1) INTRODUCTION
This is the first of eight posts this afternoon; welcome to MonSFFA’s February 2023 e-Meeting!
Before we get underway, we would like to take a moment to offer sincere condolences to our own Lynda Pelley and her family with regard to the recent passing of Lynda’s cherished mother. We were all saddened at this news. The day a beloved family member departs this life is always one of our most difficult days, and we can only commiserate with our dear friend on her loss.
Diagnosed with what was thought to be pneumonia, Lynda tells us that further blood work then pointed to acute leukemia. “Sadly, she passed away,” Lynda writes, her mother succumbing to the disease during the evening of January 22 at age 85. “This happened very quickly, in a matter of about three weeks,” Lynda additionally noted, and we are comforted to hear that she was able to be with her mother during those final days, her presence, we are certain, a comfort to her mother.
This afternoon, we’ll offer tips on framing your prized SF/F artwork or costuming photographs, and displaying your coolest sci-fi models, crafts, and collectibles to best effect.
We’ll also be talking books, focusing on how attached we become to our favourites, and how difficult it can be to part with our collections. We’ll touch, too, on how increasingly arduous a task it’s becoming to sell off used books, or even donate them, and on how churches respectfully—or not!—dispose of holy books.
This will be a group discussion, so your opinions are most welcome!
And, we’ll introduce our Special SF/F LP Record Offer.
Among the items our late friend and fellow MonSFFAn Sylvain St-Pierre collected were sci-fi film soundtracks, and related material. As part of our commitment to liquidating his vast genre collection, we have organized his numerous records into sets, or lots, and will make these available to any club members who may be interested in acquiring one or more of them.
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Later this afternoon, we’ll peruse together the list of what we have available, detail the procedures we’ve set up for acquiring these records, and field any questions club members may have regarding this offer. But for an advanced peek, you can download the list as a PDF document right here and now (Sylvain’s Sci-Fi LPs, Complete List).
All of this and more is on the agenda today!
And so, let us begin.
2) JOIN THIS AFTERNOON’S VIDEO-CHAT ON ZOOM!
To join our ZOOM video-chat, which will run throughout the next few hours, simply click here and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM
If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers
Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:
Meeting ID: 840 2199 8871
Passcode: 600149
3) MEETING AGENDA
Here is the agenda for this afternoon’s get-together:
As always, all scheduled programming is subject to change.
4) RELEASE (PHOTOS OF) THE KRAKEN!
Before we plunge ahead with today’s principal programme, we proffer the following images, captured earlier this month by scuba diver Yosuke Tanaka off the coast of Japan. This is a giant squid, one of the ocean’s strangest and most mysterious denizens. Likely at the root of ancient tales of krakens and similar sea monsters, these squids can reach lengths of some 40 feet!
For about 30 minutes, Tanaka swam alongside this specimen, estimated to be a little over eight feet in length and approximately two or three years old. Deep-ocean creatures, giant squids are rarely sighted near the surface. Scientists viewing Tanaka’s video footage noted that the squid appeared to be in poor health, and perhaps near the end of its life—giant squids tend to rise from the depths when ill or near death.
Sightings of giant squids date back to Aristotle’s Greece. Over the centuries, numerous carcasses have been discovered washed ashore worldwide, but sightings of the living animal have been decidedly infrequent. The first images of a captured, living adult were recorded in 2002, the first of a live specimen in the wild in 2004.
Disney’s film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), adapting Jules Verne’s novel, famously includes an encounter with a giant squid, and sci-fi writers and illustrators have often imagined grotesque, multi-tentacled alien entities inspired by these and other cephalopods.