Pixel Scroll 4/12/23 What Is It You Plan To Scroll With Your One Filed And Pixelled Life?

(1) COVID OUTBREAK AMONG EASTERCON ATTENDEES. Fans who attended last week’s Eastercon in the UK (“Conversation”) have been self-reporting positive Covid tests and symptoms to the con’s Facebook community group, or to the con’s Discord server, now closed, which reportedly had more than 70 positive tests. Masking is no longer mandatory in the UK, however, the con’s own Covid policy asked people to test before coming, stay home if they tested positive (or had symptoms of an infectious disease), and to wear a mask in program items and crowded areas. There is much discussion of how many people complied with their masking policy, as well as the load on the venue’s ventilation system in places like the bar.

Today one author put it rather dramatically:

(2) FANZINE PILGRIMAGE. Marcin “Alqua” Kłak today published a conreport about “Corflu Craic – my first fanzine convention” at Fandom Rover. The event was held in Belfast the weekend before Eastercon.

…Did I enjoy Corflu? Oh yes! I certainly want to repeat the experience (although next year the con will be held in Nevada so outside of my reach). The atmosphere, the friendliness, the conversations – It was pretty awesome. Eating meals together and discussing fannish topics was memorable.

I got a lot of reading materials. Firstly items I bought at the auction at previous Corflu were given to me. They came with some additional stuff (including the Programme Book from 2022). Then each person coming to Corflu Craic got a random set of fanzines from the chair’s own supplies. Then I got many zines people produced for this year or took them to the con to give away. And at last I bought two publications. The first was 1957 The First UK Worldcon edited by Rob Hansen (which at the end of the con got an award). The second one was a TAFF trip report from Sue Mason. I cannot complain for the lack of fanzines to read this year (and probably next too!). The challenge wiI be to write a few LoCs though (and I don’t have too much experience!).

(3) KSR AT UCSD. On April 19 The School for Global Policy and Strategy and the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego will host an in-person discussion with Kim Stanley Robinson, engaging with several UC San Diego researchers, about the bidirectional patterns of influence between climate research and science fiction narrative, and what both suggest about the Earth’s future, and our own. Free admission, register here.

Earth’s Future: A Discussion with Kim Stanley Robinson. April 19, 2023, 12:30p – 1:50p. Institute of the Americas, Hojel Auditorium, UC San Diego

Internationally renowned writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction has long been engaged with the tradition of utopian thought: how do we imagine a better society? His most recent novel, The Ministry for the Future, has been hailed as a masterpiece and held up as a roadmap to climate policy and action, and how his characters navigate the next hundred years of climate catastrophe and cascading political and social effects toward a better future have inspired numerous projects that engage with related ideas in political economy, technology and engineering, climatology and ecology, and urban design.

Featuring:

Kim Stanley Robinson: American novelist, widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction.

Introduction by Patrick Coleman, Asst. Director, Clarke Center for Human Imagination

Moderated by Jennifer Burney (Professor; Marshall Saunders Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Global Climate Policy and Research, UC San Diego)

Panelists:

Kate Ricke (Assistant Professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego)

Teevrat Garg (Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego)

John Ahlquist (Professor and Associate Dean, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego)

(4) SECOND GUESS SFF. GameRant’s Kristy Ambrose says these “Sci-Fi Movies That Almost Had Different Endings”.

…It’s not uncommon for sci-fi movies to have several endings before the director and the studio decide on the one that will hit the theatres. The fans can only hope to catch a glimpse of the alternative cuts on DVDs or Blu-rays. As it happens, these highly successful sci-fi films almost ended differently, and if they had been cut today, their stories might have concluded differently….

Here’s an example – beware spoilers. (If you wonder, “how could they spoil an ending that wasn’t made?” – well, they have to compare it to the actual ending, and there you are, spoiled!)

6. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)

Here’s an example of a dark but comical ending that might have been retained had Little Shop of Horrors been made in another era. Instead of successfully defeating Audrey II, the killer plant that fed on human blood, it eats both Seymour, the main character, and his love interest, the original Audrey. It’s then strong enough to replicate, and the final scenes include several giant killer plants tearing apart the city.

Test audiences weren’t too keen on the ending, however, which sees our downtrodden but plucky protagonist turned into plant food. An alternative ending was used instead, in which Seymour manages to electrocute Audry II before it can do any more damage and stop the global carnage before it even starts.

(5) MEMORY LANE.

1975[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Our Beginning this Scroll is that of Gardner Dozois’ “The Visible Man” noveletteHe was a prolific author of short fiction, for which he won two Nebulas, and also wrote four novels. Though his fiction won no Hugos despite five nominations, he won myriads as Professional Editor, Short Fiction.

Now for “The Visible Man” novelette. It was first published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, the December 1975 issue. It got printed as part of The Visible Man collection several years later. Baen has the rights to it now and they last published as an ebook a decade in Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys with Gardner Dozois. It’s a nicely done look at him as a writer. So let’s get to that Beginning… 

GEORGE ROWAN’S ONLY chance of escape came to him like a benediction, sudden and unlooked for, on the road between Newburyport and Boston. 

They were on old Route 1, the Newburyport Turnpike, and there was not another car in sight. The fully automated Route 95 guideway was just a few miles west of here, running almost parallel to Route 1, but for reasons of his own the sheriff had preferred to take the old secondary road, even though he had to drive the car himself and couldn’t possibly get up to guideway speeds. Perhaps he simply enjoyed manual driving. Perhaps it was some old State regulation, now solidified into tradition, that prohibited the transportation of prisoners on automated roads. Perhaps it was just some more of the expected psychological torture, taking the slowest possible route so that Rowan would have time to build up a greater charge of fear and dreadful anticipation for what awaited him in Boston. 

For Rowan, the trip had already become interminable. His memory of the jail in Newburyport, of his crime, of his hasty trial, of his past life—all had become hazy and indistinct. It seemed as if he had been riding forever, on the road, going to Boston for the execution of his sentence. Only that was real and vivid: the slight swaying motion of the car, the seat upholstery sticking uncomfortably to his sweat-soaked back, the ridged rubber mat under his feet. The countryside they drove through was flat and empty, trees, meadows, cultivated fields, little streams, sometimes a boarded-up gas station or a long-abandoned roadside stand. The sky was a flat, washed-out blue, and the sunlight was thick and dusty. Occasionally they would bump over a pothole or a stretch of frost-buckled pavement—the State didn’t spend much anymore to keep up the secondary roads. The car’s electric engine made no sound at all, and the interior of the car was close and hot with the windows rolled up.

Rowan found himself reluctantly watching the little motions of the steering wheel, apparently turning all by itself, driverless. That made him shiver. He knew intellectually, of course, that he was sitting on the front seat between the sheriff and the deputy, but he couldn’t see them. He could hear them breathing, and occasionally the deputy’s arm would brush against his own, but, for Rowan, they were invisible. 

He knew why they were invisible, but that didn’t make it any less spooky. When the State’s analysis computers had gone down into his mind and found the memories that proved him guilty, they had also, as a matter of course, implanted a very deep and very specific hypnotic injunction: from now on, George Rowan would not be able to see any other living creature. Apparently the injunction had not included trees and other kinds of vegetation, but it had covered animals and birds and people. He assumed that when he “saw” through invisible people—as he now “saw” the portions of the car that should have been blocked from sight by the sheriffs body—it was because his subconscious mind was extrapolating, creating a logical extension of the view from other visual data in order to comply with the spirit of the injunction. Nothing must be allowed to spoil the illusion. Nor could Rowan break it, although he knew what it was and how it had been created. It was too strong, and planted too deep. He was “blind” in a special and insidious way….

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 12, 1884 Bob Olsen. He wrote stories for Amazing Stories, from 1927 to 1936, many of them said to be of humorous inclination. He was one of the first writers to use the phrase ‘space marine’ in a two-story Captain Brink sequence consisting of “Captain Brink of the Space Marines” (November 1932 Amazing) and “The Space Marines and the Slavers” (December 1936 Amazing). I’m fairly sure that he wrote no novels and less than twenty-four short stories. I do know that severe arthritis curtailed his writing career in 1940. (Died 1956.)
  • Born April 12, 1915 Emil Petaja. An author whose career spanned seven decades who really should be remembered as much for his social circles that included early on as H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and August Derleth which later expanded to include Anthony Boucher, Frank M. Robinson, Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick and Robert A. Heinlein.  It should not be overlooked that he did write seven novels and around forty short stories during his career with the stories appearing in Weird TalesFantasy and Science FictionFantastic AdventuresWorlds of Tomorrow, Future Science Fiction Stories and other venues as well. (Died 2000.)
  • Born April 12, 1921 Carol Emshwiller. I think her short stories are amazing and The Start of the End of It All and Other Stories collection won a World Fantasy Award. She’d later receive a Life Achievement from the group of judges chosen by the World Fantasy Awards Administration. I’ve not read her novels, so which would you recommend I read? (Died 2019.)
  • Born April 12, 1916 Beverly Cleary. One of America’s most successful authors, almost a hundred million copies of her children’s books have been sold worldwide since her first book was published in seventy years ago. Some of her best known characters are Ramona Quimby and Beezus Quimby, Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, and Ralph S. Mouse. (Died 2021.)
  • Born April 12, 1958 Elizabeth Klein-Lebbink, 65. An LA-resident con-running fan. She has worked on a variety of conventions, both regionals and Worldcons, frequently in the art shows. She is has been a member of the Dorsai Irregulars. She is married to fellow fan Jerome Scott. Works for NASA where she writes such papers as ‘Measurements of Integration Gain for the Cospas-Sarsat System from Geosynchronous Satellites’.
  • Born April 12, 1936 Charles Napier. Well let’s meet Adam on the Trek episode of “The Way to Eden”. Oh, that’s a horrible outfit he’s wearing. Let’s see if he had better genre roles… well he was on Mission: Impossible twice in truly anonymous roles, likewise he played two minor characters on The Incredible Hulk and he did get a character with a meaningful name (General Denning) on Deep Space 9. I surprised to learn that he was General Hardcastle in Superman and Justice League Unlimited series, and also voiced Agent Zed for the entire run of the Men in Black animated series. (Died 2011.)
  • Born April 12, 1979 Jennifer Morrison, 44. Emma Swan in the Once Upon a Time series, and Winona Kirk, mother of James T. Kirk in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. She also paid her horror dues in Urban Legends: Final Cut as Amy Mayfield, the student videographer whose film goes terribly wrong. I’m intrigued to see that she’s the voice actor for the role of Selina Kyle / Catwoman in the Batman: Hush, a film that needs a R rating to be told properly and indeed did so.

(7) CAN YOU GUESS? “Russell Crowe doesn’t like horror movies. Why the hell is he playing The Pope’s Exorcist?” asks Entertainment Weekly.

Russell Crowe does not like scary movies.

“No, I’m not really a horror film fella,” the Oscar winner tells EW. “I like to sleep deeply at nighttime.”

Crowe is hoping to give cinemagoers interrupted slumbers with his new film The Pope’s Exorcist (in theaters April 14). In this purportedly inspired-by-real-events horror movie, the actor plays Father Gabriele Amorth, the Diocese of Rome’s chief exorcist who investigated thousands of possession cases starting in the late ’80s. Directed by Julius Avery (Overlord), the film finds Franco Nero’s Pontiff sending Amorth to investigate the strange happenings at a Spanish castle which are tormenting an American family, played by Laurel Marsden, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, and, as the clan’s matriarch, Doctor Sleep actress Alex Essoe….

(8) HARRY POTTER AND THE REGISTER OF CASH. Variety reports “’Harry Potter’ TV Show Adaptation Ordered at HBO Max”. Each season will be based on one of the books.

A “Harry Potter” TV series is officially moving forward at HBO Max.

The announcement was made during Warner Bros. Discovery’s presentation to press and investors on April 12, during which it was announced that HBO Max and Discovery+ are officially being combined into a new service dubbed simply Max.

News of a show based on the megahit J.K. Rowling book series first leaked on April 3, but details have now been confirmed.

Each season of the show will be based on one of the books in the franchise, with Warner Bros. Discovery describing the show as a “decade-long series.” It will feature an entirely new cast from the films.

(9) OUT OF THE DOGHOUSE. Not without protest, however,“The NYPD is bringing back its robot dog”The Verge has the story.

The New York Police Department is reenlisting Digidog, the four-legged robot that the city faced backlash for deploying a few years back, as reported earlier by The New York Times. NYC Mayor Eric Adams announced the news during a press event on Tuesday, stating that the use of Digidog in the city can “save lives.”

Digidog — also known as Spot — is a remote-controlled robot made by the Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics. It’s designed to work in situations that may pose a threat to humans, helping to do things like perform inspections in dangerous areas and monitor construction sites. However, Boston Dynamics also touts its use as a public safety tool, which the NYPD has tried in the past.

… City officials say that the NYPD will acquire two robot dogs for a total of $750,000, according to the NYT, and that they will only be used during life-threatening situations, such as bomb threats.

“I believe that technology is here; we cannot be afraid of it,” Mayor Adams said during Tuesday’s press conference. “A few loud people were opposed to it, and we took a step back — that is not how I operate. I operate on looking at what’s best for the city.”…

(10) AL JAFFEE TRIBUTE. Stephen Colbert paid tribute to Al Jaffee on The Late Show last night.

Stephen takes a moment to honor one of the true giants of his childhood, MAD Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee, who died Monday at the age of 102.

(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Appropriate for the Easter season: bunnies… “Is Watership Down Science Fiction?” is a question posed by Moid Moidelhoff over at Media Death Cult. Only touching briefly on actual definitions of SF (it arguably defies precise definition) it is the first Media Death Cult video to take place on location at the real Watership down. Join Moid – who’s occasionally known to be a bit of a wag and a tease – for this nine-minute video….

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day John A Arkansawyer.]

Pixel Scroll 4/10/23 A Pixel Sliding Into Third Just Under The Tag Of A Scroll As A Filer Calls “Safe!”

(1) FRENCH SFF SCHOLAR COMING TO KANSAS. The Gunn Center for the Study of SF is welcoming 2023 Hall Center International Scholar, Simon Bréan. Professor Simon Bréan (U. of Paris-Sorbonne), a world-renowned a scholar and specialist in science fiction, will visit the University of Kansas in April 2023 as the Hall Center for the Humanities 2023 International Scholar and a guest of the Department of French, Francophone & Italian Studies, Center of Excellence, KU Libraries, and the Gunn Center for the Study of SF. Professor Bréan will be visiting from Wednesday April 26 to Thursday, April 27, 2023.

(2) ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN. “Harlan Coben’s Top Tip for Book Touring: Appreciate Crowds” in the New York Times.

On July 11, 2001, Harlan Coben was at home in Ridgewood, N.J., when his publisher called to share the happy news that his 10th novel, “Tell No One,” was a best seller. “That’s the first time I hit the New York Times list,” he said in a phone interview. “It was also the day my fourth and youngest child was born. Things changed a lot after that.”

Not only was the author swarmed by small people — the oldest Coben kid was 7 — he suddenly attracted crowds to bookstores. Gone was the awkwardness he immortalized in a 2014 Op-Ed about a slow afternoon at Waldenbooks: “During the first hour of my signing, a grand total of four people approached me. Two asked me where the bathroom was. The third explained his conspiracy theory linking the J.F.K. assassination with the decision by General Mills to add Crunch Berries to Cap’n Crunch breakfast cereal. The fourth asked me if we had a copy of the new Stephen King.”

Maybe this memory explains why Coben declined to issue a single substantive complaint about the toll of recent professional obligations.

(3) NERO FIDDLES, VULCAN BURNS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] We may be living in some offshoot of the Star Trek alternate timeline where Nero destroys Vulcan.

Back in 2018 it was announced an exoplanet (“super-Earth” sized) had been discovered at 40 Eridani which was, of course, popularly referred to as Vulcan after Mr. Spock‘s home planet orbiting there in the Star Trek universe.

Well, reanalysis of the data has lead to the conclusion that, sadly, that announcement was in error. Though, the door isn’t completely closed as current data isn’t sensitive enough to rule out other, smaller, planets in the system. 

So, fingers crossed — for Nero to be thwarted and Vulcan to be rediscovered in its rightful place. Or perhaps a different arrangement of one’s fingers is called for. “Sorry Trekkies: Bad news about the ‘real-life Planet Vulcan'” at Mashable.

… The trouble is, after a reanalysis, the new team found the discovery was likely a mistake. That’s right: They couldn’t just let Spock live long and prosper in a real world. They had to go and wipe out his home planet from existence.

“We apologize for that,” Burt told Mashable. “We’ll find other cool planets.”…

… Despite their findings, the search for Spock’s home can continue, Laliotis said. Though they may not have a starship Enterprise to seek it out, more sensitive instruments and detection methods in the near future may make it possible to find another smaller exoplanet in that star system — perhaps one that is more Earth-like — to rename Vulcan.

After all, if 40 Eri b’s detection were correct, it would be much too hot for life as we know it.

“There is still hope that there might be a Vulcan there,” she said. “This actually is maybe promising that there might be a better Vulcan there.”

(4) BE ON THE LOOKOUT. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] A fan costumed as Boba Fett had the transit police called on them during Anime Boston because onlookers thought he was carrying a real rifle. Fortunately, nothing severe came of it. “Police were called about a person with a rifle. It turned out to be a man in a Boba Fett costume” at CNN.

… Boston police had an intergalactic encounter after a report about a person carrying a long rifle led them to someone dressed up in a Boba Fett costume.

Transit police with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority received a call about a person armed with a long rifle at the Back Bay train station on Friday around 6 pm ET, according to a tweet from the agency’s official account.

But the rifle in question wasn’t real at all, said police…

(5) AL JAFFEE (1921-2023). Mad Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee died April 10 at the age of 102 reports SFGate.com.

Al Jaffee, Mad magazine’s award-winning cartoonist and ageless wise guy who delighted millions of kids with the sneaky fun of the Fold-In and the snark of “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” has died. He was 102.

Jaffee died Monday in Manhattan from multiple organ failure, according to his granddaughter, Fani Thomson. He had retired at the age of 99.

…The [initial fold-in] idea was so popular that Mad editor Al Feldstein wanted a follow-up. Jaffee devised a picture of 1964 GOP presidential contenders Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater that, when collapsed, became an image of Richard Nixon.

“That one really set the tone for what the cleverness of the Fold-Ins has to be,” Jaffee told the Boston Phoenix in 2010. “It couldn’t just be bringing someone from the left to kiss someone on the right.”

…Jaffee received numerous awards, and in 2013 was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, the ceremony taking place at San Diego Comic-Con International. In 2010, he contributed illustrations to Mary-Lou Weisman’s “Al Jaffee’s Mad Life: A Biography.” The following year, Chronicle Books published “The MAD Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010.”

The Hollywood Reporter notes that Jaffee began his comics career after graduating high school in 1940, and at age 20 he made his first sale to Will Eisner, who bought his parody of Superman called Inferior Man. He went on to work for soon-to-be Marvel legend Stan Lee at Timely Comics, a forerunner of Marvel Comics.  He did his first work for Mad Magazine in 1955.

(6) NORMAN REYNOLDS (1934-2023). Production designer and art director Norman Reynolds died April 6, and Lucasfilm has a lengthy tribute.

Reynolds shared the 1978 Academy Award for Best Production Design with three colleagues for their work on the first Star Wars movie.

…Reynolds was an art director on Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). He worked closely with John Barry, the film’s overall production designer, to help establish the core design philosophy behind Star Wars architecture and construction. They joined art director Leslie Dilley and set decorator Roger Christian as winners of the Academy Award for Art Direction in 1978. For Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Reynolds was elevated into the production designer role as Barry pursued directing (sadly, he would pass away while working as a consultant on Empire)…. 

He won another Academy Award for Art Direction 1982, shared with two colleagues, for their work on Raiders of the Lost Ark.

…When Steven Spielberg partnered with Lucasfilm to make Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reynolds became production designer, helping establish the Indiana Jones style from the ground-up. This even included sculpting the iconic golden idol that Indy attempts to procure during the film’s memorable opening. Reynolds used an Incan fertility sculpture that he’d collected during his travels overseas….

Of course, Raiders wouldn’t be complete without Indy’s close call with a giant boulder as it rolls down a temple passage. “I didn’t know it was gonna look as good as it did until the day Norman Reynolds showed me that he had actually made a boulder that was something like 22 feet in circumference,” Steven Spielberg would explain. As Reynolds explained, it was Spielberg himself who kept asking for it to be bigger! Raiders would earn Reynolds his second Academy Award for Art Direction in 1982 alongside art director Leslie Dilley and set decorator Michael Ford….

(7) MICHAEL LERNER (1941-2023). Actor Michael Lerner has died at the age of 81. The Yahoo! profile mentions many genre roles.

…With an Academy Award nod under his belt [for Barton Fink], Lerner became a familiar face for moviegoers through the ’90s, with notable credits including “Newsies,” “Blank Check,” “No Escape” and “Celebrity.” In Roland Emmerich’s 1998 “Godzilla,” he played the overwhelmed, pompous New York leader deemed Mayor Ebert, a flagrant lampoon of premier film critic Roger Ebert. Lerner was styled to resemble the “At the Movies” co-host in the disaster blockbuster. (Ebert ended up panning the film with a 1.5 star review, though he praised Lerner for a “gamely played” performance.)

Lerner continued regular work after the turn of the century. He played the severe boss to James Caan’s grumpy publishing company exec in the 2003 holiday comedy “Elf,” as well as a mutant-weary U.S. Senator in the 2014 blockbuster “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”

(8) MEMORY LANE.

1888[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Our Beginning is both that of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet and of the best known consulting detective to ever grace the pages of fiction, Sherlock Holmes. 

The November 1887 issue of Beeton’s Christmas Annual published Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet which showed us for the first time Sherlock Holmes and his friend Watson. Only eleven known copies of this issue are known to exist. 

It would be published in book form in 1888 by Ward, Lock & Co. 

It’s hard to believe there’s a single soul here who doesn’t know the story of these characters but I’m playing by our established rules, so no spoilers. So let’s go to our Beginning.

MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES

IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the 5th Northumberland Fusilier as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it the second Afghan f war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment and at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honors and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawur. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the veranda, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was despatched, accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Criterion bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Bart’s. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom.

“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked, in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets.

“You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”

I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.

“Poor devil!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”

“Looking for lodgings,” I answered. “Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.”

“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are the second man to-day that has used that expression to me.

“And who was the first?” I asked.

“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. 

He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get some one to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse.”

“By Jove!” I cried; “if he really wants some one to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone.”

Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wineglass.

“You don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion.”

“Why, what is there against him?”

“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer in his ideas—an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know, he is a decent fellow enough.”

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born April 10, 1897 Eric Knight. Decidedly better known for his 1940 Lassie Come-Home novel which introduced Lassie who I cannot stretch to be even genre adjacent for the soul of me, but he had one genre undertaking according to ISFDB, the Sam Small series. I’ve never heard of them, nor are they available in digital form though Lassie Come-Home of course is. Anyone read them? (Died 1943.)
  • Born April 10, 1921 Chuck Connors. His first genre role was as Senator Robert Fraser in Captain Nemo and the Underwater City followed by being Tab Fielding in Soylent Green. He’s Captain McCloud in Virus, a Japanese horror film, and he had one-offs in The Adventures of SupermanThe Six Million Dollar ManFantasy Island and a recurring role as Captain Janos Skorzenyn in Werewolf. (Died 1992.)
  • Born April 10, 1929 Max von Sydow. He played Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Never Say Never Again and Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. He shows up in the Exorcist II: The Heretic as Father Lankester Merrin while being King Osric in Conan the Barbarian. Dreamscape sees him being Doctor Paul Novotny while he’s Liet-Kynes the Imperial Planetologist in Dune. He was Judge Fargo in Judge Dredd (and yes I still like it), in Minority Report as Director Lamar Burgess, Sir Walter Loxley in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and finally in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Lor San Tekka. (Died 2020.)
  • Born April 10, 1953 David Langford, 70. And how long have you been reading Ansible? If he’s not noted for that singular enterprise, he should be noted for assisting in producing the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, not to mention hundreds of thousands of words as a principal editor of the third (online) edition of the publication, and some eighty thousand words of articles to the most excellent Encyclopedia of Fantasy as well. And let’s not forget his genre writing as well that earned him a Best Short Story Hugo at the Millennium Philcon for “Different Kinds of Darkness”.  And he has won 28 other Hugos for his fan writing, for Ansible, and his work on the third edition of EoSF
  • Born April 10, 1955 Pat Murphy, 68. I think that her most brilliant work is The City, Not Long After which I’ve read myriad times. If you’ve not read this novel, do so now. The Max Merriwell series is excellent and Murphy’s ‘explanation’ of the authorial attributions is fascinating. And The Falling Woman by her is an amazing read as well. She’s reasonably well stocked at the usual suspects.
  • Born April 10, 1957 John M. Ford, 1957 –  2006 Damn, he died far too young! Popular at At Minicon and other cons where he would be Dr. Mike and give silly answers to questions posed to him while wearing a lab coat before a whiteboard. His most interesting novel I think is The Last Hot Time, an urban fantasy set in Chicago that might have been part of Terri Windling’s Bordertown series but wasn’t. Possibly. (And no, the Suck Fairy hasn’t gotten near when I last read it.) The Dragon Waiting is also excellent and his Trek novels are among the best in that area of writing.  He’s finally back into print after a very long time. (Died 2006.)
  • Born April 10, 1962 — James H. Burns. Every search I did in putting together this late Filer’s Birthday ended back here. That he was beloved here, I have no doubt. In OGH’s obituary for Burns in 2016 he said Burns’ pride was this trio of posts that paid tribute to the influence of his father — My Father, And The BrontosaurusSons of a Mesozoic Age, and World War II, and a Lexicon in Time. Burns also wrote for File 770 about memories of “growing up fannish,” such as the very popular Once, When We Were All Scientists, and CLANKY!. And his good friend Steve Vertlieb also has reminisced about Burns here. (Died 2016.)
  • Born April 10, 1992 Daisy Ridley, 31. Obviously she played the role of Rey in The Force AwakensThe Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. She will reprise her role as Rey in an yet untitled Star Wars film set that is after The Rise of Skywalker. She was also in Scrawl, a horror film as well as voicing Cotton Rabbit in Peter Rabbit. Though stretching to even call it genre adjacent even, she was Mary Debenham in Murder on The Orient Express.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Heart of the City shows us an episode of what Filers might call SJW Credential Court TV. (Hint: this is cat humor.)

(11) STRONG SALES PITCH. Charlie Jane Anders makes some pretty wild promises in the “Here’s What I’ll Do If You Buy My New Book!” section of her latest Happy Dancing newsletter. Here’s just the first of many:

…But regardless of where and how you purchase Promises Stronger Than Darkness, here are all the things I will do for you, because I love you and appreciate your support.

I will ship you, by zeroeth class mail, a portable ambient sexifier, which for 24 hours after activation, will render every inanimate object in your vicinity thirty-nine percent sexier. Your drapes will billow sexily. The cracks in the sidewalk will wink salaciously. Newspaper articles about the impending mulchification of civilization will appear diaphanous. The uneaten crusts of your morning toast will salute you….

(12) JUST ADD CUSTOMERS. “German monks create world’s first powdered beer”New Atlas has details.

A monastic brewery in East Germany says it’s created the first powdered beer. Just add water, and it’ll froth up, complete with a foamy head and full flavor. The result promises massive savings on transport, because it can be shipped at 10% of the weight.

Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle worked together with “technology partners” and used funding from BMWi to create its first powdered product, a dextrin-rich zero-alcohol beer which has been brewed using conventional methods, then “processed and prepared into a water-soluble beer powder/granulate.”…

(13) YOU NEVER KNOW. According to AP News, “’The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ is a box office smash”.

Audiences said let’s go to the movie theater for “ The Super Mario Bros. Movie ” this weekend. The animated offering from Universal and Illumination powered up with $204.6 million in its first five days in 4,343 North American theaters, including $146.4 million over the weekend, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

With an estimated $173 million in international earnings and a global total of $377 million, “Mario” broke records for video game adaptations (passing “Warcraft’s” $210 million) and animated films (“Frozen 2’s” $358 million).

Its global total makes it the biggest opening of 2023 and the second biggest three-day domestic animated opening (behind “Finding Dory”). It’s also a record for Illumination, the animation shop behind successful franchises like “Minions,” which has made over $5 billion from its 13 films….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by N.] Animated fantasy series The Owl House received a final season that was truncated to only three hour-long episodes, despite the outcry of both the creator and its fanbase. In the face of that challenge the show has given viewers arguably its best episodes. The final episode has been uploaded to YouTube in full for free (as the previous two were), bringing The Owl House to a close after three years. “The Owl House Season 3 Final Episode”.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Gary Farber, P. J. Evans, Daniel Dern, N., Chris Barkley, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 6/6/20 You Get A File, I’ll Get A Troll, We’ll Head Down
To The Pixel Scroll, Honey, Enemy Mine

(1) CUTTING OFF THEIR AIR. Connie Willis starts her Facebook post by comparing recent tragedies with the Salem witch trials: “On The Surreal Situation We Find Ourselves In”.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the horrific police murder of George Floyd was the Salem witch trials. Most people think the innocent victims of those monstrous trials were burned at the stake, but they weren’t–they were hanged. Mostly. Fourteen women, five men, and two dogs were executed by hanging. And one, an eighty-one-year-old farmer named Giles Corey, was pressed to death by putting a large flat stone on his chest and then piling more stones on top of it till they crushed the life out of him.

Basically the same thing happened to George Floyd. The policeman kneeling on his neck cut off his airway, and the other two holding him down pressed him flat against the ground so that his rib cage couldn’t inflate, and he suffocated to death.

The atrocities in Salem were precipitated by a belief that Evil was loose in their community.

It was, but it didn’t reside in the helpless slaves and old women and religious dissenters (and people who dared to speak out against what was happening) who were “tried” for witchcraft and executed.

The terrible irony of Salem is that the evil they were trying so hard to stamp out resided in the pious Christian town folk who accused them and the self-righteous judges who presided over their mock trials– “spectral evidence” was allowed, and they were pronounced guilty of crimes they had supposedly committed in the town even though they were locked up in jail at the time–and sentenced them to death.

The crimes brought to light by the death of George Floyd haven’t just been the murders of other African-Americans killed by the police, but other crimes the police have committed and are committing: the brutalizing of people exercising their First Amendment rights, the calling out of troops against the citizens they’re supposed to protect, and administration officials directing them to do so, calling for violence against their own people. Crimes by so-called law-abiding citizens and the officials they’ve put in office to “serve and protect” the public….

(2) YES, THIS AUGUST. Inverse fills readers in: “Everything We Know About Lovecraft Country, HBO’s Timely New Horror Series”.

In what just might be your next obsession from HBO, the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft finally does what the famed author never dared to do: Tell stories about Black people.

In August, HBO will premiere the television series Lovecraft Country, a road trip horror fantasy set in Jim Crow era America. It tells the story of an Army veteran and science fiction geek embarking on a cross-country trip to find his missing father, only to encounter otherworldly — and some very familiar — horrors along the way….

(3) LESS CYBER, MORE FILLING. “The New AP Stylebook Gets Technical. Really Technical”Slate explains how.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press released the 55th edition of its official Stylebook, complete with a new chapter on digital security practices for journalists. It also comes with a slew of new entries on technology that reinforce the importance of online advertising and cybersecurity in everyday life—and journalism.

For most journalists, the advice in the AP guide on how to secure their communications—through strong passwords, multifactor authentication, and the use of virtual private networks and encrypted messaging apps—will probably not come as a surprise. Still, for those tools to have made their way into the Associated Press Stylebook seems like a landmark of some kind for measuring how mainstream digital security concerns have become for journalists.

The new and revised technology-related entries in the Stylebook also reflect some interesting shifts in what the Associated Press believes journalists can expect general audiences to know. In general, many of the recommendations tend to urge journalists in the direction of greater specificity about the technologies they are describing and away from more generic, dated terms. For instance, the Stylebook endorses the terms digital wallets and mobile wallets, but it recommends avoiding e-wallet. In a similar vein, journalists are advised to use the prefix cyber– and the terms cyberspace and cyber sparingly, and instead substitute words like internet or digital…. 

(4) THE POSITIVE POWER OF BOREDOM. Eh, maybe. “What type of ‘bored’ are you? Find out and master the art of boredom”Body+Soul tells you how.

Lockdown got you climbing the walls? Are you over feeling bored? While it’s certainly an unpleasant feeling, experts say boredom isn’t always a bad thing. Some say that ‘blah’ feeling can even spur you on to greatness.

“There’s a real misconception that boredom is a sign of laziness and associated with apathy — actually, it’s the opposite,” says Professor James Danckert, who studies boredom. “It’s motivating — and, if we listen to it, we can learn a lot.”

Other experts agree that being bored can be a good thing. “Most of the time our minds are constantly occupied by external stimuli like smartphones,” says psychologist Dr Joann Lukins. “But boredom gives us a space to pause, reflect and then, often out of necessity, sees us create our next opportunity. I find it interesting that we use negative phrases like ‘bored to tears’ to discuss boredom when we can be ‘bored to brilliance’.’’

In fact, when researchers at the UK’s University of Central Lancashire asked people to do a boring task for 15 minutes and then asked them to come up with a list of things they could do with a plastic cup, they came up with more creative ideas than those in the control group who weren’t bored….

(5) WRITING FOR TEENS. The Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination is promoting the SDFutures online writing courses, along with UCSD and other supporters.

Imagining fantastic worlds and the future has never been more important.

It’s how we expand our sense of what is possible. It’s how we change our culture, save our planet, and make stories that create better futures for our loved ones and ourselves. This summer, we’re inviting San Diego–area teens to join us in exploring the power and potential of one of our most powerful human capacities: imagination.

SDFutures is series of online courses to help young people write science fiction and fantasy stories by developing their skills, meeting other young writers, and stretching their imagination with incredible professional writers of speculative fiction as guides. 

Our instructors include: Rebecca Roanhorse, Minh Lê, Kali Wallace, Lilliam Rivera, Patrick Coleman, Leah Thomas, Jeanelle Horcasitas, and Olivia Quintanilla.

If you know a community group, teacher, or young person who would benefit from this opportunity, please feel free to share.

More information, including how to register, at sd-futures.org.

(6) COMING ATTRACTIONS. Rich Horton put together a list of recommended books on his TBR pile. Many well-known titles here, but being TBR, he said his own score is zero. I’ve read 7. You have probably read multiples of my score.

Recently I posted a list of 100 books that was full of crap … it claimed to be a BBC list (it wasn’t) and it claimed that the average person had read only 6 (who knows?) and it was shoddily curated (multiple weird duplicates, etc.)

Here is what I believe to be a far better list. There are no duplicates (not even duplicate authors.) It is very English-language-centric — I can’t help that, English is all I can read…

(7) WITCHER WATCHER. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Behind a paywall in the May 30 Financial Times, Nilanjana Roy says she misses browsing bookstores in Delhi but has found some consolation watching TV shows adapted from novels, including The Witcher.

The hugely popular Netflix series, The Witcher, is a dark fantasy based on five novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski in the 1990s, following Geralt of Rivia, a lone monster killer who plies his trade across time jumps in the Continent, a place where monsters, humans, and creatures from Slavic fantasy battle it out with one another. Sapkowski, now 71, lives in Lodz and is as big a star in Polang as Terry Pratchett was in the UK. In one of his interviews, he dismissed critics of the fantasy genre:  ‘All literature is fantastic in its own way because it tells what wasn’t on paper before and it doesn’t matter whether you write about hobbits or love.’  Over the years, the community of Witcher fans has grown larger, drawn in by three wildly successful video games based on Geralt’s adventures, but it’s only now that the books have become a hit, propelled by the Netflix show.

What drew me in was not just the lure of a fantasy world peopled by vedmaks (sorcerers) or strigas (a flying witch who sucks the blood of infants at night); it’s that many of the characters are depicted as outsiders and outcasts.  It’s refreshing to watch fantasy that has a subtle echo of this last century’s swirl of xenophobia and politics about who belongs and who lives in the periphery, and that seeps into Geralt’s bloody exploits.

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • June 6, 1980 — The decidedly low-budget Galaxina premiered. Starring the 1980 Playboy Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten as the android Galaxina and a cast too large to detail here, it was written and directed by William Sachs. Marilyn Jacobs Tenser was the producer. She did work for Crown International which did low-budget genre films such as horror cinema, biker films, exploitation films, and B-movie drive-in fare. Critics thought it was a failure at spoofing it’s intended victims of Star TrekStars Wars and Aliens.  Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a not so generous 24% rating. 

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born June 6, 1799 – Alexander Pushkin.  Sometimes after a surprise you re-examine and think “Oh.  Of course.”  When Ravi Shankar first visited Russia, people cried “Pushkin!  Pushkin!”  They loved Pushkin and there is a resemblance.  I’d like to call Mozart and Salieri a fantasy but, as my father used to say, not within the normal meaning of that term.  Anyway, we get Ruslan and Lyudmila and “The Queen of Spades” and The Bronze Horseman and “The Golden Cockerel” and The Stone Guest and “The Shot”.  Speaking of which –  (Died 1837) [JH]
  • Born June 6, 1918 Richard Crane. In the Fifties, he would be cast in two of the series that largely defined the look and feel of televised SF for a decade. First, he was the dashing lead in Rocky Jones, Space Ranger which lasted for thirty-nine thrilling episodes; second, he’s Dick Preston in nine of the twelve episodes of the wonderfully titled Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe. He was also the lead in the fifteen-chapter serial Mysterious Island which was a very loose adaption of the Jules Verne novel. (Died 1969.) (CE) 
  • Born June 6, 1921 – Milton Charles.  Artist and art director in and out of our field; Art Director for Jaguar (New York), later for Pocket Books; five hundred awards from Amer. Inst. Graphic Arts (AIGA), Society of Illustrators, Amer. Book Publishers, and like that.  Here is his cover for Tucker’s Wild Talenthere is Vonnegut’s Mother Nighthere is a study of his V.C. Andrews covers.  (Died 2002) [JH]
  • Born June 6, 1924 Robert Abernathy. Writer during the 1940s and 1950s. He’s remembered mostly for his short stories which were published in many of the pulp magazines that existed during the Golden Age of Science Fiction such as Planet StoriesGalaxyF&SFAstounding and Fantastic Universe. He did around forty stories in total, and apparently wrote no novels that I can locate. There’s no collection of his works currently available in digital form but some of his stories are up at the usual digital suspects. (Died 1990.) (CE)
  • Born June 6, 1942 Dorothy Heydt, 78. She was the creator and first editor of the Star Trek Concordance, first published in March of 1969. (Yes, I owned a copy.) A linguist, she credited with creating one of the first widely used Vulcan languages in 1967 for a Trek fan fiction series. Though most of her short fiction is set in her own Cynthia, Daughter of Euelpides series, some was set in Bradley’s Darkover series. (CE)
  • Born June 6, 1945 – Vivian French.  Libraries in the United Kingdom say she is borrowed – that’s a metaphor, folks – shall we call it a Thing Contained for the Container? – half a million times a year; the Tiara Club books have sold three million copies.  Three dozen novels for us, some shorter stories, not least “I Wish I Were an Alien” in which the extraterrestrial boy, for his part, wishes –  [JH]
  • Born June 6, 1947 Robert Englund, 73. I think his best performance was as Blackie on the very short-lived Nightmare Cafe. Short-lived as in six episodes. Of course most will remember him playing Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. He actually appeared in a couple of now forgotten horror films, Dead & Buried and Galaxy of Terror, before landing that role. And he’s continued to do myriad horror films down to the years ranging from CHUD to Strippers vs Werewolves. Versatile man, our Robert.  (CE)
  • Born June 6, 1948 – Ron Salomon.  Hey Ron, I saw you had a Supporting Membership in last year’s Worldcon; thanks!  If CoNZealand has published a list I haven’t got one yet.  [JH]
  • Born June 6, 1959 Amanda Pays, 61. I first encountered her as Thero Jones on Max Headroom, a series I think should be considered one of the best SF series ever made. She appeared as Dawn in the Spacejacked film. She also had a guest role as Phoebe Green in the episode “Fire” of The X-Files, and was cast as Christina “Tina” McGee in The Flash of  the 1990 series, and she has a recurring role on the present Flash series as the same character.(CE)
  • Born June 6, 1964 – Jay Lake.  Born on Taiwan, lived in Nigeria, Dahomey (as it then was), Canada, and the U.S.  Won the Campbell Best New Writer award (as it then was); anyway, he was astounding.  Endeavour Award, also appropriate.  A dozen novels, two hundred seventy shorter stories, some co-authored.  Here is a cover he did for Polyphony – also appropriate.  (Died 2014) [JH]
  • Born June 6, 1973 – Anne Ursu.  Teaches at Hamline, first university in Minnesota.  She’s given us eight novels, for children, adults, both.  The Lost Girl is told from the viewpoint of a crow.  In The Cronus Chronicles – three so far – two cousins find they’re in Greek myths; the first cousin we meet is Charlotte Mielswetzki, and if I say so myself it’s about time we did.  Breadcrumbs retells The Snow Queen; creatures from Hans Andersen’s tales keep showing up; and Jack, Hazel’s only friend in 5th Grade, may not want to be saved.  [JH]
  • Born June 6, 1973 Guy Haley, 57. British author of the Richards & Klein Investigations series, a cyberpunk noir series where the partners are an android and an AI. His regular paycheck comes from his Warhammer 40,000 work where he’s written a baker’s dozen novels so far. Not surprisingly, he’s got a novel coming out in the their just announced Warhammer Crime imprint which, though I’ve read no other Warhammer 40.000 fiction, I’m interested in seeing how they do it. (CE)

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) MAD, I TELL YOU. The Washington Post’s Michael Cavna throws a party when “Mad magazine legend Al Jaffee retires at age 99 after a record-breaking career”.

Mad magazine’s iconic back-page Fold-In is about to fold it in. Finito after 56 years. Because Al Jaffee, officially the longest-working comic artist ever, has decided to retire at age 99.

So to mark his farewell, Mad’s “Usual Gang of Idiots” will salute Jaffee with a tribute issue next week. It will be the magazine’s final regular issue to offer new material, including Jaffee’s final Fold-In, 65 years after he made his Mad debut.“He deserves some spotlight outside our industry,” Mad caricature artist Tom Richmond said of the magazine’s beloved elder statesman, who broke into the business during World War II.

One of the most heartfelt features in the send-off issue will be by Sergio Aragones, a fellow Mad legend who befriended Jaffee in 1962 upon joining the staff. They formed a mutual admiration society — both deeply steeped in the craft of the pantomime cartoon — and were occasional roommates on the Mad staff’s storied annual trips to far-flung vacation spots….

(12) TOUGH AUDIENCE. ScreenRant has surprisingly demanding standards: “”Up, Up & Away”: Every Superman Actor, Ranked By Comic Book Accuracy”.

5. Christopher Reeve: Superman The Movie (1978)

There is so much that this movie does right. Superman’s strength, powers, and heroic optimism are fully realized, while Christopher Reeve gives a performance as strong as his character’s steely muscles. In his civilian life as Clark Kent, he is bumbling and shy, but sweet and a skilled reporter.

The biggest problem working against this movie is the famous scene in which Superman turns back time by flying around the Earth and reversing its rotation. This is not how time works, and it is certainly not how Superman’s powers work. If not for this scene, Christopher Reeve would top this list (at least in his first two films).

(13) READY FOR YOUR MT. TBR. The Little Red Reviewer has high praise for A Sinister Quartet, with fiction by Cooney, Wick, McGee, and Allen”.

…Part of me wants to tell you to read this collection in the order the stories are presented, so that you can move from least dark and scary to most dark and scary: Start with Cooney’s beautifully rendered fantasy “The Twice Drowned Saint”;  then go to Jessia P. Wick’s “An Unkindness”, a dark fantasy of a sister trying to save her brother from the fae;  from there go to Amanda J. McGee’s “Viridian”, a contemporary gothic horror of isolation and obsession;  and from there go to Mike Allen’s absolutely horrifying and terrifying “The Comforter”.  If you go that path, you’ll slowly ramp up from “fun, sorta creepy” to “not sure I should be reading this before bed”.

(14) AND IN THIS CORNER. The Little Red Reviewer also gives this irresistible description about Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia”.

…one day,  when the family is on an outing, having left Caseopea at home, as a punishment,  she takes special notice of an old trunk in her grandfather’s bedroom.  And she opens the trunk.

What’s in the trunk?   oh, only the bones and soul of Hun-Kame,  Lord of Xibalba, and one of his bone shards gets lodged in Casiopea’s hand.  no biggie, right?  He can just, remove the shard, and then he can go back to Xibalba to dethrone his brother, and then Casiopea can pretend none of this ever happened, right?

hahahaha, NO.

(15) MOUTHPIECE. “Facebook Begins Labeling ‘State-Controlled’ Media”.

Facebook has begun labeling content produced by media outlets it says are under state control, enacting a policy the social network first announced in October.

Pages and posts from at least 18 outlets including Russia Today, China’s People’s Daily and Iran’s Press TV now carry notices to users that they are “state-controlled media.” Ads from state-controlled publishers will also be labeled starting later this year. The labels will initially be shown to U.S. Facebook users and roll out to other countries over time.

“We’re providing greater transparency into these publishers because they combine the influence of a media organization with the strategic backing of a state, and we believe people should know if the news they read is coming from a publication that may be under the influence of a government,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, wrote in a blog post.

Facebook will also begin barring state-controlled outlets from buying advertising in the U.S. later this summer. Gleicher said that decision was “out of an abundance of caution to provide an extra layer of protection against various types of foreign influence in the public debate” ahead of the 2020 presidential election. He noted that these outlets “rarely” advertise in the U.S.

(16) I’M THINKING IT OVER. “Facebook Will Review Policies On Posts About State Violence, Voting” reports NPR.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Facebook employees on Friday that the social network will review how it handles some of the most incendiary posts on its platform, including those by President Trump. His announcement follows a revolt by employees over his decision to do nothing about messages the president posted about violence toward protesters and mail-in voting.

In a memo to staff, Zuckerberg said he wanted “to acknowledge that the decision I made last week has left many of you angry, disappointed and hurt.”

Zuckerberg said Facebook will consider labeling posts that violate its rules, a more nuanced approach than the company’s current policy, which states that posts should either be removed or left alone. It will also review its policies allowing “discussion and threats of state use of force” and its policies on voter suppression.

(17) FACING UP. “Coronavirus face mask lights up with moving mouth shapes” – video. (At least it’s not as creepy as the Syncro Vox they tried on Clutch Cargo.)

A light-up face mask that responds to the sound of the wearer’s voice has been developed by a games developer in California.

The BBC’s Chris Fox spoke to designer Tyler Glaiel and had a go at making the mask himself – although he keeping his purely as a novelty.

(18) CONZEALAND CHAIRS Q&A. Norman Cates and Kelly Buehler held a video Q&A session this afternoon. Bottom line: Hugo voting is only being done with paper ballots right now. Site selection voting won’t start until the online advanced memberships fee token payment system is available — perhaps next week.

[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, John Hertz, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, Soon Lee, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes o File 770 contributing editor of the day John A Arkansawyer.]