(1) WHO NEXT. From The Guardian, “Doctor Who showrunner says there was going to be a black Doctor”.
The starring role in BBC1’s Doctor Who was offered to a black actor but it “didn’t work out” according to the series showrunner, Steven Moffat.
Moffat said it would be “amazing” to have two non-white leads after Pearl Mackie, whose father is from the West Indies, was cast as the Doctor’s companion earlier this year.
He said the producers took a conscious decision to cast a non-white actor as the companion “because we need to do better on that. We just have to”.
Moffat said the show had tried to go one further by casting the first non-white Doctor, but the choice later fell through….
Moffat said Doctor Who had “no excuse” not to feature a diverse cast of black, Asian and minority ethnic actors. “Sometimes the nature of a particular show – historical dramas, for instance – makes diversity more of a challenge, but Doctor Who has absolutely nowhere to hide on this,” he said.
“Young people watching have to know that they have a place in the future. That really matters. You have to care profoundly what children’s shows in particular say about where you’re going to be.
“And we’ve kind of got to tell a lie: we’ll go back into history and there will be black people where, historically, there wouldn’t have been, and we won’t dwell on that. We’ll say, ‘To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better version of the world. By believing in it, we’ll summon it forth.’
“And, outside of the fiction, it’s about anyone feeling that they can be involved in this industry as an actor, a director, a writer … It’s hugely important, and it’s not good when we fail on that. We must do better.”
(2) ‘MASS EFFECT. Mark-kitteh is excited that “Quatermass will return to television in a new series on BBC America”.
Quatermass is returning to television – over a decade since the character last visited the small-screen.
Created by legendary writer Nigel Kneale, Professor Bernard Quatermass is a genius scientist who battles alien forces.
First appearing in the BBC’s 1953 serial The Quatermass Experiment, the character has gone on to feature in numerous TV and film projects.
Now, BBC America is revisiting the character for a new series written by The League of Gentlemen‘s Jeremy Dyson, reports Variety.
(3) TEA AND JOCULARITY. Rachel Swirsky did an interview with Ann Leckie, or rather a “Silly Interview with Anncillary Leckie, Yes I said That, I’ll Be Here All Night”. Includes photos of Leckie’s bead jewelry.
RS: I’ve been reading your Raadchai stories for eleven years now (Yeah, eleven years. Let that sink in.) and I know the gloves and tea were in them by the time I started reading. Were they part of the initial germ of the Raadch, or if not, how did they evolve?
They weren’t part of the initial germ, but they got into the mix pretty soon after that. And I’m not sure where they came from or why they stuck–it just kind of worked for me somehow.
Which is how a lot of things are when I’m writing. Sometimes I’ll see someone say, like, “Oh, and this detail here, this is obviously Leckie doing this profound intentional thematic thing” and I’m like, no, actually, it was shiny, or else it made the story work the way I wanted it to, but I am not going to speak up and spoil the impression that I was actually doing this very sophisticated thing!
(4) SILLY SYMPHONIES. The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra features LACO @ the Movies, an evening of Disney Silly Symphonies on Saturday, June 4 @ 7 pm The Orpheum Theatre.
Experience movie magic! Conducted by six-time Emmy® Award-winning conductor and composer Mark Watters, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra performs the score live for an evening of Disney Silly Symphonies. These classic shorts, Walt Disney’s earliest experiments in animation, set timeless fables and fantastical scenes against a backdrop of lively classical music. With LACO providing the accompaniment live in the theatre, it’s an evening that’s sure to exhilarate your senses!
There’s no better setting for this night of classic cartoons than The Orpheum Theatre, one of LA’s most opulent and lovingly restored movie palaces in the historic downtown Broadway District. Bring the whole family and enjoy the show.
projecting on the silver screen a curated selection of landmark animated shorts including the first commercial short produced in Technicolor and five Academy Award winners!
- The Skeleton Dance (1929)
- Flowers and Trees (1932)
- Three Little Pigs (1933)
- The Old Mill (1937)
- The Ugly Duckling (1939)
- The Country Cousin (1936)
- Music Land (1935)
(5) A SPAGHETTI EASTERN. Aaron Pound reports on Balticon 50 in The Tale of the Good, the Bad, and the Shoe-Cop.
The Good: There was a lot that went right at Balticon 50. This was a unique event, as Balticon invited all of its previous guests of honor back to celebrate the fiftieth time this convention had been held. As a result, the lineup of guests was quite impressive for a relatively small regional convention, and a similar event is probably not going to happen outside of a Worldcon for at least a few years….
The Bad: Balticon 50 had a lot of issues. Some were beyond the control of the convention staff. The following problems, however, are pretty much squarely on them.
One glaring problem was that programming was a mess, and apparently so from the beginning of the convention. Balticon provided both a large convention book containing a schedule and a pocket guide that also had a schedule. The first problem was that these schedules were incompatible with one another, each listing events at different times – they diverged by a half an hour, which unsurprisingly served to make it difficult to figure out when an event was supposed to take place. The second problem was that many program participants had schedules that were, as Mur Lafferty described it, “temporally impossible”, with many participants double-booked for two events at one time, or booked with back-to-back events separated by several hotel floors…..
And the Shoe-Cop story? I musn’t lift all of Aaron’s material. Go read the post.
(6) LAW WEST OF THE AMAZON. “Amazon sues sellers for buying fake reviews”: TechCrunch has the story.
As part of its effort to combat fake reviews on its platform, Amazon sued three of its sellers today for using sock puppet accounts to post fake reviews about their products. Amazon has been aggressively pursuing reviewers it does not consider genuine over the last year, often using lawsuits to discourage the buying and selling of reviews, but this is the first time it has sued the sellers themselves.
Today’s suits are against sellers who Amazon claims used fake accounts to leave positive reviews on their own products. The fake reviews spanned from 30 to 45 percent of the sellers’ total reviews. The defendants are Michael Abbara of California, Kurt Bauer of Pennsylvania, and a Chinese company called CCBetter Direct.
(7) BYRON PREISS BACK IN THE NEWS. The late publisher’s clues have yet to be fully deciphered, as Vice explains in “The 35-Year Long Hunt to Find a Fantasy Author’s Hidden Treasure”.
There is a treasure buried somewhere in Milwaukee. Not just in Milwaukee, but in nine other North American locations, including (possibly) New York, San Francisco, and Montreal. And it’s not so much “treasure” as hunks of ceramic encased in Plexiglas. But one man’s trash is another man’s marketing strategy.
The treasures were hidden in 1981 by publisher Byron Preiss, as part of his plan to promote his new book, The Secret. Preiss’s fantasy paperback (which predated the identically titled self-help book by a quarter of a century) included a series of puzzles in the form of cryptic verses with matching images. If solved, they’d lead readers to a real-life ceramic bin, or “casque,” containing a key to a safe-deposit box, which held a gem worth roughly $1,000….
The next puzzle wasn’t solved until 2004, when an attorney named Brian Zinn tracked down a casque in Cleveland from a verse that mentioned Socrates, Pindar, and Apelles (all three names are etched into a pylon at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens). After four hours of digging holes, he found the casque buried next to a wall marking the perimeter of the gardens.
To date, the Cleveland casque is the last known resolved puzzle. “Byron Preiss, according to family and friends, figured all of them would be found upon publication. I don’t think he realized how difficult the poems were,” said James Renner, an author and filmmaker who’s working on a documentary about the book.
Preiss died in a 2005 car crash at age 52, and never disclosed the locations of the remaining casques. His publishing house went bankrupt and was acquired by a rival press. Many people viewed the sale as the last chance to redeem the gems, suggesting now, there may only be empty bins.
But 35 years later, people are still searching….
As for the gems, which were believed to be confiscated in bankruptcy proceeding after Preiss’s death, Preiss’s widow Sandi Mendelson told VICE they’re safely in her possession and will be available to the first people to recover the remaining casques.
“If somebody would find something, yes,” said Mendelson. “I haven’t done anything with them, so they’re still around.”
(8) FAN WRITER. Kate Paulk resumes her study – “Hugo Awards – The Nominee Highlights – Best Fan Writer”. She frankly concludes, “At least one of the nominees probably should be there…”
(9) HEMSTREET’S WAVE. Ray McKenzie reviews The God Wave at Fantasy Literature.
Like The Martian before it, it is the science in The God Wave that makes for such an engrossing and convincing tale. The story feels utterly believable and meticulously researched, whilst not being overbearing; the novel will please hard- and soft-sci-fi fans alike. Hemstreet uses plenty of familiar tropes throughout, and you’ll recognise scenes reminiscent of Alien and Star Trek.
(10) VICTORIAN GAZING DRAGON. Hampus Eckerman said, “Seeing the nice posable dragon in the last pixel scroll reminded me of this dragon illusion.”
Ever seen those illusions where there is a face that seems to turn toward you? I’ve seen it in theme parks and museums like the Exploratorium, and the Disneyland Haunted House thing. But, now you can make your own. All you need is a printer and some scissors!
(11) SEEING REALITY. Kameron Hurley asks “Is Living Worth It?”.
Being that close to death all the time changes the way you think about life. It’s why I feel such an affinity for other people who’ve been through it, or who are going through it. My spouse is a cancer survivor. He had just finished the last of his radiation a few months before we met. We understood life in a way that only people who’ve stared at death really do. You appreciate the little things a lot more. You constantly feel like you’re running on borrowed time.
Most of all, you get how precious life is, and you do your damnedest to hold onto it.
In reading this post from Steven Spohn over at Wendig’s site, I was reminded of this again. I may have all the appearances of being able-bodied, but when people talk about tossing out people for being defective, I can tell you that somewhere on there, no matter how far down, I am on that list. I know that because before I got sick, I put people like me on that list. I believed in “survival of the fittest.” What I didn’t realize is that “fittest” is a lie. The “fittest” don’t survive. There are some truly ridiculous animals out there (pandas??? Narwhales??). Those who survive are the most adapted to their particular niche. That is all. They are not stronger or smarter or cooler or better built or more logical.
(12) THE DARK SIDE. Smash Dragons interviews horror writer Hank Schwaeble.
What is it about horror and dark fiction that appeals to you the most?
The peek behind the curtain. Not necessarily a peek at something real, but a peek at the sort of things that we might wonder about that we don’t understand. Few of us believe there really are goblins in the shadows, but what if there were? That’s the nature of shadows—you don’t really know what’s in there. What we do know, however, is that there is a dark side to life, to human nature. Horrors and atrocities are real, so exploring them in fictional ways allows us to deal with them intellectually and philosophically. I don’t believe it’s just morbid curiosity, either. Our brains are wired to sense things about the world, about our environment. We are driven to explore, to discover, to learn. We enjoy so many creature comforts, so many sources of entertainment, so many colors and sights and recreations, I think many of us are drawn to seek out the opposite as a way of reminding ourselves of how good things can be. It’s like listening to the blues. People don’t play Muddy Waters to be depressed, they listen to him to be reminded of struggles, of adversity, of our common humanity. People like me, I believe, like dark fiction because a part of ourselves like to swim in deep waters, to be reminded that we can be afraid, intrigued, mystified. When we lift ourselves from the pages, the world seems a much brighter place.
(13) SPEND MORE MONEY. Disney and Lucasfilm are getting their prop makers into the retail business.
Kylo Ren’s most prized possession is now an ultimate work of art: https://t.co/XVlhkzzrCXhttps://t.co/dN3Kubg9nR
— Star Wars (@starwars) June 1, 2016
Propshop, in collaboration with Lucasfilm, is now making official prop replicas of its work from The Force Awakens available to collectors in a new line called Star Wars Collectibles: Ultimate Studio Edition. Wave one is a treasure trove of memorable gear from the film: FN-2187 (i.e., Finn) Stormtrooper Helmet (with blood streaks!), Kylo Ren Helmet, Poe Dameron X-wing Helmet, Darth Vader Helmet (Melted), Rey Staff, Chewbacca Bowcaster, Kylo Ren Lightsaber Hilt, and Rey Lightsaber Hilt. Propshop is making them the same exact way it made the original props: 3D prints of the final output made for the film, all hand-painted by the original prop makers.
For example, the melted Darth Vader helmet (a limited edition of 500) goes for $3,750.
(14) IS LONGER BETTER? There will be an R-rated extended edition of Batman v. Superman available for digital purchase on June 28 and on disc July 19 says CinemaBlend.
Although Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was especially intense for a PG-13 movie, the “Ultimate Edition” is including extended or brand new action scenes that are more comfortable nestled in rated-R territory. So if you liked the original version’s fights, get ready for even more bombastic throw-downs. Along with these sequences, this cut is also including 30 minutes worth of scenes cut from the theatrical release, taking the runtime to over three hours. This includes one (or several) featuring Hunger Games star Jena Malone. Several months ago, it was rumored that she was playing Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl/Oracle. However, in this trailer, she’s seen with blonde hair and looks like she’s working at the Daily Planet with Lois Lane. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean she’s still not Barbara. Maybe this version dyed her hair and took a job at the Planet to separate herself from the Bat-Family. Still, this is peculiar.
(15) HOWDY STRANGER. The Space Between Us comes to theaters August 19.
In this interplanetary adventure, a space shuttle embarks on the first mission to colonize Mars, only to discover after takeoff that one of the astronauts is pregnant. Shortly after landing, she dies from complications while giving birth to the first human born on the red planet – never revealing who the father is. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Gardner Elliot – an inquisitive, highly intelligent boy who reaches the age of 16 having only met 14 people in his very unconventional upbringing.
While searching for clues about his father, and the home planet he’s never known, Gardner begins an online friendship with a street smart girl in Colorado named Tulsa. When he finally gets a chance to go to Earth, he’s eager to experience all of the wonders he could only read about on Mars – from the most simple to the extraordinary. But once his explorations begin, scientists discover that Gardner’s organs can’t withstand Earth’s atmosphere.
Eager to find his father, Gardner escapes the team of scientists and joins with Tulsa on a race against time to unravel the mysteries of how he came to be, and where he belongs in the universe.
[Thanks to Hampus Eckerman, Martin Morse Wooster, Michael J. Walsh, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Doctor Science.]
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When I see a quote from Harlan Ellison complaining about anyone else “behaving like children”, I am pretty much inclined to take — or leave — the rest with a whole container of Morton salt.
One does have to love the way he couches his argument as “if you disagree with what I am saying, you are obviously one of the guilty parties! — and also, have you stopped beating your wife?”
Bless his heart, he’s a fantastic writer, and he’s certainly suffered his share of indignities at the hands of others — but he’s also been responsible for visiting plenty of indignities on others, without feeling the slightest remorse about it. So I really don’t see any reason to take him as some sort of authority as to what is, and is not, acceptable adult behavior.
People respond to Brian Z a bit like they would respond to Cthulhu. Some people try to blank everything out as to not loose sanity. Others think they have willpower enough to be able to stand the gibbering horror.
And sometime – people get really mad.
So I really don’t see any reason to take him as some sort of authority as to what is, and is not, acceptable adult behavior.
For example, the time, in a fit of pique, he submitted his unfilmed (and according to the producers of the show, unfimlable) draft of City on the Edge of Forever for the Writers Guild Award in an effort to make Coon and Rodenberry look bad.
Or the time he whined about not getting a Hugo for the movie A Boy and His Dog, the production of which he had almost nothing to do with. He whined so much that they dug up a Hugo base to give him.
@Brian Z: If they don’t want to be considered for further nominations, fine, they can either say that publicly or else privately decline. Picking and choosing which years they want to be nominated, for which works, and for which reasons? It’s a fan award. That stuff should be up to fans.
The goblin said that he doesn’t want an award. He could remove himself and his vanity press from his own slate.
But since I’ve been criticized for not doing enough to fight slates, I’ll chip in by mentioning that when he stopped selling anything to Asimov’s at all, he chose to go out with this:
That’s something Ellison said. What have you done?
Mokoto: That’s something Ellison said. What have you done?
Didn’t you know? It’s up to everyone else to actually do something constructive — not him, of course, he’s just the idea man.
@JJ: Didn’t you know? It’s up to everyone else to actually do something constructive — not him, of course, he’s just the idea man.
Give up and do nothing. What an idea!
A Hugo for A Boy And His Dog, oh, my god… That movie shouldn’t have won an award. It should have won a punishment. Or maybe an award for the pure camp of it. It is perfect to laugh at with a glass of abzinth in your hand and a fez on your head.
On a pure pixel level, Don Johnson won the Golden Scroll for his part in it.
@Aaron – those Ellison stories are hilarious, thanks for sharing! lol
Death Race 2000 wasn’t even nominated. And neither was Rocky Horror Picture Show or Stepford Wives. 🙁
Meh.
@Sunhawk – Those are just the Ellison stories that I could remember off the top of my head. He has a long and colorful history (and in some cases, a not very pleasant history – I recall one story in which he assaulted another author, or maybe it was a critic).
For much of his career, Ellison has managed to simultaneously be both the juvenile delinquent playing mailbox baseball and the grumpy old man yelling at the kids to get the hell off his lawn. It is quite a trick, and when one considers his pronouncements, one is probably advised to take into consideration that at some point he might do (or might have done) exactly what he is condemning today – such as when he lobbied for certain people to be given a lifetime achievement award by the SFWA (see Harlan Ellison’s Watching 36).
@Hampus Eckerman: “People respond to Brian Z a bit like they would respond to Cthulhu.”
ROFLMAO! 😀
@Mokoto
Offering to chip in to fight slates was a joke. I just wondered if you might find it helpful to know that about Stephen King so that when you no-award him you can do it with more of a feeling of self-righteousness. 😀
@Aaron
You’re equating writers corralling fans on the internet to put a fix in on the Hugos with Ellison producing commentary arguing that SFWA ought to make Grand Master awards more regularly so that a dozen ancient masters, the AE Van Vogts and Poul Andersons and Robert Sheckleys and Philip Jose Farmers, could be honored before they were gone? Aaron, how did you become that callous and unfeeling?
And there we go again. Paraphrasing = Make shit up = Aristotle. Cheers!
The issue with Ellison lobbying for people to be given awards is that he was doing the exact same thing he was complaining about when other people did it. He specifically called for the people he referenced in his video to be given awards, lobbying the SFWA directly via his television show to accomplish that goal.
This is why the question comes up as to what Ellison considers to be lobbying, which some have claimed could be answered simply by looking in a dictionary. Except it can’t be, because he clearly considered some pushing for awards to be perfectly fine as he engaged in it himself. Either Ellison is a giant hypocrite for lobbying on the one hand and condemning others who do it, or he considers trying to get authors like A.E. van Vogt lifetime achievement awards to not be lobbying, which raises the question of what definition Ellison was using for “lobbying”, since by the dictionary definition of the term, that’s exactly what he was doing.
Maybe it is only bad lobbying if one is using the internet to do it – after all in another one of his Harlan Ellison’s Watching commentaries he talked about how horrible the internet is. Using television is okay because only the elite have access to that (Ellison had another commentary in which he declared himself to be an elitist), but the internet is open to anyone so that is bad. Who knows? I’m not even sure if Ellison could describe the difference at this point.
Jesus, Hampus. Harlan wasn’t even an SFWA member. Watch the video, then come back and say that to me honestly. If you are capable of being honest.
And a bit of argle bargle.
Did you watch the video?
Did you have sparris for lunch?
Having trouble finding a link, Hampus? Here. I’ll wait.
Yes, please stand on hold.
It’s a five minute video Hampus. Done yet?
Please continue to be on hold.
Must be a slow internet connection out there in Sweden? I sympathize. There must be places where it barely reaches 20Mb/s.
Yes, it is a pure horrorshow here. Stay on hold.
On the other hand, my blood pressure is definitely reading higher than that.
And a bit of argle bargle.
It really is all BZ seems to have in his arsenal.
Now that Hampus has shown his true colors, Aaron can explain whether Harlan Ellison was lying when he indicated that SFWA officers, plus perhaps whatever other select groups of insiders Aaron imagines to be legitimately qualified to make a case for adjusting the annual and decadal schedule by which grand masters are honored, agreed that Van Vogt is one of them.
Where to go from there will depend on Aaron’s response, which we may not receive anytime soon, since I’ve been permanently whited out.
Yes, yes, I have shown my true colours by again seeing a comment full of argle bargle from you.
@Brian Z: Offering to chip in to fight slates was a joke.
You don’t say.
I just wondered if you might find it helpful to know that about Stephen King so that when you no-award him you can do it with more of a feeling of self-righteousness.
King is neither a rubbery goblin, nor a product of his vanity press.
Here Hampus, save your fingers the wasted typing, use this oldie but goodie: http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/
We’d better give Aaron a little time to figure out which path he is willing to go down.
Now that Hampus has shown his true colors, Aaron can explain whether Harlan Ellison was lying when he indicated that SFWA officers, plus perhaps whatever other select groups of insiders Aaron imagines to be legitimately qualified to make a case for adjusting the annual and decadal schedule by which grand masters are honored, agreed that Van Vogt is one of them.
The issue isn’t one of merit. It is lobbying. Harlan was clearly lobbying for people to get an award in the video. Exactly why is it okay for Ellison to lobby on the one hand and scold others for lobbying on the other? Is lobbying bad, or is it only bad when one is lobbying for the wrong things? Whether van Vogt or Anderson or Sheckley deserved a Grand Master Award isn’t the question. The question is why did Ellison think it was okay to lobby for them to get awards but is somehow horrible for others to lobby for other people to get awards. Is Ellison just being a giant hypocrite on this score? Does Ellison think what he did wasn’t lobbying?
“Is lobbying bad, or is it only bad when one is lobbying for the wrong things?”
Now we’re cooking.
I gather that you agree Ellison was not lying when he indicated that the SFWA officers/insiders agreed Van Vogt was deserving of the award and should receive it.
If so, he could not have been lobbying in order to convince them that AE van Vogt should get a lifetime achievement award, since this was already agreed.
Instead, he lobbied for a procedural change to abandon a customary practice – no longer in the bylaws – restricting the number per decade because someone who would receive the award was old and very ill.
There was resistance to changing the customary practice. The reasons for that resistance are described in the video.
Bleeding heart liberal that he is, Ellison lobbied for integrity and staying true to the principles of the award, by not letting political issues unrelated to the author’s merit and the place in the canon encourage delays that might prevent a grand master close to death from being recognized as was his acknowledged due.
I do not see how you can conflate Ellison lobbying for principles of integrity and humanity, with selfish and shortsighted writers going onto the internet to lobby their fans to vote for me! vote for me! in a fan-voted award.
Maybe you don’t really conflate them. Maybe your response was prompted by your very negative opinion of Ellison and your combative wish to argue with me. Maybe (aside from me obviously having more respect for Ellison than you) our views are not so completely far apart.
Or maybe you do conflate them. I don’t know. I can’t, and it’s not because of my poor reading comprehension.
I gather that you agree Ellison was not lying when he indicated that the SFWA officers/insiders agreed Van Vogt was deserving of the award and should receive it.
He says specifically that he’s been lobbying for van Vogt to get the award for two years. He is lobbying for van Vogt (and others) to be given an award.
If so, he could not have been lobbying in order to convince them that AE van Vogt should get a lifetime achievement award, since this was already agreed.
Sure he could. van Vogt didn’t have the award, and Ellison was campaigning for him to get the award. That is lobbying. It doesn’t matter what sleight of hand spin you want to put on it, Ellison was lobbying for certain people (in the video, van Vogt, Anderson, Wilhelm, and Sheckley) to be given an award.
I do not see how you can conflate Ellison lobbying for principles of integrity and humanity, with selfish and shortsighted writers going onto the internet to lobby their fans to vote for me! vote for me! in a fan-voted award.
Because they are both lobbying for people to get awards. That’s the issue. On the one hand, Ellison says it is verboten for people to lobby for people to be given awards, and on the other he lobbies for people to be given awards. The fact that he may or may not have been lobbying for a customary practice to be overturned to clear the way for van Vogt to be given an award doesn’t change the fact that he was lobbying for van Vogt to be given an award.
Your response here indicates to me that you think lobbying is okay so long as you think the cause is worthy, despite your previous assertions that lobbying is always bad. Ellison also seems to think that lobbying is okay, so long as he is doing it for something he thinks is worthy. That’s not a principled stance, that’s an opportunistic one.
Here’s what I suspect: Ellison doesn’t think what he was doing qualified as lobbying, because he has a specific range of behaviors in mind when he thinks of the word “lobbying” – a range that he never defined and that we don’t know. This is despite the fact that what he is doing in Harlan Ellison’s Watching 36 is, by the dictionary definition of the word, clearly lobbying for people to get awards. That is why, long ago, I said that before you could compare anything happening today to Ellison’s pronouncements from more than two decades ago, you had to determine what he meant by “lobbying” (and “begging for votes”) and then see if those meanings actually applied. You have not done that. You tried the facile “just look in the dictionary” ruse, but that has fallen apart on you. Now you are just resorting to your usual dishonest dance of dodge, weave, evade, dissemble, and lie.
Alternatively, we could conclude that Ellison was being a giant hypocrite when he said that lobbying for people to get awards was out of bounds after lobbying for people to get awards.
Brian Z.: I just wondered if you might find it helpful to know that about Stephen King so that when you no-award him you can do it with more of a feeling of self-righteousness.
Why would anyone need to know anything about an author in order to decide how to rank their fiction? “Obits” is going below No Award on my ballot, because it’s a totally pedestrian story, and it doesn’t belong on the Hugo ballot.
Why would anyone need to feel self-righteous about how they rank their Hugo ballot? It exists specifically for the purpose of them being able to do that.
Oh, that’s right — you assume that everyone else thinks and behaves the same way you do. 🙄
Stop dissembling. Ellison meant lobbying to change the votes of authors and fans so that they will vote for things that benefit you, rather than to benefit the community and the mission of collectively selecting the most excellent SFF of the year. Ellison meant going around to the other authors and the fans and saying don’t vote for that thing you think is excellent! Vote for me! me! Demanding definitions of everyday words and then playing shell games with them is puerile. Cut it out.
You know full well how grand masters are chosen and that it doesn’t involve securing the most votes for Team Anderson so they can beat out Team Wilhelm. Ellison wasn’t even a member, but he cared enough about his colleagues to argue for shifts in cultural practices to let grand masters who might die be honored while they were alive.
And urged them not to let petty politics get in the way of the spirit of the community and its awards. A lesson you’ve now forgotten.
Everyone knows the difference between sucking for votes for personal advantage and letting your principles guide you to attempt to lobby for institutional change. I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you might not really intend to conflate them, but I won’t again.
sez brianz: “Stop dissembling.”
Yeah! Listen to him, ‘cuz if there’s anybody who knows dissembling, it’s BrianZ!
@Brian Z: “Ellison wasn’t even a member [of SFWA], but he cared enough about his colleagues to argue for shifts in cultural practices to let grand masters who might die be honored”
Hmm. This looks familiar somehow. Let me do a little replacement…
Naaaah. I must be imagining things.
@Brian Z: Everyone knows the difference between sucking for votes for personal advantage and letting your principles guide you to attempt to lobby for institutional change. I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you might not really intend to conflate them, but I won’t again.
Brian, opposing lobbying is a rational perspective. Ellison made a passionate case for granting grand master status to several authors and for changing the rules that prevented their timely admission. Nonetheless, he engaged in lobbying to do so. He lobbied for A. E. Van Vogt, he lobbied for Robert Bloch. The former was admitted, the latter hasn’t been. You can argue that he should have, but that’s not relevant. You can argue intent, but that isn’t, either.
You’re trying to make an argument for lobbying so you can make an eventual argument for slating, if the intention is right.
Negative Space Brian Z is on fire*.
*Multiple interpretations possible. Choose as many as appropriate.
This post needs a rename: Brian Z keeps going, and going, and going. Everyone gives him attention so he keeps going,and going, and going like the Energizer Bunny(TM) . Even threatened whiteouts don’t last a day.
Tasha Turner: Everyone gives him attention so he keeps going,and going
Malicious narcissist trolls don’t stop trolling when no one responds. “Don’t feed the trolls” does not work with them. The only thing that works is banning.
@JJ
When filers ignore Brian Z he shuts up on the posts he’s being ignored on and tries a different post/thread. A large portion of this thread wouldn’t have happened if people didn’t respond and give Brian Z something to work with.
Don’t feed the trolls doesn’t work with everyone I agree. Banning is the best way to handle trolls. Although for some reason a number of filers want Brian Z to be allowed to stay and speak up ever time someone, like me, suggest he go away forever or OGH ban him.
Lets also remember that Ellison lobbied for the magazine he himself was writing for:
@Tasha
I’ll join your lonely chorus. If I was running this place, I’d have banned Brian’s sealioning behind long ago.
I am favour of banning anyone who so consistently argues in bad faith or just gish gallops so relentlessly and going in circles until the other person gives up in frustration, with no measurable attempts to shape up or just quit it. Either Brian is completely devoid of empathy and the ability to have a respectful emotionally-intelligent conversation with other human beings or he does want these negative reactions and purposely tries to provoke them. Either way, he’s been given more than enough feedback about how he posts and yet he’s still at it exactly the same, with the occasional toddler-like moments of “But I’m not TOUCHING you, I am just hovering my finger near your face!” disingenous nonsense.
Free speech is one thing, but allowing someone to consistently poison the conversation through namecalling and baseless (often nonsensical) accusations and how he always tries to bring unrelated conversations back to his personal bugaboos has just as much of a chilling effect on people’s ability to speak freely.
Tasha has the right of it, of course. But some folks just love to argue with him. Hopefully they enjoy it at least 1/10th as much as Brian Z enjoys it! 😉
What a pile-on by callous, soulless fools who think it is fine and dandy to let grand masters die without receiving an honorary title because a few people, in secret and for petty reasons unrelated to the grand master’s acknowledged merit, were reluctant to bend an obsolete, unwritten customary rule when everyone agreed the honor was the grand master’s due, and yet those same callous, heartless people are literally tripping over themselves to repeatedly strike venerable and inflexible Constitutional requirements, signing their names year after year to failed amendment after failed amendment to prevent people they don’t like from getting nominated for the short list or maybe even just the long list of a popularly voted fan award.
If you really join Aaron in pretending that you can’t get it through your skulls that Ellison was fighting for principles of fairness, integrity and respect – social justice – you simply prove that social justice is not something you actually care about at all.
Mokoto, Aaron knows the range of things the word lobbying means in plain usage. In fact (IIRC) Aaron is some kind of gummint lawyer in Washington and literally swims in a vast sea of it. Yet, since Ellison used a word to criticize skewing the results of a popularly voted literary award by going on the internet and taking advantage of your own bigger readership to suck for more votes, and I said it is obvious that’s what he meant, so, ergo, somehow, lobbying can only mean one thing and any form must be always bad. Is that what you are jumping up and down and frantically waving your arms to agree with?
Aaron knows that it is nonsensical to claim every kind of urging people to change the outcome of awards is wrong. You are “lobbying” to “stop slates.” So am I. There was Ellison on TV lobbying for you to refrain from going on the internet to change the outcome by begging for Hugos.
He even reminded you in uncharacteristically polite terms that sure, why not, he might come back on the air to urge everybody who gets his long-running Sci Fi Channel TV show to vote for him, if that’s what you really want.
Just like Stephen King might address his Gentle Readers and mention in passing how he fondly remembers the win for Danse Macabre, and gee it sure would be nice to go to another Worldcon and see all those wonderful people.
And you still can’t wrap your head around why he thinks you are creeps?
Here comes more argle bargle, this time with weird conspiracy theories.
Watch that video yet, Hampus? Need the link again?