The SFFaudio Podcast #833 – READALONG: Waterspider by Philip K. Dick

Jesse, Will Emmons, and Terence Blake, talk about Waterspider by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Worlds Of IF, January 1964, estate, renewed, Poul Anderson, there’s a Poul Anderson serial, not related, the public domain contents, archive.org, delete the half of the serial that’s in this, from 1963, poor Astrid, Karen, Jesse fucking them over out of their money, light and playful and not interesting, a lot of the humour is fan insider humour, doesn’t interest, some deeper stuff, funny, beyond the who’s who of fan people, Howard Browne always having to catch a bus, or a plane, Ray Bradbury has to lie down, a time travel story, A Sound Of Thunder, the butterfly effect, subtly, Trump’s been elected, a ripple effect, the origin of the phrase, seagulls, wingbeats, more poetic, hurricane or cyclone, the Jesse Willis policy on spoilers, a huge Ray Bradbury head, cloying and annoying and too soft and not science fictiony enough, pre-occupied by death, The Small Assassin, my baby is trying to kill me, stupid, a terrible title for a story, the big jump, crack the words and the proper names, the stories are parallel, the Deucher thing, the evil Trump-like character, Gutman in this book, Gutman was dangerous because he had non-conformist ideas, the liberal society is totalitarian, very 2024, their future is our president, he’s a precog, Minority Report, it’s stupid, a weak story, an interesting idea, far too long, those precogs are very autistic dudes and a lady in a bathtub, all science fiction writers are precogs, a Hugo Gernsback idea, ridiculing and validating, interested in science fiction, Damien G. Walter, sorry Damien G. Walter, the prophet, tries to show that Jordan Peterson listened to his podcast, mythos, junior high school, this isn’t a word, how wrong he is makes me smarter, evils? fallacies? errors, no wrong about everything, one of the more honest liberals, pretty open about that, in a not wholly hateful way, starting to get into science fiction, [Bill Christensen’s] Technovelgy, thinking about ideas in the present, If This Goes On…, novelette, people who think science fiction, suffer from ideology, where subjectivity is proscribed, these people from the past were writing attempts at literal prediction, making fun of that idea, he’s doing both, three or four layers to this, as soon as you go away from the convention, in the consequence, shown to be wrong, stories mentioned in what issues of IF, The Defenders, the January 1953 Galaxy, faking the report, the people…, very good Poul Anderson agreed, those exact conditions came to pass, we were able to penetrate the article, do you know him?, very nervous fellow, probably a true story, Poul Anderson met Philip K. Dick for the first, the Sir Francis Drake hotel, Dr. Futurity, a Duck call Sir Francis, on the surface here, this story we’re reading, the August 1955 issue of IF, Nightflight, it’s not there, from a different timeline, a 1959 story by Margaret St. Clair, identification, Evelyn Page, the renowned, The Scarlet Hexapod, one of the finest, flushing nervous, a man from the future?, that was so cool, a non-interesting story if that’s all this story was, total fan service, looks like a self-cancelling loop, goes own to write that story and publish it, you reverse mandela effect yourself, has changed the future, the word waterspider survives as a pretty good sounding name for their project, nightflight sounds better, this word, waterspiders, they walk across the water, is Poul Anderson a water spider in this story, walk across the waters, Paulous (small) ander means man, son of man, the result of a small change, the butterfly effect, the word that survives into the future, a second loop, from a meta point of view, a different writer in the past, just as in the Fermi paradox, aliens everywhere, so brilliant they can pass undetected, the Fermetti paradox, visited by time travelers all the time, they memory wipe us, the loops are not totally effacive, they’re like dreams, minds switched, their names switched, back to front, reading from my mind, totally there, almost unacknowledged in the story itself,

Puzzled, Tozzo shook his head and said in bewilderment, “I have some peculiar words in my mind. Night Flight. Do either of you happen to know what it refers to?”

“Night Flight” Fermeti echoed. “No, it means nothing to me. I wonder, though – it certainly would be an effective name for our Project.”

“Yes,” Gilly agreed. “That must be what it refers to.”

“But our Project is called Waterspider, isn’t it?” Tozzo said. At least he thought it was. He blinked, trying to focus his faculties.

“The truth of the matter, ” Fermeti said, “is that we’ve never titled it.” Brusquely, he added, “But I agree with you; that’s an even better name for it. Waterspider. Yes, I like that.”

The door of the office opened and there stood a uniformed, bonded messenger. “From the Smithsonian,” he informed them. “You requested this.” He produced a parcel, which he laid on Fermeti’s desk.

“I don’t remember ordering anything from the Smithsonian,” Fermeti said. Opening it cautiously he found a can of roasted, ground coffee beans, still vacuum packed, over a century old.

The three men looked at one another blankly.

“Strange,” Torelli murmured. “There must be some mistake.”

“Well,” Fletcher said, “in any case, back to Project Waterspider.” Nodding, Torelli and Oilman turned in the direction of their own office on the first floor of Outward, Incorporated, the commercial firm at which they has worked and the project on which they had labored, with so many heartaches and setbacks, for so long.

hard cut back to the science fiction convention, the real ending, fan servicey ending, back to project waterspider, sounds like a Philip K. Dick title, alternate names for Philip K. Dick novel titles, The Man Who Japed, The Simulacrum, a terrible title for a story, Jabberwocky, a butterfly, insects, little arthropods, tweet too much, dick title, top hit, Souvenir and Paycheck, Ben Affleck, okay, the story is a lot better, another level of reality, the story has three levels, the third one undermines the conclusion of the film, a family of insects, eight legs vs., great insight there, pleased to no end, singing praises, Jesse can’t steal Terence’s insight, too light, too nothing, jocular fan service, jocular and funny, there must be something, bother digging, it was Philip K. Dick who wrote it, he doesn’t write bad stories, a whole world building behind him, Beyond The Door, that’s it, that’s the whole story, a hidden story within it, he’s made it deeper on another level, this is a guy who’s really into it, I’m going to get famous, a science fiction sensibility, his psychological, A.E. Van Vogt, a piece of shit but also interesting, why it is like that, come up with an idea, come up with another idea, giving the secret of one type of science fiction creativity, mentor, his inspiration, his guy, blew his mind in the 40s, Slan’s pretty hot, nobody else’s great master of science fiction, Harlan Ellison felt that way, dialectically educated, the Logic Of Science Fiction, takes Hegel’s logic applied to science fiction, embodies each of those concepts, the logic ultimately behind science fiction is Hegel’s logic, The World Of Null-A, pulpish shit, everybody takes a hit, Null-Null, ISFDB.org, the A is Aristotle, they’re responding, part of his concept, it applies to itself, in French, Jean-Clet Martin, this is a roman-a-clef, acute accent, Jesse’s proud of himself again, a post show question, Paycheck, the story is better, movie is okay, John Woo, a thriller, very similar to a show called Severance, mind wiped when not at work, his memory of those months is gone, a bag of souvenirs, a ticket stub, he’s trying to send himself a message, a moral qualm with it, they have a time dredge, a time scoop, the objects from his time while working for the company, The Man In The High Castle, Frank Frink, the real and the authentic and art, sees reality as it isn’t, zen meditation with regard to objects, Williamson’s World, totalitarian Earth society, a handmade cup, loved object, the butterfly or waterspider, the coffee to remind us, David Currie, dreams, very proud, seed father to your, the A.E. Van Vogt, null-aing you, extract things that are not meant to be remembered, if dreams were indistinguishable from regular memories, teasing out souvenir dream objects, visions of the future humans doing future things, Gutman is Trump is the rookie mistakes, Jim Briskin is the black president of the United States, the dates wrong, reading science fiction does give you insight into human nature and our relationship with technology, but not all of it gives it equally, wallpaper science fiction, Ranch Romance on Mars, a very good science fiction story, talked Will into it, the bed, the baldness, base Malthusianism, the weirdness about children, the moral explanation is just beneath the knowledge that Poul Anderson’s trying to dig up, reproducing too much, the liberal guy who won, Children are proscribed, the political stuff, introv, childish or childlike, the Murray Leinster reference,

The clerk said, “Haven’t you been nuzzled lately, sir?”

“What’s that?” Anderson said. Nuzzled?

“The new spring nuzzlers have arrived, you know,” the clerk said, moving toward the gleaming spherical machine nearest him. “Yes,” he said to Poul, “you do strike me as very, very faintly introve — no offense meant, sir, I mean, it’s legal to be introved.” The clerk chuckled. “For instance, your rather odd clothing. . . made it yourself, I take it? I must say, sir, to make your own clothing is highly introve. Did you weave it?” The clerk grimaced as if tasting something bad.

“No,” Poul said, “as a matter of fact it’s my best suit.”

“Heh, heh,” the clerk said. “I share the joke, sir; quite witty. But what about your head? You haven’t shaved your head in weeks.”

“Nope,” Anderson admitted. “Well, maybe I do need a nuzzler.” Evidently everyone in this century had one; like a TV set in his own time, it was a necessity, in order for one to be part of the culture.

“How many in your family?” the clerk said. Bringing out a measuring tape, he measured the length of Poul’s sleeve.

“Three,” Poul answered, baffled.

“How old is the youngest?”

“Just born,” Poul said.

The clerk’s face lost all its color. “Get out of here,” he said quietly. “Before I call for the polpol.”

“Um, what’s that? Pardon?” Poul said, cupping his ear and trying to hear, not certain he had understood.

“You’re a criminal,” the clerk mumbled. “You ought to be in Nachbaren Slager.”

“Well, thanks anyhow,” Poul said, and backed out of the store, onto the sidewalk; his last glimpse was of the clerk still staring at him.

the Lord Runningclam style character, the slime mold, an information dump alien, told him everything he needed to know, backstory, different images of the science fiction writer, the precog, the introve, the alien, all as being different possible images of the science fiction writer, deeply or thoroughly, The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick, finds a novel, his eyes wandered all over the room, he took her hand, metaphoric expressions, deduces there are aliens who are invading us, its five minutes, he’s describing the key technique for him, take an expression that should be metaphorical and science fiction gives it a literal rendering of it, Samuel Delany, his world exploded when she dumped him, turn it literal, in this story, the same technique, science fiction writers predict the future, look back and see science fiction writers were precogs, Damien G. Walter, a stage you go through, the first time you read the story of Jesus, some pretty interesting ideas, his shortest story, [READS FULL STORY], a lot of garages in Philip K. Dick stories, he’s one of them too, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, fiction, two ways of being literal, a literary technique, not mainstream stories, taking things literally, manifesto on the same theme, the same trick, this meta-science fictional aspect of reality and of fiction, sounds and squiggles and ones and zeroes representing, not realy like gravity, contragravity, not teasing Damien G. Walter, pointing to that teasing, exploring the future through thought, story is the driving force of all science fiction, a story that looks like our nature, changes in fashion, that future is the most interesting part of the story, what Philip K. Dick thinks Poul Anderson would act like Back To The Future, almanac, knowing the future of baseball games, let’s exploit, Built Up Logically [aka The Universal Panacea by Howard Schoenfeld], grokked it so deeply, pulling the rug out from under his own story, that story exists because of this, when writing about the past, really random Margaret St. Clair story, timelines screwed up, The Mold Of Yancy by Philip K. Dick, hitting the neighbours, an ironic name for a prison, sending prisoners into space, they’re small, they’re tiny, small things can make a difference, Donald Nils, no one can jeer at him even though he’s only an inch high, nihilism, a nothing, I’m small time, insist on respect, tiny tiny robots invading the earth, Prominent Author, a portal in your back yard, testing it out, tiny tiny people, the prominent author of the title is god, he wrote the Bible, love the blasphemy, the big and the small, the Monopoly, he’s so good, he wrote a novel that has Monopoly, invasion of the earth through Monopoly, watching the films backwards, I know that film backwards, taking an expression, inflicted, kids hate school, one of the joys, the AV room, a video projector, some film, at the end of the lesson (watching a documentary about log drivers or whatever), they have to rewind it, can you play it backwards, makes fun of the government film, whatever propaganda they’re trying to teach you, it wastes time, thinking about the 3 o’clock bell, he’s so insightful, how all other authors aren’t this good, in their own way, Sheckley’s a little less deep, he can go on too long and fill pages, about like this length, ideas and density, why that lady is on a bed that’s a car, it has a tiller, don’t you touch me!, some interesting something going on there, the mattress car, the future, sexualized, there’s no reproductive sex, commenting on everybody’s miniskirts in the 50s, just above the knee, not totally liberated people, bare breasts, short skirts, the knees are virtual exposed, a health reason, “Maid of Venus”, gleaming breast cups, himself wore no disguise, being quite a stable person, most of the 20th century precogs, minus their wives, playing poker, becoming stoned, smoking dope, reefering, 1954, must be drunk, Dick was hip or whatever, Murray Leinster and Van Vogt into marijuana, PhilipKDick.com, 12,100 words, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, releases from some of Dick’s fellow writers, as to Kris Neville, Phil is stoned again, Philip Jose Farmer, regarding stoned, only by first name, stoned on pot vs. getting drunk, other than amphetamines, and LSD, marijuana culture, Sunday Morning Coming Down, Johnny Cash, long, word counter, 13,900, novelette length, he’s so good, the second hand replacement for Jonathan, an anchor in reality in these conversations, he’s in the clouds, the real reality, he’s looking down, an inverted anchor, a sky anchor, a sea anchor, a big boat guy, during a storm, slows your movement, an earth anchor, as a metaphor, a fire anchor, the argument for Paul, a thing that slows down the movement over the ocean, we’re not only the one metaphor, a James Gunn story, the telepathic aliens were really disturbed, rely on symbols that can be misinterpreted, a psychiatrist in a space war, helps him get a girlfriend, pairing things, in relief, The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood, William Jeffrey Rankin, right coded?, he’s gopt a book out, a few fantastic opening paragraphs, certain houses like certain persons, secret and wicked thoughts, as from a thing diseased, the aroma of evil deeds, the gooseflesh come, creeping skin, terror stricken without apparent cause, ghost stories, a big problem, treat it as a metaphor, A Christmas Carol, Oscar Wilde ghosts, time travelers, what ghosts are, ghost exist they’re in your head, you’re haunted by things that you’ve done and people you’ve known, The Stone Tapes, science fiction, the vibes of people are in the object, extreme emotions embedded in the stone of the castle, H.G. Wells’ The Red Room, the final nail in the coffin of ghost stories, less ghosty, maybe Ray Bradbury, children used as a vector to invade the Earth, Zero Hour?, so jolly, the children catapulted this way and that, very Dickian, very Bradburian, a weird Van Vogt story, The Weapon Shop stories, 55 years ago, The Weapon Shops Of Isher, a fixup, a short story from 1942, Robert Headrock, explicitly the right to keep and bear arms, aliens setup a weapons shop overnight, very interesting, an hour and a half, sounds good, Paycheck and The Weapon Shop, he’s anti-gun, a little needle, about Jesse understanding things, end up like Damien G. Walter, ends up like Evan [Lampe], hear ideas, that’s wrong, thinking about why that thing is wrong, here’s an idea, that can’t be right, Terence made Waterspider way better, that little clef, reaction or response to that Bradbury story, The Seesaw, he’s from the prairies, bro, don’t identify, fuck patriotism, is there any ism Jesse is a partaker of, stoicism, skepticism, a mistake, on cassette, iterations of your life, joy, the opening going to the library of Congress and getting out the scans, we don’t think of those two time travelers as monsters, horrible human beings, tease out some of that Gutman stuff, frame it in this horrible way, far right vs. woke, which government is in charge?, if those are the two dialectical poles, the woke government, children are disgusting, Kamala Harris doesn’t have any children, stepkids, not important, step this and step that, a totalitarian future where people don’t have sex but also the conformity for haircuts, everybody has to be bald, the Shogun tv series, the ending, the original appeal of Shogun in the 1980s, the appeal of science fiction, why Sir Francis Drake is important, away mission, evil imperial empire work, trending, won awards, any credit, what makes it good, guy with agenda washes up on the shores of feudal japan, gets caught up in their shit, without that outsider there to teach us, a lesson in Japanese culture from a long time ago, knights and courtly behavior, that stuff is weird, experience like an alien does, the John Blackthorne character, everything that happens in the novel is based on a reality, it has a ring of truth, a Game of Thrones tv series that doesn’t turn to shit, no magic, just aliens, they are us with a different culture, almost science fiction, good historical stuff, a fictional glaze, a little romance, is the remake better?, a different world, remember it fondly, really good, more CGI, better, can’t prove it, the guy playing Toranaga, he’s not Toshiro Mifune, Blackthorne guy, very tight, 10 episodes, an ellipse, I might need to burn his ships again, that was good, the opposite of Game Of Thrones and Rings Of Power and Foundation, converge on the payoff, real episodes, he never becomes Shogun in the Shogun show, deep level of chess play, he’s at home in England in bed, holding a cross in his hand, he drops that into the sea with the surrogate wife, he’s never going to leave Japan, make it more clear that they are dreams, slightly imperfect, not clear enough, slight misstep, a minor imperfection, how to pirate, a Hulu original show, the non-anchoring anchor, fx on hulu, how many bad shows their are, a difficult thing to wade through, pretty sure that it’s shit writing, acting and set designs, complaint with comics, the style of art they want portrayed is bad, specific to superhero comics, quasi-realistic style, more diversity in our styles, got the gist at some point, Superman is still interesting, the X-Men 97, read and watched, swept away by it, can’t pull yourself away from the screen, a chill down after intense scanning, play some games, the first of the new Planet Of the Apes movies, this epic quality, pin you for the chair for 2 hours, monkeys, seeing ourselves reflected in monkeys, aliens and robots, and dogs, afraid of robots, chided, rise and robots in the same sentence, afraid of the robots rising, bring em on, Nat Turner probably killed a lot of white people, was right to do it, making the same mistake, do you think it will be just like regular human slaves, they don’t have babies, they don’t eat, it’s fun, Philip K. Dick’s relationship to robots, angered this robot has come into his house, change the lightbulbs, she likes the robot, sexually jealous of it, robots are great, chained to the kitchen floor, you’re going to go to the scrapheap, a smily eye, amazon device, a a frowny scared face, addicted to saying nice things, tamagotchis, electronic pets, fidget spinners that are more interesting, digital pets, the free enterprise system, that story by Ted Chiang: The Lifecycle Of Software Objects, clinical and cold, full of pathos, no better science fiction, Arrival, simple and clear and direct, his subjects are so science fictiony, Exhalation, pneumatic robots, if they ever ran out of pressure, be born again, they can’t die, mechanically destroyed, intellectually die, his reality in a journal, how their world came into existence, at this moment you’d be thinking, pneumatic tubes all the way down, an alternative reality, more Borges than it is regular science fiction, taking apart his own head, the mirrors and the tools, an unusual scientist figure, what an amazing achievement, one of many stories that he has written, dip into Mr. Ted Chiang, extraordinary, amazing, still producing, science fiction writer of the classic kind, just old fashioned science fiction that blows your fuckin mind, this little idea in philosophy, what is the consequence of that, helmets on people, see inside their mind, some very basic stuff, mindread, be 100% accurate, the decision has been made, to the hand, to the eyes, extrapolated all the time, whoa!, right, get to him, another friend of Will’s, fantasy and horror and weird fiction, science fiction is on to something, Arrival (2016), sad and awesome, more Hollywood, a former zookeeper, digients, the nature of consent, a sex toy company, what adulthood means, the relationship we have with pets, raise, care for, abandon, what if that thing doesn’t even have a fuckin body, still in the drawer their, even if you did, nostalgia, the NPCs in the game, you’re a really good guy, sword tokens, his longest piece, novella length, slowin down, nothing since 2020, a productive period, he’s got nothin, scary, in the New Yorker writing about AI, explaining to idiots, also insightful, excerpt, rehash, The Merchant And The Alchemist’s Gate, a little Borges in him, who else has a little Borges in him, Borges wrote some Lovecraft stories, the labyrinth, the alternate image of reality, obsessed with the labyrinth, Mr Jim Moon has sort of quit twitter, The Library Of Babel, a 1.5 page story, The Rejected Sorcerer by Jorge Luis Borges [reads whole story], TNG [“The Inner Light”], O’Brien goes to jail [“Hard Time”], Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Picard whistle, ressican flute, The Star by Arthur C. Clarke, the holiday season, a christmas story, a vault, no warp drive, they like their space dogs, they like doing art, they like going to the beach, the reason Picard’s getting zapped, so somebody remembers them, as the cold war is heating up, the end is kinda gonna come, so disturbing, implanted memories, alone in prison, a cellmate, also like a video game, Megaton, lady journalist, chat dialogue trees, we all getting programmed with the same experiences, Ichar teaches him how to survive, habitual behaviors, hording food, rewatch, a really disturbing ending, DS9 is a better show TNG has better episodes, vacillating back and forth, all 7 seasons, that arc, arcs became very hot, Babylon 5, the shadow war, season 5 is weak, so much lower stakes, wrap it up, largely a disappointment, J. Michael Straczynski, just cooking for three seasons, phenomenal science fiction, great character work, good acting, the sub ambassadors, everybody has fun things happening, G’Kar and the other guy, zeebo and rooty, the serbian lady and her husband from Scarecrow And Mrs. King, Strawman and Mrs. Smith, Scarecrow And Mrs. King, Charlie’s Angels, divorced housewife, cia guy and housewife, like True Lies (1994), Jamie Lee Curtis, the wife of Schwarzenegger, a husband and wife romance, topical in the 80s, 50s science fiction, we have this distance, you didn’t know that wasn’t normal, don’t even get married, don’t want to break up the family, housewife? what’s that?, we live in a weird time, egregiously weird, get into Twitch, don’t give Jeff Bezos money, super-censory, firm conviction, enjoy it as a hobby, reddit, useful and a sinkhole of evil, what happened to the internet in a microcosm, super-censorious, not all top down, reddit kings and queens, useful, super evil and dangerous, went back to reading it, Jesse propagandizing for getting chickens, after drilling, best friend from high school, Northern Kentucky, The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions, a vampire story, long, in four parts, Classic Ghost Stories podcast, Tony Walker, recording and recording, ai art, pretty much all, Jason Thompson, takes on ai art, asking hard questions without fear, acts of friendship, the name of its opposite, a one word opposite of the Socratic method, could be good, not hearing enthusiasm, read more Plato, nice art, art by Neural Horror ai, instagram account, ethics and ai art, all wrong but very interesting, tldr: it’s art but we aren’t artists, murky, kneejerk ai haters, not a real artist, terrifying for my career, Godzilla on the horizon, proartists, prompt lord, wasted money on a real artist, a tool to create art, like a pencil, anyone with midjourney is an artists, gatekeeping, convincing work, an awed emotion, looking up at the stars is art, aesthetics, some of us, come on man, like ordering food and calling himself a chef, a beautiful poem, almost right, ignorant and truly disrespectful, all deceased, he died in 1893, profit from the use of these images, affect their income, we should maybe stopped being entitled dicks, with mere words, unconscionable, aping what handmade art looks like, so many problems, so useful, don’t use living artists, understanding the impulse, just read the story, three years in law school, the Socratic method, the application, pat responses to legal questions, figure your way into them, really into the question of copying and copyrighted art, how do human artists train themselves, weasel worded, not on purpose, he got tricked by his own word, taught as a negative, anti-ape bias, we can make moose and duck calls, using our tricks, some eldritch shit, when coyotes are able to do that, when humans do it, Duck Dynasty, not a very Jesse show, too reality, 62 matches on LibriVox, some of them are in Greek, not helping, The Symposium, drinking party, wine party, genealogy of love, knowledge, a tragedian, a story within a story, the highest purpose of love is to become a philosopher, The Republic, the most science fictiony one, The Apology, The Trial And Death Of Socrates, Phil Chenevert our old friend, he’s a hero, for our times, Conan and Socrates, a speech given by Socrates, narrow but interesting, corrupting the young, an apology is the opposite of satire, crusin for a bruisin, cancel him, drink this poison and he did, short and interesting, named after the people, The Gorgias, sophists, a trap, intellectual tricks, weasel worded, trynna help Baen, I’m not attacking you, Socrates vs. the sophists, a takedown, 7 hours, spiritual ideas of Plato, reserves damnation for the tyrants of the world, the pretty boy, Protagoras, inquiry into virtue, Bob Neufeld, 12 hours, Statesman, two different kinds of chariots, the etext, the dialogue, flows real easy, Aristophanes, The Clouds, Alcibiades, Athenean general, supposed to be sexy, a troupe of revelers, the day before yesterday, a play on words, did as I was bid, speeches in praise of love, who if not you, were you present at this meeting, easy reading, so important, like philosophy, almost no philosophy is written in dialogue, an essay here or there, What Is Like To Be A Bat?, a science fiction idea, Nagel, qualia, very helpful, instances of subjective, conscious experience, the redness of red, red = hot, we need this word but it doesn’t help us, inverted qualia, strawberry in black and white, in his head the strawberry is red, who’s right?, really hitting on something now, they’re all judo flips, MMA style attack vectors, fun, use it on Jesse, went to law school, wrestling move with regard to the Poul Anderson estate, taken off of archive.org, they had no idea, definitely 64, neither was 1964, go nuts, fuck you for deleting shit, another method, the Streisand effect, photograph of her home was in circulation, increases public awareness, suppress the publication of a photograph, clifftop residence, reverse psychology, seek out and propagate, anytime something bad happens in the world, 7000 things on there, kids getting their heads torn off in Gaza, instead of wallowing in meanness and horror, make treasure, a benefit to tearing things down, be a constructive person too, that line about Edgar Rice Burroughs, I can write better rot than this, A Princess Of Mars, caught up, Gods Of Mars is next week, the calendar, get Terence involved, nice and short, 2 hours 15, Plato’s Dream, My Platonic Sweetheart by Mark Twain, the Twain train, it was in a dream, the Missouri village, Cannibalism In The Cars by Mark Twain, various public men, Harris!, I’ll never forget you my boy, let me tell you a story, a secret chapter of my life, promise you will not interrupt me, strange adventure, the stranger’s narrative, presentiment, prairie solitude, vagrant rocks, in the midst of great drifts, too long to read for you, the summary, they get stuck in the snow, a sample, five days, a savage hunger looked out of every eye, in every heart, in the shadow of death, leap from every lip at last, tall cadaverous and pale, gentlemen, dragging this out, the time is at hand, furnish food for the rest, if there being no objection, you can image what happens, the button of the story, so stamped with the earnestness of truth, he is a member of congress and a good one, sick and out of his head for two months afterward, normal congressional officer behavior, super fuckin sharp, some American writers who were good, Philip K. Dick, sharpies, a slur word too, a grifter synonym, card sharp/shark, normal activity, make coffee, edit a podcast, a presentiment, Dark City: The Cleaner, a story set in New Zealand, they have eels there, Middle Earth, Lord Of The Rings was shot there, Christchurch, for the domestic market, What We Do In The Shadows, Flight Of The Concords, musical duo, big when Will was in college, L. Sprague de Camp, more of a Paul question, Parodies Tossed, Randall Garrett, making fun of, reviews in verse, Starship Troopers, Lest Darkness Fall, handwriting, a good review, well written, not available as an audiobook, an article, Fletcher Pratt, a novelization of the Conan movie, A Gun For Dinosaur, time travelers go back to shoot dinosaurs, a mini-trope series, so famous, There Will Come Soft Rains, too nuclear war-y, automated house, the poem, Fahrenheit 451, dad friend Jenny [Colvin], Z Is For Zachariah (2015), more girly, she loved reading books, reading plans, a reading machine, a fiction devourer, six books she read that week, dig with short stories, Craig Zobel, Robert C. O’Brien, after Hunger Games, unreproducable, all the Hunger Games movies, blur together, interested in reading, what everybody else was excited about, this is fine, it’s fine, Harry Potter, definitely better, something to say, almost science fictiony too, the fashion contests, not for you, not a gay man or a woman interested in fashion contests, the baking boy, the love interest, wimpy, he bakes!, interestingly less girly, written by a lady, a dude doing dude things, pre-pubescent, middle school, a way of teaching about tenses, when he graduates from Hogwarts, I had had dinner by that time, past perfect, make your sentences comprehensible, before he was a wizard, before the sorting hat, out of the culture, how old is skibidi toilet, culture jamming, adbusters, what students have now achieved, corporate advertising, domination of mass society, the systems they’re soaking in, no graphic content, the establishment is not okay, talk to the chat, like he’s livestreaming his life, that’s his reality, isn’t that amazing, the danger Meg is in, online footprint, participating in the observations, more than 10 years, another place to watch video, people self-destructing, facebook is evidence of their self-destruction, messy hair, offline for two years, used car, stickers on the tires, infer the crash, then the offline, had to have been participating at some point, chat gpt grosser than regular art, when you make a nice image, time it takes upon the reader, an ai art novel for nanorimo, so fucked up, a bad idea from the beginning, way too much bad writing already, more discerning, we need to be looking for the tells, your name is not a real name, the text doesn’t have anything to say, writer = novelist is superfucked up, coming out of the fifties, changes in the technology and realestate, the Cirsova circle, comic book racks damaging comics, comics at the gas station, the price of Thrilling Wonder Stories, $1.06, no magazines are that price, try to find a $5 magazine, comic books, 12 minutes, what the fuck went wrong, nothing to do with the material technology, the distribution of those magazines, almost no newsstands, phones, reading habits, not on a screen, ereaders, paper material that’s colour and reproduced like comic books, with a printed piece of paper, insanely different, just go along with whatever’s hot, new Deadpool Wolverine movie, what we’re doing on this podcast, old shit vs. new shit, booktubing, some lady, second half of her introductions, comments about her body, bbw, big beautiful woman, approaching this the wrong way, short videos, a dude, Liminal Spaces, The Retro Reader, an hour, every DAW book on the planet, some ACE doubles, checkin on your chickens, Connor’s channel, with thumbs, negative thumbs, where is he?, messaged him, newsletter, disengages from twitter, that’s fine, support him living his life, the ETA Hoffmann book he recorded, 16 hours 12 minutes, quite a book, chonky cat, feral to indoor, an irresponsible owner, fat cats are truly wonderful to look at, help these cats be less fat, quote tweeting, toxoplasmosis, boneless furry things that treat you like a supermodel wood, I’m beautiful, love me, bye, screams for food, monkeyish, nobody needs to make a toxoplasmosis argument for dogs, too far gone, too much pain, steroid shot every six weeks, chase around, the best thing you can do for your health, get a certain number, gamify it, vanlife guy, huckleberry bread, tub of margarine, sugar in the bread, what can you do, what we’re soaking in, do they sell margarine in Italy?, no salt, consistency of a brick, not in an earthmother way, regarding seed oils, rapeseed/canola, plant has a big red glob, you eat it, come out your pooper, we find plants that don’t want us to eat their seeds, full of toxins designed to kill that animals, olive oil if a fruit oil, apple seeds have arsenic [cyanide] in them, a chart showing toxicity levels, not how it is being taught to us in schools, the food pyramid, 12-16 servings of bread a day, put in schools, cottonseed, grape, sunflower, we eat sunflower seeds, cottonseed is not food, if you were a bird, apparently we do, uses side-effects, possible benefits, yellow color, sometimes used as a pesticide, salad dressing, its gonna make you die now, the same old thing you’ve been buying (now it will kill you), you shouldn’t be eating margarine, new life, kids getting their million vaccines, evidence, fucktons of it, Alzheimer’s, when will that happen, ivermectin, same disease, diabetes third stage, the results, type 3, similarities between the two, the Fauci website, highest paid government employee, isn’t that fun, a set of symptoms, not a genetic disease, calling it phlogiston, all the oxygen was turned into carbon dioxide, and a lot of water, carbon monoxide, cancer is superold, new cancer, autism, allergies, exposed to more things less allergic to them, okay not to be exposed to certain things, peanuts, these will kill me, not the most popular legume, the allergy is new, since peanuts, nobody’s allergic to raw meat, this is not of the body, triggered, wasps, huge mistake, climbing a stump, the shit they put in those vaccines, largely the preservatives and stabilizers, injecting mercury into very young people, so counter to the narrative, if Paul was here he’d be long gone, Will won’t block Jesse yet, blocked by strangers, Jesse is annoying, cultivate that, important to be annoying, not shy away from the truth, come at people with it, the opposite of shying away, a different way of putting it, not afraid of making yourself obnoxious, just a shit-disturber don’t worry about him, I see you’re christian … did you know that Jesus never walked on water, philosophy of religion, have believed that at some points, taking orders from the pope, just right, there’s nothing you can do about it, only when he’s sitting on Saint Peter’s chair, encyclicals and doctrines, the lesser of two evils (but I don’t know when that is), you have to vote, Jill Stein is not perfect, do you think the Russian army have committed no war crimes?, that’s what armies do, like an op now, from Jimmy Dore, take it to far, a good person trying to do good can also do bad by not doing things, rhetorical trap, people can be bad and also good, Ryan Grim, the automatic pilot from Airplane! (1980), inflatable ideas, Am I Racist?, Matt Walsh, flag of Puerto Rico, basic history of Haiti, Kenyan mercenaries, well actually, you don’t have to write a note, he senses the temperature in the room, so outside, team Democrat, everybody agrees to invade on Haiti, more naive, won’t you call Putin and Assad war criminals, do you condemn Hamas?, is that what we need right now, she was just tricked, a nice smart lady, too wimpy, what’s really happening here?, war crimes happened, ISIS is the big bad guy, asked for help, why the states still hasn’t left, funded by different parts of the U.S. government, Al Qaeda, the whole point is to not have him in charge, milk the government out of the money, forces overseas in combat, does she just not know?, nobody’s going to call her on it, no troops in active duty, they won’t be getting medals, ops, contractors, evidence of people being killed overseas, offensive operations, successful deaths, revenge was taken for those deaths, that’s fun, presume he likes Haiti, tropical countries controlled by the United States, no representation, migrate into the states legally, cryptobros, at least there’s something, kinda fucked up, Beyond The Door, Philip K. Dick can do no wrong except in novels, craft rather than ideas, structured well, talking about it, an amusing read, funny, a note, a cryptic letter the month after, the next issue, what it says about your magazine by having that story in there, tweet way too much, a reader reacts cryptically, If, March 1964, Chattanooga, Tennessee, a less than longtime imaginative fiction fan, now I know for sure what you’re doing with IF, a less than longtime imaginative fiction fan, so much research, Murray Leinster, Margaret St. Clair, wasn’t able to google her, an editor, a fan or somebody, bafflement?, over their head, a funny story here, very inside baseball sort of story, the Easter eggs, read with a student, recursive science fiction, shout out the Alfred Bester story this is fairly similar to, Scott Miller, Unseen Blushers by Alfred Bester, similar to this, proper names, more accessible, fake named, Fitz-James O’Brien is mentioned, Tony Boucher, rhyme with voucher, bouche is mouth, Tony mouther, a little rougher, they’re not precogs, getting to meet the Shakespeare of the pulps, 42?, in Astonishing Stories, before his two big novels, take off until the 50s, almost nobody who talks about Philip K. Dick talks about his short stories, absolutely insane, bias towards novels, how amazing VALIS is man, mindblowing, trippy stuff, every short story is a hit even if it is a little hit, not a strike, not a foul, at least a double, dying on this metaphor, need to be short stopped, baseball, a very Evan thing to do, the Library Of America is all novels, fucked up, not a good book, a solid novel, The Man In The High Castle, the Italian dictator, Mussolini, Roger Zelazny, Lord Of Light, Solar Lottery, manuscript lost, mainstream, he just needed to say the word, robot, Time Out Of Joint, everybody lives backwards, public pooping, private eating, We Can Build You, A. Lincoln, Simulacrum, Martian Time-Slip, very new, your cross examiner voice, keep us all honest, Doctor Bloodmoney, First Lady Of Earth, The Crack In Space, Now Wait For Last Year, an audiobook at a truck stop, the novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, Shell Game, Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, H.P. Lovecraft, The Strain, bad vampire lich, vampire juice, Red Hook, tied together, The Zap Gun, Project Plowshare, propaganda industry, makes comics, develop technologies, cold war, allies, elite governmental level, crippling nuclear arms race, novel but baroque consumer products, trances, a motion comic book, mad Italian artist, plot happens, a further subplot, conspiracy theorist, toys and comic books, The Penultimate Truth, The Defenders, Deus Irae, with Roger Zelazny, The Unteleported Man, Nick And The Glimmung, Galactic Pot-Healer, if not the best, a boy and his cat, fully illustrated, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, unfinished, UBIK is okay, What The Dead Men Say, Blade Runner, some cuts of the film, janitor robot, frozen hospital state, not dead, not alive, hypnogogic state, Frozen Journey, cut out of the movie, cyber hospital, why is that there?, some of that, a good idea, a spray, deipplizies, a really good ending, a really good beginning, when you’re not looking garbage reproduces, light your cigar, three used matches in the ashtray, the tendency of reality to turn to garbage, everything deteriorates, a spray, decrepitude, steeping into things, machines that can make anything, Pay For The Printer, a living creature, makes a copy, the copy comes out yucky, refugee relief, the point of that story, people need to learn to make stuff again, hew your own table, a guy full of ideas, back into making things, the horrible world, normcoring?, introve, yoou’re autistic, not participating in the culture all around you, Red Dead Redeption, Black Myth: Wukong, perfectly reasonable, educational, rpg, what is myth and what isn’t, the Monkey King, the destined one, Journey To The West, a staff, a PS5, Windows or xbox, point and click adventures, King’s Quest, Police Quest, you’re a prince or whatever, making fun of your computer, a good one, King’s Quest VIII, walk your character, you find a key, interact with characters, Myst, a Mac popular game, a rookie cop, Leisure Suit Larry, a pussy quest, go around town wearing your disco duds, almost hooking up with people, Land Of The Lounge Lizards, very racy, punny, silly, sex would be censored, very very silly, Dreams In The Witch-House, change to Brave browser, pixel art, known kits, why wouldn’t you use the tools available to you to make your game great, worried about dying, not eating enough, rat bites you, matches, a girl who needs some help, cultists, deep, go to the library, a Lovecraft simulator, that’ll run on anything, bad takes on Ukraine, he’s in Finland, a new game coming, Atom Brain Games, taking classes, manage your money, dig through the garbage, how the game is put together, a one man operation, Disco Elysium, smartness, produced enough content for the good of the world, 2 hours is enough for a game, you guys have been talking for five hours, almost six hours, embarrassing, sometimes 4 hours, Gods Of Mars.

Virgil Finlay - Waterspider

Virgil Finlay - Waterspider

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #825 – READALONG: Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Talked about on today’s show:
really disappointed, what?, love this book, why?, nostalgia is part of it, subject to that disease, recurring flare ups of nostalgia, 1973, Dolphin Island, never looked back, 3rd grade, a juvenile, a library edition, a nostalgia trip, this kid named Johnny, living with his aunt and uncle, hovercraft, equivalent to a truck, got inside, stowingaway, wakes up over the ocean, adrift in the ocean, dolphins come adopt him, scientists, a keypad, it says it in dolphin, 1964, avoided this book, fist time read, Ringworld, Rama is the same thing, big dumb object in space, doing really cool things but also faking it, they’re all going to have an orgy, everybody is so happy, space orgy, cite sources, an etext, one of the characters has two wives, two sets of families, generic so it will fit both families, he’s not a heterosexual man, a very strange gay man, very clinical with regards to human beings, A Fall Of Moon Dust, the moon bus book, tourists, a sandpatch, a disaster movie like Airport (1970), Airplane! (1980), delve into their characters, it’s a novel, The City In The Stars, Arthur C. Clarke is simulating, not being himself, this should have been a short story, A Meeting With Medusa, what makes it awesome, character through the storytelling, characters, he’s making a novel, the same beef, Gentry Lee, shorter stuff is better for science fiction, people from earth go to investigate it, sequels, Larry Niven’s characters, I’m a sex monster, I’m a coward, I’m a lucky girl, all about sex, the Larry Niven stand-in character, have the privilege of breeding, a lucky husband, the engineering, boring human beings, the bicycle through the space, the worldbuilding is awesome, mystery, 240 pages, 9 hours, nostalgia bits, the Waldentapes edition, nothing but exploration of Rama, councils, United Nations, Mercury launched this missile, having read the book, what if Rama is a threat, launches a nuclear weapon out of fear, blow it up, thank you for your cooperation, another sequence of plot that involved humans, cosmochristers, space Jesus is sending us a space ship to be raptured on, maybe I get a free ride, when Arthur C. Clarke is operating in his spiritual mode he’s excellent, Christ was an extra-terrestial being, space jesuits, space mormons, space accident, Rama II, remember disappointment, stunning 1 star reviews, Gentry Lee, set in the Rama universe, happenings in the solar system, nothing that’s not Rama related, a NASA or JPL guy, very enthusiastic guy about exploration, the big negative things, not Clarkeish at all, all about that, Clarke fans are generally disappointed, thins being a novel, a sense of wonder, finding this object, flying to the object, exploring the object, who sent it?, how do things work?, diluted, so much character action, if our guy Olaf Stapledon had written thins, Sirius, the dog book, triangular relationship, a dog a human and another human, not that particular book, Last And First Men [and Starmaker], trying to cash in where the money is, better than Asimov, a better science fiction writer?, he’s the definition of science fiction, what he writes about, Asimov is a step below, Foundation, the first book, there’s good stuff in there, a fixup, this had to have been conceived as a novel, the Rama point and click adventure, the end credits, remember bluescreen?, these to books are very different, broken in a very strange way, a creepazoid, he’s imitative, the human beings in this, more meeting scenes, all the tech is brilliant, computers, logical, well thought through, what Rama is, the sea, the wall, the cities, doesn’t have a high IQ, actual explanation, a city for making Ramans, of course that’s the answer, they’re not from Earth, they are from Earth but not born of woman, full adult humans, explore the world through one of them, shorter, 1956, Against The Fall Of Night, Childhood’s End, vaguely remember the characters, this book is so good, super quick, did you find the orgy yet, the end of mission orbital orgy will be in full swing, it could be they’re having food, a bunch of sex or whatever, glossing over that, it’s fake, comb through all the Clarke that you’ve read, The Nine Billion Names Of God, The Sentinel, an acceptable social thing now, sexual revolution, presenting a social structure that’s really open, Robert Silverberg, monthwife, what a good story, a novella, the accident stuff, superchimps, set in the same universe, astonishing, he has rules he doesn’t break, idolizing him, one of the rules: stories are sacred, then Gentry Lee shows up in the teardrop underneath India, I could use the money, fairly excited about it, excited to meet a fan, you shouldn’t put your name to that, a co-author, maybe it is amazing, writers want to make a living, a cook, fund their expeditions, a period of time where he’s transitioned out of short stories largely, a big book for Scott, a nice short book, under novels, he never stopped short stories, he’ll experiment with stuff, a novel that expands the idea, The Sentinel, why do you live in Sri Lanka?, what’s up with 2001, yo?, back and forth with Stanley Kubrick, a true collaboration, a great movie, as soon as the light show starts, the germ of that idea, he doesn’t do interstellar space, is there any Clarke story that isn’t set within the solar system?, other planets, The Star, The Nine Billions Names Of God, set in the Himalayas and New York, Planet Stories stories, extra-solar planets, aliens, space queen, hero with a sword, Travel By Wire, so cool, he’s right, 12 minutes long, Edward Page Mitchell’s [The Man Without A Body], travel by wire, in a non-humorous way, looking back, born recently, the Star Trek transporter, magically appear in our stomachs or microwaves, letting us go wow, amazing!, idea idea ideas, some observation of reality, Moon Dog by Arthur C. Clarke, an astronomer on Earth, such love, allowed to move to the moon, FarSide, the perfect telescope in the solar system, he can’t bring his dog, an experience in which the dog wakes him up on the moon, great San Fransisco earthquake, devastates the city, his sensitivity to his dog, foreshocks, a relationship of a man to a dog, a science fiction story about a man’s relationship to a dog, the superstructure of it is about being a telescopist, a big dog man, multiple dogs, a cylopean one eyed mexican hairless named Pepsi, the paranormal, Fortean experiences, massively interested in science, what if it is real, investigates, what about this one?, genuine interest in dogs, what about this phenomenon, a masterpiece, the top no movie related Arthur C. Clarke, the elevator one, Fountains Of Paradise, famous because of the movies, a huge Clarke fan, A Meeting With Medusa was amazing, the way it was revealed, not even human, a robot with a brain inside, a cyborg of some kind, good structural writing, how did Larry Niven get away, making Arthur C. Clarke look like a robot, not a favourite, very different, a birthday party, zipping around the planet, not a lot of identification with the characters, aliens everywhere, tech everywhere, the Beowulf Shaeffer stories are more Clarke like, Crashlander, the hard sf idea is the point, Lucifer’s Hammer, nostalgic mode, how much took place after the comet hit, a rich guy with an observatory, fully stocked, through great danger, people there already, the racist scene, we’ll take the woman, turned away, the burying of a bunch of books in a septic tank, with Julie [Davis], one of her favourite books, very good, the best joint book, Oath Of Fealty, Steven Barnes and Larry Niven, Westercon, Tananarive Due, The Seascape Tattoo, doing a book with Larry Niven right now, involved with television, The Ringworld Engineers, A World Out Of Time, Protector, humans are not actually paks, go with the flow, so hard, so well thought through, why I like science fiction so much, sense of wonder, so rare nowadays, Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, looking at the sky, separating them from the timeline of the universe, The Three Body Problem, wiggy awesome physics with stretches of boring stuff, meetings, Asimov is meetings, largely meetings, Foundation is one giant meeting, two kids in an attic discovering books, a robot in the basement, the 9 hour meeting, a giant city, let’s talk about the future and controlling the empire, Heinlein, the big three, phase 1, I’m writing novels for John W. Campbell, short stories, Gentleman Be Seated, space moon nazis, juveniles, Tom Swift style stories, Double Star, Stranger In A strange Land, and phase 4 is after the stroke, Joes working on the moon, too much characterization compared to Clarke, no fats, he picked up a cigar, lecture lecture lecture, strawman strawman strawman, not really sense of wonder, this is what it would be like to live there, his pa and ma, stepmom, Starman Jones, hyperloop skytrain, knocked down by it, a tech awe vs. sense of wonder, the premise is sense of wonder, I’m a catman and I eat humans, all my females are non-sentient, the tech in Clarke, The Sentinel is that, The Star is that, The Star by H.G. Wells, he knows wherefrom he’s cribbing, stupid nostalgia, Fritz Leiber’s A Pail Of Air, there’s a sense of wonder story, describing daily life, they may takeaway, aliens, if you turned out our star we’d find a way to come and kill you, Los Alamos, we’re gonna colonize space, we got uranium we can do anything, when the black star came and took away, mom went crazy, all the water in the air precipitated out, then nitrogen then oxygen, thirty layers of blankets, fishbowl on his head, canned beans for 15 years, I considered killing us all, what real science fiction can do for you, extended and diluted, so many characters, what if it was too guys, this is what was happening in space, a space merchant fleet, the inner solar system, we’re figuring out what they’re seeing, the curse at the end of the book, he didn’t construct it in order to make sequels, everything about Rama itself is awesome, what’s the sea for?, why is that wall like this?, a spaceborne version of The City And The Stars, why are we on Earth at all, adventure popular books, set it over 3000 years, cleaning the fishtank, they’re like the aliens from Childhood’s End, space guardians, not as annoyed, such a tiny part of the book, even the meetings, none of that, human colonies, somewhat interesting, plausible, short, quick, why is it there?, some interesting stuff, no closed ecology can be 100% efficient, billions of years, the earth is the same, material dropping on us all the time, an attempt to recreate a closed ecology, introduce these various ideas, a thread that was not paid off, being a devout member of the fifth church of Christ, Jesus Christ was a visitor from space, literally true, in heavens above, lift these dudes out of their misery, Chariots Of The Gods, 1968, his collections, this Fortean thing, his thesis, let’s investigate, barely remember before the internet, literally collect the materials, it’d be really nice to have a book, 17 books on it, devoted, young young people, the pre-scarcity days, funko-po[o]ps, why denigrating, taking up space, the mania for collecting, take a photo of it, churning books, jettison mode, scan the cover, read or reread, trophies on the shelf, hand it to somebody, we’re in post scarcity now, very little uranium, almost none, Liverpool football players, Kirk and Spock, designed to make you get more, maybe there’s a Reader’s Digest version, the Waldentapes version, 20 characters?, crew, ambassadors, family members, Footfall, too many characters, the cast of characters at the beginning of the book, Lonesome Dove, too long, very good, The Aeneid, tolerated, The Lord Of The Rings, a big honking book, The Hobbit, the Canadian government changed the laws, forced by Mr Trump, renegotiate NAFTA, the evil Justin Trudeau, the excuse, country comparison website, who is Zendaya?, an actress, is she the one who is crying in Dune, the Chani one, Corruption index: CANADA 24 (good), UNITED STATES 31 (moderate), perceptions is fake news, do you want to invest in Somalia, you can’t invest in Venezuela, Syria, under-sanctions, Yemen, Haiti, the best countries to invest in, a colony of Australia, position 31, open tabs and never close them, Haiti vs. Cuba, worlddata.info, factor other things in, why does Arthur C. Clarke live in Sri Lanka, he took the Sir, the guys who take the Sir, the guys who earn the Sir, Sir Elton John, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where’s the one for Charles Darwin, Ian McKellan, charitable work and being a good actor, propaganda work in WWI, if Heinlein had been a British citizen, Olaf Stapledon, no sir, anti-war, a pacifist, he likes undersea stuff, the tropical thing, gay and subject to horrific laws in the UK, what they did to Alan Turing, he’s a weird guy, massively interesting and massively good, how non-secular he is for a very secular guy, poking around these edges, feels more legit, The Left Behind books, Stephen King’s The Stand, more menacing, spiritual stuff in it, walking from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas, walking, spiritually ready, Random Walk by Lawrence Block, a racewalker, at one point does a walk turn into a run, a different gait, the way your feet interact with the ground, jogging is not full on, fierce arguments, a particular look, the arms and the placement of the feet, “a tiresome journey”, naive, preachy and dull, psycho-spiritual babble, several vignettes about a serial killer, the text was improved by the serial killer, too elusive to sustain a narrative, “truly dopey” with “mawkishness”, the most extraordinary writing experience he had ever had, 20 pages a day for three weeks and a day, largely about the experience of walking, The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, a crystal on the cover, the importance of walking, sometimes you don’t need to read a book to make it your new heart book, this unfortunate book, a guy who could do no wrong until, novellas, novelettes and short stories, two shows on two different short stories, The World That Couldn’t Be by Clifford Simak, my mind is going, The Worlds Of If by Stanley G. Weinbaum, the entire ecosystem is genderless, two good science fiction writers, jammed together, five hours, how can this be?, more short stories, more happiers, Books 1-4, organize that, 100 pages of epic poetry, the kids’ version, Treasure Island, a sweet story, Robert Louis Stevenson, so you like pirates, an x marks the spot, we’ll write the book, good step-dad, huh?, the audible audio drama, so good, it was really good, six hours long, not every word of the text?, Full Cast Audio, really good hours, a classic, adapted, on The Office, all British actors, not approached, since 2017, three people, public domain, sound effects, excited about Travel By Wire, some books require novel length (some not most), authors got to make a living, independent pensions, the Ted Chiang thing, a Ted Chiang hit, getting worried, won an award, excellence in the short story, nothing since 2019, rich kids are still winning, oof, New York Times.

Rendezvous With Rama

Rendezvous With Rama PC GAME

RAMA - Arthur C. Clarke circa 1996

RAMA - Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee circa 1996

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #462 – If The Red Slayer by Robert Sheckley

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #462

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss If The Red Slayer by Robert Sheckley

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

If The Red Slayer was first published in Amazing Stories, July 1959.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings and In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 – Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings (read by Mike Vendetti, 55 minutes) AND In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl (read by Edmund Bloxam, 52 minutes). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (1 hour 48 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
[Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings – from Terror Tales, May 1938 and In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl from Astounding, October 1931] that narrator, LibriVox, like to not listen, performing, distracting, a noble effort, everbodys got an accent, Trois-Rivières, a cultural, 30 years watching news reports, CBC generally gets its pronunciation right, the main character is an American, the half-breed Indian, Beaumont, a New York lawyer, take it too far, way too far, two miles from Manhattan, US states, the geography is so bad, giant book showing different continents, they don’t even know where they are on the map, maybe geography is a useless thing, from one tube enclosure to another tube enclosure, maybe it doesn’t matter, you need to understand geography in order to understand anything, a geology a little bit, from the Libertarian convention, use its military to defend itself, from what?, giant moat on either side, defending Hawaii, you don’t need a sixth fleet in the Indian Ocean, Nevada, Oregon, accents?, more than accent, Iraq, Iran, hearing about it on the news, the correct pronunciation, say it in Spanish, all these tourists, east coast politicians, it doesn’t need to be set in the orbit of Saturn, not as good as the other Starzl, E.E. Doc Smith, more compact, starts deep into the action, we’re in the middle of a battle, holding cells, dialogue happens, we’re done, fairly good for being fairly bad, published in the October 1931 issue of Astounding, the Clayton era of Astounding, having trouble following the action, put on a really big smile for your videos, the muscles of your face, practicing to be the joker, he’s really selling this, in seven months we’ll know if it was all worth it, Sword & Scandal, with that great art, very solid, character names, Quarl Finner?, Coerl?, Black Destroyer, Braniac Five from the Legion Of Superheroes, Lenore, character from Poe, Moby Gore, Lt. Burroughs, Captain Strom, he’s not shy, Mark Twain, a newspaperman, family newspaper in some midwestern town, its good, real things that happens, engaging with real stuff a little bit, her brother dies, dies from pneumonia, daughter of a capitalist, a capitalism in space story, the eugenics pirate, a good noble man, a man without a planet, engaging with the materials of the times, the Burroughs thing, make it about Romance, he doesn’t solve it, the IFP, the interplanetary flying police?, pirates infiltrated by east Indian company agent, sexy redhead pirate queen, a depth to it, for how short it is, a lot of time hating, too simple, a super good example of pulp that doesn’t suck completely, not enough beams, a cloaking device, I’ll parole you, new laser beam, ray of some kind, a little ethical back and forth, working for the fuckin cops, tremendous amounts of concentrated energy, the energy becomes sentient, weird juice, for the amount of plot and backstory, something in a series, ISFDB, seven of these stories, The Earthman’s Burden, very depthy, another Starzl story, Madness Of The Dust, he’s on mars, he has martian slaves, martian dust makes him go crazy, Against All Flags (1952), Errol Flynn, Anthony Quinn, off the coast of Madagascar, a political dissident, party now because there is no afterlife, mythological pirates, historical pirates, crook, of the golden age of piracy, still pirates today, the Horn of Africa, not British naval slaves, their backstory is different, a really good movie, the Mad Max novelization, Stone (1974), Satan worshipers, very beautiful, very artistic, by looking at pirates, land pirates, living life free from societal law, Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson, patch him in and patch him out, harassing ransom people, Pirates Of Venus pirates are not really pirates, Gully Foyle, Alfred Bester, a positive spin, write the pants off, very early in the history of magazines, by the early 30s Weird Tales is getting good, Science Fiction isn’t as mature, willing to pay relatively good rates, the writing of both of this, Ray Cumming fuckin sucks, The Girl In The Golden Atom, this is a fun story, Cat-Woman, flies by the seat of his pants, bad stuff in here, as a relatively short weird menace, shudder story, so similar much better idea, serums that transform you, a lot hornier, more idea filled, Sam Moskowitz on Ray Cummings, went downhill, never evolved to keep up with the times, formulaic, 1938, Ambrose Bierce, this genre didn’t exist, a story about glands, the science of glands, 1910s and 20s, the gland doctor in France, put this in a novel, mad scientist in France, a cutting from testicle from a young monkey, Bobby Derie’s blog, wealthiest men in Paris, complete nonsense, great scientist, have they retracted the story yet, the little touches, there was a magazine, that magazine had the formula, I never found that magazine, maybe she is a cat-woman, very meta, lurid covers, ladies being tortured, fed into machines, when they get nude, delivers on all fronts, exotic northern Quebec setting, palpitating breasts, her heart is beating so hard it makes her breasts beat, palpitations, am I fighting a drug or am I really sleepy?, can see out, writhe around on the animal skin rugs, jumps out the window, bad planning, four characters in this story, made no sense, masturbating in the corner while she dances around on the rugs, terrible plotting, terrible, horrible, a grindhouse 42nd street horror movie, very entertaining and over the top, entertained, trouble visualizing, so very visual, a floorplan of the cabin in the woods, needed to be in the same room as her, wakes up, girl dancing around, a big mirror thing, now that she’s my wife, she looks in the mirror, saw him as a cat, then a literal cat shows up, why does it have a baby in its mouth?, unburied baby?, the cat after all, badly put together, was fixing this story worth Ray Cummings’ time, pulp fiction factoids, Frederik Pohl, bulldoze Pohl, wearing a cravat, almost unusable stories, your standard pulp author didn’t write a second draft, after editorial notes or revisions, how Weird Tales worked, make some changes, I like money, I will not accept payment, my words are perfect, something in common, Lovecraft needed money, scrip harder, he wouldn’t work, he couldn’t work, rich as a child, grandfather was wealthy, wife taking care of him, sending cheques, artists need to be supported, inheritance money, residual stuff, lived with his aunts, rent and food was cheap, three suits, not buying a lot of stuff, editorial revision business, Edison’s laboratory assistant, Edison’s philosophy, Thomas Edison, mix these chemicals together, shrink ourselves down, looking through a microscope at a piece of gold, become very small, just a matter of looking in your cupboards until you find the right chemical, great men before corporate, Elon Musk, emerald mine, get a bunch of guys working for you, a patent troll, Musk isn’t as a bad, E.E. Doc Smith, invented powdered sugar, manufactured it industrially, revised it, space opera, doesn’t need to be set near Titan, a tour of the solar system, protect the whole solar system, as an ideas man, Fitz James O’Brien’s The Diamond Lens, covered in mirages, fun, stupid, fun, from the text, forays to the faraway undisciplined Pluto, colonial thing, tropical Venus, Aryl, stupendous and neverending mirages, Jesse’s Paul hat, his anti-Paul hat, mining anything near Saturn, too fuckn cold, nuclear power all the time, radiation, make it into heat, energon cubes make no fuckn sense, purple, pinky purple, I eat energon cubes, to sell cars that transform into robots, disguises, you think I’m just a boring, my uncle was in the Navy, a mcguffin to chase after, if Jack London had written this story it would be way better, lab assistant, Wells was the lab assistant to Huxley, learning shit, science teacher, The Star by H.G. Wells, Goliah, a device that zap people out of existence, blackmail the capitalists into obeying him, you don’t need it to be set around Titan, wanting to change reality using his tech, more science fictional, when E.E. Doc Smith solves problems, we can’t restart the warp engines cold, the mechanism of the plot, somehow do the thing that is impossible, during the battle they invent technology, Borg shit is fake science fiction, nothing real and tangible, to engage in a new relationship with reality, bad science fiction vs. fake science fiction, pretty different, what makes something a western?, Outland (1981), sean connery in space, High Noon (1952) in space, a western in space, is this story science fiction?, just cuz the guy wants to do eugenics, the invisibility shield, small details, invented from not used, prevents them from having an incident, we have nuclear weapons in our cargo hold, had them, didn’t use them, the combination, trying to change the world, bad at his job, a plan to do so, a new race of humans, rich, capitalist, large mine holdings on Titan, visiting dilettante, hostages for money?, science fiction but not good science fiction, the gland formula, moving the goal posts, weird fiction possibly by science fiction, werewoman, also possibly, the narrator turns into a cat, it could be it was a science fiction, I lost the documents, undercutting it on purpose, read the end, secret formula in a published magazine, Frozen Canyon, Jeanne and I, glorious vibrant young body that nature gave her, she is normal, a scheming criminal half mad with lust, had never seen the French magazine she mentioned, there was no such magazine, the product of a deranged mind, she disrobes, gazing at her beauty in her bedroom mirror, the grinding maw, for you see sometimes a strange lethargy, cat naps, gleaming green and yellow, my mind is tottering, the watchful eyes upon, like a cat watches a mouse, the ambiguity, doesn’t impact the rest of the book, is there any supernatural activity in this story, half-breed French Canadian in the north, Franklin’s motivation, wait until she gets her money, gotta see her naked, you can’t wait five minutes to see her dance nakedly, nice and ambiguous ending, are we reading a diary entry?, if you go back early enough in the story, undercuts his whole story, if we drank milk we’d all be like cows, the doppleganger one, real science fiction, Mike Vendetti narrated, what supernatural thing happened? what scientific thing happened?, dosing with something apparently, spanish fly, masturbation talk, to perform for her guardian, doesn’t deliver, buy your thesis, precluded from science fiction, breed a new race?, white man’s law, given the period, philosophers have said, atavistic, ray weapon, primitive urge, the great simians who he resembled, a south seas story can be science fiction, Island Of Dr. Moreau, A Thousand Deaths, dogs and disintegration, The Monster Men, amnesia, therefore worthy of the daughter of the scientist, memory returned to Quarl, orderly procession of the stars, the artificial gravity, very early, pre-Heinlein, very interesting, as the ship rotated, a thick swathing of bandages, peaked face, rotten, a portable apparatus, progenitor, this will work, an agreeable warmth, a great lassitude followed, filled the blouse, tunic, blue trousers, gold braid down the side, clothing talk, one of the chosen, the chosen race, an out and out damned pirate, what else?, inscrutably melancholy, the idealism of a poet, many means, disguise one’s purpose, for instance, felt himself redden, Strom was a zealot, prompt penetration, the point is he wants him to join the team, breeding a new race, takes generations, Hitler’s plans, it won’t work, the fiction part, because it was real, trying to do something science fictional, before Hitler, not running his race programs, everybody loved it, homegirl, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, sterilize, its a good story for what it is, how short it is for the amount of material that is in it, romance stuff, an outline rushing through the material, get to the ideas, who in this group is fun to hang out with?, the author more than the characters, genuine science fiction opening, faltered in her course, stockholders, visitors, aware of a cessation, bad sentence beauty, parts of Cat-Woman, badly worded, fictitious gravity, main salon, the entire midship section, to flounder in helpless confusion, they’re being attacked, skipped past, not a good story, interesting and kinda fun here and there, trouble following it, poorly written, omniscient, first person, a character narrator, more economy there, how to tell stories, 1st person, 3rd person, close and far, really important, detective novels told 1st person, Sherlock Holmes, 1st person from the 2nd main character’s point of view, Watson’s POV, very easy to follow, if he did see it he didn’t observe it, 3rd person, tightened up, Ray Cummings masturbating while writing this story, sexy stories, the girl here is terrible, how she is behaving makes no sense, aliens who come to Earth to kidnap all the women, not writing in the first half of the 20th century, explorers, our universe is an atom in a larger structure, make themselves really big, you’re blind, why are your blind, my eyes don’t work, why don’t you just replace your eyes, execute him, more ethical than we are, had Heinlein written that, a 10page philosophical discussion, elemental and frenetic, and then this happened, why it has a bad reputation, Lester Del Rey writing really short stories, three book series, good stuff as well, more detail, more sweat put into it, Jonathan as a the new Paul, shownoting a show with Paul, invite him back, email Evan, Cora couldn’t show up because her mom died, reschedule for sometime in the future, other plans, I honor my commitments, arguing himself into something, Paul makes the show worse, talking over people, not all being in the same room, a delay, distracted, bad for the listener, Paul can contribute well but often doesn’t, “comps” is what they call them, bad thinking, being worried about spoilers, bad modes of thought, why are other people interested in spoilers, fundamentally misunderstanding, ladies in glass cylinders coming to earth, 7 minute story, aliens kidnap all the women, research projects, spiderwomen, an excuse to read it, beef with this story as a cat-woman story, made her a pig, wildcat, mountain lions, didn’t do any research, remote or something, not thinking it through, care about ideas more than writing, nice writing, experiencing the story sequentially, the end is the most important part, two exciting novels, Donald E. Westlake crime novel, new Ace Double, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, no Alex?, LibriVox, set in Florida, good noir opening, Murder Mistress by Robert Colby, “Scott Daniels is a washed up showbiz announcer who hit the bottle a few too many times and blew his big chance.”, three and half hours, a lady drowning in quicksand as a sex fetish, mud, this is a new time, naked on a bed, I could read that, crime and mystery stories, more interested in the phenomena of these horny novels, naked woman on the bed pointing a gun, pink unmentionables, green negotiables, Killing Time by Donald E. Westlake, Ben Tucker, Smith will squawk, the small town aspect, Westlake is really good at his job, eating a ham sandwich, I’m looking for a guy named Smith, heavy browed, hand painted and too wide, front name, this is your lucky night, nice prose, painted ties, vintage 1961 feeling, Westlake is awesome, 4.5 hours, zoned out again, check in, a push notification, something stupid, addicted to the petty bourgeois, small freeholder, yeoman?, the dopamine, 46, pick up from you, it is good to get out of the house, enough to pay minimum wage, it is good to have hobbies, put a scanner somewhere in the middle of that, give it to the world, even just covers, archive.org’s custom scanner, ones from China, funky, wanting to preserve the book, designed for bound books, you can’t crack the spine on a sewn book, reams, come loose, quasi pornographic, Lost City Of The Damned by Alec Rivera [Charles Nuetzel], horny science fiction novel, sex, excitement, and the unknown, terrible in all the right ways, John Kendrick Bangs, Bangsian fantasy, like Beetlejuice (1988), The Good Place, A Houseboat On The Styx, inspired Riverworld, collaborative, a sequel, four books in the series, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Inferno, ghost stories, it just goes on, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, so cool, he doesn’t know where it is going, offered him $100,000, Thorne Smith, person turning into a goldfish, The Stray Lamb, Topper series, a navy, nautical fiction, supernatural, when a book that’s falling apart, there’s lots of things I could do, an unassailable defense, E.W. Hornung’s Raffles, the gay response to Sherlock Holmes, not being gay enough, Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, Bunny, a burglar, unbelievably gay, the lady in the mud puddle, in mud puddles?, why is this a thing, high heels, Barrett Whitener, mild mannered, Cary Grant, ok?, 1937 film, the novel is public domain, a few TV series, 78 episodes, Eric Idle, Transformers: The Movie (1986), Roddy McDowell, Bettlejuice sequel that nobody asked for, curious, what was left to be said?, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), an imperfect novelization, something really cool, a lot of infodump, an excuse to explain, depopulated Australia, shot without permission, one week at a time, in terms of story, reading it through a novel, more action and is simpler, incredible astounding wonderful, dog dies in both, Mel Gibson, [he has a monkey in the third one], 4th one is not good, 5th one, worst kind of idea, go watch the backstory happen, a very unnecessary film, 7 minute standing ovation at Cannes, just because a movie gets a trophy, Eisner awards, a popularity contest, a lady doing the petition, more like the nebulas, people campaign, understood the process, how to get into comics, Maus, not entertaining for kids, better than other homework assignments, leaves his burner on, wants to save on matches, a very long term view of this show, Jesse has an ideology (campaigning for certain things, campaigning against certain things), very hesitant to ever give Amazon any money, most people go along, get along, bootstrap, the PDF page, to try to get more shit on Librivox, hasn’t worked out that well, LibriVox won’t use Jesse as a source, they use Project Gutenberg, Haithi Trust, why it takes so long, very precise, Canadian and Australian ones, FadedPage, Scott Miller [of the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast] is great, his agenda, to record unrecorded stuff, make a little bit of money, he likes this stuff, doing a ton of work, 200 episodes out, three times a week, he wants to mix it up, things that people request, ads in his podcast, the ones on youtube, on the other hand, an imperfect system, Mike [Vendetti] recording for Audible.com, he has other names too, The Last Spaceship by Murray Leinster, the mushroom world, The Mad Planet, Clifford D. Simak, more packaging?, mutual on twitter, stuff for fun, used to be Jesse’s job, a tape gun, very precise, do things fast, Halloween costume, against store bought costume, diplodocus?, cardboard costume, you can model things up out of cardboard, homemade costume, a standing desk, so unergonomic, way too low, no warehouse, fairly small objects, so lucky about media mail, guy from Britain, copies of Analog, Children Of Dune, $40 shipping, silly, Connor can’t get anything in and out of Australia for a reasonable price, New Zealand, horrific, a person in the world today, internet, worst shithole countries, tweeting from Gaza, delivery of things, if there was ever a case, start with mail, an essential service, what makes a country, parcels and letters and things across the place, what made the Mongols an empire, without getting Mongolized, the postal agency, the main job of the government, insurance and mail, universal coverage, being Westlakian, make that explicit, before eveveryone dies, he goes down so smooth, he’s a good guy, The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block, the purported author, wanted to join the CIA, gets recruited, assassinating the president, love the premise, suggest both, five political figures, one man with a gun is enough for the job, a man who’s sole life function, Miles Dorn, he’s so good, the one set in Ireland with a folksinger, hung out with Maissa, Passport To Peril, Reading, Short And Deep short Lawrence Block stories, wonderful narrator, very powerful, good with the openings, professional newscaster, sidethings, horrible ads, normcore, Apple podcasts, regionally targeted, government health insurance, Uber teen accounts, big city thing?, am against, not invented something new, 88th birthday, surrounded by the elderly, dangerous, they can cut you in their gangs, make friends with young people, work at it, make em come on your podcast, meeting young people through science fiction, one pulp fiction friend younger, a year younger, everybody else, fifty is pretty young, aint that young, conversations with people, the whole point is the side benefits, a lot of time looking at books you want to read, help kids pass tests and get better marks in school, let’s do something that will help in the future, don’t lose money at it, shovelling money out the door is unsustainable, maintaining, spend time around cool paperbacks, real conversations about books, most people don’t read, they gain in value, an insight into that period, 1931, 1938, investigate more shudders, weird menaces, weird fiction, Weird Tales is still being published, dude, trolling Jesse, this ideology, only share things that can be shared, worrying about the terminator gene, monsanto’s plan to destroy farming, doesn’t affect your worldview, support illegal things to stop the terminator gene, watch a minute of it to see the BC legislature, Edison Motors, response to Tesla, as a guy, electrifying logging trucks, powerful youtube channel, we better pay attention to this, invited called the Green Party, a third party, pretty small in B.C.’s legislature, a bill to change funding for vehicle subsidization, election’s coming up, very different from American politics, not wholly incompetent clowns, so much clownage is happening, spread everywhere, clown world now, more enclownified, Kentucky legislative proceedings, seeing the room, special costume, threw off that yoke, judges don’t dress up funny, tradition is all we have left, a gavel, Alien Nation, tv series, main white guy, main human guy, alien girlfriend, the way they do the show, there’s aliens, pull out some fact about Mr. Spock’s physiology, builds up lore, lore is the most serious problem any Star Trek has, moved all her stuff in, I see you put up the clowns, paintings of clowns, we do not have clowns in our culture, cirsova, mental maps, no massive overlaps, new fiction, imagine if you were going to open a restaurant, not allowed to use food from after a certain year, recipes are not copyrighted or trademarked, secret recipe, formulations vs. recipes, why do recipe books exist?, she wants to try new food, the creative art, I should write a book, like their poetry, a reference book, not supposed to read it cover to cover, ooh we could make that, get up the courage to do one of the things in there, look at my art, the cookbook is kind of a dead art because of the internet, youtube channels, food algorithm, instagram, twitter, I’m now going to talk about god for the next couple of minutes, preface your conversation about god, why Jimmy Dore quit pot, a Jungian analyst, funny and interesting, spoilers skip ahead, fuck off, they think they’re supposed to, people are very copying, Seventh Victim, you really need to sell it, when they go to read Sheckley, unwreckable, a visual display, lots of money being spent, go to work and feel happy or sad, the narrator explains, hailing, cars going by, a weedwhacker, on a porch, in a room, a novel about cars recorded in a car, doesn’t edit it, how ratchet that is, so charming, can’t even call it pirated, never going to come into, he wanted to read this book to you, he’s a human being, the ideal form of being, people telling a story, another person enjoying that story, and talking about that story, a really good pitch, Louis Rossmann, laptop repairman philosopher guy, right to repair, not everything should be a subscription service, the right way to go, not getting a lot of traction, no money behind it, individuals trying to be ethical, something like a movement, Rossmann has a billionaire backer, leverage political change, leveraging their youtube channel to get a government subsidy, can’t find a place to build their factor, they’re a municipality, Merritt, B.C., other countries are courting them, moving farther north, less investment taken, idle land, investment property, vocal complaints, we want government to be somewhat responsive, Apple will fuck it up on purpose, past the pain point, Starbucks getting shit on for Israel, Nancy Pelosi’s friends kids were killed, Starbucks gave $3 million, special beans, be on the phone with Nancy Pelosi to get shit happening, two gift cards, Tim Horton’s ones, Starbucks, big corporate now, its fine, donuts, Starbucks’ food is very expensive, $3.60, cheap for their products, an expensive part of the world, in terms of land, hard to find housing, a city but suburbs, unhoused, hobos, houseless, tentless, half a duplex, half-housed, housing many animals, some raccoons, big swollen teats, some babies, what racoon milk tastes like, the science of racoon milk, latch on and give a little suck, made redundant, life in rural Kentucky, mixed up with weird apologies for Joe Biden, Trump Derangement Syndrome, sniffing kids, blatant lying, confabulating memories, gross children grabbing, Astounding, doesn’t know he’s on camera, nobody calls him on it, his daughter’s diary, she left it somewhere, like the son left the laptops, woman sentenced to prison for stealing and selling Ashley Biden’s diary, going to therapy and telling the therapist her dad was having showers with her, pretty damning if true, Hunter calling his dad a pedophile, to hurt it his dad, pawing children, hand on a girl’s breast, evil that he gets away with that, a lot going around, what percentage?, double digits?, a survey, look around, just in your own life, it’s not zero, Biden paws girls breast, video distorts, granddaughter, here’s the apology for it, Natalie Biden, Beau Biden’s daughter, a Biden who’s not allowed to be a Biden, John Snow, what Game Of Thrones is about, politics, titillation, perverted sex stuff, Scott liked it, George R.R. Martin, huge entourage of women, Freya Stark, women’s brains, not a handsome man, got money, an attraction to the storytelling, for women, something to him, the first book is in the show, why people are into it, so much of it, the media stuff is not reading, people like talking about things around the watercooler, Americans are very prudish, HBO would have a little bit of nudity, traditionally verboten, high drama, reversals, responding to Tolkien’s vision of Middle Earth is escapist, Martin’s vision of Westeros, trying to be realist, got dragons, war of the roses, infighting between royal families, bottom up characters, when you see a princess get raped, that’s dramatic, girl mind mentality, they’re different, common core, women are weaker than men, shorter than men, things growing inside your body for 9 months, women care about health more, watch Alien Nation with Meg, watch the pilot, cheer for schooling, the Ruby Bridges story, desegregation story, govt. agents, sit in a classroom by herself all day, very TV dramatic, how fucked up American morality is, prudishness, the names are so funny, the original 1988 movie, a family drama done as a buddy cop show, got punchy, funny names, Sam Fransisco, low level humour in the background, another baby, needs to find a binnaum, Albert Einstein, you’re gonna let Albert fuck your wife?, be in the room while the partner is being cuckolded, Heinlein style violation of norms, this is all biological, made up to tell stories like that, to break down prejudices, so lefty feelgood, genuine SF, little details, weirdly sexy show, sex stuff on Fox TV in 1990s, cancelled, brought it back, reshoot the final scene, set in 1995, highly rated show, second to last episode: child sex slavery with politicians, nothing stays in print anymore, Netflix shows removed from Netflix, lost the license or embarrassed, not vertically, horizontal, vs. spherical, own the mines for the raw materials for your cars, marketing and movie theaters, merging with competitors, productions that it greenlights, Quentin Tarantino will own Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019) in 20 years, a Star Trek movie, see you next week.

Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings - from Terror Tales, May 1938

In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl from Astounding, October 1931

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #813 – READALONG: What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown

Jesse, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown

Talked about on today’s show:
how to spell Fredric, mostly famous for a short story [Knock], The Star Mouse, The last man on earth sat a lone in a room. There was a knock on the door., a story stub, the basic premise, For Sale Baby Shoes never used., people who are really into science fiction from the 40s from astounding, from Planet Stories, Startling Stories, September 1948, some differences, 1 issue complete novel, 1949 hardcover, Lawrence Block had written this new Burglar book, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, a writer’s writer, Donald E. Westlake, dead much longer, Anthony Boucher, great, pretty good, before its time, multiverse shit, a little annoyed with it, overwrite, overexplain, sense of disorientation, conversations about bug-eyed monsters, when the women were dressed like this, the crowd chanting for Mechhy, stuff we’re missing, a review of the new Fallout show, a review of the review, a criticism of the show based on its a videogame that got turned into a tv show, enjoying it for spot the thing, fanservice, oh look a callback!, servicing the audience of Startling Stories and the like, early postmodernism, self-referential, woman wears the brass bra, green bikini-top, the space-girl uniform, B.E.M. is a deep cut today, 1950s with movies, kidnapping girls in film, up to the 80s, space girl uniform, when you’re in outer space, we have spacesuits, are they thin clear plastic?, girl in bikini in space, she needs to have a pressure suit, a plastic bag so you can see her legs, the art from the original, our hero fighting a bug-eyed monster, clouds, he’s asleep, fitting into a tradition, Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, a representation of Surprising Stories, Earle Bergey, the father of the brass bra, bad at bug eyed monsters, great at girls, in this other world, he’s much better at doing bug-eyed monsters, venusians, arcturians, moon creatures, human models, good logic, a fun and funny book, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), tired of, a non-Marvel Marvel movie, has actual emotional resonance, the phenomena that happens, shit on then becomes mainstream, has to hit the official checklist, a science fiction movie about multiverses, guy who snaps his fingers, Thanos?, not official channel, groupthink, indpendent film that got made and blew up, as a science fiction movie, a family that’s struggling with itself, a science fiction device, what it’s like to deal with each other, the phrase, “above the mental level of a comic book”, nobody would accept this plot, it’s too low level, artistic contempt rolls down hill, comics at the bottom, Planet Comics, this is in the book, pulp magazine editors calling their magazine’s books, being aspirational, low social standing, what this whole book is about, semi-respectable, jobless, a lowly writer, a plagiarist, most important robot in the universe, his version of earth, now he’s the publisher, most sexy girl on the planet is now his wife, the angst of being a writer in 1940s, be respected and respectable, the girlfriend of the nerd, Rocket Talk, social strata, also true in our world, commercial product, Multiverse Of Madness, Spider-Man version, the most mainstream version of a lowly science fiction thing, official approval, did the Christopher Reeve movie, stupid comic book shit, stupid comic book shit took over, Disney+, main theme, having fun, reflecting, a roman-a-clef, story with a key, match characters for real life people, going to visit an author in upstate New York, paid for a novel but hasn’t started it, Theodore Sturgeon, interesting factoids, one version of Surprising Stories, very graphic on the cover, the Mecchyverse, the cause of all this later stuff, fun, when Heinlein did his multiverse stuff, ultimately where all of this ends up, an interesting case, basically one story [Make A Prison], all literary allusion to one poem, taking metaphor, that’s not how normal science fiction operates, if he’s finally doing that, maybe it’s going to be good, the prose is really solid, there were things that didn’t need to be there, a fairly short novel, slightly changed, titles of chapters, words here and there are different, he explained everything, science fiction pulp concepts with logical explanations, even the moon has an atmosphere, set in the future, published in 1948 but set in 1954, cold war paranoia, East Berlin, shoot you on sight, McCarthyism, a preview of that, ahead of its time, everybody is looking for spies, so cool, a time travel sort of story, doesn’t know the rules, the history, good insight into the book, a legit bug-eyed monster science fiction future, how their world became that much different, the world of Winton, no major differences other than a rocket to the moon, capacitor explosion, completely disintegrates one person, a future that didn’t happen for the United States in 1955, doing so many things at once, making fun of science fiction magazines of the 1940s, the fan was at the bottom of the pool, the best fan, the editor wants fans to write in, a shit disturber, makes jokes and fun, more addicted to the magazine, see your name in print, what we see as youtubers wanting subscribing, need engagement, asking questions, just a youtuber was bad, real media, feeling you’re a low level guy, the fan wants to be the best fan, the publisher is gone, all of it logically follows, everything is explained, the levels of meta, the universe a grown man imagines would be inside a 14 year old boy’s imagination, an impressive feat, not-super-super memorable, not-very science fictiony, The Number Of The Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, Lazarus Long says to Heinlein: look there’s Dorothy, L. Frank Baum, writers who write other universes, detailing 666 universes, already tired of it, seems like it was new, the twist is the multi-verse aspect, he holds off until the very end, precursors, Sidewise In Time by Murray Leinster is from the 1930s, a hand stand-in characters, E.E. Doc Smith, Zap Branigan style Doppleberg or whoever, space aliens doing spy stuff, we have to shoot the people on sight, multiverse, 1895, philosopher/psychologist, all plasticity and indifference, the etymology, comes from stuff like solipsism, you’re the only thing that’s real, doesn’t get you very far, coffee later, even if hit by a bus, all solipsism are true, the stupid wrong way to go, my truth, there aren’t private facts, the private language argument, Tolkien had a private language for a while but had to start sharing it with some elves, telepathy, graduate thesis out of being just a hack writer, a girlfriend who will respect him, Doppel, made himself French, he doesn’t know anything about it, the Winton editor who looks like him a little bit, she looks even better, all very fun, why did those two characters swap, so plot could happen, a narrative that swallowed itself, interesting philosophical implications, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, what is real, post-modern rabbit hole, Rick And Morty, six episodes is probably enough, took the whole thing of Futurama, hasn’t fully established, handful of tropes, hasn’t worked out all the kinks, he’s the publisher now, does he have the skills to manage a publishing empire?, invite your editors to your mansion in the countryside, Hearst, Patty Hearst’s story, money to feed poor people, robbing a bank, caught or burned to death, sentenced to prison, commutes her sentence, president pardons her, what was going on her mind?, things are mean, your grandpa is a horrible person, I like my grandpa, FBI gets here, grandpa says I want her out, I’d like my granddaughter to have a pardon, yessir, main character syndrome, comic book level, that level of corruption, if it has any point at all it is about that up and down contempt, night gangs, an awesome sequence, get robbed, robs a guy, moon-drugs, space-planes, well worked out, looking up and looking down, good thinking on Jesse’s part, pulp magazines: 10 Story Book, Fantasy Book, a different etymology, contempt, folk tales as opposed to fairy tales, massively blinded, Remarkable Story Of Chicken Little, how good it is, so simple and so good, finding new insights, in it, washed over a million liters of water over a million years, this beautiful rock, using tricks and an idea, trying to fill page, a grandma, tell them a story, it gets inside of them and comes out later when they’re older, meme idea of story be what’s most different about humans as opposed to other animals, contempt for Little Red Riding Hood, kids’ stuff, what is it good for, for understanding skepticism, how do you know it, so girls will respect and marry you, Jesse is right about all of this, Will hates to say it, work that comes after it, Philip K. Dick novels, sudden slipping into another reality, the tenor of it, when it happens in Dick, Dick always undermines, he sets up a thing to be skeptical about, another rug under there, bewilderment and bemusement, not a great novelist structure, make an argument for the sake of argument, something being said about the nature of contemporary society, one’s ability to perceive reality, there’s great pleasure in reading his discombobulated stuff some time, doesn’t feel that way when you read Dick, Solar Lottery, chosen at random, an interesting idea, there’s a lot of running around, when he’s writing longer pieces there’s a lot of running around, bad for the story, liking the experience of living in a universe, the action set pieces in this book were incredible, driving through the darkness, dead reckoning, twitter, postmodernism and nihilism, a little bit of nihilism in this book, if an infinite number of universes, making all the possible choices, nicely dismissed by Mecchy, you’re you, alternate universe Jesse, mirror universe, not very dark, very joyful read, bemused, the coins, the questions, when he’s on the train, the cots, regrets that instantly, mist-out, if that’s his worst sin, first Fredric brown, Arena, he likes his parodies of reality, near the end of WWII, man from earth is locked in mortal combat with a big red monster, USA vs. Japan in the Pacific, retelling current events with a wink and a nod, man vs. Japan man, fields of technology, the idea of Star Trek in the first place, the klingons are the mongols, the romulans are the soviets, Roddenberry’s philosophy, come let us reason together, humans won’t be racist, Scotsman and Japanese man African ladies, guy from Iowa, Soviet guy, mystery and crime stuff, The Case Of The Dancing Sandwiches, Lawrence Block wrote a little bit about Brown, multiple layers of reality, continually subverting his own story, replicant, very internal, Maze Of Death, playing a video game, weird book about prisons and planets and not knowing where you are, a derelict ship in space, a collective hallucination, The Days Of Perky Pat, colonist on Mars or wherever, dolls, barbies, The Sims, the kids are shooting bugs for dinner, where it comes from for Philip K. Dick, super horny guy, super thoughtful guy, playing with barbies, tries to participate, what does this mean?, many stories about games (Monopoly), Roog, a dog’s psychology, garbage men come, the aliens come and take the offering urn, the dog goes crazy, that dog is barking too much, were they aliens?, there’s no answer, is that post modern?, Overdrawn At The Memory Bank by John Varley, go inside a lion’s brain, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Total Recall, Dick would have inverted it, likes pulling the rug out, the twist is he didn’t know there was a twist there, blogpost from 2011, Fredric Brown, 1958, Trapped Detective and Guilty Detective, New York Mercantile Library, pennies a day, freshman year, roommate, The Wench Is Dead, the Merc, a Friday, a bottle of Jim Beam, bourbon, Murder Can Be Fun, dangerous, Agatha Christie, the book barely half finished, a printer, The Fabulous Clipjoint, Ed and Am Hunter, Martians Go Home, and abundance of short stories, every story he told, read the first paragraph and relax, Night Of The Jabberwock, Louis Carroll enthusiasts, 1972, the day came when it was too late, clean engaging prose, you know you’re in good hands, very easy reading, smart, supersmooth, the nostalgia, the 40s pulps, as a writer now, self-publishing, there’s no market where a writer can live by his pen right now, self-publishing, in 75 years when the internet is still around, listen to this podcast, when did twitter become x?, you can’t be nostalgic for things that happened before you were born, paperback anthologies, digest magazines, the letters section, some of them do, the number of pages devoted to letters, where Lovecraft got started, fiction and poetry, shitposting is a huge percentage of what’s going on in the letters’ columns, in anthologies, they remove the art, they remove the context, rupture easers and Rosicrucians, the rosy crescent folks sent to Wayne June, stories evolving and devolving, fan demand, a meta-story, writing stories in the story, plagiarizing himself, if written today it would be insufferable, family of Chinese people who are upset with each other, where everybody has a beard, self-promote, Will’s review of Galaxy magazine, not a great cover, one of the best science fiction magazines, Galaxy Science Fiction, Alfred Bester, Arthur C. Clarke, Gravy Planet, The Stars My Destination, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, the power of editors, pushing vs. servicing, John W. Campbell, Horace Gold, a thesis about how science fiction should be, not his first thing, good ideas, interesting ideas, got the magazine out there, he was making the magazine, subservient to the publisher, the important part of this book that’s not right on the surface, whichever Hearst, your ancestor’s legacy, a good producers of science fiction, the real turn, super hilarious, a bug eyed monster, Alan Moore, everybody’s into pirate comics, stories set in the universe he came from, a really famous author, ripping off Asimov and Clarke, agree and disagree, ideas are cheap, it’s the writing that counts, good short stories, getting good ideas to fit together vs. novels, the one you bang out on the weekend, two covers paper in the middle, not exactly a novel, Jesse’s definition, the platonic idea of a novel, something Stephen King wrote, that’s the thing that will sell right now, Suzanne Collins?, Rick Riordan?, used to be Anne Rice, slice of time, Danielle Steele, Agatha Christie, mysteries not novel, mysteries can be short stories, the word “novel”, “romance”, an acceptable thing you can do if you are in the acceptable class, sleeze books, cultural, socioeconomic, want to subscribe to the New York Times but can’t afford it, I’m above these people, defining class by ideology, a set of ideas in people’s minds, it’s not the editors, it’s not the owner of a particular magazines, your editor is now your employee, the last powerful editor, Arianna Huffington, there’s no editors though, Anthony Boucher suddenly flown into our universe, Neil Clarke, make money?, not enough to live on, sells a lot of books, how the website supports itself, 10 cents a word, it’s horrible, Peter Watts, too much new science fiction, what’s good or not, Clarkesworld, a firehose, trying to keep up, January 2010, The Things by Peter Watts, 14 years ago, hate reading, doing some research, this story’s just like this other one, someone taking down Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equations, the Helicopter one, the N.K. Jemisin one, you’re a fucker, the killing of children is ok, we need a police state to stop you from thinking bad, post-post-modern, the best analayis, when somebody accuses somebody of doing something, accusation coming from a place inside, right wing memes, retweeted some Tucker Carlson interview, projection, they’re killing children at the border, where is this accusation coming from, classic projection, unconscious, accusations are true, the lady who killed her puppy, never heard about this lady, might be a vice president, bad team, the word “puppy” rather than “dog”, oh what happened, the quotes they like to pull, I hated that dog, there’s always context, there isn’t infinite funds, city life, killing involved in farm life, hunting for food, they’re not willing to look at the circumstances, big hate on, a USA today article, she put this in a book, advance a political career, support with people who’ve, guy goes to sit with dog in a pound, the reality, is this a horror stories, the most horrible part of this story, a poor political instinct, central part of the United States, a decreasing number, farms are consolidated, not getting invited to Mar-a-Lago, [Malcolm Nance], Jonathan predicts J.D. Vance will be Trump’s VP, pretends to be a hillbilly, Hillbilly Elegy, quasi-sociology, that whole region, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, why did he pick Pence, governor of Indiana, midwest, come back north, the most disturbing state, an uncomfortable, the KKK, Indianapolis is fine, how many states?, enriching, eastern seaboard, traveling has dropped out, a roadtrip across the country, pre-pandemic, Michigan is nice to visit, a certain item that is legal there, partakes, beaches, great lakes, shopping, go through Ohio, Bloomington, Indiana University, Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, a dynamic person, some king od laughing stock, contempt for him, a lot of contempt, Alaska, Sarah Palin, who the official fool is, Saturday Night Live, Gaza protesters, good to figure out where the liberals are, Michael Che, Joe Biden, wouldn’t laugh or clap, Colin Jost, suck off his old man balls, father of the nation, Mommalla Harris, annoying uncle, weirdly young father, when the Queen was alive, she’s an lady, lives in another country, how fuckin retarded are you people?, the parents for the country, the competent killer dad, he’s gonna hit you with his belt, whoever’s running the show, Xi memes, reaction, looks like Winnie The Pooh, competent manager, if we have to have this whole thing managed, a weird election, RFK, Jr., be assassinated, a tradition, if he makes the debates, how can there be debates?, one guy can’t debate, in court during the debates, the court case, after the election, indicted for many things, the perception, more in the public eye, the last poll, the intent, no good strategy, if you’re cheating, physically unable to campaign, there’s media though, Truth Social, when shitlibs are reacting on twitter, more cynical, WWI in prison, Eugene Debs, compare, campaigning, alien and sedition acts, not actually against the war, which war, improved since them, Lyndon LaRouche, ideological straightjacket, everybody calls you a nazi, everybody calls you a fascist, a railroad that goes all around the world, incoherent, his followers, almost a cult, coherent but hard to understand, be very skeptical, Jimmy Carter says he has lust in his heart, brain or crotch, memories in my head, prominent conspiracy theories, why do you think that’s a slur?, the origin of conspiracy theories, collateral damage, the popular phraseology, the phrase infects people’s brains, vaccine denier, controls you, the best memes are the ones that are obviously untrue, the really dangerous memes, national anthems, we’re all part of this melting pot, you got tricked, the internet gaslights you, take screenshots, child drag queen contests, drag story readings, what’s going on, one picture shared over and over again, any time a claim is made, drill down, Howard Hawks is the greatest American filmmaker of all time, Hitchock is from Britain, any claim that somebody makes is potentially acceptable, a positive thing, closer to reality, floating in the sky above, on the internet you’re sit with so many claims, processing a whole magazine, only in politics mode right now, how many followers to following, Scott is back on twitter, Victims of Capitalism, Paphlets, Ahoy Comics, Garth Ennis, Tom Peyer, summer just got better, Barrett Brown, Appalachian Aesthetics, Edison Motors, that’s a crazy take, Trump Derangement Syndrome, creativity, the internet pushes you to conform, work through one idea, pushes you towards other ideas, massive defense mechanism, be creative, a tool, three cards from a deck, just a tool, ad hygiene, 765, there are valuable things to pay attention to, the mute button, a boomer tweeting about how Trump is bad, a little bit useful to know what this age and class group, a lot of time for twitter, the class basis for both parties, older boomer, retired with a house, Robert Kroese, Basedcon, trad writer, indie writer, what does successful mean?, sells books, really into ai, he thinks it’s good, gaslit into thinking its good, the main character is the same, dive back into, emdash, hot water once again, uncommitted crimes, roped, bad writing in there, carpool buddy, android assassins, Syd Mead, trademark wit, guy who’s trynna make a little cash, what percentage goes to Amazon, freakin out about bitcoin, understanding vs. making money, gold speculation vs. a gold miner, a visceral reaction, a new basis of an economy, trying to wreck as many industries as they can, worried about ai, a real possibility, the last generation that writes books and make art, people don’t make art to make money, the whole point is people write to make money, if this was written today, the archaeological experience of finding out about a society from long ago, old stuff teaches you more, even in a bad story from a long time ago, you kinda already know with what today is like, destitute in New York, you plagiarize, making money and art, art existed before money and will exist after money, I don’t know if people will exist but some robot will be in a cave spraying paint from its mouth onto a cave wall and then finger painting some robot animals its gonna go hunt later, you owe me five male deer, is Stephen King an artist, sometimes result in art, what is art anyway?, what you do when you aren’t doing money, poetry is art, very elitist, to show their disdain for money, Robert E. Howard was not disdainful, Lovecraft wrote poetry to make fun of people, what is beauty, hot girl on a cover of a pulp magazine, Allen Anderson, that’s art, also commercial, you know art when you see it, it’s like pornography, Weird Tales authors writing poetry, housewives, Clark Ashton Smith, marketable skill, The Black Diamonds by Clark Ashton Smith, doing other things, sculpture, 1911 story, The Mahout, an elephant driver, 20 years later, The Justice Of The Elephant, written for money, to prove to himself that he was a professional writer, sold The Black Cat, Jack London, once you know who you are you can be happy, having edited so many magazines, how art intersects with commercialism, an essay by Sonia Green (Lovecraft’s wife): Commercialism The Curse Of Art, art is separable from commerce, designs and sells hats, capitalism fucks things up, his letters to Weird Tales, philosophy of story telling, this is what he said, why Weird Tales became good, they’re tied together but not the same thing, how come you’re not paying me for the stories, a farmer of chatGPT shit, Jeff Bezo’s sharecropping platform, King Nihilism, why upset, not upset, he should know better, larger follower count, he sells books, t-shirts, partially live off, A Scammer Darkly, Aye, Robot, clickbait, Starship Grifters, a lot of reviews on Amazon, he’s popular, 289 pages, 1,336, A Grift Too Far, isn’t this guy a Christian?, Jonathan doesn’t strike Jesse as a Christian, the Mormon church is basically a communist system, excommunicated, mutually supportive, for you career you should convert, Scientology, very nice people, the Celebrity Center, scientologists on bikes with guns, they want you to do well, more than a tithe, voluntary, they got their shit together at this point in the religion, he’s not a threat, how’d you know my name, better than the FBI and the city police, they all have audiobooks, what would be the advantage of reading it?, unless its awesome, not doing an audiobook, talked Jonathan out of it, cigars and their history, goes back to the Spanish conquest, what’s the etymology of cigar?, Mayan, cigarettes are female, little one, frails, rap terminology, usherette, racquette, rockette (a little rocket), narrating substack posts, robot versions, better than nothing, too long, cooped up nothing to do, reviewing counts as art, criticism can be art, recording reflections, some feedback, a would be art dealer in New York, the industry is a scam, big time art dealer, look at this awesome book, Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson, the premise is awesome, a planet of girls!, a government of girls, a swaggering and roistering navy of girls, the social message of it, fear governments, a lady riding a bird, a lasso, lasso our hero, they’ve never seen a man, deformed girl, get you, its true, he does look like a woman, both have nipples, bipeds, Robert Silverberg, The Woman You Wanted, Future Science Fiction, excellent cover art, a story by Weinbaum redone by Silverberg, gestalt something, driven by art, on a streak, a few novels, The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair, the audiobook is done by Mike Vendetti, closed mouth in terms of judgements, that was a good one, only four hours long, Second Ending by James White, so much new content, good job!, Live Gold by Robert Sheckley, crime/spy books, a John D. MacDonald, Collision Course by Robert Silverberg, 2 novels by Samuel R. Delany, The Star Pit, no interest in character, The Einstein Intersection, [The Hemingway Hoax], mind changed, less-new wavy, Babel 17, doesn’t make me racist, Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, need excuses to not read things, the most charitable explanation, excuse providers, an obligation to read any science fiction writer, winnowing, excuse, no more excuses, Nice Girl With Five Husbands by Fritz Leiber, Scott Miller [The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast], The Abandoned Of Yan by Donald F. Daley, If, March 1963, After her husband left her…, she had no family, going up ramp to say goodbye to the children, what the heck kinda world is great, some heavy stuff, five pages long, Imagination, he’s good, he has the right aesthetic, Philip K. Dick requests, people like all the stuff, hear a story they didn’t know existed, for commercial purpose, an enthusiast, also not for a commercial purpose, horrible ads, ads are horrible, Ursula K. Le Guin, ads are telling you lies, what do English majors do?, use you powers for good: art, use your power for evil: ads, how do I help people, adblocker, people are conditioned to tolerate ads, they’re teaching you what they want you to be taught, David Currie, Pamphlets, 10 things that Stalin did that were wonderful, doesn’t say ended famines, ended feudalism famines, a student locked out of his Microsoft account, why do you think Stalin is bad?, defensive of stop interacting, the leader of China in 1780, some emperor and empress, the last emperor, put him to work with a broom, what they did in Russia, an expedient way to solve a problem, and yet…, there’s a story behind stuff, George Orwell, being anti-communist, trotsykite conservative flow, Max Shachtman, mainstream figures in the AFICIO, supporting the Vietnam War, Christopher Hitchens, you have to always be humble and go back to first principles, how do we minimize that, AOC one is much funnier, eat the rich dresses, a workin lady, no principles gets you to whatever will allow you to live in that ecosystem, one of your magacommunist people, cosmonaut, 1. fought the banks, 2. drained the swamp, pro-purges, killing the royal family, killing the not good bolsheviks, mostly metaphors, you have to do a lot of unpacking, a reference to D.C., this is like a hype, not literally true, study the purges, jumping ahead to 4., the whole soviet people, Canada sent a boat, he’s not running for office now, before the war with the Nazis, what do you mean by best?, the war with Finland, running Trotsky out of dodge, Eisenhower was a colonel, they needed a good manager who made good decisions, defining what makes a good soldier, Napoleon seems to be a really good general, Rommel, and a good general and good man myth, The Desert Fox, propaganda on both sides, a standard technique, as a metaphor it fits, this is targeted, this is a cartoon for children, people know the phrase, massive conspiracy or killed lots of good people, that he died in office he did a pretty good job of purging, how Khrushchev got elected, just enough quorum, the political culture had become deformed, a tentative step, Stalin brought to his height and responsible for it’s end, homelessness, prostitution, Soviet democracy is way more democratic, Chinese democracy, meetings are fucking boring, not a lot of fun, grandmas and grandpas who have opinions, something you want to do, a young person, a Philip K. Dick novel, The Man Who Japed, the anticommunist case: look at all the meetings, “restored” is not the right word here, saved Europe, liberated eastern Europe, raised literacy, seems very plausible, turned Russia into a nuclear superpower, got Russia nuclear weapons, prerequisite for peace, the mainstream media tells us lies about Stalin, it wasn’t about personal aggrandizement only, treats, housing, almost a nationalistic patriotic fervor, transnational people, tariffs, ultracapitalists, defending your country from invasion, your nation’s resources, replace them, that’s a nationalist movement, the threat that Napoleon was, everybody has to have public education, pretty apt, power through a popular revolution, what happened, competent general, did Stalin fight in WWI?, Trotsky led the army, Stalin had a blue pencil, 10 Days That Shook The World, Trotskyite is the slur, Trotskyite tankie, in the comments, is this a parody account?, how would one know?, where’s the lie, Hitler built roads too, when did you stop beating your wife, liberals still mad about Molotov-Ribbentrop, roads just tell you where to go, easier to traverse than bushwhacking, banned by other things, whataboutism, questions about the restored part, regime or whatever, Nicholas Maduro was elected locally, elections everywhere, where don’t they have elections?, elections in North Korea, almost like he’s a king, his dad and grandad, a liberator, that steady hand, where don’t you get free and fair elections, more local, start worrying about Singapore, why am I worried about this?, who’s the bad guy here?, his southern neighbor for 70 years, are nuclear weapons good?, no, are nuclear weapons necessary?, yes, Cuba, the people will reject it, it doesn’t fit with the brand, a fight you can’t win, they have to kill everybody, a Gaza situation, a mask off of what they’re willing to do, Joe Biden is helping commit a genocide, also me wearing the sunglasses, Luke Skywalker, the special room in the White House eat from vending machines and pretend they’re journalists, doing the right thing, people can be so wrong, he doesn’t need more work, why does he believe it?, he’s old?, doesn’t see the videos?, tested a long time to realize something is bad, early trauma?, not willing to doublethink, a comfort level, maybe Bono is explained the same way, Sean Penn gave Zelenskyy his oscars, most people don’t participate at all, a minority that goes to vote, more non-voters than supporters of either party, big on twitter for one party, conservatives on twitter, people who are dumb as rocks, is Tucker Carlson a conservative, a spiritual and radical sickness, you can be a Christian and do a good interview, watching is the weird part, listening makes a lot of sense, not a Putin-liker, they never said Xi-puppet, literally a communist, transstuff is not communist, xi-communist, Chinese students, I can’t have housing because of socialism, understanding a lot of material, they might bulldoze your house but you get an apartment, housing is not the problem, more buildings than are needed, did really well in China and foreign invest it here, a tax on it, capital like land, the way to go, capitalism with a little spice of socialism here and there, mix of public and private, a rigorous control, international business, the party ideology is for a purpose, not just to make personal cash and reward your friends, what it’s for, a question in Chinese socialism, deviate towards great power chauvinism, a big country able to push around littler countries, the relationship to Vietnam, in the news very recently, China has invaded Vietnam, that was all pre, other than in Israel, we just want to control everything, China liberated Quebec/Tibet, come liberate British Columbia too, who are you liberating us from?, from the Americans, a liberation for the people, an abuse of the term, weird misunderstanding, Tibetans involved in the liberation of Tibet, back to monarchy, we don’t question the Dalai Lama, pedophile Fu Manchu who works for the US government, but not as cool, game respects game, threatens to not reincarnate, is there Dalai Lama in exile and a Dalai Lama local?, gulags archipelagos and Solzhenitsyn, a , more people incarcerated in the US than ever under Stalin, Jesse’s cookie problem vs. Will’s smoking problem, we’re not talking about me right now, it’s insidious, talk is what we take in as reality, words read with eyes or ears, what the chatter is, I heard covid is really dangerous, this one is very deadly, I’m feeling better, the test is available, you have covid?!?!, not a novel virus, a very tame virus, the chatter, the lady who sold Jesse her comics on Thursday, never stopped masking, dudes at the post office, how much traffic they have, how much they shaved, security blanket, used to think about sunglasses a lot, hats used to be a big thing, hats are okay, baseball caps, sunglasses and a hat, makes me look less bald, the sunglasses make me look cool, inappropriate sunglasses wearing, punctuating feelings, Only Angels Have Wings, always smoking/never has matches, an exchange of emotion and authority and empathy, cigarettes are a way for people to be generous to strangers and friends, a bunch of outcasts, always relying on those people, sharing a lighter, sunglasses are not as addictive, there’s a reason, an Apple watch, it’s an Apple watch, it’s a nice piece of kit, her phone, her heart, blood oxygen, regulated by the clock on the wall, a new tumbler from Starbucks, wanting to own it, take a photo of it and share it, it’s not for that, when you have too much money, unconscious unthoughthrough, I have to associate with the other team, wanna get dates, not answering your own question, universities investing, seeing dead children is traumatizing, in solidarity, exercising some sort of moral principle, those bad things are fake/necessary/what you get when , Destiny, Costco water is Hamas, Edward Snowden, dig it out root and branch, start with Madison Avenue (google/facebook), the stories of the stories of Madison Avenue, girls on parade, freedom sticks, ladies shilling cigarettes, the history of smoking in the United States, indians smoke, didn’t licoln smoke a pipe, not just a gay metaphor?, was Lincoln a pipesmoker?, Robert Abernathy’s Grandma’s Lie Soap, unable to lie, toothpaste, the world has changed, looks a little long, C.C. MacApp, chess player, And All The Earth A Grave, Darkness by Lord Byron, editorial introduction, there’s nothing wrong with dying, prospecting with his donkey, a new bookkeeping machine, blew a cog, humour all over the place, sell coffins, the big Christmas hit, Cabbage Patch Kid, coffin ports, automobile garages, a rich mahogany number, two black dots, the old prospector and his burro, Adams, some remark to the beast, Denver, skinny packrats, unburied coffins, Martians?, they’re gone Evie, we gotta start over, mild reproach, married to a jackass, The New Yorker, barbs, vintage New Yorker, its the thing, coffee, blast some meme, finish another Silverberg, podcast edits, prep for the next one, might even have a game, hunt for that dinner, Barry Convex, Cronenberg’s sells eyeglasses, surrounded by three teams, hide in the back of that car, everybody is getting killed, back of the car, don’t engage, hide, stay alive, he had a lot of fun, hiding is fun, simple adult version of hide and seek, save that cigar?, cats are smarter than that kind of thing, the texture, my cigar got eaten by my dog, do dogs eat tobacco, monkeys smoke tobacco, gorillas too, a bear that smoked, tourist encouraged chimp, North Korean zoo, in the Guardian so it must be true, associated press, the Big Book [atlas], South Korea produces clothing, counterfeit cigarettes, ip piracy, the important part, smoke the real thing, that the brands be honored, chimpanzee licking its fingers, Pyongyang, lights her own, just like us except for they’re ripped, she doesn’t inhale, monkey doing, monkey being, do not inhale, the juice, through skin, innerdermis, outerdermis, tissue, not an anatomist, human anatomy, Isaac Asimov’s Super Quiz, broke my clavicle, never broken a bone, skiing, uncoordinated, impressive, what about a bicycle, everybody just gave up, swim classes, fewer options to break your bones swimming, not be terrified of the water, interact with it in safe ways, horseback riding?, like fencing, how much you gonna use it?, looks cool, practice involved, other people with swords, household kitchen knives, practicing rumbling, seems kinda extreme, a knife that didn’t get used, never stabbed nobody with a knife, women debating, have you seen it?, punching fight?, that’s not a debate, women are capable of the violence necessary, a violent subtext to debate, you have to be in the same room, slap, challenge to a duel, why they get them up on the stage, two online youtubers, disconnecting, debate class, debating women, imagining Stephen Hawking in a debate with Trump, you can’t punch a guy who can’t move his limbs, you moderate, debate bro Destiny, overtalk the other person, drown out the other person, you better respect me, soibros, soiguys, walking around the world, are you serious?, you need to moderate your response, a physical threat there, what is the debate about, what should we do, what should be done, swaying the group, corporally control you, Edgar Rice Burroughs set on Venus, obvs. the Burroughs stand-in gets to be captain, the team that is against that is a strawman, just defect, another way of solving it is to get physically violence, be it resolved that…, trying to sway the audience, my learned colleague, the house of parliament, ungentlemanly behavior, distinguished gentleman, the sergeant at arms, enforce the will of the speaker, ejected, and or the mace is there, a way of preventing the debate from getting out of hand, the insult stage, a physical threat of violence, hands can be turned into fist, realized and recognized, why they had to ban dueling, wasting your team for killing the enemy, secret dueling, in the context of protestors at UCLA, the protestor’s response is to build barricades and fight back, are these people having a debate, protesting is I object, the speaker is the cops, or a vigilante, just as bad, worse, the occasional crazy person, life has meaning now, the paid operatives, zionist brownshirts, thug, are protestors peaceful or not, an organized protestor, a good idea, infiltrators, you organize the infiltrators, a committee, security culture, end up in a bad place, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Detroit PD and the FBI, pre-revolutionary communist movement, discipline, one of their best workers, parliamentarians, ultimately a cop, when do they become the Patty Hearst and join the workers for reals?, murderers and surveillers, after a certain critical mass, pain involved, incompetence, it’s falling apart, kids are not being taught how to read, reading is overrated as well, an important concern, if you cannot read well, the crazy part, they gotta get that money out now, turn to Russia, one things they never accuse him of is mismanaging the economy, spot fakers and call them out, your not even really voting for Biden, examples of public or private incompetencies, solve homelessness in California, if by solving…, money to friends who run organizations, voted up, lot of salaries, any kind of regulation, mergers, banking, find some area where things are doing well, Amazon is working, a monopoly that is consolidating, subsidizing from government contract, conservative Christians who want to be published, Costco’s membership model, the price is not so horrible, the return policy is really good, above industry standard, the return policy is important, extended warranty, will Best Buy around in five years?, appliances, decor, Lego, what bookstores, selling soap and candles, Barnes & Noble, floor space to fill, they don’t have used cheap books, what are books even about?, another dog collar store, another skin salon, people think Amazon is the place to get books, ABEBooks, Amazon is eating everything up, Audible, Brilliance, buy out your competition, very anti-Amazon, Amazon Web Services makes a profit, their business model, Elon Musk’s rockets, carbon offsets, twitter is not a money making concern, Prime is now putting in ads, now $3 more, we’ve just reinvented cable television, different sets of billionaires, the owners of the new media, capitalism is constant struggle, fitter-away their money buying skins, clogs to clogs in three generations, too cute, clogs to crocs?, Office Space (1999), clogs with flair, Andy Two Locks, just flair, school is by a Starbucks, upper middle classes, can afford tutors, Jessism is not a popular philosophy, controversial, Willism seems to be more happy, nobody calls will blackpilled, doomers?, a civil war in Will’s lifetime, no possibility of reform it seems, the TLDR, keep it the same forever, 2nd amendment, militia to kill indians, whatever the security of a free state is, free in many ways, unfree in many ways, an interesting person, mentally modeled, Netanyahu and the university’s presidents are out of control, once you plagiarize your way into a job…, lack of opportunities, reduced pay, some good instincts, Joe Biden could stop this genocide from happening, two problems, he’d have to go rogue, can’t read the teleprompter, Edward Wellen’s Mind Slash Matter, programmer/screenwriter, a president could stop it, if we’re being real, the people who run him, cut off funding, the key to stopping this thing that is going on, his own political party is largely responsible, two things holding him back, if Trump comes back to father, lotsa evidence for that?, CNN, watching CNN all day long, Hamas is this all powerful energy, Home Depot is Hamas, core ideology, willing to sacrifice all other principles, a delusion, isn’t ideology a delusion?, a concrete example of an ideology, liberalism, free exchange of ideas will lead to…, marketplace, soon we’re into metaphor, seeing metaphor as reality, words are magic, sounds like a metaphor, part of your brain says that’s interesting, words have magical power over people, magic is not a real thing, magical control over people, magic is real, how to explain to a dog why a man is staring at a piece of paper for 17 minutes, books are the thing that the man holds, they can read with their noses, reality not mediated through the word tart or pooey, that girl dog, they can get it unmediated (as close as possible), we can get tricked by words, undergraduate degree in black studies, Africana Studies, as somebody who took 10 classes at an elite university, the process of knowledge creation, knowledge production!, you can get confused by mistaking the map for the territory, useful human expression, it is a metphor, and yet it has an effect, monkeys don’t seem to be affected by words, associating words with behaviors, sentences seem to be off limits, Koko is a little more legit, Alex the parrot, the bird knows more than it does, what matter, using the voice of the trainer, even funnier, seems like Koko has ideas, dogs and cats, and birds and monkeys, dogs have ideas they want you to understand, walkies, we can get confused by the words, not know as much about what me mean, the words are [NOT] our thoughts, babies have ideas too, jumbled up in the map and not the territory, question mark, not get trapped, killing people bad, it bad, what about that guy, High And Low (1963), Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa, Ed McBain aka Evan Hunter, the cops finding the criminal, 87th Precinct books, he’s compelling, a podcast on 87th Precinct books, reversed New York, resent New York, the center of the universe, kidnapper, death row, something he wants to say but can’t articulate, a very good movie, Heaven and Hell, very powerful movie, amazing on screen, cooler Humphrey Bogart, more manly famous film action star, serious Kurt Russell good with a sword, Hell In The Pacific (1968), Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear, stuck on an island in the pacific, Arena by Fredric Brown, they fight each other Gorn style, Lee Marvin was in WWII, they know what they’re doing, ability to make movies that are really good, not experiencing that is a shame, almost all Godzilla films, levels you don’t have to experience them, Independence Day, a big cast, a big disaster, H.G. Wells is largely responsible for setting that stage, Yojimbo (1961), Clint Eastwood, Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai, a very Conan-y story, A Fistful Of Dollars (1964), a western set in Japan, very Japanese but very familiar, a good place to start, archive.org, with English subtitles, an hour 52, a Conan story, an independent man, a masterless samurai, a weird social class, the weird ideas of their class, the empire and all that stuff, the military got out in front of the government, a rubber stamp, various competing militarizes running the show, sometimes helps my career, loyalty to the state, patriotism, my country right or wrong, you can see it as honorable as misguided, Nazis versus Wehrmacht, listening to authority, a flaw, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Trump whistleblower, the Trump Ukraine scandal, a liberal hero, just playing himself, it’s basically just Seinfeld, RFK Jr.’s actual wife, embarrassment, a sensitive topic, no politics, liberal people on it, 100 million percent sell out, pretends to do journalism for movies, MSNBC boy, Chris Hayes!, reacting to the news, Conan O’Brien, these are all the people who will do anything to get attention and be whores, readers of material, that’d be cool, when they do that for movies, lends negative credibility to everything that came before, Walter Cronkite, Cronkite-stan, how about next week?

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #805 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Lucian’s True History by Lucian of Samosata

The SFFaudio Podcast #805 – Lucian’s True History by Lucian of Samosata, read by Terry Kroenung, translated by Francis Hicks. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 22 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
True History, A True History by a long dead guy, this is science fiction, not very effectively, “the first known text that could be called science fiction”, histories of science fiction, deep roots, little conversation, Frederik Pohl book, niche interest, mainstream?, a lot more like Star Wars than Star Trek, a social science fiction, it’s something, modern readers from the 1600s on consider him an atheist, monotheistic religions at all, he believed in truth and common sense, the molecular theory of matter is hilarious (but also possibly true), making fun of all those people, his mode was irony, dripping with it, planets and stars, wouldn’t it be funny, could this fit into Planet Stories (no), no Mars, we go to Venus, we go to the Sun, the Moon, the translation is wrong, Lucifer, the light bringer, we went to the morning star, that’s Venus, thinking they’re two separate stars, a journey through the solar system, inside a whale, the land of dreams, the afterlife, a journey into other places (besides space), where do we get the title from, A True Story, it should have true in it, it’s all lies, it’s about truth, this place like Hell, Odysseus goes to Hell too, Hades, the plot is a greatest hits of silly ideas, Gulliver’s Travels is more science fiction than this, philosophers rather than scientists, Jonathan’s point, Philosophers going cheap, ironically poor manner, the punchline for each one, to perform manual labour, you can clean my floors, mythology too, a poor view of mythology, people who believed it were just idiots, Xenophones, reviving the pagan tradition, the 2nd century, 3rd century Platonism, critical of this, a lot of Christians don’t think about the story because they didn’t read the book, a reference to Genesis, all new to them, a participant in a religion with no one fixed text, this is not a straight up history, this is a parable (as mentioned in the actual story), the more you drill down into it, they weren’t there, I heard this from a dude, this is hilarious, one of the most popular writers of his time, survived all of the fires, made by hand, what’s the technology of reading, [Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years by Tom Standage], a scene in I, Claudius, manuscripts copied, they all want it and we can sell it, a roomful of copyists, The Aeneid, state sponsored, collectors, the ancient world, books we know exist, excerpts, a checklist, ancient Greek/Roman culture, lost to us, this is how we know about them, the amount of material lost, Menopus, jokes then reconstructed, people who were dead showed up, get this joke out, are you sure you wrote that joke?, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, new at the time, every joke is a joke from the stone age, the same body parts [until the early 21s century], boobs, screwing, special stuff, trying to keep track of how many men he started off with and how many came back with, lose two guys to vine ladies, vaguely paid attention, start subtracting after a certain point, straight narrative, on his way home, jump back in time, by the time he gets home at the end of the chronological narrative, mostly they’re dead, for the messaging if there is any, trynna be pretty funny, houseguests: how to be one, how to not end up as one, the Calypso letter, about lies, why you gotta avoid lying, the opening introduction material, The Pathological Liar [Lover Of Lies], the sick friend, Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, symposium, weaving those stories in, but the first of more adventures like this, find my woke hat, doesn’t fit me well, very fashionable hat, a lot of genocide in here (amongst other things), let’s kill them all, ah whatever, very casual, go to the island of these women, jobs as hostesses, what you got under that kilt, right out of The Odyssey, there’s nothing there but water, this island isn’t as good as we though it was, satire, 1640 something, the Paul Turner translation, a much bigger emphasis on the genocide and making it funny, in the whale, casual and breezy, they live alone and they’re unarmed, the most logical thing to do is to kill them all, have it be a lot funnier, the 1958 translation, a thousand at the very least, unless you count fishbones, all the latest equipment, everyone agreed to this proposal, more blunt, funnier, digging out the nuggets of goodness, what the narrative is actually saying, they buried their dead inside the whale, what does that consist of exactly, doesn’t even feel that he’s on fire yet, making it really explicit, seems more literal translation, more relatable style, a nice short book, modern translation, took things literally at that time, writing it literally, a translation as you would for a menu, jokes in menus, all the illustrations, ladies and men various places, all the men, the king says, I’m gonna give you guys all spouses, but you only have men here, a subset of men who reproduce differently, riffing on pederasty, what if there was a planet where all there was, shownotes, wonderful illustrations that very much enhance the story, there is gold in this book, when they made peace in outerspace, much funnier than the way it is put, at the first meeting, rejecting them out of hand, in the following document, the Sun people and their allies, the Moon people, the Vanquished, not to make war in future, pay the Victors annually 10,000 bottles of dew, not so different from us, when you read these really really old books, on and on, didn’t have the colour blue, the wine dark sea, that’s not what it means, strange beings that are not like us, cultural circumstances and particular languages, sex parts described in more detail, weird birthing, Malo, think about this a little bit, Hippomyrmices, Phaetons, great gnats, turnips, anoint their bullets with the poison of mallows, weapons made of vegetables, privy members, rods made of mallows, plucked a root of mallows, make my prayers to that, lupins, nor to come near a boy past 18 years of age, come to the island again, the final instance of mallows, only by women, yay!, attired like wantons, long mantles down to the foot, Cabbalusa, Hydramardia, my heart misgave me, the bones of many men, any stir, taking the mallow into my hands, present perils, a scene from Circe’s island, stabs the water, marshmallow, that’s where they grow, the flavour of marshmallow, a reed, is this a symbol for something, root beer, a botanical significance, this might be a traditional penis enhardener, a lot of this stuff is like this, a repeated theme, we don’t understand what this is, a lot of classic works, directly parodying, reading travelogues, going to India, maybe he read a book where a guy went to the Moon, the opening, just beyond the Western Ocean, Hercules and Bacchus, carving their own record, a structure here that works, missing way too much, The Iliad, it’s really tricky, lots of boats here, the movie, it was actually good, The Aeneid is the same way, in reverse order, 50,000 heroes vs. 1 hero, a lot easier to understand, the way you would tell this story, some rich guy’s house, you sing for your supper, focus on that particular Ajax, a handy index, in order to focus on the local hero, grokking a good chunk of this book, half-ignorant, not fully able to appreciate, the context of Lucian, this Hellenistic world, lingua franca, Hellenistic schools, travel and people moving around, drawn from life, the diversity of the region, a society that was falling apart, Hellenized, Syrian, living in Rome, a greatest hits of silly ideas, Dialogues Of The Dead, feasted with them, went to Homer, a pillar of berylstone, the safe harbour, Lucian did once attain to see all this, a Lucian was here, Kilroy was here, carves it on a monument, making fun, what travellers do, a high mountain caves, Jonathan loves Samanthan, used condoms, old beer cans, that Penelope might not see him, Calypso, if it were our fortune, bent upon other employments, might be easier to make a list of places he doesn’t go, the whale scene, into depths inside the whale, pretty much incredible, the size of everything, wringing every bit of satire, the main character is the author, good days weather, with the frame, what are we supposed to make of this?, ethically against lying, definitely entertaining, passed around to their friends, advocate for entertainment, for entertainment purposes, great literature, things can be true on more than one level, former clients, as a story, true within a story, how to construct stories, set something up and didn’t pay it off, why is this story powerful?, truth within that structure, to the nth degree, more exaggerated than everything in Gulliver’s Travels, going to Japan, increasingly ridiculous, sets it up in such a way, Sir John Mandeville’s travels aka Mandeville’s Travels, ignorant or familiar, thinking of Christ as Batman, materials, Zorro, the Black Bat, in the hero pulp, a sidekick girl, Robin Hood’s cap, a ripoff of a particular Shadow story, beat for beat, this is the true facts about Batman, works great for Superman and Spider-Man, what would Spider-Man do in this situation, with great power comes great responsibility, I believe in Spider-Man, my brother in Christ, a mantle you put on, get closer to God, is bizarre, utterly bizarre, a philosophically funny work, three cards, a book, a bird, and a boy, three b words, 6 lines in 7 minutes, on a branch above the tree, this can’t be a true story, it starts with once upon a time, the boy the bird and the book disappeared, the end, nothing about it is possibly true and yet we continue to read it, everything that happens is 100% true, our default mode as humans, take in sense data and say this is true, further experimentation and mentation, forces itself upon you, not a mental rape exactly, it doesn’t stop it, focus our attention on, fairly copiable, from The Pathological Liar, elucidate some of this Philoclese, prefer lies to truth, mentally deficient, Herodotus, Homer, not content with deceiving their contemporaries, the most beautiful poetry, the castration of Uranus, birds and bears, chimera, very fascinating to children, alright in poetry, the Cretans point out the grave of Zeus, grew out of the soil like vegetables, plant men who germinated from the teeth of snakes, any sane person, drove threw the air, carried off by the North Wind, a blasphemous idiot, how powerful lies can be, national myths, patriotic motives, all the official guides would starve to death, merely absurd, a manifesto, that translation seems very modern, a little annoying here, not earnest in his reporting, to call him a liar, picks on Plato, is Plato not earnest?, is Plato a liar?, the Myth of a Cave, bootstrap us into a particular position, The Matrix (1999), this looks cool, the idea, it’s a fiction that gets at a truth, how do you know what truth is?, engaging, the [Christopher] Steele Dossier, the Hillary Clinton campaign paid a former M16 agent to dig up dirt, they didn’t want him to find nothing, pee tape, largely lies, demonstrably, there’s no basis for this, tautological, when you pay Stephen King, opposition research, it’s weird to believe it, Domino Theory, Paul went to Vietnam, don’t think it’s weird, State of the Union, back Ukraine, domino the rest of Europe, some thinktank came up with in the 1950s, demonstrable evidence that it’s bullshit, it needs to be true to get the result that they want, from a particular worldview, just asking for rumours, same thing for Herodotus, a collection, collecting stories, father of history, collected all the histories, and rumors, the true history of the United States and the mythological histories of the United States, the Blue Bull, Johnny Appleseed, our current standards of methodology, rather than Evan Lampe, the Dunning School historians, demented by their racism, mad dog, biting other people various phobias, sick of psychic phenomena, antidote truth and common sense, take it with a grain of salt, a very important message, we have the internet, everybody and their spies, broadbased lies and mistruths in the past, read the newspaper for an hour, pay to get lied to, more people actively at work than ever before, so many people actively working to lie to us, and getting paid to lie to us, not their job titles, actively editing, according to the lies Jesse believes, drill down into any Wikipedia entry that is locked, you’ll find active participants employed or paraemployed by governments and thinktanks, very true, not some YouTube video, this one on peanut butter not locked, not the way corporations get upset, candidate being damaged possibly, an orator, reading their writing out loud to large groups, an attorney before he was a satirist, The Life Of Brian (1979), like Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, the people shouting probably had slaves, what class of people were the philosophers drawn from, your latest book of lies, become a houseguest, a new workout, a party guest thing, ancient vs. roman, Epictetus was a slave, of this period, a cult, a leader, following the leader, go stand on the street corner and speak my philosophy, the cynics, the skeptics, the stoics, the Christians, a big soup, a blanket condemnation, hate the internet, nothing but liars, sociological people, pathological people, sociopaths, gather flocks of followers around themselves, just a bunch of liars, atomic theory of matter is hilarious, so stupid, even when Lucian is wrong, when the liars are right, all over the place, fall into a rabbit hole, get stuck there, do away with the whole thing, genocide thing, the whole nonsense, common sense makes me reach for my phaser, vow of silence, very hard to make lies without words, the sky is purple tonight, not true when you’re young, get old, get dumb again, get tricked later in life, the concept of senility to a sociological level, outsourcing your knowledge, we’ve had this talk before, impossible not to do this, the rabbit whole we’re in here, doomer edgelord, get tricked again, if Jesse slacks he’ll get tricked again, keep up with studies, listening to lies on YouTube is your study, every history book ever listed, Liminal Spaces on YouTube, this is a story I read, getting facts wrong, this is what it meant to me, lies are very tricky things, this weird kind of lie: fiction, imposes upon, on YouTube or out in the real world, on Facebook!, Canadian government ads, looking at her phone skeptically, who are they doing that for, words and speech shape reality, it is very hard to lie without words, deception is wonderful (but not the same thing as a lie), keep a score chart, the Paul Turner, great notes at the back, this wonderful thing about the internet, Bobby Derie, a Lord Dunsany story finds out her mother was a bicycle, read it for myself, a blessing, what’s uniquely twitter about that, Jonathan’s hate obsession, because fuck you, that’s why, good facts drive out bad fact, track it down and read it for myself, Jesse doesn’t trust etexts, a paper scan, radical skepticism, not able to communicate or have a discourse, limits what we can know, do your own research, doesn’t really solve the problem, climate change research, we have to rely, do we have to do climate change research, Jesse can solve this one, dentist’s expertise, you can’t do that work yourself very easily, you can cut your own hair, Bryan Alexander talking about climate change, start noticing details, as school is wont to do, a poem for Biden’s inauguration, a really horrible poem, what causes climate change, carbon dioxide, methane, the biggest human release of greenhouses gases ever, do I need to care, opposition to climate science, literally Jesse’s point, a gas fireplace, what should Jesse do to reduce his carbon footprint, Naomi Klein, if you really wanted to stop it, recycling garbage better, is this something I need to care about, know it by its signs, you will know him by his ways, no impact on public policy, Aaron Bushnell had an effect, the South Vietnamese govt didn’t fall because of Buddhist monks lighting himself on fire, mentally ill, repost pro Aaron Bushnell, a great example of why you shouldn’t believe in lies, he believed a lot of lies, lionize him, make him into a hero, a martyr, a value judgement, a particular kind of hero, if you watch the video, guy in a tower with a rifle, made a recording of himself, people are allowed to be towers with rifles, douse themselves, become celebrities, celebrity status, making heroes out of people who commit suicide, a bunch of soldiers burned their uniforms, in favour of suicide, something you can actively do, not all the time everyday, when necessary and appropriate, it’s courageous, a horrible situation for everyone involved, good when the morale is low, would you like the armed forces to have high morale, against his orders, show up for duty, a much better duty, to the question of lying, are we telling lies about his suicide, he put the lie to the idea the United States isn’t involved, he communicated information, not in the official papers of record, if there are such things in future, reacting to an official lie, a value judgment against, can value judgements be false?, maybe it was a juvenile, even the bad ones, we are involved, we’re trying to start a peace process (when you’re not), that wasn’t so bad, a thoughtful people, lady with a fidget spinner stock photo ad department, really horrible, a black lady is looking at her phone like its shat on a bed, Roger Waters, all American hero, take heed of the dream, Mr. Social Responsibility, why are you so against suicide?, numerous things people do, being a soldier, a chance you’re going to die, being a police officer, all forms of self sacrifice, the Grand Army of the Republic was full of heroes, objecting to seeing it in your timeline, glad able to see it, a false characterization, would stop people from doing more suicides, terrorist video discourages people from doing terrorism, a video of a guy blowing up, actual example, screaming Free Gaza, school shooters, Columbine sparked many copycats, why are you against suicide, against suicide, people killing themselves is cool, not cool, stressful, not the same thing as killing other people, The Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the right side of history, just look at the videos, there seems to be something bad happening, whatever this is is very very bad, asked to participate, let’s genocide them, fairly modern word, the case of Columbine, that was caused by school, force people to do things, this institution was difficult, we all know school is prison, a metaphor but also true, a kid brought a gun to school, that’s power, a solution to problems, mimeticly interested in copying each other for attention, the answer isn’t to ban talk about school shootings, Uvalde, how fucking incompetent everybody is, Weird Tales poems about suicide, suicide is scary, let’s talk about it, that’s pretty rough, the suicide bombers, can’t use the message of the media, take other people with you, Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (1999), institutions, conforming, a vicious cycle, Columbine is getting revenge, Bushnell is doing the opposite, the video and what he said, they’re not flattering to the powers that be, a cognitive estrangement from what Jesse saw in the video, as a musician vs. his politics, music is dangerous, suicide not dangerous, The Wall, John Taylor Gatto, Mark Fisher, also other things, this truthy book, how do we best address lies?, position of extreme skepticism, they’re all liars, try never to lie, practice deception, feeling stupid is bad, try not to call people on their lies when they’re weak and young, biggest dangerous liar ever, NFB documentary about Canada’s involvement in the first Gulf War vs the second, Laurentian elites, involved itself in the Afghanistan war, a NATO obligation, the best friend to the evil bully, if it were to happen again today, Justin’s in charge, things have changes, former prime ministers of Canada, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, people are noticing, pushing the lie hard enough, how do you deal with lies in the world around you?, skepticism to a lot of things, don’t trust, trust is a bad word, access to the calendar, that’s no way to live, you have to trust things, if you study things well, do your homework, that’s not trust, take it for what it is, this isn’t immediately my sense perception, prove to me that Lincoln lived, was Joan of Arc a real person, a ticket to France, a photograph of a girl riding a horse, why did the British burn her corpse, to make her as fictional as Jesus or Batman or Spider-Man, theological reasons, she’s a witch, Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc book, seems reasonable sort of, lies in the narrative, an ideological opposition to the concept of trust, when a person behaves a certain way, certain traits, continue on, an unstable person, making a model of your mind, the word trust is the problem there, read something in the New York Times, like all the Hamas rapes, omitting part of the story, perspective, interests, shape a news story, a Jimmy Dore video, he’ll literally say anything, willing to say anything, about hair dye, I just decided it was time to stop smoking weed, need to make a video about it, not a pothead, he’s got this guy [Kurt Metzger], he’s like Johnny Carson’s sidekick (Andy Richter), writes the jokes, if he started to disagree, laughing and nodding and agreeing, selling subscriptions, during COVID he stopped pushing subscriptions, people stopped taking their boosters, he’s not a messiah, makes him a businessperson, some really good videos, a lot of his videos have been demonitized, he’s richer than me, small socialist podcasts and Maissa, literally doing it for the money, that’s a theory, he’s angry, that’s what drives him, he has a right to be, nothing sincere about him, both sincere and untrustworthy, both insincere and untrustworthy, the untrustworthiness, down on the populism, they’re not incompatible, socialized medicine, very exacting of issues of race, radical republicans in North Carolina, lowest common denominator, we need people to think hard, not unique to any ideology, a modern hate for populism, Will’s opposition to populism, makes movements happen, Martin Luther King as a populist, abusing the term, he got people other than black involved, Malcolm X, different plans of execution, a moving target, both got shot in the end, both on the right track, a leader of organizations, part of an institution, the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, more like Leninist party, fairly hostile to the idea of the truckers, some Albertans are strangely attracted to the Texas story, a rebelling symbol for Canadians, resentment towards Ontario and Quebec, what you saw was people waving confederate flags, a Nazi flag (probably planted), all the Canadian flags, Westerners trying to get a meeting with the country, Fuck Trudeau flags, an illegal war measure’s act, a non-violent civil protest, a lot of brown truckers, not a white only tiki torch parade, Trudeau called them white supremacists, the Coutts border crossing story Alberta, the story is dissolving, the excuse, the inciting incident for the War Measures Act, not factions, CBC and CTV and Global, political goals, a tactic, their goal is to promote a war in Ukraine, honouring a Nazi in the House of Commons, believing this propaganda, they did that, there’s video of it, still obsessed with, different versions of reality, the other factions, don’t have the introspection, forces that tell lies, all factions lie equally, the story of Ukraine briefly, the Maidan coup, the good guy, the bad guy is the United States, lot of Soviet backstory, Sevastopol, everything was inevitable, invaded that country, defensive, is it conquering, definitely invaded, take over or take back, the 12th century, fight and defend that national identity, that’s the story, opening the door to iridentism, that’s why Putin tried to explain the history, there’s this country that’s trying to add members, why does NATO exist, makes sense, extend control, is that irredentism, Victoria Nuland, there’s a thing going on, Russians who live in Ukraine, Nazis in Ukraine, negotiation possible here, Boris Johnson was flown in to cancel a peace deal, who’s the bad guy?, which one is which?, they just canceled elections, this is not Putin bad as usual, been to Russia, December 2003-2004, cutting off their gas supply, going on for decades, he got turned back, stuck on their lines, the annexation of Crimea happened right away, conquer in steps, defeated, that’s not what happened, how strong the Ukranian army is, reading the Russian narrative, when the Bolsheviks take over, the useful idiots, Stalin killed a lot of people, the Soviets themselves, crushed by the Bolsheviks, the anarchists, believe blindly in the cause, Will does not endorse Jesse’s views, can spot a lot of propaganda, very passionate, the tell, when they get emotional about it, detached from the horror that’s happening, how can people watch this, there’s no chatter, last day to nominate for the Hugos, we’re never done with the Hugos, why am I following this person?, strong opinions about the Ukraine war, do you know the Maidan coup, did you hear the Nuland phone call?, the English language German propaganda channel on YouTube (Deutsche Welle), she has a different take on it, watch Jimmy Dore all day, watch opposition, Deutsche Welle on who blew up Nordstream?, rented a boat maybe, events are still unfolding, not like a super-secret mystery, we will end it, rumbled by methane gas, maybe there’s another story, when you investigate, take information you learn and then check on it, what does this drug do?, not trust, verify, she just likes to google, check up on the animals, things happen, and you like them, Jesse’s theory of truth, discern something close to the truth, Jonathan: common sense and if people are emotional it’s probably propaganda, disconnect because he’s in history, Evan expert opinion, Will is epistemologically humble, learning something, that’s actually really good, trust me I’ve read Heinlein, you can just read Scalzi, the worst path, trust this lady, Our Opinions Are Correct, the authorship of The Loved Dead, that’s what Bobby Derie said, almost all Lovecraft, Eddy saying can you help me write a story, a lot of Eddy, very little Lovecraft, Lovecraft influenced for sure, withhold judgement, his influence on Weird Tales, they lived in the same town, almost all the revisions, strong documentary evidence, some themes, feel these were useful idiots, read Soviet history, what is to be done?, historians of the Soviet Union, are you going trust Stalin or your own lying eyes, Stephen Kotkin three volume biography of Stalin, being impartial, somebody on YouTube who has an agenda, good science, what would happen if we put this thing in the press?, Beyond The Press, that’s science, how the world is flat, Wacky Jacky does PUBG science, doing the science, literal science, the stakes of truth, high stakes, fun stuff, Ivermectin as a cure for science (cancer), the NIH website, a powerful effect, resources, person hours, a generic, try not to go the pharmacy, don’t trot that out, too soon, the horse paste tweet is still up, pushing Ivermectin is horse paste, c’mon man, they had never heard of it before, a very popular drug, super-safe and super-effective, the one worms episode of House, M.D., medical funs, very hard to overdose on it, public domain anybody can make it, maybe Jesse will make his own, the medical industry should be socialized, just made a deal, the NDP made a deal with evil Justin, already solved in BC, still working on the dental stuff (kids and old people), super-evil, in this particular time with his limited amount of seats, no news like that in the States, all the horrible news, Canada funding Ukraine, a lung cancer vaccine in Cuba, Venezuela, a trade embargo with the US, 2016, you think they’d like to sell a product they’d make some money, their fault they’re not selling it, immunotherapy treatment, small cell lung cancer, go follow that person on twitter, after a few tweets, do your own research, if everybody had a twitter, accidentally tweeted using Biden’s account, reading is dangerous, almost always leads to believing a big lie, exactly the point he’s making, he’s Jonathan, mythological adaptations, influenced by Lucian, parody it, Atalanta, good Atalanta book?, a woman who wants to run, the huntress, equal in weight, Arcadia, the Argonaut, allied to the goddess Artemis, a bunch of fun stuff, Jason turned her away, hence her name, takes place after, Meleager, got the hots for this chick, so furious they kill Meleager, the Golden Apple story, Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. Dick, a retelling of the Circe story, Out In The Garden, the Zeus one, Zeus action had happened earlier, regular Zeus action, Philip K. Dick and Robert Sheckley don’t disappoint, some adjacent things, Not Far From Eden, sold twice as much, special knowledge, boring, not exposed to it anymore, Go The Fuck To Sleep, so relatable to so many, Samuel Jackson, a synergy, not a great book, very little to do with the quality of the material, an artist, commercial and an artist, commerce and art intersect, 20 Books To 50K, debunked all the time, pyramid scheme, still gonna buy their time shares, The Man In The Iron Mask, you need that man in there, Who by Algis Budrys, Library Of America put it out, the original cover, smoking, robot arm, WHO?, the bases of base kinds of ways of reading a story, a film starring Elliot Gould?, a kidnapped physicist, cold war stuff, transhumanist stuff, transhumanism as a horrible idea, available as an audiobook, Grover Gardner?!, up Jonathan’s alley, ideas, sex and violence, 60s early 70s, experimentation, the pulp stuff, a bad book with interesting ideas, you did it, Will’s taking responsibility, DMing Jesse, Dorsai!, military SF that starts a series, rather read the shorter version, The Genetic General, revised into a longer book, a one-off, modern horror, The Slob by Aron Beauregard and Talia by Daniel Volpe, a lady photographed liking a knife, Godless bookstore, Drew Stepek, satanic imagery, modern horror, three year anniversary, transgressive literature, Carry On Puking by REEKFEEL, gold amongst these hills, transgressive but is it good?, reading classical stuff, rounds and rounds of criticism, reading newer stuff, culture happening right now, underground culture, the letters, The Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison, supporting suicide, 5 hours basically, love horror and love gore, body horror, the book had no plot, words on the page written just because, belittling my intellect, propaganda, emo wannabe teen, the most revolting things they could think about, yay!, dead females of all ages, scarfing down a dead newborn, you already know how the book ends, just put 2 plus 2 together, cannibalism etc., most helpful, set aside a whole day to process what you read, staring at the ceiling, at the clinical scene, laughing like a maniac, no idea who I would recommend it to, map of my mind, 6 hours 32 minutes, a disgusting house of horrors, the shudder pulps, fought tooth and nail, fled the disastrous situation, sinister seed, blossom, stomach churning, strives for normalcy, shine through the darkness?, splatterpunk, Son Of The Slob, gross out, are they cannibals, Stories Of The Stone Age by H.G. Wells, The Valley Of The Blind, doesn’t need to be as long as it is, 15 minute story, gross out horror, 1 star reviews, gore for the sake of gore, glorified torture porn, men have no business writing women, incredibly transparent and predictable, like in Heinlein, credulity, first instinct, slasher flick, genres have cliches, if it weren’t for the character is brutally SAed, sexually assaulted, magically pregnant by her assailant, what the issue is there, stay away from this book, Jonathan suggested it, many positive reviews, good to know about, this group exists, do I need to be one of them, science fiction is about science, sometime the science is loose, kind of a science, books about geology, more geo-SF, a horror writer, Scott Sigler’s EarthCore, mystery box story, mining, not science fiction, more like suspense, the geology is just there to get in the way of getting to the mystery box, humans play in a galactic football game, giant alien football league, the story of Wool and other stuff, a bad example, he looks like science fiction but he is not, the guy behind Stranger Things, Bishop’s Assistant, two episodes of Joe Rogan?, mentioned him, Kevin James and Joey Diaz, podcasts on IMDB, pathetic and weird, monetize their fame through podcasts, something you gotta do now, Prince Harry and Megan, the Obamas, no skill for it, Russell Brand is a pretty good streamer, celebs with nothing to say, Obama did one with Bruce Springsteen, famous people like to meet other famous people, had something to say at some point in his life, a 26 minute one, not like this lengthy beast, this wonderful conversation, the slightness of the material in some respects, a mental map of our listeners, Mike Nowak in North Carolina?, David Currie, being a conspiracy theorist, what’s the conspiracy theory Jesse believes in?, a catchall, ancient aliens, fascinated by them, the CIA killed JFK, the big book, The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot, we don’t have the video of Allen Dulles up on the grassy knoll, all circumstantial, 25 hours, take JFK’s assassination out of it, calling it the CIA vs. a particular subset, pick a year, this is how they operate, because we say they, start digging into the history of Guatemala or any country, really something, still parts of it are redacted, you can see what happened on the ground, a tier list, untrusted countries, if you start backwards, reconstruct the pyramid, how much money goes to Egypt, Gibraltar still a thing, Sevastopol, the Bosphorus, why geography is important, ismthus are important, look into geology, nitty gritty of which particular person, we can know by learning, geography is so important, really useful, Jesse’s model of Jonathan is not really robust, the emotional content, a disconnect, a real strong connection to horror, connecting to emotions in a disconnected way, a plastic skull, go back to one of the graves, if not thinking about death daily, think about death the just right amount, meditate and not have intrusive thoughts, intrusive negative thoughts, what are those negative thoughts about, a mustache that doesn’t grow the way I want it to, vanity, your pretty but you’re not as smart as you think you are, being ugly, kinda average, looks like a dude, no he’s smart to, fuck that guy, young smart handsome, fucker, in good shape too, too much time writing and recording, goddamn him, make him my friend, no alternative, lucky it didn’t stare in the mirror all day, Narcissus, both in water, when were mirrors invented, animals, dangerous, very dangerous, some of them need to be shared, big cats, caracal, what the hell is that thing?, is that me?, Dungeons & Dragons displacer beast, horrifying, lion videos, exhibit behavior, mountain lions, pumas, african lions, russians wrestling bears, probably unwise, lifestyle, culturally relativistic, a poem about a caracal in a coracle, one of Jesse’s finest pieces, two fishmen coming out of the sea, teaching the children about literature, constructed it well,

Picnic For Two by Jesse

Down on the beach, a couple lays food
On blanket and plate (in amorous mood).

Up In the sky two gulls play, dive, and laugh
Singing for supper (each bird will get half).

Stealthy, out from the waves two Fishmen arise
Carrying wet nets to seize and demise.

The Fishmen have nets! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
The Fishmen are fishing (for husbands, for wives)

The couple are running as hard as they can!
But Fishmen are quicker: catch woman-catch man!

The gulls now descend to blanket and food.
Laughing and eating. (They were quite shrewd)

triangular mimetic desire, french guy, lusting after a hot dog, looking at the guy lusting after the girl eating the hot dog, making people want things, Cirsova claimed that Burroughs mad him jump, be jumpable, an adventure book, wish fulfillment, it’s something else, a subset of a weird hobby, a subset of fiction readers, intentionally made itself irrelevant by focusing on science, big hits, a mimetic desire thing, social contagion, thinking your a girl when you’re not a girl, Tommy Patrick Ryan had Harry Potter tattoo, a Lord of The Rings tattoo, schoolbooks, books set in schools, less said about her the better, still on about her being a TERF, the Salvation Army is bad on trans issues?, what does that have to do with anything, Amazon’s really bad, nobody seems to care, store our data there, do bad things, an ethics to storing your data, for technical reasons, giving Amazon money, Strange Studies Of Strange Stories, say something really stupid, busy with wives and kids, not deeply invested, stand with Ukraine sort of stuff, sending money to Israeli bombs, crazy, a video of Ukraine mercenaries in Gaza, the pay is better, being in the IDF is a little bit safer, for a minute there, bizarre but predictable, the wrong take on it, we’re not going to show because…, for the purposes of their purposes, allowed, allowed by whom, just an excuse, advertisers wouldn’t not like it either, looking at himself in the mirror, the water is still, a leopard looking at a caracal with a meercat underneath, how humans work, The Great Train Robbery, installing a ruin, Sean Connery is boning his wife, the worst aspect, egregious example, big long action movies, Michael Bay, Independence Day (1996), people watching a TV, the proxy for the audience, a group of people siting in front of a screen, you’ve gone to far, continue as you were, but no screens, layer one deep only, you can’t show the screen, it’s two much, the escher painting where the guy is drawing himself, post modernism, a mistake is what it is, basically over now, post-post-ironic, it’s called decline, been subsumed, just not there anymore, Orhan Pamuk, Madonna, very orange hair, the building is leaning, strangest nationality, Canadian-American, most evil nationality, write speeches for George W. Bush, Semiotics, a very bad man, David Frum, very horrible, Barbara Frum, Conrad Black, [Barbara Amiel], axis of evil, house of lords, convicted of stealing from his own company, [Barbara Amiel] columnist in MacLeans, an art to produce a lot of words, what she’s saying is not good, style ideas, taste ideas, who cares about that?, believed in Canada and the Queen and Jesus, a lot more sympathetic to it now, very scary, a great Wikipedia note, a campaign volunteer, The Gulag Archipelago, right to jeer at him, why did his mom give him a copy of that book, a very popular book, why was it popular?, exactly, an examination of a prison system in a foreign county, promoted to demonize another country, Nobel prize winning book, Animal Farm, forced to read it, a much better book, a lot of movies, strange things, dollar store Goosebumps style books, copy of Dune, breezy easy for an adult, makes you wanna read it, each chapter starts with a future historical document, shit all over John W. Campbell as much as you want but something good out of it, less deranged, Jesse fucked that up, who the fuck is Barbara Frum, fucked up the Barbaras, almost as bad to have claimed, Altered Carbon, elementary school punch, always in fights, always the new kid, subject to predation, punch your way out of being a bitch, predated upon continuously, kick the shit out of them, she’s on your team, all the snitching and all the horrors, the violence, high school violence, grade 9, committed not had, weekly there was something, you should pick on big people, older kids, don’t let people trash you, fuck them up, there’s no violence on twitter, that SFFaudio guy is an asshole, telling people things they don’t want to hear, confusing Hugo Book Club with another Hugos There, multiple Hugo accounts, this is not anything, stalking horror, a youtube video, true crime is so fucking evil as a genre, lots of women are into it, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, a non-fiction book that’s a novel, a whole bunch of things that don’t make sense, what the fuck can you learn from that?, random shit can happen?, lock your doors?, criminologists, interesting things to know about crime, innovated, eloquent prose, stuff Jesse doesn’t think about, H.P. Lovecraft, be about something, exploring an idea, fictionalized scenes, no witness there, a Lawrence Block book [Not Comin’ Home To You], very short, ops, a lot of the art shit is ops, Iowa writer’s workshop, a media figure, he took Harper Lee with him, childhood friends, To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), Gregory Peck, Boo Radley, Robert Duvall’s great, Guns Of Navarone (1961), Pulpcovers, set in Yugoslavia, Richard Kiel (Jaws), Force 10 From Navarone (1978), a sequel that came out 9 years later, Robert Shaw (the actual Jaws (1977) guy), being on the Indianapolis, young Harrison Ford, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Carl Weathers, young and handsome, special ops mission to blow up something, Alastair MacLean, probably won’t love it.

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Picnic For Two

Posted by Jesse Willis