The SFFaudio Podcast #538 – The Curse Of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley, read by Barry Eads.
This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (6 hours 22 minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox. The Curse Of Capistrano was first serialized in 1919.
The next SFFaudio Podcast will feature our discussion of it!
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #536 – The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, read by James Christopher.
This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (1 hours 54 minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox. The Scarlet Plague was first published in 1912.
The next SFFaudio Podcast will feature our discussion of it!
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #535 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Julie Davis, and Terence Blake talk about The Pirates Of Ersatz by Murray Leinster
Talked about on today’s show:
The Pirates Of Zan, translation, there’s no planet named Ersatz, inferior substitute, pirate planet, a terrible pirate, a great pirate, a successful pirate, replacement pirates, Darth pirates, actors, so fun, The people of Walden are pirating themselves, Zan pirates, regular boring farming, he wanted adventure, cover with a slide rule in his teeth, he wanted to be an engineer, climbing into the boat, a stun pistol, Jesse read it 10 years ago, forgettable fun, comic novels, The Incomplete Enchanter by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp, Space Viking by H. Beam Piper, between the two poles, Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding, a road trip, a means of pointing out flaws in society, “audiobooks are books, Paul”, back when Jesse was angry about stuff on the internet, the same Kurt Vonnegut story: 2BOR02B, where the PDF Page came from, The Aliens by Murray Leinster read by Julie Davis, Forgotten Classics, you’re welcome for the audiobook, the Astounding book, a nominee for the Hugo, Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, Sirens Of Titan, definitely written for John W. Campbell, the competent man, a comedic novel, The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, Deathworld by Harry Harrison, there are better con-men novels, with less infodumping, his tricks, not cheating as much as we might guess, Jesse is not an electrical engineer, everything is wirelessly charged, this is all very plausible (in theory), everyone is getting cooked with microwaves, magnetic coils, how romantic, a Tesla thing, a wireless radio without a battery, the radio waves themselves are the power, Julie wants no more details, the central problem and its resolution, a “death ray”, being set-up, an unintended consequence, he wrapped it up nicely, virtually in suspense, the political/sociological heft, a little too pat, the ambassador and the grandfather are the Heinlein characters, the mental wisdom for Hodan, oh yeah, gotta bunch of wisdom to instill in this kid, Walden Pond, here’s what comes from too much peace, stasis, civilization, the most civilized planet, frontier mentality, tranquilizing society, taking Oxycontin in their main hobby, the Captain Kirk of their society, an agent of chaos, he facilitates, some more of the embassies, the kind of Earth empire (not even a confederation), a larger universe, central authority, feudal chaos, different polities, a space patrol, The High Crusade by Poul Anderson, green-skinned aliens, the Krishna novels, fauna and flora, legalistic arguments down to a fine art, culturally sophisticated, the lord of this and the king of that, the bride of our hero, “this is the woman for you, dude”, the angriest woman in the universe, Chekov’s gun, Netta, the glamour of being associated with a pirate, cowing the barbarians, she wants to make a nice girl out of me, speaking of gender, the Gendered Text Project, suddenly everything’s different, when Bree Hodan…, she was a delightful girl, the weirdest one, it changes the feel, a basic romance, non-binary, Bryn, hir room, zee went to bed, hir ambitions, zee’d be well to do, such prospects made for good sleeping, grandPARENT, what does this do to the original story, kind of like a Conan story, the fools all around them, a softer Conan story, a very weird concept (with that in mind), the male version of the book, Thor is female (or was), a female Wolverine, a novel of a capable man, a capable woman (a Mary Sue), unlikeable, fun and helpful, what happens to your perception, Derek was almost like a female character to begin with, backing into the piracy, originally funnier, who wants to go off an be a civil engineer?, messing around, a new company comes out, ebooks, the Adult version of Harry Potter, Harriet Potter, does that inform your writing, copyright laws, we need a new clause, Indian films, Ghajini (2008) is the Hindi version of Memento (2000), non-creative, zero-respect, the point of writing a book, nyah nyah nop eugh, Julian Assange being taken out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, shelter, citizenship, citizenship revoked, “crime”, the science fiction romp frothiness vs. realpolitik, could that fictional embassy possibly exist?, how striking, shimmying down a rope, heat guns, a very Cory Doctorow thing, flashmobs, an ad on Craigslist: white wig and blue shirt, 10,000 Julian Assanges, embassy intrigue, not that kind of science fiction (really serious about politics), an adventure story, razed in a day, England and embassies, not so much pirates, Pirates Of Darth, the Danegeld, some viking will take them up on it, semi-civilized, William the Bastard, invading a neighbouring island (England), the really fun part, the homeless people are his fleet, sense of empathy, he’d been cheated, so angry, with the insurance, the bonuses, it’s his character, a soft-hearted pirate, why’d you come to a poor place, the poor will give you everything, the underclass, high fleet admiral, against the elites, the Walden society is fucked up, Robert E. Howard’s theories about civilization and barbarism, built-up capital, addiction and getting servants in to pick your crops, a built-in establishment likes they way things work out for them, not everyone is equally powerful, cops vs. judges, a critique of 1959 USA, a lot of lines like this, a lot of frothiness, the background buildup in the philosophy of the world, in cahoots, in support of that system, from the fourth paragraph, good writing, quite pretty, the highest in the Nurmi cluster, a supply of tranquilizers, the tigers aren’t after us at this very moment, blackbears aren’t super-dangerous, a bear up stuck in a tree, wealthy humans getting excited about a bear, so few bear skeletons found in trees, would they notice with one hand clapping?, straight thinking is a delusion, real things aint simple, aint clear, make it as complicated as you can, isn’t that the way, we’ll just do this to do that, that bit of wisdom, how politicians get out of hot water, death ray vs. he literally fell out of a tree, tying everything back in, luring them into understanding how it works, using them as a means to his end, in dealing with other peoples problems you can solve your problems, a helluva lot better neighbour, its not your business, US public healthcare would force Canada to go left, Jagmeet Singh, the US government can’t administer Medicare very well, corruption, we have to up our game, Jesse is not wrong, Canada defines itself in opposition to the USA, Nice, France, from the outsiders outsiders point of view, how clear that question was, 42, Twitter as a medium of links and pictures, Gilles Deleuze, the grandfather’s idea, piracy is good for the economy, things only work because they break down, piracy is a good think, a timid introverted poor student from Australia who went to France, a powerful thinker, what old guys thought might make sense, that history of failure is fascinating, see where someone else made this mistake a long time ago, 1987, an English teacher in a technical high-school, terminal, a couple of hours of philosophy a week, six or seven hours a week, general culture, written in the 1950s, this depiction of piracy, stasis vs. disorder, a product of its time?, relative stability, would people go for it?, a precarious situation, does this novel work today, Frederik Pohl, P. Schuyler Miller, adventure yarning, of piece of lightweight for entertainment purposes only, sneaks up on you, something funny about the names, Hodan like Odin, Bran, brain vs. brawn, Darth is dearth, things with the names, order and chaos, no longer applicable, capitalism is based on producing as much disorder as possible, Crim is the ultimate capitalist, Walden is sublimation, full of crackpots, for spite, a subtle sort of hidden intellectual side to the story, spot on, John Clute, “a competent but unremarkable space opera”, a series of planetary romances, The Odyssey, picaresque, Penelope isn’t delightful so he goes back with Circe, coming to mind, stasis vs. richness, Jesus: feel sorry for the rich man, a cyclical need, Jesse wants to read more of these, other Leinsters, The Forgotten Planet, A Logic Named Joe, Journey To Barkut, William F. Jenkins, one of the earliest science fiction writers of the pulp era, making a living, Police Your Planet by Lester del Rey, Badge Of Infamy, The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer, humans are pretty funny, a smelly barbarian queen, he delicately disassembled, a very nice sweeping line, one could spend a lifetime, absolutely true, industriously reading pirated books, so important, torrent site, not available in his region, deathbed conversion, sin-eater, something real about the piracy thing, the title is already a parody (of The Pirates Of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan), making fun of the romantic idea of piracy, the pirate nation known as the United States, Fred Himebaugh’s pirate novel (with Blackbeard as president), USA maintains a shit list, yo ho ho and a bagful of books, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings by Tom Shippey, viking is a verb, you get a song out of it, heroic lifestyle, the Wild West, threats vs. warnings, we need an audiobook of this book, the last John W. Campbell story, angels, Alec Nevala-Lee, philosophy as a sort of science fiction, people are complex numbers existing on an imaginary axis, a last joke, Campbell’s definition of science fiction, non-philosophy, he’s gone beyond everyone, September 1971, On The Nature Of Angels, a pun, the really sad part, adhering the copyright law is hurting people, playing a little bit fast and loose, makes sense, a “sample”, pirates are nice folks, generally helpful, helping the insurance industry, Walden to the nth level, sad story for them, romance adventure and derring-do, The Runaway Skyscraper by Murray Leinster, stf = scientificition, Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, 40 years later, 1919 – 1959, LibriVox, on the lam, The Creatures Of The Abyss, good basic pulp-type story, Sidewise In Time, passenger pigeons are back, pulpy goodness, alternate histories, Star Trek, First Contact, here’s an idea, poor Tom Godwin couldn’t write his way out of a wet paper bag, thick accent that infests every sentence, getting more Leinster up.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #534 – The Pirates Of Ersatz by Murray Leinster, read by Elliott Miller.
This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (6 Hours 13 minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox.
We will discuss it next week.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #533 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, Maissa Bessada, Bryan Alexander and Evan Lampe talk about Alien by Alan Dean Foster
Talked about on today’s show:
the novel, the movie, Black Destroyer by A.E. van Vogt, Planet Of The Vampires, It: The Terror From Beyond Space, A.E. van Vogt’s Voyage Of the Space Beagle, a remake?, not the same story, a ripoff, Aliens (1986), a scene by scene recreation, every scene in Alien is also in Aliens, a climbing-in, a precious living thing, the countdown, “you now have four minutes”, written the same way, the same language, a betrayal, its not the robot, the company betrays them again (the same motivation), Dallas egg banks, the cocoon scene, there’s nothing in Aliens that isn’t in Alien, Prometheus (2012) rips off alien six ways to Sunday, Ridley Scott only has one story, exploding ships, a betrayal by the android, Easter Sunday, an Easter Egg hunt, we can’t escape the story, the reason it all works, the movie is astounding, Captain Marvel (2019), delete from human consciousness, the essential gothic character, William Gibson’s script for Alien 3, Audible’s audio drama of Alien 3, the comic script, the Wolverine podcast, David Fincher, some ideas, all the Christ imagery, a point it can’t support, a great egg hunt, the Gothic roots, a haunted house, the practical escape, all the horrible things that are happening are all true, a haunted ship, Ash is Mother’s loyal servant, Nostromo by Joseph Conrad, Sulaco, the tip-off, money, haunted house logic, low up the haunted house (in American gothic), family secrets and deviant sexuality, juicy Freudian goodness, white fluid, various forms of rape, Parker’s nest, pornography on the walls, pornography magazine, paralleled by what happened earlier in the film, and what happens next, how well thought through everything is, differences, that liquid spurting, a robot, a political flavour, the last great 1970s sci-fi movie, a labour movie, compensation, Karel Čapek, a seamen’s story, space truckers, truckers vs. seamen, merchant marine, a share system, getting that ship to shore, delivering oil, a banality to their presence in space, they’re not explorers, they’re not scientists, they’re workers, they’re not colonists, even more explicit, Dan O’Bannon’s script, the destruction sequence, tweeting out lines and screenshots, singing a little song, lucky star, the HORROR of the breathing, the HORROR of the body, contrasted with Star Wars and Star Trek, a working class and dirty future, the grunts, the Company, they’re murderers, they’re scum!, part of the power of the film, more an more unequal, more and more plutocratic, how many years passed, still trying to make a super-weapon, the textural feel of it, the computer interactions, shoulder patches, badges, coffee cups, beer cans, little details, that world-building, Aliens was filmed in the UK, Weyland-Yutani, British-Japanese, we’re living in that trans-national corporation future, registered out of the Solomon Islands, Antarctica, none of it comes as a surprise, they presumably know, surprises in a legitimate way, that breathing, the last 20 minutes, breathing and running and sweating, you become her, there’s no datadump or infodump, ratcheting up the tensions, characters, setting, meeting their demise, a shriek and its gone, Lambert, harsh and different, one key theme is body-horror, squirm-inducing, Roger Corman, Inseminoid (1981), H.R. Giger, how horrible the aliens can be, a worm under human skin, embracing what you fear, cuddle with it, Stephen King writes so much horror because he’s so afraid, Danse Macabre, Foster didn’t have access to the film, THE THING looked like the hand of a skeleton, The Thing, very Campbellian, lifting from Lovecraft, In The Walls Of Eryx, a horror guy, a science fiction guy, a weird fiction guy, disrespect of man as a being, the original script, religious icons in the derelict, tentacles, the same plot as Alien, Mars, very similar, the ship acts more like a submarine, being confined to the ship, it looks very high budget, they use the bridge twice, they use the mess hall twice, they’re getting their value for money, a Heinleinian-style rocketship, every surplus WWII weapon, a bazooka, pineapple grenades, a crewful of men and two women, these women scientists are serving lunch, they have some sort of a relationship, what happens in Alien, as it appears in the film, women have become equal, all of the characters are very similar, riggghht, we didnt think they were going to change the lead, kickass women leads, a whole new industry of slasher movies, we don’t know Ellen Ripley is the lead character until they’res no one else left, Sleepaway Camp (1983), final girl, the plot of Alien had already happened at the beginning of the movie, 10 Little Indians style, connecting back, they mimic us, her name is Ripley… believe it or not, the gendering of this, a mini Bechdel test, reducing genders, we get those anyway, when Lambert is attacked, overtly sexual, overtly biological, even worse, the scariness, pregnancy makes Kane very hungry, Bloodchild by Octavia Butler, Planet Of The Vampires (1965), Mario Bava, Black Sunday (1960), space madness, awful and brilliant, the navigator scene, the costumes, the colour is so lurid, fantastic!, the gender play, a scene missing from the book, the space-jockey, in and out, the book’s ending, it sits in your mind, this is and is not explained, it seems to be growing out of the chair, the bio-mechanical idea, blending into the machinery, Aliens Vs. Predator, the life-cycle of the alien, Farscape, Babylon 5, the vorlons, truly alien, its not THE alien, is it a noun or an adjective, it doesn’t tell you what is going on, Alien 2 (1980), The Thing (2011) the prequel, this circularity, the actress is trying to escape this endless cycle, Caligula, Sisyphean, the same horror, saving (Davy) Jones, killing the cat, a whole thing with screenwriters, cats are predators, ship’s cat, killing all the mice, its just what they do, the cat and the alien looking at each other, humans not at the top of the food-chain, the cat is a stand-in for us, what are they doing there?, for the pure science, all about the science, Ian Holm, Bilbo is the badguy, Big Night (1996), he would have made the best dreamer, hinted at or explicit, petroleum engineer, one more Gothic theme, death and decay, a celebration of entropy, less energy in the system, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, all that wealth, any vampire story, 7 canisters of cn-20, Hudson is Parker, nuke the entire site from orbit, Burke, a substantial dollar value attached to it, the true enemy, a goddamned percentage, Burke, Ash, Easter, the true enemy is not the alien, a manager, a desolate planet, Tumbbad (2018), a period horror film, the terror of money, back to Conrad, The Secret Sharer, the literary roots are substantial, Dan O’Bannon, Dark Star, hard science fiction, the landing sequence, Aliens as an action film (Rossatron), cornbread, a last supper, the food’s not that bad, genuine shock, scream queen, Veronica Cartwright, frozen, the horror, not a fault, seeing it in the theaters, ushers were fainting, leaving the theater to vomit, Bryan saw it the opening weekend, May 1979, running from the theater, a simpler time, visually shocking, its a chicken egg, the posters are lame, hiding everything, the music, what is this?, Blade Runner (1982), Vintage Season by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, Blue Thunder (1983), helicopter genre, a show built around a car, Magnum, P.I., subversive, about surveillance, innovative and interesting, Roy Scheider, Space Vampires by Colin Wilson, Lifeforce (1985), Return Of The Living Dead (1985), Total Recall (1990), Screamers (1995), Second Variety by Philip K. Dick, Bleeders (1997), The Lurking Fear by H.P. Lovecraft, Heavy Metal (1981), the professional reviewers didn’t like it, the current aesthetic, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, a problem for a lot of reviewers, perfect for a young person, look at me aren’t I horrific, the wonders that some things present irrespective to what you bring to judging them, such an amazing experience, following politics for a living makes you wrong about everything, feeling the temperature of reality, foolish professionalism invades everything, invading academia, what they want, a model in your mind of what needs to be there, being open to things, corporatism, the faceless (inhuman) faces of the company, it can’t care it can’t love it’s perfect like the monster, “Jesse, you admire it, don’t you?” “He admires its purity.”, a cat named Ash, the fluffiest nicest cat, blending horror and science fiction, rip-offs, Event Horizon (1997), lost footage in Romania, Dead Space, Halo, Mass Effect, Leviathan (DLC for Mass Effect 3), Alien: Isolation, DLC Crew Expendable, recreating the whole set for the game, so terrifying, VR on PlayStation 4, Doom: Alien TC, shareware, The Expanse, The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, eject myself, exhausting, a workout, the opening, doing novelizations, the start, written in three weeks, “You must understand”, dreaming professionally, most organized of all artists, he’s talking about writing novelizations, Splinter In The Mind’s Eye, how you end up reading novelizations, you’re rejected because you’re too young, the W.H. Smith’s, reading novelizations out of spite, denied, the power of books, books are less censorable, why Jesse loves ThePirateBay.org so much, spending so much time in second hand bookstores, serial killer books, a way to avoid censorship of parents and society, society, not even the government, a ratings board, cartel, how the Comics Code Authority worked too, the way the internet’s going, certain things are unacceptable, we get crushed like the crew, an escape, thoughts beyond Alien, so fun, thank you!
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #532 – The Bus-Conductor by E.F. Benson; read by Mr Jim Moon. This is an unabridged reading of the story (26 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Mr Jim Moon, Julie Davis, Maissa Bessada, and Evan Lampe.
Talked about on today’s show:
room for one more, six people on this bus, Jim has a great talent for telling stories, Arabian fashion, Jim is an ideal narrator, his theories, his similes, really short, the story proper, three pages in, framing devices, common in ghost stories, Henry James, The Turn Of The Screw, The Jolly Corner, M.R. James, a lead-in, step through the frame, a little bit of history, a little bit of distance, a little bit of haze, into the realm of story, built on the bones of a very old story, made more interesting, how you see these things, a little spooky, that modern house, the Final Destination series, the More Is More podcast, the “Twenty Two” episode of The Twilight Zone, the upload,premonition, escaping fate, a friendly ghost, good fortune (hairs coming out of moles are lucky), Stacy Keach, a mustache works for men and women, sinister, a smile in context, FaceApp, a menace, curiosity, she doesn’t know she’s a ghost, The Yellow Sign by Robert W. Chambers, he tells the story, she had the same dream, the hearse, as a weird story, Julie’s idea, Dead Of Night (1945), Ghost Stories (magazine), Bernarr Macfadden, his bodybuilding religion, tension, stolen from other stories, stop stealing other people’s stories, The Flint Knife, reprints, Weird Tales, An Apparition by Guy de Maupassant, The Tortoise-Shell Comb, brush my hair, third person vs. first person story, a ghost story, retouched photos, somebody lying in bed, Hypnogoria, the borderline between ghosts and dream, sleep paralysis, a memory of that state, a zone of consciousness, auditory hallucinations, weird landscapes, a prelude to sleep, really disturbing, when Julie drops the book, Maissa hears voices, such a range, How Fear Left The Long Gallery, the most haunted house in England, super spooky, Caterpillars, The Monkey’s Paw, the starting point, Jesse loves the frame, Thomas Alva Edison, coming up with ideas, solving certain problems, manipulable, a similar waking state, in physiological state, adjusting wavelengths, grey dreaming, technicolor dreaming, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, no fog no mist, glorious glorious dancing sunlight, backwards, the weather in this story, the traditional 19th century method (weather wise), very meta in the frame, The Suitable Surroundings by Ambrose Bierce, weird tales vs. ghost stories (being tied to sleep), Cool Air by H.P. Lovecraft, darkness silence and solitude, a prosaic landlady, H.G. Wells’ The Red Room, a whole tradition, 1408 by Stephen King, insight into what is behind the curtain/veil, a tiny hole in a piece of cardboard, when the two holes line up, a conjunction of realms, Lord Dunsany’s The Wonderful Window, clairvoyance and mediums, we get to have it both ways, until the moment of death, what passing through is, pass away, composing an essay, a leftover from the spiritualist age, life slipped away, Accessory Before The Fact by Algernon Blackwood, he saw the future, we’re not seeing reality as it is, the way its conveniently operating, a schizophrenic, borderline cases, a glimpse of reality, destiny and fate, because of this tip-off, happenstance, a random blip, a glitch in reality, we love our euphemisms, what did the puritans say when say, with god now, gone to his rest, we really do live in metaphor, seeing at as a raw (rather than a metaphor), H.V. Morton, faith and trust, rest and sleep are everywhere, the Christian dead, psychic flashes, oblique, The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens, a phantom from the future, we develop genres of fiction, movies and comics, definite ideas, gamified, they’re in the Monster Manual now, elves vs. dwarves, Lord Dufferin, a man carrying a coffin, one of the first stories Evan ever read, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark edited by Alvin Schwartz, “Room For One More”, A Stop At Willoughby, philosophizing on twitter, euphemism and metaphor, Did Solomon Give Queen Of Sheeba An Airship?, the woman caught in adultery, scratching in the dirt, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Emily Wilson, The Partially Examined Life podcast, why these stories are important, go and sin no more, does the same kind of job, crystallizing it, truth approached with a metaphor, open for you to think about, inviting to the reader (or hearer), what’s going on there?, and that is my story, The Pall Mall Magazine, December 1906, A. Wallace Mills, the missing illustrations, the power of the story, room for one inside, “honey”, he starts smoking, a great movie, Smee , The Inexperienced Ghost by H.G. Wells, pure nightmare fuel, lets have a smoke, how it was in 1945, associated with thought, when Sherlock Holmes wants to think he smokes, The Prisoner (remake), symbology, Mapp and Lucia books, Wodehouse with a mean-streak, humour, the sense of the ridiculous, H. Russell Wakefield, The Horror Horn, “A Strange Story Of The Alps In Winter”, a troglodyte civilization, creep and creep and creep, as a gimlet burrows into a board, H.P. Lovecraft’s thesis in Supernatural Horror In Literature, the sensitive, we readers are those people, purely objective not subjective, haunted house, subjective experience is where we live, the radical claim that he’s making, The Varieties Of Religious Experience by William James, not a believer, Benson’s gloss, okay here we go, I love to be scared, luxurious of emotions, Steen Hansen, you’re so happy to be alive, ghostly experiences are real because we didn’t see any ghosts, a literary family, a biography of Queen Victoria, Abdul gets mentioned, editing the letters, R.H. Benson, A.C. Benson, The Sixth Sense, the novel has taken over, The Binscombe Tales by John A. Whitbourn, TV miniseries and movie franchises, always an audience there, a premonition, the metaphor is true, Maggie Benson, the veil cross, the other side poke through, Maissa has in dreams, stroking a whale means good luck, flying, Christmas, Egypt, a painting of a girl flying in the sky, dream-traveler, whales are my spirit animal, Another Place, very affective, great fun, Good Will To Most Men, one of the most creepy horrible stories you will ever read, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville,
“A laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what will, one comfort’s always left- that unfailing comfort is, it’s all predestinated. … Here’s a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing, by Crom.”
melancholic mirth, Solomon Kane, retelling over and over, maybe you’ll catch a break, symmetry, looking for meaning, something’s wrong and we don’t know how to articulate it, a bad example, Joe Biden sniffing people, go hug that person, we don’t start with premises we start with feelings, confirmed in this grand way, an issue of context, room for one inside, having a good laugh at work, room for one inside, 11:30, the timeline, metaphyscial, what would Philip K. Dick say about this story?, the pink beam, the face in the sky, the precog, King is using the term, The Dark Tower, the Exegesis, the dead sea scrolls (soup), a profound human experience, pointing to something real but not clear, no room for anymore.
Posted by Jesse Willis