Pixel Scroll 12/23/22 When You’re Scrolled, Pixels Come Out Of Your Soul

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(1) We’re shifting to Scroll Your Own for a couple days while I spend the holiday at my brother’s. Thanks for Cat for his essay and birthdays.

(2) MEMORY LANE.

2016 — [By Cat Eldridge.] A Very Big Peter Rabbit 

Now you might think that Peter Rabbit bring a rabbit is a rather small creature indeed, something we might not notice if it doesn’t want us to notice it. So what would you say to a Very Big Peter Rabbit?

Peter which took more than a thousand hours of volunteer time to construct was created in 2016 to honor Beatrix Potter’s hundredth birthday stood on Stoke-on-Trent, North Staffordshire, South Cheshire. 

He was actually the creation of Snugburys ice cream farm that is near the field he as they financed the purchase of the wooden frame and the more than forty tons straw that went into him. I congratulate the artist who did the coloring.

Now if anyone remember the curse of the Galve Christmas goat in Sweden that invariably falls to arsonists every year, you can probably guess the fate of this poor straw rabbit.  In February of the next year, arsonists completely destroyed the sculpture in just 10 minutes using really powerful accelerants. 

But Peter Rabbit was rebuilt one more time and stayed up for two more years, just about as long as a straw sculpture can be expected to survive. 

(3) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 23, 1919 — Peggy Fortnum. She’s an English illustrator beloved for illustrating Michael Bond‘s Paddington Bear series. She first illustrated him in A Bear Called Paddington. One of Fortnum’s Paddington illustrations is part of a series of stamps that was issued by the Royal Mail in 2006 celebrating animals from children’s literature. (Died 2016.)
  •  Born December 23, 1927 — Chuck Harris. A major British fan, active in fandom from the Fifties until his passing. He ran the infamous money laundering organization Tentacles Across the Sea with Dean Grennell, and was a well-loved British member of Irish Fandom. He was involved in myriad apas and fanzines; he indeed got nominated multiple times for the Best Fanzine Hugo in the Fifties but never won. (Died 1999.)
  • Born December 23, 1945 — Raymond E. Feist, 77. Best known for the Riftwar series. The only novel I’ve read by him is was Faerie Tale, a dark fantasy set in the state of New York, which is one really damn scary work. 
  • Born December 23, 1949 — Judy Ann Strangis, 73. She was one of the leads, Judy / Dyna Girl, on a Seventies show I never heard of, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, which was a Sid and Marty Krofft (H.R. Pufnstuf) live action SF children’s television series from 1976. She had one-offs on Twilight Zone and Bewitched, and appeared twice on Batman courtesy of her brother who was a production manager there.  She’s also done voice work in The Real Ghostbusters and Batman: The Animated Series.
  • Born December 23, 1958 — Joan Severance, 64. She’s on the Birthday list because she was Darcy Walker, the Black Scorpion in Roger Corman’s Black Scorpion. She then starred in and co-produced Black Scorpion II: Aftershock and The Last Seduction II.
  • Born December 23, 1971 — Corey Haim. You’ll most likely remember him from the Lost Boys but he had a long career in genre film after that with roles in Watchers, Prayer of the Roller Boys, Fever Lake, Lost Boys: The Tribe (no, I’ve never heard of it) and Do Not Disturb. He showed in two series, PSI Factor and Merlin. (Died 2010.)
  • Born December 23, 1978 — Estella Warren, 44. Deena on the Planet of The Apes. She also shows up in Ghost Whisper, the Beauty and the Beast film as Belle the Beauty, Taphephobia, Feel the Dead and Age of the Living Dead.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anna Nimmhaus.]

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29 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 12/23/22 When You’re Scrolled, Pixels Come Out Of Your Soul”

  1. First!

    I’ve been listening to Robin Sloan’s Sourdough. It might be genre given what the sourdough starter does and some other elements that suggest they might be fantastical but otherwise it’s just delightful.

  3. Building things out of straw is almost asking for them to be burned, but actually burning beloved figures is inexcusable.

    Cider claims this comment is from her. And that there are much tastier things to do with rabbits. And that she is the first canine posting today.

  5. P J Evans says This year’s Gavle goat is still standing as of this morning.

    What did they do, put armed elves around it? It’s only two days to Christmas. Have any made it to Christmas in recent years?

  8. @Cat
    It looks in photos like a very wide fence is around it. (Usually they don’t even make it to Solstice, which is the actual goal.)

  9. P J Evans says It looks in photos like a very wide fence is around it. (Usually they don’t even make it to Solstice, which is the actual goal.)

    So it made it to Solstice. Good for that goat!

    The fence usually doesn’t stop a dedicated arsonist unfortunately.

  10. Andrew (not Werdna) says My wife loved Soudough; maybe I can get to it in 2023.

    Do ask your wife if she thinks it’s genre. There’s hints it might be but they make it uncertain, at least to me, if it is. So I’d like her take.

    It is, according to Sloan, set in the same universe as Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and shares some characters in common. I suspect that it’s the book aspect including the delightfully strange libraries that connects the two novels.

  11. I’m collecting fox t-shirts right such as this one.

    I needed some new black one as many of mine were showing their age after decades of use and I love foxes, so I went after t-shirts featuring them on Esty. I found some very cute ones there.

  12. @cat

    According to the Wikipedia page, the goat survived 4 years running, from 2017-2020, also 2014. It’s survived 18 times since 1966, so far.

  13. Making my way through Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities a bit slowly, as I prefer my horror in measured doses. The third story, “The Autopsy”, is based on a Michael Shea story I still remember, in fact it’s what put Michael Shea on the map for me. I notice there’s a well known Lovecraft title further down the line.

  14. A few seasonal Twitter posts I enjoyed:

    (This many links probably means this comment gets knocked over to moderation. Nothing offensive, honest!)

    How many lights?: https://twitter.com/StobiesGalaxy/status/1605624327654625282

    Judge Claus: https://twitter.com/rob__mccallum/status/1606452682264154112

    Holiday dinners at the Cosmic Horror Monthly house: https://twitter.com/CosmicHorrorMo/status/1605980762305691649

    Vogue cover, Dec 1914: https://twitter.com/theasraidance/status/1606250874396893184

  18. A bit of Avatar related analysis about the origins of the word unobtainium.

    @Cat: My wife says she thought Sourdough was genre (though weakly so)

  21. ndrew (not Werdna) says My wife says she thought Sourdough was genre (though weakly so)

    Would you rot13 what she thinks makes it weakly genre please? I’m overdue to review it and it’ll assist in doing so. Thanks kindly!

  22. Cabinet of Curiosities: “The Autopsy” was the creepiest, most horrific episode of the series.

    Chuck Harris: “He ran the infamous money laundering organization Tentacles Across the Sea with Dean Grennell…” I have not previously heard of this, and wonder if it was meant as satire, or if Harris and Grennell actually put it into operation. Fancy 3 has an entry on it, carried forward from 1959’s Fancy 2, but doesn’t comment on its actual operations.

  23. We had our family dinner and present exchange last weekend, for the Winter Solstice (a bit early). My daughter who’s working at selling her stories gave me, among other things, a bottle of Irish whiskey… called Writers Tears.

    And, as she’s a programmer for a day job, like I was, a t-shirt: on the left, word balloon: “I am your father”. On the right, “Nooooo”.
    Pictures below the word balloons: on the left, a floppy disk, and a flash drive on the right.

  24. Merry Scrollmas, happy Scrollstice, and festive Scrollnakah to all who celebrate, or don’t.

    I nearly lost my credential this year, when he suddenly stopped eating and dropped an alarming amount of body weight. A miracle arthritis cure and an onslaught of tempting food is bringing him around but he still needs extensive rechonkification. So today I am supplementing his diet with sardines in olive oil, with some lactose-free butter pecan ice cream for dessert. The two of us wish all of you a peaceful warm holiday with plenty of your favorite decadent food, and enough appetite to devour it.

  25. Ten of us here at 100 State Street who are friends have placed an order for Chinese to be delivered tomorrow here and we’re sharing it in the small community room up on the sixth floor.

    Greg who’s doing the order said the last time they did it, pre -Pandemic, they opened up it to everyone here. That resulted in over sixty people being involved which drove him nuts.

    Now finishing off Robin Sloan’s most tasty Sourdough.

  29. @Cat: Regarding Sourdough (from my wife)

    Vg’f orra lrnef fvapr V ernq gur obbx. (V fubhyq unir pnyyrq vg “fyvcfgernz”, abg “jrnxyl traer, ol gur jnl”.) Gur traer nfcrpg bs gur obbx vf n arj glcr bs fbheqbhtu oernq juvpu gur znva punenpgre gheaf vagb n ohfvarff. Vg qbrfa’g “punatr gur jbeyq” gur jnl n arj xvaq bs sbbq jbhyq va n fpvrapr svpgvba be snagnfl abiry–vg qbrfa’g, fnl, tvir crbcyr jub rng vg gryrcngul–ohg ng gur raq bs gur abiry, gurer vf na nfcrpg gb gur sbbq juvpu pregnvayl pbhyq or hfrq gb nssrpg fbpvrgl va na vzcbegnag jnl. Naq gurer vf bar fprar ng gur pyvznk jurer vg pregnvayl punatrf n pvgl.

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