* Massive, enormous, huge "thank you"s to the wonderful folks who did incredibly successful fund-raising benefits for us over the last month -- Annalee Newitz and Short Story Club <https://www.shortstory.club/>; Charlie Jane Anders, N.K. Jemisin, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Maggie Tokuda-Hall via We Love Bookstores <https://welovebookstores.org/>; and all of you who turned up virtually to show your support! We appreciate it more than we can express, and it has made an immense difference in allowing us to continue paying our staff during the shutdown and moving forward with the construction plans for our permanent home on Haight Street. We can't thank you all enough.
* We're also thrilled and grateful to artist Eli the Man <https://elitheman.com/> and Paint the Void for this amazing mural that now graces the temporary doors at 1377 Haight Street, our permanent-home-to-be: <https://twitter.com/borderlands_sf/status/1267174129683202048/photo/1>. Paint the Void is keeping artists engaged and paid during the shutdown; check out more of the stunning work they've been doing here: <https://paintthevoid.org/>
* In very sad news, Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore, the oldest independent science fiction and fantasy bookstore in the US, and Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore (which shared the building) were both completely destroyed by fire during riots at the end of May. Owner Don Blyly has claimed the Go Fund Me page originally set up by a fan: https://www.gofundme.com/f/let-us-help-save-uncle-hugo039s. In addition, Greg Ketter's DreamHaven Bookstore, also in Minneapolis, "was trashed," according to Greg, but is still standing, and volunteers are coming to assist in the cleanup. Dreamhaven is doing fine but the folks at Uncle Hugo's could really use your support.
* Tor and Tor.com Publishing, in partnership with Den of Geek, are launching TorCon, a virtual convention running from Thursday, June 11th through Sunday June 14th! Info, schedule, and register here: https://www.tor.com/2020/06/01/announcing-torcon-a-virtual-books-convention/
* Tor.com is also hosting an amazing recorded panel with an absolutely stellar lineup of authors: P. Djéli Clark, Alaya Dawn Johnson, N.K. Jemisin, Victor LaValle, and Tochi Onyebuchi! The panel is part of The Bronx is Reading Festival. RSVP here: https://www.thebronxisreading.com/rsvp
* A wearable, robotic third arm can assist with tasks when you need an extra hand: https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/robotic-third-arm-can-smash-through-walls
* A dictionary of Dolphinese? The clicking sounds dolphins use for echolocation actually form reproducible holographic pictures, that researchers suggest may be the basis of dolphin language.
https://upliftconnect.com/dolphins-communicate-holographically/
* You may remember local author (and photographer) Mark Coggins from last year's Litquake reading at Borderlands (remember when we could have in-person readings?!). Mark has started a podcast, and he's reading the most recently-published August Riordian book as a serial audiobook. The podcast is called "Riordan's Desk", and you can check it out here: https://riordansdesk.buzzsprout.com/
* "Ugliest place I've ever seen": artist Amber Share makes charming travel posters for National Parks, based on their worst 1-star reviews. . . . https://boingboing.net/2020/03/05/artist-makes-travel-posters-fo.html
* While we were paying attention to other things, they made "Beetlejuice" into a musical: https://beetlejuicebroadway.com/
* Genre? What Genre? Six recent SFF novels that blur the lines: https://www.tor.com/2020/03/06/six-recent-sff-novels-that-give-no-effs-about-genre-distinctions/
* Fifty years on, here are six ways Patrick McGoohan's surreal cult spy series "The Prisoner" prepared us for the modern world. Are we all now living in The Village? https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/prisoner-patrick-mcgoohan-50
* Here's a pandemic treatment for you: Romans used to ward off sickness with (adorable) flying penis amulets: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/romans-used-to-ward-off-sickness-with-flying-penis-amulets.amp
* How a humble bookstore clerk outed Stephen King as Richard Bachman: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/502166/how-stephen-king-was-outed-richard-bachman
* Electrons may actually be conscious, sort of: http://nautil.us/blog/electrons-may-very-well-be-conscious
* 'Disco' tardigrade parties under microscope to win an international photo prize (and 50 other tiny wonders of microphotography): https://www.livescience.com/trippy-tardigrade-image-of-the-year.html
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