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Stage adaptation of stories by Bradbury, Lem, Malzberg and Pronzini at NYC Fringe

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 SoftRains

I’ve recently been falling down on my self-appointed task of keeping track of SF-related stage productions for you, but here’s a fresh one: There Will Come Soft Rains, a stage adaptation of several classic science fiction stories by Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, Barry N. Malzberg, and Bill Pronzini. (Via SF Scope.)

The 90-minute play will be presented as part of the 11th annual New York International Fringe Festival. From the press release:

To bring the stark, powerful imagery of these stories to the stage, director/adaptor Jon Levin (recently singled out by nytheatre.com for his “remarkable” puppet work) uses a combination of bunraku-inspired puppets, object manipulation, dance, live music and a versatile ensemble of performers.

The FringeNY site is more direct:

Stories by Ray Bradbury and others are told with actors, puppets, lightbulbs, bedsheets, live video and an upright bass.

Director/adaptor Levin says,  “There’s something inherently theatrical about a certain kind of science fiction. The stories are a reflection of our world, a way of seeing familiar things in a new light.”

Here’s a review of There Will Come Soft Rains when it was a work in progress at Oberlin College.

There Will Come Soft Rains runs at The New School for Drama Theater (151 Bank Street, between West and Washington Streets, New York, New York) on Friday, August 8 (10 p.m.), Wednesday, August 13 (7:30 p.m.), Sunday, August 17 (4:15 p.m.), Thursday, August 21 (5:15 p.m.) and Saturday, August 23 (7:30 p.m.). Tickets are $15 and are available by calling 866-468-7619 or visiting fringenyc.org.

(Image: There Will Come Soft Rains poster)

[tags]plays, theatre, science fiction, short stories[/tags]

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Bumblebees teach police to catch serial killers

James R. Bumblebee: keeping our plants reproducingWhat do busy busy bumblebees and sinister serial killers have in common? They both stray far from their home when doing plying their trade, according to scientists from the University of London. When foraging for nectar, a bumblebee will create a ‘buffer zone’ around its nest that it won’t drink the flowers in, so that predators and parasites don’t follow it back to its home. The researchers found that this buffer zone was very similar to the pattern created by serial killers when they kill their victims. By studying the paths of bumblebees they hope to give forensic experts better clues as to where a killer might live based on his killings. We’d better make sure we keep the bees alive then.

[Story via bbc, picture by feileacan]

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Get over it, Orson

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Same-sex marriage for the win!Via pretty much everywhere on the sf grapevine comes news that Orson Scott Card is being a reactionary ass-hat again, writing a column for the Mormon Times that states – yes, states, not infers – that same-sex marriage “marks the end of democracy in America”.

WTF?

I guess I’m just lucky to have been raised by parents who taught me to value people by their actions and character rather than their gender, skin colour or sexual preference, but I just don’t understand this attitude. I mean it really makes no sense to me. Why does Card care? Really? How does gay marriage harm him, or anyone else? How does it undermine democracy?

Card’s not a homophobe, though – or so he’d have us believe. I think I’ll leave it to Yonmei at the Feminist SF blog to shred that claim:

He riffs a bit on how

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Multi-touch goes “global”

vista-spheresHere at Futurismic, we’ve talked about multi-touch interfaces before. However, today, Microsoft researchers have revealed a development of the technology which is, well, something of a conceptual leap.

While flat-panel displays might be the current interface zeitgeist, Todd Bishop (amongst others) believes this development means “Microsoft thinks the shape of things to come might be a sphere” –

Microsoft researchers are taking the wraps off a prototype that uses an internal projection and vision system to bring a spherical computer display to life. People can touch the surface with multiple fingers and hands to manipulate photos, play games, spin a virtual globe, or watch 360-degree videos …

Sphere is a cousin of the Microsoft Surface tabletop computer, already being used in retail and hospitality settings. The underlying hardware for Sphere is sold commercially by Global Imagination of Los Gatos, Calif., but Microsoft researchers made numerous enhancements and developed specialized software.

In a broader sense, the project reflects Microsoft’s belief that many more surfaces will become computer displays, with embedded microprocessors, in the years to come.

To wrap your head around some of the potential applications of this muti-touch globe, check out the video!

For me, it’s with the omnidirectional video / surveillance applications that this technology really begins to show its value …

[story via Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog. Image by likeyesterday, via Flickr]

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