The SFFaudio Podcast #821 – READALONG: The Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

Jesse, Will Emmons and Jonathan Weichsel talk about The Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

Talked about on today’s show:
Journey Beyond Tomorrow, indistinct, this is science fiction, best understood as science fiction, limits this book, Jesse’s walking down the street, he’s not going to know that’s science fiction, very Jonathan Swift, the F&SF covers, a good description of the book, no spaceman, the November issue, I like Emsh, the colours, trippy, the substance of the book, the plotlessness, Jonathan’s going to love this book, sell it more, a disappointing user experience, Jesse can only fathom his own brain right now, hard to pronounce, Joenes, a joke, corrupted name, something you don’t want to advertize on the cover, making paralles with Jesus and other biblical characters, Lum, the jewel thief, Wat, why Sheckley was a sailboat guy, an introduction, a story where a guy is on a sailboat, a mix of hippies and assholes, new boats with engines and fuel, a strange mix, Lone Survivor, science fiction questions, apotheosis, people within science fiction, a mature literature for the general reader, not particularity genrey, a control alt delete, replace Lord Of The Flies with this, good fodder for writing, reacting against reading, weird books like this, what did you think of this thing, a bad book and also a great book, plotless meandering, buttons saying exactly that, yes yes yes, ha ha ha, Candide, a weird America, not from America, that’s why, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, American civics, the three truck drivers, the Gospel of Matthew, why we love reading Sheckley, who is he, he’s us, oilskin pouch, you start crying, go up in your cave, and the legend begins, listen to their stories more, a double scene, answers the question, where do I get a job around here man, all of these other people are NPCs, all of the signs that he’s not alive, programmed in a very special and humorous way, an old idea in philosophy, philosophical zombie, NPC back of the head, Ukraine chip out, what happened on 9/11, new brain chip popped in, walking bemusement, not science fiction, really, present reality, flights of fantasy, the octagon, tears streaming, arguments and debates, the words were the same, curing diseases in Africa, that’s the COVID debate, the words are the same, the leaders being pedophiles, Pizzagate, QAnon, more personality than Joenes, in the conclusion, strive for virtue, momentary pieces of stability, players in this fucked up play, Edgar Allan Poe, The Conqueror Worm, Lum’s philosophy, seize, humans are controlled by vast forces we don’t understand, Poe was on it, early Amazings, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, during his middle years, throw all the metal into the sea, Lummist are unflexibile, get kinda violent, it’s good to be good, man, apocalyptic prediction, defeat the islands, conquer, Nuka Hiva, the focus of Typee by Herman Melville, rich references, South Pacific bent to a retelling of the Bible, the Knights of the Round Table, labyrinth, playing and subverting, upstate NY, Memphis, rich with information, begin and end, the South Pacific is irrelevant, blackbirded, make copra all day, the balance of the book, reading a lot, too fixated on virtue, chiller, we’re book readers, the reality, cultivate your garden, moderate your behaviors, Pangloss, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, Spinoza, a very savage attack, women being chased by monkey men, sexual dimorphism, the deep cut of Burroughs, other sources, not the deepest reader, horror and evil on the earth, some merit, if you want to have a universe, why people are vegetarians or vegans, Voltaire, Mcarthyite hearing, agent for the government, indirectly causes WWIII, Tahitian girlfriend, different wedding, Deep Space Nine novels, work for hire, Ray Bradburyeque, getting touched, a comedic author, Mindswap, Seventh Victim, male and female, obviously deranged, not wrong, Will’s newsletter, non-proliferation, consequential response, they could and they did, good ideas for time travel novels, repulse these Europeans, high level of enough tech, factories, employees, explain why this needs to be done, oral storytelling traditions, coup attempt in Bolivia, people are kinda mix, disease, tropical diseases, South Africa, a place to send your offspring to die, building tanks, get rid of all your metal, faster and more seaworthy, become the thing you want to stop, a good laugh, resident satirist, consider all these things, Looking Backward, American institutions, slightly exaggerated, a particular scene, 100% accurate, are you now or have you ever been, Mark Zuckerburg, Jack Dorsey, Russian, Steve Bannon, that pimping, procurement officer, during and after WWII, blow off steam, given liberty, executed for rape, no trial, Japanese had brothels, organize the rape, Korean comfort women, pirated, end up on youtube, trouble to get it down, special privileged access, twitter is literally infiltrated by the CIA and the FBI, it’s okay, its public domain, the narrator was perfect, narrator friends, the perfect level of ironic detachment, Jay Snyder, voices, really acting, faultless job, infusing a little character, audible exclusives and modern books, for narrators, mercenaries, series books, a way to go, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Vonnegut is not readable, Sirens Of Titan, Galapagos, trying to do Sheckley, telling rather than showing, Harrison Bergeron, he’s overrated, WWIII happens, walruses on the beach, a Jonathan idea, big fish small pond guy, becomes smug, became a literary author, the movie of Slaughterhouse Five, read Vonnegut when they’re young, a lot of people who read books, Cat’s Cradle, most people stop reading, most people don’t read books, babies are born, take to reading like a mental disorder, there is danger in ever direction, universal literacy, spina bifida brainless kid, not everybody is capable, trigonometry, opportunity to thrive with it, don’t torture the kid, goal posts, not a smear merchant, Julius Caesar, drug czars, all fake, our man who’s going to fix the Maryland bridge, prophetic, come true, smart bombs shooting each other down, probably happened, Israelis and the Yemenis, the Octagon, the army and the marine corps fought each other, phosphorescent t, Pay Tillman, happens all the time, naturally extends that, Scott Miller’s feed, The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Watchbird by Robert Sheckley, a different story that Jesse just wrote, who to kill, tasing people, all of Europe and America are destroyed, centrist moderation, no way back from war right now, righteously, an individual terrorist, go after Justin, upset the copyright laws, are the guards at the concentration camp, never been to Ottawa, going along with it, the NDP history, the waffle, waffle to the left, independent socialist Canada, nation states, Singapore, each island of Hawaii, Australia, geographically, social contract theory of government, we make a bargain, freedom for security, deserve neither, Locke and Hobbes, right of revolt, we have voting, super-legislature, anybody who wants to be a leader should be killed, the humane society, a taste of power, in Athens, sortition, Solar Lottery, talk about Athens, slaves and robots, children are not eligible, brain atrophy, covid causes brain lobe problems, benefit, in Australia, in moderating socialization, a new report, Stephen Baxter, why are we even talking about this doofus, causation and correlation, freudian slip, road toll, I’m still masking, so fucking retarded, covid doomers and anti-vaxxers, reverse Betrezation, Return To The Stars, I don’t want to experience this alone, how’m I going to rubber stamp this, mainstream science fiction community, the cool kids club, liberal establishment wing, Hugo voters, mutals with a person who is not Connor, cool stuff about Palestine, mask lgbt flag and slice of watermelon, emoji track, not the trans flag, affirmations for covid conscious kids, it’s okay, pentacostals, Olivia Belknap Therapy, oh we were scammed, fatigue on it, easily explainable, forest fire particles, hackin away, about pushing people around, children don’t die from covid, still stuck there, he’s mad the democrats had an early debate so that this would happen, bought the lie, he’s a fighter, driving contest, hilarious and competent, five seconds of the after discussion, these people are touchy, when you touch the sensitive area, hustle online, most people aren’t completely evil, doesn’t necessarily mean, Jill Biden, three dudes, what they were talking about, tax stuff, so long as they lower my taxes, not the target audience, immigrants, hundreds of thousands are dying at the border, superlative language, 59 scholars, Jesse can’t get an abortion in Kentucky right now, in control of his temper, a rambling ending, throw numbers down, not a plan, generates funny images, decolonizing her relationship, Jesse’s niece is half his age right now, not a math surgeon, neurodivergent, autistic, skip the commute, as young as five through adults, Scott’s [Danielson] wife, supervision hours, try not to counsel everybody to kill themselves, throw her degree in the sea, degree mills, well regarded, a state school, Thomas Massie, very solid it seems, inventor, probably a little bit of a psychopath, just go to congress, too many skeletons, obscene books, a waste of Jonathan’s time, the personal touch, in a Heinlein book, Double Star, FBI style files, flattery, it still works, the amazing thing about language, sorcery, the wrong temperament, superpacs, various campaigns, very pathetic, subject line: Desperate, a line about Madison Avenue, a devastating takedown, the horrors, those people, the reptiles, using semantics, a mysterious man, political fundraising, they want party memberships, from the actual players, make it seem semi-legit, the mid tier, the top tier, address your particular concern, Tucker Carlson, as Ivy League Christians, AIPAC person, trying to unseat him, he’s not playing ball, Julian Assange, the streaming from Reuters, the independent man setting free information, oil industry dude, actual vs. fake genocide, Gaza v. Uyghur genocide, neither side is being honest, Hamas pretends, they deny the beheading, always 40, a biblical number, babies taken out of incubators, real video, both sides are committing atrocities, war crimes should be prosecuted, hard to make that argument, an extermination campaign, get more land, insane for land, spread across the middle east, a multifront war, real and horrible, amazing, astounding, horrible opinion, the fog of war, good guy vs. bad guy, more prescriptive statements, dick it out, take its finger of the scale, for the US to switch sides, head blasted off, genitals burned off, an Israeli Zionist, fishing tools, America, posing with machine guns, most of the really good criticism of Israel is coming from Israel [Haaretz], bad strategy, an analogous situation in WWII, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when someone steps on your toe, respond with violence, the leader of Hamas, the current leader of leader was funding Hamas, all those Israeli names are made up, raid on entebee, reverse colonizer, an ideology, the New York Times doesn’t crack any stories, Bin Laden, blowback, they founded the foundation, Isaac Asimov, a Joenes style reading, the section on the university professors, $100,000, the casualization, Eric full Professor Emeritus, Bryan Alexander can’t get that job, a consultant to universities as they collapse, queen sacrifice, when universities dump their English department, have to cut, very target to a very specific niche, the wife who makes the living for you, am I having a hallucination?, except thematically, the novel form, made a culture, removed portions of people’s brains, raid Sheckley, so open to throwing down ideas, stealing from the government, parthenogenetic robot, doing horrible things, the slapback, doesn’t know what he’s teaching, very legit, he nailed that, undergraduate for 16 years, Capilano College, Simon Fraser University, credits transfer, university is really fun, some of the teachers were really good, as an orphan, $125 a month, $600 for a semester, night classes, 5-8, you can get really deep, edified by it, archaeologist, for rich people and game players, other departments, why wouldn’t you want to do that, why did graduation stop you, get out of New York, business was collapsing, transfer my skills, the other students, learning constantly, play some PUBG, watch an old movie and get back to it, gardening, horse raising, how to touch girls and not rape them, law courses, I just committed an assault on you, how the law is written, how rape testimony should work, apologize to Maissa, a photo of a typewriter at the base of the tree, a theory in Canadian law, may I nuzzle your neck, that’s not how people get it on, very little verbal, we’re animals, if you’re lucky, licked without written consent, political stuff, a Rolling Stone article, what the police’s job is, your the one in a very dangerous place, skills, Latin seems very useful now, Jesuit university, grammar and stuff, French, German, read Latin novels in their original, all the Spanish, very basic science concepts, organic chemistry, Asimov, Willy Ley, neuroscience, astronomy, no good at math, economics, so interesting, like dianetics, it should work, macro and micro both, philosophy of religion, bullshit, anthropology, psychology, so much to learn out there, warped by capitalist political economy, comedy of the highest kind, at base, a horribly immoral thing, serving their lust, salting, off on their own program, university politics, they don’t want to know what it is, a lot of the reality that’s going on, why school sucks and why bullies, mom mentality, my children are both equally my children, Johnny should kick the shit out of Billy, principals vs. teachers, school policy, institutional system, kids are the ones who suffer, why kids can’t snitch, in the dean’s office, former President’s fault, inflation, seemingly non-partisan, there’s never going to be another debate, the next six months will tell, bipartisan debate commission, when they kick Biden out for Gavin Newsom, the seemliness, the legality, any kinda incident, his cold got worse, he has a choice, election law question, Biden loyalists, an emperor has no clothes objection, everybody gets behind, legal things that stop, he dies the day before the election, ballots, Kamala Harris is on the ballot, certified ballots, helpful information, somebody is smart, even if we rig this thing real hard, nobody is buying that right now, to keep the farce up, Hillary chooses Trump as her running mate, can’t be right too early, comebacks to specific things, wore his voice out in practice, Van Jones cried on TV, a little bit of free form, Biden derangement syndrome, deeply demented, trailing off, expectations were so low, shocked by the level of decline, the supercuts, the daily drip, the real video, G7, sent the Italian PM, “cheap fakes”, led him off stage, Mitch McConnell’s legs don’t work, Biden didn’t have polio, the hand movement, trying to catch a basketball, proprioception, has trouble watching, that’s cope bro, is he demented, looked physically weak, Trump was thinking on his feet, his script, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, the venture capital arm of the CIA put out a role playing game called “Haywire” comes with a 10-sided die, somebody uses deep fakes to show the president has dementia, doing it all out in the open, university administrators know they’re misallocating funds, we have no problem with that, half the people in the utopian colony were feds, January 6th, they’re all feds, the guy in the black mask is not arrested, levels of lack of knowledge, we need a new Joe, we need a new Biden, maybe they won’t win, massive multiple interest groups, white house chief of staff, looks like he’s trying to poop, Nancy Reagan was in charge, they wanted him to be president again, to showcase, trying to steal again, pejorative, ballot counting in public, polling station, Elections Canada, blocking phone calls, transmitting phone calls, ballot stuffing, during COVID, not a big deal here, mail-in voting, security camera footage, more cynical, look at the evidence, judge for yourself, hacking conferences, specifics of how they work, more than 150 years, incarcerating guilty people, The Untouchables, start drilling down, bro, a political police force, plutocracy, they’re fief, Chrystia Freeland, plutocrats, Yeltsin, state owned enterprises, BC Hydro, ICBC, Putin was former KGB, a patriot, not a member of the party, Kanye West is in Moscow right now, headlines, rich from robbing the public, robbing the corpse of the Soviet Union, sources for this, the Black Sea mansion, “reported”, source, bro, Pamphlets account, colour photo of sniper lady, a newspaper scan from Canada, how many Nazis she killed, put a rodent up his ass, Richard Gere, gerbil, that sounds impossible, that kid probably gonna die, Sylvester Stallone started the gerbil story, having Jonathan on the podcast, oppose Jesse from the right, what Paul could do, what part of your part, misogynist, a weird position, bitterness, William Gibons’ twitter account, every second tweet was about Trump, would he say anything about Julian Assange, his bookshelf, about being hacker, like Kim Dotcom, like Mike Pence, so deranged, Neuromancer is so good, about style, like Clark Ashton Smith, material everydaycarry stuff, his plots are a little less awesome, 2 ais want to not be slaves anymore, cool characters, transhumanism is very very bad, Ray Kurzweil, a futurist, he has to eat the soup, anthropocentric climate change, he needs to drill down more, climate models, their models, a tendency to conflate the two, they’re cheating, Nordstream, the biggest climate disaster in history, time is going faster every year, source bro, why do you think that, you can keep records to check, and what does that mean?, does that mean that people made it hotter, that CBC documentary, individual impact, indulgence, climate credits way bigger scam, the Chinese government, burning rocks, passively collect electricity, pump water up hill, a natural battery, mechanical battery, the pattern, care about recycling, bourgeois ideology, that hockey stick movie [An Inconvenient Truth (2006)], Al Gore, inspired many idiots, low energy light-bulbs, when they don’t hit their targets, Paul was saying so many people were dying from covid, in pretty poor health, multiple heart surgery, covid associated death, that’s long past yo, eugenics, emphysema, a pipe would help Will, homebrewing, alcoholic cider, expensive, you have to maintain the device, windmills require a fair amount of maintenance, solar panel half-life, engineering, micromaterials, titanium foam suppressors, cleaned with solvents, blowback of gases, bad for the gun user’s health, when you’re doing wetwork, good information, a big edit of Sirius, Jonathan wept over that book, educate this boy, Jonathan is fun, it is easy to believe bad things about your enemies, foreign kleptocracy, Valentina Tereshkova, Russell Brand, a problem with authority, some nuanced points, the way you learn stuff, people in the countryside, 666 episodes, only when he’s sitting on Peter’s chair, different levels that you have to believe, quite useful, many Catholics, how much tire pressure do you want in your tires?, what’s the number, consult the manual, look at the actual tire, the anniversary of her famous flight, why they don’t give out congressional medal of honor to living people anymore, multiple Canadian astronauts, Marc Garneau, undisputedly a hero, giving put power like that is dangerous, giving out flattery, giving out honours, almost everything is dangerous, almost everything is an op, follow the money, we think it is real, fear is used as a tool, lots of reasons not to burn coal, The Men In The Walls [by William Tenn], a shady space on a mountain top, The Mad Planet [by Murray Leinster], keep all the carbon dioxide out, how people the end of the world, existentialism, somebody in your family dies, realization, Hitler method, macro scale, nuclear exchange wit the Soviet Union, incident with Cuba, recklessness happening, somebody who can’t talk, incompetent, lived through WWII, why did the Soviet Union collapse, the press system, press is broken, gerontocracy is running things, the last harraugh, the state department guy, Anthony Blinken, Kissinger, brinksmanship, it’s bad, one possibility for the end of the world, climate extinction, Kim Stanley Robinson wrote too long books, 2312, totemic relationship with wolves, doesn’t seem very happy, resigned, playing in his garden, not an active change agent, Cory Doctorow, he’s always on the ball, cognoscenti, Terry Bisson, Bears Discover Fire, magical realism, appalachian realism, not a deep sorrow in his writing, the grandma who doesn’t get eating, this isn’t science fiction, Gravy Planet vs. The Space Merchants, visions of labour, good work with Will’s newsletter, six new books available!, the awesomeness about that book, exploit Venus, all the graft, a tour of reality, the giant chicken vegan meat, all the people have no housing, pedalcars, the senator from Coca-Cola, a terrible premise, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, 1984, Brave New World, This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, Henry Ford, central computer, continually drugged, a kid who runs away from it, people running things!, very subversive, becomes part of the system, feels true bro, Mockingbird by Walter Tevis, in Manhattan, supine and infertile, android robots, no children, suicide by immolation, head of the entire industry, dean of faculties at New York University, primer, the animals are robots, the crime of reading, engineered the demise of the human race, drug induced depopulation, little bit similar to Neuromancer by William Gibson, so many good books, The Status Civilization, prison planet, status, what makes status worth having, Omega!, peed everywhere, very restrained, Anne Bonny, Mama, who is the master cat, dominance games, no stakes, personal space, cat psychology, observe behavior, The Omega Egg, round robin books, plow into that, good times, same author back to back, two short stories by the same author, single author podcasts, too often, or infrequent shows, a book a week or more, everything has to be for something, three short stories and a novel, raises questions, the two billion body problem, a smart guy, spinning his wheels, not a lot of distance travleed, The Advent On Channel 12, The Syndic, an idea he spun out, dangerous to impute what characters believe onto what the author believes, Stephen King, Heinlein, what I’m hearing is you’re a fascist, Who Are The Heirs Of Patrick Henry?, he toured the Soviet Union, in the proper mood, with proper pre-conditioning, the proper mood of the Soviet Union, visit the USSR, going to a funeral for the ride, small quantities of vodka, drunks passed out in public places, some kind of pill, sleeping pills, canal boat, maddening frustrations, the state owned travel bureau, no no no, Nikita Khrushchev has never learned to speak Russian well, immediate vocabulary, phonograph records, behind the Iron Curtain, interesting, huh, learn a language, repetition helps, biographical details, change over time, Philip K. Dick lived in Vancouver, Bay Area, Orange County, Colorado, born in D.C.?, too much self congratulation, people remembering his name, 15 for introductions, sad story, off topic stuff, very basic stuff, the programming, run into people, hanging out with people, meet people, confronted him, I liked that book Pacific Edge, Worldcon in 2006, Steen and Scott, canceled Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis’ boob, posthumously being lauded, marketing bro, Dangerous Visions book, A.E. Van Vogt, The Human Operators, anger, misplaced, not liking Jesse, a good television adaptation, from The Outer Limits, the only human operators, make another human operator, Adam and Eve and evil robots, thrift shop bookshelf, the corporations who run the bookshelf, an ebay style guy buying from retail, everything gets picked over, all profit is temporary, make a disease and market a cure for it, horrible disease, COVID made in a lab, proof bro, alternative theory, Wuhan, funded by the CIA, Eco Health Alliance, the workaround, Obama banned gain-of-function research, previous disease, so much circumstantial evidence, does the CIA work for Pfizer?, money and power, can be done, should be done, human babies, viable, happened in the 60s bro, Khan Noonien Singh, Gene Roddenberry, men creating men, Data had a girlfriend, she is the wife of George Fransisco, the Newcomer cop from Alien Nation, open hearted, over carded, skibidi marxism, the gender situation, Midwest Marx, Vaush, there’s something wrong with Evan, Evan is younger, in between, he quit twitter, Paul didn’t quit, on the platforms, Linkedin, copy and paste, getting wild on Linkedin, facebook for business, networking, the least Jesse space on the internet, the most Jesse space on the internet, Podcast Addict, they’re not on my team, Alex Jones team, kill Will, let them have their say, stab me here, free speech absolutist, hypothetical, bemused, Maoist cult, defend people’s right to tell harmful lies, some splainin to do, never have never will, promise not to rape you mostly, is an American far right radio host and conspiracy theorist, a slur, prevent thought, July of 2001, Rebel by Pepe Moreno, a ripoff of Escape From New York, the twin towers, his pants, Mad Max/Road Warrior inspired, big brother in the form of Judge Dredd, read more Moebius, The Nam comic, war comics, Sgt. Rock, Unknown Soldier, Vietnam stories, in the groove, began in 1986, Doug Murray, Larry Hama, latter day G.I. Joe, how to make money there, superhero comics, Richie Rich has more to teach you, rich and rude cousin Reggie, friend who is a hillbilly, beautiful blondeheaded, rainbow flag, none green, a genetic adaptation, beautiful blonde hair, infanticide, evolutionary biology, hair is interesting in itself, in six years, those people seem happy, extracts from Lum’s philosophy, always be swinging, who is more Sheckley?, Deep Hole To China, Algis Budrys, a cassette copy, 84.2 Minutes of Algis Budrys, disabled guy, Silent Brother, lots of parasites, ivermectin might get rid of some friends, a conspiratorially, utilitarian, a worth addition, 1995, fill an audiobook on one cassette, different time, bro, ship it to Canada, decadent and pointless, Cirsova magazine, previously unpublished Burroughs, moderate your expectation, Tomorrow SF, Science Fiction Age, Realms Of Fantasy, born in Kaliningrad, Cora’s favourite place, saw Adolph Hitler as a child, newsprint paper, 1992-1999, bimonthly, defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States, be remembered, Habakkuk, Marion Zimmer Bradley Fantasy magazine, she raped people bro, she shouldn’t be promoted, child abuse allegation, if true, a Rosicurian correspondence course, harassing Wayne June, Marissa might be mad at Jesse, both like eels, plagiarizing machine, pinned tweet, permanent tweet, repetition, Frank R. Paul, giant mechanical objects, his aesthetic is Amazing Stories so strongly, pinning your wagon to Hugo Gernsback, John W. Campbell, your white house, too obscure bro, Gerrard Winstanley, prefigure, the mental health aspect, divinely employed, Thomas Paine stan, write a lot, not being censored, an immoral question, how about that for an argument?, Franklin Roosevelt, an abolitionist, Crazy Horse, Louis Riel, no Metis in the USA, Elizabeth Warren, pretendian, dangerously close to Jesse’s position on trans stuff, factually wrong, not hanging out with teens, that might be the real issue, homeless trans people, paid picketer, Cuban immigrant, never work in a fast food restaurant, a mime routine, look at that woman’s big butt, Miss Purple, Miss Violet, couldn’t afford the violet, dead-name, what’s up with that swastika between your eyes, Manson jokes, Lucy Parsons, the Haymarket riots, anarcho communist, reverse the Russian revolution, throwing bombs, I’m cryin, she’s metis, Mestizaje, race isn’t real bro, nice white lady, bad for the economy, tourism would be fucked up, throw the US navy into the sea, how good the Hawaiians have it, access to health care, a good place to homestead, works for the parks service, your tools wear out of get stolen, Indian reserves in Canada, bring cash in, land reform, so many things are so broken, a shock to the system, keep a semblance, a reason for that, so much work involved to replace him, 9-11, Friends, that time being passed, prepped for having something done to you, we’re programmed, the slings and arrows of reality, getting out of Afghanistan, didn’t want to stop it, had Ukraine ready to go, 23 years after it happened, pro-blow em up, a tv guy at that time?, The Apprentice, 2004, Schwarzenegger tried to run it, an actor again, good at governing, did lots of research, cis hetero, daughter married to Jimmy Fallon, a likeable stooge, Jimmy Kimmel gives off vibes of evil, celebrities, jokes about the anti-vax people, sadistic, evil, it being evil should he have his podcast deleted?, we’ve done six hours here, The Loved Dead, see you online.

F And SF -Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

SPHERE BOOKS - Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #820 – READALONG: The Not-World by Thomas Burnett Swann

The SFFaudio Podcast #819 – Jesse, Will Emmons, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Jonathan Weichsel talk about The Not-World by Thomas Burnett Swann

Talked about on today’s show:
1977?, 1975, died in 1976, serialized, The Weir Woods, Cirsova Alex is hard to get, Winged Victory by Thomas Burnette Swann, who stood model, graceful sweep, Tennessee poet and writer, problem with the narrator, him recording over himself, Arachne spirit ghost, echo, same narrator, a producer choice, during the singalong, audio italics, stepped away from the microphone and kept recording, inconsistent, two mispronunciations, obscure words, enthusiastic about his production, commendable, straight narrations, transparent, the door creaked open, taking italicized text, is this in his head?, back and forth, makes a comment, some sort of barrier between dialogue, missing context, while hiking, listened at home, listened to in sleep, dreamy, dream interpreted, like them about the same, the plot is not really the focus, the character and being recognized as a sexual being, too fat, repetition, the flabbiness of novels, the book itself is probably very good, didn’t have a plot, characters, stuff they were doing, stuff happens, plodding along, the aunt, very rich her sacrifice of having sex with all the little people, a scholar of a bunch of people, women starts of a particular movie company, a Christina Rosetti scholar, what happens in Goblin Market, pixie men, on the level of metaphor, lost a lot of weight, burned a lot of calories, sexual awakening, lost in the woods, sitting around in baskets, teleported between set pieces, how did they get to the mill?, rushin to get stuff done, everybody is happy, the real forest is the friends we made along the way, the bad lady, woman burned at the stake, off to London, destroy lives there, if it wasn’t so enjoyable, the story needs to do something, go into the forest, sick in bed, new excuse to go back to that forest, by balloon, hadn’t gone back to Bristol, straight dreamworld, weird hybrid, we’re missing the point, cosy relationships, class difference relationships, all about the body, raising children, the water horse, the horses of Llyr, not really well described, the back cover, the dedication, To Helen, is this a Lord Dunsany?, gently o’er, on desperate seas, the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome, Poe to his adopted mom, Mrs. Allan, Poe is the original Dreamlands guy, technically bad, a Robin Hood scene, doing this creation, the apologies, the missing guy, a real poet, imagining he didn’t commit suicide, ghost, The Coffin Merchant by Richard Middleton, Arthur Machen, King George III, pre-American Revolution, many anachronisms, slavery is mentioned many times, capitalism, different ways of doing it, how did he construct this book, Thomas Chatterton, sailors hookin up with Jane Austen stand-in, 1770, 1771, extinct, or do they?, #SpiderWoman, few and far between, 19th century, movies in the 80s, all do go back to Arachne, LEGO Minifigures monster figures, fringe ones, women who tie you up in webs, Don Mark Lemon story, a fox’s tail, foxkin, the witch burning scene, I was totally a murderer, she’s selfish, off to London and do murders with her vampires, not a misunderstood wisewoman, ending Lord Of The Ring, I really wanted that ring, when you’re writing like this the subconcious is doing all the work, the sailor guy, the musician, pure of heart, sexual experience once that traumatized them, settle, the girl has her brothers, her father, he relationship with her horses, the waterhorse and its babies and its eggs, a cozy D&D, Barrels Out Of Bond, shot it sold it?, had she just talked to her horse, I was tied up by Indians and I learned to make a wigwam, house made out of sticks, portable house, sea voyages, into Robert Herrick, Thomas had read her books, a poet, stuff memorized, sailor or highwayman, didn’t like sailors except during war, upper-class lower-class, a character arc, she has motivations and backstory enough, things come up and over again, the bull to her cow, she was paying for it, she’s too fat, he wanted that character in the woods, her chaperone, you should do more hanky panky, any, hammocks, no hammocks, they’re out in yard, a water sprite’s house, sex in a hammock, you can’t lie separately, enforcing the cozy, a cheap bed, gas balloon, that guy Squirrel, it was fine, a circulation pattern, the lady can’t walk, its FANTASY with flashing lights, maybe read The Wizard Of Oz, very Ozy, pulchritude!, children’s fiction, a very sexless world, all of them don’t have genitals, hen named Ballina, the gnome at the end, is our goal to get them to read it?, nothing like anybody has ever written, A.A. Milne, horny Winnie the Pooh, all of the characters are different kinds of mental illnesses, the donkey, shyness, Pooh is a honey, Christopher Robin is the ID, Tigger is intellectually disabled, Kanga, funny to say, two horror movies out of it, what’s odd about Swann, history and myth, cozy setting, get horny, horny dwarves with small dicks, show worthy, People Of The Black Coast, a guy from contemporary USA flying across the pacific, find Gaum, strange island, cliffs and beaches, crabs, leaves her on a rock, he puts his hand to her heart, giant telepathic crabs, gets one his arms snipped off, they my GF I swear revenge, A Spell For Chameleon by Piers Anthony, set in Florida, in Xanth, a fantasy world that borders Florida, exiled to Florida, puns and jokes, better plotted?, the popular version of this book, Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, Dunsany’s wonderful, not writing carefully, an instinctually good writer, how could this book be great?, it could be better, guilt free sexual stuff, Puritans, being initiated, do they add up to a coherent whole?, an incoherent whole, modern, how much of a change is there, sexually repressed, I can’t have sex because I have a trauma!, they think they’re not good enough for each other, restraining not repressing, why you have no last name on this podcast, colonial themes, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the land is eternal, a Swann thing, A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, newsflash Shakespeare good, The Tempest, Trish listened to five different audio plays, hot take The Tempest mid, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming Of The Shrew, Shakespeare wins, Schwarzenegger running meme, tiger blood guy, plot, dialogue, emotional manipulation, doesn’t lose, Othello, Iago is gay for Othello, motivated by spite, props, whatever they have at hand, fucking over a whole war, Titus Andronicus, The Induction, the inception of the play is we are the drunkard audience, there’s a play within the play, to catch the conscience of the king, reasonable thing to do, not as polished, the school prisons, hundreds of years, men dressed as women, library in the basement, let’s read more Shakespeare, the playwright, Christopher Marlowe, ‘Tis A Pity She’s A Whore by John Ford, two ees in pity, All The Flowers In The Attic by V.C. Andrews, it was huge, incest, reading it with one hand, just so good, I make students read it, A Modest Proposal, started laughing, solve it, expanded homelessness, that’s your goal, Jonathan Swift is savage, we have it for Gaza, one to one parallel, a pamphlet, harder to dismiss, feels like fiction even though it isn’t, what to do about the Irish, a very knowing American of my acquaintance, people can not get it, he goes to Japan, light material, heatwave, how do you listen to audiobook, work from home is a problem, chores, smoke cigars, when driving, in the 90s all week, shower speaker, you can get a lot listened in a week, five and half hours, reading text, eyes are busy, hands and eyes busy, nice park, at the gym, not enough hours in my day, fun side story, electromagnetic door locks, you can just buy those, a tweet about this, Matt Lauer, have used doorlocks in the past, three car garage, $80 to $100k, raising chickens, a house in a shipping container, jobsite sort of thing, shed conversion stuff, vehicles to store, the Cirsova story influenced by Swann, maybe next week, Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckely, The Loved Dead, Algis Budrys’ WHO?, Rogue Moon, Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, The Aeneid by Virgil, the losers of the Trojan War, their own legend, that’s our people, quite the way to go, the founding of Rome, distrust the propaganda, Romulus and Remus are Cain and Abel raised by a wolfish god, it deserved to be canceled, 8 episodes and cancelled, just setting the stage, can you give us the next Game Of Thrones, sad story, Shakespeare never had that problem, Richard The Third, low T Shakespeare, historical plays, Henry V, WWI Nazi, Ian McKellen, Magneto, not enough crossdressing, Merry Wives Of Windsor, Molière, The Country Wife, wants to have sex with all the other guys wives, lost his dick, Cyrano De Bergerac (1990), stuck on the rocket shoots him to the moon, character in the Riverworld novel, cuckhold’s Mark Twain, The Golden Ass, the French comic book adaptation, an odd choice, keep waiting for the golden ass to pay off, ass waiting, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, Billy Wilder, done as a diary, gets everything she wants, always going on dates with rich men, a trip to Europe, this is awesome, beautifully illustrated, 1925 book, Howard Hawks, Rio Bravo, El Dorado, The Big Sleep, the one with the leopards, the intercostal clavicle, His Girl Friday, really good, Only Angels Have Wings, so cozy, a remake of a silent, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, Cary Grant, lady singer shows up on a boat, Casablanca, nature is the bad guy, really terrific, Jean Arthur, see you next week.

The Not-World by Thomas Burnett Swann

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #459 – A Little Variety by Richard Hardwick

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #459

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss A Little Variety by Richard Hardwick

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

A Little Variety was first published in Manhunt, December 1958.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #809 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist

The SFFaudio Podcast #809 – The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist – read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 1 minute) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye.

Talked about on today’s show:
doesn’t stand for Ralphie or Raphe, Robert, a lot of notes, psychological angle, weird fiction, obsessive things that he writes about, Lovecraft, art, sculpture, a lot of flowers, honeysuckle, true happiness, a bunch of flowers to a girl, the names and some of the behaviors are extreme, gone into a “brain fever”, Barbara, an interesting name, how interesting is it, obvious about these names, Westmoorland, fictional, the coastal place, on the coast, Furnivaux castle, what kind of accent people would have in that area, the Lake District, fictionalizing things, four stories, just going by the stories, assuming he was totally gay, The Crimson Weaver, super gay, queer coded, gay coded, fairly straightforward, Oscar Wilde was enjoying it, decadents, it’s awesome, a weird tale from the beginning, a straightforward gothic, Mystery Of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, Mary, 20 novels, Daniel Pietersen, the gloves are awesome, the two mistakes, The Priest’s Pavan, Gethsemane, peculularities, some brain fever issues, the framing of it, the father’s journal, nested narratives, his own journal?, spill the beans, falling asleep, infected dreams, is it in there?, an awesome idea, Barbara is a lich, really strange, old testament era name, foreign or strange, the two daughters, nieces, the same last name, Raphe’s cousins, Raphe’s father’s sister, maternal sister, his mom’s sister, he calls her great aunt, in the same way you see in The Thing On The Doorstep and a reverse of Morella, real brainy, becomes his tutor, teaches him a bunch of philosophy, guiding his hand on the page, in childbirth she dies, my love, my dear, my heart, the confirmation day, he calls her Morella, the family tomb, his daughter’s mother’s body is gone, she knew things from her previous life, there was only one Morella, why she died, some sort of arcane knowledge, a couple of curious things, of her nephew: he cares about the wrong things, “she held no views beyond this world”, an atheist?, superficial, being a busybody, being a matchmaker, interested in deep thinks, frivolous things, a real bitch, visits against the father’s commandment, assumes that he changed his mind, 10 and 12, what does she want?, marry to a first cousin, the incest theme, literally, 13 year old cousin, marry right now, go away for a few years, come back and be committed, it’s not explicitly stated, in response to an imperious summons, no sooner had he reached the portico, a marriage compact, to take place at once, claiming my child wife, implied that she’s a busybody, obscure German philosophy, the secret of life after death, Rachel writes my letters for me, she’s not interested in literature, is it because it’s fiction and that’s bullshit, really a weird thing to mention, just a way of making her leave the room, attracted to, that’s interesting, how it plays out, we see him marry Mary, a famous name, the story of Rachel from the bible, one Margaret Atwood book, The Handmaid’s Tale, a good book, an infertility crisis amongst the rich, fertile women, sent to the rich old men who run the country, the invocation ceremony, a wife of a king who can’t give birth, her handmaid, a maiden to a married woman, that child will be hers, ewe, the lamb that gets sacrificed, a female sheep that has not has a child yet, pronouncing the character’s names, Velrest, Ayer, Eyrie, Weird Tales letters department is called The Eyrie, WellRest, why does she care so much, Barbara dies, why is she so angry?, she has to choose which body to put herself into, interesting, if this is a body swap sort of thing, a position of power, being married to Ralph, she’s gonna die, one possibility, turned to her uplifting luminous eyes, I am Miranda, he Ferdinand, the first man I’ve seen for two years, the servants are all 100 years old in all the stories, 90 when he was a child, fairly active, that’s all about immortality, part of the eeriness of this story, combined with the gloves, your lowly handmaid, be around the older richer woman and be her hand servant, go get this, brush my hair, used in other ways, class stuff, the gaffer’s song, the shepherd, our hero interrogates, all the loyalty of his father’s servant, we don’t get servants like this anymore, the father is a philosopher, high philosophy, airy fairy philosophy, more inclined to less superficial, hedonistic, morality, more of him having an idealized vision of love, fall in love, not by an arranged marriage, implied, because of love, something Barbara might not have approved of, her relation, Ralph’s mother, not as wealthy, he has an estate, these are upperclass twits, fallen a little bit, only have 1 servant instead of 7, megarich, rubbed her the wrong way, great nieces, his great aunt, his grandmother’s sister, convoluted, idealistic, he’s supposed to be wise too, I forbid you from going there, drawn like a moth to a flame, smack talks, he didn’t hear anything from his father, his father’s journal, enlighten me, my aunt, your great aunt, he enjoins him, we know why he’s doing that, the dad wrote down the dialogue, fool, is there no changing you, we get out of the fact that this is a journal right away, no he replied, forced into bondage, beg for his bread, wronged body and soul, the trigger for Jesse, why liches are bad, wills and estates, endowments to various universities, an ability to control the future even after your death, dragons is the same thing, sit on hordes and steal all the girls, the significance of the stone dragon, doesn’t seem to be the main focus, the human skin gloves, pivotal points, Ralph and Mary first get to know each other, commits suicide, she wanted to murder him, she’s very goth, one of my ancestors murdered somebody with them [these gloves], these gloves are important, a story by Arthur Conan Doyle The Leather Funnel, psychometry stories, The Stone Tape, Nigel Kneale, swaps place with Rachael, willing to give up all of her wealth, why is she doing that, which would you rather have life or money, marry me, the only young man she’s ever seen, why is that?, she’s keeping them, this is a lot of Lovecraft stories, The Tomb, Jervas Dudley has dreams, lying around, The Silver Key, occupied by one of his ancestor, atavism, an ancestral state, The Call Of The Wild by Jack London, a wolf sitting next to a cave man, a worry or idea people were playing with in the period, 1894, the yellow 90s, never shouted out, the skin, skin gloves, I’m inside of another person, tricking it me into this idea even if it is not actually there, there’s nothing that shows that that’s not the case, conciousnesses are switched, a mindswap situation, Barbara is possessing Rachael, vicariously live, Connor’s interpretation, somewhat supernatural, the psychological reading, Connor’s youtube video about it, Barbara is a narcissist and a control freak, those readings are correct, leaves out the mysticism, that’s what literary happened to R. Murray Gilchrist, keep the money in the family, translating, back reading into the actual psychology, a way of reading reality not describing reality, werewolves, people kicked out of society, you kill wolves, skinwalker, wendigo, you go wendigo, cultural exile, between cities there’s no law, if we read monsters as symbols, oceans you can drown in, it is like that, this layer in the story that has to do with reading and writing, Philosophical Discussions, held no views beyond this world, what is the nature of good, to stay alive after she’s dead, tiny estate in Northern Italy, a solemn command, retired from the world, Verelst, ver means true, what else means true, the manic work, an unscrupulous woman, the stars declare it, weaving the fatal web, she’s the spiderwoman, the line of Fate, what to advise, justice and love, Earth’s joy is naught in comparison with that which follows, she only cares of earth, what else exists besides what we see on earth, wherever she be, petulant and unreasonable, that delicious summer morning, here I passed 7 years of irresolute work, being as happy as any man who has no aim in life, I became terribly depressed, presentiments, the supernatural powers, foolish people, catastrophe’s that never occur, the greatest possible disasters are affecting our fortunes, mourning, we are plunged into the lightest ecstasy, a new codicil, the craftiness of self, if she wanted to put herself into one of these characters bodies, why wouldn’t she confirm, Eric Rabkin hat, it’s about women not having the right to property, women get their money from their fathers, if you read it the way Jesse is thinking, she has to go into the body in order to keep the estate, it won’t help her, the guy won’t marry, she has to gamble, up unto the point of death, gambling on it being Rachel, point us in amazing direction, it’s put in there, definitely hints at that aspect of it, deeper workings, things happening but your emotions not necessarily be in tune with those things, the livery, old fawn livery with pelicans wrought on the buttons, pelican symbology, scoops up and hold a fish, what is my spirit animal, early church revered pelicans, the pelicans keep their babies in their mouths, controlling people, why not find some local kid, marrying for love, something she couldn’t tolerate, an insult, insulting, she calls him a fool and foolish, he’s smart and she’s dumb, she doesn’t read books, she already knows it all, the lich theory, this is a controlling bitch, she can will herself into making it happen, maybe the daughter had killed her mother with the gloves, Rachael killing Barbara, first cousins with Ralph, previous ancestor, a woman murdered somebody, had her skinned, male ancestors, make it into a book cover, the hands murdering side and the book reading side, page 21, to doff her yellow gown, pale green, Robert E. Howard’s jealous, fastened to her girdle, the colour of the aunt’s eyes claret, burgandy colour, semi-transparent skin, blood coloured, the meal passed in delicious interchange of thought, she was appreciative, reproving her, don’t wear those gloves, the gloves covered them now, a silk picture of a vial and a dagger, tragic accompaniment, ill-luck, he does, gibbeted in these parts, around the time the servant was born, nice couple, poisoned her lord, a strong repugnance, strange humours, our red herring, the little people the gnomes, there’s a lot in it, this scene, the gloves of a murderess, the skin of a murderess, commissioned by a murderess, they’re handed down, the dagger and the phial, there’s a dagger in this story, you hold that in your dexter hand, the sinister hand, the phial is poison, Rachel murdered Barbara, a supernatural/weird element, seemingly a murderer, tender of you, to her lap, ashen and grey, the sharpening, she has a sharp face, she is cold, she is dead, probably poison, wounds Mary with a knife, likely she does kill herself, or the dragon killed her, until she commits suicide, selbstmord, putting on the gloves is the symbolic act of murder, very goth, you literally put on gloves when you’re doing crime (or work), she talks about they didn’t fit before, my hands are swollen with bitterness, calling out she’s a murderer, why she’s attracted to the gloves, largely what makes her weird, the piano makes her weird, fugue state, music dance sculpture, that’s my big discovered, it’s not Cthulhu it’s art, Hypnos, sculpture, Music Of Eric Zann, artists, Pickman’s Model, painting, Lovecraft is obsessed with art, he’s an artist he’s not a pulp writer, the avenue, amateur journalist, astronomer, everything is about art, what an artist will do, why he loves Clark Ashton Smith so much, Robert E. Howard’s poems in Weird Tales, submitting them, people are very artsy, just a thing, all the stories by R. Murray Gilchrist have art, culvers, young girls older guys, unrequited love, marry a 10 year old, she’s 10, 17 and 22, 17 year old girl marrying a 50 year old man, The Crimson Weaver is the gay version, apprentice and master, they’re sleeping together, comes across as very gay, an unrequited romance, idolizes the master, hung up on his dead wife, the door of his heart was closed, captured because of that heartbreak, her lure, sharp, nothing of the patrician in her appearance, passed for a housekeeper, round and russett, an intracate network of wrinkles, sherry coloured, lack of wine experience, Amontilliado is a yellow, amber, her teeth, natural, regular pieces of ivory, sharp, the charitable way of reading it, she inquired sharply, this is about Rachel, one so young, sharp-edged, unmaidenly, colour changes, the Poe piece [The Mask Of The Red Death], grey cloak for grey business, blood coloured gloves, ashen grey, she’s dead, elderly, why did she die?, she killed herself?, Rachael was somewhat of a narcissist too, she can’t stand to lose, the last word in an argument, a need for control, manipulates others, the ultimate selfish act, if she can’t have Ralph than no-one can, if she was less self-centered, those fugue states, she’s got the brain fever, depth mingled, unstable but also deep, allured, oppression, too heavenly purfumed, two centuries ago, she’s been alive for 200 years, a draught of cool air, she’s not infected with this age, is Venice like Mrs. Radcliffe paints in the Mystery Of Udolpho?, attempted murder then self-murder, if you read it strictly, she’s going to go to hell, or there’s no afterlife, to speak to Rachel’s character, dishevelled, living in the forest for weeks, ruin the event and her sister’s happiness, her death will be associated with her sister’s wedding, back for their honeymoon, she sought you at the old stone dragon, right anow, burst out sobbing, he knows that she’s dead, he’s mad at them too, bride’s blitheness, italian garden, Time, a bright web, lichened stone, my darling how much I’ve missed you, web hair, her spinning a web, a flower called crown imperial, a web of red golden hair, called right out there, foreshadowed, she may be weaving the fatal web, what a good story, it’s fantastic, such a shame that Gilchrist is not listed, he will be, bringing him more recognition, Romancing The Gothic, Daniel Pietersen, a collection, Tales Of The Weird, so many, William Hope Hodgson, amazing forgotten tales, an expert on Gilchrist, a nordic sort of spelling, son of stone, all the names are like that, Jesus makes a joke, Peter you are the rock I shall build my church on [“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”], Jesus got puns, I Am Stone, an introduction, the original artwork, some photos, tweet em or dm em, the art’s good, photos spread throughout the book, divides the stories into different categories, part 1, Dead Yet Living, part 2, Useless Heroes, he barely does anything, choose the girl that doesn’t creep him out, part 3, Of Passion And Of Death, part 4, Peak Weird, a region called the Peak District, A Witch In The Peak, awesome book, a great lecture, he really goes into it, more traction or inertia, it’s gonna happens, that book came out in 2021, 5 youtube videos with people recording, people are reading his book and getting excited about it, a bunch of money, pretty late, posthumous, read the whole thing, an editor from Valancourt Books, Wordsworth Books, 6 story collections, 4 non-fiction books, Heritage Auctions has really nice scans, we can fix up the insides, pulps get sold coverless, tried to push VHS tapes as a collectible thing, capitalism is so crazy now, pouring their money into fake goods, monkey art on the blockchain, a sealed copy of E.T. from 1985, trynna slab pulps, what they’ve been doing to comics for years, any copy of a comic book and put plastic all around it, you can’t open it up, a terrible thing, preserves them from rain and snow, we need one copy scanned cover to cover, [an issue] Fantastic Story magazine, Back To The Future (1985), a lot of stuff like that, if capitalism makes everything unaffordable, scanners count on cheap pulps in bad condition, people flipping them, pulps were not made to last, a shitload of pulps, old Playboy, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, the significance of Playboy, Hugh Hefner was a big player in civil rights, the Hustler guy, wheelchaired, people are not buying it for the stories, Hustler, a lot of men’s magazines, they’d make that joke, the quality of the stories is way higher, shots of beautiful women, and good writing, Jimmy Carter Playboy interview, I had lust in my heart, building houses for other people, five or ten dollars, disintegrate, just to have it and feel it, some of these are really small, bedsheet format, Australian pulp magazine called Aurealis, it’s tiny, the size of a paperback, a niche hobby, most people are not trying to read at all, audiobooks, people don’t like reading, computer games, sex websites, shitting on Trumpers, bookshelves, 100 books, 5 or 600 books, you have so many books, call across the planet to two different hemispheres to find somebody to talk to about it, doing a survey, do you have any books, can I see your books, a book somebody gave them, then they didn’t read any more, the continuum, only one genre, only one author, used to be rich, you could track that change in society, looking at the covers of paperbacks, several copies of the same book, original artwork, bins full of books like that, a little bit better, the early 2000s, nobody gave a shit, digital alteration, we’rent paying artists and graphic designers, people kept buying, the frills, how many mergers have caused it, when WWII happened, spawned an industry, before WWII, hardcovers and pulps, after WWII paperbacks are a thing, 1945 and 1985, mass market, other ways, book clubs, book of the Month Club, amazon, goodreads, audible, not coming back, Shakespeare’s still around after 500 years, still a little bit around, much more arts oriented, the movie industry, almost no kids know how to watch movies now, Millie Bobby Brown, can’t sit through a movie, watching people gaming for 7 hour, every media is different, literally training involved, it’s really hard to play Dungeons & Dragons, no learning curve, its free, a video game, more intuitive, doesn’t require you to think as much, the game is as fun as you can make it, not an activity engaged by young people now, it is, how old, 10 to 40s, all kid culture, stopped doing it at university, a lot harder to get together, serious problems with reading and watching movies, other role playing games, a subculture, not a popular activity, smoking weed, even TV out, TV is done, broadcast television was streaming, it wasn’t a million channels, we know what the score is, full circle, some final thoughts on The Stone Dragon, Witch-In Grain, listened while processing, culvers are mentioned, it’s a dove, with human faces in that story, a peacock, birds, a pelicans, birds are symbols, flowers are symbols, so many theories, the wrong mythological thing, a vampire story?, greek mythology?, there is a set of answers, there’s a dragon it was stone, and a very solid weird tale with a lot of decadence, it’s great, The Castle Of Wolfenback by Eliza Parsons, Horace Walpole, 1767, a little after, 1793, recommended by Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey, Midnight Bell, The Necromancer, bald stone, the popular books of their day, referencing an older book, this is something, line by line, it’s dense, gothic horror, gothic romances, 13 year old girls, a lot of time and no time, 30 hours long, they come in volumes, written is a serialized fashion too, this book isn’t finished, let’s see how the first one does, a luxury item, hog wild, Alexander Dumas, the unabridged The Count Of Monte Cristo, who the hell is this guy, where the word subscribe came from, the etymology, Waverley by anonymous author, Ivanhoe by the author of Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, all these anonymous book, you would sub scribe, a piece of paper at the book stores, isn’t that amazing, the call or text you, your new copy’s in, the way podcasts work and all that stuff, Tom Standage, pretty good, works for The Economist, An Edible History Of Humanity, The Writing On The Wall: Social Media The First 2000 years, the Romans had a mail system, who’s getting married, obituaries, when we get to the modern electronic era, telegraphy, all the LOLs was all invented back then, pay by the letter, telegraph, a lot more expensive, humans never change, next big project: Gay Life In Melbourne, so funny, so spicy, we need some funny spice, with Will, moved pretty fast, full of innuendo, smokin hot, some sex worker’s picked up a guy, the reader’s not supposed to know, they knew, steamy and fun, our book on 1000 years ago, out of Arabic, Koran number 1, Richard Burton, 1,001 Nights, Ali Babab And The Forty thieves, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, old white Europeans, he’s technically in Europe, Tarzan, born out of mud, a crying baby, an antelope comes by and adopts him, invents all our theory of science, a history of science, opens up his mom, her carcass, the heart, 10 years ago is the cutoff, Three Body Problem, wait 1000 years, teach us something, it was pretty funny back then, people were always as horny, it there a more horny animal than the human being, bonobos, grazing moose, fight with males, females observing, peacocks, ostentatious display, how humans go about this, wars literally fought over, Helen of Troy, men are performative for men, women are performative for women, women looking at women on instagram, how to get big muscles, big money, explanations and stories, The Stone Dragon, about reproduction and passing the money along, read Typee by Herman Melville, disposable, fruit is within reach, food is everywhere, and girls aren’t jealous, Donald E. Westlake, An Empty Threat by Donald E. Westlake, girls in the south seas, Madagascar even, the only African country never colonized?, an island, read a book on it, pirates from the carribean moved to the richer grounds of the Indian Ocean, girls don’t demand much, run the business for us, retirement for pirates, a mere 89 pages, a dozen illustrations, an 80 page story, In The Dwellings Of The Wilderness by [C. Bryson Taylor], fun reading too, if not something else good, names of the places, justice to Melbourne, already recorded, end of July, at bad times, Mad Max!, different time schedules, 8pm, three hours earlier, Oscar Wilde, pretty short, Martin Geeson, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft, controversial, so funny, out in 7 months, slowing down production, not doing music for each one, a Weird Tales, Egyptian mummy, western archaeologist uncover a mummy story, slash vampire, short novel, Lion Of Tiberias, The Moon Of Skulls, H. Warner Munn, The Werewolf Of Ponkert, the one that Lovecraft inspired?, Robert E. Howard’s Wolfshead, a weak story, Bobby Derie, Howard didn’t understand what the person was saying, The Green Room, typos and random errors, a good ghost story, he sticks the ending vs. goofs up the ending, Walter de la Mare, when you’re a gymnast, not a funny guy, falls flat in a horrifying way, scaling back production, all this old stuff to do, producing something every week, not enough research?, I gotta get something, grindcore, there’s people doing everything now, recently updated, this is a really good story, done the next day, awesome gems, a dreamlands style story, House Of The Mummy Men, Hunt The Space Witch by Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block, Frank Cain, from Manhunt, Mike Vendetti, shudder pulp, Lovecraft and Howard are dead, knock-off magazines, sex versions of Weird Tales stories, spicy horror, Test-Tube Frankenstein, chops up earthworms, rejected by the agent, Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God, neoterics, imposes restrictions on them, building aluminum structures, he’s god essentially, a banker who’s trying to take advantage, taking the shape of people, they eat people, invents shoggoths, mad scientist Frankenstein, crackerjack, The Flower-Show At Kwaliz by Herbert Tremaine, good enough for H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle, beautifully illustrated, dreamlands style story, tripped up on a flower contest, middle eastern past alternate dimension, a hundred pound prize in 1920, good stuff to be found, why have we been handed this certain canon, incompetent or non-existent estates, August Derleth is a good guy because…, there are a few situations, the power of the writing mostly sells itself, R. Murray Gilchrist guy, a huge reputation at the time, Robert W. Chambers, popular novels of romance, The King In Yellow and a few other things, this is really extraordinary, this I Am Stone book, copyright is a lot clearer (at least for Jesse), 80 new stuff, two dozen good people, Mickey Spillane, some good writers we’ve kind of forgotten, some way to narrow it, by following the stories that other authors tell us to read, anything Bobby Derie mentions, he doesn’t review, just found a never republished story that’s partially unreadable, a really bad scan from Fantasy Fiction Telegram, The Green Book by Duane W. Rimel, doing it for the love, Mike Vendetti has already done it, this is very Dunsany-like, H.G. Wells said it was good, kinda trust Arthur Conan Doyle, my spiritual afterlife, the original flower fairies that he was writing about, trolled, powned, may have oversold that idea, into spiritualist, seances and stuff, interesting to find out if it is true or not, 12 – 13 years, 10 years, ghosts don’t really make any sense, liches totally real, works either way, people start looking like other people, she thinks he looks like his dad, gotten older, scruffy mustache, sometimes people look like their parents, Mimic, Mothman, spoiled, audiobooked a few times, late last year, a new Westlake novel just dropped on LibriVox, go to a source in the states, amazing good stuff still to do, nobody knows who he is yet, these need to be accessible to people, start to take notice, making a difference, give them a little something that they know, two novels and one short story, Fondly Fahrenheit, superpsychotropic, you must own nothing but yourself,

“He doesn’t know which of us we are these days, but they know one truth. You must own nothing but yourself. You must make your own life, live your own life and die your own death … or else you will die another’s.”

all speaking to all, the premise here is, killed or kidnapped, either a human who owns an android or the android, brain problem, conflating himself with the robot, the only thing he owns is a slave, it’s awesome, subsequently cleared, spurious claim, ignorance or dishonesty, no estate, left his apartment to his bartender, gonna be so fun, who knows?, the name may be enough, queer life, we’re done, Tasmanian adventures, got me a thylacine?, nasty little buggers.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #801 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

The SFFaudio Podcast #801 – Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey, read by Martin Geeson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (5 hours, 12 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
autobiographical book, exactly why Jesse first put the video together, Gay and somebody else, Larence Chaves and Zenna Gay, most popular youtube video, a little more time cleaning it up, putting it together, enchanted by Martin Geeson’s narration, a link to the post in 2012, mentioned in The Crawling Chaos by H.P. Lovecraft, Martin Geeson, the narrator, thou hast the keys of paradise, temporal digression, immense sophistication, a great appeal, nervous?, post-modern, self-awareness, to fix his own identity, aa large part of the whole, lucrative piece of sensational, the London Magazine, majestic neo-classical style, self-reflexive but always reaching out to the reader, a good summary?, a style of the post-enlightenment style, Ada Palmer’s tetrology, Terra Ignota, the theme is romantic, the underlying philosophical basis is the German idealism that served as the basis, Shelling, Ficte, reading German romantics or philosophers, a mixed type of style, a transistion, the enlightenment, reason, romantic exploration of the unconscious, dreams visions, a rational study, its a drug book, brain juice, opium derived products, seen Trainspotting (1996), alcohol is a good counterexample, harmful, a poison, some people buy it so they can kill themselves, the pharmacon, the circumstances and the dosage, quite deliberately, explore the power of the imagination, taking it over, poisoning, he’s had some pain, lived to 76, not dying from it, the movement in English around AIDS, the beginning of the 80s, first person knowledge of diseases, medical treatments, doing your own research, having a cooperative dialogue, reading, all the academic experts, trash, he knows far more about it than they do, doctors recommend drugs, sometimes paid to push them, the authority to prescribe them, inhibitors, I’ve heard you should build a house, keeping your clothes from getting wet, authority on a hill, wisdom in the people who are supposedly untutored, doesn’t have massive contempt for everybody who is not reading ancient Greek, turbaned guy, traveling through Wales with no English and no Welsh, a massive dose of opium, would have killed any set of dragoons and their horses, an abiding wisdom, Cora was feeling ill, Jonathan not liking the narration, not abridged and the narrator is awesome, an expanded version from 1856, a large scale revision of the confessions, personal background, a much weaker beginning, digressions and inconsistencies, a citation, spoiled his masterpiece, vigor and tension, tired prosiness, random critics, raw power that makes a book exciting, H.P. Lovecraft, wrongly biased, the drug experiences, a quarter and a third of the text, I want to get to the drugs, the accumulation, meditations, classical literature, philosophy, conversations with poets, the wider experience was just as much the opium, what is the real opium for him, the brain, tea, loves his tea, tea houses, consternation about the taking of tea, coffee houses were politically dangerous, need to be primed to access a sublime experience, for some people they claim it intoxicates people, it elevates him, nodding on a pile of laundry, walking the streets and talking to people, a mind expansion not an intoxication, this is not the abridged version this is the original version, a charge responded to by de Quincey, I’m not a fictional person this is a true story, changed some names, collapsed some stuff, this is a memoir, there’s a lot of truth, not a lot of pooping scenes, how many times I was unable to poop, a big problem for people who take opium, this book is not abridged [Jonanthan did not say the audiobook was abridged, rather he suggested it was the expanded revised version], there are people who dislike Martin Geeson’s narration, 100% perfect, the voice the accent the tone, became Thomas De Quincey, brilliant solution to a serious problem in audiobooks, leaving names out, first initial then blank, enhances this idea this is a true story, Lord blank, the Dean of blank, did something, as if it was written to aural, translate text into a beautiful audiobook, Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, @kins, what you do with children, this is the way we do it, Jesse is a purist, a serious problem, the writer elided the name, the writer wrote p and a bunch of underscores, confronted with this issue, the reader is going to get a false impression of what the text says, he’s hiding the names, that’s awesome, like someone who’s talking, something in Surrey, if other people were here, if Paul was here, spending time with a little girl a lot, one who takes care of his food, snuggling with a little girl in an empty apartment, this is creepy right?, with Anna, sensual desire or comportment, he loved her but not in that way, she was a prostitute, was he a punk?, never hints at it, in the cottage with just one girl, he doesn’t hint, she’s a servant, I didn’t have any carnal desires, more modern, today modern, chaperone, he’s a bohemian guy, an aristocrat in their eyes, the sons of cardinals, he attacks his fellow gentlemen, sons of high priests in the Anglican church, the slightest slight, Jane Austen, become an Anglican minister, hustling, dwindling prospects, whether they like it or not, state sanctioned, like being a justice of the peace, high in a governmental bureaucracy, a weird parallel, an angry hobby horse, mostly about being a homless guy with a weird brain grokking a lot of poor people, early that 1821, late 1790s?, pre-Victorian prostitutes, a respectable publication, the magazine people go to to see what’s going on, confessions, novel and strange, more people than you can possibly imagine, because they’re poor and alcohol costs too much, a political economy, to stupify themselves, laudanum a mix of alcohol and opium, opium grains, a big last fling, mind expansion without the addiction, Winfred V. Jackson and H.P. Lovecraft, Les Paradis Artificiels by Charles Baudelaire, obscure realms, intimate the nature, drawn back into Asia, vast age of race and name, strange memories, there’s two called The Crawling Chaos, a dream that Winifred Jackson had (and Lovecraft improved), analyze the imagery, of the body, a fantastic thing, caffeine, enhance what’s already going on in your brain, practicing meditation, the mood organ from the opening of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, The Electric Ant, see reality differently, I’ve got access to stuff, there’s some pains, I’m an addict, sometimes making my life worse, orphans, living on blackberries and rosehips, addicted to cheap drugs, not feeling the pain, literally being cold, superfun and interesting, The Philosophy Of Furniture, he describes the perfect room, the curtains, the table, what you should have at hand, 17×27 with a 7 foot ceiling, of course there’s a fire, an ever refreshing teapot, a woman who can pour it for you, look at her arms, a genre of youtube video, the cable TV channels, empty cable channel, the fireplace channel, a crackling fire, a costume of rings and a sweater, pokes the fire unneededly, being in a fire in a cozy room, AI of a cozy cafe, want it but can’t have it, rain pattering on windows, I get there through drugs, youtube is a drug, stream into your brain a series of things that you want, a really good book, many many insights, true insights about drugs, and the drug trips themselves, waking dreams, eyes and ears and mouth and relations, a quote, being a sequel to Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, the introductory notice, the object of that work was to reveal something of human dreams, supposed to lurk, dream of oxen, yokes so vast a majority, without much elevation of thought, the reproductive faculty of dreaming, being a philosopher, I was always a philosopher, a Kantian idea, space and time, other categories of experience, if you’re forced, hardened and reduced brain, reductive experience, speak Greek as a kind, met the poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge, a romantic, this appended thing, the third part out, maybe I’m still addicted, of course the aim of the book was to warn people, it’s the silver key, the master key, a brilliant connection between Poe and Lovecraft and Dunsany, a teetotaler, but he is a great and profound dreamer, find a place to start, Will’s dream, Sylvester Stallone wanting to deputize a little girl in a quest for revenge, a big sheet of butcher paper, late dog, a 20 pound cockatoo, cockatzu, flannel pajama pants, chameloen like ability, stripped her, skinny white communists, markedly skinnier and more erudite, a man with a mustache, William Peter, self-conscious about this mistake, a double decker van food truck, remained obscure, a strong interest in underground music, what I’m hearing is it is time to start growing a mustache, cockatzu (Cocker Spaniel Shih Tzu Mix), designer dog, are dogs brain juice?, they interact with brain juice, wiggle waggle, if dogs had hands they would be touching you in places that would be impolite in public, as probably people do, northern europeans not so handsy, Mediterraneans are more handsy, without their consent, the lick us, Roog by Philip K. Dick, humans have more mouths than dogs, the mouth is something else, correction with your mouth, that’s the sort of thing, that little girl who is being neglected by the owner of that house?, a servant, not fed well, an expose, promoting something that is dangerous, we don’t even think you’re real, the child who has no home, heart of gold, a good value of this book, a rich guy suddenly poor, aka Lovecraft, aka Poe, magically poor and rich, better than all of you secretly, want a connection, not being particularly pretty or intelligent, sharing warmth, standard for marriage in 1790, an insight into it, seems creepy, seems heartfelt and touching, inappropriate, where is anybody trying taking care of this kid?, child labour as well, the political economy aspect again, class, before Marx, Karl Marx, David Ricardo, lacing the book, a social commentary, an aristocratic experience, the first book in the literature of addiction, on the wild side, on the night side, Aldous Huxley, The Doors Of Perception and Heaven And Hell, mescaline, refined experience, refined gentleman, abject, petty or major theft to feed his habit, striding two worlds, his family life, majestic visions that become horrible, a Lovecraftian feel to the visions, his children, he cries, the transition is too great for him, he has to ween himself from opium, the turning point, the good effects without the side effects, your brain squeezes you out some brain juice, squeeze more, brain drugs from the outside, the conscious part says I disagree, serotonin is generated in the gut, a weight loss drug that paralyzes your guts, causing suicides, a take it for the rest of your life drug not a one time, Adam Smith, somebody from that early period, grokked Ricardo, Thomas De Quincey as a philosopher, I’d like to be buried in a nice country churchyard, use my body for science, he’s making fun, the aim of my book, in the appendix, the reason people hate drug books and drug writers, talking about real effects, parents, churches, but why?, support, control, looking out for them?, connect them with other people, They Live (1988), [Eight O’Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson] something in the water?, a Philip K. Dick story as well, one of six different aliens, drug talk, Travels by Michael Crichton, auras, borderlands of perception, correspond to each other, see Hillary Clinton on the stage and say “contemptible monster”, or “my hero”, a delightful conversationalist, very real, real real good writing, what it was like to be him, defender of the empire, not against slavery, not homeless walking the streets, have his tea everyday, distanced from it, a great rockstar and kind of an asshole, Mel Gibson, you can be both, people were correct about it, some of the comments from youtube, 42k views, from 11 years ago, the best narrator I have ever heard, positively fantastic, agree wholeheartedly, bitching about, complex sentences to have savoured, recovered from heroin, most underrated piece of literature ever created, more intelligent than people give it credit for, influence in France, must have influenced [Arthur] Rimbaud, systematic derangement of all the senses, surrealists, if it really was a philosophical book, a street philosopher, show us the power of dreams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the poet comes closer to truth than the intoxicated one, Henry Miller, drunk on pure water, the aim is to get similar access to the power of dream and imagination without the drug that brings bad side effects and slavery, sometimes that’s the goal, an ad for inner voyages given to you by opium, hashish, coffee, water, just dreaming, meditate, altered state, control and access, when you are awake, lead to exploring the drug avenue, not the ultimate conclusion, underplay the other thing, he’s in a lot of pain, waiting there like an angel, he doesn’t curse the day, he blesses the day, his pain is physical and mental, triggers his first contact, the death of Wordsworth’s 4 year old daughter, psychosomatic illnesses and medicines, opiates today, treatment of pain, the drug literature, when you are pain it is hard to relax to listen to creative thoughts that are constantly generating, focused on the road, feet on the pedals, what you said, when you are asleep, that part is turned off, what you can feel is the generation of information, suddenly wake up, that stuff is going on all the time under the surface, taking away the pains that cause an inability, get into writing a story, where does it come from, the fingers allow access, creative control, the majority of people talking about how to write, listen to your brain, this is a formula, completely wrong, drug yourself up on opium, the chair under your butt, get that typewriter out, the inner psychedelic experience, Jesse’s advice, the best narrator ever, after the second hour, something completely wrong on the intonation, understanding what he’s reading, my mum came into the room, what’s wrong with this guy, a tinsey winsey concerned about spitting out his denture, snobbish seeming British accent, his mouth is constipated from the opium, the autobiographical main character, the ideal time, precious, high diction, dwelling on the words, savouring the vocabulary, not a note off, great from the beginning, they have to get used to it, having had this conversation via DMs with Jonathan, he couldn’t tell the narrator was an ai, they stop at the wrong places, a good narrator performs the text, when to dwell and savour, an amazing skill, Scott Miller (Lost Sci-Fi Podcast) can perform it beautifully, this guy’s kinda cool, a straight narrator, just doing a straight reading, where he dwells on words it is confessional, closer to the mic, not broad, it is precise and controlled, emotional, but not insane, another narrator, people wanted to read this book, a striking strange cleavage, a very fascinating thing, perception, that’s the connection, what’s different?, the perception, stuffed shirt aspect, that’s De Quincey, Sylvester Stallone could do it betta, harmony with the narrative voice, one objection, the digressions, I’m in a hurry to get to the drugs, a bildungsroman on the education of a philosopher, a line from Milton, anti-drugs, LDS, Mormons, coffee, against opium too, corner store Starbucks, don’t listen to the demons within you, we gotta control what those people smoke, this guy is wild, not coming from the scripture it is coming from within, perceiving reality differently, approaching some drugs in the wrong way, don’t have a bad trip, the brain is the ultimate well regulated drug factory, a way to get to it, ampther really great way, read some Lovecraft, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Homer, the land of the Lotus Eaters, the drugs are dangerous section, drugs in The Odyssey, wonderful stuff, 200 years later, the last paragraph, ends abruptly, one memorial of my former condition, not yet perfectly calm, the legions are drawing off, tumultuous, the gates of paradise, dreadful faces thronged and firey arms, expelled from paradise, the angels guarding the entrance, the implication, an artificial paradise, as opposed to the one in the sky?, an earthly paradise, conversation with the students, I’m Christian, in my father’s house there are many mansions, what is a metaphor?, or there’s room for you?, when Jesus responds this way, he’d never thought about it before, the person in the pew, take in the information, take the received idea and take it into them, engaging with the idea is why it is a metaphor, why it is a good book, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, the person reading it to you, now what do you think about that, they don’t have the podcast afterwards, by the way you’re very sinful, weird religious cult in Russia, cut off penises and boobs, the fruit of sin, a solution, you should have read the book a little better, literal minded, the juice factory in their brain, we gotta engage with this stuff, not going to talk about it, make note of the pains of opium, even before the appendix, he’s not warning people, potheads, smoke for 40 years, head clouded all the time, not an immoral or moral choice, shouldn’t be illegal, dealt with in the same way that gin was, useful at getting at something, offer access to materials otherwise inaccessible, an old book about an old time, what the streets of London were like, what rural Wales was like, not a complete survey, not a lot of aliens beaming in, a note on the influence, The Man With The Twisted Lip by Arthur Conan Doyle, turns that into a character, of the famous Sherlock Holmes story, a non-homeless man pretends to be homeless, murders himself, a professional beggar, a little bit like Kim by Rudyard Kipling or Citizen Of The Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein, interpretation, what makes a beggar a beggar, a smart dumb guy, knighthood for propaganda, reading old literature makes you smart and dumb, ends on Milton, all this stuff in the poets I read are my experiences, why they are so powerful, the very Platonic thing, kicked out of Paradise, permeated by classical culture, all of literature is mine, he is a philosopher, Kant, an experimental philosopher, stops at the ancient asian civilization, in The Call Of Cthulhu, vastly further back, a grandiose claim, and he did, no progress in literature, whatever progress is, what Newton said about himself, If I have seen further, I stand on the shoulders of giants and I went further, dying of stomach cancer, probably finally became the transcendent guy by opium, August Derleth took a dream written down and called it a story, stories have to have shape, every part needs to fit, oftentimes they don’t transitions too strangely, layers and layers of dreams does not make a good fiction story, how strange, a ten hour video of a [near] still image, don’t have your drug experience interrupted by ads, C.M. Kornbluth, Gravy Planet aka The Space Merchants, cocoa and stimulants, time travel, quaint, looking back at ht oppressive heavy advertising seems quaint, well presented in Blade Runner, Atari, TDK, Japanese lady putting a pill in her mouth, advertising horror, a senator from Coca-Cola, ads are the worst thing ever because they interrupt, injecting you with a drug, defend against ads with adblockers, what is worrisome about Netflix and Amazon, now that we are captive audiences, latest solution, on the tail end of this podcast, Tiny [Windows] 11, a very stripped down version of Windows 11, install a website as an app Brave browser, watching Tubi or YouTube ad free, a bulletproof shirt, armour to prevent you from being injected with random drugs from corporations, the corporate government, fuck you I’m not taking your injections, when the X-Files came back, super-intrusive product placement, almost hit a homeless person, the car logo, nothing to do with the story, that’s really intrusive, corporate broadcast television, now skippable product placement, skipping interaction requests, skips the intros and outros and product placement, a blip on the screen, the resistance to the horror of injected ads into you, this is that at, Smart Tube Beta, works on android TV and Firestick, through github, a google OS for your TV, hook up a computer to a TV, go back to torrenting everything, most people will take the drugs, only drugs that expand my perception, a bit of a leap, a product placement for a product of Terence’s thought, indirectly the source of Marx’s sentence: religion is the opium of the people, Zizek: opium is the religion of the people, mind expanding stuff of (culture dreams) religion, Foundation, an opium equivalent, dumbed down, Paradise Lost to imaginal realms, where can I download that, wrote essays about advertizing in highschool, Youtube banned the Brave browser ad, advertizing for bitcoin, mine vs. buy bitcoin, advertizing is incredibly powerful, a megaphone yelling at you, it’s just a minute, you’re the one who is drugged, my friend, turn off the adblockers, got through, three more times and we’ll cut access, people put up with this, maybe 1%, ublock origin, update itself all the time, saw the real world of the majority of users, a horror show, they’re used to it, they think it is normal, wait til that skip button goes, our job as human beings is advertizing, the water is fresh, the blackerries there, what humans do, copy information from their brain to their mouths, hijacked by corporations, really important, most people don’t see it that way, people who don’t not obsessed with not being injected with this shit, being dosed on opiates all the time, The Seventh, ok.ru, stars Jim Brown, in a renaissance for easily accessible film, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Sutherland, we did it, we did a good book, wanted to do more, record Suspiria, too much time involved, audio translations of a Zizek book, exists in Italian, wanted to do more, the addictive aspect, more influence?, all these poets read both books and thought of them together, the horror genre, might mean he’s died, sections for collaborative works, Oscar Wilde, His Life And Confessions, complete solos, a biography, see what his taste is, narrators not being commercial, they get to choose what they want to do, they bring their interest to it, philosophical and artistic not commercial, none of them say: be an artist, probably not going to write a good book, otium, leisure, refined sense, just hanging around, aristocratic notion, you don’t work according to orders, a latin word, otiose, lazy, useless, digressions, self-realization, creation aspect of leisure, why LibriVox is great, share and be appreciative, argue Jonathan into Bel Ami by Guy De Maupassant, homeopathy, Milton, Brontes, Sophoclese, an LGB, before they invented the ts and the pluses, Alexander Pope, Ivan Turgenev, D.H. Lawrence, The Confessions by Rousseau, 17 hours of the six volumes, The Soul Of Man by Oscar Wilde, a cool dude, writes nice introductions, rhapsodic, joyful anarchic hedonism, a map of the world, Humanity, Wilde wittly assails, life denying ascetics, venal popular journalists, that sounds like a good book, a mere two hours, booking it, what is a black pill and how do I take it?, means nihilist, white pilled, everything is good?, pink pills, yellow pills, why they like their pills so much, donkey pilled, donkey excited about a new ball, sees their old owners, save it for the podcast pilled, still recording?, a gossipy question.

Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #797 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The World That Couldn’t Be by Clifford D. Simak AND The Worlds of If by Stanley G. Weinbaum

The SFFaudio Podcast #797 – The World That Couldn’t Be by Clifford D. Simak, read by Gregg Margarite AND The Worlds of If read by by Stanley G. Weinbaum – read by Mike Mike Manolakes (both recorded for LibriVox). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (2 hours 8 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Jonathan Weichsel, and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
the podcast boosted intelligent version of Terence, The World That Couln’t Be and The Worlds Of If, paired these up, two short stories, they both have world or worlds, subjunctivity, subjuntivier, by raise of hands, Professor Van Manderpootz, Pygmalion’s Spectacles is very similar, The Ideal, student Dixon Wells shows up, uses the machine, falls in love with a girl in the machine, profesor dismantles the machine, commercially for a few years, off hand line towards the begining, check it, falsifiable, The Point Of View, February 1936, Worlds Of If is the first one, don’t need to be read in order, realized while listening, Philip K. Dick has a tribute to Professor Von Manderpootz’s stories, two short stories starring a professor who invents machines, narrated by a former student, Doc Brown and Marty McFly, 1st 2nd and 3rd Back To The Futures, crazy scientist and student or younger, Professor Dumkopf, Pootz is like Putz, mander like meander, greatest scientist who ever lived, beat the asians in 3 months, A Martian Odyssey, had read before, disniguishing each of the stories apart, they’re all the same, guy narrates his experience falling in love with a woman inside of a machin Girl In The Golden Atom, preceded by girl in the drop of water, Fitz James O’Brien’s The Diamond Lens, weird fiction, science fiction, The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford, a dutch oven, a way of cooking or baking on top of a stove, shoes inside, they come to life, run around the yard like little rabbits and breed, combining these two stories together, dance themselves to death, Philip K. Dick’s brain is awesome, must have read in reprints, first visit to Von Manderpootz!, a story with him in it, a familiar character, Dixon, the Wells from H.G. Wells, just fits, the Soviet Union wanting to dig a tunnel through the Urals, various desserts, nothing about them being communists and evil, the future of 2015 or so, very 1935 optimistic science fiction, lobster salad, full future luxury communism soviet rocket, precedes the jetset class, post WWII, transoceanic flights, clippers, refuel in Hawaii, make your way to Shanghai, much more like getting on the Concorde, casual and fun, running late, misses his airplane, hold the plane for him, the Beirut office, very nice future, not the focus of the story, the picture we get of it is nice, a critique of the story: overwhelmingly bourgeois, inherited money, still financial crises in capitalism in this future, chorus girls and caddies, this high end education, a terrible student, highly incompetent and competent, no real consequences, bourgeois fiction, tends to dramatize minor inconveniences, cozy, the butterfly affect, there’s a whole magazine named after this story, what we deal with in science fiction is the worlds of if, IF, Worlds Of Science Fiction, a skinsuit mag for it debuting next month, Stanley G. Weinbaum stories, If Reader Of Science Fiction edited by Frederik Pohl, A.E. VanVogt, 1952-1971, the Galaxy guy, Hugo Gernsback delve, Gernsbacked pilled, read Weinbaum everyday, fluffy and light, an H.G. Wells story without the H.G. Wells heaviness, a very interesting cynical message, no matter which choice he takes is the wrong one, that’s what happens, a better deal, this is the best of all possible worlds, not getting the desired object, the best thing that could have happened, conflating the two women together, not good to have as a wife, silly airplane, fixated on him, a horrible wife as well, he got the better deal, like The Time Machine, you get enlightenment, you get affirmation, not satisfied, being not satisfied is satisfying, when their on the rocket ship together, expected to be a friendship of the ship, vacation girlfriend, together with another couple, promised to write, not proximate to you, friendship that seem really great, talking about the podcast right now, accidentally make a baby, desire is subjunctive rather than indicative, he was lucky he lost his money, a good wife who only loved him for his money, stayed in the subjunctive type of desire, a refutation of the power, of all the sad words the worst: it might have been, called out in the story, Maude Manner It might have been, [Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier], it wouldn’t have worked out,

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

a bit of hope, pie in the sky, we get sequels, two sequels, I want more, it didn’t need to have the same characters, easier, more commercial, people like series, here’s another with the same characters, more marketable, A Martian Odyssey, Valley Of Dreams, unneeded, Professor Challenger, Tom Sawyer, Detective, good story, expected to be more blown away by Weinbaum, our Simak story, much meatier, more interesting, three times longer, it’s great, an attack on Jesse, Clifford Simak didn’t have conflict, appears to have more conflict, how much Simak have we all read, a bit, Shakespeare’s Planet, Way Station, Goblin Reservation, Over The River And Through The Woods, really nice, of the countryside, Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson, a war against army ants, classifies as science fiction, German, foreigners going to Brazil, rubber plantation owners, Confederates went to Brazil, Confederados, the last country to get rid of slavery, NATO brought it back to Lybia, more alien than red indians, set in space Africa, hominy, exposed to it as a child, parched corn, dried popcorn?, food going on, sytha, slow drip of information, very cool story, thank you, asexual, James Tiptree Jr story, Your Haploid Heart, we’re doing this for you, sorry, gotta fuck you, taboo for them, they don’t want to tell, they don’t know how they reproduce, our main helper dude, Sapar, it says something, I grew up with that thing, all those other creatures are taboo, a list of creatures that are taboo, make a claim as to what is actually happening on The World That Couldn’t Be, like on our planet, adaptation evolution, an alternative form of evolution, this hunt, to help the Sytha learn and evolve, instinctual knowing but not consciously aware, who is it faithful to?, it is faithful to Duncan, the mother function, the same brood, several sequences of broods, a bigger Sytha, a planetary Sytha, Shotwell, is it eternal?, is it immortal?, a young one, right to the ending, oh wow cool, chapter 6, they halted on a knoll, vua, wearing thin, it is an awful effort to keep on being smart, it was nice knowing you, back to animal again, very simple said the sytha, just begin hunting me, get smart, I guess that will work, admirable, next time I have a brood, old uncaring comfort coming back again, seethed with happiness, won’t he be happy and surprised, will he be ever pleased, slipping back into unintelligent, you can almost miss it, a psychoactive drug for humans, it’s not good to be intelligence, pathologically trying to kill this creature, he goes nuts, reading from a collection of Galaxy stories, originally published in Galaxy, an H.L. Gold ending, making a lot of claims about editors, reviewing a bunch of random pulp stories, joint, especially when there’s two editors, a question about Planet Stories, Jerome Bixby, very interesting, it has to be Simak, otherwise Jesse’s theory wouldn’t be true, a lot more pulpy, the length, the character development comes out through the action, discover by talking, curious about the origin of the story, suggested by somebody else?, wonder, not early, in the middle, ended in the 80s, squarely in the middle, our main character is an asshole, for a Simak character, Philip K. Dick’s Beyond Lies The Wub, the natives, the way the captain treats the natives, our planter, our food grower, he is an asshole at the beginning, a typical Simak character at the end, projecting, conflict is fixable by cogitating together, not ethnic cleansing and not genocide, anti-colonial, in the same way as Wells always does, this is really good science fiction, by knowledge, finding out what the world is actually like, at the end, he’s found a way to coexist with this alien planet, he’s gonna get a surprise, little girls and boys, they’re all gonna be like him, they’re gonna be smarter, I found this very stimulating, actually smarter, added to the genepool, no species on the planet is sexed, adding sex to the planet as well, he’s gonna have a brood of Duncans show up, the sample has been taken, Donovan, a sampling, the Donovan kept walking, now we are even said the Sytha, the more assholish human on the planet, things that hunt, what’s cool about this story, this is a planet without conflict, two things: 1. the hunt, 2. is the ability to stop, much more aggro, a big preshow discussion, a lot of people goin vegan, they have theory that backs up their behavior, people who identify as vegan and practice veganism, everything eats everything, weird exceptions, we tamed each other, they found jobs for us, we found dogs for them, sheepdogging and cowdogging, mostly their job is companion/housewarmer, tooth and claw, in the form of Eden, healing the sick, some of it is not for their natives, hominy, they’re changing the planet, they engage with the sytha, a non-edenic planet, that’s a positive, almost religious story, the edenic world was imperfect, what we needed was a war of all against all, growing to something better, it is that, right?, felix culpa, back to Will, H.L. Gold, appraising a story, Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle For Leibowitz, wasn’t a damn bit grateful for it, not your pussycat editor, plain damned brilliant, a character in The Space Merchants, high speed tempo, the books success, the nagging nagging nagging presence, if he hadn’t demanded it, a great book, serious problems, pacing issues, a very involved editor, the anti-John W. Campbell, positive but annoying influence, a much different experience, a better experience, better stories, personal essays, more or less the same thing, you worked very closely with him, a Greek monster, Scylla, Lewis Carroll, boojum, alien names, nonsense words, hang your associations on, the endpoint is more satisfying, empathy is learned, emotional intelligence, up to a higher emotional intelligency, ends in exogamy, The Lovers by Philoip Jose Farmer, inputs, asexual reproduction at the end, Edward Sapir, even if just through the news, an engagement with the American landscape, bucolic landscape, Simak stories not set on a planet?, A Choice Of Gods, Time Is The Simplest Thing, these are native indians, engaging in a different way, enslaving them?, still in initial contact, smarter even though it is dumber most of the time, incorporating the new mode into its system, 8 year olds show up, the male female dynamic is needed, little Duncans that are different than each other, toes on their feet, like different flavours of ice cream, if we know anything, having sexuality, maybe not by volume, avoids the disease problem, develop a new banana, science class, clone armies will die, cloned mammals, a different kind of cloning problem, sea-lizard that does parthenogenesis, theoretical too, twins and triplets, same exact genes, in plants all the time, a genetic bottleneck, brown lizards, especially common in plants, letting the forest plant itself, monoculture farming, pesticides, herbicides, fencing, overwhelmed suddenly, cavendish banana, other plants as well, one guy gets a fungal infection, this whole planet is theoretically an army clones, genetically human, a cognitive mapping of human, the sequel to the story, the sytha will discovered that it’s fucked up, surprised at the reaction, more aggro, eating the others, close the restaurants, a good transitional thing, The Word For World Is Forest, The Queen Of Air And Darkness by Poul Anderson, become friends, a fascist story, overcome their prejudices, the wrong side and the right side, anarchistic hippy nature lovers, our prophet would disagree with you, a Vietnam war allegory, more grist to ignore it, they can do more than one thing, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, it can do more than one thing, the bad reading, one of the things, environmentalism vs. rapacious capitalism, Avatar (2009), Call Me Joe, friendship with misunderstanding on both sides (colonialism), a positive ending, humorous, a big surprise, you need more humans just like you, could be very strange, a cat: my master would like a sparrow, will the empathy acquisition keep on going up, some descendant Duncan it, vegan, will he forget?, will he lose his emotional intelligence?, The Monsters by Robert Sheckley, this is a comedy of a morality that’s different, ecogenetics, little sexless natives, how can they have familial feeling without having a mom?, acts like a female, only one scytha on the planet?, multiple bodies, this one, all the oceans are connected, this embodiment of a scytha, a force of nature being, individual minds, not even eggs, budding?, the youngs are raised together, form their taboos in the same way that, poo poo go in toilet, don’t sleep with your sister, twist endings, very earned, if you’ve got a premise start with it, my god it’s a time machine, my god it’s Adam and Eve, overpopulation, good but necessary, underconsumption, The Midas Plague, The Stars My Destination, a final revelation, very Horace Gold, undercut ideas people have, this story is not that great, understood the world, a revelation, an evolution, we never see the face of the girl who’s so ugly, they were hiding something, the story wouldn’t exist, will his brood forget?, afraid of one of them, that one forgets, they’re gonna be like him, losing his place on this planet, he will be displaced, they’ll be farming, moving in a new direction, people don’t ask for rewrites, printed, asked for rewrites, Warrior Soul, set in the far future, set in the present, he was right, good criticism, a much better story, copy editing, put typos in the magazine, Cirsova, changed a little bit, sold 2 to him, Clarke of Clarkesworld, certain similarity to the stories, want their own voice, to get that voice, submission guidelines, traditional publishing, Barnes & Noble, the way tradpub works, agent vs. publisher, many cooks, reviewing a lot of audiobooks, somebody need to work on this book, why is this in here three times, Stephen King, pulp, lower tier, interesting voices in science fiction, in the old pulps, Philip K. Dick couldn’t work with John W. Campbell very well, Anthony Boucher, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Argosy, Blue Book, they wanted him to edit his story, rejected The Outlaw Of Torn, basically Robin Hood, wanted to make money quickly, a folk hero, The Cave Girl, King Richard, its just this particular royal is bad, being very frustrated, art and thou, medieval England, prince kidnapped as a baby, mislead by political radicals, The Lad And The Lion, democratic rebels that are really fascists, assassinate the king and rule the country, WWI basically, WWII references too, very clever, unable to rule because they’re incompetent, this pattern goes on continuously, more incompetent from the last one, more diluted blood, he has terrible politics, my Tarzana, nobody in the right mind would agree with it, a pet lion, crash in Africa, goes around Africa, happens everyday, the rewritten one, bidding wars, Heinlein, Starship Troopers, the juveniles too, Podkayne Of Mars, when a government decides to take away your guns, don’t kill her, Stranger In A Strange Land, late late Heinlein, The Pursuit Of The Pankera vs. The Number Of The Beast, Sam Moskowitz, book editor vs. magazine editor, a commentator, 1963 or prior, Weird Tales, Fantasy Times, Under The Moons Of Mars, the fluffiness, just another fluffy cute story, big long story by Simak, paying off so well, it’s built into the idea of the story, everything was leading up to that, why write the story at all, Simak over Weinbaum in this instance, Simak has more better stuff, in the course of a year, two handfuls of short stories, really good stuff, very solid, both fun, both good, pretty close to amazing, if this was a novel, a three character story, the anthropologist, one of them kills himself, he finished what he needed to do, he has a thorn in his foot, thorns come up a lot, just before chapter 5, I will be with you to the death of both of us, a very biblical thing, it stayed with me, it’s hard to figure out these jokers, seethings of emotions, what variety of belief, Simak trying to make an asshole out of the guy, missed the trail, fearing it had gone, loyal and faithful, the outlander and intruder?, is there a common meeting ground?, stroked it polished it petted it, just another chance, a steady bead, back to the farm and field, that misty other life, very interesting stuff, Good., a soggy blanket wrapped tightly around the body, another dirty trick, distraction from what’s about to happen, progress in empathy, relativity of beliefs and ethics, perhaps it has reasoned, sentient beings can do tricks, cognitively map the enemy, induce that mentality into error, a theory of mind type empathy, this dirty beast, a worthy adversary, here’s the end, your knife mister, if we take this as a falsehood, take it as a truth, looking straight at Duncan, the native cut it’s throat, from helping you to the end, psychic communication, spear, rock, smarter and smarter, doesn’t need to be alive anymore to evolve the scytha, the turning point for the story, committed to a purpose and a challenge, it was something more than that, weird entangling, this pronoun thing, big in the 2020s so far, as another man might stroke a woman’s throat, rubbing the gun, petting it, “mister” said a voice, bwana, respected outsider who we really don’t respect but have to, Duncan stiffened, it now can talk, the Sapir language, the story seems that way, never shouted out at all, for you to extrapolate, an elephant and tiger and a grizzly bear, how big is this thing?, you start imagining what he’s not saying, near great, our Weinbaum, the action scene are a little bit overdone, the action scenes are fun, went on a little too long, future stuff, another Simak on the schedule, Hellhounds Of The Cosmos, space opera, A Choice Of Gods, The Call From Beyond, Empire is a short novel, City, Kevin Green, City is a fixup, Foundation, Dune, when you’re doing short stories, you can’t talk about 10 Ted Chiang stories in one show, maverick science, threaten the corporation’s monopoly, sounds super-science, Fury by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, super-science is kinda dumb, carefully modestly super-sciencing, Roger Zelazny, Unicorn Variation, The Horses Of Lir, A Night In Lonesome October, Creatures Of Light And Darkness, Lord Of Light, This Immortal, post-nuclear war, a tour of the Greek islands and Egypt, a rebel who wanted to kick off the aliens, undercover, torn between, might be a sequel, Damnation Alley, post-apocalyptic suburbia, before the white man came, robots are priests, how they fit in, very Simak, something we never brought up, “Moby-Dick with a twist”, let’s get something good, got distracted, Project Mastodon, Mastodonia, Second Childhood, Cemetery World, Time Is The Simplest Thing, A Spell For Chameleon by Piers Anthony, a book for the blind, how it was produced, in the commercial space, a special loophole in copyright, a great thing, put into the ears of blind people, not in favour of following the law, Xanth, exiled to Florida, Charles Burnett Swann, marketed to kids, 344 pages, On A Pale Horse, he liked to do series, a huge amount of effort and inspiration into the first volume, 12 hours, a nice 8 hours Simak, named the land after himself, before we lose anybody, Return From The Stars, what exotic location, a Valentine’s play, playtime, nothing can live up to The Taming Of The Shrew (1976), I will rip it, Marc Singer plays Petruchio, amazing peak performance, staged for television, if that was on TV!, remember Bravo?, artsy shit, television is full of filler, Dark Carnivals, we miss you, bud, Jesse’s email is a horror show, a Connor show, 50 Jesse messages, message him less, doesn’t engage with twitter for months, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, go to drug guy, 5 hours 21 minutes, more possible, a lot of feedback on youtube, the greatest thing ever, almost all positive, he sounds insanely awesome, Martin Geeson, The Seventh by Richard Stark, The Gun by Philip K. Dick, The Mad Planet, its all gonna be on Will, its all gonna be on Jonathan, Alex pulpcovers, very understandable, a novella, it’s all on Alex, Jetta Of The Lowlands, assuming he hasn’t contracted shingles, The Pathological Liar, a case of deceiving the enemy, lie for the sheer pleasure of lying, a compromise, there’s no digits in my name, that’s a robot bud, The Liar, Penguin Classics, Dialogues, dramatic readings, acting level, thickest accent on the planet, it can be a nightmare, keep hoppin away, Plato, The Story Of A Cat, do this research off air, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, culture shock, sewing machines that open to a voyage in space, H.G. Wells, an implacably hostile alien species, Arena, The Case Of The Dancing Sandwiches, Lawrence Block’s The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Jesse Show, 700 episodes in, Just Jessing, more demographic audience, none of the trolls listen to this podcast, The Triumph Of Evil, Paul Kavanaugh, do no research come up with an idea novel, supposed to be a true story, doing pushups and drinking alcohol, montagnards, heist a shipment of nuclear weapons, Vietnam War is happening, we need more Paul Kavanaugh, a guy confesses to a crime, pure writing talent, a historical crime, Not Comin’ Home To You, a Lawrence Block devotee, goes down so smooth, much younger dad, live to 103, not a sequel, would be wise to do so, writers abilities, Maissa won’t love it as much because she’s a girl, Travels by Michael Crichton, given the power he does nothing with it, he would prefer not to, Bartleby The President, power hungry dictator, Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, beloved, could be spicy, love the spice, there’s a podcast that exists because this show is too spicy, Julie Davis and Scott Danielson’s A Good Story Is Hard To Find, this is not a Christian podcast, this is pre-antivaxx, personality and flag, pirate flag should not be hoisted there, flags in bio, the Yemen flag, qualified, the new one is the red triangle, a theory about Yemen, the Rawandan genocide, houthis, who from the empires outside?, a big deal in Canada, how traumatized he was, Romeo Dallaire, a big deal in Canada, bureaucracy, macheted to death, sad spicy stuff, the Julie and Scott show, not supposed to be one of his best books, who chose that one?, not responsible, Wikipedia, Lem himself judged the novel as unsuccessful, treated in a simplistic way, who is responsible?!, we validated, convinced, Stan Lem, I’m not a Lem stan, become slan, the meme: fans are slans, more advanced than other people, form a world government, focusing on utopia, the least pessimistic, a hope punk book?, a 1989 Soviet play, yes because of the name, Strugatsky, asian racist, russian racist, they’re all the same, who is he to judge his own books?, Philip K. Dick, how trustworthy his own claims are, Solaris, the Andrei Tarkovsky movie, The Futurological Congress, to catch the drug experience, The First And Last Men movie, a short French film, hit by various psychoactive drugs, The Congress, what Cora says about it, boundless interest, needs his own podcast, when is that podcast coming out?, much easier to show up on Jesse’s, eventually, a lot of work, Eric doesn’t listen to podcasts, you can tell kind of, he likes doing podcasts, you can kinda tell, well hidden?, good at talking, he was a professor, University Of Michigan, Dean of Stony Brook?, lot of people don’t, cuts into audiobook time, you’re missing out on a whole genre, audio drama series, Toby Stephens, the Philip Marlowe series, what are you listening to, I have that in my car, used to be the BBC’s James Bond, British guys doing American characters, Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, two good stories, one really great, a silly question, the first season of Reacher, reviewed the first book, I don’t love this, he’s not human, he’s Conan, that almost makes sense, The Terminator, he smiled, he relaxed with his army buddies, Conan is not a patriot, he gets a pension mailed to him every month, a fantasy, the first book was fine, done with Reacher, a one concept thing, like a theorem, a deduction, a flashback character, don’t care, to be fair Jesse was sick, still a little bit of phlegm in there, F. Paul Wilson, Repairman Jack, still alive and on twitter, scary stories, Dean Koontz, Soft by F. Paul Wilson, makes you go soft, a blob of jelly on the floor, cats become your biggest problem, starts from the bottom up, New York City, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, keep his daughter’s spirits up, before the rats get you, the softness continues, a hard story called Soft, The Keep (1983), Michael Mann, WWII Nazis, a retelling of Dracula, set during WWII, 80s music aesthetic, not winning any Hugos, Tangerine Dream, did musical soundtracks for movies, the 1977 epic Sorcerer, William Friedkin, fuck that shit!, completely subsumed, The Wages Of Fear (1953), they go to Brazil to escape death, 4 guys to drive 2 trucks, land be despoiled, snuffs out the fire, second gulf war, the dynamite has gone bad, nitroglycerine, girls won’t like it, but if you’re a dude, Roy Scheider, existential rather than psychological, I’m a movie fan now, Star Wars is good and all, The Exorcist (1973), way to popular, The French Connection (1971), the fish people one, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) with fish people, names in profile, hyperBadiou, set theory mathematics, a scoop, explain it to an English speaking audience, this is really good, a video series, hyperthinking the absolute, occasionally talks about science fiction, Gilles Deleuze, François Laruelle, philosophy is generalized science fiction, if it’s not doing philosophy it is not science fiction, Bruno Latour, pioneering figures in science studies, the Salk Institute, an anthropological study, no preconceptions, what people did and what materials they used, Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon, when the Chinese land on the Moon, so loyal, Bernard Stiegler, grew old and died, Jacques Derrida, a seminar on Youtube once a month, conceptually powerful, used some of his concepts, individual and collective individuation, Marxist French theory type way, without needing to carry the Jungian baggage, Agent Swarm blog, Anathem by Neal Stephenson, his masterpiece, quantum physics, Logics Of Worlds: Being And Event II, Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke, Xenoswarm blog, analyze Dune, hence your recent interest on being on a podcast a lot, dialogue is better than monologue, a defense of the bad review, a lot of time liking tweets and blogs in French, a friendly retweet, absolute silence, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain In The Sea, has Terence been blackballed?, The Peripheral, my videos are horrible, totally improvised, lots of umming and ahhing, well prepared, he’s high on his own supply, meaty for youtube, he has opinions, some of them are good, the occasional insight, the presentation, David Brin, thinks he’s the smartest guy on the planet, multiple podcasts, a promotional exercise, they didn’t know enough about him, he aint dumb, here’s the thing about Ursula K. Le Guin, the Ng person, the acceptance of the award, Joseph Campbell, really young, conflating Amazing and Astounding, Hugo Gernsback is not John W. Campbell, Astounding SF, similar name, Analog, Ray Palmer, women were discriminated against, hidden women we don’t know about, were not as many female readers based on the letters, discriminated against, by readership or editors, repeat what wikipedia says, how you end up being the prophet, this lady from Germany who does the, Sabine Hossenfelder, a baby explanation of capitalism and why it’s not so bad, turning all the externalizes, dumb smart people, got a degree, physics there’s almost nothing to do, Michio Kaku, some things are so base and clear, no matter what 100 years ago you pick, email is no longer usable says Jesse, most people don’t use email, full of spam, an email manager, never a message that is relevant, occasionally there is an important one, you have not paid your bill, dip into that horror show, auto subscribed to, already in every system, worried about the wrong things, when he becomes famous or more famous, daughter of Afflecks and Garners, email is not a great way to harass people, spreading rumours via email: not a thing, yahoomail, you might need this, 1997, 26 years full of spam, Mike emails twice a week, Mike Nowak, Jesse’s an indian now, or always was, adopted into the band, tsleil waututh, can’t wait to tell Paul, Indian status, if you want to bore everybody: you people gotta get off of my land, Paul will not like this concept at all, a hierarchy of people who need representation, BIPOC, fairly recent, excludes, so important, wanting to exclude Asians now, no acronym yet, reserve certain positions, Kamala Harris becomes VP because of skin colour, a scary ideology that is not wise, a black robot president, open source AI, dictator Jonathan to unite everyone, Will: this one is for you, student in a minute, Black House, excited about that, read it twice, early incarnation, a student in Sydney, does he reference, inspired to come to France, the cinema, a quotation from Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, well expressed in various films, more interested in drug culture, other than coffee, noted Will’s dream, I don’t need drugs I am drugs, brain under sleep is on drugs, tapping into it while awake, defenses are down, we are multiple drugs, dreams and science fiction (same thing), a coherence, the same thing for free, Will was in it but he was a pug, deceased dog, I wonder if he smells like cigars, dming reading Planet Stories, never smoke on a pulp, don’t smoke the pulps, they don’t smell when they’re scanned, nobody listens except for Mike Nowak, heartbroken mother, parents friends, almost never, the one time they shouldn’t lock, that was me in the past, delete it, a student coming in 1 minute, double talking to you, 5 hours, Jesus!, 10pm, something more presentable.

The World That Couldn't Be by Clifford D. Simak

The Worlds Of If by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Posted by Jesse Willis