Pixel Scroll 2/10/17 Who Knows What Pixels Lurk In The Hearts Of Scrolls?

(1) GAIMAN ON PRATCHETT. The BBC says this is the first time it has featured Neil Gaiman’s complete tribute to Terry Pratchett from his memorial.

In April last year, friends, fans and colleagues of Sir Terry Pratchett gathered for a celebratory memorial service. The writer NEIL GAIMAN, Pratchett’s longtime friend and collaborator, read his funny and moving tribute, featured here in its entirety for the first time.

(2) HEAT CHECK. Jaym Gates is gauging interest in a speculative fiction anthology titled Nevertheless, She Persisted.

…Okay, so should I do an anthology of NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED, what female authors would be interested in contributing? What awesome female authors (especially POC and LGBTQ, ESPECIALLY immigrant and trans authors) should I be reaching out to?

And why only female authors?

Because this is a project about the struggles that women face from the moment their gender is announced, and the courage and tenacity that helps them rise above that deep and unending opposition.

It is a book about the experience of women, told in their voices. It is not a book about how others imagine it to be, but one deeply and personally influenced by their own fights and victories.

And sure, I’ll do an anthology as a stretch goal, titled I’M WITH HER. Men are welcome to submit to that one. But men are over-represented in the SF and political world as it is, and I want more women to be heard.

Yes, it’s fucking political. This project will be incredibly political. Intentionally. It will have middle fingers everywhere, between the lines and sometimes in them….

Gates has been editor/co-editor of spec fic anthologies Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling, Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place,  War Stories: New Military Science Fiction, Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring ’20s, and Rigor Amortis.

(3) BUSIEK INTERVIEW. Filers may be interested to know that comics guru Kurt Busiek is interviewed in the latest edition of SciFiNow magazine (issue 129). Kurt talks about his love for all things Wonder Woman in the interview.

There appears to be no sign of the interview on the SciFiNow website, so anyone wishing to read Kurt’s words will have to head to the nearest newsstand and purchase a print edition or download the digital edition.

Kurt’s name appears on the bottom line of the cover.

(4) HAWKING COMICS. Never let them tell you comics aren’t educational.

Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant minds of this century.  Bluewater Productions is bringing you his life story in this unique comic book format.  Find out all about the man the myth and the legend!

This 2013 comic book is currently for sale on Comic Flea Market.

(5) AIDING LITERACY. Ann Totusek, chair of Minicon 52, has a request:

Minicon is partnering with Little Free Libraries this year. If your club/organization or any individuals in your club or organization are stewards of a Little Free Library, and you think the Library is particularly photogenic or relevant to SF/F, or just generally well done, we’d love to have pictures of it for a display at Minicon to showcase how fandom supports literacy! Picture files could be sent to me – [email protected], or hard copy photos could be sent to our snail mail address- Minicon 52 PO Box 8297 Lake Street Station Minneapolis, MN 55408-0297

If you know of a fannish club mailing list that this would be appropriate for an announcement to, please feel free to forward it.

(6) FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE. And now a word from 1962 – via The Traveler at Galactic Journey: “[Feb. 10, 1962] Here Is The News (March 1962 IF”.

If “no news is good news,” then this has been a very good week, indeed!  The Studebaker UAW strike ended on the 7th.  The Congo is no more restive than usual.  Laos seems to be holding a tenuous peace in its three-cornered civil war.  The coup is over in the Dominican Republic, the former government back in power.  John Glenn hasn’t gone up yet, but then, neither have any Russians.

And while this month’s IF science fiction magazine contains nothing of earth-shattering quality, there’s not a clunker in the mix – and quite a bit to enjoy!

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • February 10, 1957 — Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters opens in theaters

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY WOLFMAN

  • February 10, 1906 — Creighton Tull Chaney (stage name Lon Chaney, Jr.) is born in Oklahoma.

(9) POOHDUNIT. As noted in the Scroll the other day, the house A.A. Milne lived in (with Christopher Robin) while writing Winnie-the-Pooh is for sale for lots of pots of honey. Not noted in the article is that Milne wrote a Manor House mystery, his only work outside of the Pooh stories, based on living there – learn more at The Green Man Review:

The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.”

For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity…

(10) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. Steven H Silver says you’ll get a better deal buying J.R.R. Tolkien’s old home, which also is on the market right now.

(11) AVOIDING A CRASH. Poor machines – humans always gumming up the works. On All Tech Considered at NPR – “Self-Driving Cars Could Ease Our Commutes, But That’ll Take A While”.

The promise of automated cars is that they could eliminate human-error accidents and potentially enable more efficient use of roadways. That sounds, at first blush, like self-driving cars could also mean traffic reduction and lower commute times.

But researchers aren’t so sure.

(12) NUTS WANTED. In “How do you stop astronauts going mad?”, the BBC has a look at early space program history,when the shrinks had some bizarre ideas about what would make a great astronaut.

“Impulsive, suicidal, sexually-aberrant thrill seeker.” What kind of person might that describe? A Big Brother contestant? A Base jumper? A cult leader? Guess again. It is how some US Air Force (USAF) psychiatrists, back in the early days of the space race, imagined the psychological profile of would-be astronauts. Unless they were crazy, wreckless, hedonists, the doctors reasoned, there was no way they were going to be let anyone strap them into a modified intercontinental ballistic missile and then fire them into orbit.

Of course, the men in white coats were wrong, and were guided more by their lack of knowledge about space and the tropes of science fiction than reason. Instead, the personality traits of cool-headedness under pressure, deep technical know-how and sheer physical and mental endurance – “the right stuff” of Tom Wolfe’s book – ultimately led Nasa to six successful Moon landings and an utterly ingenious escape for the crew on Apollo 13, the mission that very nearly took the lives of its three crew members.

(13) MOOD MUSIC. The BBC answers the question “Can this radio detect your mood and play songs to match?”

Take Solo, the “emotional radio”, for example. A wall-mounted device that resembles a large clock, it features a liquid crystal display at its centre. When you approach it, the pictogram face shows a neutral expression.

But it then takes a photo of your face, a rod or antenna on the side cranks into life, and the LCD display indicates that it’s thinking.

“When it’s doing this, it’s analysing different features of your face and deciding how happy, sad or angry you are,” explains Mike Shorter, senior creative technologist at the Liverpool-based design and innovation company, Uniform, Solo’s creator.

“It will then start to reflect your mood through music.”

(14) UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM. What should Hollywood learn from Deadpool?

(15) LAMPOON ON THE WAY. Inquisitr reveals a “’Star Wars’ Spoof In The Works – ‘Scary Movie’ Team Continues ‘Lazy Comedy’?”

Star Wars: The Force Awakens and other Lucasfilm movies move forward into the sci-fi genre, but what of the parody/spoof genre of film? The Scary Movie team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer will be moving forward as writers and directors of a new Star Wars spoof called Star Worlds Episode XXXIVE=MC2: The Force Awakens the Last Jedi Who Went Rogue, according to an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter.

(16) SPIDERLY ASPIRATIONS. “Scarlett Johansson Says Black Widow Movie ‘A Case of Timing’”Comic Book Resources has the story.

Scarlett Johansson is ready to star in a “Black Widow” movie, but according to the actress, a standalone film might be a long time coming. Johansson recently sat down with Total Film Magazine to talk about the upcoming cyberpunk thriller “Ghost in the Shell,” but eventually ended up touching on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s notable lack of a “Black Widow” film. Marvel Studios currently has a slew of superhero movies planned as far out as mid-2019, but despite vocal fan support for the idea

[Thanks to Michael O’Donnell, David K.M. Klaus, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Carl Slaughter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Greg Hullender.]

79 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/10/17 Who Knows What Pixels Lurk In The Hearts Of Scrolls?

  1. Are you sure that isn’t the attending membership?
    I am no expert but I thought 50$ was the max fur suporting.

  2. StefanB, which version of the poem? The one with Indians? (Which, footnote, were understood as American Indians in the original, not indigenous to the sub-continent.)

  3. @ StefanB

    that is probably more not thinking … than beeing racist.

    One of the most insidious aspects of racism (and other prejudice) is the notion that an action has to be deliberate and intentional to be racist. As opposed to being reflexive and unthinking, which of course is perfectly ok and unobjectionable.

  4. There was a pretty good recent British tv version that had “soldiers” in the poem.

  5. Aaron, failure to read on my part! I read the different age categories and skipped right over “support,” LOL!

    Has everyone but me received their nominating information?

  6. Kip: I heared it not with indians (It was in German so the wording was a bit different)
    In truth the only other version I have heared is using an alcoholic drink instead (it’s in a song).
    The German version(our n-word) has not all the negative assosiation that the english n-word has but at last in the 80s there wasn’t much reflection that there was somethink wrong with it. (May be different in the the really big cities)
    I don’t think the indian version exist in Germany.
    I have read the book in the original name it is no also sold under the new name but that started only in this centuary.

  7. Heather:
    I know that I am discusing on thin ice here, and giving examples of beeing unsensitive.
    My main point is that people are childs of there society and there time and to chance was more difficult than today.
    I suscrieb to the notion that unintentional prejudice is not more okay but can be forgiven in a person.
    Perhaps I just have thought more about it before posting.
    I heared that rime as a kid, so it wasn’t somethink that I reacted strongly as a teen when I read the book.
    I think the poem was used by Christie because it was popular and not many people would have thought much about it at this day.

  8. Kip W: My observation is not to normalize the sentiments but to observe that in their time they were indeed common enough that for most of the audience they must have passed without notice–unless, of course, one were on the receiving end. The Christie passage isn’t “even farther back time” than its publication date, it’s pretty ordinary for it. Even contemporary Dorothy Sayers wasn’t immune to conventional Oxbridge snobbery. (Suggestions of her antisemitism are a bit trickier to unpick.)

  9. Off topic: an interesting short that popped up in YouTube recommendations today:

    TIE Fighter

    Very anime style. Not quite a great video but close. At the least needs more of a symphonic soundtrack vice the metal. Thought it was worth a share though.

  10. Someone at SciFiNow obviously like you, Kurt. They had a “Complete Guide to Wonder Woman’ article a few issues back which also included a lengthy quote from yourself in a sidebar to the article

    That may be where the interview came from. I may have responded volubly to questions, and they only used one answer, so they repurposed the rest of it. Maybe.

    and they picked one of your Wonder Woman titles as one of the top ten must read WW series.

    Very nice of them. I’d assume it was LEGEND OF WONDER WOMAN…

  11. Yes, they were common. That doesn’t mean they won’t jolt me out of the story with their casual denigration of races and peoples. Maybe it sounds worse coming from characters who feel almost contemporary to me. Also, Christie feels, to me, thinner—there’s less to justify reading past those passages.

    To me, racism is a character flaw and not really an endearing quirk (as Christie seems to be pitching it with “and we both dislike negroes” or however she phrased it). Enough for me, as I said, to include it in some factors that keep me from re-reading her output, which I devoured decades earlier, perhaps not even noticing most of these things.

  12. @World Weary:
    I joined (supporting membership) on January 30th and received my nominating information on Wednesday, shortly before midnight UK time/4pm File time.

    It’s my first time nominating/voting; only taken me until I turn 60 (which I do today, so the next item on the agenda is the appertaining of a drink or two).

    I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my pixels scrolled.

  13. Stoic Cynic — (12) The Right Stuff now there’s a favorite book and a favored movie! –

    I’ve saved this to a file named “Filers Destroy Classic Movies.” I hope more examples will follow. If there’s a way to branch out beyond “pixel” references, that’ll be good too.

  14. @Mike Glyer

    Thanks for saving it! If you get enough to repub – I realized after posting, to fit the long threads, the one line should have been: their dates would buffet wildly.

    Hmmm, non-pixels references… can we do that?!?

    When all you have is a pixel everything starts to look like a scroll

    😛

    (I’ll show me-self out…)

  15. @Anthony, I’m getting a notice that says “BBC iPlayer only works in the UK. Sorry; it’s due to rights issues”

    Darn it.

  16. @Cassy B

    Yes, it will be UK only I’m afraid.

    Although having someone “play” him seemed rather odd at first, I think it worked, and the scenes in his own words were generally the best ones.
    Amusingly, they played the original “doesn’t even write in chapters” quote that used to be sarcastically included in the “praise for…” section. I think Pratchett wanted to put the boot in about that one more time!

  17. @World Weary:

    As another data point, I registered as a supporting member back in September, and received an email with the link to my nomination ballot on January 9.

  18. Rats. BBC progs being available overseas is inconsistent but I really hoped this one would be. No doubt less official channels will be carrying it, but…

  19. Well… One could always use a vpn and set it to UK to access the iPlayer… I used to use Hola or dotVPN chrome extensions to access it while traveling. Not always the best or fastest way to watch a show though.

  20. @Nigel: “I’d go the whole wide scroll, I’d go the whole wide scroll just to file ya.”

    There you go, always monkeeing around. Just pool it already, willya? 😉

  21. @ GSLamb on February 11, 2017 at 6:12 am:

    Re Milne’s mystery:
    I read it ages ago, as the wife and I are avid mystery fans. Our copy had a foreword that mentioned Milne declaring he had written the “quintessential mystery novel” and felt that no more could be done for the genre.

    That’s a typical example of Milne’s humour (which was of its period, and rather similar to that of Jerome K Jerome’s). I wouldn’t believe for a second that he actually thought that.

  22. the first novel in Adam Rakunas’ Windswept series

    (JJ)
    Just went to Amazon Uk* to check this out and it’s £0.99 at the moment.

    *usually but not always happy to sell to Irish residents.

  23. brightglance: Just went to Amazon Uk* to check [Adam Rakunas’ Windswept] out and it’s £0.99 at the moment.

    If you got it, I hope that you enjoy it. It’s the kind of sly, sarcastic humor I enjoy (as opposed to the more obvious sort of humor, which I find forced, and which gets tedious to me very quickly).

  24. Guys, I’ve bought too many books on recommendations from y’all. I just went to purchase Windswept only to be told I already bought it in October last year.

  25. Oneiros: Guys, I’ve bought too many books on recommendations from y’all. I just went to purchase Windswept only to be told I already bought it in October last year.

    I have a lot of e-books from authors’ backlists that I’ve picked up on a good deal — many of them based on Filers’ recommendations — with the intent of reading them at some point. On a couple of occasions, I’ve discovered the same thing. 😀

    Mostly they sit in their data library. Because I’ve prioritized reading new novels and novellas for Hugo nominations, I don’t read very many older novels right now — even though there are many, many of them I’d like to read.

    But if a new book in the series, or even a new book by that author comes out, I’ll use it as an excuse to read all the previous ones. I didn’t get to Windswept before last year’s nominations, but several Filers had made positive comments about it, so when Like A Boss came out, I decided to read them both before this year’s nominations. I’ve got the 4th book in Emma Newman’s Split Worlds series sitting here from the library, so I’m shortly going to be reading all four books.

Comments are closed.