The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury
By Neil Gaiman
I am forgetting things, which scares me.
I am losing words, although I am not losing concepts. I hope that I am not losing concepts. If I am losing concepts, I am not aware of it. If I am losing concepts, how would I know?
Which is funny,…
1 Write.
2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3 Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like…
Museum of Curiosity, Series 3 (Free on iPlayer temporarily)
I was asked on the radio in America on NPR, whether I was an atheist, and I said, “I really don’t think we have enough knowledge to commit to strict atheism,” and I was asked if I was religious and I said, “We certainly have too much knowledge to commit to any particular religious story,” so the person said, “Well then are you an agnostic?” and I said, “Well really agnosticism is often a weak position where you don’t know if God exists or doesn’t exist.” So I said, “I’m a possibillion,” and the idea with possibilianism is that it’s an act of exploration of new ideas… (David Eagleman)
I think if you say, “I killed Batman,” and then you do the evil laugh, the hand comes down on your shoulder and there’s those little pointy bits on it and a voice says, “Are you sure?”
So Neil, I wanted to ask about beekeeping. You have bees?
I do, I’ve now got about six hives full of the things. It was one of those good ideas that got a bit out of hand. I thought, “Everybody should have a hobby that could kill them.” (Neil Gaiman)
Doctor Who charity book goes ahead as PayPal backs down
Behind the Sofa, the forthcoming book about celebrities’ memories of Doctor Who, will now be published after an agreement was reached between its editor, Steve Berry, and online payments service PayPal.
On Monday, PayPal froze Berry’s account, through which pre-orders for the book had been taken. But last night the company released this statement: “PayPal has apologised to Steve Berry for the way it handled payments for his book about Doctor Who, Behind the Sofa. It is working with Mr Berry to make sure funds are released as they are needed to pay the publisher and other suppliers.
“PayPal placed restrictions on Mr Berry’s account because the payments were received months before the book was available. This is in line with PayPal’s policy of protecting buyers in case they don’t receive goods that they have pre-ordered. But we should have explained things better and worked more quickly to find a sensible compromise to ensure the success of this very good cause.”
Berry said: “I am delighted that PayPal have responded to my concerns about the handling of the account being used to fund the production of the Behind the Sofa book. We have now come to an amicable resolution and I look forward to publishing the book and fulfilling all the orders placed by generous Doctor Who fans.”
The book, which includes contributions from Neil Gaiman, Charlie Brooker, Al Murray and Roland Rat, is scheduled for publication this summer. All profits go to Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Very interesting article, and I applaud the sentiments. Being someone who runs a panel department for a convention, it gave me some food for thought. Still, I don’t choose who will be on panels at my convention - panelists submit their panels to me, and I put them on the schedule based on the quality of the panel they’ve submitted, and how well I think their subject matter will be received. (And whether or not they are able to give the panel in the empty time slot I’m trying to fill.)
Happily, in the Anime fandom, the fans are split pretty evenly. There are generally as many panels with all female panelists as those with all male panelists, as well as plenty of panels with a mixed cast. I’ll have to take a closer look at Industry panels in the future though. I have a feeling that’s where this might crop up in my domain.
(Click the title for Paul Cornell’s full post about Panel Parity - an effort to fight against gender disparity in panels at conventions).
Over 20 years ago, in an issue of Sandman, I wrote a story set at a Serial Killers’ convention. And the only women who got to speak at the convention were on a panel on “Women In Serial Killing”. I thought it was a funny and ironic commentary on something that, I was fairly certain, would change very soon. Certainly in the next 20 years. And in SF and Fantasy, it has. In comics, not so much.
And while I don’t attend many comics conventions these days. I think Paul Cornell’s Panel Parity is very wise and sensible…
Si shares the reasoning behind his decision to participate in “panel parity.”
[I]n an industry composed entirely of freelancers, without Shareholder-Meetings, Executive Boards or even Watercooler Moments, panels are very much the public face of our tribe.
