(1) Fans beat the pros at trivia – well, of course they did.
The awkward moment when Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss came third in a Doctor Who pub quiz.
The trio – who called themselves The Time Wasters – clearly didn’t know their wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff
(2) John Picacio teed off against the World Fantasy Con’s call for new award design submissions:
Artists — how do you feel about someone who says, “Give us your ideas for free. If we decide we like one of them, we’ll use it for our own personal branding and for our own prestige. We will hire someone to make multiple images of it and that person will not receive compensation either. We have zero respect for any of you as working professionals.”
As of today, that’s the official message that the World Fantasy Convention just transmitted to all professional artists as the WFC searches for a new image for their World Fantasy Award. See their new “World Fantasy Award Call for Submissions”.
That’s right. Your ideas and your work — for nothing.
It’s an extremely unprofessional message, and it’s not one that befits experienced professionals. It says to all of its members — writers, editors, agents, publishers — that the organization doesn’t value its own branding enough to properly invest in it. That’s very sad to see.
This stirred up debate among commenters on Picacio’s Facebook page, including Ellen Datlow, Sean Wallace, Irene Gallo and others.
(3) Two days ago I ran David Hartwell’s photo of a NY subway car wrapped in a graphical ad for The Man in the High Castle — but today Amazon announced it will remove the ads amid uproar over their use of insignia inspired by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
The online retailer made the decision to pull the ads amid widespread coverage of the wrap, which cover half the 42nd Street shuttle’s seats in decals of the American flag with the stars replaced by an emblem that closely resembles the Nazi Reichsadler, the heraldic eagle used by the Third Reich. The other side features a recreation of a World War II-era Japanese flag in red, white and blue….
Straphanger Ann Toback was disturbed to find the posters wallpapered on the Grand Central shuttle.
“Hate speech, hate insignia requires a response when you see it, you don’t just say, ‘oh, it’s New York,” said Toback. “You see, you have a choice to stare at the Japanese empire insignia or the Nazi insignia.”
A spokesman for the MTA said there were no grounds to reject the ads because they do not violate the authority’s content-neutral ad standards, which only prohibits advertising that disparages an individual or group. ..
Some activists and officials, however, expressed outrage that the advertisements were allowed to run.
“As a Jew, I am offended, and as a New Yorker, I am embarrassed,” said state Rep. Jeffrey Dinowitz. “The MTA should be ashamed of themselves and this ignorant advertising campaign, as it is offensive not just to the Jewish community, but to all Americans.”
Mayor de Blasio also decried the ads, calling them “irresponsible.”
…Not everyone was bothered by the marketing. One rider said, “It’s not like the end of the world, it’s not specifically targeting a group of people. It’s just for a show.”
(4) Justin Raimondo contrasts the novel and miniseries in “Myths of Empire: The Man in the High Castle: a review of sorts” at AntiWar.com.
Dick’s original version would never be allowed on American television: the political realities of our time forbid it. Empires are founded on mythologies – narratives in which historical events are interpreted in a way that justifies the status quo, and crowds out any dissenting version, consigning the truth – if such there is – to the margins.
(5) Myke Cole posted a photo of him receiving his promotion from NYPD Commissioner Bratton. (All I can find in bios is that he does “specialized work” there.)
(6) At National Review Online, Katherine Timpf discusses how she got death threats after she joked on the Fox News Channel comedy show Red Eye “I have never had any interest in watching space nerds poke each other with their little space nerd sticks, and I’m not going to start now.”
And:
“Yesterday I tweeted something, and all I said was that I wasn’t familiar with Star Wars because I’ve been too busy liking cool things and being attractive.”
Now, I received a few death threats right after I posted the aforementioned tweet — which, by the way, was why I was saying Star Wars fans were “crazy” in the first place. Overall, though, it wasn’t a big deal, and I kind of forgot about it.
Then, this week, one Star Wars super-super-super fan who calls himself “AlphaOmegaSin” made a ten-minute (!) video brutally ripping me apart.
(7) “NASA not ready for dangers of deep space, auditors say” writes Jerry Markon of the Washington Post.
American culture and cinema often glorifies space travel, from the heroic early adventurers of “The Right Stuff” to the more recent rescue of Matt Damon’s astronaut character from Mars in “The Martian.”
But the reality is less glamorous, with journeys into deep space posing serious dangers to astronauts that include inadequate food, radiation exposure and heightened risks of developing cancer and other maladies. And NASA is not yet ready to handle those dangers as it moves ahead with plans to send the first human mission to Mars by the 2030s, according to a recent audit.
NASA inspector general Paul K. Martin found that the legendary space agency “faces significant challenges” ensuring the safety of any Mars-bound astronauts, and that its schedule to limit the risks is overly “optimistic.” As a result, he said, Mars crews likely will have to accept more risks to their health and safety than their predecessors who went to the moon and work in the International Space Station.
(8) “Mœbius & Jodorowsky’s Sci-Fi Masterpiece, The Incal, Brought to Life in a Tantalizing Animation” at Open Culture.
Last year we featured artwork from the Dune movie that never was, a collaboration between Alejandro Jodorowsky, the mysticism-minded Chilean director of such oft-described-as-mind-blowing pictures as El Topo and The Holy Mountain, and the artist Jean Giraud, better known as Mœbius, creator of oft-described-as-mind-blowing comics as Arzach, Blueberry, and The Airtight Garage. If ever a meeting of two creative minds made more sense, I haven’t heard about it. Alas, Jodorowsky and Mœbius’ work didn’t lead to their own Dune movie, but it didn’t mark the end of their artistic partnership, as anyone who’s read The Incal knows full well.
Telling a metaphysical, satirical, space-operatic story in the form of comic books originally published throughout the 1980s (with sequel and prequel series to come over the following 25 years), The Incal on the page became the fullest realization of Jodorowsky and Mœbius’ combined vision.
(9) Blue Origin’s New Shepard space vehicle successfully flew to space, reaching its planned test altitude of 329,839 feet (100.5 kilometers) before executing a historic landing back at the launch site in West Texas.
“But more significant,” notes the Washington Post, “was the landing of the rocket booster, which descended, flew through 119 mph high-altitude crosswinds and touched down on the landing pad by firing its engine again. The company based in Kent, Wash., said it landed just four-and-a-half feet from the center.”
(10) Today’s Birthday Boy
- Born November 24, 1916 – Forrest J Ackerman
(11) “How an industry of ‘Amazon entrepreneurs’ pulled off the Internet’s craftiest catfishing scheme” in the Washington Post.
There’s only one problem with Dagny Taggart — she doesn’t exist. Evidence collected and examined by The Washington Post suggests that Taggart (who is named for a character in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”) is a made-up identity used by an Argentine man named Alexis Pablo Marrocco. Marrocco, meanwhile — and other self-described “Kindle entrepreneurs” like him — form part of a growing industry of “Amazon catfish.”
The catfishing process varies according to the specific “entrepreneur” using it, but it typically follows the same general steps: After hiring a remote worker to write an e-book for the Kindle marketplace, Amazon’s e-book store, publishers put it up for sale under the name and bio of a fictional expert. Frequently, Kindle entrepreneurs will then buy or trade for good book reviews. (Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, also owns The Washington Post.)
At the end of this process, they hope to have a Kindle store bestseller: something with a catchy title about a hot topic, such as gambling addiction or weight loss.
“Making money with Kindle is by far the easiest and fastest way to get started making money on the Internet today,” enthuses one video that promises to guide viewers to riches. “You don’t even need to write the books yourself!”
(12) Cute set of fandom greeting cards.
(13) ‘Tis the season to break this out again: WKRP “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” Thanksgiving
[Thanks to David K.M. Klaus, Martin Morse Wooster, Amy Sterling Casil, Brian Z., John King Tarpinian, and Tom Galloway for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day GP.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
This post says that Myke Cole works cyber security for the NYPD, and this one says that he is/was a consultant for a company which specializes in IT services, including Information System Security.
(13) That is comedy gold.
::ticky::
Captain America: Civil War Trailer
(2) – WFA design) I hope that somewhere Ellen Datlow has made a clearer and more helpful rebuttal. Her replies on the Facebook page are a bit defensive and not all that informative.
(3 – MitHC subway ads) I can understand objecting to the Eagle and cross bit (since I think that was a Nazi symbol more than just a German one) but I think I’d find it hard to get upset about a Japanese flag. It wasn’t just used during WWII. Have I got my facts right?
(6 – Star Wars death threats) Way to make geeks look worse than she ever could, well done there, random rape/death threat people. So glad to share fandom with you. Not.
Also, the first comment Timpf quotes from YouTube is using a scenario straight out of Revenge of the
Nerds. Sad and gross that a film like that was supposed to be a ‘good’ geek film.
(12) Those greeting cards are ace! I wish they were available online.
John Picacio seems to be reading more into the WFC announcement than is there. WFC should absolutely be paying the person they pick to design their award statue, they are also well within their rights to ask for unpaid submissions.
John seems to be suggesting that the WFC will pick and choose parts of people’s submissions before asking a third party sculptor to produce a final work. Which is insane so not really likely.
Of course if it is true there is no money for the winning pick I will revoice my suggestion for a GoFundMe to make sure the winner doesn’t lose out.
@Ray
SQUEEEEEE!
1. Is this any surprise? I still remember Colbert beating Peter Jackson/ Fran Walsh in some sort of Tolkien trivia-off some time back.
6. I hope Ms Timpf is fine, and that this peters out.. One of the things that many smarter-than-me people noted over the whole GG nonsense was just how toxic the reaction received by women in particular was. Felicia Day makes a post about how she’s afraid of the tone that GG is setting, and gets doxxed in less than an hour. Chris Kluwe issues a rant on it and…nothing? Nothing anywhere to the level of what most women sayin far less, and far more carefully did.
Also, FIFTH!
ETA: Dammit @tintinaus. SECOND FIFTH then
As usual for many years now, Raimondo is telling us a lot more about him than Philip K. Dick, The Man In The High Castle in prose, or The Man In The High Castle on video.
Clicky.
Here in 5479, I have no idea what is going on, because the news,feed to my brain just cut out.
@Snowcrash
Sorry mate. When I started typing I was second pre-fifth. I never believed such an honour would come my way.
That trio is very fannish but there is always somebody more of a fan
Everybody’s favorite multiple of fifth.
6. Apparently, hate leads to suffering. Who knew?
That WKRP in Cincinnati episode is fantastic. Now that I don’t go home for Thanksgiving, it’s probably my favorite Thanksgiving tradition.
Also, Thanksgiving vacation is here. Maybe now I’ll finally get around to Godstalk like I planned to ages ago (sorry person who was running the online book group!)
(6) I have no love for Timpf, Fox News or National Review, but that’s just terrible.
Is it the sun-with-rays flag? Though it’s still in use by the Self-Defense Force, as a military flag it’s more closely associated with WWII than the simple sun-disc version.
People do. I work for an insurance company, and there was a point when our marketing people were planning an investment product linked to Japanese funds. They had all this copy prepared about the **** Rising Sun Bond, with the IJN ensign as a unifying image. We told them. We told them about my colleague’s father who served in the Royal Navy. We told them about my elderly cousin who last saw that flag at Changi Concentration Camp (we knew he was there when the camp was liberated. That’s all he would say. We never knew which side of the wire he was on) and the marketing bods said it was nothing to worry about.
Eventually the ad buyers said the same thing and they finally listened.
There aren’t many left who remember that flag as personally evil, but it still pains them.
And of course modern Japan is a much nicer place.
For subtitles, (1) is PRO-SHAME while (6) is FAN-SHAME. The full article features choice excerpts from the you tube comments, and it’s the usual sewer of filth. What’s so complicated about saying “you are wrong and here’s why”?
So can I now list ISS as a Amazon delivery point? Sweet.
Though, I know that all space rockets are a tad phallic, but that one more than most.
Also one which isn’t all that big on flag imagery, in my experience.
9 made me seek out this again http://my.ign.com/atari/lunar-lander
Re #1. Didn’t Charlie Chaplin come in 3rd place in a Chaplin look alike contest?
Also, GRRM uses a set of fans as his aides and helpers in keeping things straight as he writes his novels, since they have more encyclopedic knowledge and notes on his world than he does. Kind of like a biological wiki…
Here in 9368, after the rise of the oceans due to global warming, we use squid brains for the porpoise.
It is hated in most of Asia and strongly associated with imperial Japan. Even asians in Sweden react to it. It was used as an example on a workshop of cultural sensitivity I visited only a few months ago.
The Japanese don’t seem to revere their national flag anything near the level the folks of the US do.
I hear young Japanese women sometimes call the first day of their menstrual periods “flag day”.
I believe Terry Pratchett also had fannish advisors with encyclopedic knowledge of his worlds.
(2)
It is standard practice in the art and design world for businesses requesting multiple design submissions from different artists to pay them for their time and proposals.
It is common as dirt for all sorts of entities to invite artists to submit entries without any remuneration for their time and work in the hopes of their work being chosen.
The difference is professionalism.
I don’t think there are any democracies that are more into their flags than the US.
(2)
I think I should make it clear that this has been a point of massive bitterness in the art and design world for years.
“People die from exposure” was coined for a reason.
(6)
Whatever happened to “That’s fine. Chacun à son goût. No need to be rude about it, though” as a response?
I hereby detach myself from all senders of death threats who claim my fandom as a fig leaf. They are behaving appallingly and there is no excuse.
Any woman ought to be able to freely express any opinion, even one that disagrees with mine, even rudely, without receiving online death threats.
What makes anyone, anywhere, for whatever reason, think anonymous online death threats are an acceptable mode of communication at all?
I mean, in my own unreconstructed sort of a way, I was brought up to be polite to ladies. Well, people in general, really, but particularly ladies, since I was a young lad in a more sexist time… which, come to think of it, is the sort of time that some people want to be harking back to. You know, the days when SF was simple and rocketships on the front cover meant rocketships in the story.
I was also taught, in that unreconstructed sort of a way, that if you had something unpleasant to say to someone (and you’d figure a death threat sort of counts, there, wouldn’t you?), you damn well had the courage of your convictions and you went up and said it right to their face.
Never mind the standards of the liberal progressives, for the moment… even by the standards of the social reactionaries, this sort of behaviour is beyond the pale. It’s the sort of thing John Wayne would smack you in the mouth for. Online death threats are the acts of bullies and cowards that no “real man” would want anything to do with. In my own, unreconstructed, opinion.
@Peace
Regarding paying people to submit proposals: how does someone doing this budget for the cost? I can see how that would work if you’re inviting say, five specific people whose work you already know you like, but how do you handle it if you’re just throwing the whole thing open on the internet?
I’m not intending to be snarky, I’m just wondering, because cons have to budget for things and if the proposal went viral they might get a lot of submissions, mightn’t they?
(6) Plainly the woman’s a twit, and probably being a twit to stir up deliberate controversy, but nothing justifies death threats. Oh look, that twit’s on TV, lets change channel is the appropriate response.
@Cat:
As I understand it (I’m an artist by profession but not that kind), they do ask a specific set of known artists for proposals.
Throwing things open to everyone on the internet or elsewhere is a sort of amateur contesty pot-luck thing. It’s generally messy and tends to get an overwhelming number of unusable entries and, if lucky, some gems by statistical accident.
Most serious artists avoid these things like crazy. We talk among ourselves about this a lot in the artists’ communities.
One never hears about this sort of commission leading to actual paid commissions (although that is often the implication or promise). All they seem to lead to is more people thinking they can get free art.
Seriously, the burning hate for these things in the arts community is strong.
Years ago, David Letterman did an NBC after school special segment about how to cope when your favorite show is canceled. In the video, he helped a boy whose favorite show, Voyagers, had just been canceled.
If they are not saying they are paying, one has to assume they are not paying. No contractor would assume otherwise.
Actually it makes perfect sense that the designing artist will not be the actual manufacturer of the awards.
I very much doubt Gahan Wilson personally cast all of the previous World Fantasy Awards himself.
Once the prototype is designed it will need to be made by the score, possibly by the hundreds, for future awards.
It is likely to be contracted out to a foundry or other trophy specialist.
I do doubt Mr. Picacio’s speculation about that being done gratis, since it is apparently more difficult to talk a foundry into free work than it is an artist.
However, the tems the WFC may speculatively have with any future factory are not a part of this call to artists. And the terms that are laid out here are dubious.
With respect to #3, I’m picturing someone at Amazon saying “Let’s put nazi regalia all over a bunch of trains; there can’t possibly be any unfortunate implications with that.” Plus, if I have my dates right, they launched the campaign on the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
And given the large populations of Jews, Koreans, and Chinese in NYC, I just don’t see how the campaign could possibly have ended well.
@James Moar, NickPheas
The modern JMSDF flag is the old IJN naval ensign… in a slightly different shade of red. While post-1945 disavows the imperialism of the pre-1945 state, there’s a certain “let’s face it, we were pretty damn good at it” attitude towards some of the traditions of the IJN.
re: (6)
In a similar vain, Art Chu had a article running on some platforms about Jessica Jones and how playing Killgrave so close to Number 10 was an interesting send up of the nerd fantasy of total freedom. The thumbnail version is that there’s a high level of freedom from convention or limits to the Doctor, and Killgrave is what happens if you go all the way – the Time Lord Victorious indeed. He says how the internet can be used as a poor man’s Killgrave – the ability to watch and gin up death threats with ease.
Chu then references last year’s Why Nerds Can’t Have Nice Things as an example, and the comment section promptly proved him right.
@Paul Weimer
Those same fans that cross-reference character’s eye colour for GRRM, also co-authored a book last year with him, The World of Ice and Fire.
Cathy:
If I understand it correctly, the campaign was launched this monday. The Kristallnacht was two weeks before that.
Soon Lee on November 24, 2015 at 10:14 pm said:
(13) That is comedy gold.
vs (or “compared with”)
Meredith on November 24, 2015 at 10:41 pm said:
(2) – WFA design)
is why subtitles rule. Preferably assigned by Mike G, rather than per-poster, for consistency. Because, as we all know, goblin mines lack consistency. And constituents.
Peace,
This isn’t what I said.
What Mr. Picacio suggests is that everyone will send in their sketch work/designs and that the WFC would then pass those on to someone else to produce a finished sculpture.
I presume that people who submit would send in proof of other sculpture work they had done and sketches of their proposed statuette. The ‘winner’ would then get paid to produce their design which would get turned into the mold or casting. The mold would be owned by WFC for the life of its use as an award.
All this is moot anyway since, as others pointed out in the Facebook discussion, all the announcement does is give an overview of the project and ask for expressions of interest. At this point the only cost to an artist is the time sent sending an email, then reading the response.
@BGHilton:
I’m confused. Can you please explain what you mean by this?
@tintinaus:
I’m sorry for my misreading. What you say makes more sense.
@Jim Henley:
I’m confused. Can you please explain what you mean by this?
The basic gist is that certain Star Wars fans show fairly poor comprehension of the movie’s explicit exhortations to avoid the behaviors that lead to the dark side, and apparently missed large chunks of Yoda’s dialog.
That, or they got waaaaay too into the Korriban missions in KotoR1.
I truly hope John Picacio didn’t get a concussion when he jumped to his conclusion.
While it mentions nothing about remuneration in the initial announcement, it did suggest interested parties inquire about the proposal and provided an avenue to do so. One Mr. Picacio apparently did not use to ask questions before launching a broadside (as Ellen Datlow made clear and Picacio himself seems to admit).
Asking some questions for clarification before going off would be the mark of an adult and a professional. No one was twisting his arm to make him submit even an inquiry, much less any ideas.
Of course, in 2548, we hit people with monkey bladders as a form of greeting, so what do we know?
About Timpf’s story: I’m not surprised, alas. I’d really like to see some study about what baseline harassment levels are for anyone in various categories saying anything publicly – women, people of color, and so on. I think there’s a significant enough population of people defective enough in empathy and judgment to target anyone in groups they hate, more or less at random, simply for being their sort of person.
One thing that distinguishes one community from another is what they learn from such experiences. I hang out with folks who don’t think Timpf or anyone else deserves it, no matter how strenuously they may disagree on important matters – they want everyone as safe as possible from such things, because they are awful and shouldn’t be done to anyone. I will be surprised if Timpf or the National Review editorial board or Fox News commits to a policy that regards harassment of their enemies like that as undesirable and innately deserving of condemnation rather than coddling or (here it is again) joking.
In lighter news, I really love today’s scroll title.
I finished The Man in the High Castle! I do have some thoughts/questions on it that have puzzled me:
Jul yrg Senax tb nf fbba nf gurl urneq gung nccneragyl vg jnfa’g Whyvnan jvgu gur svyz qrfcvgr orvat n 1/8gu Wrj ohg xvyy uvf snzvyl fb fhqqrayl sbe orvat 1/16gu? V guvax vg jnf zrnag gb znxr hf srry yvxr guvf vf fhpu na rivy jbeyq, juvpu vg haqbhogrqyl vf, ohg vg whfg unq gur rssrpg bs srryvat pbagevirq naq sbe gur fnxr bs vg.
V qba’g trg jul gur jbzna’f ybpxrg (gung ur arire xarj jnf Whyvnan’f) jnf fb vzcbegnag gb gur Genqr Zvavfgre? V thrff ur nyjnlf xarj vg jnf n cbegxrl? 😉
Jung unccrarq gb gur Ehffvnaf? Nynfxn?
I rate it above average, so I did like it more than a normal show, but a bit less than the other recommended show here, Jessica Jones, which I enjoyed quite a bit considering comic adaptions are not something I’ve generally liked.
Stuart M: I haven’t gotten there yet on some points, but will answer when I can.
This is not a spoiler-y answer to one thing, though. The Imperial forces don’t share the Nazi racial priorities; this comes up a couple times in dialogue. They’ve adopted the Nazi racial laws as part of the post-war settlement, and at least some of them resent that their government feels it had to. In ordinary circumstances, Frank and his sister and her family would never feel the brunt of Imperial law enforcement. They do because of his crossing paths with the Man in the High Castle investigation. And while the show isn’t (so far as I’ve seen) explicit about it, it looks to me like the decisions driving what happens next….
…ersyrpg fbzrbar va nhgubevgl orvat irel cvffrq bss, naq znxvat n fgngrzrag va npgvba gb gur rssrpg “Frr! Jr qvq ZBER guna jr unq gb, sbe uvf vagreebtngvba! Nsgre bhe vairfgvtngvba jnf qbar? Shpx lbh vs lbh unir nal pbzcynvagf abj.”
It’s not especially rational or sensible, but it’s certainly very human.
This death threat stuff does seem to happen. Apparently some of the Sad Puppies received such threats after the Hugo nominations were announced last spring.
See, I’d assumed groups called for open proposals or submissions because of the furor that ensues if say, the WFC chose 5 artists and asked them to submit a design. And then artists that weren’t asked go into a snit and claim all kinds of bias and then it escalates from there.
But then, my response would have been to get the board to choose a new statue idea in private and then say, “We’ve decided to change the award because Lovecraft is more of a horror writer and the fantasy writing world has changed. He no longer fits.”
Heck, one of the Puppy nominees (“Tank Marmot”) was making death threats in the comments section of a post by one of the Sads organizers (Torgersen).