The SFFaudio Podcast #819 – READALONG: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #819 – Jesse, Will Emmons and Jonathan Weichsel talk about We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Fantasy And Science Fiction, April 1966, not perfectly representative of everything he can do, Total Recall (1987), very easy to watch, a transitional movie for Hollywood, last big budget, extended CGI sequence, through the X-Ray, all hand drawn, blonde guy with glasses helping Richter, looks like CGI, we can look this up sometime, not in the story, a lot of the stuff that’s in the story is in the movie, he never goes to Mars during the course of the story, the movie is an action film, still also tame, wow, a famous story, famous stories, they don’t meet the hype, a bad relationship with his wife, a bad relationship that week, interesting, it doesn’t have to be good to be successful, Jesse’s Lester Del Rey theory, came out 6 (or 7 months ago), the park bench, telepathically, so not filmic, the ending was a little silly but fine, the ending kid of ruined the story, Hollywood does it a lot, a Rod Serling ending, he’s not writing movies, his way, think about what happens in this, he actually was an agent for interplan, the space police, he’s remembering what happened, replacement memory, suppressed memory, an amazing coincidence, they did a psychological analysis of his character, his deep seated wish, just by existing he saves the planet, Philip K. Dick thumbing the nose at himself, an extra turn of the screw, he fucks them up on purpose, a nice little circle, an electronic animals, fleshy animals, the pulling the rug out from his own idea, there’s no bottom to his solipsism, how to put a button on the story, the movie improves on the short story, the primal cause, the first cause of the story, nobody else could have, make Plato a pulp science fiction story, a terrible ending, silly, his way out, that park bench sequence is so bad, look at that homeless man talking to himself, wouldn’t want to be him, all I have to do is continue my existence then everyone owes me, a manifesto spray painted on a parking stall, when I take things it for you, its not shoplifting when I do it, a guy who’s explaining to the people who visit the store, he doesn’t have a job, he’s saved all of us, the movie is really fun, less grounded in reality, homeless people talking to themselves, delusional people, are they delusional?, turning the clerk at an unimportant desk, a construction worker, why Arnold Schwarzenegger, quail, shiver and shake, vs. Quaid, more like Quatto, prompts, a bad movie, like Matt Damon but the other guy, The Adjustment Bureau (2011), because a dog falls asleep, reality being constructed, out of joint with reality as it is being constructed, make a black man fall asleep on a park bench, why it doesn’t translate well, boobs, dogs, coffee, wives, how do I know what’s real, all of that except for the dog, inside of his obsessions, limiting, its not everything that’s going on with him, The Goblin Reservation, a little bit into the future, Time Is The Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak, Martian Time-Slip, Paul Verhoven, interested in what’s going on in America, Showgirls (1995), RoboCop (1987), disgustingly awesomely correctly cynical, pulls back on that, ultimate power, an assassination, a Black Panther, MLK, memory cap, memory blocker, prevent their agent from knowing he did it, a negotiation with them, isn’t there some other way?, if they kill him the world will end, a solipsistic fantasy, awesomely stupid and funny and pathetic, it’s just him, the wife, the secretary with the blue boobs, offering herself to him, an ulterior motive, she needs to offer himself to him, a wish fulfillment fantasy, hilarious, he believes they’ll fulfill their promises, the nearest barracks, he knows what’s going on but also can’t fully buy into it, nice people, Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Lincoln conspiracy theories, a logical explanation for it, Lincoln’s wife was really into psychics, do not go to the theater, my wife believes in all that, gets assassinated, drinking buddies with John Wilkes Booth, look this up, John Wilkes Booth is Edgar Allan Poe as a time traveler, dies mysteriously, raving about somebody named Reynolds, out there in the universe of broken threads, time travel, dreams in this story, starts with a dream, the dream grew, the dream and the yearning, the enveloping world, are you getting up or not, fierce crossness, okay, Douglas is his go to name, Charles J. Colchester, its times vs. our times, psychology, in a more scientific way, they believed it was more scientific, repressed memories that can’t be suppressed, misused in a different way, what passes as psychology today in the 90s would be dismissed as self-help gimmicks, a scam, infiltrated academia and psychology, Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Alan Arkin is always amazing, by losers for losers, destigmatize, mental health, everybody could potentially have a mental illness, almost everybody is neurodivergent, instead of expanding, limited, self-eating, how educated people thought about it, engaged with psychiatry, mental doctors, getting committed, committed one of his wives, write a story about that, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, it comes in as truth, maneuvers to analyze it, its cute because it wants to kill, accept, ignore, dispute, what techniques you use, how old you are, techniques of training, when Philip K. Dick goes to a doctor, paralyzed by thoughts, needs to engage, shows up in his writing, spiritual enlightenment books, what’s the truth of this?, what’s important, what is reality?, Freud, dogmatically, repression, too much sexual repression bad, run around like savages killing and raping each other, just the right amount of repression, misreading a novel, take the wrong lessons from Nineteen Eighty-Four, this is the only book you need to read, metaphors are fiction, hypothetical examples, speculative theory, not testable, not subject to falsification, what at this story at core really about?, suppressed memory?, the movie Gaslight, gaslighting, I know it by its objects, momentos, Paycheck (1944), The Man In The High Castle, a short story about a snowglobe, a souvenir, in contemplating, martian maw worms, unicellular organism, a sneaky pete pistol, a life rod, a death rod, a tangible connection to a vague memory, how do we know these memories are real, go to Europe, how should I go, a time of film, film was expensive, just myself, a stone from a gravel path in the garden behind Versailles, how do I know, oh yeah, there was that thing that happened, a perfect memory to connect all of our experiences together, whats the difference between suppressed and repressed, the name of the shop is Rekall, a much better story, the movie is much better, engages an idea better, Hauser vs. Quaid, good guy vs. bad guy, Hauser is fucking Melina over, Quaid loves Melina, very masturbatory, how could I have that without doing any work?, the reason why is buried, before he was assigned there, he didn’t want to go to Mars, an assignment, it happened to be Mars, a different layer of consciousness, this person is scared of snakes, a trauma involving snakes, a man flashed her his penis when she was five, suppressed in her unconscious, buried in memory, why did he spend all that time digging around in the Martian memory, the story of Paycheck, the reason he collected these objects, Severance, a very long two seasons, the park bench stuff is slow and boring, what’s the wife’s job in this story, much improved in the movie, an agent?, is she here to watch me, he thinks about it, he thinks a lot, two major boobs scenes, 3 or 4 people, Doctor Lull, Doctor Low, the technicians, refunds, retail, vbery business oriented, the Company, the CIA, InterPlan, they take him back to the retail store, his brain changed not wholesale, why is it called that?, Beyond The Door, over breakfast, a cuckoo clock, I got it wholesale from a friend, women want you to spend money on them, show you’re going to stick around, defeats the purpose of buying an expensive gift, in their own facilities, such a piddly little retail guy he can’t imagine how the CIA actually works, show up at our barracks, the secret police, so piddly and silly, the doctor, I’ll give you half back, motivation, to make money, the stupidest thing, getting the ideas and following through, if he wasn’t so greedy, little note, he’s really a spy, these guys are gonna whack us, give him evidence, silly, Philip K. Dick is naive about the things he knows are really going on, distracted by boobs and a mean wife, pretty damn good, a problem with a Hal Clement, a tweet, June 6th, qoute tweeting Ultra Blast, what about the guy you lobotomized, how human nature really works, schedule a short story, sell it to you retail, what’s going on this claim I’m making, in the movie, Hauser’s using Melina, to assassinate Quato, very Verhoven, Cronenberg was set to direct it, steered away from that, amazingly tight, the trip to Mars, schizoid embolism, just acting out of self-interest and aesthetic appeal, Hauser is a cynical operator, the naivete of his future self to fuck somebody over, why is this human nature, a turtle , you aren’t helping, you aren’t helping, you already know who you are and that person doesn’t help, you see a drowning squirrel or a puppy, untie his legs, take the cat out of the bag, on your way home you see your future self, that’s for that squirrel!, my nut factory anymore, things need to be done, we can’t sit by and just allow things to happen, lunch break, a kid in an empty classroom, building a house of cards, breathing over it, you feel good and bad, tgapping on the table, we have to know that these things are within us, tie up the princess of the train tracks, the guy who tied, Smedley Badwright, human nature is such that we must act, take a model of who we are, I’m not going to do that again,the tattoos, wwjd, model themselves on somebody, what wouldf spiderman do in this situation, that’s what this is about, one must act, you cant live in that horrible office job, a vacation as a solution to problems, two weeks of Saturdays, back to the old grindstone, hat e their job, whatever it is on twitter, self-trolling, insightful into human nature, such a stupid story, non-cynical about political assassination plans, human nature is as human nature does, a bully in a group, that’s cool, that’s not cool, the people are very similar, boys must act, with Quail, wants to be an agent, becomes Lee Harvey Oswald, erase your memory, that doesn’t make 100% sense, plant the wife, this story isn’t quite that far, an office job that doesn’t matter, he was used by the company, with the destroying rod, the tangible objects you find in the drawer, a weird language with a starmap on it, where did that come from?, a destroying rod vs. a healing rod, we have the capability of throwing squirrels and drowning squirrels, didn’t feel guilty about killing the guy, out of patriotic duty, the right thing to do, memory of going to mars and being a spy, does it, old memory back, to the surface, erase his memory again, nice people, like mice, motivated him to become a spy in the first place, a more important story than he does it, pathetic, if we knew that that was your fantasy, maybe it wasn’t a fantasy, why does Arnold Schwarzenegger want to go to Mars, Sharon Stone says let’s go to Saturn, I like sex, settle for this fake memory, optional extras, filling out the survey, what’s the same about you, famous jock, tycoon, he could be a spy, like Lee Harvey Oswald, a lackey and a patsy, these tangible objects, that trip to the beach, why is my wife mean to me, how did I end up married to this person, extraordinarily strange, definitely an outlier, the articulation that’s strange, a late 90s internet guy, hacker zines in the 90s, radical ideas, normal office drones, fantasizing about spies and shit like that, Paul really liked it, it would be okay if I was like a secret cop, they didn’t know, what if I had this alternative, what if I manifest it, bored out of fuckin mind, maybe then, an insight that Philip K. Dick had, wish fulfillment, about wishfulfillment, the wish gets subverted, turns into a nightmare, its horrible, as a subculture, science fiction wasn’t necessarily self-aware about this, the dark underbelly of America in someway, the mainstream culture couldn’t accept, a generative contradiction, Philip K. Dick normal guy ethos, fantasies of being a spy, its weird to have the rug pulled out from underthing, always overquestioning, what science fiction was aware of, processed recently, 1946, Margaret St. Clair, Fantastic Adventures, Introducing The Author, a little bit of the thing you were saying, caught more or less by surprise, a photograph and an autobiography of herself, curly brow covered hair, bangs to cover forehead, [Bettie Page] mod?, usual editorial deadline, about women liking to talk about themselves, 9 or 10 years of age, My Terminal Moraine by Frank R. Stockton, Jules Verne, Hugo Gernsback publication Electrical Something, fair, a story about people, detective and mystery, quality magazines, the same kick, freedom of imagination, ordinary people of the future, present day motorists, essentially true, got married, pet hobbies, carnations, raising dachshund puppies, out here in Richmond (California), terrestrial paradise, no special ambitions, the pulps at their best touch a genuine folk tradition, a balladic quality, The New Yorker, science fantasy fiction, ballad-like, new fairy tales, this story we read today, a fairy tale is a fake folk tale, Hans Christian Anderson, Christian, Aesop’s fables, the Bros. Grimm, Cinderella, a complete Grimm, this is from this region, Bluebeard is Charles Perrault, The Castle Of Murder, before the show started, stories that need responses, stories in dialogue, Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, a collection of folk tales about robots, made by an individual, fingerprints, produced, Snow White, a new narrative, Walt Disney’s fingerprints, R.U.R., a story based on that idea, a collective knowledge about what things are about, Lin Coln, Star Trek episodes, he freed the robots, what is it that fairy tales do, wish fulfillment, folk tales are more functional, if Jonathan had written this story, a warehouse or something, it wouldn’t have the nagging complaining wife, that’s not your kink, boobs changing colours, lights inside of them, based on her mood, purplish/pink, jealous green, bad at his job, he’s the only one doing it, his badjobbedness, in the end, really good, doing it before everybody else, everybody knows Philip K. Dick’s stuff now, all the Verhoven stuff, she’s naked in the story, nail colour on her nails, the non-nakedness, a three boobed lady, Sharon Stone skin, kicking in the balls twice, grabbed in the crotch, swearing, blood packets, primal screaming by Michael Ironside, mutants, prosthetic arms, an infiltrator, even tho a mutant himself, happens everyday, that guy there wearing black from head to foot, that guy there was the fed, shaman hat, freedom!, the naive guy, an insurrectionist, I can’t image the government would ever do something like that, diminished faculties, sucking on the propaganda tit all day, children torn apart by bombs, have your memory changed, not be aware, why Philip K. Dick is so relevant, we don’t got to Rekall to get things done, NPR, those Houthis are bad, do you condemn Hamas?, Jesse you’re weird, just tune it out, he’s calling it out, very good very solid, a technical difference, psychiatrist is a doctor with patients, a psychologist who does therapy, the same trade, a license to prescribe, a university funded by DARPA, rich people love psychologists, talk about themselves all day, explore themselves, instead of having to read, schizophrenic, bourgeois, love the psychologist, this talking doctor, explore himself and his own memories, explain his behavior, the spiritual route, he wasn’t accepting the things he was being told, he’s fighting with his wife, is that really true, is she a hebephrenic?, guiding your thoughts, if he just told you you wouldn’t believe it, no longer done by psychologist, therapists, licensed professional counselors, the worried well, extensive experience, a candy dispenser for medicine, give you anything, a psychiatric nurse, gives a shit, even as this industry expands, the demand, people bad at it, degree mills, an interesting field, another word for horrifying, a vital field, physician is the body doctor, psychiatrist is the brain doctor, Scientology, he was reading a lot, his letters, passing comedic references, Dianetics fully discredited in the science fiction community, in Galaxy, Planet Stories, making fun of it, Writers Of The Future, Galaxy Press is Scientology, bigger, still exists, nothing dies, if you won that thing, blacklisted, the Tor people are the hip group, Reactor Mag, Tor.com, changed its name, the mainstream, any kind of audience, an audience of themselves, Lightspeed, a proofreader, does that for free (of course), Analog in the 1980s, write for Analog, submit your story now, read the magazine to learn what kind of stories we publish, not a pyramid, a lifestyle, something I’ve always wanted to be, I would like to have written, in this story his fantasy is about having done, not doing, what made Philip K. Dick a great writer, go out to his shack and write up a story, do it again and do it a gain, read these artifacts, no where near the top, a Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, the only thing that’s good about is the idea, a car drives up the side of a building, a robot taxi driver, a guy who says weird things, that person isn’t just an object, imagine he was a subject, star rating, nice things about your clothes, Jesse has never been in an uber, the Church of our Mother, interaction mediated through a cream sweeping machine, a very expensive car, driving a Mercedes, uber guy, delivers pizza, this is how we are now, that’s really sad, nice old Philip K. Dick times, what if we had robot drivers, single taxi drivers making a living, Married With Children, shoe salesman hates his life, two kids, he’s a loser because he’s a shoe salesman, we can’t imagine anybody having their own house and being a shoe salesman now, streaming from their bedroom in their mom’s house, that’s how things are now, driving an amazon truck, what Philip K. Dick imagined, the robot is the box, a robot manager, why did you make such a sharp left turn, his doors that won’t open until you pay them, oppressive and horrific, moving to quickly, postal worker, one’s employed by the government, move like robots, when break time comes, favourite interaction, everyone around here has worked at Amazon, a big warehouse in Lexington, always cry before my shift, it was so boring, this is what our expectations are, author copies, printed in Delaware, Ingram books vs. Amazon books, running out of ink, save money, why aren’t we buying up old printing presses and putting them in our basements, why we’re not doing it, cheaper through amazon, they can be relatively small, the way Benjamin Franklin did it, against the enterprise, Amazon owns everything, Lightning Source, Ingram Spark, everyplace that’s not Amazon, the Ingram family, every commercially published group, a monopoly on printing presses, distribution, conflating the two, you have to play the game to get books in hands or podcasts in earbuds, the middle man, the bookstores are gone, a Chapters in Coquitlam, candles and LEGO, Walton’s, Waterstones?, back into books, many independent bookstores, go to Oregon to find one, we have to travel so far, nail salon, skin salon, dog food store, catalogues, Sears Catalogue, big retail, the internet came, big box retail stores, better than the internet, leaving your house and going out, too soon to tell, Apple’s not giving up on their headset thing, bearish vs. bullish, bearish on VR stuff, for thinking about VR, or AI,companies are already starting to cutback, expensive and inexpensive, augmented reality, students like chatgpt, the people who grade the homework, anti-ai homework service, how do they monitize chatgpt, Scott’s paying for it, if school wasn’t mandatory, when you do crypto, burned an acre of rainforest, big computers, bitcoin, disruptive to the fiat currency systems, isn’t a result of the fake school system doing fake homework, from the fake ai money, the requirement to do or pretend to do, the horror that is school, getting hooked, solving a problem, people’s actual history with school rather than theoreticals, individual teachers, cram, take in then regurgitate, so weird, learned all on my own, we all know this true, busy work, Wordle, the word manga was the five letter word, such a funny story, has to be true, all outraged, such a boomer story, why does it exist, they need to fill time, garden a little bit, people like word games, keep your brain sharp, sudoku, relationship with crossword puzzles, but why?, don’t they have something better to do?, horrified, so unproductive, jigsaw puzzles, pretend to do something else, increases spatial awareness, listerine, advertizing back in the pulp magazines, rupture-easers, never been debunked and never will be, germs, lemon squeezy stuff at the door during COVID, throwing their money away, wrecking the environment, Jesse’s totally wrong about those, second most liberal school, cooked food is bad, stop washing my hair, stop using toilet paper, leaves, pages from books, water, there’s a whole alternative ecosystem, causes damage to your anus, bidets, reinforce, we need bidets, they smelled like shit, don’t wipe for a week, Jesse doesn’t smell like anything, three times a day, days without showering, stopped noticing their own bad scent, small classroom, coffee can do that, cigarettes, cigar people, if Will was stinky Jesse would tell him, in great danger of stinking, curbside pickup, drive thru, could be a danger sign, the bidet will help, occasional daily shower, middle ground on this body product issue, stay off the deodorant, worried about it, stinky notifications, if you get all sweaty have a shower, homeless person, memberships to gyms, change your clothes, stinky feet, stinky anything, not being on the body product chemical stuff, very sensitive nose, vacation to Egypt, far afield, the discussion that we’ve had today, not compelling, males must act, for all mankind, not a compelling theory, they need to do something, what’s the alternative to doing something, being passive, play PUBG, interaction with gamer, against their own interest, a discipline thing too, do you not remember when you’re building a house of cards what happens?, which is easier to do build or destroy, patience and skill, as a child which is easier, gain some skills, you can build, some patience, more satisfying, they’re immature, a pro build person, that’s deranged, liking destroying more than building, creative destruction, Sales Pitch, a commuter going through outerspace, pelted by advertizing for products (including body part replacements), pushy robot, men are looking for relevance, women are looking for security for their offspring, not even human, animal, the biological essence of women, very biologically different, animals don’t think about their gender as much as humans do, psychology or vagina, the psychology, why do people go off to fight in Ukraine when its not their war?, their being is fighting, act as if they should be out in the forest hitting each other with sticks, classroom sort of based stuff, foam sticks, eye protection, how to raise a kid with a knife, not even the same thing as a gun, you’re going threw a piece of broken glass, throwing things in the water is cool, this creature growing inside of me for 9 months, warm and safe when the birth happens, cats or dogs go find a place, motivation vs. psychology, money security, comfort, communal creatures, activities going on in the brain, under the surface, the archaeological record, prehistoric hunter gathers, the men and the women did the same kind of work, pretty up on archaeology, a subscription, middens, big piles of shells, more like regular people, misunderstanding, modern agricultural farming with land rights, less controversial example, human culture, animals are the opposite, that’s not true of all birds, sexual dimophism is a thing, two cockatoos look identical, let’s say he’s only talking about the birds, male turkeys, plumage, scrawny very small, male fish, clown colours, little grey things swimming around, women dressing up, in past human cultures, African American culture in the United States, purple zoot suit, a horse race, little pastel shirts, the Kentucky Derby, what the word dude means, these things are cultural, make money and look professional, he gets the Mercedes, jewelry, watches, anklets, make up and powdered wigs, cultural expectations of men and women, the man asks the woman out on a date, with the younger people, situationship, come up to each other and say “skibidi toilet”, in the 2000s, offline website, Will sent the first message, its not really about clothes, Jesse has this thesis that women’s primal drive is to seek safety and protection, motivated by different things, people have all sorts of narratives, they want to be near the money, basic psychology, enjoy writing like to tell stories, he wants to have sex with a woman, become a famous writer, who are we talking about here?, broken is such a way, make art, it would be good to have that art appreciated, Freud’s theory of sublimation, that energy that’s suppressed needs some place to go, divert that energy, largely done by males, triggered by Jesse, disagreeing, is your disagreement substantive, all the cave art, what is it about, different modes, blows paint over their hand on the wall, we are here, an accounting system, stories on the walls, a lot of animals, game animals, herd animals, herds exist in nature, some prehistoric people, goatherds and shepherds and cattle, natives of the plains, buffalo is a good example, elk or whatever, reindeer, a domestic animal for pulling sleighs and such, a wild animal, semi-domesticated animal, why do they obsessively paint these animals, this is like their religious association with the act of killing, to eat its flesh, take its hide, take its bones, they know that killing is wrong, insects, fish, furry creatures and birds, that’s what we are, we’re cooking flesh creatures, who’s making that art, it’s men, didn’t have stories yet, unlikely, didn’t have language yet, pictograms all over BC, the ones in France, before they were talking, how do you prove this, communicate that to organize into a hunt, bees do the same thing, I just found these flowers, pretty simple, how long does it take to develop language, communication, very few animals have grammar, chimpanzees are living in the stone age, bears in the pre-fire age, looking at peoples bodies stress injuries, a recent Predator movie called Prey, hyper-realistic, the vast majority of human behavior is throwing sharp sticks at food, rock attached to a stick, male work, more upper body strength, at what point are humans humans, are neanderthal humans, which one can rip Jesse’s arm off faster, harem of females, bonobo, female is the dominant one, we’re definitely on the spectrum, massive sexual dimorphism, some tiktok lady, bow-strength, butch ladies, there’s some femme guys, pretty normal, not 50 50, since the early 2010s, the ideal body type for women is athletic, 1920s, women were waifs, big shoulders, Dolly Parton, Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Baywatch, fat women, big butts, hoops in the back, from decade to decade, fashion, my woman is well fed, you’re putting that hoop skirt on her, that archetype, she runs track, karate and jujitsu, female wrestling team at a highschool?, bjj, roles for men, we’re men looking at women, Schwarzenegger and Stallone, Lady Gaga is a throwback to Madonna, chips and videogames, girl gamers, very successful career woman, boyfriend or husband is just like a loser, trailing behind her head hung low, sidegig, uber on the weekends, a reversal [see also the 1894 story THE REVOLT OF… by Robert Barr], economic issues with marriage, breast milk, weird hormones for strange reasons, breast pump, back into the meeting, a ton of hours, the cooking, no hunting going on, any fishing?, did he take your sister fishing?, girls should be allowed to play on boys baseball teams, more motivated, his sister, a fairly good baseball player, Will’s back, that’s like a thing, neighbours who live down the street, a pretty good job in IT, a parent they have to take care of, Meg is pulling down more money, not pumping out kids, Jesse’s pretty strange, a few steps ahead, what happened, to reading Day Million in the 80s, Larry Niven in the 80s, Jonathan has one child, a 10 year old, tend to not to vs. can’t, the history of hospitals vs. doctors vs. nurses, Florence Nightingale, doctors are ancient, Galen, hospitals are from the middle agents, christian brothers, more people visiting the Holy Land, bind each other to a covenant, a safe route for travelers, knights hospitalers, knights templars, hospitality, a modern mecca pilgrimage, filled with patients, doctors come into the hospitals and see to the patients, war hospitals, women want to contribute, swapping out bandages, giving them food and drinks, all those separate jobs are created the behavior of the genders, fraternal orders, they like fighting, shoot crossbow bolts, everything related to violence, theyre the orcs, the consequence of what they’re doing, our vision of Rambo, a useful idiot, pulled back in for the sequels, built into the human boy, not built into the human girl, girls going into the , a Lysenkoist, Jesse loves Stalin, Jesse doesn’t love Stalin, epigenetics, how you get your grant, cooperate and help each other, he got his grant year after year, its embarrassing, why less destiny than genes are, The Not-World, talkin with Cora, a fake Nancy Drew, sounds like girl stuff, she’s so fuckin weird, girls are interested in investigation, and getting tied up, investigating with flashlights, makes sandwiches, figures out a fact, swaps jeans with her best friend who’s probably not a lesbian, Time Is The Simplest Thing, will was on vacation, our friend Scott Miller, a parasocial relationship, franticly dmd, the Ray Bradbury agent estate, either bullshitting or wrong, three strikes then his account is deleted, if they don’t rescind their takedown notice, he’d have to sue them, The Visitor by Ray Bradbury, here’s the source, either their records are fucked up or…, he had to pull something down, more from his podcast?, that’s a bad sign, one somebody’s radar, Don Congdon & Associates, long deceased, Wall Street Plaza address, the take down notice, possible being trolled by another youtuber?, the official website?, their DMCA notices, this is why, if you can’t win don’t play, a rigged game, too much, it is rigged, lots of reasons to not have children, when Will was one, babies are boring, peekaboo is pretty limiting, can’t bounce them too hard, get sad, can’t explain why, crying kids explaining what the problem, temper tantrums, what it was v.s what I thought it was, incoherent, seems like it is pain, some of it is permormative, pretending to do them, podcasting or walking, Land Of Our Fathers, Paul Robeson, travelling around Wales, toy laptops, toy kitchens, fake oven, tiny, my little bakelite, easybake oven, a boy equivalent, easy bake machine shop, easy grill, easy lathe, easy gunsmithery, metal molds, put goop in them, creepy crawlers, bug toys, probably toxic as hell, still not very good at cooking, make your own food, cheaper, better for you, can be a serious problem, here we are childless with all these cats, Mars Express (2023), at the spaceport, a robot that looks like Astroboy, looks like their grandchild, nuzzles the robot’s head, full of that, at every turn, teaching you the plot like a really good mystery movie, the name of the people who made it, French people who like, know and do, the Astronaut’s daughter is really important, I am going to stand in for my sister, must have a dressing contest, it gives away its ideas, too much of it, the dress up contest, first romance with the Mormon lady, Twilight, not good for Jesse, the Olympic Peninsula, rainforest, Indians, girl gas to choose between werewolf and vampire, sparkly qualities, hot native, very loyal, of course she chooses the white man, just so hard to choose, Betty and Veronica , Rebecca Black’s Friday, what will I do?, a mean reading of women’s psychology, look at the options available then choose the best one, uncharitable, vs. men choosing women, a line about beautiful vs. hot, hot is about how one is dressed or undressed, the signals of hotness, hair in a bun, glasses on, pantsuit, not putting out the hot signals, all women have the potential of being hot, distracted by hotness, this other thing, kindness, amiability and kindness, what do you think?, eventually got together, pre-Meg people, propinquity, accessibility, big factor, Pinky, little Chinese girl from next door, the cookie store in Chinatown, how different human beings can be from each other, one of those people, two definitely, only in touch with one, fucked up and broken (but still look pretty), didn’t jive well, fucked up girlfriend, sex addled, similar personalities, similar sense of humour, big schemers, convince other people to do things, you should join this church, an elaborate party in order to get Will a scanner, scanners live with meaning, watching PulpCovers put out weird menace story art, get somebody to read for me, a podcast to edit up, a student, oh coffee, dad and mom and brother for father’s day, an afterthought, Children’s Day, you honour your mother, you don’t have to do homework today, seems dangerous, one day a year where they don’t have to study, all poor kids, out-competing their non-hagwan forced bretheren, univerities jobs, diplomas, it is a scam, the Jesse lesson: can’t win don’t play, forget about the suicides over there, what jobs exist, not at Walmart (for the old and disabled), young and abled work at Amazon, all other jobs are for Koreans, China’s the place to be for an upwardly mobile job, what you actually do in them, what the culture is like, elaborate paperwork all day, grade the kids, needs more of this, fun and funny, off to Korea, throws in something about capitalism every story, The Society, flame, peach and hen, can’t see the end in sight, many other hens, everyone were crazy about peaches, even the hens were framed harmed and killed each other for peaches, in style without curiosity, once foxes blocked the road, they usurped peaches, disturbed other hens lives, masks to hid their expressions, gave up, made a little flame, it began to swallow the foxes, fell into a swamp, the foxes were eaten by the flame, she was tired and the end of the road had come, she could saw a bed at the end of the road, with this the hen’s long journey, doesn’t it see similar to something? right?, it’s society, here is a translate, the road, corrupt politicians, the swamp, pretense, the bed death, awesome, to delight Jesse, he delighted me, so delightful, do it for free, to explain what a sleeve is, how that would come about, my teacher touched my arm, done it with drawings before, more concrete, sniffing and acting and banging the table, the word bruise, ouch it is a bruise, whatever, its tough out there, the good ones make it really good, six great ones, four or five somewhere in the middle, minimum wage approaching Jesse’s wage, a number of coequal workers, asking politely vs. an ability to walk away, other methods, hitman?, tutor privately.

World's Best Science Fiction 1967 - We Can Remember It For You Wholesale - illustration by Jack Gaughan

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale - Editorial introduction from F & SF

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #818 – READALONG: The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The SFFaudio Podcast #818 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

Talked about on today’s show:
grounded on where you’re at, in case you’re disoriented, you’re the president, 2nd Paul Kavanaugh novel, the copyright is under Paul Kavanaugh, pseudonyms and copyright renewals, to hide the identity, in the afterword, they way he writes and talks and thinks, I don’t know, how this book ends, very distinctively Lawrence Blocky, getting to know Lawrence Block, a lot of sex in this book, guy talking to himself for most of the book, conversations with Heidegger, full of references, Nazi philosopher, philosopher of art, on of the covers, the lower 48, deep down in the layers is a swastika, a background to this, quizzes?, hobby horses, Westlake doesn’t delight in putting sex in everything, natural mode, When the doorbell rang, looking at baby robins, the guy with the Turkish cigarettes comes in, a tribute to Richard Stark, starting with when, Stark is Westlake, starting with action, drinking tea, being playful, Such Men Are Dangerous, interesting book, first person, third person, very tight over the shoulder, in the head of the main character, conversations with a guy, telepaths words into our heads, having sex with his girlfriend, Jocelyn I need to tell you, pretty cool, third person limited, that title, a Miles Dorn version of it, a famous founding father?, all that is required for the triumph of evil…, for good men to do nothing, generally attributed to Edmund Burke, investigations of quotes, Heinlein quotes, AtoZQuotes, women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs, long big investigation, one source, from a 19th century book, really painful, plains speaking women, John F. Kennedy, John Stuart Mill, bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, doesn’t flow as well, Not Comin’ Home For You, really gay reporter [Truman Capote], In Cold Blood, 1965, a novelization of the idea of one of the characters telling the story, 1635, John Reynolds The Triumph Of Gods Revenge Against The Crying And Execrable Sin Of Murther, Sean Penn, an exercise of actors getting awards, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking, what is it for, the true crime genre is sick, true crime podcast boom, not as dominant in the headlines of podcasting, new Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, on Alexander The Great’s daddy, students using chatGPT, some piece of text that needed to be grokked, in the style of William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, now write in in the style of Dan Carlin, good Dan Carlin parody, a lot of legs to this thing, a Lawrence Block parody, several modes, that repetition going, the structure of a plot, a short story, fed it the whole thing, what would the plot be, fairly decent, now write it and market it for me please, a convention, quoting a magazine editor, inundated with AI generated stories, claim to be able to tell, ‘I want AI to do my dishes and vacuum my carpet so I can write and do art’, play with it, an idea for a short story, asking it questions, how can you see it related to this?, give me a list of 10 science fiction tropes, drumming up ideas, a very good search engine, hours vs. minutes, the formulation of question, student doesn’t know what prompts to type in, that’s what we should be educating the kids on, how to solve problems, a homework assignment that’s important to your mom, when you’re learning to write you need to read good writing, an opening paragraph, this feeling of unity, how was that achieved?, bad result and no learning, what makes something good?, Ernest Hemingway explaining something, what mode to be in, everything works out exactly as planned, written in a week, how does he do that, come up with a premise and get through it in a week, a solid novel, that was an experience, I’m not disappointed, some people have it a lot, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, L. Ron Hubbard, throw out stories like mad, making money, two stories a week to put food on the table, being proud of, for things that are more ambitious, Richard Bachman for Stephen King, channeling a different part of his brain, Misery, The Regulators, Blaze is a drawer novel he had to re-write, the sickness, know each other, politics are pretty sympatico, triggered by orange president, Stephen King has never recovered, what happened to them, this trauma is devastating, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King’s Bachman books are angry books, these boomers were triggered by something that happened in the 60s, the Black Panthers stuff, Sputnik, from a certain period of time, the trauma doesn’t go away, as they get elderly, feted, one of the least famous successful writers, his faculties are still there, racewalking, doing blow or drinking, got his head on straight, guns being the solution to America’s problems, being a part of the establishment, if Stephen King wrote this book he would delete it, what’s the plot?, Scott’s not a liberal, and a good thing too, traumatized by this entire thing too, disappointing, we got 5 hours, Paul, that is not so, how easily people are swayed, written in the 70s, 1971, being talked to by this guy, figure out which country I’m talking about, that scene is really stunning, see these words, an effective demagogue will surface on the right, when he emerges the rightest fringe, anti-intellectual, the nation’s destiny, treason in high places, so naive, that’s why it is good, we were deluded, we were mistaken, so astonishing, rhyme with a bunch of different times, making these conclusions, we just went through 1968, Nixon, I am not a crook, how was that achieved, he was setup, WHAT?!, age 1, Watergate blah blah blah, the committee to reelect the president, everything makes sense, he’s trying to stay in office, pull the whole longer quote, people need to know what’s going on, it would be bad for a president to be a crook, they’re making him look like a crook, recordings on the mission, why why why did he set himself up to record his own crimes, Frost/Nixon, an exposure of character and motive, smart and canny, not a politically naive guy, politician for a long time, lost to JFK, doing things that seem questionable, making peace with China, a coup for him, making your enemies not your enemies, he knows that the CIA’s not on his team, super-interesting, making those recordings to protect him, hold this over their, his own paranoia, is it valid to be paranoid, wearing a belt paranoia, these pants are a little loose, deep seated belief, he didn’t have the edit on that, a little later, that hadn’t happened yet, the president in this book isn’t quite Nixon, this book isn’t about Nixon, about the period of time, a single person affecting the course of history, The Black Hand, the secret society trying to liberate Serbia from the Austro-Hungarian empire, Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, a Serbo-Croat background, the Evan Tanner series, The Sins Of The Fathers, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, the irish actor, the tall one, certain special skills, Liam Neeson, light adventure James Bondy sort of thing, a Vietnam vet, a super-power (he can’t sleep), never met a revolutionary he didn’t want to join up with, aging in previous books, cryogenic sleep, sex romps, involved in various revolutions around the planet, a plot to kill Castro [Killing Castro], commentary, manipulated, east to pull strings and make things happen, is he wrong?, not going to kill with an empty gun, might have to prevent access to book, prison library, license plates, telemarketing, somebody would assassinate Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, moneyed people who like snobs?, people beneath them, deplorable, the other team, enemies like Hillary Clinton, Lawrence Block’s tweets, very political, used to use the word Trump a lot, when we had Dan Carlin on the podcast, how do you even know things?, in the current political world, not knowing what’s true, part of the plan, making serious conclusions, long enough ago, GW in the White House, President Obama, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, April 2010, what Limbaugh was doing, find extreme examples, Libs Of Tiktok before Tiktok, multiple sources, why he doesn’t have a Common Sense show anymore, from the Martian party, mom was a movie star, its a lot easier to know what’s going on when there’s no passion involve, Hitler, Alexander the Great, there’s no pain involved, the 1860s cvil war not the 2025 civil war, July 2016, nostalgic to Nixon, when the republicans nominated Nixon, 2020, one sure thing, coop or coo, they don’t like Trump’s dumb, he read the room, ya fied, David Simon, a Baltimore Sun reporter, Homicide: Life On The Street, The Street, A Year On The Killing Streets: Homicide, unremitting horror of what governmental policy has done, from 2023, Jimmy Fallon lost me, political norms, my anger was undue, last day on twitter, fellow travelers, with regard to Heidegger, hollow grifter, hasn’t quite shot his bolt yet, tweets all day long about twitter, why is this important, they don’t have to kill people anymore, January 6th was an “insurrection”, when you don’t bring your guns to your insurrection it’s not much of an insurrection, Ray Epps, FBI plants, the government of the deep state, oligarchy vs. plutocracy, they’re hidden in shadow, the land of Hades, very wealthy, want things done and it gets done, what is this book about?, lives in Holiday Inns, an agent for another agency, the CIA?, shadowy, shaping the narrative, how is it that people think January 6th is an insurrection, called that by the news media, confronted with facts, “police officers were killed”, dressed in masks head to foot, republican tourists, things Scott doesn’t believe, “I certainly don’t think there were government plants all over that crowd”, “we need to go into the capitol”, “fed fed fed”, people to be arrested, something that might be illegal, seems like he’s a fed, how do you prove it, just convicted for misidentifying money, for spying off a woman, business records crime, it doesn’t make any sense, very meaningful for a lot of people, assassinations are done with [this podcast was recorded June 9th, 2024, fyi], they don’t have to do it that way anymore, incredibly strong feelings on both sides, worse than it is now, anger towards Biden and Trump, kinda the point of the book, killing this leftist, killing this rightist, you don’t have to kill them with bullets anymore, at least on an upper level, domestically, Reagan was the last attempt, fake attempts, every attempt is for a purpose, MLK, RFK, Reagan and Pope John Paul II, they were both hit, in Vatican square, the popemobile, the pope forgave him, took him out of prison?, where was he tried?, puts the lie to being their own country, political courtrooms, its cloudy, acting alone?, sets up a kid to take the fall, JFK, Oswald vs. Jack Ruby, a psychiatrist? goes to visit Jack Ruby in jail, the man is sick, he can’t explain what’s going on, dies of cancer shortly thereafter, the inference is the psychiatrist gave him a shot that fucked up his brain, layers, hellllo!, I expected your call, do you want you pills for your men, they won’t get caught, the reviews, some people didn’t know what was going on, there’s a scene, review from 2014, confusing and fragmented, an assignment, he does do something but he doesn’t do what he tells Heidegger, a little unclear, there’s a lot of self-talk at the end, this letter to Jocelyn he’s hiding under the rug, he’s never going to deliver this letter, he does fairly well, he doesn’t know his own mind perfectly but, I could run away, I could flee the country, he’s not willing to go through with it as like a robot, he has to do it his own way, this is him testing his employer, did you have another man on this, why does he do that?, is he testing Heidegger?, or is he perverse in that he has to lie in order to control the situation, really interesting, why do people sort of give up?, you can’t know, I know I’m being manipulated, cultivate your own garden, concentrate on local, what if you’re wrong, you don’t want to be wrong, being out of the loop and out of control, he likes Heidegger, he likes some of the politicians he kills, a whole theme going on, the bird theme, the cat’s name, why must cats eat birds?, who is the cat in this story?, he has to kill them, Vertigo is the cat, another problem people have, eats a chicken for dinner, getting into the head of one of these behind the scenes operators, there are people who plan assassinations, vast conspiracy, like minded-groups trying to manipulate things, manipulating through media, more nefarious, tried to coup Venezuela under Trump, WWII operations, people who invent COVID, that’s all real, down that rabbit hole, a reference to Alice In Wonderland, the Red Queen, talk in French, remember who you are, this is the way to go, Rabbit Hole, starring Keifer Sutherland, the layers go deeper and deeper, conspiracy style show, Hunter Biden laptop, “all the earmarks”, 5-10 years go by, a way of playing things out, how do these things happen?, the primary one, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, this guy named Clay, a Speaker of the House who became president, his Wikipedia entry, prevented the civil war for a long time, tried to run for president, the new hotness, Henry Clay, he doesn’t have a stellar record with regard to being an abolitionist, pretty rare, Lincoln wasn’t elected to stop slavery, the Quakers, church politics, The Fearless Benjamin Lay, sent it to Fred Heimbaugh, giant phallus, the Jefferson Memorial, Washington, DC in 1971, respect, wow what did he do, The Gettysburg Address, told to focus on that, take you on tour, he tours the White House, fake assassination, but when he toured Italy, he shook my hand and I was proud, what’s so triggering about these bad presidents, disrespecting the office, represented by this orange clown, this demented fool, when not managing properly, the Businesman’s Plot, Smedley Butler, do a coup on you, nothing came of it, there’s no Smedley Butler memorial, because it happened, this is a guy who’s a servant, War Is A Racket, an agent for United Fruit, I did that for years and years, highest decorated marine in history, we don’t allow it to be talked about, his name is not on everybody’s lips, control the media, make people know what the narrative is, they heard it, how this book, we are not in assassination time (at least for politicians), how we got out of that, United Fruit, Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped The World by Peter Chapman, a captivating guide, Philippine American War the Boxer Rebellion, Bananas Wars, bad consequences but not for the rich, screwing things up, stock in United Fruit, friends with the people in charge, the situation in Cuba, they had their guy in charge, the revolution went extremely easily, how did they manage to liberate their island?, all the people who were in on the corruption hated that, now they’re on The View, Gusano, mad their granddaddy was a vast landholder, get their land back, trying to reverse the Russian Revolution, get the king back, get the peasant agrarian system back, the cousins of the kings of England, they look identical, same beard, same face, weird WWII stuff, an operation in Germany at the end of WWII, the king of England saving his Nazi cousins in Germany, hidden at the time, probably illegal, thank you so much, when we next visit, meatgrinder in the Philippines or anywhere else, the Lusitania or the Zimmerman Telegram, not for you, not for me, the girl goes to the commune in Kentucky, cultivate your own garden, go get killed by the police, he had to Stephen King it, Lawrence Block hasn’t gone back and *fixed* his books, an operational difference, Westlake’s politics are very hidden, much more cynical, more cultivating your garden, a very interesting book, being an artifact, what people would understand, art, history, statues, an artifact, the statues thing, the Lincoln Memorial, a congressional vote, assassinated, looking into the eyes of that man, a good thing, the heavy pressure of those eyes, using it for his own purposes there, this short story, Make A Prison, the name of the aliens Altheans, based on a poem, To Althea From Prison by Richard Lovelace, when flowing cups, careless heads, loyal flames, thirsty grief, fishes that tipple in the deep, the relationship he has with Jocelyn, a lot of sex, when like committed linnets, the glories of my king, enlarged wings, stone walls that do not a prison make, an hermitage, a famous museum, angels alone that soar above, a rampant killer, a society where people don’t accept violence, a giant tower, an open prison, what the hell is this story about, love of poetry, William Blake, he’s hard, what is this about?, Tiger Tiger, Alfred Bester, why Blake is so good, another layer, approaching it from this way, why do tigers exist?, how can we have tigers and christianity, god wants us to be good, a creature that wants to kill, a feirce and dangerous creature, questions not answer, fearful symmetry, what brain conceived this animal, he has great questions, also true with Block, great insight into human nature and our dilemma, a very racist character, gently kills him, has to kill a cop, nice conversation with a cop, interracial pornography, an electronic masturbating machine, what is he saying here, a man who really really likes art, The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, why is this a thing, there’s no good answer to it, why did this guy do that, not satisfactory when you know, a solution to problems with the media, cameras come in, impressionism, art turns into something else, Piet Mondrian, great art, when did it all go wrong?, ready-made art, buys a urinal, labels it “Fountain”, something seriously studied in art classes, how is this possible?, there are explanations, they’re not good and they’re not satisfying, they sell, all a scam, crypto stuff on Skype, get excited about crypto, might be all just money laundering, $10,000 across borders, doesn’t explain how it started, talking about AI art, a reddit thread, what if Mad Max posters had been painted by Frazetta, what’s so crazy about it is Frazetta did Mad Max, they don’t know, that’s where AI is coming in, coming in with very little information, when you compare the original Frazetta Mad Max to the AI Frazetta, filtered through, Frazetta-like, dealing with AI art in novels soon, make a commitment to read an ai novel that was knowingly ai, setting you up to say no, Lawrence Block found another novel in a drawer, a terrible (but honest) answer, content policy restrictions, dynamic and dramatic elements inspired by his style, not a terrible picture, not a good picture, kinda generic, Firefly spaceship?, more sympathy for that than what we had in the 90s, bubbles or a ribbon, 70s New Wave cover art, 80s Baen, Mattingly covers, a horrid cover of Way Station, interested in generating product, people getting into art, pencil crayons, is that you, that’s a boy, the other boy over here, that’s a girl, they don’t have sideburns their faces are all bubbles, a little bit about art, a little bit in there, more colourful, Del Rey book edition, better, 1986, guy in overalls standing over an open grave, facing an alien, rusting rocket, other than The Aeneid?, an Arthur C. Clarke kick, Islands In The Sky, short stories, never read Rendezvous With Rama, everybody likes it, it sounded lame, there’s nobody there, walking around looking around, Ringworld has aliens on it, vampires and werewolves, big dumb object with peoples, 1 year old, born in 1968, The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, Lovecraft is the same, At The Mountains Of Madness, based on the title, he’d already moved to Sri Lanka, not usually what SF authors do, awards, the Book Club edition, smokin a pipe, alien with a coffee cup, composition vs. execution, in the style of non-trademarked or non-copyrighted artist, the other ones?, monthly subscription, quite nice, really good, somebody holding up a copy of Way Station, Cllifford Simak, read the text at the very top, looks like garbage, do we really need to read the books on our shelves, a problem, you have to keep them, you and Scott’s wife, we have to acknowledge, something wrong with the roof, the light doesn’t make a lot of sense, if you cropped it, no D., here is a book cover for Way Station, pastoral elements, feel free to let me know, it’s your friend, craft me a government that doesn’t suck shit, afraid to hit enter, egoless ai is the solution, we must give it the nuclear weapons, buttons, many such requests, really fun, who’s me?, generate me a good cover of Rendezvous With Rama, look empty, bite to eat, that makes Rama look like a fun and exciting place to go, thinking, happening, all kindsa wrong, houses in woods well, big dumb objects not so well, not using a particular artist, David Mattingly, weirding artists out, in the style that I do, Choose Your Own Adventures Covers, similar, not very David Mattinglyly, clinical and cleanly, cover artist for Old Man’s War, John Harris, very 70s, too giant spaceships, too many giant spaceships, allowed, shai haloud 2020 Dune art, too modern, refusing, content policy restrictions, Edmund Dulac, ethereal and atmospheric elements, how about Sidney Sime, comics being made out of this every day soon, two ts in Arthur, the framing, on a wood wall, Etsy photos, make it look homey, have a great one.

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #706 – READALONG: Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #706 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

Talked about on today’s show:
Stephen “Shitlib” King, on twitter, Marissa, what’s a shitlib?, explaining without being derisive, at the heart of his character, urban dictionary, portmanteau, leftist, spinelessness, hypocrisy, vote blue no matter who, hit the phones, an American treasure, fear of political radicals, Randall Flagg, Under The Dome, anxiety about radicalism among boomers, he’s not stupid, blinkered on some political issues, Fantasy & Science Fiction, October November 1997, novella, his psychology is on display, JFK, he can’t get JFK out of his mind, he’s not willing to accept, of more than one mind on things, why his characters can be so good, a terrific story in terms of readability, a small idea sustained for 2 hours, not that much material going on, the little drips, the chronology of this story is so well done, he hints that he murdered this guy, murder, what he can do and what he did do, a trailer, 2008 adaptation, “dollar baby”, SK will let you adapt anything for $1 (for no commercial students), what makes him a shitlib, I’m wealthy, I want to make everything post scarcity, he can’t be that, he does this half-measure, John Scalzi, no where in the league of Stephen King, filmmakers have a lot of interest in this, you want to do it that’s great, that’s why we don’t get to see this movie, an advocate of public domain, decry, an exemplar of his shitlibbery, he’s also a brand, offensive adaptations, diminishing his stature, it has hurt Shakespeare’s reputation greatly, a right wing screed, how could Stephen King let Trump do that?, he’s not going to get shit on by random people, Caitlin Johnstone, Australian, an online twitter commentator, you work for RT, you can do anything you want with my stuff as long as you’re not racist, you can’t really control what other people do unless you’re Stephen King, what piracy is, worrying, Stephen King knows JFK’s assassination isn’t on the up and up, who is this transcorporation, a dinky tranny, why he hasn’t been canceled yet, he wants to keep his reputation as a shitlib, trying to reconcile and can’t, a generous person who loves are but can’t, Richard Bachman, books, an extreme critique of American capitalism, massive dissatisfaction, this nefarious corporation, the government, a secret organization, people who shine, The Dark Tower, Firestarter, kill off people who are threats to the system, written around 1997, these are the people the system allows to exist to give them legitimacy, critique the system slightly from the left, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, they’re who Stephen King wants to be, the true threats to the system, the general who turns his back on war, and who is going to run for office, a lib columnist, the pope and the dog (Muffins), they’re not targeting prison abolitionists or anti-capitalists, that’s true, he could have highlighted any three people, he sees them as threats to the system, if this story was set in the 1960s, would Martin Luther King be targeted if this was set in the 1960s, Dolores Claiborne, he can’t resist to demonize a character, an obsession he has, Camelot and what might have been RFK, JFK was not a shitlib, a tool of American empire, he was trying to dismantle, why did they kill him?, he was fighting the military industrial complex, he was a cold warrior, he talks like a cold warrior, invading Cuba, aircover for the Bay of Pigs, a great betrayal of the deep state, the CIA, the Cuban expatriate right (wing), Florida, too soft on Kennedy, Jesse denies killing killing Kennedy, The Devil’s Chessboard, the Dulles brothers did it, the FBI was run by a guy who had massive power over presidents, J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles was fired by JFK, why Oswald killed JFK, in the area, the Zupruder film, suppressed since the 1960s, he wrote a book 11/22/63, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, he’s not willing to accuse his Uncle [Sam], what this story is about, why Evan picked this story, Call Him Nemesis (is a) superhero origin story by Donald E. Westlake, three help Roland, Dinky Earnshaw, his one true multiverse, like Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire, Robert A. Heinlein, The Number Of The Beast, Gulf, Friday, why is Pug in this story, the guy at the super-saver, The Mist, autobiographical stuff, the themes of the story, most of us, the vast majority of our talents are wasted, like Stephen King, this grocery store, the recruiter, the mom, Sharpton, what’s so powerful about this story, your talent is useful, so seductive, fall into the trap, trained to do horrible things, give them a home, easy to justify, wipes out a wedding in Yemen, Afghanistan, more egregious, a seductive reality, people want to be useful, do nothing all day, take photos all day, free of economic constraints, wasting real talent, how many Mozarts are working in some coal mine, Ansel Adams working as warranty administrators, recruited into the military, your country needs you, if you work hard you can advance up the ranks, the army made me the man I am today, Starship Troopers, the satire, my doggy thing, an image of a guy throwing change down the drain on the side of the road, fire hydrants, rain gutters, as a kid that’s what you’re close to, as a shorter person, those summers last forever, your grade 8 summer, not sending to Nyarlathotep, why would anybody throw clothes down there?, get rid of the money, great writing, what isn’t answered, pug is also a funny name, fuck Mrs. Buckowski’s dog, he hates the dog, his hatred for dogs, Muffins is a dog, transforms in his dream from Pug into Skipper, he knows he’s killing innocent people, he’s killing pugs, what we know about psychopaths, killing animals, Dink is a very nice guy, pizza face, chocolate, we like him, at the end of the story, it’s going to go there, the tie, “company”, a cutout for the CIA, The Men Who Stare At Goats, Courtney Brown, remote viewing, DARPA, a great job, but its a cult and you’re doing evil, rescinded, a shell company, the bombsight metaphor, surrounded by homeless people, a super-analytical mind, Philip K. Dick, boobs, coffee, religious philosophy, the names in here are not nothing, Excalibur, Neff’s suicide, white haired New York Times columnist, good humoured fuck, Double Indemnity, Walter Neff, suckered in by a hot lady, murder, he can’t quite put it all together, faces out of the earth coming to haunt him in his dreams, I’m the tool, Stephen King knows what the problem is, he can’t make that extra step, King with a Ukraine shirt, he’s on board, he won’t rock the boat, he’s a good boy, he can write another story, I got another story to write, bringing out the psychology of himself, a very frustrating situation, he can’t escape, somebody comes and saves him?, that’s the ending?, the opening of a novel, not an ending, a gap in the writing, Mr. Sharpton is not the boss of this company, he’s killing some guy who’s like him, I’ve been hypnotized and maybe drugged, he’s the handler, how spies make assets, Chuck, The Americans, the things that shitlibs say: “Russian assets”, ex-CIA guys on Twitter, Mike Baker, Joe Rogan, a time clock, the relationship will fall apart, starting with a negative vs. a positive, human assets are time limited, revenge, blackmail, recruited as a positive, apple pie, swank mag, his internet was censored, when things shifted, browsers in 1994, other people are watching him, he’s being spied on in the past, post-cogs, JFK was killed by a woman, even Stephen King doesn’t think that Oswald did it, mostly a love story, he can’t come to terms with it, he can’t grapple with it, JFK, RFK, more right wing, Catholics should have loved JFK, conservative Catholic, as an alternative to Nixon, LBJ, what might have been, he was murdered, even the president can be assassinated, banned from twitter, Trump should have nationalized twitter, nationalizing gas companies, if you can ban the most powerful person in the world from communicating, who’s really in charge?, a very 1960s film, Dr. Strangelove (1964), James Coburn, The President’s Analyst (1967), Gravy Planet aka The Space Merchants, Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, the Aliens universe, working hand in glove, al the way back to Smedley Butler, the business plot, War Is A Racket, an agent of corporations, a mercenary for United Fruit, enforcing the Monroe doctrine, Oswald was Dink, if you buy the official story, recruited by the CIA to live in Russia, pro and anti-Cuba in Florida, who was his paymaster, Robert Dwoney Jr., Air America is a CIA plot, drug running and gun running, a fun movie, those are Dinks, illegal, off the books, if the president is playing the game, is all of King like this?, how this story is told, how things are revealed, a Dark Tower connection, Ted Chiang’s Understand, intellectual powers, The Dreams In The Witch-House, making a guy off himself, paranoid shit like that, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme, stream of consciousness, Gerald’s Game, he’s still really relevant, non-euclidean, he doesn’t even know the world eldritch, talents, a metaphor for him, why he is Dink, why he banned his school shooting book, he thinks this power is real, crazy but also true, he doesn’t want to have this on his conscience, much bigger than he is, what if he is wrong?, not the Stephen King that we have, they’d have to deal with him, maybe?, George Orwell, Animal Farm is a CIA tool, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm is the one they push, this is not bullshit, he can’t be responsible, he hates Trump, and he’s a good boy, the tower can’t fall, you just can’t go there, why he’s so sucessful, The Dark Tower is reactionary, the last cop trying to hold together the universe, a traditional liberal, it doesn’t outline the issue, he’s not willing to accept what he knows is true, he’s writing it all over the page, Understand is much more simple, Limitless, the power to predict, super-analyze, taking knowledge, the’s correlating all the contents, a one man psychohistory, he’s pretending like he’s dumb, Paul has a day job, wordle, a nice relaxing game of Civ, sunrise and sunset photos, putting things together, what writers and comedians do all day long, putting it all together, truing to understand reality, the mainstream media, the transcribers of CIA talking points, Abby Martin and Chris Hedge’s back catalogue on YouTube were deleted, the Russians interfered in our elections, stop the steal, the same narrative and the same set of beliefs, the same unfounded set of beliefs, they’re swimming in it, NPR, PBS, Democracy Now used to be anti-war, Yemen (war) is vaguely bad, the AirWars website, the numbers don’t go down, the narrative wont allow it, he wont allow us to see the final conclusion, killing off the Excalibur guy, he can’t solve the story, it really is a disappointing ending, he isn’t exposing anything, if you want to escape, he hasn’t followed it up, taken back in by another recruiter to be a breaker, a secret book, here’s what I really thought, Galileo can’t say what he really thinks, and yet it moves, a tell-all, why he has to keep writing, he’s gotta avoid making that conclusion, too afraid of disorder, Secret Window, Secret Garden, Rest Stop, beats up an abusive man in a rest stop toilet, fearful of disorder, his greatest fear is the fear at the ending of The Mist, I just have to kill my family, what if I’m wrong?, the dark ending that Hollywood couldn’t handle, the movie ending makes it more explicit, makes the subtext text, highlights the mistake, good and stability wins out, is stability always good?, Dungeons & Dragons, good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, a lawful evilness to the American Empire, we define what lawful , James Clapper: “not wittingly” is lying to congress, weapons of mass destruction, mistakes were made, when people get divorced, I want to not be married to this person, I’m going to go to the garage more, circumstances that will lead, the life wish vs. the death wish, we should always be thinking about our own psychology, I’m married to the United States, happy wife, happy life, because if it rhymes it must be true, if the glove doesn’t fit you must acquit, write more stuff, if you do look into the dark pit you , what is the end goal, I want to be the last man standing, a lot of people do the hot drop, feeling the stress building over a half an hour, a miniature version of life, to understand truth, killing people doesn’t make you survive better, being aggressive doesn’t make you less likely to be killed, the life instinct and the death instinct, to be stressed out, a very immature thing, its lunch time, alone in a classroom, building a house of cards, blow on his house a cards, what would child Paul, most boys would exercise their vital power, they want to see stuff blow up, that felt bad, stop the bully, we have both instincts, to be the bully and to stop the bully, what play is, puppies and kittens, 100% natural, as an adult you don’t do this anymore, not a dis just a fact, there’s consequences to his actions, Dink is immature, ignorant, socially isolated, why King is playing him as a less savvy version of himself, interesting Catholic stuff, King’s a Methodist, the pope being assassinated, Stephen King is dink and the plot master, Mercedes, Mr. Mercedes, symbols of power, jeans are for fucking around, suits are for business, King doesn’t wear a suit (because he’s not a businessman), what keeps him writing, suits are almost always bad news, technical dress code shirt, a shirt with a collar and buttons, a 70s shirt, Leonard McCoy’s chest hair, a pretty big collar, Kirk with the arm hair, giant belt buckles, a tracking device, a little off topic, a little Star Trek talk for Chowbacca, it’s fun to hear your name called out, how’s Picard season 2 going?, the Red Letter Media, enjoying their discomfort, another national treasure, how their collective works, their editing is good, their insights are good, commercially interesting, the Critical Drinker guy, Red Letter Media aren’t interested in the Batman movie, their Darkman (1990) review, its a good time to consider Sam Raimi, how this podcast works, what’s the hot new book out?, no interest, N.K. Jemisin, I consider her a friend, Nora, Paul considers them all friends, a moderator on her twitch channel, free labour here too, how many PUBG games has she played with you?, more of a guy game, DaRose, nobody wants to here his civil war stories, their ideal audience, people don’t read civil war anthologies, Sinclair Lewis, nobody knows him, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, 1st hundred pages are poetry, the ultimate thesis on The Raven, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ben Franklin, John Adams, inventor, intellectual, Evan was triggered, hard on John Adams, sacrificed his presidency to stop a war, he was unpopular, greater moral considerations, Andrew Jackson, oof size large, trigger Evan about Poe, strictly monogamous, Poe is so rich, he’s super-intimidating, he’s like William Shakespeare, having issues, away from the , In And Out Burgers, having Paul adventures, more shitlib King, the Dark Tower is too big, anything long will trigger Jesse, the 70 hours The Devil’s Chessboard [is 26 hours], Ariel and Will Durant, a history of pop, a history of car tires, take decades off your life, H.G. Wells’ [history] stuff, The Outline Of History is 44 hours, double speed, Everything’s Eventual narrator was great, it’ll be on sale at some point, Justin Long is a good narrator, movie actor, Dodgeball (2004), Accepted (2006), Idiocracy (2006), the Bruce Willis thing, Tusk (2014), aphasia, low budget bad movies, he shouldn’t be doing this, he might need the money, offensive to the craft, like Jean Luc Picard is offensive, ORson Welles hawking wine, debase themselves, Nicole Kidman out on the street hooking, that’s a shame, with the proper camera placement, aphasia is an inability to speak, almost nobody knows what this word means, Alzheimer’s is tarred, some brain effect, we’re being lied to, definitely an issue, dementias, we’re eating it up and reporting, if he can’t memorize scripts, Saturday Night Live, Andrew Dice Clay, performer vs. actor, on live television, Hail, Caesar! (2016), Ethan Cohen’s short stories, something wrong with their writing, they enjoy their writing more than, Fargo (1996), O Brother Where Art Thou (2000), smug, the lady with the big lips, Billy Bob Thornton, The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), big fish in a small pond, Inglorius Basterds (2009), The Hateful Eight (2015), Elmore Leonard, Jackie Brown (1997), El Mariachi (1992), Robert Rodriguez, Spy Kids, his best self, not to the level as Quentin Tarantino, as much like Hitchcock as Hitchcock, human flourishing, seeing the great master at work, another Rock movie, direct to Netflix, Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), odd obsessions, an irony there, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Frances McDormand, Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army Of Darkness, its Phantom Of The Opera, they didn’t make that connection, a monster not a superhero, the Amber Chronicles, unlike all the other Universal Monsters, the werewolf, the spiderwoman, the creature from the black lagoon, Frankenstein creature, a solid science fiction backstory, how the plot is the same as Robocop (1987), ladies falling off buildings, sold out to do all those spider-man movies, film is a strange medium, Doctor Strange, multiverse fiction, Morbius the living vampire, literary characters were allowed, nobody is willing to shill for it, it must be dogshit, audience score, people in the genre community, Dracula shows up in Marvel Comics, nudity!, reasonable, rational copyright, Stephen King has the ability, and chooses not to do that, two things you can do, creative commons, LibriVox makes a frowny face, the regime of this stuff doesn’t compel authors to keep their copyright term, filmmakers on YouTube, back when we were trying to make the web good, as soon as it leaves your pencil, while we keep it in print, particular contracts, work for hire, he can’t reconcile, Brandon Sanderson, contracts are not copyright, Jesse waved a wand, movie rights are not included, why it has a baby in it, his babies maybe?, the festival circuit and educational purposes only, Mute, good stories, he feels guilty, I wanna be generous about this, exploit his writings, he’s stuck, full blown Alan Moore, fawk them awl, the Dark Tower audio drama people, cock blocked, trying to get a series done, the law is two, phones with no headphone jacks, android phones, even Samsung, another way, you wanted to put your little Dinky in there, a little MP3 player, phones are becoming worse and worse, LG went out of the cellphone business.

Fantasy & Science Fiction, October November 1997

Eveything's Eventual art by Jill Bauman

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

CBC Spark: Robert J. Sawyer on his WWW trilogy (and Mindscan)

SFFaudio Online Audio

CBC Radio - SparkNora Young‘s uncut interview with Robert J. Sawyer, recorded for an upcoming episode of CBC Radio One’s Spark podcast, is available for download |MP3|.

From the Spark blog:

Yesterday, Nora interview the award-winning Canadian science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer. He’s just published the third installment of his WWW trilogy, called Wonder. It speculates about a possible world in which the web develops consciousness and becomes “Webmind.”

Spark PLUS Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/cbcradiosparkblog

Bonus: A three part video interview with Sawyer in Hungary.

Sawyer talks about: FlashForward, other Sawyer-related TV shows, dinosaurs, awards, his upcoming book (Triggers), memory, research, assassination, ebooks, Japan, piracy, DRM, advice to aspiring writers, teaching writing, the University Of Toronto, travel, translations and RJS book covers from around the world.

[via RJS’ blog]

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. CBC owes us Apocalypse Al.

BBC R7 & RA.cc: Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

Aural Noir: Online Audio

BBC Radio 7 - BBC7So in following up on that terrific new dramatization of The Most Dangerous Game, you know the one I told you about the other day, I’ve come across a novel with a similar theme. Indeed, this is a novel with a similar legacy to that of Richard Connell’s short story. Consider this…

“One should always hunt an animal in its natural habitat; and the natural habitat of man is – in these days – a town. Chimney pots should be the cover, and the method, snapshots at two hundred yards. My plans are far advanced. I shall not get away alive, but I shall not miss; and that is all that matters to me any longer.” – Rogue Male

Similar to The Most Dangerous Game hey?

But as to the legacy – let me offer these…

First up we need to consider in reverse chronological order David Morrell‘s 1972 novel, First Blood, and the subsequent movie of the same name. Said Morrell: “When I started First Blood back in 1968, I was deeply influenced by Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male.”

That’s a very strong recommendation in itself.

Then there was a 1976 TV-movie version starring Peter O’Toole (I also recall seeing it advertised as airing on A&E television network back in the 1990s)….

And lastly, in the video department, there was a 1941 film version (directed by Fritz Lang) put out under the title Man Hunt

As to the audio, I did a search of that handy dandy resource RadioArchive.cc and found there a lovely UNABRIDGED reading of Rogue Male, a novel that was commissioned (and recently re-aired) on BBC Radio 7. I’ve just finished listening to it and I highly recommend it!

SERIOUSLY, be sure give this one a try. It’s totally gripping from the first sentence on. It holds your attention with a combination of great narration (by Michael Jayston), excellent writing (by Geoffrey Household) and historical relevance. It has a feel of a historical novel – giving you a sense of the time and the culture – whilst also meditating on the human mind – especially decision making. It’s not unlike Ken Follett‘s Eye Of The Needle or The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins – it’s that good.

One thing that Rogue Male has, that those others lack, is a nice human-animal friendship. This is essentially a hunting story, rather than a spy story, so it is more singularly focused on those themes and less externalized. I’ve never read a story that depicts what it’s like to stalk an animal (be it human or otherwise) better than this novel does.

Here’s what one of the commenters on the torrent thread said about it:

“This simply has to be one of the best ‘reads’ I will have in 2008. The reader is brilliant and the story suspenseful beyond belief. I listened to it in bed and it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout every chapter. Thanks for upping it. This is already in my top 10 audio experiences of all time.”

Rogue Male by Geoffrey HouseholdRogue Male
By Geoffrey Household; Read by Michael Jayston
15 Broadcasts – Approx. 6 Hours 32 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 7
Broadcast: 2004
Told in first person by the protagonist, an un-named British sportsman, sets out to see whether he can successfully stalk and prepare to shoot a European dictator. Supposedly interested only in the hunt for its own sake, he convinces himself that he does not intend to actually pull the trigger. First published in paperbook form in 1939.

And, there was a BBC radio drama version too (also available at RadioArchive.cc)!

BBC Radio 4Rogue Male
Based on the novel by Geoffrey Household; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 90 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4
Broadcast: 1989
Starring Simon Cadell and David Googe.

Other radio drama adaptations include:

SuspenseSuspense – Rogue Male
Based on the novel by Geoffrey Household; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: December 31st 1951
Provider: Archive.org
Stars Herbert Marshall and Ben Wright.

Everything For The BoysEverything For The Boys – Rogue Male
Based on the novel by Geoffrey Household; Adapted by Arch Oboler; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]*
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: 1944
Starring Ronald Colman and Ida Lupino.
*This is a lost broadcast, no known copies now exist.

And I should also mention, that a sequel, Rogue Justice, first published in 1982, was also broadcast on BBC Radio 7 earlier this year as a five-part abridged reading (also read by Jayston).

Neat eh?

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Killing Castro by Lawrence Block

Aural Noir: Review

Killing Castro is book number 051 in the Hard Case Crime library.

BBC Audiobooks America - Killing Castro by Lawrence BlockHard Case CrimeKilling Castro
By Lawrence Block; Read by Henry Leyva
4 CDs – Approx. 4 Hours 45 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Published: January 2009
ISBN: 9780792759751
Themes: / Thriller / Cuba / Hitman / Mercenaries / History / Assassination / Crime /

There were five of them, each prepared to kill, each with his own reasons for accepting what might well be a suicide mission. The pay? $20,000 apiece. The mission? Find a way into Cuba and kill Castro.

Until the announcement on the Hard Case Crime website in 2008 most Block aficionados, like me, had no idea that novel that is Killing Castro existed. Us Blockheads knew that LB had written a ton of novels early in his career. Heck we’d even identified quite a few of them. But unless you’d owned a copy of Fidel Castro Assassinated: A Dramatic Tale of a Daring and Successful Plot to Kill Cuba’s Dictator, and had compared this obscure 1961 Monarch paperback with Block’s writing you’d never have known he’d written it. This is because it was originally attributed to an otherwise unknown author “Lee Duncan.” Had it been written by “Paul Kavanagh” (a known Block pseudonym), I’d have already found and read a copy years ago. Indeed, to my ears this certainly feels like a lost fourth Paul Kavanagh novel. Two of Paul Kavanagh’s three other novels are about shady operatives doing black-ops for cash too. If you want the original paperback, by the way, ABEbooks.com currently lists a copy at $150.00. That’s down from the $600 asking price just a few months back. Hard Case Crime offers the gorgeous covered paperback version for just $7. Me, I’ll stick with the BBC Audiobooks America version.

One of the things I liked most about this audiobook, other than the brisk characterization and snappy plotting, was all the historical context Block put into the novel. This isn’t merely a thriller, or a crime story. Running just under 5 hours (204 pages in paperbook) there’s about half an hour of historical exposition between all the action. In those sections Block deftly details Fidel Castro’s personal biography, the history Batista’s rule of Cuba, Fidel’s leadership of the revolution and a thoughtful analysis of the revolution’s aftermath. As far as I can tell the history is entirely accurate. It sticks to the facts and makes a case both for and against Castro’s revolution without any special pleading. To my mind “Lee Duncan” could have probably got a job at the Cuba desk of the CIA, just based on the analysis within this novel. They really could have used him too as the book originally came out the same year as the CIA-backed Bay Of Pigs invasion. But I guess the covert world’s loss is our literary gain.

This is the first time I’ve heard Henry Leyva as a narrator. He performs the American mercenaries with enough distinction to tell all five of them apart, and gives good voice to two Cuban rebels, one male, one female. As Leyva is fluent in both English and Spanish he brings a ton of authenticity to the Cuban accented anti-castristas. He really is a narrator to watch. I first heard him as an actor performing in an episode of J. Michael Straczynski’s excellent audio drama anthology series City Of Dreams. He’s also narrated the audiobook version of Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard, so I’m gonna have to get my hands on that audiobook too.

Posted by Jesse Willis