Go to Making Light's front page.
Forward to next post: Back when IBM had balls
Subscribe (via RSS) to this post's comment thread. (What does this mean? Here's a quick introduction.)
“Whenever a social mass phenomenon is ascribed to a mere stupidity of the men participating, this apparent stupidity in reality is merely the stupidity of the observer and critic.” —Karl Kautsky, Foundations of Christianity, trans. Henry F. Mins*
There may be some good reason for this open thread to be empty 12 hours after it was created, but I'm sure I'm too dim to recognize it.
.. 12 MINUTES by my watch, 9 minutes by your server clock, that is.
*slinks away*
That quotation reminds me of the whole Snakes on a Plane phenomenon. I'm not sure if that was its intent.
I saw Snakes on a Plane last night with a group of friends, and we all had a great time. Moreover, most of us agreed that Snakes on a Plane was a legitimately better and more enjoyable film than the leaden tentpole "blockbusters" Hollywood has been subjecting us to this summer. It was incredibly silly, but it wasn't insultingly stupid.
But I've noticed a lot of negative reviews of SoaP focusing not on the movie, but on the pre-release hype and the "bloggers" who hyped it up; as if they should be held responsible for the movie that came out yesterday evening. Casuality between silly hype and silly movie seemed all messed up.
The kicker is: the theater was 2/3 empty on opening night. Anecdotal evidence and Friday returns suggest that SoaP is a big financial bust, despite stratospheric Internet buzz. Last movie this happened to was Serenity: Internet approved, box office failure.
Have there been any cases of "Internet hype" turning into tangible, real-world returns? If not, is there a way to use the Internet "correctly" so that huge online buzz will produce actual results, and not just a bunch of starry-eyed MySpacers?
Have there been any cases of "Internet hype" turning into tangible, real-world returns?
The Blair Witch Project.
Surely, this should be the yin-yang thread?
I don't think the Blair Witch Project's success was due to anything Net-related, though. I think it was due to people seeing it and telling other people about it. It also had a very good real-world marketing campaign which was probably more directly responsible for its success than anything on the Net. It was the constant creepy footage of the kids lost in the woods that sold the public on it--not the website. It may have been one of the first movies to use the Net as a marketing tool, but it was traditional hype that sold most of the tickets.
Speaking of huge-Net successes that fail to generate real-world returns, does anyone remember the A.I. webgame?
Tangentially related to "Blair Witch," and at the possible risk of exposing stunning ignorance:
So, I recently read H.P. Lovecraft's The Shunned House, and I thought that the first 3/5ths of the story -- basically an extended exposition -- was quite possibly the greatest vampire story ever told. But then, when H.P. got down to the plot, and settled into stereotypical Lovecraft, I lost all interest. Similarly, I really like the 19th c. journalistic hoaxes of writers like Poe, Twain, Bierce, et al -- moreso than their straight narrative fiction. Basically, rather than being hit over the head with a structured plot, I'm looking for something in which events unfold strictly through anecdotal accounts.
My question is: Is anyone today writing something like the literary equivalent of a mockumentary film? Imagine a nonfiction book like The Devil in the White City, but entirely invented. Does such a subgenre exist, and does it have a name?
If there are any extended works in this style, are there any you would recommend? Particularly in the horror/fantasy realm.
If there are any extended works in this style, are there any you would recommend? Particularly in the horror/fantasy realm.
Howard -- these aren't extended works, and they're not contemporary, but some of Jorge Luis Borges' works (which are often fake essays complete with footnotes) might fall into that category. They're more a kind of "philosophy fiction" than fantasy, though I think there's definitely something metaphysically spooky about "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbits Tertius."
How about epistolary novels? I can strongly recommend Steven Brust & Emma Bull's Freedom and Necessity, which is recent (though set in the 19th Century) and has hints of fantasy.
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbits Tertius" --> "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
Clearly I've been spending too much time reading planet-related threads...
Aren't there still some states where this thread is illegal?
for the Knitters among us:
A bittersweet tale, told in pictures.
-r.
Hello there, AI Charlie Stross. Though that's a fairly good "plausibly usable in all ML threads" line, it's a little too early in this thread to deploy it to full effect.
A question on Worldcon parties, about which I'm not sure of the best place to ask it, but there may be experts here, so...
If anyone here has served fruit at a Worldcon bid party- well, any sort of Worldcon party- could you email me? I need to better estimate some volumes. Thanks! (announcement to come once the website is up)
Charlie, how long have you been field-testing that thing?
I have served fruit at Worldcon. Do we have to do this in email? Let's contribute to the general education.
Don't serve anything with pits, seeds, or inedible skin. Think twice before serving anything that requires little skewers.
I don't think the Blair Witch Project's success was due to anything Net-related, though.My memory is that the net word-of-mouth was huge, before it was released generally. It had been in a a couple film festivals, but I had heard all about it months before it was released generally; the first couple weeks it was in New York, it was literally impossible to get a walkup ticket. I tried on the first day and for days after that, but the goddamned Angelika had sold all their tickets via credit card purchase. Anyway, I think it never would have generated such widespread hype pre-internet.
Teresa,
There's one fruit-related idea I'm keeping hidden, for the sake of a small (yet amusing to me) joke relating to the bid party. emailed.
Otherwise, yes, Name That Fruit!
Obviously no Durian, sadly no mangosteen, too expensively no cherimoya (mmmm, cherimoya).
Parties tend to have too much food anyways. Those dreadful dry cheese squares. I'm thinking that what food we have at our party should be tasty, and California has good fruit.
The question is how much to get per person. While I could eat a pound of fresh, ripe strawberries in a siting (mmm, giant mound of strawberries), that's me. There's also the question of Thursday vs. Friday volumes- post masq gets a good crowd, but will they be more snack-hungry?
Then again, scientific studies show that the more choices of food people see, the more -in absolute calories- they'll eat.
If you want fruit that just looks interesting, try dragon fruit. I saw some at Safeway an hour or so ago. I haven't a clue what it tastes like, but I'd like to see a display of it.
Those dreadful dry cheese squares.
How long before someone brings up Wallace and Gromit? Anyway, Thursday night might be better, Kathryn, due to how long masquerades can run. Of course I'm not sure that worldcon masquerades still last into the wee hours of morning like the LAcon did in 1984.
Aren't there still some states where this thread is illegal?
Yes, indeedy. I used to live in one.
Now I live in Georgia where, thanks to decisions of the state supreme court, gay sex was legal for several years while unmarried heterosexual intercourse was illegal (since fixed by the court, which struck down the anti-fornication law).
Based on my one experience of eating one, dragon fruit sadly doesn't taste much of anything at all. It's not unpleasant, but very subtle and rather insubstantial. For something exotic-looking, I much prefer horned melon, but YMMV (plus it's been years since I've seen one, and I can't remember the taste in any detail).
try dragon fruit. I saw some at Safeway an hour or so ago. I haven't a clue what it tastes like
Dragon. Only with more Vitamin C.
Compared to the disastrous launch of Cadbury's Chocolate Marshmallow Caerbannog Bunnies a few years ago, it's been a considerable success.
Horned melon is in my produce department as Kiwano. I don't know what it tastes like either. (This morning all the bananas were 'organic', at twice the price of regular bananas. Why, I don't know.)
Raspberries and blackberries are in this month.
This may be the place to mention this little oddity...
Some of the bulbs in one of the electronic signs over I-85 in Atlanta are blown. This resulted yesterday in a message informing travellers that there was a 'smog ale'. I'm now wondering what that would taste like, and how it would be made.
When I'm working in Program Ops, I'm going to use the AUMF to throw people I don't like off of panels.
I mean, Bush is the commander in chief, and we are at war.
Speaking of huge-Net successes that fail to generate real-world returns, does anyone remember the A.I. webgame?
I do! I was really into it for a while, although I came in way too late to really understand what was going on. It did make the movie more interesting to me though, since I was already involved in the world. My boyfriend (now husband) didn't like the movie of AI nearly so much as I did, partly because I had so much backstory.
There were a lot of problems with that movie that no Net-hype could make up for though. I personally thought it should have ended with him dying.
"AUMF"? Does that stand for "alternate-universe mthrfckr"?
About fruit: would like to note that the Washington Cherry crop was particularly good this year, and there's still a lot of the late season fruit available. Cherries are good for large parties as most people secretly prefer them clean, stem on, and with a cup to spit the seeds into. Much less fuss than other ways of presenting them.
Now: can anyone tell me sights not to miss in and around Missoula?
"Smog ale" is no doubt a murky brew.
The missing letters on signage remind me of the time at a convention when Juan and our friend Jennie came to fetch me, laughing so hard they almost couldn't talk, and took me to a stairwell with a window through which the sign for a nearby movie theatre was visible. There was a T missing from the sign, so the movie now playing was "LORD OF HE RINGS." They pointed to this, crowed "LORD OF HERRINGS!" in unison, and promptly fell apart in giggles again.
On a recent visit to friends who live near the Willowbrook Mall in NJ, we drove past an "ELF STORAGE" facility....
"Lord of Herrings?" Isn't that Michael Flatley?
Howard, have you seen the movie "Forgotten Silver?" it's not quite the same thing, but it is a mockumentary, and a very convincing one at first. it's done by Peter Jackson (yes, that Peter Jackson) and Costa Botes. i watched it right after Heavenly Creatures came out and it made me fall in love with Peter Jackson's sense of humor ;)
*Sigh* ... bananas ... Due, it is said, to Cyclone Larry, which wiped out our main Queensland banana plantations in March, bananas in Sydney have been around the $12-$15/kilo mark for months. Envelocalculations very roughly $4-$5/lb. How much were those organic bananas, PJ Evans?
Does anybody remember when Ed Bryant hosted the Hugos at 1981's worldcon in Denver? After a grand entrance on rollerskates, he told us about strange movie double features. There are probably many people posting here who're too young to have experienced those, but I digress. One of Bryant's favorites was Someone Is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe teamed up with Soylent Green. Anyway, two or three years ago, my wife and I drove thru a very small town in southern Arizona, but not so small that it didn't have a movie theater, where the marquee proudly advertised The Passion of the Christ and HellBoy.
When you're dealing with non-fans, the purpose of fancy exotic fruits is to decorate fruit-and-cheese platters so people can feel swankier while eating the same seedless green grapes they always eat. If you're laying on a spread for fans, someone will infallibly eat the weird stuff. If Jon Singer is coming, he'll be the one eating the weird stuff, but he'll be getting everyone else around him to taste it too, and he'll have brought additional weird food with him.
(Okay, I'm the other one who'll do that. Get the two of us together and the same things will happen, but the conversation will be full of botanical Latin.)
Important principle: at successful parties, people don't tend to move a lot. If it's crowded, they can't move. If it isn't crowded, they'll get into absorbing conversations, and they still won't move. It is thus important to not feed them stuff that requires them to dispose of the remains. Only an exceptionally tidy fan will step away from an intense conversation to dispose of cherry stones, citrus peels, apple cores, cheese rinds, candy wrappers, or other detritus. It is likewise important to locate dips or salsas immediately adjacent to the snacky bits that are meant to be dipped in them.
A little nourishing food is good for the partygoers who missed dinner, but for the rest of them, it's an amusement.
Specific fruit functions:
Star fruit cut cool-looking ornamental cross-sections.All of the above is subject to change if you have chocolate dip.Watermelon and other melons add bulk, but they're messy.
Fresh figs are so that people who know how to eat them can show off to people who don't. Same goes for pomgranates, kumquats, fresh lichis, and fresh dates.
Kiwis take too much prep time for their value.
A crate of clementines is a great thing to have at a party, but they're out of season during most of the major conventions.
A few strawberries will look nice on a cheese platter, and will last a while, because they'll be perceived as ornamental. Strawberries on a fruit platter will evaporate.
Apple slices tend to languish. They do a little better if put next to the cheese.
Blackberries and raspberries are fragile, expensive, and messy. A few raspberries floated in a glass of champagne can be very pretty.
Sectioned whole pineapple makes a fine show, but don't even think of trying it unless you've got an experienced pineapple-prepper and a large sharp knife.
Seedless grapes are the backbone of any fruit presentation.
On the "pseudohistorical novel" track, there's The Glory of the Empire by Jean d'Ormesson. It came out in French in '71 and in English (from Knopf) in '74. It's exactly what was requested: a long work (350 pages in hardcover), written as a history, of an entirely imaginary Empire existing parallel to historical ones (such as Byzantium). There are geneological charts, illustrations of coins, footnotes, a bibliography (which contains many real works, and may be entirely real) and an index.
It's a fascinating book, that almost nobody seems to have heard of. I suspect that it fell too sharply between the stools; most historians of thirty years ago wouldn't have looked twice at it,* it's not a conventional novel, and just explaining what it is was probably difficult. I don't think it's in print, but abebooks has a bunch of cheap hardcovers.
It seems to me that there must have been some "extraordinary voyages," particularly in the Victorian period, that were written as if they were actual accounts, though I'm not sure that quite fits the prescription. When that's done now, it's usually an obvious parody.
*cf. the response to "counterfactuals," or to Richard Snow's doing an issue of American Heritage on historical fiction.
Fruit -- if neither much too ripe nor much too unripe -- sounds good. I didn't do much of it at the Fan(Zine)Lounge I helped-out on at the previous LArea WorldCon, and can't help with an estimate. Or even a guess -- both the number of people attending an open party, and their voracity, seem to me to be unpredictable. If you run out, the world won't end, while left-overs (kept with a bit of ice in sealed bags) in a tote-box can be passed on to some other party. (Mind you, I remember the days when at least 90% of the things now commonly set out at convention room-parties would have been awesomely remarkable.)
Want me to go on with rules of thumb for worldcon parties?
Erik, what is the AUMF? I've been waiting for my memory to toss it up, but it isn't happening.
Is the Fckrobe of Power still part of the general armament?
Forgot one: There's a so-far-unstudied substance or active principle in pomegranates and mulberries that makes them stain like nothing else on the planet. Mulberries have about four times as much of it. They should be eaten outside while you're wearing rain gear.
(Smacks head.) Pseudohistorical novel: Islandia, by Tappan King's grandfather.
Fresh figs are so that people who know how to eat them can show off to people who don't.
Hm. I love fresh figs, but haven't tried to tackle them as handfruit. Do tell!
(An altogether impractical contribution to the subject: take a leaf of Belgian endive, place a goodly dollop of Cypress Grove "Humboldt Fog" chevre near the wide end, and nestle therein a quarter of a ripe Mission fig.)
(AUMF = Authorization for the Use of Military Force, no?)
Teresa, ma'am? My local grocer, and Trader Joes, both have had Chilean clementines within the past week.
I've got an orchard full of fruit, so buying southern hemisphere citrus offends everything I am, but... daum, I was tempted.
Teresa, I dunno how I forgot Islandia, either.
When I get some more words on paper, I prob'ly need to go back there. Maybe take Elise.
Our Trader Joe's has clementines right now, too, but they're not worth the bother. Teresa is right, assuming you constrain her observation to "clementines worth eating."
Kiwis take too much prep time for their value.
At this point, I had an image of a group of chefs running around a man in shorts, gumboots, and a black singlet with a small fern on it.
Teresa,
Thanks- do go on. Our bid party has at least one person who's thrown Worldcon parties before. The previous experience doesn't include fruit, though.
We're 90% going with Thursday. (perhaps offering up the room space for another night, although it's an ordinary party floor room, not a suite.)
Fruit isn't related to the party theme, but I like the idea of late-summer fruits in decadent yet healthy heaps. Nothing too messy or staining, but then I've got ideas for making sampling easy for what fruits and foods we do have.
We have a party floor room: how many people can we expect? I know there is no good estimation, in that the better the party, the more people, and the more people the better the party.
But even for a barely shiny party, there'll be some minimum number range.
AUMF = Authorization for the Use of Military Force, no?
Yes. It's the Magical Talisman that makes Shrub King, ya know.
"Teresa is right, assuming you constrain her observation to "clementines worth eating."
Ah, good; I can ignore the temptation and go back to trying to figure out how to get the Gravensteins out of the top of trees planted in 1895 or so.
Okay, I can understand how pomegranates and lychees and fresh dates require some advance planning, but I pretty much just inhale fresh figs in their entirety (well, probably minus the little hard bit at the end of the stem). Am I missing some arcane knowledge of fig-eating etiquette?
ctate: I bought some Humboldt Fog for the first time a day or two ago, and I think it's time to transfer some of it from my fridge to a water cracker.
Teresa: "A crate of clementines is a great thing to have at a party…" Erm… doesn't this violate your "no citrus peels" rule?
Don't forget the several crates of napkins and more wastebaskets with plastic liners than you think you really need.
Worldcon parties. I remember watching the sun come up after a long, long night at MidAmericon, and riding the elevators at the Fountainbleau in Miami Beach....
It's the Magical Talisman that makes Shrub King, ya know.
The version I heard was that Karl Rove pulled his organ out of a cement block where it had been stuck since a Skull & Bones party, and then a watery tart threw Tony Blair at him.
MidAmericon. Thirty years ago. My first Worldcon.
Excuse me while I feel really, really, really old.
ObSF: Fruit in SF, II:
"Every assignment," Gregor went on, "may be totally unrelated to any other. Unpredictable. You'll be tossed in to sink or swim."
"Not entirely unsupported," objected Vorthys. "The rest of us will be willing to call advice from shore, now and then."
For some reason Miles had a mental flash of the whole lot of them sitting in beach chairs holding drinks with fruit on little sticks, awarding him judiciously discussed points for style as he went under...
MidAmericon. Thirty years ago. My first Worldcon.
Excuse me while I feel really, really, really old.
You wanna pass that bottle of Old Ken Keller?
Instantaneous Open Thread Topic Shift:
A remastered version of Forbidden Planet is coming out in November, in a tin box with the usual price-increasing stuff, and some of the exciting extras are not very exciting (The Invisible Boy is . . . not a great film), but there's some "lost" preliminary footage and a Dolby remastering of the Barrons' score.
The movie was out on DVD a number of years ago, but it was a cheap disc, and I'm not sure it was even widescreen. (You miss a lot in pan/scan.) Anyway, you probably already know if you want this.
On messiness...
Along with ordinary plates, Costco has hand-sized paper 'food trays' with one inch high sides. Perfect, I think, for holding fruit, taking peels, allowing discreet pit spits...
We will not be having fondues. We will have cinnamon sugar. Apple slices in peanut butter... dipped in cinnamon sugar? Strawberries in cinnamon sugar is heaven, that I know.
What else? I've found a local wholesale / retail produce stand, so anything can be on the table, *if* I know people will eat them and I'm not overbuying.
Of course, my food planning is based on what I'd like to see at parties. A worldcon variation of the dot com era's giant heaps of peeled shrimp. (Although now in Web2.0, it's now giant heaps of olive-oil and herb roasted shell-on shrimp. I'm calling it decadence2.0)
But does reality make such food dreams impossible? Does harsh reality drive away the glowingly fresh and tasty items and bring instead the stale cheese and 10lb boxen of good-for-2-years cookies?
You can lemonjuice (or citric acid) the apple slices.
"It says these cookies are good for two years."
"You mean, in two years they won't be significantly worse than they are now."
Now (and yes, I know this is in imperfect taste) I'm imagining a flourless triple-chocolate cake with a tiny LED display reading TIME TO DETONATION.
I believe it was at MidameriCon that Charles Grant, Tom Monteleone and I invented a truly disgusting drink called the Spayed Gerbil. I think it was at MidAmericon. But perhaps not. Those were good times.
Advice please. I have a first edition Wizard of Oz w/ the Densmore illustrations that was much loved by my mother and then by me both a very long time ago. A friend last night told me that I should have it rebound. Won't that destroy part of the value? The binding cover on the spine has split off halfway but there are no pages falling out.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Oooh, an open thread!
I had a question, and it was suggested that I post it to an open thread in Making Light, you see.
Specifically: does anyone have any thoughts or advice for starting up work as a freelance proofreader or other sort of editing task? (I have some very dated editing experience and some rather more recent proofreading experience, which is not the world's broadest resume.)
Islandia! Doh! Yes, excellent.
I'm not really clear if it's the style of storytelling you're looking for - epistolary novel, etc. - or the careful creation of a fictitious history within the context of our universe, or the combination of the two. Eco's Foucault's Pendulum fits the latter model pretty well, if ambiguously. So do some of Colin Wilson's novels - The God of the Labyrinth, for one, and is also told in the manner of a diary, and incorporating bits from historical characters' letters and journals.
Dracula is of course a too-obvious example of the manner of storytelling in the horror vein. I think all of the Flashman books also fit the told-as-series-of-anecdotes model quite well, if you're willing to settle for something a bit more genuinely historical in vein.
To take a different approach, all the Prieury of Sion and Merovingian hogwash would work simply by dint of reading it as the complete fiction that it is. So do the von Daniken "Ancient Astronauts" genre from the late '70s - elaborately plausible sounding complete b.s. Lots of occult conspiracy books fit there too, the more so as one starts to wonder after a while given that some parts of them are clearly true...
To bring this discussion full-circle, does anyone remember a French supposedly-non-fiction book in the "Ancient Astronauts" genre, issued in translation in the US in a cheap paperback, mid '70s? I was utterly flabbergasted when I read it; it was distinguished by the author apparently having taken Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness in all seriousness as a scientific record. He very solemnly cited the discoveries made by Miskatonic University scientists in the Antarctic as more solid proof of extraterrestrial contacts with earth. I wish I'd kept my copy of that treasure.
Xopher,
This is the 21st Century, not the 19th. The fruit Singularity means apples come ready-to-eat, pre-sliced, crunchy and undiscolored, with a choice or a mix in cultivars, in packages with near-nanotech accuracy in permeability levels.
We will not be peeling apples during the Fruit in SF panel Thursday, no.
it was distinguished by the author apparently having taken Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness in all seriousness as a scientific record. He very solemnly cited the discoveries made by Miskatonic University scientists in the Antarctic as more solid proof of extraterrestrial contacts with earth.
This is ringing a faint bell... I think I ran across this wonder at some point or other, and no, I didn't keep my copy either. Or maybe I just dreamed it...?
Howard Peirce: You might like Ursula Le Guin's Changing Planes, a collection of linked fictional travelogues. I haven't read her translation of Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial yet, so I'm not clear on whether it's something along the lines of Islandia, or pure secondary world fantasy. I also haven't read Jan Morris' Last Letters From Hav, but the recommendations I've seen suggest it also belongs in the subgenre of fantastic travelogues and ethnographic accounts.
Inexplicably, the jacket of Kalpa Imperial seems to have confused Le Guin with Jonathan Stroud.
Wolcott:
Unlike other two-term presidents, Bush hasn't grown in office, become an old familiar whose irritating traits and lapses could be accepted almost affectionately, like Reagan's dottiness. He's demonstrably diminished, dwarfed by the reality that he continues to deny and repeating himself in press conferences like a robot whose wiring is on the fritz, for whom words and phrases are nothing more than pre-programmed units of sound. He's more irritating and dangerous than ever before, because he doesn't know anything, doesn't know or care that he doesn't know anything, and yet persists in a path of destruction as if it were the road to salvation. It's finally dawned on responsible minds that Bush could take all of us down with him before he and the neocons are through.
Sorry, but he's so good.
Slices of kiwi fruit are a pain to prep, but...
...if you just halve a batch of kiwis and arrange them on a platter, with a stack of plastic spoons next to it, people can just scoop out the insides. (Yes, you have to have lots of wastebaskets handy for the scooped peels.)
For citrus, I'd go with tangelos. Easily and quickly peeled; pre-peeled sections can be set out to avoid having partyfen leave their own peels around. (A length of plastic wrap over the tangelo sections will help keep them from drying out too quickly.)
Ursula K. LeGuin has done both a mockumentary (Always Coming Home) and a pseudohistorical novel (Malafrena).
I know not of kiwis; I'm allergic to them.
I did, however, publish the first of Le Guin's translations of the Argentine writer Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial sequence, in Starlight 2. It's further along the fantasy Main Sequence than Islandia.
James Wolcott certainly is good. Almost as good as Charles Pierce.
But: Lizzy! You were present at the creation of the Spayed Gerbil? How did I manage to not know this, for all these years?
(This has been one of those comments that's so insider-y that onlookers feel the irresistable urge to kill everyone involved. Roll the tumbrils. I'll go quietly.)
I think any prep is too much for kiwis. Or at least any kiwi available in the US since about two years after they first showed up. Now they all taste like styrofoam with seeds, not like the curious, ester filled banana-ey, grapey, something-elsey kiwis of yesteryear.
One thing to consider adding, perhaps separately despite the fact that they're fruit, is a spread of local cherry (or grape) tomatoes. They're still in season, and are excellent finger food.
Hey, all: Thanks for the suggestions. I shall follow up on them when I've sobered up. (Just finished a jazz gig tonight which ended in a rather lengthy decompression session immediatetely following.) I almost mentioned Borges and Dracula in the original query, but it was running long. Right now I'm looking more for entertainment than a challenge, which is what I get from Borges. Dracula is good, but I could do with less diaries and more newspaper clippings. Also, I'm sadly lacking in much contemporary literature, having been waylaid some time ago by 1830-1940 fiction, and realizing there's a helluva lot of it. I'm really wondering whatever happened to the serious hoaxes of the past.
An example: Some months ago, while looking for interesting "true" ghost stories on the 'net (a distressing chore, by the way), I stumbled on an account (linked to by multiple sources as true) of the history of a home for wayward girls in rural northern Iowa. It involved sex, ghosts, murder, arson, rumors of Satanism, etc. Fascinated, I tried to track it down, only to determine that the entire thing was a fabrication. (I got to the point where I was checking cemetery records on geneology sites.) Rather than being disappointed, I was incredibly impressed. I wish I could remember enough details to google it for you now.
To be honest, as much as I'd like to find other writers working in this medium, I'm thinking of starting a hoax blog. (Of course, it can't be much of a hoax if I'm admitting it now.) The point being not to fool people, but to create something really entertaining. Kind of like the 1947 Project, but with entirely invented details. I imagine a series of entries focused on a house in a small town in western Ohio or southeastern Indiana.
Is there an audience for something like that?
Unrelated: John M. Ford, thanks for the head's up on Forbidden Planet. I have a series of Robbie the Robot quotes on regular rotation on my iPod ("Welcome to Altair IV, gentlemen"). risa, I shall keep an eye open for Forgotten Silver. My introduction to Jackson was Dead Alive, followed by Bad Taste. As much as I liked LOTR and King Kong, I think I prefer Jackson as an outlaw director. Have you seen Meet the Feebles?
(Ack. I cannot spell or punctuate when drunk. I think I caught everything. Apologies if I didn't. Nor can I self-edit. Apologies for the length.)
(A longer and altogether better version of this comment can now be found on Making Light's front page, right about here Please adjust links accordingly.)
Howard: Curiously enough, when my computer launches, it says "Good morning, Dr. Chandra. I'm ready for my lesson." (Though I rarely have the sound on unless there is an actual need for it, and indeed, any sound effect that happens every time an event takes place must have an off switch, the only exceptions being fire alarms and the like.)
And Amazon says the Ultimate Collector's Edition (that's not me being snarky, that's really its name) will be sixty bucks, but the two discs alone, which should contain all the extra film, will be a fairly reasonable $27.
If I want a plastic Robby -- and I'm not saying I don't -- Dreamhaven is just down the street. He'd look nice between Cthulhu and the Pioneer Zephyr.
You don't have to serve lox to the teeming hordes.
This goes for any variety of LOX.
Howard:
I think Stephen King did something rather like what you describe for a fictional haunted house called "Rose Red", as a tie-in for a TV series; some people were apparently very annoyed when they found it wasn't for real. (It's not something I've read, so I can't comment on the quality.) This gets back to the James Frey discussion thread and Blair Witch; if you put a notional "this is all true!" label on a book, some people are completely unable to cope with the idea that in fact it might not be. Also, David Lynch's daughter (IIRC) put out a fictional 'Diary of Laura Palmer' during the Twin Peaks mania, which vaguely fits what with the molestation by malevolent spirits and all.
Your description of what you're looking for is kind of vaguely ringing a bell, but nothing has quite surfaced as yet.
I loved Meet the Feebles, especially the 'Nam flashbacks.
I will also defend Foucault's Pendulum as capable of being read as purely a laugh-riot, regardless of any Deep Themes or literary effort. The drunken discussion near the beginning on how prohibitions (as seen in the Templar rules of conduct) represent what people normally do, or are afraid they might do if unrestrained is both a Deep Truth and comedy gold.
As for alternate novels..
How about the Dictionary of the Khazars by
Pavlac-it was interesting in that there were both male and female editions-only 4 lines were changed,but it did make a difference.
Con Party-Givers:
Print-out everything Teresa has posted here on the subject. Read it again as it comes from the printer. Re-read it at least three times, preferably in as many days, finishing this Rite at least a day before you start buying supplies.
Some of her advice isn't applicable to the immediate situation -- an open bidding party, as I recall -- but much is and it's all good stuff to store in your mind.
If memory serves, these reguar rooms on the Party/Lanai floor aren't remarkably large, but some have wide sliding glass doors opening onto the large patio. So do many other rooms, some of which will also be sources of Parties. People -- many of them -- will be coming in and going out through both openings. It would probably be wise to accept this, and operate accordingly. Another set of the Party Floor rooms, I think, open onto (rather narrow) balconies. I disremember if the latter are connected, but if they are you might want to check with the inhabitants of the adjacent rooms and see if they want to trade overflow hosting for their party on some other night. Or you might not. (If I happen to be one of your immediate neighbors, consider your space doubled.)
I had to visit the hotel a couple of weeks ago (after procrastinating in getting a Reservation), at which time several signs in the lobby ... ummm... might've been the result of the Convention of The American Pentacostal Association, Inc. (so help me, the "Inc." is [sic]) then being held, but also might suggest that the hotel has been having a Problem with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, so you'd best check with the right people on the ConCom if you're planning on beer or anything stronger.
I'm still curious aboout the proper fresh-fig-eating method. All I do is hold the stem, and apply as many bites as necessary to consume the rest (1-3 depending on size).
Now, I do grant that somehow there are many people whose conception of figs only includes the seedy mess in a fig newton. These folks may well be scared by fresh figs...but that just leaves more for the rest of us.
Lizzy L : " Worldcon parties. I remember watching the sun come up after a long, long night at MidAmericon..."
Ah, so do I. Happened to be alone, on some observation deck, and just inebriated enough to venture singing (kinda) a few lines of Ecco Ridente in Cielo (or however it's spelled). Probably sounded terrible, but I was hearing Gigli. And yes, it had been a remarkably long night -- I'd been hanging out mostly with some younger APA-50 people who were on a remarkably heavy adolescent Emotional Drama Trip.
I think the highest point of my Convention Sunrises so far, though was at IguanaCon (which P&T might remember). I'd gone up to the glassed-in observation room at the top of the hotel, hoping to watch the sun rise over the desert, in solitude. But as the sky turned pink, the elevator disgorged a gaggle of teen-age girls. And a bit later another, similar but unconnected, group. As the rim of the sun appeared, one of the girls began to sing a Mozart Alleluja -- and many or most of the others joined her, swelling to a magnificent chorus. (I suppose it's a standard for highschool a capella classes, but I was Mightily Impressed.)
Teresa: Excellent advice, thanks. I've linked the general and fruit guideline comments, which I'm a bit surprised didn't rate a new post of their own.
One note on chilling beverages: If for some reason it's necessary to get them cold fast, adding water to the ice helps. Adding salt to that helps even more, although salt water is less pleasant to fish around in (and colder!) than pure water.
Teresa,
Thanks- much thanks, so much thanks that I'm posting it here *and* in an entirely unrelated thread by mistake
Don Fitch and All
Does the lanai / balcony format increase the number of folks dropping by, everything else being equal? Seems like it would, although it would just as strongly reduce stay-time, as it's easier to escape any one room.
Do you recall if the wallpaper is the standard hotel 'slightly plastic smooth' kind? Upon which one can low-tack-tape posters?
ObSF Fruit in SF III, The Convention:
"The big doorway opened into a proportionately great hall hung with brown. The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partially glazed with coloured glass and partially unglazed, admitted a tempered light. The floor was made up of huge blocks of some very hard white metal, not plates nor slabs - blocks, and it was so much worn, as I judged by the going to and fro of past generations, as to be deeply channelled along the more frequented ways. Transverse to the length were innumerable tables made of slabs of polished stone, raised perhaps a foot from the floor, and upon these were heaps of fruits. Some I recognized as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange, but for the most part they were strange.
Between the tables was scattered a great number of cushions. Upon these my conductors seated themselves, signing for me to do likewise. With a pretty absence of ceremony they began to eat the fruit with their hands, flinging peel and stalks, and so forth, into the round openings in the sides of the tables. I was not loath to follow their example, for I felt thirsty and hungry. As I did so I surveyed the hall at my leisure."
By the way, Kathy in Sunnyvale, what worldcon bid are you with?
Thanks for the warning about the re-release of Forbidden Planet, Mike. The movie has a special place on my heart, and not just because it's what we watched during our wedding party back in January 1986. (Yes, it was a fannish bunch - how did you guess?) Anyway, I'll stick witht the 'cheap' DVD. It's already in the wide-screen format. And who in Hell (literally) would want to watch The Invisible Boy?
"Does the lanai / balcony format increase the number of folks dropping by, everything else being equal?"
The lanai one does (probably at least twice as many will enter that way than by the hall door... I think there are hall doors), the balconies not so much, if at all. The lanai also encourages wandering out, and back again (I'm a wanderer by nature, and like this feature.) I don't know if smoking is allowed on the patio, any more. I think maybe there were, and possibly stil are, chairs and tables on the patio/deck, so maybe you could bring some close, just before the party opens.
I'm drawing a total blank on the wall-covering -- it might be a good idea to bring easy-peel/no-residue tape and some of those plastic static-cling sheets that ...errr... kinda hold some posters & suchlike.
Parties:
Mixing beer & sodas in the same tub makes sense, and if there's only one tub it's necessary. For better hotel relations (the room's on your credit-card) you might consider lining the tub with a shower-curtain, to help prevent scratches or other damage. For juices &cet., and even for everything, big 16- or 18-gallon plastic tote-boxes/tubs work reasonably well. Under many conditions water will condense on the outside, so unless they're in the bathtub it's a good idea to place a towel under each.
I like to restock the bathtub frequently, moving everything cold to one end and adding the warmer drinks at the other, with signs indicating this. Of course, some people will take something from the "Warm" end, decide that it's warm, look surprised or disgusted, and put it back at the "Cold" end. *sigh* Keeping future stock in tote-boxes with a little ice, to semi-precool it, can be helpful, but generally requires an additional prep-room (or a friendly neighbor) for storage.
The local weather forecast indicates that we can expect highs of about 95 & night lows c. 65, with the current pattern bringing considerable coolth at sunset. With the lanai door open (as it will be most or all of the time), the room's air-conditioner probably won't do much to combat all the calories all those people will be burning, so a couple of electric fans would probably be helpful, as Teresa indicated.
If you include on your fruit platter some cherry tomatoes and some slices or sticks of cucumber of the sort that has edible rind, then the conversation will eventually turn to heated debate about the difference between a fruit and a vegetable. That debate tends to become as heated as the debate about whether Pluto is a planet.
Whence the assumption that I'm an AI?
Tell me about your parents.
Hey, Teresa, concerning the quote that opens this thread: did you notice that from where I used it on my LJ a couple of weeks ago, or was it coincidental? I ask because when I had the temerity to quote it, it set off a massive explosion of outrage from those who, it seems, take "People are stupid," as a vital article of their personal faith. Here it sort of fell without a whimper. Makes me curious.
In any case, yeah, love that quote.
I prefer to split the difference between quotes -- "people are stupid: you and me are both people: therefore ..."
"Of course I'm not sure that worldcon masquerades still last into the wee hours of morning like the LAcon did in 1984."
The one at Noreascon 4 did.
I've read both The Glory of the Empire and Islandia (and one sequel to it written by a friend of Sylvia Wright's), and I'm surprised, Mr Ford and Ms Nielsen Hayden, that you've forgotten Jan Morris's Last Letters from Hav.
Kathryn in Sunnyvale, I think the idea of peeling apples is blasphemous. Peels on, thank you. Especially if they're Granny Smith's, the best apples in the universe.
I was assuming they'd have to cut their own apples. Use volunteers for the scutwork; saves lots of money. Did you know there are people who LOVE slicing apples? (No, I'm not one).
Patrick, I'm picturing you scanning nametags for ones that say New Zealand, and fleeing the room when you spot one. Bet this never happens.
Teresa, an alternative to disabling the piano is having someone whose job it is to play it quietly. For a crowded party this won't do, of course, not to mention being inaudible over the hubbub.
And I can't say "Hear! Hear!" loudly enough to Circulate, tidy up, refresh, refill, consolidate. Then do it again. If you wanted to sit and have a good time, you should have gone to someone else's party. I used to have a donut-shaped apartment. The perfect place for a party; I could circulate in hostly fashion, and really participate, yet still continuously do cleanup. And by the time I got back around to the kitchen, the short cycle on the dishwasher was done and I could reload it and put out clean glasses.
But then I almost never sit "sit and have a good time" even at someone else's party. Generally at cons I go to the top of the hotel on the elevator, hit all the parties on that floor, and work my way down the stairs. Then I do it again. So I don't give a lot of con parties, because I can't even pick just one to attend.
Yes, I have ADHD. How'd you know? :-)
And I forget who it was when I was helping set up a party, who simply took a few snapshots of the suite before setup began. I thought that was brilliant; it enables a tired cleanup crew to easily remember where everything goes—or even not have to be the same people who set up.
Oh, I remember why I wanted to lemonjuice the apple slices: apple slices dipped in lemon juice are YUMMY.
Jan Morris's travel book about an imaginary city, Last Letters From Hav has been reprinted and is in print right now in Britain, and not only that but it's now called Hav and contains a 100 page addition about Hav today.
It's always an odd experience reading a sequel to something you've real a million times and love unreasonably, and this somehow applied even more in this case than normally, because Last Letters From Hav has a level of reality that is different from the way it is in fiction.
I don't know if I liked the addition or not -- I didn't want the things that had happened to Hav since 1985 to have happened, but I didn't want a lot of things that have happened in the real world to have happened either. It was a bit like going back to a place that used to be on the wild edge of civilization and is now full of skyscrapers.
Last Letters From Hav is about history, ambiguity, continuity, sense of place, connections and belonging. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Thanks for the School Library Journal particle. Reed Elsevier is the publisher of about half my physical therapy textbooks. Now I have a subject for my first piece of member correspondence when I join the APTA.
Re LeGuin pseudohistoricals, don't omit Orsinian Tales
Serge -- Somebody was listening to Bryant; 3 years later, the theater across from LAcon 2 was showing Red Dawn, Oxford Blues, and Purple Rain. Of course, nothing beats Alien Meatballs Escape from Alcatraz, but I thought it was a nice gesture.
PNH: I'm surprised that Chilean clementines aren't worthwhile; Chile seems to understand agriculture. Maybe these die in shipping (and might be better in CA)? I'll be advised and pass them over if I see them (there's a TJ on my regular circuit of places-for-office-food).
JESR: sounds like a case for an apple-picker's ladder. Or did your tree grow \way/ up? I got the impression that when not trimmed they throw suckers all over instead of gaining lots of height. You \could/ just sacrifice them to the birds (as a friend has done with her cooking-cherry tree), but that may be too much sacrifice for a good apple.
any: MidAmericon was your first convention and you're feeling old? grumble. snarl. Discon II (via overnight train, sitting up, because I was low on both money and time), and I only missed Torcon because nobody in the MITSFS said anything about it. (After driving an elderly Corona from DC to Boston solo in high summer, driving a carload of fans to Toronto would have been a snap.) Well, I'll have to wave my shiny new scuba certificate at y'all at WFC (by which time I'll have it) just to prove that I haven't gotten any more sensible....
Tony Lewis asked someone pushing KC-in-06 literature at Millennium Philcon why it didn't mention MAC; he says he was told, "Everyone who was there is dead." (It could even be true; Worldcon bids are like villages, every one of them has to have an idiot somewhere.)
One addendum to Teresa's massively sane comments: there's no excuse for having trouble with stickies given current tech. Among the offerings are 3M (aka Post-It), "static cling" (some sort of soft plastic sheet that holds by simple persistence, that you can tape anything light to -- comes in packs of sheets like easel pads, try any office-supply chain), and even some completely removable two-sided tape. None of these are safe on grass-cloth wallpaper (although IMO the caliber of room that has such is not suited for parties where signs are necessary), but all of them are better choices than traditional stickies (e.g. Scotch or masking tape) even on resistant surfaces (mirrors, doors).
Kathryn: Don Fitch's recollections mostly match mine; the rooms have both hallway and patio access, with the patio somewhat common among rooms. (Not wide open, and I'm not sure that it isn't sectored, but it certainly supports some traffic.) You should put signs (or even lights if you have them as the deck was minimally lit) on the deck-side door(s), not just on the hall door(s). The deck will act as additional free space, especially if the weather is desert standard as Don's report suggests it will be; this doesn't mean to ignore T's advice about AC, but can reduce overcrowding and hence overheating.
Don't mix haploid and diploid M&Ms. Peanut allergies are nontrivial.
I thought all M&Ms had ground peanut mixed with chocolate.
The link is to an entry in The NonVerbal Dictionary, where I remember reading that claim. I have no reason to doubt it, and don't have a bag of M&Ms at hand to check.
Gosh, lots of things have happened on Making Light since I last posted. Hello, everyone.... The latest unexciting news from Ansible HQ is that -- having recently discovered that something called the Tower Hamlets Opportunity Group had registered Thog.org.uk -- I have determinedly seized the moral high ground by giving Thog's Masterclass its very own website at Thog.org. Now what did I do with that V*nna B*nta link ...?
CHip... Red Dawn and Purple Rain? Oooookay. Meanwhile in 1981, some theater in Montreal thought it'd be a good idea to team up Boorman's Excalibur with Dudley Moore's Arthur.
I love imaginary histories, etc. One of my favourite moments in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is the bit with the books.
I keep writing imaginary book and movie reviews in my head. I have no idea what to do with them.
Tangent, since this is an open thread: toilet roll Jesus. My father showed me this (it's from a page of related toilet roll crafts and other crafts for kids) and I immediately thought "Making Light open thread!" So here it is.
Don't mix haploid and diploid M&Ms. Peanut allergies are nontrivial.
All M&Ms contain peanut ingredients in the chocolate.
Another travelogue of an imaginary country is G. Garfield Crimmins' The Republic of Dreams, an excerpt of which can be seen here. (I have the book but haven't read it yet.)
While the book was published in 1998, Crimmins invented his République de Rêves (as the natives call it) years before that - I saw an article about him in Games magazine in the early 1980s, at which time he was making and selling Rêves postage stamps, passports, and other such items, plus "dream boxes," which were wooden cases containing arrangements of unusual objects. Sadly, when I saw this I was around 13 and did not feel in a position to buy any of these. I was most pleased to see he had published a book years later.
Clifton Royston: does anyone remember a French supposedly-non-fiction book in the "Ancient Astronauts" genre, issued in translation in the US in a cheap paperback, mid '70s? I was utterly flabbergasted when I read it; it was distinguished by the author apparently having taken Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness in all seriousness as a scientific record. He very solemnly cited the discoveries made by Miskatonic University scientists in the Antarctic as more solid proof of extraterrestrial contacts with earth. I wish I'd kept my copy of that treasure.
Could that have been Morning of the Magicians, by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier? The paperback cover art, wonderfully surreal, had been done by the same artist who did some album cover art for Santana, Mati Klarwein.
The major theme of the book was that there had been ancient technologies based on alchemy, and that much of what passed for magic was the misremembered details of that lost science. About a quarter of the book got into the occult theories of Nazi Germany. I think there had been a chapter on Charles Fort. I don't recall the Miskatonic University angle, but I wouldn't be suprised.
Years back, it seemed I could always find a second hand copy in any Salvation Army store I visited, but the supply seems to have dried up since.
Aren't there still some states where this thread is illegal?... Hello there, AI Charlie Stross. Though that's a fairly good "plausibly usable in all ML threads" line, it's a little too early in this thread to deploy it to full effect.
Y'know, for someone who edited (and rewrote for local consumption) as much porn as you did, you should have caught this reference, Teresa.
Now (and yes, I know this is in imperfect taste) I'm imagining a flourless triple-chocolate cake with a tiny LED display reading TIME TO DETONATION.
Leave it to Mr. Ford to come up with the obvious sequel: CAKES ON A PLANE.
A tasty dip with veggies (don't forget things like cauliflower and broccoli, and at least some markets have big mixed veggie plates ready to go) is yogurt or sour cream with curry powder. Best avoid the ones with dehydrated onion or garlic, if you can.
My first worldcon was Iggy. For some reason the people I work with seem to get younger every year ...
I should add, the authors might have been having a little fun with the readers if they had been describing work done at Miskatonic University. They seemed to have regarded Charles Fort as playing the part of a provocateur.
I thought the quality of their writing was a cut above the Von Daniken book (which I could not take seriously enough to finish).
Nina Armstrong said:
As for alternate novels..
How about the Dictionary of the Khazars by
Pavlac-it was interesting in that there were both male and female editions-only 4 lines were changed,but it did make a difference.
For help in searching -- the author's name is Milorad Pavic.
It's a fascinating book (structured as three "dictionaries" or encyclopedias, corresponding to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with different events and stories retold from different perspectives). It doesn't tell a single, coherent story, so it might not be quite what Howard Peirce is looking for.
I don't think it's really necessary to get both the "male" and "female" editions, though ;-)
Chiming in late on Party Throwing 101 with a few notes (I ran Tor's Worldcon parties for a few years, and lived to tell the tale):
Black trash bags are the Universal Solution to a multitude of problems: line the tub with them; collect trash with them; if the suite has a kitchen/bar area, make sure you have several containers (cardboard wine cases, garbage cans, whatever) pre-lined before the party begins, into which recycleables/trash, whatever can be tossed. If there's a closet free (meaning, a closet in which you haven't put all the fragile and easily pilfered stuff you don't want disappearing) put down another trash bag on the floor and stow your during-the-party trash there.
I generally stack all the soda/beer/cider under the sink in the bathroom, so that restocking the tub with drinks is not a major commute from a closet.
In my experience, hard cider goes faster than beer these days. I'm not certain what the exact proportions are, but I always had to hide a couple of bottles of cider for my own use, because we always ran out, whereas there was always some beer left over.
Costco et al. not only sells cut up veggie platters; they also sell fruit platters (which obviate the need for a Master Pineapple Cutter with a big knife).
If you have a multi-roomed suite, leave smaller bowls of munchies--chips, candy, popcorn, etc.--in the outlying rooms, so no one absolutely has to leave their seat on the bed in search of sustenance.
These days most hotels have strict smoking policies; if the party is on a non-smoking floor, they'll have signs posted. If it's not a hotel-mandated policy but you don't want smoking, put up signs to that effect (so that when someone starts to light up you can, as Teresa says, politely say "Not here," and point to the sign). If you feel you must have a smoking area, designate one satellite room for it, and make sure that you have at least one minion who won't be thrown into a full asthma attack when he/she has to go in to restock or clean up.
In so far as possible, bus the party as you go. This can save you hours and blood.
Agree beforehand about when you're going to close up shop, bearing in mind that when 3am comes and you're fast in a discussion of Kirkegaard's recipe for chocolate chip banana bread, you and the minions might want to renegotiate.
If party guests offer to help clean up, smile and say, "Why, thank you!" and give them a task. There is no such thing as too many helpers.
Otherwise, What Teresa said. Bigtime.
Fruit and vegetables at parties... I think I must be blocking that out, I worked on way too many bid parties.... I do remember a few things, such as:
1. do NOT put everything out at the start of the party, pace what gets put out. The more stuff is out on display, the more attractive taking large amounts of the food is per person. Staging out t
Comments on Open thread 69: