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File 770
Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom
Filers and all the world.
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@humpus
This place looks interesting, perhaps worth a visit on the way to Worldcon 75
http://www.aifur.se/en_home
By rural north of England standards it seems expensive. How do the prices compare to ‘normal’ Stockholm eateries?
I saw a very funny pastiche of Shakespeare’s “Antony & Cleopatra” at a 400th-anniversay of the Bard thing last weekend. It featured Cleopatra slapping, punching, strangling, and otherwise physically abusing the poor hapless messenger that brings her the news of Antony’s marriage in Act 2, scene 5.
Can she work with that?
When I played the larcenous Spettigue in “Where’s Charley?” (musical version of Charley’s Aunt), there’s one scene where I attempt to seduce Charley, who is kitted out as his aunt, because comedy, and because I believe ‘she’ is rich. So we’re sitting on a pouffe (a circular sofa with the back rising up from the center), and I put a finger on… you know, for convenience here, I’m just going to refer to the character by the actor’s name, Tony, and use masculine pronouns without quotes… his knee, smiling hopefully. He smiles back and removes it. I have an inspiration and try the ancient ‘yawn and put your arm down AROUND’ trick, which also fails to work.
I have all the blocking written down in one of my notebooks. This is from memory, alas. Anyway, things escalate. Tony revolves away from me. Did I mention that our director had a pouffe built that would revolve? Goddamn genius. I revolve the sofa back to me. Long story short, we end up ‘Indian rassling,’ so there’s your single combat, hand to hand.
George, the director, had no specific business in mind when he commissioned the prop, but knew it was a gold mine, and it was. We worked out the scene between the three of us at one rehearsal. In performance, it went over big. I still regret the lack of a video of the show. I’d watch it. Incidentally, on the second or third show, the pouffe started to break down, but we could literally do no wrong by that point. The audience liked it even better with the damn furniture falling apart around us.
The moral of the story is, if you ever get to do a show with George, go for it. If you don’t get in, go watch it.
And something something stage combat something. Heh.
Oh! I think I’ve got a good one for unarmed stage combat for women! Adam Szymkowicz’s superhero play Hearts Like Fists! I believe it has lots to choose from. Here’s some relevant excerpts from a review on io9: “Bent on foiling dastardly Doctor X are the Crimefighters, a girl-power group of masked vigilantes who cartwheel, flip, kick and punch their way through the play … The fight choreography … is a wonder, a mix of gymnastics, balletic grace, kung fu, and awesomely campy action homages.” The script can be obtained through Dramatists Play Service.
Also, the comics back then sucked. The issue you linked had only a single comic strip (The Married Man’s Troubles) on page 10. Mine had a whole page replete with stinkiosity (on page 2.)
I’ve seen the stage version of Hair. I found it sorely lacking in dancing police horses.
Utterly unrelated to any of this, if you are in need of a possible gut busting, I recently discovered this.
I’ve been walking down the stairs to the basement for three threads now, and the hieroglyphic graffiti has stopped (“Old hairy nose!” etc.). It’s in cuneiform now, I don’t read cuneiform.
The breeze blowing in my face is getting warmer, and somoene down there seems to be practicing Tuvan throat singing with bagpipe accompaniment.
Hey, there’s a round window on the half-landing! Into another passage? I wonder if it opens…
Two interesting things about No Man’s Sky:
1) The collective experience of many players has turned up the discovery that if you try to fast-track your way through the game, it will deliberately route you to the more boring parts of its universe. Spoilers for a game mechanic:
Fcrpgeny pynffrf qrgrezvar ubj uneq vg vf gb trg vagb n flfgrz. T be S fgnef (pbqrq lryybj) pna or ernpurq ol nalbar jvgu n ulcreqevir; X be Z fgnef (erq) erdhver n Jnec Ernpgbe Fvtzn, naq fb sbegu. Ohg gur zber “qvssvphyg” fgnef nyfb unir srjre oneera cynargf, vaqvivqhny cynargf jvgu zber ovbgn naq zber inevrq ovbgn, naq zber vagrerfgvat erfbheprf.
Vs lbh sbyybj gur Ngynf, vg fraqf lbh gb lryybj fgnef. Vs lbh qrpvqr gb enpr gb gur pragre bs gur tnynkl, oynpx ubyrf jvyy bayl fraq lbh gb lryybj fgnef.
2) Jezebel has a really disappointing non-review. Pointing readers immediately to an associated site with a review makes it an empty gesture, and there are some things about NMS that could do with some examination by a site like Jezebel: the reliance on quotes and trophy names taken from only male-written sf (yes, there’s one trophy named after a story by a woman, but as her first name is “Lee” I’m not sure they realize she’s a woman); the contrast with the fascinating panoply of alien genders; the inherent awkwardness of presenting a planet as already inhabited and named and then inviting the player to stick a new name on it. (I’m guessing they didn’t want to end up with the majority of planets being named Unknown Planet, but there are ways it could have been handled better.)
Forgot to mention the newspaper had an article about Sophie Tucker in Gay Love at the local theater. So, yeah, a bit of a language connotation shift there.
(ETA: Hey! Google Doodle about 37th anniversary of The Neverending Story!)
@Darren Garrison:
Best Graphic Story candidates they were not, it’s true.
I haven’t played NMS yet, not having a spare eighty hours lying around, but the question of naming inhabited planets in-game is an interesting one…how DO you do it and not get colonial OR have twenty million procedurally generated names that end up looking like random passwords with one number, one capital letter, one special character…
My first thought would be navigational beacons around the planet. If you’re the first one there, you get to drop a beacon and put a name on it. (I do this in Subnautica with my bases, ‘cos navigation is tricky otherwise.) Your beacon’s a reference point, you can name it, but it always appears with “Beacon” appended to the name, so even if I call it “WombatWorld,” it’s just the WombatWorld Beacon.
Hrmmmm….possibly I’d also want a function whereby if you achieve level X interaction with the intelligent natives, their name for the planet auto-fills on your chart and is added to your beacon, something like “WombatWorld Beacon: this beacon is in orbit of a M-class planet called “Terra” by the inhabitants.”
None of which may be at all relevant to No Man’s Sky, I’m just thinking about how one could do an exploration game which circumvents that bit while still letting players put their mark on things they saw first.
(For contemporary theater, by the way, I suspect that westerns and superhero themed plays may be the best bet for finding fisticuffs. I can definitely think of some things along those lines from Super Obscure Unpublished stuff I’ve been involved with, at least.)
I think (hope) that’s a Poe. There are definitely corners of the internet where that could be posted seriously (if it was posted on Everyday Feminism, for example, I’d take it at face value), but I don’t think that Jezebel crosses the line from “feminist” to “batshit insane.”
@ Beth in MA
Saw it in Berkeley a few months ago. Don’t remember any combat.
I’m intrigued by the game but a bit worried about my computer’s capabilities along with the reports of general bugginess … I have new desktop computer (bought earlier this year) but am not sure of the graphics card capabilities.
I have realized that on the stage combat question my brain was turning “unarmed combat” into “unarmored combat”, which affects the resulting categories a bit.
NickPheas:
It is a very nice trip out in the swedish archipelago which should be at its best in August. For those with less time, Aifur also has a place in the Old Town of Stockholm. Aifur is created by one of our celebrities, the singer of the band E-Type, who is a real viking enthusiast.
As an alternative, there is another place with Swedish Medieval Fares, also in the Old Town: Sjätte Tunnan. Both places have good, but expensive food. Cheaper places in Stockholm have about half the price. Best prices you get at lunch time where all restaurants have special lunch menues.
An article on Nora Jemisin: “I would love to just write and not have everything turned into a political battle”
RedWombat said:
Here are a couple options for how I’d rather see it handled:
1) Invent the Galactic Planet Catalog and have everything start with a reference ID which is basically “Planet N of star at coordinates XYZ”. Then the player can add a name without feeling that they’re overwriting a deeply meaningful existing local one. If they don’t want to or can’t think of one, allow them to fire up the procedural name generator.
2) Have a conceptual framework where it is known that different alien species, polities, or whatever can have different names for the same planet. Then it’s no big deal to add another nickname to the planet for humans to use.
@Petréa Mitchell – The Jezebel “review” of No Man’s Sky was pretty much a troll on a certain portion of their readership/ commentariat (the bunch that goes “but what about the Mennnnnn” on any Jez article…)
clif said:
The graphics card requirements are GTX 480/Radeon 7870 or better. If you’re wondering what card your computer has, go to the Device Manager and open up the “Display adapters” section.
Clicky.
Dr Science:
If you are looking for videos, rather than the actual text of the plays, googling “female unarmed combat in stage plays”, or some such search term, comes up with quite a few videos, including this one from the play “The Quiet”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUSOLfsOaKs
This site has a list of plays with fight scenes (but no actual scripts):
http://www.academieduello.com/news-blog/fight-scene-scripts/
Ita said:
Each of the three books takes a different viewpoint and presentation. I can see why that would frustrate some folks, but taken as a whole I was very pleased with the effect. That said, if you didn’t like the first because you couldn’t tell what was going on, it’s probably best you not go forward. That’s not a slam on you – the story concludes with a lot of unanswered questions. IMHO it’s more about people dealing with the unexplained (unexplainable?) rather than presenting a weird situation and then explaining it.
General rule of thumb: if you are wondering if your video card is powerful enough–it probably isn’t.
If you like old-timey sheet metal raygun toys (1930s Buck Rogers, etc), this auction catalog has a bunch of them (starting p 14). (I have no connection to the auction, won’t make money from the sale, am only linking to it for the pictures.)
I
Short answer: no.
I really enjoyed the trilogy but if you find the first book infuriating the second book is similar (also different). It is about people dealing with the incomprehensible and stories like that can be disappointing in that way. Revelations lead to insights that things are mysterious 🙂
Also lighthouses worry me now.
Barstow CA, where it occurs to me that in all my years of stopping here I have never ever seen a bat.
New slogan for the city: “Stop here, this isn’t bat country.”
In answer to the Paper Magician question from much earlier, I thought it was a charming series and read them all.
I ended up reading the VanderMeer trilogy out of order accidentally, with #2 first, and really enjoyed them in that order.
Currently playing NMS; it works well with my “play for 15 minutes then go holy cripes I need to be doing X instead” playstyle. It’s very pretty too.
Personally I loved the Southern Reach trilogy but if you didn’t enjoy the first book I’m not sure there’s a point to continuing. There are very few answers to be had from completing it, and any you do get may well be more frustrating than the questions.
I personally think that the Southern Reach, like a lot of Vandermeer’s fiction I’ve read, is a matter of mood and aesthetic more than concrete answers or even plot. My counsel is that if the first novel didn’t work for you–don’t continue.
Personally I liked the first book the most and the second the least. The third is somewhere in between
@Dr Science – A few options that come to mind:
* King Lear, Act II Scene 2 (Kent & Oswald) – cross-cast, but great scene
* Henry V – Act V Scene 1 (Llewelyn & Pistol) – again, cross-cast 🙂
* All for Love – Act III (Cleopatra & Octavia) – not overly sexual but a wonderful confrontation between 2 strong women over the man they both loved
I’m going to be ornery and suggest that even if Annihilation frustrated you, the second book is worth reading. The change of setting and point of view really opened up the story for me in a way that you might like even if it doesn’t give concrete answers to your plot questions. It’s a very different book.
I think that order makes sense – with Annihilation as a kind flashback but the Biologist and the Psychologist being more developed characters because of what we’ve learned about them in Authority.
I’d imagine if somebody ever tried to make a TV series of it (dear TV people – please don’t) Authority would be where to start with the events of Annihilation told in flashback. Acceptance follows a structure more like that anyway – jumping back and forth in time.
@Dr Science – and for modern plays:
* Grotesque Love Songs (Don Nigro) – a number of good confrontation scenes, especially between Pete and Romy
* Dinner with Friends (Donald Margulies) – Tom and Beth – big domestic fight, but no need to play it as abuse
* Art (Jasmina Reza) – a bunch of argument scenes, the play is all men but most can be cross cast
One note – none of these is written as specifically a fight scene, but from experience with theatrical combat (I’ve taken a bunch of intensive combat workshops) most argument/confrontation scenes can be successfully made into physical fights, especially if they have a number of short lines, not all long speeches. I used the Dinner with Friends scene for my first fight scene, and we did very well 🙂 Good luck!!
“Babes with Blades” is at babeswithblades.org (and my sister-in-law is heavily involved). The winning entries of their annual playwriting contest may have easily available scripts. If Jr. Dr. Science needs a contact, I could arrange it.
[Since “Beth in MA” is (taking her account name at its word) presumably not in Chicago where Babes with Blades is, but rather in MA where I am, I figure the odds are decent that I know her.]
The Internet tells me that the Princess Bride has been adapted to stage–if cross-dressing is fine, there’s that marvelous fight between Wesley and Fezzik?
@Simon Bisson:
They probably all went to Vegas with HST and his lawyer.
The forecast path currently keeps it quite a bit south of Atlanta. I wouldn’t want to be driving to DragonCon from Florida today or tomorrow, but unless there’s a north turn the con should have nice weather.
I’m in Florida south of Jacksonville. We got a few storm bands last night and expect more tonight, but so far so good. It’s hard to believe 11 years have passed since a hurricane made landfill in this state.
@Camestros, there’s a film adaptation being made right now. They did not heed your advice and are starting with the first book.
I can imagine liking the 2-then-1 reading order, but… nah, I think Vandermeer knew what he was doing. The first one was a short book and I was OK with having the characters be mysterious at that point – then getting to the second one and realizing I would now get to see some of the backstory was a nice surprise. But I’m also one of those who greatly prefers reading the Narnia series in the order it was written (for similar reasons).
Apologies to anyone for whom that last sentence conjured up images of Aslan creating Area X.
Filers, I offer you a life goal for your SJW credentials: In 1975 A Cat Co-Authored A Physics Paper
rcade said:
The track shown on forecast maps is just the probability cone for the center of the storm. Rain and thunderstorms associated with the storm are expected to reach as far as Atlanta on Friday.
snowcrash said:
In that case, I’m still disappointed about what they could have written instead, and am now much less likely to cite Jezebel articles in the future just in case they’re trolling again.
If you’re willing to cross dress, there’s the fight scene in Oklahoma. Though not technically unarmed, it is unarmed through most of it, and can be staged so that Jud doesn’t really use his knife before he falls on it.
There is also a philosophy paper by a cat, ‘Censored Vision’, by Bruce le Catt. It is likely that Bruce had assistance in writing the paper from his owner, David Lewis, though the paper criticises a view that Lewis had expressed elsewhere.
For what it is worth, I finished writing up my account of my experience at Worldcon. I’ll be writing more about Worldcon (and the Hugos) over the next week at least, but it will be on more specific topics.
So in movie news, it looks like Arrival is going to be very, very good.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-first-reviews-of-arrival-are-in-and-theyre-out-of-t-1786054617
I know. But Atlanta’s forecast for Friday does not include thunderstorms and the rest of the weekend looks good.
We can stop here. This is cat country.
@Aaron
Huh, I didn’t know Andy Weir doesn’t like to fly. I suspect that 2 astronauts for 1 author was an acceptable trade though 🙂