there even were giants, and in fact every other thing about those books except the rapist leper antihero and the rugose dirigible vocabulary.

    I win!

  11. There’s a little pizza joint near my office in Tukwila, WA that has a dessert s’mores pizza.

    They take the pizza dough, sprinkle it with Hershey’s chocolate chips (more on that below) and chunks of graham cracker, and throw it into the wood-fired oven for a few minutes. Once the chocolate has softened, they sprinkle marshmallows over it and throw it back in until the marshmallows are that perfect golden-brown.

    Why Hershey’s chocolate? Because – let’s be honest – while there are (much) better chocolates out there, they are oddly unsuitable for use in S’mores. They’re too sweet or they melt wrong or something.

    This s’mores pizza is much better than you are imagining it to be, too.

  12. @Oneiros: so in ~20 years London has taken a small step forward? I’ll check back in another 20 years, then….

    continuing the controversy, I note that a number of rodizios (“Brazilian barbecue” where they bring the spits to your table) include broiled pineapple, sometimes dusted with cinnamon, sometimes in the regular rotation rather than when you say you’ve had enough meat; this works. OTOH, I admit that there’s a difference between broiled meat and tomato sauce; I’ve never felt an urge to try “Hawaiian” pizza.

    @Lis Carey: IIRC the Neapolitans claim to have invented pizza; I wonder what they’d say about Sicilians trying to define it — especially since IIRC one of the originals had basil leaves so the pizza colors matched the Italian flag’s.

    @Niall McAuley: “And all the Filers rejoiced and said: Long live the Kzin!” (I’ve done the Handel setting twice.)

  13. Oddly, the best pizza I have ever had was from a place in Berlin. Beautiful crust brushed with a little chili oil, thin layer of herb heavy sauce, light mix of mozzarella and pecorino cheese, roasted garlic and hot sopressa salami. I’m not a big fan of the chains that pile on the cheese or make the crust thick enough to be considered a loaf.

  14. @Chip Hitchcock– My grandparents would have said no one cares about the Neapolitans’ opinions because they are The Enemy.

    And they weren’t kidding.

    I believe Neapolitans regard Sicilian opinions as irrelevant because Sicilians are obviously inferior.

    Personally, I stand with my grandparents.

  15. Hampus’ query made me think of Ricardo Pinto’s The Chosen, although I think the protagonist is actually one of the giants (but raised outside their cruellest traditions).

    P.S. there may be another book or series that fits the description better, but I can’t get the back of my brain to spit it up.

  16. One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible pizza.

    Fixed that for you!

    So much pizza und no mention of Snow Crash? The best SF-story, where pizza is mentioned in the first chapter (which totally should be a Hugo-category)

    In Germany we have an unhealthy obsession of putting tuna on a pizza. Thats about one degree more disgusting than pineapple (at least until you tried it. Although I very much prefer pizza with salmon and creme fraiche, which is unfortunately hard to find)
    Generally I prefer the thin italian version to the New York “pizza” (for lack of a better word), but to each its own 😉

  17. Somewhere in the files, this moose has the box from an abomination: a “San Marco Margherita Pizza” that contained (after repeated careful inspection when the first one tasted disgusting) NO CHEESE WHATSOEVER. It listed ‘Cheese analogue (skimmed milk, whey powder… salt.. dried buttermilk)” and “Mozzarella (modified tapioca starch)” among its many iniquities and languished in the deep freeze for several years (while I wondered how to give it a fitting disposal).

    The eventual decision was that it should be ‘blown from the muzzles of cannon”, so it was attached (as a muzzle cover) using duct tape to the 10-inch mortar in our November the 5th display.

    No part of it was ever found.

  18. @NickPheas

    You mean Pizza isn’t usually folded in half, dipped in batter and deep fried?

    Haven’t one of those in ages. Has to be really cheap McCain pizza though. Also in fairness many on the chippies doing them are run by Italian families and normally have a pizza oven too.

    On the other hand round the corner from work by the University library there’s a converted police box selling pizza made in a little clay wood fired oven. Bloody good as well.

    Personally I like making a pizza recipe I saw on the BBC Good Food Show, topped with wilted spinach, instead of tomato, taleggio cheese, anchovies and an egg in the middle.

  19. My search-fu is not up to finding the original query a few days ago, so I’ll answer here in hope it will be useful. Somebody asked about SF stories with Elvis in them; I started Elizabeth Bear’s One-Eyed Jack last night and took a slow-mindedly long time to figure out who one of the characters was.

  20. “Pizza” consists of dough, tomato-based sauce and cheese. That’s it. Period, done, end of story.

    The originators of pizza, somewhere in the lofty reaches of Paradise, are looking down at you and chuckling, wondering what a “tomato” is.

    But they’d be willing to give it a try.

  21. @Bruce Baugh:

    Don’t know if you’ll be seeing this, but I wanted to say that I empathize with your depression and panic. I’m sorry that your entertainment browsing is no longer as entertaining. I hope you find something that can help you self-soothe; you deserve it. Please be kind to yourself.

    I used to say “e-hugs from an internet stranger” at this point, but I’m not really comfortable with hugs. It would really be more of an awkward e-shoulder pat.

  22. Pizza in Science Fiction? Other than Snow Crash, all I could think of were pop cultural ties like

    – Pizza the Hutt in Spaceballs
    – Philip J. Fry got frozen delivering pizzas in Futurama
    – Pizza Planet in Toy Story 2

    Re: Elvis. He might have appeared in Good Omens. Maybe. (Did we already cover this?)

  23. It is highly probable that Elvis appears in Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in the Hitch Hiker trilogy.

  24. While doing research on Elvis via Google, I found a good alternate history for someone. There is an apocryphal story that in 1946, Elvis wanted a rifle or a bicycle for his birthday but got a guitar instead….

  25. I was actually asking about stories with a Church of Elvis.

    Got tons which merely feature Elvis or one of his many clones. 🙂

    As for the Church: I have Walter Jon Williams, Melissa Scott, Bob Aspirin, Mick Farren, Fallout: New Vegas, Nexus, and Dr. Radium, plus the art exhibit in Portland (the last three thanks to helpful filers). More always welcome.

  26. Elvis also appears – although carefully not named – in the books on which True Blood is based. I don’t recall whether he appeared in the show or not, though.

    It’s been ages since I’ve played either one, but the Illuminati: New World Order CCG has a Church of Elvis card – I don’t remember whether that’s also in the non-CCG version of the game, though.

  27. I prefer The Church of the Jack Lord.

    Or any church, sect or cult who worship The Winslow.

  28. I’m something of a pizza purist for pizza which I eat myself (You want to put spam or venison or barbeque sauce on your pizza? Hey, you do you; I don’t judge. But I probably won’t ask to cadge a piece, either…) so I was quite surprised to find that I really, really liked “clam casino” pizza, which I encountered on a visit to Connecticut. Don’t recall exactly what was on it, but it was a white pizza (no tomatoes) with clams and I think spinach and probably green peppers…

  29. Jack Lint, Phil Foglio’s Winslow? I used to know the original Winslow stuffed animal, back when Phil lived in Chicago.

  30. @ Dawn Incognito
    Well said.

    @ Bruce Baugh
    Dawn said it better than I could. Thinking of you, and others with reason to feel the same, and wishing you (all) well.

  31. It’s very sad that Ed Bryant has left us. He was very sick for a long time, poor guy.

    Back in 1975, he was the first Pro I ever met: He came and spoke at the Comic Center, having just sold a story to the (second?) Dangerous Visions anthology, and written the novelization of Harlan Ellison’s original idea for the Starlost.

    Ed was a fixture at Colorado cons, where his presence was invariably welcome. He hosted panels with cordial aplomb. I’m not sure I saw him at all after we left the state in 1980, but I always took a look at his columns in Locus, still feeling the kinship I’d discerned at those conventions.

  32. @Xtifr:
    Well, ‘It’s Science with Dr. Radium’ was done by Scott Saavedra; you’ve sort of mixed authors and works in your list. (The Walter Jon Williams one was ‘Rock of Ages’, wasn’t it? One of the Drake Maijstral books. ‘House of Shards’ was actually my introduction to Williams.) And while I was the one that suggested it back there, I don’t know we ever really saw a Church of Elvis as opposed to Worshippers of Elvis. Granted, the distinction can get into semantics.

    Granted, the amusing part I recall from Rock of Ages was that they went into how many post-death sightings and such you needed to be considered elevated to what was effectively ‘sainthood’ and be considered a worthy subject of worship…

  33. Am I a Philistine for liking Little Caesar’s pizza?

    Well, I do.

    (Also, Kroger’s used to have little single-serving pizzas that you could bake in the oven for 15 minutes. I really liked those. Sadly, they were discontinued. When I found out, I bought up every single one my local store had left and stuffed them in the freezer.)

  34. @Jenora: Church, religion, yeah, it’s all good. 🙂

    And yeah, the Drake Maijstral series is the one that had a Church of Elvis. It was in all three books, though only featured front-and-center in Rock of Ages. Love the series!

    The Melissa Scott example was in Dreamships and its sequel, Dreaming Metal–bizarre, fun, sort of cyberpunkish stories that I was re-reading recently. I’d forgotten about the Church of Elvis in these ones, and it reminded me of Williams and Aspirin (Phule’s Company), which is what inspired me to start hunting down more examples. If I find enough I plan to submit them to TV Tropes…. 🙂

    (And thanks, Bob, for the Illuminati one–I checked Steve Jackson’s website, and it is just the CCG version. But it’s still good.)

  35. In Rome we could get squares of pizza at ‘Pizza Caldo’ stalls throughout the city. And it was a good cheap snack.

    On out first visit to NYC, my wife (who’d been to primary school in New Haven), was intent on revisiting the NY style pizza of her childhood. When presented with a thin sad crust, with circles of salami, each containing its individual puddle of oil, over a bland tomato paste and cheese analog topping, I was distinctly underwhelmed. It was not until we returned and tried out Lombardi’s pizzas (and Frank Pepes in New Haven), that I was converted. I have also enjoyed Chicago’s famous deep pan pizzas (and have to agree that they are rather more like cheese pies).

    For a real tast challenge, try ordering pizza in Iran. Our order from ‘Aseman’s’ takeaway in Esfahan was naturally free of pork. They try with cured beef, but it is not the same.

    As for pinapple, I chooose not to add it to my pizza (and as there are at least 16 non-pineapple varieties at my local pizzeria, I/m prepared to live and let live). i prefer anchovies for the perfect pizza finish! Anyone ever come across one with both pineapple and anchovy?

    When the Scroll meets the eye like a big pizza File, thats a pixel (?)

  36. @Ken I sadly missed Pizza Caldo on my Rome trip…I did have some lovely pizza otherwise, though.

  37. The Happy Joe’s chain in Iowa used to have a Happy Joe’s Special pizza, sauerkraut and Canadian bacon. Quite tasty actually.

  38. bookworm1398 on February 9, 2017 at 7:20 pm said:
    I wonder how the pineapple haters feel about chocolate pizza?

    You’ve got me wondering about the potential of using Pineapple Lumps to make a dessert pizza.

    What are Pineapple Lumps you ask? Why they’re a Kiwi icon.

  39. On the pizza front, I used to think sauce and cheese were absolutely mandatory. One day, while out with a friend, she got a Bianca slice and I was horrified. What was this abomination calling itself pizza? Then she had me try a little. Eggplant, zucchini, artichoke, roasted garlic, olive oil and herbs. (I think rosemary was one.) Yummy yum. That’ll learn me.

  40. If you’re ever in Vincennes, Indiana, go to a place called Bill Bobe’s Pizza (don’t go to Byron Bobe’s, it isn’t the same). Order the sausage pizza. My favorite pizza anywhere. I have literally driven hours out of my way to stop there and get some.

  41. @Xtifr: That’s “Asprin”, with only one I. Not spelled quite the same as the common over-the-counter drug.

    @P J Evans: I return to the SF Bay Area to visit family about once a year. The one thing I insist on doing is a pilgrimage to Zachary’s. I can find something to enjoy in most styles of pizza, but their stuffed pies hold pride of place in my heart.

  42. My favourite pizza is the Stephan’s Feast.

    You know: deep pan, crisp and even?

    I’ll see meself out.

  43. @Dawn Incognito: my circle used to be fond of the Fearless Vampire Killer: a Bertucci’s “Formaggio” (crust, 4 cheeses, nothing else) topped with garlic, garlic, garlic, garlic, and garlic. (That’s what it took to get enough garlic to balance the cheese.) Unfortunately, they dropped the Formaggio some years ago — although I’ve found other places around Boston that will do a no-sauce pizza. (A good thing, as the Boskone loadmaster does not believe in vegetables and mustn’t be left out of the post-load feed.)

  44. Greg Hullender:

    “I had forgotten about the sickness that affected the giants, but you’re right; this is probably what he’s talking about.

    @Hampus Eckerman
    Ask if it’s Lord Foul’s Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever #1) and following stories.”

    Turns out it were books 4-6 of Michael Moorcocks Corum-series.

  45. Belated comment re Church of Elvis: Jack Womack’s Ambient (and I think other works as well.

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