Update on Peter S. Beagle’s efforts to sue his agent.
Patrick Lake is another person who had a business arrangement with Connor Cochran and found out how he behaves. Lawsuits were filed on both sides. Cochran claimed his signature had been forged after Lake hired an attorney. Lake had a handwriting expert lined up for the trial and Cochran dismissed his claims against Lake. (Full details here.)
Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show on Sunday, March 8, 2020, along with Tachyon Publications, the company previously mentioned as being a good source of ensuring money you pay to buy something from Peter will go to him and not Cochran.
CAPCLAVE in Rockville, MD from October 16-18, 2020.
Neat merchandise:
The link above for Tachyon Publications is a search for books by Peter.
Geekify has enamel pins, King Haggard’s Coin, posters, a tarot/oracle card deck, and scarves and blankets of “Unicorns in the Sea” and “Unicorn and Red Bull”.
The Kickstarter ended in November so I’m not sure if you can still get them (it does have a “Pre-order Now!” button), but you can at least look at the pictures of the Official Plush & Keychain Set for The Last Unicorn.
I’m reading Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece which was a gift. I’m most interested in the pre-CGI special effects stuff, which is interesting. Everything from “Let’s fill up giant fish tanks with WWII surplus paint thinner and then use paint to simulate space effects until it all becomes a stinky moldy mass” to "No, we need more lights! even as they’re putting up over a million watts of lights for effects " to “How can we make these monkey suits convincing?”
2001 is a fascinating movie even if you don’t think it’s ‘good’ by some standards. It’s amazing how it was basically an attempt to make a ‘deep’ movie and move beyond the pulp sci-fi movies, which of course culture veered back to a decade later with Star Wars. At the same time, I feel like 2001 set the stage for a lot of Star Wars’ effects with the use of miniatures, costuming, and generally going heavy on props. Lucas’ excesses were a lot less severe then Kubrick’s.
From what I read, Chochran has a long history of shady behavior along these lines with several different people. I’d have to go back and re-read it, but it was something like he gets everything he can from one person, then goes on to the next one.
I was watching a couple of YouTube videos yesterday about Billy Mitchell, who was the world record holder for a few video games and whose job was promoting how great he is because of those records and referring to himself in third person.
After people started questioning the “evidence” of his record attempts, with his follow-up legal threats, both the Guinness Book of World Records and the Twin Galaxies organization removed his records. Some of the ways the attempts were discredited:
Mitchell had done a “call his shot” (stating he was going for a perfect score) at a gaming contest for back-to-back for Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. games and recorded the changeout of the circuit board in the cabinet to a DKJ board. An examination of the circuit boards in the video revealed the same board was taken out and put back in. When questioned about it, both Mitchell and the guy who did the changeout started backpedaling and later said it was done as “satire”. So what he offered as official proof as part of his getting those two perfect scores suddenly became not official. Oh, and apparently no video of the actual gameplay for either game was submitted.
A frame-by-frame analysis of the game field being drawn in Donkey Kong revealed a difference in how the arcade game puts in the different elements and how they appeared in Mitchell’s submitted video (for a different attempt than above). It showed it was done by a MAME emulator. To have a valid game record, it must be done on an original arcade machine. Mitchell has repeatedly said he doesn’t play on MAME.
Looking at the audio of one of his submitted videos showed gaps of silence and sudden changes in volume, consistent with it being edited and spliced.
He took a 30-minute break during a competition which was not allowed under the rules, but because he’s Billy Mitchell, the record was submitted anyway.
There was another one (which I’m not remembering all the specifics on now) where Mitchell called in an expert to analyze something and that expert came to a different conclusion than what Mitchell wanted. Later Mitchell got him to sign a paper attesting that it was valid. The guy later issued a video statement that he had been told it was going to be kept private and was only to keep him out of a law suit.
One of the very few interviews Mitchell did where he said he did not play with a MAME emulator was done on some kind of program where the host just gushed over how great Mitchell was and how the host knew Mitchell was honorable and wouldn’t do something like that. I’d trust Wayne and Garth more than that host.
He was credited as getting the first perfect score in Pac-Man, but it was actually a different person who achieved this a decade earlier.
A lot of of Mitchell’s success seems to be collusion between himself and people like Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies, because Mitchell was marketable and other people weren’t. There’s also info in one of the videos started talking about the religious organization Day is a member of, which has a requirement you have to bring attention to the organization, otherwise you drop in status. If that’s correct, it would be a motive for Day to assist and promote Mitchell, because then it reflects back on the organization through Day.
Reading JoJo Notes right now. I read Me Before You simply bc I had seen in on some random recommendation page, and not I’m working through the other ones. Not my typical type of book as no one died and nothing crazy happens. But they are very well written and the character is very relatable.
Something for quarantine since I can’t make it to the library.
I’m about to re-read all of Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat books from the early 60’s. Pulp sci-fi at it’s very best. Then, all of the Raymond Chandler novels again. It’s been a while and I always enjoy them.
I’d love to get them in e-book format, but sadly my library doesn’t have them - and probably never will as it’s not exactly “high literature” - just a good read
I’m re-reading Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series, and just finished The Jennifer Morgue. (Actually stuck in the ‘appendices’ of a short story, a weird “Author’s Note” about the spy fiction being satirized, and a weird little non-canon to anything segment from the POV of a well-known Bond Villain.)
It’s a good series, but I have to hold on as it gets much more dire after this book.
