OVer at the Whatever, Senor BaconCat has two long posts on the glamorous life of a successful SF writer: one breaking down his income from SF writing in detail, and the other talking about why he’s talking about money. The comment threads are also lively and interesting in their own right. It’s particularly funny to… Continue reading The Writing Life
Category: Pop Culture
Comprehensible Is the New Black
John Scalzi is being railroaded into heading a new movement in SF: The New Comprehensible. He disdains manifestoes (“people who issue literary manifestos should be thrown into jet engines”), but does offer a set of precepts for people seeking to write in the New Comprehensible: 1. Think of an actual person you know, of reasonable… Continue reading Comprehensible Is the New Black
Hugo Recommendations
As Kate and I are planning to attend the Worldcon this year, we’re eligible to nominate for the Hugo Awards, which are sort of SF’s version of the Oscars, or maybe the Golden Globes (the Nebula Awards being the other). This is only the third time I’ve had this opportunity, and it’s always kind of… Continue reading Hugo Recommendations
Pop Culture Supercollider
One of those only-on-the-Internet, adventrues-in-D-list-celebrity videos: A YouTube clip of a hair metal cover band joined onstage by one of the teachers from “Saved by the Bell” and Dallas Cowboys snap-dropper Tony Romo, singing “Somewhere in the Night” by Journey. Romo really gets into it, and Mr. Belding drops the F-bomb a few times, and,… Continue reading Pop Culture Supercollider
Superheroes 101?
Over in LiveJournal land, I’ve been reading a bunch of posts about superhero stories, mostly in the form of forty-odd years of comic books on DVD (mentioned in locked posts on a pseudonymous LJ, so no link for you). I end up reading these posts with a sort of detached interst, because I don’t really… Continue reading Superheroes 101?
SF and the History of Science
I’m going to be on a few program items at Boskone again this year. The highly preliminary schedule I received a couple of days ago includes a Saturday afternoon talk on “Spooky Action at a Distance,” which will be a sort of popular-audience explanation of the EPR Paradox and Bell’s Theorem. “Weird Quantum Phenomena” was… Continue reading SF and the History of Science
What’s in a Name?
Today is the first day of classes, so I’m going to be kind of busy at work. Here’s a bit of pop-culture silliness to lighten things up while I’m teaching and setting up labs. The Neil Diamond chestnut “Sweet Caroline” got brought up in a back-channel discussion, prompting much revulsion from the older members of… Continue reading What’s in a Name?
Product Placement
Another idle thought inspired by the Bond movie (I may or may not post comments about the movie as a whole, but you can check out Kate’s spoiler-laden comments. I liked it a little more than she did, but I’m more familiar with the genre, and willing to cut them more slack…): From what I… Continue reading Product Placement
Idle Bond Thought
Kate and I saw the new Bond flick last night (short review: nice re-launch of the franchise, Daniel Craig does a great job with the role), and as the final credits started to roll, they played that signature James Bond riff– the “dum di-di dum, da-da-da” bass line, the “da-da di dahh, di dah-daaaah” brass… Continue reading Idle Bond Thought
Pimp Me DVD’s
Kate and I have a Netflix subscription that we’ve mostly been using to obtain various anime series. We’re running a little low on Japanese cartoons, though, having recently finished Martian Successor Nadesico, and with only four discs left of Trigun (two of which will probably be polished off while lolling around Friday after hosting Thanksgiving… Continue reading Pimp Me DVD’s