Snapshots 78 RPM

Here are 7 developments of interest to fans.

(1) Associated Press film critic Christy Lemire registered a “no” vote for John Carter but still found one thing to like about the film:

Thankfully, there’s the pleasingly goofy creature who becomes John Carter’s de facto animal companion. He’s sort of a monster-dog hybrid: an overgrown pug with a sweet, smushy face, incredible speed and boundless enthusiasm. This gives “John Carter” something in common with yet another pop-culture phenomenon, “The Artist”: The dog is the best part.

That’s brutal.

(2) The 2012 LA Vintage Paperback Show takes place March 25 at the Valley Inn and Conference Center in Mission Hills, CA.

Karen Anderson, Peter Beagle, John DeChancie, Dennis Etchison, Laura Freas, David Gerrold, Mel Gilden, Cody Goodfellow, Earl Hamner, George Clayton Johnson, Earl Kemp, Dani & Eytan Kollin, Michael Kurland, Richard Lupoff, Ib Melchior, Lisa Morton, Larry Niven, William F. Nolan, Jerry Pournelle, Tim Powers and Harry Turtledove are some of the authors who will be on hand.

(3) Four people were injured when art display panels fell over at a mundane art show in Canberra. Someone knocked over the first panel and the others dropped like a row of dominos. David Klaus comments: “Considering how many convention fandom art shows there are every year, our track record is pretty good, I think.”

(4) If you want a complete rundown about the hack on Washington DC’s election software that declared a Futurama robot the winner, you’ll find it in this entry in “District of DeBonis”, a Washington Post blog written by Mike DeBonis. He has more information about the successful D.C. voting hack by the University of Michigan, including a link to the academic paper that The Register riffed from.

Martin Morse Wooster provided the link and he adds: “You should make clear that the U. of Michigan hackers did NOT affect any ACTUAL elections. The D.C. elections board was proposing Internet voting and this proposal died after the Michigan hackers had their fun.”

(5) There’s a move afoot to replace the site of the 1983 and 1998 Worldcons. See the Baltimore Sun article ”Subject Study: New arena, larger convention center would transform city”.

(6) An artist has created a steampunk version of Thing from the Addams Family. It’s on exhibit in North Carolina.

(7) Tweeting from the Titanic? Yes, if our ancestors aboard the unsinkable ocean liner had owned smartphones I’m certain they’d have used their last minutes above water to hype their internet following. [Irony alert.] Since they couldn’t, The History Press is doing it for them:

In just over a month, the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15. The History Press, one of the U.K.’s largest local and specialist history publishers, is planning to use Twitter to bring the story of the Titanic back to life by live-tweeting a re-enactment of the ship going under. The handle @TitanicRealTime became active March 10, and already has more than 13,000 followers.

Right now, the account is tweeting the preparation of the ship’s April 10 launch. Later, when the ship would have set sail, the handle will send historically accurate tweets by historians through the eyes of people who were directly involved in the tragedy — from the captain and crew to passengers and the band. The publisher is also launching an interactive iPad app on March 15 to commemorate the anniversary and give more in-depth analysis and historical references of the event.

As my colleague Elst Weinstein might say, “Ook ook!”

[Thanks for these links goes out to Martin Morse Wooster, David Klaus, James Hay and John King Tarpinian.]

4 thoughts on “Snapshots 78 RPM

  1. re #5: I’m glad someone reads the Baltimore Sun. It’s a sad shadow of it’s former self. Anyway … from the article it looks like some folks just want to expand the convention center, not replace it.

    Not surprisingly, there’s exciting political stuff going regarding the proposals: http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/blog/real-estate/2012/03/baltimores-new-arena-proposal-study.html .

    I will note that one of our previous mayors, deciding that the then expanded convention center needed a “Convention Center Hotel” decreed that the Marriott Waterfront would be such. It’s on the other side of the harbor, which would be a fun one mile walk in the middle of a Baltimore summer. There’s now a city financed Hilton actually next to the convention center.

  2. I saw John Carter the other night and found it thoroughly enjoyable. If they’d had a better choice playing the title character, you could say the sky’s the limit. Effects, art and the alien dog carried it a long way.

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