Florida school cancels "To Kill a Mockingbird" play

...because it contains a racial slur! Way to miss the fucking point. What are we banning next, Huckleberry Finn? The Catcher in the Rye?

The longest fantasy series

List here.

Nasty tricksy hobitses

Sir Ian McKellen at the anti-pope march in London

Ok, not quite.

Thunder! Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats, ho!

Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight.

(original here, more here)

Avatar had a deleted sex scene

Hot tendril love!

Critique of The Phantom Menace

Via Tyler Cowen, a wonderfully genius 70-minute review...

[Take 2] Barad-dûr was an inside job

I futzed the link before, but this is funny.

Earlier: Where were you when the death star fell?

BSG as metaphor

Lev reflects.

Movie recommendation:The Man from Earth (2007)

Jerome Bixby of Star Trek thought this up in the 60's and completed the screenplay on his deathbed in 1998.

IMDB rates 8.1 and has the comment: "Make absolutely certain you do not miss this film."

Critic on RT: "It's that rare film that rewards inquisitiveness."

I agree, this movie is simply a must-see. Like the commenter on IMDB, I could have paid $50 and still felt like I'd gotten my money's worth. Easily the most intellectually edifying fiction I've seen.

If you can't rent, it's $12 on Amazon. However, wiki notes: "the movie gained recognition in part for being widely distributed through Internet peer-to-peer networks and its producer publicly thanked users of these networks for this," so it seems you're also welcome to download it. (Update: See the producer's comment below.)

More reviews via Wikipedia:

"A considerable achievement... a picture which deserves wide exposure... The Man From Earth gradually and stimulatingly builds to a pitch of near hypnotic intensity." – Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter
"The Man From Earth restores dignity to science fiction of the mind." - Michael Guillen, Twitch
"A tall tale... that ends with a devastatingly clever twist." - Michael Janusonis, The Providence Journal
"Great acting performances... with an ending you wouldn't want to miss... Jerome Bixby's last written work has turned out to be his best." - Hock Teh, IGN
"A mind bending drama... It sure beats watching Transformers." - Nick Lyons, DVD Talk
"The Man From Earth is very much a labor of love from all involved... it's well worth the effort. The final work from the writer responsible for some of the finest episodes of The Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek gets a thoughtful, low-budget treatment." – Ian Spelling, Sci Fi.com
"Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth is one of the most intelligent science fiction films ever made... probably one of the best science fiction films of the decade." – Mark L. Leeper, Stephen Hunt's SF Crows Nest
"The Man From Earth really has a chance of being the single best piece of screenwriting you will see on a screen large or small this year (really!)." – Late Film

Addendum: I've done a little further digging and reviews seem to be almost universally positive. Small wonder.

Science proves zombies could annihilate humans

(meme) Thankfully crack teams of Canadian military researchers are on the case...

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.

They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.

[..] their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable.

In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity’s only hope is to “hit them hard and hit them often”.

They added: “It’s imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else… we are all in a great deal of trouble.”

BSG reremake

Wertzone:

Stop me if this sounds vaguely familiar, but classic 1970s SF show Battlestar Galactica is returning to our screens. The original show ran for 24 episodes in 1978-79.

"Ha! Ha! A reremake? That's a good one."

"Er, we're not making this up."

Oh yes, and there was another TV series that ran for 80 episodes and five fricking years which finished less than five months ago for cryingoutloud and has a spin-off series called Caprica which doesn't even start until January.

I am not making this up. Honest.

Oy vey.  Seriously, what the frak?  Will BSG go the way of Trek?

Authority and conflict

  Being a pagan, I was theoretically free from prosecution, for by Church law a pagan could not be prosecuted for heresy. [..] Had I been a Christian, I would undoubtedly have been considered a heretic, for what the world has always needed is more heretics and less authority.  There can be no order or progress without discipline, but authority can be quite different.  Authority, in this world in which I move, implied belief in and acceptance of a dogma, and dogma is invariably wrong, as knowledge is always in a state of transition.  The radical ideas of today are often the conservative policies of tomorrow, and dogma is left protesting by the wayside.

  Each generation has a group that wishes to impose a static pattern on events, a static pattern that would hold society forever immobile in a position favorable to the group in question.

  Much of the conflict in the minds and arguments of those about me was due to a basic conflict between religious doctrines based primarily upon faith, and Greek philosophy which was an attempt to interpret experience by reason. Or so it seemed to me, a man with much to learn.

—Louis L'Amour, The Walking Drum

Love and learning

The moon arose, holding its light beyond the minaret of the great mosque, and Valaba said, "Then you will be leaving soon?"
"At any moment."
"We have hoped you would remain. [..] I think of you, Kerbouchard. The way you take is filled with risk."
"Are there other ways?"
"For some, even for you, perhaps. You are a strange man, Kerbouchard. You are an adventurer yet a scholar."
"There have been many such, even Alexander, and Julius Caesar. I but dabble in scholarship. Learning to me is a way of life. I do not learn to obtain position or reputation. I want only to know."
"Is not yours the best way? To learn because one loves learning?"
"There are places I have not seen, Valaba. I would feel their suns upon my face, the brine of their seas upon my lips. There are too many horizions, and too many dreams of what may lie beyond those horizons."
"What are you seeking, Kerbouchard?"
"Must one seek something? I seek to be seeking, as I learn to be learning. Each book is an adventure as is each day's horizon."
"What of love, Kerbouchard? Did you love Aziza?"
"Who is to say? What is love? Perhaps for a time I loved her; perhaps in a way I love her still. Perhaps when a man has held a woman in his arms, there is a little of her with him forever. Who is to say?
"A ruined castle, an ancient garden, a moon rising over a fountain . . . love comes easily at such a time. Perhaps we loved each other then; perhaps we do not love each other now, but we each have a memory.
"Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to fragments, or love can be a thing that endures, a rich deep current that flows unending down the years.
"I do not think one should demand that love be forever. Perhaps it is better that it not be forever. How can one answer for more than the moment? Who knows what strange tides may sweep us away? What depths there may be or twists and turns and shallows? Each life sails a separate course, although sometimes, and this is the best of times, two lives may move together until the end of time?
"Listen to the music out there. Is the song less beautiful because it has an end? I believe each of us wishes to find the song that does not end, but for me that time is not now.
"You see?" I spread wide my hands. "I have nothing. I have no home, no land, no position. I am an empty gourd that must fill itself.
"I would owe no depts to destiny, Valaba, nor could I exist on the bounty of another. I am not a lapdog to be kept by a woman. I do not know what awaits me out there beyond the rim of things, but destiny calls, and I must go. For you and me, today is all we have; tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality."

—Louis L'Amour, The Walking Drum

Summer viewing

Spaced, one of the finest SF-related TV shows ever made, is now available for Americans to view on Hulu, a mere ten years after its first UK broadcast.

A review:

Spaced was a UK sitcom that ran for two seasons in 1999 and 2001 and was tremendously critically acclaimed at the time. The creative team subsequently moved into cinema, creating the hit movies Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and the forthcoming The World Ends, but Spaced remains by far their funniest and most rewarding work.

Episode 1 link

Short story of the day

I am a Zombie Filled with Love, by Isaac Marion