(1) WFC 2021 NEWS. World Fantasy Con’s new Progress Report is a free download available here.
WFC 2021 in Montreal – taking place November 4-7 — will be a hybrid convention, with both in-person and virtual elements. Virtual memberships are $75(US)/$100(CAD) and can be obtained through the con’s registration and memberships page.
Guests of honor Nisi Shawl and John Picacio will not be attending in person but will participate virtually.
WFC 2021 has added Julie Czerneda as a Special Guest.
A communication sent to members also reminds them to adhere to the Canadian (and airline) requirements in respect to COVID vaccination and testing.
Lastly, we want to point out that if you are coming to Montreal from outside Canada, please ensure that you meet all requirements for entry into Canada. This includes being fully vaccinated and having a negative PCR test within 72 hours of the scheduled departure time of your flight to Canada. You can find more information on the Government of Canada website. (Don’t forget the other requirements too!) Your airline may have its own requirements.
We are planning on having on-site testing for travellers leaving Canada. The final price (between C$70 and C$90) will depend on the number of tests to be performed. If you are interested in on-site testing during the convention, please send a short email to [email protected]. Indicate how many people would be taking the test and which day you plan to leave the country. If the antigen test is insufficient, let us know the type required, and we will see if the testing company can handle the request. We will contact interested parties when we have finalized the arrangements.
(2) BEAR MEDICAL UPDATE. Elizabeth Bear made a public post about her cancer surgery at her Throwanotherbearinthecanoe newsletter.
… So that I don’t bury the lede too much, I got my pathology report back this afternoon, and I’ve got clear margins and no signs of metastasis into the lymph nodes. Which is an enormous crying-in-my-tea relief and as soon as I am not on opiates anymore I’m going to have myself a very very fancy glass of Scotch to celebrate….
(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to snack on shredded jellyfish with Renée Witterstaetter in episode 155 p his Eating the Fantastic podcast.
Come along with me to D.C.’s AwesomeCon for dinner with writer, editor, and colorist Renée Witterstaetter at Chinatown’s New Big Wong restaurant.
Witterstaetter started her comics career as an assistant editor at DC Comics working on the Superman books. She later worked at Marvel Comics on Silver Surfer, Conan, Guardians of the Galaxy, and other titles. In addition, she spearheaded the reintroduction of She-Hulk at Marvel, where she actually appeared in the comic!
But she’s much more than only comics, as you’ll soon learn.
We discussed how Jerry Lewis launched her interest in comics, the way science fiction fandom led to her first job at DC Comics, the differences between the Marvel and DC offices of the ’70s and ’80s, what made Mark Gruenwald such an amazing editor, her emotional encounter with Steve Ditko, the inflationary info we learned about the writing of letter columns during the ’70s and ’80s, her work with John Byrne on She-Hulk, how Jurassic Park caused her to leave Marvel, the prank Jackie Chan asked her to help pull on Chris Tucker, and much more.
(4) PASSING OUT. Yahoo! consults an expert – former HWA President Lisa Morton — to find out “Why Do We Pass Out Candy on Halloween?”
…”Up until the 1930s, Halloween was largely the dominion of young male pranksters; candy—in the form of mainly candy corn, tiny sugar pellets, or taffy—might be offered at parties, but it wasn’t a particularly important part of the holiday,” says Lisa Morton, an author, screenwriter, and Halloween historian. “Then, in the ’30s, prank-playing moved out of rural areas and into cities, where it became very destructive and cost millions in damages. Rather than simply ban the holiday altogether (which some cities considered), civic groups came up with the idea of buying kids off with treats, costumes, and parties. It worked, and by 1936 we have the first mention of ‘trick-or-treat’ in a national magazine.”…
(5) CHESLEY NEWS. ASFA members (the only people who can vote) have been notified the 2021 Chesley Award Suggestions List (for 2020 Works) is live. The introduction explains:
This listing constitutes the suggestions of the Chesley Nominating Committee plus suggestions received from the community. This is NOT the final ballot; it is only an example of what the community considers worthy of nominating for the Chesley Awards. These suggestions are provided to show you the kind of information we want from you on your ballot, and to maybe help jog your memory of other worthy works of art you saw in 2020. You are encouraged to look beyond this listing when making your nominations; any works published for the first time in 2020 or if unpublished, displayed for the first time in 2020, are eligible. Check out your local bookstore, gaming shop, or knock yourself out visiting various artist’s websites … lots of wonderful art out there. You may make up to five nominations in each category.
(6) I’M YOUR MAN WINS. The winners of the 2021 German film award Lola have been announced. Normally, this is of zero genre interest, but this year’s big winner, taking Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Film is the science fiction romantic comedy I’m Your Man: “Lolas 2021 German Film Awards Winners List” from The Hollywood Reporter.
I’m Your Man, a sci-fi rom-com from director Maria Schrader, featuring Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens as a German-speaking romance robot, has won the Lola in Gold for best film at the 2021 German Film Prize, Germany’s top film awards.
Schrader, fresh off her Emmy win (for best directing for a limited series in Netflix’s Unorthodox), picked up the best director Lola for I’m Your Man. Schrader and co-screenwriter Jan Schomburg took the best screenplay honor for their I’m Your Man script, an adaptation of a short story by German writer Emma Braslavsky. Maren Eggert, who plays the robot’s no-nonsense human love interest, won the best actress Lola for her performance, a role that has already earned her the best actress Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, where I’m Your Man premiered earlier this year….
(7) MAIL CALL. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] Bobby Derie, who’s one of those unsung fan writers I wish more people would know, takes a look at the correspondence between C.L. Moore and Robert E. Howard: “Her Letters to Robert E. Howard: Catherine Lucille Moore” at Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein.
… Catherine Lucille Moore burst into the pages of Weird Tales with “Shambleau” (Nov 1933). She was a secretary at the Fletcher Trust Company in her native Indianapolis, Indiana, and engaged to a bank teller named Herbert Ernest Lewis. During the Great Depression, jobs were scarce and her $25 a week was needed to support her family; married women were often expected to be homemakers, and this may be why Moore and her fiance had a long engagement—and it is why, when she began to sell her stories to the pulps for extra cash, she used her initials “C. L.” so that her employers would not discover she had an extra source of income….
Derie also examined the correspondence and relationship in general between H.P. Lovecraft and his wife Sonia H. Greene: “Her Letters To Lovecraft: Sonia H. Greene”.
(8) A SINGULAR SENSATION. The Guardian published an article by Stephen Fry about a non-genre writer popular with some fans: “Stephen Fry on the enduring appeal of Georgette Heyer”.
From the absolutely appalling cover art that has defaced her books since she was first published, you would think Georgette Heyer the most gooey, ghastly, cutesy, sentimental and trashy author who ever dared put pen to paper. The surprise in store for you, if you have not encountered her before, is that once you tear off, burn or ignore those disgusting covers you will discover her to be one of the wittiest, most insightful and rewarding prose writers imaginable. Her stories satisfy all the requirements of romantic fiction, but the language she uses, the dialogue, the ironic awareness, the satire and insight – these rise far above the genre….
(9) A CLEVER CANARD. Evelyn C. Leeper drew attention to this W. Somerset Maugham quote in the weekly issue of MT Void:
“After mature consideration I have come to the conclusion that the real reason for the universal applause that comforts the declining years of the author who exceeds the common span of man is that intelligent people after the age of thirty read nothing at all. As they grow older the books they read in their youth are lit with its glamour and with every year that passes they ascribe greater merit to the author that wrote them.”
(10) RICHARD CURTIS Q&A. A famous literary figure shares a wealth of knowledge.
Watch & listen to author, playwright, literary agent and former publisher Richard Curtis talk about writing, publishing and many things that will interest writers and the general public. Richard gives tips, advice and a bit of a history of publishing and how it has changed over the years in his conversation with author Rick Bleiweiss.
(11) MEMORY LANE.
- 1950 – Seventy-one years ago, the first issue of Galaxy Science Fiction dated October 1950 was published. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, who hired as editor H. L. Gold who was both an established SF author and editor since the Thirties having made his first sale to Astounding in 1934. There was fiction by Clifford Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, Katherine MacLean, Issac Asimov, Fredric Brown and Fritz Leiber, as well as lots of reviews, mainly by Groff Conklin, but one each by Fredric Brown and Isaac Asimov as well. Gold contributed several essays too. The 1952 run of the magazine would be get a Hugo for Best Professional Magazine at Philcon II. Gold would later be inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born October 1, 1930 — Richard Harris. One of the Dumbledores in the Potter film franchise. He also played King Arthur in Camelot, Richard the Lion Hearted in Robin and Marian, Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels, James Parker in Tarzan, the Ape Man and he voiced Opal in Kaena: The Prophecy. His acting in Tarzan, the Ape Man got him a nomination for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor. Anyone see that film? It earns a ten percent rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes. (Died 2002.)
- Born October 1, 1935 — Dame Julie Andrews, DBE, 86. The original Mary Poppins! I could have stopped there but I won’t. (Hee.) She had a scene cut in which was a maid in The Return of the Pink Panther, and she’s uncredited as the singing voice of Ainsley Jarvis in The Pink Panther Strikes Again. Yet again she’s uncreated as in a Panther film, this time as chairwoman in Trail of the Pink Panther. She voices Queen Lillian in Sherk 2, Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After. And she’s the voice of Karathen in Aquaman.
- Born October 1, 1940 — Richard Corben. Comic book artist best remembered for his work in Heavy Metal magazine. His work also appeared in Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. All the stories and covers he did for Creepy and Eerie have been reprinted by Dark Horse Books in a single volume: Creepy Presents Richard Corben. Corben collaborated with Brian Azzarello on five issues of Azzarello’s run on Hellblazer, Hellblazer: Hard Time. (Died 2020.)
- Born October 1, 1948 — Mike Ashley, 73. Anthologist, and that is somewhat of an understatement, as the Mammoth Book series by itself ran to thirty volumes including such titles as The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy and The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures. He also did The History of the Science Fiction Magazine which features commentary by him. He’s did a number of genre related studies including The History of the Science Fiction Magazine with Robert A. W. Lowndes and Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It.
- Born October 1, 1950 — Natalia Nogulich, 71. She’s best remembered as being on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine as Vice Admiral/Fleet Admiral Alynna Nechayev. Interestingly, though Serbian, they gave her a Russian surname. She was the voice for Mon Mothma for the radio adaptation of Return of the Jedi. She had one-offs on Dark Skies, Prey, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Charmed.
- Born October 1, 1953 — John Ridley, 68. Author of Those Who Walk in Darkness and What Fire Cannot Burn novels. Both excellent though high on the violence cringe scale. Extremely high. Writer on the Static Shock and Justice League series. Writer, The Authority: human on the inside graphic novel. And apparently he was the writer for Team Knight Rider, a female version of Knight Rider that lasted but one season in the Nineties. I’ve never even heard of it until now. In 2021, Ridley began writing a number of series for DC Comics Including a future Batman story.
- Born October 1, 1973 — Rachel Manija Brown, 48. Co-writer of the Change series with Sherwood Smith; Laura’s Wolf, first volume of the Werewolf Marines series. She wrote an essay entitled “The Golden Age of Fantasy Is Twelve: SF and the Young Adult Novel” which was published in Strange Horizons. She’s well stocked at the usual digital suspects.
- Born October 1, 1989 — Brie Larson, 32. Captain Marvel in the Marvel film universe including of course the most excellent Captain Marvel which was nominated for a Hugo at CoNZealand. She’s also been in Kong: Skull Island as Mason Weaver, and plays Kit in the Unicorn Store which she also directed and produced. Her first genre role was Rachael in the “Into the Fire” episode of the Touched by an Angel series; she also appeared as Krista Eisenburg in the “Slam” episode of Ghost Whisperer. I wrote up a review of her Funko Rock Candy figure at Green Man.
(13) COMICS SECTION.
- The Argyle Sweater shows what Dracula found at the joke shop.
(14) SUIT SETTLED. Everybody’s now “proud” and “pleased”, but as one might expect terms of the settlement were not released. “Scarlett Johansson, Disney Lawsuit Settled Over ‘Black Widow’” says The Hollywood Reporter.
“I am happy to have resolved our differences with Disney,” stated Johansson. “I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done together over the years and have greatly enjoyed my creative relationship with the team. I look forward to continuing our collaboration in years to come.”
Disney Studios chairman Alan Bergman added: “I’m very pleased that we have been able to come to a mutual agreement with Scarlett Johansson regarding Black Widow. We appreciate her contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and look forward to working together on a number of upcoming projects, including Disney’s Tower of Terror.”…
The New York Times adds:
… Ms. Johansson would have made tens of millions of dollars in box office bonuses if “Black Widow” had approached $1 billion in global ticket sales; “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther” both exceeded that threshold in prepandemic release, so similar turnout for “Black Widow” was not out of the question.
The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Creative Artists had privately asked Disney to pay Ms. Johansson $80 million — on top of her base salary of $20 million — to compensate for lost bonuses. Disney did not respond with a counteroffer, prompting her to sue….
(15) JEOPARDY! While watching last night’s Jeopardy!, Andrew Porter’s jaw dropped when a contestant came up with this response.
Final Jeopardy: Children’s Literature
Answer: A 2000 Library of Congress exhibit called this 1900 work “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale.”
Wrong question: What is “Shrek”?
Right question: What is “The Wizard of Oz”?
(16) JUSTWATCH – SEPTEMBER TOP 10S. Here are the top sff movies and streaming shows of September 2021 according to JustWatch. (Click for larger images.)
(17) WEEKS LATER, THESE ESCAPEES ARE STILL WEARING STRIPES. I’m having trouble thinking of a way to connect this to science fiction, thereby justifying the presence in the Scroll of an item that amuses me. Any suggestions? “A Month Later, Five Zebras Are Still on the Run in Maryland” from the New York Times.
…A month after they escaped from a farm in Maryland, five zebras have evaded capture and are continuing to ramble across the wilds of suburban Prince George’s County, eking out a living on territory far from the grasslands of East Africa.
… Daniel I. Rubenstein, a professor of zoology at Princeton University, said he was not surprised that the zebras had proved so elusive.
Unlike domesticated horses that will return to a barn after they’ve gotten loose, zebras are wild animals and “don’t like people generally,” he said. And they may not have any need to feed on the grain set out for them as bait, if they can find enough food to munch elsewhere.
If the zebras continue to elude capture, “they should be able to do just fine” in Prince George’s County, Dr. Rubinstein said.
The county has plenty of lawns, fields and pastures where the zebras can graze, as well as streams and other places for them to drink water, which they need to do once a day, he said.
And with the dearth of lions in the Greater Washington area, they have no natural predators, he said, adding, “coyotes they can deal with.”
While zebras “won’t like snow,” they may be able to survive colder weather in the fall and winter. Zebras, he said, live on the slopes of Mount Kenya, at 13,000 feet, where temperatures at night dip into the 30s.
“They should be able to thrive quite nicely,” Dr. Rubinstein said. “They will be able to sustain themselves naturally on that landscape.”…
(18) NOW AT BAT. Possibly too sciency but then many are interested in SARS-CoV-2 source…. “Laos Bats Host Closest Known Relatives Of Virus Behind Covid” in Nature.
Studies show southeast Asia is a hotspot for potentially dangerous viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2. Scientists have found three viruses in bats in Laos that are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any known viruses. Researchers say that parts of their genetic code bolster claims that the virus behind COVID-19 has a natural origin — but their discovery also raises fears that there are numerous coronaviruses with the potential to infect people.
(19) CHERNOBYL BACK IN NEWS. This is worrying: Radiation levels are rising around reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which suffered the catastrophic meltdown in 1986: “Chernobyl’s Blown Up Reactor 4 Just Woke Up” in History of Yesterday. The article explores several hypothetical explanations why this could happen.
… Scientists from Ukraine have placed many sensors around reactor 4 that constantly monitor the level of radioactivity. Recently those sensors have detected a constant increase in the level of radioactivity. It seems that this radioactivity is coming from an unreachable chamber from underneath reactor 4 that has been blocked since the night of the explosion on the 26th of April, 1986….
(20) TINGLE TALK. Dominic Noble decided to answer the question “Is Chuck Tingle A Good Writer?” and reviewed 25 of Tingle’s books.
…A question kept occurring to me over and over again that no one seemed to be addressing. Chuck Tingle is a pretty cool guy. Chuck Tingle is great at titles and covers. But are his books actually any good? Is chuck tingle a good writer? Now I feel the need to immediately qualify this. I am aware that it doesn’t matter. His books make people happy even if they’ve not read them which is quite an achievement. His inclusivity means a lot to people and his general behavior be it amusingly bizarre or the unashamedly progressive matters more in this crazy world we’re living in than if he can rock a good three-act structure…
(21) YA COMMENTARY. YouTuber Sarah Z analyzes “The Rise and Fall of Teen Dystopias”.
[Thanks to, John King Tarpinian, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, Jennifer Hawthorne, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Cora Buhlert, Paul Di Filippo, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cat Eldridge, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cliff, with an assist from OGH.]
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First!
(11) MEMORY LANE. Galaxy Science Fiction was a staple of my SF reading along with Fantasy & Science Fiction. I lamented the day that it was no longer published.
Second First!
Jirel of Joiry Lives!
Third base!
4 of a kind!
(2) I’m glad to see she’s doing well. I got wires beforehand (so they knew where the thing was), but the dye job was done during surgery.
(2) BEAR MEDICAL UPDATE.
“Clear margins” are two very welcome words indeed. Cancer really sucks.
P J Evans says I’m glad to see she’s doing well. I got wires beforehand (so they knew where the thing was), but the dye job was done during surgery.
I’m a Patreon supporter of hers so I get her subscriber only posts. Those posts are very prolific this week and quite entertaining as well. So she’s taking her recuperation time well with lots of reading and lots of posting on her site.
(17) Mike:
From Douglas Adams
@Cat Eldridge
They’re giving her the good stuff, too – I didn’t get that. (I wasn’t in pain either.) It does mess with the area of your armpit, though.
(17) Ostriches can handle snow and cold; there were people in west Texas, north of Lubbock, with ostriches living in outdoor pens.
Andrew (not Werdna): Douglas Adams — the sovereign cure!
P J Evans says They’re giving her the good stuff, too – I didn’t get that. (I wasn’t in pain either.) It does mess with the area of your armpit, though.
Yeah she’s mentioned that in her private postings. I’m actually still taking some of the Good Stuff myself still with Hydrocodone three times a day until I get my badly damaged shoulder fixed with surgery sometime this autumn.
(2) Excellent news.
(20) And this is a hoot. A complete hoot.
Have I mentioned my landlord accidentally killed internet for the whole building? Not restored yet.
Lis Carey says Have I mentioned my landlord accidentally killed internet for the whole building? Not restored yet.
So if she killed the Internet, how are you here? When my Internet is out (which it is occasionally), I use my iPhone as a hotspot.
Tonight’s my last night here. Yea! (My rent at the new place includes wifi.)
@Cat Eldridge–
I’m on my phone–Samsung Galaxy S21, to be precise. Unlimited data when not used as a hotspot, and 15g high-speed internet access when used as a hotspot. I also have an Orbic hotspot, same 15g high-speed deal.
In practical terms, this means I can only watch TV on my phone.
Oh, and the landlord is he, not she. Not a point of much import, except that this older but still vigorous Muslim man who came here from India with his parents when he was five, reminds me a lot of my deceased (years ago) oldest uncle, whose story is remarkably similar except that his family was from Sicily. My mother was the youngest of the seven siblings, and he was the oldest.
12) I saw Tarzan the Ape Man a very long time ago – probably on video? Harris’ performance was bad but it was a bad script and a bad film, so no shame there. It was ubiquitous over here at one point because of tabloid stories about a relationship between Bo Derek and one of the royals.
8) Old-time SF fans will be very familiar with people who protest too much about cover art, and the whole article has a strong flavour of the justifications of someone who thinks they’re too cool for genre. Heyer’s great though, as long as you don’t mind the snobbery or think too hard about occasionsl character who “made their money in Jamaica”. The Grand Sophy or Faro’s Daughter would be my recommendations
14) If she wants to be a real-life super heroine, as well as an absolute badass, she’d donate a percentage to the #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force.
Just sayin’
JeffWarner: 14) If she wants to be a real-life super heroine, as well as an absolute badass, she’d donate a percentage to the #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force. Just sayin’
Yeah, no. It’s not womens’ job to sacrifice their personal financial position to compensate for a corporation’s malfeasance.
Women have spent centuries accepting less than they deserve so that someone else can have “the bigger pork chop”. Let’s just put a stop to perpetuating that.
@11
That’s “Groff Conklin”, not “Geoff”…unless of course publishers managed to get it wrong on the covers of books from 1946 on, some 40+ anthologies compiled from then until the 1970s.
Sorry. Conklin was my first introduction to the concept of the anthology and his work greatly assisted me inn discovering hundreds of authors (and also to the idea that it was worth collecting).
Thanks for the title credit and assist!
9) I read a lot, but books I read when younger do have a special status. You can only be exposed to an idea for the first time once, and the books that did that do invoke a lot of feels. Even when they weren’t great books overall.
@JJ — someone who’s just scored many tens of millions of dollars has no obligation to help those who are just getting by just because she’s a woman? No, not seeing that.
bill: someone who’s just
scoredearned many tens of millions of dollars has no obligation to help those who are just getting by just because she’s a woman? No, not seeing that.It’s funny how I haven’t seen anyone saying that Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, or Robert Downey, Jr. should be donating a percentage of their million$ to the #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force.
Funny, that.
JJ: The main difference is that the #DisneyMustPay task force put out a recent press release –which ran here — associating Scarlett Johansson’s case with theirs. So that’s why the notion came up.
Mike Glyer: The main difference is that the #DisneyMustPay task force put out a recent press release – which ran here — associating Scarlett Johansson’s case with theirs. So that’s why the notion came up.
I’m not buying that.
I don’t see why it would obligate Johansson to give up part of her earned income simply because the #DisneyMustPay Task Force mentioned in their press release her fight to get what she earned. I doubt very much that they asked her permission to do so.
Has anyone suggested that the authors who have now (supposedly) been paid, such as Alan Dean Foster, should be giving a percentage of their earnings to those who haven’t yet been paid? Why is it being suggested of Johansson, who isn’t even part of the Task Force’s case?
@JJ — You and I have different definitions of “earned”. Johansson makes the big payday mostly because she won a genetic lottery of looks and other physical characteristics. This is not to say she doesn’t deserve the money — she does — but it is not a result of how hard she works. Consider Lili Taylor, Olivia Colman, Laura Linney or any of dozens of other actresses who are more talented and work just as hard. They have never and will never get such a mega-paycheck.
True. But the fact that she is a woman is irrelevant to the argument, which is what I was responding to.
Foster, by making a public stand early, has already made a contribution.
@bill–
The “argument” never arises with men, because they are always deemed to deserve the money, even if they “won a genetic lottery,” and to not owe anything to anyone.
I think it would be a lovely thing if she did make a contribution, but she doesn’t deserve to be criticized or scolded if she doesn’t do so. She earned that money, and had to fight to actually receive it.
JJ: The #DisneyMustPay task force roped Johansson’s suit into their cause, there’s no indication she allied with them and since she just settled her case it would be silly to think she’d spoil her next payday by funding somebody else’s claims against the Golden Mouse now that she’s got another Disney film coming up.
On the other hand, pulling Alan Foster into your own complaint overlooks that Johansson said Disney owed her $80 million, so whatever she settled for leaves her in a lot better place to choose to support causes than your average science fiction writer.
13) Still wrong! The 1900 fairytale is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz is the title of the 1939 movie. Another example of a movie adaptation drowning out known facts about the original book.
13) –> 15)
The title on my copy (published by Ballantine in 1979) is The Wizard of Oz, so I would argue that either form of the title is acceptable.
Both are fine choices, though The Grand Sophy needs a content warning for a terribly anti-semitic scene, which isn’t even all that relevant to the plot.
John Lorentz – No, that’s another example of the movie co-opting the original book. Wasn’t there an edition of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” with “Blade Runner” on the cover?
In any case, the 1979 Ballantine edition wasn’t published in 1900, so it’s not the edition that the Jeopardy clue is talking about. Obviously you’re right in a practical sense, but Jeopardy prizes precise accuracy, and tends to mark wrong contestants who make glitches. This is a classic glitch.
@ DB
Wasn’t there an edition of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” with “Blade Runner” on the cover?
Yep, there was and it’s probably still around now. I would love to know what a Blade Runner fan thought about the book.
That a book with “Blade Runner” on the cover is not what it appears to be is very appropriate for the title on the cover
It seems like I could make a comparison to a certain award for best new writer, but I have no interest in continuing the meaningless arguments about this.
@Rob Thornton: I would love to know what a Blade Runner fan thought about the book.
I read it after seeing the film, and was very impressed. I don’t think it’s quite Dick’s best novel – I would give that award to A Scanner Darkly – but it’s certainly up near the top.
Mike Glyer: On the other hand, pulling Alan Foster into your own complaint overlooks that Johansson said Disney owed her $80 million, so whatever she settled for leaves her in a lot better place to choose to support causes than your average science fiction writer.
Her financial “place” is irrelevant. And this isn’t something she’s “chosen”, it’s something other people are saying she should do. That’s very generous, that is, trying to give away someone else’s money. 🙄
If someone had said, “All of these actors who are making millions off the Disney franchises should be donating a percentage of their earnings to the task force”, it would have been an unremarkable (though unrealistic) statement.
But singling out the only woman who is making that kind of money — and the only one of the bunch who’s actually had to fight to get her earnings — and suggesting that she be the one to give part of her earnings to the task force is outrageous. As is the implication that while the men earned their paychecks, she “scored” hers.
@JJ–
EXACTLY!
The money men are paid is treated as “earned,” no matter what the circumstances, while the money women are paid is always treated as at least suspect.
Please note that the first word in my post is “If”, SJ is under no obligation to donate. That she had to fight for her earnings implies a parallelism with DMP’s goal. I know of no male media superstar who had to fight for their earnings, and thus SJ was unfairly targeted. My train of thought was that IF she wanted to project a “Don’t F With Me” legal persona, IF she thought she had the money to spare, IF she thought DMP was worthy of the donation, THEN it would be darkly humorous to use her money from Disney to fight Disney on behalf of others with less money.
(if you have to use a multi-conditional IF-THEN statement to explain a joke, then obviously the joke failed. My Apologies to all.)
JeffWarner: if you have to use a multi-conditional IF-THEN statement to explain a joke, then obviously the joke failed.
I get that you didn’t realize the significance of what you were saying. If you haven’t spent your life being expected to make sacrifices that the white men – whose circumstances, other than gender, are the same as yours – are not expected to make, it may not be obvious why such a “joke” is problematic.
So I’m thinking of putting out a press release associating Bill with my “get me a new computer” campaign. That means Bill is obligated to fund it, right? After all, it’s the least they could do-it’s an obligation, really.
An award which is given anew every year is such a completely different thing from a single book which was published in 1900 that it makes me wonder about the thought process which produced the comparison.
But people who started an argument loftily declining to continue it on the grounds that it’s beneath their notice is better than nothing, I suppose.
@1 That’s a significantly better price for the Covid test than I paid at the Montreal airport a month ago (Boiron charged C$125 for an antigen test), and more convenient.
That said, the most annoying part of getting tested at the airport was it added significantly to the amount of walking I had to do inside the terminal.
@John Lorentz — the book was originally copyrighted and published as “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
@JJ “As is the implication that while the men earned their paychecks, she “scored” hers.”
Well, since I’m the one who says she “scored” her paycheck, I’ll take some minor umbrage at you saying that there’s an implication about men here. I didn’t make any comparisons about men vs. women and whether they “earn” their money. And, just to be clear, the fact that Robert Downey is filthy rich is just as much a matter of luck as it is for ScarJo. Yes, he works hard, but that’s not why he has made so much money. He, like other popular actors and actresses, ended up with a randomly-given assortment of personality traits and physical appearance that means that audiences will pay to see them.
The idea that any obligation Johansson may have wrt #DisneyMustPay is because she is female is entirely your own creation. Her gender simply isn’t part of the discussion for anyone else.
@Rose Embolism — post your mailing address and I will send a donation.
@Rose Embolism (and I’m not “they”; there is only one of me. I’m “he”.)
Bill: correcting your pronoun: great. Sorry. Folks will use he.
Snipping about another pronoun you know perfectly well has a singular usage in the meantime: dick move.
Lenora Rose: I follow your critique of Bill’s response except for the part where you feel entitled to throw some sexual slang back at him. Why do you want to escalate what is already a toxic exchange?
ETA: I don’t know how my phone changed the name I entered. Fixed now.
bill: I’ll take some minor umbrage at you saying that there’s an implication about men here. I didn’t make any comparisons about men vs. women and whether they “earn” their money.
Exactly. You didn’t explicitly say it was only about women. But the only person who you said should be obligated to give money to the task force is a woman. The only person who you talked about not having “earned” her paycheck is a woman.
As Lis correctly pointed out, when it comes to conversations like this, it’s the women who are expected to make sacrifices and accept less than they deserve. It’s the women who haven’t really earned the money they received. These conversations don’t happen about men.
I realize that since you haven’t spent decades living as a woman that you may never have noticed this dichotomy. But I can assure you that it happens all of the time.
In this “enlightened” day and age, I would have expected that women should no longer have to be pointing this out. But here we are.
Going forward, I encourage you to be more mindful about how you single women out for either expectations of sacrifice or criticisms of worthiness. Because while to you it’s no big deal, to the women who’ve spent their lives being subjected to it, it’s gotten really damned old.
@JJ
Read my posts — I didn’t say anyone was obligated to give money to the taskforce.
Read my posts — I explicitly said that Robert Downey Jr won the same lottery as Johansson.
Either you can’t read, or you deliberately mischaracterize what people say.
bill: I didn’t say anyone was obligated to give money to the taskforce.
You said:
someone who’s just scored many tens of millions of dollars has no obligation to help those who are just getting by just because she’s a woman? No, not seeing that.
It’s fair to conclude that you mean you do see that she’s obligated to help those who are just getting by because she’s just “scored” many tens of millions of dollars.
bill: I explicitly said that Robert Downey Jr won the same lottery as Johansson.
Sure you did. After Lis and I called you out for it.
You have a long history here of saying sexist things and then splitting hairs when called on it… just as you are doing now.
Do better, bill. Do better.
So, in both cases, you agree that you said “Bill said X”, when I didn’t in fact say “X”.
“It’s fair to conclude . . . .”
No, what’s fair is to engage what I actually said, which is that Johansson’s being a woman is not relevant to whether or not she has any obligations vis-a-vis #DisneyMustPay; not that she had an obligation one way or another. (which is a decidedly un-sexist position, I would think).
And here I agreed with you (“True”) that Johansson has no obligation — but you (and Lis) proceed to say I’m being sexist by saying that rich woman should support #DisneyMustPay — a stance I haven’t taken, and don’t take now.
Like I said, you don’t read well, or you deliberately mischaracterize what people say.