Forrest J. Ackerman (1916-2008)

Forry Ackerman died late Thursday night.

I wrote about what this man and his magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, meant to me when I was growing up a couple of years ago, on the occasion of a Blog-a-Thon celebrating his 90th birthday, HERE.

There are already many tributes online already, and here are some of the better ones I've seen:

L.A. Times obituary.

Science Fiction Writers of American obituary.

Various salutes at Ain't It Cool News.

The farewell thread from the Monster Kid Classic Horror Forum.

I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today, and be who I am, without Forry and FM. He had a hard time the past two decades, and had been preparing to leave after a very long and full life for a couple of months now, and quite publicly, but it still hits hard tonight. I'll miss a world that had 4SJ in it.

And the Festival Theme Is . . .

Tonight, The Granduncle Quadrilogy opened with a fine show and a great, appreciative audience at The Brick.

It was followed by the announcement of the theme for our 2009 Summer Festival, coming June 5-28.

Michael Gardner created a Powerpoint presentation we projected on the screen, which has been going around the Brick staff this week, and here it is as a movie (which for some reason messes up the transitions a bit, but whatever), the 2009 Festival Theme . . .

I won't be doing anything for this Festival, but I will be presenting my own Gemini CollisionWorks festival once again soon after - this year from July 31-August 23.

Appropriately, as a corrective to the above Festival, my four weeks of (I hope - rights, energy, and money depending) four shows is tentatively known as The Bummer Festival, and comprises:

A Little Piece of the Sun, by Daniel McKleinfeld, a documentary play (nuclear disaster and serial killing!)

George Bataille's Bathrobe, by Richard Foreman (political prisoners and impending death!)

Blood on the Cat's Neck, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (symbolic and literal vampirism!)

and Spacemen from Space, by Ian W. Hill (space opera as metaphor for anti-intellectualism!)

Fun for the whole family!

UPDATED 12/9/08: Better version of the video embedded - shorter, with punchier timing.