14 October 2013

Birthdays
Roward Blanchard b. 2001(Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D)
Mia Wasikowska b.1989 (Alice In Wonderland)
Jon Seda b. 1970 (Twelve Monkeys)
Robert C. Cooper b. 1968 (show runner, Stargate SG-1)
Steve Coogan b. 1965 (Night at the Museum, Around the World in 80 Days, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief)
Lori Petty b. 1963 (Tank Girl, Star Trek: Voyager)
Greg Evigan b. 1953 (DeepStar Six, William Shatner’s TekWar)
John Sumner b. 1951 (District 9, King Kong)
Udo Kier b. 1944 (Iron Sky, Blade, Shadow of the Vampire, Armageddon)
Jack Arnold b. 1916 died 17 March 1992 (director, Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tarantula, It Came From Outer Space)
William Steig b. 1907 died 3 October 2003 (author, Shrek)

 A lot of choices for the Picture Slot today.I went with Ms. Petty as Tank Girl, but I could have gone with Ms. Wasikowska as Alice in the recent Tim Burton version or Udo Kier just because he is so odd looking. I was very tempted to go with Jack Arnold, a journeyman director who did a lot of work on TV after doing sci-fi movies in the 1950s. His list of credits is a good reminder of how far the genre has has come in my lifetime, from low budget movies of widely varying quality to movies with enormous budgets and widely varying quality.

Many happy returns of the day to the living on the list.

Prediction: 14 October 1899: Mr. Henry Cavor creates Cavorite, an anti-gravity material, allowing the first human expedition to the Moon.

Predictor: H. G. Wells, in First Men in the Moon, published 1901

Reality: I'm cheating with this one, since the book came out two years after the event is supposed to take place. Not really a prediction, is it?  In my defense, it's written by H.G. Wells and the event is travel to the moon, so it certainly qualifies as science fiction. I have at least one more "prediction" with an exact date that had already passed in my database that I haven't used yet, and my excuse next time will also be "well, the story obviously counts as sci-fi".

One of the things I like about Wells' book is how well drawn the character of Cavor is, a British eccentric that in many ways is the prototype for the nerdy scientist so common in the genre.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Yet another exact date quoted from another book over 100 years old, this time most definitely counting as a prediction, from a writer not as well known as Wells is now, but very influential in his day.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!