This week’s Word for Wednesday: “Scobberlotcher,” a noun, means an idler, a slacker or lazy person. The first documented example of it in writing is in 1697, in one of historian John Aubrey’s Brief Lives books. Writing of a university dean, Aubrey said that many students at the university were scobberlotchers who drank and wandered about and “telling the numbers of trees.”
I wonder if “scobberlotch” could be a verb.
Interior Illustration, Amazing Stories Quarterly, 1929, Frank R Paul.
Nobel Prize for Literature
Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is best known for her book on Chernobyl, but her first book is titled War’s Unwomanly Face and records the experiences of some of the million-plus Soviet women who fought in the Second World War. Her second book charted the stories of children during the Soviet-Afghanistan war.
Alexievich was born on May 31, 1948 in Ukraine, to a Ukraine mother and a father from Belarus. She started work as a journalist at an early age.
Her work is an unconventional form of journalism. On her web page, Alexievich says, “I’ve been searching for a genre that would be most adequate to my vision of the world to convey how my ear hears and my eyes see life. I tried this and that and finally I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves. Real people speak in my books about the main events of the age such as the war, the Chernobyl disaster, and the downfall of a great empire.”
Awards
The short list for the Geekie awards was announced. Yes, there is such a thing as a Geekie Award. The things I learn writing this column. Here is a sentence from their mission statement: “The Geekie Awards® is an award show by geeks for geeks™, aimed at putting the true geek culture in the spotlight as a collection of valid, respected, award-winning genres for storytelling and creation.” (A hat tip to File 770.)
Comics
Indie comics companies talk about strategies to become “entertainment companies” with movie, television and game tie-tins. It’s an interesting article with one sentence that set my teeth on edge – the guy who says his company is “a content company with a great content engine.” What does that even mean? His “content” could be flavored popcorn for all we know. Sorry, I think that’s my pet peeve.
Red Sonja told us about her wardrobe change in the Sunday Status Updates, but two other female heroes are getting new costumes as well. Partly, this may signal that they are characters in their own rights now, not just eye candy. And it may be that now that so much skin has been shown for so long, covered-but-clingy is the new black – basically, it’s a novelty that can also look hot.
Movies and Television
Last weekend’s New York Comic-Con hosted a plethora of panels and special screenings, including the new X-Files. Tor.com provided an article on the X-Files panel.
On his blog, George RR Martin announced that HBO has optioned his corrupt-small-town-with-werewolves novella The Skin Trade. This was the first thing I ever read of Martin’s and it knocked me out. It lends itself perfectly to episodic television.
Science and Technology
Can you tell how many of these items are from the world of Star Trek, and how many of them exist in today’s world? I started off great and quickly nose-dived, so of course I take issue with the wording of a couple of the questions. It’s still pretty fun.
Giveaways
We have a couple of active giveaways: Joao’s interview with Stephen Aryan; Identify our Covers, Expanded Universe and of course, our City of Blades giveaway.
Earth
Another tidbit from the Guardian, which is asking people to send pics of the “healthy spaces” in their cities. Got a favorite pocket park, river-walk, playground or arboretum? This could be the place to show it off.
Art
The Toast wants us to peruse this study of unhappy women dancing. My favorite is, “He must never find out that I hate to twirl.” (Warning, naked people.) Thanks to Kate for this one.
IO9 shares the movie posters we never got to see.
Terry found some amazing metal wall art and firepit art on Etsy. She likes the Mount Doom fire-pit but I’m leaning toward the Viking ship.
You may recognize some of the artwork in the column today; they are covers and interior illustrations from the pulp era. Frank R Paul was born in 1884 and had a successful career with these wild images. He wasn’t limited to SF pulps. He completed cover art for westerns, detective tales and romances. I love the black and white one, because they’re on roller skates!
These images are from the website of Frank Wu, an articulate superfan with lots of interesting information about Paul, and an artist in his own right. Check out his site.
Regarding Large Fears, is the character specifically stated to be gay, or does he just like the color pink? Because I find the equating of the two to be rather problematic.
I don’t mean to say that liking pink doesn’t make for an excellent metaphor for being queer – because it does. But the story can have a queer message regardless of whether Little Jeremiah himself is queer.
It’s an interesting question and I haven’t read the book yet! I think in the book, it’s just that he gets ridiculed and bullied for liking pink — but the author sees his character as gay.
Also, I think it’s interesting to contrast this book with the “Pinky and Rex” series I read in elementary school about a boy who likes pink and a girl who likes dinosaurs (guess which one is Pinky and which one is Rex).
Those sound fun!