My contribution to CD Mix of the Month Club New York Reunion was the sprawling, three-disc extravaganza 64 Payola Payoffs: The New York Reunion Mix.

(The story so far.)

Hey, could any of you German speakers out there give me a hand rendering this in German?

Dear Dad: I looked all over for this. I hope you enjoy it.

Lieber Vati: Ich schaute ganz rüber nach diesem. Ich hoffe, daß Sie ihn genießen.

Photos from the Mermaid Parade.

I had a glimpse into an alternate universe today while waiting to cross Park Avenue. I looked over and saw a man who was the spitting image of Dick Cheney—sixtyish, balding, white-haired, very stout.

Except...

This guy was wearing tan loafers, blue jeans, and a short-sleeved linen shirt. He had pierced ears and was wearing thick steel hoops, and had an abstract turquoise tattoo on the back of his right hand. A nylon backpack was slung over his shoulder. He was walking with a male companion.

God. If only. If only Dick Cheney had gone the aging gay hippie route.

At 10:15 pm tonight, over the protestations of my dog, I left the apartment and took a twenty-minute walk over to the Arabic stretch of Steinway Street where, thanks to Bloomberg's smoking ban, the men congregate with their hookahs on the sidewalk before the storefronts. I joined my friend Ali, the Egyptian chef, in front of his restaurant, where I met Manny the Indian-American computer programmer and Declan the Irish chef, and where we all enjoyed a glass of white wine. (Not the same glass.) Then Ali and I repaired to the Czechoslovakian social club where the delightful owner Daniela ("I'm not Czech, I'm not Slovak, I'm Czechoslovakian") served us after-hours pilsners and a sweet liqueur the name of which I couldn't tell you if you put a gun to my head. As we were discussing religion and politics and gender relations and smoking Cohibas, the Bangladeshi kid who manages the Kaufman-Astoria movie theater wandered in for a while. The African-American garbage man stuck his head in because the garbage wasn't out at the curb for his midnight pickup, so we all rushed to gather it up and carry it outside. And now I'm home again with the dog, and all is right with the world except for the fact that my French-American wife is in Texas with our Greek-Italian-American friend Stephanie.

Fucking Queens, baby. All the world should be like this.

I hope this will be my last post in this tangled I, Robot thread, a skein that's getting more meta by the minute. SF writer John Scalzi posts a blog entry in response to my boycott here:

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/archives/001028.html

So you don't have to hunt through the comments to his post if you don't want to, I'll reproduce my response here:

There's never a shortage of loud, frantic summer action pictures to choose from, and I enjoy one that's reasonably well done as much as the next guy. A loud, frantic summer action picture, though, that's had the title of a book of subtle cerebral pleasure grafted onto it but none of the essence—that's a level of commercial cynicism and disrespect I can't support with my wallet.

Yes, Hollywood is venal. That's an axiom. But what point beyond coaxing butts into seats is there in invoking a well-known (not to mention -loved) work if no kernel of it is retained in the end product? (I, Robot—flavored with FD&C Asimov No. 5!) I was no fan of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, but at least they're recognizable as a relative of the source material. They at least attempt to deliver on the promise of the title.

I was a big fan of Blade Runner, and you've already pointed out how the soul of Dick's novel remains intact despite the changes in detail, or quite possibly because of them. That's a good example of a successful conversation between a book and a movie. I, Robot strikes me as more a non sequitur—if not a vicious denunciation.

I understand that Hollywood is what it is, and I'm sure I won't change it. But that doesn't mean I have to mindlessly suck from whatever diseased teat it jiggles in my face. We get the Hollywood we deserve.

At npr.org, you can listen to a story that ran yesterday on Weekend Edition Sunday about the controversy in SF circles over the film version of I, Robot:

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3444025

It's actually an interesting story that gets most of the nuances right. I was startled early on to hear a familiar voice, which moments later was identified as Geoff Landis, award-winning SF writer, NASA Mars scientist, and Clarion pal of me and bobhowe and holyoutlaw. Also interviewed at length is Harlan Ellison, who in typical entertaining, exaggerated, and self-serving fashion helps report why his screenplay never made it to the screen.

Alex Proyas is interviewed as well, and proves one and for all that, for all that he made an intensely personal, atmospheric, and idiosyncratic SF film in Dark City, he's abandoned his artistry and is now a corporate tool.

And Asimov's widow Janet Jeppson, who wouldn't consent to be taped for the story, is reported as saying that Isaac wouldn't have cared much whether Ellison's version or the Proyas bastardization made it into theaters. "He didn't envision his work cinematically," she says.

Well, duh. He wasn't a screenwriter. Envisioning the work cinematically is the screenwriter's job, and Asimov's appreciative introduction to I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay would seem to put the lie to what Jeppson says. Who knows? Maybe she's right. But if she is—R. Daneel Olivaw wept. That's sad.

Despite a clear, clear warning from Bill, right here on the electronic frontier, since I was interviewed about it, I decided I had to see the "I, Robot" film. Short summary: Bill was right. It does severe violence to Asimov.

STAY AWAY.

It's stupid. It steals cliches from a couple of dozen sources-- you can almost tag them as they go by... Westworld, Bladerunner, et nauseum... but almost nothing from Asimov....

I hope nothing I said on the radio could be interpreted as being complimentary toward the film. I see that the news stories about the film say that the screenplay writer is working on an adaptation of "Foundation". God, somebody please stop him.

Expanding on my earlier post, and on comments I made in pixelfish's journal, here's a meme for you:

Rather than seeing I, Robot: The Summer Lackluster Blockbuster, take the cost of the two movie tickets you might otherwise have purchased and get a copy of I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay by Harlan Ellison instead. Or, if you've never read it, go straight to the source. I guarantee you your time will be better spent.

Pass it on.

From AP, via Salon:

Stephen Hawking changes mind on black holes

He now says they do eventually release information about what fell in. Me, I don't have an opinion on the matter.

Some fun excerpts from former SF fanboy Roger Ebert's Sun-Times review of I, Robot:

Asimov's robot stories were often based on robots that got themselves hopelessly entangled in logical contradictions involving the laws. According to the invaluable Wikipedia encyclopedia on the Web, Harlan Ellison and Asimov collaborated in the 1970s on an "I, Robot" screenplay*, which, the good doctor said, would produce "the first really adult, complex, worthwhile science fiction movie ever made."

While that does not speak highly for "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), it is certain that the screenplay for this film, by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman, is not adult, complex or worthwhile, although it is indeed science fiction. The director is Alex Proyas, whose great "Dark City" (1998) was also about a hero trying to make sense of the deceptive natures of the beings around him....

The plot I will not detail, except to note that you already know from the ads that the robots are up to no good, and [Will Smith] could write a lot of tickets for Three Laws violations....

As for the robots, they function like the giant insects in "Starship Troopers," as video game targets. You can't even be mad at them, since they're only programs. Although, come to think of it, you can be mad at programs; Microsoft Word has inspired me to rage far beyond anything these robots engender.

Not gonna see it, and no longer eager to follow Alex Proyas's career.