Reading, Short And Deep #505 – Nightshade by Dashiell Hammett

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #505

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Nightshade by Dashiell Hammett

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

Nightshade was first published in Mystery League, October 1933.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #859 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The SFFaudio Podcast #859 – The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs, (7 hours 7 minutes) read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Will Emmons

Talked about on today’s show:
Eternal Lover, Eternal Savage, one of the Barney of something books, the second half Sweetheart Primeval, Barney Custer of Beatrice, a weird publication history, 1915, August 1915, The Mad King, separated, connected, The Mad King, Alex (pulpcovers), also a Tarzan book, written in 1914, Tarzan to come, Lord Greystoke, he’s in the book, the host for Barney and his sister Victoria, doesn’t say anything, an impression of what he would have said, in the room earlier, contractually obligated, I’ll stand there but, a weird stand-in, an easter egg, no strong reason for it to be there, also a book I wrote, you are aware of, Burroughsiana, a weird thing, stuff to think about, Nu is different than Tarzan, a red herring, multi-media universe, all the crossovers, the Burroughs Estate, the Pellucidar series, his own Alan Moore thing, League of Extraordinary Burroughsians, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., re-issue in an Ace-Double style with Cave Girl on the other side, big series, a mistake, make a lot of money doing it, he was good at doing that, part of a series but not really, stands-alone kind of, more prominent in, Nu Nu, Nu fitz Nu, having a mating on the nu moon, gotta get your cycles started to pump out some babies, baby, what’s going on with this book, legit confused, what’s going on, all explained in the end, what we actually have here, two books here, one isn’t fully realized, the narrative about Nu’s journey to the 20th century, cut-short, what happens at the very very end of this book, new timeline, last 4 paragraphs, a sudden halt, nothing more to be seen, crumbling skeleton, stone tipped spear, stone knife, stone axe, look!, feeble flame, the grinning skull of a great cat, 18inch curved fangs, Oo!, for his Natul for me, a really good ending, okay, more than 25 by Burroughs, he pointed out something, feel it, feel kinda dumb, they’re always the goddamn same, meet cute, girl gets kidnapped, happens twice in this book, in every Burroughs, really into kidnapping, the reason he’s into that, a big booklength book, he needs to fill pages, a science fiction story, an adventure story, the Encino Man, a white nigger?, not more that 17 times, he’s called that, this means that everybody around him is racist, not real dependable, when all the servants fled, a laybout asshole, using the n-word, what is lie?, so good, really fun, interrogates the story of what we hear about racist, more racist, Robert E. Howard, The Last White Man, bad on a number of levels, the manly exemplar, Barney is a good brother, Lord Greystoke is a nice host, Nu son of Nu, an innocent abroad, a super-muscular man like Tarzan used to be, incredibly muscular, intense, contrasted and compared, they never wrestle, he puts on Lord Greystoke’s clothes, a little too small for him, a direct comparison, take it a little bit deeper, Solomon Kane, the white savage, what he’s like, white savage vs. Tarzan, in this life, acculturated to the stone age, a ranch in Nebraska, it becomes a comedy after a certain point, learns horse-breaking, another kidnapping, a comedy, a Savage who becomes civilized, he was an English Lord, he learned to read, inherent, is even homo sapiens, bit the guy’s neck out, direct message, state tv in Sweden SVT, here are the first swedes, they’re all black, kind of a point, why are all the cavemen white?, what period is this set, he’s from the Niocene, the only thing that comes up is this book, eras, Pleistocene, smilodon and pterodactyls, a tiger in Africa, no homework, very pure for that reason, is this science fiction?, a conversation on twitter, he’s an unfrozen caveman, frozen in a cave somehow, I’m worried about earthquakes, mice and earthquakes, our guy gets trapped with the head of a smilodon, by suspended animation, Heinlein trick in The Door Into Summer, the gases that came in and froze him, a very popular one, 19th century novels, News From Nowhere, Just Imagine (1930), The Marching Morons, wakes up in the future, a Stanley Weinbaum novel, a ranch in Africa, this is my destiny, shot in the head, learns languages, kidnapped by the arabs, arabs and white slavery, super-not Christian, compared to Howard, here’s how I’d have Christ do it, angry about being nailed to a cross, nailing them to a cross!, cave man monogamy, vs. the arabs, sold into a harem, for a sultan, interestingly contrasted, why it is not science fiction, a new kidnapping scenario, yoink!, the girl’s gone, this other girl, infanticide really bad, suicide, stabs herself and jumps off a cliff, used to sudden death, reading any more Burroughs, he does it well, not edified by any of this, because it is old, modelling his mind, got it now, more cavemany, hadn’t figured out grammar yet, moved to Spain, attempt to prove the unprovable about human nature, you and I today, made of wholecloth, no substance to it, a multi-decade mission to get inside the mind of Edgar Rice Burroughs, really against rape, the baby will be uglier, the boat people, hunters are noble, cowskins, they make their caves, seems suspicious to me, superior technology, the whims of nature, what we are supposed to conclude, chivalrous, kidnapped his girlfriend from the past, unfrozen caveman I love you, the man of my dreams, dogs on his side, let’s go after unfrozen now escaped cave man, tear out his throat, cut back to her waking up from a 3 minute coma, made a new timeline, trapped in a cave, the worst thing that can ever possibly happen, transmigration to a past life, Phra The Phoenician, She, all a dream, see the skeleton of a guy, our love from past ages, you didn’t hallucinate the first half of the book, hallucinate the last half of the book, work for hire, where you’re messing up, Victoria goes back to the Niocene, retain her 20th century consciousness more, she’s not herself, flashes she was just in the 20th century, that would make the book awesome, he’s the fish in his water again, how to re-integrate it at the end, the upshot of the new timeline, the previous timeline, suspended animation, not able to meet your soulmate, no genetic connection, Deep Space 9, the Tribbles episode, Bashir and O’Brien are in the elevator, you’re new here, are you a doctor, giving him the wink, gloms on to her name, his great grandmother, otherwise he won’t exist, Time Rider (1982), Edward Page Mitchell, The Clock That Went Backward, the soul transference, Nu always looks like a caveman, same body, barrettes and lipstick and earrings not made of bones, messier hair, bikini made of fur, speak the same language of monkeys, his theory of past lives and the eternal lover, all of Poe, The Raven, is their love so great that it transcends time, Somewhere In Time (1980), they never have sex, except in the fake timeline, maybe had sex with him in her past?, hit on the head, past life remembrance, die in an earthquake, he really didn’t think this through, not a theory of past lives, this is not science fiction, undercooked fantasy, adventure fiction, a terrible genre, Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), why?, The High Road To China (1983), the answer is it has the supernatural stuff on top of the period setting, god literally exists and doesn’t like Nazis, the power of the contents of the Ark of the Covenant, don’t apply the ritual properly, not supposed to look at god, he went to Sunday school, what the Nazis want, other adventure stories, ancient Egypt, the power of god in this bucket, a burned hand, do the same thing, it’s got everything, same with Star Wars (1977), Luke Burrage argued it was science fiction, new technology was the Death Star, Star Destroyers and Death Stars, sabers are curved, all undercooked, all works for a child, this all works if you wanna pass some time and have some fun, sad story, it could be, rewrite it for him, cohere a little better, talking to the monkeys, me I’m friends of the monkeys, all the other Tarzan, in some respects, the species that raises Tarzan, not gorillas, talks to lions, Elephants, mean things, vocab is low, elephants are very sophisticated, more Mars books, the surgery one The Mastermind Of Mars, medical science fiction, medical adventure, Conan with his shirt off, standing on a pile of bones, not what the stories are like, one narrow aspect of it, Burroughs construction of these stories, strawman characters, a long tradition, Heinlein doing it, if we have good ideas, if you don’t have good ideas, ambiguous characters, helps Nu get out of bondage, I’m going to kill this baby, should I kill this baby, I wanna kill this baby, ladies driving their kid into the lake, minimize this, invest a lot in our offspring, 18 years, when your parents are no longer involved, kids were getting married and getting jobs at much younger ages, childhood is forever, that is odd, something to look at, be done with the child after 5 seconds, he can just fuck off, the baby literally will die without the mom, cats and dogs, lick up the poop, we have hands, we’re more like birds, or bears or elk, all about the nuclear family, how clams work, the dad is like a donor, goes to get shot, sport, food, most hunters are eating their meat these days, he hunts for food, the head is so he can marry her, in the father’s eyes, in her eyes, her behavior is pretty weird, not fleshed out, Victoria Custer, Nah-tool, this cave man is too horny, not that interesting, Victoria is an adult, how old are these characters?, 100,000 and 16 years old, not a cave-boy, much funnier, a pretty good movie, cave man comedies, lends itself to comedy, the concept, plot points, cave man pocket, 3 rocks to by an Arizona iced tea, why do people like it?, it hasn’t changed in price, its not from Arizona, it’s from New York, Arizona looking, the owner’s wife, a special half ice-tea half lemonade, Arnold Palmer, made it up, licensed him, a little bitterness, something mixed with lemonade, a shandy, if you’re into poison, it was okay, a podcaster recording them, what Burroughs was up to, Under The Moons Of Mars, Argosy and All-Story, a better rot writer, massive life experience, running around writing kidnapping plots, kiss each other, the women have eggs on Mars, the best setting to make the argument, so not science fiction, rockets were a thought in people’s heads, he didn’t have a rocket do it, the Martians in The War Of The Worlds, shot out of a cannon, space travel, chose not to do that, more novel, 4 arm green aliens, red indians that are not indians, colour interested, white apes, there’s stuff there, refreshing to talk to Jesse about Burroughs, deep in their guts, as a child, as an adult, Pirates Of Venus, a kidnapping plot with airships, tunnels, horsemen on the Moon, The Moon Maid, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells, hefty intellectual, a comedy, a business man, giant history of humankind and everything, the original serialzed version in a magazine style on the newsstands, hot chocolate on the back, the formation of the Earth, up to Caesar, not interested in it, not writing the same kind of stuff, war correspondent during WWII, Damien Walter podcast, Feral Historian, The Dispossessed, with Evan, killed him and buried him, keep his bones in a cave, all those we’ve lost, when you read H.G. Wells, even when he’s not writing actual science fiction, not trying to ingratiate, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, a slice of H.G. Wells, him doing Jules Verne, on a spectrum where authors are, where Larry Niven is, The Cold Equations, floppy saggy science fiction, he’s juggling but they’re not hard batons, they’re bags full of sand, his stuff is weightier, communism bad, China is bad, a book which engages with ideas, conked on the head, dream books back to back, Robert E. Howard would have been on Instagram and lifting, suicidal ideation, posted videos of himself punching a side of beef, center of attention, businessman, cozying up to Trump sort of thing, spiritual affinity, real estate developers, sea to lake, orange man neutral, what his retreat is named, looks like it is in Florida, mystique, his grandson, Burroughs believed that all of the stories he wrote were ultimately true, that’s Heinlein too, gets that way at the end, mostly known as a novelist, The Pursuit Of The Pankera, honky, chonky, The Number Of The Beast, diary entries, Hilda Corners, the Barsoom novels, very Heinleinian thing to do, n-dimensional space, intimate tango, a space machine, alternate dimensions, 666, a googleplex or more of parallel universes, Oz, literary places, quasi-public domain literary places, a beleif that’s in your head even if it is only transitory, our worlds, unlike myna birds and cave sloths, an autists, a creed, never learned to talk, talking a vow of autism, a real world, people with autism, folksy, take the article off, persons of the semitic creed, we construct our worlds out of words, some penetration, very unusual, add it to your vocabulary, use it with your friend Will, learn vocab words, if you don’t control the vocab words they control you, you need to know, the manifold is broken, a barrier between the universe, find out what lies are, Lord Greystoke, I have red hair, a theory of mind thing, what the white n-word was, so pure hearted, so stupid, tablemanners and forks, language acquisition, standard Burroughs, what the plot of Robert Sheckley’s Deep Space 9 novel was, supportable, cute, knew what was up, savviness, working for Sears, The Efficiency Expert, the George R.R. Martin problem, Tarzan stories, getting conked on the head element, Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, convert you to spiritualism, believing in fairies, it would be cool if it was real, what’s going on with Musk and Mars, aspergersist, normal cognition, hard to interact with, modelling Musks mind, he really wants to go to Mars, get humans out of the one basket we’re in, poor excuse, imprinted on science fiction early, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, even if covered in diamonds, the real issue, really cool, cave diving, tour caves, climb Mount Everest, a goal like any other, living on the top of Mount Everest, like Walter White at the end of Breaking Bad, he wanted to be a success, billionaire owner, to prove that, huge mistake, powerful people brain damage, an atrophy thing, deferring to you, three Chicken Dinners in a row, showing tremendous skill, keep ego in check, other things, dude, you aint that great, become disconnected from reality, like a Hollywood celebrity, rock diva, externalize that, would you overestimate or underestimate your abilities, a trick question, I can do things I can’t do, preventing you from doing things you can do, I can lift that, I can’t lift that, ability to lift things, don’t ask for help, a good self-assessment, surgery on my own back even with a lot of mirrors, what if I do it wrong, standing by with a hose, we’re on the airplane, the pilots are dead, fly a plane, they work the same way, more engines, the radio is more difficult than the airplane, helicopter, a motorcycle accelerator, your yaw, the back and forth oscillation, compelling reason, when the engine goes, autorotation, falling at a slower rate, not a parachute, the airbrake, fixed wing aircraft, gliding, as long as you have altitude you have forward momentum, weather, your fine, land on the ocean, flying lessons, working for companies, a rich man’s ambition, to get the license, any kinda school, wealthy eye-doctors, military teaches it, working for a military, asking for permission, ride a bike, swim, drive a car, another thing to learn, very close to new flying car phenomena, mountain home, battery powered, to save weight, ultralight aircraft, make airplanes, under a certain weight, fixed propellers, [Pivotal Blackfly], they don’t swivel, a drone that you’re sitting in, high end dentists, drones as the way into flying cars, Jetson One, a license to ride a bicycle, nobody has a license to bicycle, insurance law, insurance is free money, scooters, mopeds, skirt the insurance laws, electric bicycles, not a helluva lot, electric motorcycle, torque for days, limiters, [electric unicycle], hoverboards, dangerously fast, in 2025, drone license, no seat, Segway, when motorcycles were went they first came out, chariot racing with motorcycles as the horses, Ben-Hurley Davidson, scared of skateboard, faster than walking, rollerskates, a commuter, the scrapheap of coolness, skiing, fun, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, horseback riding, the way you got places, Marissa’s Instagram, she and her man, cross country skiing with her dog, recreation, enjoying nature, downhill and cross country, ski and then shoot, slogging your way across territory, super dangerous but fun, recreation vs. necessity, rich dentist’s recreation, horses on the interstate, nothing drawn by animals, area Amish, everything is hamster, the default, cats were cool, hundreds?, negotiation, respects her feelings, runaway with a boyfriend, smilodon boyfriend, Amazon box, the lifestyle, the behavior continues, not a good solution, semi-domesticated, do better than the dogs, competing for prey, feral life, lose an eye, depth perception, your claws and your teeth, no birth certificate, breaking up the family, she had children, unrelated cats, fixed later, we know better than them is what we’re saying, we’re fixing them, ova-hystorectimy, Millions Of Cats by Wanda Gág, a very old Will and a very old Meg, so very lonely, smoking a pipe, goes on a walk, page 10, that’s a lot of cats, cats and kittens everywhere, all black and white, a fuzzy grey kitten, way down in the corner, too lovely to leave, black and very beautiful, one riding on his head, too many cats, the cats get to fighting, eat eachother to death until there’s no cats left, eaten each other all up, one little frightened kitten, dear little kitty, just a very homely little cat, nobody bothered about me, soft and shiny, plenty of milk, the most beautiful cat in the world, not one is a the pretty as this one, The Cats Of Ulthar by H.P. Lovecraft, H. Warner Munn, about 20 photos, The Lurking Fear, Catskills, remote northern place, interesting, definitely funny, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a guy who doesn’t know he’s a member of the community, oh and I have heterochromia too, why the mole people didn’t eat him, one eye was blue the other was brown, wrestled with it, this is brilliant, super amazing, really good at mood, he’s one of them, go visit these backwoods people, takes his friend with him, lying in the same bed, the shadow on the chimney, a description of his friend, straight out of The Rats In The Walls, a guy who eats his friend, very muscly, he’s meaty, he’s bringing his family food from the outside, cannibal nutrition, really dig it, Wayne June’s audiobooks, The Thing At The Doorstep, one of his best, the movie, Suitable Flesh (2023), Re-Animator (1985), I like horror after-all, a pure comedy but a horror, army of dead that come and get him, he totally nailed it, a comedy magazine, Home Brew, almost like a zine, during prohibition, the joke is a nod and wink, The Haunter Of The Dark, the church steeple, vibing on it, Providence geography, a mythos story, the scan of Home Brew, the serialization, a peek of what it looked like, piquant gossip, illustrated by Clark Ashton Smith, the trees, penises and vaginas everywhere, how fucked up the scan is, undistorting it, Rhineheart Kleiner smoking a pipe, a complete scan of this, later publications, a secret about Wayne June now that he’s dead, not a fan of At The Mountains Of Madness, deep in his cups, strange hieroglyphics, the narrator is not a Lovecraft character, Scott Miller is going to put out The Call Of Cthulhu, its the one everyone is focused on, all his themes, art, artists, cosmic time, cosmic space, madness, almost the main thing, cares a lot about art and artists, he’s all about the art, The Music Of Erich Zann, The Outsider, “dreamlands” story?, The White Ship, Celephais, Ex Oblivione, reskinned name, Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft: Volume 5, The Shambler From The Stars by Robert Bloch, mythos or dreamlands, winks and nods, August Derleth fucked things around, big series, take the story individually, not a businessman, he was the opposite of a businessman, conservative guys, near the end, different directions, vital active businessman, trying to be pure, not commercial at all, a poet from the 17th century, amateur journalist, he’s a blogger who wouldn’t put ads on his blog, in the kitchen, Voluminous: The Letters Of H.P. Lovecraft, props, artifacts, a library card, postage stamps, a map, printed collectibles, German expressionism, The Call Of Cthulhu (2005), brain jar, The Whisperer In Darkness, 100 year old idea, that’s what you put on your t-shirt, good last name, change your jar water, they read the letter, that was edifying, a little liberal?, very worried about racism and stuff like that, so prevalent, his personality, dry and comical, funny opinions about things, holding court with his friends, couldabin fun, like spending time with that guy, Margaret St. Clair, my homie, Burroughs, see him at a party, I like his books, Burroughs wouldn’t like me, don’t want to worship Tarzan, Tarzan doesn’t want you to worship him, recruiting blah blah blah, when Hemingway is liberating Paris, his old haunts and liberate them and drink there, they go into the Ritz, please leave the Thompson at the door, go liberate another part of Paris, 16+, the one where Jake Sisko is now 18, war correspondent, Klingons are attacking some colony, an ambulance driver during WWII, Ernest Hemingway, Bobby Derie, Clark Ashton Smith and Margaret St. Clair’s correspondence, after Sir Richard Burton, 1001 Nights, the Lovecraft statement, Smith is largely responsible for liches, the names of his stories, collected fantasies, Empire Of The Necronmancers, Skull-Face, Scarlet Tears, cliche, undead things, the old meaning, in fantasy fiction, The Lord Of The Rings, the barrows in the barrow downs, “wights” – the barrow man, a ghost or a zombie, living dead bodies, something Jesse thinks about a lot, author estates, liches get stitches, Ambrose Bierce, puts you under a spell, who am I now?, that bullet ridden lich in the madhouse, a deeply weird story, the visualization, drive out to the countryside, go down some steps, the movie adaptation, kind of adaptations by Jacen Burrows and Alan Moore, a naked gold woman, a pillar, that elm arched darkness, the glub glub, real sad story, the Pit of Shoggoths, the way Alan Moore does it everything is sexual, a repressed homosexual, now he’s Irish, reinterprets all the stories, recapitulates the stories using one character, Robert Black, all these experience, he gets raped, very Alan Moore, a rape sequence, a man is raped by another man who’s a woman, another adventure, so mean to poor Lovecraft, not interested in women, anti-Burroughsian, not interested in the chase at all, her dad, a good surprise twist, hate Jesse if you don’t like it, a Will accent, from the makers of Re-Animator and From Beyond, Dennis Paoli, get bodies, just to collect bodies, comic and scary and great music, very stylish, winds you up great acting, one of the best movies of the 80s, Indiana Jones first movie, The Thing (1982), Big Trouble In Little China (1986), Escape From New York (1981), see my twitter feed for a long list, a student coming, another Bores story, so lucky he doesn’t even known, In Santiago there was once a dean, a good one 3 pages long, we need a Jesse out there, kinda high level?, is it science fiction?, The Library Of Babel doesn’t fit with Planet Stories, contains both, Jack London, all these dudes, the meeting between Borges and Burroughs, where Burroughs books would be found in the library, I’m blind, an honorarium, the official library of Argentina, the American canon has fucked up, missing the point of reading, not giving him the Nobel prize, do they throw in, The Killers by Ernest Hemingway, realism sort of stuff, guy comes back from WWI, sad ideas, a couple in a canoe, they’re gonna break up, realism literary fiction, he’s really good at it, unnecessary whipping scenes, a monster in the basement, a guy nailed to a cross, back to back, break it up, Mark Twain, Brian Lumley, The House Of Cthulhu, 80s sword and sorcery, favourite Californians, same.

Roy Krenkel - The Eternal Savage

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #504 – Marty by Robert S. Swenson

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #504

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Marty by Robert S. Swenson

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

Marty was first published in Manhunt, February 1956.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #858 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Tissue-Culture King by Julian Huxley and The Tachypomp by Edward Page Mitchell

The SFFaudio Podcast #858 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Tissue-Culture King by Julian Huxley, read by Brian Fullen (1 hour), AND The Tachypomp by Edward Page Mitchell, read by Ben Tucker (33 minutes), both for LibriVox. The discussion of both with Jesse, Will Emmons, and Tom Pace begins at 1 hour 33 minutes.

Talked about on today’s show:
a mistake at the end of the recording [excised], Steven Page Mitchell, musician?, Canadian band?, singer songwriter, Bare Naked Ladies, the music at Jack Layton’s funeral, narrator, weird story Will, even more racist, super rich with one central idea, publication, important to the text, 3 publications very early, Amazing, August 1927, Yale Review, 1926, Cornhill Magazine, suspicious, a different text, we’re getting the Amazing text, Yale and Amazing are in the states, 15,000 words, 6,000 words longer, the rest of the paragraph is missing, a swamp the size of Yorkshire, and so on throughout the day, steamy mess, at last we were out, dotted with big trees, like a fortification, a word change, spiky barricade, the green wall, trackway, alert, caravan, guttural exclamation, ponderosity, second head, remarkable monstrosity, supernumerary eyes, lost to view, a man-made path, abridging, doesn’t damage the text, redundant writing, some details, description of the man they’re peeping on, added stuff, the voice proceeded from an enormous negro man, 7 foot 6 or 8 foot high, prayer or incantation, a little carved ebony stand, about the size and shape of a microscope slide, what the fuck’s going on?, the exact location: equatorial Africa, cut down for the American publication, pretty amazing for some things, there’s stuff in it, tin-foil hat, not called tinfoil, not for microwaves, for telepathy, pretty interesting, what you want out of science fiction, a mishmash, biological ideas, hypnosis and psionics, interesting historically, not interesting as science fiction, can we treat it metaphorically, telepathy, Astounding, a dominant thing in science fiction, The Demolished Man, entirely dependent on telepathy, John Wyndham, as a metaphor, setting aside the racism, a little thread from January 2024 on last year, edited by Leonard Huxley, his dad?, subtitled “a biological fantasy”, a more general meaning, a science fiction story in the style of H.G. Wells, the father of Julian and Aldous, super dystopia book, utopian, before the white men got there, tissue culturing, I’m an old man, drops the mic and runs away, what the core of this story is, “tissue culture”, when it was getting really popular, late 19th and early 20th century, produced this way, tissue cultured garlic, a university in New York explicitly referenced, “an institution”, Halcombe, The Rockafeller Institutes, higher education for medical people, buncha women, service these cultures, make the king everywhere, culture the king’s flesh, focus on the really interesting part, a cellular network of mind control, alive or dead exists in tissue cultures and controls the state, genetic experiments on people, fat thighs, big asses, nicki minaj, making dwarves and giants, and perfect dwarves, metaphorical way of looking at it, science is evil, scientists are evil, propaganda, on the money?, science is integral to everything going on, this pure thing, I believe in science, always doing something, working for someone, one set of powerful people here, The Tachypomp, one tutor doing everything, Edisonian mythology, massive staff, prop up the god king stuff, ancestor worship, not exclusive to one group, pretty west African, China, burning money to give to your ancestors in the other place, the one word, pointed out to Boogala, the doctrines of kingship, archive.org, multiply the king’s tissues indefinitely, quantity, mode of life, agreeable to the king, undreamt of power, such innovation, great resistance, the average businessman in their lack of prejudice, as a dig, read this subversively, the end, as to the best methods, in our scheme, scientific advertising, war propaganda, regal tissues, from the ranks of the nobles, sacred tissues, laborious and expensive, a portion of the royal anatomy, sub-culturing, a new way of doing your religion, totalitarianism, making the king everywhere, the television watching you in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Kira on Deep Space 9, the caste system, revert to that, damaging to our society, just goes along with it, a terrible artist, reintroducing the caste system, suspicion of religion, submission to authority greater than yours, do my own research, super-evil, using science to do the job of religion, science has more potent effects, a very valuable story, invented the *tinfoil hat*, where is the other story, abridged, story, tended to be the redundancy of the writing, getting to the ideas, overly long as it is, 40 minute long ideas, could have been shorter, the characters are horrible, some more clues, the Amazing text, a microscope, it’s a tissue culture being observed, why is the toad there, genuflecting to the god, pray to the god, growing properly, almost like a cargo-cult version of what’s going on at that Rockafeller Institute, African empire hidden by a swamp, a modern day lost world, intrigue stuff, important, this is the kind of tech, Facebook and Twitter and Bluesky, ai, television, radio, ai, influencing and mind controlling people, the complementary thing, public religion, research would be limited, more resistance, the state is controlling what science is doing, the way the state is fleshed out in this story, eugenics, they were racist about it, clung longer, after WWII, racists like it, too hubristic, the state telling people who should breed together, sterilize those people, the mistake is that it is unwise, unintelligent behavior, so called smart people, what good genes are, special susceptibility to hypnotism and telepathy, our ideas about losing themselves in weird primitive dances, bound up together, the Plateau of Leng, the deep darkest deserts of Australia, underground in Wales, not on any map, 3 days of swamp, 10 years later?, not Julian Huxley, Planet Stories, set on another planet, analog, bootstrapping stuff and using it to get to places farther ahead, even more impressive, early doing a lot of stuff, you could almost question, public domain, fell asleep, fell into a daze, imagined this situation, just like The Tachypomp, a nightmare, this Robert E. Howard story we started with, less seriously racist, hefty, a mature man wrote this, a plan rather than a story, this man should be fought, If I Were Dictator, Thyroid Dictator, evil on the level of Fauci evil, their religion, moderating thing, full of slaving, accidentally got time traveled to the American south during slaving, do something illegal, arm slaves, foment rebellion, monetary means, a colonialism story too, Rwanda, the outer scientist, Hascombe attained to an unsurpassed degree, but to what end did all this power serve?, will to power, a perfectly good end, fasten the yoke of a false religion, religions as true or false, true and false in this connection, truer or falser, the telepathy actually working, the obvious moral, gradually being accumulated for them, the truth about the way things work, condemning institution science, took a little piece of King Charles, when Ferengis die, tissue culture style trays, little discs with a lid, collectibles, pulp magazines in slabs, relics, a piece of Quark, a parody of us, they don’t even bury themselves, sell the body parts, a very solid story, not a good story for Scott Miller, what do I do with this story?, did a podcast on it, pre-show threads, much lighter and also fun, a Will problem, explain this story like I am dumb, not a math guy, it was all a dream, the tutor, the stand in for Edward Page Mitchell, C. August Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe, 1878, a precursor to Sherlock Holmes proper, the sweetest girl, the daughter of his math professor, reason to worry, experiences a dream, increasingly eccentric, not perpetual motion, how to reach infinite speed, layers of linear accelerators, the smoking car, keep stacking linear accelerators, wind resistance, making a vacuum tunnel, essentially invented a particle accelerator, a rail gun, the one at CERN, donut shaped one, they didn’t have the curves, near lightspeed, in inventing that, solved the problem of how to get to infinite speed, pretty simple, dream framework, the simplicity of the idea, square the circle, our inner hero, before he goes into the dream, like a Frank R. Stockton The Lady Or The Tiger?, electrically expensive, when electricity is just starting be the normal thing, all a thought experiment, an expectation that it is real, his friend, awesome excitement, get paid too, students who are not asleep, teach things and learn things, discounting ordinary intelligence, the stern father’s good will, crunchy writing, meager reward, Jean Marie Rivarol, Gutenberg Australia, Alsace, Teuton in nature, by education a German, the dumb guy, good vocab, bad math, Stanley G. Weinbaum’s, Von Manderpootz, Pygmallion’s Spectacles, Manderpootzian, Francis Stevens, half German half Japanese scientist, falls into a vat of some sort of metal, Samson, mix two races, two personalities, Jules Verne, this people are like this, the Germans are rockheaded, Professor Rockhead, Phileas Fogg = Fog Lover, obsessed with time, precision, clockwork, Paspartou, very French, stereotypes about people, mix them together and get science, Lorraine, profession: omniscience, foreordained mysteries, Tahoe water, Lake Tahoe?, unmitigated stupidity, the skirts of the university, a plethora of purse and paucity of ideas, the awesome Jesse hero, transplant brains, occasional in, the names have to be jokes, students good at math, just there, all the other students are good, injection, early Simpsons episode, the gifted school, all the kids laugh, Bart is bad is school, Lisa is good at school, high vocab, we’re dumb, we’re living in a time of stupidity, Polyp University, Professor Surd, Abbie Surd, fun stuff, a comedy piece, The Senator’s Daughter, The Man Without A Body, wired teleportation, a funny story, a science fiction idea, about the problem of how to get to infinite speed, as long as you don’t believe in later stuff like Einstein, this is impossible, a very fun fun thought experiment, what he cares about, my uncle is a judge, nothing to worry about, just needs to come from a good family and be rich, Mr. Furnace, an angle close to The Raven, Poe is influencing here, The Purloined Letter, Murders In The Rue Morgue, central Frenchman, a proto-Sherlock Holmes, sees and observes, one of the most popular characters ever created, explore the idea of can we get to infinite speed, an infinite number of cars, there’s problems with space that could prevent that, acceleration problems, energy required goes up, 40,000 trains going forward, what defeats this story’s idea ultimately, as a kid, nothing that can faster than the speed of light, The Raven is a psycho-pomp, speed, let us discuss the tachy-pomp, quickly send, takes your psyche to the place of the afterlife, the ferryman Charon is a psychopomp, the Neil Gaiman Sandman stories, still haven’t defeated this idea, a special triangular ruler, they tell me I can’t communicate faster than the speed of light, ansibles, subspace communications, make it as long as the distance to another star, instead of sending things along it you turn it left or right, received data on the other side faster than the speed of light, you can’t make a ruler that long, you can’t build one that long, sort of been replicated in some effects of twinning atoms and electrons, make them harmonize with each other, their reactions, what you do to one effects the other, a potential form of this kind of communication, on a subspace level, some fundamental law of the universe level, written that up as a giant triangular stick, knocked out by neptune and space debris, a metaphor for the understanding, he’s right, if Newtonian physics were the ruling physics of the actual universe, subsequent beliefs about what’s going on, made frivolousness, for the entertainment of it, a hole dug, a natural phenomenon, came up through a trap door, clogged up with financial creditors, Kerguelen Islands, the antipodes, what becomes of any poor devil, a comfy looking chair, skeletal arms wrap around you, the only thing you’ll ask for is the bill, a hole through earth’s center, suspected it, Huygens, 1400 fathoms, you stand upon it, Mrs. Grimler’s Cellar, a galvanic experiment on a cat, Re-Animator, a yawning shaft, came up again, the angry Grimler, acquired momentum, 8000 odd miles, time after time, oscillation of a pendulum, I am not slow, a creditor of the trap, a touch of rhyme, outside my chamber door, Poe was getting pretty popular, in the center of the hole, so much air resistance, over that long journey, even if he threw it, velocity in the other direction, follows the same logic, invents with his mind, the antipodes of the Kerguelen, near Antarctica, find Sri Lanka on a map, a couple Iles Crozet, Kerguelen cabbage, a lot of the places there are named after Jules Verne things, explored and named, the Kerguelenn archipelago, where this story is presumably set, to make the train happen, New York, the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta, real but fudging, electrical energy supply, what squaring the circle is, a mathematical thing, alchemy, hermetic philosophy, numbers are a real thing in that they are self consistent and predictable, Pi, what appears to be infinity, we’re doing approximates, the functional version of the theoretical approximate, the perfect perfection that is numbers, fallen asleep, perpetual motion, trip him up, entirely imaginary, tutored in his home, plaster busts of Artistotle, Archimedes and Comte, the benign brow of Martin Farquhar Tupper, he always roosts there, a bird of no ordinary mind, ab is a root meaning from, ab-stract, cut from, cut from the absurd, cut from the same cloth, so funny, my masterpiece, an android, only partially complete, confute the schools, Albert Magnus, Roger Bacon, Sylvester the 2nd, a Brazen Head that held discourses, Thomas Aquinus got wrathful, laws as definite, this is chatbots, this is ai chatbots, a manakin, Reverend Dr. Alchin, Paul Anapest, vulgar fractions, compose sonnets, talk to you about positivism, Mr. Mitchell is good at craft, supposed to be fluffy, startlingly early stuff, sending DMs to Bill Christensen, older science fiction stories, the tin-foil hat thing, not a household name with regard to people who know about science fiction, doesn’t take itself seriously, Douglas Adams is very good at science fiction, a discourse/conversation/fight on Red Dwarf, time travel, implanted memories, played for comedy, idiots and selfish, serious in that it takes its ideas seriously, it doesn’t negate the story, keeps it light, made Will have to do it, so be it, fantasy and science fiction and what the genres do, indie authors, indie publishers, science fiction as different window dressing for fantasy, boring and for nerds, dorks, disprove this point, we’re dorks, dorky, a third story, The Last White Man, not for dorks, for people who like adventure fiction, not fantasy, both of these are pure quill science fiction stories, 1878 no such thing existed, Julian Huxley, maybe H.G. Wells, need not be, scientific romances, for novels, science fiction after the fact, a real thing, do it without self-consciously doing it, seeing how they work, in the context of society, doing something totally different, gotta save the girl, the sword is I got some money, Kurt Metzger on Joe Rogan, Ctrl Alt History, The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton, a brain implant that fucked a guy up real good, ethical stuff, wrapping tinfoil around his head, microwave transmissions, to control his mind, mind control shit, the mind control implant, standing in front of a bull, brain-chip, a little transmitter, what happens in the book, a really great read, experimental brain surgery or face prison for murder, makes a plan to escape, a feedback loop, a killing machine, fugue states, very interesting, two meanings for terminal, through a remote terminal, a keyboard and a monitor, dumb machines that just connect to google.com, what google chromebooks are, none of the processing is happening on your computer, you are a terminal people, can program you remotely, programmed, i’m 50 now I need to get the shingles vaccine, just gonna cause a rift between us, gonna increase your chance of getting shingles, not the common knowledge, people are programmed by society and corporations and governments, perverse incentives, repeating talking points you heard from youtube, state funded media, a very unpopular youtube channel, or from RFK, a righteous underground, do you want to get shingles?, for you to get that, look into it, when you look into it, where’d you get that, lotsa research, wouldn’t give it if you asked for it, not the right age, shingles vaccine, BC health link, a series of 2 doses, flu vaccine, covid vaccine, CDC, all adults age 50 and older, what are the benefits?, the best way to protect you, prevents more than 90%, 70-90%, after being immunized, just so we’re clear, that’s not a traditional vaccine, the NDP has been paid off by Pfizer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, what’s the percentage of people who get shingles?, weakened immune systems, preservatives etc., what caused Paul to drop the podcast, the facts are COVID vaccines increase your chances of getting shingles, this isn’t a zero sum gain, gene therapy, bad things, blood clots, from personal experience, hurt from these lies, Fauci is not a good person, we knew this, not number one on Trump’s list, the flu vaccine, one cut above homeopathy, a reaction to bad medicine, huge abuses went on there, institutions are institutional, turning regular humans into robots, most doctors don’t do any research after they graduate, too uppity about it, why are they pushing it, time usually reveals, why were black people in the USA more resistant to COVID vaccines, they were experimented on before, maltreated by lying doctors, The Constant Gardner (2005), Kenya, a movie to watch, the fictionalized story is what literally happens, PayPal, ebay account, almost 30 years old, before ebay bought it, a reputation, stealing, banning, you can’t send money to truckers, get your account frozen, their Billpoint system, cheques, not an institution in the same sense, still owned by ebay?, probably an evil corporation public traded, an individual, the closely held, family owned business, very trusting of the family in general, grandma vs. a hospital, the bad outliers, bad grandmas, homeopathy grandma, needed a blood transfusion, the local newspaper (now gone), during COVID, a mother and father disputing whether their newborn should get the COVID shot, the judge did way less research than the dad did, this is how you get autism at the massive rates that we have, by what standard does the judge make the decision, two parents in dispute, set a precedent, not mandatory for babies to get vaccinated, 6 months olds and higher, developmental disabilities, the vaccine schedule, the amount of autism has matched, the reason we have more queer people, more free now, more autism friendly, we diagnose them more, a Philip K. Dick novel, it was rare, now it is normal, reboot of Doogie Hauser, The Good Doctor, idiot Savant, an American show based on a Korean show, such a serious problem now, what’s going on here, measles used to be considered a good thing, now it is considered a deadly disease, not yet, adult onset autism doesn’t appear to be a thing, less than 3%, aspergers included, not diagnosed anymore, sometimes the disease are defined away, a “dis ease” as opposed to a “syndrome”, downs disease vs. downs syndrome, old eggs?, just look into it, I should be more skeptical, a lot of money on the line, the devil’s website, the NIH, that NPR chatbot podcast reader, convenient for that, a conversation about an audiobook, a better digestion, sometimes it glitches, the fake laugh, as Terence [Blake] pointed out, put Jesse out of work, for older kids?, more out of work, kids raised by LLMs, language learning model, a prison therapist, when kids have been institutionalized, sent to school, public or private, do these exercises, the hurt, goes in the trash, make a drawing of a horse, I’m putting this on the refrigerator, very rare, publish it in a journal or something, a litmag, The Capilano Review, the number of students, can’t really have care, student teachers ratios, most of the population involved in educating children, watching youtube videos, very obscure channel, very interested in reading, what he’s been reading about, very American based, conspiratorial, psychic surgery craze of the 1960s, dudes in the Philippines and Brazil, seems pretty sus, uses his hands to psychics remove tumors and stuff from your body, exposes after the fact, James Randi, famous for debunking claims of magic, fishguts, not doing it for money, non-financial incentives, the number of people want it, you really don’t want surgery, an invasive healthcare system, injections, replacements, forget about youutube and NIH, what doctors have done to her, left a drill bit in there, we’ll try to get it out another time, put bolts in your ankle, prednisone, a steroid, a whole bunch of that stuff, addictive, causes problems, my cat is on that, a shot every five weeks, the solution to muscles spasm is botox, kills the muscles, immensely painful, full of preservatives, hair falls out, horrible things happen, falling and breaking some ribs, second covid shot, almost die from bloodclots that immediately happen, all actually what happened, a frozen, leg, at age 70 whatever, if you’re just a regular person, not as skeptical as she should be, more interested in breeding chickens than finding out the truth of these things, cases where your relative gets cancer and they don’t have cancer after a number of years, incompetence and institutional stuff, re-reading, Edward Bernays’ propaganda, rich, 2004 introduction, all about real serous guiding, the invisible government, secret influencers of society, heavily invovled with the tobacco industry, poisonous, he made his money he could move on, turn the tables on it, how do you produce a true truth, a corporate truth, LibriVox, well worth doing, it has to be an active sonar or radar, it can’t be passive, actively trying to understand, going to buy a car, you’re fucked, what cars are being made where or why or how, was the case, Japanese cars were the best, year over year improvement, keep refining it, change the direction, this commitment to refinement, a Toyota from the 1990s you can’t go wrong, swapped the engine for a Ford, commitment to year over year improvement was unparalleled, people are there to try and fuck you, perverse incentives everywhere, okay dad, more of an uncle, beautifully naive, the canny individual, being wrong many times, defer to other people’s judgement, two kinds of oil, synthetic or regular, either one will work, fuck and find out, the consequences of that are possibly dangerous, take it to an expert, a corporate outlet, a mom and pop, in it for the longhaul, getting bought up and destroyed, sold his business to a chain of carguys, owned by Blackrock or Vanguard [or Blackstone], not a conspiracy or everybody knows everybody, New York real estate, they’re not owned by individuals, owned by corporations who own blocks of things, owned by stockholders, the company or companies have to crash for that land to get sold, that’s sort of the essential problem, mom and pop business, The Communist Manifesto, 1848, true in England but not in Germany in 1848, a pamphlet, a utopian novel, a manifesto and an essay, leave no Jesse unturned, vampire, children’s fiction, fantastic fiction, six in progress, sort by release date, Ham Jones: Scientist, 16 years, what class?, economics, philosophy, it wasn’t offered, a German studies class, German Socialism, East Germany, 19th century stuff, Dastardly Criminals In Space, Watchbird, Conspiracy On Callisto by Frederik Pohl, Manly Wade Wellman, The Incomplete Theft, Tom Godwin, Robert Silverberg, Bratton’s Idea, “Old Bratton, janitor at the studios of Station XCV in Hollywood, was as gaunt as Karloff, as saturnine as Rathbone, as enigmatic as Lugosi.”, what other radical science fiction authors could we dig up, is it good?, no way of knowing, about robots?, inventions fiction, robots, Mike Vendetti stuff, The Curious Experience OF Thomas Dunbar, the first superhero story, Edmond Hamilton, Weird Tales, apple books, audible listing, imagine if you will, age immediately or regress to when they were youths, nefarious inventor, a lot of money, sound familiar?, causing panic, more adventurey fiction, Spawn Of Inferno by Hugh B. Cave, Clark Ashton Smith, anything by him, a darkness that settled like a black cloud, blackness, a thing from the outer darkness, ghastly appetite, The Thing From Outside by George Allan England, like The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood, The Willows, badly told interesting idea, badly told?, not well told, we benefited it by being massively abridged, made it shorter, very short, from Connor [Kaye], Who Are The Dead?, we like that about him The Black Abbott Of Puthuum, Averoigne, nice art, Margaret St. Clair, corresponded, fuckin cool, she’s San Fransisco, a real homebody, Tommy Patrick Ryan, still be interesting to have read it, works for Margaret St. Clair as well, her story about fake meat, up on Bill Christensen’s website, Juciveal, technologies in stories, broad beamed, pleasantly easy to answer, Jucipork, Mr. Angst of Gourmond, a culinary editor, Veristeak, Lazarus, an interesting topic, the surprise, it’s alive, it’s made out of meat, Terry Bisson, Chicken Little, The Space Merchants, The End Of The Line, Clifford D. Simak, both Americans, provincial Americans, pastoral, countryside guys, not city-boys, loves the countryside, whole adult life, kept returning to the countryside, Talking Man by Terry Bisson, a wizard, time is a circle, fixing cars, a dude who knows how to do things, the first episode of Doctor Who, two teachers, math and history, a student they have, she’s so remarkable, she could teach the class, she’s fuckin time traveler, gets evasive, eager to learn, follow her home, parents wont meet, a junkyard, the sign above the junkyard, I.M. Foreman, her grandfather, three doctors down the road, John Smith, I’m from the future bro, an alien, subsequent stuff, no alien stuff at all, very fun, alternates between dystopian future or alien planet, historical entries, The Romans, weird episodes, the whole ocean is acid, a puzzle planet, weird amazing science fiction, the closest thing it starts off as is a rip off of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, companion viewpoint characters, cave people times, the secret of fire, 11, 12, 13?, really well done, science fiction windowdressing, monster of the week, The Pyramids Of Mars, 19th century England, re-doing The Mummy, the mummies are aliens, a tomb on Mars, Osiris was a real character, The Mummy (1932), ancient aliens are gods story, entombed on Mars, 1 tv show a day with dinner with Meg, comedy about a hospital, The Office, St. Denis Medical, animals doing stuff, The Henryiod, straight adaptations, Shakespeare, old school, women played by men, pretty straight, Shakespeare’s great, the histories, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Marlon Brando, British accents for the Romans, I, Claudius, among the top 5 tv shows ever done, if not in the first slot, Derek Jacobi, 6 hours maybe, shot on videotape, stupid British, amazing performances, great blocking, where they place the camera, helps tell the story, receiving the speech, help tell a story, old Claudius, Robert Graves, Augustus through Tiberius, Nero, Caligula, the story of the story, Patrick Stewart plays Sejanus, good acting, getting stabbed, Praetorian, suicided, poisoned, slaves running around in the background, 4 different versions of Ben-Hur, well dressed, no outdoor scenes, in tents, inside a hall, the Senate, by torrenting, that’s drama for you bro, it was huge, so many good actors, John Hurt, Sian Phillips, The Elephant Man (1980), British stage actors, become iconic, high quality production, shot on videotape, they’ve lost episodes of it, animating missing episodes, real science fiction stories, it was illegal to pirate the show, happy to take your pirate copies, owned by the British government, revenue bro, all on tubi right now, the best streaming service, The King Tide (2023), shot in Newfoundland, hard to see things, living on an island, fishermen, mainlanders, a baby crying, 10 years later, miraculously heals, cut-off from the rest of the world, the secret, a child who can heal sickness, adoptive parents, amazing baby resource, human resource, the center of the island’s attention, weirdo drunk guy, while she’s reading a book, lineup to get in, the healthcare provider, having fistfights for fun, poison themselves, she loses her power to heal, she was spending time with some bees, all the bees died, only while she’s asleep, take sleeping pills, this island is fucked, promised never to leave, a kid being abused, this doesn’t go well, everybody on the island dies and maybe the whole planet, the execution was poor but the idea was good, a little bit Lovecraftian, maybe a fishkid, giving her sleeping pills, serving Omelas, make fish appear in the nets, the enrichment, Labrador, on the mainland, a special kind of rum, kiss a fish before you drink the rum, videogames might have been a mistake, kissing the fish, a time suck, accent is similar to Irish, not apart of Canada until 1949, a colony of Britain, out of work, 2-4, 3 hours, too much time writing a few days a week, drink some coffee, smoke a little bit, dive right in, exhausting yourself, a break, accomplished something, 5am for every start, before church, a paper route, still morning, a nice feeling, it’s so late, bedtime, staying up pretty late, awake quite late, up at 4am, when the sun goes down, various weasels, doing stuff since 4am, sick in December, missing work, felt really useless being sick, contempt, drifting from thing to thing, twitter accounts, bitter about Ukraine, angry about Israel, do some stuff, write a book, why video games are a mistake, huge mistake, they’re so fun and non-productive, productive in Minecraft, it’s fake, use it in moderation as a reward for actual production, immediately became obsessed with it, girls and boys, boys love to dig, sandbox, because you’re boy, stacking, chopping, stacked and chopped, housebuilders, natural, monkey with tools, tie things together, Gilligan’s Island, bamboo and string, also Ginger’s cool, the rich guy, the doofus and the boss, girl next door, Mrs. Howell, lovey-dovey, all they have is money, do you ever think about the Black Death?, Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, gruff knight, very gently, spoil it for me, secretly God, sounds bad, really good, you don’t have the Christianity background, Will’s biggest deficit, Flesh + Blood (1985), the Heinlein movie, Paul Verhoven, lock themselves up in a castle, a statue of St. Martin, their totem to keep them safe, degenerates, contamination, Rutger Hauer is amazing, Brion James, a pretty long movie for 1985, semi-produced by Hollywood, he’s got a lot of good movies, Hollow Man (2000), Showgirls (1995), Black Book (2006), dutch WWII stuff, Soldier Of Orange (1977), national colour, The 4th Man (1983), bisexual writer, ignorant of one of the greatest artforms around, Basic Instinct (1992), Total Recall (1990), RoboCop (1987), become disciplined about it, 4 movies everyday, The Last Emperor(1987), quite amazing spectacle, you don’t watch it for fun, become edified by it, Death Wish (1974), to understand the concept, why there were 8 Death Wish sequels, a Bronson disciple, produced in, I don’t care about Jill Ireland, he really does, that’s interesting, an interesting character, roughest background imaginable, beating eachother for breakfast, coal mine at age 9, a real something to see, 15 – 20 years ago, I have a certain set of skills, Irish actor, Liam Neeson, Taken (2008), spends the rest of the movie killing people, set decades apart, a thread that started a long time ago, dismiss whole categories of movies, have met many men, an example, Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), colonialism in Dune, the personal story, a beautiful film, tube tv, on laserdisc, stunning on a 55 inch widescreen tv, there’s an intermission, really good book, the 1959 Ben-Hur, the 1925, the cartoon version, narrated and performed by Charlton Heston, the 2016 version, they didn’t have movies in 1888, had to do it through books, cast of thousands, before it was a movie it was a stageplay, treadmills, how the medium has changed, on Broadway, the number of horses that died, so round, took a long time to film, seize the medium while it is ripe, get to it before you die, Sorcerer (1977), Tangerine Dream, The Wages Of Fear, driving rotten dynamite across Brazil, the worst roads, leaking nitroglycerine, mostly no talk, William Friedkin, backstory, reasons to flee to Brazil, on the poster is a truck crossing a rope bridge, what’s going to happen, came out the same week as Star Wars (1977), The French Connection (1971), To Live And Die In L.A. (1985), musicals, Jonathan Weichsel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), fucked women up, Marilyn Monroe, imaginary reasons, conspiracy theory, backed by stuff, feels right, probably true, Will had trouble with the subtlety, “dumb bitch”, she’s a nice girl, dam, ewe, dam, ewe, the projection is hilarious, maybe he’s doing something right, tv work, SVU, victim’s fathers, so for boomers, Law & Order, the one that is so dominant, very special rape, what makes the special, 26 seasons, it’s got what the people want: raped from the headlines, Criminal Intent, Organized Crime, Hate Crimes, this is the one about sexual assault, Law & Order Sex Crimes, Sex Criminals, the first volume, some lurid thing going on, Americans are special in that they’re more prudish, love violence, shaped, broken glass as a standin for blood, everybody has had the experience, cut their foot, it means blood, streaming clips, blood is turned green, when mom walks into the room, paying for your Prime, green mist, green spurt, that’s not blood, reality is shaped by the requirements of the prudishness of a certain set of people, in 15 years, radio stations, exactly 100 years old, first radio stations, Hugo Gernsback, ham radio guys, KDKA, in the car, to avoid commercials, BBC radio, it shouldn’t be, declined during covid, if television is around in 15 years, radio is dead, in the car, an old car, drive around town, it was a thing, SNL, vanishingly rare, half the year, Timothee Chalamet, what the current liberal hivemind is thinking, who’s famous right now, that one video, vote for Kamala, reviews phones or cars, Jerry Rig Everything, breaking phones apart, a Mormon, pretty diverse, a disabled wife, wheelchairs, wealthy from youtube, always getting wealthy, busy getting married and networking, supports getting rich, support, a nation within a nation, busy breaking phones, what phone should I get, ads for phones on tv, phone services, drugs, insurance, car and house, iphones and samsungs, free phone, phone plans, co-op advertising, talk over the ads, while the tv is yapping at you, while the tissue culture king is praying on your mind, actors from SNL, tattoos and dates, tattoos removed, other reasons, Sarah Sherman, droopy dry, dandruff shampoo, subject, fancy bath products, a nice experience in the shower, go beyond a neutral experience, if this were the middle ages, a perfumed bath, audiobooks in the shower, racing the alarm, just stop showering, sorry to listeners, pee and coffee, Eternal Lover/Savage.

The Tissue-Culture King by Julian Huxley - AMAZING

The Tissue-Culture King by Julian Huxley

Abbie

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #503 – So This Is Death by William J. Elliott

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #503

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss So This Is Death by William J. Elliott

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

So This Is Death was first published in Weird Story Magazine, No. 1, August 1940.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #857 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace

The SFFaudio Podcast #857 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace, read by Mark F. Smith (22 hours 49 minutes). The discussion includes Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers) and Tom Pace.

Talked about on today’s show:
A Tale Of The Christ, 1880, Daylight Savings, fall for a story too good to be true, very embarrassed, no one will know how stupid Jesse is, integrity, feel contempt for, “determined to do his own research”, Robert Ingersoll, not a true story, sounds to good be true, agnostic, civil war union officers, Battle Of Shiloh, there’s no substance to it, an 1874 letter, too good a story to not be true, a giant apology book, you should believe in the Christ, an argument against Ingersoll, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Ten Commandments, suffers from not having Yul Brenner, kinda similar, the guy he was raised with he grows up to hate, Jesus adjacent, if this was a book written 1000 years closer to Jesus, when they show Jesus it’s from the back, reaction shots, the deturion, so many emotions, no water for him, best performance on screen, the 1925 silent movie, the 2016, 4 by 3, the sea-battle, real triremes, bloop, the music, the intercutting, the chariot race, one of the greatest movie scenes ever, Mad Max II, chase sequence, spectacle on screen, coulour and ultrawidescreen, best not to bother, script problems, make it shorter, the poster, in the chariot leaning to one side, farther into the narrative, wins on one wheel, go up on two wheels, adaptations help clarify, why am I loving it, to Rome with his adopted father, pretty short for a Ben-Hur movie, Areus is not on board the ship, just kind of escapes, this is really important, a story about love of the Father, a theme, God, reaction shots, when people meet Jesus, pays him back, almost like Jesus is your best gay friend, caressing the body of Jesus, if you didn’t know it was Jesus, they’re not gay for each other, a barrier breakdown, one of the themes, he ultimately rejects his adopted father Rome, he rejects Judaism in favour of Christianity, a Roman villa, he does become a Christian, a fulfilment of his Judaism, I’ve left the religion of my fathers, a sect of Judaism, a Greek influenced sect, almost all set in Palmyra, he does race in Rome, a lot of time skips, works against it, everything that it is doing is very well done, how they condense the 23 hour book into a 4 hour movie, shortly after the chariot race, vengeance didn’t give him what he wanted, greater than vengeance, ties better as a theme, 5 years in the desert, no longer directly connected, in the 1925 movie, putting that gladiatorial training to use, they dump that, it is kinda wasted, the Judean uprising, Masada (1981) tv miniseries, Joseph For The Temple, a band of young men, a revolution happening, protect the temple, a militia, the temple burns down, can’t stop history, a slightly outside perspective, dig deep into the story of Jesus, a very well put together book, Balthazar, on a separate quest, the three wise men, almost like a parallel story, that connection, the brother story, you feel his betrayal in the movie, a little bit older, great actors, take him away, that sneer, arrogance, Heston acts the hell out of that, fury, betrayal, golden age of Hollywood acting, the heart of that movie, the heart of the book, overwhelming need to love Jesus, bestselling American novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, slavery is bad, Esther and her dad, Egyptian, a devotee back and forth, in the background the Moses story, a prince of Egypt, the name, the name Hur is in the bible all the time, that fictional line connection, a land captured by the Romans, explaining religion to Chinese kids, they don’t grow up with Christianity, the New Testament, stories about Batman, Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, Joe Chill, stay outta Crime Alley, the backstory, the batsignal, commissioner Gordon, Robin, you don’t have copyright, Spider-Man or Superman, a bunch of apocryphal stories, back broken by Bane, the other Dick, Nightwing, the non-canon stories, Iron Man’s story, whatever superhero, believe it like an adult, religion book club on sundays, a scene from that book, relevant to out lives today, in a different way, in a novelized form, action, betrayal, leprosy and healing, a lot of meat to think about, the premiere of Ben-Hur, Lawrence Of Arabia, Spartacus, based on true events, Quentin Tarantino shift of historicity, Christ Pulp Fiction, accused of being pulpy, in used bookstores, panned the book, wasn’t the best book, why are books so influential, in 2025, Gaza holocaust, Nakhbah part II, getting Israel happening again, Ivanhoe, The Count Of Monte Cristo, Sir Walter Scott, your family has been buried in a tomb, quest for vengeance, the Jew and his daughter, roasted over a fire by the evil Norman, King Richard, Robin Hood, like super-man or batman, Ivanhoe adds to that narrative, emotional change, back from a foreign war, to his father’s house, alternative girl, knightly towards, represents Romans, conqueror’s class, the opening of the book, etymology, how English has multiple word for pork, swines and pigs and pork, also about slavery, huge in the South of the United States, offered a good picture of what slavery was like, a swineherd and a jester, the Rotschilds family, the Napoleonic Wars, baronages out of it, defeated the ottomans, let’s have this zionism thing happen, Americans in favour of Zionism, Jews need a homeland, traceable back to Ivanhoe, Christians in the United States and Britain, prior Ivanhoe, positive descriptions of Jews, racism, racial stereotypes, positive racism, interesting, loving money, a heroic race, the Sheik Ilderim, played by a welshman with shoepolish on his face, a surrogate father, the history of these horses, stars in the sky, astronomy, arabic names, the mother of the horse, connected to his family, connected to Judah Ben-Hur, weird in 1959, Palestine, parallels the story, powerful but disrespected, a little bit like the Mongol trading empire, if you have a pass, get the khans against you, he comes across great in the book, especially in the movie, brings the arabs and the jews close together, semitic races, leaves his father, until Areus dies, becomes the heir, time with the emperor, the movie improves in some ways, before we got to meet Ben-Hur, 4 hours in, the Nativity story takes so long, where isn’t this biblically accurate?, how is it told?, second person plural, hey reader let’s walk over there, a palace in Antioch, a paragraph of description of what is not described, the book isn’t trying to push through to the chase sequence, doesn’t drag much, a magazine serial about the wise men, available separately, a cool series of stories, it became Ben-Hur, LibriVox, Jesse wasn’t raised Christian, Melchior, Balthazar, and Gaspar, the answer is no, basically the same, thought to come from this place, in scripture, assumed to be 3, the magic number, three chairs, three bears, three beds, three wise men, for convenience, adoring the baby at the same time, two separate incidents, makes the detail really vivid, had the effect, when Avatar came out, went to their therapist, I want to be a blue person swinging from vines, blue Tarzan, 90 minute movies, books were the immersive reality of the 19th century, between the book and the first silent film, huge chariot races live on stage, the medium has fallen greatly, the new media spotlight, totally play the fuck out of a Ben-Hur game, Ubisoft Assassin Creeds, collect tokens, the cutscene when Jesus shows up, then hair, your character’s face, the chariot scene, the galditorial scene, if a church isn’t trying to raise money, an immersive experience, the Message, render unto Caesar, ends the same way?, married with two kids, Egyptian princess, turns out he was jackass, no satisfaction, the race goes on, Masala, a very biblical thing, the competitive brothers in scripture, taken on Roman values, those are real, Roman values vs. Christian values, Nietzsche, slave morality, turn the other cheek, interacts in the modern era, times of conscription, conscientious objectors, into battle without a gun, an alternative way to go, really powerful to see unarmed people hit by police, makes them stronger, give them a pass, Nixon being a Quaker, not that kind of Quaker, deep into that, not a very funny joke, how many of the 13 adaptations you’ve seen, on YouTube, that Jesus stuff being born, shows back up over and over again, the thread that connects and reflects, the 10 other adaptations are The Fast & The Furious, sucessively sutpider, Point Break with cars instead of surfboards, DVD VHS combo players, a viscous circle, could be the same character, blonde Keanu, it’s all about family, hot girls and cars, Antioch drift, we love racing, suped up horse, can’t we have it all, join the FBI, that series becomes a cartoon, cars in space, becomes hot-wheels, Ben-Hur doesn’t do that, two videogames, PS2, Circus Maximus for X-Box, Chariot Wars, Blood Of Braves, big in the movie, not very big in the book, a big climax, another third of the book, movies and books are different, interior scenes are less good, unparalleled, Aureus, sees the rowers, attack speed, battle speed, ramming speed, all these sweaty men, pass out, a parallel scene, another test, this is the background for the Conan The Barbarian movie, killed, goes to a mill and become strong, a little bit of background, this particular rower, his body being symmetrical, why is he doing that?, he’s Jewish Conan, gets the revenge that he wants, loses the girl, being taken away, surviving slavery, coming into the full power, bloody vengeance, Conan has two dads, William Smith and James Earl Jones, snake dad, the body you have, that was me, I’m your father, almost buys it, Robert E. Howard’s Conan as a rejection of both the Roman system and a rejection of the Jesus path, Conan doesn’t turn the other cheek, he’s not duty bound in the same way, master mentality, inference in the book, he’s bought into the Roman system, the peace of his childhood, a brother to this family, why he’s doing that, adopted the Roman values, power is everything, I am the determinant of what is good and what is wrong, when he does it it is not rape, when a goddess messes with his head, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, striking, ultimately Robert E. Howard is not a Christian, never belonged to a denomination, generically protestant, Episcopalian, Baptist of some flavour, not sure about all of this, a great story, Batman’s cool, don’t buy the Batman merch, Superman, Indiana Jones?, gonna have to be me, being Batman, how many guys have been Batman, what are the notes that Charlton Heston committed, Judah Ben-Hur, portrayed 4 times, not all the plays and musicals, because it was biblical, printed and pronounced, Encylopedia of quotations, King Solomon, Ben means Son, Ibn means Son, The Thirteenth Warrior, William Wyler, Marlon Brandon, Rock Hudson, Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, the supportive slave, a gay scene, thought to be gay, in the closet, the sexiest man, women were very disappointed, The Vikings (1958), rotoscope for The Secret Of Nimh, two rats are fighting, Tony Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis’ dad, generational, Michael Douglas, young people don’t watch movies, they haven’t seen Ben-Hur, on laserdisc, ultrawidescreen, Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), one of the best things in that media ever, the power of Ben-Hur as a book, Nativity scenes, they have fully adopted one set of values of this son of god, powerful arguments, through Esther, they’re all blending together, a parallel course with Jesus, a regular person (a prince), trials and tribulations, navigate through, a shocking thing, how strange the healing is, he healed a woman in a wheelchair, she had long COVID she’s feeling much better, uh-huh, more faith in Jesus, legitimately healing things, in the 1925 movie, passing the mother and daughter, an in camera tehcnique, a different coloured light hits them, an in-camera effect, red welts, red filter, the wounds disappear, it rains and the storm washes away their leprosy, pilgrimages, a huge part of what’s going on, ache in my shoulder, not for healing, people do it, sometimes things happen, very mysterious, theology properly speaking, the framework of Christianity, divine authority, perform a miracle, the reason the miracles happen is to validate their claim of authority, the loaves and the fishes, not like a D&D cleric, cure light wounds, to be able to forgive sins, I’ve seen him do these miracles, anyone there, a narrative testament story, someone’s account of it, when Jesus was walking the earth, different sets, Dead Sea Scrolls, what’s in the canon for Batman, is he really an alien?, was he raised in Smallville, Kansas town, Metropolis, not New York, not Philadelphia, buying into the story, look at the values he’s espousing, can you emulate those values, as cool as Batman, as independent as Batman, swings, beats up badguys, dressed up as a Spider-Man, what would Spider-Man do?, knows and understands, with great power comes great responsibility, the value set, mysterious ones, contradictory seeming ones, I come with a sword, Matthew 10:34-36, not peace but the sword, what happens to him, dividing people, not everybody believes turning the other cheek is the right way, love your enemies, crucifixes, Hero (2002) with Jet Li, separation is only one part, a transformative system, conjunction, hermetic philosophy, togetherness, Ecclesiastes, the meek will inherit the earth, alchemy, the union of the family, the rebus, a multiplicity, the combination then separation, discipline, the hostile brothers, he divides the house, Judah saved Masala’s life, the falling of the tile, what caused the tile to fall, the worst interpretation, added in zealots, anti-Romans, shot the new Roman governor, the sister leans on one of the tiles, Ben-Hur takes the rap for it, not God exactly, supervise the repair of the roof, Masala investigates the roof himself, he knows what he is doing is wrong and does it anyways, getting into Masala’s head, becomes wealthy, steals the fortune, works both ways, extortion, very mafia like, you pay up you pay down, why Joseph is taking his cousin/wife to Bethlehem, the Nazarene, small town Saskatchewan, the story for the background, a manger, a cave, 4 hour detail, ah ha, mm hm, the key to the success of the 1959 movie, in reflection to Ben-Hur, you’ve become Masala, I doesn’t like that at all, Jungian shadow work, why you something bothers you, Michio Kaku talking, you evil fuck, they don’t care at all, you evil fuck, be the opposite, almost irrational hatred, hatred for Masala, adopting the course of the Prince of Peace, attracted to the story, reflective of real experience, that doesn’t sound like The Prince of Peace, what’s happening in the story, the sister and the mom not wanting to be known to be alive and lepers, they love their brother and son, funny and very Jewish, God cannot be everywhere so he made mothers, suckled and swaddled, this guy in the garage, more hands-offish, a bicycle, you’re going to learn to ride, the god that is your mom, more standoffish father figure, same for girls and boys?, to the maximum extent, in the 1925 movie, when Mary looks at people, people really change, on that donkey, lifts her veil, Mary Pickford, a slow smile, a kindly look, swept away by this divine face, the melting of hatreds and false beliefs, how can we have this effect on people in a magical way, the attraction of seeing Christian charity at work, acting out their beliefs, in a narrative, why this book was super-popular, in the States, sales overseas, Gone With The Wind, Harper Bros. claiming copyright over it, you can tell the story of Jesus because he’s totally out of copyright, anybody can write about it, great ambitious books, the Left Behind books, rapture books, very popular, Tyler Perry, Dollar Parton is a billionaire?, Dollywood, a subset of black people, why is he in this movie, he’s massive, a certain subset of people on earth, The Phantom Menace, podracing, the story of Luke Skywalker, betrayed by his uncle Ben?, there might be something to that, George Lucas as a hack, pick interesting things, steal from the best, everything worked, The Dam Busters (1955), they’re kendo swords, sounds cool, looks cool, what happens to Luke, dangerously overthought, Joseph Campbell Hero’s Journey thing, a mistake, free HBO, pirate television, as a young person, Luke is visiting Yoda, you gotta stay with me, you haven’t done your training, a selfish little twit, following the formula, the refusal of the call, the Campbell arc, forcing it on there, back to that falling tile, divided before that, the breech that breaks them apart completely, the straw that breaks the camel’s back, you’re not the man you need to be, my tool in my new job, one becomes obsessed with the other, condemned to the galleys, within the Conan movie, Thulsa Doom isn’t thinking about that little boy at all, for him it was a Tuesday, younger days, steel was the important thing, you’re not narrowing it down, make money, enslave the children, passes from hand to hand, a Vanirman, buys him from the mill, gives him training, pit-fighter, wins and wins and wins, precataclysmic Genghis Khans, to hear the lamentations of their women, living off of Conan, one night mysteriously, unexplainably frees him, the sheik with his horses, weird freedom, the snakes facing each other, now he’s got something to go do, that is another adventure, this is why these stories are powerful, the “save the cat” books, something very fluffy, let’s do heists, one last adventure, that last Indiana Jones movie, go find a really old book, Dial Of Destiny, we got what we wanted, we wanted more of the same, find other books, reading Robinson Crusoe, as you get older, some decision that we make, Fast And Furious 10, catharsis, go to the book, looking at my books, have you done an episode on them?, Gustave Dore, Pilgrim’s Progress, Thomas Merton, a fantastic book, a philosophy, read the old stuff on the shelf, take a photo of it, thrift shop, a book or two a week, two things, The Eternal Savage, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg, The Tissue Culture King by Julian Huxley, son of the science guy Huxley, Edward Page Mitchell’s The Tachypomp, a time traveling clock, The Senator’s Daughter, a Chinese-Vegetarian party, 1879, a nutzo story, everything about it is science fiction, Return Engagement by Margaret St. Clair, freedom, The Eternal Lover, inter-equal, unfrozen caveman, that Pauly Shore movie, Encino Man (1992), Mark Nelson, Nu son of Nu, sabertooth tiger, Tarzan’s in this one, primitive man against, comely cave-woman, the volcanic horizon, Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf, Cora, wild primeval wolf, bourgeois values, carefree elusive Hermoine, the year we’re on?, Steppenwolf, cowed and comfortable, severe dysfunction, thoughts, alternate realities, if people really want to do it, 1877-1962, a possibility of actually doing it, a show where nobody’s there, this amazing ai thing that just happened, google assistant, google lm, generate a podcast discussion of it using ai voices, in real time, it’s not bad except the analysis is crap, NPR voices, that’s a really good point, unbelievable how good it is, kind a scary, it uses a bunch of tricks, makes us question our everyday lives, rhetorical tricks, make it into a Dr Seuss poem, really great insights, Ben-Hur into an epic Dr. Seuss poem, a lot of text to process, 2 followers, so I met this guy, Arrius adopted son of Arrius, WWII in tweets, a great gag, too obscure, in the 2016 movie, played by god, Morgan Freeman, he’s a moor, the Gladiator 2 movie, in reflection against Gladiator (2000), a grudge against Rome, the plot of Gladiator 2, worthwhile, ships in the arena, mock trireme battles, Maximus’ son, the kid from the first Gladiator movie, Blood And Sand, Spartacus, a prequel, kept going on, goes through that cycle, adopting the Roman mentality, the morality of Roman excess, Batiatus and Xena, so good, so evil, Lucy Lawless, act the hell out, sleaze paperbacks, you killed my family, should I take pleasure in this, rebel against Rome, the war against Spartacus, no super-natural elements, the servile war, happened multiple times, more sexy time, consequences for it all, silent, research and fun, trivia pieces, the score, a chunky book, riding bicycles around the set, The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1964), El Cid (1961), Christopher Plummer, Richard Burton, girls liked Cleopatra, Where Eagles Dare (1968), super-smart and the opposite of evil, the podcast out tonight: Gentleman Prefer Blondes, huge at the time, her personality as we know it today, she’s nothing like that as a person, she plays that character for the rest of her life, the book is not a curse, the movie is a curse, Jane Russell, at one point Marilyn Monroe pretends to be Jane Russell, supersubversive, everything she wants in the end, innocently conniving, be a book reader, Skype is going away, a daylight savings day.

Ben-Hur

Posted by Jesse Willis