Five stories, two videos and a tweet in today’s Scroll. Now with extra subtitle goodness.
(1) What’s that sound? Everybody look what’s goin’ down…. Aaron Reese writes audio history in “From vrrrramp to snikt: exploring sci-fi’s most iconic movie sound effects”.
This is also the decade of the Wilhelm Scream, which is perhaps the most ubiquitous sound effect on this list. Appearing in over 300 films, big blockbuster and indie alike, you’ve more than likely heard the Wilhelm Scream.
The Wilhelm Scream originated in a 1951 Warner Brothers western called The Distant Drums, recorded for a scene in the movie in which a character gets attacked by an alligator (the sample is aptly named “”man getting bit by an alligator, and he screamed”). The name, however, comes from the sound sample’s use in 1954 western The Charge at Feather River, when the character Private Wilhelm, well… screams after being shot by an arrow.
While studying film at USC, friends Ben Burtt, Richard Anderson, and Rick Mitchell noticed the pervasive stock sound in a number of favorite flicks, and would jokingly use it for school projects. A few years later, however, Burtt would take the joke to Hollywood when asked by George Lucas to direct sound for Star Wars: A New Hope, using the Wilhelm Scream when a stormtrooper is shot by Luke Skywalker and falls into oblivion in the Death Star. Anderson would follow suit, sneaking it into the truck chase scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
(2) After I ran a Star Wars themed parody of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in yesterday’s Scroll, Michael J. Walsh suggested people might be interested in a Western-themed instrumental cover of the Game of Thrones theme music. “There’s the awesome ability of a guitar with no speakers to be playing so many instruments,” says Mike. “Anyway, the idea of a spaghetti Westeros is amusing.”
(3) Ray Blank – “one of several identities deployed by a confused cosmopolitan” – tells Superversive SF readers that the Hugos want to be free! Or at least a lot cheaper. And not run by the Worldcon. And have Korean and Indian films as nominees.
Worldcon members can vote for the Hugos online. But why should the “premier awards in the science fiction field” still be associated with a physical meet-up? That approach was optimal in the 1950’s, and for a long while after. It is no longer a good way to serve your goal, if the goal is to promote an art form, and to engage with the greatest number of fans. The internet has changed what is possible. The internet connects us to millions, when we used to be satisfied with reaching thousands.
It appears that Worldcon2015 will have more non-attending members than attending members. The disproportionate growth in Worldcon supporting memberships demonstrates an inconvenient truth. The awards could be managed separately from the event. There are only two reasons to connect the two: marketing, and a subsidy for the physical convention. By connecting the two, the legitimacy of the award is undermined. This is supposedly an award given by all fans, wherever they are. So why confuse a voting electorate with a membership system that prefers some fans to others?
Associating an internet-based vote with a convention inevitably skews the vote towards the population who live near to the convention’s location. If the organizers of a ‘world’ event really wanted to maximize the diversity of participation in SF, they would separate the convention from the award, and lower the cost of voting.
You may not have been aware of Superversive SF’s commitment to diversity, a word Blank uses 10 times in his post. But yes, they support it just as strongly as Michael Z. Williamson.
(4) George R.R. Martin opposes the “nuclear option,” nevertheless will be voting No Award in several Hugo categories.
I favor reading the work, and voting for the stories, books, and writers you feel are worthy of a Hugo. Those you do NOT feel are worthy of the Hugo can and should be ranked below No Award or left off your ballot entirely.
This does not mean I am entirely opposed to voting No Award in all cases. Far from it. Having now finished most (not quite all) of my Hugo reading, I can say that I will probably be voting No Award myself in… hmmm… at least three categories, maybe four, maybe even five. These are categories where in my judgement none of the nominated work is worthy of a rocket.
But in those categories where I do find one or more nominees to be of sufficient quality, I will be voting for him or her or them, regardless of whether or not they were on a slate. And yes, this is true even if only one nominee is worthy. To throw out that one worthy nominee because they “had no real competition” (as some have suggested) seems wrong-headed to me. If it is worthy of a Hugo, give it a Hugo, that’s what I say.
Let me be specific here. Short Form Editor, Long Form Editor are all slate, but there are nominees in both who deserve a Hugo, and I’ll be voting for them. The Puppies liked a lot (though not all) of the nominees in the two Dramatic Presentation categories as well… but you know, so did I, so I’ll be voting for those as well. Sorry, but IMNSHO, only an idiot would want to “no award” GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY or INTERSTELLAR because the Puppies slated them. I am not going to tell you which movie or TV show or editor or novel I am voting for. I’ve mentioned some that I liked in older blog posts. Your mileage may vary; read, watch, consider, vote.
(5) I felt like I hadn’t seen Natalie Luhr’s name for a long time so I looked her up – darned if people aren’t still paying her money to tweet her way through Vox Day’s book.
https://twitter.com/eilatan/status/623277169234587649
(6) Will Baird on The Dragon’s Tales linked to an abstract that may show the origins of agriculture can be traced back to the Pleistocene – “The Origin of Cultivation and Proto-Weeds, Long Before Neolithic”. Farming. Yes, people have been raising weed(s) for a long time.
Authors: Snir et al
Abstract: Weeds are currently present in a wide range of ecosystems worldwide. Although the beginning of their evolution is largely unknown, researchers assumed that they developed in tandem with cultivation since the appearance of agricultural habitats some 12,000 years ago. These rapidly-evolving plants invaded the human disturbed areas and thrived in the new habitat. Here we present unprecedented new findings of the presence of “proto-weeds” and small-scale trial cultivation in Ohalo II, a 23,000-year-old hunter-gatherers’ sedentary camp on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. We examined the plant remains retrieved from the site (ca. 150,000 specimens), placing particular emphasis on the search for evidence of plant cultivation by Ohalo II people and the presence of weed species. The archaeobotanically-rich plant assemblage demonstrates extensive human gathering of over 140 plant species and food preparation by grinding wild wheat and barley. Among these, we identified 13 well-known current weeds mixed with numerous seeds of wild emmer, barley, and oat. This collection provides the earliest evidence of a human-disturbed environment—at least 11 millennia before the onset of agriculture—that provided the conditions for the development of “proto-weeds”, a prerequisite for weed evolution. Finally, we suggest that their presence indicates the earliest, small-scale attempt to cultivate wild cereals seen in the archaeological record.
[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh, John King Tarpinian, James Davis Nicoll, and Will Baird for these stories, or at least for leaving them in plain sight.]
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Actually, I’m only $105 short of the goal at this point. I’m a bit surprised myself.
Today’s entry was worth it for that comment alone 🙂
Does Blank also want to tell the Hollywood Foreign Press Association how they should run the Golden Globe awards?
A correction:
The Hugo has never been “…an award given by all fans.”, but rather has always been connected with membership to the Worldcon specifically. If you want a voice in what gets nominated or wins a Hugo, then you need to meet the membership requirements.
If you separate it from Worldcon, it’s no longer the Hugo award, even if you still call it the Hugo.
If you want an award with different voting criteria, that’s fine. Follow Mr. Standlee’s recommendation and start a new one with those criteria.
Ray Blank doesn’t seem to understand what the Hugo Award *is*.
Soon Lee- He also doesn’t seem to understand what Worldcon is, what WSFS is, what Supporting memberships are, or the role of the Hugos at Worldcon.
A very ignorant article.
Careful now, Superversive SF has invented a time machine. This post from 12th of April links to this post from 13th of July.
There is something very scary happening here.
@Camestros: Agreed. Mike outdid himself with the dry wit today.
Gaaah, failed linking. Again:
Careful now, Superversive SF has invented a time machine. This post from 12th of April links to this post from 13th of July.
Ray Blank? Isn’t he the idiot who wanted to bid for a Worldcon for Dubai? He really is stupid, isn’t he?
There is nothing stopping him from running his own con and having his own awards. What’s with these one-trick ponies who only know how to steal instead of create?
This comment by GRRM on proposed rule changes is interesting, and I post it for those that are invested in the EPH change (either for or against). I am not surprised personally. I suppose this means more tilting at EPH in comments rather than discussing books 🙂
http://grrm.livejournal.com/436370.html?thread=22166418#t22166418
Turns on the bat signal for Kyra to win the internets again …. more brackets !!
Ray’s post is odd, he went at it within the comments here a while back trying to make the Hugo’s what he thought they should be (a common misperception it seems amougst puppies) rather than what they are. I thought it was pretty clearly explained then what the Hugo’s are.
He should start his own award or just be happy with goodreads books of the year.
Personally I think a regional measure of popularity is interesting and I like having a country host it’s own regional awards – it often highlights works that escaped my attention.
@Shambles: It’s amazing how invested the Right is in the embedded wisdom within social customs when it suits them. (“Marriage has been between one man and one woman for a long time and Ghu forbid we risk the unforeseen consequences of changing that” e.g.) But a pretty bauble catches their eye – in this case the cachet the Hugo Awards have accrued over the decades of being what they particularly are – and they want it their way right now.
That electric steel guitar Western version is awesome.
Yes. Yes it is.
Then there is this rather startling example of Life Imitating Art, courtesy of the changing of the Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace:
My favorite “changing of the guards” moment came during my first visit to England, in the 1980s, when whichever regimental band was playing that day set up in front of the centre gate, where we were standing, and played a mini-concert. About halfway through what turned out to be their final piece, I recognized the arrangement they were playing: “Tribute to Irving Berlin”, a concert band piece which I had already performed many times by then, and many more times since then (mostly during summer outdoor band concerts). I then started chuckling, because I realized that this quintessentially English musical ensemble, during a quintessentially English formal ritual, was going to conclude this piece with a stirring version of “God Bless America”.
@Jim Henley
Yes to all that. I am really shocked at how this all came about given SP 1/2. There was nothing learned. This wasn’t stealing the keys of the enterprise; it was disenfranchising the individual voters of the community from which they wanted to receive respect and acclaim. Nothing good could come from that.
I now regret having spent time bothering to engage with “Ray Blank” when he was here a while back claiming to be promoting the idea of a Dubai Worldcon bid.
::squees very quietly::
I really should be asleep, but In honour of the old friend who did post-doctoral research in the area, long before the ship came down, I wish to point out that the stuff is dangerous. Sure, we’ve got nasty drugs to defend us, but not nearly as destructive as those held in the military ships; the human ships. And as we know, they claim to have lost the desire to destroy everybody, even their enemies, because they have seen the ‘light’.
I am totally clueless about this, and welcome input…
Making my way through the works …
Both Flow and Why the Science is Never Settled both have climate change denial dog whistling. It’s not really that surprising they both fell into the puppy kennel.
The fifth and final volume in the re-written Exordium series, The Throne of Kronos, is now available (ebook only). I urge you-all to buy it so I have someone to talk to.
Robert Reynolds: A correction:…
Oh, hey, let’s just not even start with that. Ray Blank is the same hack who posted a lengthy piece about how a Worldcon should be held in Qatar without first bothering to do even the most basic research about Worldcon and how it works.
Now he’s posted more than 2,000 words about the Hugos again without first having bothered to do even the most basic research about Worldcon and the Hugos — at an approximate rate of one error or fallacy per 35 words.
If we were going to engage in corrections of Blank’s error- and fallacy-ridden post, we’d be best off starting over with a blank screen.
A question of genre: an e-friend is writing a novel set in an imagined world (different continents, cities) with a modern level of technology and no supernatural elements. Ze is trying to figure out what genre or marketing category to call it: literary fiction? speculative fiction? fantasy? science fiction?
I’m getting more info from them, but it sounds not unlike A Handmaid’s Tale or A Stranger in Olandria. Can any of you think of anything else of this nature?
Doctor Science: A question of genre: an e-friend is writing a novel set in an imagined world (different continents, cities) with a modern level of technology and no supernatural elements. Ze is trying to figure out what genre or marketing category to call it
That sounds to me like the very definition of “Mundane SF“.
Unfortunately, I think the word “mundane” has a very derogatory connotation (ordinary / dull / boring / tedious), and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend using it.
@JJ:
Apparently my intent wasn’t as clear as I thought it was. It seems to me that when you correct an error that monumental in scope and close by suggesting that someone start their own awards if they want an award on their terms, that essentially is suggesting that a blank screen is required, because his entire “argument” has been demolished.
And, as per his own words, without ever doing any research or reaching out to any fandom organisations in Qatar/ UAE.
There was quote someone threw up the other day that I kinda liked, something along the lines of “Work must be done on this fantastic proposal, but by someone else – I’m an ideas man”.
Thank you once again for cutting down the casualties; I will remember this for every time.
@Robert Reynolds
If you want an award with different voting criteria, that’s fine. Follow Mr. Standlee’s recommendation and start a new one with those criteria.
@Lori Coulson
There is nothing stopping him from running his own con and having his own awards.
@Shambles
He should start his own award or just be happy with goodreads books of the year.
Agreed across the board, and this has been my feeling all along. If the award is broken, if you have no respect for who the voters are, or what they like, and you think good books are being ignored, CREATE YOUR OWN AWARD. Call it the Golden Puppy, put it on all your bookcovers when you win, hype it on your blogs. If you think your choices reflect the “true face” of fandom, it should quickly outshadow the Hugos.
Yeah, it won’t be the award Heinlein won, but the Snidely Whiplash-wannabe behind the Puppies is planning to “destroy” that award anyway.
Agreed to everyone who said variations of “If you want that so badly, do it yourself.”
Nothing’s stopping Ray from bidding for a Worldcon anywhere in the world he wants. If he won, he could even give away supporting memberships (although he’d probably have to refund the Advance Supporting Memberships charged in his election, due to a pending constitutional amendment that doesn’t seem especially controversial to be ratified this year).
Nothing’s stopping Ray from creating the Perfect SF/F Popular Culture Award Selected By Every Fan In The World that uses the rules he wants. He just can’t call it a Hugo Award or use a rocket design for the trophy, because those are registered service marks of WSFS. He should set up his award, and assuming he’s so right, the world will flock to his door and nobody will ever again care about the Hugo Awards.
What he really wants is for other people to spend more than half a century of accumulated goodwill to do things the way he says, without him having to do very much more than pound on his keyboard. Fat chance.
I have much more respect for the people who periodically set out to create the Perfect SF Fan Award. Of course, almost inevitably these folks run aground on the same practical considerations that everyone else (including the Hugo Awards) have previously faced and the project falls apart when they discover that running a worldwide-scope SF/F fan award is harder than it looks, but at least they try, which is more than keyboard warriors like Ray Blank can or likely ever will do.
^ Far easier to vandalize an award than create your own.
@Hampus Eckerman:
One of my proudest moments of pointless internet lunacy was creating a circular link reference with two comments on Daily Kos, a site which has no Edit Comment function. Successfully linking to a comment which didn’t exist yet was not at all easy.
Both Flow and Why the Science is Never Settled both have climate change denial dog whistling. It’s not really that surprising they both fell into the puppy kennel.
What makes Flow especially funny is that it appears in an issue of Analog in which the science fact article is one that says climate change is real, climate change is happening, and people who deny it are being kind of stupid.
Mike Glyer, you didn’t like Prolefeed?
The Pixels My Destination
Dangerous Pixels
The Nine Billion Pixels of Glyer
To Scroll in Italbar
Pixels in My Pocket Like Scrolls of Sand
The Splendor and Misery of Scrolls, of Pixels
Through the Valley of the Scroll of Pixels
The Answer, My Friend, is Scrollin’ in the Wind
ETA: The Scrollers Support Me in Email?
Oh, and for Game of Thrones covers:
“a subsidy for the physical convention”
Am I right to laugh at this? I get the impression that the supporting membership fee barely covers the administrative costs of dealing with having supporting memberships. And the other reason to connect the Hugos with WorldCon is “marketing”? Marketing what? WorldCon itself? Because… we want it to be as big and impersonal as ComicCon?
Oh wait, this is the Qatar guy? Never mind.
(1) I’m constantly amazed at the mundane things used to create great sound effects. I think my favourite iconic effect might be the Godzilla scream. Anything claiming to be Godzilla without a version of that sound is just slightly lacking in my book. I’m not sure what other sound is associated with a franchise to that extent – lightsaber hum, perhaps?
(3) Ray Blank has a Brian-like ability to be immensely concerned about things he won’t do anything active about.
(5) I assumed Natalie had run screaming from the internet, so I’m glad to hear she’s still ok. Good work Natalie!
GRRM:
This goes a long way towards explaining why I changed my mind and voted for Jeffro.
FYI I put No Award in the top slot in six categories.
I am of course sympathetic to where GRRM says:
I am less sympathetic to where he comes off as if here were marshaling his forces as the Supreme Allied Commander on this issue. I don’t need one of those in order to get my marching orders – do you?
Brian Z: This goes a long way towards explaining why I changed my mind and voted for Jeffro.
Because you wanted to honor someone who didn’t speak up AGAINST Hate and for healing, someone who spewed vitriol in retaliation, rather than speaking calmly, dispassionately, with clean hands and composure and compassion and decency?
Color me unsurprised.
I got the impression from Ray Blank’s previous ideas about Worldcon that he’s never actually been to one.
Now he has these ideas about the Hugos without seemingly being aware of what the Hugos are or that there are a plethora of other awards already on offer in the field of SFF.
rob_matic: Now [Ray Blank] has these ideas about the Hugos without seemingly being aware of what the Hugos are
Yes, he’s saying, “Here, Worldcon, why don’t you take this Awards program you created and have carefully nurtured for 60 years, turn it into something completely different, charge no fees to support it, but continue to expend thousands of your own volunteers hours and thousands of your own dollars supporting it? Oh, and if you’re not willing to do that, it must be because you are total dark-age Luddites.”
Clues. He haz none.
JJ: drums… drums in the deep…
Can any of you think of anything else of this nature?
This is Ruritarian fiction, named after the country in A Prisoner of Zenda, if your friend is writing what would otherwise be a mainstream novel, just set in a fictional country. There’s a long tradition of it in fantasy (Swordspoint, A College of Magics) and science fiction (The Mouse that Roared) and it depends just on the feel of the book under which they want to share it.
Of course the GRRM quote about the brave and courteous hate fighter refers to Laura Mixon, not Jeffro. I voted for her for the same reason as GRRM cites.
The extrapolated Ray Blank: …and to stay even more relevant the Hugo Awards should primarily be about the best cat video…
Do you know a nick called frankenmine? Well, he is a moderator on the puppy subreddit TorInAction. Here is a nice example of his racism:
And why was that?
And are you going to expand on your ‘talk to them’ strategy as a viable alternative to EPH?
Which begs the question in terms of your ‘talk to them’ strategy – who talks to who? I already asked that, by the way, but maybe you missed it.
Woohoo, GRRM supports Helsinki. I found out about it just as I was composing my own anti-American shoutout post.
How many of you guys are voting for some site for 2017?
Martin Wisse:
Ruritanian fiction
Aha! that’s it! thank you!
With a few exceptions aside (both in the positive and in the negative), I’ve found it difficult for me to decide if the work on the ballot this year makes it above the No Award bar. This is not a problem I am used to having with reading Hugo nominees. I don’t like this problem one whit. I feel like I’ve wandered into a low-end fast food restaurant (e.g. Del Taco), stomach growling and the doors locked behind me.