The SFFaudio Podcast #837 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray and The Cold Female by Dale Harlow

The SFFaudio Podcast #837 – Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray (1 hour 3 minutes) from Terror Tales, May 1940 and The Cold Female by Dale Harlow (19.5 minutes) from Adam, January 1957. Both are read by Mike Vendetti. These are followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), Cora Buhlert, and Tommy Patrick Ryan.

Talked about on today’s show:
Philsp.com Galactic Central, can’t get google to work, a huge magazine index, Sgt. Bilko, all the magazine contents, mostly all there, non-genre magazines, Cora’s entry is wrong, Stephenson Paine, only has one story, flourishing in the 1950s, this issue of Adam, pseudonymous, fairly well written, Jack Casanova, K. Robert Howard, a funny magazine, internet archive, before Palestine, you taking down, LibriVox is down, people who throw , PulpCovers, killed the internet archive, hackers?, online activists, a DDOS attack, LibriVox, one of the files was corrupted, work on something else, in 7 months when this podcast comes out Gaza wont be being destroyed, save the best for last, Russel Gray, excellent art, attractive and a good premise, Mistress Of The Dark Pool is just way too long, the biggest problem, an hour and 3 minutes, very similar, lakes, mountains, people in cabins, every stereotype ever, food and supplies and information, Cabin In The Woods, titular cabin, titular woods, go in clear eyed, weird sacrifice thing, the knew what they were getting into, willingly allow the vampire into your home, Reading, Short And Deep, connection through Eric [S. Rabkin], find the hidden sex, much clearer, definitely had sex with that woman, May 1940, written 5 minutes before it was published, before the US is involved in WWII, it wasn’t important yet, isfdb entry, Bruno Fisher (Russell Gray) (Harrison Storm), interesting quote, these markets, weird menace pulps, living in Florida with my family, terror/horror market, just one day the market was gone, 150 Philip K. Dick, the market collapses, it’s Chinatown, Jake, if you shutter the business that distributes magazines, paperback distribution, early 1990s, censorship, legal issue, a history of this, might be war related, all the way through the depression, ramping up for war, gonna be a paper shortage, preparing for war, army approved pulp, Playboy, I read it for the articles, the Saturday Evening Post of a certain niche, a magazine like Adam, much condensed, more censoriously, lot less placing breasts in hands, less explicit, implied more, some birds started chirping, Eric Rabkin comes out of the forest with his hat on, waterfalls and tunnels, fade away, necking in the surf, how many beds are in that house?, obsessed with the idea, too much to read, both stories use the same word, wood nymph, scary stories to tell in the dark, fireside ghost story kinda things, a filler story in Weird Tales, read versus listened, Mike Vendetti, how seriously he took it, very believable, so broad, come on guy, must be the daughter, who could have seen this coming?, a more enjoyable experience, weird menace pulps, both sex stories, ghost women in the mountain cabin, author vs. engineer, the author is the bad writer, the engineer is the good writer, forgive a lot of the things, nice art, paid by the word, seeing it in the relief, salacious title, could be a horse, sounds like it could be a Conan story, all of his titles, the blank of the blank, the castle of the harridans, a collection of Russell Gray stories, actual print book, Monster Of The Purple Mist, all sound awesome, go at it bro, Hostesses In Hell And Other Stories: The Selected Stories Of Russell Gray and My Touch Brings Death: And Other Stories, a new cover, no interior art, the artists on the shudder pulps worked overtime, great art, the editorial descriptions are good, the mangy dog he called her lover, I vowed I would kill girl I loved, way more appealing, too many scenes, repetitive, wife steps up and saves his ass, cool character, he doesn’t deserve it, the spell is have sex with this sexy lady down the street, skip to the discussion, find out pretty quick, in comparing it, so similar, the one was made longer, would it improve the story, pretty groany, yard work, describing her breasts, I’m so cold, start snuggling, reacts as a virile man should, adolescent fantasy, male fantasy, dear Ghost Story letters: you wouldn’t believe what happened to me!, jealousy is a thing, modelling Tommy’s mind, the alcoholism, drinking happening, pouring the alcohol down his throat, rye whiskey, the first alcoholism bad movie, The Lost Weekend (1945), a drug to escape reality, this potent medicine, a poison that’s hurting our health, enjoying a fine cigar, not going to make you beat your wife or drive drunk, a good glass of wine, a single malt scotch, useful for cooking, wine into cooking, so much more of it out there, the whiskey didn’t effect me, playing Hamlet, Richard Burton, what happens if I suddenly get a phone call, pulled over, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, way too drinky, a beautiful wife he loves, battles with alcohol, easier to pack up into the mountains, pretty normalized, an older time, drinking alone, a bad marriage, a lesbian or was going to murder you, women definitely drank alcohol, sherry, champagne, The Thin Man (1934), a comedy, social, the way it appears in this story, using it like a medicine, an alcohol spiral, the husband comes to his senses, the good wife helped him, saved her even though he was tired, personal psychology, go to a cabin in the woods, a beautiful woman requires you have sex with her, a mangy dog, he kills it, I didn’t mean to kill that dog, what happened to Amos?, perfectly normal, they left her body by the cabin with ribbons of skin, a better ending, together they bury the body, throws the whiskey bottle into the grave, he buried his demons along with his demons, he doesn’t believe in witchcraft, the red herring that makes it longer, six chapters, chapter titles are good, Americans are weird about alcohol, marksmanship competition, shooting clubs, the king and queen of the marksman, so German, get a gun license, a nice plaque, such a German thing, 35 and 75, nobody minds, much healthier attitude, get really drunk at a wedding, an addictive drug, Prohibition, grain into liquor, profit per ton of cargo, sever chronic alcoholism, rampant, Ecuador, major problem, French wine, getting schnockered, liquid, symbolic, Eric hat, a lake is very different than rain, or a cup of water on your desk, you go into the unconscious, let me tell you about it, a woman who goes into the water, her fantasy, her desire is the theoretical explanation for why the, sexy witch’s daughter, harridan harridan harridan, a dark liquor, the more lost you get, when you go in the water, went swimming, needed to clear my head, he’s going away from his wife, he’s straying, a symbol for femaleness, his engineering projects, the Canadian Rockies, in the off season, to go fishing, the thing that came out of the lake, the woman knocking on the door is a neighboring cabin woman, abusive husband, it went supernatural, she needs to come out of the lake, she’s a witch!, a market for science fiction, unusual, running away from a killer, and now we’re on the road together, in the mountains of Canada, not the end of the story, she’s dead, died a virgin, a male fantasy, Edgar Allan Poe, I at least married them, comes back to life, at least 20 years, really old women that looked young, The Lake by Ray Bradbury, the season is over, drag something from the lake, sandcastle, he will always love this girl, looks at his wife, why is this weird woman here?, an adult version of The Lake, never grows up, he still loves her, struck by the similarities, better scripter, retro review, on a lot of high school reading lists, May 1944, no school is in session, a link, how young, this is going to get weird, 19, it didn’t matter, might be committing crimes, she’s 19, she coulda been 16, 14 now, teacher and student, power dynamics, no one bats an eye, 14 and 19 year old, eyelashes batted, what do we make the names of Hulda and Amos, is that a name?, a witch name, a prophetess, Mother Hulda (Frau Holle), the legendary creature, what makes our character Hulda evil?, she’s old and ugly, a mangy narrator, our stupid narrator, linked to Christmas and winter folklore in the alpine region, always resorting to alcohol, stupider, mitigate it, pushed off the page, he uses the word to describe the male husband, supposedly a writer, in the mountains to get his novel finished, such a bad writer, he makes the connection for us, it explained by his alcoholism, the audience shouldn’t be ten times smarter, a different name, Timerider: The Adventure Of Lyle Swann (1982), back to the future, he’s his own grandpa, raped by his gandma, Cyngne, he didn’t make the connection, they share a family name, 6 pages, 19 and half pages, five times shorter, is it five better?, three times better, with great art, an anecdote you tell your friend, woman knocking on the door, a fish story, no creepy pun intended, he’s showing propriety, having sex with a ghost, just kinda sad, let me tell you about my Canadian girlfriend who’s a ghost and you can never find, almost wholesome, my dead lover who I turned into a dog for reasons, a shape changer, a dog by day, hot and sweaty sex, with I could have sex with humans, attracted to the wife, you dog, now you’ll live like a dog, don’t make the story longer, skinny dipping, the dog shows up, so crude and simple and badly written, kinda like it still, honest in its stupidity and baseness, Robert E. Howard, pretty good money, get enough sex in there, the explanation for why everything was happening was bizarre and bad, married couples never had children, sex happens, not newly married, three years, undue for the era, if you don’t have children, young children would be with them, off at military school, kinda the point of getting married, having kids, married characters in weird menace stories, New York brownstones, feeds you someone from the asylum, you attracted to the opposite sex, it complicates it and makes it weird, if this couple had a kid that was with them, why is daddy acting so weird, The Shining, a terrible drunk, as time goes on, this is a story about a guy who wants to kill himself, a bunch of King, a thing he says over and over again: I’m a horrible drunk, read The Mist, possibility he’s gonna kill his family, right before rescue shows up, a fog, the alcohol you’re imbibing, reading into his personal psychology, an assignment sorta style, gotta have a witch and a pool and a cliff, Test-Tube Frankenstein also had a cliff, I like cliffs, almost being stabbed, 1930 Margaret Brundage, lesbian whipping scenes, they look like they’re dancing, lesbian witch cult, way less about personal psychology and more to male psychology, so streamlined, three characters in the whole story, no personality other than hetero, the anecdote that it wants to tell, is she a wood nymph, could be a wood nymph, naked woman in the woods, a fleeting glimpse in the mist, life is a lot more interesting, straight to dryad, too complicated word for the target audience, straight out of Dungeons & Dragons, sprite, hamadryad, C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, J.R.R. Tolkien, the entire Chronicles Of Narnia, super-famous British actor, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Stewart, the performances are incredible, Phantastes: A Faerie Romance For Men And Women by George MacDonald, they all died on the same day, a photo of the Doctor, at the Kennedy assassination, C.S. Lewis died, Aldous Huxley, Paul Chadwick, comic book artist, Dark Horse, Concrete, Harlan Ellison, a movie with that scene, that’s in a movie, a newish movie, The Most Reluctant Convert, converting to Catholicism, Lovecraft says to Robert E. Howard: You should become a muslim, Robert E. Howard to Lovecraft: I will eventually, sweet as a nut, The Horse And His Boy, my favourite, the best book in the series, Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, writing/publication, how does that fit in, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Magician’s Nephew, The Last Battle, for the retro Hugos, so terrible, an all volunteer pickup basketball, a cartoon adaptation, series on DVD, live action, a BBC version, Prince Caspian, Lewis is public domain in Canada, semi-professional Chrisitan audio dramas, consider that, before we lose Tommy, The Tower Treasure, a shelf of them, December 1st, blind spots, Nancy Drews, simple, hilarious, teen detective stories, Enid Blyton, Lilith by George MacDonald, Odd John by Olaf Stapledon, Symposium by Plato, Fury by Henry Kutter, Paycheck and The Weapon Shop, A.E. Van Vogt, more pairings, all the reading on Saturday, wouldnt be new, close to an hour, a William Hamilton Osborne story, The Haunted Corridors, able to clean it up, The Noseless Horror, always happy to do Howard, precedes pretty much everybody, Assyrian, in Egypt, talk across space, recorded on the farm, a twist at the end, quite different, in Portland, can’t turn down Howard, advent coffee, looking through ebay listings, a striking cover, calling the museum that has his papers, The New Jersey Historical Society, the idea seems very novel, a scientist and his beautiful daughter, a “machine”, more of a ghost story, the cover is great, the little hint, the machine is kinda like a cellphone, in a different time, to hear what they can hear there, listening through time, an audio podcast, two hours of homework for Alex, mostly reader, audio processing issues, listen to podcasts, full cast audio dramas, a whole industry, mostly one company, still alive, excellent people doing these, Big Finish Blakes 7, actors out from carbonite, a kindly elephant, a kindly witch, action oriented stuff, licensed stuff, Knightrider, that’s for you, He-Man, the German voice of Tom Selleck, Midsomer Murders, the Max Max novelization, The Terminator novelization, if they exist they’re probably very expensive, Alan Dean Foster, a novelization of Total Recall?, Terry Bisson?, Piers Anthony, Poul Anderson, novelized everything, marginal movies, Iron Eagle (1986), Kevin J. Anderson, Timothy Zahn, personality defects, Predator (1987), took that hate, especially censorship, Huawei phone, Terrifier 3 (2024), Wild Robot (2024), Ladyhawke (1985), let us rent it, The Terminator (1984) at a young age, had to watch Ladyhawke again, an assigned seat, 1 ticket vs. ten tickets, a lot to do with real estate, everything ties together, new tech, delisted, woke now, trains and WWII and Ukranian War propaganda, chicken breeding, once or twice, your dad’s station, dull people talking about politics, it was fun, a gothic romance novel, a beautiful woman with perfect hair fleeing a castle at night, Slaughterhouse Five, the sixties people, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Victoria Holt, Marilyn Ross, A Place Of Sapphires, piracy, governess, more Scooby Doo than Dracula, an immigrant, a reverse Dracula, female fantasy, Jane Austen, Bridgerton, romantic comedy, romcoms, gothic romance movies, Frenchman’s Creek, Jamaica Inn, The Birds, drug induced time travel, Marghanita Laski, she’s a ghost, very stylish and well done, moved to Italy with husband, Mona Farnsworth, The Three Sisters Of No-End House, completely forgotten, nurse novels, pen-names, Swedish adaptations, lesbian, from 1960, cliffs of Cornwall, past tragedy and present danger, passions overpower reason, evil lurks in the shadows, perfectly in tune, kicked off the boom, dismissed, Northanger Abbey, those are bad, commit to this, literally includes a castle with a high lit window, wearing a nightgown, retro toy and game, getting a better handle on human nature through fiction, what compels humans, Harlequin romances, daylight savings, I don’t believe you, a stupid idea from the start, China has 1 time zone, 1 time zone for the whole planet, you’re somebody, the twitter blocking thing changing, logging into an alternate twitter account, blocked or deleted, bluesky is where the writers and covid panic people hangout, threads has women obsessed about menopause, toy collectors, Lego minifigs, square format, photography, twitter as it used to be, oh well, plain gone, mad at Cora, not sufficiently anti or pro, all the time, you cannot post about your book, focused on the news, American election about to happen, a massive increase in depression, every second tweet is about Trump, if Trump is the worst thing that happened to you, in what sense is he terrible, Russia is never going to attack us, might try to sell you some gas, Anne Applebaum, Nordstream 2, they’re proud of it, set this thing on fire, so furious, hate Biden, terrible woman, spend lots of money to protect against the Russians, rat out my neighbours, it is horrible being occupied, 2 million people of Russian origin in Germany, grew up in Kazakhstan, they work hard, gardening is ex-Soviet people, paves your driveway, Jewish people, sorry for the holocaust, escaped Ukraine, communicating is difficult, so stupid to fall for it, endless amounts of weapons and money into Ukraine, weapons into hot-war zones, Israel, exporting weapons, promise not to use them to commit genocide, the weapons industry, subcontractors, specialized weapons manufactures, Airbus, the people who build tanks, Heckler and Koch, Sigsauer, Walther, submarines, campus, shipyards, superyachts for rich assholes, techbros, oligarchs, stories to tell about rich people being assholes, the Russian oligarchs are gone, taxpayer money, terrible headache, go to sealevel, 4 meters above sealevel, for dinner,

Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray
The Cold Female by Dale Harlow

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #831 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Aeneid by Virgil (Books V to VIII)

The SFFaudio Podcast #831 – The Aeneid by Virgil [Books V – VIII] read by George Allen (for LibriVox) and translated by John Dryden. This is the first third of the epic poem, books V to VIII (comprised of XII Books) running 4 hours 18 minutes, followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Scott Danielson

Talked about on today’s show:
books 5-8, three, the entire Aeneid, zip up all the things into one show, one long show?, the first half and the second half, how did we devide these?, at the end of book six the whole things changes, The Odyssey, having trouble getting into this, washing over, what happened?, find things, Great Courses series, Elizabeth Vandiver, 1-6 seems to be the interesting bit, 7-12 was the interesting bit, gung-ho Rome, an Avengers movie, power armour, couple of decades ago, the very ending, finding out about that, verym memorable, a good chunk, one of the books of this book, the shield of Aeneas, exemplifies what’s weird about this book, The Iliad is weird compared with The Odyssey, operating on its own, a cast of characters, a bunch of heroes, Achilles, Patrochlus, the other team, the gods, trying to get the stories about being men, the older dudes are there, know who they are, the story of individual heroes from individual towns, two Ajaxes, an everyman’s story, an individual’s story, every dude has a superpower, a massive seperation, Aeneas is not much of a man as a human being, he is piety personified, dutiful to the gods and destiny, a product of a bunch of things, checkboxes, running a race, certain checkpoints, these all things happened in Roman history, telling a story people already know, all the future visions that we see are contemporary, a propaganda piece, more like a bible, moral stories, how Greeks behave, Romans are already behaving, we are seeing some contemporary for Augustus, some ancient stuff, also shorter, both are in one, if we go into any individual passage and break it down a bit, the Dryden translation, the Fagles translation, end of book 8, page breaks from the bottom, a greenwood shade for long religion known, about a grove, a forest, such vistas, stands by the streams that wash the Tuscan town a holy horror to the grove, a holy forest, beautiful poetic, almost Lovecraftian, the first inhabitants, to Sylvanus vowed, the guardian of the flocks and fields, annual day, the particular setting, the Romans have a set of gods like the Greeks, a million percent legit, they are pantheists, everything is full of gods, the god of the sewers, if you work for the city as a sewer man, your duty is holy, a car or a badge, a holy priest of this goddess, that is not capitalism, everything is infused with religion, keep things great, intense secure, the allies that they’re getting ready for the coming war with the Latians, now from a rising ground, his wondering eyes around, from left to right, thither, weary horses fed, now it gets fun, where the shield description starts, the fated arms, within a winding vale she finds her son, presented with weapons by his mom, but the goddess Venus, off in a glade’s recess by a frigid stream, fighting swaggering Latin ranks, savage Turnus to a duel, a little more touching, she shews her heavenly form without disguise, desiring eyes, same information, in the form of someone else, in The Odyssey, as Mentor, Telemachus, who could it have been but the goddess Athena, this is literally her son, the god who made the armor is not his father (but her husband), he wants to see his mom, behold she says, having her first son embrace, his greedy sight, being made personal, he can’t hug her, she embraces him, radiant arms, she sets the weapons and armour, with that Venus reached to embrace her son, exactly the same information, his greedy sight, like Christmas, takes delight in the goddess’ gifts, what we really have to do is slow it down and think about what’s exactly happening, the crested helm that vomits radiant fires, the terrible crested helmet, solid bronze, like a dark blue cloud, given the perfect gift, good quality, his hands the fatal sword and corslet hold, manly thigh, mysterious mould, roman triumphs, burnished grieves of electrum, no words can tell its power…, the incredible description on what’s going on on the shield, the wars, Julian line, there is the story of Italy, seers and schooled in times to come, all the wars they waged, stock, Julius Caesar and his progeny, right up to the contemporary, this is poetry and not story, poetic devices built into the imagery, how exciting this would be to the Romans, walking around looking at sights familiar to them, an ancient world that’s already ancient, not a new land, an old land full of people already, should be a new land, prime of the world, the caves of Mars, the marshal twins, Romulus and Remus, the green grotto, dugs, lithe neck, licked her wolf pack into shape, intrepid of the swelling, licked at their tender limbs, she’s shaping them into men, pretty great, happening upstairs right now, they look like dogs, they might shape up, the foster dam, sucked secure, new Rome appears, the rape of the Sabine dames, accelerated quickly, a war succeeds, unexampled deeds, pray defend, this is the description of the land on the shield, an image being described, not far from there, he forged this shield, very good, the way to appreciate it, what happens in book, the part where Venus gives him the armour, Book 5 is all about Olympian style games, a funeral, funeral games, get gladiators, a ritual, go yell, form those pups, we see that hear in a moment, sorry, through this whole shield, brutally dragged, circus games were played, an anticipation of what’s about to happen, a projection into the future of this book, a war succeeds, breach of public faith, arms they pray defend, the Romans don’t exist yet, plight the peace, each other’s charger, they’re friends, early in this book, a fatted sow, imprecations on the purgered head, firey steeds, vulture’s fud, battling old king, same chiefs, stood in full armour, lifting cups, a charger here is not a horse, a cup, two four horse chariots, man of Alba you shouldn’t have kept your words, from brakes of thorns, punishment, viscera here and there, ready for that good Roman soil, restore the banished kings, the Roman you asserts their native rights, mounted a massive siege to choke the city, in freedom’s name, Roman history, to win by famine or fraud surprising, the flud, his likeness meancing, burst her chains, scap’d from their chain, for their guide, heroic Manleus, gud, held the capital’s heights, then Rome was poor, straw, gold, on the left before, on the right after, the silver goose before the shining gate, by her cackles saved the state, Paul Revere, not a major character in the American revolution, the new thatch bristled thick, the gold arcade, Gauls attack the gates, Gauls! Gauls!, ascend and seize the walls, Romans pretended like they never started wars, modern empires use today, Gulf of Tonkin, the Maine, we were attacked!, you can probably inflate any sort of incident you want, the gold dissembled well their golden hair, long alpine spears, striped shirts, long shields, a lot of gold, that’s also on the shield itself, gilding, a bas relief on this shield, little cartoons, the gold lied, hardby, nearby, naked throw their shields, targets dropped from heaven, dancing priests of Mars, here modest matrons in their soft litters, odorous gums, and chaste matrons riding in pillowed, far hence removed, the Stygian seats are seen, the furies hissing from the nether ground, the torments of the doomed, cringing before the furies, you?, the narrator stepping in, and Cato’s holy ghost is dispensing laws, a contemporary of Augustus, a reflection back of going to Hell, set apart the virtuous souls, finish this giant shield, new stanza, the dancing dolphins, cut the precious tide, the heaving sea, the blue deep foamed, swam the dolphins, cut the waves in two, amid the main, water, ocean, sea, their brazen beaks, watery plain, Battle of Actium, seething, molten gold, I, Claudius, the Battle of Kursk, D-Day, the Battle of Stalingrad, a definitive battle, whathisname and the lady, in pride of place, the propaganda end of this particular poem, young Caesar, his beamy temples, the Julian star, the senate and people too, high astern he stands, lustrous brows, Agrippa seconds him, his manly brows, forshows, performed in part for Augustus, have Virgil in, Virgil performs this part, we’re not forgetting about you Agrippa, how to win this battle, impelled by favouring winds, proud ensign, Agrippa marries a Julian, barbarian aides, the Bactrians from a far, the Egyptian wife, troops of every stripe, in his retinue, the end of the Earth, Cleopatra, camels, Arabians near, of tounges discordant, his ill-fate follows him, forky prows, the water glows, all launch in as one, cleaving triple beaks, a description of the battle, it seems as if the Cyclades again, afloat on the swells, showering flaming toe, fireballs are thrown, the fields of Neptune take a purple dye, her cruel fate, the snakes behind, clacking her native rattles, her destiny coming, the dog Anubis barks but barks in vein, the clash of the two cultures, the Romans were contemptuous of the Egyptians, so much food, massive pyramids and ancient culture, how they treated Caesarean, monster gods, great Minerva, Athena, Discord, Bellona is the wife of Mars, there in the heart of battle, with grim furies, Strife and Triumph rushing in, bloody lash in hot pursuit, the land of Dis, pours down his arrows, quit the watery fields, and scanning the melee, Apollo bent his bow, see her calling, tinting the winds, let her sheets run free, invokes the gales, heaves her breast for breath, sails, panting and pale with future of death, driven along by winds and waves and scudding through the throng, SCUD missiles from the first Gulf War, just opposite sad, hides the flying host, the Nile immersed in morning, all his rippling robes, all his conquered people, Nilus is the river god of the Nile, the sow with 30 white piglets, everything is alive, I’m gonna kill you, the god throws down fear, the retreat, his thanks expressed, 300 temples in the town he placed, in triple triumph, eternal vows, August is great because he’s dutiful to the gods, diverting us, three shining nights, the streets with praise, the theaters with plays, drenched in his gore, upon his throne, hangs the monumental crowns on high, the roads resounded, strewn with slaughtered steers, mounts them high on the lofty temple doors, the vanquished, and in tongue, the ungirt Numedian race, they got no pants, the tamed Euphrates, the Rhine, the Danes unconquered, a map, as motley, the nomad race, archers bearing quivers, bridling at his bridge, divinely wrought, unknown the names, he admires the race, a detail, out of the sky, oh, mom they’re the best, I don’t know who these guys are, more into it, we’re so distanced from it, the poetry, the rhyme, when the rhyme don’t work, blood and good, forced rhymes make you engage with the material more, point to two, the visit to the underworld, the games, part of their tradition, when the Romans want to turn the people to their side, hold a games, it has to be tied to something, an anniversary, a Roman religious festival, funerals and funeral memorials, we’re having a games, you pay for the games, before they were Romans, wrong by the Greeks with no honour, everything is calm now, the civil wars are over, I’m just like Aeneas, people who lose, over in Sicily, one guy slips in blood, everybody gets prizes, nobody on team Trojan, he brings everybody along, political propaganda, I can help every American, no child left behind, such a good boy, respectful of his troops and the gods, our Republic was at war, the most striking thing in the underworld, how Christian it was, not Heaven, nicer parts of the underworld, a little bit of an explanation, resembles the Catholic viewpoint of Purgatory, getting out of Purgatory, punishment for people who are bad, you did bad stuff in life, this is different from the Greek underworld, you don’t really want to be there, everybody goes there, from Book 6, line 850, taints, plagues, so long energized in the flesh, drilled in punishments, later Dante-esque, they must pay, Elysium’s broad expanse, headed to Heaven, striking, doesn’t fit, August isn’t Christian, compatible, Milton and the great Larry Niven, conversation with Julie, A Houseboat On The Styx by John Kendrick Bangs, enlightened pagans, prepping the way for Jesus, up or out vs. down or under, burying people, doing right by people’s bodies, isn’t buried, in real life, outsourcing these things, you don’t wash your own father’s body, you hire a service for that, disconnecting from the reality, dig up the corpse, this was my grandfather, say that to your son, uh huh, a part of him, Romans are deeply connected to the people they kill, duty for your country, my gods tell me we are destined for this land, remembering the end, the anticipation for that end, a genocide, they’re going to kill all these people, future allies, fate is such that, I made the land peacable, we were a house divided, Abraham Lincoln, started a war, unofficially punished, who’s monument is the biggest, the Lincoln memorial, not a figure of Washington, imposing, a giant statue of Lincoln sitting in a chair, a throne, U.S. Capitol, strip of land, quite symbolic, really something, become politicians, done the tour, has no impact, this stuff can wash over you, that lady was the mom of that dude, about this whole thing, multiple purposes, checkpoints it has to go through, this is not a fiction story, alternate history, filling in the gaps, Rommel is one of the characters, you can’t kill Patton, city state propaganda, a lot more like this whole book, more distancing, an individual on his way home, struggling with another people, an amalgam of those two, a duty to perform in the present, as Beowulf does, a Dane or a Jute, connected with that, a Celt and an Irish and a viking and a Swedish, viking is a verb, relationship with the gods, with Dido, got to run because of fate, sees her in the underworld, she’s with her husband, I’m sorry, not having the dead speak, he talks to his dad, pretty amazing, a paper copy, near the beginning, a huge throng of the dead, the Golden Bough, a huge hit in the early 20th century, assume it is connected to this, The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Bros. Grimm, wearing out their shoes, I will allow any man who can solve this mystery to marry one of my daughters, the punishment is death, fuck around find out if you don’t find out, a young soldier and a witch gives him advice, the witch says to him, don’t drink what they offer you, they will drug whoever is locked up with them, underneath their beds is a secret doorway into an underworld, a cloak of invisibility, steps on one the girl’s heel’s once, three trees, silver, gold and diamond, breaks off a branch from each, twelve boats in the lake, scooches down, that’s weird, twelve princess, they dance all night, ascending the stairs, that’s weird happens a third time, that smells like bullshit, three branches, Eric pointed out some interesting things, the dream world, an inversion, like Bilbo Baggins, sneaks in finds out, profits from it, behind it all, no sex before marriage, related to this story somehow, the visit to the underworld, filled the time, wandering them among them, Phoenician Dido, endless woods, through the shadows, see or seem to see, wept and approached the ghost with tender words with love, the final measure with the sword, the powers on high, the depths of earth, the will of the gods, these mouldering places so forlorn, stay a moment, running away from whom, the last word, with welling tears tried to soothe her rage, her features no more moved, set in stony flint, in a new light, I did this because its the gods’ will, I didn’t want to do it, the wills were aligned, so I’m out, he didn’t know what she was going to do, turning it into a Catholic podcast again, it’s getting close, now see through a glass darkly, what gods’ plan is, but you have to get your toenails clipped, defer, the gods are capricious, the development from Greek gods, Clash Of The Titans (1981), Venus loves Aeneas, the apple of Discord, beauty contest, very well said, Upon The Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick, Rick, practicing witchcraft, Dick conflates it with angels, she gets to close to these fairies/angels/ghosts, ritual of bloodletting, after she’s dead, recreates a scene from The Odyssey, talk to Sylvia again, talk to the dead, dead people in dream, turns the world into a nightmare, taking the form of someone else, leaps from that body to another, tries to escape, every passing car, rigid, waiting numbly, the cop has become her, sure he answered dully, familiar fingers, red nails, the hand he knew so well, sure, hurtled ahead, she hurried everywhere, she was omnipresent, please tell me, Rick, I’m back, it was a mistake, that’s all in the past, a wretched unhappy heap, huge cleated boots, sparkled white in the sun, a difficult place to find, filled up the bowl, briefly he glanced up, a face tear stained and frantic, waver and slide, trembling red mouth, the girl at the bowl bent to dry herself, threw herself on the chair, Rick she murmured, she shook her head bewildered, superpowerful, lost love, a girlfriend that haunts you, when we want to connect with ghosts they go everywhere with us, we see them everywhere, we as modern 21st century weirdos don’t connect with, what makes these powerful stories so powerful, in essence very very real, with the last three books, wade through the washes of words we flow over us, a white animal?, the sacrificial animal being white, a pigeon, white horses, in order to win this race, a companion piece to The Lord Of The Rings, the adventures of Fredigar Bulger, the hobbit that doesn’t leave, a smaller scale story, an Atlas of Middle Earth, when we fit all that chronology in, all this backstory that you have to fit in, the original folktale versions of The Iliad and The Odyssey, those are the definitive sources for those events, stories shaped, not an individual guy, it wasn’t a dude, a bunch of people telling a story, get really good at singing songs, Barbara Allen, similar to Robin Hood, useful for telling stories, not based on a true phenomenon, based on wishes, people who get slighted at parties, roses grow in graveyards, there was this great battle long ago, you have a famous hero, a particular dude, these two stories intertwine, reading Detective Comics, Legion Of Superheroes, The Brave And The Bold, the history of the Roman empire, ruling actual Gotham City, the funeral games in Book 5, games in The Odyssey, Odysseus participates in games, the axes, washes up on the beach, a princess, who is this stranger, his great prowess at all these sports, keeping the community together, sex with lots of goddesses, get this empire governed, definitely weird, Bewoulf has a dragon, in an epilogue almost, fairy tales and folk tales, commercial success, we’re having fun with this, what we did her, scheduled that Block, What Mad Universe, meta-science fiction, if there’s thirty white puppies…

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 #415 – Morella by Edgar Allan Poe

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #415

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Morella by Edgar Allan Poe

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Morella was first published in The Southern Literary Messenger, April 1835.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #742 – READALONG: The Many-Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker

The SFFaudio Podcast

Jesse and Evan Lampe talk about The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, And The Hidden History Of The Revolutionary Atlantic by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker

Talked about on today’s show:
2012, 2000, influential for Evan, written up, dirtied edges, moldy, learned to appreciate, first big look into history from below, political history, conventional narrative history, the power of the approach of history from below, understanding Lovecraft, vernacular networks, those ideas are rooted in here, turned you into a radical, social history and labour history (vs. theory), daily life, new wave labour history, E.P. Thompson, Herbert Gutman, religious traditions, English working class radicalism, Baptists and Methodists, pirates, maroon communities, opting out, Typee by Herman Melville, William Blake, William Morris, social pariah, they haven’t read this book, pen is mightier than the sword, undermines a lot of go along get along takes, the heroes vs. the villains, Francis Bacon, this is not science, team evil, Colonel Despard, paraded through every street, 2nd hand, that scene on Jefferson’s estate, the words are compromised, turning that metaphor on its head, surprising insights, actually used as metaphors, upper crust living off the pain of the poors, poors and riches, those with weapons and those obeying until they don’t, very insightful, Villains Of All Nations, which chapter was written by Rediker?, 1741, the Slave Conspiracy, Outcast Nations Of The World, the Hydrarchy, a conspiracy!, rule over water, everything is flipped, the royal navy, left swipes, bottom up order, how wikipedia works, a bunch of CIA guys, recreationally, they’re not personally making money from locking Wikipedia accounts, life purpose, no actual work, competing ideas, some people’s pov, opressed all over the planet, Africa, North and South America and Europe, an other and later story, Bligh and the breadfruit, blackbirding, where capitalism was made, 16th and 17th century, why we have the world we have today, capitalism is fueled by sugar and slavery, the capital is being accumulated, the movement of people to serve the needs of capital, Gandhi, there’s a story there, heroes amongst the horror, repressed and excised and not promoted, Jesse’s twitter profile, all jokes, ruritarian romantic, drawer of roof bears, huer of colour, Canadian history, a youngest, Diaries Of Susana Moodie, its really hard living in the forest, chop down trees and wear high heels, interbreed with the locals, the Hudson’s Bay Company, that little building used to own this entire northern part of the continent, people in Europe wanting hats, Fort St. James, Fort St. John, Moose Factory, cut-off from this history, discovery and settlement and fast forward, Belize, from a previous period in time, independence, iron rule, most people don’t know Belize exists, they have no idea, it doesn’t serve the interests, the chamber of commerce, this book is very subversive, Mestizo, Metis, Creole, culture mixing, our mosaic, radicalized by the hydra, became radical by them, the Putney debates, Smedley Butler, the Businessman’s plot, he wasn’t executed, too much like Daniel Ellsberg, he gets a pass, Julian Assange, 1741 conspiracy, the official line, we created racism to divide the poors, now racism is used only by the bad people, keep the institutions, slave labour in us prisons, post-racial, white washing, a substantial point, slaves who were not black, indentured servants, morally reprobates, what are Australians taught about that in their schools, avarice, keeping the population of the central prairies, this labour thing, in the 17th century, you could own their contract, that could be traded, treated similarly, death rate, legally there was a distinction, the 1741 uprising in New York, the slave port of last resort, the triangular trade, the defective product, Virginia, the rebels, those who could not be seasoned, breaking them through threats of violence and death, sold them cheap, really radical slaves, we need a line between whites and blacks, after Bacon’s rebellion, give whites land, racism is a product of conscious decisions to suppress the working class, blacks used as strikebreakers, scabs, a deliberate technique that develops, am I racist, I don’t think I’m racist, homosexuality, am I gay, I don’t think I’m gay, it doesn’t seem to be the case, individual racists, primarily a system, Critical Race Theory is based, is that what based means?, the problem is institutional, its the institution that’s sending you to it, the class teaches you the history, is that what those classes are?, flagellation, root out the sin within you, not the intention, in favour of this book, progress online, online classes are terrible, Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, an old black man, probably an ex-slave telling stories to a little white boy, interrupted stories, background information, what the boy would know, stories of how to behave so as to survive in a system of slavery, Brer Fox, reverse psychology, using the of stuckupedness, double meaning, good morning or get beaten, the writing down of the vernacular tradition, the horror that is being a slaves, the awesome style of writing, phonetic, what was good and what was bad, salty language, fuck and shit are really good words, they are valuable, your only adjective should not be fuck, make your arguments better, people at the top say don’t listen to those sailors, big surprise, swearing and cursing, if you keep hitting me, we’re not allowed to do either, always do what the authority above us tells us, school is abuse, keep the factor workers from organizing, I just don’t want to work all the time, the Barbados thing, you learn about Virginia, The Tempest by William Shakespeare, a strong limb of this many headed hydra of a book, this book needs subsequent books, we need a whole Despard book, Peter Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons For All, Stop, Thief!: The Commons, Enclosures, And Resistance, The London Hanged: Crime And Civil Society In The Eighteenth Century, something on E.P. Thompson, unfortunate, The Slave Ship, Red Round World Burning Hot, Kate and Ned Despard, emphasizes women in his writing, they need to make the babies, plead the belly, women criminals, plenty of time to get pregnant, Mexican jails, you can’t execute them, the depository for slave nobody else wanted to buy, Moby-Dick, repressed?, we don’t want this book to be popular, gatekept!, various institutions, The Fearless Benjamin Lay, the black dwarf, Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates And The Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750, the movie?, Amistad movie, the Adams’ are good guys, propaganda, an Adams descendant was president of Raytheon, ambassador to London, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Abigail Adams, the Adams, a group of people on the right side of history, sacrificed his presidency to stop a war, Jimmy Carter didn’t start any wars, people fall in line, very interesting history books, a horror show, the book is good, looking at resistance to the slave ship by white sailors, tricking sailors, disease, miserable experiences, prison guards, euphemisms are a horrible, to not know they are going to Africa, mutinies on slave ships by sailors, bold women, interracialiness, alternatives, teleology, makes the current world inevitable, the Indian Ocean trade system, the spread of Islam to East Africa, Arabic is the lingua franca, Arabic innovation in the middle ages, capitalism, corporations that are global in scope, connections, trade, that’s indoctrination, it doesn’t create wealth, there’s no wealth created, someone is being screwed from trade, production, turning that tree into that table, mahogany trade, Belize, the plantation, the ship being a site of production, the origins of capitalism, blackbirding in the 19th century, just after the time of Melville, the copra trade, massive effects, Jack London, like Star Trek, a strange federation of Romulans and Klingons, getting tricked, be slaves and die, Maoris in Vancouver, The White Pacific, Nazis moving to the states doing Nazi stuff in the states, the unknown story of this books, we found something!, labour history remains suppressed, the labour historians labour in obscurity, the world history turn, the East India Company, this history of the world in 10 drinks, Tom Standage is the author of all those books, simple, peppy, and they don’t threaten power, The World Is Flat kinda stuff, a refutation of that, the hydra is global, separation into races and nations, white supremacy is the counter revolution, a specific lady, Kimberlé Crenshaw, you’re this you’re that, she really knows what she is, she knows what she wants, very simple, you want to have boys like you, you want to be chaste and chased, this gives you both, critical marriage theory, evidence of it in literature, very modern traditional religion, alcohol, smoking, per-marital sex, a vampire/werewolf book to express the ideas of a teenage girl, land rovers, Robin Hood is a cleaned up version, how to live within your very narrow, cottagecore, keep a nice little house in the forest and you’re a hobbit, setting up your perfect, trad pre-wives, nostalgia for the medieval, collapsing the commons, when the working class was most radical, agrarian settings, the jungle meatpacking plant, this is not what we signed up for, the Stono Rebellion, the New York Uprising Conspiracy, Africans, worth it because we have iphones, nice slave phone AOC, breakage along the way was a shame, Stephen Pinker, the meme the bomber dropping bombs with different paint jobs, CIA ads, I’m an agender black disabled lady, anybody can drop bombs for the CIA, kind of a progress, getting fat, there food has additives, their babies are getting poisoned, the problems are changing, a dearth of labour, you need to coerce people into work, all that land, people would have come and took land, German immigrants, given land, we need to produce sugar/tobacco, homesteader, now we can have a UBI, the obesity epidemic, the back end of production, promoting physical fitness, relaxing immigration, a more easily exploitable working class, some black man got a piece of real estate, why did he tear it down?, instead of becoming a factor, what are you going to use this for, unused land is a sin, jubilee and letting things lay fallow, stores were closed on Sundays, 7-11 was open 7 days a week!, the Diggers, New York’s commercial space is all lying fallow, all the malls are empty now, there’s no land reform, apartments, housing is not affordable, developers never choose affordable housing, the plot of Mr. Robot, F-Society, delete debt, delete the records of who owns what, that would F the system, wild spaces, mountain people in Southeast Asia, a religious revival, geographical solution, a homesteader is a petty bourgeois selling your jam, no geographical solution for capitalist, what happens in games, the streamers and all the people who want to be them, a new phenomenon, sharecropping for Jeff Bezos, he sets the rules, it infects peoples brains, that desire is significant, people want to opt out of traditional, play video games all day, streams are not that interesting, it doesn’t work, it can’t, a colonization of a virtual, what Meta was supposed to be, new spiritual geographies, the internet, this shows people want out, their daily life might be better, coal miner pay, pathetic little podcast, we’re not covering the right things, the homesteading thing, a horrible homesteader, larp, import some immigrants have them work the land for you, why does Indiana Jones have a bullwhip?, a sinister meaning, cattle rustlers, an 80 year old man being de-aged, for swinging, The Dial Of Destiny, WWII action again, the girl from Temple Of Doom, married, Shanghai, Short Round is a teenager, anti-Japanese resistance, Chinese gangsters, he’s old, a history lesson of the early 20th century, insight into those weirdos doing those weird things, artists and humanitarians, the least interesting characters, the Russian Revolution, great documentaries, artist movements, The Outcast Nations Of The Earth, a counterexample to everybody sells out, I’ve been radicalized, you didn’t know that, he did it his way, he’s a hero, and his wife too, from the aristocratic class, siding with the workers against the capitalist class, JFK, murdered by the Dulles brothers, what about Caesar, his power comes from the loyalty of his soldiers, threatens the establishment order, his college buddies stabbed him, in the play, talk to Paul, Evan regrets Paul not being here, open his eyes?, many-headedness being democracy vs. a guy talking about “democracy” but who can cut cheques, how young do you have to be to be radicalized?, liberty university, trump university, reading history did it, away from theory, Marx and anarchist theory, coming back to philosophy, social history, rationalism vs. empiricism, that doesn’t seem to line up with the theory, never joining a political party, focusing on religion after becoming an atheist, now Evan is sympathetic to religion, what’s going on in the text through music, the British experience, counter cultural, anti-monarchy, dissenting churches, right wing churches, being religious outside of a religion, internally puritan, a space of resistance, one of the heads of the hydra, in the same paragraph as the witches, pirates, Matt Christman, Chapo Trap House, we need community again, sympathetic to religion, a space for radical transformation and alternatives, we need something else, we want something real, human experiences, long, but useful, never a dull moment, maybe the best we can hope for, the foundation, sit down and talk with people, come over our collective social anxiety, the progressive era, lived community, moving to cities, creating new instituions, Lions Club, Elks Club, Boy Scouts, used as a cudgel, Murray Bookchin, if freedom is a tree, the best you can do is become a streamer, fuck this shit we’re going to burn down New York, website problems, being very helpful, making community or whatever, problems not caused by big tech, creating “content”, generally buried and forgotten, 1000 podcasts, old posts, anything from about 10 years ago on YouTube approx 75% is gone, sad/boring comments, turning performance art into, give tips to the actors while they’re playing the play, they’re all terrible, extraordinary weirdos who are good at clicking, the worst sort of outcome imaginable, larping your jam, sitting all day, sitting too much, a new dystopia, Elon Musk buying twitter vs. making it open source, new free public engagement, he has the right enemies, a lol cow, read some more Rediker and Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto gets pretty wild, he’s braver, commentary on these themes, a very good revolitonary book, very insightful, insights into Lovecraft, when we look at something old, things we don’t know they knew, so happy teachers don’t know the contents of these stories, this is a sex metaphor, asses being stared at, these are all fart jokes, so rich, made richer, Shakespeare bad man (but also good man), holding stock, Stephen King knows the problem but can’t take that last step, Blaze, having sex with some lady, that farmer doing his best to help you, the way it should be rather than the way it is, a hotline in some boiler room, weird streamers like Stephen King, everybody can be like me, try to buy a lot less shit, games are full of virtual goods that are artificially scarce, all new games are free (pretty much), battlepasses, get skins for your character or car or gun, there are places for capitalism to go, a horrible place, consuming the public sector, Amazon still rests on producing things, ebooks are essentially skins, audiobooks are essentially skins, sometimes derived from labour, wealth generated by investments, other people’s labour, William Gibson is a shitlib, The Peripheral, disabled people in drone bodies, a place to expand to, go knock on doors and ask do you answer the phone?, a great book, 16.5 hours, the narration, too much of a boomer, Evan has come to terms with his boomerness, Evan is out of touch, YA for adults, that Rite Gud show, a retelling of a Jane Austen but late 19th century Cinderella, so not interested in class consciousness at all, so old fashioned, just Jane Austen + Cinderella as a YA, written for adults who never graduated to something that challenged them, technically well done, cinematographers, reading the subtitles, that’s the actual dialogue, if this is about my soul take it I don’t want it without you, maybe I’m crazy now, voice over narration, is it possible that there isn’t anything sane and normal at all?, Italy for some reason, Virgin airlines, Marry me Bella, GASP!, the credits roll, so cute, so spot on, we’re getting poisoned, which vampire or werewolf to choose, so funny, mass phenomenon, watching the world cup, people going back and forth, Slack is Evan’s twitter, when Qatar got the world cup, using slaves, not allowing beer, my team is my nation, the crimes are done, reparations schmeperations, soccer is not fun, basketball, volleyball, baseball is much more dynamic, cricket, nobody knows how it works, football has strategy, people like running, very simple, games are fun to play not fun to watch, your kid is involved, in solidarity with you kids, car racing, gladiators, MMA, it doesn’t have the clock, moments of great tension, makes better movies, good baseball movies, Major League, The Natural, The Sandlot, For The Love Of The Game, Field Of Dreams, more charm, pastime, a game of leisure, hockey, learning to skate, why soccer is popular on poverty stricken planets around the universe, running around, some sort of vague interest in that game they used to play, the elites care about the prestige, a bottom up thing, I am this powerful, I can pull this off, a poor kids sport, crazy for soccer, running around and kicking, Evan is not the only annoying person on Slack, the help desk blew up, complaining about things, urgent student issues, to do your ranting, friendly and non-work related, shitposting on slack, Tolkien universities, friendly and relaxed calm and peaceable, no J.R.R. Tolkien hate, orcs!, a Tolkien creation, spelled the same: orc, a more subversive reading than calling them black people, Rings Of Power, the creation of Mordor, an orc nationalist subplot, Galadriel is just a fuckin racist, no apologies, a horrible racist, we lost the war, we just need our place, no, you all have to die, a beloved character from the book, trolling on purpose, that longstanding criticism of Tolkien, all the good guys are white people, Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon, an essay about two orcs talking to each other, a fox takes note of something, attacking Tolkien in a very narrow way, a fantasy series with a gay protagonist doing gay sex, noir, dark, The Steel Remains, Market Forces, combines Mad Max and Wall Street, conflict investment, on the drive home from work they do car wars, satire sort of thing, an ESL tutor in Turkey, had some kid and fucked off, solid books, Black Man aka Thirteen, a bottom up approach, the ideas tend to be pretty good, Svudu is now Wealthy Genius, seeing it from the orc’s pov, Sam overhears, kidnapping Pippin and Merry, underorcs, discipline, our lot is misery, why William Blake is so weird, he has strong feelings, Jerusalem, undeniably powerful art, they made it a hymn, some Phil Ochs song, nice looking ladies holding hands, The Tyger is almost impenetrable, the final lines of this book, hard to understand then?, some whimsy if not power in his art, the Pacific, the ancient sign of navigators, the wanderers of the planets, some Typee for you, Thomas and Lydia Hardy, tried for his life, the globalizing powers, the planetary wanderers, Seattle, 2000, during the Battle of Seattle, 1999, the rhetoric of the 1990s, peace and trade and progress, a significant chunk of a lifetime ago, worse off now, the hope of a radical, 1997 APEC protests, authoritarian countries, I put pepper on my steak, why is everybody upset, they’re coordinating their laws to fuck us, reading the student newspaper, 2nd World is the Soviet Union, euphemism treadmill, 3rd world is more radical, it means poor, a third path, so much propaganda, poo on Jesse’s head from Evan pooing on him, lazy thinking, the truth can be exposed, you need to not be soaking in propaganda, on the ferry to Vancouver Island, Adbusters magazine, an anti-propaganda magazine, Biden on one side and Zelensky on the other, two critical takes, yessir yessir how high sir?, Megan Markle and her husband are getting a Netflix show, the number one show on Spotify, celebrities that are kings and queens, Obama and a musician had a podcast, content-less, too many books to read, 75 episodes for Mark Twain and 100 episodes for Heinlein, people who should know better, angry at the queen or the other kid for being, mostly not propaganda, a fine place to dwell, analyzing, exposing it, out from under, Jesse’s thinking of Paul, let them be in their blanket, its not Evan’s job to save everyone, do Poe eventual, the Poe wish, stay healthy, losing weight, one pack a week, anti-smoking, a week long group project planned out, deliver content, dynamism, ESL students, read these pages, answer these questions, work in groups, a private school that’s trying to make money, lecture, present this, without Slides (PPT) you might as well be speaking in a foreign language, when the bosses walk by reading at your desk, teaching taking place, devestated by lockdowns, this is going to perk you up, you’re not engaging with this amazing Lovecraft poem the way you should be, why are the kids fucking off?, some structure, a more traditional idea of academic achievement, girls do better, hard on the boys, they’re Evan’s clan/tribe/race, don’t let them embarrass us, their acculturated to do better in those class, boys in person, wooden swords and hack at each other for 45 minutes, then talk philosophy, run around for a long time, able to absorb things, pumped up with lack of sword fighting, it could be javelin throwing, less upset, less restrained, PE is not the solution, nobody cares about the grades, bad grades in gym class, kids love dodgeball, gladiator stuff, you want to do this?, of course!, Philip K. Dick Volume 1 letters, letters to his mom, Mom send my pills!, Mom I need a doctor’s note, doing bad at math, poor Philip K. Dick, terrible spelling, 1940s and early 1950s, letter to Anthony Boucher, Susan Cooper, The Skull, The Moon Maid is about communism on the Moon, centaur, a lady riding a male centaur, foreign teachers could have Christmas off, Life On The Mississippi, Lifeline, Misfit, it pisses off the insurance companies, The Man Who Traveled In Elephants, Tenderfoot In Space, Rocket Ship Galileo, the podcasts are broken, a thousand episodes, boring lame necessary (unpaid) work, Patreon stuff, she loves business shit, hey, this book’s cool!, literally gonna run out of juveniles, a theory of Philip Dick, a theory of Lovecraft, Heinlein’s thesis is he’s American (but not the way the government means), For Us, The Living, Shadows In Zamboula, roaming cannibals, a fearsome strangler, marred by including racial stereotypes, specific blacks from Darfar, profiting from cannibalism, it sounds good, near southern Egypt?, kushites, a love letter to Paul, The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson, The Venom Business by Michael Crichton, Evan can out American Jesse, people mad at him for global warming denier, ended his career sort of, he can never be a good boy like Stephen King, what about his blank book that has a blank in it, no, you’re ruining it!, a strong theory about westerns: ketchup and mustard, #KetchupAndMustardGetup, it means something but probably not anything important, pulp style covers, blues and whites, yellow and red for clothes, snowing.

The Many-Headed Hydra

Europe Supported By Africa And America by William Blake

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #387 – The Autumn After Next by Margaret St. Clair

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #387

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Autumn After Next by Margaret St. Clair

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

This story was first published in If Worlds Of Science Fiction, January 1960.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!