Pixel Scroll 4/9/16 Little Old Lady Got Nominated Late Last Night

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(1) HERE’S THE PLOT. Ursula Vernon cultivates history in her garden. Read “Sowing History: A Gardener’s Tale” at Tor.com.

When people think of gardeners, many of them tend to picture little old ladies in straw hats with bright green gloves, pottering among the roses.

When people think of gardeners who are also children’s book authors, they go straight to Beatrix Potter and assume that not only are these little old ladies in straw hats pottering among the roses, but they are also greeting the friendly woodland creatures by name—“Hello, Mister Robin! You’re looking very feathery today!” “Why, Missus Tiggywinkle, how have you been?” “Oh dear, that naughty little cottontail has been at my lettuces again!”

Well, I am a gardener and a children’s book author. I am also under forty, tattooed, and the owner of a mostly black wardrobe, and when I greet a happy woodland creature by name, there is an excellent chance that the sentence will end with “touch that and I will end you.”

(2) THE FIRST STAR WARS FANS. The Skywalking Through Neverland podcast discusses “The Early Days of Star Wars Fandom with Craig Miller”.

Our spe­cial guest Craig Miller was the Pub­li­cist and Direc­tor of Fan Rela­tions for Lucas­film dur­ing the hey-day of the 70’s and 80’s. Ever won­der how fans knew what was going on in fan­dom before social media? Whose job was it to tell the world about this new movie called Star Wars? Craig shares some awe­some stories.

 

episod116square Craig Miller

(3) KAMERON HURLEY. Asked where his inspiration came from, lyricist Sammy Cahn said “When the check arrives.” Kameron Hurley’s check has arrived, but she explains what else she needs besides, in “Kameron Hurley: Cultivating Inspiration on Deadline” at Locus Online.

Instead of spending all that time feeling guilty about what I wasn’t doing and scrolling through Twitter, I needed to release myself from the ‘‘I should be writing’’ mentality and let my brain start connect­ing things on its own. I found that the more I actively thought about plot problems, the less my brain wanted to fix them. It kept trying to avoid the problems I’d put to it. For instance, instead of fixing a plot problem on my current book, my brain recently offered up a solution to a subplot problem in the next book I’ll be working on. At some point I have to give in and let my brain make the connections it needs to make, without getting in its way. More and more, I have to let my brain go more than I’m used to, or it just retreads the same old story paths.

I would like to tell you that giving up everything to write is the only way to write. I enjoy spouting that whole ‘‘fall on your sword’’ advice time and time again. Giving up activities that waste your time while you should be writing is beneficial, but I can only burn hard like I have for so long before the flame gutters out. I don’t want to be that writer who just writes the same story over and over again.

(4) A LECKIE FANTASY. Rachel Swirsky’s April 8 Friday Fiction Recommendation is “Marsh Gods” by Ann Leckie.

I’m a fan of Ann’s fantasy universe in which gods must be careful to speak the truth, lest they lose their power. I hope we get longer work in it someday, or at least more. (Publishers: Hint, hint.)

Read “Marsh Gods” at Strange Horizons, or listen at PodCastle.

(5) WRITERS OF THE FUTURE. There was a bit of drama during “Day 5 – Writers of the Future Volume 32 Workshop”.

First up was Liza Trombi from Locus Magazine, the foremost professional publication in science fiction and fantasy literature. She discussed Locus, and then moved on to the vagaries of self-publishing, traditional publishing, and going hybrid. Liza recommended trying traditional publishing before attempting self-publishing. She also mentioned that publishing your first novel is rare, and that the best thing you can do for your future writing career is to always be writing a new book.

Robert J. Sawyer was up after Liza. With fresh copies of Locus in the winner’s hands, Robert took the opportunity to point out that his latest book, while having been well reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly and the Washington Post, was disliked by Locus. And while the book is doing extremely well, the reality is that someone will always dislike your work. He stressed that you should never write to please everyone because you never will. Your job, he says, is to identify what it is you do. You should know what your brand is as a writer, and write to please those people.

(6) WRITERS OF THE PRESENT. The bestselling authors are walking between the raindrops at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend.

Stan Lee kept dry.

Other ornaments to our genre were on hand.

No Scalzi food photo today, but it played an important part on the program.

He also found time to practice his starship hijacking skills, on a modest scale.

(7) BINDER FULL OF LETTERS. Doug Ellis shares a few more historic letters in his post “Otto Binder on H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard” at Black Gate.

In late December 1935, science fiction author Otto Binder moved from Chicago to NYC to represent Otis Adelbert Kline’s literary agency. Among the authors he represented for Kline’s agency was Robert E. Howard. Binder had been to NYC previously, in late June and early July 1935, with his friends Clifford Kornoelje (better known in SF circles as Jack Darrow) and Bill Dellenback.

As I’ve mentioned before, back in 2001 I bought a few boxes of correspondence from Darrow’s estate, including dozens of letters that Binder had written to Darrow over the course of many decades. In going through them last month, I pulled this one and thought I’d post it today.

Once in NYC, Otto quickly resumed his friendships with Mort Weisinger and Charles Hornig, and rapidly met more figures involved in the local science fiction community. Less than two weeks after he’d arrived, he was invited to a gathering at Frank Belknap Long’s place, which was held on Friday, January 3, 1936. Binder and Long were fellow Weird Tales authors, with Binder and his brother, Earl, having sold WT some stories under their Eando Binder penname.

Among the others at the party were Donald and Howard Wandrei, Kenneth Sterling and, most interestingly of all, H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft impressed Binder greatly, as he relates in this letter to Darrow dated January 12, 1936. That would have been some gathering to attend!

(8) HAMPUS, IS THAT YOU? Not a toll-free call! CNN has the story: “The Swedish Number: Random Swedes are waiting to hear from you”.

Are you there, Sweden? It’s us, the world.

To mark the 250th anniversary of Sweden’s abolition of censorship, the Swedish Tourist Association has launched a phone number connecting global callers with random Swedes.

Think Chatroulette meets the United Nations.

Sweden’s new ambassadors don’t receive any training and their time is voluntary. They simply download the Swedish Number app, register their number, and signal their availability by switching themselves on or off.

As for the cost of ringing up, it’s charged as an international call so check with your provider before chatting with your new Swedish buddies late into the night.

There have been nearly 14,000 calls since the service launched on April 6, with nearly a third coming from the U.S. and a fifth from Turkey.

(9) GAME MAKER YIELDS. Crave reports “Baldur’s Gate Developer States They Will Change Trans Character and Remove GamerGate Joke”.

After an inexplicable amount of press was placed upon their team by angry gamers, Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear‘s developer Beamdog has stated that they will be altering the dialogue of transgender character Mizhena in a future update, along with removing a reference to GamerGate.

In the game, which is an expansion to the original Baldur’s Gate, there is a line of dialogue in which minor NPC Mizhena explains the origins of her name, revealing to the player that although being born a boy, she and her parents “came to understand [she] was truly a woman” later in life. This entire exchange, which is limited to four sentences, led to the game being bombarded with negative user reviews online, despite critical reviews of the game being positive. Another point of contention for its detractors was a line at the expense of GamerGate, in which popular character Minsc says “really, it’s all about ethics in heroic adventuring.”

(10) CARPENTER ON GALAKTIKA PAYMENT OFFER. Anna Grace Carpenter, who surfaced the story (“Galaktika Magazine: Theft on a Massive Scale”) expresses her views about Galaktika’s response in “Galaktika Magazine: By Way of Explanation”.

Let me pause for a moment and say that the offer of compensation is a step in the right direction. However, neither Mr. Burger or Mr. Németh have addressed the underlying issue.

This is a chronic and widespread issue of theft. It is not just the stories published in 2015 (of which there are many), but work that was published as far back as 2008….

This pattern is more than a lack of diligence or caution or speed on the part of the publishing staff at Galaktika. It is not an occasional oversight or misunderstanding of previous contracts. This is habitual theft.

Remember that the vast majority of these authors never submitted their work for consideration, there was no implication of giving their permission for the translation and publication of their stories in Galaktika. Rather, their work was copied from other, paying publications online without any attempt to contact the original publisher, editor or author, and then printed for profit in Galaktika. That is not a mistake, that is theft.

Cat Rambo, current president of SFWA, said she is still trying to obtain a copy of István Burger’s statement in English and there are still questions to be answered. (How soon can authors expect to receive payment? Will authors be able to request their work be pulled from Galaktika? Will Galaktika contact all those involved to arrange compensation or will they put the responsibility on the individual to contact them and make a claim?)

And the question remains, what will Mr. Burger and Mr. Németh do going forward?

(11) DRAGON AWARDS DISCUSSION CONTINUES.

Deby Fredericks on “The Dragon Awards” at Wyrmflight.

One of the distinctions I believe Dragon Con is trying to make, is that the existing prestigious awards are decided by a limited number of people — a jury, members of a particular convention or group — while the Dragon Awards will be nominated and voted by all fans. This sounds fair and noble, but I’m remembering that time when DC let fans vote on whether Robin should be killed by the Joker. They were aghast that fans wanted Robin dead. Was the outcome fair? Perhaps. But was it noble?

Already, some in the community responsible for the Hugo Awards Kerfluffle have been heard to gloat that now they will win because no bunch of snobs can vote them down. As you probably can tell, I’m a little tired of hearing privileged majorities play the dismartyrdom card. We’ll all find out in time.

I don’t necessarily agree that SF/media/everything needs another set of awards. However, I do believe Dragon Con is a large enough and inclusive enough organization to credibly present such an award. It will be interesting to see the outcome, and where it aligns or doesn’t align with the other awards.

Brian K. Lowe posted about “The Dragon Awards” at Graffiti on the Walls of Time.

“Another trophy,” you say, possibly enthusiastically, perhaps dismissively, maybe with a touch of boredom. Or maybe you say it with an appraising tone, as do we authors who think, “Hey, there’s another award I can aspire to (and probably never win)…” Regardless of your personal reaction, the awards are here and presumably they’re going to stick around a while. (America’s thirst for awards ceremonies is almost as impossible to slake as its thirst for reality shows, or sleazy political drama. If it ain’t a competition, we’re not interested.)

All of these reactions are quite understandable. What I don’t understand is those who believe that this development somehow spells trouble for the Hugo Awards given out every year by the aforementioned Worldcon.

Cirsova takes the whole thing rather less than completely seriously in “Genrefication and Dragon Awards”.

This isn’t a victory, unless your aim is creating genre ghettos.

In response, I propose an alternative.  If I ever get the reach to make such an endeavor feasible, I will give you the Brackett Awards:

  • Categories will include, but are not limited to, in Long and Short Form:
  • Best Space Princess/Classiest Dame
  • Most Dashing Swordsman/Gunman
  • Creepiest Monster/Alien
  • Most Exotic/Erotic Xeno-hominid
  • Best Explosion
  • Coolest Spaceship
  • Best Empire (domineering, crumbling or otherwise)

Will these categories end up punishing certain books under the SFF umbrella?  Probably, but not the most awesome ones.

Ian Mond says live and let live at Hysterical Hamster.

And a day or so ago Dragon Con launched its own genre awards.  To reflect the size of the con there’s about fifty billion categories ranging from best Apocalyptic fiction (my personal favourite) to Best episode in a continuing science fiction or fantasy series, TV or internet (take a deep breath).  I don’t begrudge any organisation, individual or entity organising and administering their own awards.  More power to them.  Personally though, I think I’ll give this one a miss.

Martin C. Wilsey’s sentiments about “The Dragon Awards” are shorter but not as sweet.

Well it was bound to happen. The Hugo Awards process corruption scandal has finally led to the inevitable conclusion. A new award that has fairness baked in. The Dragon Awards.

–Let’s hope that this award is all about quality of the fiction.

(12) RECAP. I don’t watch Sleepy Hollow so it’s hard to explain how I got sucked into reading this spoiler-filled recap of the final episode. This paragraph will give you the gist of what SciFi4Me felt about it:

Bloody Hell. I don’t know what they are thinking. And I don’t know how a show based on such a flimsy premise could jump the shark, but they did.

(13) DEAN KAMEN. The inventor of the Segway is the son of E.C. Comics’ Jack Kamen. Read about “Inventor Dean Kamen’s Big Ideas” in the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Kamen, 65, is known for coming up with the Segway (the two-wheeled electric vehicle), the iBot (a stair-climbing wheelchair) and a portable dialysis machine. He considers the First Robotics Competition, now in its 25th season, one of his best ideas yet…

In the competition, teams of students have six weeks to build a robot from scratch. The robots must then complete various tasks, working in teams. In this year’s challenge, they have to get through their opponents’ fortifications and take over territory in a space set up to look like a medieval battlefield with castles and towers. More than 400,000 students are competing this year, up from about 100 in 1992. “More and more, kids are starting to see that technology is cool. It’s not for nerds,” he says.

Mr. Kamen grew up a self-described nerd in New York’s Long Island, the son of a comic-book illustrator and a teacher. His engineering career started early; in high school, he earned more than $50,000 a year for designing and installing light and sound systems for musicians and museums.

Mr. Kamen, who is unmarried and doesn’t have children, spends most of his time working. “I get up in the morning, and I start working, then I keep working until I can’t work anymore, then I fall asleep,” he says. His idea of a vacation is going from one project to another when he’s stuck.

(14) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • April 9, 1833: First tax-supported U.S. public library founded, Peterborough, New Hampshire
  • April 9, 1959: NASA introduced first seven astronauts to press.

(15) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born April 9, 1926 – Hugh Hefner.

(16) KEEPING THE HARD IN HADRON. Ladies and gentlemen, the LEGO Particle Accelerator! JK Brickworks says —

This is a working particle accelerator built using LEGO bricks. I call it the LBC (Large Brick Collider). It can accelerate a LEGO soccer ball to just over 12.5 kilometers per hour.

 

(17) A CASE OF PHYSLEXIA. As most of you already guessed, I picked the previous item’s headnote because it references a typo that made news this week.

The BBC get overexcited by the world’s largest atom smasher.

 

(18) ATARI FLASHBACK. RPF Pulse brings us “The Art of ATARI Book Preview Images”.

Co-written by Robert V. Conte and Tim Lapetino, The Art of Atari includes a comprehensive retrospective collecting game production and concept artwork, photos, marketing art, with insight from key people involved in Atari’s rich history, and behind-the-scenes details on how dozens of games featured within were conceived, illustrated, approved (or rejected), and brought to life!

Includes a special Foreword by New York Times bestseller Ernst Cline, author of Armada and Ready Player One, soon to be a motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.

Atari is a touchstone for many people. Their games and game system exposed many to video games for the first time. Whether you’re a fan, collector, enthusiast, or new to the world of Atari, this book offers the most complete collection of Atari artwork ever produced!

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ,and Soon Lee for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

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217 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/9/16 Little Old Lady Got Nominated Late Last Night”

  1. *In high school theater girls typically outnumber boys about five to one.

    In that production of “Bremen Freedom” I mentioned earlier, my second stage husband (since Gesche, the protagonist keeps poisoning them) was played by a girl. We changed the kissing scene to an embrace, because we couldn’t get through it without giggling.

    I remember that at the time I was disappointed that I didn’t get to play Gesche’s execution scene, I just kneel down on stage and the lights go off. Knowing how many things can go wrong, I know why the director made that decision.

    And then there was that farting incident during a production of Max Frisch’s Andorra, which permanently ruined the play (still a high school reading list standard in the German speaking world) for me.

  2. Ugh, Leckie and her SJW stories. How the Hell am I supposed to follow this story with all its genders? This is just too much work.

    Honestly, though, I’d love to read more set in that world, short stories or, better yet, novels. That one short gives just enough hint of the world involved to really whet the appetite.

    RE Baldur’s Gate, I do think a GG joke would kinda suck in the middle of the game. Funny, sure – my simple sense of humor means I invariably find “It’s all about ethics in…” jokes hilarious – but it’d throw me right out of my suspension of disbelief.

  3. Cora Buhlert on April 10, 2016 at 11:10 am said:

    And then there was that farting incident during a production of Max Frisch’s Andorra, which permanently ruined the play (still a high school reading list standard in the German speaking world) for me.

    Please tell me the next line was “Ich bin nicht schuld”….

  4. I remember several bats swooping the stage during the carnival scene in Sweet Charity. At first the audience thought we rigged birds to fly around. Until they started to dive – bomb the audience.

    Then there was the time I was running lights for a production of Two By Two and half the breakers flipped in the fuse box, cutting power to the light booth during a song.The actors carried on without missing a beat, bless them, though they did stop dancing until we could rig a follow spot.
    As the fuse box was only accessible by raising a section of seats, I had to grab a ladder and climb through a 3rd story window into the maintenance room to flip the breakers during a scene change. As I had to scale the brick for a fee feet to get to the window, I was stuck there until the show was over, giving my light cues to the sound guy over a cellphone.

  5. the zucchini fruit grows to about the length of my little finger, then turns yellow and withers away

    First thought: Squashes have both male and female flowers, and without male flowers (and the insects that visit them) the fruits won’t develop. (Male flowers have a stem that isn’t a baby squash.) The male and female flowers don’t start opening at the same time in the spring, either.
    (Male squash flowers can be stuffed and eaten, and if there aren’t any female flowers, this is a Good Thing.)

  6. In a college production of Dracula (I was Renfield), the actor playing Dracula was supposed to make a cigarette disappear with some kind of device that would snap it up inside his sleeve. One night it either didn’t work or he didn’t have it, so he just put the cigarette out on the palm of his hand. The burn took weeks to heal.

  7. I was in a play and accidentally set off a flash pot in the middle of an otherwise quiet scene. My heart was pounding so loud I almost couldn’t hear the other actors, but I had to pretend that nothing had happened. And as soon as I could disappear out of sight of the audience, I was silently begging forgiveness from the tech crew.

  8. Dawn Incognito said:

    In other news, watching KAGEWANI, and hooooooly shit it’s neat! Awesome kaiju design and very interesting animation style.

    Yay!

    …but now I have to come up with a different candidate for Best Current Anime That No One Is Watching, since someone else is watching it.

  9. Dad related to me that in a rehearsal for a college production of Don Giovanni (in which he was playing the pit harpsichord), Giovanni was abusing his servant, Leporello. He struck him a little too vigorously this time, and when Leporello fell to the ground, his wig fell off. He went right to his next line, “O! My head is broken!” It was such a success they considered leaving it in the show, but it was a little too unreliable as a special effect.

  10. My one odd experience in theater was more about the aftereffects. In first grade, I was typecast as one of the three Wise Guys, er, Men, in the Nativity pageant. My mother apparently went to some effort in making my costume, so when day of show I moaned about not feeling good and not wanting to do the show, her reply was that her effort was not going to go to waste and I would be doing that show.

    When school started up again after the Xmas holiday, for the first week or so I was one of very few people in attendance. Y’see, I’d finished over break having and getting over the chicken pox I was coming down with day of pageant, while the rest of the class I’d infected there were still down with it.

  11. Yup! Stunted yellow zucchini is pollinator problems. It’s not you, it’s the bugs!

    Interplant pollinator-attracting annuals and that should help, if it’s JUST you. (In some far north climates, a succession of thaws and hard freezes can seriously nuke the pollinators and then the whole year is bad.)

    ETA: And if you edged with marigolds, get rid of them.

  12. @Petréa Mitchell:

    Moo hoo ha ha 😉

    But seriously, I’m pretty sure KAGEWANI was added to the Queue O’ Doom on your recommendation, so thank you!

  13. There are four or five Leckie stories in that world with gods. I found most of them through her blog. All worth reading

  14. At a production of Waiting For Godot, there was a very loud rumble of thunder outside the theater, and the stage went dark.

    After about fifteen seconds, one of the actors said, in a tremulous voice, “What do we do now?”; and the other replied, “We wait.” Soon, the lights came back on and they resumed.

    It took me a couple of days to realize that was an ad lib.

  15. -Chip Hitchcock; I saw that show on Great Performances! JUGGLE OR DIE!

    An award with fairness baked in? I’d like one with cinnamon, maple syrup, and walnuts baked in, please.

  16. The most spectacular scenery fail I’ve seen was when my mother and I went to see Götterdämmerung at the Metropolitan Opera (Mom is a big opera fan). During the last scene the Hall collapses dramatically, and on this occasion, it collapsed prematurely onto the soprano, Hildegard Behrens. It was pretty shocking. She survived, but was injured. It’s a good thing it wasn’t really made of stone, that’s all.

  17. Kip W on April 10, 2016 at 9:02 am said: Now quit your kidding before one of us humorless types takes you seriously.

    Kip, meet some fellow filers:

    Isabel Cooper on April 10, 2016 at 8:56 am said: So transgender people are the equivalent of phlegm in food to The Phantom?

    Aaron on April 10, 2016 at 9:04 am said: You know, it would just be quicker if you told everyone up front that you’re a complete asshole.

    Those were the two comments bracketing yours. Tell me again about the open minded thing, I’m not getting it.

  18. Not a scenery fail, but one of the worst production fails; I’ve ever seen came in a production of the York Mystery Plays.
    These are mediaeval plays, stashed every few years by a largely amateur cast and crew.
    In this production Herod’s soldiers were black clad paramilitaries. When they came pub for the slaughter of the innocents there were sirens and red flashing lights as the babies were dashed to the ground.
    After that there were a half dozen fit young men entirely dressed in black, and there were several points during Jesus’ preaching and crucifixion where stuff needed moving about. Obvious huh?
    Except that who’ve was running the sound and lighting board had their set of queues and was going to stick to it. Instead of unobtrusive scene shifters setting up the garden of gethsemene, he saw Herod’s thugs and so the flashing lights and sirens came out again. This happened three times!

  19. how about an audience fail?
    I was watching Jesus Christ Superstar (1st run, Broadway) and about five rows down from me was a guy wearing a turban. It wasn’t a turban, it was bandages that slowly became blood soaked as the performance went on. He (and I presume nurses) left about halfway through. (Props for wanting to see the show that badly!)
    It was, to say the least, distracting. We’d watch the play and check progress during slow moments.

  20. Please tell me the next line was “Ich bin nicht schuld”….

    Personally, I blame my Mom and her insistence on serving pea soup for lunch (German pea soup is more like mushy peas in Britain) on the day of the play. The effect was quite explosive.

  21. Call me cynical, but I’m reading KJA’s statement as “I liked the fact that I got a Hugo nomination last year thanks to shenanigans, and so I’m looking forward to maybe winning an award that’s even easier to manipulate.”

    I would like the Crimson Marsupial to rant more often about gardening, be it potato species or lawn lobsters. I mean, anything. She makes zucchini interesting.

    I read “All the Birds in the Sky” and it is pretty depressing till the deus ex machina ending. However, the writing is just beautiful. So many wonderful turns of phrase, both poetic and LOL. And much gentle satire in the details.

    (9) Feh. Somewhere the bean counters and PR dorks overruled the creatives. IF (and that’s a big if) they give the transwoman better dialogue, I’m fine with them losing the one snarky gator referencing line.

    In our production of “Fiddler”, the bagels had to be shellacked so the actors wouldn’t eat them between performances. We also didn’t have a stage fogger, so the dream sequence had to be done with dry ice. The pit musicians threw on coats during that scene as the freezing fog plummeted upon them. (They were inundated)

  23. Playing third wise man in school nativity play, and didn’t know why there was so much giggling in the audience, until I noticed that Mary had dropped the doll standing in for baby Jesus and there was a huge dent it’ll it’s plastic head.

    Also, saw a few years back an otherwise unmemorable play in which the female lead had to jump seductively onto a bed. Since she was wearing satin pyjamas and the bed had satin sheets, she slid right across and fell off the other side. She was not amused.

  24. In college I was a stage hand for a production of Much Ado About Nothing. One night they slapped the fellow playing Borachio so hard, his (fake) mustache came half off. The following night they hit the fellow Conrad wrong and caused his nose to bleed. (Which he didn’t take very well. They had to sit through the rest of the scene, during which he complained in a not-so-very stage whisper “I think my nose is broken” while he slowly dripped blood on the stage.) We had to run out during the scene break in the dark and try and wipe it up.

  25. BG

    That one reminds me of the unfortunate events in Tosca: one evening a particularly Rubinesque singer was taking the title role and dramatically hurled herself over battlements.

    Unfortunately the stage crew had not thought this through, and had added more bouncy stuff as more protection for her; which is why the rest of the opera was punctuated by Tosca’s arrival and departure above the parapet…

  27. Yay more catching up!

    Death of Robin: Logic would seem to dictate that the “Robin lives” version of the story was finished and ready to roll. I’d like to see a deluxe edition of the trade paperback one day that includes that alternate ending.

    Baldur’s Gate: Looking at the full name of the expansion, is it totally unfair that I now want to refer to the anti-Mizhena faction as the SoD Puppies? More seriously, I’m unsettled by this bit of the Crave article:

    [Responses included] a video of a player killing her after placing down a “Detect Traps” spell that was shared by those who protested her appearance in the game

    For those who lack the context to grok how vile that is (not the article, but the referenced video), this Urban Dictionary link should explain it adequately.

  29. Mr. Glyer (or anyone more familiar with the etiquette of File 770 than myself), I’d like to ask people to help support a kickstarter project, but I’m affiliated with the publisher and am therefore not sure if doing so would be in poor taste/not allowed under the rules of the blog. May I post a link here or should I not?

  30. @Stevie – that’s hilarious.

    On a more serious note, some friends of mine once saw Hugo Weaving almost strangled to death in a production in Sydney. The prop rope failed and unfortnately Weaving is such such a good actor, none of his cast mates noticed the difference between his pretending to be strangled and his actual choking to death until he started turning purple. Apparently, he had to wave to the audience after his ‘death’ just to assure the crowd that he was ok, and got a round of relieved applause.

  32. Complete side note:
    One of the fake IDs used in the Panama Papers was Isaac Asimov.

  33. Phantom (posted and deleted)
    I was going to offer a clue, but will honor your decision to skip out on your comment.

  36. @Kip W

    Phantom (posted and deleted)
    I was going to offer a clue, but will honor your decision to skip out on your comment.

    Obviously it was a phantom post! 🙂

  37. I have it on reliable authority this will not be submitted as a Scroll title suggestion — “4GW Good, SJW Bad.”

  38. The Phantom: Tell me again about the open minded thing, I’m not getting it.

    I am mystified as to where you got the mistaken idea that “open-minded” meant “willing to tolerate racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, or transphobic remarks”.

    I would suggest that you stop listening to whoever told you that, because they are making you look really, really bad.

  39. @JJ – ‘If you do not tolerate my intolerance, then you are the truly intolerant one’ is one of the stupidest arguments ever, but I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.

  40. It’s moot, since “open-minded people” was a sarcastic reference to the folks who complained about the trans character and GG paraphrase. Phantom, in short, is being sniffy over a point he missed completely.

  41. Kip W: It’s moot, since “open-minded people” was a sarcastic reference to the folks who complained about the trans character and GG paraphrase.

    Phantom’s response to the people who were disgusted by his transphobic remarks was that they were not “open-minded”.

  42. Did a troll miss the consequences of participating on File770 again? If you troll and say something nonsensical here you’ll be mocked and insulted. It’s got nothing to do with being open or close minded. It’s all in how you present your point of view/argument. We tend to do the same to anyone who says something nonsensical here. We mock and insult more if you are a repeat offender and/or double down.

    Want to be treated with respect? Say smart things. Link to sites which really do support what your saying. Cite your sources. Don’t be a jerk. Don’t act like a troll. Share your love of things more than your hate. Don’t be a drive-by insulter. Don’t argue at a 5-year-old level.

    Me I wish filers wouldn’t feed the trolls. But even I occasionally throw some popcorn their way.

  43. Tell me again about the open minded thing, I’m not getting it.

    Well, the problem is that you don’t understand what being “open-minded” means. This is not surprising, since you don’t seem to know what a lot of things mean. You seem to think it means being willing to accept anything at all, no matter how ridiculous or idiotic it may be. It doesn’t. It means being willing to consider things on their own merits, and attempting to set aside prejudices and biases as much as possible when doing so.

    We’ve considered your transphobic remarks on the merits, and found them wanting. Consequently, we’ve evaluated your character and found it shitty. You see how that works?

  44. @Mike Glyer

    I have it on reliable authority this will not be submitted as a Scroll title suggestion — “4GW Good, SJW Bad.”

    What a relief. More drinking to world peace?

  46. Best lighting fail recovery I’ve seen in theater: A local community theater was doing a Poe-themed play (written by a local author) called “Nevermore,” which was a sort of anthology of several Poe’s better-known short stories.

    During one performance (which was in the round, performed in an old Masonic temple, because the troupe didn’t have a permanent performance space and that was the space they could get for it) there was a violent thunderstorm. About a third of the way into the show, the power went out, and the place went jet black. There was no emergency lighting in the place. After a brief pause and some quick scrambling by the running crew, the running crew all ran out with flashlights and did ad-hoc flashlight lighting for the rest of the performance. (And then escorted the audience out with flashlights afterwards. The power outage lasted for several hours.)

    It was actually rather appropriate lighting given the subject of the play, and since the running crew had all seen the play several times, they did a pretty effective job with their flashlights….

  47. Nice timing, as my dinner conversation tonight included me mentioning the time I dated a guy who didn’t believe in climate change, and the phrase “I was going through an unfortunately open-minded period at the time.”

    My mind, like my door and my vodka bottle, may be open a good deal of the time–but I’m never going to be ashamed of closing it under the right circumstances.

  48. JJ
    Yes, and putting it in quotes, as he did, implies that it’s something I said, and since I bloody well didn’t, he missed that boat.

  49. Open-mindedness: The dean of students at my first university had a saying I hated at the time for which I’ve come to have some appreciation. I’m not certain I could phrase it as he did all these years later, but the gist of it was the the more you knew, the less open your mind would be.

    Lighting Fails: The Poe one reminds me of a choir performance at the church camp my kid and I attend. The performance was at nine, and at three o’clock that day, I was made aware of an emotionally intense dispute among people I had some responsibility for, all of whom I was very fond of. I had an intense five hours focused on the dispute and then a decompression/debriefing over dinner. This was in Oklahoma, in a lodge on a small point protruding into a large lake, and as it was an Oklahoma summer, there was a thunderstorm moving in. This one took out the power about fifteen minutes before the concert started. No backup.

    I became busy then, because alarms were going off and hall doors were locking shut and kids were freaking out and thus I was a little late to the concert, which was a little late starting. The choir had set out a lot of those electric votive candles on the tables on the floor in front of the stage, which let us see them a bit, and they all had little flashlights and cell phones to read their music. Behind them and to either side, the walls were mostly windows. So I ended my apocalyptic day watching a choir kick ass by electric candlelight and lightning strikes. It was a great end to a stressful, rewarding, hellish day.

  50. Okay, I’ve got to contribute a lighting/power fail from way back.

    When Caddyshack 2 came out, I went to the local movie theater to see it. If you’ve seen the movie, or even have a little common sense, you know that the plot builds to one critical attempt to sink a shot. So there we are, the camera tight on the golf ball as it rolls along the green…

    …and the power goes out. And stays out.

    Not just in the theater, nor even in the mall containing it, but across at least the surrounding couple of blocks.

    Naturally, refunds were issued, but I wasn’t motivated enough to go back and sit through the first hour-plus of the movie just to see the last few minutes.

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