Pixel Scroll 8/13/18 I Can’t See Me Scrolling Nobody But You, For All My File

(1) SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT WORLDCON. Adam Rakunas is publicizing the availability of help for those who want it:

(2) NEWS CLIPPING. Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy reports that in 2019 Saga Press will publish Rivers Solomon’s novel inspired by a song from 2017 Hugo nominee Clipping,—a group that includes Tony-winner Daveed Diggs. Thread starts here.

(3) BEAM UP MORE GOLD. Borys Kit, in “Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth ‘Star Trek 4’ Future In Doubt as Talks Fall Through (Exclusive)”  in The Hollywood Reporter says that both Pine and Hemsworth (who was supposed to play Captain James T. Kirk’s father) have said they won’t be in Star Trek 4 because of pay issues.

The deal points came down to the usual suspect: money. Pine and Hemsworth, among Hollywood’s A-list when starring in DC or Marvel movies, are said to be asking the studios to stick to existing deals. Paramount, according to insiders, contends that Star Trek is not like a Marvel or Star Wars movie and is trying to hold the line on a budget.

The actors, according to sources, insist they have deals in place and that the studios are reneging on them, forcing them to take pay cuts as they try to budget a movie that is following a mediocre performer.

Pine, at least, has had a deal in place for several years. The actor, now a key player in the Wonder Woman franchise, signed up for a fourth movie when he made his deal for 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. Hemsworth has been attached to Star Trek 4 since Paramount, then run by the previous regime headed by Brad Grey, announced the fourth installment in 2016, although his exact status remains murky.

(4) SIGNING STORIES. Delilah S. Dawson gets a lot of great answers. Thread starts here.

Includes a RedWombat sighting –

(5) IT’S THAT DAY. In Pogo, Walt Kelly had a running gag: “Be careful, Friday the 13th falls on a Sunday/ Monday/ Tuesday, etc. this month.” Friday the 13th falls on a Monday in August.

(6) A MODERN SAGA. Brought to you by Amal El-Mohtar.

(7) THE BEST OF. James Davis Nicoll looks back at Del Rey Books’ “Best of…” series in “A Survey of Some of the Best Science Fiction Ever Published (Thanks to Judy-Lynn Del Rey)” at Tor,com, although some of the humor made me wonder if he really liked all the collections. (Which I suppose he did, otherwise why write the piece?) Like this note:

John Brunner’s fiction covered a spectrum ranging from morose to intensely gloomy. Readers intrigued by this collection who want to enjoy his strengths at novel length should seek out Brunner’s thematically-related SF standalone novels: The Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, Stand on Zanzibar, and The Shockwave Rider. Each book tackles One Big Issue (racial conflict, pollution, overpopulation, and future shock, respectively).

(8) HUGHART OKAY. The query about author Barry Hughart’s well-being in the August 4 Scroll (item 5) has been answered, and the news is good. Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press replied today —

Dear Mr. Glyer,

In response to your recent thread about Barry Hughart’s whereabouts…

I am happy to report I just got off the phone with Barry Hughart, who is very much still with us. (He is terrible about responding to emails, which led me into my email archives to dig out his phone number.)

Oddly enough, we’ve been doing business for ten years or more, and this is the first time we’ve spoken.

Best,

Bill

(9) ROHAN OBIT. A note about the passing of Michael Scott Rohan (1951-2018) at the SF Encyclopedia.

Michael Scott Rohan died in hospital in his home town of Edlnburgh on 12 August 2018; he was 67. Although his first novel Run to the Stars (1983, pictured) was a lively science-fiction adventure, his considerable reputation rests mainly on the Winter of the World fantasy sequence beginning with The Anvil of Ice (1986) and the Spiral science-fantasies beginning with Chase the Morning (1990).

Speaking personally, Mike Rohan was an old and valued friend whose unexpected death leaves an aching hole in the world. — David Langford

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • August 13, 1942 — Disney’s Bambi premiered in New York City.
  • August 13, 1953 — The original War Of The Worlds was released in New York City.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

  • Born August 13, 1899 – Alfred Hitchcock. Let’s see… The Birds and Psycho. Y’all think anything else might be loosely be genre which I include horror in?
  • Born August 13 – Kevin Tighe, 74. First genre role was in This Immortal series, nearly fifty years ago; appeared also in The Six Million Dollar Man, Tales from the Crypt, Escape to Witch Mountain, The Outer Limits, Star Trek: Voyager, Strange World, The 4400, Lost and Salem. 
  • Born August 13 –Danny Bonaduce, 59. First genre role was in The Ghost & Mrs. Muir; later roles included acting in Bewitched, Shazam!, Fantasy Island (original series), Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Bigfoot. Voice work includes Dr. DolittleFred Flintstone and Friends and Goober and the Ghost Chasers.
  • Born August 13 – John Slattery, 56. Howard Stark in the MCU film franchise, appeared in The Adjustment Bureau film based loosely I suspect of the Philip K. Dick short story ‘Adjustment Team’, 3rd Rock, From the Earth to the Moon miniseries and Flashpoint.
  • Born August 13 – Michael De Luca, 53. Producer, second Suicide Squad film, Childhood’s End, Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Dracula Untold, Lost in Space, Blade and Blade II, Pleasantville and Zathura: A Space Adventure which is not a complete listing. Also writer for an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the first Dredd film (oh well), the Freddy’s Nightmares series and the Dark Justice series which though not genre was rather fun.
  • Born August 13 – Sebastian Stan, 36. Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier in the MCU film franchise; also appeared in Once Upon a Time series, The Martian, The Apparition, Ares III, and Kings, a contemporary alternate-history series about a man who rises to become the King of his nation, based on the biblical story of King David.
  • Born August 13 – Sara Serraiocco, 28. Currently in Counterpoint, a cross-universe Cold War thriller. That’s it.

(12) COMICS SECTION.

(13) MEDICAL ADVICE. At Dorkly, “Two Doctors Figured Out How To Treat A Centaur Having a Heart Attack”. I hope Rick Riordan is taking notes.

Case in point: centaurs – what’s THEIR deal? Half man, half horse, and ALL anatomical mysteries. See, the way centaurs are broken down is that it’s the torso ‘n up part of a human combined with the whole body of a horse (minus the head and neck). But that presents a problem, because (anatomically-speaking) the two halves share a whole bunch of organs, namely the heart.

So a doctor (@FredWuMD) took to Twitter to ask fellow medical professionals an incredibly important question – if a centaur was in the midst of a cardiac arrest, where would you presume the heart is? Where would you use defibrillator pads?

(14) WHAT’S ON HIS MIND? Mike Alger says: “Weekend project: By combining a 3D scan with an MRI (don’t worry I’m fine), I can now step out of my body and legitimately look into my head at my own brain.”

Thread starts here. Mlex says, “This reminded me of Ted Chiang’s story, ‘Exhalation’, in Lightspeed Magazine.”

(15) COSTUMING HISTORY. The International Costumers Gallery continues its series, “Convention Costuming History: The Post WWII Years – 1946”.

…The Pacificon Convention News, issue #2 promised a Costume Ball, essentially acknowledging how much a part of the convention wearing costumes had become. Hearkening back to the pre-war events, it anticipated “BEMs and MONSTERS from every solar system and dimension; famous characters from the stories you have read and loved and every kind of costume that the fertile mentalities of fen (the best fertilized minds in existence) do be able to thunk up<sic>.”(2) Whether it was actually a “ball” or just a party is not clear.

Participants and costumes reported were Myrtle Douglas winning first prize for her Snake Mother dress (3)(4) and Arthur Joquel II (5) dressed as a “high priest”, winning a prize for “characterization”. Fan and fanzine writer Dale Hart’s “Gray Lensman” costume was judged “most ingenious”. (6)

(16) THE GREAT WALL OF HYDROGEN. The New Horizons probe is looking for evidence of it: “NASA spotted a vast, glowing ‘hydrogen wall’ at the edge of our solar system”.

There’s a “hydrogen wall” at the edge of our solar system, and NASA scientists think their New Horizons spacecraft can see it.

That hydrogen wall is the outer boundary of our home system, the place where our sun’s bubble of solar wind ends and where a mass of interstellar matter too small to bust through that wind builds up, pressing inward….

What New Horizons definitely sees, the researchers reported in a paper published Aug. 7 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, is some extra ultraviolet light — the kind the researchers would expect such a wall of galactic hydrogen to produce. That replicates an ultraviolet signal the two Voyager spacecraft — NASA’s farthest-traveling probes, which launched in the late 1970s — spotted all the way back in 1992. [Images: Dust Grains from Interstellar Space]

However, the researchers cautioned, that signal isn’t a sure sign that New Horizons has seen the hydrogen wall, or that Voyager did. All three probes could have actually detected the ultraviolet light from some other source, emanating from much deeper in the galaxy, the researchers wrote.

(17) SEEING SPOTS. Lasers been berry berry good to me. NPR: “Growers Are Beaming Over The Success Of Lasers To Stave Off Thieving Birds”.

During every berry-picking season in the Pacific Northwest, blueberry and raspberry growers fight to prevent birds from gobbling up the crop before harvest. This year, some farmers are trying something new to scare away the thieving birds: lasers….

The lasers cross over in erratic patterns. The sweeping green laser beams emanate from what look like security cameras atop metal poles.

They also work during the daytime. But in sunlight, the human eye can only see green dots dancing across the berry-laden bushes.

(18) SFFANZ 500. Congratulations to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ) on their blog’s 500th post – “SF Writer at the Manawatu Writers Festival + 500th Post”.

A heads up for SF fans about the Manawatu Writers’ Festival (Sept 7 – 11, 2018). This year they have a session with one of NZ’s longest running successful writers, Lyn Mc Conchie.

Lyn McConchie is an internationally successful author, who has had 44 books published, 300+ short stories, and 150+ articles. Her work has appeared in English, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and from publishers there as well as in America, Australia, New Zealand, and the Irish Republic. Lyn isn’t in any ruts, she writes mysteries, SF/F, animal tales, post-apocalypse, YA, picture books, and humorous and scholarly non-fiction and she has no plans to stop any time soon. Lyn’s latest book, Coal & Ashes, is is one of her apocalyptic stories, set in Australia, one of a series.

(19) THERAPEUTIC POOH. The LA Times profiles Christopher Robin: “With ‘Christopher Robin,’ Winnie the Pooh faces his greatest challenge yet: A marriage in crisis”.

So many Disney films follow a child or young adult suddenly thrown into a grown-up world and forced to overcome all of its headaches. “Christopher Robin,” however, turns a childhood hero of those who grew up admiring A.A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” tales into a depressed and overwhelmed adult — a man whose youthful imagination ultimately proved no match for the realities of war, fatherhood and a thankless job.

In the film, an old and familiar pal comes to the rescue, but is Winnie the Pooh — a plump stuffed bear whose biggest bothers often involved stealing honey from a bee — ready to fix the life of a workaholic whose marriage is entering crisis mode? Or, perhaps more accurately, are Pooh fans ready to see it?

Those who worked on “Christopher Robin” say the mission was to tap into the original Milne template, one that mixed comedy and complex emotions to deliver patient life lessons. The ultimate goal of the film: to dispel any notion that Winnie the Pooh is simply kid stuff.

“I wouldn’t be ashamed to be a grown man going to see a ‘Winnie the Pooh’ movie in the theater with no child next to me, so let’s make sure we’re making that movie,” said Alex Ross Perry, a filmmaker with several acclaimed indies under his belt and one of three credited screenwriters on the picture. “It has to be completely logical in that Pixar sense, where adults can go see it in a roomful of kids, but it doesn’t feel like you’re seeing a kids movie.”

(20) NOW YOU’RE TALKING. John Scalzi boosts a great idea —

(21) EYE-OPENING COLLECTIBLE. Something to find a Worldcon 76 –

(22) THE TRAVELER. Galactic Journey’s Gideon Marcus will interrupt his daily commute to 1963 in order to appear at Worldcon 76 –

(23) RADIO ACTIVITY. SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie tuned into BBC Radio 4 this weekend. He picked out highlights you can access online.

Looks like Dan Dare is a full blown radio series consisting of a number of linked  two-part adventures. Next up next Sunday will be on Radio 4 Extra and shortly after for a month on BBC i-Player linked off here.

Episode 1

Dan Dare, The Red Moon Mystery Episode 1 of 2

4 Extra Debut. Infected by the Mekon’s virus, Dan’s crew orbit Earth until the Inter-Planet Space Force orders them to Mars. Stars Ed Stoppard

Next Sunday 18:00

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Also this weekend we had on BBC Radio 4

Open Book  “Claire Fuller, Neil Gaiman, Iranian fiction”

Claire Fuller talks to Mariella Frostrup about her new novel Bitter Orange and the appeal of the crumbling country house as a setting.

Neil Gaiman explains why forgotten classic Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees deserves a wider readership.

What does the combination of sanctions and censorship mean for Iran’s writers? The Guardian’s Saeed Kamali Dehghan and publisher Azadeh Parsapour discuss.

And Carrie Plitt, agent at Felicity Bryan Associates recommends Sally Rooney’s Normal People for our monthly Editor’s Tip.

This is available to listen to for next 4 weeks

[Thanks to JJ, David Langford, Jonathan Cowie, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, Leo Doroschenko, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories, Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]

129 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 8/13/18 I Can’t See Me Scrolling Nobody But You, For All My File

  1. James’ reply at #10 in the comments there is a delight,

    James is baffled why so many people have trouble with the idea pieces can focus on specific sets of work. It’s a recurring issue with the Women of the 1970s Whose Names Begin with [Letter]: people would angrily demand to know why I didn’t mention someone who debuted long before or long after the 1970s, or whose name didn’t begin with the letter in question. In a couple cases, men.

  2. @Nigel: Took me a little bit to get that, but then I remembered I had a lecturer from County Mayo at uni…. double-checked Offaly to make sure I was on the right track there though.

  3. @Doctor Science: Downtown San Jose has a lot of restaurants, what with office workers and San José State University and residential towers. If you go east from the convention center towards the University, one block away is South First St. which is the club district and there is a nice pho place.

  4. I like mayo. I prefer it fancied up and called aioli, but I like it. Jello salad however cannot disappear into the dust of history too soon.

    Robin Whiskers, I’ll also be there solo and while I don’t have any sort of anxiety about it, I do know that being alone in an unfamiliar setting can be daunting. And I’m definitely familiar with the “must be shoved out the door when I’d rather just hide in a closet and forget the whole thing” phenomenon.

    I’ll be at the Business meeting in the mornings, but am available otherwise if you want a friendly face.

  5. I’m in the same boat as Robin Whiskers. First con ever, probably by myself (older child has a soccer tournament) and terribly nervous. I have been ordered to get Hamster Princess books signed though! (I think my reading habit *almost* became cool when I mentioned that Ursula Vernon would be there).

    Looks like I won’t be there Friday night (family commitments) but should be there Sat and Sun although there’s a fair chance of chickening out. I’m available for any meetups on Sat or Sun.

    Like Robin, sorry for the late questions!

  6. @Lurkertype — Hellman’s and Best are the same, just different brand names depending on where in the country you live.

    Mayonnaise is very good (even better if homemade). I grew up eating, and hating, Miracle Whip, and when I moved away from home I discovered mayonnaise and it was a revelation.

    Of course that’s no reason not to ALSO enjoy different sorts of mustards, ketchup, aioli, and any other condiment that catches your fancy.

  7. Sadly not at Worldcon, but I go to San Jose regularly and have found many of the downtown eateries over the years (I only came home from there Saturday!).

    By far the best is Original Joes, a block up from the convention center just beyond the St Claire hotel. Great classic Bay Area Italian American food. The recent earthquake refit meant it lost the yellow tinted windows, but apart from that it hasn’t changed in the 15 or so years I’ve been going. The Joes Scramble is excellent.

    Two blocks or so north is San Pedro Square, which has been made into a food destination area over the last few years. Try Sushi Connection or Farmers Union, or go into the old market there for a range of different food places.

    The Bijan Bakery by the Fairmont does decent coffee and pastries, and of course Café Frascati next to Original Joes has been around a long long time.

  8. Oh and there’s the Downtown branch of Psycho Donuts just two blocks east of the convention center under the car park…

  9. @6: a great lead-in to funny comments about another piece of whitist bull. I don’t care — I’ve never liked mayo and my partner prefers Miracle Whip because flavorings — but I wish El-Mohtar had said where the dumb article came from so I could remember to be wary of the source.

    @12: did I really say “funeral customers”? [checks email] Yes. Sigh.

    @13: the originator doesn’t seem up with assorted reports (from C. S. Lewis to Rainbow Rowell) that centaurs have two stomachs (although with no explanation how food gets routed to the “correct” stomach); I see the responders quickly caught on to the probability that there would also be two hearts. I thought an AED could determine whether a heart was coding before applying a shock, which would provide information the thread doesn’t mention.

    @James Davis Nicoll: as I commented on Tor, I think you’re miscounting Brunner. It’s true some of his books are bleak, but a lot aren’t; I remember being taken aback by Quicksand after a string of no-catastrophe-needed happy endings (which also appear in 2 of the 4 you list).

    @Rick Moen: OTOH, I would say Stand on Zanzibar is bleak; it ends with the discovery that gur bar fpvragvfg jub pbhyq rkcybvg gur ubcrshy qvfpbirel naq trg gur jbeyq bhg bs vgf zrff jnf xvyyrq ol gur crefba jub jnf gelvat gb uryc gur fpvragvfg qrsrpg. (And Zanzibar is no longer enough room for the population.)

    @Oneiros:

    most commercial mayo is extraordinarily bland and why would we have just plain ol’ mayo when there’s a couple-dozen more interesting and tastier condiments and/or sauces to have?

    Not unlike beer; Bud sells because it’s too bland for anyone (even slugs!) to object to — but some of us ornery types like something that’s not LCD.

    @rcade: Mayo’s also 11 grams of fat and 100 calories per tablespoon! Many of the alternatives are just as bad — or worse, since mayo is supposed to be made with vegetable oil rather than animal fat. (I’m not a vegan, but the advantages of unsaturated fats over saturated seem substantial.)

  10. Not too fond of mayo over the years. The companies abandoned olive oil and replaced it with soy oil, and I have allergies to that. Or canola oil, which bothers some lung functions. I use a variety made from avocado oil.

  11. @Simon Bisson said

    Oh and there’s the Downtown branch of Psycho Donuts just two blocks east of the convention center under the car park…

    Not any more. That is now back to being a concession stand, for the recently opened 3Below Theaters. (Where the Silicon Valley Science Fiction Short Film Fest will be playing Thursday evening as part of Worldcon’s First NIght.)

    And for Filers looking for food near Worldcon, let me refer you again to the Worldcon 76 Local Guide at https://www.worldcon76.org/travel-lodging/local-guide.
    It even has an app version.

    (There are concessions in the convention center as well, but we haven’t eaten at them yet so they’re not in the guide yet. Their menus change for each conference…)

  12. @simon Psycho Donuts still have their Campbell location, and I think a couple others.

    Don’t be too sad, 3Below is run by the Guggenheims, who used to operate the RetroDome, and are the creators of Thanks for Playing the Game Show Show and The Meshuganutcracker.

    They are a really valuable and fun community resource, and I’m realy glad they have a venue again.

  13. @Chip Hitchcock: Thanks. I’d totally forgotten about Stand on Zanzibar’s conclusion, predictably, it having been long ages since reading it.

    I was delighted enough at the time (1970s) with Shockwave Rider that I tried to get a winding trail at my college officially named Mean Free Path – but, I think, delighted more with the ideas than with the book as narrative. No idea if I’d like it as much today: I fear the Suck Fairy may have visited.

    The mayo piece is from Philadelphia Magazine. There is at least a tinge of raillery about it: If it were entirely serious, it would probably be more… (sorry!) bland.

    @all: I have no real clue about breakfast options in downtown San Jose, having actually never overnighted there, but cheap lunch and dinner places abound near the San Jose State U. campus, a few blocks east of the convention. If you want a fast and really good burrito or torta, you’re in the right place. And, oh Lordy yes, the pho noodle soup places: If you don’t know that Vietnamese soup style yet, make friends with it in San Jose. You’ll be glad you did.

    Original Joe’s is just right, if you’re in the mood for a certain sort of pasta and meat place, preserved almost unchanged from 70 years ago. I’ll confess I don’t know the San Jose location except from the comments of friends, and reviews. Its sister location on Taylor in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district (sadly now closed because of damage from a kitchen fire) was a touchstone for the style: The waiters were all in undertaker black formal, prices were moderate, you got the impression the owners had heard of the concept of ‘trendy’ in 1850 and decided to have no part of it, and you could bump into any notable there at any hour, including the mayor, a famous author or newspaper columnist, or random Senators. As Simon describes the San Jose location: classic.

    A cheery ‘hullo’ to first-time Worldcon attendees: I’ll probably be wearing my battered Panama hat to be findable, so feel welcome to wave me down and chat, share ideas about where to eat, and so on. (Like Cheryl S., I’ll be at the WSFS Business Meeting for however many geological epochs that lasts.)

    @Adam Rakunas: My mobile number, which is also on my personal Web page and front page of my Web server, is (650) 283-7902. (For better or worse, I’m pretty findable.)

  14. Waiting for artisanal mayo to become a thing. Or is that already a thing with otaku hipsters eating Kewpie and Ajinomoto mayonnaise?

  15. @Kevin Seeing as I usually stay in the Willow Glen/Campbell area with fannish friends, and have a PO box on Bascom, the Campbell one is my usual!

  16. @ Chip: Here you go.

    I see a certain amount of similarity between this piece of tat and Certain People complaining about how the same old formulaic SF isn’t winning awards any more. In both cases, people seem to be reacting to having access to New and Different kinds of stuff by seeking them out in preference to same-old-same-old. But I still roll my eyes at “identity condiments”. CWAA.

  17. @Rick I remain amused that KSR lived in the intentional village community at UCDavis that Precipice was based on.

  18. I’m mostly a lurker here, but I’m going to be at WorldCon with a booth for the local library, and am hitting the 80s dance party on Thursday. Anyone else planning on dance dance dancing the night away?

  19. We have Hellman’s here in the Midwest. (East Coast was mentioned originally and then North Dakota added, which may imply the rest of the Midwest, too. But, yeah, it’s definitely on the shelves in the three Midwestern states I’ve lived.) My Jewish mother insisted on real mayo, as opposed to the Miracle Whip my husband is so fond of. He puts Miracle Whip on a lot more sandwich types than I do. I think post-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches are the only ones I use it for, although I’d really prefer Hellman’s, but it isn’t worth buying just for that. I do use his Miracle Whip to make tuna, chicken or potato salad. Also deviled eggs. And you can tell I’m living a whitebread life (pun intended) in that I make tuna, chicken and potato salad and deviled eggs. The latter two mix mayo and mustard and they’re delicious. But I sound like I’m cooking for a Methodist potluck circa 1955.

  20. BigelowT, no-no-no. For post-Thanksgiving sandwiches, you don’t use mayo or Miracle whip, or even butter. You use leftover gravy! My grandmother’s canonical post-thanksgiving sandwich was:

    Bread (of your choice), slathered with gravy, piled with sliced leftover turkey, sliced leftover stuffing (we ate a heavy glutinous eggy sage stuffing, which you can slice when cold), and cranberry jelly for those who like it.

    But, honestly, a turkey sandwich with gravy instead of butter or mayo is a lovely thing, whether or not there’s any additional content.

  21. I live in a tiny little Irish eco-village (sort of, it’s basically a housing estate in an already-existing village) and Kim Stanley Robertson came for a visit about two years ago and he gave a great talk about imagining the future and then there was a long group chat about communities like ours and his – brilliant weekend, that.

  22. The rise of Jell-O salads corresponds to the rise of home refrigeration. Before that, aspics were fancy things way out of the reach of home cooks or even most restaurants. Like most of the excesses of 50s home cookbooks or those recipe card subscriptions, I think a lot of them were just “this cookbook needs to be at least 100 pages, what *else* can we put in Jell-O?”

    Jarred mayo is a sandwich adhesive and vapor barrier. If you can taste it, there’s too much.

  23. Mayo is vile disgusting stuff, even when it’s rebranded as aioli. My very favorite sammich shop in San Francisco refuses to stock it and laughs at people who request it.

  24. @cabbage, I will definitely be dancing. Asked to run or jog, I will look at you like you have three heads and loudly proclaim that David Duke is a fine human, but I will dance for hours. So, I’ll be there.

    Robin Whiskers and Mallory, I hope you don’t chicken out. I’ll leave my phone number with Steve Davidson at his Amazing Stories booth. Feel free to text me if you need a buddy any time the business meeting is not in session.

  25. @Cassy B: Appreciate the link re-post concerning projected Filer meetups planned so far. FYI, I slightly updated the announcement three days later (Aug. 10th) ==> here <== (albeit I didn’t fix one mangled sentence). The follow-up discussion below that, between me and Lurkertype, may also be useful.

    About (6), again: Man, Amal El-Mohtar’s Virgil parody is wicked funny. Now, that is what Zelazny called wielding the bladeless sword without a hilt.

  26. (8) Mr. Hughart was one of the first writers whose work showed me my mother’s cultural background could be something more than Orientalism or stereotypes. Glad to know he’s still with us and okay.

  27. Nigel – you’re not in Cloughjordan by any chance, are you? If so, you must know Eileen and Jo – I was at school with Eileen in Belfast, long ago.

  28. My family could not possibly be any whiter if we were transparent, and somehow my mom always had a cupboard full of spices. We regularly essayed spaghetti, manicotti, eggplant parm, tacos, tamales, chips and salsa, gumbo, hoppin’ john, sukiyaki, and all these leftovers sat contentedly in the fridge next to the Best Foods mayo, near the Wonder Bread, alternating with pot roast and potatoes and tuna salad.

    By the time I was old enough to notice (late 60’s), the savory Jello salads had been decreed regrettable and declasse in our crowd, and Jello only served as a wiggly dessert, good with fruit and marshmallow in, for informal occasions like family dinner, potlucks, kids’ birthdays. Where it belongs. We moved on to the exciting realm of fondue (meat, cheese, and chocolate! a balanced meal!).

    The greatest Jello sales for many years have been in Utah, where the Mormons still fondly recall the extremely white foods of the 50s. But even they don’t do what you see in Regrettable Food any more.

    Miracle Whip is an abomination and should be abjured. Particularly when it went all HFCS. Vegan “mayo” is a nice sauce, but it isn’t mayo.

    @Robin Whiskers: Aw, my kitty looks like yours! And we’ve had many cat health issues of late (as documented on this very website, even).

    Anyway, it’s not going to be ridiculous-crazy levels of crowded, or I wouldn’t have gone all these years. The convention center can hold a con 10 times as big as ours (and regularly does — Comic Con and some others). The small panel rooms will probably seat no more than 50. Filers will be everywhere, so if you hang around and/or leave messages at the Amazing Stories table, you’ll find us. I’ve made a lot of good friends over the years at Worldcon in all sorts of ways — showing up at the same panels with the same people (who obviously have similar interests), standing in line for stuff, even that one year when someone’s friends kept mistaking me for her and vice versa and we finally met up and still send Christmas cards since… 1982?

    You can hang out and get substantial munchies/small food and drinks in the con suite (Marriott), or sit around in Callahan’s Place (convention center). There are some guided docent tours of various con exhibits listed too.

    Everyone attending will be given a ridiculously detailed Restaurant Guide, which began to be compiled before the con was even bid for. You will not lack for food options in any price range! If you really want grease bombs, there’s often guys out front selling sausage on a stick bun and Mexican popsicles. You’ll be able to see it on the web page or app, as our leader Kevin said, or even on good ol’ paper. I’ve saved my restaurant guides from past Worldcons as help when traveling to or advising someone who’s going to those cities.

    Finding rice is not a problem, what with the big Asian and Hispanic population! The public transit has signs in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Eat all the pho. I’m hoping to get out for Ethiopian food at some point.

    If someone is doing an automobilic run to Psycho Donuts, I’ll kick in a few bucks.

    We’re having quite the cool spell right now, but it’ll warm up some by the weekend. Con days are predicted to be 80-88 degrees, no clouds, but it’s a moderately dry heat. Remember that means it can cool off pretty fast as soon as it gets dark, the breeze might come up (to a whole 10 mph, tops), so although it won’t ever get below 60, do what your mom always said and at least bring something with long sleeves. Don’t get fooled if it’s cloudy early in the morning; it does that and then burns off to leave the UV index at 9. Of course, you could just stay at the con all day and not have to face the evil daystar.

    Do not ask if/when it will rain. The answer to that is: You will be stared at as if you have centaur parts and then the natives will say “Um, I dunno. Maybe late next month?” The mighty forces of the National Weather Service are giving a maximum 7% chance of any precipitation this weekend, and methinks they exaggerate. Might sprinkle for 10 minutes.

    San Jose is far enough from the wildfires that we shouldn’t have Spokane Mordor, the Sequel, though who knows what chuckleheads might do in the next few days.

  29. @James Moar
    11 grams of fat and 100 calories per tablespoon!
    ….and that’s a 10-gram tablespoon.

    So standard tablespoons (for cooking measurements) in NZ are 15ml (15g of water), while Australia uses 20ml. Do some places use 10ml?

  30. @Errolwi: I’m American and all my tablespoons say 15 ml/g. (Actually 14.8, but close enough)

    Possibly James was kidding and emphasizing that there was more than 100% fat in every glob of mayo.

  31. ::sigh:: There’s nothing that depresses me quite the same as a story that does a wrenching job describing social ills,
    and then the triumphant conclusion is for all the bad guys and shades of grey to line up on a battlefield, where they can conveniently be soundly punched and the combat can be declared decisive.

    “Here’s everything that sucks about the world! Here’s how that gets a happy ending! One of those two is epically implausible wishful thinking; the other is one billion percent accurate!” ::sigh::

    I can see how some stories kind of lead there, and I can see how it can be read as feel-good, even optimistic. It just doesn’t work for me, though. I just read it as “You know what would solve these terrible, terrible problems? Magic!“,. And I find that more soul-crushing than a straight-up tragedy, or “the fight goes on,” or “but at least they found a ray of light,” or any of the others. Ah well.

  32. (The above comment isn’t regarding the discussion of bleak/morose stories. Just something I came across now, and oooof, sometimes you need a quick rant.)

  33. Meredith Momebt Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities trilogy is $2.99 at Amazon.

  34. Do not ask if/when it will rain. The answer to that is: You will be stared at as if you have centaur parts and then the natives will say “Um, I dunno. Maybe late next month?”

    A real native will reply, “During the rainy season, duh”. Which typically runs November-April, with some showers at the ends of that period. Depends where you are, of course: the Bay Area is famous for its microclimates. I’m mid-peninsula: San Francisco is regularly 10-20 degrees cooler in summer, and San Jose ~10 degrees warmer. The really hot weather is late September/early October. If you’re gonna be out after dark – especially if you’re going to be near the ocean – take a light sweater or jacket.

    Today’s downtown San Jose is nothing like it was when we moved here in the 1970s: then there was almost nothing there except the odd used book store, pawn shops, porn theaters, vacant lots, and greasy spoon Mexican restaurants (there is (or was, last time I was there) a small fossilized bit of Ye Olde San Jose on Post Street). I don’t get down there much, even though it’s closer than San Francisco, since the last northbound train leaves at 10ish.

    Wander around near the Peralta adobe and you may find the display with the copy of the document listing the first townspeople. The heads of the families are listed along with their nationalities: Spanish, Spanish, Spanish, Basque, Spanish, Spanish, Apache…Yes, there’s an unexplained story behind that.

  35. Lurkertype saysvMiracle Whip is an abomination and should be abjured. Particularly when it went all HFCS. Vegan “mayo” is a nice sauce, but it isn’t mayo.

    I staff a local food pantry that today had a lot of vegan butter. Most of it went out the door but I figure it was that BUTTER was the largest word on the bright yellow and green package.

    I think it was from the Trader Joe’s we pick up donations from. Why do vegans need to have things that mimic products they won’t consume?

  36. Mayo uses, for me: in savory salads, in some salad dressings, in savory sandwiches, or as the main sandwich ingredient (you can add other stuff as a seasoning). It’s good for keeping turkey or chicken slices in the sandwich.
    I’ve made mayo more than once. It’s an interesting process, but I can’t say that it’s better than Best’s mayo. (They don’t actually recommend using olive oil, as it tends to overpower the other stuff in the mayo: the egg yolk, for example.)

  37. Cat Eldridge, not all do. I think there are two sources for that desire among those who have it. First, many were not always vegan/vegetarian, and miss certain dishes. Second, it is nice to share a meal with friends, and eating a parallel dish can make the meal seem more like you’re eating the same thing, sort of. Kind of like having a ginger ale at a cocktail party, or a Virgin Mary. You’re not actually drinking something alcoholic, but what you are drinking fits in with the vibe.

    Robin Whiskers and Mallory, have a great time! If you can’t think what to do, you might volunteer (the fannish word is gopher, as in go-fer this, go-fer that). I find volunteering helps with social anxiety because it gives me a role to play, a purpose, and a schedule. It doesn’t always work right, I should warn you, because fans are human, and occasionally a supervisor is so busy they are cranky or can’t stop long enough to tell you what to do. But most of the time it’s a great way to help and meet people in a less anxiety-producing way (at least for me). If you sign up in advance for a shift or so, it also gives you a commitment to keep, so you’re less likely to hide at home/in your room. Good luck! I wish I were going to be there with you.

    Mayo – I am a fan in limited situations. I prefer homemade if I can get it, which I rarely do because it doesn’t keep, or Hellmann’s/Best, or Kraft in a pinch. I can’t stand Miracle Whip personally, but I understand that tastes differ. I like mayo on tomato sandwiches (on whole wheat bread, thank you very much), cold cut sandwiches (or I’ll eat those on buttered bread instead), tuna salad/tuna mayo, egg salad/egg mayo, chicken salad/chicken mayo, and potato salad. Oh, and cole slaw, but only if my mom comes back from the dead and makes it herself. Which would be effing scary, frankly. I don’t really care for pasta salad with mayo, and I don’t like it on burgers or other hot foods, where they have, sadly for me, gotten trendy. I have not found it at all difficult to buy mayo at any supermarket.

  38. Do not ask if/when it will rain. The answer to that is: Around November. Maybe earlier, if the deities are willing, but likely not much before Thanksgiving. Be grateful for Karl the Fog.

    (I lived in San Jose for more than 12 years.)

  39. Mayonnaise… Mostly no, unless it has other stuff in and doesn’t taste like itself. I add garlic to it sometimes and then it’s fine. I prefer to lubricate my sandwiches with lethal quantities of mustard; English or Dijon, usually. And my salads usually wear vinaigrette. Mind you I’ve never had mayonnaise made from scratch and I understand that’s an entirely different thing from the white stuff that comes out of a jar.

  40. On very very rare occasions, it has sprinkled in very late September, and people marvel about it and tell their disbelieving children. There was an August thunderstorm about 15-20 years ago and that was quite the wonder. About 10 years ago, it rained in late May and we were all “what is this I don’t even?”

    My expensive credential was born in early summer and was completely confused when it did rain, as he was several months old, had lived in the same place all his life, and what was this water from the sky? Was outdoors broken or something? I’ve been told small children behave the same way; April through November is a looong time if you’re a toddler or a cat.

    But basically, no. It’s gonna rain in November, or possibly just enough just in time to ruin Halloween (literally, from 3-8 PM on Oct. 31) and then not again for a few weeks. Usually gets properly autumnal for Thanksgiving.

    It will be colder in San Francisco, because it always is. Take something warm to wear lest you, like too many tourists, have to buy a ridiculously overpriced sweatshirt. Beach also gets chilly once the fog comes in around 4.

    Bits of convention centers also vary widely in their temperature. Most of the rooms will be warm, but it never fails that you’ll be in at least one panel where someone’s set the A/C to “meat locker”. Particularly early in the con. I keep a long sleeved shirt handy for that.

    The party floors will be warm but will have all sorts of beverages (hard and soft) to help with that. I’m stoked that we’ve got proper hotel room parties rather than whatever that was in KC. I always love the local foods and drinks fen bring from their homes. Helsinki bid parties taught me much about aquavit, Detroit parties about local candy, and North Carolina about barbecue options.

    If all else fails, it’s not far to Trader Joe’s for excellent snacking and cheap wine. Or Costco for everything.

  41. Vegannaise actually isn’t bad, it satisfies my occasional cravings for chicken salad and carrot-raisin salad. One reason vegans copy existing foods is so they can make substitutions in normal recipes like carrot-raisin salad.

    I have fond memories of the seedy old San Jose, which was still there in the ’80s when I lived there. Especially this dusty filthy little comic shop downtown where I used to buy my Elfquests and Zaps.

    Can confirm SF is cold, we have sentient fog (named Karl) who protects us from the evil solar rays. We’re starting to get occasional heatwaves (Labor Day broke 100 last year and nobody knew what to do about it) but they are scarce.

  42. That mayonnaise article really is something else. Not to mention that over here, mayonnaise started to fall out of favour long before the dreaded Millennials came along. I’m Generation X and have never particularly liked it either. And while I have a fridge full of “identity condiments”, I don’t actually have any mayonnaise at home. Should I need it for some reason, I would either have to make it from scratch (best choice) or buy some. Thomy is the brand of choice here.

    It’s fine for potato salad and sauce gribiche and Pommes Rot-weiß/Pommes Schranke (French fries with ketchup and mayonnaise), if that’s your thing. But for most other dishes, you don’t really need it. Even Matjes Hausfrauenart (salted herring housewife style) uses joghurt and sour cream instead of mayonnaise these days. And coincidentally, my grandmother’s famous herring salad, a recipe that dates back to the early 20th century, if not further, doesn’t contain any mayonnaise, unlike the commercial versions you can buy.

    @Robin Whiskers and Mallory
    Enjoy WorldCon. Last year was my first and I had a blast.

    The comment fields still don’t autopopulate for me BTW.

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