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 #443
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss I’ll Love You To Death by Lawrence Block
Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.
I’ll Love You To Death was first published in Monster Parade, September 1958.
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The SFFaudio Podcast #797 – The World That Couldn’t Be by Clifford D. Simak, read by Gregg Margarite AND The Worlds of If read by by Stanley G. Weinbaum – read by Mike Mike Manolakes (both recorded for LibriVox). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (2 hours 8 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Jonathan Weichsel, and Terence Blake
Talked about on today’s show:
the podcast boosted intelligent version of Terence, The World That Couln’t Be and The Worlds Of If, paired these up, two short stories, they both have world or worlds, subjunctivity, subjuntivier, by raise of hands, Professor Van Manderpootz, Pygmalion’s Spectacles is very similar, The Ideal, student Dixon Wells shows up, uses the machine, falls in love with a girl in the machine, profesor dismantles the machine, commercially for a few years, off hand line towards the begining, check it, falsifiable, The Point Of View, February 1936, Worlds Of If is the first one, don’t need to be read in order, realized while listening, Philip K. Dick has a tribute to Professor Von Manderpootz’s stories, two short stories starring a professor who invents machines, narrated by a former student, Doc Brown and Marty McFly, 1st 2nd and 3rd Back To The Futures, crazy scientist and student or younger, Professor Dumkopf, Pootz is like Putz, mander like meander, greatest scientist who ever lived, beat the asians in 3 months, A Martian Odyssey, had read before, disniguishing each of the stories apart, they’re all the same, guy narrates his experience falling in love with a woman inside of a machin Girl In The Golden Atom, preceded by girl in the drop of water, Fitz James O’Brien’s The Diamond Lens, weird fiction, science fiction, The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford, a dutch oven, a way of cooking or baking on top of a stove, shoes inside, they come to life, run around the yard like little rabbits and breed, combining these two stories together, dance themselves to death, Philip K. Dick’s brain is awesome, must have read in reprints, first visit to Von Manderpootz!, a story with him in it, a familiar character, Dixon, the Wells from H.G. Wells, just fits, the Soviet Union wanting to dig a tunnel through the Urals, various desserts, nothing about them being communists and evil, the future of 2015 or so, very 1935 optimistic science fiction, lobster salad, full future luxury communism soviet rocket, precedes the jetset class, post WWII, transoceanic flights, clippers, refuel in Hawaii, make your way to Shanghai, much more like getting on the Concorde, casual and fun, running late, misses his airplane, hold the plane for him, the Beirut office, very nice future, not the focus of the story, the picture we get of it is nice, a critique of the story: overwhelmingly bourgeois, inherited money, still financial crises in capitalism in this future, chorus girls and caddies, this high end education, a terrible student, highly incompetent and competent, no real consequences, bourgeois fiction, tends to dramatize minor inconveniences, cozy, the butterfly affect, there’s a whole magazine named after this story, what we deal with in science fiction is the worlds of if, IF, Worlds Of Science Fiction, a skinsuit mag for it debuting next month, Stanley G. Weinbaum stories, If Reader Of Science Fiction edited by Frederik Pohl, A.E. VanVogt, 1952-1971, the Galaxy guy, Hugo Gernsback delve, Gernsbacked pilled, read Weinbaum everyday, fluffy and light, an H.G. Wells story without the H.G. Wells heaviness, a very interesting cynical message, no matter which choice he takes is the wrong one, that’s what happens, a better deal, this is the best of all possible worlds, not getting the desired object, the best thing that could have happened, conflating the two women together, not good to have as a wife, silly airplane, fixated on him, a horrible wife as well, he got the better deal, like The Time Machine, you get enlightenment, you get affirmation, not satisfied, being not satisfied is satisfying, when their on the rocket ship together, expected to be a friendship of the ship, vacation girlfriend, together with another couple, promised to write, not proximate to you, friendship that seem really great, talking about the podcast right now, accidentally make a baby, desire is subjunctive rather than indicative, he was lucky he lost his money, a good wife who only loved him for his money, stayed in the subjunctive type of desire, a refutation of the power, of all the sad words the worst: it might have been, called out in the story, Maude Manner It might have been, [Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier], it wouldn’t have worked out,
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
a bit of hope, pie in the sky, we get sequels, two sequels, I want more, it didn’t need to have the same characters, easier, more commercial, people like series, here’s another with the same characters, more marketable, A Martian Odyssey, Valley Of Dreams, unneeded, Professor Challenger, Tom Sawyer, Detective, good story, expected to be more blown away by Weinbaum, our Simak story, much meatier, more interesting, three times longer, it’s great, an attack on Jesse, Clifford Simak didn’t have conflict, appears to have more conflict, how much Simak have we all read, a bit, Shakespeare’s Planet, Way Station, Goblin Reservation, Over The River And Through The Woods, really nice, of the countryside, Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson, a war against army ants, classifies as science fiction, German, foreigners going to Brazil, rubber plantation owners, Confederates went to Brazil, Confederados, the last country to get rid of slavery, NATO brought it back to Lybia, more alien than red indians, set in space Africa, hominy, exposed to it as a child, parched corn, dried popcorn?, food going on, sytha, slow drip of information, very cool story, thank you, asexual, James Tiptree Jr story, Your Haploid Heart, we’re doing this for you, sorry, gotta fuck you, taboo for them, they don’t want to tell, they don’t know how they reproduce, our main helper dude, Sapar, it says something, I grew up with that thing, all those other creatures are taboo, a list of creatures that are taboo, make a claim as to what is actually happening on The World That Couldn’t Be, like on our planet, adaptation evolution, an alternative form of evolution, this hunt, to help the Sytha learn and evolve, instinctual knowing but not consciously aware, who is it faithful to?, it is faithful to Duncan, the mother function, the same brood, several sequences of broods, a bigger Sytha, a planetary Sytha, Shotwell, is it eternal?, is it immortal?, a young one, right to the ending, oh wow cool, chapter 6, they halted on a knoll, vua, wearing thin, it is an awful effort to keep on being smart, it was nice knowing you, back to animal again, very simple said the sytha, just begin hunting me, get smart, I guess that will work, admirable, next time I have a brood, old uncaring comfort coming back again, seethed with happiness, won’t he be happy and surprised, will he be ever pleased, slipping back into unintelligent, you can almost miss it, a psychoactive drug for humans, it’s not good to be intelligence, pathologically trying to kill this creature, he goes nuts, reading from a collection of Galaxy stories, originally published in Galaxy, an H.L. Gold ending, making a lot of claims about editors, reviewing a bunch of random pulp stories, joint, especially when there’s two editors, a question about Planet Stories, Jerome Bixby, very interesting, it has to be Simak, otherwise Jesse’s theory wouldn’t be true, a lot more pulpy, the length, the character development comes out through the action, discover by talking, curious about the origin of the story, suggested by somebody else?, wonder, not early, in the middle, ended in the 80s, squarely in the middle, our main character is an asshole, for a Simak character, Philip K. Dick’s Beyond Lies The Wub, the natives, the way the captain treats the natives, our planter, our food grower, he is an asshole at the beginning, a typical Simak character at the end, projecting, conflict is fixable by cogitating together, not ethnic cleansing and not genocide, anti-colonial, in the same way as Wells always does, this is really good science fiction, by knowledge, finding out what the world is actually like, at the end, he’s found a way to coexist with this alien planet, he’s gonna get a surprise, little girls and boys, they’re all gonna be like him, they’re gonna be smarter, I found this very stimulating, actually smarter, added to the genepool, no species on the planet is sexed, adding sex to the planet as well, he’s gonna have a brood of Duncans show up, the sample has been taken, Donovan, a sampling, the Donovan kept walking, now we are even said the Sytha, the more assholish human on the planet, things that hunt, what’s cool about this story, this is a planet without conflict, two things: 1. the hunt, 2. is the ability to stop, much more aggro, a big preshow discussion, a lot of people goin vegan, they have theory that backs up their behavior, people who identify as vegan and practice veganism, everything eats everything, weird exceptions, we tamed each other, they found jobs for us, we found dogs for them, sheepdogging and cowdogging, mostly their job is companion/housewarmer, tooth and claw, in the form of Eden, healing the sick, some of it is not for their natives, hominy, they’re changing the planet, they engage with the sytha, a non-edenic planet, that’s a positive, almost religious story, the edenic world was imperfect, what we needed was a war of all against all, growing to something better, it is that, right?, felix culpa, back to Will, H.L. Gold, appraising a story, Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle For Leibowitz, wasn’t a damn bit grateful for it, not your pussycat editor, plain damned brilliant, a character in The Space Merchants, high speed tempo, the books success, the nagging nagging nagging presence, if he hadn’t demanded it, a great book, serious problems, pacing issues, a very involved editor, the anti-John W. Campbell, positive but annoying influence, a much different experience, a better experience, better stories, personal essays, more or less the same thing, you worked very closely with him, a Greek monster, Scylla, Lewis Carroll, boojum, alien names, nonsense words, hang your associations on, the endpoint is more satisfying, empathy is learned, emotional intelligence, up to a higher emotional intelligency, ends in exogamy, The Lovers by Philoip Jose Farmer, inputs, asexual reproduction at the end, Edward Sapir, even if just through the news, an engagement with the American landscape, bucolic landscape, Simak stories not set on a planet?, A Choice Of Gods, Time Is The Simplest Thing, these are native indians, engaging in a different way, enslaving them?, still in initial contact, smarter even though it is dumber most of the time, incorporating the new mode into its system, 8 year olds show up, the male female dynamic is needed, little Duncans that are different than each other, toes on their feet, like different flavours of ice cream, if we know anything, having sexuality, maybe not by volume, avoids the disease problem, develop a new banana, science class, clone armies will die, cloned mammals, a different kind of cloning problem, sea-lizard that does parthenogenesis, theoretical too, twins and triplets, same exact genes, in plants all the time, a genetic bottleneck, brown lizards, especially common in plants, letting the forest plant itself, monoculture farming, pesticides, herbicides, fencing, overwhelmed suddenly, cavendish banana, other plants as well, one guy gets a fungal infection, this whole planet is theoretically an army clones, genetically human, a cognitive mapping of human, the sequel to the story, the sytha will discovered that it’s fucked up, surprised at the reaction, more aggro, eating the others, close the restaurants, a good transitional thing, The Word For World Is Forest, The Queen Of Air And Darkness by Poul Anderson, become friends, a fascist story, overcome their prejudices, the wrong side and the right side, anarchistic hippy nature lovers, our prophet would disagree with you, a Vietnam war allegory, more grist to ignore it, they can do more than one thing, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, it can do more than one thing, the bad reading, one of the things, environmentalism vs. rapacious capitalism, Avatar (2009), Call Me Joe, friendship with misunderstanding on both sides (colonialism), a positive ending, humorous, a big surprise, you need more humans just like you, could be very strange, a cat: my master would like a sparrow, will the empathy acquisition keep on going up, some descendant Duncan it, vegan, will he forget?, will he lose his emotional intelligence?, The Monsters by Robert Sheckley, this is a comedy of a morality that’s different, ecogenetics, little sexless natives, how can they have familial feeling without having a mom?, acts like a female, only one scytha on the planet?, multiple bodies, this one, all the oceans are connected, this embodiment of a scytha, a force of nature being, individual minds, not even eggs, budding?, the youngs are raised together, form their taboos in the same way that, poo poo go in toilet, don’t sleep with your sister, twist endings, very earned, if you’ve got a premise start with it, my god it’s a time machine, my god it’s Adam and Eve, overpopulation, good but necessary, underconsumption, The Midas Plague, The Stars My Destination, a final revelation, very Horace Gold, undercut ideas people have, this story is not that great, understood the world, a revelation, an evolution, we never see the face of the girl who’s so ugly, they were hiding something, the story wouldn’t exist, will his brood forget?, afraid of one of them, that one forgets, they’re gonna be like him, losing his place on this planet, he will be displaced, they’ll be farming, moving in a new direction, people don’t ask for rewrites, printed, asked for rewrites, Warrior Soul, set in the far future, set in the present, he was right, good criticism, a much better story, copy editing, put typos in the magazine, Cirsova, changed a little bit, sold 2 to him, Clarke of Clarkesworld, certain similarity to the stories, want their own voice, to get that voice, submission guidelines, traditional publishing, Barnes & Noble, the way tradpub works, agent vs. publisher, many cooks, reviewing a lot of audiobooks, somebody need to work on this book, why is this in here three times, Stephen King, pulp, lower tier, interesting voices in science fiction, in the old pulps, Philip K. Dick couldn’t work with John W. Campbell very well, Anthony Boucher, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Argosy, Blue Book, they wanted him to edit his story, rejected The Outlaw Of Torn, basically Robin Hood, wanted to make money quickly, a folk hero, The Cave Girl, King Richard, its just this particular royal is bad, being very frustrated, art and thou, medieval England, prince kidnapped as a baby, mislead by political radicals, The Lad And The Lion, democratic rebels that are really fascists, assassinate the king and rule the country, WWI basically, WWII references too, very clever, unable to rule because they’re incompetent, this pattern goes on continuously, more incompetent from the last one, more diluted blood, he has terrible politics, my Tarzana, nobody in the right mind would agree with it, a pet lion, crash in Africa, goes around Africa, happens everyday, the rewritten one, bidding wars, Heinlein, Starship Troopers, the juveniles too, Podkayne Of Mars, when a government decides to take away your guns, don’t kill her, Stranger In A Strange Land, late late Heinlein, The Pursuit Of The Pankera vs. The Number Of The Beast, Sam Moskowitz, book editor vs. magazine editor, a commentator, 1963 or prior, Weird Tales, Fantasy Times, Under The Moons Of Mars, the fluffiness, just another fluffy cute story, big long story by Simak, paying off so well, it’s built into the idea of the story, everything was leading up to that, why write the story at all, Simak over Weinbaum in this instance, Simak has more better stuff, in the course of a year, two handfuls of short stories, really good stuff, very solid, both fun, both good, pretty close to amazing, if this was a novel, a three character story, the anthropologist, one of them kills himself, he finished what he needed to do, he has a thorn in his foot, thorns come up a lot, just before chapter 5, I will be with you to the death of both of us, a very biblical thing, it stayed with me, it’s hard to figure out these jokers, seethings of emotions, what variety of belief, Simak trying to make an asshole out of the guy, missed the trail, fearing it had gone, loyal and faithful, the outlander and intruder?, is there a common meeting ground?, stroked it polished it petted it, just another chance, a steady bead, back to the farm and field, that misty other life, very interesting stuff, Good., a soggy blanket wrapped tightly around the body, another dirty trick, distraction from what’s about to happen, progress in empathy, relativity of beliefs and ethics, perhaps it has reasoned, sentient beings can do tricks, cognitively map the enemy, induce that mentality into error, a theory of mind type empathy, this dirty beast, a worthy adversary, here’s the end, your knife mister, if we take this as a falsehood, take it as a truth, looking straight at Duncan, the native cut it’s throat, from helping you to the end, psychic communication, spear, rock, smarter and smarter, doesn’t need to be alive anymore to evolve the scytha, the turning point for the story, committed to a purpose and a challenge, it was something more than that, weird entangling, this pronoun thing, big in the 2020s so far, as another man might stroke a woman’s throat, rubbing the gun, petting it, “mister” said a voice, bwana, respected outsider who we really don’t respect but have to, Duncan stiffened, it now can talk, the Sapir language, the story seems that way, never shouted out at all, for you to extrapolate, an elephant and tiger and a grizzly bear, how big is this thing?, you start imagining what he’s not saying, near great, our Weinbaum, the action scene are a little bit overdone, the action scenes are fun, went on a little too long, future stuff, another Simak on the schedule, Hellhounds Of The Cosmos, space opera, A Choice Of Gods, The Call From Beyond, Empire is a short novel, City, Kevin Green, City is a fixup, Foundation, Dune, when you’re doing short stories, you can’t talk about 10 Ted Chiang stories in one show, maverick science, threaten the corporation’s monopoly, sounds super-science, Fury by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, super-science is kinda dumb, carefully modestly super-sciencing, Roger Zelazny, Unicorn Variation, The Horses Of Lir, A Night In Lonesome October, Creatures Of Light And Darkness, Lord Of Light, This Immortal, post-nuclear war, a tour of the Greek islands and Egypt, a rebel who wanted to kick off the aliens, undercover, torn between, might be a sequel, Damnation Alley, post-apocalyptic suburbia, before the white man came, robots are priests, how they fit in, very Simak, something we never brought up, “Moby-Dick with a twist”, let’s get something good, got distracted, Project Mastodon, Mastodonia, Second Childhood, Cemetery World, Time Is The Simplest Thing, A Spell For Chameleon by Piers Anthony, a book for the blind, how it was produced, in the commercial space, a special loophole in copyright, a great thing, put into the ears of blind people, not in favour of following the law, Xanth, exiled to Florida, Charles Burnett Swann, marketed to kids, 344 pages, On A Pale Horse, he liked to do series, a huge amount of effort and inspiration into the first volume, 12 hours, a nice 8 hours Simak, named the land after himself, before we lose anybody, Return From The Stars, what exotic location, a Valentine’s play, playtime, nothing can live up to The Taming Of The Shrew (1976), I will rip it, Marc Singer plays Petruchio, amazing peak performance, staged for television, if that was on TV!, remember Bravo?, artsy shit, television is full of filler, Dark Carnivals, we miss you, bud, Jesse’s email is a horror show, a Connor show, 50 Jesse messages, message him less, doesn’t engage with twitter for months, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, go to drug guy, 5 hours 21 minutes, more possible, a lot of feedback on youtube, the greatest thing ever, almost all positive, he sounds insanely awesome, Martin Geeson, The Seventh by Richard Stark, The Gun by Philip K. Dick, The Mad Planet, its all gonna be on Will, its all gonna be on Jonathan, Alex pulpcovers, very understandable, a novella, it’s all on Alex, Jetta Of The Lowlands, assuming he hasn’t contracted shingles, The Pathological Liar, a case of deceiving the enemy, lie for the sheer pleasure of lying, a compromise, there’s no digits in my name, that’s a robot bud, The Liar, Penguin Classics, Dialogues, dramatic readings, acting level, thickest accent on the planet, it can be a nightmare, keep hoppin away, Plato, The Story Of A Cat, do this research off air, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, culture shock, sewing machines that open to a voyage in space, H.G. Wells, an implacably hostile alien species, Arena, The Case Of The Dancing Sandwiches, Lawrence Block’s The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Jesse Show, 700 episodes in, Just Jessing, more demographic audience, none of the trolls listen to this podcast, The Triumph Of Evil, Paul Kavanaugh, do no research come up with an idea novel, supposed to be a true story, doing pushups and drinking alcohol, montagnards, heist a shipment of nuclear weapons, Vietnam War is happening, we need more Paul Kavanaugh, a guy confesses to a crime, pure writing talent, a historical crime, Not Comin’ Home To You, a Lawrence Block devotee, goes down so smooth, much younger dad, live to 103, not a sequel, would be wise to do so, writers abilities, Maissa won’t love it as much because she’s a girl, Travels by Michael Crichton, given the power he does nothing with it, he would prefer not to, Bartleby The President, power hungry dictator, Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, beloved, could be spicy, love the spice, there’s a podcast that exists because this show is too spicy, Julie Davis and Scott Danielson’s A Good Story Is Hard To Find, this is not a Christian podcast, this is pre-antivaxx, personality and flag, pirate flag should not be hoisted there, flags in bio, the Yemen flag, qualified, the new one is the red triangle, a theory about Yemen, the Rawandan genocide, houthis, who from the empires outside?, a big deal in Canada, how traumatized he was, Romeo Dallaire, a big deal in Canada, bureaucracy, macheted to death, sad spicy stuff, the Julie and Scott show, not supposed to be one of his best books, who chose that one?, not responsible, Wikipedia, Lem himself judged the novel as unsuccessful, treated in a simplistic way, who is responsible?!, we validated, convinced, Stan Lem, I’m not a Lem stan, become slan, the meme: fans are slans, more advanced than other people, form a world government, focusing on utopia, the least pessimistic, a hope punk book?, a 1989 Soviet play, yes because of the name, Strugatsky, asian racist, russian racist, they’re all the same, who is he to judge his own books?, Philip K. Dick, how trustworthy his own claims are, Solaris, the Andrei Tarkovsky movie, The Futurological Congress, to catch the drug experience, The First And Last Men movie, a short French film, hit by various psychoactive drugs, The Congress, what Cora says about it, boundless interest, needs his own podcast, when is that podcast coming out?, much easier to show up on Jesse’s, eventually, a lot of work, Eric doesn’t listen to podcasts, you can tell kind of, he likes doing podcasts, you can kinda tell, well hidden?, good at talking, he was a professor, University Of Michigan, Dean of Stony Brook?, lot of people don’t, cuts into audiobook time, you’re missing out on a whole genre, audio drama series, Toby Stephens, the Philip Marlowe series, what are you listening to, I have that in my car, used to be the BBC’s James Bond, British guys doing American characters, Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, two good stories, one really great, a silly question, the first season of Reacher, reviewed the first book, I don’t love this, he’s not human, he’s Conan, that almost makes sense, The Terminator, he smiled, he relaxed with his army buddies, Conan is not a patriot, he gets a pension mailed to him every month, a fantasy, the first book was fine, done with Reacher, a one concept thing, like a theorem, a deduction, a flashback character, don’t care, to be fair Jesse was sick, still a little bit of phlegm in there, F. Paul Wilson, Repairman Jack, still alive and on twitter, scary stories, Dean Koontz, Soft by F. Paul Wilson, makes you go soft, a blob of jelly on the floor, cats become your biggest problem, starts from the bottom up, New York City, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, keep his daughter’s spirits up, before the rats get you, the softness continues, a hard story called Soft, The Keep (1983), Michael Mann, WWII Nazis, a retelling of Dracula, set during WWII, 80s music aesthetic, not winning any Hugos, Tangerine Dream, did musical soundtracks for movies, the 1977 epic Sorcerer, William Friedkin, fuck that shit!, completely subsumed, The Wages Of Fear (1953), they go to Brazil to escape death, 4 guys to drive 2 trucks, land be despoiled, snuffs out the fire, second gulf war, the dynamite has gone bad, nitroglycerine, girls won’t like it, but if you’re a dude, Roy Scheider, existential rather than psychological, I’m a movie fan now, Star Wars is good and all, The Exorcist (1973), way to popular, The French Connection (1971), the fish people one, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) with fish people, names in profile, hyperBadiou, set theory mathematics, a scoop, explain it to an English speaking audience, this is really good, a video series, hyperthinking the absolute, occasionally talks about science fiction, Gilles Deleuze, François Laruelle, philosophy is generalized science fiction, if it’s not doing philosophy it is not science fiction, Bruno Latour, pioneering figures in science studies, the Salk Institute, an anthropological study, no preconceptions, what people did and what materials they used, Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon, when the Chinese land on the Moon, so loyal, Bernard Stiegler, grew old and died, Jacques Derrida, a seminar on Youtube once a month, conceptually powerful, used some of his concepts, individual and collective individuation, Marxist French theory type way, without needing to carry the Jungian baggage, Agent Swarm blog, Anathem by Neal Stephenson, his masterpiece, quantum physics, Logics Of Worlds: Being And Event II, Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke, Xenoswarm blog, analyze Dune, hence your recent interest on being on a podcast a lot, dialogue is better than monologue, a defense of the bad review, a lot of time liking tweets and blogs in French, a friendly retweet, absolute silence, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain In The Sea, has Terence been blackballed?, The Peripheral, my videos are horrible, totally improvised, lots of umming and ahhing, well prepared, he’s high on his own supply, meaty for youtube, he has opinions, some of them are good, the occasional insight, the presentation, David Brin, thinks he’s the smartest guy on the planet, multiple podcasts, a promotional exercise, they didn’t know enough about him, he aint dumb, here’s the thing about Ursula K. Le Guin, the Ng person, the acceptance of the award, Joseph Campbell, really young, conflating Amazing and Astounding, Hugo Gernsback is not John W. Campbell, Astounding SF, similar name, Analog, Ray Palmer, women were discriminated against, hidden women we don’t know about, were not as many female readers based on the letters, discriminated against, by readership or editors, repeat what wikipedia says, how you end up being the prophet, this lady from Germany who does the, Sabine Hossenfelder, a baby explanation of capitalism and why it’s not so bad, turning all the externalizes, dumb smart people, got a degree, physics there’s almost nothing to do, Michio Kaku, some things are so base and clear, no matter what 100 years ago you pick, email is no longer usable says Jesse, most people don’t use email, full of spam, an email manager, never a message that is relevant, occasionally there is an important one, you have not paid your bill, dip into that horror show, auto subscribed to, already in every system, worried about the wrong things, when he becomes famous or more famous, daughter of Afflecks and Garners, email is not a great way to harass people, spreading rumours via email: not a thing, yahoomail, you might need this, 1997, 26 years full of spam, Mike emails twice a week, Mike Nowak, Jesse’s an indian now, or always was, adopted into the band, tsleil waututh, can’t wait to tell Paul, Indian status, if you want to bore everybody: you people gotta get off of my land, Paul will not like this concept at all, a hierarchy of people who need representation, BIPOC, fairly recent, excludes, so important, wanting to exclude Asians now, no acronym yet, reserve certain positions, Kamala Harris becomes VP because of skin colour, a scary ideology that is not wise, a black robot president, open source AI, dictator Jonathan to unite everyone, Will: this one is for you, student in a minute, Black House, excited about that, read it twice, early incarnation, a student in Sydney, does he reference, inspired to come to France, the cinema, a quotation from Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, well expressed in various films, more interested in drug culture, other than coffee, noted Will’s dream, I don’t need drugs I am drugs, brain under sleep is on drugs, tapping into it while awake, defenses are down, we are multiple drugs, dreams and science fiction (same thing), a coherence, the same thing for free, Will was in it but he was a pug, deceased dog, I wonder if he smells like cigars, dming reading Planet Stories, never smoke on a pulp, don’t smoke the pulps, they don’t smell when they’re scanned, nobody listens except for Mike Nowak, heartbroken mother, parents friends, almost never, the one time they shouldn’t lock, that was me in the past, delete it, a student coming in 1 minute, double talking to you, 5 hours, Jesus!, 10pm, something more presentable.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #442
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Rendezvous by Guy de Maupassant
Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.
The Rendezvous was first published in L’Écho de Paris, February 23, 1889.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #796 – The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Gerald Moe (for LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (8 hour 18 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Cora Buhlert
Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in All-Story, 1913, whatever, The Cave Man, 1917, a single book in 1925, Dell Mapback, can we all guess where in the book where the cave man begins?, a chapter title, end of Part 1, went on an on, dizzying, when the Cave Girl takes over the plot for a while, recover the jewels, I guess we’ll leave, the family shows up in the plot, less interesting, here’s the question that will spur anger and debate and make rage quit, classist, racist, or other ist?, really hated Germans too, WWI had not started yet, he likes the French, nasty stuff in some of the Tarzans, classist, no matter what, that race is bad, our heros always have to be Thurston Howell III, the doctor from Boston in MASH, literal count or royalty, every fuckin book, immortal warrior, an officer in a country that doesn’t have an official class, Smith-Jones isn’t even his real name, David Ogden David Ogden Stiers, reestablish the aristocracy, these are my peoples, dallies with primitives, “the main character is a mommas boy intellectual with weak muscles who washes up on an lost island full of cave folks – he disdains muscles, but there is a nude cave girl with a nice smile, so i think i know what’s gonna happen”, contessa in a cave, pirates, The Cave Contessa, just Tarzan, gender flipped Tarzan raised by cave people, rich white boy becomes man in six months, tuberculosis, his cough, the excuse for visiting the South Seas, Robert Louis Stevenson, non-specific cough of death, miserably died, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Robert E. Howard’s mom didn’t man up, king of the Cave People, doing your way for 1000 years, sharpen a stick, we’re not living in caves anymore, do some fucking farming, limited wars are over bud, obey the king, we slaughter our enemies, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, At the Earth’s Core, the Yale, cannibalistic lesbian pterodactyl people, Waldo Emerson, the advanced peoples, he a momma’s boy, a living father?, wealthy widow, not good enough for her very precious son, luckily he preserved her chastity to impress her mother, hot for him for years, we have to do this properly, turned them all into versions of themself, Nadara, full title, illiterate, sign the book, what’s sign, literally a cave woman, a high grade wife, French countess, brown skinned, that’s the tan, their babies will be white, the white goddess, wearing a skirt at the end, Son Of Tarzan, runs off into the forest, girl rescued from arab slavers, she was French the whole time, no no jesse you stupid fool, of course she’s a countess, Ralph Waldo Emerson Smith Jones, important characters, not of the upper crust, phrenology, sloppy skulls not good for learning Shakespeare, a series of villains step forth, I’m Blow Blow the killer, Flatfoot and the other guy, I was going to kill you a minute ago, I’m a cave man, 20 minutes left, fast friends with a random pirate, what kind of pirates are in the middle of the South Pacific?, 3 ships show up randomly, blackbirders, trans-pacific pirates are not a thing, grow copra all day, cannibals are very romantic, yes, coincidence and pure fantasy, Monster Men, think’s he’s a creature, a girl he thinks he’s worthy of, his genetics are not monster men, genre classify, definitely Edgar Rice Burroughs, anthropological science fiction, the anthropology is really bad, a patriarchal society, women and caves are property, cartoon cavemen, what hunter gathers were like, The Old Way by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State by Fredrich Engles, take issue, we’re gonna shoot your dog, do it straight up as a comedy, don’t change anything, the book is funny and fun and totally ridiculous, repetitive, he did no research, he could have researched, Typee by Herman Melville, not a single dinosaur in this book, a lost island, the fantastic element, all the coincidences, Caprona and Pellucidar, not a lost world, just a plateau in South America, did we get the coordinates?, FadedPage, degree, lat 10 south long 150 west, deliberate blanks to obscure the guilty, historians maintan the true answer is lost, Nagula, the earthquake and the monster in the woods, laziness?, pure Burroughs, internal mythology, the only other culture we get, a sewing kit for the sewing bag, sewed a costume for himself, grandma’s grandma remembered the earthquake, adopted parents, the lady in labour, that’s their culture, I am the strong one, King Kong at the end, the whole island sank, an atoll tho, all that’s left after the earthquake, just south of Hawaii, eat raw fish, a whole Mexico south of Hawaii, not a volcanic island, caves, a steaming volcano, used to be volcanic, how did you like the book?, fun without being great, you should check that out right now, The Mad King, lesser Burroughs, the one with the gorgeous Michael Whelan cover, fur suit, what colour is her hair, should be raven haired, if it’s not raven its not right, just a stick, a very very short spear, he’s got a shield, they throw rocks at him, cudgel, hide over a wicker frame, fire harden it?, cave men are very soft, the dialogue tree is very minimal, I’m wearing nagula skin, the morality is very simple, lesser Burroughs, some random person, a place great to get things, Burroughs ought to have a place in literature that’s taught in schools, don’t involve schools in your argument, Tarzan, this argument from twitter is overstated, the professor was a little bit like, travel narratives, yellow cover, Michael Herring, what scene is that though, grabbed on the foot, there’s a scene later, she hits him in the head with a rock, by accident, the cannibals worship her, confused, agreed, suddenly Stark shows up on the scene, need badguys, the random encounter table, a lazy book, especially because of the publication chapter, several years to be serialized out, what happened this chapter?, had to be closer, I gotta finish this thing, from the back, washed ashore, thought his life is over, staring desperately out to see, dark and mysterious interior, savage cliff dwellers, a tiny spark of bravery, with the help of the beautiful cave princess, stripped away, emdash, jum hum hum, Burroughs writing a coward and a weakling, that was funny, the Boston families all had two last names, the tell in 2024, we are very enlightened now, people are marrying money to money, the reason you have that famous last name, that money or status, changed the law, double name, politically active green leaning person, did the husband take the double name?, Saxe-Coburg, legal for a long time, marrying money, call me by my first name teachers, married the heiress of a factory, the reason people do it today, last name is Jobs, Bezos, last name was Boner, more of a left leaning green leaning tell, aspirational, all the activity that the upperly mobile middle class people, mirroring stuff from a long time ago, simulating rich people having servants, it’s a Disney ride, cleaning lady, alcohol decanters, east europeans, literal lawns are that, glass decanters, you’ve got a cask of Amontillado in your basement, or whiskey, the alcohol store, look in the mirror, what you’re doing is insane, the readership of this book, I wanna be a rich guy who marries a countess, lower class people striving to be in the upper class, that’s the fantasy, where is Heinlein showing royalty, go farm in the sky, Heinlein is not a classist, idealistic view of America, kind of a myth, striving for that, political dynasties, Bushes, Kennedys, Clintons, Adams, president of the European Commission, highest ranking person in the EU, minor aristocrat, Angela Merkel, if you’re going to canonize Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess Of Mars, once you start teaching books in school, this book has no answers, given to read vs. forced to study, Mark Twain is great, you’re on a podcast about vintage science fiction, All Quiet On The Western Front, an important book, honour kills his daughter, Nineteen-Eighty Four, Brave New World, the prison guards in that institution, punch a clock, abuse, the canon of school, the Library Of America, some sort of non-profit, funded by the US government and the Ford Foundation, let’s imagine they’re the canon, some of them are public domain, a good list of science fiction books, American science fiction from the 1950s, a Burroughs volume, for people who are Americans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, why did he choose that name, that New England feeling, sickly rich kid, politically different, named after a famous author, academic nerd, George Washington Carver, telling name, Smith-Jones makes it a this is your story reader, you asthmatic nerd you, Charles Atlas, you to can be a strongman, the sales pitch is it sells itself, slings and arrows and pointy sticks we stab into this book, page turning good writing, super-frothy and light, still a good book, read it within 24 clock hours, making things exciting, 15 20 minutes with teenagers, The Mad King, a king had died, a son had been locked in a tower, the mad king had escaped, the horse had bolted, car and horse chase, all go off a cliff, what was that, 15 minutes in, it’s on LibriVox go grab it, Edgar Rice Burroughs should be put in cars (not schools), still fun, just pick up a different Burroughs, Lexington, Kentucky, Ohio, Lexington Green bookstore, visiting family, some big road, Target, cross a road, the exact road, stupid, look at all these bookstores, pedestrian crossing, Caroline Island, the Dell Mapback, nobody living there at the moment, crime novels, murder mysteries, scarce, She, too expensive, Del Rey books, DAW books, Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperbacks, book club editions, stuck with them, coffee table books about ships and WWII, the Hornblower books, shitty women’s fiction, anything left to squeeze out of this very frothy book, his name means naked, did he know what he was going to do with him?, the old crew, William Stark, Burlingame is the captain, taciturnity, martinet, that half of a sentence, the non-cave man badguy who gets the most screentime, go rescue the kids stuck in caves, the real monsters were the civilized people all along, European villains too, a strict disciplinarian, named after the whip, hair cut in not short enough, this makes him a badguy, the sailors don’t like him, ethic common immigrants, the rich guy from Boston, rumors about this old mill, the rumors are always true, clannish religious whackjobs, ignorant, sees his big fishy eyes, Lovecraft protagonist, ready to swoon, any other author, would have been done first person, waking up on a beach, how’d I get there?, who am I?, what makes it funny, unreliable narrator, tries to rape our girl, punched her unconscious, got lusty, inside cave people’s heads, pointing sticks inside their heads, rocks, Nadara’s POV, I can’t marry you now, marrying doesn’t just involve grabbing your hair and dragging you to my cave, funny interaction, prudish, not-religious, doesn’t ever go native, not from the upperclass, fearful of cannibals, life is way better on shore, little work, lots of food, and sex available, made up earthquake, a leopard in the words, has a happy ending, what a classist, his mom dies, forced back to Earth, wife is laden with eggs, getting broody, just makes you get the next book, The Gods Of Mars, if that’s even a word, tied together, anglo-saxon and gallic ruling classes, seven novels in 1913, stinkers, Warlord Of Mars, The Mucker, The Mad King, at the typewriter labouring, he was The Efficiency Expert, the American dream worked for him, he wasn’t begging Farnsworth [Wright] for his cheque, harder, the millenial, he was web 2.0, PayPal guy, Charles Ardai, I’d like to be a sharecropper for streaming, your account is deleted, we’ve demonitized you, you have to, even if google downranks you, Eyes Left, 30 retweets and 1000 views, a huge account, turned off in a second, truth social!, all my devices, Bluesky, If This Then That (IFTTT), calling it like it is, in the bubble, we’re in a bubble, COVID is not over people, Ukraine and Russia crap, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner daughter, focused on her watermelon shirt, Palastine flag, wearing a mask outside, a celebrity daughter, a search, weirdos who take these pictures, always wearing a mask, that’s the story, an OCD trigger, people who have problems, a security blanket now, I’m a good person, she’s not going to die if she get’s COVID, it’s either she’s hiding her face or she’s triggered by it, wearing masks together, mental trauma thing, always COVID people, Trish Matson, outdoor party on the patio, vaccination status, the vaccinations don’t work, sci-fi conventions wear mask, all the killer virus stories we wrote, Glasgow worldcon, vaccination status, get bullied, allergic against these things, at a grocery store, yelled at in an empty room, murderer or something, dropped off on a primitive island, get their health up, cooking?, she made fire, Burroughs didn’t do the research, just eats those fruits he doesn’t even name, crabs, sashimi, fish out of the river, oysters, a girl in the forest he’s afraid of, he’s handsome, skinny rail 6 foot 2 guy, confusing tall for handsome, he runs away, gets his courage up, chases her, end it now, you’re the strongest man I’ve ever met, mischaracterized, perception wrong, I can work with this raw clay, his bumped up forehead, showed it had a brain inside, incompetent, she builds up his confidence, so many nagulas, I’ve never bothered to count, runs away like a coward, build up my muscles, she’s mad at him, he ghosted her, becomes unjustifiably angry, fully justified, dumped her with cave people, I’m right behind you, kidnapped by airpirates, drag me by my hair to that cave over there, unacceptable, needed to have the proper ceremony, honeymoon in Hawaii, fantasy wish fulfillment, gone native, what’s her name for him, Thandar!, Thundar, a Lin Carter name, the brave one, barbarian sounding name, sounds good, the beautiful one, the one with the high forehead, The Outer Limits, a Charles Beaumont story The Beautiful People, perfectly normal looking girl, it couldn’t have been like that, deformed, forehead is too high, Burroughs can’t play that game, he can’t play it, girl gets kidnapped, the same recipe every time, a great recipe, Lester Dent pulp fiction master plot, cut out all the racism and classicism, engage with the classicism, his dad turned out to be ok, the mom dominated the baby, all the languages, compose greek and latin poems, the mom fucked him up, the other girl fixes him with Burroughs, having a nice girl who can give you nice babies, the Burroughs fantasy, they don’t have kings before he shows up, Robert E. Howard had written this, civilization is bad, barbarism is good, have his book learning be useful, if L. Sprague DeCamp had written this, Mark Twain, explicitly a comedy, funny, funny on purpose, always does the same thing, American goes to Mars marries princess, Tarzan was a British guy, goes to Venus marries a princess, in the margins, his mother was an Earth astronaut, John Carter in reverse, this is also Donkey Kong, save the princess from the monkey mother, Super Mario Bros., he’s lower class, a Japanese thing, everybody knows only Americans can go to fantasy kingdom, you work with your hands?, not even an anglo-saxon, fake princess, half-breeds of whatever, not cool with it, make some friends, Woola, maybe that is why they don’t do as well as Burroughs, romance, maybe Will knows, romance is actually for men, men are more romantic than women, a romance for men, a meet cute, standards he is putting on himself, things that don’t make it romantic, maybe there are some kinds of romance books, if you look at what’s going on, Robert E. Howard stand-in, having a buff body so they can be suitable for a trad wife, Michael Crichton’s Travels, fantastic!, Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Frank Herbert, Michael Crichton, right wing tradition, conservative, Howard’s not on the list, his fanzine, anything published before 2010, far right coded, farmers protesting, sympathizing with the farmers, unapproved people are daring to protest, useless rich kids who glue themselves to streets, heirs of tobacco dynasty, will is fuming at this statement, issuing paper, smeared as nazis, reichsburgers, more interested in romance than women, an older idea of romance, situate this, trad dudes who follow you in twitter, they didn’t exist, a mainstream audience of the working man, factory workers, marrying the rich dude, Cinderella, chunky Cinderella, adventure for sure, we do have to constitute it, this might have a grain of thought, men are much more romantic than women, is that really true, makes a very strong, 1912s, as a pragmatic woman, women have to be, a male romance, would appeal to that sensibility, 1913, more appealing, Jane Austen, contrast, which of these brooding men are most secure for my offspring, which of these cave women, a lot of dudes to kill, a lot of missing people in the female department, which of these families that are suitable for me to marry into, Persuasion, of the six, Mansfield Park, the focus, Jane Austen is to women as Edgar Rice Burroughs is to men, lower upperclass, upper middleclass, trying not to be lowered, Napoleonic wars, always stuck with the baby, always the case, baby out of wedlock, a meme, REH people, trad wife and chad, guys with beards, no NPC guy or Wojak, women and children into the lifeboats, CHADS: Yes, more problems, from the Titanic, the first class women, setting aside class, difficult, men saying that, men know they’re disposable compared to women, some other dude’s going to have to raise my kid, built into the men, romanticism, not very practical, giving insight into why it strikes the chord of popularity, class does matter because it is connected to money, a brainy boy, looking down on Nadara, little does she know, I’m going to do something I’ve never done: apologize, The Gilded Age, HBO, Cynthia Nixon, literally not important, his coping mechanism, the dad from Pride And Prejudice, dotty, Harvard or Yale, wealthy family from Boston, died because he couldn’t swim, how did he survive the shipwreck, act of God, act of Edgar Rice Burroughs, three guys went overboard, a huge endowment, every student should know how to swim, prove that they can swim, Columbia university, take a swim class, the 3rd class steerage kids, engineering classes, how many lifeboats a ship should have, lifeboats based on tonnage, added extra lifeboats, capsized at the pier in Chicago, inland waters, the great lakes are their own kinda thing, free shipping, just a highway, a line in this book about that, he looked at the map and saw these trade routes, tramp freighters, the Pacific is kind of big, real world experience, grandfather was a captain on an east Asia liner, the timing, an extended one into the forest, six months, a year, the elapsed time for the book, Gilligan’s Island, Robinson Crusoe, makes capitalism happen, a cross section of society, movie star, scientist, only one worker in this society, makes things out of coconuts, Thurston Howell III, trad wife, Mary-Ann, the movie star, boss, whatever the society tells him to do, a commentary on America at the time, what does it say?, stuck at Atlanta airport, all Cora’s stories: unaccompanied kid, a black woman reading romance novels, Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, a whole sociological different thing, endless loop, TVLand, close it with the Robinsinade Gilligan’s Island connection, he’s king, trying to reverse the American revolution, the elected king, wanted Washington to be King, a Fredosphere idea, the United States as founded by Pirates, a King Washington descendant in the White House, palace rather than a house, how would things be different, DC surrounded by the Versailles of courtiers, ruled by an upperclass, wouldn’t be that different, kick out King Washington, the slavery question, gone the way of the British monarchy, figurehead, ceremonial head of state, speaker of the house, prime minister, a twitter conversation, I’ve been drinking, the fig leaf of our democracy, you can vote, if the demos had power you would get what you want, the myth staves off revolution, German democracy, blockaded on his holiday, take a helicopter back, she’s gone, the trains are striking as well, overthrow this horrible democracy in Germany, family owned farms, family estates, pork, schweinefleisch, fresh local produce, they should be revolting if the government is fucking up, gynecologist, surname, a dashed name, married to a pig farmer, super-happy, married outside of her class?!, what a scandal!, hate her husband, a small town in Canada, very catty, the green voters, upwardly mobile middle class academics, on the side of the farmers, new stuff added to the schedule, The Seventh by Richard Stark, 1st Sunday in Lent, you have to give up things you love, besides meat, give up smoking, start smoking so you can quit, you can still have fish, a bigger thing for a week, no meat, no twitter the second week, no screens would hurt, can’t get in your car sometime, 2 short stories, Weinbaum/Simak, Return From The Stars by Stanislaw Lem, he was a committee according to Philip K. Dick, W. Scott Poole book, a Connor show, we’re signing up for something, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, a copyright strike from CBC, the closing credits of the John Carter Of Mars movie, a big nasty take-down strike, watchalongs, music playing in the background, 1821, about a guy explaining his addiction, drug memoir, pre-drug hippy style people, a bit of lingering death, a bad case of death, Lovecraft uses the pleasures and pains, The Mad Planet, a Maissa Will joint, Lucian’s True History, 2000 year old quasi-science fiction from the Roman Empire, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Triumph Of Evil, Such Men Are Dangerous, ill, get back in bed, doesn’t really matter, was it covid?, what difference does it make?, attacked Bernie Sanders, working from home, I’ve got COVID I’m sure glad I got those vaccines, DefiantLs, 2 tweets juxtaposed, not being ironic, what the hell dude, you should rest, six weeks of rest, the laptop class, Paul Kavanaugh, a pseudonym, a Florida Key island, not able to have conversations, two drinks every day, he’s gotta list, I want you for a job, hijack nuclear weapons and sell them for a profit, The Last Spaceship by Murray Leinster, interplanetary teleporters, steals the last spaceship, human read, William Sky (Stories From The Sky), a romping story, great old fashioned space opera, the pause at the end, a silent gap for five seconds, let the story sink in, Putin in his power, never read the comments, sell you on The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, first global warming ever written, human beings have descended into savagery, are their dinosaurs, Burl has spent his entire life, post-apocalyptic nature writing, June 12, 1920, 30,000 years in the future, various forms of fungi, giant insects and arachnids, toadstool forests, you had me at giant spiders, what makes it a Maissa-Will book, Will is a fun guy, listen to the narrator, if you need a sleeping age, wait for the next version, it’s a long life, if we can hold out, long novella, short novel, giant spiders, satire of outlandish tales, presented fantastic of mythical events, travel in outerspace, I doubt it, Gilgamesh is gonna have it, would Hugo Gernsback call it science fiction, he has a good definition of science fiction, trying to sell magazines, satire, parody, only an hour and half long, swallowed by a 200 mile long whale, a sea of milk, an island of cheese, deliver a letter to Calypso given to them by Odysseus, in the original latin or greek, A Witch Shall Be Born, where he gets nailed, one of the most famous scenes, gets crucified, every illustrator does the crucification scene, two semi-naked identical nude women whipping each other, female body inspector, cimmerians are all like that, the only screen adaption of a Howard story, a Red Nails was in production, a fan version, Conan The Adventurer, three TV shows, Kevin Sorbo’s Kull The Conqueror, better than the Conan reboot, would have made a great Conan, the Solomon Kane one, devil worship and shit, good scenes, good costumes, get a writer who likes the material, Max von Sydow, Max von Side-Eye (@SvenTystnad), The Last Of The Last Of The Mohicans (1992), lotta Hawkeyes, fuck the book, Daniel Day Lewis, My Left Foot (1989), Lincoln, this movie is awesome, a very male romantic movie, Edgar Rice Burroughs with noir and real villains, West Studi plays the meanest indian, Magwa will put the greyhair under the knife, a good cast, Madeline Stowe’s the love interest, Natty Bumpo and Magwa, I’m stealing your woman, let’s run through the forest for six hours, a dude movie, so romantic, great ending, Heat (1995) is almost too good, Pacino and Deniro, checkmate, Collateral (2004), Thief (1981), Miami Vice, style, substance, just out of prison, back in the business of being a thief, the mob come to him, I’m out, Willie Nelson, no you’re not you got a girlfriend, so she’ll never love him, burns his house down, before going straight, Jim Belushi, Dennis Farina, a man expressing that extreme level of independence, very Jesse vibe, the Conan thing, I’m not going to take your shit, you have to inform on your friends, may have grabbed a sword, their mistake was letting Conan in the building, Manhunter (1986), very solid, Silence Of The Lambs (1991) came out, did too good a job, William Peterson looking cool, nerd, filmed in Florida, Public Enemies (2009), very 2009, banks are evil, here’s a guy who fought the banks, noble bankrobber, Ferrari (2023), semifactual racecar movies, The Insider (1999), they made the 60 Minutes crew the heroes, The Aviator (2004), they played brothers, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993), The Lack podcast, how many podcast do you listen to?, audiobooks more than podcasts, listening to Damien G. Walter’s podcasts, interacted with him online, poor you, before he was a digital nomad, a columnist for The Guardian, he’s a prophet my dear, people are saying, he prophet greatly, he has takes, deeply ideological, the philosophy is wrong, his takes are bad, he prophet so it doesn’t matter, Sad Puppies hate him, little known writers, fantasizes about killing him, a deleted tweet from Cirsova, thought better of it, grey checkmark, wearing a plastic bag and a mask and a respirator under the mask, it was covid, minutes away, the only crime that occurred on J6, that’s violence, “storming”, revolution, I wish, they had no weapons, defend your lack of liking this deleted tweet, the person who was killed was shot by a cop, the narrative is that it was insurrection, they didn’t bring any weapons, the Capitol building, idiotic protestors, politicians were scared, caused a mess, a Christian holiday, if you drill down, deaths of 9 people, 5 people involved by direct cause, 4 capitol police officers caused by suicides, people don’t know, Ashli Babbit, fatally shot in the upper chest, Brian Sicknick, pepper sprayed, strokes the next day, all that transpired played a role, died of amphetamine overdose, naturally from coronary heart disease, eating margarine, in the days and months that followed, died by suicide, misdiagnosed concussion, in July, found, 15 were hospitalized, some with severe injuries, this is 9/11, the means vs. the ends, a protest, violence is bad, you should allow yourself to be killed, I don’t like these people, what shapes the narrative, flipping over our government, the government doesn’t care about you, fantasy of collecting social security one day, you can make our old people poorer and work longer, the damage done, when you put tear gas at people, furniture, Nancy Pelosi’s lectern, lady climbing through a window, an interesting life, people who have the time to go protest in Washington, D.C., the current president, even saying he has a claim is silly, the words coming out of his mouth, not the majority of the people there, or in Canada, the truckers, these are lies, all the farmers are Nazis, starve to death, buy mangoes shipped in at a huge cost to the environment, look at this, a class things, points his sidearm towards an attacker, tell the story please, broken glass, that guy is pointing a gun at a human being, roving gangs of avengers, super-powers the only way, strong young men from Boston, as only they can, like Tarzan, nosy old ladies in charge of these things, policing in Cuba, weaponize those nosy old gossip ladies, use judgement, a real gossip hound, digging up the boring dirt that is not a threat to our society, makes her really sad, recognizes it in herself, can’t we all just get a long, can’t I talk you down from this, give out a lot of tickets and do what the bosses says, a call center worker, old ladies, couldn’t sell them anything, something very benign, in house magazine for a government funded, Jesse was always at the bottom, not pressuring these old ladies more, Jesse just get off the call, call more people, impolite, Edward Bellamy, the society of the future, restaurants are horrible, a server, a greeter, hostess, that’s security guard, they’re old people, its just like a camera, a living camera, they find you a seat, part of the fantasy, American restaurant, just leave me alone, the ability to increase your wages by getting tips, feeds into each other, automat, a cafeteria, cafeterias in the future, access to a kitchen, this kind of mustard, how many kinds of mustard do we need?, dijon, honey, yellow, visible grain, thomy mustard, comes in a little tiny mug, blue lid, a literal mug, sometimes they’re not good, Bavarian classic mustard, mustard connoisseurs, #MustardAndKetchupGetup, one of the few Chinese words, sauce, tricking people into eating rotten tomatoes, Heinz family, descendants of German immigrants, curry ketchup, currywurst, gypsysauce, a bad word, gyp, sauerkraut, common here, everyday glasses are mustard jars, Hengstenberg mustards, Landsberg mustard, an export brand, other than spicy mustard, questions about Worldcon, Glasgow, what happens at worldcon?, masking, dealer’s room is good, panels, readings, signings, a gaming room, pronouns happens, old bald dude he him, pronoun stickers for your badge, cosplay, guests of honor, fantasy writer, British, Prometheus Award winner, they’re gonna take your Hugo back, take it back, they think they can revoke, don’t read Heinlein!, how dare you, listed on Wikipedia, that could be changed, withdrawn, removed, demoted, panels are a pretty normal experience, a podcast but boring, even a good panel is bad, run out of time, assuming no knowledge, not very much time, way off topic, potentially spicy, frowned upon, a moderator, to keep people from hogging the panel, someone who doesn’t talk, two podcasters who talked a lot, of Tor books, what does Teresa Nielsen Hayden have to say, podcasters don’t usually have a problem talking, kind of hates Cora, muted the thread, hyphenated, all hyphenated people are muted, not spicy enough, the usefulness of the Hugo awards, the trustworthy ones, for the best science fiction and fantasy, what role do they play, they don’t roll much, N.K. Jemisin, T. Kingfisher, Connie Willis, put Hugo after your name, a lot of misses, a lot of hits, became classics, David Brin, Hugo winner, Jesse is a total awards nihilist, bigger audience, following on twitter, pushed over the 3000 mark, meet more people, gets easier, how much did you get paid for the story, how many digits, in the 2 digit range, $2000 a year if they’re a famous writer, a cheque for $78, worthwhile exercise, a worthwhile exercise, a flash story, $25, answer the question, Cora, it depends, use it as a reading list, used to, quite miserable, fine with several of them, hated all of the books but one, Ken MacLeod, probably a lovely person, shitty people and you love their books, nice person and you hate their books, what else you got Will?, keeping up with it [short stories] in a meaningful way, top 15 nominees, just missed, crowdsourcing, big fanbase, goes to every con, great filkers, the nominations for 2023, LadyBusiness, you can add something, very democratic, list of podcasts, American Writers 100 Pages At A Time, Paul, Androids And Assets, for the Star Trek one, a YouTube, Cerebro, Chrononauts, Crafting With Ursula, Doctor Who Verity, Ex Urb Ad Astra, Fanac.org, Filkcast, Hugo Girl, Hugos There, Seth Heasley, cancelled for the Campbell reference, with David Agranoff, If This Goes On, J. Miles Explains The X-Men, vaugely science fiction related, Just King Things, Kalandi, a YouTube, SFFreader, gush about, Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, second wave, Literature Science Alliance, Are Human, Octothorpe, One Flesh One End, Onyx Pages, Our Opinions Are Correct, won too many people, Radio Free Skaro, Rite Gud, not them they’re terrible, Science Fiction 101, it’s British, skeptical of the British, SFFaudio spelt wrong, host/producer, SFFYeah, SFF180, why do people hate you Cora, good takes to all 6 of his viewers, underpitching it a bit, Staship Fonzie, Steve Sheeves, Stitch And Bitch, Sword And Laser, g4 tech TV, Take Me To Your Reader, The Book Finch, Coode Street, steampunk Victorian people, good that steampunk is over, Gary K. Wolfe, Luke Burrage, Skiffy And Fantay, Shaun Duke has blocked Jesse, 2 Minute Time Lord, all the Doctor Who references, Wizards And Lesbians, Wizards With Guns, dudes with mustaches, fart and poop jokes, Worldbuilding For Masochists, Tar Valen or Bust, Wheel Of Time, Eating the Fantastic, comics people, Tales From The Trunk, Hillary is male, Story Hour, If This Goes On Don’t Panic, two different story titles in one, Voluminous, very good, read H.P. Lovecraft letters, very liberal nice people who have nice, HPLHS, one of them (or both) is gay, made Lovecraft their jobs, actors, Chilean SFF on Youtube, The Cromcast, Rogues In The House, repeating themselves, having fun, doing their podcast only for them, we don’t repeat shows, after 10 years, that’s fine, just do the poetry instead, can only read it once, if you’re going to remake a movie, don’t remake that, stop making that, do it once, move on, Luke Burrage repeats himself, eligible?, a minimum of 4 episodes, recusing myself, since 2023 is now over, they don’t pay your flight, guests of honor, good to get the people nominating on the stage, The Oscars, cosplaying as an unmade bed, evening gowns, the clothes are more weird, actual playback history, Second Shift, an audio drama where 3 teens who work at a pizza place and transported to a fantasy realm, as in the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, The Last Drive, Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Scott Miller, great audiobook narrator, a Jesse follower, a Scott follower, too democratic, Buckaroo Banzai, Golan Globus Theater, talk about movies, two Israeli guys, action movies, Charles Bronson, quick good fun movies, ignorant and funny, American Writers 100 Pages at a time, Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Mate, Gabor Mate, 2 Jews talking about what’s going on in Gaza, Gaza all the time, Matt Taibbi, The Lack, Racket To Go, SFBRP, Witchhouse Media, Strange Studies Of Strange Stories, science fiction stuff, liberal boring, H.P. Lovecraft guys who ran out of H.P. Lovecraft, weird fiction, Guy de Maupassant month, takes aren’t spicy enough, more of an entertainment show, the plot of what’s happening, a useful service, Compact Magazine, Nina Power, Mr Jim Moon, Hypnogoria podcast, BBC In Our Time, How Doctor Who Stood The Test Of Time, their opinions are not correct, to get inside the mind and understand people, figure out why people are wrong, the alternative is violence, censorship, the same thing, too spicy, quote tweeting, migrants coming at the border, one A-10 could solve this, that would make him a monster, a very fruitful discussion, murdering a whole bunch of people, a tool for the politicians to do shit, a result of politicians acting overseas, would be very reasonable, not here to defend that tweet, there are people, show them out of the helicopters, seems a lot more reasonable and more cynical, Paul refused to be on a podcast with him, very reasonable, very cynical on the tweets, generic shitposting, naked dick pick, vile antisemitism, free Palestine, why are you harassing us with all of these reports, “one a-10 would fix this”, 15,000 individuals, I can’t with so much pettiness, are these migrants?, daywalk, refugees, farm work for a while, guest workers, replacement workers, scabs, there’s arguments to made here, about as deep as you can get on twitter, severe down-punching, practical and political, the people who replied, cosplaying, cartoon responses, this is what triggers Paul, seems to be a call for violence, doesn’t come across very well in tweets, too vile, if your house burns, we still have the rental car, an engagement point rather than a solution, seems vile, incitement to hatred, parasites, kept denying the holocaust, step back, literally not true, who is in charge of the US airforce, secretary of defense, Joe Biden, whoever is ruling the U.S., a very cynical take, when you can’t do anything, shoot refuges at the German Polish border, he’s not a politician, an aristocratic lady and far right, Tolkien vs. Lewis, Teen-Titans, politics in here, Quakers get wrecked, Biden administration, statue of William Penn, a Quaker teacher once, typical for a government, Cirsova’s politics are political realist, really horrible, feels unsafe, constantly on alert, most San Francisco, gibbering black crack head barely looked human, FAS, a lot of problems in society, mom was drinking while pregnant, alcoholism, alcohol is poison, smoke a lot, baby underweight, very funny, read between the lines, they have no faith in anything that’s political, potholes everywhere, a great place to look at the failure of everything, watching good old movies, charitable, be prepared to do violence, may do and are doing is a big difference, Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, 3 precogs, 2 predict, hence the minority report, I’m not going to do a murder, prediction vs. are doing, so kindly butted into so kindly, David Currie in the UK, fight me, I like him, not a good thing to do, joking with, Guardian article, Russian and Chinese imperialism, could happen in future vs. actually happening now, hypotheticals, most of the bad things that could happen don’t happen, I shouldn’t eat this chocolate, is it good to not eat the chocolate, adulterated chocolate, artificial flavours, Hershey’s, palm oil, seed oils, belongs in palms, not food, no business being in chocolate, they feed it to humans, palm plantations, a food additive, instant ramen, Thailand, Brazil, rapeseed oil, canola, sunflower, which we like, olive oil, actually made out of olives, not human food, feed animals, industrial lubricants into human food, no more margarine for you, make your own mayo, they don’t have flavours, rape oil, canola, people think rape is bad, fields of rape, very Orwellian, not something you should put in your body, might remove some skin oils, when Cora dissed the tobacco industry, fume as in over the tobacco, a little bit tobacco pilled, pumping toxins into the air, continuously, exercise your liver a little bit, more than 10 drinks a day, cigar, you don’t put it into your lungs, the point of the drug, smoking is probably better than drinking, smoke or drink?, alcohol in your food, inherited whiskey, brandy, cognac, mostly beer, the alcohol is dry, I’m never going to drink that.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #441
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Pickpocket by Mickey Spillane
Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.
The Pickpocket was first published in Manhunt, December 25, 1954.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #795 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Such Men Are Dangerous by Lawrence Block
Talked about on today’s show:
Reading, Short And Deep, 1969 novel, Paul Kavanaugh, only one other Lawrence Block, a blowjob under a table, a pretty late one, the finest gift was Donald Westlake, a fine fine gift, so good, in that same territory, a little uncomfortable, a psychopath?, dangerous, killed 19 innocent people, a similar quality, they’re paperback writers, tweeted about this book, Lawrence Block doing Richard Stark, a darker Westlake, Stephen King’s darker half, Richard Bachman, the main character’s name is Paul Kavanaugh, kills a bunch of people, betrays the United States, sets off nukes, in the drugstore getting your cigs and malt, this is a true story, at what point in the book, a whole lot, pre-Watergate, very Watergatey, Vietnam, in Cambodia for 10 years, little brown men chasing after him, a super-competent crazy man, he has no idea where he wants to be, encounters with women, the colonel’s wife, she’d kill herself on the way home, psychotic?, we keep learning that, things seem to be going more smoothly now, nope, this is our man, Small Town, 2003, older guy getting into a relationship with a woman, a meditation on New York, much more like a mainstream book, a weird exception, Tom Wolfe or Mario Puzo, The Man In Full, Lawrence Block short stories, Scott edits that, recurring characters, a bunch of series, he resists it for quite a while, editors were demanding series, twins in ability, they were friends, sharing keyboards, co-authored stuff, publishers would be asking, exclusivity, The Hunter, give me three of these a year, two more, a difference, the second one, The Evil That Men Do?, travelling around the USA, Not Comin’ Home To You, free and white and 22, killing spree, two dudes, Natural Born Killers, Woody Harrelson, real life dad was a serial killer, may have been involved in the murder of JFK as well, a researching rabbit hole, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, the Clutter family, the short lived writing career of Paul Kavanaugh, Maissa Bessada, the first Burglar book, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, 1977, it’s a cozy, a hardboiled alcoholic detective living in New York, like Agatha Christie, much more Poirot, models on the Raffles books, brother in law to Arthur Conan Doyle, explicitly modeled on Sherlock Holmes, a burglar and his gay lover, dress up in women’s clothes, country jewel thieving, identical to Holmes and Watson, the lover tells the story, the enigmatic one, homosocial, no sex on screen, a lesbian sidekick, a dog groomer, a Lawrence Block hobby book, The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, if you can only handle the soft, Matthew Scudder novels, trying to get dry, an older man, aging with Block, The Autobiography Of Matthew Scudder, the writing on this, effortless, listening to it, not a chance on this one, very smooth, can always listen to a Westlake, velvet prose, easily page turning, kept being surprised, goes to his island, makes his rules, back and forth to get his eggs, that came out of nowhere, we’re living in the shire and Gandalf shows up and he’s got a handgrenade, he says the thing I was thinking, you are me and I am you, what’s the difference between Paul and George?, not all there either, his Minnesota exams, go any places, we’re in Paul Kavanaugh’s head, his face or his back, all the decisions he’s not going to make, Lawrence Block doesn’t have a complete skill set but he hides it so well, M-14, Thompson, the new guns in Vietnam, sketch-it lightly, it isn’t a gun book, he doesn’t know anything about the army, his brown skin, his hard muscles, he’s the master at the paperback, the length, 10 hours at least, James Lee Burke, his books are twice as long, Lee Child, the Reacher books, he’s working in the 2020s, writes for the market, you can write books that way, extra stuff, the story doesn’t get better by being longer, the lady he almost marries, he’s thinking about her, I wonder if I should go think about that, think about the rules, as insane as he is, he’s smart and he’s good at his job, went to his bed, puts the pillows under the sheet, we know it was coming, so good at distracting us by not hiding things, after the colonel’s wife, he did some weird stuff there, turning the sheet inside out, he gets his eggs, he gets his sausage, the shopkeeper, here’s your paperbacks, a whole philosophy, that grenade went in the sea, inconsistencies on my list on my island, I kill you!, you came to my island, you’re the one who started this man, a PTSD book, really good at observing, on a bus, he reads the newspaper, makes some sausages and eggs, thinks about a relationship, if he were a different kind of person, Laos, the maps on the roads, heist books, Dortmunders are soft and fun and funny, there’s something wrong with Parker, that’s not efficient, he has to go, once they lie to you, having one the guys not follow the philosophy, authors get tired of series, makes it about baseball cards, Humphrey Bogart, pretty obscure, people are just trusting Lawrence Block and buying blind, translate to movies really easy, Eight Million Ways To Die, Whoopi Goldberg, Bobcat Goldthwait plays the lesbian dog groomer, gender flipped it, A Walk Among The Tombstones, My Blueberry Nights, short films, there was a script for this, happened and happens a lot, soon to be a motion picture, Up Your Banners, another marketing thing, get the paperback before you watch the movie, goes to the movies, goes to the drugstore, he really needs a dictionary, define everything perfectly, he won’t be insane, very very well structured, a super-instinctual writer, lucky, incredibly smooth, the first Scudder novel, The Sins Of The Fathers, 2 cassette Penguin Audio, on sale, these will be good, running a bookstore by day, reading a character reading a book, a real book, I’m sold, knew each other well, the tight tight crew, Silverberg, Block didn’t write much science fiction, Block was just not a science guy, Make A Prison, doesn’t know a lot of science, careful observation of society, Block loves short stories, used to be Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Writer’s Digest, Block has couple of writing books, he’s the writer of them, a bunch of short stories, a fixup, just doing novels now, Hit Man series, then he surprises us, White Plains, New York, the mob, Des Moines, describes all the people, goes to a Pizza Hut, goes to a hardware store, we’re in the bedroom, a nice vase, then he murders the guy, so soft, it’d been six days since I had any work, then I got call, can’t hold it together, so level headed, murdering people for a living, interviews with Block, he has a vivid imagination, he gets bored, why did you write this book, short on cash, what if I became a burglar, sat down at the typewriter, stamp collecting, Lawrence Block is a stamp collects, the hobby of kings and king of hobbies, so many, riches, the cover has What Mad Universe, 2022, a Subterranean Press with a really good cover, a writer’s writer, Jim Roberts, Martians Go Home!, Arena, the Star Trek episode, two sentence story, The Last Man On Earth Sat Alone In A Room. There Was A Kock At The Door, can you be more out of fashion?, he’ll make it good, Harlan Ellison, not magical oh I must write, The Inklings, the difference is class, Oxford Dons, my next book is about Jesus but he’s a lion, a fawn with no genitals, porn stories, that would be great book, a non-fiction book, possibilities out there, Hard Case Crime, Alex Nevala-Lee style person, Rick Jackson, Wonder Audiobooks, The Fabulous Clipjoint, super-readable, a writer’s-writer, worshipped at the foot of Westlake, trauma they’re working through, insurance, different results but the smoothness is the same, go to Clarion, hubbub, get my awards, a very different writing school, the Oxford Don worked out, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, comic books, big little books, radio drama, Paul di Filippo Lost Pages, also Donald Westlake, The Outfit, a heist, an armoured car heist, The Man With The Getaway Face, designed to be ended, fundamentally change the character, a revenge story, angry that his girl stabbed him in the back, adapted to movies 3 or 4 times, good news, a movie seroes and television series, John Wick, a ripoff of Payback, John Wick movies, they killed my dog, gun-fu, a club, everyone is wearing neon, Face/Off (1997), like an opera, married now, no ability to emote with humans, he has rules, don’t bring the stuff home, this is a guy out of time, driving a Toyota Avalon, still smooth and still good, a testament, look at that Westlake, listen to them, they tell you truths, why have you said writing a novel is like going a distance to take a small shit, jumped the shark, how many novels?, zero?, all in his early career, the training school, efficiency, hotel room away from their wives and girlfriends, in a weekend, get to the point, filling pages yes, have people buy the book, they’re capable of doing something with it, when it is is not science fiction, Ringworld is a great book but it’s not much of a story, getting home, that tantalizing thing, I could do it again I guess, diminishing returns, not true with crime books, what makes this book not science fiction, nuclear mortars, Aural Noir, exploring the idea, so paired with science fiction, crime is an alternative way to view society, not right towards the CIA, won’t take orders and do them blindly, not a patriot anymore, you need something to do, you go crazy and have to live on island away from everybody, drown em a few times, why you must die in the end, there are other ways of living, what is my relationship to the bank, floating through our lives, doing chores, distracted by this, you didn’t see it coming, what if somebody robs the bank, how would I rob this bank?, different outlook on reality, being impinged upon us, yeah, what about that?, Silverberg don’t know much about science, I like Joseph Conrad, a riposte, immortality through my books, that one will make me immortal, in a different setting, crime and mystery fiction, make us think about reality differently, what did you learn?, why is this a good book?, entertaining, passed the time, just personally compelling, what did I learn?, a heightened experience, a mode of being, a psychology book but you don’t know that, experiencing somebody’s psyche, how does Block do that, the unconscious coming out as plot and action without telegraphing it, there from the beginning, their sex books, not designed for that, very very tame, how tame is the sex, no nipples, he aint shyin away from it either, the literary crew, classes for analysis, defying analysis by just being so good, super-readable, when in doubt put on one of these, good page turns, a book is a companion, a book is a friend, on Vancouver Island, you came to my island!, you wouldn’t hesitate to recommend except, highly inoffensive, a lot of moral horror, he half accepted she wouldn’t make it home, thumbs on jugulars, plays his politics close to his vest, wise?, aloof?, Stephen King is not playing close to his vest anymore (if he ever did), annoyed, Trump in his novels, triggered, Blaze by Richard Bachman, one of the bad guys saying how bad the Republicans were, Lenny and the bunny, a retelling of Of Mice And Men, the Smurfs, a good book made worse into a bad book almost, meddling triggered hands, minds broken by Trump, Harlan Ellison get TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), politics are important, time of assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, dressed to the nines, take whatever you like, a product of its time, time travel back in time raid the drugstore spinner rack, good reads, a Saturday, What Mad Universe, March and April, them types, a scheme, a Burglar book or two in between, goes down so smooth, girlfriend gives you Campbells soup, hoping to book a show with Connor, The Devil’s Elixirs, Paul might want to be in on that one, used to read Fredric Brown, the church stuff, at its most active, January through Easter, Richard Stark’s The Seventh, 2000 year old books, Passage by Connie Willis, the Titanic, what it’s about is a little complicated, timey-whimey stuff, The Book Of The New Sun, talking about it as we go, one of those big jewels, Catholic guy, queen mother, coldly interesting, looking at a Rubics cube, on kindle, its a series, broke it up into four small books, so much going on in it, telling me something but I’m not sure what it is, a New York Times Cross Word puzzle, books written about this book, Charles Bronson movie, The Triumph Of Evil, from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare:
Caesar
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
Mark Antony
Fear him not, Caesar, he’s not dangerous,
He is a noble Roman, and well given.
Julius Caesar
Would he were fatter!
pushups and sit-ups, not fat and happy, five key political figures, Miles Dorn, a fast paced thriller, a similar short length, book it?, good men do nothing, misattributed to Edmund Burke, alleged quote, thinking makes it so, you can tell by the backwards grammar, Hamlet, generative AI, remark known to have been made, John Stuart Mill, bad need nothing more, pretty close, thoughts on the cause of present discontents, an unpitied sacrifice, Alexis de Tocqueville, digging into Heinlein quotes, Robert A. Heinlein, from novels, something always off about it, women and cats, rooster crowing, Tanya Daviti, will do as they please, men and dogs should relax, the word that triggered Jesse is: relax, Farah Mendlesohn, alternative claim, game show host, 1896, for plain women only, beautiful woman can do as they please but a plain woman must do a great deal, The Present Profession OF Robert A. Heinlein, Expanded Universe, attributed to Lazarus Long, has never dealt with a cat, protocol, almost correct, Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse, fake and garbled quotes, a huge thread, Glory Road, a quote inside a quote, it means, attributed to Heinlein, translated from another language inside of a fantasy book, people collect quotes and put names attached to them, a pathology, an addiction, gut punch, it hurts so bad, make some pushes, otherwise good men won’t do anything, just hang out on the island eating lots and lots of eggs, reading paperbacks, rowing, took the title and then he wrote the book, a dangerous thing to do, a great pull quote, Othello, the language man, the beast with two backs, unbelievable, amazing, what a hero, negative capability, The One Who Waits by Ray Bradbury, accept uncertainties, John Keats, 1817, am intellectual confusion, the writing style of Block and Westlake, they’re in the typewriter, make some coffee, grew up on computers, Arsenal lost some nuclear weapons, the best name for a sport team that has ever been equipment, they don’t even use their arms, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide radio show, he captured something there, a really good read, of late, a few months here off, The Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast, In Our Time on Edgar Allan Poe, SFBRP, Heinlein, hasn’t listened to Luke in ages, the fever has broken, the latest Martha Wells, this is kind of shit, why this doesn’t work, saying mean things about other people, lots of really good things to say about Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman, British humour, extinction credits, Juliane, a way to keep up on the torwave/squeecore, ok modern books, say high to the chickens and the cows, everything with four legs or less.
Posted by Jesse Willis