Urban Redevelopment on Tatooine

George Lucas filmed portions of the original Star Wars in the Tunisian desert in 1976, his crews withstanding the intense heat in an environment that made it perfectly obvious why “moisture farmers” were needed even if they were only fictional characters. 

When principal photography ended, filmmakers left Uncle Owen’s and Aunt Beru’s Tatooine homestead to be obliterated by the North African siroccos. It might have “gone with the wind” had not a fan decided it should be saved:

“It’s the most iconic scene of all six Star Wars movies,” 42-year-old Welsh superfan [Terry] Cooper told “Wales Tonight,” a program on TV station iTV. “And knowing that that place does exist, in a real place on Earth, that’s free to go and see … it’s something that we thought it would be a shame if this ended up as just a faceless ditch in the desert one day.”

Learning of the crumbling film set — it’s actually located outside of the remote Tunisian village of Tataouine — Cooper and some fellow fans set up a Facebook page and started collecting donations to repair the “moisture farm.”

Their appeal brought in $11,700 from 425 donors. In May, Cooper, project leader Mark Dermul and others flew to Tunisia and refurbished the old structure, taking plenty of photos.

They also posted a short video [YouTube] of their exploits.

The internet being what it is, snark vampires immediately homed in and posted comments like this:

YOU’VE RUINED IT!! It was magic before. A time capsule. The last people to touch the construction were the art department and film crew. Now some jackholes with some cheap chinese Home Depot crap have gone out and washed away everything that made it interesting.

Always remember, no good deed goes unpunished.

[Via Chronicles of the Dawn Patrol.]

Remembering Weakly

What is this quote about?

“There’s something wrong with me, because every week I go, ‘Oh no, it’s due again!’ Like it’s some big surprise.”

A. My daughter and her spelling homework.
B. Fred Patten and his APA-L zine.
C. Dave Langford and Ansible.
D. The LASFS secretary and the meeting minutes.

Answer: E, none of the above. It’s Matt Groening about his comic Life in Hell, which recently ended a 32-year run.

Hollywood Underground

When CBS failed to stop ABC from broadcasting a new reality series “The Glass House,” which it called a rip-off of its own “Big Brother,” the network retaliated with a satirical announcement of its plans to develop an imitation of a well-known ABC series to be called “Dancing on the Stars.”

The Washington Post reports:

“Dancing on the Stars” will be broadcast from the celebrity-strewn Hollywood Forever Cemetery, CBS claimed. It will feature “moderately famous and sort of well-known people you almost recognize competing for big prizes by dancing on the graves of some of Hollywood’s most iconic and well-beloved stars of stage and screen.”

The cemetery houses the remains of such Hollywood luminaries as Rudolph Valentino, Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr., Tyrone Power and Terry, the dog that played Toto in “The Wizard of Oz.”

If denied its first choice, CBS says “approaches will be made to Westwood Village Memorial Park, where equally scintillating luminaries are interred.”

Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery is where Ray Bradbury was laid to rest earlier this month, joining others with strong ties to the sf/fantasy field, Richard Basehart, Robert Bloch, Alexander Courage (composer of the Star Trek theme), and Ray Walston.

The Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in addition to the dog from The Wizard of Oz, is the last resting place of tangential sf/fantasy figures Mel Blanc, Elmo Lincoln (Tarzan in silent movies), Peter Lorre, Darren McGavin, and Fay Wray.

The Ackerplaque

Forrest J Ackerman, who once speculated about being buried at the Hollywood cemetery with an interactive audio-video plaque, was ultimately interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale with a standard memorial plaque which reads, “Sci-Fi Was My High.” Other notables at Forest Lawn, Glendale with connections to sf/fantasy are James Arness, Joe Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera), L. Frank Baum, Lon Chaney Sr., Walt Disney, Errol Flynn, Fritz Leiber Sr. (the writer’s father), and Jay Ward.

And that’s only scratching the surface…

Ian Macauley Passes Away

Fifties faned Ian Macauley died on June 3 in Las Vegas. The news was announced by Harlan Ellison on his Forum, though without all the details Ellison had wanted:

This is my second attempt. I lost the first one, with all the pertinent data about who Ian was, and what he meant to sf and especially 6th Fandom, and Arthur C. Clarke, and to so many of us. Marnie called and asked that I be the one who would implore you to remember his sweetness, his kindness, his class and good works. I did that, at length, and then clouded up, pressed a wrong thing, and that was that.

Macauley wrote numerous articles and locs for fanzines in the early 1950s. His own zine Cosmag, a product of the Atlanta Science Fiction Organization, first appeared in March 1951. Cosmag, like Ellison’s own fanzine and many others, became a member of “Fanvariety Enterprises” –

an affiliation of fan publishers put together by Max Keasler and Bill Venable. It included such publications as Max Keasler’s Opus, Bill Venable’s The Pendulum, Norman Browne’s Vanations, Harlan Ellison’s Science Fantasy Bulletin, Dave English’s Fantasias, Bob Farnham and Nan Gerding‘s The Chigger Patch of Fandom, Norbert Hirschhorn’s Tyrann, Joel Nydahl’s Vega, and Starlanes by Nan Gerding and Orma McCormick.

Ellison’s reference to Sixth Fandom presumably relates to the theory of numbered fandoms Ted White discussed in an article for Science Fiction Five-Yearly #4 which tangentially mentions Macauley:

Silverberg felt that [Quandry’s] death would signal the demise of Sixth Fandom, and a group of younger fans, triumphantly led by Harlan Ellison, eagerly awaited that death to announce their formation of Seventh Fandom.

For many fans of that period, the “Seventh Fandom Group” made up of such fen as Ian McCauley [sic], John Magnus, Jack Harness, Joel Nydahl, Charles Watkins, Ellison and, while he wasn’t looking, Dean Grennell, were a lot of noise and not much else.

Yet they made enough noise that, 60 years later, we are still talking about them…

Actor Richard Lynch (1936-2012)

Actor Richard Lynch was found dead at home on June 19 by actress Carol Vogel, who checked on him after he’d been out of touch for several days. He was 76.

He had many genre roles, usually as the villain: TV appearances include Battlestar Galactica (1978), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Vampire (both 1979), Galactica 1980 (1980), Werewolf (1987), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993), Charmed (2003); movies include Deathsport (1978), The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982), Trancers II (1991), Merlin (1993), The Mummy’s Kiss (2003), Halloween (2007). Lynch won a Saturn Award in 1982 for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the evil King Cromwell in The Sword and the Sorcerer. In 1999, he played Count Iblis in Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming, an attempt to resurrect the franchise with several of the original stars. His latest horror film, The Lords of Salem, is currently in post-production.

[Thanks to Steve Green for the story.]

Haffner Press Releases
Tales From Super-Science Fiction

Tales From Super-Science Fiction, edited by Robert Silverberg, is shipping this week from Haffner Press.

Super-Science Fiction, launched during one of the cyclic sf booms of the 1950s, was notable for paying 2 cents a word, then a top rate — enough to lure contributions from legendary pros like Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, Jack Vance, and newcomers on their way to being famous like Harlan Ellison and Donald Westlake.

Silverberg, who always does a great job editing story collections anyway, is the perfect choice for this assignment because he had multiple stories in nearly every issue of S-SF – often published under pen-names to help disguise how much material had come from one author. Silverberg reached his peak in the August 1959 issue with four stories published under four different pseudonyms.

The 400-page hardcover sells for $32. It has full-color endpapers showing covers from S-SF by Kelly Freas and Ed Emshwiller, and original interior illustrations by Freas. Here is the table of contents:

Introduction by Robert Silverberg
“Catch ‘Em All Alive” by Robert Silverberg
“Who Am I?” by Henry Slesar
“Every Day is Christmas” by James E. Gunn
“I’ll Take Over” by A.Bertram Chandler
“Song of the Axe” by Don Berry
“Broomstick Ride” by Robert Bloch
“Worlds of Origin” by Jack Vance
“The Tool of Creation” by J.F. Bone
“I Want to Go Home” by Robert Moore Williams
“Hostile Life-Form” by Daniel L. Galouye
“The Gift of Numbers” by Alan E. Nourse
“First Man in a Satellite” by Charles W. Runyon
“A Place Beyond the Stars” by Tom Godwin
“The Loathsome Beasts” by Dan Malcolm (aka Silverberg)

I’m gratified to see Robert Moore Williams represented, even if I don’t know this particular story. When I was in college he kindly allowed a friend and me to spend the afternoon interviewing him. Williams was an under-appreciated SF writer. The reason he was under-appreciated seems clearer in hindsight. One of the things he told us is that no SF editor would buy a too-literate story for his magazine, so “You have to stink ‘em up just right.” He was admirably frank. There was no pretense about the man.

Wall Slash Journal

What if J. Pierpont Morgan got Teddy Roosevelt pregnant? What if Commodore Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie were adventursome unicorns? Then Wall Street Journal readers could enjoy thematic fan fiction every bit as pedestrian as the fan-written works already receiving the Journal’s attention.

The success of Fifty Shades of Grey has been paralleled by endless articles about its fan-fic roots. These typically dwell on Kirk and Spock being amorous and Harry Potter’s remarkable lack of chastity, and end with the traditional question: why aren’t these writers being sued?

The Wall Street Journal only departs from the usual pattern because Orson Scott Card tells them he is about to do something completely unexpected:

After spending years fending off fan fiction, and occasionally sending out “cease and desist” letters through his lawyer to block potential copyright violations, science-fiction novelist Orson Scott Card has started courting fan writers. Mr. Card, author of the best-selling “Ender’s Game” series, is planning to host a contest for “Ender’s Game” fan fiction this fall. Fans will be able to submit their work to his Web site. The winning stories will be published as an anthology that will become part of the official “canon” of the “Ender’s Game” series.

“Every piece of fan fiction is an ad for my book,” Mr. Card says. “What kind of idiot would I be to want that to disappear?”

Update 06/20/2012: Fixed spelling of gray. Or was it grey…

Klaus: Rod Serling Addresses Congress, Sorta

By David Klaus: I’m watching C-SPAN 1.

In the debate on a bill about federal lands and water (it would have prevented the Border Patrol and DHS from violating land conservation laws, cancel an authorization for the killing of seals for eating their normal diet — fish — that humans want, de-authorized federal funding for State shooting ranges, and said the Border Patrol/DHS could not violate Indian burial grounds), Congressman Edward Markey (D., 7th Dist., Ma.) opened his debate speech by quoting in its entirety one of the Rod Serling opening credits narrations of The Twilight Zone, by name, because he thought that’s where this bill came from and belonged.

(The bill passed anyway, so as far as the House is concerned, the Border Patrol/DHS can despoil federal land and Indian burial grounds with impunity, fisherman competing with seals can kill them, and every state can get a deficit-paid shooting range.)

2012 Rebel, Phoenix Given

Traditonal Southern fandom awards were presented at DeepSouthCon 50 in Huntsville, AL on June 17.

Phoenix Award: John Ringo

Rebel Award: Shelby Vick; and The Zielke Clan: Robert & Becky Zielke and Bill & Linda Zielke

Also this satirical award:

Rubble “Award”: SFPA OE Bob Jennings

The Rebel and Phoenix Awards are given by the con committee of each DSC, (in 2012, a supercommittee of Toni Weisskopf and Julie Wall) for the fan and pro who have contibuted a great deal to Southern fandom. The Rubble is decided by a survey of previous Rubble winners administered by its founder, Gary Robe, and is for a person or entity (corporatiions have won) who has done much to Southern fandom.

[Thanks to Guy H. Lillian III for the story.]

Stu Shiffman Update

Following a second brain operation on June 16, Stu Shiffman remains under sedation but is breathing on his own (though still intubated) according to his journal at CaringBridge.

Because he’s sedated, doctors had yet to effectively test the extent of damage or function loss caused by the stroke.

Also reported is that on June 15, the day before his second surgery, Stu managed to get out of bed then fell, breaking one kneecap and possibly his nose as well.

Meantime, many friends are coming together to provide practical support for Stu’s partner, Andi Shecter. Facebook and the CaringBridge page are places to connect and help with that.