Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

Ballots for the Hugo awards of Sasquan, the 73rd WorldCon in Spokane WA, are due tonight at 23:59 PDT. You can come back to your ballot as needed, it won't be finalized until voting is closed.

Voting will close for good at 11:59 PM PDT, *this* Friday, July 31. To vote, you will need your membership number and PIN. To avoid confusion, your membership number is the short number (up to five digits in length), and the PIN is the long number starting with "SQ".

Go to the Hugo Award Voting page to cast your ballot. Your entire ballot is recorded each time you hit “Save” next to any entry. You can change your vote as many times as you wish, with the final "Save" being what will be counted. You will receive e-mail confirmation of your ballot each time you click “Save.”

Please check your ballot one last time before voting closes, even if you've already selected your choices, to confirm that the ballot accurately reflects your preferences.

This may be the first time I voted for the Hugos. I attended the 70th WorldCon, Chicon 7, in Chicago, but I don't remember if I made the deadline for the ballot. And I was so busy with panels, I clean forgot about voting for the 2014 WorldCon site. Eh, newbie problems. Who wants to hear about 'em? (evil-grin)

No. I am not discussing my Hugo ballot with anyone, whether former students, classmates (Grimsley, NU, MTU, ISP, Clarion, WOTF), fair-weather fan, poser, hedgehog, aardvark, kitty, puppy, Chicago Cubs fan, armadillo, crustacean, BEM, Borg, Hugo winner, Hugo loser, Hugh Borg, friend, foe, cute android girls from Andromeda or -- especially -- the idiots in Redmond who thought charging an annual fee to play Solitaire in Windows 10 Was A Good Idea (see Borg and BEM). It's an interaction between me and a computer. (Oh crap, do you think they just updated Redmond's Windows 10 in Spokane? We're DOOMED.)

75th WorldCon Site Selection for 2017

As you imagine from the LJ icon above, I got a Sasquan Supporting (non-attending) membership specifically to vote for Helsinki's bid for the 2017 WorldCon (9-13 August 2017). We've been to Helsinki in 2003, and not only is a fantastic city, but 2017 is the 100th anniversary of Finnish independence AND Finland heavily supports the arts, including Finncon, their national SF con -- which is free and huge. And if you're worried, most Finns speak better English than most Americans. (grin) And yes, you can watch all sorts of American television on Finnish TV. (double-grin)

BUT...

You should know that the site selection vote is run differently than Hugo voting, which can be done online. In addition to a Supporting or Attending Sasquan membership, to vote for the WorldCon Site Selection, you also have to buy a voting token for $40 (which turns into a Supporting membership for the winning 2017 bid city, no matter who you voted for -- which means you can definitely vote in the 2017 Hugos and the 2019 WorldCon Site Selection... grin)

NOTE: Although mail-in ballots are due on 10 August 2015, online Pre-registration ends August 2. Voting tokens will continue to be made available and physical voting ends in Spokane.

To vote in the 2017 Site Selection, you must: 1) be a member of Sasquan (Supporting, Young Adult, Military, or Full Attending), and 2) pay the Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) fee, which provides the individual with a Supporting membership in the winning 2017 bid.

The bids collectively have negotiated an Advance Supporting Membership (Voting) fee of $40 U.S.

Voting fee payments may be made by check or money order in U.S. funds or by purchasing a voting token on the Sasquan web site using a credit card. The deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots, whether by postal mail or email, is 24:00 PDT on Monday, August 10, 2015.

Payments for voting fees may also be paid at Sasquan either by check, U.S. cash, or credit card, and voting will remain open during Sasquan through 6 p.m. PDT on Friday, August 21, 2015.

The online voting fee payment system will send the voter an email receipt and assign a payment voting token number to be included on the site selection ballot. The site selection administrator will verify that each ballot accurately contains a signature, Sasquan membership number, and payment (including voting token, if paid by credit card). The online site selection payment option will not be available after midnight (PDT) August 18.

The 2017 site selection ballot is available online at the bottom of this page as a printable form and as a fill-in version for subsequent printing. However, Site Selection voting is by PAPER ballot only. The WSFS Constitution guarantees the bidding committees the right to audit the voting.

Voting is tallied by preferential (also known as Australian) balloting. Place a number 1 next to your first choice, a number 2 next to your second choice, etc. If you mark an “X” with no other marks, that will count as a “1” for that bid with no other preferences. Please do not use any marks other than these.

Ballots may be sent in advance by postal mail to the address on the site selection ballot, and such ballots must be received by the mail-in deadline of August 10, 2015.

Although there is no electronic or online voting, if you pay your voting fee online, you may send a signed PDF of your ballot by email during the mail-in voting period to ballot2017siteselection@sasquan.org. Every effort will be made to protect the privacy of your vote by immediately folding the paper ballot to cover the voting portion as it comes off the printer, but absolute privacy cannot be guaranteed by Sasquan. However, the rest of the ballot is subject to the usual verifications. Postal mail voters are reminded to fold and tape their ballots as instructed to ensure the privacy of their ballot.

If you use the fill-in form, do NOT use Acrobat’s electronic signature. All ballots must be printed and signed manually.

Elections may be decided by the second or third place choices, so we encourage each voter to place a number next to each entry for which the voter has an actual preference on the ballot.

The winning site for the 2017 WorldCon will be announced at the Saturday WSFS Business meeting at Sasquan.

We've talked about differing ways to get to Helsinki, including trying to find an ocean crossing ship on the way over. Alternatively, I wonder if a bunch of people could get a great air fare by chartering a group out of say, Detroit.

Really, though. Helsinki is a fantastic city. And the Tennispalatsi -- the indoor tennis facility from the Helsinki Olympic Games -- is an incredibly huge and comfortable cineplex. Just right for keeping up with the 2017 summer blockbusters.

And when Americans get home from Helsinki, the next week is the biggest total solar eclipse in a century across a vast swath of the continental United States.

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

The Kool Kids Are Starting Early This Year

List their eligible publications for the Nebula Awards, that is.*** For 2012, barring any last minute sales, I have two eligible stories, a 1500-word short story under Rule 5a and a 17,000-word novelette under Rule 5b.

Nebula Awards will be made in the following categories:

Short Story: less than 7,500 words
Philip Edward Kaldon
"Brooding in the Dark" at Interstellar Fiction (1 November 2012)
http://interstellarfiction.com/fiction/brooding-in-the-dark/

Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words;
Philip Edward Kaldon
"End Run" at GigaNotoSaurus (1 April 2012)
http://giganotosaurus.org/2012/04/01/end-run/

I had three other publications in 2012, but one was published in the U.K. and two in Canada, not the U.S. A complete list of Dr. Phil's publications is here.

I haven't yet made my third pro-rate sale and so am not yet a SFWA member, but if you are, the 2012 Nebula Award Nominations Period is Open. Should you be interested, that is. (grin)

And if you're not a SFWA member, don't worry, you can still click on the links and read the stories or read about the stories.

Thanks. And Happy New Year.

Dr. Phil

*** - Last year's eligible story posting was on January 2nd.

When Last We Met On This Topic...

One of my stories had been shortlisted in The Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest (DW). I am pleased to now reveal that my story "Your First Real Rocket Ship" has won Third Prize in the contest and will soon be published on the Friends of the Merril website at the Toronto Public Library. In addition, I am very excited that I will eventually receive one of the five booklets to be created by an artist for the three authors, the artist and the Merril Collection.

When it is published, this will be the first time "Your First Real Rocket Ship" will be available in English. In 2009 it was translated into Greek and published in Εννέα (Nine) (DW) as "ΤΟ ΠΡΩΤΟ ΣΟΥ ΠΡΑΓΜΑΤΙΚΟ ΠΥΡΑΥΛΟΚΙΝΗΤΟ" ("THE ONE YOUR REAL ROCKET" according to Google Translation).

I am pretty pleased about this. "Your First Real Rocket Ship" is a story about a little boy and, well, his first real rocket ship ordered from the back of a cereal box. (grin) It's a story I've always liked, but I figured it was too light to outright win the contest. On the other hand, I thought it might make a strong candidate for Third Prize. Turns out I was right. (double-genius-grin)

Also a thanks and a hearty handshake to canadiansuzanne Suzanne Church, who had publicized this contest on her blog and whose story "Muffy and the Belfry" was also shortlisted as a Finalist.

This makes a total of three stories of mine which are going to be published Real Soon Now. Looks to be a real horserace as to what the order of publication is going to be. (third-place-grin)

Dr. Phil

Missed Most Of The Emmy's Last Night

We had company and later on, PBS had the first new Series 3 Inspector Lewis. I did see a little, and JImmy Fallon as host was doing things with guitar songs in the audience -- amusing. Anyways I missed the opening number until I read the article in today's Grand Rapids Press daily email briefing and they had the following YouTube link:



Cast from Glee, Tina Fey, Betty White, Tim Gunn from Project Runway, Hurley from Lost, etc. And the best part was the tribute to The Boss. Actually pretty funny -- I love musical parodies.

Enjoy.

Dr. Phil

I Almost Forgot

When I posted about the Kennedy Center Honors Mark Twain Prize For Comedy for Bill Cosby the other day, I realized that there were two more things I was going to post about.

One

When Rita Moreno came out, I immediately flashed to the short-lived series The Cosby Mysteries. As I recall, Bill's character was a police criminalist who retired after winning millions in the lottery. Rita helped him out, because of course the police kept coming back to Bill for his help solving cases.

I think Mrs. Dr. Phil and I were like the only two people who watched this show -- Bill's first after the end of The Cosby Show.

Two

Then they showed quite a number of clips, but two stood out, since I'd just seen a number of them on the 25th Anniversary of The Cosby Show special. One was a clip from like a 1968 Bill Cosby special where he ran into a group of kids playing street football. They were losing to the other kids like 72-6 -- the other team had given them six points because they felt sorry for them. So Bill "joined" their team and came up with a play for them to run. Typical Bill Cosby, talking in a serious tone to kids and telling them outrageous stuff, like going long and waiting in the lobby of their building or taking a bus.

They said the clip hadn't been aired in forty years... and yet I saw it, and so did Mrs. Dr. Phil. We remember it clearly. And Mrs. Dr. Phil was at a conference and didn't see the Kennedy Honors, but as soon as I started describing it, she knew it.

And several people of course referenced Bill Cosby's legendary Noah routine. Towards the end they showed a clip of a very young Bill Cosby doing Noah. It wasn't quite the nuanced performance I'd ever seen -- or the perfectly executed version on the comedy albums -- but it was the genesis of Noah. (grin) A young dark black man shot against a black background, being nothing more than very funny. A legend in the making. A change in the pulse, and the funny bone, of America.

And that, my friends, is why they honored Bill Cosby the other night. All that and more.

Thank you, Bill.

Dr. Phil

We Like The Tonys

As people who see a number of plays during the year -- GVSU, Hope Summer Rep (coming in just a few weeks!), Grand Rapids Broadway Theatre Guild, MSU's Wharton Center -- we have a strong interest in what's happening and who's performing on Broadway. So when I say I was disappointed with Sunday night's telecast of the Tony Awards on CBS, it wasn't the wonderful plays or people. Who doesn't like the energy of West Side Story, seeing Allison Janney in 9-to-5, the three wonderful young men in Billy Elliott, or the silliness of Shrek?

No, the problem lay in the show itself.

Fail No. 1

There were sound problems all night. More than one production number had terrible sound balance. Either I couldn't hear the leads, or in the case of the Lord Farquahr number from Shrek, the lead doll was way too loud for the chorus. And then in one number they had to idly sing along until someone ran a cordless hand mike out to the lead.

That we don't see more of this in live television and awards show tells you how good the sound and tech people are. And I'm sure they were mortified as they ran from crisis to crisis last night. Definitely felt bad for them, but since the music suffered, I felt bad for the shows and the singers, too.

Yeah, I'm just an old theatre softie at heart. There's a reason we often go to either opening night or closing night productions. And preview nights...

Fail No. 2

Back in February, I wrote about the disrespect the Oscar's telecast showed those who were on the roll of the departed. I was not alone. Many people complained about the camerawork and the inability to see the names and faces of those being honored. You'd think people would say, "Nope, that's not gonna happen again."

Well, apparently the Tony Awards Show people didn't get that memo. Other than have a chorus singing, instead of one, it was almost the same stupidity. The screens with the pictures and names were either set at an angle or the projection was such that it made them look at an angle. And then the camera bobbed and weaved around "artistically". I was furious. I don't think I got a good look at as many as one-third of the people who'd died in the last year.

Fail No. 3

Finally, for years the Tony people have smuggly mocked the Oscars broadcast for running over. Sometimes nearly an hour over! We know how to time a show, and get on and get off to make a speech, the theatre professionals say. Alas, the Tonys did not end at 11pm EDT. A fact that host Neil Patrick Harris did briefly acknowledge, by noting that it was 11:03 or so when he had to start his musical wrap up finale song over the credits.

Okay, so Mrs. Dr. Phil didn't think this was so-ooo bad. After all, it was just a few minutes. And it's not like the local Channel 3 news was the only 11 o'clock news running late, since ABC ran longer with the NBA Finals game, too. Not as bad as the Oscars for sure.

But I have to wonder. With so many new Broadway shows based on movies -- Billy Elliott, Legally Blond, Shrek, etc. -- and so many movie actors showing up -- take Will Farrell, please -- are there too many movie people around to know how Broadway should be doing things? (sly evil grin)

Still, A Passing Grade

We still like watching the Tonys. Singing, dancing, acting -- it's a great mini-course on what is happening on Broadway. Some of the new shows and the revivals we knew about. The new West Side Story, with Spanish!, was featured on NPR Weekend Saturday, I think it was. Some, like 33 Variations, I hadn't heard about, but am very intrigued now.

And then there's Hair. (grin) When we saw a GVSU production of Hair the other year, Mrs. Dr. Phil and I observed that it was nice, but there was something missing. The actors were too young to know about the 60s. Same with the Broadway revival. I think I've put my finger on it. The free love and hippy movement -- they got the joy and the happiness and delight in randomness down. What is missing is the deep dark undercurrent. See, the 60s happened in... the 60s. And some of what was going on was singing La-la-la I can't hear you over the ugly noise of the day. Knowing that every day might bring you crashing down from your self imposed high.

So, interesting. (grin)

Dr. Phil

Go Nikki!

Nichole Kimberling kimnik, fellow 2004 Clarion wayfarer, has her novel Turnskin on the short list for the Lambda Literary Awards. The Lambdas recognize excellence in the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender literature. The awards will be announced on Thursday 28 May 2009.

Not only that, the independent press dedicated to publishing science-fiction and fantasy stories with gay and lesbian protagonists she runs with her partner, Blind Eye Books, ends up with two nominations for the current year. They had one last year as well.

Blind Eye Books publishes Tangle Girls, which includes the Dr. Phil short story "Under Suspicion".

LGBT SCI-FI/FANTASY/HORROR

* The Archer's Heart, Astrid Amara, Blind Eye Books
* The Magician and the Fool, Barth Anderson, Bantam Del Rey
* Wilde Stories 2008, Steve Berman, Lethe Press
* Sea, Swallow Me and Other Stories, Craig Gidney, Lethe Press
* Turnskin, Nicole Kimberling, Blind Eye Books

Anyway, congratulations!

Dr. Phil