Pixel Scroll 6/5/22 Scroll, Scroll, Scroll, Went The Pixel. Fifth, Fifth, Fifth Went The File

(1) HUGO ARCHAEOLOGY. Rich Horton continues his project to fill in the blanks with “Hugo Nomination Recommendations, 1956” at Strange at Ecbatan.

Potential Hugo Awards for 1955 Stories (1956 Hugos)

I admit now — this has become a project for me, to go through most years of the 1950s and figure out what my choices for potential Hugo nominations for fiction might be. I think the years from 1952 to 1957 are interesting years to study, because for a variety of reasons, the Hugo nominations for those years are either unknown, nonexistent, or inconsistent. This is due to three factors — the Hugos were just getting started, and so in some years there were no Hugos, or no fiction Hugos. The Hugo rules were wildly inconsistent, especially as to time of eligibility, so the Hugos (and the nomination list, in the one year it is known) might have first appeared in the year of the Worldcon, the year prior (as is now standard) or even before then. That all adds up to some years with no Hugos, and some with multiple. 1959 was the first year in which the rules were codified as to year of elibigility (the calendar year before the Worldcon) and as to beginning with a list of nominees for the voter to choose from.

(2) WILL THERE BE AN SJV IN 2022? SFFANZ News says this year’s Sir Julius Vogel Award is in jeopardy: “Postponement of one-day event and extension of SJV Award voting”.

…The SFFANZ board has decided to extend voting in this year’s Sir Julius Vogel Awards until June 30 as insufficient votes have been received to date. If there are still insufficient votes received at that time, no awards will be presented this year. The board feels such action is necessary to protect the value and prestige of the awards….

(3) CLARION UPDATES. The Clarion Ghost Class fundraiser closed after having successfully raised $8,366. Why the “Ghost Class”? Here is the explanation that was posted with the Indiegogo appeal.

In 2020, we were all accepted to the prestigious six-week Clarion Writing Workshop in San Diego. It was a dream come true for each of us. Then, the pandemic happened. Clarion UCSD was cancelled — two years in a row. In that time, we’ve changed and lost jobs, cared for and lost family members, graduated and had to start paying back student loans, moved across states, countries, oceans. We’ve even created at least two entirely new human beings. And because Clarion brought us together that fateful spring day in 2020, we’ve become friends online through all of it.

And now, finally, Clarion UCSD is back on! We couldn’t be more excited. But all that life stuff over the past two years means some of us need extra help to get there…. 

The 2022 Clarion Write-a-Thon is now open for sign-ups.

What is a write-a-thon, anyway? Think charity walk-a-thon, where volunteers walk as far as they can in return for pledges. In the Write-a-Thon, our volunteers write instead of walking. Sponsors make donations or pledges to show support for the writer and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop at UC San Diego.

This year’s Write-a-thon runs from June 19 to July 30. Their goal is to raise $15,000 for student scholarships and workshop operations.

(4) THE RIGHT QUESTION. LeVar Burton chats with The Ringer on why he didn’t get hired by Jeopardy! and the current state of his “Trivial Pursuit” game show project. “LeVar Burton on ‘Jeopardy!’: ‘It Really Wasn’t What They Said It Was’”.

I saw you mentioned a while back when you were trying out for the Jeopardy! job that one of the aspects that inspired you was this feeling that it would be particularly significant for a Black man to take on a public role like that, in a position like the host of Jeopardy! or presumably of the National Spelling Bee. I was hoping you could expand on that a little more.

It’s significant socially and sociologically. Absolutely. Because based on the history of this country, having a Black man occupy that acknowledged position of intellectual standard and ability is huge. It’s huge for the country to acknowledge because this country has spent so much time not acknowledging the worth and value of Black people and people of color and marginalized people when it comes to these very high-profile positions in our society. That’s why it was significant to me on a macro level. On a micro level, I thought I was right for the [Jeopardy!] job.

(5) HEAD OUT ON THE HIGHWAY. MeTV suspects these are “8 things you might not know about the awesome 1966 Batmobile”.

…One thing all fans of the Caped Crusader can agree on — the 1966 Batmobile is perfection. Today, the Dark Knight of movies rumbles around in a tank. The two-seater that was seen in the Batman television series, on the other hand, had the curves of a classic sports car. Adam West’s Batmobile evoked the finned cruisers of the ’50s, the hot-rods of the ’60s and the potential Jetsons-like future of automobiles. It still had all the nifty gadgets, too, of course.

There is a reason this remains the most immediately recognizable Batmobile. But some things might surprise you about its history. To the Bat-poles!

1. It was not the first Batmobile — not even the first made in the Sixties.

Batman’s Hollywood history dates back to the theatrical serials of the 1940s. In his big-screen debut in 1943, Batman motored around in a black 1939 Cadillac Series 75 convertible. A 1949 Mercury served as the Dynamic Duo’s mode of transport in 1948’s Batman and Robin. Those were regular automobiles, not a “Batmobile.” However, there was a true “Batmobile” in the Sixties — three years before Batman premiered. Forrest Robinson of New Hampshire built a fantastic touring version of “Batman’s Batmobile” from a 1956 Oldsmobile Rocket 88. All Star Dairy Products used it to promote its line of Batman ice cream treats.

(6) TAKE A MOMENT TO REMEMBER. Ray Bradbury died ten years ago today at the age of 91. “All Bradbury, all the time” is one of File 770’s unofficial mottos. You can glean some of the reasons why from these remembrance pieces written immediately following his death.

…At the Oakland-Berkeley Worldcon in 1968 (or so), I was sitting in the coffee shop with some friends when we saw Bradbury enter the hotel.  He smiled and waved at me — then, to my surprise, made an abrupt turn and came into the coffee shop to talk to me.  He said I always knew where the best stuff was going on, so where should he go?  We chatted a bit, and he breezed out of the place.  My friends stared at me in shock.  Ray fucking BRADBURY?  Did I know Bradbury THAT well?  I said “Evidently so,” but I was quite puzzled myself — yes, I knew him (thru Forry), but I didn’t think I did know him that well.  So later I encountered him in a hallway and asked about it.  He was ready for me.  He said that at an early convention (I figure this was the post-WWII Worldcon in LA), he was with a bunch of friends when Leigh Brackett came up and chatted with him about his work.  He was puzzled; they WERE friends, but it seemed out of character for her to approach him like that.  So he asked her about it.  She said she was trying to encourage his career as a writer, by treating him as a fellow professional — and did it in front of his friends, to give him egoboo.  Bradbury said “Now you have to pass it on.”…

…We’d be at book signings and older men would come up to get Ray to autograph their tattered copy of The Martian Chronicles and say that they were retired from JPL or NASA and became an astrophysicist because they read Ray’s books as a child. People would come up to Ray with tears in their eyes (as I now have) and tell him they became English teachers or librarians because of Ray. He touched people in so many ways….

…He clearly relished an audience, speaking often at libraries, universities and civic events. He spoke at USC during my freshman year, the first time I got his autograph. That was 1970, and Ray had already shaped the basic autobiographical speech that he continued to present til he was 90, about his childhood memories, the art he loved and his successes as a writer. That day he said, “I wanted to become the greatest writer in the world. Aren’t you glad I finally made it?” The audience cheered like mad….

Ray Bradbury as the Spirit of the Elephant.. Photo by Bill Warren.

(7) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1998 [By Cat Eldridge.] Not quite a quarter of a century ago but very close to it, The Truman Show, one of my all-time favorite films, premiered on this date. 

It was directed by Peter Weir, the Australian director who previously done the non-genre but really scary Picnic at Hanging Rock. It was produced by committee in the form of Scott Rudin, Andrew Niccol, Edward S. Feldman, and Adam Schroeder. 

Unlike the finished product, Niccol’s spec script was more of a SF thriller, with the story set in New York City. 

It starred Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor and Ed Harris. I particularly liked the relationship between Carrey and Linney. Actually I loved the film from beginning to end and thought it was perfectly written. 

It was costly to make, somewhere over sixty million, but that was OK as  it made well over a quarter of a billion in its first run. That’s really impressive, isn’t it?

Critics loved it. Really they did. 

Rita Kempley at the Washington Post thoroughly enjoyed it: “’The Truman Show’ is ‘Candid Camera’ run amok, a sugar-spun nightmare of pop paranoia that addresses the end of privacy, the rise of voyeurism and the violation of the individual. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. This show-within-the-show makes for a parody all by itself, but it is couched in an even more subversively entertaining satire. One of the smartest, most inventive movies in memory, it manages to be as endearing as it is provocative.”

Peter Travers at the Rolling Stone enjoyed it as well but noted the cruel streak embedded in it: “’Sayonara’ to Seinfeld and hello to The Truman Show, a movie – and a great movie, by the way – about a television series in which the ‘selfishness, self-absorption, immaturity and greed’ that Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer were slammed for in the last episode don’t exist. Except behind the scenes. Jim Carrey has the role of his career as Truman Burbank, the unwitting star of a TV show that has trained 5,000 hidden cameras on him since his birth thirty years ago. Everyone in Truman’s life – parents, lovers, best friend, wife – is an actor. Truman’s seemingly idyllic world on the island of Seahaven is really a giant, dome-encased studio controlled by Christof (Ed Harris), a beret-wearing director who has made his name as a televisionary by invading Truman’s privacy seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Thanks to the global audience that hangs on Truman’s every move, his life is a cruel joke, with Truman the only one not in on it.” 

The audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it an eighty-nine percent rating. 

Did I mention it won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation at Aussiecon Three (1999)? Well it most deservedly did. 

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 5, 1908 John Russell Fearn. British author and one of the first British writers to appear in American pulp magazines. A prolific author, he published his novels also as Vargo Statten and with various pseudonyms such as Thornton Ayre, Polton Cross, Geoffrey Armstrong  and others. As himself, I see his first story as being The Intelligence Gigantic published in Amazing Stories in 1933. His Golden Amazon series of novels ran to over to two dozen titles, and the Clayton Drew Mars Adventure series that only ran to four novels. (Died 1960.)
  • Born June 5, 1928 Robert Lansing. He was secret agent Gary Seven in the “Assignment: Earth” episode of Trek. The episode was a backdoor pilot for a Roddenberry series that would have starred him and Teri Garr, but the series never happened. There is a novel however and it available from the usual suspects for a quite reasonable price.  He of course appeared on other genre series such as the Twilight ZoneJourney to the UnknownThriller and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. (Died 1994.)
  • Born June 5, 1931 Barbara Paul, 91. Writer of mysteries, some twenty or so, and a handful of genre novels. Her novels feature in-jokes such as her Full Frontal Murder mystery novel which uses names from Blake’s 7. Genre wise, she’s written five SF novels including a Original Series Trek novel, The Three-Minute Universe, which is available at the usual suspects.
  • Born June 5, 1946 John Bach, 76. Einstein on Farscape (though he was deliberately uncredited for most of the series), the Gondorian Ranger Madril in the second and third movies of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Also a British bodyguard on The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. And he was the body double for shooting Saruman in place of Christopher Lee, who was unable to fly to New Zealand for principal photography on The Hobbit film series. 
  • Born June 5, 1960 Margo Lanagan, 62. Tender Morsels won a World Fantasy Award for best novel, and Sea-Hearts won the same for Best Novella. (She has won four World Fantasy Awards, very impressive. She’s also won a bonnie bunch of other Awards as well.) She’s an alumna of the Clarion West Writers Workshop In 1999 and returned as a teacher in 2011 and 2013.
  • Born June 5, 1971 Susan Lynch, 51. Northern Irish actress whose career in film started off by being a selkie in The Secret of Roan Inish with her next role being an unnamed Paris Vampire in Interview with a Vampire, and she was Liz Stride, a prostitute, in From Hell. Film wise, her last role to date is Aunt Alice in Ready Player One. She’s got one series credit to date playing Angstrom in the Thirteenth Doctor story, “The Ghost Monument”.  
  • Born June 5, 1976 Lauren Beukes, 46. South African writer and scriptwriter.  Moxyland, her first novel, is a cyberpunk novel set in a future Cape Town.  Zoo City, a hardboiled thriller with fantasy elements is set in a re-imagined Johannesburg. It won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and a Kitschies Red Tentacle Award for best novel. (I love the name of the latter award!) And The Shining Girls would win her an August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel. Afterland, her latest genre novel, was on the long list for a NOMMO. Much of short fiction is collected in Slipping: Stories, Essays, & Other Writing

(9) CHIVALRY EXHIBIT. The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco presents “Chivalry: The Art of Colleen Doran”, an exhibition of original artwork from the Dark Horse graphic novel Chivalry as illustrated by Doran and written by Neil Gaiman. It continues through September 18.

This exhibition features Doran’s beautiful cover painting and twenty original pages personally selected by the artist. The graphic novel is an adaptation of a short story written by Gaiman in which an elderly British widow buys what turns out to be the Holy Grail from a second-hand shop. This chance purchase sets her off on an epic adventure when she begins receiving visits from an ancient knight who lures her with ancient relics in hope for winning the cup.

… This exhibition of Doran’s fully-painted original artwork will be on display at the Cartoon Art Museum from April 23 through September 18, 2022, and will be accompanied by a selection of chivalrous artwork from the Cartoon Art Museum’s permanent collection. An online discussion with Colleen Doran is planned for this summer, and details regarding that program will be announced soon.

(10) LASER DEFENSE. “Israel Builds a Laser Weapon to Zap Threats Out of the Sky” reports the New York Times.

After two decades of research and experimentation, Israeli defense officials now say they have a working prototype of a high-powered laser gun that can intercept rockets, mortar shells, drones and anti-tank missiles in flight.

Officials said that the system performed successfully in a recent series of live fire tests in the southern Israeli desert, destroying a rocket, a mortar shell and a drone, and prompting a standing ovation from officials watching the action onscreen.

The government has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to develop the weapon, which Prime Minister Naftali Bennett described this week as a “strategic game changer.” He has pledged “to surround Israel with a laser wall.”

Professionals involved in developing the system say it is still several years away from being fully operational in the field, and experts caution that even then it may initially be of limited use in protecting Israel from heavy incoming rocket fire. Israeli officials have not said whether it would be effective against the precision-guided missiles that Israel says Hezbollah is developing in Lebanon…

(11) NEXT STOP: TIANGONG. “Shenzhou-14 crew launches for new Tiangong Space Station”CNN has the story.

… This is the third crewed mission during the construction of the space station, which China plans to have fully crewed and operational by December 2022. The first crewed mission, a three-month stay by three other astronauts, was completed in September 2021. The second, Shenzhou-13, saw three astronauts spend six months in space for the first time.

Six months is the standard mission duration for many countries – but it is an important opportunity for Chinese astronauts to become accustomed to a long-term stay in space and help prepare future astronauts to do the same.

Six space missions have been scheduled before the end of the year, including another crewed mission, two laboratory modules and two cargo missions….

(12) BEE PICTURE. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Shouldn’t we regard any series with Rowan Atkinson as fandom-adjacent?

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The Queen and Paddington Bear get the Platinum Party at the Palace rocking. “Ma’amalade sandwich Your Majesty?”

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Pixel Scroll 12/18/16 Scroll Measured By Weight. Pixels May Settle In Packing

(1) PROMETHEUS AWARDS RECOMMENDATIONS. Members of the Libertarian Futurist Society can formally nominate a work for any category of the Prometheus Awards.

Here are the works nominated so far in 2016 for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel:

2016 Prometheus Award Best Novel nominations
(Nominations as of Dec. 17, 2016. Nominations deadline: Feb. 15, 2017)

  • Morning Star: Book III of The Red Rising Trilogy, by Pierce Brown (Del Rey, Feb., 2016)
  • Speculator, by Doug Casey and John Hunt (HighGround Books, Sept. 2016)
  • Dark Age, by Felix Hartmann (Hartmann Publishing, June 2016)
  • Kill Process, by William Hertling (Liquididea Press, June 2016)
  • Through Fire, by Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books, August 2016)
  • The Corporation Wars: Dissidence by Ken MacLeod (Orbit, 2016)
  • Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer (TOR Books, 2016)
  • Written in Fire, (Book 3 of The Brilliance trilogy) by Marcus Sakey (Thomas & Mercer, Jan. 2016)
  • The Core of the Sun, by Johanna Sinisalo and Lola Rogers (Grove Press/Black Cat, January 2016)
  • Blade of p’Na, by L. Neil Smith (Phoenix Pick, October 2016)
  • Arkwright, by Allen Steele (TOR Books, March 2016)
  • On to the Asteroid, by Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson (Baen Books, August 2016)
  • Necessity, by Jo Walton (TOR Books, July 2016)

(2) THEATRICAL ALIENS. Alastair Reynolds’ story is being brought to the stage using puppets designed by Mary Robinette Kowal — “The House Theater of Chicago to Stage World Premiere of Sci-Fi Thriller DIAMOND DOGS”.

The House Theatre of Chicago presents their initial production in 2017, Diamond Dogs, adapted from Alastair Reynolds’ science fiction adventure by Althos Low and directed by Artistic Director Nathan Allen, playing at the Chopin Upstairs Theatre, 1543 W. Division St., January 13 – March 5. Diamond Dogs is also a participant in the 2017 Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, January 19 – 29. Preview performances are January 13 – 20. Opening/press night is Sunday, Jan. 22.

Diamond Dogs follows a 26th century team of humans and transhumans as they investigate a mysterious alien tower, bent on brutally punishing all intruders. Uncovering clues and solving puzzles, each crusader will make dangerous, eye-popping sacrifices to get to the mysteries atop the spire. Blood will spill. This thriller is one of 16 stories set in novelist Reynolds’s expansive Revelation Space Universe. Artistic Director Nathan Allen teams up with The House’s most inventive designers and guest artists to bring this unique universe to life. Body modification is the norm in the future, and award-winning puppet designer Mary Robinette Kowal, who is also an award-winning sci-fi author, articulates and re-shapes the actors’ human forms into powerful mechanized players battling for their lives. Reynolds is one of a new generation of hard science-fiction authors, a craft he began during his decade-long career as an astrophysicist with the European Space Agency. Diamond Dogs is a pure example of the “Deadly Maze Story,” a staple of Science Fiction since H. P. Lovecraft. This world premiere production at The House Theatre of Chicago marks the first of Reynolds’ works to be adapted for another medium.

(3) RESNICK ON WRITING. Joshua Sky interviews Mike Resnick for Omni.

JS: What other elements are important in a new writer? Is it attitude, is it talent? What’s your take on that?

MR: First, you’ve got to be a smooth enough writer so that it’s not an effort for the editor, or the reader to get to the bottom of each page. That’s essential. You’ve got to know how to push a noun up against a verb with some grace. And of course you should have a knowledge of the field, because while there’s still a million ideas we haven’t touched, there’s probably half a million ideas that have already seen print. And unless you have a totally new take on it you’re not going to sell it. There used to be a rejection slip from Amazing Stories, back when Ted White was editing it, where there’d be a number of boxes he could check to explain why he’d rejected it. The box he checked most was, “Heinlein did it better – and earlier.”

I would love to have a rejection slip like that, but all Galaxy’s Edge’s rejections are personal. But yeah, you’ve got to know the field if you want to write in it. Which makes sense. I mean, shouldn’t you care enough about the field in which you want to make all or part of your living so that you’ve been reading it and know about it, and know what has been done to death and what hasn’t?

(4) ANSWERS WANTED James Davis Nicoll wants to tap into File 770 readers’ collective wisdom about project management tools useful for conrunners.

A local theatrical organization has ongoing communications challenges. The current means of communication (email, facebook, facebook messages) all seem to lend themselves to communications breakdowns [1]. I recall that Basecamp worked pretty well for the Tiptrees but Hipchat, Slack and Telegram have also been suggested as well. I know a bunch of you run cons. Would you recommend any of these tools?

[1] Facebook lends itself to amnesia but even in email it can be hard to find the specific email you want, particularly if you’ve forgotten it exists. Or never knew.

(5) BILL WARREN REMEMBERED. Scott Shaw! told Facebook readers that Svengoolie paid tribute to the late Bill Warren on this week’s program.

Tonight on Me-TV, during his presentation of Hammer’s 1960 classic THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, Svengoolie (AKA Rich Koz) made a VERY nice mention of Bill Warren‘s passing. He showed the photo of Bill with Robby the Robot and Kerry Gammill‘s cover for the new edition of Bill’s KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES! Sven mentioned Bill’s work with Forry Ackerman and his insanely voluminous knowledge about the films we all love. He even mentioned Beverly Warren! It made me very proud to see such a wonderful acknowlegement of the sweet, funny guy we all miss.

I wasn’t aware that Sven’s tribute to Bill was gonna be tonight, but surely some of you out there recorded tonight’s episode of SVENGOOLIE

(6) GABOR OBIT. Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917-2016) died December 18. Her Internet Movie Database bio says —

Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as “celebrity”, Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her “dahlink” catchphrase, her actions, life gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career.

Her biggest genre credit was the movie Queen of Outer Space. She also appeared in Nightmare on Elm Street 3, and episodes of Night Gallery (segment “The Painted Mirror”), Batman, and Supertrain.

queen-of-outer-space

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • December 18, 1839 — John William Draper took the first photo of the Moon. (“Say ‘Cheese!’”)
  • December 18, 1968Chitty Chitty Bang Bang opens in New York

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born December 18, 1913 – Alfred Bester
  • Born December 18, 1946 — Steven Spielberg (Amazing Stories) and
  • Born December 18, 1958 — Steve Davidson (Amazing Stories)

(9) OUR REPLACEMENTS. Kate Macdonald looks back at early cyborgs in her “Review of ‘No Woman Born’ (1944) by C.L. Moore and ‘Lady in the Tower’ (1959) by Anne McCaffrey” at Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations

I teach sf to university students, and knew from the critical literature about gender in sf that sometime in the 1940s a writer called C. L. Moore published a landmark story about the first female cyborg. I tracked down a copy of ‘No Woman Born’ this year, and was deeply impressed. This story is a glowing beacon of fine writing and an impressive acceleration of how the cyborg operates in fiction. No longer a destructive masculine, war-making automaton from the post-WW1 years, this cyborg is a dancer and singer whose new flexibility and vocal range enhance her art, and successfully disguise her strength of purpose by using her femininity to cloak her developing ambitions. Deirdre is a person who is now a cyborg, and her humanity is totally present throughout this novella, despite her gleaming gold body, and her inhuman speed and agility.

The story could just as well be a three-act play. It’s set in Deirdre’s apartment where Harris, her former manager, comes to visit her for the first time after her rehabilitation following a disastrous fire, then when he and her besotted surgeon Maltzer watch her first public performance on TV in her new body, and finally when Harris witnesses Maltzer’s threat to prevent any more cyborgs being made, and Deirdre’s command. ‘No Woman Born’ is not just a story of one person, it’s an opening up of possibilities: cyborgs are stronger and faster, so what will that mean for women, as well as for men? What will that mean for the humans left behind? Can relations between a man and a woman be the same now that the woman is made of metal? How will a woman feel about her body, when no-one is there to admire it? And does this matter? By creating a female cyborg whose primary attributes, in the eyes of the men who managed and created her, are her grace and beauty, Moore shows us that when a cyborg claims autonomy, she becomes nobody’s creature, and can decide how she will live her extended, augmented life. It is a tremendous, game-changing story for feminism in sf, and for how we need to learn to think about being post-human. It’s also beautifully written, with unforgettable images of Deirdre learning to see, to stand, move and dance humanly again, in her glittering robe of metal mesh, and her golden, visored face.

(10) LOVECRAFT COUNTRY MUSIC. If you are looking for a Christmas present for your favorite dark ambient fan, the Cryo Chamber label has been releasing massive collaborations named after Lovecraftian gods. The latest one is named Nyarllathotep. The albums are available in CD and digital formats.

A 190 minute dark soundscape album recorded by 25 ambient artists to pay tribute to H.P. Lovecraft. Field recordings from the deepest dark corners of 4 continents. Dusty tapes out of forgotten archives. Strings through crackling amplifiers and distorted drone combine into a sea of pitch black. Nyarlathotep is a manipulative being in the Lovecraftian Mythos. Unlike Cthulhu, or Azathoth, he delights in cruelty and deception. Causing madness is more important than destruction to him.

Smell the burning embers as you kneel outside the sunken temple before Nyarlathotep. Feel the raspy touch of the faceless pharaoh as he leads you to the ancient Pyramid. Hear his inhuman summoning call to gods beyond reality.

(11) AFROFUTURISM. The New York Times highlighted Afrofuturism in their Year in Style 2016 section. In the article, Ytasha L. Womack, author of the 2013 Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, speaks almost in counterpoint to the Puppies:

“When…in the imaginary future… people can’t fathom a person of non-Euro descent a hundred years into the future, a cosmic foot has to be put down.”

…Afrofuturism’s resurgence could not be more timely, arriving as it does in a climate perceived as indifferent, if not downright inimical, to racial and ethnic minorities. In her book, Ms. Womack recalls a time when black or brown sci-fi characters were all but invisible in the culture at large. As a girl, she would fantasize that she was Princess Leia of “Star Wars.”

“While it was fun to be the chick from outer space in my imagination,” Ms. Womack writes, “the quest to see myself or browner people in this space age, galactic epic was important to me.” It was in the absence of minorities from pop lore, she goes on, “that seeds were planted in the imaginations of countless black kids who yearned to see themselves in warp-speed spaceship too.”

Count among them Tim Fielder, a New York graphic artist and animator whose sci-fi illustrations, produced over a 30-year span, drew visitors last spring to “Black Metropolis,” at the Gallatin Galleries at New York University. Mr. Fielder’s pioneering cartoon narratives — notably those of “Matty’s Rocket,” his spirited black female cosmonaut, who will lift off next year in graphic novel form — are particularly relevant now, he maintained: “They let young artists know that they’re not on dangerous turf, that someone has gone there before them.”

(12) BEFORE YOUR EYES. NPR combines story and video in its report “Google assembles decades of satellite photos to show changes on Earth”.

Google Earth’s time lapse videos of earth’s landscape could make you think about the great baseball player Yogi Berra.

“I thought about one of the quotes attributed to Yogi Berra,” says Marc Levy, a political scientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute who specializes in issues of global health and development. “He said, ‘You can observe a lot just by watching.'”

To show just how much the Earth’s landscape has changed over the past three decades, Google sifted through 5 million satellite images containing three quadrillion pixels. The result is a series of high-resolution, zoomable time-lapse videos that capture, in unprecedented detail, the human impact on this planet.

 

(13) SCIENCE HISTORY. Genevieve Valentine reviews “’Hidden Figures,’’The Glass Universe,’ And Why Science Needs History” for NPR.

But history tends to get simplified; a map becomes a single road leading from point to point. It’s not surprising that some scientists who contributed invaluably to the field have been kept out of the dominant narrative because they were women, and they were considered anomalies of their time. (That those times practically overlap — meaning a steady line of crucial work being done by women — is one of those scientific patterns that tend to get forgotten.)

But in the last days of the 19th century and the early days of the 20th, Henrietta Swan Leavitt — one of the many woman “computers” at the Harvard Observatory — used the measurements of variable stars to determine fixed distances across space. And fifty years later, Katherine Johnson — a black woman working at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia when the state was still deeply segregated — would map John Glenn’s space flight, and America’s trip to the moon.

(14) RADIO ART. A few months ago we reported the drawing competition BBC Radio 4 was having  to draw episode art for their re-broadcast of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust radio adaptation. The program is airing this month – there will be a repeat Christmas weekend. Schedule here: Stardust – Next on – BBC Radio 4.)

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian,  Bruce Arthurs, Chip Hitchcock, Michael J. Walsh, Steve Davidson, and Rob Thornton for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

Bill Warren (1943-2016)

Robert Heinlein, Beverly Warren and Bill Warren at LASFS in 1976. Photo from Fanac.org.

Robert Heinlein, Beverly Warren and Bill Warren at LASFS in 1976. Photo from Fanac.org.

Critic, film historian and long-time LASFS member Bill Warren died October 7. Over the past decade he’d suffered from a series of cardiac and pulmonary health problems, and lately was treated for an infection but never recovered.

When Mark Evanier announced Bill’s passing yesterday, he paid tribute to Bill’s wife, Beverly: “The last few weeks, I’ve watched her tend to his needs night and day, doing every single thing you’d want someone to do for you if you were in his position…except maybe go home and get some sleep.”

Bill and Beverly Warren married in 1966, and that same day moved from Oregon to LA. Bill had been corresponding with Forry Ackerman since 1958, and the couple’s new social life centered on the Ackermansion and Forry’s activities. That included celebrity encounters with horror stars like Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, and a party invitation that led to their immersion in organized fandom. Bill later recalled for File 770:

Forry Ackerman invited us to a birthday party for Dr. Donald A. Reed, president of the Count Dracula Society. We’d heard of the Society, but had as yet had no contact with it, and were a little uncertain about it. Somehow, the idea of dressing up in tuxes to attend dinners given by a group named after a vampire seemed a little more bizarre than our countrybumpkin Oregon minds could deal with right away. But Forry told us there would be interesting people at the party.

Upon arriving at the event, held in the screening room at the back of Milt Larsen’s home, the first two people we saw were Robert Bloch and Christopher Lee, neither of whom we had met until that time. Both were charming and affable, with Bloch being especially warm. A cake with a bat on it was presented to Don, and then we all sat down to watch WereWolf of London, the first time we’d seen it on a screen. We joined the Dracula Society on the spot.

 

Christopher Lee and Bill Warren in late 1960s, in home theater of Milt Larsen.

Christopher Lee and Bill Warren in late 1960s, in home theater of Milt Larsen.

This was also the period when Bill met Ray Bradbury for the first time, at a big surprise party for Forry in 1967. The photo below was taken five minutes after they met, after they had swapped glasses and discovered their prescriptions were similar.

Bill Warren meets Ray Bradbury at the Dracula Society banquet.

Bill Warren meets Ray Bradbury.

Ackerman, a founding LASFS member, probably brought Bill and Beverly into that club, too: they joined in December 1966. Bill became one of its hardest-working members, honored with the Evans-Freehafer Award in 1973, and he served for many years on the Board of Directors. His suggestion led to making a one-shot winter convention into the club’s annual LosCon.

Bill launched his writing career in the Sixties. His short story “Death Is a Lonely Place” appeared in the first issue of the magazine Worlds of Fantasy in 1968. The story hit the newsstands just before the 1968 Worldcon, precipitating another meeting between Bill and Ray Bradbury, as Bill remembered:

At the Oakland-Berkeley Worldcon in 1968 (or so), I was sitting in the coffee shop with some friends when we saw Bradbury enter the hotel.  He smiled and waved at me — then, to my surprise, made an abrupt turn and came into the coffee shop to talk to me.  He said I always knew where the best stuff was going on, so where should he go?  We chatted a bit, and he breezed out of the place.  My friends stared at me in shock.  Ray fucking BRADBURY?  Did I know Bradbury THAT well?  I said “Evidently so,” but I was quite puzzled myself — yes, I knew him (thru Forry), but I didn’t think I did know him that well.  So later I encountered him in a hallway and asked about it.  He was ready for me.  He said that at an early convention (I figure this was the post-WWII Worldcon in LA), he was with a bunch of friends when Leigh Brackett came up and chatted with him about his work.  He was puzzled; they WERE friends, but it seemed out of character for her to approach him like that.  So he asked her about it.  She said she was trying to encourage his career as a writer, by treating him as a fellow professional — and did it in front of his friends, to give him egoboo.  Bradbury said “Now you have to pass it on.”

During this period, he also wrote scripts for (Jim) Warren Publishing’s black-and-white comic books Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. Later he was a contributing editor to Leonard Maltin’s annual Movie Guide for more than twenty years. He produced annual movie reports for many Nebula anthologies.

Subsequently he wrote film history books, The Evil Dead Companion, about Sam Raimi’s horror series, Set Visits, interviews with filmmakers on the sets of their films, and Keep Watching the Skies, about science fiction movies of the 1950s.

keep-watching-the-skies

He also co-authored a fannish mystery with his friend Allan Rothstein, Fandom Is A Way of Death, published and sold during the 1984 Worldcon. The solution to the mystery was placed in a separate envelope at the back of each copy, because only on the last day of the con was the murderer was revealed — and took a bow.

I met Bill and Beverly at the very first LASFS event I ever attended, the 1970 LASFS Anniversary Dinner.

When I co-chaired the 1978 Westercon with Ed Finkelstein, Bill ran the film program. And I remember that right after the con was over, before the rented prints had to be returned, Bill gathered the committee at the LASFS clubhouse to watch a couple of the rarely-seen feature films he’d chosen.  The 13 of us who’d run the con were exhausted – which caught the eye of fanartist Linda Miller, who did a drawing of us symbolically clumped together for mutual support, a triangular composition with the tallest, Bill Welden, in the center, and the rest distributed around him by height….

Bill participated in the early days of social media. In 1989, he created the ShowBiz Roundtable for the online service GEnie to generate discussions about films and other aspects of show business.

When his friends produced movies, there was often a minor role or appearance as an extra for him –Joe Dante, Don Glut, and Somtow Sucharitkul were among the people who cast Bill in The Howling (1981), The Laughing Dead (1989), Hollywood Boulevard II (1990), My Lovely Monster (1991), Ill Met By Moonlight (1994), Dinosaur Valley Girls (1996), and The Naked Monster (2005).

During the 1990s, he and Bill Rotsler produced segments surveying American television for the French TV series Destination. In fact, the day before Rotsler died in 1997, he and Bill had driven all over Hollywood shooting video of billboards for an installment of the show.

And after Rotsler died, Bill became the custodian of his good friend’s unpublished fan art, of which there was an enormous amount. He did his utmost to get it into the hands of fanzine editors for publication. Bill also discovered the raw material for 15 more issues of Rotsler’s fanzine Masque, which he completed and distributed to the mailing list.

The last time I saw Bill was at a Loscon room party a few years ago where he was doing what he liked most, holding his friends spellbound with his endless supply of anecdotes from Hollywood history. The things about movies that fascinated him growing up had never lost their allure, for as he told an interviewer:

I found that my taste as a kid was pretty reliable, even if more enthusiastic than myself as an adult. I no longer think that It Came from Beneath the Sea and Creature with the Atom Brain are the two best movies ever made, though I still like both of them. And those I didn’t like then, I still don’t like.

Pixel Scroll 9/27/16 If Pixels Come, Is Scrolling Far Behind?

(1) THE FLYLEAF IS STILL HITTING THE FAN. When it was first reported that Governor Brown had signed this law, it was in triumphant terms of Mark Hamill no longer being victimized by autograph forgeries. Now people have looked under the hood and are reacting with outrage — “New California law will make it harder to sell autographed books, art”.

The law supersedes existing California law, which had previously only been directed at sports memorabilia. The law requires that any autographed item sold for more than $5 must include a certificate of authenticity including information about the dealer, where and how the item was signed, and the name and address of any third party from whom it was purchased. The law was undoubtedly aimed at shutting down forgery mills, but it was written so broadly that it will make things a lot harder for anyone dealing in autographed goods.

You don’t have to think about this law for very long before you realize how problematic it would be for antique and second-hand booksellers, some of whom carry hundreds or thousands of autographed copies of books. Given that few such books would sell for less than $5, this means that these booksellers must either create individual certificates of authenticity for each book, or else discard thousands of dollars in inventory that is no longer salable. Even if they were to create such certificates, in the case of a third party purchase the certificates would have to include the personal information of whoever sold it to them–a clear violation of privacy.

It would also apply to any art gallery that sold original works–and the ramifications for San Diego Comic Con and other conventions that have “artist’s alleys” where artists can set up booths to sell (and autograph) their own artwork might also be considerable–to say nothing of authors who set up to do the same thing for their books. What if everyone who sold an autographed book or sketch had to make out a certificate of authenticity when they sold it? (The law says that “the person who signed the memorabilia” isn’t considered a “dealer,” but if they’re also the one who sells the work in question, they should still be on the hook for it.) Likewise, it will also affect out-of-state dealers who want to sell to California residents, or who come to those conventions to display their art.

The Eureka Booksellers site reported what action its owners are taking.

Two prominent California booksellers — Scott Brown, co-owner of Eureka Books in Eureka, and Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage in Corte Madera and San Francisco — have written letters to their representatives* in opposition to Assembly Bill 1570 Collectibles: Sale of Autographed Memorabilia, which was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on September 9 and requires dealers in any autographed material to provide certificates of authenticity (COA) for any signed item sold for $5 or more.

Brown and Petrocelli assert that though the law is intended to regulate the sale of sports and movie memorabilia and combat “forgery mills,” it will have drastic, unintended consequences for the sale of signed books, paintings, sculptures and almost every other type of artwork. Under the law, which would go into effect next January, COAs for signed memorabilia would have to include a description of the collectible and name of the person who autographed it; include either the purchase price and date of sale or be accompanied by a separate invoice with that information; indicate whether the item was autographed in the presence of the dealer with specified date and location and name of witness; or, in the event that it was obtained or purchased from a third party, indicate the name and address of that party. Dealers must also keep their copies of these COAs for at least seven years….

(2) PKD FILM FESTIVAL. The Philip K. Dick European Science Fiction Film Festival boasts two lineups of over 40 films to be screened at sites in two countries.

pkd-europe-header_16In Cologne, Germany from October 14-15 at Filmclub 813 e.V., the program includes a special block of virtual reality films presented with Google Glass. The festival then returns to Lille, France at the L’Hybride theater on October 22.

Highlights include Juho Aittanen’s Hypnos based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, Coralie Fargeat’s sensory perception drama Reality+, Thierry Los’ robotic surf culture short Forbidden Beach and Eymeric Jorat’s robotic murder mystery Jakob. The Cologne virtual reality blocks includes Ben Leonberg’s zombie apocalypse Dead Head, Philipp Maas and Dominik Stockhausen’s atmospheric Sonar, Ryan Hartsell’s music video I’ll Make You Bleed by the band “These Machines are Winning” and Pierre Zandrowicz’s I, Philip, an in-depth look into the mind of an android modeled after the one and only Philip K. Dick.

 

(3) SMOFCON SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS. CanSMOF Inc, has announced the recipients of three scholarships given to help fans attend SMOFcon 34 in Chicago. IL, December 2-4. CanSMOF Inc. created these scholarships to allow promising convention-runners to attend the annual SMOFCon convention-runners convention. The first scholarship was open to a Canadian citizen or resident. The winner is Patricia Widish of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The second was open to a non-North American resident. It went to Esther MacCallum-Stewart of Southville, Bristol, United Kingdom.

The third was open to anyone involved in running conventions, regardless of their place of residence or citizenship. This scholarship was awarded to Katharine Bond of Seattle, Washington.

(4) FIFTIES SF MOVIES. Carl Slaughter wants people to know about Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies, a recently revised and greatly expanded reference book on science fiction films of the 1950s. Publisher MacFarland issued this “21st Century Edition” in February 2016. It includes a foreword by Howard Waldrop.

keep-watching-the-skies

(5) SWAN OBIT. Patricia A. Swan of North Carolina reportedly passed away September 25 of cancer. The family posted the news on her Facebook account.

(6) LEWIS OBIT. Herschell Gordon Lewis (1929-2016): US director, died September 26, aged 87. Nicknamed the ‘Godfather of Gore’, Lewis achieved greater career success as a leading figure in the US direct marketing industry, writing more than 20 books on the subject.  Entered movie-making in 1961 with a series of ‘nudie’ exploitation releases, but made his mark with Blood Feast (1963) and Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964). Later genre credits include Something Weird, A Taste of Blood and The Gruesome Twosome (all 1967), The Wizard of Gore (1970), The Gore Gore Girls (1972). He returned to directing with 2002’s Blood Feast 2, and Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Bloodmania is currently in post-production.

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • September 27, 1985  — CBS broadcast the first episode of the revived Twilight Zone series.

(8) TOMORROW IN HISTORY

Comic book superstars Brian Bolland, Mick McMahon, Dave Gibbons, and Kevin O’Neill are set to return to the pages of the legendary 2000 AD for its 2,000th issue!

Europe’s longest running sci-fi action comic reaches its landmark 2,000th issue on Wednesday 28 September and some of the most prominent creators ever to grace its pages have returned for a 48-page celebration bonanza, including Bolland (Batman: The Killing Joke), McMahon (The Last American), Gibbons (Watchmen), and O’Neill (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), as well as a brand new series by Peter Milligan (X-Statix) and a poster featuring specially commissioned artwork.

(9) INKLINGS EYEWITNESS. Urbana Tolkien Conference’s Melody Green promotes a rare opportunity:

On November 5, Colin Havard, the son of Dr. Havard, one of the Inklings, will be the keynote speaker at Urbana Theological Seminary’s fifth annual Tolkien Conference held in Champaign, IL. He will be speaking on “The Inklings as I Remember Them,” in which he will be sharing his own memories of Tolkien, Lewis, etc. We will have a few other excellent speakers and interesting events, as well!

(10) CAPE V. GOWN FOR HALLOWEEN. Matthew Townsend’s article, “Superheroes Top Princesses in Halloween-Costume Battle” at Bloomberg tells that a National Retail Foundation survey predicts superhero costumes are expected to be #1 in Halloween this year with princesses second and animals third.

The popularity of costumes reflects a tug of war between Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., which control many of the top entertainment properties. Disney has dominated the princess trend, helped by the release of “Frozen” in 2013, and owns Marvel and Star Wars characters. But Warner Bros. is trying to develop an expanded universe of DC Comics heroes for the screen. “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” hit theaters earlier this year, followed by the Batman villain ensemble film “Suicide Squad” last month.

At stake is $3.1 billion in Halloween costume spending.

At least the kids haven’t gotten the idea of dressing like Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.  Now THAT would be scary.

(11) DEBATE COVERAGE. Chuck Tingle’s contributions to the world of science fiction continued last night with his live Tweeting of the first US Presidential debate. Did you know? — Chuck is another third-party candidate who couldn’t get in the door.

His running commentary about the debate has been collected on Storify.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, JJ, James Davis Nicoll, Martin Morse Wooster, Mark-kitteh, Steve Green, Carl Slaughter, Elusis, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Greg Hullender.]

Bill Warren: An Appreciation of Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee and  Bill Warren in late 1960s, in home theater of Milt Larsen.

Christopher Lee and Bill Warren in late 1960s, at the in-home theater of Milt Larsen.

By Bill Warren: Christopher Lee died last Sunday; no cause has yet been given, but he was 93 years old and in poor health. Almost anything might have carried him away.

He worked hard at avoiding being labeled a horror star, because he didn’t want to be considered only a horror star. But he really was the last of that very small group of fine actors who were primarily known for their horror movies. I think he knew that. He did know Boris Karloff; not only were they in a couple of movies together, but early on, Lee was in an episode of Karloff’s Colonel March of Scotland Yard series. And they lived in adjacent homes in London. He was also friendly with Vincent Price — they loved making each other laugh — and downright adored Peter Cushing, with whom he costarred in many movies. He said that he amused Cushing by doing voices from Warner Bros. cartoons; Cushing did too, but also did Jimmy Durante.

But he did make movies of all kinds — he played Mycroft Holmes in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (he’s the only actor who played both Holmes brothers — and Sir Henry Baskerville as well). He was Rochefort in Richard Lester’s Musketeer movies, and loved making them. He occasionally sang in movies including his The Wicker Man, and the odd Aussie The Return of Captain Invincible; late in life, he did a few heavy metal albums. He was an indelible Dracula, of course, but also was Frankenstein’s Monster, Rasputin, the Mummy and Fu Manchu. And he was The Man With The Golden Gun in a Roger Moore 007 adventure, as well as being Ian Fleming’s cousin. He also met J.R.R. Tolkien, and was Saruman in the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movies. He was Count Dooku in a couple of Star Wars movies, and remained stubbornly unaware that he was cast in those because Peter Jackson and George Lucas were fans of his Hammer horrors. So were Joe Dante and John Landis, who both cast him in movies — Dante’s was Gremlins 2, in which Lee got to be (somewhat stiffly) funny.

He once corrected the sound of someone being stabbed in the back in a Rings movie — he knew what it really sounded like, from personal experience in WWII. He rarely spoke of what he actually did in the war, but he was fluent in French, German and Italian…

He was a very good actor, but his inherent tendency toward pomposity often intruded. But he was graceful — an expert fencer, for one thing, with a finger permanently bent from a duel with Errol Flynn — and had a magnificent, recognizable baritone voice. He was, like so many actors, a shy man who became an actor partly to avoid being himself. He was also egotistical, another common trait of actors, but this was not intrusive. He was generous and kind, open to his fans (but wary of them in herds), intelligent, and could be very funny. As with Vincent Price, he and Bob Bloch loved making each other laugh.

I met him (and Bloch) in the late 1960s; in person, he tended to be poker-faced and serious, but not solemn. We corresponded for a while, mostly about Peter Cushing. I interviewed him several times. I liked him.

He made movies all over the world. He once privately lamented that while the world grieved when Peter Cushing died, his death wouldn’t produce the same reaction. He was wrong.

Christopher Lee and Bill Warren on the set of Gremlins 2 (about 1990).

Christopher Lee and Bill Warren on the set of Gremlins 2.

Send Get-Well Wishes To Bill Warren

Robert Heinlein, Beverly Warren and Bill Warren at LASFS in 1976. Photo from Fanac.org.

Robert Heinlein, Beverly Warren and Bill Warren at LASFS in 1976. Photo from Fanac.org.

Fantasy film historian, long-time LASFSian, and File 770 contributor Bill Warren has had two surgeries in the past week. His wife, Beverly, says he’d love to hear from friends by email or on Facebook. That could cheer him up, and hasten his recovery process.

He had both his mitral and aortic valves replaced on January 9. And on January 11 he had another procedure, to deal with his right lung leaking air into his chest cavity.

Beverly wrote on Facebook —

He will be happy to get emails and Facebook messages. Doctor was very pleased with how today’s repairs went. No flowers. Not well enough for visitors. The phone is hard to get to and use, so computer is still the best mode of communication.

Note — I’m assuming Bill’s friends already have the contact info, or know someone who can give it to them. E-mail me if there are any questions.

Today in History 9/7

Queen of Outer SpaceQueen of Outer Space with Zsa Zsa Gabor opened this date in 1958. It’s a movie in which Earthmen are captured on Venus while trying to sell bicycles to fish. Or something like that.

The script was written by Charles Beaumont from an outline by Ben Hecht – both famous today but not for anything they wrote for this movie. Hecht was entering the last decade of a career in which he’d earned the nickname “the Shakespeare of Hollywood” by scripting hits like The Front Page and Mutiny on the Bounty. Beaumont later wrote several classic Twilight Zone episodes and the screenplay for 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.

Those with a fine eye for such things will be interested to know that Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies: Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, Vol. II, 1958-1962 says Queen of Outer Space recycled costumes from Forbidden Planet like the C-57D crewmen’s uniforms and Altaira’s wardrobe. It also reprised models, sets, and special effects from Bernds’s World Without End, and a model rocketship from Flight to Mars.

Cards Requested For Walt Lee

Cover Walt Lee Reference Guide To Fantastic FilmsBy Bill Warren: I just heard from Steve Lee, son of Walter W. Lee, Jr. — he of the Reference Guide to Fantastic Films and other genre movie research projects, starting as far back as the early 1950s, when he lived in Coos Bay, Oregon. He came to California, married, had two great kids, worked at Hughes, and produced the incredible Reference Guide, which I was privileged (and paid well) to type.

Walt’s birthday is next Saturday; his folks would love to take him cards and good wishes — to his care facility. Walt is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. This is a stunning shock to me, as one of his outstanding, most interesting and productive traits, was always his quick, sharp intelligence. And he was as funny as hell, from time to time.

It was the first truly major work of film scholarship in the area of science fiction, fantasy and horror. It wasn’t easy to do; while being a father and holding down a job, he researched that exhaustive book.

This was long, long before the iMDB, long before most books on movie research. He spent hours upon hours in the files of the Motion Picture Academy, UCLA, USC, Forry Ackerman (a lifelong friend) and elsewhere. He corresponded with people all over the world — he was determined to make the book as inclusive as possible, and he did. It was the first citation in print (other than industry books and magazines) for hundreds upon hundreds of movies. He was one of the first researchers to routinely include many of the great Hollywood cartoon shorts.  Walt was there first, before anyone. I still consider my work on his book to be one of the most important things I ever did.

The address to send cards:

Walt Lee
c/o Steve Lee
3431 Inglewood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90066

The family wants cards and letters more than eMails.  If you want to eMail Steve directly, here’s his eMail address: Hwlostandfound (at) yahoo (dot) com

Ackermonster Chronicles World Premiere

Ackermonster ChroniclesBy John King Tarpinian: This Sunday the 24th would have been Forrest J Ackerman’s 97th birthday. The Aero Theater in Santa Monica will be hosting a birthday party for 4E and also premiering the documentary The Ackermonster Chronicles at 5 p.m. 

There will be a discussion following the showing with Chris Alexander (Editor-in-Chief of Fangoria Magazine; moderator), George Clayton Johnson (Star Trek, Twilight Zone), William F. Nolan (Logan’s Run), Diane O’Bannon (wife of the late filmmaker/writer Dan O’Bannon [Alien]), Jason V Brock (Director/Writer/Producer), Sunni K Brock (Editor/Producer), and Bill Warren (Ackerman’s assistant and film historian).

Bill Warren: Ray Bradbury, Professional Writer

By Bill Warren: I’ve never met someone who was so enthusiastic, ebullient, upbeat all the time.

At the Oakland-Berkeley Worldcon in 1968 (or so), I was sitting in the coffee shop with some friends when we saw Bradbury enter the hotel.  He smiled and waved at me — then, to my surprise, made an abrupt turn and came into the coffee shop to talk to me.  He said I always knew where the best stuff was going on, so where should he go?  We chatted a bit, and he breezed out of the place.  My friends stared at me in shock.  Ray fucking BRADBURY?  Did I know Bradbury THAT well?  I said “Evidently so,” but I was quite puzzled myself — yes, I knew him (thru Forry), but I didn’t think I did know him that well.  So later I encountered him in a hallway and asked about it.  He was ready for me.  He said that at an early convention (I figure this was the post-WWII Worldcon in LA), he was with a bunch of friends when Leigh Brackett came up and chatted with him about his work.  He was puzzled; they WERE friends, but it seemed out of character for her to approach him like that.  So he asked her about it.  She said she was trying to encourage his career as a writer, by treating him as a fellow professional — and did it in front of his friends, to give him egoboo.  Bradbury said “Now you have to pass it on.”

People don’t quite seem to realize how VERY unusual he was — not really so much so in his fiction (though nobody else ever wrote like him), but in how he used his fame.  He was EVERYwhere in Los Angeles, turning up for many events, always upbeat, always booming and very much there (that stunned me when I first met him; I thought he’d be a shy, quiet poet type, not so much like say Jack Carson or Sonny Tufts).  He had a direct, forceful way of talking that still seemed fresh and spontaneous and friendly, dropping in little affirmations (“doesn’t it?” “don’t they?”) of what he’d just said.  He was just about the most PUBLIC writer I have ever seen, or will ever see again.  He was a very big booster of Los Angeles, so much so that it still seems a little odd that he ever lived anywhere else.

Side note: I read, then heard directly from him, about how he changed his mind about Disneyland.  At first, he was highly skeptical of the place, and of Walt Disney.  He refused to go to the park for a couple of years, then Charles Laughton, “the biggest child on Earth,” impatiently took him by hand and down to Disneyland, where he showed Ray that the place was not at all what he had imagined it to be.  Too bad there are no photos of Laughton leading Bradbury around Disneyland.  To me, that’s as wonderful a thought as imagining Ray Bradbury as a grandfather.  He would have been the greatest grandfather who ever lived — except maybe for Walt Disney.

Today, I thought further on the strange tale (I think I heard it from Bill Nolan) that in the 1940s, Bradbury had a big bonfire in his back yard, where he burned all his unsold stories–and he must have had hundreds of them.  At first, I was horrified — all that great Bradbury stuff, gone up in a gout of fire, undoubtedly burning at Fahrenheit 451.  But then I realized what it was: His way of ensuring that he would not be followed around by the ghosts of his past writing, of stories that he knew weren’t as good as what he was turning out by then.  He also knew he had become a professional writer; he couldn’t yet have been certain that he could be the sole breadwinner of his (new or about to be) family, but he knew he could write stories that would sell.

I hope someone more skilled than me can write about the habits of Ray Bradbury, Professional Writer.  He said he wrote a thousand words every day of his life, and I have no reason to disbelieve him; I’ve heard that he kept on doing it, up until a few months before he died.  That indicates a steely, hard-learned discipline — even though he came on like a house afire (which greatly surprised me), even though his reputation at LASFS was that of a practical-joking chatterbox, he was very serious about becoming a writer.  Then he was very serious about BEING a writer; he was just about the most public writer I’ve ever heard of.  He loved being famous, and he used his fame very wisely, and very often.  Okay, so his plays were usually not very good, and his poetry was limp, but long ago he won the right to be judged by his best work.  Don’t all writers have a falling-off period? 

Take a look at his Internet Movie Database (imdb.com, I think) pages; he wrote for a LOT of TV series in the 1950s, many more than I knew about, some of which seem highly unlikely as a venue for Bradbury material (Steve Canyon???), but he was a pro, and pros sell their stuff.  He even wrote 65 scripts for his own Ray Bradbury Theater, which was often not all that good, but by George, he did it, he did it.  There’s a whole lot of filmed Bradbury, much more than most people realize–and even more yet when you count all the student and amateur productions of his work.  He told me that he allowed any film student who asked to adapt his work, as long as they sent him a print of the finished product.  As he said this, he gestured sort of absently toward the darker recesses of his basement office, where there was a lot of room.  I hope his family considers collecting the best of those student films into a set of DVDs.

I’ll attach three or so photos.  The black-and-white was taken (by Daugherty) at a big surprise party for Forry in 1967, about five minutes after I first met Ray Bradbury.  We swapped glasses, and found our prescriptions were similar. 

Bill Warren meets Ray Bradbury at the Dracula Society banquet.

The shot of Ray talking was taken at the 2nd LASFS clubhouse in North Hollywood, when it was still under construction.

Bradbury addressing the LASFS.

The odd shot requires a little explanation.  Remember the Lytton Center for the Visual Arts?  (I think that was the name — the basement of a savings-and-loan place that was at the corner of Sunset and Laurel Canyon)  One night, they showed something of interest; Beverly and I, and our friend Jon Berg, went; so did Forry, Bradbury, Ray Harryhausen and his wife.  We were there for a movie, but there was also a current display of slightly eccentric wire sculptures.  One of them was of an elephant, and was about half the size of a baby elephant.  It had a door and a stool inside; you could sit there and waggle the trunk and ears.  I did this to amuse Harryhausen (“Is this how you do it, Mr. Harryhausen?”) but Bradbury got all excited and insisted I get out so he could get in.  He, too, waggled the ears and trunk and declared “I am the spirit of the elephant!”

Ray Bradbury as the Spirit of the Elephant.