Gallifrey One: Spanning the Decades

It's appropriate that the science fiction franchise DOCTOR WHO (and franchise it is, with two TV series, three movies, two spinoff series, novels, comics, etc.) is about a hero who travels through time. The franchise itself started 49 years ago; and the Gallifrey One convention that over 3,100 folks attended this weekend bore testimony to the franchise's multi-decade reach. On Saturday (the day we attended alone), one could see guests ranging from Waris Hussein, the director of the very first DOCTOR WHO serial in 1963 (telling stories of how original star William Hartnell, who was rather racist and sexist, had to be coaxed into starring in a series created by a Canadian, with a female producer and an Indian-British director) to Caitlin Blackwood, who portrays Amy Pond as a little girl in the most recent run of DOCTOR WHO episodes. In between, one can find actors such as Louise Jameson, who played companion Leela (a pre-Xena Xena) in the series in the mid-Seventies, and Paul McGann, who played the eighth incarnation of The Doctor in the 1996 Fox TV-Movie revival of the series.

It's an impressive chunk of TV history, one that continues to be successful seven years after the series's 2005 reincarnation into a critically acclaimed series that has won many new fans. And Gallifrey One is the place to meet those who were present throughout that history.

Droid 4: The Phone of Promises

While I'm not quite as much of a gadget fan as some of my more techie-oriented friends, I do enjoy picking up a new electronic goody now and then. And that is why yesterday I traded my Droid smartphone (one of the original Motorola Droids) for its newest descendent, the Droid 4.

Doing so may have resulted more from gut feeling than reason. Had I reasoned the matter through, I probably would not have picked up the Droid 4 one day after its release on the market. I would have waited for collective market experience to materialize concerning its reliability and usefulness. Instead, I saw months ago that it was coming to the market; went to a Verizon store yesterday; played with it for a few seconds; and decided to buy it.

So far I'm happy with the decision. The Droid line may be a line of dinosaurs, with their slide-out physical keyboards in an era of virtual onscreen keyboards; but I've always found physical keyboards far more accurate and easier to use than their counterparts. The phone feels light and comfortable; it's fast; and so far it has acceptable battery life.

But I can't help noticing that this is the phone of promises. It has the "Gingerbread" Android operating system, rather than the state-of-the-art "Ice Cream Sandwiche" Android OS on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus. Further, intrigued by the camera that faces the user, I clicked on the Skype app on the phone -- only to reach a screen telling me that the Skype video calling app for that phone had actually not been developed yet.

So it's a "stay tuned" phone. Not the worst thing. It's fun to have stuff to look forward to.

Anime L.A. 2012: Capacity Crowd

The eighth annual Anime Los Angeles convention took place January 6-8, and was sandwiched by two unfortunate news stories about the anime industry. The first was Bandai Entertainment U.S.A.'s announcement that it would restructure, shed jobs, and stop issuing new titles. The second was Media Blaster's post-con announcement that it is laying off 60% of its staff. Considering that Bandai and Media Blasters are two major players in the increasingly shrinking industry of American anime licensors, these two announcements suggest that the market for anime in the U.S. is waning.

But that sentiment was belied by Anime L.A. 2012. The convention had its largest attendance yet, hitting the 4,000 member cap imposed by the size of the venue. And the enthusiasm of the attendees indicated that American love for Japan's animation project is still going strong.

We attended all three days (albeit I missed most of Friday) plus the Thursday Ice Cream Social, and had a terrific time. The convention is one of the friendliest and best-run anime cons that we attend. The con benefits from a terrific venue (the staff is used to all of these folks in strange costumes, particularly since the LAX Marriott plays host to multiple SF/Fantasy/anime cons throughout the year) and from a huge turnout of folks in terrific costumes.

Here are some photos:

The One Piece fan panel featured some great costumes from that long-running series, including a depiction of sea cook Sanji, currently suffering from severe blood loss from nosebleeds whenever he sees an attractive woman. Hence the IV bag.
One of my favorite current anime TV series is CHIHAYAFURU. So I was delighted to meet an entire group of cosplayers who dressed up as the high school Kurata players from that series.
Steampunk and anime are intimately connected (particularly with all of the anime steampunk series and movies that have been done), and so Friday afternoon saw a steampunk costume gathering, in which Amy and I participated.
And, of course, the convention saw some crossover non-anime cosplay, from both DC . . .
. . . and Marvel.

We look forward to next year.

Tintin: Raiders of the Lost Comic

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, Steven Spielberg's and Peter Jackson's adaptation of Herge's long-running Belgian comic strip, marks both Spielberg's first crack at directing a comic book movie and his debut as an animation director. He succeeds on both counts. True, the Tintin in the movie is a virtual cipher as a character; he is defined more by what he does (go on adventures, investigate mysteries, work as a reporter, collect typewriters) than who he is. We have no idea why he enjoys adventure, what motivates him to buy a ship model for a pound in the opening scene and then refuse to part with it at any price, or repeatedly risk his life. We don't even know what he likes to eat (he doesn't eat at all in the movie). The actual characterization, such as it is, is focused instead on supporting character/sidekick Captain Haddock. But nevertheless, we like these characters enough to root for them. More important, Spielberg both avoids the creepiness of motion-capture films such as THE POLAR EXPRESS (Dead eyes. Shudder.) and brings back the kinetic excitement of his Indiana Jones movies, this time unfettered by those pesky laws of physics. (At one point, two ships on storm-tossed seas tilt until their central masts are touching each other, and pirates run across the masts and board the ship.) The result is a fun time in the theater -- one that shows that there is still life in this venerable property.

2012: More Fun at the Cinema

The leading entertainment story in the year-end post mortem of the movie biz is that the comic book movie doesn't have quite the box office power that it used to have. That's an odd sentiment for a year in which X-Men, Captain America, and Thor movies enjoyed good business (and sold a ton of merchandise on the way). But, the critics point out, those movies had solid openings but did not have lasting power.

If that's so, we'll have to see what happens this year. The fun starts early, in March, with Disney's adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's century-old science fantasy series JOHN CARTER OF MARS, which has boasted spectacular trailers. We'll get to see Christopher Nolan's final entry in his superb trilogy of Batman films, and find out if THE DARK KNIGHT RISES will have the same box office punch as 2008's THE DARK KNIGHT. We'll have a reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, and see if the new Andrew Garfield Spider-Man will do the boffo box office the Sam Raimi/Toby Maguire Spidey flicks did. And the summer will bring us THE AVENGERS, the first major superhero film to leverage Marvel Studio's ability to allow the various superheros that Marvel didn't license to other studios cross over into each others' films -- allowing us to see the movie Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye all in one film. (By comparison, you won't see Wolverine, licensed to Fox, appearing in a Sony Spider-Man movie).

Are these movies following a trend whose time has passed? My prognostication is that once the cash starts rolling in on at least some of them, the naysayers will forget their nays. In any event, the films give us hope that this will be a fun year at the theater.

The Shadow Game Is Afoot

If anything confirmed that we need the two most recent Sherlock Holmes movies -- both the first Robert Downey, Jr. one and the recently-opened "A Game of Shadows" -- it's the party I went to where a teenaged girl was watching the first RDJ Holmes on DVD, and confessed that she had no idea who or what Sherlock Holmes was. This was stunning to me, because long before I read any of the Holmes stories, or saw any of the movies, or watched the excellent Jeremy Brett movies, I at least knew who Holmes and Watson were. I had at least seen the deerstalker hat, the meerschaum pipe, the magnifying glass, and identified them as being symbols of a detective named Sherlock Holmes. He is one of the most universally known fictional characters, up there with Tarzan, Superman, and Mickey Mouse. We may take that for granted, however. Holmes might eventually fade from the popular consciousness. To guard against that, we need new Sherlock Holmes movies.

And the latest one is a terrifically entertaining contribution to the collection of Holmes adaptations. Watching the first one, I learned that I could accept RDJ's and director Guy Ritchie's version of Holmes -- which focuses on the man-of-action martial artist Holmes who appears in some of the stories, rather than the cerebral drawing-room ratiocinator -- because it is not so foreign to the literary Holmes as to lose the spirit of the character. And I enjoyed the look of the films, which lend a subtle touch of the fabulous to the usual dreary Victorian England settings; not to mention Jude Law's Watson, who seems to have picked up an unusual number of fighting skills in the military for one who served as a military surgeon. (Why, in this film we learn that he can skillfully aim and fire artillary.)

"A Game of Shadows" expands upon the tapestry laid out in the first film, by moving to the territory which Holmes pastiches have often explored -- the chess game, played out on a global scale, between Holmes and his Player on the Other Side, Professor Moriarty, drawn in the broadest strokes in the story "The Final Problem." Moriarity is, of course, the model for the comic book supervillain, the James Bond baddie, and every other "big bad" who at least matches the hero for wits, and eclipses him or her in resources. So many of the Holmes stories paint him as an intellectual giant in a world of pygmies; so the concept of Holmes meeting a villain whose powers of logic and manipulation were equal or superior to his has fired the imaginations of readers.

The movie handles this aspect of the story well. We don't get the chilling scene from "The Final Problem" in which Moriarity suddenly appears in Holmes's study without Holmes seeing him enter (the scene here is played out in Moriarty's office at his university, which Holmes visits at the professor's invitation); but Jared Harris plays Moriarty as one who is firmly in control not only of what is happening in his immediate presence, but everything everywhere.

Not that the movie is a cerebral match of wits between the detective and the criminal. No, it's a big, loud, action-filled chase across Europe, complete with anarchist bombings, hand grenades, machine guns, trains, and automobiles. (No planes yet. Leave that for the next movie.) After all, you can't teach the young folks who Holmes is by boring them. They'll come for the action; hopefully, they'll come back (to the books) for the raciocination.

A Tale of Two Conventions

We attended two conventions in November, and they were polar opposites of each other.

The first was Anime Vegas 2011, held November 11-13 in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had attended two other Anime Vegas conventions, and this one was the best run by far. The con was filled with young people, many in costumes; the masquerade was robust and full of entries; and the event vibrated with youth and enthusiasm. In particular, this Anime Vegas was energized by the revival of the license for the Hellsing Ultimate anime, which has been moribund in the U.S. for the last three years. The entire principal English dub cast for Hellsing Ultimate gathered in Las Vegas to promote the soon-to-be-released balance of the Hellsing Ultimate videos. We attended as fans, as enthusiastic as anyone else there.

The second convention was Loscon 38, held over Thanksgiving Weekend. This was a science fiction convention, rather than an anime con (although, in a convention tradition, anime was shown in a video room throughout the con). As is now the tradition with SF conventions, the attendees tended to be older than those who go to Anime Vegas and other anime cons; indeed, many attendees had been going to conventions for 40-50 years or more. The masquerade, alas, was anemic -- only nine entries, little in the way of MC-ing, and judges who were not even introduced until the awards were announced.

We attended this con as dealers (Amy's embroidery business, Heart of the Star, had a table in the dealer's room). That is a fun way to attend a convention, and we had a good time talking to folks from behind the table and selling Amy's wares (which were quite popular with the crowd). But keeping the table running meant that we had to carefully parse the con activities we attended during the show. I attended one panel during the con, as did Amy. (That one panel was a fantastic one, however -- a talk given by Nicholas Meyer, author of The Seven-Percent Solution and director of Time after Time, The Day After, and two of the best Star Trek films. And although there were folks in costume, far fewer costumes filled the halls than those on view at Anime Vegas.

As much as we enjoyed Loscon, however, we wondered how the energy, youth, and enthusiasm of an anime con such as Anime Vegas could be brought to an SF con such as Loscon. After all, many anime fans enjoy the same literary and cinematic SF and fantasy as Loscon attendees. Yet SF conventions such as Loscon don't register on the radar of anime fans. We hope that more young fans find Loscon and conventions of its ilk to their taste; otherwise, SF conventions may be in danger of eventually disappearing.

Lest I end this post on a negative note, I will point out one of the coolest aspects of this year's Anime Vegas. Amy, who is a big Hellsing fan, painted a cardboard coffin a few years ago to match the one shown in the Hellsing manga and anime. She took the opportunity of this reunion of Hellsing cast members to get the coffin autographed by the cast members; and I captured the autographing on video. Here are the video highlights.

Here, voice actress Victoria Harwood (who plays Integra in Hellsing) and ADR director/adaptor Taliesin Jaffe sign the coffin.



Ralph Lister, who plays Walter, signs the coffin:

As does Patrick Seitz, the voice of Luke Valentine and one of the scripters for the English dub of Hellsing Ultimate:

K.T. Gray, who voices Seras in the English Dub, signs the sinister sepulchre:

And finally, Crispin Freeman, the English voice of Alucard in Hellsing, signs on.

We folded the fully executed coffin flat, and transported it to its final resting place.

Movie Magic

I've been watching movies for quite a while; and once you've been doing that for a few decades, experiencing pure magic at the cinema becomes rare. Oh, you can be entertained, and you can marvel at spectacles such as Avatar, and you can be briefly transported by a moment here and there in a film. But getting sucked into a movie from beginning to end, to simply give up critical thinking and allow the filmmaker to lead you wherever he or she wants to go? That experience, so common when one watches movies as a child, becomes fleetingly rare as the decades mount.

Which is why I found Martin Scorsese's new film HUGO so amazing. From the first shot -- an incredible tracking shot across a crowded 1930s Paris train station, as the camera zooms by scores of people, each of whom is a story in himself or herself, into the eyes of the title character -- to the emotional ending -- I was helpless. Scorsese had me in the palm of his hand.

HUGO is, at heart, a children's film. It is devoid of cussing, of sex or graphic violence; it is told from the point of view of a child; and most of the scenes are shot from a child's-eye level. Perhaps the candy-bright child's-film look is one of the reasons the movie slipped past my intellectual defenses. Yet like the best children's film and literature, the movie is profound, filled with dialogue that touches upon universal truths and images that frighten and thrill.

What is HUGO about? It's historical fiction, although I won't reveal the particular history upon which it draws (and it's a shame that plot point has been revealed in the publicity surrounding the film). It's not science fiction, fantasy, or steampunk, despite its fascination with clockwork, gears, and locomotive steam. What it is about is family, and the relationship between people and machines, and the history of movies as a mechanical means of capturing dreams and making them visible to others -- all subjects that should resonate with Scorsese, the legendary champion of moviemaking. It's about healing, and coming to terms with loss and failure.

Most of all, it's about storytelling, verbal and visual. The movie tells a story about characters enthralled with stories, characters who find a huge story closer than they could imagine.

HUGO is shot in 3D, and that's how it should be enjoyed. It highlights the difference between the standard popcorn movie that is shot in 2D and converted to 3D (because that's what's hot nowadays), and a movie that is made in 3D, by a filmmake who uses the device as a storytelling tool. It's the difference between a colorized black and white movie and a film in which color is used to convey emotions and plot points. The 3D in HUGO is part of the film's magic, and shows that the process may not be a passing fad after all.

Movie fans of all ages should be glad films like HUGO are still coming out -- films that are toy boxes full of delights, but also toy boxes intricately carved and full of depth.

Disneyland in November

On November 5, 2011, we visited Disneyland for Amy's birthday. It was our second trip to Disneyland this year -- surprising for us, since our last trip to the Magic Kingdom before this year was on New Year's Eve 1999.




We caught a weather break for this trip: Although both Friday and Sunday were rainy, Saturday was clear and sunny -- albeit chilly for So Cal (weather in the 50s and 60s.) Further, we manage to avoid any serious mishaps or calamities during the trip (although my knee started hurting after a few hours of walking around and standing in line).




Disneyland in early November is a park in transition. Hallowe'en has just ended (although the Haunted Mansion is still done up in a Nightmare Before Christmas theme which I found a lot of fun), but the park is not done up in full holiday (read: Christmas -- Thanksgiving hardly exists in Disneyland) until November 14. Nevertheless, when we arrived, a Christmas parade was wending its way down Main Street U.S.A., taped for broadcast on Christmas Day. Even more time-warping: That evening, a segment of Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year (to be broadcast on Disney-owned ABC) was taped, to be shown you-known-when.




Disneyland is much like Las Vegas. If one approaches it with the right mindset -- an understanding that everything is a facade of imagery and misdirection -- it's a lot of fun. And surprises can still be found: In the Pavillion of Progress (or whatever they're calling it these days), in the midst of a Home of Tomorrow display that already looks like the Home of Last Week, we found a display with Honda's Asimo robot that just astounded us. Here are some videos I shot of this robot's amazing ambulation:






Three more observations I made while enjoying Disneyland:

First, I was surprised that Disney devotes so little energy to promoting its current productions. One would expect some kind of display or attraction in Tomorrowland for Disney's current hit SF movie REAL STEEL, or some kind of ride or sign in Fantasyland for ONCE UPON A TIME, its ABC tv series. You would at least expect one of the omnipresent gift shops to feature merch from these works. But no. Same for recent movies such as ENCHANTED.

Second, the gift shops could use a bit more variety. I know that the Disney Pins have become a hobby in themselves, but nearly every shop seemed to carry the same pins (which could also be had in the Disney World store outside the park's gates). Keying the shops to the locations to a greater degree would seem to make more sense.

Finally, I would expect to find theaters showing Disney cartoons at Disneyland. You will see images galore of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the crew; but none of the cartoons in which the characters appeared. The only place to see any semblance of such animation is the Main Street Cinema, which shows altered video versions of Mickey Mouse cartoons. (For instance, MM shorts that are color and have sound are shown in black and white without sound.) This is a shame, because despite Disney's TV empire and the multiple channels it owns, Disney's animated shorts seem to seldom be broadcast. Likely many kids who grow up loving the images of Mickey and Donald have never seen any of the classic cartoons in which they appeared. I suspect this is part of Disney's design: Reducing classic cartoon characters to mere images, without personality or character, optimized for merchandising and commerce.

Oh, and I really enjoyed Disneyland. So did Amy.

Jump to Digital

The remarkable leaps Japanese comics (manga) and animation (anime) made in popularity in the U.S. in the past decade is, depending on how you look at it, either waning or entering a new phase. Already several of the anime and manga U.S. licensors that dominated the market in the last few years have slid off the board. Now Viz, the licensor that has plugged away for longer than any other company (it started putting manga onto the U.S. market in the mid-eighties, with licensed anime following a few years after) has announced that next year its periodical publication, the U.S. edition of Shonen Jump, will cease print publication. It will continue life as a digital magazine.

This is a particularly surprising development considering that Viz has arguably the most popular licensed properties in the U.S. and Japan. Bleach and Naruto have been tremendously popular on both sides of the Pacific. And Viz has other titles that have followings, such as One Piece, Tiger & Bunny, Deathnote, Rosario Vampire, Blue Exorcist, etc.

For such a juggernaut to opt to discontinue its flagship publication showcases not only the burst of the manga/anime bubble, but the general decline of the magazine market in America.

The American Shonen Jump is not dead (for now), but the end of its life as a paper publication is likely a harbinger for larger changes in the print world as a whole.

E-Book Follies

Unless we are in the throws of a fad, book retailing is gradually, but perhaps inexorably, moving away from physical books and toward e-books. I doubt paper books will ever stop being sold; but they may eventually become like vinyl records, still sold for major albums but found only in high-end shops and second-hand shops.

The movement toward e-books has already claimed retailer victims, most notably the Borders Chain. Borders' delay in entering the e-book market was not the only factor that doomed the chain, but it was a significant one.

Here are some of the odder developments in this emerging trend:

-- DC Comics is producing electronic versions of 100 of its graphic novels and comics series compilation paperbacks. But it is producing them exclusive for Amazon.com's upcoming tablet computer, the Kindle Fire. In response, Barnes & Noble -- the only major book retailer chain with physical locations left -- is pulling those DC graphic novels from its locations' shelves. (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/barnes-noble-dc-comics-kindle-245765) Considering that in the 1980s DC pioneered placing comics trade paperbacks in chain bookstores -- and thus got titles such as WATCHMEN and SANDMAN into the hands of many readers who would never set foot in a comics store -- DC's exile from the last chain's bookshelves is particularly poignant.

-- E-book versions of older books are popping up in unusual places. For instance, Joe Haldeman's SF classic THE FOREVER WAR has been released in e-book format -- but only at the online bookstore for the Kobo, the e-reader developed for the now-defunct Borders chain. (http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Forever-War/book-veYcnJ2njUitVs4FvpUAgg/page1.html) Fortunately, Kobo makes an app for the iPad, so one does not need to buy a Kobo e-reader to read the novel.

-- Barnes & Noble recently marked the price for its first-edition Nook e-reader down to $89. (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/nook1-overview/379002696) Shortly afterward, Amazon announced the newest models of its Kindle e-reader. Except for the Kindle Fire, the new Kindles all retail for under $100. (http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sr_tc_sc_2_0?node=133141011&pf_rd_r=08NGGJM8Y3V1XK72HC5Q&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_t=301&pf_rd_i=Kindle&pf_rd_p=1321410262&pf_rd_s=structured-results-2&qid=1318828195&sr=8-2-tc.)

Not necessarily odd, but interesting: Amazon, like Barnes & Noble, not only sells books, but publishes them -- putting it into competition with the publishers whose work it sells. Its newest imprint, 47North (http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sr_tc_sc_2_0?node=133141011&pf_rd_r=08NGGJM8Y3V1XK72HC5Q&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_t=301&pf_rd_i=Kindle&pf_rd_p=1321410262&pf_rd_s=structured-results-2&qid=1318828195&sr=8-2-tc), will sell science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction. Its first project is THE DEAD MAN, the horror-action series created by my cousin Lee Goldberg and his writing partner Bill Rabkin. (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/49035-amazon-launches-sci-fi-fantasy-imprint-47north--acquires-marshall-memoir.html) Amazon's move isn't surprising, since fantasy novels (mostly series) dominate best-seller lists. But it is a vote of confidence in the science fiction genre of publishing, which appears to have become much less popular than fantasy -- particularly fantasy featuring child wizards, zombies, or sparkling vampires.

Steel Gets Real

We saw REAL STEEL this morning at the El Capitan, Disney's Hollywood movie palace. As you might have heard, this movie is a reworking of Richard Matheson's 1950's short story "Steel," which was also turned into an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Which is fitting, because although this movie features modern special effects, clothing, hairstyles, and technology (since it is set only 14 years into the future, the creators can get away with pretending current fashions will change as little in that time as they have changed since 1997), this film is resolutely old-fashioned, in a quite pleasant way.

The film's story arc -- a ne'er-do-well fight promoter's journey to redemption through the stubborn-yet-loveable kid he abandoned -- could have been told in any decade. The history of cinema is full of loser fathers and plucky, never-say-die kids who worm their ways into the coldest of hearts. And the formula isn't hurt by beautiful cinematography that celebrates both the neon of the city and the sunsets of the heartland. Or the score by Danny Elfman, that swells appropriately when the score needs swelling. Or the montages and slow motion segments that deftly manipulate the viewer's emotions.

If this sounds like criticism or mocking, it isn't. REAL STEEL is populist entertainment, science fiction less concerned with making large points about humanity than simply telling a smaller story of humanity and technology, meeting at the junction of sports. And if it throws in a little of a kid teaching a robot to dance, and American heroes (one played by an Australian actor) vying against a Russian woman in a too-tight dress and an arrogant Japanese mecha designer, well, that's just part of the package.

REAL STEEL is the sort of movie that annoys movie critics and goes on to make a solid showing at the box office. Because REAL STEEL tells the type of story that American movies excel in showing. It's a good popcorn movie. And in the mid-autumn film market, that's enought.

A Video to Remember Steve Jobs By

I don't have much to add to the deluge of memories, tributes, slights, and commentary unleashed by the untimely passing of Steve Jobs this past week. But I did have opportunity last year to take part in one of those product-debut extravaganzes that Jobs excelled in arranging.

When Jobs announced the iPad, I was underwhelmed. Computer manufacturers had been trying to sell tablet computers since the early '80's, when Radio Shack sold its TRS-80 laptop as a tablet. Now Apple was going to be selling what appeared to be an iPod touch with an overactive pituitary gland. I had a laptop, a netbook, and an iPod Nano, not to mention a Nook ereader. I did not need an iPad.

Yet as I heard more about this device, I became convinced that it could help me in my work. I was most impressed by the prognostications of how the device could handle large pdf documents, such as the transcripts I often used in my legal work. I decided to use the honorarium from one of my legal writing projects to buy the base model of the iPad.

I therefore reserved one of the iPads for purchase. And although I could have had the device delivered to me at home, I decided to reserve it for pickup at the Apple Store in Century City. Why not take advantage of some hands-on assistance with the iPad, if I needed it.

And then I decided, since the launch was on a Saturday, why not bicycle over to Century City and be there when the store opened? I was not falling victim to marketing, I convinced myself. It was only practical. If I got there early, I could pick up my iPad and have the rest of the day to familiarize myself with it.

No, I told myself as I stood in line early one Saturday morning in April 2010, I was not getting swept up in the excitement of the product launch. This was simply the opportunity to get involved in a cultural event.

And then, the doors of the store opened. And I shot the scene on my cellphone (not an iPhone, thank you) video camera:



No, no excitement at all.

Since that day, I've used my iPad for business. And pleasure. And just about everyday.

Jobs excelled in revealing to the world that it absolutely had to have devices it had no idea it needed. Will his successors be able to pull that off? We'll see.

It is almost inconceivable that a movie like "Paul" could have been made (at least as a major release) 20 or even 10 years ago. Ten years ago, the gold standard for a science fiction satire-comedy was "Galaxy Quest." Now, "Galaxy Quest" is a darn good movie, with some spot-on satire; but it represented the point of view of those outside SF fandom looking in -- less of an inside joke than a look-at-them joke. "Paul," on the other hand, is made by SF and comics fans, and is largely for such fans -- particularly since folks not familiar with the last 34 years of SF films won't get a lot of the jokes. (It takes a certain familiarity with the culture to appreciate the scene in which a Man in Black shoots his two-way radio with a pistol, then snarls, "Boring conversation anyway.")

"Paul" is a road movie -- usually a good subject for a film, because it combines character development with movement and scenery. Two science fiction fans, a novelist and an artist, travel from England to the U.S. to attend Comic-Con International: San Diego (shot on location, of course); then rent an RV so that they can tour UFO sites throughout the Southwest. En route, they encounter something they have fantasized about, but for which they are completely unprepared: An actual alien -- one who looks like the traditional Little Green Men of legend, but who is imbued with the smart-alecky slacker sensability of Seth Rogen (whom I like much more as a voice actor than as a there-on-screen actor). What follows is a mixture of thwarted expectations, slapstick, satire, and loads of in-jokes -- and, oh yes, a story.

Most of all, "Paul" shows that the science fiction and comics fans whom movie-makers used to denigrate are now often the folks in charge of putting out movies.

A short-short story: Life's Instruction Sheet (Some Assembly Required)

In college, poring through the stacks at the UCLA Undergraduate Research Library, I happened upon a crucial piece of information. (I can’t remember whether it was in a book, a newspaper scrap left on a study carrel, or written on a wall in felt-tip pen.) I found out that somehow in my childhood I had failed to obtain the instruction sheet for life. This was odd, because, I discovered, the instruction sheet had been included as a premium in select boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal.

I found this puzzling. I had faithfully consumed the good Cap’n’s sugar-laden cereal throughout my childhood. I had saved every toy and tchotchke found therein. I had a pile of plastic red spyglasses, a stack of dental bills, and a history of poor childhood nutrition to show for it. Yet somehow the instruction book, released sometime between the tumultous years of the late sixties and the Watergate era, had eluded me.

I was certain that my life, which had never gone quite according to my expectations, had resulted.

I spent the next quarter century tracking down this elusive cereal premium. I was certain that my success in life depended on it. Alas, while people collected and sold cereal premiums, fewer people collected and sold old cereal. (Although I’m certain the preservative packed into Cap’n Crunch would preserve the unique flavor long after mankind had left Earth for the stars.)

At last, through the magic of the Internet, I tracked down the limited run of Cap’n Crunch boxes (sold only in a remote region of New Mexico, it turned out) that contained the instruction sheet for life. I purchased a box at an auction in Beverly Hills. I eagerly hurried home, tore open the box, and extracted from the calcified cereal the waxpaper packet that contained the instruction sheet.

The sheet was folded over many times. The print was extremely fine, and the sheet seemed to be printed in every language known to man (and a few unknown). But at last I found the English section – and found the instructions for a well-lived life:

“Skip breakfast.”

Memories of Moscon III:The Pre-Digital Convention

Modern-day attendees of science fiction, comics, and anime conventions likely do not appreciate the difference the World-Wide Web has made in documenting and archiving convention memories.

In September 1981, almost exactly 30 years ago, I attended Moscon III in Moscow, Idaho. I attended only one day of the convention. I bummed a ride up from Walla Walla in Southeastern Washington to Moscow, a college town just across the state border from Pullman, Washington, by persuading Conrad and Sharman Boslee, friends I had met in local theater, that it might be fun to attend a smaller version of the comics convention I had attended in San Diego the previous year. (Yes, that was the 1980 San Diego Comic-Con, my first con.) Conrad had already done me a tremendous service the previous summer by loaning me his comics collection, a moving crate that contained comics published from 1964 to 1972 from every comics publisher. The box led to a lot of sleepless nights that summer, and a deep appreciation of the comics of that period.

The artist guest of honor was Tim Kirk. I believe the writer guest of honor was Kate Wilhelm. But I can't tell you for sure, because I cannot find any documentation of this convention online. Nowadays, the smallest one-day local convention is documented in exhaustive detail on a con homepage, and on the blogs, Livejournals, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds of attendees. But in 1981, home computers were TRS-80s from Radio Shack that read and stored data from cassette tape recorders -- computers so basic that even I did a little bit of programming on the one my dad got to track the stock market. Data transmission was over telephones, at glacially slow speeds. The idea of putting multiple photos and videos online quickly was, well, science fiction.

So now, the only references to Moscons you will find online are some mention of the final ones in the late '90's (when they actually had web pages, which are now defunct) and discussion of them in the obituaries of convention founder Jon Gustafson.

Nevertheless, the con lives on in my memory. It was small (about 300 attendees), but it was marked by quality guests. At the 1981 Moscon, I chatted with ElfQuest co-creator Richard Pini (whom I had met at the 1980 Comic-Con) and his then-assistant, Jane Fancher (whom I met earlier that year because I learned she was working at the bookstore at WSU, the same college my older brother was attending; and who went on to a career as an SF and fantasy novelist). I met Alex Schomberg, the science fiction and comics illustrator who had drawn the insanely detailed covers of the Captain America comics of the '40's and whose career continued into the '80's. I met artists Tim Kirk and Rowena Morrill, and SF writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman before she made a name for herself as one of the premiere urban fantasy writers of the past 20 years. I even met fellow fans of a TV series that was a cult favorite on the verge of cancellation then, Hill Street Blues.

And fortunately, although there were no digital cameras to capture moments of the convention in pixel-perfect detail, there were snapshot cameras. Hence, my attempt to remedy the lack of online documentation of this convention:



On top is a photo of a panel (I forget the subject matter) that includes panelists Richard Pini, Kate Wilhelm, and Jane Fancher.



Below that is a photo from later in the convention of Richard Pini and skinny, 16-year-old me.

I wish I had taken a camera to the early conventions I attended. I'm not sure why I didn't; perhaps because photos were such a hassle in that time of flashbulb cubes and photo processing. After all, a photo of a convention doesn't just document the convention; it freezes and preserves a moment of your life.

Towers of Steel, Walls of Granite

Ten years ago today, Amy and I were in the middle of a vacation at Yosemite National Park. Amy had stayed there before. It was my first visit, and I was marveling at the gigantic granite walls that rose above the valley. I grew up in a valley, but the mountains there were neither as close nor as imposing as El Capitan, Halfdome, and the other mountains in the range.

Early one morning, as I was walking from the communal restrooms back to our tent in Curry Village, I noticed some men standing around a TV sticking out of the ranger's station, watching some news coverage intently. When I asked what was going on, one of the men told me that airline jets had been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center; that one of the towers had collapsed; and that another was about to collapse. We stood in the forest, early morning bird calls filling the air around us, and watched a steel tower on the other side of the continent buckle and give way, filling the streets around it with a cloud of dust. Someone else approached us and asked what was going on. When we told him, he scoffed: "There isn't enough TNT in the world to take down those towers." He did not want to acknowledge that a jet airliner aimed at the center of a tower could generate enough heat and energy to melt the infrastructure and allow gravity to triumph over engineering.

Eventually, I tore myself away from the TV and stumbled back to our tent. Amy woke up, noticed my ashen face, and asked,"Are you all right?"

"No," I said.

For some reason, I could only express myself through statistics. "You know how Pearl Harbor was the most deadly foreign attack on American soil?" I asked. "Well, it isn't anymore."

Later that morning, we joined other folks who had gathered in one of the dining halls in Curry Camp, watching the endless loop of airplanes hitting towers. The first time the news replayed the footage of the airliner hitting a tower, and the ball of fire that spewed forth, people gasped. After a few replays, the shock wore off.

We couldn't help noticing one of the men in the crowd. He wore a windbreaker emblazoned with the FDNY logo. He was speaking frantically into a cell phone.

When we stepped out into the sunlight, I looked at the granite walls surrounding us. Like so many Americans that day, I wondered if we would be the victim of the next attack. I wondered if nature's fortresses of granite would protect us.

Not knowing what else to do, I spent most of that day in my tent, reading. Up to that point, I had read half of one of the novels I had taken on vacation, Will Shetterly's DOGLAND. That afternoon, I read the rest of it, in one gulp. I wanted to be in another time, in another place, and the book took me there.

The event cast its shadow over the rest of our week-long stay at Yosemite. We attended a hastily-organized memorial service at the park chapel for those who had died. I bought a newspaper the next day, and was so horrified by the photos of people captured mid-air as they plummeted from windows toward concrete that I had to look away. And although we had flown to Fresno and driven a rental car to the park, we ended up driving the rental car all the way back to Los Angeles.

We all know what happened afterward. The sense of national unity, which soon splintered. The wacko conspiracy theories. The two wars. People using the horrific event to their advantage as they pursued the things people always pursue.

But for me, the event was about standing between walls of granite while watching the fate of towers of steel, and all the fragile people within.

Echoes of Conventions Past

Back in 2009, I shot footage of the Hellsing cosplay gathering at the Anime Expo that year with a Flip HD video camera . . . but when I tried to edit it together, my computer choked. Fortunately, as progress has marched on, I have acquired a computer that can handle the editing. Hence, the highlights of that video: