This is post 1 of 6 related posts which together make up our June 6, 2020, DIY, Virtual MonSFFA Meeting.

1) SYMPATHIES

We begin with a heavy heart, for we have lost one of our own to COVID-19. Our good friend and fellow MonSFFAn Alice Novo passed away just a couple weeks ago. Alice had been dealing with other health issues these past few years, as most of you know, and thus was particularly susceptible to the virus.

We are cognisant of others within our circle, too, who are also dealing with complications brought about by this virus, and at this time, we are respecting their privacy while hoping, praying that their ultimate outcome is a good one. Others of us have lost family members to COVID-19 and we wish them to know that they have our sincere sympathies.

Alice is mourned by her family and friends, including her beloved son, Alex, and brother Fernando (“Fern”), who most of us know through our mutual affiliation with this club.

Alice and Fern joined MonSFFA at about the time we were starting to shoot the club’s fan film, Beavra, in the early 2000s, if memory serves, and I recall their enthusiasm and keen interest as they jumped right in as part of the cast and crew. They were a wonderful addition to our ranks and I have enjoyed their friendship ever since.

When we needed to cast a youngster in one of the roles, Alice suggested her pre-teen son, Alex, who performed marvellously. This family was a friendly and fun bunch, I remember thinking at the time. Over the years of MonSFFA’s meetings and field trips and conventions and the club’s summer barbecues and Christmas parties, I always looked forward to spending a few hours with Alice and Fern.

Fern and I share an appreciation of classic cars and hotrods, and the customized vehicles built for use in sci-fi movies and TV shows. And also of Bigfoot stories! Alice and I shared in particular an appreciation of classic rock, our tastes remarkably in sync in that respect. Some years back, when the club was holding its Christmas parties at a downtown bar that has since closed, I would serve as DJ, and I remember Alice complimenting me on more than one occasion for the music I’d selected. I’m glad she enjoyed the tunes.

One never knows what to say to friends grieving for a lost loved one, only that whatever we say will seem an inadequate salve to the utter sadness and grief that envelopes them at such a time. So I’ll say just this: Alex and Fern, the day will come when the great sorrow that you now feel will slowly begin to give way to fond memories of, respectively, your mom and sister. The day will come when thinking of her will bring not tears, but a smile. Alice, you were one of the friendliest, warmest, kindest, most delightful and good-humoured people that I’ve known in all my years of involvement with SF/F fandom, and I will miss you. A lot. Rest in peace.

 

2) INTRODUCTION AND MEETING AGENDA

The club’s Executive hopes this post finds everybody managing as well as they can through the current quarantine. As things prudently begin re-opening, remember to continue following best recommended safety practises in order to help minimize an anticipated second wave of infections. Our area remains one the hardest hit in the world, so don’t let down your guard! To those of you who might be deemed “essential workers,” please take extra caution to keep yourselves as protected from infection as possible!

This is our third virtual MonSFFA meeting. It will unfold right here on the club’s Web site over the course of the afternoon, beginning with this first post, and followed by subsequent posts at 1:30PM, 2:30PM, 3:00PM, and 3:45PM, with a concluding post at 4:45PM. All content will also be available concurrently on MonSFFA’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/MonSFFA), however, the interface best suited for taking in this meeting is this very Web site.

We cannot yet meet face-to-face as we usually do, of course, and so this June virtual meeting has been prepared especially for you, MonSFFA’s membership. Sit back, check out each of the afternoon’s posts, scroll down leisurely through the proffered content, and enjoy!

In This Afternoon’s Virtual Meeting:

1:00PM, Post 1 of 6

1)  Sympathies

2) Introduction and Meeting Agenda

3)  Coronavirus Song Parody

4)  Quiz Challenge, Intro

5)  Name That Tune!…

1:30PM, Post 2 of 6

6)  Journalism in SF&F

2:30PM, Post 3 of 6

7) Mid-Meeting Break (Now With Experimental Zoom Meeting!)

3:00PM, Post 4 of 6

8) COVID-19 Art

3:45PM, Post 5 of 6

9) SF&F Plagues and Diseases, Part III—The Cures

4:45PM, Post 6 of 6

10) Another Coronavirus Song Parody

11) Answers to Quiz Challenge

12) Yet Another Song Parody

13) Thank-You!

14) Closing Song Parody

 

3) CORONAVIRUS SONG PARODY

It’s summer! Time for a Beach Boys tune. Well, not quite a Beach Boys tune (www.Facebook.com/jonpumper):

Kudos to Jon Pumper for this one, and to the talented creators of the other parody songs we’re showcasing today; whenever given, we’ve credited by name these creators.

4) QUIZ CHALLENGE, INTRO

David Bowie’s popular 1969 tune Space Oddity tells the tale of astronaut Major Tom, who ventures outside of his space capsule, only to become stranded in orbit before drifting off through the heavens, his future undetermined.

At the time, many wedded the song to the Apollo 11 moonshot, and, indeed, Space Oddity was released to coincide with the historic moon landing. Some reviewers took the song as, plainly, the story of an astronaut who finds himself stranded in space, a possible scenario much discussed in 1969 as NASA prepared to land a man on the moon. Others have read more into the composition, taking the song to be a space-age representation of the disillusionment of ’60s youth. Still others saw it as a drug-induced astral trip!

Bowie himself had stated that Space Oddity was influenced by the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the song’s title a play on the movie’s. “I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times,” he disclosed, “and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing.”

A short, promotional film designed to spotlight this new singer/song-writer’s talents included an early version of Space Oddity in which Bowie, as Major Tom, is seen stepping through the hatch of his spaceship, relaying to Ground Control that he is “floating in a most peculiar way,” and that “the stars look very different today.” He encounters two beautiful, enigmatic women—angels, higher spiritual entities, aliens, transcendent human beings, perhaps—who encirclement him. The astronaut requests of Ground Control, “Tell my wife I love her very much,” and suddenly, communication is broken. Fearing that “there’s something wrong,” Ground Control repeatedly calls “Can you hear me, Major Tom?”

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The song, and the astronaut’s fate, remain open to interpretation.

Major Tom reappeared a few times later in Bowie’s career, reworked a little on each occasion.

Space Oddity is probably one of the best known of pop and rock songs that tap into science fiction or fantasy, employing space motifs, sci-fi references, narratives, or SF/F as metaphor.

At a club meeting a few years ago, I hosted a game in which I challenged my fellow MonSFFen to identify, from just a couple lines of lyrics, a number of Genre-themed pop or rock songs. Reproduced, here, is a revised version of that challenge. I offer it in honour of our dear departed friend, Alice.

Can you identify each of the 19 songs from these snippets of lyrics, as well as the singer or group most associated with each of the tunes? The answers will be provided at the conclusion of today’s virtual MonSFFA meeting in Post 6 of 6, at 4:45PM:

5) NAME THAT TUNE!…

1)

In your mind you have abilities you know / To telepath messages through the vast unknown

2)

They got music in their solar system / They’ve rocked around the Milky Way

3)

Crossed through the universe to get where you are / Travel the night riding on a shooting star

4)

Woke up this morning with light in my eyes / And then realized it was still dark outside

5)

I think your atmosphere is hurting my eyes / And your concrete mountains are blackin’ out the skies

6)

I miss the Earth so much, I miss my wife / It’s lonely out in space

7)

They’ll split your pretty cranium, and fill it full of air / And tell you that you’re eighty, but brother, you won’t care

8)

(All day long, we hear him crying so loud) / I just want to be myself, I just want to be myself, I just want to be myself, be myself, be myself

9)

Mine’s broke down / And now I’ve no one to love

10)

Hey mom, there’s something in the back room / Hope it’s not the creatures from above

11)

Oh Space Dude in your space suit / Our love, it takes us to the moon

12)

Then the stranger spoke, he said, “Do not fear / I come from a planet a long way from here”

13)

On Mercury, they’re crazy about my stellar rock ’n’ roll / And I always sell out in advance at the Martian Astrobowl

14)

Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now / Or maybe a war, or I may kill you all

15)

He was turned to steel / In the great magnetic field

16)

Tell me, did you sail across the sun? / Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded

17)

Encounters one and two are not enough for me / What my body needs is close encounter three

18)

And with the top down, we’ll cruise around / Land and make love on the moon (Would you like that?)

19)

Now it’s been ten thousand years / Man has cried a billion tears