From the Slap Me Upside the Head Department: I entirely forgot to mention that it is Wilson “Bob” Tucker’s 100th birthday.
If ever there was a fan’s fan, Bhob Tucker is it. From injecting calming influences where ever fan feuds erupted to publishing some of the best zines out there (Le Zombie), to inventing “Tuckerizing” (hence the name) to teaching us all how to drink properly, fan, author and movie projectionist Wilson Tucker was a force to be reckoned with. Tangent Online is reprinting an interview with Bhob in honor of his birthday. Lift one to him today, and don’t forget to say “Smoooooooooth!”
When Secret Masters Blab, Everybody Listens
In preparation for this year’s Smofcon32, happening in Manhattan Beach, CA the first weekend of December, convention bid committees have been invited to participate in the Fannish Inquisition. The first stage is answering a survey of commonly-asked questions — about …
Terraform Online SF Magazine Launches
Terraform, Vice Media Group’s standalone literary platform dedicated to original science fiction, launched November 2014 with contributions from Cory Doctorow and Bruce Sterling. Terraform will operate as a part of Motherboard, Vice’s online science and technology magazine and video channel. …
MUTTS To Play the Kennedy Center!
By James H. Burns: For years now, MUTTS has been my all time fave comic strip. Greeting the morning with a reading of that day’s Patrick McDonnell strip is a grand way to start the day. The epoch follows Mooch …
Stu Shiffman Update 11/21Stu Shiffman has been unresponsive since a fall suffered in October caused a recurrence of swelling in his brain. Tom Whitmore told followers of Stu’s Caringbridge page on November 19: “Unfortunately, this kind of swelling is hard to control. So …
You Better Watch Out
Did Black Friday arrive a week early at James H. Burns’ local garden supply store? And warn every fan in search of The Three Wise Gnomes — these aren’t the garden gnomes you’re looking for… [Thanks to James H. Burns for …
Otherworldly Interface at the KGB Bar With Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead
By Mark L. Blackman: On the bone-chilling evening of Wednesday, November 19 the Fantastic Fiction Readings Series hosted readings by authors Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead (who, despite having a similar-sounding name, is not the guy from The Nightmare Before …
Today In History 11/21
1942: “Tweety Bird” debuted. Ransacking the Wikipedia I learned that Tweety was a creation of Bob Clampett. In Tweety’s first appearance he (or she? there’s evidence both ways) was merely a baby bird in an outdoors nest, naked and featherless. (In …
The Inflatable Robotic Arms RaceWhat do you think inspired the appearance of Baymax in Disney’s film Big Hero 6? The Michelin Man? The Sta-Puft Marshmallow monster in Ghostbusters? How about – an actual robot? DARPA-funded technology developers are already actively at work on soft, air-filled …
Le Guin Presented National Book Foundation MedalUrsula K. Le Guin received the 2014 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the hands of Neil Gaiman at a ceremony in New York on November 19. Reporters considered her 6-minute speech the highlight of …
Hamner Documentary Looks For FundingThey’ve already shot the Earl Hamner Storyteller documentary but you can hardly tell his story without showing footage from the things he wrote, like The Waltons, those classic episodes of the Twilight Zone, the movie Spencer’s Mountain, and so many …
Christopher Marlowe Film Fundraiser for the Shakespeare Society of AmericaBy Francis Hamit: The producers of Christopher Marlowe, The Kit Marlowe Film Co. plc, are doing a fundraiser through Tfund, a unit of Cafepress, for the Shakespeare Society of America, Inc . Back when it was producing plays at the …
Gone With The Sirocco
The Palm Restaurant has reopened at its new location in Beverly Hills but the 2,500 celebrity caricatures once on the walls at the old West Hollywood address did not make the trip. At least most of them. Gene Roddenberry and leading men …
Today’s Birthday Girl 11/18
Born November 18, 1939: Margaret Atwood When Atwood accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Canadian Booksellers Association a few years ago she revealed she was a pioneering self-published author: My own bookselling activities began in 1961, when, together with a …
Frankfurt Book Fair Disappoints
By Francis Hamit (Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved.) The Frankfurt International Book Fair (aka Buchmesse) was the first trade show I covered as a journalist. That was in 1969 when I was living in Frankfurt and stationed at Headquarters, US …
Bradbury Was a Star in ’02— No Foolin’
By John Hertz: Ray Bradbury was awarded the 2,193rd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was placed outside Larry Edmunds’ bookshop, 6644 Hollywood Bl., where he’d been a customer fifty years. In 1934 he went roller-skating there. At …
Added issue 2.0.8 of Graham Charnock’s Vibrator, winner of Best Fanzine in the 2014 Nova Awards
Added BEAM #8, edited by Nic Farey & Jim Trash
Added Taral Wayne’s Lost Toys #6, 7, 8. This completes the run.
Added The Pleasure of Ruins #1, a new fanzine from R. Graeme Cameron
Added Rodney Leighton’s Rodney’s Fanac #2
Added issue #289 of Opuntia, edited by Dale Speirs
No updates as of this issue.
