I finally saw the first 45 minutes of that (on cable TV) and then changed the channel. If it had been a funny movie, it would have long since been turned into a series by now,

You mean like when he snipped out one beat of every eight in his version of "Cool Jerk" on A Wizard? Or do you mean changes of time signature every few measures within the same song?

The first chord (after the intro) of "Be Nice to Me" (in the clip above) is a IV major 7th with 9th above, the same chord heard so prominently all through Aimee Mann's "Wise Up" some 25 years later. Frankly, people don't hear as many major seventh chords these days as they should. More per day would improve the…

Not to mention, audio cassettes since their earliest days allow you to preserve any recording, simply by snapping off a little plastic tab on the shell; this mechanically prevents engagement of the recording head for that side of the tape. I knew this when I was 12. It's utterly implausible that a law firm would be…

Aw, no discussion of Personal Best? First movie I ever saw him in.

Back in the early 1970s there was an hour-long program called "Between Time and Timbuktu" produced for pre-PBS public TV; it included a brief scene with Bokonon (played by Kevin McCarthy) and his followers doing "boko-maru," as well as a dramatization of "Harrison Bergeron," a bit of the suicide parlor from "Welcome…

Not likely. Except for one passage quoted from an ostensible Trout novel of that title in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Vonnegut didn't write Venus on the Half-Shell; Philip Jose Farmer (the Riverworld series, etc.) did - that is, in the guise of "Trout" he built a whole novel around that passage written by Vonnegut…

Yes, of course Vonnegut was mainstream, nationally popular (and not just on college campuses), for 5 years at least, starting with Slaughterhouse-5 in 1969. By that time he was 47 and most or all of his earlier books were out of print. Since 1969 I'm pretty sure everything of his has been continuously in print, at…

Omigod, how can you discuss late-1940s Melville and not mention Les Enfants Terribles, released the following year and with the same female lead, Nicole Stéphane? What a memorable film. From Cocteau's novel(la) and with his narration, too.

Code of Silence was good.

Complaints about TMBG's propensity to cram a lot of short songs into an album are kind of silly at this point. This is what they have done for decades, and (in my opinion) it's simply a by-product of their working method. Specifically, they don't make a song any longer than it has to be. Damn refreshing philosophy.…

"Someone's got to be oppressed!"

I'm not sure how the disruptors we're all here discussing are related to Baen Books. I do know, however, that the late Mr. Baen himself (before Baen Books existed) convinced Robert Heinlein to agree to publish a book consisting largely of his personal opinions, including lots of new material: Expanded Universe (1980).…

No, my argument isn't that there aren't enough female authors among the nominees; I was merely responding to your own post: "You do realize that many of the people promoted by Sad Puppies are women, minorities, or both, right?"

One woman only, among the four fiction categories (novel, novella, novelette, short story) that are the core of the Hugos, was on their slate: Annie Bellet in the short story category.

With regard to "a year or so": Specifically, the attendees at two consecutive annual Worldcons have to approve (by majority vote) any change in Hugo award rules. But you can participate in both nomination and voting without attending if you've paid for at least a supporting membership. (I was thinking about going to…

It's interesting that in their effort to (let's be honest) wreck the Hugo awards, the Sad Puppies caused the second and final volume of the Robert Heinlein biography, by the late William Patterson Jr., to be omitted from the Best Related Work category; all five nominees announced in that category were evidently on the…

"…just long enough for Bone to know." I can see why the filmmakers looked for a different ending from that of the novel; nonetheless the ending of the novel was memorable, at least for me.

Don't forget there's also Anthony Heald.

During the episode itself, a viewer new to the show might not notice all the inconsistencies that people have pointed out. But certainly, calling recent scripts "sloppy and unsubtle" sounds about right.