Margaret's August Nearly Monthly News!
AHHHHHH!
Anyone else need a good primal scream this month? Not sure about where you are, but chez Nearly Monthly News, August has been a month.
Starting with the positive, I sold a new short story to Apex Magazine! Hooray! "Observations of a Small Object in Gradually Decaying Orbit" sparked from a conversation at the Launchpad Astronomy Workshop last summer, and I couldn't be more excited that it's found a home. More details about when to look for it when I have them!
On a more frustrating (but less personal) side, Infinity Train (an amazing animated series I talked about in the February 2022 edition of the NMN) has been yanked with little warning from HBOMax, along with many others. This is apparently the result of cost-cutting fallout following the recent Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Adding insult to injury, the company also took down all Infinity Train content from their YouTube channel, pulled the soundtrack from music streaming platforms, and deleted all their Infinity Train related tweets. (Depending on the write-downs the company is trying to make, I am willing to believe there are legal reasons to take down free videos and the soundtrack, but the Tweets just feel petty.)
As someone with more than one obscure but beloved television show on her resume (including one smothered in its cradle for suspected financial reasons), I can imagine how heartbroken and frustrated the creators and staff of Infinity Train must be feeling. I guess I'm at least grateful that ABC Family never tried to erase all evidence of The Middleman's existence.
Animation is one of the stranger corners of the entertainment industry. The pay is usually not as high as live action, and neither is the perceived level of prestige, but that means unabashedly weird shows like Infinity Train and Summer Camp Island can sometimes still get made. The world and my industry are a little less strange without them in it, and that's a shame.
From My Desk
On the TV side, it's been busy (as evidenced by the lateness of this newsletter). NDAs prevent me from sharing much more than that, but man, in 2024, some yet-to-be-born toddlers are going to be very excited!
What I'm Watching
This summer I'm enjoying a cornucopia of new female-led TV shows. In Paper Girls (Amazon Prime, based on the graphic novels by writer Brian K. Vaugh and artist Cliff Chiang), four... paper girls... from 1988 find themselves caught up in a time war. The performances from the young cast are amazing, and it's nice to have a SFF show steeped in 80s/90s nostalgia that doesn't center the experiences of white adolescent boys.
That being said, I must admit my real nostalgia series of the summer is definitely A League of Their Own (Amazon Prime). It's striking how the show underlines how the social/racial issues of the 1940s setting remain contemporary, while at the same time makes choices that highlight how much media has changed since the film was released in 1992. (I was going to say since the film "came out," but... The series however, certainly does.)
Last but not least, She Hulk (Disney +), is a delight. Much as I love a good dose of heroic angst, is Jenn Walters really the first super-hero in the MCU since Tony Stark who had a perfectly nice life before she got her powers?
From the Cutting Room Floor of the Duolingo Dystopia
Falstaff's words upon giving a preset to his mother:
Caption: Falstaff the Bear from Duolingo says in Yiddish and English: "This is my beloved tomato!"
Falstaff is a good son. I'm sure his mother is very proud of him.
And That's the Nearly Monthly News!
If you happen to be my mother, that last bit about the tomato was hilarious. If you're not, well... I promise next month's newsletter will not include any in-jokes about my 4th grade Sunday school play. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a line about weird in-jokes you would like to see, or whatever else is on your mind. Otherwise, I'll see you in September!