- When mass hysteria and facts clash: The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years [via]
- John Scalzi on Why New Novelists Are Kinda Old, or, Hey, Publishing is Slow
- Farrah Fawcett was friends with Ayn Rand. Bo Derek “is a really good friend” of Ray Bradbury. I don’t really have a point; I’m just amused by the unlikeliness of the pairings.
- Did you know that the title for one of Winston Churchill’s most famous titles, While England Slept, was actually based on a publishing mistake?
- And finally, while I think the idea of a Goonies sequel is probably a bad idea, Chris Columbus raises an interesting point as to why:
Perhaps the biggest hurdle for a Goonies 2 would be believing that modern kids would play outside.
“I don’t know if that’s possible anymore,” Columbus said. “Maybe if all the parents in the new Goonie movie forbid their kids to play on the Internet, that’s gotta be the plot. You can’t go anywhere near a computer or cell phone. I guess the adventures are online.”
various
Wednesday various
- There’s an interesting — albeit pretty spoiler-filled — post on gossip and character in the writing of Stephen King over at Fantasy Magazine‘s blog.
- I can’t say I’m surprised the centerpiece of the George W. Bush Library will be a handgun…
- New Zealand has some weird ideas about advertising. First, there were New Zealand Air flight attendants and pilots in nothing but body paint, and now a bleeding billboard to promote traffic safety.
- Toonlet seems like a neat idea, but I’m not so sure about the “you hereby grant to Toonlet a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty free, worldwide license” clause in their terms of service. [via]
- And finally — “It’s made of pure plotdevicinum.” I really enjoyed this Bad Transcript of Star Trek, more so than the actual film, I think. [via]
Wednesday various
- Ugh. Next year, the Best Picture category for the Oscars will have 10 nominees. This sounds like a bad idea all around, but we’ll see in 2010.
- Product placement happens all the time, but what happens if the product you’re placing disappears before your movie rolls out?
Also back, if not for long, are the Autobots Ratchet (a Hummer H2) and Ironhide (a GMC TopKick pickup), which have suffered a fate more terminal, at least to the brand, than any meted out by the Decepticons: General Motors has sold Hummer and discontinued the TopKick. [NY Times: Invasion of the Robot Toys, Redux]
- Remember when MySpace was cool? Yeah, me neither. But it once was the hot property. Nowadays, not so much. [via]
- Well this is just terrifying: Great white sharks hunt just like Hannibal Lecter. [via]
- And finally, two quotes from an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin [via]:
This distinction makes most sense to me: Science fiction—and the correct shortcut is “sfâ€â€”uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it’s doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors. “Space opera†is nice, but I’d call Star Wars sci-fi, because it’s what most people mean when they use the term. Sci-fi uses the images that sf—starting with H.G. Wells—made familiar: space travel, aliens, galactic wars and federations, time machines, et cetera, taking them literally, not caring if they are possible or even plausible. It has no interest in or relation to real science or technology. It’s fantasy in space suits. Spectacle. Wizards with lasers. Kids with ray guns. I’ve written both, but I have to say I respect science fiction enough that I wince when people call it sci-fi.
The rule is, you only invent what you have to. And that’s pretty much what’s right in front of the reader. Let’s say it’s an ansible. I do not, in fact, invent the ansible. I do not explain how it works. I cannot, but shhh. I simply present the device as working, and as coming from a society which is far in advance of ours in science and technology, having spaceships that can travel nearly as fast as light, et cetera. And this background or context creates expectation and softens up the readers’ credulity so that they’re willing to “believe in†the ansible—inside the covers of the book. After the ansible had been around for a while, I invented the man who invented it, Shevek, in The Dispossessed. And he and I played around with some pretty neat speculations about time and interval and stuff, which lent more plausibility to the gimmick itself. But all I really invented was a) the idea of an instantaneous transmitter and b) a name for it. The reader does the rest. If you give them enough background/context, they can fill in the gaps. It isn’t just smoke and mirrors. There has to be a coherent vision of how things hang together in that society/culture/world. All the details have to fit together and be thought through as to their implications. But, well… it’s mostly smoke and mirrors. What else is any fiction?
Tuesday various
- Remember when Bryan Fuller’s return to Heroes was heralded as the thing that would turn that show around (much to the consternation of Pushing Daisies fans and people who’ve happily given up on Heroes for quite some time)? Well, yeah…not so much. Fuller is leaving the show.
- Speaking of shows that maybe don’t know when to quit… Is it possible that Scrubs is now its own spinoff?
- Not wanting to be left off of the beating-a-dead-horse bandwagon, Steven Spielberg and friends are hard at work on an Indiana Jones 5. Please, make it stop.
- Have you ever wondered how medieval porpoise was cooked? Well wonder no further. [via]
- And finally, because you seriously need to see this, in all its delicious awfulness, if you haven’t already:
That just may give the Star Wars Holiday Special a run for its money as the worst thing George Lucas has ever (indirectly) wrought. [via]
Monday various
- Liz Hand asks, “So do kids even know about dummies anymore, let alone know to be scared of them?” If they follow the link she provides, I think they will be. I know some of those dummies scare me.
- Say…wanna win a piece of the moon? You have until June 29. [via]
- Dan Meth’s Futuristic Movie Timeline. [via]
- Harold Ramis on Ghostbusters:
The comic edge of Ghostbusters will always be the same. It’s still treating the supernatural with a totally mundane sensibility. In the world of ghostbusting, there are certain givens. You’re always going to have some new invented technology, some pseudo-science that sounds right because we drop enough familiar terms from physics and engineering, and pseudo-methodology, something that people will think they may have read something about before. People may have actually thought there was a Zuul or a Gozer. You say “ancient Sumerian deity,†and that’s enough, people will think you read a book and you know something.
- And finally, though you’ve probably seen it already, here’s the very funny John Hodgman at the Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner:
Hodgman himself talks about it in a little more detail here, suggesting, “If the protesters in Iran have never heard of Doctor Who, their efforts now are undeniably geekish.”