Reading, Short And Deep #187
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Eternity Orbit by Francis Leslie Ashton
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
Eternity Orbit was first published in Super Science Stories, January 1951.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
Category: Podcasts
The SFFaudio Podcast #541- READALONG: Misadjustment by Philip K. Dick
The SFFaudio Podcast #525 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa Vu, and Evan Lampe talk about Misadjustment by Philip K. Dick
Talked about on today’s show:
Science Fiction Quarterly, February 1957, until the 80s, pretty damn good, very interesting, the Uncanny X-Men story, Philip K. Dick’s post-human stories, his three laws of the post-humans, mutants, The Golden Man, The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, the comic book phenomenon, Paul did, Chris Claremont, The New Mutants, Xavier’s School For Gifted Children, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, The Dark Pheonix Saga, It, Magneto, two philosophies, we are “homo superior”, we are going to replace you, misunderstanding, an exploration of the relationship humans will have to homo superior, Storm and Rogue and Wolverine, showy mutant powers, change the colour of the beach, the Stitcher Wolverine podcasts, you either join the hunt and become Eggerton, castrated or tamed telepaths, help hunt down, teeps, a major Alfred Bester vibe, a major industrialist with a secret trying to avoid being process served, bounty hunters, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, renegade mages, growing spaceships in his backyard, flying to the moon by flapping his arms, magic is their mutation, The Eyes Have It, mimetic novels (people arguing about who is cheating on who), all this stuff could be taken literally, a classic Philip K. Dick ending (and beginning), clearly a lunatic, love that sting, the radical consensus, a democratic and objective consensus, another shout out to this idea in The Dark Tower by Stephen King, breakers = mutants, did King read Dick?, what authors do, House Of M, no more mutants, Thanos with his snapping, what we’re all trying to do in our lives, Steve Job biography, “reality distortion field”, Jesse’s mom is either human or a mutant, this is about this, analogies for something, no matter how stupid Margaret Atwood is she wrote a good novel, The Public Hating by Steve Allen, 1954, the height of McCarthyism, putting every man against every man, this agency is the FBI, we know from Philip K. Dick’s own life, under investigation, this is also about religion too, utter chaos, Paul DIDN’T repudiate his religion on Twitter, bishop idiot, Julie Davis, a point that’s irrefutable, enjoying Korean and Thai food, veganism, vegetarianism, a set of strictures, a member of three religions simultaneously, incorporating deities, exclusivist, we’re cool with you, you have to pick a team, I really like Apollo today because I’m really into learning, I’m gonna get my wine out and hang out with Pan, a whole world behind the story, enough material for a novel, Eye In The Sky, the Bevatron, that house and that cat, the Bahá’í faith, subjective reality, prayers are answered, Richards, was he admitting to himself that he was a mutant?, invasion of privacy, this story cannot be told as a film, he took off at an incredible rate, the reaction is so strong, very nicely handled, Eggerton did not fly directly home, residential syndromes, robot taxis, Johnny cabs, Electric Dreams, you’ve got to hide it with the text, the vast, niplan?, newspeak, “syndromes” as conapts, notes about character names, Bob Arctor, the commerce institute, Richards = Dick, the mutants are “PKs”, psychokinetic, writers as changers of reality, making people believe in his delusion, quite manipulative, what if I could make them believe, para-keneticist, Doris’ mind, random checknet, was eggerton really PK? the answer is yes, nebulous succubi, he’s on, the gender politics, the immunes are women, fantasy worlds, the women are not biting tonight, so funny, this mutation is solely of the y chromosome, women bursting his bubble, matriarchy, Eggerton is not having it, what’s with the furniture being sexist, Beyond The Door, the gender text project website, The Pirates Of Ersatz, the story becomes insane, a story about gender, men only hope that the baby coming out of their wife’s body is theirs, paranoias that men have, Doris is almost like the main character, Rick Deckard, why did Eggerton miss his appointment, the comic book biography, trouble with the law, why he fled to Canada, on the run, explaining it to himself, something bad happened and he’s missed an appointment, The New Reality by Charles L. Harness, unmake everything, the same dilemma, the Exalted RPG, editorial introduction, the political radical, socialism, anarchism, Nazism, states do this all the time, writing Tienanmen Square out of the history textbooks, the conclusion, a check on the extremes, not a forced political reading, going over the same issues, The Exegesis, why is he obsessed with Nazis?, what do they do when they find a mutant, Richards is executed by Eggerton, there’s no trial, they found out he was a Jew and they executed him, castrati, a musical term, George W. Bush, that whole authoritarian Nazi thing, the anniversary of D-Day, Heritage Minutes, Canadians were fighting in Russia 100 years ago, two sentences if you’re lucky, American military unit mutinies, a shameful event, we can just police ourselves, the insane people know their crazy so they can police themselves, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, the schizoprenics are the artists and creators, two incidents, a big stack of monitors and computers and laptops, the SkyTrain, he think he’s a police officer, a person who believes something, that is reality distortion, the main guy is off, everybody flirts with the idea of solipsism, what if you’re all figments of my imagination?, he’s the only real person, a schizzer, single lane alternating traffic, flag-people, “didn’t you see the sign”, “we’re here for your safety, sir”, “can you call the company?”, I must have done something wrong, she broke reality, solipsism is completely ridiculous, imagining him in this situation, Jerry Seinfeld, noticing things on a granular level, basic expectations, she’s making this impossible, why they have them in pairs, she’s on drugs, whatever was going on made sense to her, we gotta talk about the desk, no page break, cigaret (science fiction spelling?), waitingroom, discarded tapes, bulging ashtrays, the desk hadn’t been able to discourage, the desk is taking it personally, is the desk a she?, a catty desk, what’s with these tapes?, the newspapes, “look lady” the desk said aloud, the desk sighed, I suppose you think that figure of yours, sexist, you ought to be ashamed, an older matronly desk, a double entendre, a great character, turn yourself off, go home for the day Mavis, the ID block is holding a policy level conference in Pittsburgh, a huge ape-shouldered man, Tessa Dick’s YouTube channel, super hairy, we’ve seen this hairy beast before, shaggy and unkempt, food stained sleeves rolled up, eyes dark with industrial cunning, the girl’s purse scattered to the floor, Paycheck, “why didn’t you tell me you were an immune?”, italicized, the girl ignored the desk, Colony, “I trusted the rug completely”, a very sensitive desk, it’s really good!, Marissa likes it even more now that we’ve discussed it, A World Of Talent, mutants and post-humans, anti-precog, anti-PK, the first half of Ubik, there is an audiobook version, put it on the schedule, Slan by A.E. van Vogt, Doris’ husband’s last name is Sorrel, the plant theme, Pay For The Printer, the printers, the machines that can grow things, Autofac, a green thumb thing, points of brilliance in the writing, The Variable Man, on top of the great ideas there’s gorgeous writing, bed-girls in Solar Lottery?, jet setting all over the place, the best food, he doesn’t say what the psychology is, we see what he does, I went on a bender I wonder what that means, he finds out his wife is pregnant and goes on a bender, Game Players Of Titan, there’s this whole world outside of people’s heads, elites, really interesting, just look at the world background in here, it doesn’t feel like a fascist dystopia when you get called before HUAC, why is the title Misadjustment, readjustment?, not a real word, he went to the psychiatrist, got on the bus ride home he starts thinking…, maybe that’s what went wrong, if you apply it to the story, the elites who run this society, the commerce institute, a lobby group, a planned economy, a ten hour work day, an Evan story, what is getting adjusted in this story?, we can change this system, who watches the watchmen?, good god!, the dirty dirty secret of the FBI at the time, J. Edgar Hoover is running the country, he’s the deep state, how he ran things, its our instrument, that was a weird thing, what other people expect of us, a gimp in a box, not the normal, the strange aberration, they kill the aberrant, the instinct, “should I turn around?”, so rich and really short for its richness, other examples of institutionalized power, Robert Moses, The Power Broker: Robert Moses And The Fall Of New York by Robert Caro, these gods, we ourselves are the gods, crazy ideas, you don’t need the state, attending public meetings, school funding meetings, the pressure, somebody informed, what he does with it, he uses everything, obsesses about everything, chewing on it.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #186 – The Lost Temples Of Xantoos by Howell Calhoun
Reading, Short And Deep #186
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Lost Temples Of Xantoos by Howell Calhoun
Here’s a link to a PDF of the poem.
The Lost Temples Of Xantoos was first published in Weird Tales, October 1936.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
The SFFaudio Podcast #540 – READALONG: Philip K. Dick: A Comics Biography by Laurent Queyssi and Mauro Marchesi
The SFFaudio Podcast #540 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, and Evan Lampe talk about the NBM Graphic Novel Philip K. Dick: A Comics Biography by Laurent Queyssi and Mauro Marchesi.
Talked about on today’s show:
NBM Graphic Novel, we gotta do this, H.P. Lovecraft, as fascinating as, Evan was disappointed, it’s not Philip K. Dick’s stories, major things missing, the meeting with Ridley Scott, I have my reservations, Dick’s opposition, understanding and insight, who is the audience?, if you know the Easter Eggs…, who is it for?, documentaries about Philip K. Dick, somethin trippy, the visualization of Point Reyes, happy little Philip K. Dick with his science fiction magazines, the chronology, the flashforward, seeing the buildings, the architecture, we’re the audience for the book, so much missing, could it be improved by making it a lot longer?, an outline of events, a primer, a skeleton, the Thoreau one!, being in nature and being self-sufficient, you learn everything about Beethoven, [The Value Of Giving: The Story Of Beethoven by Ann Donegan Johnson and Steve Pileggi], an outline of Marie Curie, [The Value Of Learning: The Story Of Marie Curie by Ann Donegan Johnson and Steve Pileggi], Einstein For Beginners, Marx For Beginners, handing Lovecraft stuff to little kids, Philip K. Dick has teenage ideas, Jesse appreciating seeing the spaces, a secret, really well done, Jacen Burrows, the architecture, a real sense of the neighbourhoods, him at his typewriter, so cool, the very first page, pages unnumbered, December 1981, showing up at some airport with a new girlfriend, Evan is more worried about the script, in the screening room, everytime you turn the page there’s a black ceiling, the last page, March 2, 1982, a model of the neighbourhood, I think Ursula (K. Le Guin) was right, Small Town, living in a set, The Days of Perky Pat, that zoom out, then it’s the world!, every ceiling is black, attention to comics paneling, he was in town when Jesse was conceived, Willis, the skylights look like windows, something you can do in film or comics that you can’t do in a text biography, white, the Platonic thing he’s always thinking about, January 26, 1929, Phil, white space, the symbol for the platonic realm, that white page, outside with Mr. Tagomi, the graphic narrative, the colour, really beautiful, that whole posture and expression, they’re calling my name, Meemaw hiding in the bathroom, footnotes, quotation marks, exact dates, details, no androids, why isn’t there a spider in the mug?, three stigmatic, the same syndrome, focusing on Dick’s late stuff, stealing his mom’s pills, spray, big references vs. smaller stuff, Ubik, Exegesis, she would know he had a lot of wives, 18 year old Tessa sitting on his lap, drawn to the wordless panels, the dialogue was on the nose, stilted, engage and interpret, a little dry, outside of Art Music, better than a photograph, and yet, no TV repair, too short, more of what we’re getting?, Vince, the driving lessons from the FBI agent, you would have some questions, did this happen?, Solar Lottery, that’s a metaphor for his trying to get respectable, the New Statesman, H.G. Wells’ legacy, Tono-Bungay, dissing H.G. Wells was a bad writer, Philip K. Dick was a bad writer, clunky, The Variable Man,
even before the term “SCIENCE FICTION” existed the elites were shitting on SCIENCE FICTION and the people who read it (and the guy who basically invented it)
the literary books, important books about divorces, did he think it was really important – or did he want to change class, pettiness in spending time in his actual life, feeling ambivalent, totally could have happened, maybe that stuff is good, subtle things going on, a scriptural problem, how to solve it, the excitement on Philip K. Dick’s face, the latest issue, A.E. Van Vogt, my kingdom, Return To Lilliput, Gustav Mahler, social anxiety, the judgement of the friend, the average person, appreciating it on a visual level, Jason Eckhardt’s illustrations and the framing device, a show, a stageplay, more information about Lovecraft’s life than we do about Philip K. Dick, our job isn’t to market the book, the Lovecraft biography was densely packed, his interactions with other people, internalization of events, a giant metal face in the sky, these two pages work incredibly well, the lines on the road, a modern setting, running to the shack, the connection, going to visit the father, a real incident, the ex-wife and the kid, Harlan Ellison, these things gotta be explained, who knows what Dangerous Vision is?, Riders Of The Purple Wage and Aye And Gomorrah, fan service, mutual success destroyed, how many scenes when he sits on the couch, sitting at the desk, we just don’t know (about his dad), this isn’t even fan service its just facts, a spit-take, a meet cute, it’s a fact we know about his life, the visualizations of the physical spaces, we don’t know the colour of the couch (unless its a plot point), the visual element, not one of us!, maybe Paul is the audience for this book, his personal life, the general outline, filling in those facts, an interesting visual language, Philip K. Dick’s house, google street view, the post-script, the big shock, stubbled face, standing in the glory of the his 1952-4 publications, The World She Wanted, Science Fiction Quarterly, Jack Vance and Isaac Asimov, Sir Francis Drake Hotel, a real hotel, Out In The Garden, ah ha ha haw, the idea that Sir Francis Drake got as far as these places, Dr. Futurity, time travel, that kind of detail, a little spike of “wow! that’s amazing!”, hey I’ve read your stuff, I guess we have to do that, going out to that shack is terrific, wives leaving him, a lot from Anne’s biography, a lot of letters, how funny he is isn’t in here, this is not a comedy it’s a tragedy, a little bit to self oriented, about his internal stuff, going to a Chinese restaurant, a 1949 store, the weirdnesses’ of H.P. Lovecraft, abbreviations, the snob in Jesse, what’s going on with his mom, yo?, a homosexual hangup, why is his dad absent, because you’re weak, like who?, is his dad gay?, a hidden biography, absent from this book, fatherless, surrounded by women, as a WWI veteran he had a gas-mask that might have frightened Philip K. Dick and sent his mind going, what the authors think the people care about, a good contribution if they could have nailed the later weirdness, those Valis novels, a set of ideas he was playing with, a bit opaque, Philip K. Dick wearing a cowboy suit, a lot of lying in that bed, that focus on the end, lying in bed dying of colon cancer, regular nightwalks, the value of seeing what those houses look like, Steen went to Philip K. Dick’s gravesite, why is he buried in Colorado?, an incident in Vancouver, his whole life is California, two trips to France, Ghost World (2001), Daniel Clowes style, the same kind of lifestyle, hanging out in the suburbs, about some weirdos hanging out, older men and younger women, a slice of the Ghost World comics, Steve Buscemi, that California aesthetic, a vibe that’s different, it’s its own thing, beautiful images, Cleo storming in, a few months later, Cleo what are you doing here?, you promised you’d bring me the car title, going to workshops for him, she’s walking toward the house, a green glow around her head, Jesse reads a lot of comics, if the art is terrible, a very delicate balance, a really good audiobook narrator cannot save a bad book, a number of problems, audience expectation, you should pick it up, you’re welcome!, Evan appreciates the daughters in this, the gun, visiting him in the hospital, when Nancy leaves him, the estate, they’re frauds, everybody is an asshole at some point in their lives, the portrait of a highly complicated man, friendly and difficult, he’s got his demons, I was sexually molested as a child, he might be wrong, that phenomenon, the McMartin trial, Tessa Dick’s YouTube channel, your eyes are closed to your son’s birth defect, to the doctor immediately, I’m in shock, I can’t even drive, this sort of thing is not a sign of divine revelation, bad recollection, Jesse’s recollection about who exactly he’d punched in the face, magic thinking of the horoscope kind, here’s another incident of that, delusions becoming reality, either he infected her or she infected them, a Folie à deux, [Heavenly Creatures 1994] Misadjustment by Philip K. Dick, the trials and tribulations of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, now when what we talk about what Chelsea Manning was doing, she was doing this when she was in the army, they all agree, when we all agree, weird dontcha think?, furry costumes, I’m really a fox, just really weird, a weird guy and a person who isn’t an immune, anti-creativity, the thing kids have that we lose when we grow up, so late in the day, falling out of the immersion, Paul makes a very meta move, a richer character for a life, on the couch a lot, what’s so fascinating about him, how his friends perceived him, tension and conflict, not consistent in real life, really cool, hairy back, that hairy monster, a good book.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #185 – Program Notes On A Great Composer by Philip K. Dick
Reading, Short And Deep #185
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Program Notes On A Great Composer by Philip K. Dick
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
Program Notes On A Great Composer was first published in The Berkley Daily Gazette, September 22, 1944.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
The SFFaudio Podcast #539 – READALONG: The Curse Of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley
The SFFaudio Podcast #539 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Julie Davis talk about The Curse Of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley
Talked about on today’s show:
All-Story Weekly, August 9 – September 6, 1919, a little too familiar with it, Bruce Wayne’s parent’s murder in Crime Alley, Batman’s origin story, Joe Chill, Zorro, like the gospels, apocryphal, the 1940s Batman, The Mark Of Zorro (1920), Gotham, Christian Bale, The Mark Of Zorro (1940), Tyrone Power, what a man!, oh I know this one, a revelation, I hate you now, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., such a good movie, twisting his own arm, silent movies, mouthing at each other, dubbing, lip reading, the year after the serial, identical plot, the action sequences are so good, Antonio Banderas, The Mask Of Zorro (1998), all the movie beats, one of those translation things, Don Diego Vega, a foppy guy, really into slight of hand, something that’s stuck with every subsequent production, The Disney, the 1974 TV movie remake using the same script and music, Frank Langella as Zorro, a strange choice, a board on the back of her head, visualizing the text, the beginning, middle, and end of his character, this handkerchief is turned into a flower, have you seen this one?, finger curlicues to show excitement about this kiss, the first United Artists movie, Star Wars (1977), Jaws (1975), a half mask like Batman, Zorro is the spot in between everything that came before and superheroes as we know them, Who was America’s first superhero, Tornado is the Batmobile, the dynamic duo, Alfred, a dual identity, The Scarlet Pimpernel, adventures in America, Americans can eat it up, California, westerns, I’m earning a living so I’m writing it all, he wrote lots of pulp, the elements, better than a western, help the poor, the beautiful woman, choose her own path, 1909, supposed to be a surprise, you were spoiled for it, the text doesn’t tell you, the reveal here is at the end, at what point does it become clear, four minutes later, a physical face to look at, the powers of Batman, an acrobat, jumping and swinging, in real life you have to wear a full mask, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, no one will want to read it if it is spoiled, retconned right away, he captured lighting in a bottle and people want more lightning, like heaven on Earth, his secret lair, not a Batcave it’s a Foxcave, every superhero who is not superman, Bruce Banner, angry guy, he’s always angry, an issue with both, Zorro is the good guy because he’s fighting an unjust government, Batman’s doing the government’s job for them, a folk hero, being mean to the natives, when don’s have their taxes raised to high, Batman’s psychology, crazy criminals, a child of The Scarlet Pimpernel, unjust to the rich people, his posse is the sons of the dons, the families being oppressed, the focus around the family, the good aristocrat being oppressed by the government, the government is completely corrupt, Zorro as a libertarian hero?, an Ayn Randian hero, oh god!, the servant is both deaf and dumb, the Disney version he’s mute (not deaf), he’s everywhere, indio?, interesting to think about, pre-1849 California, the placenames and the missions, what’s the population?, fighting for justice, it’s all about blood, blood is everywhere, 1820 or so, blood x 79, 1,300 people, after the gold-rush, Julie’s read historical fiction, a backwater of Mexico, right across the street from the tavern, a phrase that was used in the period, WWI, writers read stuff, 1920s magazines, what decade based on the ads, fads that rise and fall, the 19teens and 1920s, eugenics theory, standard straight up racism, I’d rather marry a native than marry you, an insult, here’s how low I’ll go, badly OCR’d, the natives are on the bottom, less and less emphasized, you are of excellent blood, of the best blood in the land, class structure, a Vega when he takes a mate, woman-trading, some choice in the matter, historically accurate, its not super-super-clear what he is at first, he’s a robber, Zorro is already known, he’s already a legend, I was fifteen I saw something bad happen, two different aspects, Batman doesn’t rob the robbers, he’s Robin Hood at that point, a redistributor of wealth, Jesse James, Billy The Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, sticking it to the man, if he weren’t a fictional character, we’ve been trained by reality, killing people, Batman doesn’t kill, Zed not Zee, Zedero, Sgt. Gonzales, Captain Ramos, you’re not who I thought you were, a comedy relationship, Commissioner Gordon, he’s worse than the governor, sir leave this house right now, where not to me, quasi-rapist, he deserved his fate, he bought him his drinks, Sgt. Schultz is the same character, Hogan’s Heroes, a send-up of Stalag 17, The Great Escape, Escape From Sobibor, subverting the Nazis by staying in the camp, TV crossover, how does the timeline work?, the ridiculousness of Batman, most of the good super-hero writers have to avoid that sort of thing, zipping people, Catherine Zeta-Jones, its a cartoon, you can’t take Batman super-seriously, Arkham Asylum, Watchmen [and The Boys], The Prisoner Of Zenda by Anthony Hope, the plot of Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, very funny, a tense line between serious and comedic, The Mask Of Zorro is a rebooting, Zorro makes a mockery of the soldiers, in the book he has a pistol, Sgt. Gonzales is a blustering fool of a character, physically comedic, a comic figure, he threatens death to people all day long, derailed for six months, my beautiful soul what have I done to it?, added to and polished up, suddenly he’s an 1820 superhero, Pirate Batman, The Lego Batman Movie (2017), he’s Robin Hood, reality is not as it is, formulating a plan, right from the start, he got his superpowers in the army, Captain America, romance, a ladies’ man, he’s the man all women want, he’s Tyrone Power and he knows it, the audio drama, Val Kilmer, Armin Shimmerman was terrific, Stefan Rudnicki, Dying Inside, he’s the Friar Tuck character, the same role, the Frey gets his licks in, serialized stories, they’re in Spanish California, he hides Maid Marian, a three hour audio drama for a six hour book, the framing, you’re buying drink, you want to know about Zorro?, at the end, Val Kilmer is about to reveal his identity, that’s another story, the change that had to happen, superheroes are not one offs they are continuous, the whole writing problem, writing for series, every book after that his identity is secret, Superman has a different origin, Captain America is an interesting case, recruiting and selling warbonds, all the things they did to recruit people for WWI and sell war bonds, pickle-helmet, a captured u-boat you could tour in Central Park during WWI, except for Dr Manhattan, masked vigilantes, Night Owl sits in his lair all day, kinda sad, the fundamental concept, they’re making fun of it, a very fine line, no the Batman you know, the 1989 reboot, where does he get those wonderful toys, Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton, nipples for George Clooney’s Batman, Holy rusted metal, Batman!, I’m walking out of the theater, there’s no winking, he’s not super-handsome, he did the adaptation, Robert Pattinson, a different way of running things, I’m gonna go practice my swordsmanship, reveling in that, this is a MOVIE!, Elevated short film, Vincenzo Natali, Cube (1997), set in an elevator, a student film, there’s something outside the elevator, when you make it a feature, most people read novels, once you get into that novel thing you sort of want more, the mask and the slight of hand stuff, this is why people get excited about film and making movies, cute and interesting, its not Zorro, a red flower, Zorro is a fox, the fox personality, Lady Zorro, Queen Of Swords, Jack Of All Trades, all so good, all died too soon, Bruce Campbell, the perfect combination of humour and physicality, that swagger, The Mask Of Zorro (1998), training scenes with Anthony Hopkins, the head in the jar, how many Zorro products there are, comics, the Disney colourized TV series looks terrible, Guy Williams, very Disney, the sidekick, his version of sign-language, sound effects, heavily music’d, a half-hour format, a cartoon, well done, Desilu, The Wild Wild West, it became a good show, Robert Conrad, you gotta see the show, there’s a fine line between ridiculous and perfect, they went the other way, all these things you see as a ridiculous, a subversive reading, is Batman just crazy and he’s the one in Arkham Asylum?, a spy-show and a western show merged together, you like James Bond and you like Westerns, this is that, so villainous, that Batman element pulled-back a little bit, a few gadgets, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, the bumbling character, The Avengers, Diana Rigg, so quirky, its not romantic but its not not-romantic, Mrs. Peel, the ridiculous stuff but in a serious way, Moonlighting, they broke the formula, he stumbled into something, perfectly serviceable entertainment for 1920, the Zorro Legion, all the dons put on masks, I’m Spartacus, the opening of The Mask Of Zorro, I’m ZORRO!, Batman comics in the 1970s, they have to work through all these ideas, better in the original, a ridiculous little coda, the self-made, the little boy’s dream, the right age for it, he held onto it and perfected it, B.J. , Meal mush and goatsmilk!, sounds like breakfast, an interstellar version of Zorro, planetary romance, A Princess Of Mars, feels very open and similar, so imagination, what are the possibility around every corner, The Pirates Of Ersatz, dual identity, back to my birth-planet, how could people have missed that opportunity, the same ending (its over), I stared a series, a retcon, a tiny little infodump at the end of the book, the Frailes (Franciscans), I pretended to have a small interest in life, horsemanship, in secret, go to Tibet and study with ninjas, that’s a prequel, San Juan Capistrano, in the middle and the end of his story, designed to be a reveal, all will be revealed, this is a mystery, give us another mystery!, deliberately cruel, the whole thing was a big wink, about expectations, the reader is rewarded for the knowledge that they already had, what’s in this chapter, what’s going to come next, spoiler soapbox, go back to favourite chapters, chapter titles as a guides, The Lord Of The Rings, children’s books, a preview, an affectation, a movie about a book being read to a kid, Dread Pirate Roberts, playing with the tension between, why Deadpool is such a great character, Fred Savage, Wilfred Brimley, Misery, when you’re reading Prisoner Of Zenda you’re taken away with a wink wink, in our post modern era, go look at Shakespeare, breaking the fourth wall all day long, a bunch of tropes and ridiculousness, that perfect path between the ridiculous and what we want from a story, story solving problems, doing all that work for Jesse, The Princess Bride is Zorro, essentially, the same spirit, Julie will allow it, if Julie were Jesse’s judge, would Paul be legalistic, when somebody lies people gets really upset, seems reasonable, repentance is important, a kind of conservationism, strict father conservatism, a gut reaction, don’t fritter away your money, do you’re research, I don’t really care about the details, a narrow escape, nope, none of that, wait I can explain, exactly, where’s my gavel, there’s a podcast there, hot takes, duly noted, Canadaland, a podcast format, we don’t have time to do all of it, what’s really important, this is an interesting story, nope not having any, half-price bookstore, Jenny Colvin’s speed dating with books, she’s reading books about every country in Asia, the Hmong, extra time, she’s just a reading machine, help with the curse, Alta California, Baja California, a poor choice, a Hmong movie, endogamous, hmoung the highest, Saint Paul, Minnesota, the Ethiopian population of Minneapolis, Toronto, Gran Turino (2008), Captain Phillips (2013), bitter flavours, we’re done.
Posted by Jesse Willis