Pixel Scroll 4/16/18 Space-Time Leak In WordPress Engine Room 770. This Is NOT A Drill!!

Scroll time has been squeezed by news writing. Here’s what I’ve got.

(1) THE WORK BEGINS. Bogi Takács’ first review for QUILTBAG+ Speculative Classics at Tor.com: “The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez”.

The Gilda Stories is a Black / Indigenous lesbian vampire novel from 1991; it has recently seen its twenty-fifth anniversary reissue, in an expanded form. Gilda, the vampire heroine of the novel, also appears in a number of standalone short stories—I first came across a Gilda story when it was reprinted in one of the Heiresses of Russ lesbian SFF year’s best anthologies. (Specifically, the 2013 volume edited by Tenea D. Johnson and Steve Berman.)

Gilda is a fascinating character: she uses her superhuman strength and quasi-magical powers to support humans and fight for them, and also to build and defend her vampire family. Despite the grim subject matter, this is a very comforting book. Several of the vampires are genuinely kind—which is even more striking if you consider that the novel was written and published well before the trend of humanized vampires became widely popular. But where did this kindness come from?

(2) PIONEERING. Neil Gaiman and N.K. Jemisin in conversation at Literary Hub: “On Writing the Comics—and Queer Characters—We Need”.

NG: I was asked yesterday, somebody said “Sandman was the first place they ever encountered gay characters, lesbian characters, or trans characters. Would you write them like that now?” Well, no.

NKJ: Things have changed. You’ve changed.

NG: Things have changed. And because now there are lots of fantastic trans people making comics and telling their own stories. And I no longer would go, “hang on, I have trans friends. I am not seeing people like my trans friends in the comics that I am reading. So I am going to put people like my friends in my comics, because that’s reflecting my world.” By the way, if you are a 15-year-old boy in Middle America reading my comic, I want you to meet people that you aren’t otherwise going to meet.

NKJ: Or meet people who you may be yourself and haven’t figured out.

(3) WOTF. Two more threads discussion

Rachel K. Jones does a roundup of recent tweets about WoTF. Thread starts here:

J. W. Alden was a WoTF winner. Jump on the thread here:

(4) READ MOR CHIKIN. I admit it, Larry Correia made me laugh for awhile, before predictably bogging down in culture war clichés. If you can’t abide anything said in defense of Chick-Fil-A, then skip “Fisking the New Yorker in Defense of Delicious Chicken” [Internet Archive link.] As always, his reactions to the original text are in bold.

New York has taken to Chick-fil-A.

HOW DARE THEY?!?

One of the Manhattan locations estimates that it sells a sandwich every six seconds, and the company has announced plans to open as many as a dozen more storefronts in the city.

Keep in mind, New York City has 26,000 restaurants in it. If you ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at a different place every single day, you’d never be able to try them all because by the time you cycled through, there would be a bunch of new ones in business. Plus you’d weigh 800 pounds and need a livestock hoist to get out of bed. (but that’s what delivery is for, quitter!)

I have to travel to New York a lot for my job. The food is the best part of those trips. For my fellow red state hillbilly vagabonds who’ve not been to the food capitol of the world, there are restaurants everywhere. There are restaurants within restaurants. There are secret burger places literally hidden inside hotel lobbies (behind curtains!). And that’s not even getting into the 8000(!) food trucks and carts. So they have sidewalk food in front of their food.

And it’s all pretty damned good, because there’s so much competition that if one sucks and goes out of business, there’s a hundred others lined up to take their place.

(5) SOCIETY PAGES. Congratulations to Declan Finn who announced he’s engaged to be married.

[Thanks to Carl Slaughter, JJ, Mark Hepworth, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, and Andrew Porter, many of whom contributed these stories, or others that would have made it in if I didn’t run out of time. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Stoic Cynic.]

123 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/16/18 Space-Time Leak In WordPress Engine Room 770. This Is NOT A Drill!!

  1. I’ve never heard of Raising Cane, but I see that there are now several here in the Twin Cities. Do they really only only sell breaded white meat chicken? I guess that’s true of Chick-Fill-A, too. I’d much rather see Weinerwald cross the pond with their tasty rotisserie chickens.

    Pawn/Prawn/Porn? It almost makes me want to search for Brits talking about sex and chess and seafood.

  2. Bruce – They only sell breaded white meat chicken strips. Sorta odd but they’re good enough where that’s all they need I guess.

  3. @Hampus: That is okay, I’m very used to americans listening to french with distrust. I learned to get around in French over half a century ago. I don’t “distrust” it; I just don’t find your example backing up your claim. (I’m also assuming you weren’t being deliberately rude in your response….)

  4. I’m also assuming you weren’t being deliberately rude in your response…

    Hampus has a habit of being condescending about Americans, but I don’t think he’s serious about it.

  5. Nah, it was nothing serious in that comment. It was a joke that fell flat, most likely because of the reasons Kurt mentions (if you have been a rude condescending idiot before, it is kind of easy people will assume you are one the next time too).

    If you are not convinced, I’m fine with that.

  6. Jonathan M. on April 17, 2018 at 1:36 pm said:

    Well, if you like Chik-fil-A and don’t want to throw money at them: http://www.cookingcomically.com/?page_id=578

    You are my hero! Not specifically for the Chik-fil-A recipe (huh, looks like they do marinate in pickle juice, or at least the linked recipe so claims) but for reminding me that Cooking Comically exists.

    Never actually had Chik-fil-A before it came out that they actively supported social injustice. Never will now. Doubt I’m missing much.

    Popeye’s is more my jam (my jam is “Popeye’s or GTFO”), and your link inspired me to see if anyone had posted a copy-cat/reverse-engineered recipe for them. Voila! Spicy, and mild.

    I can get Popeye’s up here, but from Boulder the nearest locations are the one in Firestone by I-25 and the one in Broomfield in Interlocken/Flatirons Mall, and neither are a casual drive. (You’d think the Broomfield location would be nearer, but traffic on Hwy 36 is not something one deals with by choice. Not to mention the labyrinthine streets in and around the Flatirons Mall, most of which are named Interlocken Blvd or Interlocken Loop or Interlocken Something (“Mind if we call your Bruce?”). So Popeye’s is generally a reward for having to drive somewhere, at which point it’s a 12-piece box of spicy for snacking out the fridge, just like Mom used to stock up on when I was growing up in Metairie LA, and a gallon of the sweet tea for my husband since that’s what his southern childhood has left him craving.

    There are some good local joints for fried chicken. I’m fond of The Post: Chicken & Beer. But I crave Popeye’s.

  7. s for why that came up, one chap was weaing a T-shirt with a chess pawn and the text “hardcore pawn”. And I eventually had to ask what the pun was, because to me, they sound sufficiently different they’re not even in “pun distance” (and I have a fairly lax definition of what’s punnable, as some may have noticed).

    So, then, we embarked on Science (because everyone was a willing participant, even if it was a human-subject study).

  8. @Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little: “But I crave Popeye’s.”

    I work right across the street from one, which has made my life considerably better, especially since the other folks who eat there have learned I’ll eat as many biscuits as they’ll bring back. And their kids’ meal is one of the few reliable road foods for my kid. Though I must say, the “toys” with Chick-Fil-A kids’ meals were awfully good.

  9. I used to take Sarah out to playgrounds on weekend mornings, and we’d stop for a biscuit or something first, so our choices in Virginia included Chik-Fil-A, Hardee’s, Panera, McDonald’s, and various others. The first two had the best chicken biscuits. I hadn’t had much use for Hardee’s until then (bad experience or two), but I found their chicken biscuits to be quite good, and I’d always liked Chik-Fil-A. Arby’s tried out morning food during that time, and served their sausage patties on the same bun as their other sandwiches of the time (2002–3), which was an abject failure.

    Then we moved, and the first two places vanished from my range entirely. I didn’t find any in Massachusetts or my part of New York. I did find Chik-Fil-A on the route of some of my driving trips and enjoyed that a time or two—it was before it came out about the anti-gay contributions.

    There’s now a CFA in the Rochester metro area, but I haven’t been there yet. I’ve enjoyed Popeye’s, but it has to be very occasional, what with the breading (difference per piece of breaded vs blackened is about 18 grams of fat, and it’s the breading that makes me yearn for it). Even their red beans and rice are a fat vector. We also have one or two Arthur Treacher places, which is nice for now and then.

    The best kids’ meal toys I ever got came from a KFC/Taco Bell by the place where I worked for 16 years. One time it was a Star Wars space craft that uses magnetic hoodoo to float above its base (there is one point of contact at its back, just for stability), which sits in arm’s reach from me. The other is a Feathers McGraw figure—the sinister penguin from THE WRONG TROUSERS—with two shiny eyes and no facial expression. When you push it down onto its legs, those eyes blink. That is all it does. It sits atop the TV, and is not turned toward me.

  10. If we’re expanding the sphere of chicken influence, I would like to mention the following:

    –Peruvian rotisserie chicken
    –Korean Fried Chicken (chains like Bon Chan)
    –Nando’s Peri Peri chicken

    If you can track down Peruvian-style chicken (usually at local chains), you will be greatly rewarded.

  11. @ Kip W.: “Even their red beans and rice are a fat vector.” Yes. A nice fat vector. A vector of great magnitude and many-dimensional direction . A yummy, tasty, irresistible force, destined to fight it out in a lover’s quarrel with the the immovable Pit of Longing that is my belly. And when they win, we all win.

  12. @Rob Having heard about Nandos for years from my UK friends, I got to have some in Australia for the first time. It was delicious. I also discovered I can get their sauce in the ‘international store’ here.

    I would love it if they opened a Nandos around here–I understand there are a couple around D.C. now

  13. Then there’s the L.A. area chicken place Zankou: middle-eastern (Lebanon/Armenia) rotisserie chicken with high-octane garlic sauce.

  14. @Paul Weimer: Yes, I’ve seen a Nando’s in the DC area. I haven’t tried it – not sure it’s my thing, though I do love Crisp & Juicy, so if it’s at all similar, I should just get around to trying Nando’s.

  15. @Paul Weimer – There is a Nando’s near the DC Chinatown gate (by the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro stop, natch).

    @ Kendall: I grew up on Crisp & Juicy (Peruvian) chicken! Tried it late last year and it didn’t seem quite the same, but that’s nostalgia for you. I’ve always thought that El Pollo Rico in Wheaton was better.

  16. @Rob Thornton: I’ve felt for a while now that their chicken’s about as good as ever, but their sauce isn’t. I use the mild (I’m a spice wimp) and it seems to be more mayo and less flavoring than it used to be.

    I’ll have to give El Pollo Rico a shot. I’ve only been to El Pollo Campero (average fast food), not El Pollo Rico. 😉 Thanks.

  17. Once again, we’ve proved that all File 770 discussions end up being about food.

  18. Heh — I notice in all these chicken discussions there has been no mention of Nashville Hot Chicken.

    I don’t eat chicken (or beef or pork), but many “hot chicken” places also sell hot catfish (and sometimes other types of fried fish) — and I do eat seafood.

    It’s a somewhat unique institution, aside from the spicyness of the batter. The classic preparation is to have the fried meat served on a slice of white bread with sliced pickles, and with traditional Southern sides like beans and greens or mac and cheese.

    No big chain stores need apply — only the down-home types can get it right.

    Good stuff!

  19. Hey, I tried Raising Cane’s today. It was pretty good chicken, liked it and will be back. Thanks, Matt. And no, no white glop at all.

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