Tag Archives: Ernest Hemingway

Pixel Scroll 5/1/25 If You’re Looking For That Pixel, It’s Over In That Scroll, Not This One

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(1) FOR WHOM CTHULHU TOLLS. Quotes from Lovecraft’s correspondence touching on Hemingway feature in Bobby Derie’s “Harsh Sentences: H. P. Lovecraft v. Ernest Hemingway” at Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein.

It is just possible that Ernest Hemingway knew the name H. P. Lovecraft. Though they moved in very different literary circles and Hemingway was not known to have ever picked up a copy of Weird Tales. Yet they both earned three-star ratings in Edward J. O’Brien’s The Best Short Stories of 1928, Hemingway for “Hills Like White Elephants,” Lovecraft for “The Color Out of Space.” They both made The Best Short Stories of 1929, too. For Hemingway, that was the likely the beginning and end of their association; there are no mentions of the master of the weird tale in Hemingway’s letters. It was easy, in the 1920s and 30s, to know nothing about Lovecraft.

For H. P. Lovecraft, missing Hemingway would have been much more difficult—nor did he….

…While vastly different in style, that both men shared an appreciation for some of the same authors and works, or at least recognized their importance, should not be surprising. They were only nine years apart in age, both white men raised in America, voracious readers who loved literature. One notable fantasy writer that they both appreciated was Lord Dunsany, who was a major influence on Lovecraft:

“Often a wonderful moon and the guy’s would have me read Lord Dunsany’s Wonder Tales out loud. He’s great.” —Ernest Hemingway to Grace Quinlan, 8 Aug 1920, LEH 1.237

(2) EFFORT TO STOP IMLS LAYOFFS. Plaintiffs move to prevent layoffs ordered for the Institute of Museum and Library Services: “In D.C.’s District Court, ALA Battles to Preserve IMLS” at Publishers Weekly.

At the first hearing in ALA v. Sonderling, held April 30 at the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, the American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees pushed for the court to put an immediate halt to the ongoing gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services before the majority of its staff is laid off this weekend.

The ALA and AFSCME hope to block the implementation of a White House executive order that has hollowed out the IMLS, reduced staffing to a minimum, and imposed delays and outright terminations on the agency’s statutory and discretionary grants. In a brief filed April 28, the organizations argued that the defendants, including IMLS acting director Keith Sonderling, have made “arbitrary” and “unconstitutional” changes at the agency. The defendants contend they must comply with the EO to fulfill “the President’s priorities.”…

(3) AI BS. T. R. Napper cuts loose on “the oft-repeated lies and the self-serving greed of an industry that, at its core, seeks to destroy art” in “It’s the People, Stupid (Human Art in a Company World)”.

The Will to Anthropomorphise

This dishonesty of the tech industry is particularly acute in the field of generative AI models, where obscurantist tech language tries mightily to anthropomorphise the machine. Where we are told, for example, that mistakes made by Large Language Models are ‘hallucinations’, or that chatbots can serve us as mentors, coaches, cheerleaders, counsellors, and even as romantic interests.

Let’s make this clear from the outset. A large language model has the same sentience as a toaster. It thinks about language about as much as a toaster does toast: that is, not at all. These are not coaches or counsellors, they are products. They are instruments of surveillance and data extraction for some of the most venal and amoral corporations on earth. The products don’t care about you, they don’t think about you. They don’t think about you because ‘they’ don’t exist as a consciousness.

When AI-driven search engines have a 60% error rate, they are not ‘hallucinating,’ they simply aren’t working. If you had a car that didn’t work 60% of the time, you’d take it back to the dealership…

(4) MEANWHILE, BACK AT AI MONETIZATION. The Verge tells how – with the estate’s permission — “The BBC deepfaked Agatha Christie to teach a writing course”.

BBC Studios is using AI to recreate the voice and likeness of late detective story author Agatha Christie for the purpose of featuring it in digital classes that teaches prospective writers “how to craft the perfect crime novel.” A real life actor, Vivien Keene, is standing in for Christie, with her appearance augmented by AI to resemble the author.

The new class, called Agatha Christie Writing, is available today on BBC Maestro, the company’s $10-per-month online course service that usually gives you access to content from living professionals teaching things like graphic design, bread making, time management, and more.

Deepfaked Agatha Christie’s teachings are “in Agatha’s very own words,” her great-grandson James Prichard said in a press release. It uses insights from the real Christie and is scripted by academics — so the actual content appears to be human-made and not generated from a model that’s been fed all of her work. BBC collaborated with Agatha Christie Estate and used restored audio recordings, licensed images, interviews, and her own writings to make this all happen….

(5) UNSPOILED PRAISE. Camestros Felapton tells us why “Andor Season 2 is really good [no spoilers]”.

…One of the things that I really like about this show that, if anything, is even stronger this season, is the way the Imperial bad guys are treated as fully realised complex characters BUT without any suggestion that somehow they are decent people who are just on the wrong side of things. We spend a lot of time with Imperial agent Dedra Meero of the Imperial Security Bureau and the uptight but emotionally fragile Syril Karn. They really are not nice people both as people and in terms of the powers that they serve but they are very definitely people, with complex lives and difficult emotions, trying to navigate their own lives….

(6) IN FOR A POUND. ER, FIFTEEN. The Guardian reports “New book prize to award aspiring writer £75,000 for first three pages of novel”. But it’s “pay to play”.

A new competition is offering £75,000 to an aspiring writer based on just three pages of their novel.

Actor Emma Roberts, Bridgerton author Julia Quinn and Booker-winning Life of Pi author Yann Martel are among the judges for The Next Big Story competition, run by online fiction writing school The Novelry.

Roberts, who co-founded the book club Belletrist, said: “There’s nothing more euphoric than being immersed in the world of a good book and to get lost in the words of a brilliant author. This is a groundbreaking new writing prize and I’m thrilled to be included on this panel of esteemed luminaries.”

Martel said: “We all need stories to make the world new, and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s out there.”

Along with the cash prize, The Novelry will support the winner for a year to develop their idea into a full book….

… Entrants from the UK, US, Canada and Australia are invited to submit the first three pages of their novel via The Novelry’s website by 31 July. Each entry costs £15 and there is no limit on the number of entries each writer can submit. A shortlist selected by a team at The Novelry will be put to a public vote from 28 September. Guided by the public vote, the judging panel will pick a winner, to be announced on 12 October. The prize is funded by The Novelry….

(7) CASHING IN ON SUPERHEROES. “Superman gets a U.S. Coin—Batman and more coming soon” reports AIPT Comics. (See full information at the U.S. Mint’s “Comic Art Coin and Medal Program” webpage.)

The United States Mint (Mint) has announced it’s launching a coin series featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products (WBDGCP). Designed by Mint Chief Engraver Joseph Menna, these are genuine American coins.

It’s said the coins are meant to celebrate the American values and heroic ideals that these characters represent.

The first hero getting the coin treatment is Superman, first revealed during a ceremonial strike event held at the Mint in Philadelphia.

The coins come in gold and silver. Check out the Superman coins below….

(8) ICG RIP 2025. The International Costumers Guild has posted the “Costuming Community Video Memorial 2025” — see the video on YouTube. Note: The photo listed as “William Rotsler” is actually Tim Powers. They do accurately list Rotsler’s year of death as 1997; they don’t say why he’s included.

This video premiered during the virtual Single Pattern and Future Fashion shows on April 12, 2025 when Costume-Con had been cancelled. Once again, we recognize people who may not have worn (m)any costumes and/or competed in masquerades, but still made some significant impact within the greater costuming community. If you know of a costumer or someone else who has either passed away recently or years earlier, please contact us at icg-archivist @ costume.org. The people remembered in this video are: John Stopa, William Rotsler, Jim Inkpen, John Trimble, Jim Davis, Tonya Adolfson (aka Tanglwyst de Holloway), Jay Smith and “Miki” Dennis.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

Star Trek pilot, “The Cage” 

By Paul Weimer: The original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”, starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike.

I saw pieces of it before I got to see the entire thing, of course, in the two-part Star Trek episode “The Menagerie” which has Spock recall the events of the episode. My opinion of “The Cage” was thus an incomplete opinion until I finally got to see the complete “The Cage” on TV on a TV special just before The Next Generation debuted.  

It was a fascinating experience to see the entire pilot at last, without any Kirk or the rest of his era, and all of the missing material. I came to see how even more progressively radical for its time that the original pilot for Star Trek was. Mind you, I saw how Jeffrey Hunter ‘s Christopher Pike was really Jeffrey Sinclair before his time…a lead that was good, but not quite what audiences would want in the main. I could see the swing from Hunter to Shatner, Pike to Kirk. I could sadly see why having a female Number One in the early 1960’s was a non-starter, either.

The real poleaxe was Spock. The Spock of “The Cage” is a very different Spock than the Spock we see in every subsequent iteration. A smiling Spock, an emotional Spock, a Spock that is fundamentally less alien in many ways than the Spock we come to know and love. And of course one that is just a moderate officer on the Enterprise, not the first officer, not part of the Heroic Trio of Bones, Kirk and Spock. And no Heroic Trio as well. (Good old Jon Lormer as Dr. Theodore Haskins is no McCoy, but it’s clear that he’s the model for McCoy). And of course, once we have gotten to Strange New Worlds, the conception of what an Enterprise Bridge could be has changed. 

So in the end, we will never know what might have resulted…but I strongly suspect Star Trek would not have survived as long as it did, if “The Cage” had gone forward and become the actual TV series. But again (c.f. Babylon 5 again), it was a prototype that made the real version possible, and magical. 

(10) BELATED BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

April 30, 1938 — Larry Niven, 87. 

By Paul Weimer: Larry Niven was one of the early SF authors I read, once I was out of my initial burst of Asimov and Clarke, in the early 1980’s. My brother had a couple of copies of various short story collections set in Known Space, as well as Ringworld. And so I was set for a while on Niven and his works. I loved some of the crafty puzzling aspects of some of his stories, the variety of aliens, and the exploration of consequences of technologies. 

I kept following Niven’s work, and it was his collaboration with Pournelle (The Mote in God’s Eye) that got me into Pournelle’s work for a good long time. Similarly, his collaborations with Steven Barnes (Dream Park) got me into Barnes’ own work. Niven was a great facilitator of introducing me to authors, directly and indirectly. I first heard of Georgette Heyer through an anecdote that he relates in N-Space, for example. 

Still, Niven has multiple worlds that enthralled me. Known Space. The novels of his Smoke Ring duology. The Magic Goes Away verse. Dream Park (until the last novels which retconned and changed the technology and ruined the concept for me). The Heorot verse. His contributions to Pournelle’s Future History. 

The luster of Niven slowly faded, as his politics and mine diverged, perhaps on his part, and certainly in mine. It started in Fallen Angels, and his very anti-Environmental stance that, as cool as it was to have Glacier spushing out of Canada, started to turn me off. I think it was The Burning City, set in his Magic Goes Away verse, that finally had the politics overwhelm the storytelling, the writing, and the ideas, to their detriment for my own personal reading. I did try Bowl of Heaven (with Gregory Benford) a decade ago…but the magic had gone away, for me. Alas.

For all of my love of early Niven Known Space and the like, “Inconstant Moon” remains my favorite Niven story. It’s a love story at its heart, even as Niven kills most of the planet in the process. 

Larry Niven

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) NEW FRAZETTA ART BOOK. Frazetta Girls is taking pre-orders on their website for a book of Frank’s drawings: “Frank Frazetta: Fine Lines Art Book”

It includes essays about Frazetta’s illustrations for the Canaveral Press, the Lord of the Rings portfolio, the Science Fiction Book Club, and others.

(13) COSTUME DESIGN. [Item by Andrew Porter.] Really fascinating costuming and clothing article. “Costume Secrets of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” at PBS.

In Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, a character’s success is measured in silks, stitching, and the symbolism of a regal headpiece. In an interview with MASTERPIECE, costume designer Joanna Eatwell talks about dressing the Tudors from the inside out, channeling 16th-century portraiture, and which actor most fully inhabits her meticulously crafted designs….

JOANNA EATWELL: … And in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, we were given the greatest gift ever. And that is Hans Holbein and his court paintings. …Holbein did primarily paint the court, because portraiture was incredibly expensive to have done. And he did a couple of pet portraits of Henry’s servants. And from those, we can get liveries, the King’s guards, we understand how they worked. But he paints fabrics. He’s extraordinary. And I think we’d be lost without him….

(14) WHAT’S MY LINE? At Entertainment Weekly, “Kit Harington recalls Bella Ramsey helping him with ‘Game of Thrones’ lines”.

Kit Harington and Bella Ramsey are reminiscing about working on Game of Thrones together — and recalling how one of them helped the other remember their lines.

In a recent conversation for Interview, Ramsay told Harington their earliest memories of playing Lyanna Mormont opposite his Jon Snow in season 6 of the HBO fantasy series. 

“I don’t know whether you remember this, but I remember it quite vividly and have some remorse for it now, but during that scene I was mouthing your lines to you,” the Last of Us star said. “Now I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, how awful.’ But at the time it came from a very innocent place of being like, ‘Kit’s struggling with his line and I know it, so let me just mouth it to him.'”

Harington then shared his side of the story. “I do remember you helping me out and it being quite humiliating,” he recalled. “But yeah, thanks for that. I’ve probably chosen to forget it.”

Ramsey said they now regret the move. “You’re welcome. No, I think I need to forget it, because that’s so annoying,” they said. “Like, how annoying is that?”

Harington reassured his former costar: “It wasn’t at all. If anything I was like, ‘Oh god, I’ve got to up my game. I came here not really being comfortable enough with my lines, in the arrogance of however old I was, thinking I’m just opposite some child. And then that child actor is wiping me off the screen.’ Not that it’s a competition, but you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve got a bit too comfortable in my Jon Snow-ness.'”…

(15) RESIDENT ALIEN SEASON 4 WILL BE SIMULCAST. “’Resident Alien Gets Season 4 Premiere Date & Trailer On USA & Syfy” reports Deadline.

Almost a year after Resident Alien moved from Syfy to NBCUniversal sibling USA Network with a suspenseful Season 4 renewal, a premiere date has been set for said Season 4 and, surprisingly, it involves both the sci-fi comedy-drama’ new and old homes.

The new season of Resident Alien will debut June 6 as a simulcast on USA and Syfy….

… As Deadline reported last spring, Resident Alien, facing cancellation at Syfy, moved to USA for a fourth season with a significant budget reduction. The USA/Syfy simulcast model was previously used for Chucky during its three-season run….

(16) A LITTLE LIKE A MYSTERY THEATRE 3000 MOMENT. “Almost 30 years later, Ben Affleck says his iconic Armageddon DVD commentary might be his best work: ‘It is an achievement I’m proud of’”  at GamesRadar+.

Ben Affleck has no shortage of career highlights, from starring in modern classics like Pearl Harbor and Gone Girl and playing Batman in the DCEU to his directorial work in award-winning movies like Argo. His best work, however, might be his brutally honest Armageddon’s DVD commentary, according to Affleck himself.

“In retrospect, now, I feel like maybe my best work in my career is the commentary on this disc,” he said during a Criterion’s Closet Picks video after finding Michael Bay’s thriller on the shelf.”People approach me to talk about the commentary in this disc as much as they do movies that I’ve been in,” Affleck continued. “And it’s because I didn’t know any better than to be really honest. But I won’t spoil it for those of you who are interested. It is an achievement I’m proud of and didn’t intend to be as good as I now think it is.”

In the most famous part of his commentary, Affleck argued that it’s illogical to train oil drillers to be astronauts instead of the other way around. “How hard can it be? You just aim the drill at the ground and turn it on,” he commented back then, not afraid to mock his own film….

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Arnie Fenner, Paul Weimer, Jeffrey Smith, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 5/25/24 If A Pixel Scrolls In A File And No Notification Goes Out, Is Yngvi Still A Louse?

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(1) ANTHRO NEW ENGLAND LEADERSHIP TURNOVER. Anthro New England, a furry convention held in Boston, issued statements yesterday and today about the removal of two top officers, Remy and Scales. The specific reasons are not given. Comments in social media are speculative.

Statement May 24

Statement May 25

Remy, one of the officers, replied online:

The account identified with Scales also made comments.

An individual whose X.com account is @psykhedelos announced they have also resigned their position with the con.

(2) CARTOON BY TEDDY HARVIA. Here’s a character who can have it both ways.

(3) SHATNER TO RECEIVE ROBERT HEINLEIN MEMORIAL AWARD. William Shatner accepted the National Space Society’s Robert Heinlein Memorial Award last night at the ISDC: “International Space Development Conference 2024 beams up Star Trek’s William Shatner and more in Los Angeles” reports Space.com.

The stars of Star Trek are about to get a taste of real-life space exploration when they beam into the 2024 International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles this weekend, and you have a chance join them to get your space fix. 

On Friday (May 24), actor William Shatner, who originated the role of Captain James T. Kirk and launched into space on a Blue Origin rocket in 2021, will receive the Robert Heinlein Memorial Award “for his deep impact on public perception of the human expansion into space, which boldly highlighted diversity and inclusion previously unseen on television,” conference officials said in a statement. The award, which is given annually by the nonprofit National Space Society at ISDC, is just one event featuring Star Trek actors. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you can learn how to attend the ISDC conference at the at isdc.nss.org.

“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” actor Melissa Navia, who portrays helm pilot Lt. Erica Ortegas, will host the 2024 ISDC conference. NSS officials have also recruited her fellow Trek alums in a May 26 panel “Science Fiction to Science Fact” featuring Nana Visitor (Major Kira Nerys on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”), John Billingsley (Doctor Flox on “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and other Trek and sci-fi veterans to discuss “how science fiction has, and will continue to, transition into our everyday lives, and ultimately, the exploration of space.” 

But real science fact is the main draw for ISDC, which is expected to draw over 1,000 attendees to its talks at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport.

“ISDC 2024 talks will cover the exploration, development, and settlement of the Moon, Mars, and cislunar space; deep space exploration; innovative spaceflight technology; the commercialization of space and space infrastructure; life support systems; collaboration in space; living in space; space solar power; space debris mediation solutions; planetary defense; space law; and both national and international space policy, among others,” organizers wrote in an overview.

This year, the conference’s theme of “No Limits” has drawn in retired astronauts Susan Kilrain and Jose Hernandez, as well as Alan Stern (who leads the New Horizon mission to Pluto and beyond, as well as Vast Space CEO Max Haot, Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin and YouTube creators Isaac Arthur and Brian McManus….

(3) RETCON OF THE RINGS. Inverse compares J.R.R. Tolkien to George Lucas in “73 Years Ago, J.R.R. Tolkien Changed Gollum Canon Forever — It’s About to Happen Again”. – It burns! It burns!

…Published in 1937, The Hobbit transformed fantasy literature like no other book before or since. Presented as an intricate middle-grade children’s chapter book, The Hobbit tells the tale of Bilbo Baggins, the titular Hobbit, as he is pulled into a great journey beyond his cozy home in the Shire. Along with a company of Dwarves, and Gandalf the Wizard, this proto-fellowship encounters various threats, which all get scarier and scarier as the book progresses. The world-building of The Hobbit is shockingly vivid, and, nearly thirty years later, in 1954, when Tolkien decided to expand his world of Middle-earth into a larger epic with his trilogy of novels — The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King — very little adjustment to his landscape was needed. Only two elements had to be heavily revised to make the setting of The Hobbit click: The Ring of Power itself, and its bedraggled former owner, Gollum. And so, in 1951, three years before The Lord of the Rings was published, Tolkien published a new version of The Hobbit.

As extensively revealed by Bonniejean Christensen in the 1975 nonfiction book A Tolkien Compass, “Gollum’s function differs in the two works. In The Hobbit, he is one in a series of fallen creatures on a rising scale of terror. In The Lord of the Rings, he is an example of the damned individual who loses his own soul because of devotion to evil…”

Gollum is not the big bad of The Hobbit and is left behind by Bilbo roughly midway through the book. Crucially, in the original 1937 and 1938 editions of The Hobbit, Gollum is not a depraved maniac addicted to the Ring’s power. Nor is the Ring suggested to be sentient in the original Hobbit. All of those details were altered by Tolkien by 1951 when he changed the text and meaning of Chapter 5: “Riddles in the Dark.”

There are several examples of these changes, but the most relevant alteration is the later suggestion to the reader that Gollum is a crazed murderer and can’t be trusted to be bound by the rules of the riddle game. In the 1937 version, Gollum is just a weird creature.

From the original Hobbit (1937):

“But funnily enough he [Bilbo] need not have been alarmed. For one thing Gollum had learned long ago was to never cheat at the riddle-game, which is a sacred one and of immense antiquity.”

From the revised Hobbit (1951, 1965, et al.):

“He knew of course, the riddle-game was sacred and of immense antiquity and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when they played it. But he [Bilbo] felt he could not trust this slimy thing [Gollum] to keep any promise at a pinch. Any excuse would do for him to slide out of it. And after all that last question had not been a genuine riddle according to the ancient laws.”

Tolkien tinkered with “Riddles in the Dark” up until 1966, making him something of a George Lucas; continually modifying his story to fit with his other books. This retcon of Gollum’s character was so entirely successful that if you read The Hobbit now, you will only find the latter text. The 75th anniversary of The Hobbit, published in 2012, acknowledges the changes to “Riddles in the Dark,” briefly, in a section toward the front of the book, but the only way to get your hands on the first version of “Riddles in the Dark” — short of buying an extremely expensive 1937 or 1938 Hobbit — is to read Douglas A. Anderson’s The Annotated Hobbit, where he elucidates some these changes.

(4) DEEP DICTIONARY DIVE. Greg Cwik reviews a new Ellison compilation edited by J. Michael Straczynski: “Beamed from Within: On Harlan Ellison’s ‘Greatest Hits’” in the LA Review of Books. Harlan’s polysyllabic vocabulary is contagious but not fatal.

…In 1996, the year he won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association, Ellison defined his writing for us: “What I write is hyperactive magic realism. I take the received world and I reflect it back through the lens of fantasy, turned slightly so you get a different portrait.” Ellison wrote like a man suffering from perpetual fever hallucinations, his stories governed by an inimitable eerie logic….

… Ellison’s writing has the electric shock of a malfunctioning machine, words like sparks spraying out. Yet there is humanity—bitter, yes, and often mean, with lust for life unrequited by the vicissitudes of fate, but Ellison’s best work is endowed with the spirit of man with a big, bruised, beating heart. He was a man fascinated by and disappointed with the society roiling around him, and thus his characters are also often denied penance and peace. Ellison is that rare beast, a writer who suffuses his work with smart-man musings without the boring, masturbatory listing of dead philosophers to boost intellectual credit. Except when he did do that (I’m not judging—I’m doing the same thing). In his nonfiction, he bemoans, with avidity, elitists’ tendency to intellectualize everything, while doing so himself, which he undoubtedly knows, just another layer of irony in the madman’s spiritual coils. He was a complicated, even hypocritical man of singular style and insoluble beliefs. (He also dressed real snazzy.)…

(5) RICHARD M. SHERMAN (1928-2024). “Richard M. Sherman, who fueled Disney charm in ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘It’s a Small World,’ dies at 95”. The AP News profile lists many of his credits, work done with his late brother Robert.

…Sherman, together with his late brother Robert, won two Academy Awards for Walt Disney’s 1964 smash “Mary Poppins” — best score and best song, “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” They also picked up a Grammy for best movie or TV score. Robert Sherman died in London at age 86 in 2012….

…Their hundreds of credits as joint lyricist and composer also include the films “Winnie the Pooh,” “The Slipper and the Rose,” “Snoopy Come Home,” “Charlotte’s Web” and “The Magic of Lassie.” Their Broadway musicals included 1974’s “Over Here!” and stagings of “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” in the mid-2000s.

…They wrote over 150 songs at Disney, including the soundtracks for such films as “The Sword and the Stone,” “The Parent Trap,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” “The Jungle Book,” “The Aristocrats” and “The Tigger Movie.”

“It’s a Small World” — which accompanies visitors to Disney theme parks’ boat ride sung by animatronic dolls representing world cultures — is believed to be the most performed composition in the world. It was first debuted at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair pavilion ride….

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

May 25, 1939 – Ian McKellen, 85. Now remember that the following are roles are the ones that I like, not all the roles that he’s done. 

For me, that’d be him playing a nearly ninety-year-old retired detective who’s a beekeeper in Mr. Holmes who given the title of the film is obviously intended to that Holmes. He’s played as an individual who is struggling to recall the details of his final case because his mind is slowly deteriorating. He plays this with considerable dignity. 

Ian McKellen at San Diego Comic-Con 2013. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Yes, I think he made a magnificent Gandalf the White in Jackson’s telling of Tolkien’s story. Note I didn’t say Tolkien’s story as it’s Jackson’s story. Now McKellen pulled off that role as he did not wear a wig or any prosthetics at all. His website detailing the shooting The Fellowship of The Ring says he had very little make-up time either. 

A film that I think that doesn’t get as much love as it should get is The Shadow which I’m very, very fond of. He played Dr. Reinhardt Lane there and did a very nice job of doing it. 

Now he was the narrator of Stardust based somewhat loosely off Gaiman’s novel. And he made a truly magnificent narrator here. Now him narrating an audiobook of that novel would be as delightful as the one Gaiman did which yes I wholeheartedly recommend. 

I’ve not seen it, though I very much want to, but forty-five years ago, the Royal Shakespeare Company production of MacBeth was filmed by Thames Television, and it featured Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth. That sounds awesome. It’s available on DVD. 

Well those are my favorite roles by him. What are yours? 

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) AI LEAVES EGG ON GOOGLE’S FACE.  Or would if Google had a face. “Google AI Overviews Search Errors Cause Furor Online”. (This is an unlocked New York Times article.)

Last week, Google unveiled its biggest change to search in years, showcasing new artificial intelligence capabilities that answer people’s questions in the company’s attempt to catch up to rivals Microsoft and OpenAI….

…The incorrect answers in the feature, called AI Overview, have undermined trust in a search engine that more than two billion people turn to for authoritative information. And while other A.I. chatbots tell lies and act weird, the backlash demonstrated that Google is under more pressure to safely incorporate A.I. into its search engine….

… [T]hings quickly went awry, and users posted screenshots of problematic examples to social media platforms like X.

AI Overview instructed some users to mix nontoxic glue into their pizza sauce to prevent the cheese from sliding off, a fake recipe it seemed to borrow from an 11-year-old Reddit post meant to be a joke. The A.I. told other users to ingest at least one rock a day for vitamins and minerals — advice that originated in a satirical post from The Onion….

(9) ONE WRITER’S FAVE. Chowhound is going to tell you “Why Peanut Butter And Onion Sandwiches Are Named After Ernest Hemingway”.

… Ernest felt onion sandwiches were the perfect meal to enjoy while fishing. Exactly when he began adding peanut butter to the mix is uncertain, but the writer memorialized the PB&O in his novel “Islands in the Stream,” which came out after his death….

…During the Great Depression of the 1930s, an onion stuffed with peanut butter was just one of many fascinating foods, along with dandelion salad and water pie, that was commonly eaten. So a variation on these food combinations isn’t all that out of the ordinary. And, as it turns out, science is on the side of this sandwich. As Marie Wright, chief global flavorist for American food processing giant ADM, told The Takeout, peanut butter and onion complement each other because they both have sulfur-containing compounds…

(10) THE MUNSTERS’ LUCKY NUMBER. SYFY Wire reports “James Wan Eyeing New Take on The Munsters Titled 1313 From Universal”.

The Munsters might be moving back to 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Variety reports that Universal Studio Group is developing a reboot of the iconic monstrous (but friendly!) family from the 1960s sitcom. 

The Munsters, which premiered in 1964 and ran for two seasons, followed the titular family. There was Herman Munster (a Frankenstein’s Monster-type), his wife Lily (a vampire), Grandpa (elderly Count Dracula), daughter Merilyn (a normal-looking young woman), and little Eddie (a werewolf). Despite their monstrous appearances, the Munsters were just as normal as any other red-blooded American family… well, almost as normal. 

The new series — which is still in the works with no details announced yet — is being developed by James Wan of Saw, The Conjuring, Aquaman, Furious 7, and M3GAN fame. Lindsey Anderson Beer and Ingrid Bisu are also listed as developers, per Variety, and Beer will serve as the showrunner and executive producer along with Wan. 

According to the official logline, the upcoming take is described as a horror series that “lives and breathes within the Universal Monsterverse” — suggesting that these new Munsters might not be as cuddly as the original ‘60s incarnation. 

The tentative name for the reboot is 1313, after the family’s address at 1313 Mockingbird Lane. …

(11) THEY’RE THE TOPS. “NASA Earns Best Place to Work in Government for 12 Straight Years”.

For the 12th year in a row, the Partnership for Public Service named NASA the best place to work among large agencies in the federal government. “Once again, NASA has shown that with the world’s finest workforce, we can reach the stars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Through space exploration, advances in aviation, groundbreaking science, new technologies, and more, the team of wizards at NASA do what is hard to achieve what is great. That’s the pioneer spirit that makes NASA the best place to work in the federal government. With this ingenuity and passion, we will continue to innovate for the benefit of all and inspire the world.” The Partnership for Public Service began to compile the Best Places to Work rankings in 2003 to analyze federal employees’ viewpoints on leadership, work-life balance, and other factors of their job.

… Read about the Best Places to Work for 2023 online.

(12) MIGHTY MAKEUP. Paul Williams paralyzes Johnny Carson when he arrives straight from filming “Battle for the Planet of the Apes” in this clip from a 1973 episode of The Tonight Show.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. This week How It Should Have Ended reposted “MAD MAX Fury Road”. It may be news to you!

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jim Janney.]