Pixel Scroll 8/5/17 Nine Pinterests In Amber

Posted on by

(1) I KNOW, YOU’RE FROM THE SIXTIES! Somebody may be slipping drugs into the coffee at the Arizona Opera Company. Coming in October is their production of Hercules vs Vampires.

Hold on tight for an out of this world event! Hercules vs Vampires combines operatic singing and 1960s pop culture, synchronizing live music with the 1961 cult classic film, Hercules in the Haunted World. Watch as the original film, starring bodybuilder Reg Park and horror legend Christopher Lee, is projected above a live orchestra and singers performing the music to a new, original score. You’ll thrill as the mighty hero Hercules journeys through the underworld, battling fiendish monsters to rescue his beloved! Action packed, outlandish, and fun for the whole family, Hercules vs Vampires offers a fresh take on this gorgeously campy Technicolor world.

(2) BATMAN REMEMBERED. Adam West Day will be celebrated in the actor’s hometown — Walla Walla, Washington — on September 19.

He said proceeds will go to Camp Rainbow, a free camp in Idaho for children who have survived or are undergoing treatment for cancer and blood-related disease or disorders. West, who had a home in Idaho, was a vocal supporter of the camp.

Grant plans to wear his own Batman costume to the screening and is urging others to join him.

“This is bigger than just one fan,” Grant said. “This is a community getting together and doing something that should have been done long ago to honor someone that they love, and that they’re very proud of.”

They will also host a bat-signal lighting ceremony, similar to the one done in Los Angeles.

(3) 2017 HUGO VOTE TOTAL. I don’t remember reporting this when it came out, so just in case:

(4) FINNISH WEIRD. This Is Finland continues its Worldcon coverage: “Proud to be weird at Worldcon”.

[Maria] Turtschaninoff, who won the Finlandia Junior prize, is one of the most popular authors in Finnish literature today. She has had her book rights sold to over twenty countries and a movie has even been optioned. The first two books in her Red Abbey Chronicles series, Maresi and Naondel, have been called “feminist fantasy” by impressed reviewers.

“I’m not very interested in labels. I’m not that interested in messages either,” she says. “But I am a feminist, and an environmentalist, and a humanist, and all my values are reflected in what I write. And the mere fact that I am a woman who gets to write and who writes about women is inarguably a feminist action.”

Worldcon attendee Turtschaninoff says she is proud of the diversity in Finnish Weird, and says for such a small country Finnish writers have done quite well.

“From what I have seen, we in Finland are somewhat freed of the commercial expectations authors in, for instance, the Anglo-Saxon world face,” she continues. “This gives us some room to experiment, to go beyond what is expected. I believe Finland is fertile ground for bold, different and new voices and stories.”

(5) MEME OF THE DAY. A couple of SJW credentials have their own ideas about packing for the Worldcon.

(6) AN EXCUSE IN EVERY PORT. Writing Excuses cruise “WXR 2017 in the Baltic Sea” docked today. Follow the #WXR17 hashtag to see tweets sent during the voyage:

https://twitter.com/halleluyang/status/893886360033079296

https://twitter.com/TJaneBerry/status/892250825984278529

https://twitter.com/PiperJDrake/status/891987801314668548

https://twitter.com/CarmenCapiti/status/892033129132818436

(7) 9W. Lots happening at Nine Worlds this weekend. One small example:

(8) ALPHABET MALES. The Nameless Digest’s “A to Z: Influential Science Fiction Authors” has photos of 26 authors in alphabetical order – including a rare one of a clean-shaven Larry Niven.

Unfortunately, no women included at all.

(9) OWNING LITERATURE. One never thinks of these numinous scenes as being associated with a real place that a person could buy: “E.B. White’s former Maine farm, where Charlotte spun her web, goes up for sale”.

White, who wrote the children’s classics “Charlotte’s Web” and “Stuart Little,” bought the 44-acre property overlooking Blue Hill Bay with his wife, Katharine, in 1933. He lived there until his death in 1985.

The Gallants, who also own a home in South Carolina, purchased it shortly after White’s death, and have lived half of each year there ever since. They are now in their 80s and plan to live full time in their single-level home in South Carolina.

The couple has tried to be respectful of White’s memory – and the history of the house – by updating the kitchen and refinishing the floors but otherwise leaving its character alone.

“They have not gentrified it,” said Martha Dischinger of Downeast Properties in Blue Hill. “They’ve not gone in and done weird things. They have made all the right improvements.”

The barn that was the setting for “Charlotte’s Web,” the beloved children’s book about a pig named Wilbur and his friendship with Charlotte the spider, is still there, including the famous rope swing whose motion was mimicked in White’s writing.

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • August 5, 1960 – William Castle’s 13 Ghosts brings “Illusion-O” to moviegoers.
  • August 5, 1988 — The Blob remake oozes into theaters.
  • August 5, 2011 – Rise of the Planet of the Apes premiered on this day.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY MOONWALKER

  • Born August 5, 1930  — Neil Armstrong

(12) WHAT, HE WORRY? Kyle Smith at National Review Online has a piece called “Confederate and the Dunces Who Assume It’s Pro-Slavery” where he argues that people who assume that ‘Confederate’ is going to promote slavery will have nothing to worry about.

Race these days is a kind of mental high-voltage power surge that is short-circuiting people’s minds. Do these writers really lack the imagination to see what creative direction Confederate is going to take? Every character, scene, and line of dialogue is going to be scrutinized, double-checked, and triple-checked to make sure it sends the message that white supremacy is evil. The primary creative risk for Confederate is not, as many commenters fear, that it will amount to alt-right white-supremacy porn but that it’ll be so focused on being the opposite of that it will keep pounding the same chords over and over. It’ll be so single-mindedly determined to prove it is on the morally correct side that it might be didactic and repetitive. A creative project that is principally concerned with selling the audience a political message (even one as unexceptionable as opposition to racism) risks being more of a sermon than a story.

(13) PERSON OF INTEREST. Chip Hitchcock theorizes: “It looks likely that the authorities have again gotten the wrong angle on a computer crime: Bail of $30,000 set for UK cyber expert Marcus Hutchins. To those of us who remember the mess the Secret Service tried to make of Steve Jackson Games, this sounds way too familiar.”

Ms Lobo said Mr Hutchins denied he was the author of the malware and said he would plead not guilty to all of the charges, which date between July 2014 and July 2015.

“He has dedicated his life to researching malware, not trying to harm people,” she said. “Use the internet for good is what he has done.

“He was completely shocked, this isn’t’ something he anticipated. He came here for a work-related conference and he was fully anticipating to go back home and had no reason to be fearful of coming or going from the United States.”

Mr Hutchins came to prominence in May this year after finding a “kill switch” to stop the WannaCry ransomeware attack that hit the NHS, as well as other organisations in 150 countries.

Also known as “MalwareTech” online, Mr Hutchins was hailed as an “accidental hero” after registering a domain name to track the spread of the virus, which actually ended up halting it.

Mr Hutchins, who works for Los Angeles-based computer security firm Kryptos Logi, had been in Las Vegas to attend the Black Hat and Def Con cyber-security conferences.

He was arrested at Las Vegas airport minutes before he was due to fly home.

(14) THE SHIRT OFF THEIR BACK. Pulp Coming Attractions runs a weekly roundup about publications and products of interest to pulp collectors and fans. That’s where I spotted these magazine logo t-shirts —

Famous Fantastic Mysteries T-Shirt This is the authentic logo used for this classic pulp magazine from the 1940s. Note: red fabric only. $22.95

(15) STAR WARS WEATHER. You may also appreciate Snorgtees’ “Alderaan 5-Day Forecast”…

(16) AND MATCHING SHOES. Yahoo! Movies’ Marcus Errico recommends these “‘Star Wars’ Shoes: Put the Force on Your Feet For 40th Anniversary”

As the 40th anniversary celebration for A New Hope, rolls on, a new line of canvas footwear inspired by George Lucas‘s original 1977 space opera is ready to launch from shoemaker Sperry, which released a popular Jaws-themed collection last year. Arriving Aug. 10, the Star Wars x Sperry collection features five styles that run the gamut from the light side to the dark side with seminal designs, images, and iconography from the film

For example —

Cloud Slip-On Droids: Now you can walk a mile in C-3PO and R2-D2‘s shoes.

(17) MEMO FROM THE EMPEROR. Charlie Lee Jackson II’s Empire of Entertainment has released two new digital books this week, both space operas.

Planet Patrol is about a small ship on which a Space Princess (like a circuit-riding judge of the Old west) travels the Solar System.

Dreadnought of Space is set centuries later, on one of those gigantic ships travelling to another star system to dispense justice. They represent the first books of a new series, “Star Service”.

(18) PARK EFFECT. When you wish upon a star…. “MouseMingle helps Disney fans find their happily-ever-after”.

Tavres, who scored six dates on MouseMingle, quit his full-time job as a technical program manager to work on the site. He’s close to finishing a mobile app and site redesign…..

MouseMingle is not just about finding love. Subscribers can also find friends and park pals.

“It’s not just about Disneyland, and it’s not specific,” Tavres said. “Everybody is welcome. I want people just to connect.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I learned couples were getting married from this site that I started,” said Tavres, who noted that Disney contacted and applauded him but added that he stress the website was an unofficial fan site unaffiliated with the Walt Disney Co. “I’m so happy for all of them.”

Tavres learned of the Guy wedding when Atwood-Knudson sent him an email thanking him for his creation.

Their wedding bands were set in three diamonds in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head and the character’s silhouette was featured in tabletop topiaries and as a cake topper.

The bride walked down the aisle to “Married Life” from “Up.” The new husband and wife left the ceremony to an orchestral version of “You’re Welcome” from “Moana,” shared their first dance to “Ma Belle Evangeline” from “The Princess and the Frog” and selected “Baby Mine” from “Dumbo” for the father-daughter number.

(19) FRANKENSTEIN LOVED GUACAMOLE. Do you find news like this anywhere else? Of course you don’t.

(20) BEETLEJUICE ANNIVERSARY COMING. Documentary for the Recently Deceased is an independent documentary about Tim Burton’s movie Beetlejuice. It will be available in 2018 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the film. Here’s a trailer —

[Thanks to Bruce D. Arthurs, JJ, Andrew Porter, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Charles Lee Jackson II, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Discover more from File 770

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

45 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 8/5/17 Nine Pinterests In Amber”

  1. First!

    edit:

    @12: I don’t know Kyle Smith, but the attitude in the quoted section feels like all I need to know. Not that I watch TV anyway….

    @8: There is one woman, although hard to see in a rear-quarter profile; they couldn’t find a last-name-begins-with-U, so the author between Turtledove and Verne is Le Guin. A fascinating collection of pictures at wildly varying ages. (I think Pohl’s is even younger than Niven’s.)

  3. (13) PERSON OF INTEREST.
    This comes across as really messed-up. Does this mean they’ll be arresting knifemakers for stabbings & gunsmiths for shootings too?

    (15) STAR WARS WEATHER.
    Harsh but true.

  5. Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag: YES! Write a post for F770. Take photos. It’d be fun to publish that.

  7. (8) From 2014, not that that is an excuse (arguably, it ceased to be any form of excuse in 1983, if not earlier). So 26 influential sf authors:

    A Eleanor Arnason
    B Leigh Brackett
    C C. J. Cherryh
    D Pamela Dean
    E Carol Emshwiller
    F C.S. Friedman
    G Mary Gentle
    H Nalo Hopkinson
    I Jean Ingelow
    J Shirley Jackson
    K Katharine Kerr
    L Megan Lindholm
    M Judith Merrill
    N Andre Norton
    O Octavia Butler
    P Meredith Ann Pierce
    Q Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
    R Joanna Russ
    S Mary Shelley
    T James Tiptree, jr.
    U Ursula K Le Guin
    V Joan Vinge
    W Kate Wilhelm
    X Xia Jia
    Y Jane Yolen
    Z Marion Zimmer Bradley

  9. (2) Tegan, yes! Please go and tell us. I think it’s a nice thing they’re doing.

    (5) Typical.

    (19) Sherry? Very English of him!

    Hey, remember a few weeks ago when we were talking about how much we had, worldwide, hated TV ads where women came in and insulted people about their choice of coffee?

    I came across an old Harvard Lampoon where they did a fake TV listing and one of the shows was “Fantasy Island — an ordinary TV viewer forces Mrs. Olson to drink Folger’s coffee until she vomits.”

    So, pretty much everyone felt the same way.

  10. 19) Vincent Price has some good things to say too, in his A Treasury of Great Recipes:

    “We’re against pre-stuffing our guests, and prefer to serve cocktails with a simple dip and crackers that are crisp but without too strong a taste of their own – English biscuits or plain mazoth are perfect. A strongly flavoured guacamole, which we learned about in Mexico, goes well with our philosophy, our crackers, and above all with our Mexican den where we gather for a pre-dinner drink.

    Price differs a bit in the recipe:

    2 large Avocados
    1 small Onion
    1 small Green chili
    1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
    (optional)
    1/8 teaspoon Ground coriander
    Salt
    1/2 clove Garlic
    1 tomato
    3 spoons Mayonnaise
    3 spoons lemon juice
    Cayenne pepper
    (optional)

  11. @Karl-Johan Norén: Nice list! Although I can’t help thinking that using middle names for Q and Z is cheating. (In US bookstores, Marion Zimmer Bradley is shelved in the B’s, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro in the Y’s.)

  12. David Goldfarb: In US bookstores, Marion Zimmer Bradley is shelved in the B’s

    Not in all of them, she isn’t. Her last name is Zimmer Bradley, and I only remember ever seeing her filed under “Z”.

  13. JJ on August 6, 2017 at 12:49 am said:
    David Goldfarb: In US bookstores, Marion Zimmer Bradley is shelved in the B’s

    Not in all of them, she isn’t. Her last name is Zimmer Bradley, and I only remember ever seeing her filed under “Z”.

    Odd. Having worked in B. Dalton and WaldenBooks way back in the previous century MZB was always shelved in with the Bs. And pretty much every bookseller at cons I attended did the same.

    Which is not to say shelving under Z was wrong, though I suspect MZB would have preferred not to be shelved down with the dust bunnies.

    I recall a story from Ed Bryant that Nicholas Yermakov grew tired of being down there and did an unscientific survey of bookstores and what was at eye level. He changed his name to Simon Hawke.

    But then there’s Zelazny who did rather well down there.

  14. A very Useful fellow when compiling that sort of list: Steven Utley.

    (Still looking for a female/other SF writer with a surname beginning with U. Surnames beginning with X are also in short supply. Yes, I am the sort of person who looks for these things solely in order to get every letter of the alphabet represented on his bookshelves, why do you ask?)

    (What do I do once I find an X? Move on to the Cyrillic alphabet, probably.)

  16. 8. Ursula Le Guin is on that Nameless list…they used her for the “U”. Used Aldous Huxley for the “X” and there’s at least one other alphabetic cheat in there, I think.

  18. I’ve only known of MZB as by Bradley. Her Wikipedia article also refers to her as “Bradley” when only referring by last name.

    Some women, like my mother, make their maiden name their middle name when they marry. I can only assume that Bradley did the same.

    Lois McMaster Bujold is shelved under Bujold, too, for example, despite McMaster being her original name, for what it’s worth.

  19. Last year on Goodreads I did an A-Z challenge — tried to read at least one book or short story by an author whose last name began with every last letter in the alphabet. I managed it, primarily thanks to Seabury Quinn and Xia Jia (whom I counted as X, under the assumption that Xia was the surname — I saw it listed as both Xia Jia and Jia Xia; otherwise, I would’ve ended up reading Xueqin Cao’s Dream of the Red Chamber or some such).

    Some of the other letters were surprisingly challenging — thank heavens for Washington Irving and Nnedi Okorafor.

  20. Surely You’re Scrolling, Mr. Fileman

    (14) Someone let me know when they come up with a Zeppelin Stories shirt.

  21. Ok, I’ve put Adam West Day on my calendar, and I’ll contact the reporter to see if there’s any more information on it. If anything actually happens I’ll try to be there to see it and take photos.

  22. Thanks for the interest in my list! Yeah, I cheated a bit, but less so than the “original” list.

    It was interesting to make the selections for some letters. I had a couple of alternatives for O, but forgot Nnedi Okorafor – otherwise she is likely the only author who I could see displacing Octavia Butler or Leigh Brackett. And I didn’t include authors like Tanith Lee, CL Moore, Lois Bujold, Yoon Ha Lee, Emma Bull, JK Rowling, and many more.

  23. I’ve only known of MZB as by Bradley. Her Wikipedia article also refers to her as “Bradley” when only referring by last name.

    The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust also refers to her as “Mrs. Bradley.”

  24. @David H.: and some women use those names even after divorce, because changing from how readers know them (except when changing brands, e.g. Lindholm Hobb or Vernon Kingfisher) is a good way to vanish. Another example: I’ve heard that Joan D. Vinge has been annoyed at people leaving out the D; her family, the Dennisons, were useful enough to figure in my first economics textbook.

    And the BPL and Wikipedia both refer to the author of the St. Germain Chronicles as Yarbro (original name); I see no indication that it’s a compound lastname like Andrew Lloyd Webber.

  25. We leave for the hospital in less than an hour. When we come back home in three days, we will return with a freshly minted science fiction nerd.

  29. @Soon, Mike, and Matt: Thank you. We are leaving now, and I’ll probably not be around online much for the next couple of days.

  32. As Zimmer is MZB’s maiden name (cf her brother and sometime collaborator Paul Edwin Zimmer) I’m willing to grant a Z in time of need, but I’ve never seen her shelved anywhere but B.

  35. Congratulations, Aaron! And have an amazing time, Heather, and everyone else headed to (or already at) Helsinki!

  40. Pingback: Pixel Scroll 8/6/17 Surely You’re Scrolling, Mr. Fileman | File 770

  42. @Soon Lee re @13: actually, I wouldn’t mind seeing some gunsmiths charged; some in the US are making manhood substitutes that are close imitations of military weapons — easily convertible to rapid fire and minimally useful in any civilian application. But this does seem wedged; they’re doing security theater and don’t care if they grind somebody up. Maybe this time a judge will give some overreacher jail time instead of just ~fining their employer as in the Jackson case.

    Congratulations to Aaron: nerds rule!

  43. @Karl-Johan Norén

    Nice list, and nice alternates too.

    (Although isn’t Yoon Ha Lee a man?)

    @Aaron

    Congratulations and good luck!

  45. 12) All the facepalming. That is… not how television production works. You get a script, you work from it, and then on the day the director doesn’t like the way a line is delivered and rewrites it on the spot. Or they have a great idea and they film that instead. Or an actor gets ideas and has enough pull to be allowed to improvise… or or or or or…

    No plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and no script ever survives contact with production.

Comments are closed.