45 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/12/24 Cats Dream Well. Why Do You Think They Sleep So Much?”

1. First !!!!

2. (1) I saw their table at Boskone, and hadn’t realized it was a just-launched bid. I’d have pre-supported (as I did LA). Israel? When Netanyahu and his entire government are in front of the ICC and jailed for life. Or hung. (And if anyone wants to argue, he’s killed more than Milosevic did in the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia).
   (4) Congrats, and best of luck.
   (7) I disagree with their list. I should make my own… except I would not title it that, but something like “the x number of books that have most deeply impressed me”.
   (8) Ah, the “old, clunky” internet, as opposed to the modern one, heavily controlled and influenced by major corporations (and sure, set up your orange crate, er, website, radical, and try to get 15 clicks….)
   (13) Not familiar with it, but from reading this, instead of “don’t blink”, I want to say “don’t fart”.
   (17) What happened to the Time Machine? Mike Jitlov took off with it.

   And we just got home from Boskone this morning. This was my second (the first was during the last millenium), and as my partner put it, “it was [her] first Boskone, but it won’t be [her] last”.

3. (10) Scanners! My first memory of that film was the notorious Fangoria cover — I didn’t get to see the movie until a few years later. I learned that it was better than you would expected based on that cover.

   I read an interview with Michael Ironside where he was shocked that he got marriage proposals in the mail after playing the killer in “Visiting Hours.” If you’ve seen the movie, do you think it was because of the intensity of his performance? Because of the leather? Because some women are weird? 😉

   A great opportunity was lost when Michael Ironside was cast as a psychopathic agent in “Watchers.” In the book, the character was not the villain, and it would have been great to see Michael Ironside in a positive role rather than yet another ruthless killer. (Those moviemakers made a few other horrible changes to that story…)

   (12) That was odd…

4. (1) So Montreal fixed its mistake. It’s good to see people fixing their mistakes, rather than obstinately, and condescendingly, insisting it wasn’t a mistake.

   (2) Well, I steadfastly support them remaining safe, at least. Not their bid, though. Basically the same reasons I wouldn’t support a Palestinian bid.

   (3) So romantasy is specifically steamy/spicy romance? I hadn’t yet gotten to looking at it in any detail yet.

   (15) It didn’t even occur to me that this year, I didn’t even check out the ads. The Puppy Bowl had a hairless Chinese Crested streaking the playing field. It also featured pictures of Sarah Jessica Barker, another hairless Crested, whose sister was the first Puppy Bowl streaker, in PB 5, living her best life in the US Virgin Islands. AND, pictures of a friend’s hairless Crested, Hairy Junebug, were also shown.

   So you can see where my mind was.

5. (1) I think Mike Scott and you are misinterpreting “cast..a ballot” which is really just a more verbose form of “vote”. But even if you are right, all Montreal would have to do is to designate a particular natural person to act for the high level supporter in casting their ballot.

6. RE: “The Time Machine,” here are a couple of videos of Bob Burns with the restored time machine:

   I was fortunate enough to go to several SF conventions at which Bob Burns spoke about his vast collection of movie props and memorabilia, including the Time Machine. He also did a stint as “Tracy the Easter Gorilla” (the convention was held over Easter weekend) at Bjo Trimble’s Equicon 1985 convention:

   https://thepacificoceanspeaksforitself.com/Equicon%201985.html

7. 4)

   I see Brian starts right off in the true outlaw spirit by ignoring the crossing signal!

   When we visit the west coast, we try to be respectful and not jaywalk, but sometimes we just can’t resist, and scurry across the street yelling that we’re following east coast rules.

   11) Love that Existential Comics strip.

8. Donald Eastlake: No, it’s not superfluous language. Actual ballots are used in site selection. It’s not done by a show of hands, or vocalization, which in the appropriate context are also means to “vote”. Casting a ballot means providing the required information on the form and executing a signature. This Worldcon bidder openly said they were going to do that instead of the voter themselves doing it. They did not claim to have a legal workaround — and seriously, what legal workaround wouldn’t be at least as much bother as the voter just signing their own ballot? It was just an ill-conceived shennanigan — that almost certainly would have been successful regardless of the rule because the standards for verifying site selection votes are so undemanding.

9. If the Tel Aviv bid moves forward, I hope that there’s an outputting of Israeli and Jewish support so that all the haters and antisemites are left gnashing their teeth.

10. I don’t think it’s nearly that clear that what Montreal suggested is against any rules. As long as a natural person authorizes it, I think you would have a hard time trying to declare that the ballot must be treated as no preference. The ballot is not cast by the convention, they are just offering to help you fill out the form and transmit your wishes. Save to say if you have bought a $350 attending membership, your wishes as a natural person are that they win site selection. If I say to you, “Here’s $350. Please type my name, address, and choice of Montreal onto a ballot, and take $50 of it to pay a voting fee, and send that in to site selection for me” I think you would have a very hard time claiming that’s not the ballot by a natural person. It’s whose intent is expressed that matters, not who they pay to do the typing and mailing.

11. Brad Templeton: Where’s the language in their offer that says they were going to do what you thought of, and not what they said they were going to do? You’ve missed the point

12. While I read what they wrote differently, their clear intention is to make it as easy as possible for their supporters to car a vote which helps their bid. As such I would be fairly confident that, if they found that their first plan might have 1% risk of having their supporters votes be interpreted as cast by the bid and not the supporter, they would adjust their process to do what they say they offer. What they wrote is not an offer to cast a “no preference” ballot. What they mean is what matters, not what one particular interpretation of the words might be.

    But I would fault any site admin who tried to play games and treat them as no preference. The intent of the fan, who is a natural person, is clear. They are buying a full price pre attending membership,c and definitely want that bid to win. Crude attempts to play games to push a false meaning of “cast” should not be accepted. The pre attending member is getting a membership in the current convention, so they are who is casting the ballot. The bid can’t cast the ballot as it is not the member. It can only act for, and at the direction of the member.

13. [adopts an Aretha Franklin voice]
    Before the rules I read through
    Fans were so unkind
    You’re the key
    To the site I find
    ‘Cause you make me vote
    You make me vote
    You make me vote
    Like a natural person

14. 1) I have thoughts but I suspect a filter doesn’t let me post them?

15. 1) Yes, apparently we can publish press releases about the bid but not ask awkward questions about it.
    But let’s try again: And what is their position on the – how many are they now? right, there is nobody left to count – several tens of thousands of dead Palestinians on the territory controlled by their country, which some have been “called to serve?”

    I mean, I hate to bring this up, and would have much preferred that the bid be quietly withdrawn, perhaps with some platitude about how one day the peace process will be restarted and so on. But here we are. I am not worried about the participants safety. I am worried about visiting a country credibly accused of violating the convention against genocide.

16. @Anna Fergulio Dal Dan

    I have to say when I read “we remain steadfast in our belief that… ultimately, peace will prevail” my first thought was Tactitus

17. Brad says The bid can’t cast the ballot as it is not the member. It can only act for, and at the direction of the member.

    Nice try but that attempt here in Maine got someone jail time under the Maine constitution when he cast a ballot on behalf of his son. As I understand it from what I’ve been told, WFS says that we cast ballots, not that someone casts ballots on our behalf.

    Buy memberships, sure. Cast the actual ballots, no. The first in pure Tammany Hall tradition allows for the voter to actually not vote for you if they decide not to, or get drunk and not vote at all as many ended up doing; the latter is pure and outright bribery.

18. (10) His role in V which you mentioned is the first one to leap to my mind. V is an interesting case – an SF rendering of a much less genre work (Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here)

19. (1) Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the second screenshot, well-proportioned and legibly large? 😉 (I also can’t stop thinking of how they were in such a hurry that they deleted even the full stop.)

    Anna, clearly you meant (2) 😉

20. @Anna Feruglio Dal Dan — most of my Israeli friends are liberal (no surprise there), hate the government, and would like to see it removed. Until that happens, the Israeli government is going to pursue the elimination of Gazans. Then plant settlers there. Most reasonable people know that what’s needed is a two-state solution, which the Netenyahu government has rejected; war keeps the populace occupied. Basically, Bibi is a smart version of Trump or Bush 2.

    I would note that this is one of the longest wars in Israel ever — they are usually over fairly quickly. I fully expect it to be a bad memory by 2027. And I would also note that Israel runs several successful conventions; I’ve attended one and was impressed. Their model wasn’t our usual — every lecture is a ticketed event, and everything is a la carte. But a core group of Israelis have been coming to Worldcon for years, know how it works, and can probably figure out a way to adjust. (I’d also note the weather in Tel Aviv in August is hot, muggy, and no rain — just dust blowing in from the desert.)

21. Andrew (not Werdna) says His role in V which you mentioned is the first one to leap to my mind. V is an interesting case – an SF rendering of a much less genre work (Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here)

    Quite so.

    The joy of the long form Birthdays is that I get to do a deep dive into an individual’s history and see what they have done that I remember as being particularly interesting. His V work was certainly that, wasn’t it?

22. (1-2) Having been to both Montreal and Tel Aviv, and having very much enjoyed the scenery, the food, and the citizenry I found there, I would happily return to either, given the opportunity. They are both beautiful locales with charming inhabitants, and vice versa.

    7) Not a bad list, although I would swap out ‘2001’ (wildly overrated as both a novel and a movie) and ‘The Martian’ for ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’ and ‘Foundation.’

23. Brad: Yes, the intention of that offer was to make sure that those votes were cast for their bid, rather than for Tel Aviv, No Preference, or some other bid that might be announced before the vote. The problem is that what the bidders wanted to do is against WSFS rules, even if you excuse it as making things easier for the voter.

    By your logic, someone could have bought such an advance membership, and be unable to change their minds because of anything that happened before the vote, either large-scale (natural disaster, or something the Quebec government does) or personal

    This is a potential downside of advance voting in political elections. If I drop off my ballot two weeks before Election Day, I’m betting that nothing will transpire between then and election day that would make me want to change it. Recently, a candidate was accused of corruption before the election, but after I’d dropped my ballot in the mail, voting for him.

24. Anna Feruglio Dal Dan: Does your initial comment mean that you tried to post something and it wasn’t accepted? I did not find a comment either being held for moderation, or in spam or trash.

25. @ Lisa Hertel

    This war can only be a bad memory by 2027 in the way that Operation Cast Lead or Operation Protective Edge are bad memories; which means, only if you have a short memory and a lack of empathy for what the Gazan people have been suffering under occupation and siege for generations.

    There absolutely should not be a Worldcon in apartheid Israel, not only because of the significantly intensified ethnic cleansing ongoing in Gaza right now, but in solidarity with the broad struggle against apartheid and occupation undertaken by the global BDS campaign. I am very glad there is now an alternative to vote for.

26. V was a slightly unfortunate series from the start, or even before the start, since writer Kenneth Johnson initially pitched something rather like an updated version of It Can’t Happen Here, only the studio came back to him and said,,”yeah, great story, Ken, but you know what would make it even better? If the modern American Fascists were actually man-eating lizards from outer space.”

    And so the first miniseries happened, and it was pretty decent, on the whole, and the SF content wasn’t totally absurd. Yes, yes, no rational entity is going to seek out something as common as water over interstellar distances, but the Visitors’ offstage Leader is clearly not a rational entity. If you have an ecological crisis, and your spending options are a) a sensible programme of long-term reconstruction, or b) a fleet of enormous space battleships, and you are the evil dictator of the Sirian lizard people, then, c’mon, you’re going to pick option b), aren’t you?

    But then there was the follow-up mini-series, and the stupid started to set in, with the Visitors’ ships casually disregarding things like the speed of light, and alien reptiles mating with humans to produce a hybrid child with plot-saving psychic superpowers… and the series just went downhill, with the plots getting lamer and lamer, and Jane Badler’s costumes getting tighter and tighter, until it was finally cancelled, fortunately while Ms. Badler was still able to breathe.

    Michael Ironside did his best with the material, though. He always does. He was clearly trying, even in that movie we like to pretend never happened. (There can only be one. Or, at least, should only have been one.)

27. (2) Maybe I missed them, but I didn’t see any proposed dates on that website?

28. @Steve Wright: Yeah, the sequel series had some problems; I remember that one that bothered me (though I could see why it existed): Filming in existing locations works in the original miniseries, which was about something radically new that happened in the world-as-it-is. But the miniseries takes place in the post-change-transformed-world – after aliens arrive and a major war occurs – so scenes set in the real world, showing no signs of a major war in the recent past were jarring.

29. 0) I’ve always liked the model of aging in Lafferty’s “Nine Hundred Grandmothers”, where instead of dying people just keep getting smaller and smaller and sleepier and sleepier until they end up on a shelf in the back room, only waking up for special occasions. But now it occurs to me that the cats would knock them off the shelves. Would say more but I feel a nap coming on.

30. WRT #4 and Vortex. Best wishes on your new bookstore!
    Bill and I will make time for a visit and post the bookstore crawl pix on our Instagram account. They’re only about 45 minutes away so hopefully, life permitting, we’ll get it done before Christmas.

    #15. I instantly thought of Jeff Goldblum in “Earth Girls Are Easy.” That was science-fiction romance.

31. I’m sad to see that Liz Warren has passed away. I haven’t seen her for a few decades, but recall her fondly. She was a strong personality who made things exciting at early Norwescons and other gatherings.

32. I do not see where it violates the WSFS rules. While a few folks have put a focus on the language in the Montreal bid offer where they say they will cast your ballot and feel that’s at odds with the constitutional rule that says that only a natural person may cast a preference ballot, to me that’s just a mistake of wording on their part, easily corrected in practice.

    Because much more important than that, only a member of the convention who also pays the voting fees can cast a ballot. Websters defines “cast” in this context as simply to vote, but I don’t think we would get into dictionary definitions to understand this. Only a member can vote. A bid can’t vote unless it has bought a membership for itself, in which case it can vote only no preference. But that’s not what’s under discussion here.

    Is there actual confusion over what they mean, and what the intent of everybody would be in this case? I would hope not, it looks fairly clear to me. I think there is confusion because they used the word “cast” incorrectly, and they can easily correct it. I think they are saying that if you buy a pre-attending, you are requesting them to get a membership for you, and to submit your vote for you that chooses their bid. Which they will do. And which I do not think violates any rules.

    However, the idea gives people unease. It reminds us something we would be very suspect of, which is an organization using its own money to buy votes. But this is not that. This is supporters paying $350 of their own money to do what they clearly want to do based on that price, which is support that bid, vote for that bid to get the convention, and go to it. Their intent is 100% clear, and they are real fans and natural persons. It fits the spirit and letter of the rules, unless you get hung up on their poor choice of using the word cast.

    If they had said, “We have funding from our convention and visitor bureau to pay for your membership and voting fee” then, even though the rules don’t forbid that, I could see unease.

    In any event, they pulled the confusing wording so they obviously don’t want to create any unease.

33. 2: “We’re all deeply devastated by the recent attacks, but we remain steadfast in our belief that things will stabilize, and ultimately, peace will prevail.”

    Without even addressing the politics, iif they genuinely believe that things will stabilize and peace prevail in time for a 2027 Worldcon, as opposed to merely hoping/paying for those things, I have to say I have very little faith in their ability to do the sort of forward-looking thinking that convention planning requires.

34. Finally getting around to Ann Leckie’s Translation State and holy cow, I’m liking this book and hoping we get many more books poking at different nooks and crannies and non-Euclidean spaces of this universe.

35. (1) I’m going to stay out of the “it is/isn’t against the rules” debate, and just say that I’m really happy to see a committee go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of impropriety!

36. @Jeff Smith said:

    When we visit the west coast, we try to be respectful and not jaywalk, but sometimes we just can’t resist, and scurry across the street yelling that we’re following east coast rules.

    Here in Washington, at least one legislator is working to change the rules, due to uneven enforcement of jaywalking laws.

37. I’m glad that Montreal changed the language.

    Related question: If someone loves the bid enough to buy their attending membership now for $350 as a show of support, what happens to that money if the bid loses?

38. So romantasy is specifically steamy/spicy romance?

    Not really, no.

39. @Kyra–Thank you!

40. Goobergunch asks Maybe I missed them, but I didn’t see any proposed dates on that website?

    I just checked their entire site. No, there’s no dates at all. Don’t the bid proposals include the dates the Con will be held?

41. (1) I feel confident Montreal will not be near as ‘splody.

    (8) I miss the old internet days too. And the before-web days, before Eternal September. OTOH I don’t miss having to download things via Archie and Veronica.

    (10) I’d entirely forgotten he replaced Roy Scheider. (Who the original writers referred to as “Satan”, I am told).

    It’s primary-voting time. Mr. LT has filled out his ballot, now I must. There are, as always, measures, but nobody cares enough to buy TV ads for or against two of them.

42. (2) Gooberbunch / Cat Eldridge:

    Don’t the bid proposals include the dates the Con will be held?

    Not necessarily; some bids launch before the exact date is set. Alas, they did not do a presentation at the SMOFcon so there are no deeper details readily available.

    As for romantasy, explainers appeared recently at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/02/romantasy-literary-genre-booktok and https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/02/11/romantasy-explainer-maas-yarros/

43. Hmm, “Romantasy” is certainly shorter than “Paranormal Romance”. I’m not entirely clear what the relationship between the two is or is supposed to be. The former is a superset I guess?

    I suspect some people will dislike the term simply because it’s a portmanteau, but I’m fine with it.

44. 1) Given the tone of the entire page (a pre-oppose level, promising pocket lint, etc.), I honestly thought the voting for you was meant as a joke and a jab in reference to previous suspected vote happenings.

45. Laura: It’s possible. And if so, another piece of evidence about how hard it is to get humor across on the internet these days.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.