Day at Night was an interview series on the public television station of the City University of New York that aired from 1973-4. CUNY TV is in the process of digitizing and uploading the 130 episodes that were produced, with 46 done so far. The episodes are just under half an hour in length. Among the people interviewed by host James Day are author
Ray Bradbury, actress
Myrna Loy, medical researcher
Jonas Salk, singer
Cab Calloway, writer
Christopher Isherwood, nuclear scientist
Edward Teller, comedian
Victor Borge, tennis player
Billie Jean King, linguist and activist
Noam Chomsky, composer
Aaron Copland, actor
Vincent Price and boxer
Muhammad Ali.
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 16, 2012 -
6 comments
This summer, The Paris Review interviewed two science fiction writers at length,
Samuel R. Delany and
William Gibson. Below the cut there are two passages, one from each interview. They aren't representative, they are just two of the many, many passages which have been going around in my head for the last few days.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 25, 2011 -
37 comments
I do not want to spend too much time beating a dead war-horse, but your average D&D game consists of a group of white players acting out how their white characters encounter and destroy orcs and goblins, who are, as a race evil, uncivilized, and dark-skinned. To quote Steve Sumner’s essay again, “Unless played very carefully, Dungeons & Dragons could easily become a proxy race war, with your group filling the shoes of the noble white power crusaders seeking to extinguish any orc war bands or goblin villages they happened across.” I would argue with Sumner’s use of the phrase “could become,” and say that unless played very carefully, D&D usually becomes a proxy race war. Any adventurer knows that if you see an orc, you kill it. You don’t talk to it, you don’t ask what it’s doing there - you kill it, since it’s life is worth less than the treasure it carries and the experience points you’ll get from the kill. If filmed, your average D&D campaign would look something like Birth of a Nation set in Greyhawk.
-
Race in Dungeons & Dragons by Chris van Dyke, a
powerpoint talk given at
Nerd Nite. Via Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog where there's a
smart discussion going on about the essay.
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 19, 2008 -
195 comments
Free Speculative Fiction Online is a database of free science fiction and fantasy stories online by published authors (no fan-fiction or stories by unpublished writers). Among the authors that FSFO links to are
Paul Di Filippo (14 stories),
James Tiptree, Jr. (4 stories),
Connie Willis (3 stories),
Eleanor Arnason (3 stories),
Bruce Sterling (5 stories),
Robert Heinlein (7 stories),
Ursula K. LeGuin (3 stories),
Jonathan Lethem (5 stories),
Michael Moorcock (6 stories),
Chine Miéville (2 stories),
Samuel R. Delany (3 stories),
Robert Sheckley (8 stories), MeFite
Charles Stross (33 stories) and hundreds of other authors. If you don't know where to start, there's a list of
recommended stories.
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 5, 2008 -
34 comments
