Yep, another Waltzy bit of Shoegaze, this one from Brooklyn’s The Big Sleep.
Shoegazer Sunday: The Big Sleep’s “Sleepykid Waltz”
August 23rd, 2015Photos from Worldcon Part 2 (The 2014 London Worldcon, That Is)
August 19th, 2015And here’s Part 2 of those London Worldcon pics.
Note that some pictures are labeled “…and company.” This is code for “I’m slightly less embarrassed about not remembering your name a year later than I would be about getting it wrong.”
The lovely and talented Gail Garriger contemplates her next cup of tea.
It’s only a matter of time until leopard-skin gloves are all the rage…
Tobias Buckell, straight from his performance in Hipsters of the Caribbean.
I’m 99% sure this is Martin Hoare with David Langford. After all, it’s Worldcon. How many bearded, gray-haired men with glasses could there be?
Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s Mike Walsh.
John Kessel.
John Kessel in jacket.
John Kessel in jacket and the shoes he stole from Lew Shiner.
Michael Bulmlein.
Jo Walton contemplates the five kilometer hike to her next panel.
Your Humble Narrator and Ian McDonald.
Stephen Baxter, taking a short break from 100,000 words of galaxy smashing.
The ageless Ben Yalow. He stays the same while the original painting for Confessions of a Crap Artist gets older.
Signs of the horrific mental degeneration that comes from being a science fiction bookseller…
Just ask George Locke!
Charlie Stross, caught in the middle of a very geeky plan for world domination.
Ben Bova.
Ben Bova and Your Humble Narrator.
Lawrence Watt-Evans.
Lawrence Watt-Evans and company.
Lawrence and Lawrence, coming this fall to Fox!
Matthew Hughes
Ann VanderMeer
Jeff and Ann VanderMeer.
Stephen Jones.
Joe Haldeman, Gay Haldeman and Jim Burns.
John Douglas.
Michael Swanwick, yet again.
“Come, Mrs. Peel, we’re needed!”
Henry Wessels, rocking the seersucker.
John Clute and company.
Teddy Harvia fooling around with a married woman known only as “Mrs. Thayer.”
Robert Jackson Bennett, who I somehow had to travel 5,000 miles to see.
Andrew Porter.
Scott Edelman.
Jeff Orth, one of the three chairs of the 2016 Kansas City Worldcon. Expect him to look approximately 30 years older 380 days from now.
James Patrick Kelly, of the Gets-photographed-a-lot-at-Worldcons Patrick Kellys.
Has anyone seen Jack Dann and Russell Blackford in the same room at the same time?
Janeen Webb.
Betsy Mitchell.
Photos from Worldcon Part 1 (The 2014 London Worldcon, That Is)
August 18th, 2015So this year’s Worldcon is this week, and you’re posting photos from last year’s Worldcon?
Yep.
And didn’t you already post some of these photos?
Yep.
So why do it again?
Last year at Worldcon, I uploaded these photos in a big bunch to Facebook, then linked to the Facebook photos from this blog. However, Facebook, evidently hating the idea that people outside their walled garden of changing preferences and sunglasses spam might see said photos, keeps changing their URLs, thus breaking links to them. So the photos themselves disappeared from the old post. These I’m uploading directly to my blog.
Also, I didn’t blog all the images I meant to, so there will be some new ones in Part 2.
So without further adieu…
Leigh Kennedy, who I had lunch and dinner with, along with Nick Austin, the Monday before the con. We have loads of common friends, but knew them at different times, so there was a lot of trading stories…
In profile.
Cory Doctorow, exhibiting his unique sense of style…
…and with an actual top to his head.
John J. Miller of Wild Cards fame, with Gail Gerstner-Miller.
Kim Newman, in his usual natty, multilayered attire. Wear this in Texas in August and you’re asking for heatstroke.
Jonathan Strahan and David Hartwell.
Pat Murphy, all scarfed-up.
Lavie Tidhar, who used to do reviews for me back in the Nova Express days.
Ian Watson and Lavie Tidhar, signing books at the PS Publishing table in the dealer’s room. I asked Watson what the genesis of the Watson-Aldiss feud was. “I’ve gotten to the age when I’m not sure I remember it properly anymore…”
Connie Willis.
Liz Hand.
And looking slightly less crazed.
Ellen Datlow and Liz Hand fan themselves and look down upon the peasantry.
Elle Datlow solo.
Guest of honor John Clute.
Adam Roberts.
Geoff Ryman peers at me suspiciously.
Gary K. Wolfe.
Andy Duncan.
Didn’t get all the names, but this is something like 75% of the Israeli SF publishing industry.
Kim Stanley Robinson.
John Gibbons.
Michael Swanwick, Geoff Ryman, and Ellen Datlow.
Michael Swanwick and Gordon Van Gelder, looking way too befuddled for the first day of the con.
Lisa Tuttle, who I had lunch with, joined by…
…George R. R. Martin.
George R. R. Martin and the Spanish George R. R. Martin.
Michael Swanwick and George R. R. Martin, enjoying fine dining in an atmosphere of unpretentious ambiance.
Parris McBride Martin.
Alastair Reynolds.
Pat Cadigan.
Pat Cadigan in green.
Pat Cadigan with fan-drawn cyberpunk.
Finally, Pat Cadigan with her spiffy Doc Martin boots.
The elusive Richard Calder.
Michael Swanwick showing off his outfit. “This shirt is bespoke! Bespoke, I tell you!”
Finally, Michael Swanwick showing off the t-shirt for MidAmericon II, the 2016 Kansas City Worldcon he’s Guest of Honor at. (Pat Cadigan is Toastmistress.)
Library Addition: Kirk Hammett’s Too Much Horror Business
August 17th, 2015Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett is one of the world’s premiere collectors of horror movie posters and memorabilia (toys, games, masks, etc.). After reading about the Hammett collection in Heritage Auction’s Intelligent Collector magazine, I’d been interested in the book documenting it, so I picked one up from the Cold Tonnage 40% off sale.
Hammett, Kirk. Too Much Horror Business. Abrams, 2012. First edition oversized hardback, a Fine- copy with wear at points, sans dust jacket, as issued. (Note: The wear on the front cover lettering is faux-wear, as you can tell from the same faux-wear on the title and half-title page.) Hammett has a truly amazing poster collection, possibly on par with that of Robert V. Borst (documented in Graven Images), whose range of collection included more science fiction and fantasy than Hammett. Bought for £12 marked down from £20.
Here’s a video on the book and Hammett’s collection:
Shoegazer Sunday: School of Seven Bells’ “Windstorm”
August 16th, 2015For your Sunday dose of Shoegaze, here’s “Windstorm,” a nice song from earlier in School of Seven Bells’ career.
Tianjin, China Blows Up Real Good
August 13th, 2015In case you missed the video, a fuel depot in Tianjin, a port city in northern China at about the same latitude of Pyongyang, blew up Real Good yesterday:
Library Addition: Signed Edition of Horror: 100 Best Books
August 13th, 2015This is another book I bought in the Cold Tonnage 40% off sale.
Jones, Stephen and Newman, Kim. Horror: 100 Best Books. Xanadu Publications, Ltd., 1988. First edition hardback, #214 of 300 numbered copies signed by both the editors and almost every living one of the 100 (!) contributors, including Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Harlan Ellison, Basil Copper, Karl Edward Wagner, Jack Williamson, etc. etc etc. (though not by Stephen King), a Fine copy in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. Bought for £30 off Cold Tonnage, marked down from £50.
I tried to take pictures of the signatures on the endpapers, with varying results. Click to embiggen:
I already had the trade edition, but the limited’s binding is quite different from the trade edition, as the picture below illustrates:
(Ignore the grid lines, which are a scanner artifact.)
Library Addition: Bob Shaw’s The Palace of Eternity
August 11th, 2015Cold Tonnage was having it’s annual 40% off sale (Andy Richards says he uses the sale to pay his taxes every year), so I picked up several books I’ll be listing over the next week or so.
Shaw, Bob. The Palace of Eternity. Gollancz, 1970. First hardback edition, a Near Fine copy with one small spot to page block edge and bumping to bottom points, in a Near Fine+ dust jacket with with small dust blemish to spine near Gollancz “SF” logo, a few tiny dust spots elsewhere, and a slight bumping at bottom tips. Inscribed by the author: “To Brian,/with best wishes/Bob Shaw.” Currey (1979), page 431. Pringle SF 100, 61. Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 4, 4-391. Bought for £120, marked down from £200.
Restaurant Review: Hill’s Cafe
August 10th, 2015Hill’s Cafe
700 S Congress Ave (Austin, 78745)
(512) 851-9300
Eaten at: July 25, 2015
Restroom Rating: 1.5 (Guys, when one soap dispenser is broken, and the other is off the wall and lying on the sinktop, your men’s room needs attention….)
Hill’s is one of those “Austin institutions” that has been around forever. We’ve eaten there before, and always thought they had good hamburgers and chicken fried steak.
Since Armadillocon was over in the Omni Southpark this year, and since Hill’s Cafe is evidently under new management, we decided to give them a revisit. This time around we had…hamburgers and chicken-fried steak. And I thought my chicken-fried steak was very tasty indeed, probably top 5 in Austin tasty, and I heard no complaints from the hamburger contingent. I also thought the onion rings were pretty good. (You’ll have to check with Dwight on the BBQ.)
They were out of banana pudding, and offered us some complimentary banana bread pudding instead. While I appreciate the gesture, the bread pudding just wasn’t very good, so you should probably avoid that.
Our waiter was pretty attentive, and pretty much kept up with our refills and other requests.
Overall the meal was more than satisfactory, offering up well-executed renditions of classic hearty Texas fare in filing portions at a fair price. Which makes me wonder why the place was half-deserted when we ate there.
Hill’s is never going to be a favorite with the “3 small pieces of seared fish artfully arranged with sculpted garnishes on a drizzle glazed plate for $30” crowd. But if you’re looking for good down home Texas food, Hill’s Cafe amply fits the bill.
“You look like Freddy Kruger face-f*cked a topographical map of Utah”
August 6th, 2015And now I pretty much have to see Deadpool…
“Deadpool: The movie that touches you in totally inappropriate ways…”