Monthly Archives: May 2023

May 6, 2023 · 5:10 am

Taking documentary films to the Outer Limits: Movies and TV

Automats were restaurants I’ve seen in 1930s films where instead of servers you had a vending machine like structure, but with real meals and food behind the glass windows.THE AUTOMAT (1922) filled in a lot I didn’t know about these eateries: they were a format associated with one company, Horn and Hardart, found only in New York and Philadelphia but so successful that in their heyday they served more customers a day than any other restaurant chain. They also lasted much longer than I realized, the final automat only closing in 1991. A fascinating look at how they worked, how they appealed to people across the social spectrum and how they fell (as more people went home to the suburbs for dinner, the customer base dried up). “There were baked beans and baked beans — and Horn and Hardart baked beans.”

THE ARISTOCRATS (2005) is a documentary about a notoriously gross, tasteless joke comedians tell to each other backstage or at parties (I’m not going to repeat it here), trying to put their own spin and style on it and stretching out the disgusting parts with new gross elements. This would make a great film to study if I were into stand-up, for example trying to figure out why George Carlin’s delivery had me in stitches. While I’m not into standup particularly, I still found it interesting and entertaining. Familiar faces include Tom Arnold, Eric Idle (I think), Eddie Izzard, and Phyllis Diller. “They have a midget uncle with three dicks coming out of his head.”

Robert Culp and Arlene Martel appear above in one of OUTER LIMITS‘ best episodes, Demon With a Glass Hand, with Culp as Trent, a man pursued by aliens for unknown reasons, knowing only that the clues reside in his mysterious artificial hand. Written by Harlan Ellison, it’s terrific (as is Ellison’s Soldier) but an outlier in the show’s second season, a poor follow-up to S1. The second season has some effective episodes but between budget cuts and shifts in creative personnel, more of them are third-rate and uninspired, such as Keeper of the Purple Twilight. Disappointing. “The silence of the infinite void has been broken.”

#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 5, 2023 · 4:30 pm

Week in review: No need to cry “Mayday!”

Which is to say the week went well. Okay, Obolus got its first rejection but I’ve never sold anything to Fantasy and Science Fiction and have no reason to think this one would do any better. But why not start with an A-list market? To their credit, they always respond fast. I submitted two stories to other markets; perhaps they’ll do better.

I’m having fresh challenges with Wisp as she’s decided my lap on the couch is preferable to her pillow on the back of the couch. That’s fine in itself but if Trixie’s there too she’ll demand equal petting time so I wind up with both hands on my pets and none free to write with. No hostility beyond that, even when I get up and leave them on the couch.

First, I am now officially the publisher Behold the Book, having filed a “doing business as” certificate with Durham County. I have made that official on all my published books at Draft2Digital but haven’t figured out how to do it with the Amazon paperbacks yet.

I got some more work done on my Doc Savage nonfiction book, including rereading The Red Skull; despite the relatively low stakes (land containing valuable deposits) it’s a dynamic, action-packed adventure and a pleasure to reread. There are no scenes as cool as the James Bama cover though.

I got around 3,000 words done on Let No Man Put Asunder. It’s going a lot slower now but I think that’s necessary. As I mentioned earlier this week it’s lost focus along the way and I need to get that back. Part of that is that I’m having to think through What Comes Next a good deal more. But I’m pleased with the results so far.

I read the book’s second chapter to the writer’s group. I’d been concerned they’d find it too slow-paced as the section I read is heavy on talk and not much action. Instead they thought it was a little too fast and needed more moments for Paul and Mandy to pause and reflect (see this post from last month about speed in fiction). Good information to have.

I also got further on the rewrite of The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. It’s also slowing down as I get out of the opening chapters (frequently rewritten) into terra relatively incognita.

I worked on rewriting Oh the Places You’ll Go — feedback from the group was way helpful there — and rewrote The Cheap Assassin, getting it much closer to what it needs to be. If the next draft improves as much, it might be ready for beta-reading. The big problem is that I haven’t come up with an ending that works yet; I may just take it to group with a bad ending and ask for suggestions (I’ve done that before. It helps).

I worked on proofing 19-Infinity and I have a meeting with a possible cover artist next week.Over at Atomic Junkshop I look at Marvel in ’66 and rewrote and reposted and old blog entry here about DC’s Guy Gardner. I’m also over on YouTube in a Con-Tinual panel about the future of pandemic fiction. You can see one of the Marvels I mention, Millie the Model reuniting with the hip Liverpool band, the Gears.

Oh, and someone bought a copy of Undead Sexist Cliches on Amazon! Thanks, stranger (if you are, in fact, a stranger).#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders, Millie cover by Stan Goldberg, Undead Sexist Cliches cover by Kemp Ward.

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May 5, 2023 · 5:10 am

Go for baroque!

A couple of weekends back, TYG took me to a baroque music concert in a Durham church for our weekend date. I’m not a classical music guy but I enjoyed it. And the setting was pretty.

 

We got to sit close to the orchestra too. Here’s an instrument.#SFWApro.

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May 4, 2023 · 5:21 am

They’ll use her body as an incubator (and other abortion related links)

“Dr. Michele Heisler, medical director of Physicians for Human Rights and one of the study’s authors, told NPR that one hospital spokesperson said in cases of pregnancy-related emergencies, the hospital “would try to use the woman’s body as an incubator to just try to keep the pregnancy going as long as possible.” — from an article about Oklahoma’s abortion ban.

“Abortion has been the biggest tool in conservative garden sheds for so long that they cannot stop using it to dig, even if it means burying themselves in a hole with policies that are bad for them politically and bad for others on a much more profound level.” — Jennifer Rubin on the political impact. I suspect part of it is that the right-wing’s raving misogyny makes the thought of caving in to angry women utterly unpalatable.

Roy Edroso offers another thought: some conservatives think that just like opposition to Obamacare has faded, women will get over Dobbs and vote Republican again.

Birth control and abortion let you have sex without reproducing. Elon Musk thinks that’s bad — which is not a unique viewpoint.

Forced-birther Abby Johnson claims she quit Planned Parenthood after seeing how disgusting abortions really were. Looks like she’s lying. Johnson denies it but as I’ve mentioned before, right-to-lifers lie a lot.

“She said she had been anti-abortion her whole life, and that her whole family was like her—and yet she was so appreciative of the care she received from us. She literally was like, ‘I’m so grateful that I’m able to make this choice for myself.’” There are many stories like that.

“I don’t think that it was ever expected that I would want birth control,” Juliet explains. “I just didn’t want to have to be so worried about – if I ever did get raped, which I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it ever does happen and I wasn’t on birth control, there would be a chance that I would have to keep the baby.”

“The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights on Wednesday will issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to bar health care providers and insurers from turning over information to state officials for the purpose of investigating, suing or prosecuting someone for seeking or providing a legal abortion.”

“At the hospital in Coral Springs, Fla., Cook received antibiotics, records show. Then she was sent home to wait.” — another story about ob/gyns being unable to provide proper care because of abortion bans.

Here’s an argument against abortion I haven’t seen before: the pregnant woman is really enslaving her embryo.

The inevitable next step, restricting the right to travel if the out-of-state trip involves abortions. Only minors without parental permission in this case but I’m sure someone will pass a worse one before long.

Tennessee possibly putting $100 million into crisis pregnancy centers isn’t a good use of taxpayer dollars — they don’t provide good services — but I’m sure the religious conservatives who run them will be happy with a little welfare.

“Yet another hospital in Idaho has announced it will no longer provide labor and delivery services to expecting mothers, prompting further concerns about the condition of health care access in the state. Valor Health in Emmett, Idaho, which is estimated to deliver fewer than 50 babies a year, will stop providing these services beginning June 1. In a statement, Valor Health attributed the move to staffing shortages, inflation, and the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Some observers connected the move to the state’s abortion ban.”

For more on the right wing’s opposition to birth control and abortion, check out my Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights remain with current holders.

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May 3, 2023 · 5:14 am

Where are we now? Writing and setting

As I mentioned last year, when I started rewriting Let No Man Put Asunder I switched the opening chapter from a small college town to Blue Ivy (I suspect the name will change), an industrial, working-class city in 1976 with a few excellent colleges. The opening scenes around Rolly’s, a grimy diner, were vivid enough I decided to keep Paul and Mandy in town, rather than plunging them into the interdimensional adventures of the previous version.

Trouble is, now I have to come up with more settings that keep me, and hopefully readers, interested. Instead of abandoned cities or sinister towers, I need Blue Ivy settings that look just as cool, and provide somewhere interesting for the action scenes. Up until this month, I’ve been falling down on the job. The settings either felt unreal or generic, like the big, long-established church for one fight scene. Aside from Mandy’s house, the first time since Rolly’s that I said “yes!” was when they stayed at the Mercury Motel.

In the 20th century tradition of quirky roadside lodging (like the windmill image above, courtesy of the Library of Congress), the Mercury remodeled itself in 1961 to take advantage of interest in the Mercury space missions. Space-capsule salt and pepper shakers, cool space and rocket-related decor, all of which has stayed in place as the space program faded away. It’s no longer trendy but it’s colorful enough to attract drivers going by. But between that and Chapter Three it felt like the environment was dull.

My first step was to get a clearer idea of Blue Ivy. I didn’t want it to be the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone. I eventually settled on Pittsburgh as a model, but only a loose one: keeping the town fictional means I don’t have to be accurate about real-world details. Looking at photos of Pittsburgh in the 1970s gives me visuals, like the bridge Paul and Mandy drive over in one chapter(As TYG and I stayed in Pittsburgh for a Mensa event some years back, my photos might be useful too, even though they’re not period).

Even if I didn’t (yet) use specific photos like this one below of the Union Trust Building —— they’ve prompted my mind to start thinking of other locations. Rather than the big old church, it’s now a small church in a working-class neighborhood; when Paul and Mandy run they hop a chain link fence into a warehouse parking lot, then sneak under the nearest road via a drainage culvert. That’s much more what I’m shooting for.

Another drawback to keeping things on Earth was that inevitably the cops got involved. As I mentioned last month, that led to too many sit-and-discuss scenes and a loss of tension. In the course of changing the setting around I’ve also isolated my protagonists so they have little choice but to run. I can always bring the cops back in if Paul and Mandy need help later.

#SFWApro. Pittsburgh images from Only in Your State, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 2, 2023 · 5:10 am

AI and other science and tech topics.

“People have reported the voice of their loved ones being recreated to perpetuate scams. Start-ups have emerged that scrape the internet for high-quality speech samples and bundle hundreds of voices into libraries, and sell them to companies for their commercials, in-house trainings, video game demos and audiobooks, charging less than $150 per month.” — from an article about how AI may kill voice actors’ careers.

What effect will AI-generated images have on porn?

AI deepfakes are hurting women already but some women are doing their best to fight back.

The flip side: some hustlers have figured out how AI can help them work two salaried jobs or more.

A new food safety law was supposed to avoid sesame-contamination (it’s an allergen) the same way companies avoid peanut contamination. Instead, some companies just add sesame flour to food.

Using Excel for genetics data is not a good approach.

“When relocating, villagers face a choice of either leaving behind the bones of ancestors, or exhuming them and taking them to the new site. Either choice is deeply traumatic.” — an excellent look at the physical, financial, social and spiritual challenges Fiji faces moving villages to escape climate change.“New swarms of satellite constellations, such as SpaceX’s Starlink, threaten to outshine the real celestial objects that capture astronomers’ interest—and that humans have admired and pondered for all of history.”

Water is scarce in parts of the west, and IT data centers suck it up.

“The problem was that the most efficient way to win baseball games under the rules as they existed turned out to be highly inefficient for the purpose of entertaining the spectators and TV audiences who make major league baseball major.” — on how baseball managing has come to resemble AI.

“The products shown in targeted ads were, on average, roughly 10 percent more expensive than what users could find by searching online. And the products were more than twice as likely to be sold by lower-quality vendors, as measured by their Better Business Bureau ratings.”

#SFWApro. Covers by Werner Roth, Jack Kirby, Nick Cardy, Mike Sekowsky and Carmine Infantino. All rights remain with current holders.

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May 1, 2023 · 5:10 am

Florida Man, Texas Man (and other state and local atrocities)

Florida Republican Rep. Randy Fine is cool with erasing gay and trans people to supposedly protect children.

Unsurprisingly Ron DeSantis is cool with singling out Disney for higher taxes to punish them for not hating gays enough. Republican Nick DeCeglie has slipped an amendment into a bill that would target Disney for monorail inspections.

Some Florida legislators say they’re fed up with DeSantis using state policy to build his presidential cred. One sign is that DeSantis’ bill on suing media outlets more easily is DOA. Too bad that’s not the case for a bill that might let doctors refuse patients based on moral objections — and possibly let insurers refuse coverage too (Republicans deny that last part, but they lie a lot). But don’t worry for DeSantis, the Republicans in the legislature are all in on abortion bans, mother’s health be damned.

The next Florida health emergency might require legislative approval before health officials do anything.

“If someone wants to come to a public space and say, ‘We should reinstitute slavery,’ why are we afraid?” — Fla. Republican Spencer Roach on a bill he sponsored forcing colleges to host right-wing speakers in the name of Free Speech. Roach is also sponsoring a bill that would override local historic preservation rules to make it easier to build high rises.

Florida college students are not fond of DeSantis’ efforts to make state schools conform to party doctrine.

One Florida school district is currently dealing with fallout after a teacher showed a Confederate pride video celebrating the glorious CSA. Hmm, do you suppose DeStalinist will denounce it for possibly causing some students discomfort? Probably the teacher will do better than the anti-DeSantis superintendent whose license may be revoked for his defiance.

Don’t think it’s all about hating LGBTQ, Jews and uppity women and POC, though: there’s money in it: “The plan—which was proposed in March by board chair Bridget Ziegler, a co-founder of the right-wing book-banning group Moms for Liberty and wife of the state GOP chair—would have cost the school district $28,000 and given Vermilion the job of reviewing and recommending teacher lesson plans, textbooks, and library books. The initial proposal would have also had the newfound consultancy agency sit in on teacher interviews and review district policies and procedures, costing the school district $4,820 a month.”

Wouldn’t you know, Florida birthed Moms for Liberty, which masks their hate by pretending to protect children. And if you’re wondering about all those Republican states weakening child labor laws, they also trace back to one Florida right-wing group.

The Texas Senate has banned tenure for new professors, though the bill may have a tougher time in the house. The Senate also passed a bill requiring posting the Ten Commandments in schools., which Lt. Governor Dan Patrick brags will bring prayer back to schools (spoiler: it never left). They’re also busy restricting library books. Oh, and restricting which precincts you can vote in. Oh and here’s a goody: by increasing medical liability for any problems with trans care, even if the doctor’s not at fault, a new bill would leave doctors on the hook if anything goes wrong. What a vicious, sneaky way to discourage doctors providing care.

In my state, North Carolina, Tricia Cotham — the representative who recently switched from Dem to Republican — is a perfect example of Murc’s law. It’s not because there’s any personal gain to her from siding with the dominant party, it’s that her evil Democratic colleagues forced her to switch. She’s apparently gotten rid of her support for gay rights; too bad as NC Republicans are joining in on the criminalize-drag-show trend.

Montana tells NC trans legislators to hold my beer. Trans legislator Zooey Zephyr stood up to the powers that be on this issue. So did her supporters. The powers that be, as you can see, were not happy (she’s now having to vote remotely, having been banned from the floor).

Given right-to-lifers’ use of the Comstock laws and other old anti-abortion laws, it’s good Michigan Democrats are repealing the state’s ban on couples living together. Republicans oppose repeal. Michigan’s also repealed the state’s old abortion ban. North Dakota, however, has banned it almost completely — and there are no abortion clinics left in the state.

Alabama forced a state official out for writing the wrong sort of book.

In Georgia, Chatam County Republicans want to ban LGBTQ from the Republican Party.

Tennessee State Rep. Scotty Campbell was all in favor of expelling the two black reps who took an anti-gun stance. Turns out he’s resigning over sexual harassment.

An Ohio anti-trans activist told the legislature that non-Christian elected officials are possessed by demons.

A New Mexico state law guarantees access to abortion. A forced-birth city is suing against it.

Right-wing fascists took over a California town. Now one journalist covering them faces death threats. In Michigan’s quietly Republican Ottawa County, things have also gone crazy.

Who knows what’s ahead? Right-wing twit Ben Shapiro thinks local communities should be able to ban men from wearing traditional female clothes in public. Love that right-wing fondness for limited government.

 

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