(1) MYTHOPOEIC AWARDS. The winners of the 2026 Mythopoeic Awards were announced yesterday at Mythcon 54 in Oklahoma.

(2) SAMWISE GAMGEE FOR PRESIDENT… [Item by Mike Kennedy.] … Of SAG-AFTRA. “’My mother was 4ft 11in and scared the hell out of people’ – Sean Astin on child stardom, The Lord of the Rings and surviving 45 years in Hollywood” – a Guardian profile.

Sean Astin is showing me around his new office. There’s framed movie prints on the walls, piles of paperwork and a stack of boxes of Stranger Things Funko Pops. “If you were here, you could look out this window and see a 10-storey building with our iconic Sag-Aftra logo on it,” he says proudly on video call, gesturing out of the window to the Los Angeles skyline. “But you just have to trust me that it’s there.” He shows me a framed photo of his mother, Patty Duke, aged 16, with the best supporting actress Oscar she won in 1963 (for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker), and even more proudly, a framed copy of Duke’s business card from when she was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-80s – the role he now occupies (Sag merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in 2012). The 10 months of his presidency “has been a whirlwind”, he says.

It’s still slightly jarring to see Astin in a suit and tie, lanyard around his neck. We’re more accustomed to seeing him in the handwoven cloak and hairy feet of Samwise Gamgee, loyally accompanying mister Frodo into Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. Or as Winona Ryder’s short-lived partner in Stranger Things (before a Demodog got to him). Or as never-say-die college football underdog “Rudy” Ruettiger in the 1993 biopic. Or, for viewers of his own vintage, as plucky leader Mikey in The Goonies. Astin has been a member of the union he now represents for 45 of his 55 years, but he seems to have survived the perils of child stardom and a Hollywood upbringing remarkably unscathed. In fact, you could see it all as preparation for the role.

He certainly honed his negotiating skills early. “I learned at a very young age, how to speak different languages. I could speak the language of my mother, I could speak the language of father and my brothers and I had a peacemaker role in our five-boy family.”

But there’s also an overlap between Astin’s roles on screen and off. “The parts I get are the ‘working man’ parts,” he says. “Rudy comes from a steel mill, Samwise is a gardener, he’s hands in the soil. There’s just something physically about me. I don’t know whether it’s my height and weight or whatever my internal life became with my parents and my wife and children and everything, but I’m just appropriate for those parts.”…

(3) DISNEY AUCTION. “The Disney Experiences Auction – Rare and Remarkable Finds Signature® Auction” goes live August 16 but online bidding is open. “If you’ve ever wanted a mummy prop from Indiana Jones Adventure, or — gasp — an original glass slide from the Haunted Mansion’s changing Medusa portrait, now’s your chance.”

Disneyland® Resort – Haunted Mansion® Original Park-Used Medusa Glass Slide (The Walt Disney Company, c. 1970s). “Our tour begins here in this gallery, here where you see paintings of some of our guests as they appeared in their corruptible, mortal state.” Once used to grace the walls of the Haunted Mansion®’s portrait gallery, the Medusa makes a mid-transformation appearance with this incredible park-used glass slide from the projection of her changing portrait. This iconic and ominous dark ride has been thrilling parkgoers since its highly anticipated Disneyland® Park debut on August 9, 1969. One of the most famous areas in the pre-show walk-through, the portrait gallery features a collection of changing portraits, one of which is the Medusa. Noted in the top left as phase 4 of her transformation, this image has been printed on KODAK Ektachrome Color Reversal Film and mounted to a 4″ x 5″ glass slide for use with the attraction’s projector. With typical handling and edge wear from park use, display, and storage, including minor surface wear with a few shallow scratches, overall, this phenomenally frighting park-used Medusa slide is in Very Good condition. Accompanied by a Disney Certificate of Verification.

(4) LOST IN ADAPTATION. “’I would be ashamed to have written any part of this’: Odyssey translator Emily Wilson attacks Nolan blockbuster” – quoted in the Guardian.

Emily Wilson, the classicist whose 2017 translation of Homer’s Odyssey was cited by Christopher Nolan in early publicity for his hugely successful adaptation of the poem, has roundly criticised the film, saying “it has nothing convincing to say” and that it “lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth”.

In a scathing essay for the London Review of Books, Wilson writes: “I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But The Odyssey features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality … the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants.”

Wilson adds: “Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”…

(5) AHOY THERE. “Who Were the Sea Peoples?” – Zachary Thomas tells the answer at Bible History Daily.

In Nolan’s new adaptation of the Odyssey, Homer’s epic poem about Odysseus’s struggle to return to his kingdom in Ithaca after the Trojan War, the “People of the Sea” hang over the plot like a dark cloud—a rumor of coming destroyers and harbingers of a dark age mentioned by multiple characters along the way. But who are these “People of the Sea”? Well, they’re not just a plot device or a way of adding dramatic tension. The “Sea Peoples” were a very real phenomenon of the Mediterranean world in the tumultuous days at end of the Late Bronze Age.

In fact, if you’ve heard of the Sea Peoples, it’s probably because they are often considered one of the prime suspects for the collapse of the Late Bronze Age world, which saw the fall of kingdoms, the withering of empires, and the end to a once-thriving system of trade and diplomacy. The Sea Peoples are a topic that scholars have debated for decades. This debate is both fascinating and frustrating, for the more we have learned about the Sea Peoples and the more we have studied them, the slipperier and more complicated they have become.

Let’s clear up one thing first: No ancient text refers to this group by the name “Sea Peoples.” This is a scholarly term popularized by the 18th-century Egyptologist Gaston Maspero to refer to a collection of groups that threatened New Kingdom Egypt at the end of the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE). Some texts mention a (frankly rather vague) origin in the sea or on “islands.” Pharaoh Merneptah claims to have already defeated some of these “Sea Peoples” groups at the end of the 13th century BCE (in the same inscription—the Merneptah Stele—that contains the earliest agreed-upon mention of Israel outside the Bible). But their most famous appearance is certainly in an inscription left by Ramesses III, the last significant New Kingdom ruler, on the walls of his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in Egypt…

…The best-known group of “Sea Peoples” named and defeated by Ramesses III is certainly the Peleset, none other than the Philistines. These are the notorious (but many would now say misunderstood) Iron Age neighbors of the Israelites, mostly known from the Hebrew Bible, where they are portrayed as Israel’s longtime enemies. The linguistic match between the name Peleset and “Philistines” was, in fact, already noted by Jean-François Champollion, who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs. We know that the Philistines eventually took up residence on the southern coastal plain of the Levant, but they may have already begun settling there before the confrontation with Ramesses III….

(6) WHAT COMES AFTER THE COLON. Nancy Friedman analyzes: “Subtitles: What are they good for?”

…Do you really need a subtitle?

Yes — usually. On a brass-tacks level, they can aid with search (and sales). On a more conceptual level, subtitles function like taglines in corporate branding: They provide supplemental context that amplifies and illuminates the main idea. A well-crafted subtitle can add wit, charm, or necessary information.

When I asked veteran book critic and publishing-industry observer Jan Harayda her opinions on book subtitles, she offered this perspective:

“A subtitle should not repeat what’s in the title, or just say it in a different way. It should enrich or expand what you get from the title. A tennis-serve analogy might be that with your title, you throw the ball up in the air and with your subtitle you come down on it in a way that puts it over the net.

“My idea of a good subtitle appeared on a big international bestseller in 2025: A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck. Why the subtitle works: A Marriage at Sea is an excellent title for many reasons, but it’s metaphorical enough that without its subtitle, it could appear on a novel, a poem, or many other kinds of nonfiction and leave you confused about what you were getting. The subtitle really puts it over the net….”

…Searching for subtitles

In the two decades since Yagoda’s 2005 essay was published, the pressure has only mounted. “Blame a one-word culprit: search,” wrote Rachel Kramer Bussel in a 2019 Washington Post book-section essay, “Book Subtitles Are Getting Ridiculously Long. What Is Going On?”:

Todd Stocke, senior vice president and editorial director at Sourcebooks, said that subtitle length and content have a lot to do with finding readers through online searches. “It used to be that you could solve merchandising communication on the cover by adding a tagline, blurb or bulleted list,” he said. But now, publishers “pack the keywords and search terms into the subtitle field because in theory that’ll help the book surface more easily.”…

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Paul Weimer.]

July 27, 1968 — Farah Mendlesohn, 58.

By Paul Weimer: I would not say that Farah Mendlesohn is twice the science fiction reviewer and critic that I am. I would say that she is perhaps three or four times the science fiction reviewer and critic that I am. Mendlesohn has a strength and depth to her analysis and writing that I can’te approach even on the best of days. She remains and will probably always remain the lightspeed barrier of criticism that I will never ever reach, but I will still try.

Her best work, her deepest and perhaps her most essential work is her book on the work of Robert Heinlein, The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein. Although many on the far right hate it for not being hagiographic enough about Heinlein and his work, I have found her views instructive, interesting, and more than one occasion has caused me to reassess what I had just read myself. I got into a pattern over on the SFF Audio podcast where we were doing Heinleins regularly. 

Each time, I dipped into The Pleasant Profession to see what Farah had to say, and each time, I came away with a new perspective and new point of view, even with books such as Farnham’s Freehold. The Pleasant Profession is a mandatory read if you want to dig deeper into any Heinlein title that you are thinking of reading or re-reading. It amazes me that it had to be crowdfunded to come into existence, Mendlesohn has done plenty of other publications, of course, including The Cambridge Guide to Science Fiction, works on Diana Wynne Jones, A short history of fantasy and plenty more. 

I think of her work as my gateway (and perhaps yours, reader) into the academic side of science fiction, a country I will never enter, but perhaps can wave at from not far from the border.

(8) COMICS SECTION.

• Batch Rejection follows a twisty trail to the source.
• Dinosaur Comics has a Sherlock Holmes fantasy.
• Moderately Confused shouldn’t be bragging.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal shares tips on how to spread misinformation.
• xkcd speaks bumper sticker.

(9) MST3K TRAILER. Nerdist says the “Trailer for MST3K: RIFFTRAX EXPERIMENTS Is Pure Nostalgia”.

While it wasn’t the first iteration of the series saw, the three seasons of Mystery Science Theater 3000 comprising the Sci-Fi Channel era are my MST3KOpens In A New Tab. Mike Nelson and his robot pals were caught in an endless chase, pursued by a woman whose name is Pearl. Those were my middle school and early high school seasons and that’s where a lot of my sense of humor began. Nearly 30 years since then, we’re getting more of that crew in MST3K: The RiffTrax ExperimentsOpens In A New Tab. The trailer is below, and seeing Mike don the jumpsuit with Crow and Tom on either side really makes me happy.

The trailer debut signifies the first of those experiments is coming to theater screens near us via Fathom. We also get to hear just a smidgeon of Jonathon Coulton’s new versionOpens In A New Tab of the classic theme tune. The movie will be 1966’s Sting of Death, directed by schlock great William Grefé. And boy does it sound dumb….

(10) CUTBACKS HIT ASTRONOMY. “UK’s iconic Jodrell Bank telescope faces axe in science cuts” reports BBC. (Subscription required by readers outside the UK.)  

The Jodrell Bank Observatory, which has housed the UK’s largest telescope for nearly 70 years, has lost its funding and could now close, the BBC understands.

The observatory and its network of telescopes have been pivotal to the country’s study of distant galaxies and training future astronomers. Scientists have described the decision as “heartbreaking” and “scientifically misguided”.

All scientific observations at Jodrell are expected to cease on the 1 April 2028 unless alternative funding can be found.

The funding body, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) agency, said it had to focus investment on projects that deliver “the greatest long-term impact”.

The site was first established in 1945 and pioneered radio astronomy and the study of galaxies beyond our own.

It was also pivotal during the Cold War, when it was used to monitor Soviet missiles during the height of nuclear tensions between the USSR and Nato powers.

Its contribution to global scientific efforts earned it Unesco World Heritage status in 2019.

But the UKRI, which has an annual budget of just under £10bn, says it has had to cut the observatory’s annual £2.8m budget because planned research costs for physics and the running of its labs had escalated.

The announcement is part of a broader 2.7% cut to astronomy, nuclear and particle physics research over the next four years which will also impact on other projects.

The UK will no longer participate in research at the James Clark Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, which scientists are using to image supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies.

UKRI has also cut funding for the UK’s involvement in two instruments on the Extremely Large Telescope which is being built in Chile to search for signs of life on other Earth-like worlds.

And there will be a 20% cut in funding that supports UK participation in the Vera Rubin Telescope in Chile, which is creating the first movie of the Universe – the project was only launched last year….

(11) TRAILER PARK. ComicsBeat encourages fans – “SDCC ’26: Watch the trailer for Bill Sienkiewicz documentary THAT POLISH GUY That Polish Guy Documentary to Spotlight Comic Legend Bill Sienkiewicz”.

…“I’m incredibly excited about the documentary; it’s both humbling and nerve-wracking to see my life’s work splayed out on-screen accompanied by observations by so many of my creative heroes,” said Sienkiewicz. “But more, I’m excited because the documentary discusses the obsessive need to make art, as part of the unifying human experience, a drive that defies language, place or even medium of choice. That drive is something we all share and I’m proud, in the words of the great Cormac McCarthy, to carry that fire.”…

[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Paul Weimer, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]