(1) TICKET AGENCY OFFERS CHENGDU WORLDCON ADMISSIONS. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] The SF Light Year Weibo account posted on August 11 that Chengdu Worldcon tickets would be put up for sale on a Ticketmaster-style service. [Screencap of computer-translated post.] Damai … Continue reading
By Steve Vertlieb: In 2007 I was honored to become a part of the singular release of Tadlow Records’ World Premiere recording of Miklos Rozsa’s beloved motion picture score for Billy Wilder’s melancholy masterpiece, “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.” … Continue reading
(1) STOP DRAGON THAT STUFF IN HERE. “Dungeons & Dragons tells illustrators to stop using AI to generate artwork” reports AP News. The Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game franchise says it won’t allow artists to use artificial intelligence technology to draw its … Continue reading
Mystery Readers International announced the finalists for the 2022 Macavity Awards on July 20. The Macavity Award is named for the “mystery cat” of T.S. Eliot (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats). Each year the members of Mystery Readers International, subscribers to Mystery Readers … Continue reading
(1) THOUSANDS SIGN AUTHORS GUILD LETTER CALLING ON AI INDUSTRY TO PROTECT WRITERS. Over 9000 authors, including genre-recognizable names like Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Carmen Machado, Joe Hill, Edward M. Lerner, Brendan DuBois, Terri Windling, Matthew Kressel, Sean Wallace, and … Continue reading
(1) WRITER LOSES EYE TO GUN VIOLENCE; FUNDRAISER STARTED. Sff author Jessie Kwak of Portland, OR was severely injured in a drive-by shooting last weekend while leaving the Mississippi Street Fair. “Author shot in eye near Mississippi Street Fair in … Continue reading
PREFACE By Steve Vertlieb: Rod Serling’s iconic, landmark television series The Twilight Zone, premiered over the CBS Television Network on Friday night, October 2, 1959. The program featured the brilliant literary poetry of its creator, as well as the writings … Continue reading
(1) BUTLER’S NEW YORK PREMIERE. The New York Times interviews Toshi Reagon, co-creator of an opera based on Parable of the Sower. “Apocalypse Nowish: Singing the Prophetic Warnings of Octavia Butler”. … It was the novel’s urgency, and the need … Continue reading
By Steve Vertlieb: Elmer Bernstein once commented that, in his considered opinion, Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa were the two greatest practitioners of symphonic motion picture composition in the long history of the genre. The centennial of Herrmann’s birth was … Continue reading
By Steve Vertlieb: In 1988, producers Bruce Crawford and Bob Coate set about creating a definitive radio documentary honoring the life and career of one of the cinema’s most revered motion picture composers, Bernard Herrmann. The broadcast, which aired over KIOS … Continue reading