Snapshots 10

Seven developments of interest to fans.

(1) There’s a wacky music video tribute to John Williams making its way around the web, where a fellow sings four parts a capella while combining some of Williams’ memorable movie themes with filk-style lyrics.
 
(2) Follow this link to NBC News’ excellent summary of the Clark Rockefeller case, “Famous name, infamous life.” From the interview:

Natalie Morales: Did you kill John and Linda Sohus?

Clark Rockefeller: My entire life, I’ve always been a pacifist. I am a Quaker and I believe in non-violence. And I can fairly certainly say that I have never hurt anyone.

(3) Bob Baker, whose marionettes performed in a Star Trek episode, now is 84. Just like the big corporations, his LA puppet theater for kids could use a bailout. (Which episode? It was Baker manipulating Beauregard, the highly animated plant spooked by the “salt-vampire” in the first Star Trek episode ever broadcast, “The Man Trap.”)

(4) The New York Times discovered “An Otherworldly Opera That Speaks Klingon“:

Mr. Schfeld, 26, who speaks English, German, Dutch and what he calls basic Klingon, started creating the opera in the summer of 2007 as his masters thesis at the Interfaculty ArtScience program, affiliated with the Royal Conservatory, in The Hague, where he lives. With a group he founded, the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble, he performed parts of the opera at the Zeebelt Theater in The Hague, most recently in July. They can be seen on YouTube clips linked to his Web site, www.ktre.nl

(5) David Klaus recommends an article for its revelation of “a new twist on ‘they’re out to get me’ – ‘they’re out to watch me,’ as paranoid schizophrenia manifests itself as a belief they’re in The Truman Show or The Matrix.”

One man showed up at a federal building, asking for release from the reality show he was sure was being made of his life. Another was convinced his every move was secretly being filmed for a TV contest. A third believed everything — the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed — was part of a phony, stage-set world with him as the involuntary star, like the 1998 movie “The Truman Show.”

(6) Aaron Ross Powell tells about his experience selling a draft novel on Amazon’s Kindle.

(7) The economic crisis has killed a manga publisher:

In what looks to be a reaction to the economic downturn, manga publisher Broccoli Books, the U.S. branch of Broccoli International, a Japan-based international producer of anime, manga, games and pop culture merchandise, will close at the end of this year.

Broccoli Books is based in Los Angeles.

[Thanks to David Klaus, Francis Hamit, and Andrew Porter for these links.]


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