(1) EMMA WATSON IS BELLE. The new Beauty and the Beast teaser trailer conveys the faintest hint of the movie’s remarkable cast.
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a live-action re-telling of the studio’s animated classic which refashions the classic characters from the tale as old as time for a contemporary audience, staying true to the original music while updating the score with several new songs.
“Beauty and the Beast” is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realize the kind heart and soul of the true Prince within.
The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston, the handsome, but shallow villager who woos Belle; Oscar® winner Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle’s eccentric, but lovable father; Josh Gad as Lefou, Gaston’s long-suffering aide-de-camp; Golden Globe® nominee Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, the candelabra; Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the harpsichord; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, the feather duster; six-time Tony Award® winner Audra McDonald as Madame Garderobe, the wardrobe; Oscar nominee Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the mantel clock; and two-time Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson as the teapot, Mrs. Potts.
(2) POUNDED IN THE POUND. “Chuck Tingle” has registered therabidpuppies domain and put up a website.
Hello my name is CHUCK TINGLE (worlds greatest author).
sometimes devilmen are so busy planning scoundrel attacks they forget to REGISTER important website names. this is a SOFT WAY of the antibuckaroo agenda but is also good because it makes it easy for BUDS WHO KNOW LOVE IS REAL to prove love (all). please understand this is website to take DARK MAGIC and replace with REAL LOVE for all who kiss the sky. here are some links that make bad dogs blue very upset (as angry NORMAL men)
(3) FUTURE OF TREK FAN FILMS STILL CLOUDY. ScienceFiction.com feels that despite J.J. Abrams’ announcement that the Axanar lawsuit is “going away” it may not be that simple – and it may not clear the way for other fan films.
For CBS and Paramount, the issue seems to be far from over. Per reports from Tommy Kraft, creator of the ‘Star Trek: Horizon’ fan film, made on the project’s Facebook page, CBS has contacted him within the last 30 days with a cease and desist on a sequel project that he was preparing to launch.
Kraft’s statement on the Star Trek: Horizon FB page begins:
Yesterday it was announced by JJ Abrams and Justin Lin that the lawsuit over the Axanar project would be “going away.” I’ve had many people ask if Federation Rising, the sequel to Horizon, will now happen. As some of you may know, we had plans to launch a Kickstarter for Federation Rising on April 23rd, but just days after announcing our plans, CBS informed us that we could not continue. After fact-checking the phone number and email address, I can confirm that it was absolutely CBS I spoke to.
Repeated attempts to communicate with CBS via phone and email since that incident have gone unanswered. As of this time, we’ve received no indication that we would be allowed to legally continue our plans to create Federation Rising and the poor reception to our original science fiction space film, Project Discovery, has indicated a decline in interest for crowdfunded films. This whole experience has left me disenchanted with the Star Trek fan film genre and uninterested in moving forward on Federation Rising even if we were told it would now be okay. So the question is: why?
Quite frankly, I’ve been quiet on this for some time but feel the need to speak out. The Axanar case caused a rift in the community and has led to many folks feeling wary of new projects. With the announcement that the lawsuit was going to “go away”, I became quite frustrated, much moreso than when CBS told me I could not move forward with Federation Rising. The reason is two-fold: Axanar should not get off so easy and it has come to my attention that CBS/Paramount had plans to drop the lawsuit for sometime but still told me not to continue with my sequel due to the legal troubles with Axanar.
Kraft seems far more angry at Axanar’s Alec Peters than CBS, for his post continues with a detailed history of Kraft’s involvement with the earlier Axanar movie in which Peters is heavily criticized.
(4) SWIRSKY CONFOUNDS BULLIES. You can too. “Guest Post by Rachel Swirsky: Confounding Bullies by Raising Money for LGBTQ HealthCare” on Ann Leckie’s blog.
Since I’m here on Ann’s blog, I’ll point out that if we reach our $600 stretch goal, she and I, along with writers John Chu, Adam-Troy Castro, Ken Liu, Juliette Wade, and Alyssa Wong, will write a story together about dinosaurs. I really want this to happen, so I hope we reach the goal. We’ve got about a week left to go!
(The $600 goal was met today. Check the following link to learn what the $700 stretch goal is….)
If you want the whole story behind the fundraiser, you can read it here– https://www.patreon.com/posts/posteriors-for-5477113. But here’s what I have to say today:
There’s advice I’ve heard all my life. You’ve probably heard it, too.
In elementary school, it was “ignore the bullies.” It never seemed to work…..
Bullies can hurt people. That’s what “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” is about, and perhaps why it makes bullies howl. But you know what else it’s done? It’s inspired hundreds of people to come to me and tell me about their experiences being bullied as kids or being hated as adults, being pummeled or harassed, and how they’ve moved past it. How “Dinosaur” has been cathartic for them, has helped them realize they aren’t alone.
Bullies aren’t the only ones who can travel in groups. We have our bonding and our strength. And at its best, it can be fun, and silly. It can destroy hatred with humor and positive energy. It can emphasize kindness and compassion. I believe in the power of humor, and I believe in the power of people clasping hands to help other people.
Don’t get me wrong. Humor won’t stop the bullies either. We’re always going to have to spend our time walking carefully around some amount of crap on the carpet. But humor reveals that the emperor is not only naked, but not even an emperor—as often as not, he’s some poor, pathetic exiled criminal, dreaming of ruling the world with an army of poltergeists and toddlers.
(5) SCHOLARSHIPS FOR WRITING CLASSES. Cat Rambo is creating “New Plunkett Scholarships for my online classes”.
Going forward, each class has one slot that is the Plunkett slot, which is reserved for someone who couldn’t otherwise pay for the class. To apply for a Plunkett, mail me at catrambo AT gmail.com with the subject line Plunkett Application (class name/date). In the email, provide a brief statement regarding you want to take the class. Plunkett eligibility is self-determined and covers the cost of the class in full; it is based on whether or not you can afford to take the class otherwise. If you can’t but feel it would be helpful to you, I encourage you to apply. The name of the recipient remains private. I particularly welcome QUILTBAG and PoC participants. The Plunkett scholarships are named for Edward Plunkett, who wrote as Lord Dunsany.
Why am I calling them the Plunkett scholarships? Because it amuses me, and because that’s the name I gave the little press I’m using to self-publish some story collections. There’s some interesting class-based tensions coiled inside the Plunkett/Dunsany name and I figured that made it a good name for a scholarship whose criteria are economic.
Why am I doing it? Recently Keffy R.M. Kehrli paid for one of my classes for a student and it got me to thinking about it. F&SF has a rich tradition of paying it forward, and while I’m trying to do some of that with the SFWA Presidency, this is another way to help ensure a rich range of new voices in the field. I want these folks around to write wonderful fiction for me to read. So yep, this is a purely selfish move on my part.
(6) CATCH. There seems to be an extra page in Joe Hill’s encyclopedic knowledge of cinema.
Whenever I'm in Iowa I recall that film where a guy builds a library in a cornfield & and all these dead people bring back overdue books.
— Joe Hill (@joe_hill) May 22, 2016
(7) DESERT ISLAND BOOK. The question of the day from Baen.
If you were shipwrecked and could only keep one thing, which Baen book would it be? (Because who needs survival gear?)
— Baen Books (@BaenBooks) May 22, 2016
(8) ALTERNATIVE HISTORY. Editor Glenn Hauman has launched an Indiegogo appeal to fund the Altered States of the Union anthology filled with stories that ask questions like these —
What if
- New Amsterdam was merged into New Jersey instead of becoming New York?
- Freed slaves were given the state of Mississippi after the Civil War?
- Aaron Burr succeeded in invading Mexico?
- Joseph Smith and his religious followers settled in Jackson County, Missouri?
The authors who will supply the answers are Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald, Brendan DuBois, Malon Edwards, G.D. Falksen, Michael Jan Friedman, David Gerrold, Alisa Kwitney, Gordon Linzner, Sarah McGill, Mackenzie Reide, Ian Randal Strock, and Ramón Terrell.
The goal is $5,000
(9) TWO MISTAKES. Steve Davidson takes on Jim Henley and George R.R. Martin in “Hugo Gloom & Doom” at Amazing Stories.
The second mistake is in thinking that the Hugo Awards are a thing that is defined by its individual parts – the voting methodology, the ceremony, the lists, the shape of the award itself.
The Hugo Awards are a concept. A self-referential celebration of Fannishness. Changing how, or when, the awards are determined doesn’t negatively effect its character, so long as well-meaning Fans continue to participate in good faith – and despite the actions of those who have negative intentions. The Hugo Awards are a belief in the rightness and goodness of Fanishness; if, at the end of time, there are only two Fans left in the universe and they decide to host a Worldcon and vote for Hugo Awards, it will still be Worldcon, the awards will still reflect the traditions and history of Fandom and they will still retain their Fannish character. (And it doesn’t take two Fans. It only takes ONE fan to make something Fannish.)
Right now, well-meaning Fans, for whom there is no question of the character of the awards, are exhibiting true Fannishness by voluntarily working on methods designed to address the issues that have arisen over the past couple of years. They do this out of love for the awards and, by extension, love for Fandom. NOTHING can change or diminish that. As long as that love remains, the Hugo Awards will retain their character.
You’ll need to read the post to find out what the first mistake is….
(10) SAY IT AIN’T SO. Can it be that some movie superheroes don’t look exactly as they do in comic books? Where is my forehead cloth?
The outfit featured in Deadpool set the new standard, and both Black Panther and Spider-Man’s costumes in Captain America: Civil War look fantastic. But for every comic-accurate costume, there are plenty more page-to-screen adaptations that are just…wrong.
(11) FINDING LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. Frontiers of Science and Science Fiction plans a live online panel May 27.
How will we discover life in the universe? What are the cosmos’ biggest unknowns? How do scientific discoveries inspire and transform the stories we tell? Join sci-fi authors Larry Niven, Kim Stanley Robinson, Connie Willis, Allen Steele, Charlie Stross, Joe Haldeman and Harry Turtledove and a panel of the scientists and engineers of the Hubble and Webb space telescopes as they explore the places where their worlds collide.
Get insight into the scientific and creative processes as they discuss topics ranging from why we can’t seem to find evidence of intelligent aliens to the ways that science happens in real life.
The panel will be livestreamed May 27 at 11:15 a.m. ET on Frontiers of Science and Science Fiction (YouTube), and archived for viewing later on the HubbleSite YouTube channel.
(12) YAY PLUTO. Continuing insights from flyby data: “Scientists make huge discoveries on Pluto”.
It’s been nearly a year since New Horizons blasted past Pluto and sent back incredible images and groundbreaking data, but because of its incredible distance from the Earth, data is still coming in at a trickle, and it’s leading to new discoveries about the planet on a regular basis.
For example, a new study published earlier this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Space Physics found that Pluto behaves less like a comet and more like a planet in the way it interacts with solar wind — a big deal considering the fact that just a few years ago Pluto was demoted from its former status as the ninth planet in our solar system.
(13) CLARKE CENTER. The La Jolla Light has a recap of the first lecture in the Clarke Center’s “Science Fiction Meets Architecture” series, which featured Kim Stanley Robinson and Usman Haque — “Sci-fi meets architecture in the Clarke Center. What would it be like to live in 2080 London?”
Robinson warned those gathered that sea levels are rising even faster than scientists thought they would. “This is one of the greatest problems that humanity faces,” he said, noting America might end up with some of its major cities — like New York and Miami — halfway under water, becoming a “Super Venice, Italy.”
Robinson explained that the problem stems from melting ice in western Antarctica and Greenland, an unstoppable process once it gets going.
He is also worried that the ice from eastern Antarctica will also begin to melt to compound the problem.
Robinson mentioned one possible solution; building 60 huge pumping stations that would pump the melting ice water back up onto the Antarctic bedrock for refreezing.
His presentation was followed by a “Telesmatic” lecture slideshow by architect Haque that came over the Internet from London in real time. Haque is a founding partner of Umbrellium and Thingful, and has won awards from the Design Museum UK, World Technology, Japan Arts Festival, and Asia Digital Art Association.
Haque prefaced his talk with the statement, “I tend to work in the here and now. I don’t usually speculate about many years into the future,” and went on to clarify that he doesn’t consider his work to be “speculative,” which typically produces ironic, tongue-in-cheek designs. He calls his type of futuristic architecture “participatory design,” because “it has no final images or outcomes, but rather designs a system that enables others to produce outcomes.”
(14) SOMEWHERE OVER. This installment of What If by xkcd starts with a Star Wars-related question — “Tatooine Rainbow”.
Since rainbows are caused by the refraction of the sunlight by tiny droplets of rainwater, what would rainbow look like on Earth if we had two suns like Tatooine?
(15) SADDLE UP. Fast work by Camestros Felapton. Mere minutes after Castalia House announced its new Peter Grant western novel, Camestros was pitching a parody cover to Timothy the Talking Cat.
[Camestros] Look what I made you! [Timothy] Not interested.
[Camestros] But it is the new old-genre. The happening place for aspiring alt-right cat-based publishers.
[Timothy] It’s just not my thing….
[Camestros] Vox is doing one. See https://voxday.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/brings-lightning-by-peter-grant.html The Boycott-Tor-Books guy is writing it. Manly men with guns! Manly American men with guns!
[Timothy] (sigh) What’s that thing on the cover.
[Camestros] A walrus – you LIKE walruses. They’ve got whiskers.
(16) PETER GRANT. On the other hand, Peter Grant is delighted with Vox Day as his editor: “Why did I publish through Castalia House?” at Bayou Renaissance Man.
Vox was my editor in getting the book ready for publication. He stated up front that he wanted to ‘make a good book better’, not try to remake it in his image, or make it into something it wasn’t. I found him a very effective editor indeed. He went through my manuscript and made many proposed changes, averaging two or three per page, but did so on the basis that these were his suggestions rather than his demands. I was free to accept or reject each of his proposed changes. In about two-thirds of cases, I went along with his proposals. They did, indeed, make the book better. In the remaining third of cases, I went with what I’d originally written, or re-wrote a few lines, because I felt it fitted in better with my vision for the book and what I hope will be the series into which it will grow. Vox accepted that with aplomb. The man’s a gentleman.
There will doubtless be those who’ll be disappointed that I’ve chosen to publish with a man, and a publishing house, that they regard with the same revulsion as the Devil regards holy water. To them I can only say, go read what my friend Larry Correia had to say about Vox last year. I endorse his sentiments. I don’t share all – or possibly even most – of Vox’s opinions, but then he’s never asked me to share or support them in any way, shape or form. He’s merely tried to be the best editor he can be, and help me be the best writer I can be. I’ll be damned if I condemn him because of past history or exchanges to which I wasn’t a party, and in which I had no involvement at all. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I certainly won’t demand that he embrace political correctness. As you’ve probably noted from my blog header, that’s not exactly a position I embrace myself!
(17) MORE BOOM, MORE DOOM. Here’s the Independence Day: Resurgence official International Extended Trailer #1.
(18) RETRO RACHEL. Here’s Rachel Bloom at the 2011 Worldcon singing “Season’s of Love” …in Klingon!
Rachel Bloom’s performance at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention. She was at the convention because her song “F*** Me Ray Bradbury” was nominated for a Hugo award.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Will R., Vox Day, and Tracy Vogel for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]
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Westerns–No one has mentioned the late Robert B. Parker’s Wyatt Earp novel (Gunman’s Rhapsody) or the four Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch books. The latter are very clearly Spenser-out-west, with the wrinkle of having the viewpoint character not the Spenser-equivalent but his sidekick. (The series has been continued by Robert Knott, whose work I have not sampled–but if the other resurrections of Parker series are any indication, it’s chalk and cheese. Never play poker with a guy called Doc or read a continuation by a writer called Ace.)
True Grit, the novel, is an absolute gem. Mattie rocks.
@Aaron
I’d thought I’d seen some fairly informed opinion that Teddy’s effect on the Locus awards was likely to be minimal? (Though to be fair, I’ll note that Ms. Buis was making a case for him ruling the roost, but I’d lost the thread of their argument.)
@TYP: He doesn’t have to have a lot of impact to affect a handful of entries. We don’t know the exact impact overall, and likely never will because Locus (to my knowledge) doesn’t release the sort of information that would allow for any kind of assessment into that question, but I’m not sure you can use the Locus results as a certain guide about Puppy-related impact or non-impact on the Hugos.
@Paul
Not explained, merely asserted. I guess there wasn’t enough room in the margin. I confess, JCW succeeded in making me laugh, though.
His silly excuse isn’t even correct. “Asian” is sibilant and glides through the ear (inner or outer). There is nothing “angular” about it in terms of the sound of it. Oriental, on the other hand, has multiple sound switches (Or-ee-ent-al) and “feels” more jagged to me as you hear or say it. Poet’s ear. Poet’s butt maybe.
That reminds me. Shameful confession: I recently discovered reddit (r/handwriting and r/penmanshipporn were my gateway drugs) and have been traveling through various subreddits. One that has caught my fascination is r/justneckbeardthings in which people discuss “neckbeards” aka the pretentious yet inept subset of nerddom in which the (usually angrily or whinily single) men put fair ladies on pedestals, consider themselves true gentlemen, and grind their teeth at the guys who act like jerks who get the hot babes while they themselves are “friendzoned”. I’m sort of fascinated because most of the guys I really liked and dated in college and shortly after would fit in this category (though generally had some more social skills than most of the guys here) and yet … I liked those guys. I liked what they liked. I liked hanging out with them. It just makes me wonder if everything, including nerddom, has become that much more toxic. I never had to prove any “geek cred” (of course I wasn’t a hot babe either). I dunno, I’m rambling away from my point.
Which was, John C. Wright definitely would fit into this category, other than his fanatical religious beliefs. (Neckbeards tend to be fanatically atheist — the sort that have to mock about “invisible sky fairies” at any remotely religious reference). But his language, his prickliness at any offense, his inflated sense of his abilities and talent (vs. his actual situation) and even the way he talks about his “gentle wife” — mondo neckbeardy.
Perhaps Scikaneder’s The Flute. They removed the magic. *rage*
Pounded In The Poet’s Butt By Argle-Bargle.
cmm: I know a lot of geeky guys, many of whom visually fit the mold of ‘neckbeards’, and few, or probably none, of them actually are that toxic. I think the issue is more that the toxic ones find one another, and feed off one another, and encourage the visible display of their worst traits — NOT that they are in fact a really large part of the overall geeky guy population.
@cmm – I suspect (and hope, for my younger self’s sake) that a lot of nerdish/weird young men go through something of a “neckbeard” stage. It takes a little maturity to admit that maybe the problem you have finding someone to date is on your end, and if you aren’t naturally* social, it takes some work to both make yourself appealing and send and properly translate social cues. Then there are those dudes who truly believe in the friendzone because they really do think “friend” isn’t a thing you can be with someone of the opposite sex. I suspect they are forever stuck in that nasty spot.
* Yeah, everyone has to learn to socialize, but it comes easier for some, through temperament, upbringing, or whatever.
Lenora Rose/kathodus:
Yes I get the feeling that the “neckbeards” the site likes to poke at are on the far end of the nerd spectrum and don’t actually get out in public much. They tend to do a lot of their pose-striking online and in private messages. The really toxic ones seem to drift into the “men going their own way”/”forever alone” world (the Isla Vista shooter referring to himself as a “true gentleman” in one of his YouTube videos right before he goes out and kills a bunch of people is the prime example).
Anyway, there’s a lot more going on with many of these guys — psych issues (lots of depression and social anxiety, often narcissism), sometimes autism, histories of messed up family relationships and abuse…I keep reading groups like r/foreveralone because I’m fascinated and repelled at the same time. I feel a lot of empathy for their frustration with their lives but on the other hand they frequently come off as so entitled that I just want to bang my head on the wall. So I lurk and read and think.
It’s comments like these that make me wish for a “like” or upvote button!
@Jack Lint
Does that mean visiting the States would make me an Occidental Tourist?
Louis L’Amour is the only western writer that I have explored seriously. I’ve enjoyed many of his novels.
(16) “Vox was my editor in getting the book ready for publication. He stated up front that he wanted to ‘make a good book better’, not try to remake it in his image, or make it into something it wasn’t. I found him a very effective editor indeed. He went through my manuscript and made many proposed changes, averaging two or three per page, but did so on the basis that these were his suggestions rather than his demands. I was free to accept or reject each of his proposed changes. In about two-thirds of cases, I went along with his proposals. They did, indeed, make the book better. In the remaining third of cases, I went with what I’d originally written, or re-wrote a few lines, because I felt it fitted in better with my vision for the book and what I hope will be the series into which it will grow. Vox accepted that with aplomb. The man’s a gentleman.”
Speaking as a former professional non-fiction desk editor, I was under the impression that all this was absolutely standard procedure for any editor of original fictional work (i.e. not being written to hire for a franchised property).
I’m mystified that Peter Grant seems to think this in any way exceptional, unless he’s previously run foul of the sort of untrained scammers who prey on the would-be self- or vanity-published market (which I suppose is entirely possible).
While we’re discussing Westerns, I’d like to give a possibly obvious shout out for Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902). I first read it as a child (some time in the 60s), and on a much more recent re-read felt it held up very well. It has the advantage of being written within 10 years of the events it fictionalised, by someone familiar with the actual locale at first hand.
@Xtifr: (Top Ramen flavors)
Does the existence of Top Ramen imply the existence of an inferior Bottom Ramen? That stuff would probably taste like ass…
@Matt Y: “No clue where [Peter Grant]’s getting the erotica stuff. He must be looking in the back part of the bookstore instead of what’s on the Western shelf.”
There’s a thriving “cowboy erotica” subgenre out there, and on Amazon, there are no “shelves” to separate it from regular ol’ Westerns.
@TYP: “So the soooper genius didn’t even register the domain name.”
What Heather Rose Jones said. There are so many TLDs out there that registering all possible variations on a domain name really is cost-prohibitive… and that’s before even getting into “rabidpuppies” vs. “therabidpuppies” vs. “rabid-puppies” vs. “the-rabid-puppies” vs….
@various: (Occidental/Oriental)
This is starting to remind me of the guy who got ejected from China and spent the rest of his life feeling disoriented…
Did anyone read Deerslayer? We had it at home, but I never read it. Always regretted that.
Oops! I meant to add: The Virginian is sometimes cited as the first “western novel”, and has a romantic sub-plot.
Rev Bob
It’s a matter of prep. Bottom Ramen tastes okay, but you have to pound the hell out of it.
@Stoic – I’ve read most of Woodrell’s books – LOVE Winter’s Bone, it’s an amazing novel.
True Grit – there’s a blurb they seem to love to quote from on many editions I’ve seen, some review which praises the book even as it basically describes the climactic action in the book. ‘Ware True Grit spoiler blurb.
I read dozens of L’Amours when i was young. Every now and then I go back and read one… my impression is that they are wildly variable in quality.
Recently I read a powerful “revisionist” literary western from about 1960, “Butcher’s Crossing” by John Williams.
http://www.amazon.com/Butchers-Crossing-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171985
When Elmore Leonard died I wanted to read something by him and randomly bought one of the westerns — Hombre. Really liked reading it, and liked the late 60s movies as well, other than the fact that Paul Newman was cast as a 1/2 Native American (he was good in the part but distracting in his Paul Newman-ness as someone who was supposed to be ostracized from both societies.
> “Perhaps Schikaneder’s The Flute. They removed the magic.”
Since it’s without music, then technically, what they removed was the Flute. Also the Glockenspiel.
Schikaneder’s “The”?
Yes, please. With sugar.
@cmm, Lenora Rose, Kathodus
I think that there are a lot of hetero nerds who go through a stage of being the whining neckbeard. I have a great deal of sympathy for it, because I certainly speak from experience. I know that not all hetero nerds go through that stage, so there’s no way to avoid not owning up for it. Some people were nerds without being monsters – so everyone does it is an even worse excuse than usual.
Because of that, yes, I can laugh a bit at the very good comparison between JCW and some of the more toxic types of neckbeards, right down to the commonality of behavior, if not belief, between JCW and some people of your acquaintance (and mine). Again, I’ve been there. And in a weird way, that has me much more on the side of it being the individual ex-neckbeard’s responsibility to show that they’re not toxic. The targets of their toxicity get told to “understand” too much abusive behavior as it is. It’s not on them, it’s on the individual to show they’ve joined adult life after a period of saying what nice guy they are.
@Rev. Bob, Heather Rose Jones
Excellent points; I’ll confine my amusement to the scheudenfraude about Tingle, and his vast skills in performance art and light hearted trollery.
I have “The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard” on my Kindle and have slowly read about 80% of them. Excellent suspenseful stories mainly set in the desert southwest, most originally published in magazines in the ’50s. They don’t have the humour and amusing dialogue of Leonard’s later crime novels but they are very readable.
I figured that Grant’s sneer at erotica Western’s was aimed at Elizabeth Bear’s Karen Memory and its same-sex romances. As usual, Grant is clueless and tasteless, and I liked Karen Memory quite a lot.
@TYP – Yeah, it’s the definition of entitled behavior, and it’s pathetic.
@cmm: Which was, John C. Wright definitely would fit into this category, other than his fanatical religious beliefs. (Neckbeards tend to be fanatically atheist — the sort that have to mock about “invisible sky fairies” at any remotely religious reference).
Wright is a recent convert to Catholicism and by his own description was that sort of atheist. He packed his bags full of himself and carried himself to a new house.
There’s a Jonah Hex animated short that’s far better than the Hex film and is a damn good Western genre story. You can see it here. I’ve heard he shows up in The Legends of Tomorrow but I’ve not seen the episode yet.
From the completely paranoid and recognizably so department:
There is still no evidence that Tingle is not in league with puppies.
Do not get me wrong: there is also no evidence that Tingle is in league with puppies.
The humor and current statements made are equally supportive of both theories.
On the other hand, who is more likely to have known the availability of that URL – someone who is hanging with the folks who were originally holding it, or someone who just happened to get lucky?
My brain should probably be pounded in its butt for going there, but regardless, jury is still out on the likely affiliation(s), despite the effective pointedness of the humor.
I keep on seeing a blog post sometime around the evening of August 20th that says “SJWs is sooooo stupid and gullible…..”
And that is why Zoe Quinn is working on his game.
@ Hampus
Don’t read The Deerslayer; read Mark Twain’s essay on the literary sins of Fennimore Cooper. It’s a hoot, and spot on.
I’m pretty sure the domain was registered for the first time on May 23rd. I’m not entirely sure, but that’s what it looks like.
I find it hard to believe Voxman is in league with Tingle.
Not to cross streams*, but Joe Hill has listed True Grit as one of his all-time favorite books.
I always liked the movie version of Occidental Tourist. Especially the slowly cooking turkey. But weren’t part of the Ottoman Empire considered to be in the Orient?
* Saw some of the new Ghostbusters toys at Target. Frankly, they’re not getting as much space as some of the other summer movies. Secret Lives of Pets had a lot of space and I didn’t even know that was coming out. Finding Dory had the most space of the next wave of movies.
Domain names and puppies:
Registering every variation of a brand is difficult. You could make an argument that Tingle was taking the easy route by adding “the” at the beginning. The domain name without the “the” at the beginning is registered, but hosts nothing publicly. The rabids have relied entirely on vox’s blog and news sites to put the brand in the public eye.
While the whois information for therabidpuppies.com is anonymized by domaindiscreet.com and Perfect Privacy, LLC so is Tingle’s primary domain, so there’s at least a connection there. Vox himself doesn’t seem to ever register domains, relying on blogspot. Castalia House is registered at Osoite who likely does the hosting for the site.
More important than simple domains, though, is Google search rankings. Currently the top result for “rabid puppies” on google is a wikipedia page for the sad puppies. The second result is File770.
Tingle’s site is on the second page slightly below Vox’s blog, but climbing. And that’s despite not having the terms “rabid” or “puppies” anywhere in the body of the page (only a single meta tag containing the site’s url mentions either)
None of this has anything to do with the price of tea in the orient, though.
@Steve Davidson There is still no evidence that Tingle is not in league with puppies.
I’ll take trufen paranoia for $1,000 Alex.
I can totally see VD or any puppy leader sending people to give money to support Zoe Quinn and Rachel Swirsky as part of their sooper genius plan. Uh huh.
I suppose they could have a new leader or member of the ELoE, one who can keep things quiet, and has a really evil plan(TM) which is based on giving money to their enemies and boosting their reputations, which unveiling of themselves as Chuck Tingle will… make us feel foolish for enjoying his performance while having supported their enemies? Yep that would be sooper duper genius and I know I’d like die from the embarrassment of it. Or you know not.
@Steve Davidson: “On the other hand, who is more likely to have known the availability of that URL – someone who is hanging with the folks who were originally holding it, or someone who just happened to get lucky?”
Anyone who could be bothered to look, which is quite often The Opposition when politics are involved. Feel free to look up TedCruz.com as another example of how this kind of thing works. (Seriously, go there. You wanna tell me that was set up by a Cruz insider?) Whitehouse.com was one of the first big-name “change the suffix to get hits” sites; that link goes to the Wikipedia entry detailing the event. (See also the .org variant during GWB’s administration, mentioned on the same page.)
And that was twenty years ago. This is hardly a new shtick.
Whether a domain is registered or not – as opposed to who has registered it – is public information. It has to be; that’s kinda how the internet functions. If it’s available, registration is completely first-come, first-served. Sure, you might have to deal with arbitration if you step on the wrong toes, but the damage is already done.
@various: (summer movies)
I just picked up the ebooks for The Complete Independence Day Omnibus and Independence Day: Crucible, which is the prequel to the new movie. The omnibus collects the original novelization, its prequel (Silent Zone), and the one-day-later sequel (War in the Desert). At a glance, Crucible appears to go deep flashback to 1947, stop for tea in the original storyline, and spend the rest of the book telling us what happened in the 20 years between Then and Now… setting the stage for Resurgence next month.
If I look at it as spending sixteen bucks for four novels, it’s not a bad deal. I also picked up the 20th Anniversary Blu-ray release of the first movie, now that they’ve finally put both the theatrical and extended cuts in HD.
@msb —
Armor of Light is by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett, Melissa’s partner of many years, now unfortunately deceased. Lisa and I had been friends since high school. 🙁
There was subsequently a hardcover edition, from NESFA Press. I was the editor.
was not aware of the Quinn relationship; it definitely turns the paranoid down several notches
Speaking of Westerns:
– Theodore Sturgeon wrote a few, including THE RARE BREED (referring to Herefords. Per the cit, the book was “a novelization of the 1966 movie The Rare Breed, which starred James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith.” And also “The King and Four Queens,” another movie novelization. And there’s also a collection, Sturgeon’s West, some of which, IIRC, are fantasy (based in the West)
– Frank O’Rourke, best known to sf fans for INSTANT GOLD (one of my favorites), wrote a bunch of westerns, notably THE SWIFT RUNNER (which I liked a lot).
And, speaking of Westerns, what about that TV series with that Captain Kirk guy? 🙂 Wasn’t that supposed to be a western, modulo rocket ships and ray guns \\\\\\\ phasers?
James Davis Nicoll on May 24, 2016 at 10:18 am said:
*Snerk*
It’s worth noting that disproving Gödel is not like disproving Einstein. Einstein came up with a theory to explain observed facts. Disproving Einstein would simply take finding some new observation that doesn’t fit his theory. That wouldn’t make the fact of, e.g., gravitation lensing go away, but it would require a more sophisticated theory which could account for both gravitational lensing and the new observation.
Gödel, on the other hand, offered us something closer to a disproof. He found a counter-example. All the mathematical wrangling in the world won’t make his counter-example go away, any more than discovering a new physical phenomenon not accounted for in Einstein’s theories will make gravitational lensing go away.
Nevertheless, it was an amusing argument. Reminds me of Bob Shaw’s The Wooden Astronauts, where, after a book filled with some very dubious physics, he reveals, at the end, so quickly you could easily miss it, that in this particular universe, pi equals three! Which means it’s a universe that doesn’t make any sort of sense from our perspective, so all bets are off! I thought it was brilliant. 🙂
Gödel being disproven actually makes about as much sense as pi equaling three (in a plane). You can’t get there from here, but it’s still an amusing conceit. Though I’d be more impressed if JCW showed any signs of understanding the implications of his claim.
@Jack Lint
Indeed; the museum at the University of Chicago that contains the (extensive) collection of artifacts from ancient Iran, Mesopotamia, and Egypt is called the Oriental Institute, because back when ships sank more often, that was the Far East.
(It’s an an excellent museum, by the way – it treats those cultures as ends in themselves, and not merely as preludes or stage sets for Alexander and the Romans.)
kathodus: Then there are those dudes who truly believe in the friendzone because they really do think “friend” isn’t a thing you can be with someone of the opposite sex.
I don’t think it’s that so much as that these guys all believe that they are entitled to have the woman in question regard them as a potential date/boyfriend. When they complain about “Friendzoning” they are saying, “How dare you not even consider me as a potential boyfriend? I’ve done and said all the right things; therefore, I am entitled to the opportunity to be your boyfriend.”
This also ties in with the “female vending machine” mentality, where these guys feel that putting “nice actions” into the machine means that they are entitled to get sex or dating in return. “How dare you not give me what I’ve paid for?”
I rather like the sound of ‘oriental’. There’s a lot to work with there. Or maybe I just have fond memories of Orienta, Oklahoma. But I think it’s pretty.
Then there’s the New Leviathan Oriental Fox-Trot Orchestra (which awoke some years ago). . . .
The buttbuttination of President Voxman considered as a downhill Pixel Scroll.
Daniel Dern: Let’s not forget Shatner’s sorta western TV series, Barbary Coat, where he played a secret agent in 19th-century San Francisco.
And whoever else: I loved The Deerslayer, literary sins and all.
@TYP: As I recall, at one time (19th-early 20th C?) the Orient was broken down into three parts; the Near East was the Ottoman possessions in the Balkans, the Middle East was southwest Asia plus Egypt, and the Far East was everything east of Persia.
Didn’t Joseph wear that in the Bible?