#2222

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2222^nd Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3670, December 13,2007.
Golden State Colonial Convalescent Hospital, 10830 Oxnard Street, North Hollywood, California 91606-5098.
Telephone: hospital(818) 763-8247; personal (818) 506-3159 * eMail:fredpatten@earthlink.net

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Last Tuesday I received a DVD review copy of The Third: The Girl With the Blue Eye, volume #3, Gravestone, with episodes #9 to #12. I reviewed the first two volumes in ˇRR! earlier as good Young Adult s-f in the Heinlein/Norton style. I am looking forward to watching this at my sister's apartment as soon as I can.

Also on Tuesday, ASIFA-Hollywood announced its 2007 Annie Award nominees - in 25 categories. I will not repeat the whole list here, but the five Best Animated Feature nominees are Bee Movie, Persepolis, Ratatouille, Surf's Up, and The Simpsons Movie. Shrek the Third did not make it, although it did pick up a nomination for Directing in an Animated Feature Production. The Best Animated Short Subject nominees include the "Your Friend the Rat" bonus on the Ratatouille DVD, and Disney's first new Goofy short in umpteen years, "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater" which is being shown theatrically with Enchanted. TMNT did get one nomination, for Sean Song for Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production, though he faces stiff competition from the storyboarders from Bee Movie, Meet the Robinsons, Ratatouille and Surf's Up. The winners will be announced at the Annie Awards champagne-&-tuxedo presentation ceremony at UCLA's Royce Hall on February 8th. Tickets have gone up this year again to $75 before the end of the year; $100 afterwards. I used to get a free ticket for serving as one of the judges (picking the finalists for the members to vote on), but I have not been able to do that since my stroke. Too bad.

Last Thursday my sister Sherrill brought me to the LASFS meeting. CLJII showed the first chapter of the 1938 Columbia serial The Secret of Treasure Island, written by L. Ron Hubbard, which is unusual - possibly unique - in movie serials in that the identity of the master villain, The Shark, is known to everyone from the beginning instead of being a mystery until the final episode. The main event of the meeting was the debate over whether to authorize the expenditure of up to $30,000 on needed repairs to Freehafer Hall. After considerable arguing, the motion was amended to being tabled until the Board of Directors could come up with a list of specific repairs and cost estimates for them, which several Directors promised to have ready by February or March. There was a strong implication that the names of the people to be in charge of the projects would also be wanted. Nominations for President for the first half of 2008 were anticlimactic after that, dominated by Marcia Minsky's decision to seek reelection. Jerry Pournelle gave an extremely positive review of Disney's Enchanted, or maybe of Amy Adams as a live-action Disney fairytale princess who is convincing as a live equivalent of Snow White or Briar Rose yet not so sugary-sweet that she makes you want to throw up.

On Saturday, I went to Sherry's apartment for an afternoon of watching some of the DVDs I recently got. Disney's Meet the Robinsons is fun but extremely forgettable; I cannot imagine any of the characters from it joining the ranks of "Disney's classic characters". The Pixar Short Films Collection has all 13 of the Pixar shorts from the 1984 "The Adventures of André and Wally B." that was made to impress the professionals at the SIGGRAPH computer graphics convention, to the 2007 "Lifted" which was shown theatrically with Ratatouille and is on its DVD. All of these have been available on videos and DVDs before, but it is handy having them all on a single DVD now. We did not have time to watch the Ratatouille feature again, but I did watch the "Your Friend the Rat" short since it is one of the Annie Award nominees.

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Godzilla Verses #168 -- (DeChancie) Yes, you were missed at Loscon 34. It is already winter (I have been getting Internet spam advertisements for imported Grandfather Frost chocolate figurines from www.RussianTable.com), so we look forward to your return to Los Angeles any time now. ## Are reporters who write articles about Furry conventions as gatherings of people who are obsessively animal-oriented but not in a sexual way "subverting the dominant paradigm" to portray the conventions as sex orgies of fans dressed as animals?

Fish Out of Water #252 - (Helgesen) But coke has been a generic name for a type of fuel for hundreds of years and predates copyrights as such, so there could have been nobody to legally protest the establishment of Coke as the trademarked nickname of a soft drink. Could someone freely manufacture a Snap, Crackle, Pop brand of popcorn, or lawnmowers, or fingernail polish without conflicting with Kellogg's rights to the slogan and character names for its breakfast cereal mascots? ## It would be interesting to see the Japanese skirt/Coca-Cola vending machine disguise demonstrated at a s-f convention.

I X-Ray Ogres - (Gold) So adding errors to the LASFS and Loscon histories was not the only misinformation perpetrated by the Loscon 34 Program Book. I will send in the correct and updated histories to the Loscon Program Book next year; I wonder whether the same errors or new ones will be added. ## Now that you mention it, I wonder what happened to all of the Game of Fandom cards that Stan Woolston & I printed on his letterpress during the 1960s or early '70s? We never finished our version of the game, but I had all of the cards that were printed (250 of each, I think) stored somewhere in my apartment when I had my stroke.

Vanamonde #758 - (Hertz) Since the Loscon's attendance has been varying between a high of 1,317 to a low of 1,084 over the past fifteen years, but is usually around 1,100 to 1,200, it would have to swell or shrink noticeably to stand out. ## The dog (a black Labrador) in a dragon suit, and a couple of other costumes throughout the convention, usually looked rather bewildered. ## To my eye the "Naturally Juicy" Orangina TV commercial, though generally attractive, is cluttered, complicated, and unconvincing. I cannot imagine how spraying animal women of any species with what looks like a watered-down orange soft drink would send them into a sexual frenzy. And sexy octopus women do not turn me on.

Oh, All Right!!! - (Lembke) Would papers in a National Gorilla Day Suit have to be served by a process server wearing a gorilla suit? Dawk! ## There seems to be a difference between Muslims in Britain and Muslims in the Sudan, judging by the news reports. It may be overly simplistic to lump them all together. ## Thank you very much for the article on the Japanese proposals to redesign the British flag. An interactive flag? Oooh, I want to see that one.

De Jueves #1560 - (Moffatts) No fear; I plan to keep my Ratatouille DVD for a long time and watch it several times (unlike Disney's Meet the Robinsons, which is cute but only worth watching once, in my opinion). ## Yes, Room 928 had grab bars over its bathtub. ## Adding a period after the J in Forrest J Ackerman was more than just ignorance, since my history of the LASFS specifically says in boldface that, [Note: It is a LASFS tradition that Forrest J Ackerman's name is deliberately spelled without a period after his middle initial.] ## Don Martin's widow has been making public complaints about what she perceives as lack of proper respect to his work &/or rights since well before he died. Martin suffered from degenerative eye problems from the 1980s on and concentrated on drawing his cartoons with magnifying glasses, leaving his wife to handle most of his business correspondence, so her complaints in Martin's behalf are well-known. ## Yes, all of Columbus' honors were officially for having sailed to the Orient.

Hello, My Name Is Fill In The Blank - (Cantor) Don Martin's "National Gorilla Suit Day" multipage cartoon was created for original paperback publication, so naturally the drawings were not as elaborate as some of Martin's full-page drawings for the much larger pages of Mad magazine. I - and many others - still think that it is one of Martin's funniest and most memorable stories, however. Too bad it cannot be reprinted in this All-Hoax dist'n, but Mrs. Martin would surely threaten legal action for copyright violation.