James Tiptree Jr. Award Winners: Joe Haldeman and Johanna Sinisalo The award is “presented annually to a work that explores and expands gender roles in science fiction and fantasy…” James Tiptree, Jr was actually Alice Sheldon. She wrote a memorable book that featured not only gender-role swapping, but complete body and consciousness and species swapping called Up The Walls Of The World. It’s at least 15 years since I read it, and I still remember the intriguing, liberating, and disturbing issues she raised and the characters that played the story out. Tiptree/Sheldon was an amazing writer, and she led an…
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We remember, Madrid. Joi Ito is in Madrid for the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security; it’s no accident that this meeting was timed to take place there. He’s moderated a Democracy, Terrorism, and the Internet panel, and there’s another meeting he’s in called the Atocha Creative Policy Workshop, too. It appears from the schedule and comparing Chicago time to Madrid time that the session he’s in starts in a minute or so. It’s currently 929am as I type, and the conference starts at 4:30pm Madrid time – right about now. And yes, it appears that it’s being updated…
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Let’s see – there’s a recap of the premiere up, which I got around to reading the night before the second episode aired. The title, whch is usually only visible when you look at the whole list of recaps, is “Peru-ff Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.” Miss Alli has this to say about the state of TAR thus far: Previously on How To Endanger Your Franchise With One Drunken Casting Session: First, it was awwwwwesome (Ed: TAR1). Then, it was great (Ed: TAR2). Then it was great, except for the part where Flo won (Ed: TAR3). Then, it kind of sucked…
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The weather report this morning was quite firm about it: it would start snowing at around 9am, and it would carry on snowing all day, and winter would continue indefinitely. Here’s proof: a suitably mysterious yet evocative photo that shows snow, cold outdoor glass sheathing, and ghostly reflections (because it was taken from INSIDE one of the covered walkways, it’s too cold to prance around in the snow taking artsy pix). And yes, the one cow-orker who insists against all reason, aesthetics or fashion sense on wearing shorts whenever “it’s 50 degrees!” is in her white shorts and Keds today,…
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I was reading a blog maintained by the husband of a friend and thought he was noting an upcoming “British Art-Rock Group Conference”. So naturally, I thought “well, people will study anything – why not a conference about Jethro Tull, Yes, Caravan and Renaissance?” Turns out it’s a “British ROCK-ART conference.” Man! Is there even such a thing as whole-word dyslexia? Because sometimes, I just wonder about that thing in my head that passes for a brain. So by way of apology there’s a link to David’s rock-art photos from Mesa Verde under the photo. I make no apologies for…
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I was Googling around looking for something else when I ran across a familiar place – my old Episcopal parish in Seattle. The church was damaged in the Ash Wednesday earthquake of 2001, and they’ve started major repairs… and they’re blogging it, of course! Woo, you guys. Good for you! Best of luck.
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I haven’t mentioned it here previously, but things aren’t so good just now at my beloved Holy Moly. We’re just… so small, and we’ve been in a budget crunch since forever. There’s other stuff – just “stuff,” okay? that we either have to solve or work on. On the other hand, new people trickle in the doors most weeks (some really great new people!), but the “old hands” are exhausted and tempers sometimes fray. It seems like we have committee meetings every other week now. We’re all working on ideas for short-term and long term goals, and tomorrow a meeting…
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I’ve been getting a number of hits all year on an entry from our Britain trip that tells about visiting Westminster Abbey in London and about the tombs and monuments of various royals, literary figures, and scientists that are found there. In short, I was getting a hell of a lot of hits on the phrase “Isaac Newton Tomb” – famous scientist and historical honorary member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. An online chum who claims to be a dead mathematician and philosopher would also qualify if someone would only nominate him. Don’t be fooled by the…
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Okay, they’re serious. This is unprecedented in the long history of fan “save our show” campaigns: Fans of UPN’s soon-to-be-canceled Star Trek: Enterprise formally announced that three anonymous contributors have pledged $3 million to a fund to finance a proposed fifth season of the show. The TrekUnited.com Web site reported that the promised contribution will come from “investors” in “the commercial space flight industry.” It’s one thing to take out impressive ads in national magazines or pull off clever ploys for garnering the attention of network suits (such as the time fans of Roswell sent thousands of bottles of Tabasco…
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Holy crap, the recaplet for last night’s episode is already up: From our old friend LAX, the teams take off for Lima, Peru. There is much talk among some of the other teams of the presence of Rob and Amber, whom I will tell you right now I personally like and don’t care who knows it, and do you know why? Because every time they grin broadly, it chaps the shit out of Lex somewhere in the world. At any rate, sand-pit digging reveals that there are a few teams who will need to pay a bit more attention to…