Twelve MonSFFen set off to explore the Jurassic World. Fortunately, all survived, possibly thanks to the foresight of Sylvain who made up packages of human-scented kibble to distract overly inquisitive beasties. (Pictures and commentaries on the event will appear soon in the members’ pages.)
Missed the event? Planning to attend on your own later? Print out the box below, and follow instructions carefully!
Doctor Who showrunner and Sherlock writer Steven Moffatt, and versatile actor Benedict Cumberbatch, star of Sherlock, are both on the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, published June 13.
Benedict Cumberbatch will receive the CBE — Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire – for services to the performing arts and to charity.
Steven Moffat will get an OBE – Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, one step down from a CBE — for services to drama.
Read more: http://file770.com/?p=23128
“Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park (1993), Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor’s interest, which backfires horribly.” Well, off course it does! 
Keith will be leading the adventurers into the jungle-er-cinema, on Sunday the 14th.
BTW: if it flies or swims, it is NOT a dinosaur.
Today it was learned that MonSFFA members Alice and Fern Novo have lost their uncle to cancer last month, and their father to complications of Alzheimer and a weak heart last week.
It’s been a rough year for this family, our thoughts and prayers are with them.
New content has been added to the members’ pages. Click the members’ tab above to reveal links to video recorded at the Belle et la Boeuf, Random photos of the meeting of May 31st, and more from Sylvain regarding his presentation on “Those Early Futures”.
If you are a member, you should have received the password by e-mail. If you didn’t there is a contact form you can access from the tab.
Every time a discussion on predictions for the future occurs, the question arises: So where are the flying cars? We were promised flying cars! Colonies on the moon!
It might be awhile yet for moon colonies, but the flying car is here, and it’s beautiful! If you have several hundred thousand Euros to spare, you can place your order next year. Commercialization is announced for 2017. Do watch the video, it’s impressive!
http://aeromobil.com
The Tour de l’Île de Montréal, also known as the Detour de l’ile, was not as effective at keeping members away from our meeting as some other events have been, but it was a nuisance. The detour the organizers advised me to take didn’t work as the ramp to the Bonaventure was closed for construction. I did say a few naughty words….
And then said a few more when I got to the hotel and found the room still set up for previous meeting, complete with dirty coffee cups, and a gazillion chairs that obviously had been moved in there for storage.
However, a few more early birds showed up and the organization for the book sale got underway. My thanks to Matthew, Grace, Marc, Wayne, Marquise, Josée, and others who wandered in to heave chairs and boxes of books around. The sale was a success by our standards–first count seems to be about 180$ for books, and then there was more that came in for snacks. Many thanks here go to Linzy Brown who baked utterly gorgeous cupcakes with flowers.
The flowery cupcakes were in keeping with our meeting theme. Last month we celebrated the April showers, so May flowers had to follow. There were flowered shirts, flowers pinned to shirts, the aforementioned cupcake flowers, and Danny pointed out that there were flowers on the money, and all of us had at least a nickle, LOL, so all of us qualified for the participation draw in December.
Sylvain St-Pierre gave an excellent presentation on how well, or not, 
the future predictions of the past held up. He had a number of very interesting posters about the room, several of which will find their way to our members’ page in the near future, (insert snicker).
Conversations during the break were quite lively, as the book sale was still going on, and we all had opinions on what was a good read and what was less good. Okay, dross, but hey, the covers drew the eyes, at least those of the men. Other conversations ranged from Puppies, both sad and rabid, to Montreal’s bid for the World Con in 2017. There was a hive of activity surrounding Sean Peatman and his new bride, Melanie. A lovely lady, no wonder we have seen so little of Sean!
After the break, Keith Braithwaite led a discussion on the work of Glen Larson. The general feeling was that his work may have been derivative, but we enjoyed watching his productions, especially BattleStar Galactica. Keith had some clips of shows that never seemed to have made it to Montreal.
Many, many thank yous are due to the MonsFolk who packed up the left over books, and shoved nearly all of them into MY car. Good Grief, Charlie Brown. The boxes are all heaped up in my basement waiting for me to get them on shelves, which will happen one of these days, maybe before Christmas…
For supper, we journeyed up to the Belle et la boeuf, http://www.belleetboeuf.com/ The hamburgers and poutines were devine, the decor featured a wall of books, LPs, and magazines from the past, which was rather apropos given the book sale and the two presentations which both featured a nostalgic aspect. It was fun picking out the old stuff of our memories, and some stuff even older like wooden farm implements. The menu was terribly funny with names like Capitaine Flam and Pac Mac. The drinks were hilarious, Linzi’s drink (the Miss Piggy) came with a twist of bacon! It was very noisy, however, and children are not allowed, so I don’t know if we will be able to keep going there.
A good meeting! Thanks to all who wrangled the boxes and furniture, gave presentations, donated drinks and snacks, and packed up the books again at the end.
Remember to start collecting all the gear you need for a trip to the Jurassic World, most probably on the 14th of June.
Several MonSFFen have become very interested in the technique of stop-motion filming, especially since a presentation by François Ménard, a member who is actively learning and creating some of his own stop motion projects. And then of course, we have Keith Braithwaite and his devotion to the legendary Ray Harryhausen!
So it’s no surprise that we would eventually run across the incredible work done by Roger Evans. To see his stop motion recreation of the Jonny Quest opening sequence, click here: http://www.jonnyquest.tv/ And if you want to see behind the scenes on how it was produced, click http://www.rogerevans.tv/jq_page2.html
From Jean-Louis Trudel:
“After a long fight with acute leukemia, diagnosed after the Boréal 31 convention in May 2014, Joël Champetier passed away around 2 AM yesterday Saturday in a palliative care unit in St. Tite, a few kilometres away from his home in St. Séverin. A long-time member of SF Canada, Joël Champetier was the author of several novels, young adult books, and short stories. His novels included La Taupe et le Dragon, published by Tor in English translation in 1999 as The Dragon’s Eye, and La Peau blanche, which inspired the movie La Peau blanche, a.k.a.White Skin and Cannibal, winner of a Toronto International Film Festival award in 2004. A guest of honour at the World Fantasy Convention in 2001, he had won multiple awards, both as a writer with a literary career stretching back to the early 1980s and as the editor for many years of Solaris, one of the world’s oldest active SF magazines (founded in 1974). To many in Québec, he was an inspiration as a writer, as an editor, and as a friend.”
Joël passed away last night after a long and courageous battle with cancer. A huge loss to our fandom. I don’t have the words, so will pass you on to the team at Solaris:
http://www.revue-solaris.com/blogue-solaris/derniers-adieux-joel-champetier-1957-2015/