Tag Archives: Santa Claus

Pixel Scroll 6/29/24 His Soul Swooned As He Heard The Pixels Falling Faintly Through The Universe

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(1) SALUTE TO SFF IN PASADENA MUSEUM OF HISTORY CENTENNIAL. The Pasadena Museum of History is hosting a series of events and exhibits to mark its hundredth year in existence. Several are about the film industry, and two are about sff in particular.

“Watch the Skies!” History of Science Fiction Movies. Thursday, July 25 | 7:00 pm Tickets at the link.

Early glimpses of science fiction films began with movies like A Trip to the Moon (1902)where director George Méliѐs pokes fun at French novelist and poet Jules Verne or in Frankenstein (1931) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) that featured the “mad scientist” character – each of the films never truly showing much science, nor the genre of what people think of as science fiction. Join Nick Smith, co-curator of PMH’s 2018 exhibition Dreaming the Universe: The Intersection of Science, Fiction & Southern California, for this illustrated presentation as he explores the history of science fiction movies. Learn how original science fiction stories came on to the big screen and changed over the years.

Presentation will begin at 7:00 pm; PMH Galleries will be open for viewing at 6:00 pm.

The First Horror Movies. Thursday, October 24 | 7:00 pm. Tickets at the link.

Horror movies go back to the birth of the movie industry with some of the very first films in the genre dating back to 1896. These films also featured the first special effects, which became standard in many horror films for the next 50 years. Join film historian and musicologist Galen Wilkes to meet some of the classic horror characters – Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and Dorian Gray – as they were first depicted on screen. You’ll also see some of the genre’s very first special effects and learn how they were created.

Presentation will begin at 7:00 pm; PMH Galleries will be open for viewing at 6:00 pm.

(2) PANTHEOLOGY PROVIDES THE THEME. Virtual International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts conference coordinator Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki has announced that “VICFA 3: Pantheology in World-Building and Magic Systems” will run from Wednesday, October 9, through Saturday, October 12, 2024. Guests of Honor are P. Djeli Clark and R.R. Virdi and Guest Scholars Grace Dillon and Rabbi A.D. Lobel. 

The Call for Papers has myriad suggestions. See the timeline and instructions for submission at the link.

We invite analysis of real-world pantheologies rebirthed in literature as well as in some of the most influential games and films of the technical era, including not only the interminable trials of Loki and the recognizable Greek Pantheon fighting Kratos in God of War and each other in Son of Zeus, but what of Zagreus, prince of the Underworld, fighting his way out of his own kingdom in Hades, and cultists striving to birth an Anti-Christ not only in “The Call of Cthulhu” but also in Castlevania, Good Omens, Omen, and Rosemary’s Baby? You are invited to build your presentation on studies from existing scholarship from leaders in the field including Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Grace Dillon, Elaine Pagels, Carol B. Duncan, Helen De Cruz, Joseph Campbell, and Rabbi A.D. Lobel, to name only a few.  Ben Okri’s The Famished Road and Amos Tutuola’s The Palmwine Drinkard show how inextricable these pantheologies are from what we perceive as the physical world, as in popular media such as Marvel’s interpretations and the mythological worldbuilding of Rick Riordan and Neil Gaiman.  Multiple levels of being and reality intertwine in tales such as P. Djeli Clark’s Dead Djinn Universe, R.R. Virdi’s The Tales of Tremaine, Aparna Verma’s The Ravence Trilogy, and Sheree Renee Thomas’s Dark Matter: Reading the Bones.  There are cosmologies to explore in the works of Kwame Mbalia, Claire Coleman, Lee Maracle, Eden Robinson, and Alexis Wright.  You are invited to submit perspectives on the unexpected rivalry between ancient and modern deities in American Gods, analysis of the role of Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight, and the Gods of Anor Londo in Dark Souls, the three goddesses and the Triforce virtues of Power, Courage and Wisdom leagued against the demon king Ganon in The Legend of Zelda, relations between the Old One, the Slayer of Demons, and the Maiden in Black in Demon’s Souls, the Camerata of Transistor, or not only the Ancient Ones, Sephiroth, or Kefka but any of the teeming demi-gods waking from dreams or striving for supremacy in the realms of Lovecraft or Final Fantasy.  This is just a sampling of the vast worlds of topics you may choose to explore as a presenter or attendee at VICFA 3.  As always, participants are encouraged to submit proposals on any topic of interest and specialization whether part of the conference theme or independent of it.

(3) MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? “’Everything ends someday’ — Star Trek: Discovery Fifth Season Overview” by Keith R.A. DeCandido at Reactor.

Some of the most iconic words in science fiction television are those uttered by William Shatner at the top of every episode of the original Star Trek: “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise—its five-year mission…” The intention was that Kirk’s ship would be out in space for five years exploring the unknown. Alas, the show was cancelled after three years.

In fact, none of the shows that spun off of Trek hit the five-year mark exactly—until now. The animated series was only two seasons, TNG, DS9, and Voyager all lasted seven years, while Enterprise and Picard fell short at four and three, respectively, the latter by design, the former not so much.

However, thanks to the surprising decision by CBS/Paramount to cancel Discovery after five seasons, we finally have a show that lives up to that nearly-six-decades-old voiceover.

And what a long strange trip it’s been.

It’s not entirely clear why the show was cancelled. By all accounts, Discovery was doing fine by streaming standards. Of course, it’s also possible that’s why it was cancelled. The resolution to the actors and writers going on strike last year included the studios being more forthcoming with two things regarding the success of streaming shows: data and money. This is also why Prodigy is no longer on Paramount+, because the corporation getting a tax break was considered more important than the branding of Paramount+ as the exclusive home of Star Trek—which is supposed to be a major reason for shelling out for the service in the first place….

(4) SCENES FOR TEENS. [Item by Steven French.] “Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels”; the Guardian’s best new books for kids and teens includes a number of genre related offerings, including:

Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial by Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton, Nosy Crow, £7.99
Part gnome, part dwarf, young gnorf Kit has always dreamed of being a Dungeon Runner – even though he’s so small. When an unexpected space in the League opens up, can Kit’s misfit team make it through the dungeon’s mazes, puzzles and terrifying monsters to kickstart their Dungeon Runner journey? Highly illustrated, humorous and immediately enthralling, this first volume in a new series will appeal to 7+ D&D fans in particular.

(5) TRUE GRITS. Matt Mitchell imagines “If Inside Out Was Southern”.

Riley Beth moved to Montgomery and is taking her first trip to Waffle House with her brand new Southern emotions, Sass, Hospitality, Comfort, and more.

(6) LET’S CELEBRATE ONE MORE BIRTHDAY FROM YESTERDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

June 28, 1974 — Deborah Grabien, 70. Deborah Grabien who turned seventy yesterday is awesome. So how do I know that? It’s because she sends me the most kick ass chocolate fudge. She really does. 

Well and for a variety of other reasons that I’ll detail here as well. Let’s start with her with her extraordinary ability at writing music reviews. 

Deborah Grabien

She’s deeply, madly in love with Sixties folk music which is why she written them quite a number a number of them for Green Man including her “’Trad Boys, Trad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do….?’ Liege & Lief remembered” essay in which she said “So when he handed me this interesting-looking album and I turned the cover over and saw ‘Matty Groves’ listed, I took my copy of Magical Mystery Tour off the turntable and put the new one on. I dropped the needle, heard the first notes of ‘Come All Ye,’ and then Sandy’s voice. It was right about then that my head exploded: Omigawd, who are these people, this is perfection!”

And then there’s her take on Steeleye Span’s Dodgy Bastards album nearly a half century after the band was formed in 1969: “The band is as tight as it ever was, but I would have been surprised had they not been, with the remaining core of Liam Genocky, Rick Kemp and the incomparable Maddy Prior in place. The rhythm section is brilliant. Genocky has lost nothing to the years; he’s as solid as a rock holding down the band’s intricate rhythms, and Rick Kemp manages to produce both thunder and groove on the bass. Jessie May Smart has a light, gorgeous touch on the fiddle, and the guitars and mandolin are seamlessly integrated.”

Now let’s turn to her exemplary mystery series, the first being the Haunted Ballads series which is decidedly genre as each novel shares the title with a well-known standard of traditional British folk music, and each interweaves the plot of the song with the plot of the ghost story. 

The first, The Weaver and The Factor Maid which I reviewed in my look at the series, where  Ringan Laine, architectural expert, folklorist and leading light of the English folk music scene, is stiffed for a home restoration fee, he’s offered a home to placate him. Ringan accepts, thus becoming the owner of Lumbe’s, an 18th century cottage on the Somerset estate of Albert Wychsale, baron and owner of Wychsale House, just outside the ancient town of Glastonbury. What neither Ringan nor his ladyfriend, theatrical director Penelope Wintercraft-Hawkes, realizes at first is that they’re not the only tenants of Lumbe’s. There’s an uninvited resident, a beautiful young woman with a tendency to appear and disappear at odd, inconvenient times.

And Deborah gives us her favorite excerpt from that novel

Beside the kitchen wall was a flight of stairs.  Ringan, instinctively and unnecessarily ducking his head, made his way up toward the first floor, where bedrooms and a bath had been added.   Sunlight splashed across the wooden risers, dappling Ringan’s jeans and trainers with colour.

The stairs bent halfway up, forming a small landing, where someone had added a lovely round window.  Ringan looked around for a lightswitch, and found none; since the window seemed to be the stairwell’s only source of light, getting around at night might prove bothersome.  He thought about bumped heads and twisted ankles, made a mental note to ask his landlord about wiring, and remembered that the landlord in question was himself. He grinned ruefully.  This “it’s your problem, mate, you’d best fix it” business would take some getting used to…

He turned the bend in the stairs, headed for the first floor, and stopped as if he’d been hit with a bullet.

The shaft of cold, as icy as it was unexpected, stabbed him between the shoulder-blades. He was standing in a pool of sunlight, the temperature was over seventy, and he’d just been thinking about opening some windows to cool the place off. Yet, for one incredulous moment, he’d felt as if he’d walked into a  meat locker. Every hair on his body bristled, and his knees went rubbery. And he suddenly wanted to burst into tears.  The shock was enormous.  What in hell…?

The cold faded as quickly as it had come, easing in the blink of an eye to a soft rush of cool air before dying away. There was, there seemed to be, a soft touch against him, the brush of something: breath, fabric, fingertips? He didn’t know; it was too indistinct for identification, and gone too soon.  For a moment, Ringan thought he’d heard a sigh behind him.

Her second series, the JP Kincaid Chronicles, is not genre but it’s also music in nature. Take one middle-aged rock and roll guitarist, two women. Welcome to the life of John “JP” Kinkaid, guitarist for Hall of Fame rock band Blacklight, has a few issues. There are as I said two women in his life: Bree, his fiercely private partner of twenty-five years, who he fell in love with while she was still a teenager, and Cilla, his long-estranged but still legal wife, whom he’s never been able to completely let go of. Then there’s his multiple sclerosis, a disease whose unpredictable nature complicates both his everyday life and his career. That’s your premise for series. 

The first five of this series are reviewed by a friend of hers, Sunny Solomon, of Bookin’ With Sunny: “Deborah Grabien’s JP Kinkaid Chronicles”.

Now here’s the excellent passage she selected from Rock & Roll Never Forgets for you to read… 

The first thing I saw when I walked into a cheerful little front room with pitched ceilings and framed pictures of people I’ve admired my whole life all over the walls wasn’t Bulldog Moody, it was his guitar.

I walked in through the front door. Like I said, I was sweating and nervous, because meeting someone you’ve idolised can really break your heart. But I stopped halfway in, because there it was, sitting there on a handmade stand that looked to be as old as the guitar itself.

  “Gordon Bennett!“

 I stopped so suddenly, Bree ran straight into me, and nearly knocked me down. I didn’t even notice. All the attention I had to spare was aimed straight at that guitar.

 I’m a Gibson guitar fan. For a long time, it took a lot to get me to bother with any electric guitar that wasn’t a Gibson – acoustics are a different thing, but with electrics, it’s been Gibson, straight down the line. I’ve actually been a spokesman for the Les Paul line. One of the things on my dance card over the next month or so was a visit to Nashville; we were having discussions, not only about finally making me chambered touring copies of my two favourite Pauls, but about launching a signature JP Kinkaid model. Until Bree had paid a local Bay Area luthier a lot of money to build me a gorgeous lightweight electric guitar called Little Queenie as a wedding present, the nearest I’d come to anything that wasn’t made by Gibson was a Zemaitis custom.

So, yeah, I’m susceptible to Gibsons. But there are guitars, and then there was this, because unless I was completely mistaken, this was the only one of its kind.

“Hey.” The voice jerked me out of what was threatening to become a complete trance. I’d been right – same bell as Sallie’s, but this one was old, cracked round the edges, and very friendly. It was also really amused, and that’s what froze me. “You like that axe, son? Because you lookin’ at her like you were wanting to buy her a drink.”

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) THE LEARNING CURVE SUFFERS A FLAT. PRINT Magazine’s Steve Heller mourns “When Competency Is Going, Going, Gone”.

…If only my procedural memory was effective enough to work with digital design tools that I had once learned and subsequently forgot. No such luck, I suffer from techno amnesia….

…Fifteen years ago I retired from my art director job at The New York Times that required basic computer skills. When I left, I left behind my private office, comfy chair, trusty desktop computer … and with in a few weeks almost all of my computer design reflexes that had accumulated over the years of practice. While art director of the Book Review for almost three decades, I learned dozens of methods and technologies—from how to prepare images for the engraver when we printed on letterpress; to how to use an non-design-friendly Harris terminal to set type when the newspaper switched over to photo type; to preparing page comps on the early Apple Classic and Macs mastering Quark, before switching over to InDesign (and its assorted upgrades) that enabled me to build press-ready pages populated with text, Photoshop and Illustrator files. I learned rote basics—enough to get me through the workflow on any given day—but never mastered advanced upgrades (like linking text to image, style sheets and other now-routine stuff). Still, I was functionally competent.

However, when I returned my ID card to HR, my procedural memory was wiped clean. It was like the episode of “Black Mirror” where a man is blocked from contact with people and only sees their static shapes moving about. The erasure was so sudden that the late-great neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks could have used me as a case study….

(9) INCOMING! Another worry for future Mars colonists! “New class of Mars quakes reveals daily meteorite strikes” at Phys.org.

…An international team of researchers, co-led by ETH Zurich and Imperial College London, has derived the first estimate of global meteorite impacts on Mars using seismic data. Their findings indicate that between 280 to 360 meteorites strike the planet each year, forming impact craters greater than 8 meters (about 26 feet) across…

(10) WINTER IS COMING. Gizmodo dares fans to “Gaze Into the Immaculate Snow Buttcheeks of Red One’s Horrifying First Trailer”.

…Starting off with a swole Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) lifting weights (to keep those cookie calories down, presumably) with the help of the commander of the ELF Task Force—played by Johnson as “The Rock if he were Santa’s bodyguard”—isn’t much of a stretch for an action movie, sure. It’s more the incomprehensible series of plot slop that follows, which leaves us wondering what this is movie trying to be, outside of a Christmas version of Taken? The buff-butt snowmen fight scene on the beach is only the tip of the head-scratching choices here. Take a look for yourself in the trailer below…

(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Deadline encourages us to “Watch First Trailer For Indian Sci-Fi Epic ‘Kalki 2898 AD’”.

The first trailer has just dropped for Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD, the anticipated Indian sci-fi epic starring Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Hassan, Prabhas, Deepika Padukone and Disha Patani in key roles. Described as a “true pan-Indian film”, the film follows a modern-day avatar of Hindu god Vishnu, who is believed to have descended to Earth to protect the world from evil forces. 

The VFX-heavy project, which is produced by Vyjayanthi Movies, is a multilingual mythology-inspired sci-fi set in the future and is set to be released in cinemas worldwide on June 27. It’s been touted as one of the most expensive Indian films made to date, with a budget sitting in the $72M region…. 

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

Pixel Scroll 12/26/22 Come All Ye Pixels

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(0) The Spirits have done it all in one night! (Then sent us back to work on Monday again — how is that fair?)

(1) THE DOCTOR ARRIVED RIGHT AFTER SANTA. As someone said, “We didn’t get a Christmas special, but we did get a one minute long Christmas trailer” — “The show is just beginning…” #DoctorWho returns in 2023.

And WhoCulture will be happy to tell you the meaning of every scene. They take 13 times longer than the trailer itself, but to be fair a picture is worth a thousand words only if you already know the words.

(2) THE BEST. The Galactic Stars of 1967 have been revealed in [ “Hit Parade ’67 (the year’s best science fiction)” at Galactic Journey.

Sure, there are other “must-read” lists. The Hugos. The Nebulas. But no other list is as comprehensive, so thoroughly vetted, so absolutely certain to be filled with excellent material than the Galactic Stars.

Thus, without further ado, here are the Galactic Stars for 1967! Results are in order of voting for the winners, alphabetical order by author for the honorable mentions.

Here’s the result in one prestigious category:

Best Author

Samuel R. Delany

Surprise, surprise…

Honorable Mention

Larry Niven

Fritz Leiber

The winner is the prince of the New Wave, while the runner ups include a scion of the new hard sf and a distinguished gentleman of the genre. A nice balance, I think!

(3) HEAR THE DARK. BBC Radio 4’s 12-part adaptation of Susan Cooper’s cult novel had its world premiere on December 19, 2022, and drops daily from December 21. When the dark comes rising, who will hold it back?

Start with the 7-minute teaser.

Fighting against evil in a time-travelling midwinter family drama. A gripping journey through a frozen landscape… and an unending epic battle against the forces of “the Dark”. On midwinter’s eve, 11-year-old Will Stanton discovers he is an ancient being and guardian of “the Light”. This eerie drama is best experienced on headphones for a unique, immersive ‘binaural’ experience.

Then listen to Episode One: “The Sign-Seeker”

A boy’s 11th birthday and an unusual gift mark the beginning of a great test of character, as young Will Stanton is drawn into an ancient struggle between Light and Dark.
He is told his task: to find the six Signs of the Light before the Dark destroys them. Realising he has supernatural powers, Will learns he is an ‘Old One’, whose duty is to fight the rising strength of the Dark across the centuries. #TheDarkIsRising

This version, edited for BBC Radio 4, of the BBC World Service serialisation of Susan Cooper’s classic, written and recorded to take place across the Christmas holidays.

(4) HELP THE BORROWERS. Kelly McClymer advises writers “How to Bring Your Indie Book to the Attention of a Librarian” in an installment of “The Indie Files” at the SFWA Blog.

… As an indie author, you may have a way to get a librarian’s attention that is not available to the traditionally published author—letting the library acquire the book in the way that suits them best. If they would like a library hardback edition, you can do that. If they buy from a certain eBook or audiobook catalog, you can make sure your book is available there.

Key phrase: get the librarian’s attention. Librarians, like most readers, want more books that they can afford to buy, so they have to prioritize according to their patrons’ desires and interests….

(5) SNAPPED BACK. Writer-director Ryan Coogler and co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole discuss “The ‘Black Panther’ Sequel That Never Was” with the New York Times.

…In the initial draft of the script, before Chadwick’s death, how were you looking at the story? What were the challenges?

COOGLER It was, “What are we going to do about the Blip?” [In Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” T’Challa is one of billions of people who suddenly vanish, only to be brought back by the Avengers five years later.] That was the challenge. It was absolutely nothing like what we made. It was going to be a father-son story from the perspective of a father, because the first movie had been a father-son story from the perspective of the sons.

In the script, T’Challa was a dad who’d had this forced five-year absence from his son’s life…

(6) A STOP-MOTION NUTCRACKER. This month, for Christmas, David, Tora, and Alexander Case are taking a look at the 1979 Sanrio stop-motion animated film Nutcracker Fantasy. Anime Explorations: “Nutcracker Fantasy (1979) – Breaking it all Down”.

(7) DREDDING CHANGE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] The Judge Dredd Megazine has just changed its format. For some years now, this monthly comic came in a bag together with a mini-graphic novel of old strips and had a saddle stitch (staples). From this month on it will now be perfect bound with a flat spine and the min-graphic novel will be incorporated into the Megazine proper.

And while your attention is here, if you are not familiar with the Galaxy’s greatest comic then there is a new graphic anthology now out, The Best of 2000AD volume 1 (£14.99 / US$22.99 ISBN 978-1-786-18706-2).  It is the ultimate 2000AD mix tape and an excellent introductory taster for those not yet familiar with the comic which remains the only guaranteed cure for lesser spotted thrill-sucker infections. Zarjaz. Available from all good thrill merchants on both sides of the Pond (but not Russia or China).

In this volume: Judge Dredd battles Mutie Block anarchy; Halo Jones escapes in Alan Moore’s first masterpiece; humanity is on the Brink in the space murder mystery from Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard; Judge Anderson takes centre stage in the search for Sham.

Splundig.

(8) STEPHEN GREIF (1944-2022). Actor Stephen Greif, whose genre resume includes Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who, died at age 78 on December 23.

… After starring in numerous stage productions throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, he made the transition to screen – landing the role of space commander Travis in Blake’s 7.

The show ran from 1978 to 1981, with Greif starring alongside Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow, Michael Keating and Sally Knyvette….

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[By Cat Eldridge.] Dr. Seuss and Cat in the Hat sculpture at UCSD

Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat? Or Dr. Seuss himself? Well if you don’t, you can leave right now as we are going to look at a very stellar sculpture of both of them that is located the University of California at San Diego. It was in 2004, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Seuss, that the Theodor Seuss Geisel Memorial statue made its debut outside the Geisel Library at UC San Diego.

Geisel lived over forty years in La Jolla and died there, in a home not far from that university. Indeed, University of California San Diego’s main library, the Geisel Library, is now home of the Dr. Seuss Collection, as he dedicated all of his papers and other memorabilia there. 

The sculpture on the plaza outside the library is by Lark Grey Dimond-Cates. The Cat in the Hat stands at Dr. Seuss’ shoulder holding an umbrella.

This is not the original casting as that is to be found at the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden at the Springfield Museums’ Quadrangle in Springfield, Massachusetts, the birthplace of Theodor Seuss Geisel, which we’ve discussed here previously. 

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 26, 1791 — Charles Babbage. Y’ll likely best know him as creator of the Babbage Machine which shows up in Perdido Street Station, The Peshawar Lancers, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage webcomic, and there’s “Georgia on My Mind”, a novelette by Charles Sheffield which involves a search for a lost Babbage device. The latter won both a Nebula and a Hugo Award for Best Novelette. (Died 1871.)
  • Born December 26, 1903 — Elisha Cook, Jr. On the Trek side, he shows up as playing lawyer Samuel T. Cogley in the “Court Martial” episode. Elsewhere he had long association with the genre starting with Voodoo Island and including House on a Haunted Hill, Rosemary’s Baby, Wild Wild West, The Night Stalker and Twilight Zone. (Died 1995.)
  • Born December 26, 1911 — Milton Luros. Illustrator during the Golden Age of pulp magazines from 1942 to 1954 (yes I’m expansive on what I consider to be to the Golden Age). His work graced Science Fiction Quarterly, Astounding Stories, Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories, Future Science Fiction Stories, Dynamic Science Fiction and Science Fiction Quarterly. He had an amazing ability to illustrate women in outfits in hostile environments that simply were impractical such as one for Science Fiction Quarterly (UK), October 1952 cover had a cut out in her spacesuit so her décolletage was bare.  (Died 1999.)
  • Born December 26, 1951 — Priscilla Olson, 71. She and her husband have been involved with NESFA Press’s efforts to put neglected SF writers back into print and she has edited myriad works by such as Chad Oliver and Charles Harness, plus better-known ones like Jane Yolen.  She’s chaired a number of Boskones.
  • Born December 26, 1953 — Clayton Emery, 69. Somewhere there’s a bookstore with nothing but the novels and collections that exist within a given franchise. This author has novels in the Forgotten Realms, Magic: The Gathering and Runesworld franchise, plus several genre works including surprisingly Tales of Robin Hood on Baen Books. Must not be your granddaddy’s Hood.
  • Born December 26, 1970 — Danielle Cormack, 52. If it’s fantasy and it was produced in New Zealand, she might have been in it. Performer of New Zealander status so you can guess what that means — Ephiny on  Xena: Warrior Princess, a one shot as Lady Marie DeValle on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Ephiny on the same series, Katherine on Jack of All Trades (which I’ve mentioned before was one of Kage Baker’s fav shows) as, well, Bruce was the lead. She was Raina on Cleopatra 2525 and Shota on the Legend of the Seeker. Genre television has been very, very good for the New Zealand economy! 

(11) HAIR APPARENT. And speaking again of Dr. Seuss, he’s the illustrator in Vanity Fair’s December 1931 article “Santa Claus’s beard through the ages” by Corey Ford.

The first thing that Dr. Seuss and I did, therefore, was to endeavor to trace Santa Claus’s beard back through the ages to the dawn of history. In order to accomplish this effectively, we each seized a separate strand of beard, and followed it independently to its source. The strand that Dr. Seuss chose led him a merry chase, up hill and down dale, all the way back to ancient Greek mythology, where he discovered a fabulous creature known as the Santaur (see illustration), which he claims is the origin of the whole legend of Kris Kringle. On the other hand, my own strand eventually brought me to a source known as the chin of Frank J. Swartfigure, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, who claimed he had come to New York as a boy to make his fortune, and had been standing ever since on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 47th Street, waiting for the lights to change. …

(12) A NOSE WHERE IT DOESN’T BELONG. If you think of Die Hard as Christmastime entertainment – which my nephew Bradley does – you will appreciate the nuanced humor of Eize Basa’s Twitter thread (which starts here.)

(13) GETTING WISER AS THEY GO. Tom Gauld has his own version of the wisdom of the Magi.

(14) VIDEO OF THE PREVIOUS DAY. Santa Claus appeared on Batman in 1966.

In a window cameo that makes their encounter with Col. Klink seem plausible, Batman and Robin meet Ol’ Saint Nick (played by the great character actor Andy Devine.) The Caped Crusader even directly addresses the audience

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Peer, Alexander Case, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Fiona Moore, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Iphinome.]

Pixel Scroll 12/25/22 How The Grinch Stole Hugos

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(1) We’re shifting to Scroll Your Own for a couple days while I spend the holiday at my brother’s. Thanks for Cat for his essay and birthdays.

(2) MEMORY LANE.

[By Cat Eldridge.] America’s First Santa Statue

You didn’t think we’d would have anything special for Christmas, did you? But we do, let’s tell you about America’s first Santa Statue, and it’s a really big one. 

At the time, the statue was the center of Santa Claus Park, the bitter rival of Santa Claus Park, just a few hundred yards down the road. They’re located in Santa Claus, Indiana. No, I am not kidding. It really is legally called that. 

Carl Barrett, the owner of that Park claimed that he spared no expense in constructing his Santa, unlike his rival, and claimed that his Santa was constructed out of Mt. Arly granite. Alas he was a liar as the concrete that it was made of started falling apart with a few years. Spectacularly.

Barrett insisted his entire life that it was granite despite photos that clearly showed the crumbling concrete it was made of. The Koch family, which owns Santa Claus Land, yet another Christmas theme Park, (now renamed Holiday World) bought this property and sandblasted layers of unnecessary paint off the statue, returning Santa to his original ghostly whiteness. 

Neither of the other two Santa Claus Parks lasted all that long. Barrett left town, out of business after a series of legal actions were won by Harris. The courtroom victories, however, cost Harris too much time and money. His Santa Claus Town never grew much beyond just one attraction. By the Fifties, both were gone.  But Santa Claus is now lighted up year round courtesy of the Koch Family. 

(3) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 25, 1924 — Rod Serling. Best remembered for the original and certainly superior Twilight Zone and Night Gallery with the former winning an impressive three Hugos. He’s also the screenwriter or a co-screenwriter for Seven Days in May, a very scary film indeed, as well as The New People series, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Town Has Turned to Dust, UFOs: Past, Present, and Future and Planet of the Apes. ISDB lists a lot of published scripts and stories by him. (Died 1975.)
  • Born December 25, 1939 — Royce D. Applegate. His best known role was that of Chief Petty Officer Manilow Crocker on the first season of seaQuest DSV. He’s got appearances in Quantum Leap, Twin Peaks (where he played Rev. Clarence Brocklehurst), Tales of the Unexpected and Supertrain. Yes, Supertrain. (Died 2003.)
  • Born December 25, 1938 — Dick Miller. He appeared in over a hundred films including every film directed by Joe Dante. You’ve seen him in both Gremlins, The Little Shop of Horrors, Terminator, The Howling, Small Soldiers, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Amazon Women on the Moon, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm where he voiced the gravelly voiced Chuckie Sol and Oberon in “The Ties That Bind” episode of Justice League Unlimited. (Died 2019.)
  • Born December 25, 1945 — Rick Berman, 77. Loved and loathed in equal measures, he’s known for his work as the executive producer of Next Gen, Deep Space Nine which is my fav Trek series, Voyager and Enterprise which he co-created with Brannon Braga. He’d be lead producer on the four Next Generation films: Generations which I find boring, First Contact (which I really like), Insurrection and Nemesis.
  • Born December 25, 1952 — CCH Pounder, 70. She’s had one very juicy voice role running through the DC Universe from since Justice League Unlimited in 2006. If you’ve not heard her do this role, it worth seeing the animated Assault on Arkham Asylum which is far superior to the live action Suicide Squad film to hear her character Amanda Waller, The Wall. She also had a recurring role as Mrs. Irene Frederic on Warehouse 13 as well. She’s also been in X-Files, Quantum Leap, White Dwarf (horrid series), Gargoyles, Millennium, House of Frankenstein, Outer Limits, W.I.T.C.H. and The Lion Guard. Film wise, she shows up in Robocop 3, Tales from the Crypt presents Demon Knight, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Face/Off, NetForce, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and several of the forthcoming Avatar films.
  • Born December 25, 1984 — Georgia Moffett, 38. She’s the daughter of actor Peter Davison, the man who was Fifth Doctor and she’s married to David Tennant who was the Tenth Doctor.  She played opposite the Tenth Doctor as Jenny in “The Doctor’s Daughter” and in she voiced ‘Cassie’ in the animated Doctor Who: Dreamland which is now on iTunes and Amazon. And yes she’s in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot as herself. 

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Iphinome.]

Pixel Scroll 12/10/17 The Greatest Scroll On Earth

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(1) LAST JEDI REVEW. Craig Miller attended the official world premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi:

No Spoilers Review: A pretty amazing achievement. More emotion than most Star Wars films. And more humor (though not a gag fest like, Thor Ragnarok). Some surprises. Including a “surprise” I thought was likely yet still surprised me when it happened by the way they did it. I haven’t quite processed where I think it should go in my pantheon of Best Star Wars Movies but it’s certainly up near the top of the list. Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back still hold the top honors but this is getting near it.

His post includes a couple of sweet photos of Kelly Marie Tran (who plays Rose) seeing a fan dressed as her character for the first time.

(2) FIRST IMPRESSIONS. Mashable collected a bunch of tweets sent by people who saw the movie: “‘The Last Jedi’ first premiere reactions are here and – you guessed it – the Force is strong”.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi held its star-studded world premiere at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Saturday night, and the credits had barely finished rolling before attendees hit Twitter to share their first reactions to Rian Johnson’s take on the Skywalker saga.

While spoilers and plot details are under strict embargo until Dec. 12 at 9 a.m. PT, that didn’t stop fans from weighing in on the tone of the movie…

(3) IMPEDIMENT TO FAKE REVIEWS. Mad Genius Club’s Amanda S. Green brings news of “Amazon Review Policy Change & More”.

Since Amazon first opened its virtual doors, there have been concerns about reviews. Not just for books but for all the products sold through its site. It is no secret that authors have paid for reviews — and some still do. Or that there have been fake accounts set up to give sock puppet reviews. There have been stories about sellers and manufacturers planting fake reviews as well, all in the hopes of bolstering their product rankings and ratings. From time to time, Amazon has taken steps to combat this trend. One of the last times they did it, they brought in a weighted review system. This one differentiates between “verified purchasers” and those who did not buy the product viz Amazon. Now there is a new policy in place, once that should help — at least until a new way around it is found.

Simply put, Amazon now requires you to purchase a minimum of $50 worth of books or other products before you can leave a review or answer questions about a product. These purchases, and it looks like it is a cumulative amount, must be purchased via credit card or debit card — gift cards won’t count. This means someone can’t set up a fake account, buy themselves a gift card and use it to get around the policy….

(4) AND HEEERE’S PHILIP! Kim Huett asks, “Do you ever have those moments when you discover a different side to an author? Well of course you do. We all do. I did just the other day in regards to Philip K. Dick:” See “Straight Talking With Philip K. Dick” at Doctor Strangemind.

It’s in Lighthouse #14 (October 1966) that Carr published a Philip K. Dick article called Will the Atomic Bomb Ever Be Perfected, and If So, What Becomes of Robert Heinlein? This piece doesn’t read like a fully formed article in my opinion. It’s a series of unconnected paragraphs that feels more like a transcript of Dick’s responses to a series of questions that had been posed by a talk show host (Conan O’Brien most probably, I can’t imagine who else would enjoy interviewing Phil Dick). Take this line:

‘I have written and sold twenty-three novels, and all are terrible except one. But I am not sure which one.’

That so feels like the sort of thing a talk show guest might say to set the tone of the interview. Watch out audience, I’m quirky and don’t take anything too seriously.

Mostly though Dick expresses the sort of blunt and sweeping opinions I never thought he was likely to come out with….

(5) MAKE IT SNOW. Let SyFy Wire help with your holiday shopping — “2017 Gift Guide: Beam up these great Star Trek gifts”. My favorite —

U.S.S. Enterprise Sushi Set

If you love Star Trek AND sushi then this awesome sushi set will hit the sweet spot. The set includes a shiny Enterprise NCC-1701 in mid-warp and propped on a wooden base, which is actually… a sushi plate. If you remove the top of the saucer section, you even get a small dish for soy sauce. Slide out the warp effects of the nacelles and voila, you have your own pair of chopsticks.

Get it for $34.99 at Star Trek Shop

(6) NO PRIZE. In the Paris Review, Ursula K. Le Guin makes a meta suggestion: “The Literary Prize for the Refusal of Literary Prizes”.

I refused a prize once. My reasons were mingier than Sartre’s, though not entirely unrelated. It was in the coldest, insanest days of the Cold War, when even the little planet Esseff was politically divided against itself. My novelette The Diary of the Rose was awarded the Nebula Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America. At about the same time, the same organization deprived the Polish novelist Stanislaw Lem of his honorary membership. There was a sizable contingent of Cold Warrior members who felt that a man who lived behind the iron curtain and was rude about American science fiction must be a Commie rat who had no business in the SFWA. They invoked a technicality to deprive him of his membership and insisted on applying it. Lem was a difficult, arrogant, sometimes insufferable man, but a courageous one and a first-rate author, writing with more independence of mind than would seem possible in Poland under the Soviet regime. I was very angry at the injustice of the crass and petty insult offered him by the SFWA. I dropped my membership and, feeling it would be shameless to accept an award for a story about political intolerance from a group that had just displayed political intolerance, took my entry out of the Nebula competition shortly before the winners were to be announced. The SFWA called me to plead with me not to withdraw it, since it had, in fact, won. I couldn’t do that. So—with the perfect irony that awaits anybody who strikes a noble pose on high moral ground—my award went to the runner-up: Isaac Asimov, the old chieftain of the Cold Warriors.

(7) TOLKIEN CANONIZATON CONFERENCE CANCELLED. The hosts of a December 18 conference in Rome to popularize the idea of canonizing J.R.R. Tolkien, an initiative of the SUPR (Student Association of Roman pontifical universities) and sponsored by the CRUPR (conference of rectors of Roman pontifical universities), say they have had to cancel the event in the face of unspecified opposition. You can see they didn’t go quietly.

(8) IMAGINING A PAST, AND A BETTER PRESENT. French novelist Jean d’Ormesson died December 6 at the age of 92 reports the New York Times.

It was only in 1971 that “La Gloire de l’Empire” — translated into English as “A Novel. A History” — secured a lasting place for him in 20th-century French literature.

The book, a fictional compendium of imagined history, won the academy’s coveted Grand Prix.

“This has to be one of the most engrossing histories ever written — yet not a word of it is true,” William Beauchamp, a French literature scholar, wrote in The New York Times Book Review when the book was published in English in the United States in 1975.

He added: “Jean d’Ormesson’s empire is pure invention; his book, fictional history. If numerous details suggest the real empires of Rome, Persia, Byzantium, of Alexander or Charlemagne, they are devices designed to achieve verisimilitude — the illusion of reality.”

When Mr. d’Ormesson entered the academy in 1973, at the age of 48, he was the youngest of its 40 members, all of them committed to maintaining the purity of the French language and to promoting French literary merit.

All were also men; the body had barred women since its founding in 1635. But that changed in 1981, when Mr. d’Ormesson sponsored Marguerite Yourcenar, a writer and classical scholar, to join the academy. Though he incurred much criticism and not a few misogynistic jibes for his championing her, she was accepted….

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • December 10, 2009 – Avatar makes its world premiere.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY LIBRARIAN

  • Born December 10, 1851 – Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. As a young adult he advocated spelling reform; he changed his name from the usual “Melville” to “Melvil”, without redundant letters, and for a time changed his surname to “Dui”.

(11) DOWNSIZING. Parade’s Amy Spencer, in “Sunday With…Matt Damon”, asks the star of Downsizing such novel softball questions as “What’s a situation where, in real life, you felt really small?” and “What is something small that means a great deal to you?” At least he didn’t have to answer any questions about potatoes.

(12) BEARLY THERE. Framestore animation director Pablo Grillo goes into Paddington 2: “Paddington 2: The challenges of making the film”. (Video at the link.)

(13) BEATING THE BUSHES. Botanical exploits: “How British plant hunters served science”.

Reginald Farrer (1880-1920) was one of four 20th Century botanists who made expeditions to then remote parts of China to discover and bring back plants.

He and his contemporaries – George Forrest (1873-1932), William Purdom (1880-1921) and Frank Kingdon-Ward (1885-1958) – are remembered in a new exhibition at the RHS Lindley library in London.

…Frank Kingdon-Ward, son of a botany professor, was perhaps the most prolific of the four plant collectors.

“He carried out over 20 expeditions in total – not all in China; he travelled all over, in India as well and Assam Himalayas, and really his first love was exploration,” says Sarah McDonald.

Kingdon-Ward frequently cheated death on his travels. Once, lost in the jungle, he survived by sucking the nectar from flowers. Another time, a tree fell on his tent during a storm, but he crawled out unscathed. And he survived falling over a precipice only by gripping a tree long enough to be pulled to safety.

In a letter to his sister, he wrote: “If I survive another month without going dotty or white-haired it will be a miracle; if my firm get any seeds at all this year it will be another.”

(14) MARTIAN BOG. If only Heinlein could make The Traveler happy – a magazine review at Galactic Journey. “[December 9, 1962] (January 1963, IF Science Fiction)”.

Podkayne of Mars (Part 2 of 3), by Robert A. Heinlein

Part II of Heinlein’s new juvenile(?) about Miss Poddy Fries and her space jaunt from Mars is a bit more readable than the last one, but it’s still overwritten and gets bogged in detail.  This is the spiritual successor to The Menace from Earth I’d hoped to share with my daughter, but I don’t think it’s quite good enough.  Three stars for this installment.

(15) CASTING FOR PIKACHU. Trae Dorn of Nerd & Tie reports “Ryan Reynolds Has Been Cast as ‘Detective Pikachu’ Because Why the Hell Not”.

So one of the weirdest projects out there for a while has been Legendary’s live action/cgi hybrid Detective Pikachu movie. I mean, it’s a live action/cgi hybrid Detective Pikachu movie. No one was really expecting it to happen, and now the latest news is that it has a rather unexpected star: Ryan Reynolds.

That’s right, Ryan Reynolds is going to play Detective Pikachu in the Detective Pikachu movie. I mean, it’s not bad casting – Reynolds is a talented actor – but it’s definitely weird casting. I mean, he’s a funny guy (remember, unlike most Pokemon, Detective Pikachu can talk), but it’s not a direction most people thought casting would go.

(16) DIAGNOSIS. Definitely sorry for his health problems, but how many cold sufferers inspire such a colorful description?

(17) VIRTUAL BEST OF YEAR. Jason, at Featured Futures, has posted his picks for the Web’s Best Science Fiction #1 (2017 Stories). His “virtual anthology” is a table of contents of selected links to 70,000 words of the best science fiction published online in 2017.

Web’s Best Fantasy will cover the fantasy stories. The stories for both “volumes” were chosen from fifteen markets: Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld Magazine, Compelling Science Fiction, Diabolical Plots, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Flash Fiction Online, Grievous Angel, Lightspeed, Nature, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, Terraform, Tor.com, and Uncanny.

(18) EDGED WEAPONS. Gary K. Wolfe reviews Quillifer by Walter Jon Williams at Locus Online.

In one of Donald Barthelme’s funnier stories, a hapless would-be writer finds that one of the questions on the National Writer’s Examination (“a five-hour fifty-minute examination, for his certificate”) involves recognizing at least four archaic words for sword. On the basis of his new novel Quillifer, Walter Jon Williams would get that certificate with flying colors. His vocabulary of antique weaponry is formidable, as well as his command of archaic military and naval terminol­ogy: the tale is packed with enough chebeks, dirks, calivers, pollaxes, and demiculverins to win a dozen Scrabble or trivia games, not to mention such neologisms as “gastrologist,” “logomania,” “poetastical,” “credent,” and others which, as Quillifer and others proudly announce, they “just made up.” As should be evident, there’s a good deal of infectious playfulness involved here, and the question that quickly arises is whether this is going to be infectious enough, or Quillifer himself ingratiating enough, to power us through what promises to be at least three hefty volumes of episodic adventures.

(19) CAT TALES AND OTHERS. In the LA Times’ Jacket Copy section, “Michelle Dean loves Ursula K. Le Guin’s cat stories. Which is a good start”:

Here we get some thoughts on publishing too, or rather, as the book calls it, “The Lit Biz.” Posts on this theme include a lament about how often people ask her “why” she writes — she calls this question “highly metaphysical.” It also includes Le Guin’s frustration with the notion that someone, somewhere has written the Great American Novel. But that argument gradually morphs into a paean to John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” the novel Le Guin evidently feels might be closest to a Great American novel. And then also segues, in a pleasingly bloggy way, into an anecdote about how Le Guin actually knew Steinbeck in her youth and hid with him in the bushes at a terrible wedding with racist guests. “We need to get away from boring people and drink in peace,” she records Steinbeck saying on this occasion. Amen, Great American Writer.

(20) LETTERS TO SANTA. The Guardian found the North Pole in an unexpected place: “Santa Claus, Indiana gets 20,000 letters a year – and ‘elves’ reply to all of them”.

The letters, sometimes addressed to Santa Claus, Indiana, sometimes to just “Santa Claus”, come from all over the US, and even from outside the country. They’re processed by a team of 300 “elves” who write personal replies – penning up to 2,000 notes a day.

“It’s an amazing thing making children happy,” said Pat Koch, the town’s Chief Elf. Koch, 86, is in charge of the mammoth effort. She’s been handling Santa’s correspondence since she was 11 years old.

“We just sit in there and laugh and cry,” Koch said.

“We get letters from children that say: ‘We learned to use the potty’ – well, their mother writes for them – ‘So we hope Santa will come’.

“Or they stopped sucking their thumb. Or some children write very sad letters: ‘I’m living with my grandma and I want to be with my daddy.’”

The elves also receive mail from older people who are lonely and want a letter from Santa, Koch said. Sometimes inmates write to Santa Claus, asking him to send a letter to their children. Post arrives from as far away as Japan, China and Malaysia. Each is read and responded to.

(21) WRATH OF KHAN REVISITED. Orange Band gives old movies the trailers they deserve.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, JJ. Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, Brian Z., and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Peer.]