some links tonight

I'm home from New Jersey safe and sound after doing some antiquing yesterday, having a fantastic dinner at Shawna McCarthy's house, and then doing the outlets today. Exhausting but fun. Wiped out but watched a couple of movies this evening which I'll mention tomorrow.

An interview with author Richard Bowes about his forthcoming novel Dust Devil: My Life in Speculative Fiction is on the Mermaniac site Dancing the Dance: An Interview with Richard Bowes


and Andy Porter has posted photos of the sf community at Historical photos of science fiction fandom from Andy Porter's collection --you might recognize more than a few faces.

theater and movies

I went to Play Dead, a modern spook show created by Teller and Todd Robbins on Thursday. Based on the midnight spook shows that played throughout the US from the 1930s to the 1970s.
From the program: The shows all followed the same business plan and performance pattern. A magician would book a movie theater after the last feature on a Saturday night. He'd stick skulls all over his magic props, dress his assistants as sexy vampires, and give creepy themes to all his "patter." In the finale, somebody dressed as a mummy or werewolf would dash into the audience as all the light went out."

Todd Robbins is a charming, convincing magician-host. He tells stories about real people, he re-enacts horrific events, and as a mentalist he "brings to life" dead friends and relatives to some audience members. I won't say any more because I don't want to spoil it but I loved it and thank Neil Gaiman for reccing it on his blog.
If you're interested, don't read about it beforehand. I knew nothing about it and that's the way to go.



I watched The Uninvited Friday night with Shawna and I really hated it. I hadn't realized it was based on the Korean movie A Tale of Two Sisters, which I've read about. Maybe I'll check out the original. A young teenager is institutionalized for 10 months after trying to commit suicide upon the death by fire of her sickly mother. She returns home to discover her mother's nurse is now her dad's lover. The girl and her older sister come to suspect that the nurse was responsible for the mother's death and gather evidence.

I found the story preposterous and the always wide-eyed main character annoying. So sue me. ;-)

Last night I watched The Social Network, which ultimately made me want to quit FB because I found the character of Mark Zuckerberg such a loathsome human being. I know I'm supposed to feel sorry for him by the end, but I didn't. For anyone living under a rock, it's about the founding of facebook. Good movie, not a particularly great one. The problem is that the way Zuckerberg is portrayed, he's so lacking of empathy that you (or I anyway) couldn't give a damned about him, only about the people all around him that he betrayed.

Waltz With Bashir is a soul-searching animated documentary (mixed with dreams and visions) about Israeli writer/director Ari Folman's attempts to reconstruct--20 years later-- what he can't remember from his military reserve service in the 1982 Lebanon war.

He begins having nightmares related to that period of his life, and, after speaking with a psychologist friend, tracks down friends and acquaintances with whom he served plus the Israeli journalist who broke the news of the massacre in two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila. Excellent and highly recommended.