Pixel Scroll 5/14/18 They Took Some Pixels, And Plenty Of Scrolls, Wrapped Up In A Five Pound Note

(1) SUDDENLY THERE CAME A TAPPING. Seattle Times headline: “Ripples in space-time or 3-pound bird? Ravens at Hanford foul test of Einstein’s theory”. Ravens are interfering with measurements at LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) which helped find the first confirmed gravitational waves.

For the LIGO observatory on Washington’s Hanford site, noise is a real buzz killer.

Any earthly sound — a truck rumbling past, the humming of a refrigerator in a nearby building, or the distant flutter of a plane’s propellers — can drown out the faint whispers from the cosmos that the Nobel Prize-winning project was designed to detect.

So when strange blips in the data started cropping up on summer afternoons, researchers were anxious to find the source and eliminate it.

“Any other noise makes it harder to hear the thing you’re listening for,” said University of Oregon physicist Robert Schofield, whose job is to ferret out racket from the environment and reduce its impact on some of the most sensitive instruments ever built.

…The glitches at Hanford corresponded to sounds recorded by a microphone installed by Schofield and his colleagues as part of their endless quest to detect and stamp out noise.

…It didn’t take long for Schofield to identify the prime suspect once he listened to the recordings. “It sounded like pecks to me,” he said. “I immediately thought it must be ravens.”

(2) DOCTOR NEW. What she told Radio Times: “Jodie Whittaker on filming Doctor Who: ‘I smile every single morning going to work’”.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever done before, it’s absolutely incredible,” she said. “I must smile every single morning knowing I’m going to work to do it, I’m very lucky – it’s brilliant.”

We’re still in the dark as to what form the new series will take following Chris Chibnall taking over from Steven Moffat as showrunner, but the star assures us that it’s likely to be even bigger and bolder than what has come before it. Whittaker and Walsh will also be joined by new stars Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill. The ten-episode series is expected to air this autumn on the BBC.

“It feels incredibly epic,” Whittaker said. “The ambition is wonderful, and something we’re fighting every day to have the energy to back it up with.”

(3) FUTURE IS ON THE WAY. Alex Shvartsman will launch a new sf magazine tomorrow: “Announcing Future Science Fiction Digest”. It will be free to read online.

This bit of news has been six months in the making, but I can finally announce that I will be editing a science fiction magazine, to be published in collaboration by UFO Publishing and the Future Affairs Administration. The magazine will focus on various science fiction sub-genres (hard SF, space opera, cli-fi) but will not include fantasy or horror. There will be a strong focus on international fiction. I’ll be looking to fill about half of each issue with translations and stories written by authors from non-anglophone countries.

Although the magazine will feature original (to anglophone readers, anyway) fiction, I’ve put together a sample “issue zero,” to be released in time for the Nebulas and the Asia Pacific SF Con organized by the FAA. This issue features all-reprint stories with different takes/visions of the future, which also happen to be representative of the sort of material I hope to acquire and publish in the future.

The magazine’s website goes live Tuesday, May 15 at www.future-sf.com.

(4) MEET HENRY LIEN. Juliette Wade hosted a video hangout with Henry Lien about his new fantasy novel: “Henry Lien and Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword. You can read a summary on her blog, and/or watch the conversation on YouTube. (I was excited to hear more about his writing, having already become a fan through his composition “Radio SFWA.”)

…Henry explained that he loves rules. School is an environment girdled all around with rules to keep people from misbehaving, so it’s a setting he loves to work in. Students at the wu liu school are not allowed to do any moves outside of class, or they will forfeit their next examination. This is a key element of the plot of Peasprout Chen.

In particular, he says he wanted a fantasy world with no magic. George R. R. Martin consulted with him on aspects of it. Everything is grounded in real world experience, including the constant threat of injury that has grave consequences for the students. Even a bad wrist can knock you out. Henry himself got injured at one point during his training because he had become frustrated when another student did a kick the first time. Henry tried the same jump and tore his hamstring; he said it looked like someone had cut him.

Danger creates good stories. Ambition is a characteristic required by the sport.

Henry quoted a line from Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell: “Don’t talk to me about magic. It’s like everything else: full of setbacks and disappointments.” If this is the way your work seems, then whenever you achieve something, it feels like a huge accomplishment! Peasprout Chen’s life is full of cultural landmines and danger, but when she does something cool, we cheer….

(5) BEYOND BECHDEL. IndieWire covered this story in December: “Lena Waithe, Kimberly Peirce, and More Women Introduce 12 New Bechdel Tests to Measure Gender Imbalance”.

FiveThirtyEight recently asked 12 women to come up with new gender imbalance tests, including actress and Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe, filmmaker Kimberly Peirce, cinematographer Jen White, and actress Naomi Ko. The new tests demand more gender equality from film and television, both in front the camera and behind the scenes.

In order to pass the Waithe Test, for instance, a movie or show must feature a black woman who’s in a position of power and is in a healthy relationship with her partner. Only five of the top 50 films of 2016 pass the Waithe Test: “Bad Moms,” “Central Intelligence,” “Hidden Figures,” “Boo! A Madea Halloween,” and “Independence Day: Resurgence.”

Here’s more direct from FiveThirtyEight: “The Next Bechdel Test” – “We pitted 50 movies against 12 new ways of measuring Hollywood’s gender imbalance.”

Another example: The Feldman Test

Rachel Feldman: director; former chair of the Directors Guild of America’s Women’s Steering Committee

A movie passes with a score of five or higher:

  • 2 points for a female writer or director
  • 1 point for a female composer or director of photography
  • 1 point for three female producers or three female department heads
  • 1 point for a crew that’s 50 percent women
  • 2 points if there’s a female protagonist who determines story outcomes
  • 2 points if no female characters were victimized, stereotyped or sexualized
  • And 1 point if a sex scene shows foreplay before consummation, or if the female characters initiate or reciprocate sexual advances

(6) NICHELLE NICHOLS. A TMZ story about Nichelle Nichols reports “Judge Grants Conservatorship After Dementia Claims”

‘Star Trek’ actress Nichelle Nichols will have a new team handling her financial affairs in response to her son’s claims she’s battling dementia … TMZ has learned.

According to court docs, an L.A. County judge signed off on Kyle Johnson’s request to have 4 fiduciaries be his mom’s conservators until mid-August, when there will be a court hearing. The hope is Nichelle will be able to attend that hearing.

As we first reported … Kyle says his mother, who famously played Lt. Uhura, suffers from severe short-term memory loss, and needs court-ordered protection to block people from taking advantage of her.

In the docs, obtained by TMZ, the judge said Nichelle consents to the appointment of her conservators. The judge also noted Nichelle is currently out of state.

(7) KIDDER OBIT. CNN reports “Margot Kidder, ‘Superman’ actress, dead at 69”:

Kidder starred opposite Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent and his alter ego Superman in the original [1978] film as well as the three sequels: “Superman II” in 1980, “Superman III” in 1983 and “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” in 1987.

She also starred in “The Amityville Horror” in 1979 and worked steadily in television and on stage.

After three marriages and thousands of dollars in medical bills, Kidder found herself homeless in 1996 as she struggled with bipolar disorder.

Her story grabbed the hearts of fans and Hollywood with many reaching out to help Kidder, who eventually got back on her feet and went on to become a mental health advocate.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY MOGULS

  • Born May 14, 1944 – George Lucas
  • Born May 14, 1951 – Robert Zemeckis

(9) REMEDIAL CLASSWORK. Alexandra Erin is refreshing the recollection of some Twitter users who proved unfamiliar with the Sad Puppies events as they really occurred in this timeline. Jump on the thread here:

(10) SPACE SPRITZ. Analysts are catching up with the data collected by space probe Galileo: “Icy Moon Of Jupiter Spews Water Plumes Into Space”.

Scientists have new evidence that there are plumes of water erupting from the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa — plumes that could, maybe, possibly contain signs of life.

The evidence comes from data collected by the now-defunct Galileo spacecraft. Although the data has been available since it was collected in 1997, it’s only now that an analysis confirms the existence of water plumes.

For more than two decades, scientists have been convinced Europa has a liquid water ocean sloshing around beneath its icy outer crust. In the past six years, two teams of researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope reported the possible existence of plumes. But as powerful as Hubble is, seeing something as small as a plume on a moon more than 380-million miles away is difficult.

(11) DROP BY ANYTIME. NPR has the story: “Tardis Optional: Time Travelers Invited To Stephen Hawking Service” — repeat of an old Hawking test/gag?

Stephen Hawking’s ashes will be interred at Westminster Abbey this June. He’ll take his place among giants — between Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Applications to attend a Service of Thanksgiving are open to the public, and anyone — including people born in 2038, can apply. A thousand spaces are available.

…The time warp in the memorial service application was first spotted by London blogger IanVisits. He writes on his blog that Hawking had once thrown a party for time travelers, sending out invitations after the fete, to see if anyone would show up. Spoiler: no one did, yet.

CATCHING UP WITH SOME EXCELLENT BLACK PANTHER THEMED LINKS COURTESY OF ROBIN A. REID:

(12) AWESOME TECHNOLOGY. In May 2016, Popular Science did an “Entertainment” feature on the technology of Black Panther. Xavier Harding interviewed artist Brian Stelfreeze in “‘Black Panther’ Has The Coolest Tech In The Marvel Universe”.

Popular Science: There’s a lot of great tech in the world of Wakanda. Where does your inspiration for it come from?

Brian Stelfreeze: I think when you’re being creative, you still attach it to reality somehow. I grew up in a small town in coastal South Carolina. Where I’m from, the people are known as Gullah people. They’re some of the first freed slaves that lived on their own, without being attached to the rest of the U.S.

They kind of developed their own culture, so they do things a little bit different. Growing up in that area and going to the rest of the world, I noticed things were just slightly different. Seeing my first pile driver in real life I thought, “Oh, that’s like what my uncle built out of tree stumps to dig wells.” So I thought, “what if that happened over thousands of years? How could technology evolve?”

Popular Science: So how does that compare to T’Challa and the people of Wakanda?

Brian Stelfreeze: I think of Wakandan technology as organic technology. Most of their tech mimics nature because it comes from nature. Wakanda was a tremendously warring nation, with a very feudal time early on. But after a while proper borders were established, which ushered in a time of peace. Peace time shifted concerns from war to agriculture, from agriculture to early days of knife and spear-building to developing exotic materials. Rather than coming from industry, Wakandan tech came from agricultural needs—using organic tech to build machines.

But a lot of this stuff is in the background. Like the flying vehicles you see in Wakanda designed like a flying animal. And even when readers may not directly see it, I want them to feel it.

(13) SIX GOOD REASONS Cherokee Washington explains “Why The Black Panther is So Important To The Black Community”  for Odyssey in June 2016.

In 2002, Marvel studios graced the world with the first superhero blockbuster film; “Spiderman.” Following suit with “Spiderman 2,” “Spiderman 3,” and two spin-offs of the series, Marvel went on to create one of the largest Hollywood franchises in the world, telling the stories of a hand full of the comic book company’s most popular heroes. Today, amongst the many Iron Man and Avenger films, one hero in particular has recently been added to the mix; the Black Panther. It may not sound that exciting or important to the general public, but the introduction of the Black Panther is a momentous event for the Black (and comic-lover) community. Not only is he a bad ass superhero, but he’s one of 10 or so major Marvel characters who identifies as Black, something that would’ve been unheard of back in the day. Making his first appearance in the 52nd issue of the Fantastic Four comic books, Black Panther has shifted back and forth in the limelight, falling behind other heroes such as Captain America and the X-Men. Fortunately, Marvel has decided to push Black Panther more into the centerfold with the rest of his comrades by giving him a cameo in the newest “Avengers: Civil War” film and announcing the “Black Panther” film’s release in 2018. With that said, I thought it appropriate to list a few reasons as to why the Black Panther character is so important not only to me, but to my community. He’s a symbol of more than justice; he’s a symbol of pride, hope, and so much more. Here it goes…

(14) BREAKDOWN! You’ve seen the trailers, but have you seen the trailer breakdown by Jacob Hall: “Black Panther Trailer Breakdown: Welcome to Wakanda”. Posted in June 2017 on Slashfilm.

The Black Panther trailer feels like a breath of fresh air in an environment crowded with superhero movies – no comic book adaptation has ever looked like this. Heck, no movie has ever looked like this. Even with a few familiar Marvel Studios trappings on display, Ryan Coogler’s movie looks to blend superheroes and afrofuturism and all kinds of intrigue into something…well, new.

And if you’re new to this corner of the Marvel universe (or just want to take a closer look), we went through the trailer frame-by-frame for an extended breakdown. Join us, won’t you?

Frame by lovely frame!

And, if you want to look at the trailer again after the breakdown, here you go:

(15) CRYING EYES. Alan Jenkins gets geeky and weepy and happy about Wonder Woman and Black Panther in this piece published in Ebony in July 2017: “Black Panther, Wonder Woman and the Power of Representation”.

My theory is that audiences are being moved by the overwhelming power of symbolism.  We are not used to seeing people of color and women on the big screen who are powerful, triumphant, and heroes of their own story.  The most emotionally powerful moments in each film are those that use the power of symbols to break away from social stereotypes.

As in the Black Panther comic book, the film’s characters are everything that a century of cinematic Black and African characters have not been.  They are regal.  They are brilliant.  They are gorgeous.  They are the future as well as the past.

(16)  REVOLUTIONARY!  “Black Superheroes Matter: Why a ‘Black Panther’ Movie Is Revolutionary”, by Tre Johnson, in Rolling Stone, October 2017, puts the upcoming film in the historical context of American film and comics representations of heroes.

The novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about “the danger of a single story” – about Africa, about black brilliance, our humanity and the black experience for too long. There would never be a time when this movie’s creation wouldn’t mean something to black people in particular, and the inevitable backlash that this movie will receive for its celebration, existence and confidence in blackness will be a reminder that there are no new conversations, merely new opportunities to remind us of who we collectively are. Yet that won’t matter because the people this movie will speak most deeply to – a rainbow-coalition cross-section of black comic book readers, African-American movie audiences, Boseman/ Jordan/ Bassett/ Nyong’o fans, black-culture connoisseurs and pop-culture nerds – will see something of themselves in this movie. They will also likely be both familiar and resistant to the disdain it will receive for merely existing. Like anything black in America, Black Panther will be politicized for being black, which is to say for being and for announcing itself as a having a right to be here and to be heard.

(17) AFROFUTURISM. Mic, a digital news media site, discussed the revolutionary Afrofuturistic elements of Black Panther in December 2017 in  “‘Black Panther’ isn’t just another Marvel movie–it’s a vision of a future led by blackness”.

Wakanda is more than just a fun spectacle; it represents something much more magnificent and powerful — a version of Africa unaffected by the external world, one that was allowed to pursue its own march toward spectacular progress.

When the most recent trailer for the movie was released in October, people weren’t just excited, they were jubilant. Now, it’s an event pretty much every time there’s a new Marvel movie but — no disrespect to Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, etc. — those blockbusters don’t normally have an entire culture of people impatiently awaiting their release. So what makes Black Panther especially noteworthy?

The secret sauce of Marvel’s Black Panther is Afrofuturism — an arts form that combines science fiction with black culture to create a future informed by blackness. On its face, Black Panther masquerades as Marvel’s latest superhero flick. Dig deeper and you’ll find the movie’s true identity: an Africa-set, Afrofuturist film — made for black people, by black people — powered by a Disney budget.

(18)  WRIGHT AND NYONG’O INTERVIEW. TeenVogue‘s Lynette Nylander interviewed Letitia Wright and Lupita Nyong’o on film diversity and superheroes in December 2017: “Letitia Wright and Lupita Nyong’o on “Black Panther” Film and Diversity in Hollywood”.

When he debuted in 1966 as the first black superhero in mainstream American comics, Black Panther broke boundaries. Naturally, next year’s silver-screen rendition of his story, featuring a nearly all-black cast, isn’t going to be just a box-office blockbuster — it’s going to be history in the making. The film is set in the fictional African country of Wakanda, where Black Panther (also known as T’Challa) serves as a leader at a time when the nation’s safety is under threat. And at the core of the story: Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o and ingénue Letitia Wright as Nakia and Shuri, who play two of the strongest women in Wakanda. Their characters do away with the usual damsel-in-distress narrative associated with many classic superhero movies and create a new normal. Here, they discuss what making Black Panther meant to them and what the movie will hopefully mean for others.

(19) THE WOMEN OF WAKANDA. Cameron Glover looks at the women heroes in “Here’s What Black Panther Is Doing Differently For Its Female Heroes” posted in January 2018 at Refinery29.

The expansion of what a woman’s role in film looks like speaks directly to how the female action heroes of Black Panther are able to balance their fight scenes with embodying these expansive personal themes. Giving women, especially Black women, such public roles in the film not only speaks volumes to how women are regarded within Wakanda, but also shows the shifting attitudes of women’s roles in action films. The way that female action stars are celebrated and centered within the film is just another reason to snag a ticket to see Black Panther once it’s released next month.

[Thanks to Carl Slaughter, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Robin A. Reid, John King Tarpinian, Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Vicki Rosenzweig.]

67 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 5/14/18 They Took Some Pixels, And Plenty Of Scrolls, Wrapped Up In A Five Pound Note

  1. (4) I must beg everyone to read this book. It is fabulous. I’m not much for YA but other than the age of the protagonist and no sex or cussing, it’s not YA. And it’s not post-apocalyptic or full of overwhelming teen angst.

    After I read the book, I went to his website where there are a couple stories as well as the fabulous New Year song in two versions, one sung by him and one sung by Idina Menzel.

    (9) While I generally agree with everything the lovely and talented Ms. Erin says, I must correct her: she says (based on Larry’s frantic retconning) that he was uncomfortable at his first Worldcon. Whereas right after the con he talked about what fun he’d had and how everyone was so nice to him. It was only after his entitlement bump overwhelmed his honesty that he recast it as a horrible experience.

  2. Reposting this from the very end of yesterday’s comments:

    Meredith Moment: S. A. Chakraborty’s The City of Brass is currently $1.99.

    Also, congratulations, Paul and Arifel!

  3. 9) Sad to hear that Wiscon can be TERF-y, though I suppose it’s inevitable given how long it’s been running.

  4. Thanks for all the links on Black Panther. That movie made my heart overflow with all kinds of feelings and I’m not black. It’s a fun movie with serious themes wrapped in enough action and slam-bam to stay entertaining, which is a great combination for getting more people to think about the serious stuff.

    I have an essay bubbling around in me about the kinds of alternate history we can and can’t easily imagine,and if/when I get around to writing it, Wakanda will be a part of it.

  5. I meant to say earilier, Cmm, it’s nice to see you back. I hope you are doing well. 🙂

  6. For Mother’s Day, I wrote a blog post about my favorite Walt Kelly poem, and in the course of writing it learned more than I had previously known about Kelly’s lingering reaction to losing a child. I commend it to the interest of anyone here, and caution that it contains sadness. (“The star in the wind is a Word.”)

    Oddly enough, I did another post the same day about Berg’s violin concerto which also contains sadness, and finishes with a stained-glass window I designed. (“To the memory of an angel.”)

    Both, I may add, contain pixels. Lots and lots of pixels.

    ***

    Now with 17% more pixels!

  7. Speaking of Rajaniemi: it looks like Summerland, at long last (!), is due out late June. Squeeee! 🙂

  8. Meredith Moment:

    The Diadem Saga (Books 1-3) by Jo Clayton is on sale at Amazon US for $2.99.

    7) Hearing about Kidder yesterday broke my heart.

    “You’re gonna end up fighting every elected official in this country!”

    Here in 6117, our feline overlords have consented to have their ears scratched for 90 seconds (precisely).

  9. Here’s hoping this means Open Road will be putting out more Jo Clayton in eBook format.

  10. Welp, I’m off to the hospital later today to get this cough under control. It’s been 2 weeks and after an episode last night (coughed loudly and violently enough that two police officers offered to call the paramedics) that my doctor and I agree it’s time to try stronger measures.

    So, wish me luck. I may get time today to check in, but I suspect I’m going to discover aerosolized lidocaine is a helluva drug.

    PS: Had to snag the free copy of The Quantum Thief. It is one of my favorites after all.

  11. I admit I haven’t seen any of the Medea movies but… does it count as passing the Bechdel Test if one of the participant in the conversation is a female character played by a (non-trans) male actor?

  12. @lurkertype: Yes, the retconning over his Campbell convention pretty much shows how unreliable a narrator Correia was. Did you respond where Erin can answer/modify?

    @Ghostbird: Wiscon has all sorts; I’d be surprised if there were no TERFs there, but I’d also be surprised if any who got in another attendee’s face about being trans were tolerated — IFF the attendee (or a witness) brought the matter to the concom; Wiscon when I was there had very visible monitors but they weren’t ubiquitous.

  13. Good luck, BravoLimaPoppa3 – persistent coughs are dismal at the best of times and it sounds like you’ve picked up a really awful one 🙁

    And thanks all, and yay to Paul and SpacefaringKitten. Somehow I have fallen in with a rather fine crowd…!

  14. This may brand me as a greenhorn (despite being a fan for mumblety-mumble years), but I gotta ask. I know c4c means “comment for comment,” but what da heck does “comment for comment” mean??

    Thank you. Sorry for spilling dumb all over the comment space.

  15. @Bruce Diamond

    I for one am glad you asked because I’ve been wondering what it meant for months.

  16. @Bruce Diamond and Meredith: it’s “I’m leaving a comment so I can tick the box and subscribe to the comment thread.” Comment for comments.

    (Which, coincidentally, I forgot to do in my last post, so…!)

  17. Bruce Diamond: I know c4c means “comment for comment,” but what da heck does “comment for comment” mean??

    Choose your favorite from the following explanations:

    (1) The person is a refugee from Mad Genius Club.
    (2) It means the same as “Godstalk.”
    (3) See (2) above – it’s a null comment, entered so the maker can tick the email-me-comments box.

  18. I always thought it meant “clicking for comments” (making a comment just so I can click the email-me-comments box).

  19. Hey, just saw some Agents of SHIELD news that answered a big question I had.

    First, for any who hadn’t heard, the show has been picked up for a sixth season – but for 13 episodes, not 22 as in prior seasons.

    The big question for me was how they’d manage to handle a new season in September when the end of the current season is explicitly tied to the events of Avengers: Infinity War – which, as I don’t believe has remained a secret, ends with a serious cliffhanger that will be resolved a year from now. The answer is… AoS S6 will debut after Avengers 4, in summer 2019.

    On the one hand, I don’t like waiting, but I’ve already said elsewhere that this is exactly how I’d handle the situation. The official line is that this was an ABC scheduling decision rather than an MCU canon call, but I don’t buy that for an instant. I’d guess that as soon as the renewal came down, the showrunner had a chat with the network and explained the issue, leading to the network approving the delayed start. That, or the Head Mouse firmly suggested that it would be a Bad Career Move for the network to jeopardize a billion-dollar property…

  20. @Chip Hitchcock

    I was at Wiscon in 2013 and had a very good time, though it’s too big a trip to do regularly. TERFs weren’t something I paid attention to back then and it’s obviously a welcoming space for gender-non-conforming people so it’s interesting to hear Alexandra Erin say she’d worry about pushback if she said “trans women are women”. Even though it’s not a safety or code of conduct issue – I don’t expect bands of TERFs patrol the corridors – it says something about the crowd and where the discourse is at.

  21. @Various: “c4c” of course means “Cool for Cats” – the song by Squeeze – one of my faves, in fact. I’m so happy that a few folks here (to say nothing of tons of people on Puppy blogs) pay tribute to one of my favorite songs so often!

    The pixel’s doin’ ninety ‘cuz they got the word to scroll
    They get a gang Filers in a shed up a ‘eathrow*
    They’re counting out the fivers (!!!) when the handcuffs lock again
    In and out of Worldcon with the numbers on their badges
    …etc….
    They’re very cool for scrolls, they’re cool for scrolls (cool for scrolls)

    * No, auto-correct, don’t put the ‘h’ in, thanks.

    With apologies to Squeeze and, er, everyone. 😉

    ETA: AW MAN! I was ninja’d by @John A Arkansawyer ‘cuz I took so long to write. Ah well. 🙂

  22. @Arifel, @Paul Weimer, & @Spacefaring Kitten: Congratulations on joining “nerds of a feather, flock together”! I was just reading your bios last night (A & PW) and today (SK). 😀

  23. @Ghostbird and others:

    I speak only for myself, certainly not Alexandra Erin in this instance, but as regards her comments, I can tell you as an “other” (disabled) no matter how welcoming the space is, when you are an “other” and have been treated poorly by people in a public space because you’re “different”, there’s some part of you which is wary lest you say or do something to draw attention from anyone looking for reasons to give you grief. That’s been my experience, at any rate, and one of the reasons I was out of fandom for a couple of decades.

    Even in actively welcoming spaces such as Wiscon, there can be problems because people are people.

    Here in 7026, our feline overlords have made ear scratches mandatory.

  24. “In 2002, Marvel studios graced the world with the first superhero blockbuster film”

    *Looks at that sentence.*

    *Looks backs up at the Margot Kidder section.*

    Uh-huh. Right. So Superman, which was one of *the* must see movies of its year, wasn’t a blockbuster?

  25. @Robert Reynolds re: 7026: So nothing’s changed in all those years. . . .

  26. @Kendall: of course. “c4c” shall always mean “Cool 4 Cats” henceforth.

    But Squeeze’s “Black Coffee in Bed” should surely be “Tea in a Snow-Covered Tavern”

  27. @Andrew: Forsooth! 😀 At long last, here in 9866, the File 770-Squeeze Musical Accords are agreed upon. All bear witness!

  28. Weird, I never got the e-mail from checking the box, but going into WordPress, I found the pending “subscribe to comments” item waiting. I confirmed it. Let’s see if I get the e-mails [ETA: for future comments on this Pixel Scroll]. (While there, I cleaned up some old comment subscriptions I figured I no longer need. I forget what the max is; just being paranoid here. . . .)

  29. Jamoche: “In 2002, Marvel studios graced the world with the first superhero blockbuster film”
    *Looks at that sentence.*

    It looks as though the author is about 20 years old, and the site seems to be one where anyone can post anything, so there wasn’t any editorial oversight on the article.

    But yeah, wow. It’s still hard to believe that they think the first big superhero movie was in 2002.

    It’s also hard to believe that it’s been 40 years since Superman was released. 🤯

  30. If we’re talking Squeeze, then we must mention Scrolling Pixels (from the File.)

    In the year 3293, the band has reformed for its 952nd incarnation. Check wikipedia for details.

  31. @Kip W, thanks for linking to that. I remember seeing some of the strips in the daily collections that Fireside Press did way back when, and the poem of course, but never knew the context.

  32. Matthew Johnson, thanks. I had known about Kathryn Barbara for a medium while, but it was only as I was researching the twitter posts (that became the blog post) that I learned about the cake strips. Walt Kelly could carry a sad and deck it with humor, and not even lose his poise.

  33. @Chip: I did not. I emailed now, but she’s out of town.

    @Cora: I don’t think that counts for Bechdel, no. Madea is grotesque and very obviously a guy in a dress.

    @Bruce: Mike’s #1 answer is the correctest. It’s for people who aren’t cool enough to Godstalk.

    @Jamoche: Indeed! It was a giant hit as was the second. I suspect whoever wrote that is too young to remember and to go so far back in research as the antediluvian days of 1978.

    @Rev. Bob: Argh. That’s a looong wait. With that long between seasons and a shortened one, that’s gotta mean that’ll be the end of SHIELD. Which deserved much better than it got from everyone; the movies really fell down not referring to any of their excellent world-building. This year’s been swell, and the LMD/Framework arc was amazing.

    @Kendall: Can you read me now?

  34. JJ – Thanks for the welcome! I have missed this place. Major depression seems to be in remission, so I actually have energy and attention span for things like entire books again, so I don’t feel quite so out of place here!

  35. @Jack Lint:

    Or, to go another way…

    Scrollin’ pixels on the wall
    That don’t bother me at all
    Readin’ SFF ’til dawn
    From a pile size of my lawn
    Scritchin’ cats and addin’ books to Mount Tsundoku
    Now don’t tell me
    There’s nothin’ to do…

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