Speculative Fiction (still a topic here?)

[Ath]

Hi,

was wondering whether people here still talk about SF, or just politics
and other nonsense. ;P

TLDR:

Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E. Spoor,
but the online library doesn't have his books.

(Btw, Seawasp, I got your email a while ago, in reply to a post in
rasfc, but my reply bounced.)

My usual rambling version:

I've turned to audiobooks and audioplays, now borrowed online from the
public library. It's so nice while sitting on the balcony while watching
the plants grow, and the bumblebees visit, or playing some mindless game
here at the PC.

Landlord stuck balconies to flats, done and eventually opened 3 years
ago. If you're curious, here's my 'garden' :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KrmC9XWe2zNS7ej44KlGk8M0Db7W1mwN/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Fmdi1YRzCp3Tr6CSMF9nGlGe4Dp_2lQ/view

I started with what I found on youtube, some nice Lovecraft audioplays
here:
https://www.youtube.com/c/19NocturneBoulevard

Found some series of audioplays I'd read the books of as a kid (??? in
Germany, The Three Detectives, I think, in English).

Found some series of weekly horror stories (what do you call them?) that
I'd read as a teenager (Geisterjaeger John Sinclair). Both Audiobooks
and audioplays.

Remembered someone, somewhere (here or on Steam?) told me about online
public library, renewed my membership, had it explained, plus a bit more
on the phone, and went looking for Lovecraft or more John Sinclair
audiobooks, no luck.

Borrowed:

- Lovecraft Country - kind of interesting but not what I was looking
for.

- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (I think the first two books,
are there more?) - Yeah, something like that is nice.

- The Last Flight - Eek! So full of anxiousness, I stopped and returned
it before the plane (in the book) had taken off. Plus, was so not what I
was looking for.

- The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch, followed by the other Rivers of
London books more or less in order. Yes, I like those, but man, does he
have to describe every damn face and clothes and where they were bought?
Or sneak in 'I wanted to be an architect, but can't draw' main character
to describe every house and every street? Plus the occasional irrelevant
history.

That stuff so just wastes my time, I've started to say out loud: "Who
cares?" I don't have the automatic details-to-image conversion hardware
in my head, and I'm not going to pause and try to conjure the exact
image. Broad strokes, that works for the hardware I have.

So anyway. Using the search engine of https://www.onleihe.de/hannover
and https://eausleihe-hannover.overdrive.com/ can find me something
nice, or something totally unfitting, so I thought to ask here for
pointers.

(And maybe someone knows some nice free software that can read ebooks
from the in-browser display, for those that don't have audiobooks.
Windoze narrator isn't cooperative, and starts at the top of the browser
anyway.)

Anyone wondering, yes I've been here before, with a full name, but
that's so unfitting, not really me. Right now I'm wondering whether to
go with Andy (short for A... in ATH) or Mick (what people on Steam know
me as, that's really me).

For now I'm taking Starship Troopers to the balcony, because the film
was on TV the other day and a Steam friend mentioned the book's
different. Maybe I'll add SciFi to the list of what I'm looking for
after that.

Thanks! :)


--

Signature in pre-planning stage. ;P

[James Nicoll]

In article <Fw3v56UqczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>was wondering whether people here still talk about SF, or just politics
>and other nonsense. ;P
>
>TLDR:
>
>Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E. Spoor,
>but the online library doesn't have his books.
>

If old radio archives are acceptable, try Escape:
https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Escape_Singles

Vanishing Point (warning: Canadian)
https://archive.org/details/VanishingPoint-CBC

Nightfall (Warning: Canadian
https://archive.org/details/NightfallUPGRADES

Deep Night (warning: have not listened to it but it turns up in association
with the previous two)
https://archive.org/details/DeepNightCBC

And maybe some of the CBS Mystery Radio episodes have fantastic elements
but there are 1399 episodes and I never got started.
https://archive.org/details/CbsRadioMysteryTheater_657

--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <Fw3v56UqczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>was wondering whether people here still talk about SF, or just politics
>and other nonsense. ;P
>
>TLDR:
>
>Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E. Spoor,
>but the online library doesn't have his books.
>

If you want Lovecraftian audio, you can't go wrong with the bi-monthly
podcast "Welcome to Nightvale". The format is a daily broadcast
from Nightvale Community Radio where the host goes over the day's
community events with the twist that the community is something out
of Lovecraft, connections with the rest of the nation are tenuous at
best, and pretty much any conspiracy theory you can think of is true.

There are various mysteries (including about the host) & arcs, and while
the format generally stays the same (there are exceptions) all of the
characters do progress and you do come to care about them despite all
of their bizarre issues.

You can download the episodes, free of charge, here:

https://podbay.fm/p/welcome-to-night-vale
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Ath]

On 17.06.22, t...@loft.tnolan.com <Unknown@Sender> wrote:
> In article <Fw3v56UqczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:

>> TLDR:
>>
>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.

> If you want Lovecraftian audio, you can't go wrong with the
> bi-monthly podcast "Welcome to Nightvale". The format is a daily
> broadcast from Nightvale Community Radio where the host goes over the
> day's community events with the twist that the community is something
> out of Lovecraft, connections with the rest of the nation are tenuous
> at best, and pretty much any conspiracy theory you can think of is
> true.

Sounds fun! :)

> There are various mysteries (including about the host) & arcs, and
> while the format generally stays the same (there are exceptions) all
> of the characters do progress and you do come to care about them
> despite all of their bizarre issues.

> You can download the episodes, free of charge, here:

> https://podbay.fm/p/welcome-to-night-vale

Thanks! Had a brief listen, and they're definitely on my suddenly huge
list now. :) Really didn't expect to get links to outright audiobooks.
So nice. :)

Is there a 'Download all' button that I am missing?

[Ath]

On 17.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <Fw3v56UqczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:

>> TLDR:
>>
>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.
>>
> If old radio archives are acceptable, try Escape:
> https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Escape_Singles

> Vanishing Point (warning: Canadian)
> https://archive.org/details/VanishingPoint-CBC

> Nightfall (Warning: Canadian
> https://archive.org/details/NightfallUPGRADES

Why are you warning about them being Canadian? And do you refer to the
style, or the language, or weird humour, or something I can't think of?
(So far they sound just fine to me.)

> Deep Night (warning: have not listened to it but it turns up in
> association with the previous two)
> https://archive.org/details/DeepNightCBC

> And maybe some of the CBS Mystery Radio episodes have fantastic
> elements but there are 1399 episodes and I never got started.
> https://archive.org/details/CbsRadioMysteryTheater_657

Had a brief listen into the first one of each of all your links, and
wow! Cool! Didn't expect to straight out get a whole batch of audioplays
to listen to. They should certainly keep me busy for a while. Thanks!
:))

I'd like to download them, preferably the 1 file via torrent method (so
nice to see that for legal downloads!) rather than each one
individually. Do you know whether there are seeders around? (Didn't seem
to be when I tried just now.)

Thanks again! :)

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

I don't think so, at least not on that site. The episodes are available
in a number of different places. I generally download all the MP3s I
can fit on a cdrom and play that in my car during long nighttime drives
until I get through a batch. I think I'm up to episode 150 now (which
is still several years out of date).

Like any episodic project, it does take a few episodes to fine-tune and
get things into a groove.

There are also several Nightvale novels available, and at some point
I will get around to trying them.

[Robert Carnegie]

Just to note that _Die Drei ???_ with question marks
evidently is a version of American product
<https://threeinvestigators.fandom.com/wiki/The_Three_Investigators_%28franchise%29>
in which (in the original) nearly always, the "supernatural"
stuff actually wasn't. And the page explains - somewhat -
how "Alfred Hitchcock" came into it.

[Lynn McGuire]

Jame Nicoll reviews a book on here and at his website almost every day.
James also write articles about five somewhat related books on
www.tor.com and posts the article URL here for us. Most of his books
are from the late 1900s but he does occasionally venture into the present.

I post a book review once or twice a week. Sometimes old, sometimes
new. I like military science fiction, juveniles, and apocalyptic
fantasy. And some dark fantasy.

Starship Troopers, the book and movie, are radically different. The
movie was somewhat inspired by the book. Somewhat. The whipping scene
in the movie was horrible.

Lynn

[Lynn McGuire]

Sigh. ^Jame^James

Lynn

[James Nicoll]

In article <Fw3vFgf5czB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>On 17.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> In article <Fw3v56UqczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>
>>> TLDR:
>>>
>>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.
>>>
>> If old radio archives are acceptable, try Escape:
>> https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Escape_Singles
>
>> Vanishing Point (warning: Canadian)
>> https://archive.org/details/VanishingPoint-CBC
>
>> Nightfall (Warning: Canadian
>> https://archive.org/details/NightfallUPGRADES
>
>Why are you warning about them being Canadian? And do you refer to the
>style, or the language, or weird humour, or something I can't think of?
>(So far they sound just fine to me.)

Accents might sound weird (although not half as weird as SF68, whose US
source material was acted by South African actors, for (if the ads are
any guide) the benefit of South African housewives). I don't know whether
certain conventions, like holidays to small towns invariably being a bad
idea, are common outside Canada, and at least one of the CBC anthology
shows seemed to be obsessed with cold weather.

>> Deep Night (warning: have not listened to it but it turns up in
>> association with the previous two)
>> https://archive.org/details/DeepNightCBC
>
>> And maybe some of the CBS Mystery Radio episodes have fantastic
>> elements but there are 1399 episodes and I never got started.
>> https://archive.org/details/CbsRadioMysteryTheater_657
>
>Had a brief listen into the first one of each of all your links, and
>wow! Cool! Didn't expect to straight out get a whole batch of audioplays
>to listen to. They should certainly keep me busy for a while. Thanks!
>:))
>
>I'd like to download them, preferably the 1 file via torrent method (so
>nice to see that for legal downloads!) rather than each one
>individually. Do you know whether there are seeders around? (Didn't seem
>to be when I tried just now.)

Generally with those, if you scroll down there will be on the right side
a list of download options, often including torrent.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 17/06/2022 08.12, Ath wrote:
> Hi,
>
> was wondering whether people here still talk about SF, or just politics
> and other nonsense. ;P

Look for threads with the tag "[OT]" for "on-topic".

> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E. Spoor,
> but the online library doesn't have his books.

The only supernatural stuff that I can think of from Wasp
would be _Digital Knight_. He tends strongly to space opera.

These have some horror in them, but it tends to be man-made
rather than supernatural in origin. I don't know if they would
fill your need or not. Anyway, they are submitted for your
approval:

<https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles>

--
Michael F. Stemper
Psalm 82:3-4

[Chris Buckley]

The standard Lovecraftian science fiction nowadays would be
Stross's _Laundry Files_ series, all with audiobooks as far
as I know. Quite good to begin with but I'm getting much less
enthusiastic by the 12th one. The early novels' conflicts were
good, but there's much less tension when the forces of Cthulhu
have the upper hand!

Chris

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 17/06/2022 15.14, Chris Buckley wrote:
> On 2022-06-17, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 17/06/2022 08.12, Ath wrote:

>> The only supernatural stuff that I can think of from Wasp
>> would be _Digital Knight_. He tends strongly to space opera.
>>
>> These have some horror in them, but it tends to be man-made
>> rather than supernatural in origin. I don't know if they would
>> fill your need or not. Anyway, they are submitted for your
>> approval:
>>
>> <https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles>
>
> The standard Lovecraftian science fiction nowadays would be
> Stross's _Laundry Files_ series,

Oh, good catch!

> Quite good to begin with but I'm getting much less
> enthusiastic by the 12th one. The early novels' conflicts were
> good, but there's much less tension when the forces of Cthulhu
> have the upper hand!

Twelfth? Woah! I've only read the first five so far. Based on what
you said, I guess that Mo didn't escape the power of her violin.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBjPAqmnvGA>


--
Michael F. Stemper
What happens if you play John Cage's "4'33" at a slower tempo?

[Scott Lurndal]

The series that made me want to live in a junkyard.

[J. Clarke]

On 17 Jun 2022 18:12:01 GMT, t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan

That's one thing I like about the modern world. My car has Bluetooth
so I can link it to my phone, and my phone has a half terabyte of
storage so I can pretty much store anything I want on it. The car
also has an AC outlet into which I can plug a charger (there's also
one that plugs into the lighter socket but the one plugged into the AC
gives more current--I have had the phone run down on the one in the
lighter socket on a long drive where I was both navigating and
listening to books).

[Default User]

Ath wrote:

>Hi,
>
>was wondering whether people here still talk about SF, or just
>politics and other nonsense. ;P
>
>TLDR:
>
>Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E. Spoor,
>but the online library doesn't have his books.

These aren't really in my reading lane, so I don't have a lot to
suggest there other than I know of the Sookie Stackhouse stories. These
were quite popular so you might find them in audio easily.

If you want Space Opera, then I have suggestions.


Brian

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <u8aqah5vt9nl8m86j...@4ax.com>,

Well, my car's a 2001, and I don't have a smartphone..

However, I burn the podcasts to cdrom because I keep music on the USB
and I don't want to get things out of sync swapping usbs around. The CD
remembers where it was last time, and the USB remembers where it was,
so all is good.

When I'm not listening to either Nightvale or music, I run the headphone
jack of my kindle into the AUX jack of the stereo and let it read books to me.

(There are some quirks: "Lunged" is always pronounced like the organ, and
"hmm." renders as "hectameters")

[Default User]

That was quite a junkyard. To-to-to-be or not to-to-to-be. That is the
question. A fixture of my childhood.


Brian

[Default User]

Chris Buckley wrote:

>The standard Lovecraftian science fiction nowadays would be
>Stross's _Laundry Files_ series, all with audiobooks as far
>as I know. Quite good to begin with but I'm getting much less
>enthusiastic by the 12th one. The early novels' conflicts were
>good, but there's much less tension when the forces of Cthulhu
>have the upper hand!

And here I went and said that I didn't know much of his requested
genre, somehow forgetting that I've read all of these including the
latest - like a month or two back. Doy.


Brian

[Ath]

On 18.06.22, Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ath wrote:

>> TLDR:
>>
>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.

> These aren't really in my reading lane, so I don't have a lot to
> suggest there other than I know of the Sookie Stackhouse stories.
> These were quite popular so you might find them in audio easily.

I found the ebooks in my library in German. No audiobooks. Reading some
of the descriptions, I'm thinking, wait, is that what that TV series was
based on?

> If you want Space Opera, then I have suggestions.

Might get round to that when I'm through the huge list I got already
now. :)

[Ath]

On 18.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17/06/2022 08.12, Ath wrote:

>> was wondering whether people here still talk about SF, or just
>> politics and other nonsense. ;P

> Look for threads with the tag "[OT]" for "on-topic".

LOL.

>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.

> The only supernatural stuff that I can think of from Wasp
> would be _Digital Knight_. He tends strongly to space opera.

Aren't there more books in that setting by now than that one book?

> These have some horror in them, but it tends to be man-made
> rather than supernatural in origin.

Man was I confused while I thought you were still talking about the
space opera by Seawasp, took me a bit to guess the subject change. :)

> I don't know if they would fill your need or not. Anyway, they are
> submitted for your approval:

> <https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles>

Thanks! :) Certainly bookmarked and on the growing list that'll keep me
entertained for a good while.

[Ath]

On 18.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <Fw3vFgf5czB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:

>> Why are you warning about them being Canadian? And do you refer to
>> the style, or the language, or weird humour, or something I can't
>> think of? (So far they sound just fine to me.)

> Accents might sound weird (although not half as weird as SF68,

Looking up SF68 got me some kind of pharmaceutical, until I added the
word "book" to the "what's sf68" :))

> whose US source material was acted by South African actors, for (if
> the ads are any guide) the benefit of South African housewives).

Interesting!

> I don't know whether certain conventions, like holidays to small towns
> invariably being a bad idea, are common outside Canada, and at least
> one of the CBC anthology shows seemed to be obsessed with cold
> weather.

I think I'll manage with foreign strangeness, such as snow and winter
(which hasn't properly said hello here for years, the rude bugger).

>> I'd like to download them, preferably the 1 file via torrent method
>> (so nice to see that for legal downloads!) rather than each one
>> individually. Do you know whether there are seeders around? (Didn't
>> seem to be when I tried just now.)

> Generally with those, if you scroll down there will be on the right
> side a list of download options, often including torrent.

Yeah, I saw that. That's why I asked whether you know about there being
seeds. :)

[Ath]

I know, I don't think any story had actual supernatural stuff in it, but
the fancy hit me to see if there are audioplays of the books I liked as
a kid. :) (With the voices I remember from the one tape I had or heard
as a kid, not any new weird ones! :) )

Just one step on the road to where my current interest went. :)

[Ath]

On 18.06.22, Chris Buckley <al...@sabir.com> wrote:
>> On 17/06/2022 08.12, Ath wrote:

>>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.

> The standard Lovecraftian science fiction nowadays would be
> Stross's _Laundry Files_ series, all with audiobooks as far
> as I know.

Did a search in my library, but "Charles Stross" finds no audiobooks. A
single ebook.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 18/06/2022 01.44, Ath wrote:
> On 18.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 17/06/2022 08.12, Ath wrote:

>>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.
>
>> The only supernatural stuff that I can think of from Wasp
>> would be _Digital Knight_. He tends strongly to space opera.
>
> Aren't there more books in that setting by now than that one book?
>
>> These have some horror in them, but it tends to be man-made
>> rather than supernatural in origin.
>
> Man was I confused while I thought you were still talking about the
> space opera by Seawasp, took me a bit to guess the subject change. :)

Y'know, when I reread my post, it had the same effect on me.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 18/06/2022 01.44, Ath wrote:

> On 18.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 17/06/2022 08.12, Ath wrote:

>>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.
>
>> The only supernatural stuff that I can think of from Wasp
>> would be _Digital Knight_. He tends strongly to space opera.
>
> Aren't there more books in that setting by now than that one book?

Apparently, there are now four:

<http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?37755>

I completely missed that.

[Paul S Person]

It was Verhoeven's idea of what an "antiwar movie" should look like.
Apparently, actually /watching/ a few antiwar movies to see what they
looked like never occurred to him.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[Robert Woodward]

In article <t8ki0k$tvq$2...@dont-email.me>,

"Michael F. Stemper" <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 18/06/2022 01.44, Ath wrote:
> > On 18.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 17/06/2022 08.12, Ath wrote:
>
> >>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
> >>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
> >>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.
> >
> >> The only supernatural stuff that I can think of from Wasp
> >> would be _Digital Knight_. He tends strongly to space opera.
> >
> > Aren't there more books in that setting by now than that one book?
>
> Apparently, there are now four:
>
> <http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?37755>
>
> I completely missed that.

Not exactly four. First, _Paradigms Lost_ is an expanded version of
_Digital Knight_ (which includes "Bait and Switch"). Second, _Paradigms
Lost_ is set in a much large universe, the Zarathan & Zahralandar
Multiverse, see <http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?46897>.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
—-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Christian Weisgerber]

On 2022-06-18, Paul S Person <pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>>Starship Troopers, the book and movie, are radically different. The
>>movie was somewhat inspired by the book. Somewhat. The whipping scene
>>in the movie was horrible.
>
> It was Verhoeven's idea of what an "antiwar movie" should look like.
> Apparently, actually /watching/ a few antiwar movies to see what they
> looked like never occurred to him.

Verhoeven is a provocateur. A troll, in modern terms. He wants
to rile people up. It took me the longest time to understand this,
because most of his movies don't trigger me. It finally fell into
focus when I saw _Zwartboek_ (Black Book). I, and presumably much
of the Dutch audience, had expected to see heroic Dutch clobbering
cartoonish Nazis, and that certainly happens, but Verhoeven also
delights in showing Dutch anti-semitism, collaboration, and revenge,
completely undermining the trope of the heroic WWII resistance
fighter. Looking back at his other movies, I then realized that
he has tried to yank the viewers' chain for a long time:

In _Flesh + Blood_, instead of noble knights jousting for justice,
you have brutish mercenaries raping and pillaging their way across
the medieval lands.

_Robocop_ leads the audience into cheering for the abandonment of
such things as the the rule of law or due process.

_Starship Troopers_ puts Heinlein's "coming-of-age in the glorious
military" on its head.

_Basic Instinct_ discomforts American prudes... and must be some
sort of comment on Hitchcock's _Vertigo_ (but that latter movie is
too old and therefore culturally alien for me to make sense of).

_Showgirls_ discomforts American prudes even more.

I don't know about _Total Recall_, though. Maybe something about
the hero potentially just being a poor sod who imagines it all,
much like the moviegoer dreams of being a Schwarzeneggerian hero
but, well, isn't? That may be too meta.

Like much psychological manipulation, once you realize what's going
on it loses much of its effect (that would be a bridge to last
night's _Spiderhead_...), so you can sit back and enjoy the movie
making. Eventually I should rewatch _Starship Troopers_, the one
time Verhoeven managed to piss me off, and reconsider it completely
on its own merit, without reference to the book.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Robert Carnegie]

Maybe he just wants to make a lot of money from sex
and violence.

In _Total Recall_ and in the Philip K. Dick story that,
um, inspired it, the premise is that the protagonist
is an ordinary guy who wants to have implanted
memories of an exciting trip to Mars which he can't
possibly have in real life. Other, richer people can,
he can't. As far as he knows.

[Ath]

On 19.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18/06/2022 01.44, Ath wrote:
>> On 18.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> The only supernatural stuff that I can think of from Wasp
>>> would be _Digital Knight_. He tends strongly to space opera.
>>
>> Aren't there more books in that setting by now than that one book?
>>
>>> These have some horror in them, but it tends to be man-made
>>> rather than supernatural in origin.
>>
>> Man was I confused while I thought you were still talking about the
>> space opera by Seawasp, took me a bit to guess the subject change.
>> :)

> Y'know, when I reread my post, it had the same effect on me.

It's not just me, whee! :))

[Ath]

On 19.06.22, Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/17/2022 8:12 AM, Ath wrote:

>> TLDR:
>>
>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.

[Snip!]

>> For now I'm taking Starship Troopers to the balcony, because the
>> film was on TV the other day and a Steam friend mentioned the book's
>> different. Maybe I'll add SciFi to the list of what I'm looking for
>> after that.
>>
>> Thanks! :)

> Jame Nicoll reviews a book on here and at his website almost every
> day. James also write articles about five somewhat related books on
> www.tor.com and posts the article URL here for us. Most of his books
> are from the late 1900s but he does occasionally venture into the
> present.

I see him posting mostly empty posts with links, which I skip. But he
replied to my question with a bunch of links to stuff I asked for
that'll keep me occupied for quite a while. :)

Mind, doesn't have to be present, Cthulhu stuff is usually in the past,
and I'd not mind something set in the 1920s, welcome it even. And
written now or in the past, either way is fine.

And why does my public online library not have more Lovecraft books
anyway? :)

> I post a book review once or twice a week. Sometimes old, sometimes
> new. I like military science fiction, juveniles, and apocalyptic
> fantasy. And some dark fantasy.

I don't see much overlap. I asked google for a definition of dark
fantasy, but my image on what it is remains vague. Got some examples
that fit your definition?

> Starship Troopers, the book and movie, are radically different. The
> movie was somewhat inspired by the book. Somewhat.

So I noticed!

Man is he rambling on about deliquents and puppies, leaving me
wondering, while chuckling, whether the author actually meant it, and he
lived in some absurd bubble, or it's just the character in a future
setting having no grasp on the history he's talking about, nor on dogs.

> The whipping scene in the movie was horrible.

There were two so far in the book, plus a hanging. How's the one in the
movie worse?

[Paul S Person]

On Sat, 18 Jun 2022 17:21:52 -0000 (UTC), Christian Weisgerber
<na...@mips.inka.de> wrote:

>On 2022-06-18, Paul S Person <pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>Starship Troopers, the book and movie, are radically different. The
>>>movie was somewhat inspired by the book. Somewhat. The whipping scene
>>>in the movie was horrible.
>>
>> It was Verhoeven's idea of what an "antiwar movie" should look like.
>> Apparently, actually /watching/ a few antiwar movies to see what they
>> looked like never occurred to him.
>
>Verhoeven is a provocateur. A troll, in modern terms. He wants
>to rile people up. It took me the longest time to understand this,
>because most of his movies don't trigger me. It finally fell into
>focus when I saw _Zwartboek_ (Black Book). I, and presumably much
>of the Dutch audience, had expected to see heroic Dutch clobbering
>cartoonish Nazis, and that certainly happens, but Verhoeven also
>delights in showing Dutch anti-semitism, collaboration, and revenge,
>completely undermining the trope of the heroic WWII resistance
>fighter. Looking back at his other movies, I then realized that
>he has tried to yank the viewers' chain for a long time:

I would imagine that /Black Book/ might disturb those who wish to
sugar-coat their past. But, as I have noted, wingnuts exist on all
sides.

>In _Flesh + Blood_, instead of noble knights jousting for justice,
>you have brutish mercenaries raping and pillaging their way across
>the medieval lands.

I saw that a while back. And have regretted it ever since.

>_Robocop_ leads the audience into cheering for the abandonment of
>such things as the the rule of law or due process.

Robocop arrests people. Judge Dredd executes them. There is a
difference.

>_Starship Troopers_ puts Heinlein's "coming-of-age in the glorious
>military" on its head.

Well put.

>_Basic Instinct_ discomforts American prudes... and must be some
>sort of comment on Hitchcock's _Vertigo_ (but that latter movie is
>too old and therefore culturally alien for me to make sense of).

I watched it Friday evening. For Verhoeven, it is subdued. IIRC, he
threatened (should the more rabid faminists attack it) to recut the
ending and change the entire meaning of the film.

>_Showgirls_ discomforts American prudes even more.

I read the reviews. No thanks.

IIRC, this had the "honor" of being named the scariest horror film by
one of the characters in /Scream/.

>I don't know about _Total Recall_, though. Maybe something about
>the hero potentially just being a poor sod who imagines it all,
>much like the moviegoer dreams of being a Schwarzeneggerian hero
>but, well, isn't? That may be too meta.

Siskel/Ebert noted that the ending is ... ambiguous.

If it /is/ an implant, he certainly got his money's worth!

>Like much psychological manipulation, once you realize what's going
>on it loses much of its effect (that would be a bridge to last
>night's _Spiderhead_...), so you can sit back and enjoy the movie
>making. Eventually I should rewatch _Starship Troopers_, the one
>time Verhoeven managed to piss me off, and reconsider it completely
>on its own merit, without reference to the book.

Me, I just watch the movies. Well, those I thought worth buying on
DVD, that is.

BTW, his earlier ones (/Soldier of Orange/, /Spetters/, and /The
Fourth Man/, as well as /Black Book/, show why I think he pulled his
punches in /Basic Instinct/. He is a European director, and European
standards are clearly different. We'd have seen a /lot/ more of the
principles had this been one of his European films.

The last two I rented (/Elle/ and /Benedetta/) were not very good. It
is possible that he has shot his bolt, as it were.

[James Nicoll]

In article <Fw7ve6z5czB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>On 18.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> In article <Fw3vFgf5czB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>
>>> Why are you warning about them being Canadian? And do you refer to
>>> the style, or the language, or weird humour, or something I can't
>>> think of? (So far they sound just fine to me.)
>
>> Accents might sound weird (although not half as weird as SF68,
>
>Looking up SF68 got me some kind of pharmaceutical, until I added the
>word "book" to the "what's sf68" :))
>

There were 30-odd episodes but only about half made it to this archive.

https://archive.org/details/Sf_68

It was replaced by Beyond Midnight, which I have never listened to.

https://archive.org/details/beyond-midnight-xx-xx-xx-xx-cassius-touch

[James Nicoll]

In article <FwBw3CRLczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>On 19.06.22, Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 6/17/2022 8:12 AM, Ath wrote:
>
>>> TLDR:
>>>
>>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.
>
>[Snip!]
>>> For now I'm taking Starship Troopers to the balcony, because the
>>> film was on TV the other day and a Steam friend mentioned the book's
>>> different. Maybe I'll add SciFi to the list of what I'm looking for
>>> after that.
>>>
>>> Thanks! :)
>
>> Jame Nicoll reviews a book on here and at his website almost every
>> day. James also write articles about five somewhat related books on
>> www.tor.com and posts the article URL here for us. Most of his books
>> are from the late 1900s but he does occasionally venture into the
>> present.
>
>I see him posting mostly empty posts with links, which I skip.

I have started trying to include descriptions.

But he
>replied to my question with a bunch of links to stuff I asked for
>that'll keep me occupied for quite a while. :)
>

I should probably have the same warning label re old time anthology format
SF radio shows I have when it comes to local transit, that the answers
you get may be much longer than you want.

[James Nicoll]

In article <t8nln1$fdk$2...@reader1.panix.com>,

Come to think of it, one of Thrilling Adventure Hour's recurring series
was comic occult horror: Beyond Belief, in which Frank and Sadie Doyle
are very reluctant occult problem solvers. They'd rather be drinking.

I think the show is in part a terrible pun: the two drunks lives centre
on spirits.

[Lynn McGuire]

Dark fantasy is Horror.

The whipping scene is the movie is very realistic. Like I said, the
movie is inspired by the book.

Lynn

[The Horny Goat]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 15:59:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:

>And why does my public online library not have more Lovecraft books
>anyway? :)

Too many complaints from parents after they put them in the Childrens'
section?

[Dimensional Traveler]

Right next to The Lord of the Rings?

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

[The Horny Goat]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 14:10:37 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 6/19/2022 12:39 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 15:59:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>
>>> And why does my public online library not have more Lovecraft books
>>> anyway? :)
>>
>> Too many complaints from parents after they put them in the Childrens'
>> section?
>
>Right next to The Lord of the Rings?

Heh heh - back when the books were new and I was much younger than now
The Hobbit was in the kids section but Lord of the Rings was 'young
adult'

From those days I mostsly remember "speak friend and enter!", the
finale (of course), how satisfied I was when Saruman got his and the
interminable ending at the Grey Havens (which still wasn't as long as
that section in the movie)

[David Duffy]

"By the way, do you have any of Lovecraft?" "Is that a sex book?"

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <t8ocld$1m27$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,

https://dilbert.com/strip/2000-04-28

[Dimensional Traveler]

Jack Nicholson said he left the movie 'Return of the King' half-way thru
to "warm up the car" because by that point it was just one ending after
another. :D

[Ath]

On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <FwBw3CRLczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>> On 19.06.22, Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Jame Nicoll reviews a book on here and at his website almost every
>>> day. James also write articles about five somewhat related books
>>> on www.tor.com and posts the article URL here for us. Most of his
>>> books are from the late 1900s but he does occasionally venture into
>>> the present.
>>
>> I see him posting mostly empty posts with links, which I skip.

> I have started trying to include descriptions.

Nice, but I'd prefer to have the article here, to talk about it here. :P

>> But he replied to my question with a bunch of links to stuff I asked
>> for that'll keep me occupied for quite a while. :)
>>
> I should probably have the same warning label re old time anthology
> format SF radio shows I have when it comes to local transit, that the
> answers you get may be much longer than you want.

Haha. :)

But it's so much more than I expected, and I'm happy about it. :))

[Ath]

Lol. Why would they put them there though? :)

But online? There's no 'next to', there's categories, author searches,
and such. You think there'd be put in the kids's category there?

[Ath]

Lol. Ouch. X-O

[Ath]

On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <Fw7ve6z5czB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>> On 18.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:

>>> Accents might sound weird (although not half as weird as SF68,
>>
>> Looking up SF68 got me some kind of pharmaceutical, until I added
>> the word "book" to the "what's sf68" :))
>>
> There were 30-odd episodes but only about half made it to this
> archive.

> https://archive.org/details/Sf_68

Peeked into the first one, and didn't notice any African-sounding accent
so far. Bookmarked, in any case. :)

> It was replaced by Beyond Midnight, which I have never listened to.

> https://archive.org/details/beyond-midnight-xx-xx-xx-xx-cassius-touch

Peeked into that, too. Bookmarked. Thanks! :)

[Robert Carnegie]

On Monday, 20 June 2022 at 10:18:20 UTC+1, Ath wrote:
> On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> > In article <FwBw3CRLczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
> >> On 19.06.22, Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> Jame Nicoll reviews a book on here and at his website almost every
> >>> day. James also write articles about five somewhat related books
> >>> on www.tor.com and posts the article URL here for us. Most of his
> >>> books are from the late 1900s but he does occasionally venture into
> >>> the present.
> >>
> >> I see him posting mostly empty posts with links, which I skip.
>
> > I have started trying to include descriptions.
> Nice, but I'd prefer to have the article here, to talk about it here. :P

You can talk about it there. I do. James can publish reviews
as he pleases.

Since attaching a description here - as well as book title and
author - does not attract you, he may as well skip that.

[Paul S Person]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 20:02:42 -0700, Dimensional Traveler

<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 6/19/2022 4:37 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 14:10:37 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
>> <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/19/2022 12:39 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 15:59:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> And why does my public online library not have more Lovecraft books
>>>>> anyway? :)
>>>>
>>>> Too many complaints from parents after they put them in the Childrens'
>>>> section?
>>>
>>> Right next to The Lord of the Rings?
>>
>> Heh heh - back when the books were new and I was much younger than now
>> The Hobbit was in the kids section but Lord of the Rings was 'young
>> adult'
>>
>> From those days I mostsly remember "speak friend and enter!", the
>> finale (of course), how satisfied I was when Saruman got his and the
>> interminable ending at the Grey Havens (which still wasn't as long as
>> that section in the movie)
>
>Jack Nicholson said he left the movie 'Return of the King' half-way thru
>to "warm up the car" because by that point it was just one ending after
>another. :D

One of the times I saw it in a theater, I thought the audience was
about to storm the stage and rip the screen to shreds at that point.

[Paul S Person]

On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 16:37:34 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca>

wrote:

>On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 14:10:37 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
><dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>
>>On 6/19/2022 12:39 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>>> On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 15:59:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> And why does my public online library not have more Lovecraft books
>>>> anyway? :)
>>>
>>> Too many complaints from parents after they put them in the Childrens'
>>> section?
>>
>>Right next to The Lord of the Rings?
>
>Heh heh - back when the books were new and I was much younger than now
>The Hobbit was in the kids section but Lord of the Rings was 'young
>adult'
>
>From those days I mostsly remember "speak friend and enter!", the
>finale (of course), how satisfied I was when Saruman got his and the
>interminable ending at the Grey Havens (which still wasn't as long as
>that section in the movie)

All that time and we /still/ didn't get to see the ship lift up above
the surface of the water onto the Straight Path.

[David Duffy]

It's from Ray Bradbury's _Pillar of Fire_, and has stuck to me since a child.

[Robert Carnegie]

Putting the "fondle" in "Fondly Fahrenheit" :-)

Yes I know - wrong author and wrong story.

[Ath]

On 21.06.22, Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
> On Monday, 20 June 2022 at 10:18:20 UTC+1, Ath wrote:
>> On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> In article <FwBw3CRLczB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>>> On 19.06.22, Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>> Jame Nicoll reviews a book on here and at his website almost
>>>>> every day. James also write articles about five somewhat related
>>>>> books on www.tor.com and posts the article URL here for us. Most
>>>>> of his books are from the late 1900s but he does occasionally
>>>>> venture into the present.
>>>>
>>>> I see him posting mostly empty posts with links, which I skip.
>>
>>> I have started trying to include descriptions.

>> Nice, but I'd prefer to have the article here, to talk about it
>> here. :P

> You can talk about it there. I do. James can publish reviews
> as he pleases.

Of course he can! Just as I can react the way I please. :) And you can
think of that as you please, and I can think of _that_ as I please.

You know, fair's fair?

No one's hurt, no one's rights curtailed. (And aren't we lucky to live
in countries where that's possible?)

> Since attaching a description here - as well as book title and
> author - does not attract you, he may as well skip that.

Oh, I'm the only poster here who matters? Wow. Can I decree then that
everyone must only ever now be talking about my stories? ;P

[Ath]

Asked google about that, found it's on Gutenberg, had a peek, got
curious. :)

Going to have Calibre read it to me, or maybe even read it manually.

[Jack Bohn]

Putting the "oo la la" in "Cthulhu R'lyeh fhtagn"

I guess it depends on how you pronounce it.

--
-Jack

[Ath]

On 21.06.22, David Duffy <dav...@qimr.edu.au> wrote:

Just finished it. You read that as a _child_!?

[Jack Bohn]

Among the things Ath wrote:
>
> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E. Spoor,
> but the online library doesn't have his books.
>

> My usual rambling version:
>
> I've turned to audiobooks and audioplays, now borrowed online from the
> public library. It's so nice while sitting on the balcony while watching
> the plants grow, and the bumblebees visit, or playing some mindless game
> here at the PC.
>
> Remembered someone, somewhere (here or on Steam?) told me about online
> public library, renewed my membership, had it explained, plus a bit more
> on the phone, and went looking for Lovecraft or more John Sinclair
> audiobooks, no luck.
>
> Borrowed:
>
> - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (I think the first two books,
> are there more?) - Yeah, something like that is nice.

Yeah, two; notes and sketches for a third -along with whatever else was in the folders of his word processor when he died- was collected in a book _The Salmon of Doubt_, I don't know if that got an audio reading.
I will always think of Douglas Adams as read in the voice of Peter Jones, the voice of the book in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which, if you are into radio plays and haven't heard it...
A bit tangential, there was a novelization of his game "Starship Titanic" written and/or read by Python Terry Jones.

Free but amateur is The Ocadecagonagon Theater Group:
https://twotruefreaks.com/podcast/qt-series/the-ocadecagonagon-theater-group/
Several projects: an adaptation of the comic "Strangers in Paradise" with the permission of the writer,
Public Domain Comic Book Theater with no permission required,
and VHS Box Cover Theater, their own writings, inspired by the picture and blurbs on video covers that made them wonder what was inside. (Warning: these feel incomplete to me, as if their inspiration ran out three 15-20 minute segments into each.)

Finding out that around the 2010s digital audio downloads dominated the sf magazine field, I found a list of them:
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Magazines#Podcasts

--
-Jack

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 21/06/2022 08.39, Ath wrote:
> On 21.06.22, David Duffy <dav...@qimr.edu.au> wrote:
>> Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>> On 20.06.22, David Duffy <dav...@qimr.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>>> "By the way, do you have any of Lovecraft?" "Is that a sex book?"
>>>
>>> Lol. Ouch. X-O
>>>
>> It's from Ray Bradbury's _Pillar of Fire_, and has stuck to me since
>> a child.
>
> Just finished it. You read that as a _child_!?

Why not? I read lots of Bradbury as a kid. Writing, as he
mostly did, at shorter lengths, is well suited for the
attention span of a ten-year-old.

And a lot of his stories had kids as viewpoint characters.


--
Michael F. Stemper
Deuteronomy 10:18-19

[Ath]

On 21.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/06/2022 08.39, Ath wrote:
>> On 21.06.22, David Duffy <dav...@qimr.edu.au> wrote:

>>> It's from Ray Bradbury's _Pillar of Fire_, and has stuck to me
>>> since a child.
>>
>> Just finished it. You read that as a _child_!?

> Why not? I read lots of Bradbury as a kid. Writing, as he
> mostly did, at shorter lengths, is well suited for the
> attention span of a ten-year-old.

Seems inapropriate.

Of course, fairy tales usually weren't happy shiny either, with people
eaten and frogs thrown against walls. That's in a different drawer
though.

And for Sci-Fi I'd more expect something bright and wonderous. :)

> And a lot of his stories had kids as viewpoint characters.

Are his other stories as gruesome?

[Ath]

On 21.06.22, Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Among the things Ath wrote:

>> Looking for (audio)books. Lovecraftian, or detective story with
>> supernatural elements (examples below). Yes, I remember Ryk E.
>> Spoor, but the online library doesn't have his books.

[...]

>> Borrowed:
>>
>> - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (I think the first two
>> books, are there more?) - Yeah, something like that is nice.

> Yeah, two; notes and sketches for a third -along with whatever else
> was in the folders of his word processor when he died- was collected
> in a book _The Salmon of Doubt_, I don't know if that got an audio
> reading. I will always think of Douglas Adams as read in the voice of
> Peter Jones,

The ones I heard were red by Douglas Adams himself, rather nicely, I
thought.

> the voice of the book in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which,
> if you are into radio plays and haven't heard it...

I think it's on the list, but I read the books decades ago, so it's not
a priority. :)

> A bit tangential, there was a novelization of his game "Starship
> Titanic" written and/or read by Python Terry Jones.

Turns up in the online library as: "We don't have it, do you want to
recommend it for purchase?" But just as ebook, not audiobook even.

> Free but amateur is The Ocadecagonagon Theater Group:
> https://twotruefreaks.com/podcast/qt-series/the-ocadecagonagon-theate
> r-group/ Several projects:

[...]

Had a peek, and bookmarked, thanks! :)

> Finding out that around the 2010s digital audio downloads dominated
> the sf magazine field, I found a list of them:
> http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Magazines#Podcasts

I'm a bit confused. Clicked on a few Websites links, and found no
audios, and number of dead links. What is this?

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 7:18:19 AM UTC-6, Ath wrote:
> was wondering whether people here still talk about SF, or just politics
> and other nonsense. ;P

Given the scope and importance of world political events, I'm not surprised
that they're discussed in addition to science fiction.

However, I wouldn't blame you for lamenting the lack of on-topic discussion...

but I've just realized something.

Even a lot of the *on-topic* discussion here is about politics!

No, I'm not kidding.

You get one person who mostly only posts about mil-sf, particularly by David
Weber, John Ringo, and the like. That could be taken as a political statement.

Then you get another person who informs us about... science fiction by authors
who are women, science fiction translated from other languages, like Japanese,
and so on and so forth.

Mind you, if someone only talked about 'safe', 'traditional' science fiction, from
the Golden Age up through the 1960s, or modern-day imitations of same, wouldn't
_that_ be a political statement too?

John Savard

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

"Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote in news:FwJxFVE5czB@ATH:

> On 21.06.22, Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> On 21/06/2022 08.39, Ath wrote:
>>> On 21.06.22, David Duffy <dav...@qimr.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>>> It's from Ray Bradbury's _Pillar of Fire_, and has stuck to
>>>> me since a child.
>>>
>>> Just finished it. You read that as a _child_!?
>
>> Why not? I read lots of Bradbury as a kid. Writing, as he
>> mostly did, at shorter lengths, is well suited for the
>> attention span of a ten-year-old.
>
> Seems inapropriate.
>
> Of course, fairy tales usually weren't happy shiny either, with
> people eaten and frogs thrown against walls. That's in a
> different drawer though.

You should read the originals, as collected by Grimm. The primary
purpose was to terrify children into obendience in a dark, dangerous
world.

--
Terry Austin

Proof that Alan Baker is a liar and a fool, and even stupider than
Lynn:
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration
(May 2019 total for people arrested for entering the United States
illegally is over 132,000 for just the southwest border.)

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:381c3659-1983-43a4...@googlegroups.com:

And then, of course, there's you, who only talk about your
misogynistic fantasies and delusions that anybody in the US give s
shit about youro pinions on US politics.

[The Horny Goat]

When I was 13 I read Jim Bouton's Ball Four about his major league
baseball days which featured (among other things) the player who
inserted a piece of popcorn under his foreskin and went to the team
doctor asking for treatment of his horrendous sexually transmitted
disease.....

(I suspect my mother would have collapsed if she had read it along
with me but then by then I had read Second Foundation where the Lord
of Kalgan wanted to fornicate with a very underage Arkady Darrell.

[The Horny Goat]

On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 09:58:50 -0700, Paul S Person
<pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>>>Right next to The Lord of the Rings?
>>
>>Heh heh - back when the books were new and I was much younger than now
>>The Hobbit was in the kids section but Lord of the Rings was 'young
>>adult'
>>
>>From those days I mostsly remember "speak friend and enter!", the
>>finale (of course), how satisfied I was when Saruman got his and the
>>interminable ending at the Grey Havens (which still wasn't as long as
>>that section in the movie)
>
>All that time and we /still/ didn't get to see the ship lift up above
>the surface of the water onto the Straight Path.
>--

Peter Jackson DID say ending Return of the King satisfactorily was one
of his toughest directing challenges as so much happened AFTER the
destruction of the Ring which was of course the climax of the three
movies.

I remember going home completely bummed as I had been so looking
forward to seeing how he did the death of Saruman .... which was on
the drawing room floor. Which for me was far more interesting than the
Grey Havens stuff and about as interesting as the last 15 minutes of
Game of Thrones (which is to say not interesting at all other than
ogling Sansa)

[J. Clarke]

On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 10:46:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:

>On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> In article <Fw7ve6z5czB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>> On 18.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Accents might sound weird (although not half as weird as SF68,
>>>
>>> Looking up SF68 got me some kind of pharmaceutical, until I added
>>> the word "book" to the "what's sf68" :))
>>>
>> There were 30-odd episodes but only about half made it to this
>> archive.
>
>> https://archive.org/details/Sf_68
>
>Peeked into the first one, and didn't notice any African-sounding accent
>so far. Bookmarked, in any case. :)

What's an "African-sounding accent"? Fellow I used to drink with
sounded like a Londoner. Charlize Theron seems to speak middle
American. Whatever accent Elon Musk has sounds to me like a mild
speech impediment. The Nigerian who lives across the street from me
sounds like a Jamaican.

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, June 21, 2022 at 8:52:24 PM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:

> What's an "African-sounding accent"? Fellow I used to drink with
> sounded like a Londoner. Charlize Theron seems to speak middle
> American. Whatever accent Elon Musk has sounds to me like a mild
> speech impediment.

It certainly is true that since some of Africa was colonized by France,
and other parts were colonized by Britain, and also since not all of
Africa has much of a tourist trade, in parts of it, only well-educated
individuals are likely to speak English... there isn't really any _one_
accent with which the black people of Africa would speak English.

Of course, Elon Musk isn't black; presumably, he would sound sort of
like a Dutchman, but Afrikaans has diverged from Dutch for so long,
that may not be really true.

And Charlize Theron doesn't appear to be black _either_. Ah, despite
her French surname, she, too, is of Afrikaner ancestry.

John Savard

[pete...@gmail.com]

If you want the death of Saruman, it's included in the Extended Edition of
the RotK film. Of course, since the Scouring of the Shire is still missing,
It's a bit different, but still satisfying.

Pt

[Dimensional Traveler]

While filming Saruman's death scene (on the Extended Edition DVD), Peter
Jackson tried to tell Sir Christopher Lee how to react and breathe after
he was stabbed in the back. Lee, a World War II veteran with British
Special Forces, assured Jackson that he knew what a man sounded like
when stabbed in the back.


--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

[Ath]

Eek.

Were those books in the children's section, too?

[Ath]

On 22.06.22, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote in news:FwJxFVE5czB@ATH:

>> Of course, fairy tales usually weren't happy shiny either, with
>> people eaten and frogs thrown against walls. That's in a
>> different drawer though.

> You should read the originals, as collected by Grimm.

Those are the fairy tales I'm talking about. I started reading them some
years ago (but didn't finish the book). Edition was the one the brothers
Grimm themselves had edited to be somewhat friendlier. Still no frog
kissing though!

> The primary purpose was to terrify children into obendience in a dark,
> dangerous world.

I feel like saying: "It worked for the survivors." No idea why though.

[Ath]

On 22.06.22, J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 10:46:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>> On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:

>>> https://archive.org/details/Sf_68
>>
>> Peeked into the first one, and didn't notice any African-sounding
>> accent so far. Bookmarked, in any case. :)

> What's an "African-sounding accent"?

I'd imagine something like the African-origin people in other
audiobooks. :)

[Frank Scrooby]

Hi all,

On Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 5:08:07 AM UTC+2, Quadibloc wrote:

> Of course, Elon Musk isn't black; presumably, he would sound sort of
> like a Dutchman, but Afrikaans has diverged from Dutch for so long,
> that may not be really true.

Why the hell would Musk sound like a Dutchman or an Afrikaaner?

You are aware that not every "white" person in Southern Africa is not an Afrikaans-speaker, right?`

There are least 8 other significant 'communities' that are identified as white.

While most of the previous generation of "white" high school students were not able to avoid Afrikaans as a compulsory Second language subject at high school, some were able to. It was in fact completely possible (but somewhat costly in time and money) to gain university entrance without Afrikaans. Most opted for French or German as a Second language. My younger sister actually went to a boarding school that specialized in turning out English/German speakers with absolutely no knowledge of Afrikaans.

The preferred language spoken today is English. Afrikaans is typically only spoken in the home or in public only when people think it gives them a sense of privacy (which is totally @#$%ing stupid because despite the best efforts of the New Government a very large percentage of the "non-white" population does understand enough Afrikaans to know when someone is talking about them.

All of this ignores the fact that Afrikaans is an artificial construct created in the 1930s to give the Nationalist Government (a bunch of proto-Nazis who should all have hung for treason during WWI) an excuse to stop paying attention and money toward the Holland-based Dutch church, which had at that time come to the rather radical and unacceptable conclusion that "black" people might just be Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve and thus entitled to a little more respect than was usually afforded to livestock or furniture).

Proof of this was in my high school "Afrikaans" literature reading list. I read approximately 75 "Afrikaans" books from the School Library in 5 years. Besides for the 3 set works read in the last 3 years (which had to be locally written, locally approved, politically acceptable works) the rest were all published in Holland or Belgium. The publishers, the authors, everyone with 2 &1/2 brain cells left all considered the books to be Dutch. No mention of "Afrikaans", or even Africa, except when the story took the protagonists to Africa. My reading list included a decent chunk of Science Fiction, which was mostly translated from French works. It was also clear that the censors had never actually read these books because far too many of them contained ideas that the Nationalists would have found repulsive or unacceptable (marriage or sex between "whites" and "non-whites", highly educated "black" characters who were also wise and kind, Jewish characters who weren't Shylocks or Christ-killers, stuff like that).

> And Charlize Theron doesn't appear to be black _either_. Ah, despite
> her French surname, she, too, is of Afrikaner ancestry.

All of my previous rambling aside, accents are incredibly fluid. Stop socializing and speaking with people using a particular language and your accent will disappear. Social and speak to a different set of people and you'll soon begin to sound like them.

A couple of decades ago I worked with a company whose customer base was almost exclusive international, and often not first-language English speakers (and in the case of some Japanese customers not even English speakers). To avoid unnecessary confusion my colleagues and I made a definitive effort to cull slang, coloquilisms and other easily misunderstood words and phrases out of our English. In no time at all (well probably 2 weeks) our fellow South Africans couldn't tell that we were locals and tried in vain to guess which English speaking foreign part of the world we came from. In the course of one evening out I was told my accent sounded like an accent from 16 different places. IIRC Australia, Wales, Ireland, Texas, New York (the state not the city apparently), St. Kits, Bermuda, New Zealand all came up. On a different night one person insisted I was a Belgium educated in Britain.

Years later after that experiment a number of us were in Las Vegas for an industry convention. We were able to pick up each others accents over noisy crowds and the Tower-of-Babel combinations of language. And when 1 of us tried to communicate "privately" via Afrikaans, the very "black", very eloquent Dutch speaker in the queue behind us was quick to correct him.

>
> John Savard

Anyway, take care.

Regards
Frank

[David Duffy]

Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:

It was collected in _S is for Space_, bought after winning _R is for
Rocket_ as a school prize ;) I don't think I had read Lovecraft at that
age. I forget who said that the ideal age for Lovecraft is 15, might
have been John Updike - cosmic nihilism and no sex ;)

[Dimensional Traveler]

Which part of Africa?

[Jack Bohn]

Among the things Frank Scrooby wrote:
>
> A couple of decades ago I worked with a company whose customer base was almost exclusive international, and often not first-language English speakers (and in the case of some Japanese customers not even English speakers). To avoid unnecessary confusion my colleagues and I made a definitive effort to cull slang, coloquilisms and other easily misunderstood words and phrases out of our English. In no time at all (well probably 2 weeks) our fellow South Africans couldn't tell that we were locals and tried in vain to guess which English speaking foreign part of the world we came from. In the course of one evening out I was told my accent sounded like an accent from 16 different places. IIRC Australia, Wales, Ireland, Texas, New York (the state not the city apparently), St. Kits, Bermuda, New Zealand all came up. On a different night one person insisted I was a Belgium educated in Britain.

"Although she's studied with an expert dialectician and grammarian,
I. Can. Tell. That. She. Was. Born...
HUNGARIAN!"

One of my favorite science fiction movies.

--
-Jack

[Paul S Person]

On Wed, 22 Jun 2022 07:31:07 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

>On 6/21/2022 11:04 PM, Ath wrote:
>> On 22.06.22, J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 10:46:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>>>> On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>> https://archive.org/details/Sf_68
>>>>
>>>> Peeked into the first one, and didn't notice any African-sounding
>>>> accent so far. Bookmarked, in any case. :)
>>
>>> What's an "African-sounding accent"?
>>
>> I'd imagine something like the African-origin people in other
>> audiobooks. :)
>>
>Which part of Africa?

Probably Jamaica.

Which, of course, is a long way from Africa.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[Paul S Person]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:38:46 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca>
wrote:

>On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 09:58:50 -0700, Paul S Person
><pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>
>>>>Right next to The Lord of the Rings?
>>>
>>>Heh heh - back when the books were new and I was much younger than now
>>>The Hobbit was in the kids section but Lord of the Rings was 'young
>>>adult'
>>>
>>>From those days I mostsly remember "speak friend and enter!", the
>>>finale (of course), how satisfied I was when Saruman got his and the
>>>interminable ending at the Grey Havens (which still wasn't as long as
>>>that section in the movie)
>>
>>All that time and we /still/ didn't get to see the ship lift up above
>>the surface of the water onto the Straight Path.
>>--
>Peter Jackson DID say ending Return of the King satisfactorily was one
>of his toughest directing challenges as so much happened AFTER the
>destruction of the Ring which was of course the climax of the three
>movies.

It's not a directing challenge. It's an "understanding what the story
in the book is and telling that (greatly simplified/modified, to be
sure) in the movie" challenge.

But what can you expect when the director only reads the book for
Action Sequences, and regards everything else as "filler"?

I don't know about anyone else but, for me, the scene where everyone
kneels (bows?) to the Four Hobbits is more of a "climax" than Frodo
being saved by Sam in, what else?, an Action Sequence which "enhances"
the book.

And, Gollum not being a Terminator, I really don't buy his being happy
when he falls into the lava.

>I remember going home completely bummed as I had been so looking
>forward to seeing how he did the death of Saruman .... which was on
>the drawing room floor. Which for me was far more interesting than the
>Grey Havens stuff and about as interesting as the last 15 minutes of
>Game of Thrones (which is to say not interesting at all other than
>ogling Sansa)

I've never watched Game of Thrones.

There's more after the Grey Havens, of course, whether in the
Appendices or other writings: Gimli and Legolas eventually set off for
the True West in a small boat, and Samwise Gamgee finally takes the
Last Ship from the Grey Havens long after the novel ends. "And so the
last of the Ringbearers left Middle Earth" -- or something like that.

[Lynn McGuire]

Which is ?

Lynn

[Scott Lurndal]

The quote is from "My Fair Lady".

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 22/06/2022 09.31, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 6/21/2022 11:04 PM, Ath wrote:
>> On 22.06.22, J. Clarke  <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 10:46:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:

>>>> Peeked into the first one, and didn't notice any African-sounding
>>>> accent so far. Bookmarked, in any case. :)
>>
>>> What's an "African-sounding accent"?
>>
>> I'd imagine something like the African-origin people in other
>> audiobooks. :)
>>
> Which part of Africa?

To emphasize your point, here is an image comparing the size of Africa
to that of several other places:
<https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/05/article-2445615-188A8AA500000578-349_964x681.jpg>
Simultaneously.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding;
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.

[Lynn McGuire]

That is what I thought. But "My Fair Lady" is not a SF movie ???

Lynn

[Andrew McDowell]

I I looked on YouTube for archive film of the South African politicians P W Botha and F W de Klerk. These have what I would describe as the stereotypical South African accent, although it is not as strong as I remembered it. I also looked on Wikipedia and found that Musk did not grow up in an area described as a largely Afrikaans-speaking area. (This was partly kicked off by me seeing Musk describing the Raptor engine on YouTube - I did not detect any noticeable accent. I was also surprised to see a reasonable but pedestrian explanation - from his success at raising money and leading people I was expecting a much slicker performance and at least obvious forcefulness, if not obvious charisma).

An example of a speaker who has retained an obvious foreign accent is Sarah Hoyt (who popped up on Baen Free Radio after the announcement about her parting with Baen as a novel publisher).

I and my sister were both born in N.Ireland and went to University on the mainland (England and Scotland) and then worked in England. My sister's accent has apparently softened - for a while she worked in a bookshop and she said that if customers failed to understand here she tried to mimic their accent back at them. I am not very social but I do go out to work, but have never attempted mimicry. The person who reckoned that my sister's accent had softened described me as "Pure Paddy" - and very recently I was found evidence that I still have a noticeable accent, although not one everybody identifies as Irish.

[Michael F. Stemper]

I think that this is the cue for Quaddie to jump in and explain
the concept of "joke".
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CxX8nvLalE>

--
Michael F. Stemper
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

[Dimensional Traveler]

He had regained His Precious. If you paid attention you'd have noticed
that he was decidedly NOT happy once he hit the lava.

I also suspect you don't "get" the power of the Ring to
mentally/emotionally snare.

>> I remember going home completely bummed as I had been so looking
>> forward to seeing how he did the death of Saruman .... which was on
>> the drawing room floor. Which for me was far more interesting than the
>> Grey Havens stuff and about as interesting as the last 15 minutes of
>> Game of Thrones (which is to say not interesting at all other than
>> ogling Sansa)
>
> I've never watched Game of Thrones.
>
> There's more after the Grey Havens, of course, whether in the
> Appendices or other writings: Gimli and Legolas eventually set off for
> the True West in a small boat, and Samwise Gamgee finally takes the
> Last Ship from the Grey Havens long after the novel ends. "And so the
> last of the Ringbearers left Middle Earth" -- or something like that.


--

[J. Clarke]

One could argue that it is sociological science fiction. Then there
is the remarkable array of gadgetry that Professor Higgins employs in
his efforts to adjust Eliza's accent.

Then there's the question of the degree to which such an adjustment is
possible after a certain age in the real world.

[Quadibloc]

That is hardly necessary. But I was curious myself as to which movie the
quote came from. I had not thought of "My Fair Lady" as a possibility at all;
instead, I wondered if it was perhaps from one of the two Flint movies, given
all the impossible accomplishments the protagonist is capable of (something
like Operator Five in the old pulps).

Since the premise of "My Fair Lady" is somewhat improbable, I can see that
one might with mild irony call it a science-fiction movie.

John Savard

[pete...@gmail.com]

My Fair Lady, the 1956 Broadway Musical. Most are more
familiar with the 1964 film version.

The plot is about a mad scientist's project to alter
a young woman's brain.

Here's the clip. The quote is a little past the 3 minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS0pNPw958M

The version on the OBC album is superior, imho.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8yewUi5Wtk0


Pt

[pete...@gmail.com]

It doesn't happen easily, but with effort and application it can be done.
Many actors learn to speak with accents quite different than that they
grew up with. Audrey Hepburn, a woman born in Switzerland,
and who spent her formative years speaking Dutch (she was in the Dutch
Resistance), uses both Cockney and Received Pronunciation in the film.

When I lived in Britain, it was not unknown for people to take speech
training to get them sounding RP, for social and business purposes.

Pt

[Lynn McGuire]

Awesome book ! "Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II"
https://www.amazon.com/Dutch-Girl-Audrey-Hepburn-World/dp/1732273537/

Get the hardcover for the color photographs.

Lynn

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <7c7f4616-8e85-48dd...@googlegroups.com>,

I have a record somewhere of my father speaking to a speech therapist
to try and suppress his Southern accent so he would be more credible
as an English professor. Unfortunately I can't play it as it was cut
on some sort of odd machine that ran the grooves from the spindle out
rather than from the rim in.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[J. Clarke]

On Wed, 22 Jun 2022 21:37:13 -0500, Lynn McGuire

She looks so fragile people don't realize what a tough broad she was.

[Kevrob]

On Tuesday, June 21, 2022 at 10:52:24 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 10:46:00 +0200, "Ath" <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
>

> >On 20.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:

> >> In article <Fw7ve6z5czB@ATH>, Ath <A...@kruemel.org> wrote:
> >>> On 18.06.22, jdni...@panix.com <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>> Accents might sound weird (although not half as weird as SF68,
> >>>
> >>> Looking up SF68 got me some kind of pharmaceutical, until I added
> >>> the word "book" to the "what's sf68" :))
> >>>
> >> There were 30-odd episodes but only about half made it to this
> >> archive.
> >
> >> https://archive.org/details/Sf_68

> >
> >Peeked into the first one, and didn't notice any African-sounding accent
> >so far. Bookmarked, in any case. :)

> What's an "African-sounding accent"? Fellow I used to drink with
> sounded like a Londoner. Charlize Theron seems to speak middle
> American.

She's an Oscar-winning actress. She she can change accents.

She also speaks Afrikaans.

https://youtu.be/xwr0AxdfqRE

Once, she and her mum got caught out using it as a
"secret language."

https://youtu.be/mgbazMnt_Pc


> Whatever accent Elon Musk has sounds to me like a mild
> speech impediment.

Musk has a varied background, and not just white European!

[quote]

{He}...has English, Afrikaner [Dutch, French Huguenot, German, some Belgian,
remote Swedish, Indonesian, and Malaysian], a small amount of Scottish, and
distant Welsh, ancestry. His mother, Winnefred Maye (née Haldeman), a model
and dietician, is Canadian-born, from Regina, Saskatchewan, and has English,
and smaller amounts of Scottish, German, and Swiss-German, ancestry.

[/quote] - https://ethnicelebs.com/elon-musk

I've read he has a Theron in his family tree, and that he and Charlize are
distant cousins. Now, what about Joe Haldeman on his mother's side?
That would be ObSF.

https://linguaholic.com/linguablog/the-accent-of-elon-musk/

> The Nigerian who lives across the street from me
> sounds like a Jamaican.

West Africans in a former British colony? Makes sense.

> >> It was replaced by Beyond Midnight, which I have never listened to.
> >
> >> https://archive.org/details/beyond-midnight-xx-xx-xx-xx-cassius-touch
> >
> >Peeked into that, too. Bookmarked. Thanks! :)

--
Kevin R

[Ath]

On 23.06.22, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
> On 6/21/2022 11:04 PM, Ath wrote:
>> On 22.06.22, J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> What's an "African-sounding accent"?
>>
>> I'd imagine something like the African-origin people in other
>> audiobooks. :)
>>
> Which part of Africa?

I think one was Nigeria, forgot the others.

Personally I've met people from Ghana and Kamerun.

Then of course there's people in documentaries.

[Jack Bohn]

The 1938 movie of the original play "Pygmalion" includes a shot of an oscilloscope, taking me quite by surprise. I don't know the fashions between 1913 and 1938; maybe the play was updated to "the present." How old was the oscilloscope? I would guess the limiting factor would be the cathode ray tube, and it looks like a useful version would not have come about til the '20s, so its absence in "My Fair Lady" was NOT an early move to steampunking the tech. Actually, that rotating mirror thing from MFL is visible in the background of the earlier movie, but not used onscreen; instead we get Higgens cutting record of Eliza's speech.

--
-Jack

[pete...@gmail.com]

It appears that commercial oscilloscopes first appeared in the 1930s, so it was
new tech then.

I saw the 1938 film of the play after I was quite familiar with the 1964 film of the
musical. Of course, a lot of the dialog and plot points are shared. It was a little
bit strange to see them blow past the all the song cues and just continue talking.

[Spoilers lurk below]















In the original play, Shaw intended a somewhat different ending, with Eliza
leaving Higgins, having gained confidence and agency. But almost from the
start, directorial interference arose to have a more 'happy, romantic' ending.

pt

[Paul S Person]

IIRC, he wrote an essay explaining, in great detail, just /why/ that
ending was impossible and what actually happened to her. It's not very
optimistic.

[Paul S Person]

The film /Indemnity/ is a recent South African film in English and
Afrikaans (with English subtitles) and might provide a more current
reference.

The film itself is a decent thriller about something like the MK-Ultra
program run amok. It pairs the USA and China as "colonialists".

>An example of a speaker who has retained an obvious foreign accent is Sarah Hoyt (who popped up on Baen Free Radio after the announcement about her parting with Baen as a novel publisher).
>
>I and my sister were both born in N.Ireland and went to University on the mainland (England and Scotland) and then worked in England. My sister's accent has apparently softened - for a while she worked in a bookshop and she said that if customers failed to understand here she tried to mimic their accent back at them. I am not very social but I do go out to work, but have never attempted mimicry. The person who reckoned that my sister's accent had softened described me as "Pure Paddy" - and very recently I was found evidence that I still have a noticeable accent, although not one everybody identifies as Irish.

[Paul S Person]

I found it ... unconvincing. What can I say?

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 8:37:43 PM UTC-6, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

> I have a record somewhere of my father speaking to a speech therapist
> to try and suppress his Southern accent so he would be more credible
> as an English professor. Unfortunately I can't play it as it was cut
> on some sort of odd machine that ran the grooves from the spindle out
> rather than from the rim in.

Transcription records, for play on the radio, were like that.

John Savard