Taking Inventory of Future Worldcon Bids

Next year fans will choose the site of the 2023 Worldcon: Chengdu, China and Memphis, TN (USA) are currently in contention. Beyond that? An abundance of new Worldcon bids have responded to SMOFCon 37-1/4’s call for questionnaires — Israel, Los Angeles, and Orlando joining the others already in the field. You’ll find all their Q&As here.

(In addition, the seated Worldcons – DisCon III (2021) and Chicon 8 (2022) have submitted answers.)

2023

CHENGDU IN 2023

Proposed Site: Chengdu, China
Proposed Dates: August or September 2023
Bid Leadership: He Xi, chair
Website:
English: CD-WSFC CHENGDU WorldCon in 2023
Chinese: http://www.worldconinchina.com/
Twitter: Chengduworldcon
SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Chengdu for 2023

MEMPHIS IN 2023

Memphis in 2023
Memphis in 2023

Proposed Site: Memphis, TN
Proposed Dates: August 23-27, 2023
Bid Leadership: Cliff Dunn and Kate Secor
Website: Memphis in 2023
Twitter: Memphis in 2023
Facebook: Memphis in 2023
SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Memphis for 2023

2024

GLASGOW IN 2024

Proposed Site: Glasgow, Scotland
Proposed Dates: August 8-12, 2024
Bid Chair: Esther MacCallum-Stewart
Website: Glasgow in 2024
Facebook: Glasgow in 2024
SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Glasgow for 2024

2025

BRISBANE IN 2025

Proposed Site: Brisbane, Australia
Proposed Date: Mid-August 2025
Bid chairs: Devin Madson and Leife Shallcross

Website: Australia 2025

Twitter: Australia 2025: Brisbane bid for Worldcon (@aus2025)

SEATTLE IN 2025

Proposed Site: Seattle, WA
Proposed Date: Mid-August 2025
Bid chair: Kathy Bond
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Seattle2025/
Twitter: Seattle2025

SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Seattle for 2025

2026

JEDDICON IN 2026

Proposed Site: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Proposed Date: To Be Determined, 2026
Bid chair: Yasser M. Bahjatt
Facebook: JeddiCon (created for the 2022 bid)
SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Jeddah for 2026

LOS ANGELES IN 2026

Proposed Site: Anaheim, Long Beach, or Los Angeles, CA
Proposed Date: August 2026
Bid chair: Joyce Lloyd
Facebook:
SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: LA for 2026

NICE, FRANCE IN 2026

Proposed Site: Nice-Côte d’Azur, France
Proposed Date: August 12-16, 2026

Bid chairs: Ugo Bellagamba, Pascale Chabrillat-Trahin
Website: Nice2023 (created for 2023 bid)

Facebook: Nice2023
SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Nice for 2026

ORLANDO IN 2026

Proposed Site: Orlando, FL
Proposed Date: Early to mid-August 2026

Bid chair: Adam Beaton
SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Orlando for 2026

2027

TEL AVIV IN 2027

Proposed Site: Tel Aviv, Israel
Proposed Date: August 2027
Bid chair: Gadi Evron

SMOFCon 37-1/4 Questionnaire: Tel Aviv for 2027


Chicago Wins 2022 Site
Selection Vote

Chicago has won the vote to host the 80th Worldcon, to be held September 1-5, 2022 (Labor Day Weekend in the U.S.).

CoNZealand Site Selection administrator Alan Stewart read off the vote tally during a Zoom meeting. There were 587 total ballots received. (Figures below recorded here by Goobergunch.)

Chicago – 517
Jeddah – 33
None of the Above – 6
Write-ins – 20
No Preference – 11
Invalid – 11
Spoiled – 1
Total With Preference 576
Needed to Elect (Majority) 289

JEDDAH IN 2026. After the results were announced, Yasser Bahjatt said his committee would now become a bid for 2026.

CHICON 8. The name of the 2022 con is Chicon 8. Helen Montgomery will chair.

The event will be held in the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Convention room rates will be $160/night sgl/dbl/tpl/quad.

The guests of honor and toastmasters will be:

Author Guest of Honor

Artist Guest of Honor

Fan Guests of Honor

First Fandom Guest of Honor

Toastmasters

At this link is Chicon 8’s Progess Report #0.

The Membership price structure is in this table. (Should be possible to enlarge by clicking on it. Otherwise the info is at the Chicon 8 website.)

CHICON 8 COMMITTEE

CHICON 8 SOCIAL MEDIA

Update: The complete results of the voting for the 2022 Worldcon were:

FIRST BALLOTMail-inEmailedTotal 
Chicago in 20221516517winner
Jeddicon 202203333 
None of the above066 
Antarctica 2022011 
Bil Lawhorn’s zeppelin hangar011 
Denver011 
Free Hong Kong099 
Moderately expensive Hong Kong011 
Kirkjubaejarklaustur, Iceland011 
Malmö, Sweden011 
Mariehamn, Åland Islands, Finland011 
Marik City on Planet Marik in House Marik011 
New Zealand011 
Old Zealand011 
Any country with an acceptable human rights record011 
     
Total with preference1575576 
Needed to win  289 
     
No preference11011 
Total valid votes2585587 
     
Invalid votes 11  
Spoiled votes 1  
Courtesy of Kevin Standlee

Chicago won on the first ballot with a total of 587 valid votes cast, of which 576 expressed a preference.

A further 53 tokens were sold, but no matching ballots were received.

Writers Circulate Letter of Concern About Saudi Worldcon Bid

Anna Smith Spark, a grimdark author from London, has organized an open “letter of concern” with several dozen co-signers, including Charles Stross, about the bid to bring the Worldcon to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2022, which will be voted on this week. The competition is a bid for Chicago in 2022.  

Anna Smith Spark sent File 770 the letter, and “Also (and I will be dead in the eyes of the WSFS for this) the email they sent me washing their hands of this and having a quick pop at those involved in the anti-Puppies work as well for good measure,” which is a reply received from WSFS webmaster Kevin Standlee.   


An open letter to the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) and to Norman Cates as the Chair of the 2020 WorldCon

Dear WSFS, and dear Norman,

As writers, publishers and readers of science fiction and fantasy, we are writing to express our concern that Saudi Arabia has been accepted as a potential host site for the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon).

SFF is the great genre of possibilities and pluralities. As readers, writers and publishers of SFF our task is to inspire wonder: we look up at the stars to seek out other ways of being, we look down at the earth around us to find enchantment, beauty, romance, horror, hope. We create new worlds because we believe that in doing so we can make this world a better and intellectually richer place. A Jeddah WorldCon would allow fandom a chance to visit a breathtakingly beautiful city, Jeddah. It would break new ground for SFF Fandom, open up a new world to fans who may otherwise never have an opportunity to travel there, and show solidarity with creative communities within Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. It’s therefore with great sadness that we must face reality for what it is, that the Saudi regime is antithetical to everything SFF stands for.

The most recent Amnesty International report on Saudi Arabia states that in 2019 the Saudi government ‘escalated repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. They harassed, arbitrarily detained and prosecuted dozens of government critics, human rights defenders, including women’s rights activists, members of the Shi’a minority and family members of activists.  […] Some people, most of them members of the country’s Shi’a minority, were executed following grossly unfair trials.’[1] Saudi women face systematic legal discrimination, while identifying as LGBQT+  is illegal and can be punishable with corporal punishment and even execution. Saudi Arabia is a key player in the war in Yemen that has left 80% of the Yemeni population in need of humanitarian aid, and has been accused of war crimes in the region[2]. The UN concluded last year that it was ‘credible’ that the Saudi Crown Prince personally ordered the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi for the crime of writing words[3]. It cannot and must not be acceptable to stage an international event against this backdrop. Indeed, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi alone should be enough to render the concept of a literary convention in the country an absurdity.

On a personal level, we note that many of us would ourselves not be able to write or to live freely under Saudi law. We refuse to attend an event if those staffing it cannot have the same basic freedoms. We express deep concern that many members of the SFF community would be excluded from attending an event because of their sexuality, nationality or religious beliefs.

We stand in solidarity with those who seek change in the country. And we write in protest but also in hope – that by raising awareness of the political situation in Saudi Arabia a WorldCon SA will one day be possible.

Yours sincerely,

Anna Smith Spark (organiser), Justin Lee Anderson, Andrew Angel, Helen Armfield, Allen Ashley, Graham Austin-King, Ali Baker Brooks, Andrew Bannister, RJ Barker, Alan Baxter, Donna Bond, James Brogden, Mike Brooks, Angela Cleland, Tom Clews, Adrian Collins, Lee Conley, Emily Cornell, Sarah Doyle, Margaret Eve, Mike Everest Evans, The Fantasy Hive, Fantasy Faction, Nick Ferguson, Karen Fishwick, Carol Goodwin, T. L. Greylock, Joanne Hall, Patricia Hawkes-Reed, Bethan May Hindmarsh, Stewart Hotson, Shellie Horst, Steve D. Howarth, Humber SFF, Barbara James, Cameron Johnston, Daniel Kelly, Simon Kewin, Alex Khlopenko, Shona Kinsella, Alex Knight, David Lascelles, Ulff Lehmann, Dale Lucas, Eloise Mac, Steve McHugh, Juliette McKenna, Peter McLean, Kevin McVeigh, Kareem Mahfouz, Masimba Musodza, Andy Marsden, GR Matthews, Simon Morden, Alistair Morley, T. O. Munro, Stan Nicholls, Chris Nuttall, Scott Oden, Graeme Penman, Peter Philpott, Steven Poore, Gareth L Powell, Robert V.S Redick, Ian Richardson, Courtney Schaffer, S. Naomi Scott, Ian Segal, Mike Shackle, Steve J Shaw, Sheffield Science Fiction and Fantasy Society, , Rita Sloan, Sammy HK Smith, Vaughan Stanger, Mark Stay, Charlie Stross, Allen Stroud, Amanda M Suver Justice, Clayton Synder, Sue Tingey, Three Crows Magazine, Tej Turner, Catriona Ward, Matthew Ward, David Watkins, RB Watkinson, Adam Weller, Graeme Williams, Phil Williams,  Deborah A Wolf.

Copied to the Board of the SFWA, Locus Magazine, Tor.com, Starburst, the UK Guardian newspaper


WSFS Web Site Team Reply

Anna:

There is no such entity as the “Board of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS).” WSFS is an unincorporated literary society that has no Board of Directors, no ongoing chief executive, and no “Head Office.” I am copying the co-chairs of ConZealand on this reply.

The rules of WSFS, which are made by the members of WSFS (the attendees of the Worldcon), set very minimal technical requirements for any group to bid for a Worldcon. The selection is not made by a Board of Directors or Executive Committee, but by the entire membership of WSFS, who vote on the choice, just as they vote on the Hugo Awards. Indeed, the process is very similar in both cases, in that Worldcons are not supposed to make subjective value judgments about nominees for the Hugo Awards. This decision is reserved to the entire membership, exercising their right to vote.

If you are interested in more information about how WSFS works and how you can propose changes in its rules, I can explain things in further detail.

This is not intended as being dismissive, but to try and explain that Worldcons and WSFS as a whole does not give anyone the right to make subjective judgements about either Hugo Award nominees/finalists or prospective Worldcon sites other than the entire membership.

Kevin Standlee, WSFS Web Site Team


[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/saudi-arabia/report-saudi-arabia/

[2] https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/yemen-crisis

[3] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24713

Pixel Scroll 6/27/20 Red Scrolls At Night, Pixel’s Delight

(1) 2022 WORLDCON BIDDER Q&A. Goobergunch posted notes from today’s online question session with the Chicago and Saudi Arabia bids for the 2022 Worldcon: “CoNZealand, Day -30: Nobody Expects the Fannish Inquisition”.

Normally, most people vote for Worldcon site selection on site. Normally, people have the opportunity to hear from the site selection bids in person. But we do not live in normal times, and with all site selection moving to remote this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic CoNZealand arranged a special early question-and-answer panel for the 2022 Worldcon bids about a month before the convention. What follows is a summary of the bid presentations, questions, and answers—while I have tried to stay true to what was said, I do not promise transcription-level accuracy….

Here are a few of the questions and responses:

Q: Chicon 7 had numerous access issues. How have you fixed them?

Chicago: The hotel took the non-ADA accessible areas out of circulation and put new, accessible function rooms in. The big accessibility chokepoint is getting into the exhibit hall, and we’ll have to work this out. But everything else should be ADA-compliant. Also at least with the Hyatt we know what the likely problem points are and can plan for them. If you had specific pain points at Chicon 7, let us know.

Q: What is the availability of assistance for mobility access, including renting mobies?

Jeddah: A lot of the rooms have workarounds but they’re not officially recognized are fully accessible (about 10% are officially recognized as such). Already working with a few companies for chairs on-site but not sure if they’ll be available to be taken offsite.

Chicago: Will have rental options for mobies, wheelchairs, etc. Guessing that there will be a pre-rental period and then we’ll have extras on site.

Q: What online virtual content do you intend to include?

Chicago: Haven’t totally decided yet, but we expect to have a pretty strong virtual component. In 2012 we had coprogramming with Dragon*Con, so we’re used to doing that kind of virtual thing. So it’s on our radar but we don’t have specifics yet.

Jeddah: Want to broadcast everything live for all the members, with at least audio streaming and hopefully video streaming. Our platform for live interpretation incorporates a live feed for sessions in both languages. Everything will be recorded for all members and stay up for as long as the server does. We also plan on having live feeds for all public spaces (e.g. the art show and dealer’s room) so online attendees can interact with in-person attendees….

Much more at the link.

(2) SPACE COMMAND. There will be a Space Command Convention on the Mr Sci-Fi YouTube channel this Sunday, starting at 10 a.m. Marc Scott Zicree says, “We will have live events all day, including interviews, and the premier of Ripple Effect, Space Command’s special episode, written and filmed during the COVID-19 Pandemic!”

(3) HORROR IN THREE PARTS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] A History of Horror With Mark Gatiss on YouTube is a three-part series on the history of horror films Gatiss did for the BBC in 2010.  In the first episode, he looks at silent films and sees such rarities as Lon Chaney Sr.’s makeup kit and the shrine of mementoes kept by Boris Karloff’s daughter.  (Did you know Karloff is the only person not a president who has been on three US stamps?)

(4) THE FIFTIES. I discovered that a game I play, Baseball Mogul, has a blog – and it’s latest post is about “The Thanos Button”.

…Clicking this button randomly disintegrates half of the players in the database. It also eliminates half of everyone on earth, with corresponding adjustments to the population  level of each team’s fan base.

I believe they’re not kidding!

The option was added based on reader reaction to an earlier post: “Would There Be Baseball After Thanos?”

At the beginning of Avengers: Endgame, the camera flies over an empty Citi Field, showing us that major league baseball is just one of the casualties of Thanos’ “snap”. If the baseball season can be cancelled for a virus that has killed 100,000 Americans, then surely it would be stopped by a super-villian killing more than 160 million Americans.

Right?

Well, arguments have been made on both sides. But what we do know is that, financially, Major League Baseball would be fine. Eliminating 50% of all major league players would cause team payrolls to drop by 50% — but demand for tickets would only drop by about 30%. At least in the short term, Major League Baseball would actually be more profitable….

(5) D’OH! After only 31 seasons on the air, “‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters” reports the New York Post.

Fox has released a statement on casting for non-white characters on “The Simpsons.”

“Moving forward, ‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” the network said Friday.

The move comes as several television shows have pulled episodes featuring blackface from their streaming platforms, and amid a nation dealing with controversial depictions of race on TV and film.

On “The Simpsons,” Hank Azaria has been the voice of the black cartoon character Carlton Carlson. He also was known for voicing Apu, a character which has long been criticized for portraying a racist depiction of an Indian person. Azaria announced in 2017 he would no longer voice the character.

(6) PAGING TOLKIEN FANS. ScreenRant tries to appease book readers with “Lord Of The Rings: 10 Movie References Only Fans Of The Books Understood”.

[Peter] Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens drew heavily from J.R.R. Tolkien’s rich source material to fashion a living, breathing world, complete with its own history. This also created a lot of confusion for moviegoers who had never read the books, or delved too deeply into Tolkien’s accompanying tales, such as The Silmarillion. Here’s 10 references in the Lord Of The Rings movies that only fans of the books truly understood.

For example:

7. Shelob

Arachnophobes were horrified by the reveal of Shelob in Return Of The King, and for good reason! She’s an eight-legged nightmare who did more to demonize spiders than any other film since Arachnophobia.

What the film didn’t touch upon was her origin story. Far from just a fat, grotesque spider, Shelob is actually a child of Ungoliant, a fearsome arachnid who allied herself with Melkor during the First Age, before the two became bitter enemies. Ungoliant is briefly mentioned by Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

(7) GLASER OBIT. Milton Glaser, whose contributions to sff include the DC Comics “bullet logo”, died June 26. The New York Times didn’t mention that – maybe there wasn’t room, with all his other accomplishments to cover: “Milton Glaser, Master Designer of ‘I ? NY’ Logo, Is Dead at 91”.

…Mr. Glaser joined forces with the editor Clay Felker in 1968 to found New York magazine, where he was president and design director until 1977, imposing a visual format that still largely survives. With his friend Jerome Snyder, the art director of Scientific American, he wrote a budget-dining column, “The Underground Gourmet,” for The New York Herald Tribune and, later, New York magazine. The column spawned a guidebook of the same name in 1966 and “The Underground Gourmet Cookbook” in 1975.

Mr. Glaser started his own design firm, Milton Glaser Inc., in 1974. A year later he left Push Pin, just as he was being given his own show at the Museum of Modern Art.

“At a certain point we were accepted, and once that happens, everything becomes less interesting,” he said in an interview for “Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History,” an exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1989.

(8) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

  • June 1953 — “In Hoka Signo Vinces” was published. A Hoka novella, it was written by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson, it was published by Other Worlds Science Stories which ran from 1949 to 1957. It’s currently available in Hoka! Hoka! Hoka!, a Baen Books anthology which also includes the first Hoka story, “The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch”.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born June 27, 1850 – Lafcadio Hearn.  Greek-Irish author who became a naturalized Japanese citizen and professor at Waseda U., first living in France, Ohio, Louisiana, the West Indies.  Ten dozen short stories for us; collections of legends and ghost tales; translated Flaubert, Gautier, Maupassant, Zola; LH’s Kwaidan was made into the Kobayashi film; a dozen-and-a-half posthumous collections, recently by Princeton and U. Chicago.  (Died 1904) [JH]
  • Born June 27, 1908 – Henry Kiemle, Jr.  Much work for Westerns; fifty interiors for us.  Here is “Elixir” (James Blish).  Here is “The Shadow-Gods” (Vaseleos Garson).  Here is “The Life Detour” (David Keller).  You can read more about HK here.  (Died 1969) [JH]
  • Born June 27, 1927 – Tibor Csernus.  Hungarian painter living in Paris after 1964.  Among much other work ten dozen covers for us, a few interiors.  Here is The Players of Null-A.  Here is Bug Jack Barron (under French title).  Here is We Have Always Lived in the Castle.  Here is Genocides.  Kossuth Prize.  Knight of the Order of Arts & Letters.  (Died 2007) [JH]
  • Born June 27, 1948 – Esther Rochon, 72.  Grand Prix de la science fiction et du fantastique québecois four times.  Governor-General First Prize at age 16.  A score of novels, three dozen shorter stories.  Co-founded Imagine; two covers for it, here is one.  Has not neglected fanzines, e.g. you can see her in Lofgeornost.  [JH]
  • Born June 27, 1952 – Mary Rosenblum.  Author and cheesemaker.  Mystery fiction too under another name.  Five novels; five dozen shorter stories in AnalogAsimov’s, LightspeedThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.  Translated into French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish.  Compton Crook and Sidewise Awards.  (Died 2018) [JH]
  • Born June 27, 1978 – Bernard Quiriny, 42.  Author, critic, Professor of Public Law at U. Burgundy, literature column for Chronic’art.  One novel so far, five dozen shorter stories.  Recurring character Pierre Gould is “eccentric….  poet, dandy, book-lover, just a bit of a misanthrope”.  Grand Prix de l’ImaginairePrix du StylePrix Victor RosselPrix Robert Duterme.  [JH]
  • Born June 27, 1952 Mary Rosenblum. SF writer who won the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel for The Drylands. She later won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History Short Form for her story, “Sacrifice.” Water Rites and Horizons are the only ones available digitally. (Died 2018.) (CE)
  • Born June 27, 1959 Stephen Dedman, 61. Australian author who’s the author of The Art of Arrow-Cutting, a most excellent novel. I really should read Shadows Bite, the sequel to it.  He’s the story editor of Borderlands, the tri-annual Australian science fiction, fantasy and horror magazine published in Perth. Apple Books has nothing for him, Kindle has The Art of Arrow-Cutting and a few other titles. (CE)
  • Born June 27, 1972 Christian Kane, 48. You’ll certain recognize him as he’s been around genre video fiction for a while first playing Lindsey McDonald on Angel before become Jacob Stone on The Librarians. And though Leverage ain’t genre, his role as Eliot Spencer there is definitely worth seeing. (CE)
  • Born June 27, 1975 Tobey Maguire, 45. Spider-Man in the Sam Raimi trilogy of the Spidey films. His first genre appearance was actually in The Revenge of the Red Baron which is one serious weird film. Much more interesting is his role as David in Pleasantville, a film I love dearly. He produced The 5th Wave, a recent alien invasion film. (CE)
  • Born June 27, 1987 Ed Westwick, 33. British actor who has roles in the dystopian Children of MenS. Darko (a film I couldn’t begin to summarize), Freaks of Nature (a popcorn film if ever there was one), the  “Roadside Bouquets” episode of the British series Afterlife (which I want to see) and The Crash (which may or may not be SF). (CE)

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Close to Home has an elevator gag that reminds me of Attack the Block.

(11) TO BOLDLY GO BLEEP. Twitter’s Swear Trek is a prolific GIF creator of – you guessed it!

(12) FUNNY GIRL. Or Funny Boy. Though not for Ziegfeld’s Follies — SYFY Wire has a theory about who needs these actors: “Wire Buzz: Amazon’s ‘Funny Looking’ Lord Of The Rings Casting Call”.

How’s this for a commitment to high fantasy realism: Amazon is reportedly seeking visually distinctive actors — or, in its casting agency’s own words, “funny looking” people — who’re believed to be potential candidates for its Lord of the Rings prequel series in New Zealand.

Yahoo! Entertainment reports that BGT Actors Models & Talent — the same Auckland-based agency that helped cast extras for Peter Jackson’s LOTR film trilogy — has put out an open call for “funny looking” New Zealanders who have out-of-the-ordinary facial features and body types.

(13) SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK? “Nasa Astronaut Drops Mirror Into Space During Spacewalk”. Though I suppose the bad luck doesn’t start to run until the mirror is broken – hits something, re-enters the atmosphere, or hangs around until the heat death of the universe (which we know is going to be really bad luck).

An astronaut has dropped a small mirror into space by accident, Nasa has said.

Commander Chris Cassidy lost control of the mirror while leaving the International Space Station for a spacewalk to work on batteries, and it floated away at about a foot per second, the space agency said.

The object is now just one part of the vast amount of space junk that is in orbit around the Earth.

Cassidy had been conducting an otherwise uneventful spacewalk with Bob Behnken, who arrived at the space station on board a SpaceX craft last month.

Mission Control said the mirror somehow became detached from Cassidy’s spacesuit. The lost item posed no risk to the astronauts, spacewalk or the station, Nasa said.

(14) WON’T STAND FOR IT. A petty inconsistency is the hobgoblin of internet comedy.

(15) DON’T TOUCH. Engadget featured a new invention: “NASA made a necklace that reminds you not to touch your face”

NASA has released open-source instructions for a 3D-printed necklace designed to help you stop touching your face. We’ve heard time and time again that we shouldn’t touch our mush with our fingers to limit our chances of contracting COVID-19. However, it’s not always easy to avoid that reflex.

To remind you to keep your mitts at bay, three engineers at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Lab created Pulse. The necklace has a proximity sensor with a 12-inch range and a coin vibration motor, which activates when you move your hand towards your head. The closer your fingers are, the more intense the vibrations get….

(16) MUPPETS. The Muppets visited The Late Late Show with James Corden:

Although James Corden, Reggie Watts and The Muppets can’t be together in a studio, the group comes together on video chat to sing The Beatles classic “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Sing along with Kermit, Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Swedish Chef, Animal, Gonzo and so many more.

(17) MUPPETS WITH CAPERS. Olivia Rutligiano, in The Great Muppet Caper Is The Loveliest Crime Movie Ever” on CrimeReads, explains why this is one of the Muppets’ best films.

… Given the choice to feature a crime plot, it is curious how The Great Muppet Caper does not decide to pastiche the many different types of crime films. The film is more interested in emulating splashy, Golden Age of Hollywood musicals. Which is fine. It is also partially a love story, partially a tale of mistaken identity, partially a satire of the high-fashion world. When it does refocus the burglaries that Kermit and Co. are trying to solve, it does not resemble a detective story as much as a journalistic investigation. See, Kermit, Fozzie Bear, and the Great Gonzo are all reporters who fail to break a story about a jewel heist that happens during the opening number, right behind them. Fired from their newspaper, they set off for London, to try to interview the woman, Lady Holiday (Diana Rigg), who has been robbed. While across the pond, they end up on the trail of serial thieves, the ringleader of whom is Lady Holiday’s deadbeat brother Nicky (Charles Grodin, hooray!). But truthfully, most of the movie is about Kermit falling in love with Miss Piggy, an aspiring fashion model who impersonates her boss, Lady Holiday, because she wants to impress Kermit. 

[Thanks to John Hertz, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Lise Andreasen, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Bill, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Michael Toman, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]

CoNZealand 2022 Site Selection Payments Available

The advance membership tokens required for voters in the 2022 Worldcon Site Selection can now be purchased through the CoNZeland website

Full information about buying tokens and guidelines for voting in 2022 Site Selection are available at the link. The deadline for CoNZealand to receive postal mailed ballots is July 13, and the deadline for email ballots is July 29 at 12:00n New Zealand time.

Whether you vote by mail or online, you must pay an Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) Fee of NZ$72 to vote in the 2022 Worldcon site selection. Payment may only be made via the information on the CoNZealand website, using your credit card. No checks or cash will be accepted by mail. Voters must purchase their site selection token before July 29 for their ballot to be counted. 

Question Time for the 2022 Worldcon Bids

CoNZealand is scheduling a one-hour moderated session on June 28, 06:00 NZT where members can hear each 2022 Worldcon bid make a presentation and respond to questions asked by one of the moderators. The link has not yet been distributed.

CoNZealand attending members can submit questions to be asked of the bids via this form. Submissions will be anonymous. The committee adds:

All submitted questions will be edited to remove any personal attacks. We will encourage questions to be hard, but we will not permit them to be insulting.

We will follow the general format that has been used recently….

15 minutes will be allotted for each presentation and there will be a 30 minute questioning period of both bids to follow.

Responses the two bids have already made to Frequently Asked Questions can be read online:

Guidelines for voting in 2022 Site Selection are here. The deadline for CoNZealand to receive postal mailed ballots is July 13, and the deadline for email ballots is July 29 at 12:00n New Zealand time.

CoNZealand Opens Site Selection

CoNZealand has opened site selection voting for the location of the World Science Fiction Convention in 2022. There are two filed bids, for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Full information is available at the convention’s website.

Email ballots will be accepted via the process explained at the link. For those who wish to cast their ballot by postal mail, CoNZealand asks that you send it as soon as possible, as there are delays in global mail due to the global pandemic.

Whether you vote by mail or online, you must also pay an Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) Fee of NZ$72 to vote in the 2022 Worldcon site selection. Payment may only be made on the CoNZealand website, using your credit card. No checks or cash will be accepted by mail. HOWEVER, the system to make online payments for site selection tokens is not available yet. CoNZealand will announce it online and to the members when it is ready. Voters must purchase their site selection token before July 29 for their ballot to be counted. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].

CoNZealand will host a one-hour moderated session on June 27/28 where members can hear each 2022 bid make a presentation and also hear the bids respond to questions submitted by members to the moderators.  Attending members can submit questions to be asked of the bids via this form.

JeddiCon’s Yasser Bahjatt at Worldcon 76

The bid committee to bring the Worldcon to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2022 (JeddiCon) styles itself The Jeddi High Council.  The Master of The Order – bid chair — is Yasser Bahjatt. He’s been to Worldcons, and Olav Rokne forwarded several photos he took of Bahjatt on a panel at the San Jose Worldcon of 2018. (Thanks to Steven H Silver for the panelist identifications.)

This was the alternate history panel “If This, Then What?” The panelists in order from left to right: Kaja Foglio, Steven H Silver, Yasser Bahjatt, Kay Kenyon, Harry Turtledove. (Foglio only appears in the last picture.)

Left to right: Steven H Silver, Yasser Bahjatt, Kay Kenyon, Harry Turtledove. Photo by Olav Rokne.
Left to right: Steven H Silver, Yasser Bahjatt, Kay Kenyon, Harry Turtledove. Photo by Olav Rokne.
Left to right: Kaja Foglio, Steven H Silver, Yasser Bahjatt, Kay Kenyon, Harry Turtledove. Photo by Olav Rokne.

JeddiCon Bidders Discuss Their Experience

The JeddiCon bid committee wants to bring the Worldcon to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2022. When their bid went public in January, File 770 asked for more information about their conrunning experience. Here’s the background they shared.

(See all the official bid filing documents for the Jeddah and Chicago bids for 2022 at the CoNZealand website.)


Dear Mike,

Thank you for your interest in JeddiCon and its committee (The Jeddi High Council).

The Jeddi High Council members are all top professionals in their fields. Bellow you will find their summery bio that includes the event running experiences that they each have:

Master of The Order Yasser Bahjatt

Yasser has bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering specialized in Computer Engineering, he is also an alumni of Singularity University’s Graduate Study Program.

Yasser has been managing eSports events since 2003 with some events growing to several thousand players competing across 27 locations located around the kingdom. He was also the organized and co-organized several TEDx events in Jeddah.

He has been a driving force for cultivating and growing the SciFi culture in Saudi and across the Arabian world.

Lore Keeper Rami Hamzah

Rami Hamzah is a proactive knowledge seeker since he began to explore and make sense of written forms during his emerging literacy phase of his life. That’s when his journey began by a coincidence when he found the ancient “One Thousand and One Nights” book in his hand at the age of 7 years.

He was always fascinated by Fiction and historical novels.

Rami worked on managing logistical support of the opening and closing ceremony of Saudi Professional League 2015/2016. He had a multi-dimensional study/career path through the past 20 years in Information Technology, Logistics, Marketing, Sales and Customer Service.

Master Thamer Alturaif

Thamer M. Alturaif is a Chemical engineer from King Abdelaziz university with a master’s in business administration from university of Colorado. Throughout his career as an HR professional Thamer managed numerous events and activities scaling from small events like workshops/trainings/townhalls up to companywide initiatives like roadshows and annual seminars. Biggest project was overseeing the deployment and management of over 3000 temporary employees from different nationalities during Hajj operations in the 2019 season.

Master Mohammed Albakri

He studied medical technology and is currently working in Laboratory Information Sciences and is still waiting for the lab accident that will grant him superpowers…

He was part of the planning committee for the 2nd annual Laboratory week hosted by King Faisal Specialist Hospital Jeddah.

Master Ahmad Sabbagh

Ahmed has bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Production Engineering, and he also has an MBA.

Ahmad was in charge of organizing Buyer & Seller Conference in Indonesia and Bangladesh. And was also managing logistics activities.

Master Tameem Qashqari

He is a member of Geekfest community and he has participated in organizing Geekfest Jeddah. He was responsible for developing the marketing pitch to corporations to secure sponsors for the event.

He hosted the Low Priority Queue podcast which is A geek-centric podcast of three fanboys with great intentions, but absurdly poor taste.

Residing for eternity where gamers go to die

Master Ashraf Fagih

He has a PhD in Computing from Queen’s University in Canada and served as an assistant Professor at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals.

Between 2015 and 2017, Ashraf served as Vice Rector for University Relations & Community Outreach at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He was directly involved in the organization and crowd management of major university events including the graduation ceremony and all VIP reception affairs.

Since 2018, Ashraf has been appointed as the head of Communication-then Operations- of King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra); the flagship initiative of Saudi Aramco Company. Ashraf was directly involved in the programming, supervision and promotion of a wide set of cultural and scientific activities offered by Ithra, attended by more than 1.2 million visitors over the course of the past 18 months.

Master Raneen Bukhari

Raneen grew up in what she calls “a business/art environment”, Her mother is an artist and her father a businessman. She has worked on and led the planning and organization of many events over many different fields. In 2013, she was in charge of the launch campaign for NICE stores in AlKhobar. She is also the co-creator and curator of LOUD Art, a traveling platform for emerging experimental artists, organized annually from 2012 to 2016. Bukhari is a co-organizer of Huna Art, a casual art talk that has been happened bimonthly from 2013 to 2016. She has organized 28 art exhibitions in Saudi and around the world. Most recently, she just finished working on Desert X AlUla as logistics and shipping director.

If you have any more questions please do not hesitate to ask.

May the 4th we’ll be with you,