Firefly‘s Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk are collaborating on a web series about convention life and sci-fi stars, but that’s not relevant to your interests, right? No.Certainly not.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Fillion and Tudyk launched an Indiegogo page yesterday for Con Man, “a light-hearted take on the personalities, luminaries, and characters in the sci-fi community we are privileged to call ourselves members.” Tudyk described the series as being
about the convention world. My character, Wray Nerely, was on a science fiction show called Spectrum, that was canceled too soon, and now he goes to conventions, to sign head shots, and meet fans, and do panels. Nathan’s character, Jack Moore, who was the captain of the spaceship on Spectrum, has gone on to incredible action-hero stardom, like Matt Damon. My character is frustrated with his situation and frustrated by Jack’s stardom. We follow Wray’s story as he goes to the conventions and does video game voiceovers and we are going to populate it with sci-fi actors and people that you will find at conventions. Zany hi-jinks ensue!
According to a press release, the series’ guest stars will include Sean Maher, Gina Torres, Amy Acker, Seth Green, Felicia Day, and James Gunn. (Hmmm, I wonder why Baldwin hasn’t been invited yet?)
Although Tudyk and Fillion are aiming to raise $425,000 for the show’s first three 10-minute episodes, Tudyk has reportedly already written ten scripts for the series. To find out more about what inspired the series and what Con Man may have in store for fans, check out Fillion and Tudyk’s (adorable) interview with EW and Indiegogo vid.
[Update]Aaaand the fundraiser met its goal in short order. Well done, team!
Wow. I believed it would happen, just not before lunch. Well done, you magnificent bastards. https://t.co/XuRXIAIJKI
Depending where you fall on the Venn diagram of Game of Thrones and Apple fans, it may be time to get hype: At an Apple event earlier today, the company announced it will be partnering exclusively with HBO Now when the $15 streaming service launches at the beginning of April, allowing members with any Apple product to watch Game of Thrones by the series’ April 12th premiere date. (Technical difficulties aside, of course.)
Although I’m not sure how I feel yet about House HBO and House Apple uniting, at least the two companies clearly understand their target demographics: a new Season 5 Game of Thrones trailer premiered at the event (and has since been shared on Twitter by iTunes) and it is chock-a-block with dragons.
How do y’all feel about these HBO Now updates and the new trailer? Got an Apple device you’ll be watching the season premiere on? (If not, join my sad little club. We’ll make our own dragons, guys.)
In a SkyMovies interview released last week, Chappie director Neill Blomkamp hinted that his upcoming Alien moviemight retcon the franchise, saying “I want this film to feel like it is literally the genetic sibling of Aliens. So it’s, Alien, Aliens, this movie.”
When asked to elaborate on how some of the less-reputable Alien films will influence the series as it moves forward, Blomkamp and Weaver took some time on the Chappie red carpet to talk about how their new project will fit in with previous installments:
So Blomkamp won’t be “undoing” Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection, but all signs do point to him bringing back at least one character from their untimely demise. At Pensacola Comic Con last weekend, Michael Biehn was allegedly asked by a Reddit user if he planned to join the Alien 5 cast, “to which he replied, ‘Looks like it!’ and smiled.”
That’s hardly an official confirmation, but considering Hicks also featured in Blomkamp’s incredible Alien concept art, I suspect more details on Biehn’s involvement are forthcoming (and hey, maybe we’ll hear something about a grown-up Newt as well!). What do you think of the way Alien 5 is panning out so far?
Start placing bets on what Roland Emmerich gonna blow up this time. Personally, my money’s on the Great Wall of China. Has he done that one yet? It’s so hard to keep track.
Goldblum will also be joined in giving viruses to aliens by The Hunger Games‘s Liam Hemsworth and newcomer Jessie Usher as Will Smith’s character’s stepson. Usher, in addition to not being Jaden Smith (thank God), recently starred in the LeBron James-produced Survivor’s Remorse on Starz.
Explained Emmerich to EW.com, the films will take place about 20-25 years (in human time) after ID4—but that’s only a few weeks for the aliens, who received a distress call from their defeated brethren and high-tailed it through a worm hole (thus the time discrepancy) to get to us and wreak some havoc.
In the intervening years, says Emmerich, humans “have harnessed all this alien technology. We don’t know how to duplicate it because it’s organically-grown technology, but we know how to take an antigravity device and put it in a human airplane.” But while humanity has leveled up, so have the aliens, who “also do different things.”
Do different things like download Norton’s Antivirus, we hope?
The film is set for a June 24, 2016, almost 20 years after the first one was released on July 3rd, 1996. No word on whether Bill Pullman is on board yet, but Emmerich is on record as saying that Smith will not return because he’s too big a name and too expensive to cast. Aww.
Anyway, last we heard it already had a title, Independence Day Forever (obviously we’re all going to shorten that To ID4ever, right?), but we came up with our own just in case they want to switch gears:
Independence Day 2: We Just Have a BBQ, We Beat the Aliens, Remember?
HBO’s still hard at work on their new standalone streaming service, which will provide content like Game of Thrones, Veep, True Detetective, and Silicon Valley to fans who have access to the Internet but not to cable television. Now we know a bit more about what to expect when it finally becomes available—hopefully in time for the Game of Thrones season 5 premiere!
The service, which will be called HBO Now (in contrast to their already existing online portal for cable subscribers, HBO Go), will reportedly run you $15 a month and is expected to launch sometime in early April, according to a new report from International Business Times. That’s more expensive than comparable services like Netflix and Hulu Plus, but not much different for the current price of HBO for cable fans, but without the added costs of—well, you know, cable. Currently there’s an estimated 10 million U.S. broadband subscribers who do not pay for cable on top of their Internet, and Jeff Fawkes, the CEO of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, also figures that HBO Now will also entice users who already pay for cable and would be more likely to subscribe to HBO individually rather than through their cable provider.
HBO is now reaching out for different distribution methods for this service via the Roku, the Xbox, the Playstation, and other. Apple has been particularly aggressive in courting the company with a possible second app for HBO Now in addition the already existing one for HBO Go. Boy, that would probably confuse a lot of people.
To add to that, I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet that you’ll be able to watch GoT‘s April 12th premiere given how many problems there’ve been with HBO Go’s ability to stream shows live—it tends to shut down any time there’s a big season opening or finale, like it did with the final episode of True Detective. But despite what definite growing pains the service will experience, this is still a milestone for the previously cable-only channel.
What do you all think? Will you sign up for HBO Now?
His quote makes me feel better about him, the film, and the chances for Alien... I still maintain there was a really great film just under the surface of Elysium... you just have to ignore stuff/make up a lot of your own story to get there.
Look, you’d be hard-pressed to find a human being to admit they’re wrong on what color a particular dress is, let alone admit their million dollar film was poop. Neill Blomkamp, I salute you!
After District 9 I, like many of you, were excited at the prospects of Blomkamp’s Elysium. And then I saw it. It was… not great. But it should have been!
Speaking with Uproxx on his Chappie press rounds, the director discussed Elysium’s failure:
You mentioned your frustration with negotiating Hollywood. Does it become more difficult when your first movie is as successful as District 9, then Elysium underperforms?
No, any frustration I feel with Elysium is with myself. I think I’m lucky, at least for this phase of my career, I’m lucky in the sense that I don’t feel a lot of pressures I think other directors feel. I don’t have District 9 be successful and then have Elysium be not successful and then beat myself up over it because of how the audience perceives them. Do you know what I mean?
No.
So, let’s say you make District 9 and it does well. So, now, a normal director is like, “Sh*t, I’ve got this pressure because this last film did well and I hope this one lives up to it.” I don’t have that. It definitely doesn’t bother me. The thing that bothers me is if I feel like I f*cked it up.
Do you feel you f*cked up Elysium?
A little bit.
When asked what he would have done differently:
I feel like, ultimately, the story is not the right story. I still think the satirical idea of a ring, filled with rich people, hovering above the impoverished Earth, is an awesome idea. I love it so much, I almost want to go back and do it correctly. But I just think the script wasn’t… I just didn’t make a good enough film is ultimately what it is. I feel like I executed all of the stuff that could be executed, like costume and set design and special effects very well. But, ultimately, it was all resting on a somewhat not totally formed skeletal system, so the script just wasn’t there; the story wasn’t fully there.
This. Exactly this. Everything about Elysium should have made for a great film, but it didn’t. The idea was there, it just wasn’t executed properly. For these words and more, Mr. Blomkamp, we’re very excited to see what you and Sigourney Weaver will do with the Alien franchise. Onwards and upwards, as they say.
As Adam puts it "Well, it's not like I'd trust Ridley Scott at this point, given what he did with Prometheus"
Either that or he’s a really well-crafted one that ages. We should probably give him the test anyway, just to be sure.
While Blade Runner‘s original director Ridley Scott will still not be on board to direct to the upcoming sequel as he told Variety back in November, Ford will definitely be on board to reprise his role as detective Richard Deckard.
Denis Villeneuve, who recently directed Jake Gyllenhaal in Enemy and Hugh Jackman in Prisoners, is in negotiations to take over directing duties for the film. However, Scott will be producing alongside Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson.
According to Scott, Ford has been interested in the film for a while. “I sent him this [script] and he said it’s the best thing he’s ever read,” Scott told MTV News in December of last year. “It’s very relevant to what happened in the first one.” However, he wasn’t officially signed on to the project until the announcement made yesterday.
Considering Ford’s current curmudgeonly reputation, “the best thing he’s ever read” is high praise. Personally, though, I’d like to hear further confirmation of the rumor that the film will be helmed by a female protagonist before I get too excited. What about you?
It's not completely true that things that teach you important stuff about CS also teach you important stuff about life, but if you squint a little it's true enough. (Thankfully, 'true enough' is not a concept machines grasp yet. I leave it as an exercise to the reader as to why that might be a good thing.)
That said, there are certain readings I come back to time and again, which are definitely worth sharing, and which I will list here and occassionally update. Most of these actually come from CS 19, a brilliant course created by the even more brilliant (and I mean that in both a technical, professional and social context) Shriram Krishnamurthi. To get a taste for the personality, read his bit on contacting him as a prospective student.
How to Become a Hacker (I particularly adore the part on human language, specifically English. I'm heavily biased against engineers - and people - who can't bother to learn to communicate.)
As a result of the ideas suggested at the meeting we hosted last Thursday, and the emails that have been pouring in, the staff and I have come up with a plan to keep Borderlands open. Below you'll find the details of it and following that, you'll find my reasoning behind it and some Q&A. If it is to succeed, we will need your support -- not just right now, but every year moving forwards. So, if you want Borderlands to continue, it is in your hands.
Prior to the events of the last two weeks, I would never have imagined that something like what follows would ever be possible. The outpouring of affection and emotion that started the moment we announced that we were closing has changed forever the way the I and the rest of the staff see Borderlands. This place has always meant the world to us -- that's why we work here -- but we never imagined that it meant so much to so many people. Win or lose, open or close, we are all more grateful that we can express for your kind words, sincere compliments, and the belief that what we do matters.
The Short Version
Starting immediately we will be offering paid sponsorships of the store. Each sponsorship will cost $100 for the year and will need to be renewed every year. If we get 300 sponsors before March 31st, we will stay open for the remainder of 2015.
The Plan
Our goal is to gather enough paid sponsors to cover the projected short-fall in income that will be the result of the minimum wage increase in San Francisco. At the beginning of next year we will again solicit sponsors. If next year we again reach our goal by March 31st, we will remain open through 2016. This process will continue each year until we close, either because of a lack of sponsorship or for other reasons.
We are still considering benefits we can offer our sponsors but, at this point, a preliminary list is:
- Reserved seating at author events - The ability to rent the cafe and / or bookstore outside of normal operating hours for private events at our cost (which is roughly $25 to $100 per hour) - Invitations to a quarterly gathering at the cafe where you can socialize with other sponsors, members of Borderlands' staff and occasional special guests - Access to preview sales of rare and collectable books whenever we make a large acquisition - The opportunity to purchase occasional items produced by us for sponsors and not offered to the general public (such as limited Ripley prints, chapbooks, and so forth) - A selection of unique apparel and accessories showing your status as a sponsor and not available to the general public - Invitations to sponsor-only events, like small gatherings with authors, exclusive writing workshops, and more
A sponsorship will cost $100 for this year. That price may increase or decrease in subsequent years, depending on our finances. The minimum number of sponsors each year will be 300, but we will accept any number of people who would like to participate. Each participant will be given a sponsor number, based on the exact time and date that they first started sponsoring Borderlands.
Though we considered partnering with an outside company to collect the payments, we concluded that we're sort of old-fashioned and value our direct connection with our customers. So, payments may be made in person at the store, by phone with a credit card or by mail via check (note, for check payments, sponsorship start date and time will be 12:01 A.M. on the day the envelope was postmarked).
To pay in person, just come into the store anytime between noon and eight and inquire at the counter. To pay by credit card, please call 415 824-8203 or toll-free at 888 893-4008 during the same hours (please be patient if you get a busy signal as we only have two phone lines). To pay by check, please send the check to - Borderlands Books, Sponsorships, 866 Valencia St. SF CA 94110 and make sure to include your phone number, email address, and mailing address.
The Reasoning
As I've said elsewhere, I had been opposed to the idea of sponsorships or selling memberships for two reasons. First, I didn't think that it was right for a for-profit business to ask for a hand-out to continue operating. Second, based on what I have seen happen to other bookstores, I didn't believe that the sort of support we needed was something that would be sustainable.
However, comments that were made at our public meeting last Thursday made me question my second assumption. There were so many people who were so committed to the store, and so willing to give us their money, just so we would continue to exist, that I started to wonder if there might be enough support for the long haul. One suggestion that stuck with me in particular came from someone I'm going to refer to as "Mr. Barnum" (I know his name but I don't want to spread it all over the internet without his permission). His suggestion was that we could sell a membership card that gave the holder the right to pay 10% over cover price for their purchase. Not only did those attending the meeting think that was an amusing and clever idea, but two customers approached me later that weekend and seriously affirmed their support for it.
The other thing that was made clear to me at the meeting was that people really valued the social aspect of Borderlands, as well as valuing our recommendations, curation, and suggestions. Of course, I value it too, as do all our staff, but I didn't realize just how much it meant to other people. At the meeting one person commented that they were relatively new to San Francisco and that, during the course of the meeting, they had met a couple of people with common interests. They said that a place that would allow such connections was truly important and valuable.
I spent the next few days thinking about all that. I still wasn't convinced that there was enough support or, more accurately I thought that, though there was enough support right now, I didn't believe that the support would last. To allow Borderlands to continue, it's not just a matter of one big burst of support and a pile of cash. Our income from books will not be enough to keep us operating as the minimum wage goes up. Without some other income, we will be operating at a loss, possibly as soon as the middle of this year. So, any support must be long-term and constant. Right now people are emotionally involved and motivated to help but, three years from now, that will have worn off.
But, I thought that there was enough interest that it would be worth giving it a try. I had two remaining problems, however. First, I needed to figure out how to make that support something other than a hand-out from our customers. Second, I needed a way to structure whatever we did so that I would clearly know if the support didn't exist with enough warning that I could shut down the business in an orderly and financially sound way. Unlike a simpler business, a bookstore has a ton of money invested in inventory. If one is going to close, something needs to happen to that inventory and there is nothing that can be done quickly while still being financially wise.
As you've seen from the list of benefits above, once Jude and I and the rest of the crew started thinking about what sort of things we could do for our sponsors that wouldn't cost us money (since that would be defeating the purpose of the sponsorship) we came up with a solid list quite quickly. And, I'm sure that we'll come up with more stuff as we go along (especially once we have sponsors and get their feedback on what they would like). That solved the question of how to make sponsorship something other than a hand-out.
The question that remained was how to structure it so that I would have enough warning that the willingness to sponsor the shop was running out. Several people that I talked to suggested charging a monthly amount, but that's a problem since the income could vary widely from month to month. But, once I considered it as a yearly fee and then added the idea that there was a limited window each year for us to make our goal, that fixed the problem and will allow us to predict a year in advance what we will be doing.
After presenting the whole idea to all the staff, it was generally agreed that it might be a workable, long-term solution to our problem without compromising our values or our vision of what Borderlands was all about.
Q&A
Q: You've said that your shortfall only reaches $25,000 per year in 2018. Why are you asking for $30,000 now?
A: Two reasons. First, Borderlands has been operating without any cash reserves since 2010. That is not a wise way to run a business over the long term. So, the extra money we raise now will create that reserve. Second, if people are not willing to put up that amount this year, when emotions are high, they certainly won't be willing to do it in three years when we'll really need it. So, I'm testing the level of support now (and next year) to see if it really is viable.
Q: If you don't reach 300 sponsors by March 31st, will you still close?
A: Yes. And, while we're waiting to see if enough people will sponsor the store, we're still going to be moving forward with closing (however, I will probably wait to sell any fixtures and bookshelves until we see how it plays out).
Q: If I sponsor and you don't reach 300, will I get my money back?
A: You'll get most of the money back. Trying this is not without costs. There are both simple cash expenses (specifically credit card processing fees) and also less tangible costs like the time on the part of the staff to collect information, answer questions, do the paperwork and information processing, and so forth. Plus, I'm going to wait to sell most of the fixtures until after we see what happens. That will mean much more work for me after March 31st if we do close and, probably, lower sale prices for the shelves if this doesn't pan out.
So, if we don't reach 300 sponsors, we will be refunding $75 to each person who did sponsor.
Q: Can people buy sponsorships after March 31st?
A: Sponsorships will be available year round but the most important time to get them will be before March 31st each year.
Q: Are you guaranteeing that you'll stay open for the rest of 2015?
A: It's impossible to guarantee something like that. We could have a huge 'quake or a fire. Jude and I could both get hit by a bus (the store would continue to operate if it was just one of us killed, but both? Probably not, although there are plans in place.) However, barring surprises, we'll do our damnedest to stay open. And the same goes for the following years.
Q: If you get enough sponsors, how long will it take to get the store "back to normal"?
A: Unless we take this chance to do some refurbishing of the place, it will take about two to three weeks to get our stock back up to "normal" levels. It will take a month or two to get our events schedule back to normal, since we haven't scheduled anything beyond the end of March. But, overall, it will be a very fast process. I'd say that the place will look normal to the average customer within a week or two after we change course.
Q: Have you considered a tiered structure of sponsors wherein higher fees give additional benefits?
A: Yes, and so far we've decided against it. We're a pretty egalitarian sort of operation so I think that it's better to have a single level of sponsorship and to treat all our sponsors the same. Though I will say that the first 300 original sponsors will be pretty special to us since they will truly be the people who saved Borderlands.
Q: Can I buy more than one sponsorship?
A: Each person can only hold one sponsorship, but you're welcome to buy sponsorships for friends or family. Also, sponsors must be natural persons -- businesses and organizations cannot be sponsors.
Q: Is this the only action you're planning on taking?
A: No. This change addresses the projected problem, but there were several great ideas that were suggested that I'm going to pursue. The most notable ones are: offering a subscription program whereby we send subscribers one (or more) books per month; reaching out to local companies to see if they would be interested in hosting Google-style book talks; investigating the possibilities of starting a non-profit organization to help support either Borderlands specifically or San Francisco bookstores in general; and pursuing the possibility of using the local political process to address some of the challenges facing smaller, local retailers.
Q: What about the hooded sweatshirt that I just bought that says "1997-2015"? If this works, that'll be wrong and inaccurate.
A: Very true. But what a cool souvenir of the time that Borderlands _almost_ closed! If you don't want it, perhaps you could sell in on Ebay at a profit. Hell, I might buy it from you. But, if I were you, I'd hold onto it -- it may be much prized and admired in a few years.
In Closing
I'm sorry if the tone of this note seems dispassionate. Remember, while I was completely willing to have my mind changed by the public meeting, I really wasn't anticipating any workable solution to come up. I apologize for the whiplash that you may be experiencing right about now -- everyone at Borderlands is feeling it too. This idea went from an idle conversation to a plan in the span of 72 hours. In fact, as I write this it is 4:36 P.M. and it will be posted on our blog at six.
The rest of the staff and I are all kind of exhausted and a bit overwhelmed from the last two weeks, and, while we're feeling quite hopeful about this as a possible solution, we don't want to get our hopes too high. I think the best term for how we're feeling is "cautiously optimistic". So please forgive me if this note seems a bit stilted. I truly hope that this works out but I'm afraid that it won't. And, if I'm to be honest, I'm also a tiny bit afraid of the work to come if this does succeed.
But, however this comes out, thank you for your support and your passion for Borderlands over the last 18 years. We'd dearly love to keep doing this and we'd love to have all of you along for the ride -- but if it doesn't work, that changes nothing about the wonderful community that we have all created around and within the store, and the amazing experiences that have been the result.
This post was updated on 2/19/15 at 9:56 pm to include links to previous blog posts.
Music is no good in this, but I'm digging the series.
For their third installment in the awesome “100 Years of Hair and Makeup” series, Cut Video and their model Sabrina take a look at how fashion has evolved in Iran over the past century. As we’ve pointed out before, these time lapses might overlook some countercultures or marginalized communities within a larger demographic, but they still offer a fascinating and informative overview of mainstream hair and makeup from around the world. Are you enjoying the series so far?
Dolores Park’s renovation has been plagued by delays and unforeseen roadblocks that include costly vandalism, but nothing on the scale of what happened this weekend. Recreation and Parks Department director Phil Ginsburg reported Thursday that two young vandals (“two idiots,” he called them) broke into the construction site on the north end of Dolores Park, hot-wired a construction vehicle, did some donuts on sod turf and popped wheelies on some uncured pavement.
The ride not only destroyed the sod, which had not rooted yet, but also damaged some of the newly installed drainage infrastructure. The vandals also tagged a new maintenance shed and then lit a fire to roast marshmallows and make s’mores they had brought with them.
Following the incident, Ginsberg said police arrested the two vandals, one a juvenile and the other not much older than 18.
Ginsberg made the comments at a press roundtable this morning, though he reported the incident to KTVU yesterday. The damage comes to about $100,000, which Dolores Park Project Manager Jacob Gilchrist said will either be covered by the contractor’s insurance company or by the contractor itself.
“These contracts have very complex schedules of when to sequence the work, and something like this just throws a major wrench into all of that construction,” Gilchrist said.
Before the costly joyride, the park department had planned to re-open the north side of the park by mid April. The substantial damage, however, delayed the project by several weeks, since the sod will need to be reinstalled and will need time to grow roots. Gilchrist explained the park’s completed renovation, originally slated for June 2015, is now expected sometime in “the late fall.”
“We’re building a twenty million dollar park for you, just enjoy it!” Ginsberg said.
The director spoke with Uproxx about his upcoming film Chappie (which happens to star Sigourney Weaver) and brought up the idea again.
“Basically, what happened was, when Chappie got heavily into post-production, I could take my foot off the gas a bit. I was thinking about what I wanted to do next and I’ve been wanting to make an Alien film for like years and years,” Blomkamp told them. “It’s totally abnormal. But it’s for the reason that you bring up, if it’s going to happen, it has to be on my terms. So, I came up with it and I’m bringing this to you. It’s not like, ‘Would you like to do Spider-Man 36?’ I still love it, I love the idea of the movie and I produced way more art than I put out.”
He also talked about Weaver’s part in it all:
Speaking to Sigourney Weaver, when we were doing Chappie, she set off a bunch of thoughts in my head — I had come up with an idea that didn’t have Sigourney, it was a different idea. But I spent all of the shooting time with her, it was like, holy shit, that could actually be really interesting. When I came back to Vancouver, I had an entire year to work on Chappie. And when I wasn’t needed in the edit, I could think about Alien. So, I basically developed an entire movie and I did all of this artwork as well.
So why isn’t this actually happening? Well Blomkamp mentions a few factors, including his issues with Hollywood which he refers to as “a difficult animal to negotiate.” He also said he has a whole idea but, “I’m the problem. Fox, they would make it. Like, tomorrow. They would make it.”
Blomkamp wouldn’t go into specifics of the plot he had in mind, how Ripley would be involved, or the reasoning behind his concept art with Ripley wearing a space jockey helmet but it seems this could turn into a real thing. What do you think?
I’m getting so defensive about Jupiter Ascending it’s starting to irritate me (both the defensiveness and the stuff making me defensive). Every time someone calls it garbage, I want to scream. From critics? Okay, fine, whatever. Critics have guidelines for what they consider quality and genre stuff rarely hits that, even when it’s amazing. But the rest of us, even the people who like the movie and want more people to see it. Why do we keep doing that? Why do we keep minimizing the things we enjoy? The things that are made for us to enjoy? What does it take to get us to genuinely enjoy something without undermining our enjoyment of that thing or being vocal about it?
Is Jupiter Ascending a perfect movie? Lord no. I freely admit that. But, does it need to be? Like, honestly. What’s the line it has to cross for us to call it a good movie we like instead of a garbage movie we like? It looks amazing. It zips along. It’s funny, it’s imaginative, it has an internal logic that the plot relies on and doesn’t contradict. It is its own wholly contained world, with its own byzantine bureaucracy even! It’s more accessible than Brazil, and it looks better and is a better time than Blade Runner.
Plus, like, is there a way to write Jupiter Jones that won’t make someone complain that she’s too passive or too active or too pretty or too special or too Mary Sue-ish or not Mary Sue-ish enough? The Fifth Element had a character/plot device that was an actual literal perfect divine being, but nobody jumps all over you because of that if you call it a good movie. Instead, it’s praised as innovative scifi/fantasy. Could it be deeper, more meaningful? Sure, but, uh, I don’t think that’s the kind of movie it wants to be. It’s zingy colorful fantasy with Evil Capitalist trappings, not a treatise on the meaning of life and time and longevity and the value of human life in a hyper-industrial economy.
Is there some magical combination of names that would make everyone happy about what Jupiter Ascending's main character is named? Nobody had a problem with INDIANA JONES back in the day, almost a decade before we got a backstory for why. At least here we get the explanation up front and it is thematically and emotionally consistent with the movie and the character. Is that why people and critics are calling it ridiculous, because we know? Or is there maybe something else, something about how this is a movie that doesn't appear to be designed for the straight male audience or constructed with a male gaze?
And is there a way to create a wholly original fantasy premise without people making fun of the weirdness that makes it up? Isn’t that THE POINT? I mean, Star Wars is just as fantastic a universe, and before the EU and the prequels and the animated series and comic books and blah blah blah, it was just as completely out of nowhere. Psychic samurai? Intergalactic crime lord slugs? Giant ululating Bigfoot with a bandolier? Okay, sure, we can roll with that, but weirdo space gene splicing is too much? Sean “Sad Dad/Werebee” Bean living in a giant house/hive is a bridge too far? The ancient Greeks and Romans were down with impossible human/animal/god/inanimate object hybrids in their fiction AND their history. You can MAJOR IN STUDYING THAT. But you put it in a movie—a FICTIONAL FANTASY MOVIE—and it’s trash? What?
One specific detail I’ve seen people bitching about is how unrealistic Channing Tatum’s hot-ass boots are. WHAT ARE YOU ON. Anti-grav speed skating is where we’re going to draw a line? Somebody starts zooming around mid-air LIKE SUPERMAN but with TECHNOLOGY INSTEAD OF ALIEN MAGIC GENES (whoa whoa don’t be talking crazy now! you know we’re not down with that magical gene shit, KAL-EL.) and it’s all, no, hold on there buddy, don’t get crazy here with your pseudoscience, we’re only gonna argue for thirty years that it’s totally possible to measure time in PARSECS? That’s as far as our capacity for suspending disbelief goes? Everybody practically personally fellated McConaughey over Interstellar just a few months ago, and it’s got a guy who sends messages to his daughter from inside a black hole by twanging on magical dimensional strings inside infinite timespacebookshelves? WHAT?
I keep reading these “critical slams” and I just. I don’t know. It all reads like “I didn’t like it and therefore it is garbage.” What are the objective, concrete criticisms of the movie’s lack of quality? Most of it seems to be that Channing Tatum is … shirtless for a good chunk? OH NO. Hokey dialogue? Shit, man, let’s go look at that paragon of high-brow discourse, Die Hard, shall we?There’s … ladies? Hand-wavey mumbo-jumbo? THE WIZARD OF OZ is ALL hand-wavey magical mumbo-jumbo, y’all. It has witches who melt when you throw water on them and disintegrate when a flying house lands on them. IT TURNS OUT THE WHOLE THING WAS A DREAM SEQUENCE (MAYBE). And like Jupiter Ascending, it has a girl who defeats evil and discovers how much she loves her real life and family, even when it’s shitty. What a piece of garbage!
And back to Jupiter Jones, oh my god, you guys, if I never hear someone bitching about how “twelve year old girl’s first OFC” she is again, I will die ECSTATIC. (Side note: fuck anybody who derides the creativity of twelve year old girls exploring how and where they fit into a media and fan landscape that wants NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM.) Jupiter Jones is our new Luke Skywalker, who, you will remember, discovers that he’s a magical space princess. He doesn’t get the pretty dresses or the hot flying spacewolf bounty hunter love interest (I’m so sorry, Luke, that is a shitty deal), but he is literally the definition of a magical space princess and you can fuck right off with that particular noise.
"Jupiter Jones is our new Luke Skywalker, who, you will remember, discovers that he’s a magical space princess. He doesn’t get the pretty dresses or the hot flying spacewolf
bounty hunter love interest (I’m so sorry, Luke, that is a shitty
deal), but he is literally the definition of a magical space princess
and you can fuck right off with that particular noise.”
The new trailer for Pitch Perfect 2 just dropped, and it features a lot of footage that we didn’t see back in November. What do you think, y’all? Still aca-awesome?
I will almost always watch Boston Dynamics robot videos.... I like how they get to what they know we want early on in the video- kicking the robots.
Come on. We’ve all played at least one sci-fi shooting game. Boston Dynamics had to create a smaller, more cannon-foddery version of Big Dog to go along with the full size, standard enemy units they’d already built, right? I mean, they’ve already got the tiny-sized swarm unit. Might as well complete the set.
At only 160 pounds, Spot may not be hurling cinder blocks like its larger relative, but its increased agility allows it to move more quickly over uneven terrain. It can also take a good kicking and keep on ticking, which its creators seem to enjoy demonstrating as the emotionless robot’s body language conveys a clear sense of panic likely designed to trick us into thinking it can feel. Observe:
It also runs at a pretty decent—if not quite cheetah-bot—pace and gives out scares alone or in pairs!
Spot won’t be doing the same heavy lifting as BigDog, but its descendants will be better suited to scouting and search-and-rescue missions than their bulkier counterparts. Plus they’ll really fill in the mid-size opponent variety when it comes time for the uprising.
Here’s the thing about JUPITER ASCENDING, literally the greatest movie ever made. Is it “good,” or is it, more probably, garbage? I really don’t have the capacity to say. I’m not Saint Roger Ebert, olav hasholem, over here. I took one film class and it was about whether real stuff is, like, real, or is there even such a thing as, like, really real, man, you know?? (There isn’t. I got an A.) I’m not here to tell you if it is good. I am only a woman with eyes and ears and joy centers in my brain. Here is what I will tell you. Look at my icon. As daeontherun so rightly pointed out, my icon was both of our faces for the ENTIRE DURATION of this movie.
Do you need to know any more than that? Do you need to know any more than that you will be flooded with pure, innocent delight for two hours? Here is my feeling about this movie: it is your garbage. It is garbage for you. “Is this how straight dudes feel at the movies all the time????” I hissed at daeontherun SEVERAL times during this movie. “Like someone carefully noted down your early pubescent fantasies and then threw 100 MILLION DOLLARS at them?”
I would describe this feeling as, like, a combination of arousal, joy, and fond knowing chagrin. “Oh you,” you find yourself thinking at Jupiter Ascending as shirtless Channing Tatum gruffly but torturedly checks his weaponry, while Sean Bean voiceover rumbles in his beautiful Northern growl about how tortured and loyal shirtless Channing Tatum is and how he needs his PACK. Ten seconds before this, Channing Tatum and Sean Bean were sexily punching each other while yelling about their emotions. “You know what I like, you crazy beautiful bastard,” you say to Jupiter Ascending, shaking your head fondly. Mila Kunis wakes up in a beautiful dress, blinking slowly with her long gorgeous lashes. “Feel my skin,” naked Tuppence Middleton purrs at her [REDACTED 4 SPOILERS]’s clone, Mila Kunis, gently caressing her bare arm. Gugu Mbatha-Raw stands over Channing Tatum and sexily taunts him. There is a 20 minute Henson-evoking sequence about [REDACTED 4 SPOILERS BUT TRUST ME THAT IT’S AMAZING]. Eddie Redmayne flutters an elegant hand around while hoarsely gasping out sociopathic, vaguely incestuous promises in a fucking SEQUIN TITS OUT DRESSING GOWN with ARM WINGS in his EVIL SPACE CATHEDRAL THRONE ROOM!!!! “DO U LIKE DIS?” Jupiter Ascending asks, glancing shyly at you. “I MAKED IT.” “Of course I like it,” you say, overcome by joy and wonder, kissing Jupiter Ascending on the forehead. “I’ve never liked anything this much, and I love you more than anyone in the whole world.” I don’t want to be controversial, but if I had to choose between Jupiter Ascending and Citizen Kane I would immediately travel back in time, murder Orson Welles, and walk away whistling. I would cheerfully burn the entire Criterion Collection to the ground for this movie. Go see Jupiter Ascending. You’re welcome.
um
“Is this how straight dudes feel at the movies all the time????” I hissed atdaeontherun SEVERAL times during this movie. “Like someone carefully noted down your early pubescent fantasies and then threw 100 MILLION DOLLARS at them?”
I want to watch it based on this alone, ysplease
Yuuuuuup. My coworkers are pretty open-minded for VFX dudes (read: open-minded *at all,* you should see some of the dudes other offices get) and even one or two of them seemed uncomfortable with the entire concept. (On the other hand, 2/3rds of my officemates— all of whom at least *appear* to be cis het guys, although I can only confirm that about the one I’m married to— were completely in the tank for it and super excited to go.)
And, since it made only 19 mil (domestic, 32 mil foreign) at opening weekend, we will not get to see movies like this for a while. So let’s all go see it!
Linda Hamilton trained with former Israeli commando Uzi Gal and with personal trainer Anthony Cortes for three hours a day, six days a week for 13 weeks before filming Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Under both, she trained intensely with weights and learned judo and heavy military training techniques. She had to maintain a demanding non-fat diet even during filming and lost 12 pounds. Because of this punishing regimen, she declined to reprise her role for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. She also learned to pick locks for the scene in the mental hospital where she does precisely that with a paperclip (x).
One of the things that bugs me about so many of our female action heroes on both movies and comics being highly sexualized in appearance is the memory of when Terminator 2 came out. I, along with most of my friends, thought Linda Hamilton was damn hot when that movie came out - and there’s nothing overly-sexualized about her at all. She’s 100% badass.
So the next time someone is thinking they have to put their female lead be in a skimpy, sexualized outfit to make sure males will care about a female hero, remember the lesson of Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. Just make your lead charismatic and capable and the rest takes care of itself.
Oh man, Andy should apply again and reclaim his glory. He still has bits of his old robot laying around, as I recall....
Yes, good. Let them destroy each other instead of coming for their human overlords.
Seriously, though, do you guys remember BattleBots? So much robot-destroying action! It’s been off the air for twelve years, but now ABC has revived the series as a six-episode summer reality show. The creators of the original series, Ed Roski and Greg Munson, will be behind the revival, so that bodes well.
The new BattleBots will be pretty much like the old BattleBots - homemade robots trying to tear each other to shreds, tournament-style, until only one robo-victor remains. That robot becomes a General in the eventual Robopocalypse (I think).
But the new series will place extra focus on the design and build of the robots, and on the builders’ backstories. New developments in camera technology means we’re also going to get sweet on-board robocamera shots. Plus, the new show will air on ABC instead of Comedy Central, meaning it won’t try so hard to be funny. Which is a very good thing.
"The idea is, we want to spot errors in proportion in the first few minutes of a sketch." I really really really really really need to get better at this... also, I've never seen/tried angle checking before. Hmm.
This is the second in a post series of ‘excerpts’ from my book The Urban Sketcher. This time I’m going right back to the very first lesson in the book; Sight Measuring.
I shouldn’t really call these excerpts. This is more like the director’s cut. Here’s the full length text, before edits for word count limits and layout. Mainly, because this is the text I have easily available in electronic form, but also, so you get the full explanation, and larger pictures.
You are probably familiar with the image of the artist with their arm extended, holding a brush upright, their thumb up like a hitchhiker. Usually they are shown with their eyes squinted and tongue sticking out. This is not just a funny cartoon image of an artist – it’s a real measuring technique!
In this shot I am checking things like the angle of the sloped street, and the height of the windows.
The idea is, we want to spot errors in proportion in the first few minutes of a sketch. I use two simple techniques called Sight Measuring and Angle Checking. These are a simplified version of what academic ateliers might call Sight-Size Drawing.
There’s nothing worse than drawing in a lot of interesting details, only to realize you’ve drawn an important part out of scale. Or worse yet, you haven’t judged the height right, and you’re about to go off the edge of the page. That has happened to me many many (many) times. It’s quite frustrating to say the least :)
This sake set, found at a Chinatown knickknack shop, is a great introductory subject for sketching ‘outside in’.
To recap, the plan of attack is: get the outside silhouette shape first, spot check your accuracy, and then proceed to subdivide into smaller and smaller details until the whole thing is drawn.
The very first step is to decide roughly how large you want the drawing on the page.
Mark a small dash at the top and the bottom of your subject and lightly sketch a ‘scribble’ of the outside shape. No internal detail, just the silhouette, as if it was cut out of a piece of paper. (Pencil sketch is darkened for clarity).
This simple outline is all you need to ensure accumulating proportional errors don’t expand off the edge of the page. You have a ‘box’ to work within. All future details will fit inside this box. Or that is, they will, once we make sure the silhouette is accurate.
The best thing is, that scribble only took a few seconds. We don’t mind correcting a scribble. There is nothing to lose. If I’d gone right into the pattern or shading on the object, I’d start to get that feeling of, ‘oh, I like what I’ve done! I can’t erase that – it will be ok, I’ll just keep going’. Until, suddenly it’s not ok – it’s way off :)
Here’s how sight measuring works.
As you look at the subject, extend your arm straight (elbow locked), and line up the tip of your pencil with the top of the subject. Slide your thumb down until it’s lined up with the base. That position you’ve marked on your brush or pencil – that is a unit measure you can use to check against other objects.
(Line A)
Keep your thumb in position on the pencil to preserve the measurement you have marked. Keep your elbow locked to maintain the same distance from the subject.
Now, look for something you can compare your measurement against.
It so happens that the height of the jar is equal to the width across the three cups.
(Line A = Line B)
So, if we compare the height and width on our drawing– oops! The drawing is not correct.
See how we have caught that error with this simple measuring trick?
It’s really not a big deal, this is a pretty small error. In a simple subject like this it wouldn’t really matter that much, it’s not like people won’t know it’s a sake set :) But since it’s so easy to spot the issue and fix it, I might as well refine my sketch. I’ll make that fix to the silhouette so that the jar height (A) matches the cup width (B).
Blue lines are the original scribble, grey pencil the revised drawing.
The other big thing in this step is to sketch in the dividing line between the dark ceramic base and the upper patterned area. And, I fix a proportion error on the width of the neck.
This is what I mean by working larger-to-smaller. Once you have the outside shape, what is the next biggest thing you can draw? The ‘waist’ of the bottle is the next-to-largest shape. Dividing the jar in half. If you keep dividing each shape by half, eventually you are drawing very small details.
The other kind of sight measurement is what I call an Angle Check. Measuring the slope between two points.
When drawing outdoors, this is ideal for finding roof lines or checking perspective on narrowing city streets.
Place the base of the pencil on the first point, (the edge of the cup) holding the pencil perfectly vertically, rotate the tip until it lines up with your second point (the lip of the jar). In this case, rotating counter clockwise.
Now – lock your wrist. Don’t lose the angle of the pencil. Place it over your drawing, and see how well the angle lines up with what you’ve drawn. Not too bad hey? It’s looking reasonably close after widening those cups.
At this point, my planning is done. I can sit back and have fun with the pattern. That fish scale design is what attracted me to the thing in the first place. But by starting outside-in, I can see for certain I have a shape I like before I get into those details.
I want to be able to freely scribble in that pattern, without a care in the world. It’s a picky thing, sketching those repeating shapes – and I don’t want to stiffen up while doing it.
I wouldn’t feel as ‘ free’ if I wasn’t sure about the underlying structure. If I had to start and stop the pattern a few times, erasing and correcting the shape, it wouldn’t turn out as ‘loose and sketchy’ as I want.
Oddly, it’s the measuring that allows the sketch to look spontaneous. I’ve heard artists use a saying; ‘loose is how a drawing looks, not how it’s made’.
This particular example is fairly faithful to reality, because the subject is an easy one. As we move on through the book, you’ll see I only use as much precision as I need to get the sketch on paper. Those measurements only took seconds to do. In no way do I want this to become hard labor.
My feeling is, you should do whatever measuring you need to do so that you are satisfied with your drawing. You decide how accurate you want it to be.
I enjoy it when everyone can recognize my subjects, but I don’t want to be doing so much measuring that the drawing feels mechanical. Accuracy is a skill I want to have, it helps me do more challenging things. But I don’t ever want it to slow me down.
The results of a gene sequencing project on NYC’s subways have just been published, and half of the DNA found down there doesn’t even have a known match.
But what is all that unknown DNA? Aliens? Mole people? Ninja Turtles? Sadly, the unknown DNA probably has more to do with incomplete gene sequencing databases than anything else. Still, some of the matches that did turn up in Cell Systems’ results were pretty weird, too, due to the same incomplete DNA information. According to the Wall Street Journal:
Initial database searches with subway DNA, for instance, turned up false matches to the Tasmanian devil, the Himalayan yak and the Mediterranean fruit fly—all creatures highly unlikely to be found in a New York transit system.
Really, these results are just the beginning. The subway system didn’t even have nearly as diverse a collection of DNA—mostly microorganisms, humans, beetles, and plant life—as the dirt in central park, which contains about ten times more individual microorganisms. As gene sequencing advances and scientists are able to build better computer databases, we’ll more fully understand the world of microorganisms and the world around us in general.
But for now, knowing which subway stops to avoid if we don’t want diarrhea is a pretty decent use of science, too.
For the sake of clarity, there are three things I want to say up front --
1) If you don't believe that small, locally-owned businesses are an important part of the fabric of a community and that they are worth preserving, you and I will not agree about much of what follows. That's fine with me and, though I disagree with you, I think that your opinion is perfectly valid. But, there may not be much point in you continuing to read this.
So, I believe that small, local businesses are valuable and worthy of support.
2) I don't know if the changes to San Francisco's minimum wage are objectively good or bad. I know that those changes mean I'm going to close my store and, personally, that is a bad thing. But I don't believe just because something is bad for me, that is it objectively "bad". The question of whether a minimum wage is "good" or "bad" (and what amount it should be) seems to me a hugely complex issue. And I'm not an economist or any other sort of expert on the subject; I just sell books. I've read arguments on both sides of the issue and, on the face of them, they all seem to have some valid points. I just don't know. I do believe, however, if tens of thousands of people are going to benefit from the increase, their well being is much more important than the continued existence of my bookstore.
So, I don't know if the higher minimum wage in San Francisco is, objectively, good or bad.
3) My complaint is, despite knowing that this change would be hard for small retail stores, especially bookstores, the city government did nothing in drafting the law to alleviate the negative effects on those businesses, despite giving lip-service to the idea that they are important. When the law passed, Mayor Ed Lee said, "We can give a well-deserved raise to our lowest-wage workers, and we can do it in a way that protects jobs and small business." Scott Wiener, the city supervisor for the district where Borderlands is located, said last Monday night on the news, "I know that bookstores are in a tough position, and this did come up during the discussions on minimum wage". But there are no elements in the wage ordinance or any other ordinance, that offer any new protections or assistance for small businesses. All businesses are treated the same, regardless of size or ownership, despite the acknowledgement that at least some of us are in "a tough position".
So, I see no sign the people responsible for drafting the law took steps to "protect" small businesses.
And so, without a way I can see to make Borderlands financially viable over the long term, we're going to close the store. And it sucks. I've already talked about all the things I considered doing to avoid closing, along with the reasons that they won't work. I've also explained what it would take to stay open (by the way, no phone calls yet from Elon Musk or those other guys). But I haven't really said much about how I feel about all of this and what I, personally, think.
It blows, it sucks, and I hate it. It has made me miserable for months, and it's still scaring the crap out of me. I've been a bookseller for more than a third of my life and I loved it. It was the best, most fun, happiest-making thing I've ever done. Because of it, I've not only made a ton of wonderful friends but I also met the person that I suspect I'm going to spend the rest of my life with.
And now it's about to be over.
On a basic level, a small business like mine isn't much different from an individual's personal finances. A certain amount of money comes in (sales or a paycheck), some money needs to be spent so that the money will keep coming in (the wholesale cost of merchandise or the price of work clothes, commuting, tools and so forth), and then money has to be spent to keep the whole thing functioning (rent and payroll or . . . rent and food). Most businesses have two expenses that are bigger by far than anything else -- rent and payroll (our payroll is 43% of our expenses). Most people have one expense that is bigger than anything else -- housing (in San Francisco right now, that averages at 50% of income).
Let me ask this: how would things work out for you if your housing cost was going to go up by 39% in the next three years?
The situation isn't much different for me. And, much like many of you, I can't go to my boss (i.e. customers) and say, "Hey, I've got this expense that's going to go up a bunch in the next three years. Can I have a 13% raise every year for the next three?" For most employees, your boss is going to say, "Nice working with you, hope things go well at your next job."
Borderlands is part of a sub-set of San Francisco retail businesses that are going to get screwed by the increase in minimum wage. As I've said before, the price of a new book is set by the publisher and I don't believe that it is realistic to charge more for it. On top of that, because of discounts on ecommerce sites, people are hesitant to pay that nominal retail price. So bookstores that focus on new books are in a very, very difficult position. I think we're the first bookstore to close because of this. I'm damn sure we're not the last. On the other hand, I can think of several stores that should be OK because of elements of their business structure. Basically, many used bookstores, along with any shop that owns its premises, should be alright.
But, beyond bookstores, there's a larger class of stores that are going to have some trouble in the next few years. Any small-to-medium-sized retailer is likely to have some problems and the ones that are under pressure from online and national retailers are really going to feel the heat. For example take indy hardware stores like Discount Builders Supply or Cole Hardware. They're getting squeezed on one side by places like Home Depot and Lowes, who undercut them on price (and, often, quality -- but that's another story) and on the other side by Amazon.com. If you want cheap lumber, you go to Home Depot and if you want a cheap power or hand tool, you go to Amazon.
The higher minimum wage in San Francisco doesn't matter at all to Amazon.com or most other internet retailers. It has no effect on them since none of their minimum wage workers are in SF. And, for a national chain like Lowes, Target, or Best Buy, the higher wages they pay in San Francisco are insignificant when factored into the total wages they pay nationwide.
But the local stores like Discount Builders Supply or Cole Hardware carry the entire expense of higher wages without other locations to offset it. Since retail workers are usually near the bottom of the wage scale, expenses are going to increase for local retailers, even if they don't pay minimum wage to start. In other words, as the minimum wage increases, it will pass the current starting wage at many companies. And, once it passes the starting wage and continues upwards, it may well exceed the current wage of lower level supervisory staff, which will require increases in their pay as well. After all, one doesn't have much motivation to perform the more demanding duties of a supervisor if the pay is the same as starting wage. Consequently a 39% increase in the minimum wage will increase payroll and therefore total expenses, even for companies that pay more than minimum wage right now.
I really hope that most of the small local stores in San Francisco will be able to adjust to these changes, but I'm not sure that they will be able to.
But why do I hope that? What difference does it make?
I live here because it has character. It's not Mall-Land-USA. And that is really important to me. Based on conversations with the other people I know who live here, it's important to them too. But, if we make it harder and harder for our local businesses to operate here, we're going to lose them and the character that they bring. In the end, more and more of the companies who can afford to pay our high rents, high payroll, and high taxes are going to be the companies that are in every goddam strip mall in the US. And I think that will really and truly suck.
So, does that mean I'm against a higher, local minimum wage? Not exactly. I'm not sure what I think about it. But I am pretty sure about some of the effects of it:
Prices are going to go up at businesses that have some flexibility (bars, restaurants, cafes, and so on -- probably even at used book and record shops, the few that are left). I think that's a good thing. People with more money tend to eat out more often and generally spend more, so the higher prices, which support a higher minimum wage, actually shift money from people with more of it to people with less of it. I don't have a problem with people making a lot of money (good for them, in fact) but I do believe that income inequality is a big problem, especially in San Francisco.
Hotel prices are going to go up too, for much the same reasons. There might be a downside there because that could decrease tourism. Fewer tourists mean less business for places and people who depend on them. But, on the other hand, it's not like there's going to be any shortage of people who are coming here for business and, expensive as it is, plenty of tourists go to New York City every year. Let's call that effect a wash - part good and part bad.
As I mentioned, local retail businesses are going to suffer. If they close as a result, that costs jobs and decreases the diversity of the city. Also, local businesses tend to put more money into the local economy than non-local ones. So, I'm going to call that a bad thing.
The whole picture is very complicated and trying to figure out all the winners and all the losers is probably impossible. Which is why I'm not sure what I think about the law, overall. All of us are going to have to wait and see how things are in a few years before any objective judgement could be made.
But, what pisses me off is that I believe that the law could have been drafted in a way that minimized a bunch of the negative effects for small businesses without diluting the positive ones very much, if at all.
San Francisco already recognizes, legally, that there are differences in the financial demands that a small business can bear versus a large business. Both the gross receipts tax and the payroll tax it is replacing include exemptions for smaller businesses. Likewise, the law requiring employers to provide health insurance only applies to businesses with more than 12 employees. Further, the planning code treats businesses with a large number of locations differently from businesses with only a few, by way of the formula retail restrictions in the planning code.
But when City Hall was working to create a compromise minimum wage ordinance, the ultimate result was no consideration for small businesses. Even the original proposal only gave smaller businesses one extra year to bring their wages up. The final law actually gave larger businesses just as much time as was originally proposed for smaller businesses. CORRECTION - Based on information at http://ballotpedia.org, the original proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2017 for businesses with less than 100 employees and by 2016 for larger businesses. The final law set the final increase for 2018 for all businesses. So, more time for everyone but still no consideration for smaller businesses.
I think that lack of consideration was a mistake and the small retail businesses in this city, along with all the people who benefit from them, are going to pay the price for it.
Would I suggest that small businesses should have been exempt from the minimum wage ordinance? If they had been, this might play out differently. Let's say that the new minimum wages applied only to businesses that either have more than 11 locations worldwide (that's the threshold for "formula retail" per the SF planning code) or have more than $1,000,000 per year in gross receipts (that's the threshold below which a company is exempt from paying business taxes in SF). Realistically, just setting the threshold at $1,000,000 in receipts would be enough, since I doubt that there are any businesses that have 11 locations that don't make that much money.
Borderlands along with a host of other businesses would be exempt from paying higher wages and wouldn't be facing the upcoming battle to raise income to make up for it. But we wouldn't be unaffected by it. In three years, if I wanted to hire someone or even keep my current staff, I'd have to either be offering wages that were competitive (i.e. close to $15 per hour) or I would have to be offering something else that was attractive enough to make up for a much lower wage (i.e. good benefits, super-flexible hours, perks like free books, and so on). If I couldn't do either of those things, I'd go out of business or have to downscale so that I didn't need to have any employees. If the law had been written that way, it would have given me, and a lot of the other business owners out there, the opportunity to try to work out the problem in a flexible, imaginative way. That wage structure would also offer an advantage to small businesses during their most delicate time -- when they're just getting started.
Of course, I suspect that the standards that I suggested above are probably not the right ones, or are not at the right levels, but hope they were useful for the purpose of example. But the basic idea -- that we could have had two (or more) levels of minimum wage based on a businesses' size -- could have made the next three years an interesting renaissance for small businesses in the city. Instead I think that they're going to be difficult years indeed.
The bottom line is that the new law places a greater burden on small businesses without any accompanying action to ease the strain. In essence, business owners like myself are being asked to spend a lot more money to operate and there is nothing coming our way that even begins to make up for that added expense. I think is some validity in the argument that, if income goes up, than spending increases, which means more sales for businesses. But I don't think that increase in income creates enough spending to offset the added expenses for businesses.
Is the only thing that would have helped an exemption from the minimum wage? Not at all. It could have been a break on our business licenses or business property tax (San Francisco is one of the few cites that levies that tax, by the way -- it means that each year I pay taxes on every bookshelf, fixture, computer and other piece of equipment in my store). It could have been incentives to landlords to offer us lower rents or a system of low-rent, city-owned buildings to act as business "incubators" or city-backed, low-interest loans so business owners could buy our buildings. If there had been the will and interest, I'm sure there are many things that could have been done to support small businesses and increase wages. But nothing has been done at all.
I don't actually find the lack of concern that surprising. Places like Borderlands Books, Flax Art & Design, Cliff's Hardware, Amoeba Records and Lost Weekend Video aren't Uber, Twitter, or AirBnB. When it gets down to it, I don't think that anyone with real power in this city gives a damn about small businesses anymore. I hate to be so cynical, but there it is.
However, I do think that there are many, many people still in SF who do care about small businesses, local artists, musicians, and all the other little, insignificant people and endeavors that used to be a cardinal part of our heart and soul.
But then I wonder -- if that's true, why is the incumbent mayor running without any real challenger?
There's no way in hell I'd want Ed Lee's job, and I loathe politics. But I'm about to have an awful lot of spare time. If someone were running for mayor who I believed cared about the people who've lived here for 10, 20, 30 years and the businesses they run -- I might suddenly feel a burning urge to volunteer for their campaign. On the other hand, for the early part of my life, I never believed that the powers-that-be could ever be anything other than a problem for me. But then I opened Borderlands and my viewpoint shifted. Given how the last 18 years are ending, I'm thinking that is a choice that I should revisit.
This post was updated on 2/6/15 at 8:34 pm to correct errors about the details of the original minimum wage proposal.
In 18 years of business, Borderlands has faced a number of challenges. The first and clearest was in 2000, when our landlord increased our rent by 100% and we had to move to our current location on Valencia Street. All of the subsequent ones have been less clear-cut but more difficult. The steady movement towards online shopping, mostly with Amazon, has taken a steady toll on bookstores throughout the world and Borderlands was no exception. After that and related to it, has been the shift towards ebooks and electronic reading devices. And finally the Great Recession of 2009 hit us very hard, especially since we had just opened a new aspect to the business in the form of our cafe.
But, through all those challenges, we've managed to find a way forward and 2014 was the best year we've ever had. The credit for that achievement goes to the fine and extraordinary group of people who have come together to work here. Their hard work, combined with the flawless execution and attention to detail provided by Jude Feldman, Borderlands' General Manager, is the reason we've succeeded for these past 18 years.
Throughout the years we've managed to plan for the problems that we could predict and, when we couldn't plan for them, we've just worked our asses off to get through. Overall, Borderlands has managed to defeat every problem that has come our way. At the beginning of 2014, the future of the business looked, if not rosy, at least stable and very positive. We were not in debt, sales were meeting expenses and even allowing a small profit, and, perhaps most importantly, the staff and procedures at both the bookstore and the cafe were well established and working smoothly.
So it fills us with sorrow and horror to say that we will be closing very soon.
In November, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly passed a measure that will increase the minimum wage within the city to $15 per hour by 2018. Although all of us at Borderlands support the concept of a living wage in principal and we believe that it's possible that the new law will be good for San Francisco -- Borderlands Books as it exists is not a financially viable business if subject to that minimum wage. Consequently we will be closing our doors no later than March 31st. The cafe will continue to operate until at least the end of this year.
Many businesses can make adjustments to allow for increased wages. The cafe side of Borderlands, for example, should have no difficulty at all. Viability is simply a matter of increasing prices. And, since all the other cafes in the city will be under the same pressure, all the prices will float upwards. But books are a special case because the price is set by the publisher and printed on the book. Furthermore, for years part of the challenge for brick-and-mortar bookstores is that companies like Amazon.com have made it difficult to get people to pay retail prices. So it is inconceivable to adjust our prices upwards to cover increased wages.
The change in minimum wage will mean our payroll will increase roughly 39%. That increase will in turn bring up our total operating expenses by 18%. To make up for that expense, we would need to increase our sales by a minimum of 20%. We do not believe that is a realistic possibility for a bookstore in San Francisco at this time.
The other obvious alternative to increasing sales would be to decrease expenses. The only way to accomplish the amount of savings needed would be to reduce our staff to: the current management (Alan Beatts and Jude Feldman), and one other part-time employee. Alan would need to take over most of Jude's administrative responsibilities and Jude would work the counter five to six days per week. Taking all those steps would allow management to increase their work hours by 50-75% while continuing to make roughly the same modest amount that they make now (by way of example, Alan's salary was $28,000 last year). That's not an option for obvious reasons and for at least one less obvious one -- at the planned minimum wage in 2018, either of them would earn more than their current salary working only 40 hours per week at a much less demanding job that paid minimum wage.
Although the major effects of the increasing minimum wage won't be felt for a while, we've chosen to close now instead of waiting for two reasons. First, the minimum wage has already increased from $10.74 per hour to $11.05 (as of January 1st) and it will increase again on May 1st to $12.25. Continuing to pay the higher wage without any corresponding increase in income will expend the store's cash assets. In essence, the store will have less money (or inventory) six months from now, so closing sooner rather than later makes better business sense. But more importantly, keeping up our morale and continuing to serve our customers while knowing that we are going to close has been very painful for all of us over the past three months. Continuing to do so for even longer would be horrible. Far better to close at a time of our choosing, keep everyone's sorrow to a minimum, and then get on with our lives.
Some of you may be wondering, what can I do to help? Honestly, the best thing that you can do for us is -- come in and buy books! We've got an awful lot of damn good ones and we'd love to see every single one go to someone who appreciates it before we close. We're also going to be selling all our shelves and other fixtures. It would make us very happy to know that our hand-built shelves were going to sit in the living room of someone who was a customer of ours and who appreciates their history. And finally, if you're looking for a way to remember Borderlands (and you already have enough shelves and books -- crazy though that idea is) -- we're having hooded sweatshirts made with our logo and "1997 - 2015" on them. Once we're closed, there'll never be another place to get them again. We’ll have those in by the middle of February.
But, more importantly than coming in and buying stuff, please come in and say, "Hi". The best thing about this business has been our customers and we're going to miss you all (well, most of you at least <grin>). But please do be considerate of us; we all understand that finding that we're closing may be sad and upsetting but remember -- it's even harder for us. Borderlands was our livelihood, our pride & joy, and, for many of us, it was a big part of what defined us. Although we understand your feeling of loss, it is dwarfed by what we are feeling. So come in, give us your best wishes, and try to be cheerful. Everything changes and everything ends. We did a hell of a job for a long time and now it's time for us to do something else.
Some of you reading this probably have questions popping into your minds -- Is there a way to keep Borderlands open? What alternatives have you considered? What about moving out of SF? What is going to happen to the cafe? Is the business for sale? And so on. Before asking us your questions, please wait for a week. We'll be sending out and posting updates frequently over the next week or so and those updates will probably answer most of your questions. We will also be holding a public meeting in the cafe at seven P. M. on Thursday, February 12th. We'll be on hand to answer questions and moderate a discussion about alternatives to closing the store. Although we do not believe that any viable alternative exists, we also think that we have a very smart and imaginative group of customers. It is not impossible that we've missed a potential solution, and so we want an opportunity to hear your thoughts.
Thank you all for your support, business, and friendship over these last 18 years. This has been the best job that any of us has ever had and we're very grateful to you for giving us the chance to do it.
This post was updated on 2/1/15 at 1:16 pm to clarify that the cafe will continue operating after the bookstore is closed.
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