Monthly Archives: July 2009

Finding Your Local Hogwarts

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Katherine L. Cohen, CEO and Founder of ApplyWise, claims many students want to attend a campus reminiscent of the settings they’ve read about in J. K. Rowling’s books and seen in the movies made from them.

What that means, exactly, was analyzed by the LA Times Culture Monster arts blog:

The inherent creepiness of Gothic architecture is a given in the “Harry Potter” movies, but there’s also an undercurrent of romanticism at work — a romanticism for higher education and the monastic pursuit of knowledge. The abundance of stained glass and the high, cathedral ceilings give the secular Hogwarts campus a quasi-religious feel.

To help students locate the sought after setting, Cohen and ApplyWise are compiling a list of the colleges and universities likeliest to look and feel like Hogwarts . Number One on the list is the University of Chicago:

The University of Chicago has got Hogwarts written all over it, not least of all in its majestic dining center, Hutchinson Hall, which just so happens to be a replica of Oxford’s Christ Church (the same used in the Harry Potter films). This striking architectural similarity, coupled with the school’s gargoyle gothic facades, is sure to ring any Harry Potter fan’s bell.

Bassist Auf der Maur at Anticipation

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During Anticipation, on August 7, Melissa Auf der Maur will present her new mixed media project, an album, film, and comic. An acoustic set follows the film screening. Directed by Tony Stone, OOOM, “a 28-minute wordless, hypnotic braid of three science-fictional storylines,” was an Official Selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Ms. Auf der Maur is bassist well known for her work with two rock bands, Hole and Smashing Pumpkins.

The full press release appears after the jump.

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Anticipation At-Door Membership Rates

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Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon in Montreal (August 6-10), has issued a press release with the at-the-door membership rates. Full text release appears after the jump.

The con’s offerings include “Taster” memberships, which allow the buyers of one-day memberships to briefly explore the con and, if they choose, leave within 3 hours and receive a refund of all but $20.

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John Hertz: LASFS Celebrates
Apollo 11 Anniversary

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By John Hertz: Today was the 40th anniversary of humankind’s launching its first trip to the Moon. Tonight I had nothing better to do — when you have something better to do, you should — than attend the 3,753rd meeting of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, oldest s-f club on Earth.

LASFS business meetings — monkey business — are so mad they usually outdraw the program. I stayed for the program tonight, a screening of the December 1955 Disneyland television program “Man and the Moon.” Walt Disney introduced his animator Ward Kimball, who introduced Wernher von Braun. Kimball had created the Cheshire Cat in Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland, and Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio. Von Braun in two years would see his work launch Explorer I, and in less than fifteen, Apollo XI.

At the time von Braun’s best estimate was that we’d build a space station first, and go to the Moon from it. In this program he showed models, drawings, and charts of the station and ships and how it would be done. Disney gave him more. There was a live-action story of the fictional first rocket to leave the station, ellipse round the Moon, and fall back, manned by a crew of four, powered by blast and gravity. The costumes, sets, timing, and acting, the balance of science and fiction, were remarkable, and this was television. We gave no Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, of 1955.

I hope you celebrated too.

The Eagle Has Twittered

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If you were born too late to follow the Apollo 11 moon landing mission in real time and want to do it now, We Choose The Moon is running the audio track through mission end on July 24. They also are twittering texts the exchanges between Mission Control and the astronauts in real time.

The website is sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in tribute to the 40th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing on July 20, 1969.

Phyllis Gottlieb Passes Away

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Phyllis Gottlieb passed away July 14 at the age of 83 due to complications related to a ruptured appendix, posted Robert Sawyer. And he paid tribute on her memorial page, saying:

Phyllis Gotlieb was the mother of Canadian science fiction, and a great inspiration to me. She was a founding member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America — the only Canadian in that group when it started in 1965.

New Trove of Online Fan Photos

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Andrew Porter announces, “Working with Bill Burns, I scanned in many old photos of US and UK fans and professionals going back to the 1930s that Forry Ackerman sent me. I also scanned in many photos I took, primarily from the 1960s (the ones in color). They are all available for viewing here.”

WOOF Returns

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Lloyd Penney says his last message to fanzine fans got a rave response, “and there will be fanzines in the lounge, no matter what the lounge looks like.”

As if that challenge wasn’t enough, Lloyd has picked up another gauntlet:

Now, John Hertz has persuaded me that WOOF, the Worldcon Order Of Faneditors apa, moribund for several years now, should be relaunched. If anyone is interested in contributing to the 2009 WOOF, please bring 50 copies of your apazine to the Lounge, and we will set a time for collation, and post it in the lounge area.

If you know people who have contributed to WOOF in the past, or have done so for many years, please send this message to them, or give me their e-mail address, and I will relay the information to them.

Any other comments? Any words about things I should know or remember about WOOF? Any history of WOOF I need to follow? Please let me know asap. Thank you!

WOOF was created by Bruce Pelz for the 1976 Worldcon. Google returns plenty of references to it in archived Worldcon publications – perhaps one of them will be helpful?

To contact Lloyd by e-mail, use this address: <penneys [at] allstream.net>