Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009 July 7

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July 7

Animal Herders card game

What is the Animal Herders card game? Scifiintel (talk) 01:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Something that isn't out yet. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Identify a short science fiction story

Hi,

I'm trying to remember the title of a story. I'm pretty sure I read it in a collection of short stories, and it may have been Arthur C Clarke or Ray Bradbury. The basic premise is that the main character lives in a land (on another planet, not Earth) where there's an enormous wall - it's enormously tall, and basically endless, people have tried to walk around it and never found the end, but one character devotes his life to finding a way to scale it.

The next bit is a spoiler so I've rot13'd it. If you want to decode, just copy and paste into www.rot13.com

Ur pyvzof hc naq jnyxf bire gur gbc bs gur jnyy vagb qnexarff, bayl gb svaq uvzfrys pbzvat onpx bhg gb gur gbc bs gur fgnvef ur'q unq ohvyg. Svanyyl ur ernyvmrf gung ur yvirf ba n cynarg va n gval havirefr, naq gur rqtr bs gur havirefr npghnyyl phgf guebhtu uvf cynarg, naq gung'f jung gur jnyy vf gurer sbe.

Anyone know what this is? I've been googling around, but can't seem to find it.

Thanks, --67.171.37.222 (talk) 07:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The central character in Theodore Cogswell's "The Wall Around the World"" attempts to find a way to the top of a 1000-foot wall surrounding his world. There are some similarities to Harry Potter in this story, which has been reprinted in more than a dozen anthologies since 1953. Pepso2 (talk) 12:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I read it in the Arthur C. Clarke anthology "The Other Side of the Sky". It's called "The Wall of Darkness". An excellent author for giving tingle-up-the spine moments ("Nine Billion Names of God", "Childhood's End", "Redezvous with Rama"). His characterizations may be a little thin at times but his grasp of story makes up for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_of_Darkness_(short_story)

Book

Im looking for help in fiding the name of a book. It was about some friends possible mythical characters too, there was a tree that they could climb up and the clouds that were at the top of the tree used to bring round different worlds at certain intervals. They used to go up the tree through the clouds into these different worlds and have adventures. There were several of these books and possible in the last one they went up the tree and found that there was no way to return to these worlds, possible due to the fact they were older. Thanks in anticipation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.49.180.146 (talk) 09:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The Faraway Tree? ---Sluzzelin talk 10:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Your a star :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.49.180.146 (talk) 09:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

News coverage - paying for interviews from reporters of different companies

During all of the Michael Jackson news coverage - UK news channels use FOX/ABC/CBS live images where necessary and sometimes speak to reporters from those news providers directly. I understand that there is a form of licencing/payment for the images used but is there a reciprocal agreement for paying the reporters for their time? Or is it something that is usually done ex gratia? Nanonic (talk) 13:30, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The news channels have reciprocal agreements. BBC and ABC distribute each other's content for example. In the case of SKY news & FOX, they are both owned be Murdoch's News Corp. so they share resources. So no, I wouldn't imagine the reporters are paid; it would be part of their contracts. Fribbler (talk) 13:44, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

What do you call those paintings with holes for your face?

You know those paintings on wooden boards with a few holes so you can put your face in them, and "be in the picture"? Is there a name for those damn things? Thanks! 189.112.59.185 (talk) 19:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This same question was asked not more than a year ago. If someone has more time than I do, they can search the archives here to find it. Dismas|^(talk) 20:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

They seem to call them cardboard cutouts. They seem to also be called stand ups. They can also be referred to as life-size cutouts, or party stand ups or cardboard people. Bus stop (talk) 20:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That is not what the OP is asking about. That is simply a cardboard poster of a famous person with nothing for the user to put their head through as if they were the famous person pictured. Dismas|^(talk) 20:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Different names are used, variations on "stand-in cutout", "cut-out board", "photo cutout board", etc.; as all these words have other more common meanings, it's hard to tell which is the most common term by googling. Here is an example of "cut(-)out board": [1]; I found another example at hubpages.com, but that domain is blacklisted at Wikipedia so I can't provide the link. Here are some examples using "stand-in": [2] [3]. --Anonymous, 20:28 UTC, July 7, 2009.

Yes, some of mine may have been wrong.Bus stop (talk) 20:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Here's (I think) the previous thread that Dismas referred to. Deor (talk) 21:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's the thread that I was thinking of. Thank you, Dismas|^(talk) 01:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)