…and a few more pieces…

One: Here’s a blast from the past for my masquerade fans.

Can you guess what this is? Answer at the bottom of this post.

Two: I added a copy of the artwork mentioned in Chas’ MagiCon article to the Classic Guardians page. The hand-written number at the bottom is the page it appeared on in GoG’s ‘92 Yearbook. Yup, we had to hand-write the page numbers, as the publication was created on a word processor, not a computer. How things have changed!

Three: I received a Star Wars postcard from a friend and fellow Club member, complete with a Star Wars stamp. It got me trying to remember the last time I received personal physical mail that wasn’t a birthday or holiday card. Again, how things have changed! Years ago, the Guardians sent a mass-signed letter through the regular mail to the BBC suggesting they speed up the release of the Classic series episodes on DVD. We received a letter back that gave a very strong hint of the show’s return, so the Guardians had a little advance notice before the news hit the major fandom news sites. (Yes, we saved the letter in the Club records.) Nowadays, any communication would likely be online, as when we were contacted about having one of our members interviewed on a British TV news show. (See my August 13, 2021 post.)

Back to topic One: The photo is of my Millenium Bug costume, which I entered into a contest–not in 2000, but in 2001. As the MC read, “It was not until the clocks turned to 01-01-01 that computers in 7-11s all over Florida crashed.” True story; everyone was so paranoid about 2000, but the binary code caused no problem with that date. I finally took the costume apart recently, removing the CDs. Now I have a silver tarp with 80+ tiny holes and a LOT of CDs to recycle. Any suggestions?

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More Bits

I recently finished reading A Life in Film: Peter Cushing and was surprised at how many of the actors, directors, writers, and producers I recognized from Doctor Who. While the section covering Cushing’s two Doctor Who movies (or should that be Dr. Who movies?) was relatively small, several references were made to the role throughout the book. Peter himself brought it up in an interview many years later.

I had just taken down my calendar from Cushing’s second Who movie, Dalek Invasion Earth 2150. (I purchase old Doctor Who calendars at Guardian auctions and re-use them. Every January, I check my collection for one that starts on the correct day for the current year and put it up in my home office.)

I also found out that the RiffTrax version of Dr. Who and the Daleks was on Amazon Prime. Three Peter Cushing references at once; is the universe trying to tell me something?

Not Who, but…

Visiting family just before Thanksgiving, I was concerned my being masked up might freak out the little kids, but I needn’t have worried. Wearing an N-95 mask, I walked into a room where the boys (4 and 6 years old) were doing some pretending. The older one looked at me and shouted, “Look out! It’s Darth Vader!” so I pointed at them and—in my best Vader voice—said, “Luke, I am your father.”

(I’ve been wanting to take a black Sharpie to an N-95 and turn it into Vader’s mask for over a year now—guess it wasn’t necessary!)

Orlando for NASFic 2023?

During our Zoom business meeting today, Juan* of the Orlando Area Science Fiction Society brought up Orlando’s bid for NASFiC in 2023. (Serendipitous, as I had learned of it earlier from http://www.file770.com and planned to make that the subject of my next blog.) The North American Science Fiction Convention is held only when Worldcon takes place outside North America. As Worldcon will be held in China in 2023, a group of fans has thrown Florida’s hat into the ring. The group has a Facebook and Twitter presence, with a “placeholder” page for a starter website.

In 1992 Worldcon, called MagiCon that year, was held in Orlando, and the organizers for the 2023 NASFiC bid are looking in the same area for a venue (i.e., near/at the Orange County Convention Center). You can get a taste of MagiCon on our “Classic Guardians” page with a newly posted reprint of an article by Charles from our 1992 Guardian Yearbook.

*Juan has attended so many WorldCons that in 2017 the Orlando Sentinel ran an article on his over quarter-century history with the global convention!

Bits and Pieces (not necessarily Who)

Danny Marie Elias, who runs Square Peg Studios, the prosthetics design firm used for Series 13 of Doctor Who, said the character of Karvanista was based primarily on Chris Chibnall’s dog.

Steven Moffat, in response to a suggestion at an Oxford Union Q&A, replied that he was on Grindr: “I’ve been on there for years because I find it fascinating. Unfortunately, everyone goes: ‘Oh, you’re the man who wrote Doctor Who.’ I’d never meet anyone off Grindr – I’ve got too much fear of being murdered…I write a lot about the modern world, and it’s very helpful. That’s why I read Twitter but don’t belong to it. I go on Grindr, but I don’t Grind.”

In Disney’s Encanto, doors open onto rooms that are bigger on the inside.

Ben Brainard, a (formerly local) stand-up comic, switched to making YouTube shorts during the pandemic with a series called “The Table.” In an episode about Georgia, a character talks about the ‘cult of the carpet’ and shows a very recognizable swatch from the hotel that housed DragonCon.

It was so good to have a Wholiday Party again, complete with trivia, an outdoor game, a piñata, and an auction. The Zoom business meeting was a nice addition, too, allowing members who could not be there in person to participate. Thanks to Arthur for humoring me with my (admittedly a stretch) dinosaur theme by supplying the trivia contest and related video choices.