Pixel Scroll 2/14/24 Big Pixel in Little Scroll

(1) OOKPIK FIXED. Terry Fong, chair of the Montréal in 2027 Worldcon bid, sent an official reply to a question from File 770 about the $350 level presupport.

We goofed on the wording of one of our membership presupport levels. The description of our highest level (Ookpik) now reads as follow:

“We will pay your Advance WSFS membership (voting fee) in the 2027 Site Selection election. You still will have to join the 2025 Worldcon as at least a WSFS (supporting) member in order to vote on the 2027 Site Selection. (Of course, you have to cast your own ballot.) If we win, you will get a full attending membership including a WSFS membership. All the perks of lower support levels, a piece of nifty swag from a previous CANSMOF-sponsored convention AND a fridge magnet.  You also get a unique nifty cool ribbon for your support at this level.”

Apologies to all for any confusion arising from our previous wording.

(2) HEAR TERRY PRATCHETT. Fanac.org has added an audio recording of Terry Pratchett’s GoH speech from Noreascon 4 (2004).  

It’s very, very, funny. The recording is about 1 hr, 10 minutes long. It does not include all the Q&A. Audio provided by Steven Silver. Thanks, Steven! Portrait of Terry Pratchett by Charles Williams, from the N4 Program Book.

Noreascon 4 Program Book art by Charles Williams

(3) NERD LOVE. [Item by Daniel Dern.] From the New York Times: “Who Kissed First? Archaeology Has an Answer”.

This is a love story:…

They met a week earlier at a pub near the University of Copenhagen, where both were undergraduates. “I had asked my cousin if he knew any nice single guys with long hair and long beards,” Dr. Rasmussen said. “And he said, ‘Sure, I’ll introduce you to one.’”

Dr. Arboll, in turn, had been looking for a partner that shared his interest in Assyriology, the study of Mesopotamian languages and the sources written in them. “Not many people know what an Assyriologist actually does,” he told her.

“I do,” said Dr. Rasmussen, who had taken some of the same classes.

Dr. Arboll, now a professor of Assyriology at the university, said, “When I heard that, I knew she was a keeper.” …

(4) NOW, WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T PANIC! [Item by SF Concatenaton’s Jonathan Cowie.] Douglas Adams’ novel The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) was the subject of the last third of this week’s BBC Radio 4 show A Good Read.

Now, I came to Hitch-Hiker’s in its original incarnation as the 1978 BBC 4 Radio show the last two episodes of which greatly benefited from some cohesiveness from John Lloyd. That season and the subsequent ‘Christmas edition’ (which became the first episode of the second season) is for me what Hitch-Hiker’s is all about: to me, you can keep the subsequent series; the fist season and Christmas episode alone were works of true genius).

I was not alone, Hitch-Hiker’s was a favourite with almost all to my fellow members of my college SF group, Hatfield PSIFA (now Hertfordshire University PSIFA). And even then we were not alone.  I remember at the 1979 Worldcon in Brighton, Britain, when the Hugo Award short-list for ‘Best Dramatic Presentation’ was read out there was a huge cheer from the audience.  As it happened, the film Superman won and Kal El himself in the mortal guise of Christopher Reeve (not Clark Kent) took to the stage. He, very graciously, said while he was happy that technically Superman had won that clearly for the people there in the hall it was Hitch-Hiker’s that was the true winner… (You have to remember that, back in the 1970s, N. America dominated the Worldcon and Hugos far more than they do today.)

Which brings us to this week’s BBC Radio 4 A Good Read.  The presenter noted that though the novel (1979) came out some 45 years ago, Hitch-Hiker’s had never been a subject on that programme!  It has to be said that the novel did not get an entirely smooth ride as one of the show’s panelists did not like SF and another took a more of a curate’s egg approach.  All this despite the presenter noting that 15 million copies of the book had been sold among other related adaptations to other media and merch.  Nonetheless, some interesting points were made including that the character Zaphod Beeblebrox was a politician who actually never did run anything but was a self-serving, self publicist… It was noted that here there are parallels with some of today’s politicians (examples, it was hinted, including in the UK and elsewhere (the US?), who could she have meant?).

“Harriett’s choice is Douglas Adams’ story about Arthur Dent’s journey through space with an alien called Ford Prefect after earth is demolished to make way for a bypass.”

You can access this episode of A Good Read at the link. Remember to skip to the programme’s final third. (Phew. Now, where’s my towel?)

(5) COURT TOSSES FOUR CLAIMS IN SUIT AGAINST OPEN AI. “Court Trims Authors’ Copyright Lawsuit Against Open AI”Publishers Weekly knows where it was clipped.

A federal judge in California this week dismissed four of six claims made by authors in a now consolidated lawsuit alleging that Open AI infringes their copyrights. But the court gave the authors a month to amend their complaint, and the suit’s core claim of direct infringement—which Open AI did not seek to dismiss—remains active.

Following a December 7 hearing, federal judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín needed just 13 pages to dismiss a host of claims made by the authors, including vicarious infringement (count two), claims that Open AI removed or altered copyright management information (count three); negligence under the unfair competition law (count five); and unjust enrichment (count six). The court allowed a fourth claim of “unfairness” under the unfair competition law to proceed, however, holding that, if true, the authors’ claims that Open AI used their copyrighted works “to train their language models for commercial profit may constitute an unfair practice.”….

Amazing Stories has a more quotes from the decision in its post “Breaking: AI Copyright Infringement Claims Rejected”.

(6) THE ‘SHOW’ SHOULD GO ON. Philip Athans turns to an old paperback for an example of “What We Can Learn From A Random Science Fiction Novel: ‘Show’ Vs. Info Dump” at Fantasy Author’s Handbook.

…When I say “show, don’t tell,” the first thing I’m attacking is the info dump. This is when authors effectively stop the story and start explaining, when they start writing an article instead of a scene. I’ve called out one author on that here, so you can see an example of what not to do, but in reading—and loving—Star Bridge, when I got to Chapter 8, I found a fantastic example of how to balance showing a character’s experience of an imagined world while conveying, not dumping, all sorts of specific information about how that world operates.

In Star Bridge, authors Jack Williamson and James E. Gunn seems to have committed the cardinal sin of opening each and every chapter with what, on the surface, would appear to be short info dumps. Presented under the title THE HISTORY, we’re “told” a little about the unique future in which interstellar travel, via a teleportation device, is strictly controlled by Eron, a monopoly that has reached essentially imperial status. The story begins with our hero, Horn, having been sent to assassinate the leader of this monopoly. It’s a fun ride, and one that goes into deeper places as the story unfolds….

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 14, 1970 Simon Pegg, 54. Though Simon Pegg’s certainly not James Doohan, who’s beloved for being the first and for most Trekkies still the only  Montgomery “Scotty” Scott no doubt, I found his version in Star TrekStar Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond to be quite true to the original character. Though it’s been eight years since the last film, they are talking apparently about a fourth film. 

(For the record, I thought the primary actors were fine in all three, but the scripts in the second two sucked. And the less said a certain recast villian from the original series, the better.)

Simon Pegg in 2016.

Paramount + has all of the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible films of which there are eight so far. Pegg is Benji Dunn, an IMF technician, who debuts in Mission: Impossible III as a supporting protagonist before returning in Mission: Impossible – Ghost ProtocolMission: Impossible — Rogue NationMission: Impossible – FalloutMission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and Part Two, no longer as a supporting cast member but as a leading cast member. 

So who’s seen some of these? Opinions please?

Now let’s deal with his non-franchise film roles. His first venture into the genre was Shaun of the Dead which he co-wrote with Edgar Wright and had an acting role in as, errr, Shaun. Of course he got, wait for it, the meaty role. You can groan now. 

It was inspired by ideas they used for their Spaced comedy series about two women living in a small but posh apartment, particularly an episode in which Pegg’s character hallucinates a zombie invasion. Though not SF, the fourteen episodes often made references to popular culture, including SF and horror films, comic books, and video games. 

At Romero’s invitation, Pegg and Wright made both cameo appearances in Romero’s Land of the Dead. Not meaty roles, but they are there. 

He appeared in a Ninth Doctor story, “the Long Game” as The Editor. The BBC press release for this episode says Pegg had grown up with Who and he considered it a “great honour” to guest star on the series, and he was rather pleased at being cast as a bad guy.

I’m going to note just several of the animated works he did. He did the voice and motion capture for detective Thompson in The Adventures of Tintin (also known, though I didn’t know this before as charmingly as The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn). And he did the voice of what sounds like a bad sneeze, Reepicheep the Mouse, in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Let’s end with Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, a curious film indeed. It is based on the legend of Gef an apparently talking mongoose , a story that got extensive coverage in the British tabloid press in the early 1930s. Pegg plays investigator Nandor Fodor, and Neil Gaiman voices Gef.  It left British critics terribly annoyed. Not that it takes much to annoy them, does it? 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Eek! reveals the truth about a superhero’s laundry.
  • Speed Bump shows the last person on Earth learning the reason she’s still around.

(9) FANTASTIC CAST. Variety names names: “Fantastic Four: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn Cast at Marvel (variety.com)

The superhero quartet — the first characters created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby — will be played by Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm (aka the Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm (aka the Thing).

As part of the casting announcement, Disney has swapped the release dates of “The Fantastic Four” (now set for July 25, 2025) and “Thunderbolts” (now set for May 2, 2025). Those are two of four Marvel tentpoles currently set to open in 2025, along with “Captain America: Brave New World” in February and “Blade” in November. Four Marvel films are also scheduled for 2026, including “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.” That’s a ramp up from 2024: Marvel only has “Deadpool & Wolverine” for theaters, on July 26….

(Image courtesy of Marvel Studios)

(10) OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB. Inverse critic Hoai-Tran Bui declares that “Madame Web Is Embarrassing for Everyone Involved”.

Madame Web isn’t so much a movie as it is the pretense of one — a collection of Easter eggs and prequel nonsense strung together by half-assed ADR and dialogue that feels like it was drummed up in Screenwriting 101. But the most alarming thing about Madame Web is that it is a movie that never really gets started. Instead, it’s just one long prelude to the actual story, like being trapped in one of Cassie Webb’s time-looping visions with no escape….

(11) REPO’D AGAIN. “Alex Cox Directing Kiowa Gordon in ‘Repo Man 2’” reports Variety.

Alex Cox is getting back behind the wheel.

The “Repo Man” director is revisiting the off-kilter world of extraterrestrials and car repossession that he mined so memorably in the 1984 cult classic in a new sequel that is being introduced to buyers at the Berlin Film Festival and European Film Market. Entitled “Repo Man 2: The Wages of Beer,” the film is being backed by Buffalo 8 Productions, a film and media company best known for the critically acclaimed work on Netflix series “The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes.” Cox wrote the script along with directing the film.

Kiowa Gordon, best known for his role as Embry Call in “The Twilight Saga” and for his work in the AMC series “Dark Winds,” is set to lead the cast as Otto. Emilio Estevez played Otto in the 1984 original. The film picks up after Otto has boarded his trusty 1967 Chevy Malibu to journey across the infinities of time and space. In that time he has aged exactly 90 minutes. 

(12) FOR THOSE WITH YOUNGER DIGESTIVE TRACTS. “Mountain Dew pie and chocolate tacos revealed in Taco Bell showcase” reports Independent. See the hour-long event in this YouTube video: “Taco Bell Presents Live Más Live 2024”.

(13) THAT IS THE QUESTION. Revisit Sir Patrick Stewart’s visit to Sesame Street from many years ago: “Patrick Stewart Soliloquy on B”.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Daniel Dern, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Danny Sichel.]

Peter Weston (1943-2017)

Peter Weston in 2005. Photo by Bill Burns.

Peter Weston in 2005. Photo by Bill Burns.

Peter Weston, a prolific fanzine publisher and convention organizer, one of the most influential British fans during his lifetime, died of complications of cancer on January 5. He was 73.

Weston discovered fandom in January 1963 at the age of 19. Rummaging through the SF books on sale in the Birmingham Rag Market, he found a slip of pink paper in one of them. “Are you interested in SF?” it asked, exhorting him to “Join the Erdington SF Circle.” Weston soon became active in Birmingham fandom and by November 1963 had published the first issue of his fanzine, Zenith.

Evolving through several name changes — Zenith, Zenith Speculation, Speculation – the fanzine became one of the most successful of those devoted to serious discussion of sf, receiving four Hugo nominations and a Nova award. Weston recalled, “I served a long and painful apprenticeship before Speculation hit its stride around the twentieth issue, when I had wall-to-wall professionals jostling for position – Harlan Ellison, Tom Disch, Fritz Leiber, Terry Carr, they were all there, along with Michael Moorcock who wrote a series of incredible columns… Later Mike was joined by Fred Pohl, who wrote a column for a while, and other professionals contributed, such as Greg Benford and Larry Niven…”

In the mid-Sixties, Weston wrote a fan news column for the British Science Fiction Association’s fanzine Vector under the pseudonym “Malcolm Edwards” – which had humorous consequences when, a few years later, a real Malcolm Edwards joined fandom and was greeted by people who expressed their pleasure at finally meeting him. By coincidence, both the fake Malcolm Edwards and the real Malcolm Edwards went on to chair British Worldcons.

In the Seventies, Weston held three Speculation Conferences in Birmingham (1970-1972), science fiction symposia inspired by his fanzine. He co-founded the Birmingham Science Fiction Group (BSFG) in 1971 and helped originate the convention Novacon that same year. He edited three volumes of the Andromeda anthology (1976, 1977, 1978).

Peter Weston and Ron Bounds at Discon II (1974).

Peter Weston and Ron Bounds at Discon II (1974).

Weston was voted Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund delegate in 1974 and traveled to Washington DC for Discon II — even though this meant leaving behind his pregnant wife, Eileen, who gave birth four days after he departed, according to his trip report Stranger in a Very Strange Land. While in America he gathered support for a newly-created British bid for a Worldcon he would end up chairing at the end of the decade, Seacon ’79 in Brighton.

In his professional life, he once owned a foundry that produced the chrome-plated automobile door handles and hood ornaments for Jaguars, a technology he also put to use (beginning in 1984) manufacturing the rockets for the Hugo Awards.

Peter Weston auctioning a Hugo rocket during Noreascon 4 (Boston), the 2004 Worldcon during which he was a Guest of Honor. Photo by Murray Moore.

Peter Weston auctioning a Hugo rocket during Noreascon 4 (Boston), the 2004 Worldcon during which he was a Guest of Honor. Photo by Murray Moore.

Weston was a Worldcon guest of honor at Noreascon 4 in 2004, where his memoir With Stars in My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom was released. The volume knitted together several of Weston’s autobiographical articles, including two that held the record for number of views on Victor Gonzalez’s early fannish blog, Trufen.

In 2006, Weston revived his fanzine Prolapse (re-titled Relapse in 2009) after a 23-year hiatus. He concentrated on publishing articles about fanhistory. Issues can be downloaded from eFanzines.

Even this full resume of his activities barely suggests his social impact among his friends in fandom, where he was valued as a raconteur, or diplomatic skills, especially a rarity in early Seventies fandom when it still was an anarchic community largely composed of young men.

Weston’s funeral will be on January 23 at Sutton Coldfield. He is survived by his wife, Eileen, and his daughters.

Weston at the 1987 Worldcon. Photo by and copyright © Andrew Porter

Weston at the 1987 Worldcon. Photo by and copyright © Andrew Porter

Update 01/10/2017: Changed year of birth to 1943 per correction in comments.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015)

Terry Pratchett in 2011.

Terry Pratchett in 2011.

Terry Pratchett passed away March 12 at home surrounded by his family reports his publisher. He was the author of 70 books, among them 40 in the Discworld series of comic fantasies that began with The Colour of Magic in 1983.

Pratchett’s first sale was a short story, “The Hades Business,” published when he was 15. Early in his career he worked as a journalist and as a press officer for nuclear power generating utility.

Once he turned to fiction full time he enjoyed phenomenal popularity. Pratchett was the top-selling and highest earning UK author in 1996. In 2008, he was top author on The Bookseller’s first-ever “evergreen” list of 12 titles that had never fallen out of the top 5,000 since Nielsen BookScan began collecting data, three of which were his early Discworld novels The Colour of Magic, Mort and The Light Fantastic. (He was also near the top of the list of writers whose books were thieved from UK bookshops, with The Colour of Magic placing third on the list of Ten Most Stolen Books in 2009.)

Pratchett co-authored The Science of Discworld with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, a Hugo nominee in 2000.

He participated in ”Science Fiction’s 50th Anniversary Family Reunion” at Noreascon Three (1989):

Terry Pratchett recalled that at newsstands in Britain the good magazines were on the top shelf and sf was on the bottom shelf, from which he argued the shortness of old British sf fans was a matter of natural selection. More seriously, Pratchett said he learned from sf that mathematics was actually interesting, which no one else was telling him. “Good old sf – whenever I’ve needed you, you’ve always been there.”

He was a guest of honor at Noreascon 4, the 2004 Worldcon.

In December 2007, Pratchett announced that he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He immediately became an active spokesman about Alzheimer’s and its impact on individuals and society. In 2008 the Daily Mail published “Terry Pratchett: ‘I’m Slipping Away A Bit At A Time…And All I Can Do Is Watch It Happen’”, the author’s extraordinary essay on his Alzheimer’s affliction:

I spoke to a fellow sufferer recently (or as I prefer to say, ‘a person who is thoroughly annoyed with the fact they have dementia’) who talked in the tones of a university lecturer and in every respect was quite capable of taking part in an animated conversation.

Nevertheless, he could not see the teacup in front of him. His eyes knew that the cup was there; his brain was not passing along the information. This disease slips you away a little bit at a time and lets you watch it happen.

He also investigated “assisted suicide” (although he disliked that term), wrote a public lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, in 2010 and in 2011 presented a BBC television documentary on the subject titled Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die. However, The Telegraph reports that his death was natural.

Pratchett was knighted by the Queen for his services to literature in a 2009 ceremony, Elizabeth dubbing the kneeling author on each shoulder with her sword.

Although he did not win a Hugo or Nebula, he received many other accolades: a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (2010), the Andre Norton Award (for YA sf/f, presented by SFWA in parallel with the Nebulas) for I Shall Wear Midnight (2011), the British Science Fiction Association Award for his novel Pyramids (1989), the Mythopoeic Award for Children’s Literature for A Hat Full of Sky (2005), and the Prometheus Award for his novel Night Watch (2003). An asteroid (127005 Pratchett) is named after him.

Gaiman Pratchett Good OmensLast April Sir Terry Pratchett was the Author of the Day for the Opening Day of the 2014 London Book Fair. In December he and his friend and collaborator Neil Gaiman made cameo appearances in BBC Radio 4’s production of Good Omens.

After learning of his friend’s death, Neil Gaiman published an emotional tribute.

Admitting he knew Sir Terry’s death had been coming, he said, “it made it no easier”.

I woke up and my email was all condolences from friends, and requests for statements from journalists, and I knew it had happened. I’d been warned.

Thirty years and a month ago, a beginning author met a young journalist in a Chinese Restaurant, and the two men became friends, and they wrote a book, and they managed to stay friends despite everything. Last night, the author died.

There was nobody like him. I was fortunate to have written a book with him, when we were younger, which taught me so much.

I’ll miss you, Terry.

I’m not up to writing anything yet. Maybe one day.

The public acknowledgement of Pratchett’s passing included these three tweets on his Twitter account:

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Update 03/12/2015: Corrected an award citation to British Science Fiction Association Award.

Bradbury Estate Auction Begins Online

Charles Addams painting done in 1946.

Charles Addams painting done in 1946.

The Ray Bradbury estate auction has gone live on the Nate D. Sanders Fine Autographs & Memorabilia site – see the full catalog here. It includes paintings by Charles Addams and Hannes Bok that hung on Bradbury’s walls and items from his collections of Disney animation cels, comic strips and original illustration art. The auction continues until September 25

The minimum bid on the Charles Addams signed painting is $32,500:

”Addams Family” cartoonist and creator Charles Addams original 1946 painting personally owned by Ray Bradbury. True to Addams’ whimsical and macabre tone, painting depicts a landscape scene at twilight with a Gothic mansion overlooking a shore, and with ghoulish creatures and spirits ascending towards the house. Signed, ”Chas Adams” at upper right. Mixed media on illustration board was selected to be the cover image for Bradbury’s book, ”From the Dust Returned”, which was released in 2001. Painting measures 17” x 12” and is matted and framed to an overall size of 24” x 19”.

They’re asking at least $6,000 for the iconic Dean Ellis painting commissioned for the cover of The Illustrated Man published by Bantam Books in 1969.

Dean Ellis Illustrated Man COMP

Ray Bradbury's 2004 Retro Hugo for Fahrenheit 451.

Ray Bradbury’s 2004 Retro Hugo for Fahrenheit 451.

The Retro Hugo Award that Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 won at the 2004 Worldcon could be yours for $5,000 (if nobody bids higher). That might be a reasonable asking price — Harry Warner Jr.’s Hugo went for $2,000 at auction in 2012. The association of this Hugo with a more famous winner ought to drive up the value.

Hugo Award presented to Ray Bradbury at Noreascon 4, the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention in 2004. Trophy honors the great author as part of the Retrospective Awards in the category of Best Novel for ”Fahrenheit 451”. Iconic sci-fi trophy features a sleek figural metal sculpture of a rocket pointing skyward, mounted to a wooden base with the information plaque affixed to one of the three sides. The other two sides are studded with rings of 13 stars. To the underside, the name of the trophy’s designer, Patrick J. O’Connor is engraved. Measures 17” in total height; base sides each measure 7”.

(In contrast the minimum bid for his Saturn Award is $500 – hear, hear!)

The hundreds of items of art going under the hammer include works by Joseph Mungiani, Hannes Bok,Milton Caniff, Al Capp, Ron Cobb — and Joseph Lane’s portrait of Bradbury from the Hollywood Brown Derby.

Bradbury receives autographed "Ice Cream Suit."

Bradbury receives autographed “Ice Cream Suit.”

Plus all the minutiae accumulated throughout his life — handwritten poems and doodles, Bradbury’s annotated copy of the 1977 Academy Award script, and checks he signed in 1960. There are two unopened bottles of French wine from the same vineyard, vintage 1945 and 1946. Furniture, lamps, silverware. Even his personally-owned Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, autographed by the cast. (I ran of photo of his receiving that just a couple weeks ago.)

Medusa Harryhausen 47916_med

One final hidden gem is this Medusa Mask:

Ray Bradbury personally owned Medusa mask. Rubber cowl features a hideously delightful green textured face with pointy teeth and a wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression. Snakes emanate from the head in conformity with the myth. Possibly a movie prop from the 1981 film ”Clash of the Titans”. Measures 11” x 13” x 9”. Near fine. With a COA from the Ray Bradbury estate.

It was indeed made by Ray Harryhausen (though the catalog doesn’t say so), and once sat on top of the refrigerator in Bradbury’s Palm Springs home according to John King Tarpinian.

Marty Gear (1939 – 2013)

Marty Gear at 2009 Arisia. Photo by Daniel P. Noé.

Marty Gear at 2009 Arisia. Photo by Daniel P. Noé.

Legendary costuming fan Marty Gear, whose fanac spanned six decades, died in his sleep on July 18 at the age of 74.

Marty and his wife, Bobby (who predeceased him in 2005), won many awards in masquerade competitions. He founded The Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumers’ Guild, a forerunner of the International Costumers’ Guild, was the ICG’s first Executive Director, and was honored with the ICG’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

One of Marty’s earliest fannish experiences, when he was 14, was traveling from Columbus, Ohio to Philadelphia for the 1953 Worldcon. Marty was unprepared for what he found there, felt overwhelmed and said he would have gone back to his hotel room to hide but for “a tall, white-haired man [who] came over and began to talk to me about what I liked to read. I had just bought a copy of Skylark of Valeron in the dealers’ room… and began enthusing about this ‘new’ writer that I had just discovered, E.E. Smith, Ph.D.” He soon discovered it was Smith himself he was telling this to, and Doc and his wife took Marty in tow, introducing him to other authors and artists. “For the remainder of the weekend, whenever either of them saw me alone they made a point of checking to see if I was enjoying myself, and of somehow including me in whatever was going on.”

Despite this friendly encounter with one of the field’s most loved writers, Marty did not attend another SF con until 1977 when Page Cuddy and David Hartwell “conned” him into going to a Balticon in order to meet Philip Jose Farmer.

After that Marty rapidly developed into a fannish leader. He ran programming for Balticon 13 in 1979 and became a regular fixture as the con’s masquerade director beginning in 1981. He chaired CostumeCon 3 (1985) and Balticon 21 (1987).

He held major committee posts on 4 Worldcons. Michael J. Walsh, chair of the 1983 Baltimore Worldcon where Marty ran the masquerade, likes to tell the story – “In 1981 when I called him from Denvention to let him know we had won: ‘Marty, bad news!’ [He answered] ‘We won?’”

Marty was famous for presiding over masquerades in costume as Count Dracula. And he was infamous for filling time with terrible vampire jokes such as —

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?

Frostbite!

One of his most challenging moments came while directing the 1998 Worldcon (Bucconeer) masquerade — at the start he stumbled against a table of awards and took a four-foot fall off the stage. Quite the trouper, Marty got right back up and did his job without visible problems. He even looked in pretty good shape the morning after at the masquerade critique where he had nothing to say about his mishap except an apology for detracting from the costumers. He did use a cane for awhile afterwards, though.

Marty was a fiery advocate for his beloved event. Even at a Worldcon he refused to concede first place to the Hugo Ceremony, protesting during the Bucconeer masquerade post-mortem, “To the Worldcon committee the Masquerade is not the most important event…. It’s just the best-attended, and has the most people involved, but to the committee it’s a secondary event.”

When he was feeling more mellow he’d deliver the message humorously, saying things like, “Costuming is the second oldest tradition in sci-fi fandom. The first is drinking beer.”

Marty remained an active member of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, and at the time of his death was parliamentarian of the BSFS Board of Directors, coordinator of the Jack L. Chalker Young Writers’ Contest, and liaison to the school for the BSFS Books for Kids program.

Over the years he was a guest of honor at Unicon 87, Disclave 34, Sci-Con 8, Genericon 2, Arisia 9, and Balticon 30.

Professionally, Marty managed his own company Martin Gear Consulting Ltd.

Other than dressing as a vampire, Marty said one of his favorite costumes was “Cohen the Barbarian” a prize-winner at the 2004 Worldcon as “Best DiscWorld Entry.” His Cohen wore a fur diaper, a very long white beard and an eyepatch — and not much else. In one hand he carried a sword and in the other a walking cane.

To the end Marty continually mentored costumers and passed on his enthusiasm for the costuming arts. He told an interviewer, “I probably won’t stop costuming until I am dead, and maybe not even then.”

***

See Marty in his Dracula garb start the 2008 Balticon masquerade with a horrible joke.

In this interview at Anime USA 2012 Marty explained how he judges anime and reproduction costumes in terms that would be at home on Project Runway — “Clothes have to fit.”

Pam Fremon, F.N. Passes Away

Pam Fremon died November 7 of a heart attack reports Deb Geisler. Fremon, a long-time NESFA member, lived in Waltham, MA. She chaired the 2002 and 2006 Boskones, served several terms as Clerk of the NESFA, and was selected a Fellow of NESFA in 1990.

“She brought together MCFI and Bill Neville who did all our Lens-Family art, and was a major force in the group that did the starry vests that you showed in a recent item,” Chip Hitchcock recalls, adding this praise: “She was invariably calm when people around her got more and more tightly wound.”

“At Noreascon Four, [Pam] was the goddess of signs, pumping out many, many signs for the convention while not-quite chained to the large-format printer we had bought for the task,” said Deb, pointing to the photo below.

I remember the deftly humorous meeting reports she wrote when Clerk of the NESFA – some bits so funny I had to share them in File 770. Here are two examples: each begins with my couple of lines of introduction, followed by Pam’s quotes.

From 2000:

Hardly anyone is embarrassed to be seen entering a NESFA meeting anymore, but there seems a good reason not to attract attention on the way out. Clerk Pam Fremon says at the end of the January 23 meeting:

     “We stole away into the night, mindful of the wolves.

     “Through the years, many creatures have, of course, chased NESFAns on the way to Other Meetings — such a common occurrence that it has never seen mention in Instant Message….until now.

     “Wolves are fairly typical predators for winter meetings, but going a little further north (say, Andover, MA), polar bears are not uncommon, though they don’t usually appear until January (in December they’re too busy with Coca-Cola commercials.) In most of the rest of the year the chasers vary: moose, snakes, coyotes, pigeons. In one notably hot day when even cars were so hot that they could manage just 15 mph, members were chased by turtles.”

From 2003:

Instant Message 711 (and what issue could have a luckier number than that?) Clerk Pam Fremon reported the menu of NESFA’s November 24 Other Meeting:

     “Deb [Geisler] and Mike [Benveniste] fed us to the gills with an enormous tray of lasagna (containing 5 lbs. of meat and 2 lbs. of mushrooms). It was a free-range lasagna that had been humanely slaughtered and carried no trace of fur, feathers, nor scales. Deb acknowledged that this year she hadn’t also made an emergency back-up lasagna, figuring that this one would be enough. As she said, people had brought enough sweets for 27 courses of desserts. At the end of the meal there was only one helping of lasagna, and Dave Grubbs (after some coaxing) valiantly threw himself onto it.”

Pam Fremon with the large-format printer at Noreascon 4.

Tyson’s Starry Vest

I gather that the starry vest is astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s signature outfit. I wasn’t aware of that when I first saw this panel from Action Comics. My reflexive response was to wonder, “Why is Tyson wearing a Friend of the Boston in 2001 Worldcon Bid vest?”

The history of those vests was explained in an an ad for Boston’s next (2004) bid:

Our “Ladies Sewing Circle…” got together their sewing machines, scissors, pin cushions, and a couple of hundred yards of starry fabric and began to make vests (for the SurRealEstate brokers, of course). Eventually, they custom-made about 300 vests for committee, friends of the bid, and potential guests of honor of the 2001 Worldcon.

Peter Grace wearing his starry vest at L..A.con IV (2006). Photo by Chaz Boston Baden.

Worldcon Event DVDs

The official Anticipation Masquerade video is available on DVD from CreateSpace for $9.95 plus shipping, reports Video Director Syd Weinstein.

Quite a few videos of North American Worldcons (and the latest Arisia) are for sale via CreateSpace.

Anticipation Masquerade: Edited video of the event complete with the awards.

Denvention 3 Masquerade: Denvention 3 Masquerade hosted by Wil McCarthy — 31 entries including 3 in the young fan category. Includes the presentations, the half time slide show of past masquerade entrants over the years, and the awards ceremony.

Noreascon 4 Opening/Closing/Highlights: Opening and Closing Ceremonies, plus a highlight reel of all of the events.

Noreascon 4 Time Machine (Retro Hugos): Includes the 1954 Retrospective Hugo Awards Ceremony hosted by Bob Eggleton and interviews with the Noreascon 4 Guests of Honor hosted by Peter Weston.

Noreascon 4 Masquerade and Awards (Two Disks): Masquerade hosted by Susan de Guardiola. Disc one includes the masquerade presentations and a montage of the awards. Disc two is the masquerade awards including young fan, special Discworld, and the main awards.

Noreascon 4: Hugos: Hugo Awards Ceremony hosted by Neil Gaiman.

Noreascon 4: Five Disk Set: Official 5 DVD set of the entire week’s programming in the main auditorium. Bonus feature: time lapse video of the entire week, including build, shows, and teardown.

Arisia 2009 Masquerade: Boston-area convention masquerade.

Weinstein adds that the video of Anticipation’s Hugo Awards ceremony is still in production.

[Thanks to John Hertz for the story.]

Footnote to Fanhistory

Before Mapquest, fans depended on Kevin Standlee’s feet.

In 1993, people going to the Worldcon wanted to know how far their hotels were from the Moscone Center. The ConFrancisco committee told them how many blocks, told them how many linear feet, and still had to admit “neither measurements have satisfied many people.”

Having made the admission, Kevin Standlee realized the only other thing he could do was personally pace off routes from the hotels to the Moscone entrance. He counted his steps and published the results under the title “ConFrancisco – Step by Step.” Fandom learned, for example, that the Parc 55 was 968 Standlees from the convention center, a Standlee being the length of a stride by a man 6’3″ tall, or about a meter. The Standlee became part of the fannish lexicon, and Leah Zeldes Smith wrote that the term deserved to be in the next Fancyclopedia.

Not very many fans have been immortalized by having their names attached to a unit of measurement. Two others I can name off the top of my head are both NESFAns.

According to the NESFA Bureau of Standards, a “Drew” is “the unit of displacement needed to move Drew Whyte from Boston to Cambridge.” Volunteers from the club, er, I mean the NESFA Displacement Authority, required five trucks about 20 feet long, packed absurdly tightly, to shift all or Drew’s stuff to his new home.

Another time, Mark Olson told a NESFA business meeting that new bookshelf extensions had been installed and in the process people had coined a new measurement — “the Paula.” The new shelves were three Paulas high.

You would expect such ideas to appeal to NESFAns, having the example before them of MIT’s Oliver Smoot, a fraternity member who was laid end to end (wasn’t that every frat boy’s dream in 1963?) to measure the length of the Mass. Ave. bridge. Today, Google Earth allows users the option of measuring distances in Smoots. And, of course, the image of Smoot on the Mass. Ave. bridge was celebrated at the Noreascon 4 Opening Ceremonies.

Noreascon 4 Hugo Nominee Stats

Noreascon 4’s Hugo Administrator, Rick Katze, has posted the top 15 vote-getters in each category on the Worldcon’s Hugo nomination details page. Here’s the chance to satisfy your morbid curiosity — how close did you came to making the final ballot? (Finalists already know how far from winning they were, because Katze unveiled the 2004 Hugo final results on the night of the awards.) This is everyone else’s chance to rise up in righteous indignation and declaim the nonentities standing between our friends and the finalists. (Hangin’s too good for ‘em!) And if all you’re interested in is the fan Hugo categories, we’ve got the stats and a list of their links just a click away …

Click Read and Comment for more of Migly’s article

Note: The names above the dashed line were finalists.
Best Fan Writer (260 people nominated)
John L. Flynn

— 55
Jeff Berkwits

— 45
Bob Devney — 42
Dave Langford

— 39

Cheryl Morgan — 35

Lloyd Penney

— 25
John Hertz

— 18
Evelyn Leeper

— 17
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

— 16
Guy H. Lillian III

— 13
Steven Silver

— 13
Daniel Kimmel

— 12
Bruce Gillespie

— 11
Karen Bennett

— 10
Ernest Lilley

— 10

Best Fanzine (211 people nominated)
Emerald City

— 48
Challenger

— 41
Plokta

— 39
Mimosa

— 26
File 770

— 25

SFRevu

— 20
Devniad — 19
Bento

— 17
Voyageur

— 17
Science Fiction Commentary

— 16
Chunga

— 12
Fortean Bureau

— 12
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

— 9
Alexiad — 9
MT Void

— 9
Trap Door— 9

Best Fan Artist (190 people nominated)
Frank Wu

— 75
Sue Mason

— 33
Teddy Harvia

— 32
Brad Foster

— 26
Steve Stiles

— 20

Taral Wayne

— 15
Bill Neville— 15
Alexis Gilliland — 14
Sheryl Birkhead

— 10
Kurt Erichsen

— 10
Marc Schirmeister — 10
Dan Steffan — 10
Alan White

— 9
Mel Vavaroutsos

— 8
Stu Shiffman

— 7

The links are included as a public service to anyone whose shouting “Who in hell is that?” is more than a rhetorical question. The list is incomplete, unfortunately. Joe Major’s Alexiad and John Hertz don’t have websites. Also, if Alexis Gilliland, Sue Mason, Marc Schirmeister, Dan Steffan or Steve Stiles keep up a website we didn’t find it, though we added a representative link in a couple of instances anyway. A Google search on the fanartists’ names also will lead to numerous individual examples of their art.

You are right if you suspect two of the top 15 fanzine nominees are obvious semiprozines getting votes from people confused about the categories. The Fortean Bureau is a magazine of speculative fiction. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet actually got nominations for both semiprozine and fanzine, but reveals online it is a market for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and black and white art.

The administrator explains, “We validated the eligibility and names/titles of all nominees who might have affected the final ballot, but did not attempt to validate nominees who received fewer nominations.”