(1) SF BEER. Poul Anderson used to set great store by Heineken beer. This billboard ad from the 1970s claims Mr. Spock did, too.
(2) SYFY PROTOTYPE. Deadline tell us “Cote de Pablo Poised To Star In Syfy Pilot ‘Prototype’”.
EXCLUSIVE: NCIS alumna Cote de Pablo is nearing a return to series television. I have learned that the fan favorite is in negotiations to play the female lead opposite Jack Davenport in Prototype, Syfy’s sci-fi thriller drama pilot written by Tony Basgallop (24: Live Another Day). It centers on three unlikely cohorts — two of them played by de Pablo and Davenport — who inadvertently stumble upon an invention that challenges the very nature of quantum physics – a discovery which in turn puts their lives in grave danger.
De Pablo would play Laura Kale, a driven, extremely intelligent mother of two. Excited about a potentially world-changing machine being developed by herself and two partners, she is certain that she is on the brink of something history-making. Propelled by a shot at glory, she is not about to give up despite numerous setbacks.
(3) AUTOGRAPHED LENSMAN. Heritage Auctions is already taking bids for items in its “April 6 Rare Books Grand Format Auction”. The chair J.K. Rowling sat in to write a couple of Harry Potter books is on the block. So is an autographed boxed set of the Fantasy Press edition of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series – they’re looking for an opening bid of $2,000.
Edward E. (“Doc”) Smith. The History of Civilization, including: Triplanetary, First Lensman, Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensman, Second Stage Lensman, Children of the Lens. Reading: Fantasy Press, 1955. First edition, limited to seventy-five numbered sets, of which this is number twenty-four. Each volume signed by the author and volume one additionally warmly inscribed to Smith’s “friend and fellow-toiler in the vineyard of SF,” Ben J[—]. Six octavo volumes. Publisher’s special binding of quarter reddish-brown leather over brick red cloth-covered boards, spines lettered in gilt, in publisher’s original box. Books very nearly fine with only minimal rubbing to spine ends and light soiling. Box edges worn, some lid edges split with tape at corners. From the collection of Dr. Stuart David Schiff.
(4) ANOTHER REASON MCDEVITT ROCKS. Locus Online reports the International Astronomical Union has approved a proposal to name an asteroid after sf writer Jack McDevitt:
The asteroid, now known as “Jackmcdevitt,” is designated 328305, and was discovered in 2006 by astronomer Lawrence Wasserman at Kitt Peak observatory in Arizona.
(5) WHY BATMAN STINKS ON ICE. ScreenRant will happily tell you the “13 Worst Things About Batman & Robin”.
11. Bat Ice Skates
Again, in a continuation of the bizarre ‘60s Batman mythos, Joel Schumacher’s take on the Dynamic Duo is filled with a collection of oddly specific bat-gadgets. Considering that Batman had no idea that Mr. Freeze would turn out to be the big villain of the movie, it’s strange that he had already prepared a collection of ice-themed accessories, including a jet ski and special ice-themed costumes.
In their first run-in with Mr. Freeze, upon discovering that the floor has been frozen solid, Batman and Robin activate their “bat ice skates,” which appear out of the bottom of their boots with a click of the heels. The convenience of this gadget takes the silly accessories of Batman’s utility belt from the ‘60s show to a cinematic extreme, adding fuel to the fire of the joke that Batman’s true superpower is his magic utility belt which can produce anything the plot requires it to.
(6) GRAPHIC MARCH MADNESS. Comic Mix is getting ready to run webcomics brackets — “Announcing the 2016 Mix March Madness Webcomics Tournament”
Yes, it’s that time of year again, the time where bracketology reigns supreme and the cry around the nation is “Win or Go Home!” Last year’s Mix March Madness Webcomics Tournament was incredibly popular, and so we’re doing it all over again– and raising money for the Hero Initiative in the process!
We’re giving you a list of over 300 webcomics, and we want your votes . We’re taking the top 128 and putting them in a single elimination tournament where we whittle down the contestants down to one. The top 128 vote getters make it into the tournament, with the biggest getting top seeds. The voting ends Sunday, March 13 at 11:59 PM EDT, and brackets go up on Monday, March 14!
Simply check off the strips you want to see in the tournament below. If there are webcomics you don’t see, check “Other” at the end and include the strip name AND THE URL. We’ll add them to the main list periodically for higher visibility.
(7) FREE AUTOGRAPHS. The West Australian has a story on the Australian national convention — “Perth fandom unites for 41st Swancon”. It’s funny what you have to explain to people nowadays.
Beasley said Swancon welcomed the increase interest in fandom these nationally-run conventions bought but he hoped the local version could always retain its more intimate, community feel.
“You will most likely see our guests wandering around the hotel interacting with anyone who buys them a coffee,” he said.
“The membership fee covers everything contained in the convention and our guest signings are also free.”
(8) WILL BLOOM AGAIN. Rachel Bloom’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend series will get a second season.
Musical comedy series @CW_CrazyXGF renewed for a second season! https://t.co/hvm6sC2j3V pic.twitter.com/kdvYfW6XLX
— broadway.com (@broadwaycom) March 11, 2016
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
- March 11, 1818 – Frankenstein published.
- March 11, 1971: George Lucas makes his feature debut with THX-1138.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born March 11, 1952 – Douglas Adams
(11) DYEING OUTSIDE. Cat Rambo’s “Pink Hair Manifesto” at Medium.
The first time I dyed it, I was about to head off to my first Wiscon?—?a large feminist science fiction convention held yearly in Madison, Wisconsin. As I’ve found the case at sf conventions since then, I wasn’t the only person there with an odd hair color; I glimpsed rainbows of pink, blue, and green. And I realized it was becoming. Complete strangers would lean over and whisper, “I like your hair,” including two flight attendants on the way home.
After the con the color faded, softer and softer, until finally, when I went to get a haircut, the hairdresser was cutting away dusty rose tips. I looked in the mirror and saw a middle-aged woman with a short, practical cut.
I bought a new kit on the way home and re-pinked my hair that afternoon….
That’s another reason why I dye it pink. People talk to me. There’s something about the color that draws them to ask about it or say that they like it. The only person I’ve ever found who disapproved outright was a relative’s girlfriend. She didn’t last. My hair color has.
But more than that, the pink forces me to talk to people as well. I’ve habitually toed the line between introvert and extrovert, depending on which Meyer Briggs results you look at, and I like the fact that the pink pushes me outside myself, makes me be socially brave in a way I’ve sometimes retreated from.
(12) RABID PUPPIES. Vox Day moves on to the novella category of his slate — Rabid Puppies 2016: Best Novella.
The preliminary recommendations for the Best Novella category.
- “Fear and Self-Loathing in Hollywood”, Nick Cole
- “Penric’s Demon”, Lois McMaster Bujold
- “Hyperspace Demons”, Jonathan Moeller
- “The Builders”, Daniel Polansky
- “Slow Bullets”, Alastair Reynolds
(13) HOW DEADPOOL BEGAN. Steve Fahnestalk’s latest “Second Looks” column at Amazing Stories includes two reviews — “Marvel’s Deadpool & Ant-Man and Some Words on Writing”.
And now we come to Deadpool. I was vaguely familiar with the character—I think I’d read a recent Spiderman with him in it (one of the ones after Miles Morales became Spiderman). I knew he was called “The Merc With The Mouth,” and that he apparently couldn’t be killed, but I knew little else about him. Now I know that he’s been around for—wait for it!—25 years! (Thanks, Wikipedia!) I also found out, courtesy of the Wiki, that he was played by Ryan Reynolds already in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and that he was the dude who had everyone’s powers including Cyclops’s, and whose head was cut off and destroyed the atomic cooling tower! Whoa! Looks like I needed a crash course! (So I got some fairly recent Deadpools, like Deadpool – Dracula’s Gauntlet and Deadpool’s Secret Wars [both 2015], and read up a bit.) And from what I can tell, by casting Ryan Reynolds in this movie, Marvel (or whomever did the casting) really, really nailed the character. He’s profane, obscene, funny, athletic, heroic and antiheroic, mouthy, sexy, and a whole lot more.
(14) HOW DEADPOOL SHOULD HAVE ENDED. Yes, the How It Should Have Ended team has fixed Deadpool for ya.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Glen Hauman, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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FIRST!
At least if Slow Bullets had been published by Castalia House VD would have an excuse for nominating it.
Friday night, and the site is quiet…
Penric’s Demon, huh? I liked that one a lot. Lois just has a way with setting up situations that make you stop and go, “Huh, that’s … interesting.”
Went to a museum today!
Fifth?
Wow.
I liked Penric’s Demon, too. I wanted it to keep going!
@Jim Henley:
I liked “Slow Bullets” just fine. Award-worthy, though? Nah.
(tick)
@Kip W
So what kind of museum? Good, bad, indifferent?
My family are museum folk as such. Probably the most exciting recently was Pima Air and Space in Tucson, Arizona. If you like planes it needs to go on the must visit list. We spent just a day, still don’t think we saw everything, and were hustling too much at the end.
Tucson itself didn’t impress me much but the museum rocked:
http://www.pimaair.org/visit/new-aircraft-list
Since fifth wasn’t claimed, I declare myself the true fifth.
My favorite museum so far is probably the shoe museum in Toronto, just because it’s so unique. Plus, it has lots of shoes.
Stoic Cynic
Cathy and I went to the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo. They have seriously great holdings in modern art, including many things I see in art history books. I think my favorite piece there is Balla’s painting of the dachshund being walked, and you see a dozen legs working. I bought a matted print of it today because the glass over the painting makes it so difficult to get a decent photo. There’s an exhibition going on of Monet and His Impressionist Pals (I hear they did a wicked Bogart). I’m actually seeing it for the second time in a couple of weeks. Also had a pretty good duck panini in the museum cafe. I asked if they had anything by George Tooker, and none of the nice people I talked to knew who my favorite modern painter was.
There’s also this museum in Texas that I think I linked the other day. Crowded little place with some dubious stuff, all of it out where you can see it (unless it’s under other stuff). I love that place. Founded by the guy who founded Frontier Times, a magazine I used to enjoy reading. The museum’s in Bandera, where my grandparents used to live (outside of town, but Bandera was their RR address), and they have an old copper spike Grand-dad found on his place among the exhibits. Also a mummified squirrel someone found in their attic, and a stuffed two-headed kid goat. There need to be more museums like it.
ps: Along the way to and from Buffalo, there’s this billboard for the Jell-O Museum. One of these times, I will stop in and have a look. After all, there’s always room for Jell-O.
@bookwork1398:
We spotted the shoe museum in passing, but time was limited so we only went to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Accidentally bought the French language exhibit catalogue, but it sure was educational.
* Peace *
I bought an Italian catalog of an exhibit they were having at the Uffizi, because there wasn’t an English version. The pictures are great. It’s about the discovery of the technical laws of perspective, and illusionistic painting. A nice companion piece to Hidden Images, which goes from illusionism all the way to anamorphic pictures and distorted paintings that have to be viewed in a cylindrical mirror placed perpendicular to the picture. That one’s in English.
@Kip W:
George Tooker is a marvelous painter, but not always easy to find.
The Jell-O Museum is really only a gallery.
Been meaning to stop in the Corning Glass Museum one of these years.
The Detroit Institute of Art has a magnificent collection, but the museum was a little run-down last we saw, owing to Detroit’s financial state. It’s in a beautiful but just a touch shabby palatial building on a gigantic boulevard that goes nowhere in particular and hasn’t got any life on it. The parking garage had painted decorations that looked like they dated from about 1975.
But my, that collection is magnificent. Once upon a time enough rich people lived in Detroit to endow the museum with an entire roomful of Rubens … Well, “Workshop of” Rubens anyway.
Peace Is My Middle Name
The first time we were in NYC, I got to go to the Whitney, which has Tooker’s magnum opus, The Subway. So keenly did I anticipate it. So keenly was I let down to find that they had it in storage somewhere. I finally got to see an original Tooker years later, at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester (where I am, except in a suburb). My painting teacher says their collection is mediocre, and their examples of famous artists aren’t their best stuff, but one of the Monets I liked best at the exhibition in Buffalo was from MAG, so there.
The Corning Glass Museum is really pretty neat. Their collection of old glass has some real nifty examples of ingenuity and craftsmanship, and their modern glass includes some stuff that I would actually look at on purpose. Some real eye poppers. I would go again. We saw some Murano glass in Venice (visited one of the factory’s show rooms), and they had an exhibit of it at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk when we lived in Virginia. (The Chrysler collection is mentioned a couple of times in a book I have on art fakes. The writer says “they saw him coming.” It seems they have shed the dubious stuff in the years since that book came out. I’m quite fond of some of their holdings, and I hope they’re genuine. Especially the Signac.)
I was able to spend about 90 minutes at the D.I.A. on one of my drives up through Michigan. Yes, I was really impressed with what they have. The Rivera murals, for instance, and the medieval pieces. I need to contrive a way to spend some more time there. I just wish they’d permitted photography at the impressionist prints & drawings exhibit they had going when I was up there.
@Jim Henley
At least if Slow Bullets had been published by Castalia House VD would have an excuse for nominating it.
Yeah. It’s just boring – I kept expecting some twist or something different, but it’s just write-by-numbers. Serviceable but pretty damn dull.
The medieval collections at the DIA are the finest I’ve seen outside of the Met in New York.
The Whitney is okay, I guess, but I kind of prefer the Frick.
My favorite museum in NYC is the American Museum of Natural History. Lots of magnificent collections and a hilariously campy shrine to Teddy Roosevelt out front and in the entrance hall.
They have, to be sure, changed the old labels on the dioramas which used to give advice on how fun and challenging hunting each particular set of beasties was, as if the place were a giant showroom catalogue for people to decide what trophies to aim for on safari.
For art I’ll throw in for Maryhill Museum in Washington. As far as I recall they have the largest collection of Rodin in North America plus a whole lot more. Their website doesn’t do much justice so wiki link instead:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryhill_Museum_of_Art
A shoe museum sounds cool! Eclectic and odd usually means either tourist trap or passion but most frequently my experience says passion.
@peace I think I’ve said before that growing up in NYC, I bounced/alternated between going to the “left side of the park” and the AMNH and the “right side” and the Met. I remember the old Planetarium, in its faded and dusty glory and was delighted when they decided to build the cube.
And then I moved away, and eventually wound up in Minnesota. The MIA is nice, the Science Museum of St. Paul enh, and I miss the museums in NYC dearly.
I’ll add my voice to loving Penrick’s Dragon by Bujold
11) DYEING OUTSIDE. Cat Rambo’s
A couple years ago I went with a friend and had a few purple highlights added to my hair shortly before a convention. I loved it and surprisingly so did my family. The following year I had a lot more purple added and really liked it. With my health this year I haven’t been up to deyeing it. I’m hoping after the surgery I’ll start feeling better and can try a different color. It’s fun and helps me feel younger.
I have come to love the Philadelphia Museum of Art (of “Rocky steps” fame). It’s not that it’s full of world-class pieces – it isn’t really – but the museum itself is a world-class installation. The transported medieval chapel, the reconstructed Japanese tea house – just so many superb little environments to wander through. And if you go of a Wednesday evening when the museum stays open late, the view of downtown at night as you come out the front doors is breathtaking.
The “sculpture garden” is bullshit, but my standard there is the Hirshhorn in DC. I admit that’s a tough standard to live up to, but on that scale the Philly “sculpture garden” looks like a little kid tying a towel around his neck and claiming to be Superman.
Skip the sculpture garden. Do the rest of the museum.
I like the Tech Museum in San Jose, because tech. Also it’s very hands-on. You can walk to it if San Jose in 2018 wins!
Penric’s Demon was all right, but it didn’t push the Hugo button for me. And Slow Bullets? Meh at best.
The marine mammal would like to know if there are any pro-“Slow Bullets” Filers?
{ticky}
I think it was in Philadelphia that I saw a Rothko exhibit, which blew me away. Reproductions cannot touch the originals. I felt like I was staring into the 2001 monolith, and my wife had to eventually come back and lead me away.
I live in Baltimore, and the Baltimore Museum of Art has an extensive collection of Matisse. Didn’t do much for me. Then one day when I was in DC I happened upon an exhibition of the Matisse cutouts at the National Gallery. It was a wonderful display, including even The Swimming Pool, which needs a largish room containing only it. Again, I was transfixed. I loved these pieces, and they taught me how to appreciate Matisse’s paintings as well. Now I think it’s great that the BMA is only two miles from my house and I can visit their Matisses whenever I want.
One of my favorite books is Dance Me to the End of Love, which takes the lyrics to this Leonard Cohen song and illustrates them with Matisse artworks. It’s gorgeous.
At the other end of the museum spectrum was this quirky little place on northern Hawaii, which had anything its elderly owners had found of interest, from WWII memorabilia to velvet paintings. We had to choke down our laughter to keep from offending them. Some of the items were very nice, but then you would turn a corner and find a bad portrait of Secretariat or the manual typewriter they had used to type the item descriptions — at least until they started handwriting them, which didn’t say much for the condition of the glass-enclosed typewriter. (The museum, alas, is no longer there. I’m guessing the owners aren’t, either.)
Peace Is My Middle Name
The medieval material at the Victoria & Albert is not to be sneezed at. Their ivory and carvings really took me away. Their silver and other shinies are a treat. I should have linked to their armaments holdings when we were talking about purty weapons the other day. I was particularly smitten with some of their musical instruments, and there were some miscellaneous items that pleased me too. (These are my photos from 2003, hosted at my flickr page.)
As to natural history museums, I always liked going to the one in Denver, with its dioramas (featuring masterfully realistic backdrop paintings by an artist whose name I used to remember—might have been C. Waldo Love. Kent Pendleton (who hid elves in his paintings in lieu of a signature) seems to have been more recent.). I also like Denver’s art museum, since I didn’t have many chances to see art museums, and Denver’s was available. They have a lot of different kinds of work, but I like their American paintings the best, particularly “Dream of Arcadia” and “The Warning Shadow,” neither of which is likely to be High Art, in the grand scheme of things.
The Whitney, as I say, owns The Subway. When we got there, they were having an exhibit of Disney animation art that took some of the sting of not seeing Tooker away. Later on, I picked up Treasures of Disney Animation Art, which turns out to be pretty much a catalog of the things I saw at that exhibit. And it was on the sale table!
Stoic Cynic
When we went to the Metropolitan Museum the first time, they had a reconstruction of Rodin’s “Gates of Hell.” Very interesting, and it included (a reproduction, no doubt) The Thinker, in context. Smaller than Dobie Gillis had led me to expect! There’s a sculpture in St. Mark’s in Venice that always makes me think of the Burghers of Calais somehow.
Jim Henley
My favorite sculpture garden is the Dr. Seuss sculpture garden in the quad by the Springfield (MA) library and museums. Very large metal Seuss characters (and Geisel himself), and they do not disappoint. Somebody did a lovely job on those critters.
Possibly my favorite museum ever is the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. So much hands-on stuff, and I saw it a couple of times when I could really dig that stuff. I’ve been to other children’s museums, and I still think maybe it was the best of the lot. The Field Museum of Natural History was also one I imprinted on at an early age, but which seems to hold up pretty well.
Jeff Smith
I was looking at a Rothko the other day, still trying to see what my art history teacher and painting teacher see when they look at his work. Same thing when I went across the street from my cousin’s old place in Houston to look at the Rothko Chapel. I don’t seem to get it.
Bookworm1398: Hey – I claimed fifth!
On seeing original paintings: I am not usually patient enough to properly appreciate paintings. I’m more of a history museum fan. However, I was once blown away by an altarpiece at The Cloisters. It was in a dark corner, presumably to keep it from degrading, and it glowed. Nothing else there gave me that sort of reaction, and reproductions of the altarpiece don’t, either.
The other time I remember being impressed to the heart was at Durham Cathedral. There is a memorial to the Venable Bede there, with a beautifully done display of one of his famous texts, which I have sung in choir. At the time there was also a modern wooden statue of a black woman (they do exhibitions there, apparently). Somehow the combination touched me to the heart. I regret that I no longer have the details of the sculptor.
11) DYEING OUTSIDE. I let my hairdresser talk me into some gold glitter a few weeks ago, and liked it well enough to put a (bad) picture up on FB. Enough fannish friends admired it that I’m going to try to do it again in time for WisCon.
(2) SYFY PROTOTYPE. Ziva returns! I mean, Cote de Pablo returns! 🙂 I like de Pablo.
(6) GRAPHIC MARCH MADNESS. Wow, things I actually read are listed! (voting) Whoops, I was so quick, I forgot to include a write-in. I probably would’ve put in “Buying Time.”
(12) RABID PUPPIES. A Tor.com novella?!
ObReading: Kai Ashante Wilson’s novella is pretty good, but perhaps would’ve been better for me to read instead of listen to. Hopefully this won’t be a problem with all of them, i.e., a problem just with me (I do usually reread via audiobook, not listen to new books).
Whoops, ObReading Part 2: I finally finished reading the long 14 sample by Peter Clines and bought the ebook. It turns out to be a whopping 108K words, and I feel like at least at first, there’s a bit too much mundane “I moved, I unpacked, etc.” before odd things start cropping up in the story. I know he’s trying to build up slowly; I just feel like the first X chapters perhaps could’ve been tightened up a little (went to work, boss was a jerk, went home…yawn). But now it’s getting interesting! 🙂
He ended up doing a signing in Portland on his birthday for one of the Hitchhiker books, and was ever so grateful that we brought him a beer.
(He was born four days after I was, which is why it’s so hard to realize he’s been gone all these years.)
12) So now we’re almost at the end of Vee’s enthralling sla – recommendation announcements, anyone care to predict what his best novel choices are going to be? Somewither, Nethereal and Aeronaut’s Windlass seem like the most obvious candidates, plus a cunning would-have-been-nominated-anyway choice for confounding the mundanes – Novik or Stephenson both came high on SP4 and seem like they might fit the bill here too. I haven’t read either, though, so perhaps they contain content that would offend that crowd’s delicate sensibilities?
The last spot, I assume, will be reserved for some Wacky Garbage which may or may not actually fit the nominating criteria…
(12) I liked Penric’s Demon, too. It’s teetering on the edge of my nomination window (I just finally got my PIN straightened out last week and haven’t completed my ballot yet). I’m a bit miffed that Beale did this, which is why he did it. Not to miff me in particular, but to try to confuse and confound nominators in general. I think I’ll just ignore him and nominate what I think was the best regardless of Puppydom.
Aaaand ::Godstalk::
The Rothko Chapel was the culmination of Rothko’s career and is very much not the place to start with his work. (I can say this with some authority, having started with his work there.)
The Houston Museum of Fine Art recently hosted a retrospective of Rothko’s art. Katie is a fan of his, so we went to see it. A lot of his early work had epic, mythological themes. As he developed as an artist, he became less figurative and more abstract…but I found myself with the impression that the epic themes, even the concept of a story, was still there; but that Rothko was interested in making the viewer do more of the work and the painting do less. So that even when his paintings were just large areas of semi-rectangular color, there was still a story in Rothko’s mind.
In the late ’50s to ’60s, he was very clearly moving in a minimalist direction, toning down his colors and reducing the contrast between areas of color. And then the painting in the Rothko Chapel are quite clearly the absolute minimum possible, with their black on midnight purple.
So I wouldn’t say that seeing the retrospective exhibition made me a Rothko fan, but it certainly gave me a deeper understanding of his career.
Clearly, indisputably, I am the True Fifth.
Clicky.
“Slow Bullets”? Yeah, it’s on my longlist.
(5) Fish in a barrel much?
“Slow Bullets” is on my longlist too. A rather fascinating unreliable narrator and a complex redemption story that in other hands would have been a hefty novel. An exercise in Al refining his craft.
I started “Slow Bullets”… but it started slow.
So I switched to my planned re-read of the Vorkosigan series, which will culminate with reading Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen for Hugo consideration.
I may get back to “Slow Bullets”, or I may not. I have a lot of other books and stories I want to get to before March 31. Given the lukewarm reception it’s received from several Filers whose tastes seem to coincide with mine, it’s not really at the top of the TBR pile right now.
Arifel: Novik or Stephenson both came high on SP4 and seem like they might fit the bill here too. I haven’t read either, though, so perhaps they contain content that would offend that crowd’s delicate sensibilities?
Both those novels are absolutely rife with SJW-ness. If VD slated them, it would be a sure indication that he hadn’t actually read them.
11) Working in corporate America, the closes I have come was bleaching my hair in my late 20s. The best they could do was take my black hair to a canary yellow.
Two days of that in the office and my boss asked me to dye it black again.
Thanks to double standards, however, my grey hair makes me look “distinguished” now.
Sure there can’t be a beer called “Heinleinikin”? That might be logical.
@Kip W: The Memorial Art Gallery may not have many notable paintings, but there’s one eye-catching piece I look at every time I go there: I could not find the artist and title with an online search but you’ll probably know the one I mean. It’s a full-length portrait of a modishly dressed young woman of the early 20th century. Her bold, almost confrontational stance and frank gaze speak of someone who is thriving in city life.
They had an exhibit last year; I think the theme was something about vision. The one piece I remember from that was a bunch of little bottles with random snapshots in them suspended from strings. The act of standing under this forest of bottles peering up into them had an ineffable charm.
I fancy a pint of that Ursula K Le Guinness.
Vasha
It’s time for me to visit the gallery again, probably. I can’t place the picture you’re referring to. FIrst, I thought of Bougereau’s Young Priestess, but she’s not modish, she’s Classical, and probably late 19th century. I looked at other images, but haven’t seen the one you mean, as far as I can tell. I wish their online catalog was more exhaustive. The ‘explore’ page is a selection, and you more or less have to name a picture to look at it otherwise. I like the Maxfield Parrish piece they have. It’d be interesting to see him do one of a woman in contemporary garb. Do they have a portrait by Sargent? I kept seeing one I liked in search results, but they always led to Pinterest, which blanks out the screen before I get to what I’m looking for.
Nigel
Budrys Weiser for me.
I’ll take a Lester Del Red.
The Builders is pretty good. The current ads I’ve seen for it call the Magnificent Seven meets the Wind in the Willows. But I’d say its more Sam Peckinpah’s Redwall. Super cynical and violent.
We British can content ourselves, I suppose, with Ken Bulmer’s Cider.
Slow Bullets ended well but it was rather a dreary slog getting there. There are better novellas.
I don’t drink alcohol, but I’ll have a CJ Cherryh Diet Coke.
I quite liked Slow Bullets; it’s on my longlist.
When I read Slow Bullets, I tried to calculate its word count and got something in the area of 45,000 words, which means that even though it’s a novella by modern standards, it’s a full novel according to the Hugo’s antiquated divisions. Which is too bad, because it’d be a contender in the novella category, but has no chance as a novel.
@Kendall – I got annoyed with 14 in a place or two, but it was ultimately pretty fun. It works better as sf than horror, though.
As for interesting museum ideas, a parasite museum seems especially likely to be invented in a culture that eats lots of raw meat.