Just a quick note to report that Sir Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001:  Space Odyssey and dozens upon dozens of other books, short stories, and essays (and one of my all-time favorite writers) died earlier today at a hospital in Columbo, Sri Lanka, where he'd lived for about the past 50 years.  He was 90.

At some point, I'm going to have to write a little about the impact Clarke's work had on me, particularly during my preteen and teen years, but at the moment, I've still got a movie to cut together.

In the meantime, here are a couple of obits:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/03/18/obit.clarke/index.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23697230/

And I've also posted a short video that Clarke sent out last December on the occasion of his 90th birthday, in which he talks a little about his long life and the things he's seen over the course of it.  He's a little slow, and it's obvious that he's reading off a teleprompter, but what he has to say is interesting.  The video is now the first one on my MySpace profile page, right underneath Chewbacca:  http://www.myspace.com/shadowfax9000.