If you haven’t read Flowers for Algernon, you probably have a rough idea of what it’s about, or at least have heard of it. I remember it being on my recommended reading list at school, and there was little else on there that could be classified as science fiction. Not only did Keyes win both the Hugo and Nebula in the same year for the novel, but, like Vonnegut and a very few others, he had the double-edged good fortune of transcending the genre in which he wrote, and plunging into the murky depths of “serious literature.”

Auguste Marie Louis Nicholas Lumière (1862-1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (1864-1948) worked in the still photography industry, and it is there that they focused most of their efforts for most of their lives. However, like everyone and their brother towards the end of the 19th century, they also took a few years to develop a film recording and projection system. In 1894, they bought out an unpaid patent for the term cinématographe, originally filed by one Léon Bouly, which they then applied to their own device.

What can you possibly say about The Simpsons Movie? The only ones who don’t know what to expect from it are the seven or so people left in the world who don’t have TV. We’re talking about what’s probably the most consistently great television program ever, and considering that the film is made by exactly the same people as the series, but with more money and less technical restrictions, it would have taken an astonishing amount of effort for it not to be great.

There are two reasons I don’t watch television. The primary is a simple matter of economics: my housemate and I can’t afford cable, and we don’t pick up any network television stations well enough to make it worth our time. The other reason, of slightly lesser importance, is that I hate waiting. The very idea of waiting weeks or more until I can find out what happens next is horrifying.

It helps to have a little background in Islam when reading The Satanic Verses, but unfortunately, I didn’t. The Internet can do wonders, though, and I managed to fill in the largest gaps in my education relatively quickly. It turns out the Satanic Verses in question are ones that assert Muhammad once acknowledged the existence and power of three pagan goddesses but later changed his mind, claiming to have been tricked by the devil. Aside from dealing with that sensitive subject, there are a whole slew of other aspects that many Muslims found offensive, such as calling Abraham a bastard and having a set of prostitutes named after Muhammad’s twelve wives.

Manowar’s 2007 release “Gods of War” is alternately laughable, despicable, powerful, and pathetic. A band that took all of the satirical fictional excess of Spinal Tap and made a career of trumping it, this is not new territory for them at all. It’s amazing that they’re still capable of displaying the same level of clichéd raw and brutal intensity on the same tired and trite themes of blood, death, and warrior prowess 25 years after their first album. It’s also awesome.

Le Prince’s disappearance on September 16, 1890, is entirely unexplained and entirely unfortunate. He boarded a train to Dijon, France, shortly before a planned emigration to New York, where he hoped to promote his inventions, but he was never seen again.