(1) RULES OF FASHION. Mary Robinette Kowal knows the inside story about “David Hartwell’s sartorial splendor 1941-2016”.
David was a fashion junkie. I know– I know exactly what you’re thinking. That a man who would wear paisley and pinstripes is not an example of sartorial sense. But wait. He collected haute couture pieces. Those jackets, terrifying ties, shirts, and trousers had been the height of fashion when it was produced.
He might spend years tracking one down. Often, he was wearing them in combinations that the designer had actually intended. When I saw him at conventions after that, we didn’t talk fiction. He would tell me the story behind whatever pieces he was wearing and talk about the designer and the theory behind why this particular combination had been fashionable in its day. He wasn’t buying clothes because they were tacky; he was buying them because he was enjoying this whole meta-conversation about fashion and taste.
(2) YOUR OWN SPACESHIP. SF Signal’s new Mind Meld, curated by Paul Weimer, poses these questions —
Q: Congratulations. You can take a trip on, or if you prefer, captaincy of, the spacecraft of your own choice from genre literature. The only catch is–it can’t be the Millennium Falcon or the Firefly. Rey and Mal refused to give up their ships. What spacecraft would you want to own, or travel on? Why?
The answers come from Amanda Bridgeman, K.V. Johansen, Jay Garmon, Alexandra Pierce, Julia Rios, Joshua Bilmes, Josh Vogt, Brenda Cooper, Jacey Bedford, Laurel Amberdine, L. M. Myles, and Angela Mitchell.
(3) ONE CREEPY LANE. J.J. Abrams is a busy man. His movie 10 Cloverfield Lane is coming to theatres March 11. Esquire writer Michael Sebastian summarizes what the trailer reveals about its story.
The movie stars John Goodman, whose character is living in a bunker with what appears to be his family. There’s a nostalgic sheen to the setting, and it’s reminiscent of the hatch in the Abrams co-created TV show Lost. It’s unclear whether they’re stuck in the bunker because of what happens in Cloverfield, when a giant monster wreaks havoc on New York City. The movie is told through what is said to be found footage of the disaster.
(4) HUGO RULES IDEA. Jonathan Cowie’s solution for what he feels is broken in the Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form category is, ironically, to undo the change that was made to fix the category in the first place, and go back to voting for series as a whole.
A possible suggested solution? My suggestion actually would not impact on Hugo nominators and voters in any way! As far as they would be concerned they would carry on nominating and voting on the short-list in the usual way as if nothing had changed. But what would change would be the way the nominations were treated: both the series and the episode titles would be counted differently.
Here, with nominations, a nominator could nominated episodes from five separate series or, at the other end of the extreme, for five episodes from the same series, or any mix in-between just as nominators can do now. (And ‘yes’, I know that the nominating rules are about to change but for now I want to keep this simple.) The change would be in the way these nominations were counted. Nominators would get just one vote per series they nominate. This means that if you voted for four episodes of Star Trek and one of Tripped then that would only count for one vote each for Star Trek and Tripped (two series votes — one for Star Trek and one for Tripped — even though four episodes of Star Trek were nominated). At this first nomination stage we would only be considering series (not episodes). In this specific way the series with the most votes would get on the short-list ballot with nominators effectively getting just one vote per series they nominate. Ignoring episode titles at this stage, and considering only series (be they TV or web series or even short films), would ensure that the ballot had on it a list of different series with no duplicates. In other words all the series on the ballot would reflect the numbers of people nominating series (and not, as is now, the numbers nominating different episodes of the same series).
Then, with the next stage of finalising the shortlist would come the individual episode part. At this stage we have just a list of series and an episode title needs to be associated with each. However some series may have had more than one episode nominated. Here, all those that nominated for series on the short-list would have their nominations for all their individual episode titles counted: again, one vote per episode title. And so, to continue with our example, all our nominator’s four Star Trek episodes would all be counted and each episode title get one vote. Of all the nomination forms submitted, the individual episode with the most nominations for any single series is the one that gets on the ballot.
This would mean that the Hugo for Dramatic Presentation Short Form nominations would better reflect the diversity of televisual SF that exists with a range of different series always ending up being on the short-list final ballot and then with the most popular episode at the nomination stage associated with each one.
(5) KUSHNER REMEMBERS. So many fine reminiscences about David Hartwell are being posted. Here is an excerpt from Ellen Kushner’s:
I quit that job to write my first novel. When I finished Swordspoint, no one in the field would touch it but David. While my agent tried selling it mainstream, David said he would be there waiting (then at Arbor House) if that failed. I joked that it was just his revenge on me for quitting on him – to get me back in his clutches – but they were fine clutches to be in. He made sure my little ms. was read by the likes of Samuel R. Delany, and he proudly told me he was getting me a Thomas Canty cover, knowing that was my ultimate dream…
(6) DONATIONS REQUESTED. Kathryn Cramer, grateful for the care David Hartwell was given at a local hospital, asks people to make a contribution —
Though David was on a respirator for an extended period of time, Elizabethtown Community Hospital in Elizabethtown, NY does not have a mechanical respirator of its own. A wonderful nurse whose name I didn’t catch or have forgotten spent FIVE HOURS, yes FIVE FUCKING HOURS, compressing a blue rubber bulb that substituted for the action of David’s diaphragm. They took wonderful, compassionate care of him, and this is not a complaint about the service.
Rather, if you are thinking of David tonight and wish you could have done something, please follow THIS LINK http://www.ech.org/make-a-contribution.html and make a donation earmarked to buy ECH its own mechanical respirator.
ECH is a small, rural hospital. They do not own their own respirator. Rather, there is a shared one that travels from one facility to another.
David did not die for lack of a respirator. Nothing could have saved him. But please, as you think of him this evening, think not just of David, but of the matter of the nurse who was his lungs Tuesday night. I am deeply grateful to her. But what she did should not have been needed.
Based on my experience of the past few days, it is my considered opinion that NO HOSPITAL IN AMERICA SHOULD BE WITHOUT ITS OWN RESPIRATOR.
This is the 21st century. We can do this.
(7) IS COSPLAY IMPERILED? The lawsuit is about copyright protection for cheerleading uniforms, however, Public Knowledge in “Cosplay Goes to the Supreme Court” says the decision could have consequences for recreation costumers. Truth or clickbait?
Yes, you read that right: the Supreme Court of the United States may get to decide the legal status of all those Jedi robes you’ve got squirreled away. The Supreme Court is considering a case that will set the standard for when clothing and costume designs can be covered by copyright—and when people who mimic them (such as costumers) can be sued for potentially enormous damages.
The parties to the case, Star Athletica and Varsity Brands, both design cheerleading uniforms. Varsity claims that major portions of their designs are entitled to copyright protection, while Star Athletica points out (and is backed up by a long line of caselaw) that clothing designs are explicitly exempted from copyright. Their arguments rest on different interpretations of a legal concept known as “separability”—a topic so abstract and murky that even seasoned copyright lawyers avoid it.
To understand the case and its impact, you need to keep in mind two things. First, copyright protects creative works. It does not protect what it calls “useful articles,” or items which are designed purely for utility. Copyright protects a statue; it does not protect the chisel….
All of which brings us back to cosplay. If the Supreme Court decides on a test that gives a lot of leeway for “original” designers to sue others for infringing on the “look” of their clothing, costumers are left right in the crosshairs. And copyright damages can be positively massive, running up thousands of dollars per infringement. Public Knowledge will be filing in support of Star Athletica’s petition before the Supreme Court, highlighting the scope of hobbyists and consumers that the ruling could impact.
(8) TERMINATED. Don’t be looking for a second Terminator 2. Be happy with the one you had. Yahoo! Movies explains, “A Sequel To ‘Terminator Genisys’ Is Likely Dead In The Water, But That’s Okay”.
Hollywood loves reboots and prequels so much right now that they want them to make love and create preboots. Yes, preboots. Something to kickstart cash cows back into delivering that sweet sweet franchise milk. Prometheus is kind of a good preboot, X-Men: First Class was great, but Terminator: Genisys was the motion picture equivalent of Budnick holding onto your waist and spending your arcade cash (except more confusing). That’s probably why the sequel to the prequel reboot (presequeboot?) that was unfathomably titled Terminator 2, has been removed from Paramount’s release calendar.
(9) ELLISON VOICES GAME. The game originally created in 1995 can now be played on a phone. “I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream is now on mobile” reports Jeffrey Matulef on Eurogamer.net.
Based around the Harlan Ellison short story of the same name, I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the last five humans are immortal and forever tortured by a supercomputer that wiped out humanity 109 years ago. You play as all five survivors as they confront the various psychological and physical tortures bestowed upon them by their sadistic, sentient captor.
You can play each chapter in any order and there are multiple endings available. You can also change the graphics and sound by choosing different audio and visual filters and new touch-based control inputs are available as well….
This time out Night Dive, who now owns the rights to the game, joined forces with mobile porting company DotEmu, who previously ported Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition, The Last Express and Double Dragon Trilogy.
I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream costs £2.99 / $3.99 on iOS and Android.
Game play is reviewed in this video from Monsters of the Week by RagnarRox.
(10) ASIMOV ANALOGY. New Republic contributor Jeet Heer, who was quoted here in a Hugo roundup last year, has worked a classic sf reference into his recent speculation about Trump’s appeal within his own party.
Trump, on the other hand, is so anomalous a figure that the GOP establishment can console themselves with the knowledge that he leads no faction. Even if he wins the nomination, Trump can be safely relegated to the category of a one-off, a freak mutation, never to be repeated. Trump would be like the character The Mule, in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels. In the schema of Asimov’s far future science-fiction series, The Mule is a galactic conquerer who throws history off the course that it was expected to take, but the changes he introduces are ultimately minor because he has no successor.
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
- January 21, 1789 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, is published in Boston. (Apparently it wasn’t banned in Boston – think how much that would have helped sales.)
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born January 21, 1938 – Robert “Wolfman Jack” Smith. My friend, “Imponderables” author David Feldman, ran Wolfman Jack’s campaign for president, once upon a time.
(13) LOCAL FOSSIL MAKES GOOD. I’m a bit skeptical about the idea of a “Welsh dinosaur” – especially one that avoided being turned into coal. But the BBC feels perfectly comfortable writing headlines like “Welsh dinosaur named ‘dragon thief’”.
A 201-million-year-old dinosaur that fell out of a cliff face at Penarth in South Wales in 2014 has been formally named as Dracoraptor hanigani.
Loosely translated, the Dracoraptor part means “dragon thief”; hanigani honours Rob and Nick Hanigan – the two fossil-hunting brothers who found it.
In a new analysis, scientists say the specimen is possibly the oldest known Jurassic dinosaur from the UK.
(14) PUN CONTENT WARNING. Fresh from reading about the Puppy characterization of Damien G. Walter’s grant, James H. Burns saw that Blackpool is to stage a ‘reimagining’ of the King Kong story, thanks to a £680,000 Arts Council grant and wondered if it was bananas to think this means King Kong is on the Dole…
He’ll be here all week, folks.
(15) OTHER MONKEY BUSINESS. The very last thing in Eric Robert Nolan’s “Throwback Thursday: Weird 1970’s ‘Planet of the Apes’ merchandise” is a book cover identifying Jerry Pournelle as the author of the novelization Escape From The Planet of the Apes. How did we forget that?
Finally, pictured below is a novelization of one of the movie’s sequels, “Escape From the Planet of the Apes” (1971). I think I saw this among the disheveled paperback library that always occupied the back seat and back floor of my Dad’s car. I saw Boulle’s source novel in that back seat once, with a weird minimalist art cover. My Dad explained that it was “very different from the movie.” Or I might have seen it on the floor of the closet I shared with my brother. (That closet functioned according to trickle-down economics — the really cool stuff occasionally fell from his top shelf to the floor where I could grab it.)
(16) A LITTLE LIST. No, I am not going to be linking to many more of these, or really, any more of these, but I laughed when I saw Luther M. Siler’s headline – “Oh, why not: #Hugo awards eligibility post”.
Rumor has it that Hugo nominations are going to open up next week, and I have two– count ’em, two! different works that will be eligible for nomination.
(Yes, indie authors are eligible. I checked.)
(17) ASPIRING SPACE TAILOR. Adam Savage has been talking recently about his desire to make one of the spacesuits from The Martian to add to his costume collection. And he convinced Fox to loan him one to take a look at first.
(18) ZOOLANDER/MOONRAKER MASHUP? It’s not just Adam Savage who wants to wear a spacesuit. In “To infinity and beyond: how space chic is ready for blast off”, The Guardian says all kinds of fashion designers are returning to 2001 — the film, that is.
At the men’s shows in Milan last week, astronauts appeared almost as often on the catwalk as the inevitable Bowie tributes. Versace produced a show dedicated, as Donatella said, to the future. The mood – all shiny white plastic – felt very 2001 (the film, not the year), especially when the show began with models running around the darkened catwalk in bright fibre-optic outfits, like those training for a mission. When the lights went up, Versace’s idea of an astronaut was earthbound, slick and boardroom-ready, probably with important financial reports rather than space food in his backpack-cum-jetpack. He wore a silver mac, or chunky bright white trousers and matching biker jackets, a bit like the fashion version of Buzz Lightyear’s outfit. A cropped leather jacket with Versace’s version of Nasa badges was another highlight of haute astronaut style.
One outfit in the accompanying photos has enough decorative pins on it to be Radch haut-couture.
(19) BINKS RECLAIMED. Chris Hallbeck’s Maximumble comic for January 21 has a new use for Jar-Jar Binks.
And after you read the comic, you’ll understand why it makes me think of this routine by Lily Singh –
[Thanks to Alan Baumler, Will R., Glenn Hauman, Lorcan Nagle, James H. Burns, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]
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Last verse is reasonably true, by the way. I think I may need to shelve it there for the moment and go to bed.
I’m don’t have any prose fiction published, but I’m currently working on a novel (which happily is getting terrifyingly close to the point where I might think it’s ready to start submitting around.)
What did you have in mind?
Kyra, I am the Vice for FASS, an amateur musical comedy group drawing from the UWaterloo community. It’s written by people who may never had written before, for people who may never have acted before, with techies some of whom are learning to tech and so on. It’s quite a challenge to write a show not knowing if the cast will be 60 people or 120, and having to create roles appropriate for people who should be actors, and people like me, who cannot remember two lines. That they wrote. Alumi include James Alan Gardner and Brad Templeton.
Vice means I organize and run the parties. So many parties. Among other things, I supply snacks at the parties. We sell pop at cost, and give away chips and such. This is all useful information. Two thing recently came to me in a flash:
“Money for soft drinks and chips for free” scans to Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”
FASS has a glorious tradition of burying vital plot points in the lyrics.
And then I remembered I am not a song guy.
Kurt
I have great respect for the writers here but Omar Khayam did it from scratch; admittedly my passion for mathematics and my passion for poetry may be an unusual combination, leading me to revere someone who could do both, and my view may be even more skewed by the fact that I was born in the Egyptian desert, and therefore have a particular reading of
but I still feel that it would be nice if our familiarity with the work wasn’t confined to a few lines…
James Davis Nicoll —
… I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you an answer when it’s not after 3 AM and I can string coherent thoughts together again. I tried to think about it and my brain keeps going “thud”.
No worries. Thank you for even considering it. 🙂
You GUYS. The poetry is SO GOOD. group hug
Posterity demands it! (Been working on something of the nature all day. I will finalize it after I do the Scroll.)
I’m pretty sure the only Hugo-winning novel I haven’t read is the extremely obscure 2nd-ever winner, They’d Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley.
I have a copy of They’d Rather Be Right. I have even reviewed it. I can’t recommend anyone go and get this book on purpose.
@Lis Carey: Also, no, this isn’t a high-octane Miles-type adventure with Cordelia in the Miles role, and that is apparently also a grievance for some.
I doubt she could top the high-octane actions she took during Vordarian’s coup–and why would Bujold even try to do so? I”m looking forward to more of Cordelia’s story knowing that it won’t be a retread….
robinareid – it’s certainly not a retread of any previous work, that’s for sure!
@Aaron: Thanks for the pointer to your review of They’d Rather Be Right. Reading it makes me wonder if the answer to the question of how it managed to win a Hugo is: slates! We know Scientology tried to stuff the ballot in 1987. We know there was a crowd of Dianetics enthusiasts in 1950s fandom. And as you say, the awards process wasn’t formalized yet. Seems plausible that Hubbardites could have easily packed the caucus.
I suppose the objection is why would the bother? The Hugo was a new thing and not obviously a prize of much value. Maybe it was just those Dianetics enthusiasts in fandom individually voting their pseudoscientific commitments. On the other hand, some people, presented with any kind of contest, just want to win the damn thing. So maybe: slates.
Bujold said this isn’t a story about war; it’s a story about grownups. I suspect that’s part of the problem, with its detractors.
I hope I avoided actual spoilers. I was trying to avoid them.
My scroll of pixels is but a flash of suns,
My slate of tales is but a mess of mutts,
My hive of wits is but a mash of puns,
And all my squirreling is but food for nuts;
The game is on, yet I did not pass Go,
And now I tell you what I do not show.
My thread is over, but yet it was not run,
My bows were taken, yet no curtain fell,
My jokes were told, but only half in fun,
And my Farmers did not come from Dell;
The game runs still, over top and below,
And now I tell you, and now you know.
I sought for life and found it on the page,
I looked for laughs and found them in the posts,
I tried to rhyme, for it was all the rage,
And now I’m haunted by great poets’ ghosts;
The glass is crack’d, and out the verses flow,
You’ve told me yours; here’s my quid pro quo.
There’s a lady who’s sure all that pixels is scrolls.
And she’s filing ten times seven seven
And when she gets there she knows,
If the comments aren’t closed,
With a word she can get what she came for
ooh, ohh and she’s filing ten times seven seven
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.
I wanted to contribute to the impromptu poetry slam, but I fear I could do no better than doggerel.
Current reading: finished Hollow World. Enjoyed it, but not one of my favourites. Interesting world and improbable time machines, but the plot felt very lopsided with not much going on until the last few chapters. I’d read more by Sullivan but I wouldn’t necessarily make them a priority.
Now reading: The Way into Chaos by Harry Connolly. Certainly more action packed and I’m so far intrigued enough by the magic system (Gifts from a magical people studied by scholars who make them useful – and hints of a second, darker magic, and all the perils that generally come with magic use) to keep on reading for more of that, and the action is generally fun. Will probably read the rest of the trilogy soonish.
Stevie: Imagine, Baen publishing something about an…
They already have, in David Weber’s At All Costs, Honor Harrington Book 11.
Plus I got it wrong anyway.
Properly, it should be:
The Moving Pixel Writes, And Having Writ, Scrolls On.
kdb
A 1955 Hugo. And that Patrick Fucking Nielsen Hayden claims not to have been born until 1959.
Coincidence? Or just another SJW lie?
We incite, you deride.
@Camestros — [snaps fingers in proper Tékumelyani sign of appreciation]
Rev. Bob, if you can do doggerel, you’re far better than me. I merely read and appreciate, and hope contributing verse doesn’t become an actual requirement here.
Aaron: I have a copy of They’d Rather Be Right. I have even reviewed it. I can’t recommend anyone go and get this book on purpose.
It’s that damned OCD Completist thing so many of us SFF geeks have. Someday, I will go and get that book on purpose.
However, this will not occur until I have read all the other (at this point) 63 Hugo winners and 232 other nominees. It will be a bit yet before that happens 😉
Welcome to the Pixel Scroll
Now that your fifth is in the roundup being SFnally admired and you can
troll anyone that you have ever desired
All you gotta tell me now is why why why why
Welcome to the pixel scroll
Oh I know that we file ya
because we are vile yeah
Welcome to the pixel scroll
The way it’s dated maybe grated
but at least it’s not slated
We wish our favorites somehow could have survived
Hartwell and Bowie maybe both might still arrive
along with Alan Rickman, and give us all high fives
Welcome to the pixel scroll
Oh I know that we file ya
because we are vile yeah
Welcome to the pixel scroll
The way it’s dated maybe grated
but at least it’s not slated
I heard you sayin’ even Puppies are fine
if they talk about their favorite books
Spend all your money on your TBR
cause you can’t resist the impulse to look
Sometimes I wonder who is really a Trufan
Why’d I break your bracket-heart when I
Rejected miniseries out of hand
Welcome to the pixel scroll
Oh I Welcome to the pixel scroll
At the pixel scroll’s brink,
Let the filers think,
What they say to a troll:
First the scroll takes a pixel,
Then the pixel takes a pixel,
Then the pixel takes the scroll.
Jim Henley:
Welcome to the pixel scroll
The way it’s dated maybe grated
but at least it’s not slated
*snort*
@JJ: ::bows::
Aaron on January 22, 2016 at 7:30 pm said:
Heh, well, I definitely won’t spend any money on it till I have a chance to read it for myself. But since I do have an opportunity to borrow it from a friend, I’ll probably still go ahead and give it a try. Your review makes it sound…finishable, at least. And if I do finish it, I will have read all the Hugo winners, so that’ll be nice. But yeah, you’ve definitely convinced me not to spend good money on it till I have a chance to form my own opinion. 🙂
Re: the possible “slating” that got this book its award. I suspect it’s a little more straightforward: Campbell was still pretty influential at the time, and if he told people it was a great book, enough people might have temporarily allowed themselves to be persuaded he was right. Misplacing their own good judgment. However! I doubt if even Campbell was influential enough to persuade people to vote for it unread! That take more than just a man who has more respect than he deserves; that takes a demagogue!
Oh, hai, you can get a Kindle version of They’d Rather Be Right (along with several other Mark Clifton stories, perhaps a dubious bonus) for 99 cents here in the US, or for £0.71 here in the UK. Also available for Nook and Kobo.
Mike Glyer, do you ever feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein? 😉
JJ: I might actually have been tempted by a 99¢ deal until I read Aaron’s review. 😉
(Of course, others, who don’t have a convenient friend-with-a-copy-stored-somewhere may find your information useful.)
Xtifr: I might actually have been tempted by a 99¢ deal until I read Aaron’s review.
This guy on io9 was a lot kinder to it. He does not seem to have recognized the Scientology connections in the plot, though:
What Do You Know? The Second Hugo Winner Redeems Itself
@Lis: “Rev. Bob, if you can do doggerel, you’re far better than me.”
Oh, it’d turn out so immature it might have to be called pupperel.
James Davis Nicoll —
OK, I’m awake now. 🙂
Thinking about it, I guess there’s a few things I need to know before I can reasonably say:
1) Is this song going to be its own stand-alone thing, or does it need to fit within the constraints of a plotted story?
2) By when would you need it?
3) Other than the key line, what did you see it as being about? FASS? FASS parties? Or something else entirely, with that one line fit in somehow?
(Even before getting those answers, I will say my mind did start looking for approaches to this as soon as you brought it up — it’s a catchy hook! — but I’m finding that without knowing a lot about FASS culture, my options are a little limited, mostly stuff I can glean off the website. You might end up wanting someone a little more steeped in FASS for this.)
@Stevie
There’s so much more to the work than that one verse. One time, when I was the designer/DTP fellow for a Friends of the Library group elsewhere, they were going to have a wine tasting, and I designed a bookmark and chose
to go on it. The woman I dealt with insisted that this was mysterious and obscure and somehow hostile to winemakers, and wanted the damn loaf of bread and jug of wine verse instead. I refused to change it, so no bookmark went out.
Kyra, I want to spring this on them as a surprise. I know this will surprise everyone who knows me but things went kind of pear-shaped in a way that in retrospect I should have planned for last weekend and it would be nice to have a fun thing to present the company.
(my job is two parts “have fun” to one part “no water soluable clothes in the hot tub)
Vice has standing information people need to know:
snacks are free
Pop is 50 cents a tin
pop cards (12 pops) are five dollars
water is free and people are strongly encouraged to stay hydrated
remember the 1:2:5 rule (at least one shower, two meals, and five hours of sleep each day)
Ontario liquor laws apply
have fun!
Anyone wearing a VICE armband is on the Vice Squad and can be consulted for your vice related needs
James is much older than all of you, except Robert
Kip W, I’m frankly boggled. How is the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam obscure, or hostile to winemakers? Heck, the very verse you wanted is extolling the preciousness of wine….
We do not have access to the voting data on the 1955 Hugo Awards (and are unlikely to ever have it), but I think it rather likely that the results reflect a significant flaw with First Past the Post voting in a very large field. The winner may have had more votes than any other work, but was unlikely to be the most-liked (or even least-disliked) work out there that year. I am not old enough to have been involved when Worldcon started using Instant Runoff Voting (the so-called “Australian” ballot, which is a misnomer), but while no voting system is perfect, IRV produces a result in a multi-way race that better reflects a consensus of the electorate than FPTP does.
@ Cassy B.
I’m often boggled at the cultural touchstones (for me) that others need explained, and I try to suppress the boggle because it can’t help but come off as a touch elitist. My most recent boggle was when the editor of a lesbian historic romance anthology suggested strongly to me that I needed my character to explicitly indicate that her reference to “the tenth muse” meant Sappho. For a general audience, ok maybe. For for that collection’s target audience? *boggle*
Heather Rose Jones, I admit I’d’ve had to google “the tenth muse.” But then, I’m not the target audience…
And I should have emphasized in my previous comment that when coming from me, such boggling tends to come off as a touch elitist. Because I just somehow naturally throw off “stuffy academic elitist” vibes. I didn’t mean that to be a criticism of anyone else.
Bravo/a, File 770 Filkers and Title-Makers! A lot of fun creativity here. 😀
I wish people would credit the original more, however, for the filks/poems. I feel like I’d get more out of them if I knew or could look up the original, but I’m not good at recognizing the original even when I know it. (And, well, I’m not nearly as well-versed in poetry as a lot of you seem to be.)
Regardless, I can say, well done. 🙂
Pixel Scroll title idea: The Scroll’s a Fine and Private Place
ETA: Apologies if it’s been done, or been suggested, already. My brain can’t remember/hold all the ideas. 😉
Oh, and no rush: my timeline is
Two simultaneous events a kilometer apart tonight
One costume party/mini-con Jan 30
A tech weekend lunch on the 31st
Post show parties on Feb 4,5,6
By the 4th would be awesome.
James Davis Nicoll — OK, here goes. As a note, I used “soft drinks” in the lyrics as per your original comment, but as a lyricist I can tell you that “soda” would be a LOT easier to sing. However, from your comments it sounded like you might be in pop country, so I didn’t want to use a word you wouldn’t.
Anyway …
Now look at that Vice Squad, wearing fancy armbands,
They play the music on an MP3,
They ain’t workin’, they’re just throwin’ parties —
Money for soft drinks and chips for free.
Now they ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it
Lemme tell ya their Straits ain’t Dire
Nothin’s gonna happen at a big FASS party
Not like chips are gonna catch on fire
The Writers script for two hundred people
Cast has got line deliveries
Tech gotta light Humanities Theatre
Band gotta play songs almost in key
See the little Vice Squad sayin’ eat your two meals daily
Yeah buddy and sleep five hours
That little Vice Squad says to stay hydrated
That little Vice Squad says to take a shower
The Writers script for two hundred people
Cast has got line deliveries
Tech gotta light Humanities Theatre
Band gotta play songs almost in key
I shoulda signed up for the Vice Squad
I shoulda learned to throw a bash
Look at them up there, sellin’ soft drinks at a table
Twelve cans for five dollars, cash
And they’re up there, what’s that? Singin’ a rock song?
Mumblin’ in a mic just like a chimpanzee
That ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
Get your money for soft drinks but the chips are free
The Writers script for two hundred people
Cast has got line deliveries
Tech gotta light Humanities Theatre
Band gotta play songs almost in key, Lord
Now that ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it
You make sure no one’s catching HPV
That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it
Money for soft drinks but the chips are free
Money for soft drinks and chips for free
Oh, Kyra, that’s just brilliant.
I was laughing all the way through — and then I totally lost it when I got to “HPV”.
Applause!! That’s amazing, Kyra!
I have “HPV” running in my head now in a Mark Knopfler voice [vbg]
😀 😀 😀
Camestros Felapton: I have “HPV” running in my head now in a Mark Knopfler voice [vbg]
I have Sting singing in my head now:
I want my… I want my… I want my HPV