Tag Archives: Matt Smith

Pixel Scroll 12/22/23 Lot 97! One Child’s Space Suit, Never Travelled In

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(1) FUTURE TENSE. The December 2023 entry in the Future Tense Fiction series is “Rigland,” by Suyi Davies Okungbowa. The story is about oil rigs and what we owe to our communities.

It was published along with a response essay by journalist Mia Armstrong-López: “What if Oil Platforms Belonged to the People Who Worked on Them?”.

…When I set out to report on Mexican women working offshore, I expected to focus on harassment, discrimination, and abuse and the grueling labor conditions that facilitate them. Women are in the minority on platforms—one interviewee was the only woman among dozens of men; others recounted being in groups of only five or 10 women on an entire platform, outnumbered 1 to 10 or 20. The conditions they face are often punishing: In Mexico, platforms are isolated with limited communication, living situations are dorm-style and sometimes coed, and many workers have short-term contracts with little protection. The work is dangerous—they’re exposed to heavy machinery, harsh weather, and hazardous chemicals.

I heard plenty of stories of these precarious conditions—women who were spied on while they showered or changed, discriminated against due to pregnancy, and verbally abused. But more often, women shared experiences like the fishing story. They wanted to tell me about spending hours carving tomatoes to look like flowers to make a meal feel more special; about coordinating workers to bring their favorite candies to stuff holiday piñatas so they would all feel less alone; about learning to teach yoga, helping their colleagues relieve the years of work-related pain and exhaustion their bodies had come to carry. They told me these stories not to excuse or brush over the other, darker realities of working offshore but to show me, Look what we’ve built, despite it all….

(2) ANOTHER DAY IN COURT. Michele Lundgren, charged as a Michigan fake Trump elector in July, was back in court on December 13 along with five other defendants to hear testimony before a judge who will eventually rule whether the Michigan Attorney General’s office has established probable cause for the felony charges to proceed to trial. “Michigan elections director says he contacted AG on false electors” in the Detroit News. Michele Lundgren is the wife of Carl Lundgren, a well-known sff artist.

Michigan elections director Jonathan Brater testified in court Wednesday that he contacted the Attorney General’s office after finding out about a certificate state Republicans signed falsely claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

Brater’s revelation highlighted the first day of preliminary examinations in the criminal cases of six of the 16 Republicans whose names appeared on the certificate, which was part of an attempt to flip Michigan’s 16 electoral votes to Trump although Democrat Joe Biden won Michigan in November 2020.

Over about seven hours of testimony in Ingham County District Court, prosecutors from Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office and defense lawyers repeatedly clashed over what the importance of the false certificate was, Michigan election law and even who could be in the courtroom.

The examinations will continue Thursday with Ingham County District Court Judge Kristen Simmons eventually having to decide whether the Attorney General’s office has established probable cause for the eight felony charges it’s brought against each of the Republicans to proceed to trial….

(3) KEEP A HANKY READY. Camestros Felapton’s “Smith Rewatch: Vincent and the Doctor”. Maybe cue Judy Garland singing, “You made me love you / I didn’t want to do it….”

…Let’s make it potentially worse by adding in a writer against which Moffat’s attraction to twee Britishisms and romcoms looks positively restrained. Richard Curtis getting to write floppy haired Matt Smith as a surrogate Hugh Grant sounds like a recipe for disaster.

And yet, this is one of the most beloved episodes of Doctor Who — perhaps more with its general normy audience rather than die-hard Who fans but still one that is often pointed at. I think I went into this episode feeling cynical, I’ll concede the ending touched me but it felt messy to me at the time. On rewatch? I’ll confess that I started tearing up much earlier than the plot demanded. It is very sentimental but a good rule for Who is to always go a little bit extra with whatever direction the story is heading….

(4) THE NEW DOCTOR. [Item by Steven French.] In the run up to the Xmas special, Ncuti Gatwa on Xmas, family and Dr Who: “Ncuti Gatwa: ‘I know many a gay man who’s exactly like the Doctor’” in the Guardian.

 “We choose our families. And the Doctor is a lonely wanderer, looking for their next adventure … I know many a gay man, MANY a gay man, I could describe that way!” He laughs. “I think that’s a beautiful, beautiful theme Doctor Who has, because chosen family can be more meaningful, more supportive. That really can be the case, and it’s a theme that absolutely runs through the show.”

(5) ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES. “Can the Oompa-Loompas Be Saved?” The New York Times seriously doubts it, if the answer depends on finding a way to make them politically correct.  

What do we do with the Oompa-Loompas?

That’s a question filmmakers and writers have tangled with ever since the 1964 debut of the tiny, largely unpaid laborers in Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

In Dahl’s original, the Oompa-Loompas were starving African pygmies, subsisting largely on a mash of green caterpillars and tree bark until “rescued” by Willy Wonka. He smuggled the entire tribe out of Africa in packing crates to live and work, and sing and goof and dance, in the chocolatier’s plantation, er, factory.

“It didn’t occur to me that my depiction of the Oompa-Loompas was racist,” Dahl said in a 1988 interview. “But it did occur to the N.A.A.C.P. and others.”

In the five decades since their literary debut, the Oompa-Loompas have undergone a series of transformations to shake their story from its colonialist roots. Some fixes have been transparently cosmetic (in subsequent editions of the book, illustrators simply made the tribesmen white). Others weren’t fixes at all: In the 2005 film “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” the director, Tim Burton, just shifted continents, moving the Oompa-Loompas out of Africa to someplace that vaguely resembles South America, as imagined by an adventure film director from the 1950s.

In the Warner Bros. prequel “Wonka,” which opens Dec. 15, the filmmakers address the colonialist aspects head on…

(6) WESTERCON. [Item by Kevin Standlee.] The official papers of Westercon as of the end of Westercon 75 (Loscon 49) have been updated and are available at Bylaws & Business – Westercon

This document includes:

  • Minutes of the Westercon 75 Business Meeting
  • Links to video of the Business Meeting and the Committee of the Whole on Site Selection held thereat
  • Bylaws and Standing Rules as of the end of Westercon 75 and the Draft Agenda for the Westercon 76 Business Meeting.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born December 22, 1951 — Charles de Lint, 72. Need I say this is just my personal choices by an author I’ve known personally for over thirty years now? I think not.

Let’s start with Moonheart, the novel that Tamson House at its heart, a most amazing architectural wonder which may be at center of the universe. It amazes me with every page. I know that’s why readers I’ve talked to pick it as their favorite of his considerable writings. The sequel, Spiritwalk, is a patch-up novel and in someways a deeper, more interesting story, mainly because the characters are more flawed.

Moonheart is set in home city of Ottawa as are these three novels. Yarrow is an autumnal tale of a woman who has stopped dreaming, and the two Jack of Kinrowan novels, Jack, the Giant-Killer and Drink Down the Moon, involve the fey courts in Ottawa. If you like War for the Oaks, I think that you will like these novels. 

Charles deLint at 1980 World Fantasy Con. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter.

Memory and Dream is his take on artists and their work with the usual magic thrown in. Lots of pre-Raphaelite influence here, I think if I remember correctly that he has an artist named Ruskin. Very interesting. 

Someplace to Be Flying is the first of two novels set in his city of Newford that I deeply, madly love. This one introduces the Crow Girls, immortal shape shifters who just want to have fun and eat sugar. Really they do. It’s got great characters, wonderful settings and a fantastic story as does Forests of The Heart which adds a large dollop of Irish music and the green man to boot to the Newford setting.

The Mystery of Grace which was his last novel for Tor for reasons that were interesting to say the least is a fantastic story of a motorcycle riding female mechanic who may have crossed over to the other side when the veils on Día de los Muertos grew too thin in the right, or if you prefer, wrong place. Stellar writing by him. 

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest as infused with lavish illustrations by his friend Charles Vess should be read by anyone who loves cats, Appalachian folklore or just a great story. Need I say the book itself is stunningly gorgeous?  Lillian here was the girl in A Circle of Cats, the children book done by him and again illustrated by Vess. Again recommended. Medicine Road will feature a grown up Lillian. 

His newest undertaking, in which Junniper Wiles is the central character, is a mystery series and a lot of fun. More light heated than some of his fiction has been, not a bad tack to take.

So how are his short stories you say? Extraordinarily good. For over a decade before he stopped publishing them, he sent me his annual Winter chapbook on Triskell Press, a perfect treat from him. 

If I was going to recommend but one collection to read by him, it would be an easy pick and that would be Dreams Underfoot. It has “The Moon is Drownimg While I Sleep”, maybe his best story ever, and other excellent stories such as “The Sacred Fire” which was produced as an episode of the The Hunger anthology television series hosted first by Terrence Stamp and then by David Bowie  and was first shown I some twenty-five years ago. 

He did a later collection as well on his new publisher, Tachyon Press, The Best of Charles de Lint. I’ll admit I’ve not looked at its content so let me do that now. Huh, it’s up but Tachyon Press didn’t do an epub edition so he did it himself.  I will recommend it as the stories in The Very Best of Charles de Lint are those of Dreams Underfoot plus a whole more of his later work.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

  • Carpe Diem continues its Star Wars and pets imitating their owners theme.
  • Eek! has the worst gift.
  • Eek! also has a silly demonstration of a bit of monster trivia many get wrong.

(9) TO DYE FOR. The Guardian pages back to the 19th century to explain “How a European colour revolution brought us the humble Christmas card”.

What would Christmas be without the humble Christmas card? It’s hard to think of a more quintessentially British seasonal tradition than propping up colourful bits of stiff paper on your mantelpiece, but in fact we wouldn’t be sending each other bits of stiff paper were it not for a feat of pan-European collaboration – and competition – cooked up in the mid-19th century. Many of our most familiar traditions percolated down from Britain’s royal and aristocratic families, who themselves had imported many of them from their German forebears. But it wasn’t until the widespread adoption of colour printing in the 1860s that Christmas cards, first commissioned as high-status, handcrafted items in the 1840s, became cheap enough for the middle and lower classes to get their hands on them.

Some of these early mass-produced cards are on show at the Ashmolean in Oxford, as part of their Colour Revolution exhibition. To the modern eye they are pretty elaborate affairs, dating from the 1880s, with beautifully coloured floral images, silk tassels and fringes, dyed vibrant shades of purple and orange. The cards may be small but they are part of an important story, one that the exhibition aims to tell in a detailed way. It concerns the almost incalculably formative influence of the mid-19th century “chromatic turn”, in which the Victorians’ obsession with admiring, analysing and then manufacturing colour in all sorts of areas – fashion, art, design, advertising – made itself felt across Britain, France and Germany, and indeed the rest of the world.

The Ashmolean exhibition is a brilliant and fascinating show, re-creating elements of the 1862 International Exhibition in London’s South Kensington, which showcased 19th-century attempts to reconstruct the original colours of ancient Greek sculpture (including Alma-Tadema’s fabulous painting Phidias Showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his Friends), and some elaborate late-Victorian fashions, including a gruesome necklace made from dead hummingbirds.

The show’s key element may appear slightly dusty by comparison: a section outlining the development of synthetic aniline dyes, starting in 1856 with the invention of the strident purple known as “mauveine” by young British chemist William Henry Perkin, while studying under German professor August Wilhelm von Hofmann. Discovered accidentally as Perkin was trying to produce a malaria treatment from coal tar, mauveine – and its subsequent counterparts such as fuchsine (reddish-purple), and induline (bluish red) – were cheap to produce and had enormous commercial success as, for the first time, brightly coloured fabric became affordable for large swathes of the European lower and middle classes, allowing them to indulge in fancy dresses, hats, upholstery and, yes, Christmas card tassels….

(10) SECOND TO NONE. What is the exact time? Tom Vanderbilt learned why it’s hard to tell: “In Search of Lost Time” at Harper’s.

…The night before my visit, I’d opened time.gov, the very official-looking page—headlined official u.s. time—run by NIST and the U.S. Naval Observatory. The site features a map of the United States, divided into time zones, as well as a variety of subsidiary clock displays (Chamorro Standard Time, Aleutian Standard Time) that ticked, at the second level, in seeming synchrony. I noticed that my own watch—the Garmin Forerunner 935, a “premium running watch,” which generally gets its time from four of the thirty-one operational GPS satellites encircling the globe—looked to be a second behind. Why?

This was one of the first questions I put to Judah Levine, an eighty-two-year-old JILA physicist and one of “America’s timekeepers.” “The handheld guys are typically wrong by a second or a half-second,” Levine said. “That’s because the device’s display is not fast enough.” He said this with weary resignation. White-haired, with gold-rimmed glasses, wearing a blue flannel shirt, gray work pants, and sturdy black shoes, Levine reminded me of one of those somewhat cantankerous master craftsmen you still find in certain old quarters of Brooklyn. The shelves of his office were lined with physics textbooks, and an Oregon Scientific clock—which gets a radio signal from NIST—displayed the time in blocky liquid-crystal numbers.

In fairness to my watch, Levine explained that time.gov (which had informed me that the laptop I was using had strayed “+0.012 s”) was itself off by a noticeable amount. “It takes a while for the signal to transfer across the network, which we don’t control,” he explained. The actual correct time was on display in a laboratory adjacent to Levine’s office. It appeared as a string of red digits on a device that looked like a high-end stereo amplifier. This was a display of the official time, which is kept by a series of cesium fountain atomic clocks a few miles away, at NIST’s Boulder campus, and sent via satellite to JILA. Here was the seat of temporal power, the nation’s pulsing metronome. I watched the red LED seconds tick away, bathing in their implacable authority. It was then, however, that Levine introduced another complication. The time we were looking at might actually, a month from now, be deemed incorrect….

(11) THE DOORS, NOT THE DALEKS, WERE THE REAL NIGHTMARE. “Doctor Who: TV crew member recalls genesis of the Daleks” at BBC.com.

On 21 December 1963, some of the most feared characters in science fiction first appeared on screen.

The first episode of Doctor Who in which the dreaded Daleks appeared – The Dead Planet – was broadcast on BBC television.

While the rest of the country watched from behind their sofas, Sue Webb, from Winchester, was working as a producer’s assistant at the BBC’s Lime Grove studios in Shepherd’s Bush, west London.

Sixty years on, she has been recalling the recording of this landmark moment in TV sci-fi.

Ms Webb admits to being initially unimpressed about working on the BBC’s new science fiction drama for Saturday teatimes, based on an eccentric alien, played by William Hartnell, who time travelled in a police phone box.

“It was really just another programme and not what we were used to – we’re drama darling – we do play,” she says.

She recalls the studio being “actually a bit too small”.

“We had to fit in a petrified forest and a metal city for the Daleks,” she says, adding: “It looks like cardboard boxes covered in sheets.”

As for the metallic pepperpot-shaped aliens, created by designer Raymond Cusick, Ms Webb remembers rehearsals with actors “trolleying” around on castors in just the bottom halves of the characters that would become The Doctor’s nemesis.

She says: “Daleks were difficult creatures to move around. They got very hot and the actors were very uncomfortable inside.”

Actor David Graham, along with Peter Hawkins, spoke the Daleks’ lines in a booth off-screen. Graham later worked on Thunderbirds and Hawkins was the voice of Captain Pugwash….

…”The whole episode creaks – it just doesn’t look real at all – the actual surroundings would look terribly amateur.

“The real nightmare was the set with all those sliding doors – they were supposed to rise and sometimes they didn’t.

“You have got to rise above it and accept some things are dodgy, keep fingers crossed and hope for the best.”…

(12) LITERARY MOONS. “See the James Webb Telescope’s Stunning New Image of Uranus With Its Rings and Moons Clearer Than Ever” at Smithsonian Magazine.

…Nine of Uranus’s 27 moons can be seen surrounding the planet in the new image, shining like pearls. Individual astronomers discovered the ice giant’s five largest moons between 1787 and 1948. When Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it discovered ten more natural satellites. Since then, the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observations have brought the total to what it is today.

The ice giant’s moons are sometimes referred to as the “literary moons,” because they’re named for characters in Shakespeare’s plays, along with a few from the works of Alexander Pope. Those in Webb’s close-up image, moving clockwise from 2 o’clock, are called Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Bianca, Portia, Juliet and Perdita. (A second, wide-view image shows 14 moons.)…

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

Pixel Scroll 8/28/18 Robert’s Pixels Of Order, Newly Scrolled

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(1) IN TUNE WITH SPACE OPERA. Strange Horizons presents “’In The Far and Dazzling Future, People Are Still People’: A Round-Table on Domestic Space Opera” with Ann Leckie, Jennifer Foehner Wells, Judith Tarr, Joyce Chng, and Foz Meadows.

Foz Meadows: I honestly think you can’t have good SF without a degree of domesticity. There’s something sterile to the environments so often preferred by hard and military SF, where everyone is in uniform without a hint of how they live outside of it, that forgets that, even in the far and dazzling future, people are still people. One of the clearest visual examples that springs to mind was the ship Serenity, in Firefly—that show had a lot of problems, but the decision to lovingly render the spaceship as a domestic environment wasn’t one of them. There were hand-painted signs on the metal that Kaylee had done, scenes of the crew cooking real food together as a novelty, or making Simon a cake out of flavoured protein for his birthday because they didn’t have anything else; the difference between Inara’s quarters, with its lush decorations, and Jayne’s wall of guns. The Radchaii love of tea in Ann Leckie’s Ancillary series is another example of this.

But again, I find myself at odds with the assumption that domesticity is frowned upon in space opera, given that its presence is, to me, one of the defining qualities that separates it from traditional, “masculine” hard and military SF….

(2) DOCTOR IS IN. Variety says a former Doctor Who will be in Episode IX: “‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ Casts Matt Smith in Key Role”.

Sources tell Variety that “The Crown” star Matt Smith is joining “Star Wars: Episode IX,” which is currently in production in the U.K. It’s unknown at this time whether the “Doctor Who” alum will be on the side of the rebels or the evil empire.

(3) A SFF SPLASH. Scott Edelman interviews Rachel Pollack over a bowl of Vietnamese Seafood Noodle Soup in Episode 75 of Eating the Fantastic.

Rachel Pollack

We had lunch on the final day of Readercon at Pho Pasteur. This Quincy restaurant is a 2017 spin-off of the original Boston Vietnamese venue which has been open since 1991, and since that cuisine is one of her favorites, I thought we should give that venue a try.

Rachel Pollack is someone I’ve been connected to for a third of a century, even since I ran her story “Lands of Stone” in a 1984 issue of Last Wave, a small press magazine I edited and published. But she’s gone on to do so much more since then!

Her novel Unquenchable Fire won the 1989 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and her novel Godmother Night won the 1997 World Fantasy Award. Her other novels include Temporary Agency, which was a 1994 Nebula Award nominee. Her comic book writing includes an acclaimed run on Doom Patrol, as well as New Gods and Brother Power the Geek. She is also an expert on the Tarot and has published many books on the subject, including a guide to Salvador Dali’s Tarot deck. Her comics and Tarot loves blended when she created the Vertigo Tarot Deck with writer Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean.

We discussed why Ursula K. Le Guin was such an inspiration, the reason celebrating young writers over older ones can skew sexist, what Tarot cards and comic books have in common, how 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t a science fiction movie but an occult movie, why Captain Marvel was her favorite comic as a kid (Shazam!), the serendipitous encounter which led to her writing Doom Patrol, how she used DC’s Tomahawk to comment on old Western racial stereotypes, the problems that killed her Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tarot deck, how she intends to bring back her shaman-for-hire character Jack Shade, and much more.

(4) MORE ON CARNEGIE LIBRARY THEFTS. The New York Times traces the fate of an individual stolen book to illustrate why the thefts could be carried on so long: “Vast Theft of Antiquarian Books Sends a Shudder Through a Cloistered World of Dealers”.

A rare books dealer thought he had gotten lucky in 2013 when he managed to acquire a 1787 French first edition — inscribed by Thomas Jefferson when he was ambassador to France.

“If someone else had seen it first, it would have been gone,” said the dealer, John Thomson, who owns Bartleby’s Books, an online shop.

He had no idea that his seeming good fortune was a byproduct of one of the most expansive rare book thefts in history.

The dealer at a book fair who sold it to him, John Schulman, is now accused of conspiring with a library archivist, Gregory Priore, to steal and sell rare items from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh….

… In this niche world based on trust, where confidants are currency and handshake deals are commonplace, the arrest of a prominent dealer is a shocking suggestion of deceit.

Mr. Schulman had served on the association’s board of governors and had even led its ethics committee, the organization said. His clients included some of the biggest names in the business. Prominent bookshops from New York to London bought stolen books, an affidavit shows.

…None of the buyers are accused of wrongdoing. But the booksellers’ association is taking steps to try to prevent a similar wide-scale theft from happening again.

We traced the path of one book, the edition signed by Jefferson, to explain how the theft is suspected to have worked — and why it went undetected for so long….

(5) BETHKE TRIBUTE. Bruce Bethke’s frank memoir “Family Matters” leads up to his announcement of the death of his first wife.

…What even fewer people have known until recently is that in December of 2012, my first wife, Nancy, was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. After a five-and-a-half year battle, she left this world sometime between late Sunday evening, August 19, and early Monday morning, August 20. Her funeral was this past Saturday.

(6) VELEZ OBIT. Artist Walter Velez (1939-2018) died August 24 at the age of 78.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction tells about his popular work, including covers for Robert Asprin’s books, such as the first Thieves World anthology.

His website is here.

(7) WAYNE OBIT. From Syfy Wire: “The Twilight Zone and Bewitched Actor Fredd Wayne Dead at 93” and The Hollywood Reporter: “Fredd Wayne, Who Played Benjamin Franklin on ‘Bewitched,’ Dies at 93”.

Per the SYFY Wire story, genre roles included appearances on: One Step Beyond (1 episode); The Twilight Zone (2 episodes); Voyagers! (1 episode); Bewitched (2-part episode); Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (2-part episode); Wonder Woman (1 episode); Small Wonder (1 episode); The Phantom of Hollywood (TV movie); Chamber of Horrors.(feature film). There may be others they didn’t list. Depends, in part, on what you count as genre (Nanny and the Professor? Matinee Theatre’s “The Alumni Reunion” & “The Century Plant”?)

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • August 28, 1991 — First E-mail Sent from Space

 Using a Mac Portable aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, the first e-mail from space is sent to Earth. Two astronauts on the spacecraft, James Adamson and Shannon Lucid, wrote, “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,…send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,…we’ll be back!” The message was transmitted to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 28, 1915 – Tasha Tudor. American illustrator and writer of children’s books. Her most well-known book is Corgiville Fair, published in 1971, the first of a series to feature anthropomorphic corgis.
  • Born August 28, 1916 – Jack Vance. Where to start? The Dying Earth series? Or perhaps the Lyonesse trilogy? I think I’ll pick the Demon Princes series.
  • Born August 28, 1917 – Jack Kirby. Comic artist is somewhat of an understatement for what he was. Created much of modern Marvel continuity and even some of the DCU as well with New Gods at the latter being my fav work by him.
  • Born August 28, 1948 – Vonda McIntyre, 70. Best known I think for for her Trek and SW work, but Dreamsnake won her both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel, and The Moon and The Sun won her the Nebula Award.
  • Born August 28 – Barbara Hambly, 67. Author of myriad genre works including the James Asher, Vampire Novels, The Windrose Chronicles, and the Sun Wolf and Starhawk series. Some Trek work. Was married for some years to George Alec Effinger.
  • Born August 28 – Amanda Tapping, 53. Stargate franchise of course, also lead in Sanctuary, Travelers, Kiljoys, Riese, Earthsea, Flash Forward and X-Files.
  • Born August 28 – Kelly Overton, 40. Genre work includes Van Helsing, Legends, True Blood, Beauty and The Beast and Medium.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) REASON FOR A SEASON. John King Tarpinian says he has already ordered his “Santa in Space” shirt.

(12) ABOUT W76. Alexandra Erin unpacks a host of feelings about attending a Worldcon in “Conventional Wisdom”, like these sentiments about awards:

And so here is my insight for this year: the awards matter because they represent genuine appreciation, and the appreciation is genuine because it comes from people, from real people, a real community of people, a community of communities — some old, some newer, each diverse in different ways, each with their own competing and conflicting and even occasionally complementary tastes. This community is here at the convention and it is distributed somewhat haphazardly across the globe, wherever people are reading and writing and appreciating science fiction and fantasy literature published in the English language.

WorldCon is a concentration of that community, and the Hugo Awards are a concentration of WorldCon. The community is people, the convention is people, the awards are people, Soylent Green is people, and it is beautiful and it is glorious, even when the community stumbles.

(13) OUT IN FRONT. John Picacio mentions that he won the only Alfie Award presented by George R.R. Martin this year, tells about the gatherings of MexicanX Initiative members, and how he felt while emceeing the Hugos, in his conreport “Worldcon 76: The End Is The Beginning”.

I always forget how applause makes me feel like I’m underwater. I knew I was going to ‘X-up’ centerstage in salute to my Mexicanx brothers and sisters, but from there, every word of my opening address was blank page. Unscripted. Pulled from the bright stagelights, the infinite sea of faces, the inky black, that primetime moment you can’t calculate no matter how hard you try. It’s right there in front of your eyes, beyond the dazzle, if you can stop your heart from exploding out of your chest. All of those struggling years, building to arrive at that moment….I remembered that kid who so desperately wanted to be a part of this business….that guy who appeared at his first Worldcon a mere twenty-one years ago. And he led me through the darkness, like he always does — because I’m still that guy. I still want it as bad as I did when I worked on my first book cover, when I resigned from architecture to be the person I am full-time, seventeen years ago. I don’t remember everything I said up there — it just comes out — and no, I don’t want to watch the video and find out. Once is enough.

(14) NEW WETWARE DISCOVERY. NPR reports on “What Makes A Human Brain Unique? A Newly Discovered Neuron May Be A Clue”. Breaks the use of mice as models for neurological problems, e.g. Alzheimer’s.

An international team has identified a kind of brain cell that exists in people but not mice, the team reported Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

“This particular type of cell had properties that had never actually been described in another species,” says Ed Lein, one of the study’s authors and an investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.

The finding could help explain why many experimental treatments for brain disorders have worked in mice, but failed in people. It could also provide new clues to scientists who study human brain disorders ranging from autism to Alzheimer’s disease to schizophrenia.

“It may be that in order to fully understand psychiatric disorders, we need to get access to these special types of neurons that exist only in humans,” says Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which helped fund the research.

(15) PREEMPTIVE STRIKE ON CHOLERA. 21st-century pump handle: “Yemen cholera epidemic ‘controlled’ by computer predictions”. Rainfall predictions ID where sewers will overflow, telling where to concentrate treatment etc.

Last year, there were more than 50,000 new cases in just one week – this year, the numbers plummeted to about 2,500.

The system has enabled aid workers to focus efforts on prevention several weeks in advance of an outbreak – by monitoring rainfall.

It comes as the UN says it is concerned about a possible “third wave” of the epidemic.

(16) MAD, I TELL YOU. At The Onion: “New ‘Game Of Thrones’ Teaser Shows Cackling, Power-Mad George R.R. Martin Burning Completed ‘Winds Of Winter’ Manuscript”.

Shedding light on the much-rumored events of the upcoming eighth and final season, a newly released teaser for the wildly popular HBO series of Game Of Thrones that aired Monday centered around the image of a cackling, power-mad George R.R. Martin burning the completed manuscript of Winds Of Winter.

(17) COMING TO A BOOKSTORE NOWHERE NEAR YOU. Ferret Bueller shares a rarity:

This is a pic?ture I took of the official (I guess) Mongolian translations of the Game of Thrones books in Ulaanbaatar; they’re published by Monsudar, the leading publisher of translated books. These were on display at one of the little branches of Internom, their brick and mortar franchise, this one being near my office. I see by the stamp I took it on 1 April; I took the picture for a friend of mine who’s a GoT fanatic and didn’t even think that you might enjoy seeing it or putting it up on File 770 (it’s interesting enough SF news, I guess) until earlier today.

(18) YOU COULDN’T LOOK IT UP. Cameron Laux describes “Fourteen words and phrases that define the present” for BBC readers:

The new weird

An emerging genre of speculative, ‘post-human’ writing that blurs genre boundaries and conventions, pushes humanity and human-centred reason from the centre to the margins, and generally poses questions that may not be answerable in any terms we can understand (hence the ‘weird’). It is associated with people like Jeff Vandermeer and M John Harrison in fiction, but the approach is bleeding into television narratives (see Westworld or Noah Hawley’s innovative series Fargo and Legion). Vandermeer’s Annihilation is heavily influenced by recent ecological thinking which takes the view that humanity is a blip in geologic history: even considering the potential catastrophe of global warming, the Earth existed long before us, and it will exist long after (see the ‘hyperobject’ entry elsewhere here). In his 2002 book Light, Harrison imagines a universe where human physics is encroached upon by alien physics that coexist and are equally or more potent. Westworld posits machine intelligences that overthrow their masters, unleashing a radically non-human order.

(19) DEL TORO PROJECT. From Variety: “Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ Movie Sets Cast”.

Guillermo del Toro’s “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” adaptation has cast Michael Garza, Austin Abrams, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur and Natalie Ganzhorn with production to start this week.

Del Toro is producing the teen thriller with his “Shape of Water” producer J. Miles Dale. Sean Daniel and Jason Brown of Hivemind and Elizabeth Grave are also producing. CBS Films and Entertainment One are co-financing.

(20) NOT ENOUGH CONAN. Doctor Strangemind’s Kim Huett tells how Hollywood suffers for lack of his advice to guide them, in “Conan the Rebooter”.

What is best in life? To revive a franchise, to turn it into a success, and to hear the lamentation of your rivals!

I really do wish Hollywood would consult with me before embarking upon certain film projects. I’ve no doubt my sage advice could save them endless money and embarrassment in regards to the making of the more expensive science fiction and fantasy sort of films. “What’s that Mr Executive? You’re thinking about green-lighting a film based on the game Battleship? No. Just no.”

Ah, but I sense you would like some proof of my ability to deliver such sage advice. Fair enough, let’s then consider that famous barbarian, Conan, by Crom! As a teenager I read at least eleventy-seven paperbacks featuring Conan stories (published by Sphere Books in the UK and by first Lancer and then Ace Books in the US) so I’m reasonably familiar with the source material. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve read any of Robert E. Howard’s stories but I think I can unequivocally state that neither attempt to put Conan on the big screen was unflawed….

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, JJ, Ferret Bueller, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, Kim Huett, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Goobergunch.]

Pixel Scroll 7/19/16 Dropkick Me Pixel, Through The Scrollposts Of Life

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(1) WHEN LAST HEARD FROM. Rachael Acks, your life is calling. Confessions of a Pokémon Go player.

I wasn’t going to play Pokémon Go. Seriously. I’ve never played Pokémon in my entire life. I still have zero desire to pick up any of the other games, because I am not interested in that kind of grind.

But then my friend Corina wanted to go for a long walk and catch all the local Poké Stops. Which are in the same location as Ingress portals, so I thought what the hell, I might as well get back into playing Ingress. I haven’t done that since getting back to Colorado. Oh and fine, I’ll download Pokémon Go while I’m at it and try, since I’ll be out there anyway. It’s probably dumb and I won’t like it.

And now I find myself out there, sitting on a picnic table in a park at midnight, farming Pokémon, and once a day reminding myself to log on to Ingress and keep my hacking streak going. What the hell happened? I don’t even go here.

(2) GHASTLY NEWS. The trolls and haters have driven Leslie Jones off Twitter with their racist abuse. 🙁

According to Salon, Twitter administrators are working to deal with the problem.

It all seemed to be going well for a while. Over the weekend, the actress and comic was tweeting out photos sent by happy fans attending screenings of her film, and praise for colleagues. Then on Monday, she issued a warning, saying, “Some people on here are f__king disgusting. I’m blocking your filthy ass if retweet that perverted s__t. Just know that now bitches!!” And then she proceeded to demonstrate just how bad it really is to be a woman of color — even more gallingly for the ignorant trolls, a successful woman of color — on Twitter. She shared tweets from a variety of low-functioning cretins, too many to list here but several with the theme of comparing Jones to a gorilla.

…But as fans and supporters have come forward to report the abuse, either Twitter administration actually has done something or the trolls themselves haven’t been able to stand the attention. By Tuesday morning, at least some of the more revolting posters seem to have disappeared — gee, was the reference to the KKK in your user name, bro? At least one racist troll has been suspended. Fun fact: You will not find too many on Twitter who think it’s funny to call a stranger a racial slur who use their own name or image on their account….

(3) INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST. Alexandra Erin reports: “Ghostbusters Enjoys $46m Opening Weekend Entirely On Strength of Guys From The Internet Sitting Alone In Empty Theaters With Their Phone Cameras”.

As reported on breitbart.com, Sony’s Ghostbusters opened this weekend to a slew of empty seats in empty theaters, taking in an impressive $46 million dollars from the men of various Gamergate-affiliated internet forums, who all bought tickets for the sole purpose of taking pictures of otherwise empty auditoriums to post on Twitter in order to prove that the movie really was a bomb, no matter what the feminist conspiracy is making the biased left-wing media say about it.

The journalistic zeal of these amateur photographers was enough to bump the reboot into second place for the weekend, finishing just behind the family entertainment powerhouse The Secret Life of Pets (first, at $50 million). The multitudes of men sitting alone in empty theaters gave seasoned director Paul Feig and hit comic actor Melissa McCarthy their biggest openings yet, as well as making Ghostbusters the most successful debut for a live-action comedy all year….

(4) CRITICAL CAT. At Camestros Felapton’s blog, Timothy the Talking Cat weighs in on the day’s most important cultural issue: “Review: Ghostbusters Versus Timothy”.

CF: So Ghostbusters, what did you think?
Timothy: Overall I felt the  duffel bag could have been larger.
CF: Seriously, it was the only way to get you into the cinema.
Timothy: Ah, the ‘No Cats’ rule again.
CF: Specifically the ‘No cats called Timothy because he keeps shouting at the characters in the movie’ rule again.
Timothy: I believe my fellow patrons enjoy my ad-hoc commentary.….

(5) CHAT WITH A DOCTOR EMERITUS. The Guardian hosted the “Matt Smith webchat – fear, football and a female Doctor Who”. Highlights:

  • “I think a Lady Doctor could be close”

How does my daughter become the Doctor? She wants to know. Thanks!

“Well, she has a chance. I think a Lady Doctor could be close. And would be fun. So practise, practise, practise. And talk really fast. And think really fast. And be really brave. And mad. And silly. And good luck maybe it will be you!”

  • “I miss time travelling. But it’s Peter’s Tardis now”

There were rumours that you would return for the 10th season. Is this true?

“No it’s not true…. I miss everything. I miss Steven, I miss Karen, I miss Arthur, I miss Jenna. I miss time travelling. And I miss my friends in Cardiff. BUT onward goes the march. It’s Peter’s Tardis now. And I love what he does. So I watch as a fan.”

(6) SNEAK PEEKS. Cnet invites you to “Check out these two set photos from ‘Star Wars: Episode VIII’”.

Director Rian Johnson posted some set photos from his upcoming movie. Maybe you’ve heard of it….

All the photos really tell us is that the upcoming Star Wars film has both spaceships and oddly shaped black helmets, which I think most of us would have put money on already.

(7) STEPHANIE CLARKSON (1971-2016). Laurie Beth Brunner reported on Facebook that Boston area fan Stephanie Clarkson passed away today.

Stephanie died peacefully this morning at 5:30 a.m., with her mother keeping her company and holding her.

I like to think that her body was simply inadequate to the task of containing her spirit, and so it let her go free. 🙁

Thank you all so much for all the love and support you have shown to Stephanie, to her family, and to me as well. I know that she loved you all and was so grateful for everything everyone did for her, even when she was sometimes unable to express it.

Good night, Stephanie, and flights of Muppets sing thee to thy rest.

(8) MISSION OVERACCOMPLISHED. There’s a Kickstarter raising funds to reproduce NASA’s manual for the 1969 Moon landing — “Apollo 11 Flight Plan Re-Issue”.

We are starting from the beginning and reproducing every single page, using accurate fonts, colors, spacing and paper, as well as reproducing all vector graphics based on very high resolution scans of the original Apollo 11 Final Flight Plan.

A lot of people think this is a good idea. So many, that it’s raised $59,369, far in excess of its original goal of $11,274. And there are still 26 days left to go.

(9) NEIL CLARKE, IMPOSTOR? That’s the title of his post – “Impostor”. Fortunately, he sounds like he’s on his way to recovery.

It’s easy to start something when people have little or no expectations from you. I can’t tell you how many people told us Clarkesworld would be “dead within a year.” Somewhere around the third year, that changed. Being taken seriously was intimidating. Success felt great, but I was always ready for the rug to be pulled out from under us.

And then, four years ago, I had a near-fatal heart attack. It’s the sort of thing that reshapes your priorities and forces you to examine what you’ve been doing. I think that might have been the first time I honestly admitted to myself that I was a professional editor and deserved to be paid for my work, no matter how much I enjoyed it. That said, I’m still very good at ignoring the voice that says “you earned this.” That list of accomplishments… that’s what my childhood heroes did. In that light, it’s often a case of “I’m not worthy.”

That brings us to today. I can’t quite say that I’m a recovered impostor, but that I can blog about it is a promising sign. I can see why hiding behind the magazine has worked for me and I also understand why others feel I should “own my brand.” Perhaps I can step out periodically and see what happens. As I said, frightening, but maybe I’m ready.

(10) KEEP ON TRUCKING. Gareth D. Jones reviews “The End Of The World Running Club by Adrian J Walker” for SFCrowsnest.

This sounds good, I thought. A post-apocalyptic tale about a man who has to run the length of Britain to find his family. The cover does not look like a Science Fiction book, though, it looks like a ‘literary’ book. More worryingly, when it arrived, it had a sticker on the front cover advertising the ‘BBC Radio 2 Book Club’. My dad used to listen to Radio 2. Technically, I am now in the right age bracket to listen to Radio 2 myself, but do I really want to put myself in that bracket and read that kind of book? Too late. The book was in my possession and I was committed to reading it.

Within a few pages I was hooked….

(11) LOVE THE HEADLINE. At SF Site News, Steven H Silver showed some flair in his title: “Muppets” Take Ankh-Morpork:

The Jim Henson Company has announced they are developing a film based on Sir Terry Pratchetts Wee Free Men, with a script to be written by Pratchett’s daughter, Rhianna Pratchett. The project is a collaboration between the Jim Henson Company and Narrativia, a company set up to promote Pratchett’s works. Rhianna Pratchett and Sir Terry’s assistant, Rob Wilkins, will serve as Executive Producers on the project. For more information…

(12) OPEN MOOSE SURGERY. I missed this at the time in 2015 – a thorough restoration of the iconic Rocky and Bullwinkle statue that used to be in front of the Jay Ward Studios.

In a post on Vintage Los Angeles on Saturday, Martino recalled meeting Ricardo Scozzari, who restored the sculpture. “I tracked down the brilliant restoration genius who put our friends back together and lovingly restored them,” she said. “THEY ARE BASICALLY BULLET PROOF NOW! And it wasn’t easy! The statue was falling apart when it was removed from its iconic location on the morning of July 22, 2013. Meet the man who rescued our local landmark! Ricardo Scozzari!”

“I restored the statue twice,” said Scozzari. “Once on the Sunset Strip and the final time as you see it now. It was a fun project. Bullwinkle had ‘open heart surgery’ — literally. I had to open his chest to strengthen his internal structure. Oh the pictures I have. He looks just like he did back in 1961. Same number of strips on his bathing suit and everything.”

bullwinkle and rocky

(13) WAILING AWAY. Plonk your magic twanger, Marty — “Michael J. Fox and Coldplay Recreate ‘Back to the Future’ at NJ Concert”.

On Saturday night (July 16), Coldplay kicked off the North American leg of its Head Full of Dreams tour just outside New York in East Rutherford, NJ’s MetLife Stadium. They were back in the same venue the following night, so what did they do to break the mold? Stage an iconic scene from American cinema. Did you ever doubt Chris Martin’s dramatic flair?

During the show’s final encore, Coldplay brought out Michael J. Fox, Gibson Les Paul in hand. Together, they transported the crowd to Back to the Future‘s Enchantment Under the Sea dance, with a couple of ‘50s classics. First, they played a little of the Penguins’ “Earth Angel” and after that — of course — Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” The homage came as a request from Martin’s son, Moses, who was hoping to get a real life taste of his favorite movie.

Fox (who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991) has been known to reprise the famous scene at the annual benefit for his Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. For the 2013 benefit, he performed alongside Chris Martin in New York City.

(14) ROAD WARRIOR. Pornokitsch presents “Gail Carriger on ‘The Traveling Writer: A Tip Sheet’”.

I started attending conventions as a fangirl long before I was a professional writer. I knew what to expect and when I got my first Guest of Honor invitation I was over the moon. I still get a little thrill at the very idea that someone wants me to attend a convention… as a guest!

But it’s not the same thing. Whether heading out on a book tour or invited as a guest to a small local sci-fi convention, attending programming at a larger conference, or visiting one of those monster book festivals or comicons there are some things I think a professional writer should always keep in mind.

So here, for your amusement (and perhaps education) are my highly subjective… Tips for the Traveling Writer

  1. Thou shalt follow the 6, 2, 1 rule

What’s that? At least six hours sleep, two full meals, and one bath.

Actually, I usually try for 8, 3, 2. I recommend a morning swim (at most cons I get an AM pool to myself) plus a hot tub mini soak and shower. People often forget about the hotel pool when there is a major event, so if you like to swim don’t forget the bathing suit and goggles.

(15) SUFFERING FROM THRONE WITHDRAWAL? ScreenRant recommends 15 Fantasy Worlds to Explore While You Wait for the Next Season of Game of Thrones.

1. The Kingkiller Chronicles, Patrick Rothfuss 2. The Gentlemen Bastard Cycle, Scott Lynch 3. The Dark Tower, Stephen King 4. Saga, by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples 5. The Passage Trilogy, Justin Cronin 6. Bone, by Jeff Smith 7. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman 8. Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson 9. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke 10. The Stormlight Archives, by Brandon Sanderson 11. Paper Girls, by Brian K. Vaughn and Cliff Chiang 12. The Magicians, by Lev Grossman 13. Rat Queens, by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Various Artists 14. The Wheel Of Time, by Robert Jordan 15. The First Law Universe, by Joe Abercrombie

(16) WE HAVE A WINNER. You never know where the next title is coming from…

(17) BACK IN TIME. The New Yorker presents an interesting video – “A Split-Screen Tour of Los Angeles, Seventy Years Ago and Today”.

Bunker Hill, an area of roughly five square blocks in downtown Los Angeles, holds a place in city lore similar to that of the water wars or the construction of Dodger Stadium: beginning in 1959, it was the subject of a massive urban-renewal project, in which “improvement” was generally defined by the people who stood to profit from it, as well as their backers at City Hall, at the expense of anyone standing in their way. In the early part of the twentieth century, the neighborhood had been home to some of the city’s most elegant mansions and hotels; by the nineteen-fifties, these had mostly been subdivided into low-income housing, and the area was populated by a mix of pensioners, immigrants, workers, and people looking to get lost—a period memorialized in several noir films and the realist gem “The Exiles.” The Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project was adopted in 1959 and somehow lasted an astonishing fifty-three years. The result, and what it means, are the subject of this short film by Keven McAlester, which compares what the same streets in downtown Los Angeles looked like in the nineteen-forties and today.

[Thanks to Bartimaeus, Dawn Incognito, JJ, James Davis Nicoll, Carl Slaughter, John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Sciphideas.]

Pixel Scroll 7/10/16 Captain Pixel Pants

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(1) JIM HENLEY POOPS ON SPACE. In comments, Jim deposited this link to a report that long-duration space habitation impairs vision in 80% of astronauts. (Hey, “poops” is his word.)

In 2005, astronaut John Phillips took a break from his work on the International Space Station and looked out the window at Earth. He was about halfway through a mission that had begun in April and would end in October.

When he gazed down at the planet, the Earth was blurry. He couldn’t focus on it clearly. That was strange — his vision had always been 20/20. He wondered: Was his eyesight getting worse?

“I’m not sure if I reported that to the ground,” he said. “I think I didn’t. I thought it would be something that would just go away, and fix itself when I got to Earth.”

It didn’t go away.

During Phillips’ post-flight physical, NASA found that his vision had gone from 20/20 to 20/100 in six months.

Rigorous testing followed. Phillips got MRIs, retinal scans, neurological tests and a spinal tap. The tests showed that not only had his vision changed, but his eyes had changed as well.

The backs of his eyes had gotten flatter, pushing his retinas forward. He had choroidal folds, which are like stretch marks. His optic nerves were inflamed.

Phillips case became the first widely recognized one of a mysterious syndrome that affects 80 percent of astronauts on long-duration missions in space. The syndrome could interfere with plans for future crewed space missions, including any trips to Mars.

(2) THE TAKING-UP-SPACE PROGRAM. You might say The Traveler at Galactic Journey doesn’t see eye-to-eye with editor John W. Campbell, who spent 20 pages criticizing the space program in Analog: “[July 10, 1961] The Last Straw (Campbell’s Wrong-Headed Rant In The August 1961 Analog]“

Campbell’s argument is as follows:

1) America could have had a man in space in 1951, but America is a democracy, and its populace (hence, the government) is too stupid to understand the value of space travel.

2) The government’s efforts to put a man in space are all failures: Project Vanguard didn’t work.  Project Mercury won’t go to orbit.  Liquid-fueled rockets are pointless.

3) Ford motor company produced Project Farside, a series of solid-fueled “rock-oons,” on the cheap, so therefore, the best way to get into space…nay…the only way is to give the reins to private industry.

Campbell isn’t just wrong on every single one of these assertions.  He’s delusional.

(3) WHO DAT? The Mirror stirs up rumors in its news article “Can Matt Smith be the first Doctor Who to regenerate as himself?”

Matt Smith may be about to travel back in time to play Doctor Who again.

Show boss Steven Moffat has hinted Smith could be the first of the 12 Doctors to return to the Tardis after regenerating.

Matt, who stars as Prince Phillip in Netflix’s big-budget royal drama The Crown in November, has made no secret of his desire to return, saying last year: “They will ask me back one day, won’t they?”

Matt’s successor Peter Capaldi has been tipped to bow out after the next series, currently being filmed for release in 2017.

And Moffat, who is leaving after his sixth season next year has said Matt is “quite open about how much he misses it, and how much he wishes he hadn’t left”.

(4) OH SAY DID YOU HEAR? A piece by Carly Carioli in the July 1 Boston Globe called “Did the Star-Spangled Banner land Igor Stravinsky in Jail?” explores the issue of whether or not Stravinsky was arrested for playing a radical arrangement of the national anthem in 1944.  (He wasn’t because he substituted the traditional arrangement at the last minute.)

The sf connection is that Carioli linked to a photo of Stravinsky.  “The novelist Neil Gaiman thought it was a mug shot.  He sent the image to the blog Boing-Boing a few years ago, along with an astounding plot-point:  He claimed that Stravinsky had been arrested in Boston” for his weird arrangement.

Spoiler alert: The photo is not a mug shot, and Stravinsky was never arrested. But the real story of what happened to the composer in Boston is an incredible tale. He did compose a weird arrangement of the national anthem, and the Boston police really did ban him from performing it — sparking a national uproar and a tense showdown that played out live on the radio.

The Boston Globe has a tight paywall of five articles a month, so good luck clicking through.

(5) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born July 10, 1923 – Earl Hamner, Jr.
  • Born July 10, 1926 – Fred Gwynne
  • Born July 10, 1929 – George Clayton Johnson
  • Born July 10, 1941  — David G. Hartwell

(6) HUGO NOVELETTES REVIEWED. Rich Horton explains how he is ranking the Hugo-nominated Novelettes on Strange at Ecbatan.

As I wrote in my first post in this series: I am not planning to reflexively rank Rabid Puppy entries below No Award. I am of course disgusted by the Rabid Puppy antics, and I feel that many worthier stories were kept off the ballot by the Rabid choices. And if a story is bad enough, it will certainly be off my ballot, with No Award the last choice. (That’s always been my approach.) But, this year in particular, many of the nominees supported by the Rabid Puppies were either unaware of that, or aware and quite clearly not happy with that. Also, I don’t want to reduce the meaningfulness of the win for those worthy winners – if they finish first and No Award is second, to my mind it to some extent delegitimizes their wins, through no fault of their own. Better to have been chosen the best with every voting on merit than voted best simply because all the other choices were automatically rejected regardless of quality.

(7) STEPHEN KING. Lisa J. Goldstein reviews Stephen King’s Hugo-nominated novelette: “Obits” at inferior4+1.

Sometimes I think that Stephen King is too skilled a writer for his own good.  No, wait, hear me out.  “Obits” is about an obituary writer who discovers that when he writes obituaries about live people, they end up dead.  It’s not an earth-shattering idea, and I’d bet that any number of writers have come up with something similar.  Other writers, though, would try to figure out where the story should go, how it should end, if it would be too predictable — and when they finished with all of that, they’d decide that the idea wouldn’t work, that it’s just not a very good concept for a story.

(8) CHIMERA CREATURES. Mary Lowd has been rescuing stuffed animals and playing mad scientist in order to resurrect them. She displays the results in a photo gallery.

The Subjects:

For this project, subjects were gathered from local dispensaries of unwanted toys.  Most of the specimens were procured from various Goodwills, but a few were found at St. Vinnie’s and Sarah’s Treasures.  Excluding a few exceptional specimens, they all cost between $1 and $2.  Even the exceptional ones cost at most $4.  In order for a specimen to be suitable, it had to be in good condition, contain nice parts, but be — shall we say — uninspiring in its totallity.  Several specimens were rejected for inclusion due to being too lovable in their original, unaltered forms.  All of the specimens selected for final inclusion in the project are pictured below in Fig. 1 – 3.

(9) WHEN LUCY LAUNCHED A THOUSAND STARSHIPS. Many writers have been fascinated to discover Lucille Ball played a role in getting Star Trek on the air. The latest retelling of the tale is “How Lucille Ball Saved Star Trek“ at Entertainment Weekly.

While many series were being shot at Desilu, the studio was in dire need of original programming of its own following the end of The Untouchables in 1963. Herbert Solow, hired to help locate new projects for the studio, brought two notable proposals to Desilu in 1964. One was Mission: Impossible; the other was Roddenberry’s quirky sci-fi idea. When Lucy’s longtime network CBS said no to Trek, Solow and Roddenberry took it to NBC. Science fiction was alien to the network’s schedule, but it ordered a pilot.

According to Solow in Marc Cushman’s history These Are the Voyages, Lucy initially thought Star Trek was about traveling USO performers. But her support for the show was necessary as it became clear how expensive the pilot would be. Lucy overruled her board of directors to make sure the episode was produced.

(10) STAND BY ME (BUT NOT TOO CLOSE). There is a flurry of weird news stories about Pokémon Go players getting hurt or whatnot. Here is the first of several people have sent me today: “Players in hunt for Pokemon Go monsters feel real-world pain” reports ABC’s Chicago affiliate.

Beware: “Pokemon Go,” a new smartphone game based on cute Nintendo characters like Squirtle and Pikachu, can be harmful to your health. The “augmented reality” game, which layers gameplay onto the physical world, became the top grossing app in the iPhone app store just days after its Wednesday release in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. And players have already reported wiping out in a variety of ways as they wander the real world – eyes glued to their smartphone screens – in search of digital monsters.

Mike Schultz, a 21-year-old communications graduate on Long Island, New York, took a spill on his skateboard as he stared at his phone while cruising for critters early Thursday. He cut his hand on the sidewalk after hitting a big crack, and blames himself for going too slowly. “I just wanted to be able to stop quickly if there were any Pokemons nearby to catch,” he says. “I don’t think the company is really at fault.”

(11) ACHIEVEMENT UNBURIED. One player got more than she bargained for: “Pokémon Go player finds dead body in Wyoming river while searching for a Pokestop”.

The augmented reality game, which was released last week, gets people to catch virtual monsters using the person’s location on their phone.

Nineteen-year-old Shayla Wiggins, from Wyoming, was told to find a Pokemon in a natural water source but instead found a man’s corpse.

“I was walking towards the bridge along the shore when I saw something in the water,” she told County 10 news.

“I had to take a second look and I realised it was a body.”

(12) DARWIN REWARD. Police in Darwin, Australia requested on their Facebook page that players not waltz into their station, which of course is a Pokestop in the game.

For those budding Pokemon Trainers out there using Pokemon Go – whilst the Darwin Police Station may feature as a Pokestop, please be advised that you don’t actually have to step inside in order to gain the pokeballs.

It’s also a good idea to look up, away from your phone and both ways before crossing the street. That Sandshrew isn’t going anywhere fast.

Stay safe and catch ’em all!

(13) ROBBERMON. And then there are the robbers who figured out that setting up a beacon in the game was a surefire way to attract victims.

Police in O’Fallon, Missouri are investigating a series of armed robberies believe that the robbers used the Pokemon Go smartphone app to target victims, according to a post on the department’s Facebook page. Four suspects were arrested early Sunday morning near the intersection of Highway K and Feise Road in O’Fallon after a report of an armed robbery. Police say they are suspected of multiple armed robberies in St. Louis and St. Charles counties in Missouri. A handgun was recovered.

Police believe they used the game to, “add a beacon to a pokestop to lure more players” and then used the app to locate victims.

(14) RISK ASSESSMENT. Fitting in with the week’s tragic news is this take on playing the game: “Warning: Pokemon GO is a Death Sentence if you are a Black Man”.

I spent less than 20 minutes outside. Five of those minutes were spent enjoying the game. One of those minutes I spent trying to look as pleasant and nonthreatening as possible as I walked past a somewhat visibly disturbed white woman on her way to the bus stop. I spent the other 14 minutes being distracted from the game by thoughts of the countless Black Men who have had the police called on them because they looked “suspicious” or wondering what a second amendment exercising individual might do if I walked past their window a 3rd or 4th time in search of a Jigglypuff.

When my brain started combining the complexity of being Black in America with the real world proposal of wandering and exploration that is designed into the gameplay of Pokemon GO, there was only one conclusion. I might die if I keep playing.

(15) TOY QUEST. John King Tarpinian went to a store and personally checked out several of the Hallmark collectible ornaments discussed in a post here at File 770. He says the fidelity of the recordings is “surprisingly good.”

Fidelity COMP

Though about this one he cryptically commented, “No sound but yabba dabba doo.”

Flintstones COMP

(16) MORE TOYS. ScreenRant previews Star Wars toys and figure fans can see at Comic-Con.

Folks heading to San Diego Comic-Con can also get their Star Wars fix from July 21 – 24. If you plan on attending SDCC later this month, make sure to swing by the Hasbro booth (#3213) and have your fill of some new Star Wars figures. Hasbro will also have a panel on Friday, July 22nd at noon to introduce their latest line of exclusives….

As noted above, the Darth Vader, Kanan Jarrus, and Biker Scout figures are 12? models while Rey and Hera Syndulla are just under 4? tall. Kanan and Vader also have “electronic touches” which could mean their light sabers actually glow. These figures will be on display at SDCC, but fans will have to exercise some patience because they won’t be available for purchase until fall 2016 — just in time for Christmas

(17) STAR WARS CON IN LONDON. The same ScreenRant post also links to the 3-day Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016 that takes place in London from July 15 – 17. This event will see several exclusives including the premiere of the third season of Star Wars Rebels and a huge presence from Star Wars video games.

For those of us who can’t make it across the pond, some panels will be streamed, including the Rogue One panel, where we should be in for a new trailer for the spinoff film.

(18) REMEMBERING GEORGE. There will be a George Clayton Johnson Memorial Gathering at Comic-Con International in San Diego on Thursday, July 21 at 9:00 p.m.

Let’s share our memories and adventures of our pal and mentor for over 40 years. George wrote “The Man Trap” the very first Star Trek episode that aired. He also wrote 8 original Twilight Zone episodes, Oceans 11 movie and the “Logan’s Run” novel with William F. Nolan. Panel participants include David Gerrold, Craig Miller, Greg Koudoulian, Gene Henderson, Clayton Moore, Scott Smith, Jimmy Diggs and Anthony Keith

(I don’t know which Clayton Moore this is but it can’t be the one from The Lone Ranger – he passed away in 1999.)

(19) KUBRICK LOST AND FOUND. A 2015 documentary on YouTube, Stanley Kubrick: The Lost Tapes, is based on tapes that a New Yorker writer produced in 1966 for a Kubrick profile. Kubrick discusses the making of Dr. Strangelove at about 20 minutes in to this 25-minute documentary. He discusses his professional relationship with Arthur C. Clarke very briefly beginning at 22:00.

(20) ROD SERLING AND GROUCHO MARX. You Bet Your Life was retooled as Tell It To Groucho and sold to CBS for one short season in early 1962. Here’s half of one of the very few episodes available to view today, featuring Rod Serling.

(21) MORE HARLEY QUINN. The Suicide Squad international trailer dropped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fep4KiwyQuk

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Petréa Mitchell, Dawn Incognito, Hampus Eckerman, Cat Rambo, Jim Henley, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA.]

Pixel Scroll 2/14/16 Imagine All The Pixels, Living In A World That’s Scrolled

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(1) BELIEVE YOUR EYES. “Apparently TARDIS-es are manufactured in NYC’s Brooklyn Navy Yard,” said an incredulous Andrew Porter after seeing this photo in NY Curbed.

Photo by Max Touhey for Curbed

Photo by Max Touhey for Curbed

Capsys, the building manufacturer responsible for modular projects like Carmel Place and the Nehemiah Spring Creek development in East New York, recently announced that it would vacate its factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and shutter operations entirely.

(2) JPL GALLERY. The Pasadena Star-News has photo coverage of last week’s NASA event at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

JPL is hosted a “State of NASA” Social in conjunction with NASA’s federal budget rollout on Tuesday. The tour includes a visit to the Spacecraft Assembly Facility’s clean room, where the heat shield for Mars 2020 is, as well as the testing of some hardware used on the Juno mission, which arrives at Jupiter on the Fourth of July. (Photo by Walt Mancini/Pasadena Star-News)

(3) WHO ROMANCE? “The Doctor will see you now: Jenna Coleman and Matt Smith put on a cosy display as they reunite at pre-BAFTA party” in Daily Mail.

They played on-screen partners in crime for one series

But after Jenna Coleman and Matt Smith both quit Doctor Who to pursue other projects, their friendship was put on the back burner as they were tied up in their various career commitments.

Therefore it was little wonder the former co-stars were so thrilled to be reunited as they attended a pre-BAFTA party in London on Friday evening.

Jenna, 29, and Matt, 33, put on a sweet display as they cosied up to each other while attending Harvey Weinstein’s dinner which was held in partnership with Burberry and Grey Goose at Little House in Mayfair.

The ex Clara Oswald actress gently rested her head on the former Doctor’s chest as they posed inside the venue which was filled with some of the film industry’s biggest talents.

The former BBC One stars couldn’t contain their happiness to be back in each other’s company once again as lapped up the pre-award-ceremony celebration.

(4) READING WHAT YOUR TEA LEAVES. John King Tarpinian found this message inside the cap on his bottle of ice tea —Atwood Cap

 

(5) SCHINDLER OBIT. SF Site News reports Southern California costumer Robin Schindler died January 24.

Schindler led two of the earliest anime tours to Japan. She was an active costumer, presenting her work at many Worldcon masquerades and worked on the early Costume Cons.

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born February 14, 1920 — Dave Kyle
  • Born February 14, 1970 – Simon Pegg

(7) DEADPOOL’S B.O. Deadpool made some money in its opening weekend reports Deadline.

Fox’s Deadpool is bigger than anyone thought possible. Yes, it has scored the top opening for a February release with $135M over FSS and $150M-$153M over FSSM, beating Fifty Shades of Grey‘s first weekend figures last year.  But, Deadpool also flogged Matrix Reloaded‘s $91.8M opening record to become the highest R-rated debut of all-time, not to mention it’s the biggest opening Fox executives have ever seen, surpassing Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (FSS $108.4M).

(8) BRITISH BASEBALL. I just learned there is minor league baseball in Britain, and one of the teams is called the Bolton Robots of Doom. They play in the British Baseball Federation’s (BBF) AA North division.

Bolton Robots patch

(9) ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, MY DEAR WATSON. President Obama was quizzed on TV by an elementary school student. The next generation of conspiracy theorists is on the way.

Obama was questioned during Thursday night’s taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show by 6-year-old “presidential expert” Macey Hensley, and she asked the president about the legendary “Book of Secrets.”

“That’s a secret,” the president quipped.

Hensley theorized the “secrets” in the book could include an answer to whether “aliens are real.”

“We haven’t actually made direct contact with aliens yet,” Obama said. “When we do, I’ll let you know.”

The president did not clarify whether indirect contact had been made with aliens through some type of intermediary.

(10) SPIRITUAL WISDOM. Amanda Slaybaugh, in “They’re Already Balloting for the Freakin’ Hugo Awards!”, doesn’t want to read “SEVEN MONTHS OF BITCHING AND MEWLING” and offers her advice:

My advice is this: Don’t be this guy. Remember him, staring into the mystical power and majesty of the ark of the covenant…but then having the whole face melt-y thing happen? This is what happens when you engage in this Hugo nonsense. The Hugos are neither mystical, nor magical, but their bullshit will melt your face clean off.

melting Nazi

Do this instead: Be Indy with his fave alcoholic, adventurous gal pal and look away! Withstand the mighty bullshit storm of bizarre political arguments surrounding a rocket-shaped literary award.  You respect the market power of SF/F, but you choose the wise course and LOOK AWAY!

(11) THUNDERBIRDS. ScienceFiction.com has good news: “Amazon Orders ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ Starring Rosamund Pike For The U.S.”

‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ for the U.S. thanks to Amazon.  The streaming service has ordered four 13-episode seasons of the series, which combine CGI animation with live action models.  The first two seasons (26 episodes) have already aired on ITV in the UK, where the first series from the 1960s originated.  The third and fourth seasons are expected to air on ITV later this year and will be available to stream on Prime Video after the episodes become available in the U.S.

‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ is an update of ‘Thunderbirds’ a TV series that launched in the UK in 1965, from the minds of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.  This show combined marionettes and vehicular models in a completely unique form of entertainment.  The series followed the adventures of the Tracy family, with most of the action revolving around the five brothers Scott, John, Virgil, Gordon and Alan, who each piloted their own high tech vehicle.

(12) ABOUT EDITORS. Brad R. Torgersen, in “Editors: the good, the bad, and the ugly” at Mad Genius Club, uses Nick Coles’ well-publicized grievances as the point of departure for a wide-spectrum look at his own experiences with editors.

In my experience, a good editor is not trying to evaluate your story on ideological grounds, nor is a good editor trying to get you to write the story their way. A good editor spots how you yourself are already trying to tell the story, and (s)he will simply make suggestions about how to do that job even more effectively than you’re already doing it. That’s the difference between, “You’re doing it wrong,” and, “You’re doing it right, but here are a few suggestions that should help you do it even better.” Most of the editors I’ve worked with (so far) have edited in this manner. And while some of them have barely touched my manuscripts, others have been so heavily involved in revision, they’re practically co-authors at the end of it. But again, their focus has always been: this story is hitting singles and doubles, let’s change a few things, and get this story hitting triples, or even a home run.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]

Companion Bails from Doctor Who

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Jenna Coleman will leave Doctor Who after the next season, which begins airing in the U.K. on Saturday.

The Hollywood Reporter says Coleman will take the lead in Victoria, an upcoming drama from ITV Studios, where she will portray Queen Victoria from the age of 18 as she ascends to the throne.

Coleman has been Doctor Who’s companion for three years, playing Clara Oswald alongside two different Doctors, actors Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi.

She told Radio 1 Breakfast show host Nick Grimshaw it had been “emotional” leaving the show and filming her last scenes as Clara Oswald with current Doctor Peter Capaldi.

“It’s been in the works for a very long time,” she said, “[Writer] Steven [Moffat] and I sat down a year and a half ago and tried to work out the best place to do it and tell a really good story.

“We’re not going to give any details but it will happen at some point this season… We worked out a really good story arc out so hopefully people will love it.”

 

Jenna Coleman and Matt Smith.

Jenna Coleman and Matt Smith.