Tag Archives: Wellington Paranormal

Pixel Scroll 6/20/21 Teenage Mutant Fannish Pixels, Heroes On The File Scroll

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(1) FATHER’S DAY AND THE NIMOY FAMILY. “I absolutely adored Spock. Loving Dad was much more complicated” – by Adam Nimoy in the Boston Globe. (I usually hit a paywall at the Globe, but I was able to push past the pop-ups and read this article, so maybe you will too.)

…“We are now passing Beacon Hill, home to John F. Kennedy, John Hancock, and John Kerry, the three Johns. And we’re coming up on the West End, formerly an immigrant neighborhood that was demolished in the 1950s to make way for quote-unquote urban renewal. Of course, the most famous resident of the original West End is none other than Leonard Nimoy, who starred as Mr. Spock on ‘Star Trek.’ Do we have any ‘Star Trek’ fans on board?”

About a half dozen people raised their hands. Some yelped their excitement. I got all warm and fuzzy inside. Dad sat with his arms crossed over his linen jacket and gave one of his approving nods. Paul Revere, John Adams, John Kennedy, and . . . Leonard Nimoy. What a lineup — “highly illogical,” as Mr. Spock would say.

The trip to Boston gave me the chance to see the city through my father’s eyes while giving Dad an opportunity to relive the events that shaped his life and career. Father and son closeness was relatively new to us….

Dad’s zeal for work had its downside. His career always came first. He was not one to come to Little League games, for example — a regular source of disappointment for a boy who just wanted to please the father he so admired….

Alternatively, CinemaBlend hosted this Nimoy tribute: “Leonard Nimoy’s Daughter Julie Pens Sweet Father’s Day Letter To Late Star Trek Actor”.

In the world of Star Trek, Spock was never a father, but the actor who played him, Leonard Nimoy, certainly was. The actor juggled a busy career along with being a good father to his two children, Adam and Julie and, on Father’s Day, Julie Nimoy shared a special letter with CinemaBlend to her father on this special holiday….

“…Forever my rock, I could always depend on him for his wise advice. Like most dads, he was very protective, but always encouraged me to be independent, starting at very young age….”

(2) INFLUENTIAL IDEAS. Samuel R. Delany shares his experiences reading and meeting Arthur C. Clarke on Facebook.

…(I’ve incorporated a lot of his ideas into my own, such as his early defense of the space program as a money saver on the large scale, because of the weather damage it prevented.) I met him—possibly, but I don’t even remember for sure—at a gathering at Michael Moorcock’s home at the end end of my first (’66) or in the midst of my second (for three weeks, covering Christmas/New Years ’66-’67) trip to London. The gathering was overshadowed by the presence of J. G. Ballard, whom most of his friends called Jimmy, and the growing pains of the “New Wave” and *New Worlds.* To me he was always Dr. Clarke—and when I met him the second time, in this country, at the opening of his, I-can-only-call-it World-Changing collaboration with the consistently greatest American filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” he recognized me as “Chip.” (That made it into the first volume of my journals and the review I wrote, one of a pair—the other by filmmaker/artist Ed Emshwiller— that were published on the film in F&SF.)…

Delany’s post mentions the side-by-side ads taken out in 1968 prozines by writers to express either their support for or opposition to the Vietnam War. Todd Mason blogged about it (in 2012) and included a screencap of the pages here: “1968: Judith Merril and Kate Wilhelm put together an ad against the Vietnam War…”

…it appears in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and in Galaxy, Worlds of If and International Science Fiction magazines (the latter three of which are published by the same publisher, Robert Guinn of the Galaxy Publishing Co., and edited by Frederik Pohl, the first edited by Edward Ferman and published by his father Joseph Ferman), along with a corresponding ad from “hawks” who are moved by Wilhelm and Merril’s canvassing….

(3) NOT THROWIN’ AWAY MY SHOT. Black Gate presents Sara Light-Waller’s commentary: “Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen: Piper’s Connecticut Yankee Tale”.

…As mentioned, Lord Kalvan is part of the Paratime universe. It was originally published in two parts, the second posthumously to Piper’s death. “Gunpowder God” first appeared in Analog in November 1964. The second part — “Down Styphon” — was published in the November 1965 issue. The novel, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965), is a compilation of the two which also includes new material expanding on the original stories.

In our reality and timeline, Pennsylvania state trooper, Corporal Calvin Morrison, is part of a group of police about to burst in on a criminal hiding out in an old farmhouse. As he walks forward with pistol drawn, he is accidently caught up in a Ghaldron-Hesthor temporal field…. 

Back on Home timeline, paracops quickly figure out what’s happened. Our old friend Verkan Vall, Special Assistant to the Chief of the Paratime Police, is there to see the damage.

“A man who can beat a Paracop to the draw won’t sink into obscurity on any time-line,” he says and decides to take charge of the case himself…

(4) WELLINGTON PARANORMAL. The New Zealand show has been mentioned here a few times – and now it’s coming to U.S. screens says SYFY Wire: “Wellington Paranormal: What We Do in the Shadows spinoff gets U.S. premiere date and trailer”.

Before What We Do in the Shadows became a hit TV series on FX, the first spinoff from the iconic 2014 mockumentary arrived on TV in its homeland of New Zealand. First announced in 2017, Wellington Paranormal began broadcasting into Kiwi homes in 2018, and has since produced three successful seasons and a holiday special, all without being widely available to U.S. viewers who’ve been enjoying a spinoff of their own. Next month, that holdout finally ends. 

Back in the spring, The CW announced that it would begin airing Wellington Paranormal for American audiences this year, with episodes made available to stream the next day on HBO Max. Now, a new trailer’s here to get us all excited about finally seeing this show in all its clumsy paranormal cop glory. Check it out:

(5) CRT 451. “Opinion: To leave out these discussions of history is akin to burning books” writer Howard Stacy in a letter to the Gainesville Times.

Visiting a local book store recently, I bought the book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. I had read some of Bradbury’s books in the past (I’m a science fiction fan) and thought I would enjoy this one. Unfortunately, the book written in 1951 has so many parallels with today’s political climate that I am not sure I can finish it. 

The plot covers the life of Guy Montag, a fireman in the not too distant future. The occupation of the firemen in Bradbury’s story is markedly different from the firemen today. Montag’s crew of firemen are tasked with burning books as well as the houses of the people that own them. It does not matter what books are in the house; their mere presence qualifies for destruction. 

The firemen pull their hoses from the fire truck and start spraying kerosene on the offensive house. The kerosene is ignited, and the fire destroys the house and the books in it. 

If the owner of the house refuses to leave, then the firemen burn him or her, too. The government has ordered that this is to be done because books contain dangerous ideas. 

The similarity to today is the effort of the Trump Republicans and the Georgia State Board of Education to limit the discussion of Critical Race Theory. The full definition of CRT is complicated, involving White privilege and economic advantage based simply on the color of skin. However the CRT acronym makes it something that the Trump Republicans can get excited about. It looks good on a poster held up at a school board meeting, and it allows a racist to appear as someone that is only interested in having the youngsters in public schools receive the “correct” history instruction….

(6) WALTER SCHNEIDERMAN (1922-2021). The acclaimed makeup artist Walter Schneiderman died April 8 at the age of 98 reports The Guardian:

…The complex makeup required for the title character of The Elephant Man was nearly the undoing of that celebrated 1980 film. … But applying the resulting designs, which had been modelled from a cast of the real Joseph Merrick … fell upon the makeup artist Walter Schneiderman.

Schneiderman, who has died aged 98, called the film “one of the hardest pictures I had to do”. It took seven hours each day to put the makeup on Hurt, and another two to take it off again. Schneiderman was acclaimed for his work on the movie, which was nominated for eight Oscars. The lack of official recognition for … Schneiderman caused a furore, which led to the implementation the following year of a new Oscar category for best makeup.

Uncredited early work came his way on … Powell and Pressburger’s Tales of Hoffman (1951). 

He spent five years, first as makeup artist and then as makeup supervisor, on the television series The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-60). He moved into more film work with … One Million Years BC (1966), … Rollerball (1975). Schneiderman was makeup supervisor on the fantasy Labyrinth (1986), starring David Bowie as the flamboyant Goblin King.

Although an inventive and resourceful practitioner, he was always practical. “Directors think you open your box and out pops magic,” he said. “It does. But you’ve got to know how to apply it.” After his retirement, he went on to create and sell a line of commercial products under the name Make-Up International. Among them were Quick Action Powder Blood, Bruise Simulation Gel and Omaha Action Mud.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

  • 1981 — Forty years ago at Denvention Two, The Empire Strikes Back which was released the previous year by Lucasfilm, won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. Other nominated works were Lathe of Heaven, the Cosmos series, The Martian Chronicles and Flash Gordon.  It was directed by Irvin Kershner from the screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan with story by being George Lucas. 

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born June 20, 1897 — Donald Keyhoe. Early pulp writer whose works included the entire contents of all three published issues of the Dr. Yen Sin zine. The novels were The Mystery of the Dragon’s Shadow, The Mystery of the Golden Skull and The Mystery of the Singing Mummies. He would create two pulp characters, one with ESP who was a daredevil pilot and one who was blind that could see none-the-less in the dark. He’s best remembered today for being one of the early believers in UFOs and being very active in that community. (Died 1988.)
  • Born June 20, 1913 — Lilian Jackson Braun. Author of The Cat Who… series which I think is genre. The two cats in it are delightful and one, Koko, certainly has a sixth sense, but the author never suggests is psychic. The first, The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, was published in 1966. She’d publish twenty-nine more novels plus three collections of The Cat Who… shorter tales over the next forty years.  Good popcorn reading. (Died 2011.)
  • Born June 20, 1928 — Martin Landau. I’ve got his first genre role as being on The Twilight Zone as Dan Hotaling in “Mr. Denton on Doomsday” episode. Of course his longest running genre role was as Rollin Hand on Mission Impossible though he had a good run also on Space: 1999 as Commander John Koenig. His last role was in Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie voicing Mr. Rzykruski. (Died 2017.)
  • Born June 20, 1951 — Tress MacNeille, 70. Voice artist extraordinaire. Favourite roles? Dot Warner on The Animaniacs, herself as the angry anchorwoman in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Babs Bunny on Tiny Toons and Hello Nurse on Pinky and The Brain. 
  • Born June 20, 1952 — John Goodman, 69. Some may know him as the TV husband of a certain obnoxious comedian but I’ve never watched that show. So I picture him as Fred Flintstone in The Flintstones, a role perfect for him. Mind you he’s had a lot of genre roles: voicing James P. “Sulley” Sullivan in the Monsters franchise, a cop in the diner in C.H.U.D., and he’ll even be the voice of Spike in the Tom and Jerry film that came out recently.  
  • Born June 20, 1947 — Candy Clark, 74. Mary Lou in The Man Who Fell to Earth which of course featured Bowie. She also was in Amityville 3-D, Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye and The Blob inthe role of Francine Hewitt. That’s the remake obviously, not the original. Oh, and she’s Buffy’s mom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Wiki being Wiki lists that as non-canon because it’s not the Whedon Buffy.
  • Born June 20, 1967 — Nicole Kidman, 54. Batman Forever was her first foray into the genre but she has done a number of genre films down the years: Practical Magic, The Stepford Wives, Bewitched (I liked it), The Invasion (never heard of it), The Golden Compass (not nearly as good as the novel was), the splendid Paddington and her latest was as Queen Atlanna in the rather good Aquaman. 
  • Born June 20, 1968 — Robert Rodriguez, 53, I’ll single out the vastly different Sin City and Spy Kids franchises as his best work, though the From Dusk till Dawn has considerable charms as well. ISFDB notes that he’s written two novels with Chris Roberson riffing off his The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D film, The Day Dreamer and Return to Planet Droll.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) FIRE IN THE SKY. Did the monks see what they say they saw in 1178? Connie Willis is rooting for them in her Facebook post. Astronomers and scientists have their own ideas:

Canterbury Cathedral was part of St. Augustine’s Abbey, a monastery founded in 598 A.D. It endured Viking raids, William the Conqueror’s invasion, a large fire (in 1168), and the murder of its archbishop, Thomas a Becket, and was finally done in by Henry VIII. But possibly the most important event in its long history was something happened on a summer night in June in 1178.

That night, “after sunset when the moon was first seen,” five monks were sitting outside looking at the sky and the crescent moon when the upper part of the horn “suddenly split in two. From the midpoint of this division, a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out fire, hot coals, and sparks. The body of the moon writhed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed it proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon, from hook to horn, that is, along the whole length, took on a blackish appearance.”

The five monks told Gervase of Canterbury, the chronicler of the Abbey, what they’d seen, and he wrote it all down, adding that the monks were “prepared to stake their honor on an oath that they have made no addition or falsification in the narrative.” Unfortunately, they were the only people to have seen it. According to European chroniclers of the time, the continent was “fogged in” that night, so the five Canterbury monks were the only witnesses, and nobody paid any attention to their account for nearly eight hundred years, at which point geologist Jack B. Hartung proposed a theory for what they might have seen: a giant asteroid slamming into the moon.

If it had, there should be a crater at the place the monks described the explosion as being, so Hartung went about looking for one–and found a likely candidate…

(11) THE DAWN OF HARRY. Harry Harrison started out drawing horror comics in the 1950s. Here is a post by G. W. Thomas which looks at his comics work:  “Harry Harrison… Beware!”

Harry Harrison… Beware! Not of Harry Harrison’s writing because that’s excellent. Beware he drew horror strips for more than just EC Comics. While he and Wally Wood produced some classic comics there, HH began selling off other strips to packagers for a fee. The authors are not know for sure but Harry wrote most of these, including the writing in the fee. Some of these free market sales ended up at Youthful’s Beware and later Trojan’s Beware when the comic changed hands….

(12) NEFFY NOMS. The National Fantasy Fan Federation, in the June issue of TNFF, corrected the omission of Elizabeth Bear’s novel Machine, and the fanzine Outworlds, from the previously-announced list of finalists for the Neffy Awards.

(13) SENTENCES OF DEATH. “The Becoming of Italo Calvino” in The New Yorker discusses the collection Last Comes the Raven.

… The Calvino of “Crossed Destinies” is a familiar one, the magical realist with a playful approach to the author-narrator-reader relationship. But the book also captures one of his spinier qualities: his aura of danger. He likes to pry things open, often in uncomfortable ways; “Crossed Destinies” throws together characters who can communicate only through tarot cards, and ends when the deck scatters, along with their identities. This is formal violence, the story flying apart like a tossed hand, but a bodily analogue is never far away: one man describes being dismembered, how “sharp blades .?.?. tore him to pieces.” And yet, because much of Calvino’s cruelty is abstracted, it seems free of malice, which makes it all the more magnetic. Even before they disintegrate, the characters in “Crossed Destinies” are subject to bizarre structural rigors: pulled from the forest, stripped of their voices, severed from their pasts. When brutality occurs at the level of form, flashing in every choice (or “renunciation”), it can surface how narrative is not just an act of creation but—for the unseen, unwritten alternative—a death sentence….

(14) KEVIN SMITH NEWS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] Kevin Smith says he really enjoyed his time running the He-Man and The Masters of the Universe universe and 12-year-olds of all ages will love Masters of the Universe: Revelation when it comes to Netflix in July.

[Thanks to JJ, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, Lise Andreasen, Cora Buhlert, James Reynolds, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and Martin Morse Wooster  for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Pixel Scroll 10/13/19 And Where’s Charles Laughton, Anyway?

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(1) WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. David Harbour’s opening monologue on Saturday Night Live made Stranger Things jokes.

Also terrifically funny is the “Grouch (Joker Parody)” which began with the premise, “What if the people behind Joker did a dark origin story for Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch?”

(2) PNH HEALTH UPDATE. Yesterday, Patrick Nielsen Hayden was hospitalized while attending a convention in Montreal. The symptoms sounded quite alarming to begin with, fortunately the diagnosis is not as bad as first feared.

https://twitter.com/pnh/status/1183128417925029890
https://twitter.com/pnh/status/1183406572254437376
https://twitter.com/pnh/status/1183406697416708096

(3) FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. John Boston reviews the latest (in 1964) issue of Amazing at Galactic Journey: “[October 12, 1964] Slow Cruising (November 1964 Amazing)”

The November 1964 Amazing is distinguished by being the second consecutive issue with a cover depicting a guy in a flying chair, calling to mind the observation of the Hon. Jimmy Walker, erstwhile Mayor of New York City, before fleeing the country to avoid a corruption prosecution: “Never follow a banjo act with another banjo act.” Alex Schomburg’s rather static and solemn depiction of the device contrasts amusingly with Virgil Finlay’s interior illustration, which attempts to imbue the same gadget with all the energy and drama that the cover picture lacks.  Can we say Apollonian versus Dionysian?  I thought not.  Forget I mentioned it.

(4) SFF IN ENGLISH. Enjoy Robert Quaglia’s video of the “Writing in English as a foreign language” panel at the 2010 Eastercon in the UK.

(5) IMAGINED LANDS. Scott Bradfield’s first Oz book came as a Christmas present, and by now these tales have merged with his family DNA: “The End of Oz: Reflections on the Centenary of L. Frank Baum’s Death” at the LA Review of Books.

… I found myself immersed in a panoply of voices, and as they chattered, they carried me into fantastically believable landscapes. First, there was the colorful young Munchkin, Ojo the Unlucky, and his soon-to-be-turned-to-stone Unc Nunkie. Or the Crooked (in body, not in mind) Magician, Dr. Pipt, and his devoted wife, Margolotte. Or the magically animated glass cat, Bungle, who constantly alerted everyone to the fact that her brains were remarkably pink — “you can see them work.” But best of all was the optimist of all optimists, the Patchwork Girl herself, who adopted the name Scraps, since she was sewn together from remnants like a mad quilt, and never tired of admiring her own beauty and cleverness. “I hate dignity,” Scraps liked to say. And giving yourself over to a discordant, undignified mess of landscapes and personalities is a large part of what reading the Oz books is all about.

…For me, the most significant aspect of every Oz book I ever read as a child — or later reread to my son several decades later — was never simply the stories and characters they conveyed. Rather, they resounded with visions of my mother’s childhood in San Francisco, a landscape as far away and interesting to my youthful imagination as the color-coordinated kingdoms of the Winkies, Quadlings, Gillikins, and Munchkins.

(6) IT’S OFFICIAL? Interesting NZ Official Information Act request.

New Zealand publication Stuff inquires: “Is the Department of Internal Affairs being trolled, or do ghosts roam its halls?”

Scientific study, or a troll of Wellington’s halls of power? Either way, one government department is being grilled over its connection to the paranormal. 

The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has been tasked with helping investigators discover if its Wellington headquarters is haunted. This request under the Official Information Act includes two years of air conditioning sensor readings, “in absolute detail”. It was also asked whether it had plans in place to alleviate paranormal incidents.

The department says its OIA response will cover many of these questions.

(7) ATTEMPTED HUMOR. NPR’s Andrew Lapin finds that “‘Jexi’ Is Siri-Ously Bad”:

In Jexi, Adam DeVine’s life partner calls him an idiot, a “little bitch,” and many other, less printable things. The abuse is near-constant. The person heaping it on him is his phone.

A would-be satire of millenial tech obsession, Jexi is like if the AI in Her were raised on Don Rickles. The phone (voiced by Rose Byrne in a weary-sounding Siri imitation) belittles DeVine’s Phil for being an antisocial loner, too quick to give up on his professional dreams, too cowardly to make friends or ask a girl on a date. Because this is an R-rated comedy made by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the guys behind the Hangover and Bad Moms movies, Jexi also makes fun of Phil’s penis.

It seems likely, based on the laziness of the concept and this film’s generic male-ness, that Lucas and Moore didn’t put a lot of thought into the specific nature of Jexi’s behavior. But funny enough, they’ve hit on something real here. Our devices do abuse us, a little more every day, barking out instructions on where to go, what food to eat, and what music to listen to, all while siphoning away more of our attention and making money off our data. We insist we are competent, independent adults, and yet we’d be lost without them, so we take whatever they dish out, even when they invade our privacy or laugh at us….

(8) OH, SNAP. NPR’s Danny Hensen is underwhelmed: “‘The Addams Family’ Isn’t Sufficiently Creepy, Kooky, Mysterious Or Spooky”.

Do you feel that chill? It’s the beginning of October, when store shelves are lined with Halloween products branded with the latest theatrically bound IP. This year, a cotton-candy funhouse animated version of The Addams Family hits theaters, returning the long-running franchise to something closer to its original form — cartoons in The New Yorker.

In this newest version, which often feels de-clawed, we see the marriage between Gomez and Morticia Addams, voiced by a maniacal Oscar Isaac and a quietly authoritative Charlize Theron, and their subsequent move to New Jersey, having been driven out of town by an angry mob none too pleased with their sundry differences in appearances and behavior….

Meanwhile, in what feels like 21st century homage to Edward Scissorhands, a pastel-tinted planned community develops in the valley adjacent to the mansion, and the town leader, Margaux Needler, the host of a home & garden reality television show, attempts to remodel the mansion and rid the town of the family. Voiced by Allison Janney, Needler looks like a boardwalk caricature drawing of Farrah Fawcett.

Fortunately, the film offers more than just a retread of its forebears, the Tim Burton movie included. Though at times clumsy, the film’s firm placement in the present allows for an only slightly exaggerated Nextdoor parody: Needler spies on her neighbors using an app. While intriguing in theory, the execution offers only vague, toothless commentary.

(9) MOORE OBIT. The unforgettable voice belonged to actor Stephen Moore, who died October 4:

Stephen Moore – known as the voice of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’s Marvin the Paranoid Android – has died aged 81.

He also played Adrian Mole’s father on TV, and the dad to Harry Enfield’s grumpy teenager Kevin.

Hitchhiker’s producer and director Dirk Maggs said Moore was the “most sweet, charming and affable of men”….

(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • October 13, 1966  — The Trek episode of “Mudd’s Women” first aired. Starring Roger C. Carmel as Harry Mudd and  his ‘cargo’ as played by Eve McHuron, Magda Kovacs, and Ruth Bonaventure. Memory Alpha notes that Roddenberry had planned for this to possibly be the pilot at one point.
  • October 13, 2016  — Zapped premiered in the United Kingdom. It lasted for three series and fifteen episodes. Set in two universes, most stories. are mostly set in and around the town pub.  You can see the first episode here.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born October 13, 1906 — Joseph Samachson. In 1955, he co-created with artist Joe Certa the Martian Manhunter in the pages of Detective Comics #225. Earlier he penned a couple of Captain Future pulp novels around 1940 under a house name. (House names often blur who did what.) He also wrote scripts for Captain Video and His Video Rangers, a late Forties to mid Fifties series. (Died 1980.)
  • Born October 13, 1914 — Walter Brooke. You know him for muttering a certain word in The Graduate but he’s earlier noteworthy for being General T. Merrit in Conquest of Space, a Fifties SF film, one of many genre roles he did including The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, The Munsters, Marooned, The Return of Count Yorga and The Nude Bomb (also known as The Return of Maxwell Smart). (Died 1986.)
  • Born October 13, 1923 — Cyril Shaps. He appears in a number of  Doctor Who stories,  to wit The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Ambassadors of Death, Planet of the Spiders and The Androids of Tara which means he’s appeared with the Second, Third and Fourth Doctors. He was also Mr. Pinkus in The Spy Who Loved Me, and he was in Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady as Emperor Franz Josef. The latter stars Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee as Holmes and Watson. (Died 2003.)
  • Born October 13, 1952 — John Lone, 67. He played the villainous Shiwan Khan in The Shadow, and he was the revived ice man Charlie in the Iceman. His first film role ever was Andy the Cook in the Seventies King Kong.
  • Born October 13, 1956 — Chris Carter, 63. Best known for the X-Files and Millennium but also responsible for Harsh Realm which lasted three episodes before being cancelled.
  • Born October 13, 1959 — Wayne Pygram, 60. His most SFish role was as Scorpius on Farscape and he has a cameo as Grand Moff Tarkin in Revenge of the Sith because he’s a close facial resemblance to Peter Cushing. He’s likely best recognized as himself for his appearance on Lost as a faith healer named Isaac of Uluru.
  • Born October 13, 1969 — Tushka Bergen, 50. She first shows in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome as The Guardian at the age of sixteen. She’s got one-offs in the Fantasy Island, Angel, FreakyLinks and The Others series, and an appearance in the Journey to the Center of the Earth series. The FreakyLinks episode is titled “Subject: Edith Keeler Must Die”.
  • Born October 13, 1976 — Jennifer Sky, 43. Lead character conveniently named Cleopatra in Sam Raimi’s Cleopatra 2525 series. (Opening theme “In the Year 2525” is performed by Gina Torres who’s also a cast member.) She’s had guest roles on Seaquest DSV, Xena, Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And she was Lola in The Helix…Loaded, a parody of The Matrix which scored 14% at Rotten Tomatoes. 
  • Born October 13, 1983 — Katia Winter, 36. She’s best known for being Katrina Crane on Sleepy Hollow, and Freydis Eriksdottir on Legends of Tomorrow. She also was Swede in Malice in Wonderland which is very loosely based off its source material. She’s currently Gwen Karlsson in Blood & Treasure which might be genre.

(12) FUTURE WAR. Australian sff writer Russell Blackford’s post “Science Fiction as a Lens into Future War” is the written version of his panel presentation “Science Fiction and Futurism – Philosophy and Ethics for a Global Era” at the Australian Defence College’s Profession of Arms seminar held in Canberra on October e.

There are limits to what we should expect of these narratives. Generally speaking, they cannot replace ethical and philosophical argument about the traditional questions of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and that is not their purpose. There are some clearly pacifist science fiction novels, such as Joan Slonczewsk’s A Door into Ocean (1987). Overall, however, it is not the job of novelists to teach ethical theories.

Consider The War in the Air again. If we knew nothing else about Wells, we’d see that he despises naïve ideas of war that make it seem like an adventure, and likewise he has no time for the idea of military glory. But we’d not be able to tell whether he is against these things from, say, a pacifist perspective, a just war perspective, or a perspective based on realism in international relations. All of these schools of thought emphasise the cost and tragedy of war.

Nor can a book like The War in the Air predict the detail of what it warns about. In 1908, Wells portrayed large-scale aerial bombardment, capturing much of its power and terror, but not exactly what it would be like in practice. The same applies to other works by Wells, such as The World Set Free (1914), which memorably describes atomic bombs, although real ones turned out to be rather different. A more recent novel, such as Ghost Fleet, by P.W. Singer and August Cole (2015), depicts what high-tech non-nuclear warfare between great powers – including cyberwarfare, advanced stealth technology, and operations in space – might be like, but the reality would probably look rather different if such a war actually happened.

(13) BREAKTHROUGH. In the Washington City Paper, Kayla Randall profiles Elizabeth Montague, who at 23 is probably the first African-American woman to sell a cartoon to The New Yorker: “How Local Cartoonist Elizabeth Montague Creates Accessible, Reflective Art”.

Every morning, after waking up at 6:30 a.m., Elizabeth Montague creates a cartoon. They’re rough pencil drawings which take less than five minutes to complete at her Kalorama apartment work desk—little meditations that help keep her skills sharp and open up her day. 

For her day job, digital storyteller and design associate for the Aga Khan Foundation, she visually depicts various global issues, focusing on underrepresented narratives. Recently she visited Tajikistan for work, seeing firsthand how a community adapts to climate change.

But her own work is more personal. Aside from early morning sketches, she creates fully formed cartoons for her “Liz at Large” series, which is available on her Instagram and website….

 (14) TIME’S UP. Countdown on YouTube is a trailer for a horror movie released next week about an app that allegedly can predict the exact time when a person will die. In theaters October 25.

In COUNTDOWN, when a young nurse (Elizabeth Lail) downloads an app that claims to predict exactly when a person is going to die, it tells her she only has three days to live. With time ticking away and death closing in, she must find a way to save her life before time runs out.

(15) IRON VET. [Item by Daniel Dern.] io9 invites you to “Watch the Trailer for Robert Downey, Jr.’s Next Big Role, Which for Some Reason Is Doolittle”. Like the musical, this movie is based on the original book(s) rather than simply moving the gimmick (“talk with the animals”) to contemporary times, like other DL books over the past decade or 3.

Live action (though no doubt lots of the critters aren’t). Lots of other big names. And looks like it’s being done largely as an “action flick.”

(Would I have preferred Hugh Jackson in the title role? I guess that depends on whether there’s any singing…)

(16) OLD GOLD. At Black Gate, Steven H Silver avails himself of Fanac.org’s online fanzine library to find the subject for his latest column:  “Golden Age of Science Fiction: Scientifriction #11, edited by Mike Glyer” (a 1979 issue.)

…Glyer also published his own article on the game Hell is High, which he would later rework for the second issue of my own fanzine, Argentus, published 23 years later. Glyer’s description of the game mechanics, camaraderie, and rivalry make the evenings spent playing Hell Is High sound like a wonderful place and time to have been able to experience….

(17) WILD ABOUT HARRY. Alexandra Pecci in the Washington Post has a travel piece comparing “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” at Universal Orlando with The Warner Bros. Studio Experience in London which includes tours of Harry Potter sets.  She finds that the Wizarding World has really cool things (when you buy a wand there and point it at objects, special things happen) but is really expensive particularly if you buy a pass for the two Harry Potter worlds at two Universal theme parks.  She thinks the London experience is a much better value — “Whether in Orlando or London, Harry Potter tourist attractions cast a magical spell”

…“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first installment in J.K. Rowling’s seven-book juggernaut, might be more than two decades old, but in many ways, the world of Harry Potter fandom seems more fevered than ever before.

One word helps explain why: immersion.

Fans (which, remember, is short for fanatic) want to do more than passively watch movies or read books. Instead, Potterheads long to taste Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, ride a broomstick, cast magic spells and get sorted into their Hogwarts house (I’m a Hufflepuff; Chloe is a Gryffindor).

(18) RECENTLY ON JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter witnessed this misplay not long ago —

The category: 20th Century Novels.

Answer: Nadsat, the fictional language in this book, is from the Russian suffix that means “teen.”

Wrong question: “What is 1984?”

Correct question: What is “A Clockwork Orange?”

(19) REALITY IS WORSE. Chris Yogerst argues “Why We Shouldn’t Fear Joker“ at the LA Review of Books blog.

At an early age most of us are taught not to judge a book by its cover. That’s exactly what happened this summer, when the Universal/Blumhouse release of The Hunt was shut down following political pushback. The film is based on an updated version of The Most Dangerous Game that gave some, including President Trump, discomfort with its political implications without having watched the movie. It has become far too common for people to jump to conclusions based on a film’s synopsis or advertising. The most recent controversy follows Joker, a film based in the Gotham City universe, that has led some to feel the story will inspire real-world killers. The problem, of course, is that a film about an unhinged murderer isn’t any more likely to provoke imposters than the news coverage of the same events in real life.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Jeff Jones, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Errolwi, Michael Toman, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kurt Busiek, with an assist from Anna Nimmhaus.]