News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.
Reading, Short And Deep #489
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The First One by John D. MacDonald
Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.
The First One was first published in Startling Stories, January 1950.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #843 – Jesse and Cora Buhlert discuss Mistress Of Mellyn by Victoria Holt
Talked about on today’s show:
Eleanor Alice Burford, two others, gothic romances, multigenerational family dramas, every book focused on a different woman from the same family, to name a doll, Harlequin Romances, her maiden name, historical novels, mysteries, mixed up with someone else?, early lesbian fiction?, this particular book is not very lesbian, specialized in straight romance novels, wrote a really long time, her best known pen-name, her first Victoria Holt novel, an excellent read, a little over 10 hours, a hardcover publication, the book that started the gothic romances, inspired by earlier books, women fleeing, very very good, how good it was, discovered something, aiming for, a phenomenon in the world happening, Jesse gets it now, sell a lot of books, used books, romance novels, they’re addicted, straight up romance novel, ridiculous and silly, the genre, making a distinction, gothics, romance, gothic romance, in comics, she’s interesting, she’s got something wrong with her, neurotic?, what it is, this is like escapism, a fantasy series, Dragonlance, really fun, teaches you nothing, escaping from the world, fantasy is the same thing, learning to swordfight in a book, fun but teaches you nothing, escaping their life, she’s not neurotic, overthinking things, her own experience of the world, what evolutionary purpose does it serve, gothic romances are like amateur detective novels, Tommy and Tuppence, Agatha Christie style, mysteries, cozy mysteries about cupcake bakers, it wasn’t their friend who was murdered, these are detective novels, and the mystery is, an menace, is this man the right person to marry, Jane Austen, the Byronic hero, Lord Byron, Mr Right and Mr Wrong, its a parody of the 18th century gothic, they’re absolutely connected, a descendant, what makes it so much better, hints of the supernatural, she looked like a fey, are you fey?, no wereford, don’t go out on the moors, the little people will pull you into a bog, supernatural threat, all the feelings that she has are justified, the final scene before the afterword, having the rugged pulled out from under me, perfectly red herringed all the way through, she would be the one, the killer, the source of all the weird happenings, totally surprised, skilled writing and fun to try and figure out if this is a suitable man for her, are these feelings I have all in my head, very standoffish, inappropriate kiss, aloof, 1980s, first person, the POV of the woman, the man is the mystery, he’s always flirting with you, go off to Australia, often such a guy, she needs to investigate, the mystery of who am I gonna marry, Philip K. Dick, what’s the difference between men and women, some time in the 19th century, later 19th century, trains, 1860 or up to 1890, described the clothing, men are different from women, women gestate babies for 9 months, a woman needs to be circumspect about the man she marries, lots of money vs. a little money, very little power, she’s poor, a gentlewoman, Jane Austen onward, gentry, find a job, governess, companion to a rich elder woman, worse jobs, not respectable jobs, a streetwalker, a high class prostitute, an actress, she doesn’t think she’s pretty, she is pretty, a romance trope, the heroine never thinks of herself as pretty, we don’t want her to be vain, not relatable, to the female reader, nice qualities, kind to the one kid, the non-verbal girl, a fairy child who got run over by a cart or something, she never married, just a servant to an old woman, telling this story, her great grandchildren, the room with two skeletons in it, snaps her out of her coma, two minutes ago, story’s over, she really strung me along, this book would make a great choose your own adventure, a Jane Austen based humorless one, an Austen scholar, aimed at teenagers, translated from English, because we don’t know he’s a good guy, I went and saw, as soon as she finds the diary, medallion or necklace back, contradicts the official story, turn to page 78, he chokes you to death, he murdered his wife, a mix of two previous famous books, Charlotte Brontë, Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Martha, previous wife, mysterious presence, said to be dead but isn’t, are you okay with me spoiling these two, mentally ill, locked up in the attic, died in a storm, a lot of ghosts in this book, provoked him into murder, couldn’t just divorce, the big house burns down, the body of the wife and her sailboat, terminal cancer, the murderer, similarities to Rebecca, both set in Cornwall, an inversion of the most famous Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Dartmoor, a Canadian who inherits the estate, Watson is the viewpoint character, the woman in danger is Sir John Baskerville, the neighbors are a brother and sister, an astronomer, the other one likes flowers, like a gothic romance, just a straight up murder mystery, wrote well into the 1980s, probably worth reading, historical, the formula’s older, rediscovered, perfected, Sir John Baskerville falls in love with the sister across the moor, the neighbour astronomer, wanted to inherit the estate, make the baronet close, kill him too, the final distant heir, the girl falls in love, I don’t want my husband to kill you, all very solid, that is not perceived as a romance, an amateur detective, hiding in a cave, investigating this spooky old house, not a gothic romance, what makes it a gothic romance, the possibility of marrying in, what does Connan Tremellyn do for a living?, goes on business trips, could have been red herrings, a rich landowner, tenant farmers, my money is in slaves, my money is in rum, Mansfield Park, do we want to marry him?, she marries the younger son, what makes this book so interesting and significant, investigating along, not knowing right up to the end, the appeal of this, beautiful women fleeing castles at night with a high lit window, this is part of a woman’s mind, I’m dating this guy, he’s physically stronger, he could hurt me, how do I know that he is good?, Joanna Russ, scholarly article, another person’s blog post, neither love stories, adventure stories with passive protagonists, she’s the opposite of that, the actions she takes, she takes this job, then she realizes this kid is traumatized, needs to get back on the horse, why the book is so long, lemme raise this kid, not as brain damaged, teach her letters, worrying about this journal she found, writes a letter to the previous governess, presents that information, she is doing an active investigation, whenever men are giving her gifts, almost a swordfight parrying, verbal techniques rather than physical techniques, great dialogue, all the men are sinister but no men in this book are evil, an evil woman, the wife is coded as evil, slave plantations, Caribbean, she’s mentally ill because she’s mixed race, am I going crazy?, is this a dream?, why is she always second guessing?, that’s the quality of she’s doing the investigation, not taking everything at face value, when presented with the horse, the right instinct, the stabling of this horse, the reason that guy is a bad guy, he’s not thinking things through, what we would think of a little suspect, realistic character flaws, cheating on my first wife, a very elderly husband, I’m disaffected, when I marry you, don’t listen to the rumors, Victoria Holt tricking us very effectively, the formula that birthed the gothic romance, the new explanation, when the elderly sir died, this is why this book is so long, he wasn’t a useless character, he was a red herring, he might have been murdered, suspected poison, is she being used?, sure looks like it, is she gonna go confront him?, at any of the points where she’s questioning what to do, the gothic novel boom had ended by the 80s, not enough overlap, sensuality and kissing, there’s implied sex, on screen there’s kissing that’s it, The Flame And The Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, half-rape, Heartquest Dungeons & Dragons romance novel, not a true romance, you literally are going on a quest to save your village, bad water in the well, cute guy, to expand the customer base to girl, the most popular German one, The Dark Eye, a German D&D knock off, early sword & sorcery, nerdy guys, more Tolkienesque, specialty import shops, advertised on television, mainstream board game company, was it available in East Germany, it would fit, on a train in 1989, 16 years old, a city partnership, for the fall of the east europe, the other person is just like me, what was then the Soviet Union, Latvia, student exchange, see for myself what its like, 3 days from Bremen, Berlin to St. Petersburg, for obvious reasons, endless three day train ride, two guys had the dark eye, Poland, someone probably did play it in East Germany, didn’t care about board games, gothic romance choose your own adventure, write those extra scenes, end up murdered, shoved into the murder hole, the old priest’s hole, there’s a skeleton in there, yay!, perfectly reasonable to expect, crazy woman locked in the attic, child locked in the basement, buried alive, Edgar Allan Poe, essentially a perfect book, long but justified, a murder mystery, the romance, 8 and half hours in when he asks her to marry, mostly it’s about the kids, common gothic thing, I want to marry you, Mr Darcy is besotted with Elizabeth, dude what are you doing, the only threat is his eyebrows and his gloominess, the mysterious unknowable, mad bad and dangerous to know, Lord Byron left the country, they are stay at homes, having to flee the country, the scandal is so great, Bluebeard, there is a Bluebeard scene in this book, Bros. Grimm, The Castle Of Murder, Fitcher’s Bird, three daughters, take her away, I would like to marry your eldest daughter, third time, the only sister, parents what are you doing, she’s very suspicious, here are the keys to any room in the house, do not go in there, oh and take this egg and carry it with you always, an old woman skinning guts, chopped up in a bowl, egg to drop and get stained, the truth is out, this bluebeard character, murdering his wives, maybe he has sex with him, one way of ending the story, where’s that egg?, oh good, now we can have a good marriage, psychologically, a woman needs to be locked up, his wife was not faithful to him, she is going to be faithful, good at rebuffing, so true, only to give birth to children from that man, Bluebeard’s test, the woman’s test, a mental investigation, some of those memes, man and woman are lying in bed, about the Roman Empire, women need to investigate the man’s head, the baby won’t be supported, the gap between the genders, not knowing what motivates the other, note that folktales, fairytales, warnings, be careful about who you’re marrying, stories written by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm stories are fairytales, orally transmitted, cautionary tales, art fairy tales, Charles Perrault, little mermaid, Copenhagen, put a nail in the coffin, being happy, perfectly grokked, propose this scenario, imagine this novel gender swapped, a lady who has a big castle, she needs a tutor for her son, she’s very standoffish, she’s not sure that her son is her son, that is Jesse’s point, there are things going on in this kind of fiction that allow us to see inside of people, gender flip public domain stories, King Of The Black Coast, My Cousin Rachel, you don’t have the kid in this one, is Jilly Flower the most important character in the book?, she leads things in directions, she’s not, neither is the daughter, step daughter, not a bio-daughter, she’s a bastard, she’s a cuckoo-kid, who is the most important character in the book, the narrator, she’s absolutely not passive, that quote doesn’t make any sense, active in every respect, at the height of the gothic romance boom, Tansy Rayner Roberts, woman and the house, who is the Mistress of the title, mistress has a second meaning, the title of the book can refer to the murderer, it does refer to the child as well, both children, half sisters, slept with everything that moved, a realistic book, really well put together, another part of the universe, why are gothic romances so appealing?, this is a real phenomena, you don’t write novels about men investigating women’s past, weird incel guys, as long as it hasn’t been for the last nine months its probably fine, in the 21st century, always virginal, the servants in this house, the mother of Gilly, walked into the sea, Beyond The Door is awesome, that night at the dinner table, her hand to her mouth, sharp nails, her bosom rising and falling, a cuckoo clock, just like my mother had when Pete was still alive, Carl got it for me wholesale, a funny little sound, what’s the matter with you you’ve got your clock haven’t you, the opening of the story, its in Fantastic Universe, only for her, won’t do it for Larry, smash you, breaks his neck, very near the end of the story, what?!, what is this?, nobody cares except for Jesse, there’s a hidden story inside of this story, like my mother had, when Pete was still alive, never hear Pete again, why is that in there?, if you’re paying attention, there’s a nosy neighbour across the street, suss out whether she was cheating, the neighbour’s last name is Peters, we heard from the nosy neighbour, Larry Thomas, why is Pete the presumed half brother, Doris, it’s all about cuckolding, the wife is cheating on him, he comes home unexpectedly, they were having sex, informing on this household, her husband cheated with Doris’ mom, he murdered him, the same kind of psychology, women are biologically different than men, men just have to hope that women are faithful, that difference makes for a vast exploration of genres of story, pretty much all of them, if we had access to alpha centurian literature, Alien Nation, George Fransisco, retarded guy at work, prefertilizes women, the fertilization ceremony, everybody celebrates, not something that normally happens in our culture, made possible by his contribution, that’s what makes science fiction amazing, that’s what its really about, not just an alien with a ray gun, isn’t that cool?, Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys, she is an amateur detective, something’s gone missing, she has a girlfriend, she’s not dating, teen mysteries, next week, some kind of early advent coffee, 4.5 hours, aimed at kids, this was very solid, one of the best books, let’s talk about Rebecca, it’s public domain status, there’s several movies, the Hitchcock one, fairly recent version, Charles Dance, Diana Rigg, Game Of Thrones, she was the old woman giving really good advice, a British actor, Sean Bean, Sharpe’s Rifles is the one where he doesn’t get killed, Goldeneye (1995), he’s a white ruissian mad at the British, a great backstory, very few good Bond movies after the fall of the Berlin Wall, not really about the Cold War, it wasn’t the Russians, he slept with them, they gave him an Order of Lenin, License To Kill, James Bond does Miami Vice, the Bond movies died with Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, products of the 60s and 70s, the modern ones with Daniel Craig, Newcastle Birmingham accent, part of the promotion of the film requires that you pretend, Sean Connery, the best James Bond movie is the Cannonball Run (1981), plastic surgery, a Jew who wants to be James Bond, they’re all fairly good, George Lazenby, it has Diana Rigg, a very good movie, the guy who plays Jaws [Richard Kiel] is in Cannonball Run (1981) too, some cookies, we have bad food in North America, truck stop bakery, a well lit bakery, American style diner, discovered the cookies, cookies in the background, see you next week.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #488
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss You Can’t Lose by Lawrence Block
Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.
You Can’t Lose was first published in Manhunt, February 1958.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #842 – The Symposium by Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett, read by Geoffrey Edwards (2 hours 14 minutes) for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Persons of the podcast: Jesse, Alex (pulpcovers), Terence Blake, and Tommy Patrick Ryan
Talked about on today’s show:
on the outside, a flute girl, from approx 2400 year ago, a nice conversation, how gay these guys were, 30 years, pretty peculiar, a callow youth, these guys are deeply gay, great books, Eric [Rabkin] our mutual friend, amp up the gayness, Socrates and all these guys were NPCs, the real love is with a man and a boy, his beard needs to be just sprouting, how okay they were with, it was the moral thing to do, it was the norm, they’re aliens, half the people aren’t okay with it, allies, real deep, what’s the cutoff line, very prevelent, slaves gettin wrecked, other dialogues, one of the Assassin’s Creed games, all these quests, very cool, the death of Socrates as a mission, Plato as a young boy, Hippocrates, Pythagoras was an elf, a few hundred years, names you would know, probably an awesome way to learn about that stuff, players appreciate depth, taking a walk, walkin and talking, partying in the street, everybody’s a master, the flute girls suck, are they filling flutes of champagne or piping of flutes, literature, right to the point, why isn’t all philosophy written this way, Aristotelian, sub bullet points, what is this book about and who’s right?, the story of the double people, two weddings, some part of that passage, the premise, connected, somersaults, androgynous, gay weddings?, best man, both were non-religious weddings, looking for that other half, in tears, I found you, not an emotional guy, 30th birthday, people being split, soul mates, super goofy, we’re punished, we’re cursed, we’re forever cursed, you need to find some way to connect, weddings usually involve some words, obviously wrong, a myth created for this particular piece, gets at something, a comedy piece, pieces are tucked in, move the genitals around to the other side, it’s silly, resonates with the Christian myth of the fall, splitting you in half, complete in another person, super-common, you complete me, people want that, not whole, a lot of propaganda in Hollywood, the #MeetCute, ideological and pathological, 17 years now, I got to find my romantic partner, I’m on the wrong path, I can’t find the one, Speed (1994), base it on sex, mimetic, Speed 2, the meeting the other half of your soul, higher and higher forms of love, inside this text, towards something, real love is a higher thing, Agathon, craziness, the greater the #MeetCute, the gal in Ecuador, randomly on the bus, a city of 400,000 people, hard to get over, there’s a narrative that we subscribe, the plot is breaking, this can’t be the end, no, it’s the end, look at the details, witty banter and personality defects that fit together, The Front Page (1931), back and forth, a high high, elevated horror, in the clouds with Aristophanes, love is wanting to share, step in, love is being drawn towards the good qua good, participating in the good, love is not inter-subjective, translated as love, erotic love, the lowest form of love, real eros is towards the good, middling eros, sublimated eros, philosophy, philia, a transformation of eros, the other forms of love, the appreciation of beauty, you have to have a consciousness, this is fun, what do I do all day long, Tommy in the chat, process stories to read them, beautiful art, it needs to be appreciated, beautiful women, why?, there’s a story there, I’m an animal, I’m a male, I’m not super-gay, what does Mr Pulpcovers do all day, beautiful pieces of art, higher DPI is better, costs a lot of money, that’s not the purpose, a certain kind of art, a lost art, commercial art, spend a nickel on a crappy magazine, designed to make it hard to look away, the same cover three times changed, aesthetic judgements, cave women uncovered pictures, suddenly jumps off the page, tasteful or better, figuring that out, a particular [John William] Waterhouse painting, one of Circe, a mirror behind her, in front of her in the mirror is Odysseus, his ship, you shouldn’t be able to see the ship, her wand, level with her head is a cup, incense burning, tile floor covered in dung, flowers strewn all about, an image rich in scent, took the painting, how is this such a great painting, recreating it in photographs, very good, in a dream last night, a poem without meter or rhyme is probably not worth reading, respect that some people don’t like rhyme, the greatest example, he has meter and he puts rhymes, prefer it, sonnets are sweet, nobody pays you for it, not something you do to get paid, unless you’ve got a guitar or are in a Korean boy band, a fun framework for a song, lyrics, one is the root of the other, grokking the image better, appreciating what’s going on, bare and graceful foot atop the head of man, how striking it is, the first story with a wand in it, very firsts, at the end he attacks her with his knife, promise not to entrance him, feeds him and bathes him, first they have sex, stay for a while, some insight into the Greek, talking about Homer, more Iliad than the Odyssey, Achilles love for Patroclus, this is part of Plato’s realm of the forms argument, getting at the same thing, what Socrates eventually talks about, Platonic theory of forms, the Platonic ideal of a pulp cover, #BrassBra and #LegCling, why is #LegCling a thing, she grabs at his knees, these Greeks are crybabies, when you have a lot of slaves and a lot of violence, a platonic ideal of a western pulp magazine, a horse a girl and guy and a #KetchupAndMustardGetup, Han Solo’s black vest, doesn’t make him any less a Western cowboy cover, when Greedo shot first, very reasonable, The Iliad, the heterome I am, iconic scenes, the sheep, the cyclops, the cattle, the island of the sun, Argus the dog, gone from 20 years, recognizes Odysseus in disguise, sees his master he dies, whatev you just a dog, how to be in the world, Odysseus doesn’t seem super gay, gets all the honors, Agathon, Alcibiades, the gay rapist traitor, famously a terrible traitor, fought for Sparta, he deserved the battle honor, saved me and my arms, he should be the one honoured, harder to understand, the desire to go home, defeat one’s enemies, so focused on male on male love, an appreciation of some sort of beauty, we can picture in our heads a pulp cover we’ve never seen, a rocketship, a bubble helmet, #SpaceBagLadies, this is this and that’s that, class notes, he would talk for years and his students would take notes, Plato is a lot more like [Saint] Augustine, more narrative, doesn’t have a clear answer, gesturing in the direction, sharing, in the content its not about sharing, harmony, the search for unity, the form, all together, Plato is giving several different answers in the content, the sharing in the form, all about eros, if it wasn’t too old, the symposium is about the love of sharing (agape), an anachronism, the whole setup is producing all sorts of concepts of love, riffing on eros, heavenly eros, earthly eros, eros as cosmic, takes you toward abstraction, excess and lack, later on we will give different names to those things, concepts at play, maybe he doesn’t even want to invent certain sorts of terms, a technical sense, terminological pinning down, in the text proper, one guy says to the other, sit here by me, let me pour myself into you, a bad vision of dialogue, drink of your wisdom, vampire, that is sharing, finish quickly, the example, water through wool, if you lay a strip of wool, capillary action, siphoning petrol, pour my wisdom into you, no wisdom by proximity or osmosis, you gotta do the work man, Zeus showing her true form, she was just exploded, ok, lightning bolt, Neo in the Matrix, download is the metaphor we are problematized today, downloading is actually just copying, copying over and copying across, an actual drinking party, the name Achilles, Diotima, super adjacent, super interesting, a narrative, almost a soap opera, some sort of different, what did you do in the war?, bard comes into town, two different Ajaxes, you don’t have to be from Ithaca to appreciate the story, Achilles was mad at Agamemnon for stealing a lady, borrows his armour, bolsters the troops, slain by Hector, taking the revenge, had a lot of lovers, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), I go to bed with all my friends, they are really close, several lovers there, Phaedrus, lover of Agathon, unrequited love, the inverse of the image, the divine statue inside, the earthly parodic version, external beauty of the warrior, a reverse image, the Iliad is an earthly allegory, touch on this idea, why is it a symposium, a drinking party, who can get drunk, not a real drinking party, it’s diluted, the heavy drinking, the undiluted wine, dilute with some water, attenuate the effect of the alcohol, as the host, don’t give them too much, tipsy and good humour, the form is important here, ultimately, lets you understand what something’s true nature is, let’s close the door, later on in the party, when a party of street people comes in, a metaphor for his later betrayal, looking pretty and wrecking Athens, the host shares the wine with you, Jesse is not a wine guy, when the people are doing that, appreciate this, why do you invite people over to your house, diffuse good, spread it out, 48 Laws Of Power [by Robert Greene], assumes scarcity mentality, that’s not really the problem, a lack of scarcity, we are post scarce on almost everything, more and more people are skipping meals, the lower level of income, food is not scarce, scarcity is produced, the opposite of the love mindset, in fairy tales nobody ever says I love you they just give you food, a palpable need, she’s not trying to make money, she wants to express love, words are new, do you know what love is, they’re still alive, puppies covered in blood, licks them clean, helps them to find her nipples, she licks up her puppies poo and pee, they don’t have the word love, balls and owls, they did know love, this is the good, share the good, perverse incentives, using people to keep your position, assumes scarcity, the more you share information and skills and the good the better it is for you, your environment is better, comes at the end, how ugly Socrates is, it isn’t just about Alcibiades is pretty, the visual is the first step, born with your eyes closed, shared, coming there to party, drink of the ideas, the form being somehow connected, seminar is a 3 hour class, professors getting together and drinking, extemporaneous speeches, they picked a topic while they were there, set up that way, sophists or students of sophists, Aristophanes, the best versions of themselves, a literary device, an idea of preparation in it, plucked out of the air, a rhetorical competition, they’ve set pieces, so right, they’ve had this conversations multiple times, great speeches, kept having these speeches, Plato took the best of it, makes it compelling an interesting, working on it, they did it again, tweaking us, extemporaneous speeches, expected to have, frameworks, taught how to give a speech off the cuff, memorizing a speech by license, Protagoras, Gorgias, Homer’s poetry, rosy fingered dawn, each is relying on his previous work, half extemporaneous, serving up what they’ve got in their repertoire that they adapt, public speaking, canned jokes, Intoxicating Interests, the entire Skywalker saga, Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1000% they were ready to talk on this topic, experts on love, the warrior poet as a concept, Tolkien, the Battle Of The Pelennor Fields, Gurney Halleck in Dune, composing war songs on the fly, tattooed on my arm, a framework that’s lost now, a proper education for normal people, all the citizens were all senators and lawyers, coherently, persuasively, and passionately, any real powers of enjoyment, no human being has ever seen Socrates drunk, he can transform the alcohol on the molecular level, it fits, going back to Circe, Mercury comes, moly, mix you up a mess in a potion, he drinks it, he drinks the poison that’s going to turn him into a pig or a lion, turning water into wine or wine into water, part of the rhetorical story, he’s the intellectual ancestor of the stoics, self mastery, the statue of the Silenus, highly developed soul, a yogi, master the bodily reactions, that archetype, though phyiscally ugly, the tutor to Dionysus, in vino veritas, talk to a lot of randos, do you smoke weed?, what they’re doing, my brain is drugs, certain drugs, bad effects, alcohol makes Jesse stupid, makes poorer decisions, Friedrich Nietzsche, my good friend Yoda, not that wise, Yoda as a Buddha, inner beauty, whatever the yoda species is, where baby yodas come from, a female jedi, the only of that race, inner light, inner beauty, teach yoga a lot, friend from Russia, halo of golden light coming from his third eye, sees in these ways, waiver, would not take drugs, unlocked all this stuff, mistaking metaphor, Tucker Carlson, nuclear weapons were built by demons, a guy named Oppenheimer, that which is good, its as if, making it not a simile, very little metaphor, mythology of where some subset of humans come from, silly, designed to be humorous, speaks to the problem, the party gets broken up, the less of a good theory, a basic level, leveling deeper, what makes Socrates beautiful in that scene, saving his friend, retrieving his armour, his beautiful actions, talking about actions, could be taken to literally, a shift in perception, that’s not a pretty person, Steve Buscemi is not a handsome man, he fits some sort of archetype of beauty not in the supermodel department, people light up, a useful metaphor, seeing the beautiful actions, look at the actions not at the nose, Nietzsche’s thing, collective Greek psychology, beginning to come apart, classical poems, scipture, coming apart, mastered this chaos of instincts in his person, at the wrong time, the ugliness meant he was going to fail, the very next year, a series of sacrileges, the Hermes statues were disfigured, parodies, it was a plot, fled to Sparta, powers as a general, had to flee again, refuge with the Persians, assassinated, Macedonia, Agathon was one of the people accused of the desecration, this is the end of the good old times, banquet, known people who’s fates declined, judged and tried for being friends with people like that, his failure, good and strong and resistant, his undoing as well, the seeds of that were there, by implication, 416bc, the year before, high gear, the decline of Athens, underneath Socrates’s surface, the realm, to talk like Game Of Thrones, underneath the surface of Athens, this decline, this chaos, pluralism, criticize each other, typologies and instincts, the setting and the scene more resonant, written backwards, Hagel’s thing, the owl of Minerva spreads its wings at dusk, how you interpret the last scene, a paragraph, when Alcibiades had finished, you are sober, for all this long story, an ingenious circumlocution, I ought to love you and nobody else, the plot of this, has been detected, Alcibiades: Agent Of Chaos, each speech is more powerful and more inclusive, two different types, the medical point of view, the right dosage, the cosmic viewpoint, Diotima is Socrates in transgender dressing, up in the clouds in transcendence, a failed incarnation, only one person managed to do it, everyone else was scattered to the four winds, doublefaced, profitable to revisit, perceiving it as super super gay, that’s the deep state, Trump was elected to get rid of this stuff, the politics of the breaking up of the two bodies, androgynous, we only use that as an insult, he ain’t got no big bushy beard, it doesn’t fit with today’s aesthetics, too manly, the bad flow, they’re just slaves, not as sexual objects, cultivated slaves, how different the society is, appreciate the things we can connect with, supposedly a very advanced civilization, technological marvels, we were walking, so many levels of hearsay, piecing this together, we start with a walk, Ethan Frome [by Edith Wharton], frame narrative, Canterbury Tales, maybe in a novel, The Odyssey, everything is unreliable, most sacred and hallowed love, is this pedophilia, not really the best people, they’re not trying to impress us, there’s no wives mentioned here, men with men, they are literally at home supervising the slaves, another party in another part of the house, what classes you’re taking, the wife who goes down, Priam’s daughter, Orpheus tries to get into Hades alive, the relationship to women has massively changed by the time of Shakespeare, The Odyssey, Iago’s got the hots for Othello, you can have a conversation with a lady and the eros goes up, in Macbeth, she’s a real character, not the subject, the pureness of it, its relation to the pureness of it, Pulpcovers.com, the spacing between the characters, a celebrity face, make it look like Mr Spock a little bit, we want to see the original, raw, [virgin covers], making alternative covers, weird collectors, for investment purposes, we have these dudes hanging around drinking, being in academia, a trade issue, access to the Black Sea, in a finite space, they went to Ireland, after various plagues, get people banging, useful banging rather than pleasureful gay banging, tragedies, normalized those relationships, definitely changed, gay vikings, hot for finding ladies, show off too each other, interested in braggadocio, the one where Socrates dies, two dozen, not a Plato guy as such, why do they teach this one, this one’s funny, an instinct to share (not just bodily fluids), what makes someone spiritually ugly, using you to get what I want, thinking Ayn Randian thoughts, Objectivism is not that, sterile and kind of gross, mathematically planned, they both have contempt for the others, creator of great architectures, they don’t have souls, she did that to her own husband, I guess, she lived that philosophy to the max, it seems ugly, ugly in real life too, as a point of aesthetics, The Fountainhead, get it through osmosis, as great souled as him, stop watching ninjas and samurais on tv, do some more dialogues, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown by Lawrence Block, Project Pope, Clifford D. Simak, The Visitors by Clifford D. Simak, how fun those Simak books are, Time Is The Simplest Thing, Shakespeare’s Planet, Special Deliverance, the poetess is like Agathon, let herself die, the singing pillar, turned into a mummy, Simak is a philosophy guy doing science fiction in those books, he never really was a big plot guy, the ones written for Astounding, late Simaks, spread those out a bit, Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, The Haunted Corridors, Odd John, Lilith by George Macdonald, step away, more out there, new good stuff on LibriVox, another Plato, six months or a year, pretty long, six months or a year, how this is sci-fi, kind of curious, another website, two wordpress sites, a very good argument, crime and mystery rather than police procedural, very much the same thing as science fiction and fantasy, help a student with some homework, Fugitive Pieces, canadian lit forced upon canadian students, unreadable garbage because they don’t have wizards and they don’t have robots, necromancers, not sent in the ancient past, mimetic fiction, the author grew up in a suburb of Toronto, dad was a holocaust survivor, it’s boring, interested in interesting, philosophy and science fiction go together like ham and eggs, and the ones that aren’t confuses things, in essence, if you want to stretch it and make it easy, eight-limbed two headed creatures, fantastical writing, myth, philosophy is asking questions, myth and fantasy aren’t the same thing, a lot of Manhunt, characters are disposable generally, a six page story, Shot by Gil Brewer, I’m shot!, every picture of ladies holding guns, noirvember, The Lady From Shanghai (1947), James M. Cain is not science fiction [usually], a fantasy story by him, they kill each other and go to Hell, crime stories do some sort of sparky thing that science fiction and fantasy do, stuff that’s really good and fun but nobody should do a podcast on: Tales Of The Gold Monkey, fun, stupid and silly, wasn’t that a great scene where the nazi’s dressed up as a priest, she’s in a hot-tub, the girl who’s name is Tiki, silly and fun not deep, spark, not mimetic, my dad was traumatized when there was a flood, praised to the heavens because it has poetic devices, its narrative, not interesting, overexplained it, starting to bore myself, The Tower Treasure, Mr. Pulpcovers, he doesn’t want it shared, Tommy works for me, names online, the account name, SneakyFokker, banned certain words, WWI aircraft designer, Mr Jim Moon, he’s not Jim, it’s funnier and funner, Plato means shorty or flatty, Socrates, nothing to be written down, who do we hear it from tho?, Socrates said this, that’s a good point, committing to memory, hard to remember, as soon as we are done with it, who’s this hilarious smart guy I’m listening to, we know it’s being recorded, rote, canned, happiness is the exercise of vital powers through lines of excellence in a life affording them scope, the them refers to the vital powers, copy things and share, to understand it, we don’t know who wrote it, we tell three stories, an eagle, a horse, a human, flying and eyeing and hunting, making eggs in their eyries with their sweeties, horses, what do they like, running, grass, running in groups, I have heard that, horsey things, it’s almost like they like being scared, Shadowfax is hero, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, so noble and beautiful, I’ll be in the barn with my horses, they like the power, horses are beautiful like kittens and puppies, what is man like, what would make an eagle unhappy, not being able to fly, being in a cage, not eyeing things, specific kinds of freedom, it wants to soar, doesn’t just want food, it wants to be an eagle, to actualize it’s nature, break one of its legs, don’t let it run in groups, I’ve herd, horsey things, being brushed, back to the man, so many opinions, a narrow specific kind of man, a king from some Greek kingdom, I do like my works, fleets of fleet ships, taxed away from my people, this is exactly what I do, impress other kings, this guy’s got all the ship, the happy shipwright, he’s motivated by building ships, making a tank maker happy, if you built one and put it in the water, had admirable lines, whatever a ship is supposed to do well, what we left out, do it over time, happy in the moment, designing things, making things, doing art, reveling in creation, that’s not what happiness is, the shipwright doesn’t want to build to make money, when the old man who’s built ship for 70 years, when they stand over his grave they say this was a happy man, before the internet, better at memorizing things, a muscle to exercise through lines of excellence in a life affording them scope, this is their cheat sheet, the George Lucas witching hour, the way to St. Tropez, HMS Pinafore, Pirates Of Penance, [Major-General’s Song], forensics, rhetorical, extemporaneous, interpretive, storytelling, duo, Tom and Tommy, performative, word knowledge, the narrator, Canadian, a similar register?, Geoffrey Edwards, 400 episodes, such good stuff, always just look it up, the artifacts in it are there because of the medium it was made from, a way of oriented, they’re lost, day is coming, just the next day, sixteen different ways of saying next, there’s always more to say, that’s why that show is only half an hour long, pre-stuff, wrap it up, he’s 85, it’s not a tragedy, we can say he was happy, happiness is a verb, a thing you do, its also true, it was good, you look back on it it was good, excellent and vital somehow, punishment, there’s no happiness there, you’re not doing it through lines of excellence, little kids, problems can be solved with money, money will get you more stuff, a fun one, a great group, sound issues, that was Terence, 8th and 15th, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, the Ayn Rand, The Time Machine, V For Vendetta, an actual novel, not written by Alan Moore, a little too hot right now, things being cold, there’s no audiobook for it, Treasure Island, read some things, I’ve always wanted to read, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, a very forgotten novel that sounds amazing, Good Omens some time in 2020, there’s nothing here, not everything needs to be discussed, that’s how I act, I’m not happy but we’ll see, caged up with a broken leg, making eggs with my sweetie, Steve Miller, go fly like an eagle.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #487
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Millions Of Cats by Wanda Gag
Here’s a link to the book |PDF|.
Millions Of Cats was first published in 1928.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #841 – Jesse and Cora Buhlert discuss The Weapon Shop by A.E. van Vogt and Paycheck by Philip K. Dick.
Talked about on today’s show:
wanted to pair, not public domain, first and second, Philip K. Dick was a fan of the writings of A.E. van Vogt, The Worlds Of Null-A, very similar in a couple of ways, the movie with Ben Affleck, and the lady from Kill Bill (2003), Uma Thurman, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, The Pre-Persons, sexist, hate, anti-choice, if you’re a woman, Dick is sexist, how is he sexist, Rethrick, Kelly, the secretary, his daughter, keep his business in the family, doesn’t even enter his mind, that’s the character not the author, it doesn’t seem to occur to Dick either, smart and competent, a terribly conservative protagonist, drill down on this idea, Jennings is not much of a character, Jennings prior to the wipe, Total Recall, what his backstory is, at the end of the movie he’s fighting a guy named Cohagen, Captain Jellico, Ronny Cox, always a corporate badguy, he’s always evil, Dan O’Bannon, almost every good science fiction movie, $50,000 for having his stuff from Black Destroyer used, similar, might have read this, quite different, Couerl, a very bad writer, a weird writer, great at ideas, not a pleasure to read, his prose is problematic, it’s the ideas, in watching the movie, in a different frame, explicitly it’s called out, the opening, smooth jets hummed, ugh he said, staring keenly, coming around, two or three ticks, eyes bright, the dull ache, ask that a different way, it was spring, stepping into an elevator in late fall in New York, almost two years later, the government is even stronger, the SP have almost unlimited power, teaching the school children, filling San Fransisco bay, born in Washington, DC, stopped in Colorado, Vancouver, the bay area, Los Angeles, road trips, flew to France, set in Chicago, very well written, very economic, what this future world is like, we become the character, he doesn’t know his backstory, a time scoop is used, the reason he knows, for most of the story, having things happen to him, the world we’re set up with, the old government fell, two babies, a 3 pound weight, pathetic, the plot of what’s making the story happen, the security police are trying to get information on the Retherick company, the FBI are the good guys, even The X-Files, except in 1953 Philip K. Dick can do it, the government is evil, the corproation, Elon Musk style corporation, citizens, the girl betrays him, secretly I’m the daughter of the boss, the boss wants him to marry his daughter, work for us again, Kelly thinks you’re handsome, if at the beginning of the story, either he’s gay, has a wife, he’s our hero, we want him to do well, he maneouvered Rethrick using the daughter, you can’t blackmail me, foresaw this, we now know he can blackmail them with that, the family business, forced a marriage, parcel receipt, so he saw even that, he as in himself, the main character, one more step out and that’s Philip K. Dick, “trinkets”, souvenirs, little objects with no actual value and immense value, 7 objects, plot could happen, planned it out pretty well, as opposed to A.E. Van Vogt, her face wild, a slip of paper, it’s still here, in the air above them, a circle, stared up frozen, a metal claw, a shimmering rod, swept the paper from Kelly’s fingers, the circle of black, nothing at all, what was that, safe right here, we only see his waldo come in at the end, so unhappy, the paper is safe, the company is safe, strong, very glad to help out the revolution, his eyes twinkling, more members of the family, women had a lot less agency and legal power, by herself she can’t make the company go on forever, she could marry someone, adopt a kid, time scoop a kid, technical knowledge, Kelly doesn’t need the technical knowledge, compare this, the story is sexist, an inherent sexism, Mad Men, except that there’s a time scoop, two things going on, this is not a Gray Flannel Suit story, what they hired him for, a manual labour job, a mechanic vs. an engineer, drawing this from, a music shop, a guy who fixed radios, is there a television repair place, they’re all gone, everything is disposable, real estate is insane, nobody can afford retail, so many businesses are disposed of, shoe repair place, they all go when the guy retires, orthopedic shoe places, 20km away, the movie came out 2003, right after 9/11, bad guys in 2003, how they changed the Kelly/Rethrick dynamic, Rethrick is the badguy, doing something evil, what they do in the film, used to find out what the future is like, cause the wars, the enemy is bad, post 9/11 thinking, a pandemic, set all that aside, what happens to Kelly, she’s Uma Thurman, she’s a biologist, doing biology doesn’t make any sense, construction, tunnels underground, she’s just works there and she’s naive, had a romance before the memory wipe, convenient for the plot, the friend character, the best Philip K. Dick actor, Paul Giamatti, to be the love interest, she says that other people have done this, objects in lieu of pay, called out near the end, she has an idea as to what the company does, those are tests for husbands for Kelly, saw what was coming, they didn’t see far enough?, maybe they also escaped, none of them married Kelly, a setup between the father approving of the son in law, come meet my dad sort of story, she’s not the agent for it, she loyals back to her father, the company is out in the countryside, she’s an accountant or something, protective, even more sexist, it’s not his job, if Kelly wants a husband, Rachel is not a good change, a perfectly fine name, Mildred, “keen”, a biblical background, an Irish name, a job that’s unrelated to the story, she’s just a love interest, she throws him a gun, she’s not killing her father, it’s just his boss, even a dove in it, 2 hours long, not science fiction, FBI agents standing around, the girl is just there to be a love interest, a standard movie for a date, Kelly’s job is inherent to the plot, 20 years ago, even if they were smart women, that is not better, if we’re grading on a curve, 1953 is better than 2003, much more mature, takes 30 years, 1979 vs. 1940, for Black Destroyer to Alien (1979), lame vs. sexist, the main character is not in it, that’s amazing, not likeable, if they had actually adapted the story, FBI are good guys, couldn’t be adapted properly, adapted as it is, include some computers, there are good things in it, fundamentally flawed, a second Retherick character for no good reason, to have a bigger cast?, the make the movie longer?, compare to the A.E. Van Vogt story, about a mechanic, what’s his problem?, automated repair place that’s outcompeting him, faith in the empress, unjustified, a son he doesn’t get along with, who was the girl he was talking to on the street, she was a weapon shop employee, stealing from his parents, badly written, she never shows up a again, a snippet of their dialogue, David Agranoff, nice guy, doesn’t hit hard enough, he makes really good points, being mean, about A.E. Van Vogt, seems to fit, every 800 words change something, it hurts the story, as a piece it’s garbage, too many turns, too many things unexplained, tempted to just read the next story, Seesaw, a fixup, The Weapon Shops Of Isher, people are weird about this, City won, people recognized the name, guy taking a walk through a beautiful small town, setback homes, perfectly designed, says to himself or his wife, this is how the empress pictures out village, evil atomic engine corporation, like a Walmart, suddenly he sees it, sprung up over night, a strange empty feeling, the other villagers are gathering, places of infamy, built in hidden factories, property rights, a suddenly springing up building, this is a gun store, this is a bad thing, weapons being sold willy nilly, a point Cora agrees with, the story takes him on a journey, his son has betrayed him, case dismissed, they come to take his shop, back to the weapons store, $4, a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range for $4, so why is that happening in the story, exploring this idea of a corporation or a something going against the government, surprise the reader every 800 words, here’s a surprise, turn the corner, they do follow, they don’t follow logically, how to fill space, a technique to make things longer, he needs to have 5 items, in the movie he has even more and they’re all different, the premise, the basic idea, what if you are a small town guy, people respect the queen or now the king, shows up on tv once a year, that’s not a relationship, things are done in her name, become a member of parliament you have to swear allegiance to the king, an enforced thing there, take individual autonomy, these two things are in tension in this story and this real world, sort of a Canadian, Mennonite coming from europe, fleeing, the Lakehead of Ontario, German radio stations playing very bad German music, a common story, fleeing persecution, fleeing war, fleeing bad emperors, Canada and Russia, Catherine the Great, the Russian Mennonites came back from Russia, a circuitous route, the reason you flee to a particular place, the way Canada was settled, the owners of the Hudsons Bay Company, manipulating persons and family, the land’s not free, so many places, the moor colonization, aristocrat had some moors, free land, a guy coming out of that background, Campbell writing, a big fan of Don A. Stuart’s Who Goes There?, he’s not a stupid man, the right to weapons in Canada, more reasonable, German gun laws, a license, sports shooting club, those are grandfathered in, there are a number of people who have need and desire for rifles, bears, hunting, indigenous people, there is no treaty between the government and their group, hunting today, cheaper and easier to learn, a lot more work, if you want to eat the animals, a lot of training involved, harder for a lot of people, farmers, killing varmints, a small rifle somewhere in the house, call the police, braining with the butt of the rifle, shot pigeons, when he goes into the shop, a greybearded man, the secret sauce, you’re here to buy a weapon, in the story proper, this is unfortunate, I automatically respect old men, these are manipulations by the corporation, teleporters, time travel makes it make more sense, in Seesaw, this empire is 7000 old, you want a weapon, for hunting?, he thinks he doesn’t even want a weapon, for killing a thing of a certain size, that is also a legitimate reason to get a weapon, it’s a tool, in our kitchens are knives, chop vegetables or stab people, knife crime, Syrian refugee, isolated, radicalized, forced out of his country, a party and a concert, stabbed a couple of people, for Palestine or whatever, fun fair, pat me down, freaks out and stabs, checks at all the borders, how did this guy get radicalized, hoped he would have a better life, isolated, he wasn’t very religious at all, a department store and buy a knife, a no weapons zone, notice the weapons that they have, pistols, different designs, they don’t have nuclear weapons, they don’t have bombs, they’re all projection weapons, they’re not bombs, they’re also not selling kitchen knives, write this story now, razor blade to shave your face, what’s actually going on, sparky, human hands are weapons, pet animals or kill animals, lift somebody up or murder someone, they’re dangerous, we have to have that tool, a tool for you but not for me, atoms for peace, British Columbia was nuked once, a hazard to navigation, destructive device for constructive purposes, hit pigeons, shoot birds, a bear savaging your wife, only eat the processed food now, this is an inch along down the path, outlawing things, it’s about control, his fellow towns folk, a fundamental dynamic, he’s set up a counterbalance force to the power of government, the U.S. 2nd Amendment, there will be more cops, Waco, Ruby Ridge, eventually the government always has more weapons, that’s not always true, not Ruby Ridged, not Wacoed, raid those people sooner, tear gas, flammable tear gas, a more recent example, shooting incident in Uvalde, they lock the school, establish they are the only arbiters of violence, people are going to get shot, so the shooter can’t escape, weird, a kid went missing, locked in a mall, some woman lost her kid, you’re right, the Tiananmen Square tank incident, it would be wrong, the government cops and soldier will follow orders, the more they are subject to reasonable orders, how the Berlin Wall opened, 70th birthday, East German government party secretary, press conference, when will this go into effect, I think immediately, border checkpoints, we’re allowed to leave, they haven’t received the order, he got a medal, we’re allowed to go across, more and more people kept arriving, phoning his superiors, past 9 in the evening, I can either shoot at these people or I can open the border, by midnight people were dancing on the wall, one guy did the right thing, this is about balance and power, the reason that its bad to be mean to women is they’re people, treated equally would be nice, in unequal systems, tortured and tied up, wrong, unfair, no supervision, no way to empower these people (by breaking the prison open), a bad power dynamic, a government and a counterforce, both involve some shadowy institution, amazing technologies, these two stories could be set in the same universe, the A.E. Van Vogt solution vs. the Philip K. Dick one, build up a certain amount of power, not a good solution, offering support to a revolution to come, that George Soros guy, problematic, supporting revolutionary anti-government, a Philip K. Dickism, ignorant about some things, the S.S., the Gestapo, the stazi, the SA, it doesn’t really matter, almost unlimited power, they’re teaching the school children to inform now, it also happens here, a prayer to Stalin, people are crazy, lower your head and think of father Stalin, early 50s or late 40s, during the war, East German schoolchildren, the government is pure evil in the Philip K. Dick story, in the Van Vogt the empress is remote and corrupt, if I wrote a letter to the Fuhrer, if the Tsar knew what was going on…, the fact that there’s millions of people, one person with ultimate authority, the petition to the king is a tradition, a special day, I need redress, the king and the councilors would make a decision, doesn’t work for the modern UK, small council for a small town, the bigger or more ultimate it is, my bed is not operating properly, we buy a new one, we don’t buy from that old company, enforce the warranty, replacing mentality, a cash bank account, you have a problem you fix it, in both stories these guys are mechanics, gear changers, fixing things, if you’re a Mennonite, what are you famous for?, not Amish but close, a guy who worked in the back, people’s radio or television would blow a tube, a whole set of a stories, magical handed repairmen, transported to the future, he’s just smart in that his hands know how to fix things, even though he’s smart, he can turn a literal toy into a vidsender, a barbie videocamera into a real camera, these people exist, they’re blue collar, Mercedes Benz, family came from Russia in the 1990s, Kazakhstan, typical Soviet biography, can fix almost anything, self-employed mr. fixit, The Variable Man, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, you had to fix your car, fixable, a phenomena happening, as the US goes so follows a lot of the West, right to repair, farmers with their tractors, John Deere tractors, they put DRM on their proprietary operating system, factory authorized, the fundamental interesting thing, security guards are allowed to carry guns, it’s a tool to prevent loss, individuals, gun deaths in the United States, almost all the gun deaths are suicides, as a percentage its almost nothing, bank robberies and street robberies vs. suicides, jumping off a bridge is harder, the way you want to structure your society, make it so people don’t want to jump off bridges or do school shootings, inform on your family members, both of them are evil, what was the son going to use the money for, buy a commission into the imperial navy, A.E. Van Vogt is bad because the story is unfinished, even the wife, she also changes her mind, he’s bad at this, us coming to conclusions, disrespectful to his father, he doesn’t want to work in the shop, who’s right about the shop?, apply for teaching jobs, let’s look at this particular business, teaching is always in demand and is not replaceable, take over the business, let’s talk about why he’s not interested, atomic automatic repair, try fighting that, a giant evil corporation, no son to teach, the son is right, a shoe repairman in the time of Nike, a bakery on every corner, branches of 5 or 6 different chains, surviving independent, resentful, the son says I’m going to go join the navy, a loan through the mom, talking with this girl, talking about the tech and the future, not searchable, out of touch, he is out of touch, the son is the most reasonable character, scams his parents, they’re not communicating properly, the way you get a loan, the banks scam the people, banking is a sin, halal banking, the Christians no longer care, the Christians were using the jews, repair guy just closed shop, plumber closed shop, fourth generation plumber, his employees kept leaving to the bigger corporation, shoe repair guy died, find it online, if something stupid like a strap breaks, two pairs of shoes per year, anything which breaks after a few months, 130 euros, health insurance, a second pair of shoes, 25 euros, if you have a decent shoe repairman, recommend a movie, heard it was good, High And Low (1963), samurai movies, nuclear war stuff, this is about a shoe company owner, confronted by his board cheaper shoes for a higher turnover, shareholders teaming up against him, based on an Ed McBain 87th precinct crime novel, driving quality down, now the plot happens, he’s got a driver, two boys are playing together and one of them is kidnapped, your son has been kidnapped, pay the ransom or save the company, he can only do one, the news is slightly modified, as a teenager, a great filmmaker, occupied Japan, heroin use, the influence of American occupation, why crime and science fiction are closely connected, the interaction with you and society, the movie Death Wish (1974) is a fantasy, American trash, evil and violent, shitty violent movie, it’s a good movie, definitely violent, questionable authenticity, revenge is a bad idea, need to want revenge, a country with nuclear weapons, not couped, for Ukraine it is a problem, Russia won’t invade Germany, not full of Russian speaking people, they don’t like governing, they turned it over right away, reunification in the 1950s, large Russian speaking minority, Zelenskyy is an actor, the people of Ukraine wanted to join the European Union, NATO should have been disbanded, why are people so stupid, propaganda works, shitty people, if we need their stuff, Putin is evil, Saudi Arabia chops off people’s heads, it’s a kingdom, why these two stories are good, coherence and paying off, Paycheck is like a fable of science fiction, an amazingly good idea, what you can do in computer games now, save points, expploited in other science fiction stories, take a bag of objects, this central mystery, what are these for and what happened, that central idea is terrific, a 60 minutes or a 45 minute story, getting paid by the word, 90 minutes is probably too much, sad about that, what a good idea for a story, the A.E. Van Vogt is sparky, The Voyage Of The Space Beagle is bad writing but sparky, Far Centaurus [copyright renewed], technobabble, space mission, suspended animation, woken up every 50 years, she’s an old woman now, she’s dead now, all the time they were going at sublight speed earth people developed faster than light travel, they no longer fit into the world, a short story, he seemed to have renewed, a sequel isn’t as good, a direct message, Raven’s Ridge, supergenius or accident, totally fit, the second amendment message, individual against business and the government, shooting incidents in the U.S., a big one at the time, more positively now, the story is a mess, can you imagine, a building suddenly appears, The Doomed City by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, a good book, a building that suddenly appears, urban fantasy, Simon R. Green, The Green Door by H.G. Wells, a comic where this happened, a Masters Of The Universe tie-in comic, the Fright Zone, industrial hellscape, exists between dimensions, when people are scared, illegitimate son of the king of Eternia, mother what should I do, a spooky tree, a spooky cave, spooky things happen, I come from a working class background, I work with my hands, whenever they’re kings they’re usurpers, killing the boss and the story goes on, a rare thing, an endangered species, the apprenticeship system, an apprenticeship to become a shoemaker, car industry, aerospace industry, well paid, Volkswagen is in trouble, household goods, not very often science fiction protagonists these days, a mechanic needs to go to the garage (not university), formal apprenticeship, people from Syria, a smith, a carpenter, he knows how to do the job, but he doesn’t have the piece of paper, Mistress Of Mellyn, The Tower Treasure, Plato, The Noseless Horror and The Haunted Corridors, they don’t invite you four months early, not respectful of the possibility, get some nature, a lake and a park, get some sun, everything is closed on Sunday, gas stations are not closed, restaurants are not closed, lots of groceries, shops at train stations and airports are not closed, a bottle of milk, Breslau, the protestant areas, the catholic areas, make dinner, eight hours ahead, trick or treaters, costumes, they should be monsters, serial killer, bloody bride, a devil, a spider-man, skeletons, kids without costumes, spider makeup, opportunistic, came back from sports, forced to do things they want to do, giving them candy, bad candy, 10 euros, make kids happy, an arab immigrant, nine kids, the very small ones didn’t have costumes, three or four, if you’re five you can do it, three babies born in the neighbourhood, a little bit more candy, personal stash, not kid candy, kept in reserve, what time of night?, 5pm, shortly before 8, took in the pumpkin, December 6, holiday scene, there’s candy, dress up in Santa hats, krampus, cool but south German, epiphany day, three wise men, cute but not scary, a stick with a star on it, paper lanterns, the next day, music on the street, lanterns and torches, St. Martin’s day trick or treating, Flesh + Blood (1985), Rutger Hauer, St. Martin, a bigish deal in German, Jane Austen, St. Martin’s Mass, saw a beggar who didn’t have a cloak, chopped his cloak in half, now they both have baby, eat a goose, Hispaniola, just north of Australia, south of Asia, Paupa New Guinea, divided north south between the Dutch and the French, if you don’t have a lot of weapons…, canons pointing at the water for the these guys show up, ready for a picnic, don’t bring your flag this time, country quagmire, Cuba, didn’t get to meet Castro, they got their island back, the richest country in Europe, Switzerland, technical skill, mechanical, they do have cows there, they don’t grow the chocolate there, they have no natural allies, no natural port, very very smart, they stay out of wars, they’re heterogeneous, if everybody has a gun in their home, high suicide rate, almost no mass shootings, a gun makes it easier, COVID panic, beer or alcohol, you have to wear a mask, an unforced error, shot the student, radical anti-COVID people, a stickler, altercations like that, you’re a murderer, impressive, a killer, danger, I hope you catch it from someone, you need to have a shopping cart to go into the supermarket, only a certain number of people, there was no study about six feet, said nasty things, a bigger power that didn’t care, mask in the bakery, farmer’s market, wearing a mask outdoors, gotta pee, wants some beer, in prison now, needn’t have happened, good night.
Posted by Jesse Willis