To The Best Of Our Knowledge: Philip K. Dick

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

To The Best Of Our KnowledgePublic Radio International’s To The Best Of Our Knowledge has a new Philip K. Dick special up. Here’s how they describe it:

Nobody blurred the line between his life and his literature more than the legendary science-fiction author, Philip K. Dick. And that’s only fitting since one of the major themes of his fiction is, “What is reality?” This week we take a look at the life and work of the man who’s been described as “one of the most valiant psychological explorers of the twentieth century,” as we commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death.

And here’s the list of speakers:
Jim Fleming, Steve Paulson, Anne Strainchamps, Jonathan Lethem, Anne Dick, Umberto Rossi, and David Gill.

Here’s the audio |MP3| but I’m afraid the file isn’t directly HuffDuffable (though it does readily download).

[via TotalDickHead and BoingBoing]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Hypnobobs: Imaginary Friends (includes Thus I Refute Beelzy by John Collier and Mr. Lupescu by Anthony Boucher)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Hypnobobs PodcastMister Jesse has lots of friends, and they all do something you wouldn’t ever think of, not in a squillion years.

One of Mister Jesse’s friends is named Mister Jim Moon. He is one of Mister Jesse’s very good friends, though Mister Jesse has never really seen Mister Jim Moon.

Sometimes Mister Jesse thinks that Mister Jim Moon isn’t real. But because Mister Jim Moon is so fun to play with Mister Jesse doesn’t want to think too hard about it. He doesn’t want Mister Jim Moon to disappear!

Mister Jim Moon’s podcast, Hypnobobs, is full of wonderfully terrible stories of the weird and the macabre.

Mister Jim Moon’s latest podcast is a short collection of weird poems. But the one before that, Hypnobobs #68, is entitled “Imaginary Fiends” and includes two short stories with imaginary friends at their center.

Here is the episode: |MP3|

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Hypnobobs

One story is named Thus I Refute Beelzy. It was written by Mister John Collier. And the other is called Mr. Lupescu and was written by Mister Anthony Boucher.

It seems likely to Mister Jesse that Mister Anthony Boucher’s story inspired one of the characters in Mister Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.

Mister Jesse has tracked down the accompanying illustrations from the print publications and made PDFs too!

Thus I Refute Beelzy by John Collier |PDF|

Thus I Refute Beelzy by John Collier
Thus I Refute Beelzy illustration by Virgil Finlay

Mr. Lupescu by Anthony Boucher |PDF|
Señor Lupescu por Anthony Boucher |PDF| (a Spanish translation)

Mr. Lupescu by Anthony Boucher
Mr. Lupescu illustrated by Boris Doglov

Senor Lupescu - illustration by Lisa

Senor Lupescu - illustration by Lisa

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals: Paperbooks: Philip K. Dick, Ray Nelson, Ted Chiang, Carolyn Keene, Garth Ennis, Robert E. Howard, Timothy Truman, and John C. Wright

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Here’s a stack of new paperbooks that have recently hit my desk: Included are The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson, The Secret Of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (1931 edition), Stories Of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang, Jennifer Blood, (Vol. 1) by Garth Ennis, King Conan: The Scarlet Citadel by Timothy Truman, and Count To A Trillion by John C. Wright.

There’s a mistake on my part in the video. The Scarlet Citadel is adapted from a Robert E. Howard Conan story, as it turns out it is one of the ones I haven’t read.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Commentary: How I made my iPhone camera mount (for YouTube videos)

Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Commentary

SFFaudio MetaA few months ago I designed and built an iPhone camera mount for making YouTube videos for SFFaudio.

I actually started off wanting a tripod, but I couldn’t find a reasonably priced adaptor for my iPhone. As I tried to find one I realized that a tripod wasn’t exactly the best way to film the objects on my desktop anyway. So I thought about it for a bit, took some measurements, and went down to Rona (a local hardware store) to buy the parts.

Here’s what it looks like:

iPhone Desk Mount

I really like showing it off!

HERE is the kind of vid I make with it.

To make it cost me just over fifty dollars and the build time was about an hour. Now that I have it I find that the assembly time is less than a minute.

If you have access to tools and a workshop you can make one for yourself for less than I did. I bought too much PVC piping, and I had to invest in a hacksaw. The hacksaw cost about $10. The other tool that I bought was the spring-loaded hand clamp with a range up to two inches – this is essential for making my mount portable and preventing the whole thing from falling over.

A friend* gave me the wooden base.

Here’s how it all fits together. Permanently attached to the wooden base (7 x 10 x 0.75 inches) with four Robertson screws, is an iron floor flange with a 1 inch female pipe receiver with four countersunk screw holes.

This is the only part that I don’t regularly disassemble.

I then screw into the flange a 1 inch diameter pipe measuring 3 inches long (see images below). Atop that fits the rest of the assembly which is all PVC plastic tubing measuring 1.25 inches in diameter. The first PVC piece is the biggest, a straight tube that fits over the 3″ long X 1″ diameter iron pipe. It rises up about 12 inches from the base (though I suggest you add another 7 inches to that if you’re planning to attach it to a table as I have done in the image above). Atop that I fit one of two 90° PVC fittings of the same 1.25 inch diameter. That attaches to another straight pipe of the same diameter running horizontally about 11 inches. I then pop in the other 90° fitting. To which I attach a 4.5 inch long tube running vertically downward. This last pipe has had a notch cut into it approximately three quarters of an inch from the bottom. The notch is about half an inch thick (as that’s how thick my iPhone 3GS is).

I mentioned earlier that you probably want to add about 7 inches to the first vertical tube. This is because when showing objects on my desk I actually have my mount atop the monitor riser, pictured at the back at the back of my desk, and it is 7 inches higher than the desktop itself.

All the pieces are held together by friction which allows me to swap in and out different pieces of differing lengths. It also makes it portable. I took the mount to my classroom and showed it to my students the other day.

Assembly pictures:
iPhone Desk Mount Base
3 inch iron pipe
3 inch iron pipe
iPhone Desk Mount with flange and iron pipe
PVC piping
PVC piping
PVC piping atop the iron pipe
two 90 degree fittings
90 degree fitting attached
nearing full assembly
The final peice

[*thanks Andy!]

Posted by Jesse Willis