occasional fish

I haven’t done an honest-to-goodness meme in a long time. (Unless you count the weekly random guess ten.) We may be about to rediscover why. Stolen from Caitlin R. Kiernan, the rules are pretty simple:

Go here and see what was on the top of the charts on the day you were born and every birthday thereafter. Learn just how astrologically-musically lame your life has been. If you want, add in your own favorite Hot 100 hit single of that year, wishing that your birthday had been cool enough to have that song be #1.

I don’t know if this will be remotely interesting to anyone but me, but here are the songs:

1977: “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates
Favorite: “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder

1978: “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees
Favorite: Sigh. “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease, I guess

1979: “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees
Favorite: I think “Heartache Tonight” by the Eagles, although “My Sharona” by the Knack and “Heart of Glass” by Blondie are also good picks.

1980: “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” by Pink Floyd
Favorite: “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” by Pink Floyd

1981: “Rapture” by Blondie
Favorite: “(Just Like) Starting Over” by John Lennon

1982: “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Favorite: “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

1983: “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson
Favorite: “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners

1984: “Jump” by Van Halen
Favorite: “Hello” by Lionel Richie (Yes, I like Lionel Richie more than Van Halen. Deal with it.)

1985: “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon
Favorite: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears

1986: “Rock Me Amadeus” by Falco
Favorite: Either “Addicted to Love” by Robert Palmer or “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel (although even the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” is a contender)

1987: “Lean on Me” by Club Nouveau
Favorite: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2

1988: “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson
Favorite: “Got My Mind Set on You” by George Harrison (And “Kokomo” was only a #1 hit for a single week? It seemed a lot longer at the time. Although, at the time, I seem to remember liking the song, so obviously things change.)

1989: “The Living Years” by Mike + The Mechanics (I haven’t heard that song in an age)
Favorite: It may very well by “Good Thing” by Fine Young Cannibals or Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” 1989 was not a very good year for pop music, it would seem.

1990: “Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles (I like the song, but I never knew who sang it)
Favorite: “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Connor (It’s partly that famous video and it’s partly that her competition includes Michael Bolton and New Kids on the Block. It’s a good song, though.)

1991: “One More Try” by Tommy T (Another one I don’t think I’ve heard in over a decade)
Favorite: Heaven help me, I think it’s actually “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

1992: “Save the Best for Last” by Vanessa Williams
Favorite: “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-lot

1993: “Informer” by Snow
Favorite: “I’d Do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do That)” by Meat Loaf (Lean times, 1993. Lean times…)

1994: “The Sign” by Ace of Base (I used to hate this, but John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats showed me the error of my ways)
Favorite: I guess “Stay (I Missed You)” by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories

1995: “Take a Bow” by Madonna
Favorite: Wow, I don’t think I like any of these. This is the year I graduated from high school, and Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” is the best it had to offer?

1996: “Because You Loved Me” by Ciline Dion
Favorite: “California Love” by 2Pac (Seriously, how are these two songs in the same universe, much less same list?)

1997: “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” by Puff Daddy featuring Mase
Favorite: None of ‘em

1998: “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” by Will Smith
Favorite: “One Week” by Barenaked Ladies (although it’s probably my least favorite song on that album)

1999: “Believe” by Cher
Favorite: Meh.

2000: “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child
Favorite: “Bent” by Matchbox Twenty (no, really.)

2001: “Butterfly” by Crazy Town
Favorite: I don’t hate Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me,” but that’s pushing it.

2002: “Ain’t it Funny” by Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule
Favorite: “Lose Yourself” by Eminem

2003: “In Da Club” by 50 Cent
Favorite: “Lose Yourself” by Eminem (Although I don’t love it that much. It’s just a process of elimination. Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” is okay, too.)

2004: “Yeah!” by Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris
Favorite: “Hey Ya!” by Outkast (I just don’t know any of the others well enough to have an opinion.)

2005: “Candy Shop” 50 Cent featuring Olivia
Favorite: The only two contenders, Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” just became too annoying out of sheer radio repetition.

2006: “So Sick” by Ne-Yo
Favorite: No. Just no.

2007: “Glamorous” by Fergie featuring Ludacris
Favorite: Okay, I don’t completely hate Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend.” I only a little hate it.

2008: “Love in this Club” by Usher featuring Young Jeezy
Favorite: Am I just getting old, or are the #1 hits getting worse and worse every year?

It’s interesting to see the progression, as I find less and less to like in the charts, and I think this is only partly a product of me becoming a crotchety old man who doesn’t like them kids with their loud music. It has a lot more to do with the list long having been a reflection of cultural mediocrity, and of fewer artists spending considerably more weeks dominating the top position as the years go on. I was also interested to see how infrequently my musical tastes matched up with what passed for popular opinion. There are a handful of songs that made the charts in my 30+ years that I like, but precious few that I genuinely love. I barely even recognize some of the more recent ones.

Henry Alford on this week’s Studio 360:

I would think that, as with owning a trampoline or having a meth lab, that the theremin would either make you very popular or a slightly dubious neighbor.

In his profile of the “successful female writing team” of Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, John Anderson throws in this odd little bit:

Ms. Smith is curly-haired and petite and wore a festive black-and-white print dress to lunch; Ms. McCullah Lutz, in a form-fitting turquoise dress, suggested a blonde Valkyrie.

Ah, the New York Times, always letting us know what’s really important in a story…

• Is “Crippled scion of great family in militaristic society recently reintegrated into galactic communications makes name for himself” really such an over-used science fiction trope? I can’t think of any books off-hand that use it.

• On the plus side, Kevin McKidd is actually Scottish, which would be a welcome change for the title role in Highlander. (He’s also a pretty decent actor.) On the downside, though, another Highlander movie? Seriously?

• There’s a recent trend of using Twitter to post as fictional characters, mostly from television and movies, which seems a whole lot more interesting than using it to post as yourself. (Seriously, I remain unconvinced that Twitter is significantly better or easier to use than a regular blog.) Some of these have been sanctioned by the powers that be…and some not so much. I am amused by the idea of someone Twittering as a character from Mad Men, considering that the show takes place decades before the technology existed. I’m reminded of Bloggus Caesari, which purported to be the weblog of Julius Caesar.

• The Sci Fi Wire reports that Shia LaBeouf’s recent hand injury has been written into the script for Transformers 2. Now if only they could write “not sucking” into it as well…

• Arresting someone for a pair of overdue library books seems excessive until you realize she ignored “two phone calls, two letters and a citation that included a court date” and that her $170 fine works out (at 10 cents a day) to 1,700 days or four and a half years. Seriously, nobody should need that long to read White Oleander and Angels and Demons. And her “I’m not returning them now” just bugs me to no end. I sort of hope they arrest her again.

• Man, naughty British slang is just weird. “Hitching lifts in the nuddy”? I’m not sure how I feel about a morality clause for children’s authors. It seems a little silly more than anything. (Oh, and the link is SFW, but not the ones in the nuddy.)

• I read “Buffy blamed for an increase in paganism” as “Buffy blamed for an increase in plagarism.” I think that would be a much more interesting story, actually. Although I do like the IMDB’s phrasing — Gellar Blamed For Pagan Rise — which conjures images of the actress vacationing in Innsmouth, accidentally raising dread Cthulhu from the deep.

• “‘I feel like H.P. Lovecraft is associated with creepiness,’ says Kurtzman, a children’s book marketer.” Gee, ya think?

Finally somebody is standing up for the real victims of this troubled economy — the literati who can’t afford that summer home in the Hamptons anymore.

I am amused, though, that The Independent felt the need to explicitly define “the period that constitutes the summer in America” — lest their regular readers in the UK be all perplexed.

From the New York Times:

Getting a $150 million movie to succeed “is akin to having 12 Bulgarian jugglers land on 12 Bulgarian jugglers,” said Peter Guber, the chief executive of Mandalay Entertainment Group and the former head of Columbia and Sony Pictures.

Happy 88th to Ray Bradbury.

I may have to go re-read “Boys! Grow Giant Mushrooms in Your Basement!” In the meantime, via Jeff Ford, here’s a Soviet-era animated version of Bradbury’s story “There Will Come Soft Rains.”

• Spammers are getting craftier. Tell me you wouldn’t be curious about an e-mail labeled “Stephen Hawking defends Paris Hilton sex allegations”.
• Speaking of spam, Basil Fawlty just sent me some: “Don’t mention the war!” it warned.
• Wear your favorite film on your eyeglasses. I think my favorite part is when the optician and designer, Zakarias Tipton, says he “began testing all sorts of plastic until I found my father’s record collection, and then I started recycling those without his knowledge”. I’m sure dear old dad was pleased with that. (Unless this is the first time he’s reading about it. Oh, but wouldn’t it be ironic if his father couldn’t read about it because he didn’t have glasses?) The frames themselves are a little boxy and thick for my own personal taste.
• Keith Phipps wonders, “What does it mean when our dystopian fantasies have gotten even more pessimistic since the malaise-driven ’70s?” Whereas his colleague Nathan Rabin writes, “Satirists seemingly can’t go wrong by predicting that the world will grow ever more stupid and cynical, that it will plunge lower and lower in its zeal to reach the lowest common denominator. Hope and optimism inevitably look foolish and myopic, not their opposites.”
• You’ve probably seen this all over elsewhere — I have — but it’s really very funny: Selections from H.P. Lovecraft’s Brief Tenure as a Whitman’s Sampler Copywriter. “You must not think me mad when I tell you what I found below the thin shell of chocolate used to disguise this bonbon’s true face.”
• Ellen Datlow on proper manuscript formatting. It’s actually an interesting discussion (if you care about that sort of thing), and in the comments Datlow succinctly explains just why formatting submissions is an issue: “Why would a writer do something that COULD be misunderstood instead of something that couldn’t be misunderstood?”
• It’s funny: see a head mirror on a cartoon character, even a modern one, and we think “doctor.” But when’s the last time you saw an actual doctor wear one? [via]
• Hmm. Wifi while you fly? It’s unlikely to be available when I fly to Los Angeles next week — which is probably just as well. [via]
• “Barbie has always been on the tarty side and this is taking it too far.” The S&M look is apparently unintentional, as the character is based on DC’s Black Canary. Her S&M look, however, looks to be entirely intentional. [via]
• Making decisions tires your brain. Which suggests that, maybe, we should consider making those really important, life-altering decisions not too long after we wake up in the morning. But I’m not sure how much I trust any decision made that early. [via]
• Deep Hurting! “SCI FI Channel announced a slate of 36 new original action movies–up from 2008’s total of 24–slated for its SCI FI Saturday timeslot and a new Sunday-evening movie slot, beginning next year.” I wonder how late in the day they signed off on this…
• And finally, could we please declare a moratorium on the phrase “It’s not really science fiction“?

Then. Now:

1. So I laughed in his face and I spit in his eye
2. Did anyone else see that girl who was pulling away?
3. “Here Comes Your Man” by the Pixies, guessed by Eric B.
   You’ll never wait so long
4. And maybe you should sleep
5. “The Lady Don’t Mind” by Talking Heads, guessed by Eric B.
   Little boat that floats on a river, it’s drifting through a haze
6. Search my brow for any others you might find
7. I can’t see further than my own nose at the moment
8. “The Mighty Quinn” by Bob Dylan, guessed by Eric B.
   Just tell me where it hurts you, honey, and I’ll tell you who to call
9. But you can’t always trust your mother
10. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears, guessed by Eric B.
    Turn your back on mother nature

Good luck!

Hot on the heels of canceling Stargate Atlantis, Sci-Fi has announced they’re picking up the new Stargate: Voyager…er, Universe:

Universe will premiere as a two-hour movie early next year and will assume a regular hourly slot in the summer. Brad Wright and Robert Cooper, co-creators of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, will serve as executive producers and writers on the new series.

The new show will involve more space-based action than either of the predecessor series, the trade paper reported.

Universe introduces a new team of explorers who find an ancient unmanned ship called the Destiny. Unable to return to Earth, the crew must fend for themselves aboard the ship, which has a pre-programmed mission taking them to the far reaches of the universe.

Appearances by former cast members from SG-1 and Atlantis are very possible.

It’s the “more space-based action” part that worries me. It sounds like Sci-Fi is looking to turn this into a Battlestar Galactica replacement.

Closing out today’s science fiction-heavy posts, first here’s an in-depth re-evaluation (in two parts, via Gerry Canavan) of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which suggests that ultimately the show must be understood as a creative failure:

Again, though, in order to find something interesting to say about the characters, the writers had to go out of their way to concoct Rube Goldberg plot machines that would allow for emotional arcs without messing with the precious status quo. If you start looking, you can find a lot of episodes that go to the same well: there’s always something to trigger or mitigate unusual behavior, something to excuse the characters from acting like real people as soon as they put on those damn Starfleet unitards.

I don’t agree completely with everything he says here, but it’s hard not to see the show as deeply flawed in its slavish devotion to its status quo. Even Deep Space Nine, which I think was ultimately the better show in almost every way — admittedly, in part, because TNG helped pave the way for it and it also became a very different show — had this problem. I’ve always felt that my two very favorite episodes of each (”The Inner Light” on TNG and “The Visitor” on DS9 would have worked better if they weren’t Trek episodes, if in the end they didn’t have to return to business as usual.

This is what I loved about Farscape, and what the cast and crew talk about time and again in their DVD commentaries for the show: there was no reset button. Because really, only a show with a reset button could air an episode like “Conspiracy” and never return to it.

And next, Cinema Blend argues that Star Wars killed Babylon 5.

And you know, I don’t buy the argument at all. Babylon 5 had a five-year plan, and it was on the air for five years. Even for that final year, when the quality was really starting to slip. It even had spinoffs, in which the quality was sometimes not even present. To claim that the show would have taken off in year five and become some kind of huge cultural touchstone in the geek community if only it hadn’t been for that meddlesome George Lucas (and his mangy droid)…well, it’s beyond silly.

And this?

Farscape blew the minds of the few who bothered to see it, before being quietly cancelled and forgotten by all but the most hardcore fans.

Quietly? Really? There was a huge fan campaign that got Ben Browder, albeit briefly, interviewed on CNN about the show and a Sci-Fi miniseries made. There are still webisodes and comics planned.

And don’t get me started on the “Farscape, Firefly and Serenity are all crap” folks commenting there. They’re entitled to their opinions, but these ones are pretty ill-informed. (If Firefly had 20 episodes, please direct me towards those last five. I’ve never seen ‘em. I don’t think anyone inside this universe has.)

Are any of these shows as big a hit as Star Wars? No, even if they arguably should be. For a lot of people, science fiction is Star Wars, or Star Trek, of their like. And that’s unfortunate…but I think it would also be unfortunate if Babylon 5 was the series by which you judged everything else. I think you lose out on a lot great stuff if you restrict your focus in either way.

So they’ve cancelled Stargate Atlantis.

So basically what I’m saying is: I’m surprised and disappointed by the news, but not too surprised and not exactly heartbroken.

John Scalzi on Ellen Ripley and the rise of strong female characters:

Yes, it’s a little perverse to note that success of a character template by pointing out examples of other filmmakers doing it badly. But on the other hand, it’s also nice to know that at this point in time, science fiction audiences not only don’t have a problem with strong, problem-solving lead female characters, they’ve come to expect them to be that way — and they know when such a character is being done badly.

And yet I think the type of female hero represented by Buffy — and by Ripley and Sarah Connor — remains unfortunately rare. There’s a handful of other examples in the comments to Scalzi’s column — I’d probably include Aeryn Sun on the list and, outside of genre, Veronica Mars — but by this point strong female characters should really be the norm.

Is it just me, or is the Beloit College Mindset List sort of genuinely stupid? Not the idea behind it — which is basically, “let’s make everyone over 18 feel really old,” which I guess has its place — or even some of its cultural observations, but in the overall execution, its awkward phrasings, and its general failure to be anything like actually funny.

I was much more taken aback by Mike Sterling’s observation that Neil Gaiman’s “Dream Hunters came out ten years ago, apparently. How old does that make you feel?” Surely that couldn’t be right…but damn, it is. It’s one thing to realize the cultural artifacts of your childhood are now old; it’s quite another to realize the things that seem like they happened just yesterday actually happened a decade ago.

I’ve updated the Kaleidotrope website, with revised submission guidelines, subscription details, reviews, and the upcoming October issue’s table of contents — all on a brand new domain! All the old links should redirect automatically. Any thoughts?

I’d also like to note, while I’m at it, that subscription costs will be changing slightly in 2009. To reflect the rising cost of postage and printing — as well as the increased number of pages in each issue — a single copy will cost $5 instead of the current $4. (Copies mailed anywhere outside of North America will cost $8 instead of the current $6.50.) However, a 2-year subscription of four issues (currently priced at $16 and $25) will only cost $18 (or $28 international) — a 10% discount off the combined price!

This will not affect current subscribers or anyone who subscribes to the zine between now and December 31, 2008. And it won’t affect the current prices of earlier issues — of which I still have several back issues, if you’re interested in picking up a copy of your own.

I’ll post reminders about the price changes again as we get closer to the end of the year. The thing to remember is this: you’ll save money if you subscribe to the zine, and you’ll save even more if you subscribe before the new prices take effect.

[cross-posted to the Kaleidotrope weblog]