Sunday, December 7, 2008

Nyuk! Nyuk!

Jeff Abraham sends me this link to a program (or rather, programme) on BBC Radio 4 — a half-hour history of The Three Stooges. I haven't been able to get the link to work so let me know if you do. And hurry. It says the show will only be online for a few more days, you knuckleheads. Thanks, Jeff.

• Posted at 10:17 PM · LINK

Go See It!

Richard Howe has taken approximately 11,000 photos of street corners in Manhattan. 7,322 have a Duane Reade drugstore on them but all are fascinating.

• Posted at 7:39 PM · LINK

Hollywood Labor News

The AMPTP has posted on its website what its spinmeisters are saying is a fabulous offer for the Screen Actors Guild...and the last they're ever going to get. This is how the game is played. They make Absolutely Final Offers and act like some force of science makes it humanly impossible for the terms to be any better.

How is this offer? Entertainment lawyer Jonathan Handel doesn't think much of it. Neither does my friend Bob Elisberg. As I've been saying here for some time, the studios got AFTRA (the other actors' union) to take a mediocre deal and now they're insisting that this year's labor negotiations are a settled matter and SAG has to fall in line and take it.

Obviously, SAG doesn't. Just because one union takes a lousy deal — or in some cases, a deal that's acceptable for them but wouldn't be for you — that doesn't mean you have to take it. The AMPTP is especially skilled at structuring an offer that is good for Union A and bad for Union B. The Directors Guild has made most of its gains over the last few decades by being Union A in that situation.

Obviously, SAG might. The solidarity a union needs to mount an effective strike does not seem to be there. Rumors abound that various ***Big Stars*** oppose a strike and those rumors are not causing that solidarity to appear. One of the wise things the Writers Guild did before it hit the bricks was to do an outreach to "A" list screenwriters and TV Show Runners and to get most of them on board. Presumably, SAG leadership is currently attempting something comparable and I wish them well. It really is a crummy offer.

• Posted at 11:01 AM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

Rob Hansen sends the following regarding this message which I posted earlier...

Reading last night's missive to you when you posted it, I spotted a small but very significant typo on my part. Actually, the first London convention was held in 1938, not 1939. Sigh, this is why writing emails last thing before turning in for the night is not a good idea.

As it happens, the second ever London convention was held in 1939 at Druid's Hall (full name: The Ancient Order of Druids Memorial Hall), amid a large papier mache model of Stonehenge, apparently. It's always amused me that the building erected on this site after the war later housed the Aliens Registration Bureau.

In the meantime, Anthony Tollin sends this...

My late friend Sam Moskowitz put on the first American science fiction convention in Newark, New Jersey on May 29th, 1938. The following year, 1939, Sam ran the first World Science Fiction Convention, so named because it was originally to be held on the grounds of the New York World's Fair, over the 4th of July weekend. Julie Schwartz, a friend of mine whom I believe you knew too, chronicled that weekend (and 4SJ's participation) on pp. 49-52 of his memoir, Man of Two Worlds.

Well, of course I knew Julie very well...too well at times, but that's another matter. He kept explaining the history of science-fiction fandom to me and getting me more and more confused with each explanation. I hosted a couple of panels over the years and attended meals where he and Forry Ackerman and sometimes Ray Bradbury reminisced over "those days" and it always resembled the scene in The Sunshine Boys where they're arguing whether Sol Burton was the manager of the Belasco or the Morosco.

As I said, I really am not an authority on this aspect of fandom...when and where the first conventions were. I defer to you and Mr. Hansen. I just want to know who invented panels at conventions and how many more I have to host before I have the record.

• Posted at 10:47 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Forty-four Presidents of the United States (well, 43 plus the guy soon to be inaugurated) morphing from one to the next. This runs four minutes and is most interesting for the last minute or so...so you might want to fast-forward.

• Posted at 12:47 AM · LINK