Janice Gelb writes: “I’m so proud of my alma mater: for a while, the UF web site hosted a ‘Zombie Preparedness Guide,’ which they’ve unfortunately since removed.”
But these things rarely disappear from the web completely. In fact, you can find it here.
[Thanks to Janice Gelb for the story.]
Paul Di Filippo, Carol Emshwiller and Ron Goulart will help editor Gordon Van Gelder celebrate 60 years of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction during the New York Review of SF Reading on October 6.
It all goes down at the South Street Seaport Museum at 12 Fulton Street in New York from 6:30-9:00 p.m. Admission is by a $5 donation.
[Thanks to Jim Freund for the story.]
The Bay Area Science Fiction Association is celebrating its 1000th meeting tonight, October 4, the Doubletree’s Quiet Bar during SiliCon. The event is about to start as I post this…
The Twilight Zone is difficult to map, being a vast and invisible realm of the imagination:
“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call ‘The Twilight Zone.'” – Rod Serling
The capital of the Twilight Zone, however, is the tangible and evident town of Binghamton, NY. That’s where Rod Serling was born in 1924 and where newscasters claim “Binghamton Landmarks Inspire Twilight Zone” – something not every Chamber of Commerce would shout about.
Fifty years ago the first episode of The Twilight Zone aired on CBS. Today Ithaca College, where Serling taught from 1967 to 1975, is home to the Rod Serling Archives extensive collection of television scripts, film screenplays, stage play scripts, films, unpublished works. And over the weekend Ithaca College hosted “Celebrating 50 Years of the Twilight Zone.”
George Clayton Johnson, the keynote speaker, was interviewed on the local news. The clip also shows the town’s preparations for the event, including Rod Serling’s face covering the side of a city bus to advertise the conference.
Also, Binghamton’s Rod Serling Video Festival competition encouraged students from kindergarten through high school to enter.
All kinds of links to anniversary-related events are tracked on the official 50th anniversary website. The site is maintained by Douglas Brode. He co-authored, with Carol Serling, Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone: The 50th Anniversary Tribute. Brode’s personal TZ anniversary celebration was a book-signing outside Disneyworld’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror on October 2.
The Binghamton celebration has one more big event to come, when the Bundy Arts & Victorian Museum hosts a Rod Serling Symposium on October 7.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the links.]
There’s been a small flurry of new reviews by people who love Diana’s book about the Inklings, The Company They Keep.
John Adcox drew comparisons with Humphrey Carpenter’s group biography:
Glyer’s book makes a wonderful companion to Carpenter’s more well known volume, and stands very well on its own. Carpenter’s book is a biography; Glyer’s is an examination of the very significant ways in which, as a community, the Inkings challenged, inspired, influenced, and supported one another. The Company The Keep is a terrific and insightful read.
Jason Fisher said kind things about the book, beginning with this observation about the paperback edition:
This says a lot, actually; most books on Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings never get a second printing, or never go from hardcover to soft.
He also praised David Bratman’s contributions:
The appendix and index by David Bratman are, collectively, a work of art, ne plus ultra. Would be bibliographers and indexers should take them as a model.
Steve Hayes came away from The Company They Keep impressed with the value of artistic communities and convinced can be even more readily organized in the age of the internet:
In many ways we have it much easier than the original Inklings. When they read their writings to each other seventy years ago, they did not have the benefit of word processors or even photocopiers. They read from hand-written manuscripts which they brought to meetings stuffed in jacket pockets. But they also lived close to one another, and could meet face to face.
Now we have the Internet, and even if there are no likeminded friends within visiting distance, it should be possible to find people with similar literary interests with almost the whole world open to us. Distance is no longer a barrier.
Joe Haldeman’s CT scan showed that what’s happening with his pancreas isn’t going to require more surgery at this time. Gay Haldeman wrote on SFF.net on October 3 that he’s still on a respirator and running a fever of 102. “The hope is that time will heal everything. He’s definitely holding his own and not losing ground.”
If I hadn’t fallen behind in reading Michael A. Burstein’s Livejournal, Mabfan’s Musing, I’d have already been celebrating this significantly-numbered year:
To begin with, the arrival of 5770 means that we’re entering a new decade. I actually remember ten years ago how one friend of mine, noting the arrival of 5760, made a connection to the culture of the 1960s and suggested that the new decade would be similar. I’ll leave that question for the historians to answer while I acknowledge that the Hebrew calendar gives me a few months to get used to the arrival of a new decade on the Gregorian calendar.
Berkeley Breathed, creator of “Bloom County,” “Outland” and “Opus,” is interviewed and analyzed by Geoff Boucher in an article for the LA Times:
Breathed’s home studio is modeled after the interior of the Nautilus – the submarine from his favorite film, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – and the walls are lined by books about World War II, Hollywood history and the Old West. There are some handsome volumes of classic cartoons too, such as “Terry and the Pirates” by Milton Caniff. Asked about that one, the accidental cartoonist looked embarrassed. “The publisher sent it to me, but I never opened it. I bet it’s good. It’s just not my thing.”
He looked down at Bloom County: The Complete Library with the same level of disinterest. “This is an amazing book, amazing to see,” Breathed said, sounding anything but amazed. Then he delivered the droll punch line. “When you write about it you should say, ‘This guy is a fraud and a cheat.’ There’s your headline.”
Don D’Ammassa’s vast knowledge of genre fiction has been tapped for a third literary encyclopedia in a series from Facts on File. His Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction actually appeared last December, but it’s news to me. As the publisher says:
The new A-to-Z Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction covers the very best of adventure fiction, from literary classics such as Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent to tales that have enthralled younger readers for many years, such as Treasure Island and The Wizard of Oz, to the finest of today’s adventure stories.
This is a companion volume to D’Ammassa’s Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction in Facts On File’s Literary Movements series.
Andrew Porter, beaming with pride, points out that Don’s “Critical Mass” review website continues the work once done by his column in Science Fiction Chronicle.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]
Over the next few days the doctor will try again to wean Joe Haldeman from the respirator – it had to be turned back up because he was working too hard to breathe, Gay Haldeman told SFF.net readers on October 2. If he can’t be weaned in a few days the doctor will do a trachiostomy so Joe can be less sedated and able to talk. His fever was at 101 but didn’t spike last night. Joe was alert for awhile and Gay was able to talk to him and he understood.