Pop Culture
drorzel | September 12, 2007Before it slips too far into the mists of memory, I should probably post some summary thoughts about Nippon 2007, the World SF Convention in Japan that Kate and I attended last week. To some degree, this will be inside-baseball stuff, but if you're not interested in fannish stuff, rest assured, there is some good, weighty physics stuff coming later. Also, some utter fluff. We aim to please, here at Chateau Steelypips.
So, the Worldcon in summary. Basically, I think it was an enjoyable experiment, and while I wouldn't call it an unqualified success, I'd be in favor of doing it again, several…
bergman | August 29, 2007Since I have control over this blog for a little while (and where is my co-guest blogger anyways?), I figure I ought to use it in my own self-interest. Towards that end, the Austin City Limits music festival is coming up soon, and, as usual, I only recognize a small portion of the bands playing. What should I go see? The lineup is here, and the schedule is here, here and here.
Right now I'm leaning twoards penciling in The Killers in the vain hope that they can pull off a decent live show, The Ike Reilly Assassination, Andrew Bird, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Arcade Fire, Regina Spektor, The…
bergman | August 17, 2007Over at Andrew Sullivan's place, he's been presenting candidates for best movie line ever. Since I seem to have control of a blog of my very own, I'd like to present my nomination:
Holly Gennero McClane: After all your posturing, all your speeches, you're nothing but a common thief.
Hans Gruber: I am an exceptional thief, Mrs. McClane. And since I'm moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite.
(transcription from IMDB)
Apparently my affection for this line is not widely shared, however, as finding the clip online has proven to be beyond my google skills. On the other hand, I did…
drorzel | August 16, 2007A little while ago, James Nicoll posted about the shifting subject areas of SF:
In fact, a fairly consistent pattern in SF is to retreat away from areas that have come under the light of scientific examination. When probes began to visit the planets, SF retreated to the stars (There are very few novels these days set in the solar system). In fact, Trouble on Titan starts off with an essay by Nourse explaining that the attraction of Titan for him was that so little was known about it that he could set almost anything there and not have to fear contradiction from scientists.
It's the same…
drorzel | August 12, 2007Why is it that, in the universe of The Bourne Identity and sequels, Jason Bourne's girlfriends need to cut and dye their hair in order to go on the lam, but he makes no effort to disguise his appearance? He just wanders around looking like Matt Damon, and nobody notices him at all.
Is it double-blind reverse psychology? "The last thing they would expect is for me to go around without any disguise at all, so that's just what I'll do!"
Or is he using the Matt Damon thing to his advantage? Is the CIA of that world too busy waterboarding Ben Affleck to notice that there are two guys who look like…
drorzel | July 25, 2007The Weekly World News is shutting down its print operation at the end of August, though the web site will continue to be active. Long lines in the supermarket will be that much duller.
Actually, a moment of silence is probably the wrong tribute. Maybe a moment of screeching like a bat child found in a cave, instead?
(True WWN anecdote: A friend of mine in college applied for a job with the Weekly World News after graduation. Sadly, he didn't get a rejection letter written by Bigfoot, or anything. I'm not sure they responded at all, actually...)
(He was an art major, who did a woodblock print…
drorzel | July 24, 2007No, I'm not talking about Harry Potter books-- there won't be any more of those for a while, at least until J. K. Rowling decides she really needs to buy Bolivia. I'm talking about "Harry Potter" the cultural phenomenon-- the inescapable, endlessly hyped mass-culture Event that everybody talks about and obsesses over. The question is this:
What will be the next "Harry Potter" style mass-culture phenomenon?
"That's ridiculous," you say, "Nobody saw the Potter thing coming, so how could we possibly predict the next 'Harry Potter' scale phenomenon?"
True enough, but think about this:
The Potter…
drorzel | July 20, 2007John Scalzi makes a startling admission:
I've never read a Harry Potter book.
In the same post, he also links to an old piece expressing the heretical opinion that the Lord of the Rings movies are better than the books.
He's got reasons for both of those, and you can go read them, but what this brings to mind is the parlour game "Humiliation" invented by David Lodge, in which "Players name classics of literature that they have not read, the winner being the one who exhibits the most woeful literary lacuna." Of course, why should the lit geeks get all the fun? This sounds like a topic for a…
drorzel | July 19, 2007Speaking of dubious and oft-cited "Laws", I've run into a number of citations of "Clarke's Laws" recently. Of course, these were apparently subliminal mentions, because I can't seem to locate any of them again, but it put the subject in my mind, which is partly why I was primed to be annoyed by the subject of the previous post.
Anyway, "Clarke's Laws" are statements by the noted science fiction writer (and, no doubt, personal friend and mentor of Jonathan Vos Post, which I really don't want to hear about in comments) Arthur C. Clarke:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that…
drorzel | July 18, 2007Everybody is all abuzz about Harry Potter these days, what with the release of the final book coming this weekend. Scott McLemee takes up the really important question, though: what do professional academics think about everybody's favorite boy wizard?
In the years since the author introduced her characters to the public, they have become beloved and meaningful; and not to children only. At present, the catalog of the Library of Congress records 21 volumes of criticism and interpretation on the novels, in six languages. A collection called Harry Potter and International Relations, for…
drorzel | July 17, 2007Having finished all of the fiction nominees, I'm now basically ready to submit my votes for the Hugos. Though it occurs to me that I've actually seen two of the five movies up for "Best Dramatic Presentation," so I might Netflix the others, and check off yet another category.
At any rate, I'm sure you're all dying to know how I plan to vote, so here you go:
Best Novel
Rainbows End Vernonr Vinge
His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik
Eifelheim, Michael Flynn
Blindsight, Peter Watts
No Award
Glasshouse, Charles Stross
This ended up being an odd category for me. The Vinge wound up being the clear…
drorzel | July 9, 2007Pete Vonder Haar at Blog 9 from Outer Space is not enthusiastic about a Sex and the City movie. Neither am I, really, and this wouldn't rate a post except for a passing mention:
At any rate, I'm sure a movie about a quartet of promiscuous 40- and 50-somethings will be much better than that Magnum P.I. adaptation Hollywood seems unable to make.
That made me stop for a second. I'm aware that Hollywood is utterly unable to come up with any good original ideas these days, but so far, they've mostly remade tv shows that I either had never seen, or didn't much like when they were on (I hated The…
drorzel | July 6, 2007I know, it's "Live Earth," but they've got this giant blue-green circle at the left of their logo, which makes it look like an illuminated initial capital...
So, the latest charity rock specatcle is scheduled to start tonight. I can't say I've been paying any attention-- I only noticed it today because the New York Times had a feature article about the event that somehow slipped into the "Science" RSS feed.
I'm pretty ambivalent about the giant charity rock spectacle. Of course, as a good child of the 80's, I remember the Live Aid shows, but I can't say I was all that invested in those,…
drorzel | July 1, 2007Via PZ, a blog on biology and science fiction is griping that biology gets no respect, and links to a Jack Cohen article complaining that authors and filmmakers don't take biology seriously I was particularly struck by this bit:
Authors, film producers and directors, special-effects teams go to physicists, especially astrophysicists, to check that their worlds are workable, credible; they go to astronomers to check how far from their sun a planet should be, and so on. They even go to chemists to check atmospheres, rocket fuels, pheromones (apparently they're not biology....), even the…
drorzel | June 30, 2007My intention of reading all of the nominees for the Hugo Awards in the fiction categories hit a bit of a snag yesterday. I finished all the short fiction (novella, novelette, short story), and most of the novels, leaving only Peter Watts's Blindisght and Charlie Stross's Glasshouse. James Nicoll described Peter Watts as the sort of thing he reads when he feels his will to live becoming too strong, and the description of Glasshouse did not fill me with joy. Plus, my copy of Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson just arrived (a birthday present), and I'd really rather read that.
(I'll pause here for…
purepedantry | June 28, 2007It is so exceedingly rare that I get to say something positive about stars. Usually all I have to say is some crap that Paris Hilton did or that Madonna decided to purchase another child from Africa. So I was pleased to be tipped off by Vaughan at Mind Hacks about this: did you know that Natalie Portman is on a published paper?
It was an imaging paper using near-infrared spectroscopy to measure the development of the visual cortex of infants. It was published during her time as an undergrad at Harvard under he real name -- Natalie Hershlag.
Anyway, here is a link to the paper.
Was she…
drorzel | June 21, 2007I've never really understood the distinction between "Novellas" and "Novelettes"-- I know it's a length thing, but I don't have a good feel for where the dividing line is, and I can never remember which is longer. And, as far as I can tell, the only place this ever comes up is in SF awards.
Anyway, there are two Hugo categories for really long short fiction, and this is one of them. The nominees are:
"The Walls of the Universe" by Paul Melko
"A Billion Eves" by Robert Reed
"Inclination" by William Shunn
"Lord Weary's Empire" by Michael Swanwick
"Julian: A Christmas Story" by Robert Charles…
drorzel | June 15, 2007As Kate and I will be attending the Worldcon in Japan, we're eligible to vote for the Hugos this year. In an effort to be responsible voters we downloaded the electronic version of the short fiction nominees that are available from the official nominations site, and I've been working my way through them. To this point, I've finished the Best Short Story nominees:
"How to Talk to Girls at Parties"Neil Gaiman
"Kin" Bruce McAllister
"Impossible Dreams" Tim Pratt
"Eight Episodes" Robert Reed
"The House Beyond Your Sky"Benjamin Rosenbaum
If anybody would like to make a passionate argument in…
drorzel | April 26, 2007Every now and then, you run across things on the Internet that make you say "Wow, this is really cool!" For example, the fake trailer for Greg Bear's Eon (via Tobias Buckell). I haven't read the book in years, but that trailer looks amazing.
And, of course, every now and then, you encounter something that leaves you twitching and mumbling "The horror... the horror..." Such as, for example, Sad Kermit singing depressing songs (via bassfingers).