(1) EMERGENCY KERFUFFLE. When the New York Times recently reported that “the Internet Archive is ending its program of offering free, unrestricted copies of e-books because of a lawsuit from publishers, which said lending out books without compensation for authors or publishing houses was ‘willful mass copyright infringement’”, part of the internet fell on Chuck Wendig who had called IA a ”pirate site” for setting up the so-called National Emergency Library, even though he was only one of many to do so. His thread starts here. Update: “Only approved followers can see @ChuckWendig’s Tweets”
(2) ACTION ITEMS. The Booktubers behind the BooktubeSFF Awards have postponed the awards in favor of addressing some compelling issues:
(3) POINTING THE WAY. Here’s Buzzfeed’s list of “20 Books To Read If You Want To Get Into Black Sci-Fi And Fantasy”.
BuzzFeed Books recently asked Goodreads about its most popular Black speculative fiction titles. Below are 20 books that get high ratings and ample attention from the site’s many lovers of sci-fi and fantasy….
20. Mothership: Tales From Afrofuturism and Beyond, edited by Bill Campbell and Edward Austin Hall
Mothership: Tales From Afrofuturism and Beyond is an anthology gathering the writings of some of the most talented and groundbreaking authors of Afrofuturism and beyond, including N.K. Jemisin, Linda D. Addison, Rabih Alameddine, and more.
5-star review: “The best thing about this anthology is that it is filled with a variety of fiction across speculative genres from authors with both complementary and completely different styles. Mothership is a go-to if you want to bathe in Black speculative excellence, but it is also simply about the human experience across ethnicities, times, and places. It features works from and about other peoples of color, multi-racial individuals, and seats them all in different contexts.” —Dara Crawley
(4) WW. Another delay: “Wonder Woman 1984 sets release date for Oct. 2” – CNET has the story.
… “Wish we were sharing our film yesterday but there are more important things going on in our world we’d rather you focus on for now,” Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins tweeted. “Thank you to our fans for being so great, by our sides.”
(5) UNDER THE HOOD. The guidelines for CoNZealand’s virtual masquerade are out. There are a lot of them. This is just an excerpt.
…Due to the current pandemic and global and local responses to it we are going digital! Both for our event and for all registrations, content, and that means entries.
All of the above rules apply. These are standard health and safety rules.
All entries will be pre-recorded.
You will have 2 minutes for your performance, solo entries included! Technical advice on recording your performance will be coming shortly, but most smartphones will be up to the task for video, more care will be needed for audio so please plan and have a back up accordingly!
You will also have 5 mins for a Q&A that will introduce you to our CoNZealand crew and audience.
We will be streaming the Masquerade as well as have the entries viewable before and after the event, this necessitates changes to what we are able to use for audio in entries. This information will be available soon.
(6) FULL LID. Alasdair Stuart, in this week’s “The Full Lid — 12th June 2020”, takes a long look at the extraordinary Blindspotting, written by and starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal and directed by Carlos López Estrada. Then, “From Oakland we go to deep space and check out Nerys Howell’s precise, brilliant one-season science fiction podcast Seren. Finally, we come into land in rural Ireland with the fantastic The Hole in the Ground, directed by Lee Cronin who will be directing the next Evil Dead movie.” The interstitials this week are episodes of the superb Nightlight horror fiction podcast.
(7) LIZARD LEFTOVERS. You couldn’t make this stuff up! But somebody did — “5 Super Weird Godzilla Vs. Movies That Almost Got Made”. For instance:
Godzilla vs. Batman
Holy radiated lizard scales, is Godzilla vs. Batman really a thing? Yes, I’m afraid it is, and Toho isn’t the only one that came up with the idea. American studio Greenway Productions, led by producer William Dozier, who produced Adam West’s Batman: The Movie, had a script drafted called Batman Meets Godzilla. Toho, for its part, had screenwriter Shinzi Sekizawa, who wrote Mothra vs. Godzilla, write its own version, but little is known about that one. The draw to have Godzilla fight Batman in both Japan and the United States seemed purely logical at the time. Batman’s comic books were flying off the shelves in Japan, and Godzilla movies were relatively popular in America too. So for both production companies, it seemed like a no-brainer to have a man dressed up like a bat fight a giant radiated lizard.
In William Dozier’s script, Batman, Robin and Batgirl first fight the villainous mad scientist Klaus Finster, who eventually awakens Godzilla. Batman and his sidekicks use every Bat-tool in their Bat-belts to stop the destructive Godzilla, but eventually settle on a plan to lure Godzilla with a mating call and then knock him out with explosives. After a thrilling battle between Godzilla and the Bat-crew, Batman finds a way to attach an explosive to Godzilla’s neck with Bat-rope and detonates it. While Godzilla is unconscious, the humans build a rocket around him and send him into the far reaches of outer space.
Sadly, this whimsical and silly adventure would never come to pass, likely because it’s insane, but also because the seas of change were roaring. The Adam West Batman TV show only lasted three seasons and a much darker interpretation of Batman was brewing in the comic books. Eventually, both Batman and Godzilla would see a radical transformation, but they would never meet on the big screen.
(8) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
- June 13, 1958 — Forbidden Planet premiered. It was produced by Nicholas Nayfack, and directed by Fred M. Wilcox. The screenplay was by Cyril Hume from a story by Irving Block and Allen Adler. It starred Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielsen, with narration by Les Tremayne. Critics loved the film. “Weird but fascinating and exciting” said one. On its initial run the film turned a modest profit. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a spectacular 85% rating.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
- Born June 13, 1860 – Lancelot Speed. Painter, illustrator, director of early British silent films, cartoonist in Punch and elsewhere. Illustrated Andrew Lang’s Fairy books and Rider Haggard’s She, for which he also designed the film sets. Here is Swanhild walking the seas, from Haggard’s Eric Brighteyes; here is Snowdrop in her glass coffin, from The Red Fairy Book; here is a scene from The Odyssey. (Died 1931) [JH]
- Born June 13, 1865 – W.B. Yeats. Nobel Prize in Literature. Co-founded the Abbey Theatre. Student of Irish folklore & fantasy; Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry reprinted 2015 as Irish Fairy Tales. A dozen short stories, forty poems, for us. Here is “Among School Children” (How can we know the dancer from the dance?). Here is “Byzantium”. Here is “The Second Coming” (what rough beast?). (Died 1939) [JH]
- Born June 13, 1892 — Basil Rathbone. He’s best remembered for being Sherlock Holmes in fourteen films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series of the same period. For films other than these, I’ll single out The Adventures of Robin Hood (all Robin Hood is fantasy), Son of Frankenstein and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. (Died 1967.) (CE)
- Born June 13, 1893 – Dorothy Sayers. Known for Lord Peter Wimsey, whom I applaud – including his meticulously shown faults – but little of her detective fiction is ours (there are a few, like “The Cyprian Cat” which happens not to have Lord Peter). Her religious writing was not fantasy for her. I offer two points. One small: in Busman’s Honeymoon, climax of the Wimsey stories, the ghost, almost an aside, is superb. One great: her rendition of The Divine Comedy: it is fantasy: it’s Dante’s dream. Sayers didn’t invent it; nor did Pope invent the Iliad and the Odyssey, his renditions of which, liberties taken and all, still shine. (Died 1957) [JH]
- Born June 13, 1903 — Frederick Stephani. Screenwriter and film director who is best remembered for co-writing and directing the 13-chapter Flash Gordon serial in 1936. He directed Johnny Weissmuller‘s Tarzan’s New York Adventure (aka Tarzan Against the World). He was also a uncredited writer on 1932’s Dracula. (Died 1962.) (CE)
- Born June 13, 1920 – Walter Ernsting. Co-founded the Science Fiction Club Deutschland – note its combined English-German name – editing its newsletter five years. Called the father of German fandom. Big Heart Award. Co-invented (as Clark Darlton) Perry Rhodan – who began, in 1961, as a U.S. Space Force Major of 1971; here is the first cover; as of early 2019, more than 3,000 weekly digest-size booklets, 400 paperbacks, 200 hardbacks, two billion copies in novella format sold worldwide. As CD and otherwise, three hundred SF novels, many shorter stories, many with co-authors; translated into Dutch, English, French, Russian; commemorative book in 2000, Clark Darlton, the Man who Brought the Future. (Died 2005) [JH]
- Born June 13, 1929 — Ralph McQuarrie. Conceptual designer and illustrator. He worked on the original Star Wars trilogy, the first Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars Holiday Special, Cocoon, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nightbreed, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home andE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. (Died 2012.) (CE)
- Born June 23, 1934 – Doreen Webbert. First appeared in 1959, joining SAPS (the Spectator Amateur Press Society) and with husband Jim serving jointly as Official Editors six years. First convention, Westercon 13 (Boise, Idaho). Later to Arizona. Stalwart of Leprecons, Coppercons, Westercons, NASFiCs (N. Amer. SF Con, since 1975 held when the Worldcon is overseas). Fan Guest of Honor at Tuscon 15, Coppercon 9, Con/Fusion (sponsored by San Diego Comic-Con), Kubla Khanterfeit. [JH]
- Born June 13, 1943 — Malcolm McDowell, 77. My favorite role for him was Mr. Roarke on the rebooted Fantasy Island. Of course, his most infamous role was Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Scary film that. His characterization of H. G. Wells in Time After Time was I thought rather spot on. And I’d like to single out his voicing Arcady Duvall in the “Showdown” episode of Batman: The Animated Series. (CE)
- Born June 13, 1949 — Simon Callow, 71. English actor, musician, writer, and theatre director. So, what’s he doing here? Well he got to be Charles Dickens twice on Doctor Who, the first being in “The Unquiet Dead” during the time of the Ninth Doctor and then later during “The Wedding of River Song”, an Eleventh Doctor story. He’d also appear, though not as Dickens, on The Sarah Jane Adventures as the voice of Tree Blathereen in “The Gift” episode. I’ve not watched the series. How are they? He was also The Duke of Sandringham in the first season of Outlander. (CE)
- Born June 13, 1953 — Tim Allen, 67. Jason Nesmith in the much beloved Galaxy Quest. (Which won a much deserved Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation at Chicon 2000.) He actually had a big hit several years previously voicing Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story which would be the first in what would become a film franchise.
- Born June 13, 1974 – Jeaniene Frost. Her Night Huntress books have been New York Times and USA Today best-sellers. Fifteen of them so far, nine more novels, half a dozen shorter stories. Audiobooks. She says, “In my dream, I saw a man and a woman arguing. Somehow I knew the woman was a half-vampire, the man was a full vampire, and they were arguing because he was angry that she’d left him.” Her Website is here. [JH]
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- Bizarro suggests acting horse-sensibly.
- Ever think of Dr. Frankenstein getting short on supplies? The Argyle Sweater did.
(11) HISTORY MOVES IN HITCHCOCK’S DIRECTION. SYFY Wire tells “Six Ways Psycho Impacted The Future Of Film”.
Psycho inspired the first documentary about a single scene in a film
By now, we are used to feature-length documentaries about the making of certain classic films – or what they could have been. Room 237, Jodorowsky’s Dune, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, Lost in La Mancha, and Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy are just a few recent examples. But 78/52 is the first documentary to concentrate on a single scene in a film. The documentary, directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, focuses on the infamous “shower scene.” The title refers to the number of set-ups in the scene (78) and the number of cuts (52). What other film has a three-minute scene that could hold enough interest to generate a 91-minute documentary?
(12) MARS SCIENCE CITY. CNN tells how “Architects have designed a Martian city for the desert outside Dubai” – with photos.
Dubai is a city where firefighters use jetpacks, archipelagos are built from scratch, and buildings climb into the clouds; a slick metropolis in the middle of a vast red desert. First-time visitors would be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled onto a film set for a sci-fi movie.
Now Dubai is set for what must be its most other-worldly architectural project yet.
In 2017, the United Arab Emirates announced its ambition to colonize Mars within the next 100 years. But architects are already imagining what a Martian city might look like — and planning to recreate it in the desert outside Dubai.
Mars Science City was originally earmarked to cover 176,000 square meters of desert — the size of more than 30 football fields — and cost approximately $135 million.
Intended as a space for Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) to develop the technology needed to colonize Mars, architects Bjarke Ingels Group were asked to design a prototype of a city suitable for sustaining life on Mars — and then adapt it for use in the Emirati desert.
(13) WATCHING MASTER SHIFU. “Red pandas tracked by satellite in conservation ‘milestone'”.
Conservationists are satellite tracking red pandas in the mountains of Nepal to find out more about the factors that are driving them towards extinction.
The mammals are endangered, with numbers down to a few thousand in the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China.
Ten red pandas have been fitted with GPS collars to monitor their range in the forests near Mount Kangchenjunga.
(14) BEST GUESSES. Vice is delighted to inform readers that “Scientists Have Discovered Vast Unidentified Structures Deep Inside the Earth”. What are they? The article offers a couple of wild-ass theories.
Scientists have discovered a vast structure made of dense material occupying the boundary between Earth’s liquid outer core and the lower mantle, a zone some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) beneath our feet.
The researchers used a machine learning algorithm that was originally developed to analyze distant galaxies to probe the mysterious phenomenon occurring deep within our own planet, according to a paper published on Thursday in Science.
(15) DON’T LOSE THIS NUMBER. Marc Laidlaw shares “The Satellite 37L4O5 Etc. Waltz.”
In the future, everyone will have a unique customized waltz, personalized entirely for them, which identifies them immediately. Reminder: Any waltz may be suspended at the discretion of the Identi-Waltz Authority.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, John Hertz, Michael Toman, Chip Hitchcock, JJ, Contrarius, and John King Tarpinian. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
This is a test of the Emergency Kerfuffle System. If this had been an actual Kerfuffle, you would have heard the Fooferaw.
“Only approved followers can see @ChuckWendig’s Tweets”
Bill Burns: That explains a problem I had embedding the link, then. Sorry about that.
@Bill Burns–
Seems reasonable in the circumstances. The sadly predictable circumstances.
Liz Carey says Seems reasonable in the circumstances. The sadly predictable circumstances.
What fascinates me is the bred in the bone belief that they as readers deserve those books even though by having them, they’re depriving he authors that wrote them of any income that they can get from those books. And potentially meaning those won’t be writing more books.
Buying books is one of my larger line item these while under house confinement. (A digital copy of Mary Turzillo’s Mars Girls was the latest one.) I’m actually stocking up as I got word that it’s likely I’ll be getting a second round of knee surgery as the orthopaedic surgeon now believes that the first surgery didn’t take and the hardware must now be replaced. That was after an eight hour ER visit with lots of imaging being done.
@Cat Eldridge–Well, that sucks. I hope all goes well, this time, and that this time you wind up with a working knee.
These people also obviously have no idea how real libraries work. I was going to say, “have never used real libraries,” but then realized that they could well have used them without ever bothering to find out anything more than the basics of checking out of a book.
@1: so the Internet is full of entitled-feeling stupid little jerks, and the sun came up this morning. It would be lovely to find jerk 0 (whoever started the call to attack this specific victim) and turn all of their accounts to slok after faking final posts slagging all their “friends”….
@Cat Eldridge: “didn’t take”? What makes them think the second one will? (I’m remembering a friend who had to say “no more” after too many we’ll-get-it-right-this-time attempts at TRAM.) Here’s hoping….
To Scroll Beyond the Pixel
Chip says to me: “didn’t take”? What makes them think the second one will? (I’m remembering a friend who had to say “no more” after too many we’ll-get-it-right-this-time attempts at TRAM.) Here’s hoping….
Apparently it happens. If I’d fractured my knee normally, it wouldn’t be a problem, but I broken off pieces of the patella so the reconstruction was complicated. And sometimes doesn’t take because of that. So they’ll need to take out the hardware that the surgeon put in and start the healing process all over again.
No, I’m not happy but it’s not surprising as the surgeon has hinted it might need doing without actually stating that. And no, there’s no guarantee that the second surgery will be any more successful.
Lis Carey says Well, that sucks. I hope all goes well, this time, and that this time you wind up with a working knee.
It works sort of now though I’ll admit that’s with the knee immobiliser. I can walk on it, it’s just that it’s all likely to give way under too much pressure as it did when I fell the other day.
These people also obviously have no idea how real libraries work. I was going to say, “have never used real libraries,” but then realized that they could well have used them without ever bothering to find out anything more than the basics of checking out of a book.
In all fairness to them, I don’t think the vast majority of Library users do more than check books out. Oh some use ILL, and some will use more specialised services but most are just readers who check books out to read which is quite fine.
CoNZealand’s put out a statement on how they’ll handle the Business Meeting:
Announcement
Twitter
It looks like Kevin Standlee called it (and/or helped make it happen!) — a minimal Meeting satisfying requirements, addressing time-constrained decisions (inc. eligibility extensions), and passing all other business on to 2021.
Seems to me like the best possible outcome this year; kudos for making it happen and for making it clear.
A lot of the “outrage” directed at Chuck Wendig is not genuine (but misplaced) anger in defence of Internet Archive but the usual coalition of trolls associated with the far-right and Gamergate et al — including some familiar names that I won’t repeat because they’d enjoy attention.
Two title credits in a row? Thank you sir.
(8) Forbidden Planet premiered on 4 Mar 1956, not 13 June 1958, at the Southeastern Science Fiction Conference in Charlotte NC (Bob Madle was head of the local club, which hosted). C. L. Barrett was toastmaster, and Larry Shaw and J. G. Pratt were on the program. It opened generally on 23 Mar 1956.
Standback: CoNZealand’s put out a statement on how they’ll handle the Business Meeting
Yes, that’s the same statement that Mike posted a couple of days ago, which doesn’t actually answer a number of questions about procedure.
Hard Times Bepixeled the Scroll Survivors
Scroll us a File you’re the Pixel Man
bill: You are correct about Forbidden Planet’s premiere — my late friend Bill Warren would have been annoyed that I didn’t get that right — and when it went into general release (over 100 theaters, says the Wikipedia).
And yet Cat didn’t pull this date out of his ahem ear — the IMDB entry lists June
1413 as the release date. Usually I go with their info, but it’s hard to imagine where they came up with this date. The Wiki footnotes indicate the major newspaper critics had reviewed the movie by May.(Fixed to 13 after seeing Bill’s point about Muphry’s Law.)
OGH host says And yet Cat didn’t pull this date out of his ahem ear — the IMDB entry lists June 14 as the release date. Usually I go with their info, but it’s hard to imagine where they came up with this date. The Wiki footnotes indicate the major newspaper critics had reviewed the movie by May.
The 13th of June date is the official release date for the film going into general circulation. It hit the major cities in mid May but it took another month before it was playing everywhere. IMDB uses this date as the official release date. And the Con premiere really doesn’t count at all at studios do this sort of thing all the time.
Good luck, Cat Eldridge. That must be hard.
@15
Thanks for the link! That Marc Laidlaw! I am currently binging his work: 400 Boys, Neon Lotus, Dad’s Nuke, Kalifornia…Laidlaw is no Rucker, but then Rucker is no Laidlaw.
@14
Someday we’ll understand our planet. Funny we’ve put it off so long.
@12
Somebody in Dubai is a Donald Moffitt fan.
@11
I’m not a filmmaker. I don’t understand the obsession with the shower scene in Psycho. I don’t like the movie that much. I don’t understand the obsession with that either. My loss, I guess.
Forbidden Planet: now there’s a movie I could remake, analyse and appreciate obsessively! Whenever it premiered.
Brown Robin says
Good luck, Cat Eldridge. That must be hard.
It is. Last day has been particularly bad, so my wound care team had their physician do an Oxycontin script for me to cut the pain. A friend’s picked it for me this morning.
I’m not a filmmaker. I don’t understand the obsession with the shower scene in Psycho. I don’t like the movie that much. I don’t understand the obsession with that either. My loss, I guess.
Nor I. I watched it once, wasn’t impressed.
Forbidden Planet: now there’s a movie I could remake, analyse and appreciate obsessively! Whenever it premiered.
Yeah that’s a film worth savouring over and over!
Zoom admits it knuckled under to Chinese pressure, shutting off accounts of US users who were dealing with PRC-taboo subjects.
@Cat Eldridge: I spent just enough time doing biomedical research to know that the Harvard Law of Animal Behavior can apply right down to the cellular level — so here’s hoping the second try works.
@Camestros Felaptron: the usual coalition of trolls associated with the far-right and Gamergate et al I remember when the Right was all about property rights; guess I’m just old-fashioned.
Got my paper Hugo ballot in the mail yesterday.
I first saw Forbidden Planet a couple of decades after it opened; I guess it was better than most of the scraps of SF that were then in the media, but ISTM that transplanting a story that was antique four centuries ago (well, 3.4 when it was made) hasn’t aged well. I’ve never even considered watching Psycho; I do horror only in small, very controlled doses (at most).
This is actually vaguely related because of the Wonder Woman item. So that I can get on with the actual issues in the country right now, Captain Marvel is the worst movie the Hugo people have ever made me watch. I assume that it was designed for 10-year-old girls to have a role model. It is more painful because Wonder Woman got so many things so right. I also see in the Wikipedia that Carol Danvers was Ms. Marvel until very recently and does not have a lot of associated mythology yet.
I would like to think that it was just a coincidence that Best Novel is 6 white women this year and that next year it will be remedied with N.K. Jemisin having a book out. I wondered a little bit about whether The City in the Middle of the Night really worked, but there was absolutely no trouble this year about wondering whether I would have to pick the book I disliked the least and basically they all deserved the nomination.
And I’m glad to say that this year’s Doctor Who was a complete delight from start to finish.
@Mike Glyer
ahem, June 13. Muphry’s law, etc.
@Cat Eldridge
The June 13th date is off by over two years. IMDB is crowd-sourced like Wikipedia, and occasionally is wrong. The front page of the IMDB listing for the film does say
Forbidden Planet (1956)
G | 1h 38min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi | 13 June 1958 (USA)
and the Release Dates page does show June 13 1958 USA, but clearly that is wrong — it was in wide release, as shown by contemporary newspapers, fanzines, trade press, etc., by the end of March in 1956.
Here’s an “inside baseball” article from George Folsey, the cinematographer of Forbidden Planet, about the challenges of filming it.
4jkb4ia exclaims And I’m glad to say that this year’s Doctor Who was a complete delight from start to finish.
I like the present Doctor a lot and I applaud the showrunner for not being afraid to mess around with he convoluted backstory of the Whoverse. And Jodie seems to be taking a great deal of delight in her role.
Standback on June 13, 2020 at 10:48 pm said:
While I was part of the behind-the-scenes discussion (which I think included either most or all past living WSFS Business Meeting chairs), I cannot take credit for the decisions, which were of course made by CoNZealand’s management, including the WSFS BM Chair Kent Bloom and WSFS Division Manager, Colette Fozard. (Remember that while I’m listed in the WSFS BM staff list, I am a mere flunky this year, not part of management.) From those discussions, I feel pretty confident that the procedural issues I addressed by my comments here in the past will be functionally identical to my suggestion to “Postpone Everything” except those things that are time-constrained, which effectively means Hugo Award eligibility extensions. Everything else can be put off for one year by one procedural method or another.
I do not speak for the CoNZealand on this matter. I speculate that they didn’t want to go into the procedural weeds. If their WSFS management wants to say more, I can comment on the procedural/legal underpinnings of their decisions, which seems sound to me. They have said that they intend to record the meeting and post the recording as soon as they can. (If they will allow it, I will get it posted to the WSFS Events YouTube channel at my first opportunity.) As much as I’d like to be there in person to facilitate this as Assistant Videographer, flying to NZ and then sitting out “‘managed isolation’ in a government-provided facility (hotel)” for two weeks (even if the current restrictions were lifted sufficiently to allow that much) seems like a bad idea to me.
(Lisa, the BM Videographer this year and my direct supervisor in the CZ table of organization, is disappointed in not being able to attend, as she bought new equipment to support recording plans for this year and we were working on how to fit it into our luggage allowance. With luck, we’ll be able to use it at a future meeting. We’re currently considering the logistics of getting gear to DC. It helps that we currently plan to take the train, which allows more luggage than flying.)
Chuck Wendig is favourite target of our “friends” on the alt-right. As far as I can tell, it’s part of the Star Wars backlash, because Wendig happened to write the first Star Wars book that came out after Disney declared the Expanded Universe non-canonical. Plus, his Star Wars never had gay characters, which apparently is too much for some people.
I’m not ten years old and liked Captain Marvel quite a bit. In fact, I like it better than Wonder Woman, which had a great lead actress, but was full of historical errors that took me right out of the story, such as Wonder Woman killing a real historical German general who lived into the 1940s in the real world. Captain Marvel will rank fairly high on my ballot, I think.
@Cat Eldridge
Best wishes that everything goes well this time.
Lis Carey on June 13, 2020 at 9:08 pm said:
To be fair, a lot of people have no idea how the Archive works either. I saw at least one person say that they wouldn’t have any way to remove books from people’s computers after the pandemic ended, despite the fact that the Archive uses exactly the same software as other libraries for their e-book loans.
(Their collections of public domain & creative commons materials are unrestricted downloads, of course, and there are probably legitimate criticisms to be leveled about how they curate that part of their collection, but the loans are, and always have been, loans.)
@Cora Buhlert:
I’m in my 50s and I loved it. I also liked it more than Wonder Woman, which had a great actress, but choked in the final quarter. I also think Captain Marvel did a much more coherent job of tackling it’s themes, and though it may sound odd to say or about a superhero film, those themes seemed like more realistic and natural outcomes of the plot.
My assumption is that since it’s a DC comics property, the general will guy back in six months or so, as a cyborg or a vampire or something.
Quite possibly, though if Erich Ludendorff was a vampire or cyborg, my high school history lessons omitted that fact.
It’s also an odd thing to get hung-up upon and Erich Ludendorff was a horrible person anyway, but it still bothers me, especially since they could have just used a fictional general in his place and avoided all problems.
Speaking of “how libraries work,” a friend in the midwest reports that their local branch has a drive-through window… which, given that, my friend says, the branch’s holdings are limited enough that most visitors are coming to pick up already-reserved items, makes sense, or at least, doesn’t not make sense. (As opposed to a drive-thru library, wending thru the aisles, perhaps using a Segway or drone, which could therefore be remote-controlled.
And, of course, libraries have expanded beyond (just) physical books, magazines, and audio/video media to also classes, maker labs, coffee’n’wifi, such that even regular patrons might have a non-book experience. (Pfui!)
@Daniel
Voter registrations, computers for Internet use (restrictions may apply), and book sales.
@Cat,
My sympathies. Hopefully it’ll go right this time, & you’re back on your feet soonest.
CW: Surgery description
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
(My knee was smashed into 5 pieces, so the surgeon held them together with wire so that they could fuse back together. Then about a year later, another surgery to remove the metalware. So for a while, i could legitimately call myself a cyborg. Technicalities count, right?)
@PJ – good catch wrt ‘voter reg’ et al. My list was in no way meant to be exhaustive, of course.
One activity I wish had been around when I was a young library-goer (excluding technology anachronicity) is the “Read to a dog” sessions, with real dogs (presumably, trained TDs (Therapy Dogs) brought in by their owners). (Our library was doing this, although I didn’t watch any such sessions, just saw signage, and some of the dogs coming in for their book fix.)
Soon Lee say My knee was smashed into 5 pieces, so the surgeon held them together with wire so that they could fuse back together. Then about a year later, another surgery to remove the metalware. So for a while, i could legitimately call myself a cyborg. Technicalities count, right?
Yeah you could. And my condolences. I’ve not been told that my hardware is coming out but that’s certainly interesting to think about as a possibility. Right now I’m just focused on the probability of a second surgery in the rather near future.
I’m on my feet — I’m just restricted from going outside unattended. And I had OxyContin added today as the pain’s been brutal.
Cora Bulhert say It’s also an odd thing to get hung-up upon and Erich Ludendorff was a horrible person anyway, but it still bothers me, especially since they could have just used a fictional general in his place and avoided all problems.
Do you feel the same way about the use of all historical figures in this manner? It’s been a long standing tradition in genre writing to take real persons and use them in fiction. Sometimes in minor ways like this, sometimes by rewriting them quite completely.
Hmm, when I first saw Captain Marvel, I didn’t like it as much as Wonder Woman, but after re-watching both, I’m not sure I have a favorite between the two. Although I think that CM stands up to re-watching a little better.
I don’t know. I guess I’d say that WW has more heart, but CM has more brain?
(13) WATCHING MASTER SHIFU. Aw, I love red pandas; I didn’t realize they were so endangered. Thanks for linking to this!
@Chip Hitchcock: Thanks for that NPR link; Zoom bites. Grumble. We mostly use Teams now, but my boss-led training this coming week will use Zoom (for the breakout-room feature).
It’s been a long standing tradition in genre writing to take real persons and use them in fiction.
Even relatively mainstream genre efforts do this sometimes; Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil did so in the mid-1970s, as did the movie made from it (with Gregory Peck as Josef Mengele).
@Cat Eldridge
It depends on a number of factors. One thing I really don’t like is contradicting known facts. German WWI general Erich Ludendorff died in 1937, not in 1917. That’s a fact. Another example is the 1632 series, where Eric Flint misspells the name of a real town and also relocates the town to another German state than the one where it actually is located. That’s just factually wrong.
The secret/missing history approach a la Tim Powers and also Doctor Who bothers me less, because while those stories are clearly fictional, they don’t directly contradict known facts. Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge clearly never got involved in the shenangigans they got themselves involved with in .The Anubis Gates, but they theoretically could have (and Powers’ research is usually excellent, though he managed to get the name of one of the few Berlin streets that never changed their name in 200 years wrong in Declare) . Vincent van Gogh, Agatha Christie, Rosa Parks, Queen Victoria, William Shakespeare, Lord Byron (again – he also was in Highlander, the Series), etc… clearly never encountered the Doctor, but again the Doctor Who episodes don’t contradict known facts about their lives. Abraham Lincoln never went vampire hunting, either.
Another factor is distance in time. I don’t like it when authors use events and historical figures that are still within living memory and may still have living descendants. That’s part of the reason why I intensely dislike Declare, even though I enjoyed The Anubis Gates or The Drawing of the Dark or On Stranger Tides a whole lot. Because Kim Philby was dead only seven years and still had several living children when Declare came out and while he was a Soviet spy, he was not actually in league with supernatural dark powers.
Closeness to the subject is another factor. For example, a lot of people criticise the Dresden Files books, because Jim Butcher gets a lot of basic facts about Chicago just plain wrong. I understand why this bothers people who know Chicago well. However, it doesn’t bother me, because I have never been to Chicago and don’t notice the problems.
Bringing this back to Wonder Woman, I suspect that 90 percent of the people who watched that movie had no idea that Erich Ludendorff was a real person, so the fact that he is killed on screen twenty years before his actual death doesn’t bother them. But when I watched Wonder Woman, my reaction was, “Wait a minute, Ludendorff survived WWI” and I was taken right out of the story.
@Cat,
My understanding was that it was desirable to remove the metalware to avoid issues with e.g. kneeling. Though for me there was no difference.
Soon Lee says My understanding was that it was desirable to remove the metalware to avoid issues with e.g. kneeling. Though for me there was no difference.
I don’t much kneeling so that’s really hardly an issue, but interesting nonetheless.
@Cat,
I have another theory (which I never got to ask the surgeon), that removing metalware is a good idea on the very slim chance I ever got into an accident, I wouldn’t have ready-made shrapnel inside my body potentially causing extra damage.
Soon Lee suggests I have another theory (which I never got to ask the surgeon), that removing metalware is a good idea on the very slim chance I ever got into an accident, I wouldn’t have ready-made shrapnel inside my body potentially causing extra damage.
I don’t know what you’ve got for hardware but mine’s screwed into the bone so if became shrapnel, chances are that I’d be in a lot of trouble otherwise. The problem appears that this hardware isn’t adhering right to the bone, hence the considerable pain.
Count me also as someone who liked Captain Marvel. But I am pro-Marvel anyway.
The problem that I share with Cora re Ludendorf is that he had still an impict on history after he died in Wonder Woman.
I don’t have a problem with historical figures in General in fiction per se, more with the history screwing up without pointing it out or getting someone completly wrong. (I have a problem with the Bruce Leescene in Once upon a Time in Hollywood not with the ending)
@Cora Buhlert:
And we know this how? ISTM that the point of a secret history is that it is, well, secret..
I liked Wonder Woman a lot on first seeing; I haven’t seen it since. I saw Captain Marvel twice because I wanted to see it in 3D, which gives my partner headaches; I thought it stood up very well on second viewing, which some good-first-time movies don’t. If forced to make a choice, I’d probably pick CM over WW primarily because ISTM it had more sense of there being no simple answers (although somebody coming into the movie with a knowledge of the Marvel universe would already have known who the real villains were) — and I’d be happier if they’d found some way to walk away from WW’s unrealistic eye-candy costume (cf how Batman and Robin showed us the dippy trunks as circus garb, dumped before the first hero-outing).
@Cat Eldridge
I must admit that I found the ending of Inglorious Basterds somewhat irritating for this reason.
@Cat,
My metalware was not screwed in, was effectively a metal cage made of wire holding my kneecap together, so once the kneecap had fused back together, it could be removed relatively easily.
Re: Captain Marvel/Wonder Woman.
On balance, I enjoyed Wonder Woman more but would happily re-watch either.
Re: secret histories like what Tim Powers does are enjoyable because they don’t contradict the historical record, but provide an alternate explanation. That sort of thing is difficult to pull off.
Hmm, storywise, I think CM was the clear winner. WW rather fell apart at the end, but even without that, I think CM would have had a slight edge.
Visually, though I thought WW was much better. The color palettes were outstanding. OMG, Themyscira! And the FX generally seemed to enhance the character, while in CM, they sometimes just seemed murky and distracting. Especially towards the end. (Though in fairness to CM’s FX dept., eye-beams and glowy force rays are much harder to pull off well.)
Characters is a hard call. I liked Diana’s cheerful earnestness more than Danvers’ gung-ho, in-your-face attitude. (Though it was refreshing to see the latter in a woman, for once.) But, while both movies did pretty well with the fish-out-of-water elements, I think WW overplayed it a bit, while CM got it pretty much just right. In the end, I might have to give the nod to CM here.
Overall, I think WW had both the parts I liked the most and the parts I disliked the most! Which makes it hard to decide. Fortunately, I don’t have to choose. And you can’t make me! So there! 😛