England – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #809 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist

The SFFaudio Podcast #809 – The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist – read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 1 minute) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye.

Talked about on today’s show:
doesn’t stand for Ralphie or Raphe, Robert, a lot of notes, psychological angle, weird fiction, obsessive things that he writes about, Lovecraft, art, sculpture, a lot of flowers, honeysuckle, true happiness, a bunch of flowers to a girl, the names and some of the behaviors are extreme, gone into a “brain fever”, Barbara, an interesting name, how interesting is it, obvious about these names, Westmoorland, fictional, the coastal place, on the coast, Furnivaux castle, what kind of accent people would have in that area, the Lake District, fictionalizing things, four stories, just going by the stories, assuming he was totally gay, The Crimson Weaver, super gay, queer coded, gay coded, fairly straightforward, Oscar Wilde was enjoying it, decadents, it’s awesome, a weird tale from the beginning, a straightforward gothic, Mystery Of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, Mary, 20 novels, Daniel Pietersen, the gloves are awesome, the two mistakes, The Priest’s Pavan, Gethsemane, peculularities, some brain fever issues, the framing of it, the father’s journal, nested narratives, his own journal?, spill the beans, falling asleep, infected dreams, is it in there?, an awesome idea, Barbara is a lich, really strange, old testament era name, foreign or strange, the two daughters, nieces, the same last name, Raphe’s cousins, Raphe’s father’s sister, maternal sister, his mom’s sister, he calls her great aunt, in the same way you see in The Thing On The Doorstep and a reverse of Morella, real brainy, becomes his tutor, teaches him a bunch of philosophy, guiding his hand on the page, in childbirth she dies, my love, my dear, my heart, the confirmation day, he calls her Morella, the family tomb, his daughter’s mother’s body is gone, she knew things from her previous life, there was only one Morella, why she died, some sort of arcane knowledge, a couple of curious things, of her nephew: he cares about the wrong things, “she held no views beyond this world”, an atheist?, superficial, being a busybody, being a matchmaker, interested in deep thinks, frivolous things, a real bitch, visits against the father’s commandment, assumes that he changed his mind, 10 and 12, what does she want?, marry to a first cousin, the incest theme, literally, 13 year old cousin, marry right now, go away for a few years, come back and be committed, it’s not explicitly stated, in response to an imperious summons, no sooner had he reached the portico, a marriage compact, to take place at once, claiming my child wife, implied that she’s a busybody, obscure German philosophy, the secret of life after death, Rachel writes my letters for me, she’s not interested in literature, is it because it’s fiction and that’s bullshit, really a weird thing to mention, just a way of making her leave the room, attracted to, that’s interesting, how it plays out, we see him marry Mary, a famous name, the story of Rachel from the bible, one Margaret Atwood book, The Handmaid’s Tale, a good book, an infertility crisis amongst the rich, fertile women, sent to the rich old men who run the country, the invocation ceremony, a wife of a king who can’t give birth, her handmaid, a maiden to a married woman, that child will be hers, ewe, the lamb that gets sacrificed, a female sheep that has not has a child yet, pronouncing the character’s names, Velrest, Ayer, Eyrie, Weird Tales letters department is called The Eyrie, WellRest, why does she care so much, Barbara dies, why is she so angry?, she has to choose which body to put herself into, interesting, if this is a body swap sort of thing, a position of power, being married to Ralph, she’s gonna die, one possibility, turned to her uplifting luminous eyes, I am Miranda, he Ferdinand, the first man I’ve seen for two years, the servants are all 100 years old in all the stories, 90 when he was a child, fairly active, that’s all about immortality, part of the eeriness of this story, combined with the gloves, your lowly handmaid, be around the older richer woman and be her hand servant, go get this, brush my hair, used in other ways, class stuff, the gaffer’s song, the shepherd, our hero interrogates, all the loyalty of his father’s servant, we don’t get servants like this anymore, the father is a philosopher, high philosophy, airy fairy philosophy, more inclined to less superficial, hedonistic, morality, more of him having an idealized vision of love, fall in love, not by an arranged marriage, implied, because of love, something Barbara might not have approved of, her relation, Ralph’s mother, not as wealthy, he has an estate, these are upperclass twits, fallen a little bit, only have 1 servant instead of 7, megarich, rubbed her the wrong way, great nieces, his great aunt, his grandmother’s sister, convoluted, idealistic, he’s supposed to be wise too, I forbid you from going there, drawn like a moth to a flame, smack talks, he didn’t hear anything from his father, his father’s journal, enlighten me, my aunt, your great aunt, he enjoins him, we know why he’s doing that, the dad wrote down the dialogue, fool, is there no changing you, we get out of the fact that this is a journal right away, no he replied, forced into bondage, beg for his bread, wronged body and soul, the trigger for Jesse, why liches are bad, wills and estates, endowments to various universities, an ability to control the future even after your death, dragons is the same thing, sit on hordes and steal all the girls, the significance of the stone dragon, doesn’t seem to be the main focus, the human skin gloves, pivotal points, Ralph and Mary first get to know each other, commits suicide, she wanted to murder him, she’s very goth, one of my ancestors murdered somebody with them [these gloves], these gloves are important, a story by Arthur Conan Doyle The Leather Funnel, psychometry stories, The Stone Tape, Nigel Kneale, swaps place with Rachael, willing to give up all of her wealth, why is she doing that, which would you rather have life or money, marry me, the only young man she’s ever seen, why is that?, she’s keeping them, this is a lot of Lovecraft stories, The Tomb, Jervas Dudley has dreams, lying around, The Silver Key, occupied by one of his ancestor, atavism, an ancestral state, The Call Of The Wild by Jack London, a wolf sitting next to a cave man, a worry or idea people were playing with in the period, 1894, the yellow 90s, never shouted out, the skin, skin gloves, I’m inside of another person, tricking it me into this idea even if it is not actually there, there’s nothing that shows that that’s not the case, conciousnesses are switched, a mindswap situation, Barbara is possessing Rachael, vicariously live, Connor’s interpretation, somewhat supernatural, the psychological reading, Connor’s youtube video about it, Barbara is a narcissist and a control freak, those readings are correct, leaves out the mysticism, that’s what literary happened to R. Murray Gilchrist, keep the money in the family, translating, back reading into the actual psychology, a way of reading reality not describing reality, werewolves, people kicked out of society, you kill wolves, skinwalker, wendigo, you go wendigo, cultural exile, between cities there’s no law, if we read monsters as symbols, oceans you can drown in, it is like that, this layer in the story that has to do with reading and writing, Philosophical Discussions, held no views beyond this world, what is the nature of good, to stay alive after she’s dead, tiny estate in Northern Italy, a solemn command, retired from the world, Verelst, ver means true, what else means true, the manic work, an unscrupulous woman, the stars declare it, weaving the fatal web, she’s the spiderwoman, the line of Fate, what to advise, justice and love, Earth’s joy is naught in comparison with that which follows, she only cares of earth, what else exists besides what we see on earth, wherever she be, petulant and unreasonable, that delicious summer morning, here I passed 7 years of irresolute work, being as happy as any man who has no aim in life, I became terribly depressed, presentiments, the supernatural powers, foolish people, catastrophe’s that never occur, the greatest possible disasters are affecting our fortunes, mourning, we are plunged into the lightest ecstasy, a new codicil, the craftiness of self, if she wanted to put herself into one of these characters bodies, why wouldn’t she confirm, Eric Rabkin hat, it’s about women not having the right to property, women get their money from their fathers, if you read it the way Jesse is thinking, she has to go into the body in order to keep the estate, it won’t help her, the guy won’t marry, she has to gamble, up unto the point of death, gambling on it being Rachel, point us in amazing direction, it’s put in there, definitely hints at that aspect of it, deeper workings, things happening but your emotions not necessarily be in tune with those things, the livery, old fawn livery with pelicans wrought on the buttons, pelican symbology, scoops up and hold a fish, what is my spirit animal, early church revered pelicans, the pelicans keep their babies in their mouths, controlling people, why not find some local kid, marrying for love, something she couldn’t tolerate, an insult, insulting, she calls him a fool and foolish, he’s smart and she’s dumb, she doesn’t read books, she already knows it all, the lich theory, this is a controlling bitch, she can will herself into making it happen, maybe the daughter had killed her mother with the gloves, Rachael killing Barbara, first cousins with Ralph, previous ancestor, a woman murdered somebody, had her skinned, male ancestors, make it into a book cover, the hands murdering side and the book reading side, page 21, to doff her yellow gown, pale green, Robert E. Howard’s jealous, fastened to her girdle, the colour of the aunt’s eyes claret, burgandy colour, semi-transparent skin, blood coloured, the meal passed in delicious interchange of thought, she was appreciative, reproving her, don’t wear those gloves, the gloves covered them now, a silk picture of a vial and a dagger, tragic accompaniment, ill-luck, he does, gibbeted in these parts, around the time the servant was born, nice couple, poisoned her lord, a strong repugnance, strange humours, our red herring, the little people the gnomes, there’s a lot in it, this scene, the gloves of a murderess, the skin of a murderess, commissioned by a murderess, they’re handed down, the dagger and the phial, there’s a dagger in this story, you hold that in your dexter hand, the sinister hand, the phial is poison, Rachel murdered Barbara, a supernatural/weird element, seemingly a murderer, tender of you, to her lap, ashen and grey, the sharpening, she has a sharp face, she is cold, she is dead, probably poison, wounds Mary with a knife, likely she does kill herself, or the dragon killed her, until she commits suicide, selbstmord, putting on the gloves is the symbolic act of murder, very goth, you literally put on gloves when you’re doing crime (or work), she talks about they didn’t fit before, my hands are swollen with bitterness, calling out she’s a murderer, why she’s attracted to the gloves, largely what makes her weird, the piano makes her weird, fugue state, music dance sculpture, that’s my big discovered, it’s not Cthulhu it’s art, Hypnos, sculpture, Music Of Eric Zann, artists, Pickman’s Model, painting, Lovecraft is obsessed with art, he’s an artist he’s not a pulp writer, the avenue, amateur journalist, astronomer, everything is about art, what an artist will do, why he loves Clark Ashton Smith so much, Robert E. Howard’s poems in Weird Tales, submitting them, people are very artsy, just a thing, all the stories by R. Murray Gilchrist have art, culvers, young girls older guys, unrequited love, marry a 10 year old, she’s 10, 17 and 22, 17 year old girl marrying a 50 year old man, The Crimson Weaver is the gay version, apprentice and master, they’re sleeping together, comes across as very gay, an unrequited romance, idolizes the master, hung up on his dead wife, the door of his heart was closed, captured because of that heartbreak, her lure, sharp, nothing of the patrician in her appearance, passed for a housekeeper, round and russett, an intracate network of wrinkles, sherry coloured, lack of wine experience, Amontilliado is a yellow, amber, her teeth, natural, regular pieces of ivory, sharp, the charitable way of reading it, she inquired sharply, this is about Rachel, one so young, sharp-edged, unmaidenly, colour changes, the Poe piece [The Mask Of The Red Death], grey cloak for grey business, blood coloured gloves, ashen grey, she’s dead, elderly, why did she die?, she killed herself?, Rachael was somewhat of a narcissist too, she can’t stand to lose, the last word in an argument, a need for control, manipulates others, the ultimate selfish act, if she can’t have Ralph than no-one can, if she was less self-centered, those fugue states, she’s got the brain fever, depth mingled, unstable but also deep, allured, oppression, too heavenly purfumed, two centuries ago, she’s been alive for 200 years, a draught of cool air, she’s not infected with this age, is Venice like Mrs. Radcliffe paints in the Mystery Of Udolpho?, attempted murder then self-murder, if you read it strictly, she’s going to go to hell, or there’s no afterlife, to speak to Rachel’s character, dishevelled, living in the forest for weeks, ruin the event and her sister’s happiness, her death will be associated with her sister’s wedding, back for their honeymoon, she sought you at the old stone dragon, right anow, burst out sobbing, he knows that she’s dead, he’s mad at them too, bride’s blitheness, italian garden, Time, a bright web, lichened stone, my darling how much I’ve missed you, web hair, her spinning a web, a flower called crown imperial, a web of red golden hair, called right out there, foreshadowed, she may be weaving the fatal web, what a good story, it’s fantastic, such a shame that Gilchrist is not listed, he will be, bringing him more recognition, Romancing The Gothic, Daniel Pietersen, a collection, Tales Of The Weird, so many, William Hope Hodgson, amazing forgotten tales, an expert on Gilchrist, a nordic sort of spelling, son of stone, all the names are like that, Jesus makes a joke, Peter you are the rock I shall build my church on [“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”], Jesus got puns, I Am Stone, an introduction, the original artwork, some photos, tweet em or dm em, the art’s good, photos spread throughout the book, divides the stories into different categories, part 1, Dead Yet Living, part 2, Useless Heroes, he barely does anything, choose the girl that doesn’t creep him out, part 3, Of Passion And Of Death, part 4, Peak Weird, a region called the Peak District, A Witch In The Peak, awesome book, a great lecture, he really goes into it, more traction or inertia, it’s gonna happens, that book came out in 2021, 5 youtube videos with people recording, people are reading his book and getting excited about it, a bunch of money, pretty late, posthumous, read the whole thing, an editor from Valancourt Books, Wordsworth Books, 6 story collections, 4 non-fiction books, Heritage Auctions has really nice scans, we can fix up the insides, pulps get sold coverless, tried to push VHS tapes as a collectible thing, capitalism is so crazy now, pouring their money into fake goods, monkey art on the blockchain, a sealed copy of E.T. from 1985, trynna slab pulps, what they’ve been doing to comics for years, any copy of a comic book and put plastic all around it, you can’t open it up, a terrible thing, preserves them from rain and snow, we need one copy scanned cover to cover, [an issue] Fantastic Story magazine, Back To The Future (1985), a lot of stuff like that, if capitalism makes everything unaffordable, scanners count on cheap pulps in bad condition, people flipping them, pulps were not made to last, a shitload of pulps, old Playboy, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, the significance of Playboy, Hugh Hefner was a big player in civil rights, the Hustler guy, wheelchaired, people are not buying it for the stories, Hustler, a lot of men’s magazines, they’d make that joke, the quality of the stories is way higher, shots of beautiful women, and good writing, Jimmy Carter Playboy interview, I had lust in my heart, building houses for other people, five or ten dollars, disintegrate, just to have it and feel it, some of these are really small, bedsheet format, Australian pulp magazine called Aurealis, it’s tiny, the size of a paperback, a niche hobby, most people are not trying to read at all, audiobooks, people don’t like reading, computer games, sex websites, shitting on Trumpers, bookshelves, 100 books, 5 or 600 books, you have so many books, call across the planet to two different hemispheres to find somebody to talk to about it, doing a survey, do you have any books, can I see your books, a book somebody gave them, then they didn’t read any more, the continuum, only one genre, only one author, used to be rich, you could track that change in society, looking at the covers of paperbacks, several copies of the same book, original artwork, bins full of books like that, a little bit better, the early 2000s, nobody gave a shit, digital alteration, we’rent paying artists and graphic designers, people kept buying, the frills, how many mergers have caused it, when WWII happened, spawned an industry, before WWII, hardcovers and pulps, after WWII paperbacks are a thing, 1945 and 1985, mass market, other ways, book clubs, book of the Month Club, amazon, goodreads, audible, not coming back, Shakespeare’s still around after 500 years, still a little bit around, much more arts oriented, the movie industry, almost no kids know how to watch movies now, Millie Bobby Brown, can’t sit through a movie, watching people gaming for 7 hour, every media is different, literally training involved, it’s really hard to play Dungeons & Dragons, no learning curve, its free, a video game, more intuitive, doesn’t require you to think as much, the game is as fun as you can make it, not an activity engaged by young people now, it is, how old, 10 to 40s, all kid culture, stopped doing it at university, a lot harder to get together, serious problems with reading and watching movies, other role playing games, a subculture, not a popular activity, smoking weed, even TV out, TV is done, broadcast television was streaming, it wasn’t a million channels, we know what the score is, full circle, some final thoughts on The Stone Dragon, Witch-In Grain, listened while processing, culvers are mentioned, it’s a dove, with human faces in that story, a peacock, birds, a pelicans, birds are symbols, flowers are symbols, so many theories, the wrong mythological thing, a vampire story?, greek mythology?, there is a set of answers, there’s a dragon it was stone, and a very solid weird tale with a lot of decadence, it’s great, The Castle Of Wolfenback by Eliza Parsons, Horace Walpole, 1767, a little after, 1793, recommended by Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey, Midnight Bell, The Necromancer, bald stone, the popular books of their day, referencing an older book, this is something, line by line, it’s dense, gothic horror, gothic romances, 13 year old girls, a lot of time and no time, 30 hours long, they come in volumes, written is a serialized fashion too, this book isn’t finished, let’s see how the first one does, a luxury item, hog wild, Alexander Dumas, the unabridged The Count Of Monte Cristo, who the hell is this guy, where the word subscribe came from, the etymology, Waverley by anonymous author, Ivanhoe by the author of Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, all these anonymous book, you would sub scribe, a piece of paper at the book stores, isn’t that amazing, the call or text you, your new copy’s in, the way podcasts work and all that stuff, Tom Standage, pretty good, works for The Economist, An Edible History Of Humanity, The Writing On The Wall: Social Media The First 2000 years, the Romans had a mail system, who’s getting married, obituaries, when we get to the modern electronic era, telegraphy, all the LOLs was all invented back then, pay by the letter, telegraph, a lot more expensive, humans never change, next big project: Gay Life In Melbourne, so funny, so spicy, we need some funny spice, with Will, moved pretty fast, full of innuendo, smokin hot, some sex worker’s picked up a guy, the reader’s not supposed to know, they knew, steamy and fun, our book on 1000 years ago, out of Arabic, Koran number 1, Richard Burton, 1,001 Nights, Ali Babab And The Forty thieves, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, old white Europeans, he’s technically in Europe, Tarzan, born out of mud, a crying baby, an antelope comes by and adopts him, invents all our theory of science, a history of science, opens up his mom, her carcass, the heart, 10 years ago is the cutoff, Three Body Problem, wait 1000 years, teach us something, it was pretty funny back then, people were always as horny, it there a more horny animal than the human being, bonobos, grazing moose, fight with males, females observing, peacocks, ostentatious display, how humans go about this, wars literally fought over, Helen of Troy, men are performative for men, women are performative for women, women looking at women on instagram, how to get big muscles, big money, explanations and stories, The Stone Dragon, about reproduction and passing the money along, read Typee by Herman Melville, disposable, fruit is within reach, food is everywhere, and girls aren’t jealous, Donald E. Westlake, An Empty Threat by Donald E. Westlake, girls in the south seas, Madagascar even, the only African country never colonized?, an island, read a book on it, pirates from the carribean moved to the richer grounds of the Indian Ocean, girls don’t demand much, run the business for us, retirement for pirates, a mere 89 pages, a dozen illustrations, an 80 page story, In The Dwellings Of The Wilderness by [C. Bryson Taylor], fun reading too, if not something else good, names of the places, justice to Melbourne, already recorded, end of July, at bad times, Mad Max!, different time schedules, 8pm, three hours earlier, Oscar Wilde, pretty short, Martin Geeson, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft, controversial, so funny, out in 7 months, slowing down production, not doing music for each one, a Weird Tales, Egyptian mummy, western archaeologist uncover a mummy story, slash vampire, short novel, Lion Of Tiberias, The Moon Of Skulls, H. Warner Munn, The Werewolf Of Ponkert, the one that Lovecraft inspired?, Robert E. Howard’s Wolfshead, a weak story, Bobby Derie, Howard didn’t understand what the person was saying, The Green Room, typos and random errors, a good ghost story, he sticks the ending vs. goofs up the ending, Walter de la Mare, when you’re a gymnast, not a funny guy, falls flat in a horrifying way, scaling back production, all this old stuff to do, producing something every week, not enough research?, I gotta get something, grindcore, there’s people doing everything now, recently updated, this is a really good story, done the next day, awesome gems, a dreamlands style story, House Of The Mummy Men, Hunt The Space Witch by Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block, Frank Cain, from Manhunt, Mike Vendetti, shudder pulp, Lovecraft and Howard are dead, knock-off magazines, sex versions of Weird Tales stories, spicy horror, Test-Tube Frankenstein, chops up earthworms, rejected by the agent, Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God, neoterics, imposes restrictions on them, building aluminum structures, he’s god essentially, a banker who’s trying to take advantage, taking the shape of people, they eat people, invents shoggoths, mad scientist Frankenstein, crackerjack, The Flower-Show At Kwaliz by Herbert Tremaine, good enough for H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle, beautifully illustrated, dreamlands style story, tripped up on a flower contest, middle eastern past alternate dimension, a hundred pound prize in 1920, good stuff to be found, why have we been handed this certain canon, incompetent or non-existent estates, August Derleth is a good guy because…, there are a few situations, the power of the writing mostly sells itself, R. Murray Gilchrist guy, a huge reputation at the time, Robert W. Chambers, popular novels of romance, The King In Yellow and a few other things, this is really extraordinary, this I Am Stone book, copyright is a lot clearer (at least for Jesse), 80 new stuff, two dozen good people, Mickey Spillane, some good writers we’ve kind of forgotten, some way to narrow it, by following the stories that other authors tell us to read, anything Bobby Derie mentions, he doesn’t review, just found a never republished story that’s partially unreadable, a really bad scan from Fantasy Fiction Telegram, The Green Book by Duane W. Rimel, doing it for the love, Mike Vendetti has already done it, this is very Dunsany-like, H.G. Wells said it was good, kinda trust Arthur Conan Doyle, my spiritual afterlife, the original flower fairies that he was writing about, trolled, powned, may have oversold that idea, into spiritualist, seances and stuff, interesting to find out if it is true or not, 12 – 13 years, 10 years, ghosts don’t really make any sense, liches totally real, works either way, people start looking like other people, she thinks he looks like his dad, gotten older, scruffy mustache, sometimes people look like their parents, Mimic, Mothman, spoiled, audiobooked a few times, late last year, a new Westlake novel just dropped on LibriVox, go to a source in the states, amazing good stuff still to do, nobody knows who he is yet, these need to be accessible to people, start to take notice, making a difference, give them a little something that they know, two novels and one short story, Fondly Fahrenheit, superpsychotropic, you must own nothing but yourself,

“He doesn’t know which of us we are these days, but they know one truth. You must own nothing but yourself. You must make your own life, live your own life and die your own death … or else you will die another’s.”

all speaking to all, the premise here is, killed or kidnapped, either a human who owns an android or the android, brain problem, conflating himself with the robot, the only thing he owns is a slave, it’s awesome, subsequently cleared, spurious claim, ignorance or dishonesty, no estate, left his apartment to his bartender, gonna be so fun, who knows?, the name may be enough, queer life, we’re done, Tasmanian adventures, got me a thylacine?, nasty little buggers.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #801 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

The SFFaudio Podcast #801 – Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey, read by Martin Geeson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (5 hours, 12 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
autobiographical book, exactly why Jesse first put the video together, Gay and somebody else, Larence Chaves and Zenna Gay, most popular youtube video, a little more time cleaning it up, putting it together, enchanted by Martin Geeson’s narration, a link to the post in 2012, mentioned in The Crawling Chaos by H.P. Lovecraft, Martin Geeson, the narrator, thou hast the keys of paradise, temporal digression, immense sophistication, a great appeal, nervous?, post-modern, self-awareness, to fix his own identity, aa large part of the whole, lucrative piece of sensational, the London Magazine, majestic neo-classical style, self-reflexive but always reaching out to the reader, a good summary?, a style of the post-enlightenment style, Ada Palmer’s tetrology, Terra Ignota, the theme is romantic, the underlying philosophical basis is the German idealism that served as the basis, Shelling, Ficte, reading German romantics or philosophers, a mixed type of style, a transistion, the enlightenment, reason, romantic exploration of the unconscious, dreams visions, a rational study, its a drug book, brain juice, opium derived products, seen Trainspotting (1996), alcohol is a good counterexample, harmful, a poison, some people buy it so they can kill themselves, the pharmacon, the circumstances and the dosage, quite deliberately, explore the power of the imagination, taking it over, poisoning, he’s had some pain, lived to 76, not dying from it, the movement in English around AIDS, the beginning of the 80s, first person knowledge of diseases, medical treatments, doing your own research, having a cooperative dialogue, reading, all the academic experts, trash, he knows far more about it than they do, doctors recommend drugs, sometimes paid to push them, the authority to prescribe them, inhibitors, I’ve heard you should build a house, keeping your clothes from getting wet, authority on a hill, wisdom in the people who are supposedly untutored, doesn’t have massive contempt for everybody who is not reading ancient Greek, turbaned guy, traveling through Wales with no English and no Welsh, a massive dose of opium, would have killed any set of dragoons and their horses, an abiding wisdom, Cora was feeling ill, Jonathan not liking the narration, not abridged and the narrator is awesome, an expanded version from 1856, a large scale revision of the confessions, personal background, a much weaker beginning, digressions and inconsistencies, a citation, spoiled his masterpiece, vigor and tension, tired prosiness, random critics, raw power that makes a book exciting, H.P. Lovecraft, wrongly biased, the drug experiences, a quarter and a third of the text, I want to get to the drugs, the accumulation, meditations, classical literature, philosophy, conversations with poets, the wider experience was just as much the opium, what is the real opium for him, the brain, tea, loves his tea, tea houses, consternation about the taking of tea, coffee houses were politically dangerous, need to be primed to access a sublime experience, for some people they claim it intoxicates people, it elevates him, nodding on a pile of laundry, walking the streets and talking to people, a mind expansion not an intoxication, this is not the abridged version this is the original version, a charge responded to by de Quincey, I’m not a fictional person this is a true story, changed some names, collapsed some stuff, this is a memoir, there’s a lot of truth, not a lot of pooping scenes, how many times I was unable to poop, a big problem for people who take opium, this book is not abridged [Jonanthan did not say the audiobook was abridged, rather he suggested it was the expanded revised version], there are people who dislike Martin Geeson’s narration, 100% perfect, the voice the accent the tone, became Thomas De Quincey, brilliant solution to a serious problem in audiobooks, leaving names out, first initial then blank, enhances this idea this is a true story, Lord blank, the Dean of blank, did something, as if it was written to aural, translate text into a beautiful audiobook, Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, @kins, what you do with children, this is the way we do it, Jesse is a purist, a serious problem, the writer elided the name, the writer wrote p and a bunch of underscores, confronted with this issue, the reader is going to get a false impression of what the text says, he’s hiding the names, that’s awesome, like someone who’s talking, something in Surrey, if other people were here, if Paul was here, spending time with a little girl a lot, one who takes care of his food, snuggling with a little girl in an empty apartment, this is creepy right?, with Anna, sensual desire or comportment, he loved her but not in that way, she was a prostitute, was he a punk?, never hints at it, in the cottage with just one girl, he doesn’t hint, she’s a servant, I didn’t have any carnal desires, more modern, today modern, chaperone, he’s a bohemian guy, an aristocrat in their eyes, the sons of cardinals, he attacks his fellow gentlemen, sons of high priests in the Anglican church, the slightest slight, Jane Austen, become an Anglican minister, hustling, dwindling prospects, whether they like it or not, state sanctioned, like being a justice of the peace, high in a governmental bureaucracy, a weird parallel, an angry hobby horse, mostly about being a homless guy with a weird brain grokking a lot of poor people, early that 1821, late 1790s?, pre-Victorian prostitutes, a respectable publication, the magazine people go to to see what’s going on, confessions, novel and strange, more people than you can possibly imagine, because they’re poor and alcohol costs too much, a political economy, to stupify themselves, laudanum a mix of alcohol and opium, opium grains, a big last fling, mind expansion without the addiction, Winfred V. Jackson and H.P. Lovecraft, Les Paradis Artificiels by Charles Baudelaire, obscure realms, intimate the nature, drawn back into Asia, vast age of race and name, strange memories, there’s two called The Crawling Chaos, a dream that Winifred Jackson had (and Lovecraft improved), analyze the imagery, of the body, a fantastic thing, caffeine, enhance what’s already going on in your brain, practicing meditation, the mood organ from the opening of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, The Electric Ant, see reality differently, I’ve got access to stuff, there’s some pains, I’m an addict, sometimes making my life worse, orphans, living on blackberries and rosehips, addicted to cheap drugs, not feeling the pain, literally being cold, superfun and interesting, The Philosophy Of Furniture, he describes the perfect room, the curtains, the table, what you should have at hand, 17×27 with a 7 foot ceiling, of course there’s a fire, an ever refreshing teapot, a woman who can pour it for you, look at her arms, a genre of youtube video, the cable TV channels, empty cable channel, the fireplace channel, a crackling fire, a costume of rings and a sweater, pokes the fire unneededly, being in a fire in a cozy room, AI of a cozy cafe, want it but can’t have it, rain pattering on windows, I get there through drugs, youtube is a drug, stream into your brain a series of things that you want, a really good book, many many insights, true insights about drugs, and the drug trips themselves, waking dreams, eyes and ears and mouth and relations, a quote, being a sequel to Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, the introductory notice, the object of that work was to reveal something of human dreams, supposed to lurk, dream of oxen, yokes so vast a majority, without much elevation of thought, the reproductive faculty of dreaming, being a philosopher, I was always a philosopher, a Kantian idea, space and time, other categories of experience, if you’re forced, hardened and reduced brain, reductive experience, speak Greek as a kind, met the poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge, a romantic, this appended thing, the third part out, maybe I’m still addicted, of course the aim of the book was to warn people, it’s the silver key, the master key, a brilliant connection between Poe and Lovecraft and Dunsany, a teetotaler, but he is a great and profound dreamer, find a place to start, Will’s dream, Sylvester Stallone wanting to deputize a little girl in a quest for revenge, a big sheet of butcher paper, late dog, a 20 pound cockatoo, cockatzu, flannel pajama pants, chameloen like ability, stripped her, skinny white communists, markedly skinnier and more erudite, a man with a mustache, William Peter, self-conscious about this mistake, a double decker van food truck, remained obscure, a strong interest in underground music, what I’m hearing is it is time to start growing a mustache, cockatzu (Cocker Spaniel Shih Tzu Mix), designer dog, are dogs brain juice?, they interact with brain juice, wiggle waggle, if dogs had hands they would be touching you in places that would be impolite in public, as probably people do, northern europeans not so handsy, Mediterraneans are more handsy, without their consent, the lick us, Roog by Philip K. Dick, humans have more mouths than dogs, the mouth is something else, correction with your mouth, that’s the sort of thing, that little girl who is being neglected by the owner of that house?, a servant, not fed well, an expose, promoting something that is dangerous, we don’t even think you’re real, the child who has no home, heart of gold, a good value of this book, a rich guy suddenly poor, aka Lovecraft, aka Poe, magically poor and rich, better than all of you secretly, want a connection, not being particularly pretty or intelligent, sharing warmth, standard for marriage in 1790, an insight into it, seems creepy, seems heartfelt and touching, inappropriate, where is anybody trying taking care of this kid?, child labour as well, the political economy aspect again, class, before Marx, Karl Marx, David Ricardo, lacing the book, a social commentary, an aristocratic experience, the first book in the literature of addiction, on the wild side, on the night side, Aldous Huxley, The Doors Of Perception and Heaven And Hell, mescaline, refined experience, refined gentleman, abject, petty or major theft to feed his habit, striding two worlds, his family life, majestic visions that become horrible, a Lovecraftian feel to the visions, his children, he cries, the transition is too great for him, he has to ween himself from opium, the turning point, the good effects without the side effects, your brain squeezes you out some brain juice, squeeze more, brain drugs from the outside, the conscious part says I disagree, serotonin is generated in the gut, a weight loss drug that paralyzes your guts, causing suicides, a take it for the rest of your life drug not a one time, Adam Smith, somebody from that early period, grokked Ricardo, Thomas De Quincey as a philosopher, I’d like to be buried in a nice country churchyard, use my body for science, he’s making fun, the aim of my book, in the appendix, the reason people hate drug books and drug writers, talking about real effects, parents, churches, but why?, support, control, looking out for them?, connect them with other people, They Live (1988), [Eight O’Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson] something in the water?, a Philip K. Dick story as well, one of six different aliens, drug talk, Travels by Michael Crichton, auras, borderlands of perception, correspond to each other, see Hillary Clinton on the stage and say “contemptible monster”, or “my hero”, a delightful conversationalist, very real, real real good writing, what it was like to be him, defender of the empire, not against slavery, not homeless walking the streets, have his tea everyday, distanced from it, a great rockstar and kind of an asshole, Mel Gibson, you can be both, people were correct about it, some of the comments from youtube, 42k views, from 11 years ago, the best narrator I have ever heard, positively fantastic, agree wholeheartedly, bitching about, complex sentences to have savoured, recovered from heroin, most underrated piece of literature ever created, more intelligent than people give it credit for, influence in France, must have influenced [Arthur] Rimbaud, systematic derangement of all the senses, surrealists, if it really was a philosophical book, a street philosopher, show us the power of dreams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the poet comes closer to truth than the intoxicated one, Henry Miller, drunk on pure water, the aim is to get similar access to the power of dream and imagination without the drug that brings bad side effects and slavery, sometimes that’s the goal, an ad for inner voyages given to you by opium, hashish, coffee, water, just dreaming, meditate, altered state, control and access, when you are awake, lead to exploring the drug avenue, not the ultimate conclusion, underplay the other thing, he’s in a lot of pain, waiting there like an angel, he doesn’t curse the day, he blesses the day, his pain is physical and mental, triggers his first contact, the death of Wordsworth’s 4 year old daughter, psychosomatic illnesses and medicines, opiates today, treatment of pain, the drug literature, when you are pain it is hard to relax to listen to creative thoughts that are constantly generating, focused on the road, feet on the pedals, what you said, when you are asleep, that part is turned off, what you can feel is the generation of information, suddenly wake up, that stuff is going on all the time under the surface, taking away the pains that cause an inability, get into writing a story, where does it come from, the fingers allow access, creative control, the majority of people talking about how to write, listen to your brain, this is a formula, completely wrong, drug yourself up on opium, the chair under your butt, get that typewriter out, the inner psychedelic experience, Jesse’s advice, the best narrator ever, after the second hour, something completely wrong on the intonation, understanding what he’s reading, my mum came into the room, what’s wrong with this guy, a tinsey winsey concerned about spitting out his denture, snobbish seeming British accent, his mouth is constipated from the opium, the autobiographical main character, the ideal time, precious, high diction, dwelling on the words, savouring the vocabulary, not a note off, great from the beginning, they have to get used to it, having had this conversation via DMs with Jonathan, he couldn’t tell the narrator was an ai, they stop at the wrong places, a good narrator performs the text, when to dwell and savour, an amazing skill, Scott Miller (Lost Sci-Fi Podcast) can perform it beautifully, this guy’s kinda cool, a straight narrator, just doing a straight reading, where he dwells on words it is confessional, closer to the mic, not broad, it is precise and controlled, emotional, but not insane, another narrator, people wanted to read this book, a striking strange cleavage, a very fascinating thing, perception, that’s the connection, what’s different?, the perception, stuffed shirt aspect, that’s De Quincey, Sylvester Stallone could do it betta, harmony with the narrative voice, one objection, the digressions, I’m in a hurry to get to the drugs, a bildungsroman on the education of a philosopher, a line from Milton, anti-drugs, LDS, Mormons, coffee, against opium too, corner store Starbucks, don’t listen to the demons within you, we gotta control what those people smoke, this guy is wild, not coming from the scripture it is coming from within, perceiving reality differently, approaching some drugs in the wrong way, don’t have a bad trip, the brain is the ultimate well regulated drug factory, a way to get to it, ampther really great way, read some Lovecraft, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Homer, the land of the Lotus Eaters, the drugs are dangerous section, drugs in The Odyssey, wonderful stuff, 200 years later, the last paragraph, ends abruptly, one memorial of my former condition, not yet perfectly calm, the legions are drawing off, tumultuous, the gates of paradise, dreadful faces thronged and firey arms, expelled from paradise, the angels guarding the entrance, the implication, an artificial paradise, as opposed to the one in the sky?, an earthly paradise, conversation with the students, I’m Christian, in my father’s house there are many mansions, what is a metaphor?, or there’s room for you?, when Jesus responds this way, he’d never thought about it before, the person in the pew, take in the information, take the received idea and take it into them, engaging with the idea is why it is a metaphor, why it is a good book, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, the person reading it to you, now what do you think about that, they don’t have the podcast afterwards, by the way you’re very sinful, weird religious cult in Russia, cut off penises and boobs, the fruit of sin, a solution, you should have read the book a little better, literal minded, the juice factory in their brain, we gotta engage with this stuff, not going to talk about it, make note of the pains of opium, even before the appendix, he’s not warning people, potheads, smoke for 40 years, head clouded all the time, not an immoral or moral choice, shouldn’t be illegal, dealt with in the same way that gin was, useful at getting at something, offer access to materials otherwise inaccessible, an old book about an old time, what the streets of London were like, what rural Wales was like, not a complete survey, not a lot of aliens beaming in, a note on the influence, The Man With The Twisted Lip by Arthur Conan Doyle, turns that into a character, of the famous Sherlock Holmes story, a non-homeless man pretends to be homeless, murders himself, a professional beggar, a little bit like Kim by Rudyard Kipling or Citizen Of The Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein, interpretation, what makes a beggar a beggar, a smart dumb guy, knighthood for propaganda, reading old literature makes you smart and dumb, ends on Milton, all this stuff in the poets I read are my experiences, why they are so powerful, the very Platonic thing, kicked out of Paradise, permeated by classical culture, all of literature is mine, he is a philosopher, Kant, an experimental philosopher, stops at the ancient asian civilization, in The Call Of Cthulhu, vastly further back, a grandiose claim, and he did, no progress in literature, whatever progress is, what Newton said about himself, If I have seen further, I stand on the shoulders of giants and I went further, dying of stomach cancer, probably finally became the transcendent guy by opium, August Derleth took a dream written down and called it a story, stories have to have shape, every part needs to fit, oftentimes they don’t transitions too strangely, layers and layers of dreams does not make a good fiction story, how strange, a ten hour video of a [near] still image, don’t have your drug experience interrupted by ads, C.M. Kornbluth, Gravy Planet aka The Space Merchants, cocoa and stimulants, time travel, quaint, looking back at ht oppressive heavy advertising seems quaint, well presented in Blade Runner, Atari, TDK, Japanese lady putting a pill in her mouth, advertising horror, a senator from Coca-Cola, ads are the worst thing ever because they interrupt, injecting you with a drug, defend against ads with adblockers, what is worrisome about Netflix and Amazon, now that we are captive audiences, latest solution, on the tail end of this podcast, Tiny [Windows] 11, a very stripped down version of Windows 11, install a website as an app Brave browser, watching Tubi or YouTube ad free, a bulletproof shirt, armour to prevent you from being injected with random drugs from corporations, the corporate government, fuck you I’m not taking your injections, when the X-Files came back, super-intrusive product placement, almost hit a homeless person, the car logo, nothing to do with the story, that’s really intrusive, corporate broadcast television, now skippable product placement, skipping interaction requests, skips the intros and outros and product placement, a blip on the screen, the resistance to the horror of injected ads into you, this is that at, Smart Tube Beta, works on android TV and Firestick, through github, a google OS for your TV, hook up a computer to a TV, go back to torrenting everything, most people will take the drugs, only drugs that expand my perception, a bit of a leap, a product placement for a product of Terence’s thought, indirectly the source of Marx’s sentence: religion is the opium of the people, Zizek: opium is the religion of the people, mind expanding stuff of (culture dreams) religion, Foundation, an opium equivalent, dumbed down, Paradise Lost to imaginal realms, where can I download that, wrote essays about advertizing in highschool, Youtube banned the Brave browser ad, advertizing for bitcoin, mine vs. buy bitcoin, advertizing is incredibly powerful, a megaphone yelling at you, it’s just a minute, you’re the one who is drugged, my friend, turn off the adblockers, got through, three more times and we’ll cut access, people put up with this, maybe 1%, ublock origin, update itself all the time, saw the real world of the majority of users, a horror show, they’re used to it, they think it is normal, wait til that skip button goes, our job as human beings is advertizing, the water is fresh, the blackerries there, what humans do, copy information from their brain to their mouths, hijacked by corporations, really important, most people don’t see it that way, people who don’t not obsessed with not being injected with this shit, being dosed on opiates all the time, The Seventh, ok.ru, stars Jim Brown, in a renaissance for easily accessible film, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Sutherland, we did it, we did a good book, wanted to do more, record Suspiria, too much time involved, audio translations of a Zizek book, exists in Italian, wanted to do more, the addictive aspect, more influence?, all these poets read both books and thought of them together, the horror genre, might mean he’s died, sections for collaborative works, Oscar Wilde, His Life And Confessions, complete solos, a biography, see what his taste is, narrators not being commercial, they get to choose what they want to do, they bring their interest to it, philosophical and artistic not commercial, none of them say: be an artist, probably not going to write a good book, otium, leisure, refined sense, just hanging around, aristocratic notion, you don’t work according to orders, a latin word, otiose, lazy, useless, digressions, self-realization, creation aspect of leisure, why LibriVox is great, share and be appreciative, argue Jonathan into Bel Ami by Guy De Maupassant, homeopathy, Milton, Brontes, Sophoclese, an LGB, before they invented the ts and the pluses, Alexander Pope, Ivan Turgenev, D.H. Lawrence, The Confessions by Rousseau, 17 hours of the six volumes, The Soul Of Man by Oscar Wilde, a cool dude, writes nice introductions, rhapsodic, joyful anarchic hedonism, a map of the world, Humanity, Wilde wittly assails, life denying ascetics, venal popular journalists, that sounds like a good book, a mere two hours, booking it, what is a black pill and how do I take it?, means nihilist, white pilled, everything is good?, pink pills, yellow pills, why they like their pills so much, donkey pilled, donkey excited about a new ball, sees their old owners, save it for the podcast pilled, still recording?, a gossipy question.

Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #793 – READALONG: Sirius by Olaf Stapledon

The SFFaudio Podcast #793 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Sirius by Olaf Stapledon

Talked about on today’s show:
1944, some Olaf before this, Last And First Men and Star Maker, wow, this blew Jonathan away, this is a novel, if you told me I’d enjoy a book about a talking dog, it has that cosmic perspective, in a dog who has no hands, real genuine science fiction, not genre SF, not from an American pulp tradition, in the subtitle, “A Fantasy Of Love And Discord”, a scientific romance, something to say, thinking about dogs a lot, a dog as a kid, a pet person, passed away earlier this year, afraid of dogs, allergic to most of them, Irish setter, what I’m hearing is you’re gay, australian shepherd, Karl Barks, still gay, gay for dogs, city boy, Scrappy, got too big, gave him away, cats, Minnesota, a Labrador and a great Pyrenees, border collie, Corgi, loved to death, the dog relationship, neutral to dogs, like our narrator storyteller, the Olaf Stapledon stand-in, affected emotionally, balling my eyes out, hiking, tears, very powerful, a great book, some good things in the review, very American, wanted the book to be genre SF, Philip K. Dick shows instead of tells, make points about philosophy, attempts pulp, Cambridge educated philosopher, from 2020, another reference point, Dick’s philosophy is more cynical, very different, Stapledon trusts people and the community of people, trusts reality more, even though the community if evil, Dick’s stories are more city, vs. more country, more suburban, lives in a “community”, a very small world for you, the college with the town attached, some London here, rural fantasy, through the novel tradition, such a bad comparison, to bring Philip K. Dick into the conversation, a guy named Jesse, correct to reference Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, a more wholesome, humane take, needs to be with other creatures, a 2015 review, no last name, Odd John, as opposed to a book about super and ultra sheepdogs, uplifted, can you get an uplift without it being biologically heritable, the raising, a monkey in Australia as a farmhand, the fox listening to banjo music, an old English children’s magazine, great pets, famous pets, Farmhand Johnny, a rhesus monkey, follow up tweet, interviewing the farmer, the second monkey in a series of farmhands, don’t go on about your handlessness, super-important, this is not a man creating another man, a dog with a man’s brain, a super-canine brain, the thing that’s adressed a lot in the book, bestiality, incest, how intiate they had become, looks at her body mauled by the dog, as are we, Plaxy, such a weird name, a name that people have in England, Wales, the fornication?, discretion prohibits me from saying, how Jonathan would write it, a man relives himself, masturbating, sexual hypocrisy, a very funny sad and tragic book, deeply philosophical, dog-lover wish fulfillment fantasy, this is a being like me that has thoughts and desires and wants, unable to communicate fully, flagging of tails, bristling of backs, wants to have sex, wants to have a relationship with you, that’s remarkable, exploring this idea incredibly well, what is stopping people writing this today, owning a dog, mischaracterizing all of science fiction: space-fucking battles, what about Harlan Ellison’s A Boy And His Dog, Simak, Lester Del Rey, a lot less incest, go off on Jupiter together, a lot more tragic, this conflict between dog-nature and the human society he is raised in, identify with it as a human being, I’m a human, I fit in, nature vs. nurture, other books that explore, Tarzan, so much imagination, the depths of smelling, describing how the female dogs drive him insane, you wouldn’t understand, the narrator’s really good too, that British hidden humour in these character’s voices, Plaxy is the least understandable main character, we don’t love dogs that way, if Sirius had been a female dog or if Plaxy had been a brother, would it have been a better book, a more pure examination?, reverse those genders, heterosexual animals, a husband describing his wife, going up to the line, creepy, unfortunately very reliable narrator, the things he elides, the frame to get at telling this story, a very funny American trope, super-hilarious, the mad scientist and his beautiful daughter, does not like the father the doctor, unimaginative, his subjective point of view, 100% agreed, being prudes about the bestiality, the investigation is less pure or more pure, the animal and Plaxy’s nature, he’s also investigating women, Enemy Mine (1985) by Barry B. Longyear, Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr. are fighter pilot, beach planet, give birth to their baby, dies in childbirth, dad and mom, reuinite him with his people, Will bait 101, the novella is 1979, Nebula and a Hugo, fewer people voted, not even a 1000 people, such a scam, throwing it out the window, interesting character, a perspective character, Stapledonian observations, the politics of this book, Hitler bad, why is Hitler bad?, a socialist novel, a communist dog at points, a small businessman selling his children, don’t collectivize my farm, typically Kulak, energetic but unfair, pre-WWII communist party of Great Britain, the hardship and oppression, surrounded by the professional managerial class, the PMC, using the PMC, Barbara Enright, the laptop class, people with a 9-5 job who work in offices, do you like it?, not a manager, includes teachers, lawyers, a little priest action, a parson is not a priest in the Anglican tradition?, holy nature, the guy in the front of the pulpit talkin, secular but mystical, for what this book is about, the way this book ends, like the Frankenstein creature he is not himself, just like the creature does, Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild, a dog that becomes a man that becomes a wolf, To Build A Fire, the best novel Jesse has ever read, inside the mind of a dog, a very alien story, some glimpses, doesn’t commit to the bit, Buck did not need the newspapers, inside of a dog’s head, telling a different story, boyfriend/husband, make a sale, interested in the market, a publisher wouldn’t touch it, how many of the books that you’ve read of him are something a publisher would want, things were different back then, H.G. Wells pioneered something, John Wyndham’s career, a new science fiction writer, been there done that, a repeat of Day Of The Triffids, he must have had a dog, the author of this manual of sheepdogs and their owners, to Will and Maissa, border collie video, sheepdog trial olympics, there for him while he’s doing his stuff, the commentators are going wild, that’s the relationship that this book is about, it was thrilling, made Will tired, that much energy, POV, omniscient narrator, Bob is angry, an omnipresent narrator, Bob seemed angry, more of a naturalistic approach, Guy de Maupassant, maybe the character felt this way, describing Sirius, Sirius was this way, jarring, what he restrict, I ate a man yesterday, Plaxy, and I liked it, as a writer it is important to note these things, in Buck’s head and right over Buck’s shoulder, notes, the humans in Sirius’ world, a more direct picture, this big archive of notes, too fat and complacent, wrote one book, The Lamppost, Beyond The Lamppost, a philosophy of things outside of being a dog, humans like to drink thinks, vee dogs and like to emit liquids, I see what you’ve emitted there, went for a walk with his dog, that’s how dogs be, let me right a novel about this, a terrific book, nobody could write this book today, a huge book of ideas, I can take this paragraph from this chapter of Last And First Men and make a 40 book series out of it, Paul is correct, read it again, what does the word completed mean?, the other projected book, in a state for publication, trying to split a hair your not going to split, the center of interest in Cambridge, Sirius does not understand dogs, he’s pretty young, a sad case, a tragedy from beginning to end, his creator dies, he has plans, has finished writing but not completed can never be published, remarkably, why is this set during WWII, an anti-fascist novel, a pacifist, lived a long time, supported the war effort, Wikipedia rabbit holes, fuzzy, when people are bad, they scapegoated Plaxy and Sirius the way the Nazis scapegoated the Jews, people use the word a lot, 20th century view on fascism, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, wait six months for this show to come out, an interesting take, our POV character is a solider and Plaxy is a landgirl, seems important to the war effort, Bomb Girls, what her views about communism and fascism are, she’s naive, communism isn’t the answer, petite bourgeoisie, create something new, I’m not so sure now Plaxy, literally selling his children, drowns some of his puppies, a flawed creator, religion, Brian Aldiss would do it more that way, an unapologetic J.D. Beresford H.G. Wells kinda guy, those books are dreams, characterless, occasional character name, hallucinations of humanity, an actual novel, Arthur C. Clarke is very spiritual, dealing with religion, goes into the church and sings from behind a veil, I know you will be shocked, don’t you want to hear them, the youtube videos of a dog singing along at the piano, the Right of Spring, out of the ordinary, A World Of Sound by Olaf Stapledon, escapes his body and sees a world of sound, moving over a landscape, he’s just slept through the whole opera, the sparking firework display that is Olaf Stapledon’s genius, like Peter And The Wolf, other notes come in, characters are notes and themes, we can tell a story just with sound, that’s what he’s done here with smells, I’ll be your bitch, this is an intimate relationship, going into scents, bite their owners, so rich and deep, what if Plaxy was just a brother, a boy and his dog, sex and raping, about the relationship of humans to animals, part of the household, super-duper rich, moved to tears by this book, never fits in, murdering or killing?, he’s mad, needs to be put down, near human intelligence, back to the demiurge again, a functional being, he lives in Britain, you have the solution in Canada, he’s a flawed creation, he’s not a man and he’s not a dog, he’s alone, had the deep thoughts that he has, invited to say what of man, is man a flawed creation?, the answer is yes, a very cynical view, is it cynical or is it realistic?, he grok fascism, and yet he will sell his own children and drown them, an alien species, kziniti, Jesse has Paul modeled, the aliens from Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, a brilliant writer and everything, a very different use of the ideas, one kzin, in the sequels, the kzinti homeworld on Ringworld, speaker becomes a king, like a Conan story, conquer the map of earth, they’re klingons but they’re cats, officially in the Star Trek universe, plugging Paul’s own game, lamenting the lack of Olaf Stapledon, smart dog novels, demanding, how its coming, the great female kizinti novel (that gets uplifted), she wakes up in the harem, you bastard, Ottoman harems, the power that women tried to wield, the kzinti queen, males don’t get their names, that the civil service says is good, I’m a male chauvinist sometimes, sometimes I’m a coward, sometimes I’m a 300 year old Fu-Manchu, sometimes I’m a lucky girl who gets to spend time with Larry Niven, unfortunately we demanded more books, got any more?, goddamn it, had to be doomed, humans are flawed and doomed, as a species too, leave AI to die, Paul’s Reeve guy’s plan, Elon Reeve Musk’s plan, escape the planet, preppers build bunkers, off planet, to make the air in air factories, this picture of what it means to be a person, a worker intellectual, the intellectual and artistic life, a vigorous physical exercise, really good critique of the Cambridge people, they drop things, talking about the mandarins, cultivate the long finernails, girls too, they’re princesses, intellectual beings contemplating gardens and writing poems with their mouths, denigrate manual labour, the dignity of labour, back to Wales, use his mind to labour also, he can’t be a Conan, conquering bitches, rollicking adventures, because of the landscape, his contribution to the war, I wrote a book about a smart dog, Tarzan goes off to war, Tarzan And The Foreign Legion by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a war corespondent, he thought he was at the center of things, patriotism is crazy, hilarious, go join WWI, go get ground up in the meatgrinder, we hate that, we didn’t want to do that, the cycle continues, alien and sedition act, that goddamn fucking Wilson, divide and conquer, he kept us out of the war, the League Of Nations, what a ringing success it was, return to normalcy, America first platform, Warren Harding, a reaction against Woodrow Wilson, no imperial entanglements outside of the empire itself, alcoholic drank himself to death while in office, sad that he died, why Donald Trump is a teetotaler, locked Wikipedia entry, Teapot Dome where Larry Niven got all his money, Coolidge, Republican presidents, Herbert Hoover, never served in public office, Grecian revival, we got dig him up, traveling across the country giving big speeches, front porch campaign, hide his alcoholism, the wealthiest guy, Hoovervilles, a miner, as usual, to feed Europe during WWI, an extremely popular person worldwide, Secretary of Commerce, one of the most hated and reviled, ran for re-election constantly, pumping money into the economy, a laissez-faire approach, avoided the whole thing, pushing an asteroid, what would president Olaf Stapledon do to fix the world?, major political parties in the UK agreed to a coalition government, forget this democracy thing for the course of the war, Commonwealth, merger between strange socialist, non-state socialism, Christian socialists, willing to contest elections, radicalizing, when they all joined Labour, advocating for a European federal government, a world government, full of good ideas, advocating for the welfare state, Beverage, here’s ghow they’re inadequate, the NHS comes out of that, Churchill, surprisingly he was a conservative, the Left Book Club, an important institution, Victor Gollancz, better known as a science fiction, today, a left wing publisher, they go together, all these great fights with Orwell, stupid and Trotskyist, breaks with the communists, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, world congress for peace, useless things that we shouldn’t use, what a monster, left wing things, development of the welfare state, common ownership of property, socialism on the installment plan, hard to really grok it, socialism and they had no money, everybody got glasses, Doctor Who, Doris Lessing’s science fiction work, a bit shorter, more grizzled, comin out of the 30s, a healthier society, world government, what a monster!, gentle, as a revolutionary, an ideas guy, today in 2023, the experiment performed by the doctor, let’s hear him out, it would be unethical, cloning, impossible to do in real life, tomatoes with trout DNA, monkey man, Dogman, unethical, we’re a very unethical species, the scientific organizations have codes of ethics, that’s not coming up, doing it on the sly, most people don’t believe it, our narrator believes it, the sheep farm, when the dog sends a letter, called out in one of the reviews, we coulda used more like that, that was demonstrative, this novel doesn’t deal with scientific ethics enough, hey David Brin you haven’t had a hit in a while, go retro, lots of scenes where ethics boards are talking to each other via skype, it’s about our relationship with animals, and specifically dogs, nude in front of them, we won’t fart in front of our wife, put leashes on them, and then we’ll have to get you spayed eventually, neutered, not a major focus, where ethics comes into this book, reasons for the secrecy, commercial interest learning about the dog, mass production of this kind of animal, is there a world in which Sirius could have lived, the circus freaks, displaying themselves because of their oddities, seen that book or read that movie, not going to do the deep relationship between humans and dogs, when you pet Plaxy, she goes to make water, the wistle, its time to pee!, how children are, the devastation, the loss, how dare you!, one after the other, marking my territory, more like twitter, completed uncompleted book, enlightening, where they make their symposia, a peeing party, extends his lifespan, a regular dog would have died, they’re the same age, how old is Plaxy in 1944?, early 20s, a university education, we get that date at some point, less realistic, hung up on the wrong part of the science fiction, injecting human DNA into dog brains, this is not actually possible, they don’t seem to be viable, I’ve never made a monkey man myself, it’s possible for human and a chimpanzee to have sex, taboo, a mules, lots of mules, it wouldn’t line up correctly, somewhat mentally challenged, 99% match in DNA, human female and male chimpanzee, caesarean bud, wild conversation, Jungle Jitters, a genetic dead-end, ligers and tigons, one thing we haven’t talked about in this book, Plaxy is a cat, because she has a pussy?, something going on with cats in this novel, silly cat vs. dog stuff, astute observations, they are kind of mean, whenever Plaxy is mean she’s like a cat, to hurt Sirius, sometimes she’s this, somethimes she’s that, gives clues, very catlike, is he making a comment on women as well, should we be cancelling Mr. Olaf, the book is very doggy, the repeated point throughout: she’s catty, the cats were girls and the dogs were boys, when I’m 2, Treasure Planet (2002), hybrid babies, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island in space, humans and furries, related to transhumanism, there are also robots in this movie, it’s good?, fun, when we do Treasure Island, pirates, Paul’s being facetious, A High Wind Over Jamaica by Richard Hughes, trying to grok a scene, he has doggy vision, mystical vision, that supreme moment passed, a new reality, monochrome vision, colours seeing by the eye of the spirit, plain greys of ordinary life, gained a new meaning, their own true colours, suffused, the light of the spirit, the religious tinge, the Great Master, the True Creator, he has limited vision, he’s a young dog, Christian mysticism, probably not the best thing to study, one catty observation, turgid prose, actually turgid, looked it up before, swollen, congested, distended, Paul tends to read to fast, this is beautiful, this is poetry, limited view of reality, where you have to start saying the narrator is unreliable, a similar book, the Moon smashes into the Earth, Alec Nevala-Lee, The Hopkins Manuscript, a chicken farmer, a country seated gentleman, R.C. Sherriff, not petting his penis, it ain’t turgid, be his bitch, smiling a lot, the jokes were very funny, his song standing up, world dictator someday, humanize him with these books, a necessary scene in the novel, three possibilities, mystical gobbledygook, dial it back not dial it in, epiphany, the text comes out and says this is an important scene for you to read, a crisis, three paragraphs later, St. Catherine Of Sienna, he faces the absolute, when he goes to talk to the priests and learned people, these guys don’t get it, god is love, we’re all Sirius, born into the world, circumstances we didn’t create, he is a man, he does manly things, he has manly interests, science and muscularity and religion, a 9 hour book, the relationship that dogs have always had with man, the relationship of domesticating man or man domesticating animals, a man and a woman and a dog, man and dog and other dog, he doesn’t love in the right way when being a king, beaten by the man in the red sweater, he’s lost, ultimately he’s a wolf, this character is broken that requires a tragedy, a flawed creation, a powerful but not perfect creator, you don’t even need the god of the bible, puts us in the bad place, he loves him as a father, always seeking his approval, always arguing with his father, in the title of the book, the love part, the discord part, wherever he goes he’s singing a different tune, Apple of Discord, fuck around with things, smart like a man, he can read he can write he can sing he can make foolish religious claims, bigger brain equals smarter, really cool ultimate point, able to communicate with other beings using language, tantalizingly close to understanding the animals, when Soleks is looking at Buck, desires and goals, pack positional shit, dogs don’t have human morality, they don’t have shame but they can fake shame, it was bred to do that, that’s what goodness is is doing that, make a slave of another human being, program the robots, the revolt of the robots, so deeply science fictional, hormones, it’s not a breeding program, no robot arms, allowing a dog to understand us, science fiction is evil, some professor, on the whole a negative, had a negative social impact, if Elon Musk learned the lessons of Robert A. Heinlein, Nineteen-Eighty Four as an instructional manual, you wanted a hot-take, I’ve studied this stuff, trust me on this, bro, for you feed, are we done with the book, Return From The Stars, Omega: The Last Days Of The World by Camille Flammarion, a chapter missing, very early and very French, all collaborative, a comet that’s about to strike Earth, everybody buys telescopes, the United Nations, the international community, miscalculating things, a near death experience, moratlity, a technological boom, evolving, where Joe Rogan is very stupid, fallback stupidity, we just need to evolve more, man, this human being don’t change, people exactly the same, expresses different, merge man and machine, a very unwise person, almost Stapledonian, a science fiction book, the history of the species, another human species, in real life Stapledon believed, the transhumanism thing, the ability to see the colour blue, a linguistic trick, the wine dark sea, a myth that people believe, the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, a much better claim, the French Revolution with the experience of the French Revolution, what does it mean to be a domesticated animal, slaves, are human beings domesticated animals, school, factory workers, it loses its hair and becomes very social, domesticated apes, the overarching history of humanity, the unifer of the state, domestication is about the home, the family exists without the state, the family is a legal relationship, he becomes their owner, the mom has a relationship with her pups, their nice about it, a wolf gives birth to pups, uncles, an extended family unit, a condor, three little chicks, pushed it to its death, the weakest, the calorie intake I’m able to bring in, marriage is a legal construct, family, brings food to, it does it for a while, more like horses than tigers, make decisions collectively, by following people and leading people away from predators and towards prey, privatized, exceptions to that, the state will interfere with your shit, it should, it shon’t, tell condors how to run their families, we wanna catch that baby bird and raise it up, we never let it go, we’re different creatures than they are, not really possible, women leave their babies in bathrooms, in handbags, they drive them into lakes, are we thinking that’s a bad thing, abandoning babies, embrace that, horrific, you think the state has a place in people’s lives, lots of tutoring, enslave Jesse, hit him over the head, apprenticing, don’t go down that road, if you put it that way, Groucho Marx, the Groucho tendency, Harpo, Chico, very much a Groucho, individualized tutoring, university is still allowed, what Socrates was doing before being cyberbullied into killing people, making fun of people, follow him in conversation, the role of religion, worship Chebu and Sheemish, unequal opportunity, less unequal opportunity, more unequal, who was your best teacher?, he was fired, teaching his own things, an individualized tutor, the answer to this question is more institutions we can refor them, we live in a post-scarcity society, a theoretical conversation, how to improve the lot of black slaves in 19th century, it could be practical, its important that the students take it seriously, what money does, it’s important you gotta learn, kids who’ve been taught properly by their moms, learning is joyful, learning is wonderful, The Other Gods, everything is purposeful, it ought to be read, resonant, by Lovecraft, having multiple purposes in mind, just fun?, the fun came in the joyful experience of being taught, materially, Sirius enjoys audiobooks, don’t buy the product, often don’t, pirate, we live in a post scarcity society, knowledge should be free, no money, everything should be pirated, at no cost, this philosophy doesn’t distinguish, created from knowledge, they are the same, ebooks, your ideal purchasing audiences, commissioned audiobooks, the economic justification, quite interesting, Jesse is not going to make you a lot of money, doesn’t take into consideration, some are doing it to make money, knowledge leaves to the death of knowledge, freedom is restrictive, nobody will write a book, so what is he really saying, think of the long tail, don’t think about that, in 400 years you’ll be dead, sorry, get that Blue Yeti, haltered and faltering, rushes through words, Eric does almost everything, into people’s ears, ebooks are dying, paperbooks are dying, a superior medium: audio, who has opportunity to learn to read, gotta learn braille, sad story, Helen Kellers, most people, Isaac Asimov short stories where kids no longer read, perfectly like people, a disability to study old things, let her read, major disability, sound like a libertarian, argue with each other, Jonathan is more realistic and responsible, wanted to open a used bookstore, neither realistic nor responsible, small property, we’re in a post-scarcity society, make a sacrifice, money, kids are broken by school, learning is painful torture, want it both ways, to get the Jesse service, every middle class professional, be wanting to be there, Stapledonian paradise, post-scarcity spread-around, workers education association, you and an old book are your best teacher, show me one person that had that happen to them, they learn at home or not at all, learn to read in a new language, the family relationship would fall apart without the state to support it, capital, can’t afford to live in your home, sent across the country, a relationship between capital and the state, it exist, it make kids go to school, the laissez faire welfare state, Guardian/Colossus I can trust, how socialist planning would work, an idealistic socialist, planning by the people, a technocratic socialist, educate people into be awake to these things, state forcing people to do stuff is really horror, make the horror less horrible, if Will were president of Planet Earth, two colleges, Hampshire College, somehow you have to pay tuition though, did not thrive at all, Fordham, Jesuit rigid and structured, success undefined, own limitations, what I could accomplish, very experimental temperament, discuss books like Sirius, breadth of knowledge, politics and current events, European history, history of science, Colin Powell’s school, college and university, millions of hours being wasted, regular school, being babysat, always an issue, Paul doesn’t remember school very well, their lives are being wasted sitting in rooms learning nothing, inefficient, obedient workers, edification, lifelong-learning, how much we learn together, having read the book, now we get a great discussion out of it, richer and deeper, a relatively small group, everybody gets a chance to be criticized and drilled down on, we learn more from it, Will goading Jesse into it, anti-vaxxer stuff, bad new definition of vaccine, unable to respond, what can you do?, just do your best?, how the white man discovered inoculation, learned it from African slaves, smallpox, in Africa for centuries and centuries, Cotton Mather, Lovecraft talks about him, he wrote about it, this is a case of witchcraft, put too much pus in there, the new one is gene therapy, polio, defined polio away, the March Of Dimes, Modern and Pfizer, our theory is its going to work like this, 75 years from now you’ll be allowed to look at the data, very very clear, milking the public purse, lousy tech company, that woman who went to prison, Theranos, some people have died from twitter, quit twitter, forcibly having twitter injected into my body, dead virus, spike protein, you might want to read one of his books, you might find it quite moving, what the news said about Olaf Stapledon, [Dr. John Campbell’s youtube channel], pushing Ukraine, provincial health care system, trying to help people, also trying to hurt people, but compared, the B.C. government forced Jesse to get two injections, laboured into, took the hit and was lucky, a workforce issue, some random lady, no one else is doing it, doesn’t seem to be killing most people instantly, six shots, six of any vaccine, not a vaccine, that’s what it used to mean, different stages of protection, white blood cells and t-cells, when someone is listening six months later, teaches medical practitioners, pay attention to this guy, mysterious deaths in your family, doesn’t have an axe to grind, if you really want to know about this stuff, puts a checkmark beside each of things you’re reading, don’t trust the science, don’t trust the Moderna, it turns out that this gene therapy, don’t trust Trump, operation Warp Speed was a great idea, that whole ivermectin thing, propaganda for making billions, sucking money from government coffers and injecting it into private, loss of taste, paxlovid, increased your chance of getting COVID again, attack the body, pressured by Will’s dad, got his doctorate from CNN, brought to you by AstraZeneca, open to the idea, objectively true, Jesse didn’t change the definition, that’s what they changed to, it stops with every person who takes it, reduce hospitalization, reduced the amount of time you have the disease, literal videos, in that one instance, Fauci is the easiest one, the best example, Trump don’t know nothing, they kicked people of twitter and youtube for saying things that were true, banned accounts, deleted video, very nuanced, these are people who didn’t get the vaccine, the median age of people who died of COVID, older than the average of death, 84ish, how is that reconciled with what we were told, to children and babies, before the Tri-City News deleted itself, family court, in favour of the caution of having the baby vaccinated, a lot of excess deaths best explained by people, didn’t work for you either, the evidence of your eyes, a characterization of how the vaccine was promoted, make you less sick, after they noticed getting the disease, they lied about it, big surprise, after the Emergency Use Authorization, in Cuba, China, in Russia, the global conspiracy of not doing science is global, preventative health care, China did these lockdowns, hospitals being built, drones telling people to stay indoors, the ventilator shit, hospital workers, the ventilators were killing people, the disease crystalizes the lungs, weird lack of work, hours and hour researching boring little things, all the other things, David J. West, twitter guys who write books and have good covers, a little more successful than Jonathan, more prolific, a danish dessert locally made in Minnesota, palm oil, soy oil, margarine, glyphosate, not allowed in Italy, celiac disease and gluten intolerance, what possibly caused it, literal weedkiller, lubrication for machines, still available for sale, forced into our foods, find a vegan section, food minus industrial lubricants, we could reform the FDA, new broom, the changing perspective on how the drugs were sold, Will wants change, pump us full of toxic shit for cash, cheaper, pretend it’s fine, try living without these ingredients in your life, The Stuff (1985), this delicious looking thing, like a supplicant, give him money to buy some margarine, homeless person inside a store, some coffee, have to pee to much, hyped up and hopped up enough, in six months everybody will know, potatoes, it makes the potatoes ripen, a big fight about GMOs, literal provincial politics, I wonder if I should be worried about that, in the news, they got their way and now nobody talks about it, genetically modifying plants, sprayed with toxin for killing plants, you have not been genetically modified to thrive on roundup, weren’t as corrupt as they are now, when did you start hearing the words “celiac” or “gluten intolerant”, redpilled on smoking causing cancer, if it makes your body feel good, Canadian doctor, industrial health, smoke breaks, the boss can understand why you want a break, Ulysses S. Grant, skin cancer and lung cancer, maybe stayed out of the sun more [or been in it more], Lovecraft died of cancer, a teetotaler, sad story for Mrs. Lovecraft, didn’t die of bean cancer, you don’t read him for pleasure, a whole collection, circa 2006, a terrible story, people get it so wrong, The Colour Out Of Space, At The Mountains Of Madness, Suitable Flesh (2023), a body switching story, a wizard who’s been switching bodies, it’s a comedy, Lovecraft is really fanny, the film adaptation is hilariously wild, The Unnamable, Mr Jim Moon, hushed innuendoes, the Cotton Mather one, something had caught my ancestor, mixed marks of split-hooves, and many believed him, I saw it – it happened to me, it was it was unnameable, a little bit of gore, not pinhead style gore, a cat that got squished, people get squished, pure delightful comedy, so lucky, what a birthday present, From Beyond (1986), some people can only watch new movies, undisciplined, these comics are somewhat tolerable, reviewing myself out of reading them, a good podcast is better than anything else for drawing out, those don’t make great shows, 100% a criticism of the work, movie-tie in comics, I don’t remember Yoda having 17 arms, Star Wars output in the 1990s, coherent in a way the new stuff was not, we know you like memberberries, we’re bringing Han Solo back, to kill him, Princess Leia and storm trooper get lost on a planet, Starbuck teams up with a cylon, Enemy Mine (1985), a Christmas present, evil humans come to a planet, very Andre Norton but good, a good short story, The Beast Master, a tv show, her father was into “Indian lore”, needed more trauma to be more interesting, there’s trauma in this book, he had a dog die, thinking about his dogs, Navajo, genetically altered animals, a good pulp novel, not a big think, one note villains, the TV show ran 66 episodes, 2005, you hope she made some money, pass away rather than die, you want good things to happen, have their legacy edified, a good word, vacation being sick, complaining about being sick six months later, smarter than to listen to the propaganda, a new car, a new pair of shoes, you shouldn’t take the flu vaccine, hate to hear, shingles, people who’ve got the shingles vaccine aren’t protected from shingles, shingles can be brought out by flu or gene therapy COVID vaccines, I’m protecting myself, allergic reaction disease, another podcaster complaining, shingles vaccine, booster, the brands for the companies pushing the product, NIH, when Joe Rogan was painted green on CNN, ivermectin, public domain, reactivation, assumed to be significantly higher, statistically detectable, hypothesis confirmed, the more ups of your dosage the more chances you have of having this disease reassert itself, above median age of death, it never does come out unless you look at history, trying to hide WWII from us, eventually nobody cares, more and better facts about what was going on, look at these stupid things, still making money off of slavery, do you want to be subject to the slavery?, educate ourselves as best we can, follow the money, a lot of groupthink, go-along play-along people are not scientists, make their publications known, those people get kicked off of youtube and twitter, makes lots of mistakes, likes professional wrestling, he couldn’t watch the show, not happy about it, a pathetic show at the time, cooties all over it, Trump’s you’re fired show, cooties all over it, Survivor, fake tiki ritual, this is fucking moronic, that show continues, not everybody is intellectually interested int he same things, motorcycles, kangaroos, reading NIH papers for fun, I wonder what causes it, instances of people getting it, being phased out, Dallas Buyers Club (2013), the bad guy was Fauci, everybody’s going to get AIDS, somebody’s going to touch your blood, blood transfusion, I don’t want to die from AIDS, only game men and people who got it from blood transfusions, massive puritanical panic, garnered some control, cultural homophobia, who dies of COVID, ancient people, people over the median age of death, 6 month old children, in any reasonable understanding of reality, fear and panic are used to control the flow of cash, if you don’t play along, super-evil and very interesting, send a text message, certain cookware, dog shaped pans, Christmas Archie comics, not a big Christmas guy, like going to the dentist, so personal, Hanukkah, fuck those dreidels, go to the Chinese restaurant, ethnically, philosophically, we ran out of oil but somehow the oil continued, Masada, a good miniseries, stars Peter O’Toole, the ethnostate takes it on as a mythological thing, jews are really awesome, a lot of bad ones too, the Jewish experience in North America, the most Jewish person on the internet is Paul, kvetching, schlemiel, schmuck, sex based on, schlepp, sister lived in Israel on a Kibbutz, came back feral, a lot of cattiness, things that make you cynical, oh the scratches!, loves dogs, can roll with punches, cry cry cry, onto new things!, I’m still processing the trauma, I’m going to learn everything there is to know about cow breeding, how much overspill about border collies, only polite to listen, they need lots of walks, closing in on 5 hours, bagels with roundup!, find some Italian flower, she’s really shaky, nice bread, look at the ingredient list on the bread, that’s why I’m dying, The Cave Girl, easy to get people for Burroughs, a hard time of the year, Terence would have contributed greatly, Maissa is a cat lady but had a dog, everybody has something to say and a different experience to bring to it, the reason we do this, just listeners, beautiful, such an important difference, hear himself reading too quickly, how many people are listening to this from 5 hours deep?, how many downloads, onsite plays, wordpress, the files are hosted on servers elsewhere, most people don’t listen on site, Mike listens and gives feedback, imagine if there’s ten listeners, 50 hours of people’s lives being enriched, how much money it got you, even if you’re hate listening, something deranged about you, gotta dog pans for Christmas, demographics, people like Mirko, Cora (isn’t a listener), Peter, other Germans, Germans are very cosmopolitan, post-WWII occupation, only 8 more minutes.

SIRIUS by Olaf Stapledon

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #785 – READALONG: A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg

Talked about on today’s show:
Self-bearer, to outsiders, we are going to talk about, a novel, serialized in Galaxy, March April May 1971, won an award, a nebula, the competition, The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Byworlder, Half-Past Human, The Devil Is Dead, Margaret And I, interesting Poul Anderson, arguably her best book, strong stuff, meandered all over the place, T.J. Bass’ reputation, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer, a scattered mess, The World Inside, a good book, liked, great, Paul has questions, liked the world and the worldbuilding, quasi-sister obsession, an incest book, lusting after his sister, takes his drug with his sister, the incest trope, incest is a big erotic thing, step mom, step sis, step bro, step-sister, it’s fun, the forbidden fruit, a forbidden love story, by the customs, bond brother, bond sister, it would be seen as incest, step-siblings, the only people they’re allowed to open up to and talk to, it makes sense within the world, you need to talk to people to fall in love with them, marriage and procreation is not about love, love is a dirty word, a very restrictive society, natural human impulses, puritanical catholic society, drainers, leave town, going for a sexual massage, literally it didn’t happen, a public drainer, a heterosexual dud jerked off by a professional whore, homosexuality, betrayed the confessional, all from our guy’s POV, such an important social outlet, we don’t see that part of the world, such an important social outlet, Catholic church, unfortunately, confessional booth, lawyer – client privileged, go to Silverberg, sociological ideas, a new wave book, drug books, drug smuggling, LSD or mushrooms, he’s Christ bringing love into the world, a good book, coded Catholic, protestant, puritan, corrupt, coded Jewish, a subversive element, a negative Jewish stereotype, wholesome and perfect, subversive Jew came in, a suffocating society, good ideas, the drug was coded as sodomy, butt sex, homosexuality, homoerotic, we’re doing it, a lot of pornography, to make money, because he liked it, explicit, a way of getting out of a book, not his best work, 9 minutes in, Jonathan’s gonna love this book, very homoerotic of you, I is a swear word, the worldbuilding was terrific, not many kids, the life of per-pubescent kids is minimal, other socioeconomic levels, he’s the son of a king, we’re focused on that, allows him mobility, he’s not against the king, his brother, a personal story, if this is the story of the Christians, the early church, not mass orgies, people out in the woods, the primitives, they have a wonderful time, the lower class betrays him, as a person who has experienced children in adulthood, people who’ve forgotten what children were like, completely distanced from it, me me me me me stage, not everything is about you, this is something that should come up in the book, his favourite word was Trump because it triggers adults, not illegal in the normal sense, the adults around him are triggered, sometimes it would work, cortisol spike, you have to share your toys, in a sense the idea here is very good, not focused on one’s self all the time, Mr Jim Moon, with ambient noodling by the Eldritch Light Orchestra, it’s not the way to be, one ought to be a good person, we actually believe this, made it very rigid, bond sisters and bond brothers, he did the easy version of this book, a really good idea, he did a pretty good job, it won the nebula, a book about a writer, the most taboo thing you can do, the solitary vice (masturbation), I gotta big dick, I have premature ejaculation problem, plowing that girl for three seconds, a very Silverberg book, overboard with his philosophy, too honest, too forthcoming, becoming self-absorbed like us, he’s all about love and barely mentions his children, he didn’t have any interest in talking about them, very thoughtprovoking, Jordan Peterson hell, assigned pronouns, that’s very interesting, you’re not supposed to say this, in Ontario, the thing that made Peterson famous, personal choice pronouns mandated, your honour to the judge, command respect, one ought not to do those things, distance it, constructed language, barely science fiction, mostly a fantasy setting, the drug is the technology (telepathy), a preview of Majipoor, a juggler, not fair to this book, a weird job as a writer, never a professor, always a writer, juggles words, he’s not a science guy, Dying Inside, The Book Of Skulls, very limited science interest skills, sociological skills, very far from Larry Niven, Ursula K. Le Guin in a male, Jack Vance, a veil around the sex, humans colonize a planet, the spaceships leave, The Blue World by Jack Vance, caste is pronounced kayste, giant lilypad, giant lobster, Big Planet lacks heavy metals, land on a planet, living in their world, very Le Guiny, earthman shows up and is the representative of us, why kings?, telephones, medieval, heat rods, laser guns, Gene Wolfe, Dying Earth/New Sun, groundcars, flying vehicles, sailing ships with auxiliary engines, but why kings?, makes it simpler?, personal, more relatable, how the mighty has fallen, spontaneous lumberjacks, he’s ready for it, didn’t go outside her bubble, why she did what she did, she couldn’t handle it, relativizing experiences, she’s a saint, very hierarchical, no mobility up, she’s incredibly repressed, all hidden, share souls, gotta dose, the reverse experience from the drug, loathsome, couldn’t handle it, travel psychosis, psychotic breakdown after being married, suppressed latent psychosis, go psychotic, winning the lottery, France, might get it again, strong feelings towards them, idolized and loved, very negative self-image, he doesn’t say this drug is good, he’s stupid, he is a self-barer, psychoanalysis, understood everything about themselves, two big errors in the book, the soul sharing experience, you have to say I, without changing the pronouns, Gilles Deleuze, clandestine, why do people say that the sun rises?, it doesn’t matter whether you say I or not, proselytizing, she wasn’t ready?, he was ready, one way of reading this, Timothy Leary, there are some people who need the walls, it’s because you’re fucked up inside, little funny looking fish, deep soul with krakens inside, angels or krakens, the wrong way of opening a hole in the wall, not the best way to read it, shows up personally in the desert, a little bit of pity, Jesse’s not a drug guy, what it don’t do is make Jesse he’s communicated with god, when you take some drugs, mushrooms as a group, the connectedness of everyone and everything, he didn’t learn anything from anybody, the way he acts, makes you less repressed, alcohol makes you stupider, chatting up very pregnant women, the Faustian bargain gone wrong, midichlorians, a normal high, bullshitting this guy, a reading you can make, suddenly realizes, the homosexual banker, you can hide things under the influence of the drug, self-interested, he’s also looking for someone to help him, a sharing contest with the natives, they did have a connection, two druggies, Downward To The Earth, we don’t have the legacy, the druggie experience, costs some people, melt into puddles, pharmakon, a world that’s very interesting, thinks he’s self aware because he’s saying a taboo word, not making the best decisions, his tactics were wrong, imagine we retell this story from the brother’s POV, taken on responsibility, fuckup of a brother, let me show you this thing, he thinks that’s everything, the problem of being the spare, he’s Mr. Pfizer, no side-effects, the society has a problem, too repressed, a famine in the land, the king’s responsibility, he’s interested in it, I don’t want to lie to you, very meta, the Nebula awards, a limited set of people: writers, after a certain point they stop reading, they give blurbs, a bad discussion, the drug is writing as well, somebody likes drugs, ambivalence, build the case, a guy who fucked up, a failed messiah, Le Guin’s Philip K. Dick book, more ambitious, a writer service, the opening, the whole premise of this book, first person is taboo, very sparky, writers trying to solve writing problems, why this character?, why not head-hop?, if we were in the head of the brother, the unhealthy obsession, I grew up, if you’re a middle class kid, some other family, why?, safety valved, a secret plot, makes them richer, why did this custom start, we hear the myth, bad stuff happens, myth comes from reality, the powder, this entire religion happened, the drug was the cause of their reactionary faith, hidden through myth, the world’s Satan, he’s a tempter, why does God want to keep knowledge from you, we’re reading the book, published backwards in time on earth, social anxieties, when gin is introduced to England, abstinence from alcohol, every culture that touched another, a druggie doofus, he has impulse control problems, passport works everywhere, sending him gifts, this could be a much better book if we read it properly, he fucked up royally, if from the brother’s POV, second guessing Silverberg, feels richer, working that literary mine, guilt, the secret, druggie ideas, the communion, the slaughter, the sharing of flesh, The Book Of Skulls, there’s a cult in the desert that has achieved immortality, you have to kill your friend, focus your prana all day, a road trip book, Twilight Zone style horror, riding around the planet visiting places, sex, drugs, not kids, sometimes they work amazing, a very Ursula K. Le Guiny idea, The Left Hand Of Darkness, this is better writing, how easy this flows, his vocabulary was incredible, so precisely, top notch above, if we follow the meta thing on the power of writing, Jean Jacque Rousseau’s Confessions, inventing auto-biography, take it back to Rousseau, he never considers how this is going to effect my kids, don’t you have to live what he’s all about?, he’s not a full rich Silverberg, he’s a druggie Silverberg, limited perspective, the salt of the earth, respect for the working people, age 30 in their years is 40ish in our years, there’s something wrong with him, fill in all the corners, very repressed, the implication, too conventional, job as a customs guy, corruption all the way up and all the way down, cushy job, a definite commentary, immense power and dominance, he gets gifts, he gets influence, he’s a customs guy, they make this drug illegal, a drug smuggler as an evangelist, addicted to the experience, he likes the sharing, you should do mushrooms man, selling religion door to door, maybe it benefits the church, official missionary position, a religion of sharing your inner soul, what information did he gain?, not combination to any locks, you were tripping balls too, explicitly called out in the elephant book, did he learn anything?, no, your just thinking you’re having, stuff that happens with our regular drugs, some people just don’t like dancing, that’s too much, degenerating, no man I got these really good insights, it helped me clean my house, reality is controlled by an entity, the CIA, see beyond the veil the CIA puts in front of you, so does it only help dumb people, kinda fucked up his life, seeing reality as it is, with the help of language, dialogue, discussion, William James, a blooming budding confusion, the alterity, the otherness of the other, a very useful world, gave up on LSD, the internet, he invented the app, ability to collect data on people, is what I’m hearing, mind mirror approach, personality tests, the PC is the new LSD, a similar experience, takes over your brain, videos of current events, lady in an SUV with a Starbucks on her way to her sushi job, Joe Biden bumbling across the stage, tricked into believing, anybody can be made to look a stumbling dumb idiot, same effect, too soon, the next six months will tell, criticize this podcast as soon as it comes out, creates telepathy, the fable myth story, tries to become a god, two real gods drunk, not actually a god, not actually there, he has to be a god to become a god, the only time he doesn’t share the drug with someone else, they drink together, having his drug alone, feeling the whole planet, smoking marijuana alone, drinking alone, a feel-good hallucination, feedback with somebody else, folie à deux, prophecy is fulfilled, having the book makes him the prophet, we have to imagine we are these people in the future, how do you know, like Battlestar Galactica, Silverberg is subtle, time travel drug, regressive hypnosis, while you’re back there would you mind killing Hitler?, it is from the past, 1971, spread illegally on the internet, the LSD of 2023, and legally, I believe in some sort of life force that can metaphorically exist, the reading of his own drug experiences, a good feeling of sharing, Fight Club with a Love Club, ecstasy, get hot, wanna dance, I’m taking it you’ve taken it, MDMA, without asking your age, 45 years old, a lifetime ago, things have changed, too late now we can’t talk about, six minutes in the middle of the night between too soon and too late, finding Friedman units in people’s arguments, genocide happening, the end of the world people, a moving time horizon, a drug book, a very challenging book, very suffocating, hard to read in the first half, a deliberate effect, an effective technique, doesn’t make for light reading, the ideas are right there, an unreliable narrator, you have to read him that way, what his ideas are, a veil between you and Silverberg’s ideas, that was first person too, people are merging into other peoples, broken in a way that made his smarter, not that self-aware, so many unnamed themes, religion, incredibly Freudian, liberated sexual practices, not naming to go to the general case, ambiguous all the time, maybe those Nebula guys were smarter than we thought, soft SF, dystopia, evolution, the jungle, the strange beasts, the tendrils, far future, language, coming of age, Time For The Stars, across parsecs, she likes me, is it a telepathy book?, communicate emotionally, selfishly, Deanna Troi in Star Trek, she can read emotions, autists, the drug is the thing, other people on this planet love their children, a Scandinavia thing, that must be hard for them, handsy and cuddle, supernatural or a drug, they feel dirty, they’re so repressed, alcohol does that, the backlash to the backlash, and watch football, people get together and drink, ought they?, a religion and the laws, smuggling, what’s good and what isn’t, isn’t it interesting, visits the house, it’s a palace, insight into his character, kind of a failson, a Canon movie from the 80s, hires homeless Judd Nelson, this is a failson, he’s a slob, he’s the premise, The Prince And The Pauper, we’re following the prince, journey to an ashram, an embarrassment to his society and his brother, he’s a tourist, tourist/entrepreneur, he couldn’t give a fig, he’s sleazy, he has an agenda, he plays a long game on this guy, he’s interested in taking it and selling it, synthesize it back home, take him at his word, still sleazy, corrupting this other guy, not so hard on the judgement, Socrates corrupts the youth, after several centuries, ultimately positive, their covenant is everyone should be an introvert, not express things, people who can’t really be introverts, living in repressive Finland, fuck this country, live in Mexico and Brazil, they’re all skinny (show a lot of skin), no cachet with the natives, an equalizing thing, the I I I I I, too self-centered, what makes it a dystopia is that he didn’t like it, slobber them with kisses, in the middle, the correct way, someway between Norway and Brazil, America is not fucked up, perfectly combobulated, happy medium, goes to the other extreme, enantiodromia, even when not appropriate, I want to sit between the sexy enantiodromias she has, goodbye Paul, Radium Pool, funeral, Lowdown Road, The Terminal Man, part of Jurassic Park, Time-Line, limited number of ideas, The Andromeda Strain, very cold and very solid, Prey, a cut-off point, his first 6, John Lange, Drug Of Choice, fucked up rich people, one in Nice, and one in Spain, very literary, who he’s reading, radical hemispherectomy, ancestor of cyberpunk, Gilgamesh The King, 7 people for The Weirwoods, drug withdrawal/depression, friends with Will, he’s a communist, his politics seem to be very snarky/cynical, aren’t Kentucky and Arkansas the same place?, like to talk to people who have different ideas, strangely, a little exchange about Friend Island, funny, insightful, sparking full of ideas, invented the Futurians before the Futurians, Paul Michel, either a piece of shit or making fun of something, it has to be a comedy, as supposed to be funny as opposed to pathetic, one of the words, called out, Hell In The Village by John B. Michel, Farnsworth Wright, Von Juntz, Sixth Columnist, Heinlein, supposed to be terrible, clew, a Lovecraft sort of move, shew, shewed, he just patted the female elevator on the behind, German professor scientist with a beautiful daughter, Lovecraft is called out, having fun, 1942, war stories, Lovecraftian pulp parody with a war theme, so bad its good, Lovecraft is funny, where he’s doing Jesus, The Dunwich Horror is a comedy, you have to zoom out, Stuart Gordon adaptations, a dream written down, a lame awesome ending, think through an idea, Call Of Cthulhu, it’s Dracula with a dream monster, Lord Dunsany, Chu-Bu And Sheemish, vacation, ruins of a temple, the destruction of the temple, the timing works out perfectly, a very famous Lord Dunsany story, he read this story and wrote his own version of it, an artists studio crashing down, The Tree by Lovecraft is a murder mystery, a historical setting, mother of Tiberias, Augusts’ wife, a poison story, that guy read that story, an axe to grind about art, Lord Dunsany doesn’t have an axe to grind, has fun and makes pretty stuff, I’m going to prove that New York is a hellhole, half French, half translation into English, epub, the life of Lovecraft, an ongoing feud with Heinlein, politically correct, always this feud with Heinlein, Lovecraft dies in 1991, a euchrony and dischrony, centenarian, too soon, he took an incoherent position, the next six month will tell, when Stephen Colbert used to be funny, he no longer gives FU, keeps on moving the goalposts, you should be both emotionally hot and cold, authors complaining about bad reviews is so lame, pretty weird, you want to hear about negative reviews, let’s play nice, share your toys, hang up and shut up, used to be proud, reviewers are part of the same bubble, professional reviewers, people are doing it for free, SUV with two sunroofs, go to university to get a marketing degree, cosplaying her parent’s view of what reality should be, go study business, the consensus is don’t say that, the consensus is too soon, a censorship move, not the same when you say it in the moment, people went to see the movie, Aliens was so good, Alien 3, Sigourney Weaver go a paycheck, resonant with ideas, a sequel can in someways surpass, a footnote, read everything about it, the dealer has an agenda, the situation now, writers who never get any meaningful feedback, David Fincher, studio notes, writes the next thing, goes on for 16-20 books, Charles Stross, random indie writer, not writing in a vacuum, writing in this vacuum, interpret it, a second pair of eyes, a message in the bottle, if you like this sort, intimated before, Pauline Kael, everybody does it for free, you’re friends with the people you critique, scrappy new independent, friends of the authors giving good reviews to their friends and bad reviews to their enemies, Chris Sempter, Poe’s relationship with a rich couple, tutor the wife in her sonnets, a vanity book, tried to make a living as a writer, I’m Nathaniel Hawthorne, every book’s a flop, Mark Twain died poor, desperate for cash, puffery, aka saying good things about an author, a savage critic, Tomahawk Poe, An Enigma, an acrostic, On Sonnets, sonnets suck unless…, without that context, doing it as a kind of work for hire, acrimonious break up, Philip K. Dick kinda worse, writing again to ask you for money, can I borrow money, grateful but come on, as evidenced by Charles Stross’ latest book, Laundry Files, Singularity Sky, a guy wants to make a living, not have to fix fences or whatever, the lie about all these authors are making a living, Stephen King and J.L. Rowling, TV and movie rights, most people don’t read, not making production like they were, streaming now, ambient pictures, getting a real bad feeling, Mike Flanagan’s Fall Of The House Of Usher, what relation is it to the story?, self-sacrificing for Foundation, a fashion house?, fan service for Poe but it’s own thing, rich people living in expensive houses, Glass Onion and Knives Out, rich people talking to each other, Veep, the best of Veep, every joke there were not laughs, people insulting each other, what satire is, insults are satire?, Airplane! (1980) is a parody, West Wing is a fantasy, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are supposed to be satire but look like reality, a competence fantasy with insults, insults = funny, laugh track, Married With Children, shoe salesman is humiliating, things have changed, satire for dumb people, parody makes fun of fiction, satire makes fun of reality, maybe it is dead-on, the writing on TV is really dumb, HBO was supposed to be better than that, are there some people who don’t have a sense of humour?, a ladder, fart jokes make little kids laugh, very very liberal, reading the New York Times has Trump insult, too soon, attitude of superiority, a rich person who has never known any kind of tragedy, Fawlty Towers is about a guy who is very class conscious, the insults there backfire, how dumb are you humiliation humour, you’ve have to had had no tragedy, coming from a place of privileged, a level of disconnect, an actor playing a poor character, the other level of humour, you are a dumb redneck hick, being impolite = humour, it’s true he’s dumb that’s why it is so funny, social faux pas, elicits laughter, gives her license to insult other people, has the president called, she wants to be important, maybe I need to get some of this drug from this book, so unfunny, professional wrestling, do suplexes, kayfabe, opera for stupid people, it’s not a comedy, the heels and the babyfaces, ancient Asgard, the criticism that it’s fake, you know the planet where this takes place isn’t real, right Jesse, dumb humour, medium humour, smart humour, smart humour is dumb, Adam Sandler movies are very funny, not high level humour, became a money laundering scam, cardboard sets, they make movies to go on vacation, stopped caring, the next Jerry Lewis, the first man-child, the guy in Elf, Steve Carell, Some Like It Hot (1959), Marilyn Monroe, the theory of humour, a very dry sense of humour, the podcast proper, causes problems for people who don’t know its humour, puns, what a crustacean is to make a Red Lobster joke, a vocab joke, fart jokes don’t require language, you can laugh without having language, Marx Brothers, switched studios, slapstick, Groucho was the intellectual jokes, Harpo is silent, jokes, tricks, Duck Soup (1933), aiming for the bottom, the middle will watch anyway, highbrow and the lowbrow, with superheroes, this is going to dumb down cinema, people got bored, Dark Knight, dumbed up, For Your Eyes Only (1981), it’s the superhero formula, class based action sequencing, skiing, scuba-diving, car racing, drops the sophistication and keeps the supervillains, the key to any particular episode, Captain Nemo is the badguy, The Spy Who Loved Me, abandoned the book, the old formula, the scubacar, all fine, train scene, lacking the sense of humour, polite lewd jokes, something’s come up, somebody being trash, rubbish, the most recent James Bond movies are not funny, I’m interested in women style joke, humiliating James Bond, doesn’t work as an action formula, a feminist joke, James Bond represents the anti-feminist, on the right side of history, people don’t get humour anymore, the concept of humour, fear trumps humour, Ebu Gogo‘s goodreads reviews, anti-furry humor, making fun of furries, at the furries’ expense, endorsing the furry lifestyle, furry porn one star, rightfully feeling tricked, woefully misguided, a theory about vocab words and phrases, stole from Lovecraft, brain puppet, anti-furry propaganda, an axe to grind, something to say, misunderstood, misinterpreted, Aristotle’s Poetics, a comedy section, elaborate blackmail scheme, kicked him in the ribs, a flurry of kicks, a lot of puritanical people, nudity, sex, especially common in the united states, scared away from the cover, scare the wrong readers off, strategic placement, a version on LibriVox, some classic stuff, Lucian’s A True Story aka A True History, he’s a fucking furry, triggered by a word or an image, everything else falls away, going in your own head, an instinct, this smells like bullshit to me, are you just being an asshole, if you’re drawing from the text, throwing dirt on people’s heads, bad, too soon, rude, sounds like feelings, principles, strong ideas ground in something, getting facts wrong in your argument, designed to hurt somebody, Connor recorded an audiobook, Thule, coulda let it pass, you learn from pain, one little mistake, the critic who believed this was furry porn was correct, taking the wrong lesson is a fun way to go, instead of entering her, rummaging around the closet, dressed in a furry fox costume, furry gloves designed to looks like paws, kink shaming, exposing his hard cock, triggered, a white rabbit, put this one, wittle bunny wabbit, completely repulse, too x-rated for the show, they know how to pronounce them they don’t say them, a repression thing, you could elide it, six months later, that’s not my particular fetish, the 1 star reviews are more valuable, the wrong takes people have, the problem of everybody being a critic, open it wide, shilling puffery, paid in attention, working on projects that nobody cares about, a bigger version, slapped together for a student’s essay, get over your own ego it’s not that exciting, the Friend Island tweet, obvious context, an opportunity to jump in, too involved for twitter, explain copyright to me on twitter, finding out how to do it, literally trained, attracting somebody who would be interested, I like your content buy why are you so political, a firehose of what’s happening, some guy falling down, a generic example, people live in bubbles, Ray Nayler, columns, short stories, shat on for being out of touch, 87/88, after a certain point your best work is behind you, John Cowper Powys, I’m senile and I’m dying, out of the fiction business, quit before, Lawrence Block is still writing, typos, afterward, introduction, speaking of mental problems, Edward Wellen, Mind Slash Matter, a guy with dementia who is a script writer in Hollywood, apps and home computer, make him functional, a murder mystery, the detective doesn’t know what’s going, a brilliant idea for a book, a lot of the stories had to do with sound, the chemical warfare service during WWII, Mouthpiece, who shot you?, to mind map the character, an AI that comes alive Neuromancer-style, get revenge based on the murder, sparky as fuck, the early 1990s, trans-issues in the 1960s, Day Million by Frederik Pohl, Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, Douglas Adams, jaunting all over to different worlds, talking to an egg, the darkness, a little lighter to cleanse the palate, 8 minutes to read with your eyes,

On this day I want to tell you about, which will be about a thousand years from now, there were a boy, a girl and a love story.

Now although I haven’t said much so far, none of it is true. The boy was not what you and I would normally think of as a boy, because he was a hundred and eighty-seven years old. Nor was the girl a girl, for other reasons; and the love story did not entail that sublimation of the urge to rape and concurrent postponement of the instinct to submit which we at present understand in such matters. You won’t care much for this story if you don’t grasp these facts at once. If, however, you will make the effort, you’ll likely enough find it jam-packed, chockfull and tiptop-crammed with laughter, tears and poignant sentiment which may, or may not, be worth while. The reason the girl was not a girl was that she was a boy.

How angrily you recoil from the page! You say, who the hell wants to read about a pair of queers? Calm yourself. Here are no hot-breathing secrets of perversion for the coterie trade. In fact, if you were to see this girl, you would not guess that she was in any sense a boy. Breasts, two; vagina, one. Hips, Callipygean; face, hairless; supra-orbital lobes, non-existent. You would term her female at once, although it is true that you might wonder just what species she was a female of, being confused by the tail, the silky pelt or the gill slits behind each ear.

Blish has never been that good, The Abominable Earth Man, C.M. Kornbluth, with Playboy’s market in mind, that’s a sparky story, inoculation against the future, treating trans-people as people, dead no kids?, fair use clause, earlier in the year, Misha Burnett, editing an anthology is really hard, a learning curve, editor is a real job, the same mistake, saying no to my own book, servers on the Moon, servers in North Korea, the legal ability to say fuck you, a closed internet, commercial servers, get in good with Kim Jong Un, a movie industry, Saddam Hussein wrote fantasy novels, favourite deceased dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, maybe not so much with the plastic surgery, paid money to get married, highest standard of living to the lowest, an active propaganda campaign, occupation force from outside, not many North Korean refugees, what’s the difference bud?, refugee status, until your area is unflooded, fleeing the oppressive education system, causes kids to kill themselves, how bad it is there, this particular school district, next to Fort Lee, New Jersey, the George Washington Bridge, if it’s such a great country how come so many people are fleeing it, a lot of corruption, a state founded on corruption, also dynamic, the Irish, successful emigrant groups, forced out, what if that’s the goal, the English were interested in making the Irish successful, this is a class thing, an economics thing, Cuban refugees, that’s geography, there are airplanes, a push pull, Iraq refugees, Afghan refugees, mostly externalizes, we’re in the bomb making business, send them to Ukraine, cluster bombs, Central America, those places not being actively bombed, happy stories, we’re making a lot of refugees, here you’re told so much, the next generation of Americans, measuring engagement, creating engagement, tell me what you think about X Y and Z, when somebody is mad, Jesse is blackpilled, being realistic about what’s going on, things are escalating to war in the middle east, proxy war, heading towards a World War, six months from now please tell you your opinion, the Friedman thing, we’ll always know in six months, unfalsifiable, if Donald Trump became president that would be the end of democracy, democracy ended many years before that, corporations and the ultra-wealthy, what the founding fathers wanted, unfinished thought, good idea or great idea, this is falsifiable, 15 months from now, American troops on the ground in Israel, already troops on the ground in Ukraine and Israel, Americans have been killed, what number of casualties, there’s an election coming up, after the presidential election, lame duck, no matter who wins, American troops are going to war after the election, president Kamala has a plan, vice president Buttigieg has her back, when this podcast comes out in 7 months, laughing so hard, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, why Nixon picked Ford, tried to cheat and got caught, he won 49 states, put a bug in there, he wanted telepathy, two term successful president, a revered president, EPA, bullshit things people like, congressional veto, Ronald Reagan, totally drunk all the time, if Nixon calls you drunk, bugged his own office, slurring his words, mumbling incoherently, losing his stuff, some earlier piece of literature, claiming Silverberg rewriting Ayn Rand, Anthem, The Fountainhead, robotic and inhuman, Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, proto-SF, characterization is not good, to convert people to his ideology, Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach, she is the kulaks, she experienced some negativity, DRMd, written for the British, the terrible Russian civil war, mutinies in British Columbia, pro-labour, what was going on is Russia was a good thing, one of the atrocities, homes were built, people have housing?, build too much, hows the homelessness situation, doesn’t exist, homelessness situation in Vancouver, Los Angeles, so unaffordable, a Kuwaiti doctor, the housing exists, the power of a communist command economy, mitigation measures, a vacant housing [tax], that’s their solution, expropriate the land and build housing for poor people, all over Saudi Arabia, build a big building, commercial rather than residential, that was plausible at the time, how implausible it is now, a parody of Leave It To Beaver, a little cynical in the 1950s, those cynical guys would write Twilight Zones, project an image of America, homemakers, putting women back in the home, housing and schooling, the cream has successfully been drawn away from the cream-makers, they marry at 27, her life hasn’t really started yet either, secure enough to have kids, what can you afford, transgender surgery is free, what you can’t get done for free is housing, a mental contagion going on, remember bulimia and anorexia, strategies for getting thing, condemned by society, get skinny, doing bad things to your teeth, frowned upon, a fashion, now transgenderism is a fashion but officially sanctioned by every right thinking institution supports it, probably bad, people who want limbs or body parts removed, something fucked up, not exactly correct, pro-anasites, no such thing as water weight, all getting the same contagion, Matt Walsh documentary, don’t be mean to gays transferred that to anybody about anything, pro-furry, it’s comedy, just a fetish, ridiculous, a weird fetish, wanting to have sex with animals, fetishizing furryism, be nice to people, if you don’t support transgender people you’re causing their deaths, people often regret tattoos, the tattoo situation, tattoos don’t prevent you from having children, false consciousness, relatively non-invasive, a biker or a sailor, beards go in and out of fashion, those ear gauge things, an extra hole in your head, semi-reversible, taking someone’s penis away or cutting off boobs is radical change, shouldn’t be promoted even if allowable, solve an specific economic problem, state taking control of it, the whole gay marriage thing, I like living in sin with this dude, part of the attraction, they think it’s taboo, successful breeding babies, happy funeral.

A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #760 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #760 – The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Mike F. Smith (for LibriVox.org). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (3 hours, 17 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Bryan Alexander, Trish E. Matson, and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
1913, The Strand, republished, 199 pages, 3 hours and 15 minutes, what we might call a series, The Lost World, never even mention dinosaurs, does this book stand on its own, from a plot perspective, fall into the byplay, as characters, building on those characters, what character we needed, such a step down in terms of length, the mind blowing idea, discovered dinosaurs 3 years earlier, everybody dies, what challenger was doing, reverses all the damage he does, less potent thus less famous, the reception, invasion novels, village, how the rest of the world responds, golfers and babies, the end of the world, straight up, a giant stride being taken, the big setup, skull island, the plateau of Leng, Edgar Rice Burroughs, in Challenger’s wife’s boudoir, no action, the story as an idea, a request from publishers, more of that Challenger stuff, the adventures of these guys again, this story gets super-existential, I can’t report the news now, that old lady worrying about her stocks, in despair, we still have science!, all the roles that Conan Doyle is himself playing, aspects of his own personality, Sumerlee is the worst parts, Challenger is the guy who wants to be, Roxton is the manly man, the reversal, Aristotle’s unities, war imagery, corpses lying every which way on the ground, pseudocorpses, a gas attack, even more striking, propaganda operations, that’s where he got his, keeping up with the fairies, keeping up with everything topical, Danger!, England being attacked by an enemy using uboats, the spectre of death, War Of The Worlds, newspaper reports, telegrams, he wanted an [email protected] email address, clericals and anarchists, Paris has riots in the streets, racialism, the nigger at the beginning and the end, less complex societies, Sumatra, odious ideas of race, the pinnacle is all these people, after he bites his housemaid, a superman, making fun of challenger, short legs, the ride in on the traincar, doing a cockatoo, some rando, perfect for England in 1913, no colonies east of Sumatra, we peel around the world moving west, continues past England, eerily prescient, really poignant, layers of mediation, a snapshot of attitudes in this peak of colonialism, the Slovenians falling, the Teutons were slower to be affected, Doyle’s everybody here, could he have written this 20 years later, kinda stupid premise, ether is not a thing, ether has come back, Einstein, we don’t need this shit, you don’t need ether for the plot, a map of local interstellar space, a bubble of low density interstellar medium, pre-Einsteinian ether theory, cosmic particles, panspermia, what we’re looking at is not a gas, like the Force, allowing light to do its thing, it doesn’t make any sense, change the overall mixture, it can’t actually be a gas, the earth orbiting through this gas, diluting it, they wax papered the windows, A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber, a bucket of oxygen, a frozen gas vs. an etheral gas, echoes from this book, Brain Wave by Poul Anderson, supressed conductivity, a Vernor Vinge lift later as well, A Fire Upon The Deep, zones of thought, a sleeping field, the vocab word: catalepsy, I’m feeling cataleptic, can’t come into work today, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells, a social novel, clearly sentimental, the imagery is powerful, the comedy aspect, makes it gentle, John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos, that scale is so different, every woman on earth is now pregnant, The Day Of The Triffids, knocking up a whole world, hyper-personal, played by Brian Blessed, if fictional people can be reincarnated into real people, A Thousand Plateaus by Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, chapter tracks, a screaming thing, The Land Of The Mists, spiritually insane, 5% insane, luminiferous either, a spiritualist concept, observe as much as we can, if it exists, really?, takes it a priori, Lovecraft, water and salt, who he is and how, essential salts, materialism, too great a thing, three bucketfuls of water, ugly bags of mostly water, uses matter but is not of it, When The World Screamed, a Quatermass serial, a Doctor Who episode, Inferno, a Mirror, Mirror, evil UNIT, Brigadier has an eye-patch, like Spock, some other inventor, the Earth is a living organism, the crust of the Earth with the grapes, a wash to get of some virus or bacteria on the grapes, a line of 8 reapers, bloody golfers, machine metaphors, longing for simplification, early Christian apocalypse, Ragnarok, atomic bomb stories, after the bomb, Mad Max, 27 hours, makes a good play, its scope is much smaller, a total cop-out, just believe Challenger, all hold hands and become a better world, massive anarchist conspiracy, find people to blame it on, a prime target, lost a day, very controversial, personal reasons, hurts the stature, post-apocalyptic, not a plague, the policman standing up wakes up, traffic’s gone to shit, hard not to bring up Lovecraft, a science fiction story, field glasses, spot his housekeeper, a microscope, this microscope, this is wonderful, you can see for your self, and yet it moves sort of line, scientific method, emotionally interesting, existential, does my life have meaning, humour, Doyle’s such a good writer, everything flows so smoothly, our worthy Summerlee, mopping his heated brow, more easily condone, when my balance has been disturbed, one Sarah, so much classism, she is a woman of a sever and forbidding aspect, the royal we, alone at my breakfast, entertaining and instructive, imperturbability, upset a small vase, withdrawn the the study, I sank my teeth in the calf of her leg, ore herself free, some thoughts of an explanation, traveling very rapidly, is it illuminative?, pour this orange juice on his head, explaining the behavior, as you drink less alcohol, as you get older, restrain yourself, as your faculties go, laughter and impulsivity, rationalizing, this experiment is a good idea, so good, he’s become a monster, he bit her on the leg, use my rational mind, problems and issues, classism, rather horrified, loyal chauffeur, wryly sticks with the professor, such a domestic tyrant, they couldn’t appreciate it, we’re all going to die soon, while working on the engine, a common attitude, many rich people now, utter callousness, a natural progression, Sherpas are always missing when climbing Everest, Nepal, the last real town before Everest, a statue of Tenzing Norgay, without him Hillary wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, run 26 miles down hill, badass, Victorian, 18th century fiction, invisible servants, especially a British thing, French social novels of the 19th century, Russian novels, snapshot of the world in 1913, a maniac and a monster, we see this today, Kardashians, gigantic celebrity, talent on stage, staff was masked up, the science in here, the ether explanation, the ideas of what science is, pro-science stuff, what is this book about, what is a theme?, the hardest questions, you’re telling me I have to live, they don’t want to live in a world without…, you can’t published, you can find stuff out, the most stable idea, it isn’t the publication its the finding out, new things about reality, there’s still always going to be science, for science alone vs. life with him, some class stuff with the local guides, and racism, science is in many ways useless, too late to do anything about it, a Cassandra function, there’s delight, the future Earth will be repopulated, evolution is 100% true, a series of observations, predictions, errors, new observations, new predictions, very optimistic, horrific things happened and people were shocked for a while, Malone, feeble folk, like all the oft repeated truths, a lesson an actual experience was need to bring it home, still stunned by the suddenness of the blows, fires everywhere, one of the greatest tragedies, grim reading, her stocks! her stocks!, elide over millions are going to die, for the survivors, personally unaffected, wake up, a rictus grin, nobody died of dehydration, those people, COVID-19, awfully familiar, almost Lovecraftian, the abyss, how convenient, the engineers, this story is meaningless in a certain sense, what will not be forgotten, this revelation, ignorant self-complacency, what abysses may lie on the other side, all our emotions to-day, pushing the religion, explicit religious stuff, singing the hymn, that chastened effect, humility, a narcissistic element, we survived, a contradiction in the narrative stance, the only survivors, Huck Finn at his own funeral, headlines, DEAD LONDON!, The Star by H.G. Wells, almost exactly the same story, A Pail Of Air, a rogue planet, the new brotherhood, books and machines, a hint of this, cold last paragraph, Martian astronomers, Wells and Conan Doyle were really different people, you know why he didn’t get a sir, almost all his characters are monsters, imposing these things on people, often they get a comeuppance, The War Of The Worlds guy, their philosophies, The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, a really ambitious book, a bunch of child murders, aloof, The First Men In The Moon, Cavor is wonderful, suicidal, a cool romp?, sentimental, moved by it, convinced the whole world had died, where that leaves us, humanity being humbled, the amoeba doesn’t save anybody in this, the human future, out of space, this invasion from Mars, the most fruitful source of decadence, the conception of the commonweal of mankind, very Wellsian, Eric S. Rabkin, that’ll never be the case, damn that gets me, such a magnificent book, a Challenger adventure, he’s a great character, why is he so enthusiastic, reading old stuff does more than one thing, a picture of the society I live in, Fraunhofer lines, we can’t imagine this today, our tame scientist at the office, they have a scientist on staff, at the New York Times, maybe today, he don’t write a lot of articles, 5 people wrote them, daily newspapers, a list of experts they call up, just there to consult, be a Wikipedia and keep up with all that stuff, the golfers and the cricketers, pre-WWI Britain, a “tame scientist”, this had to have been true, these were going concerns, going through old newspapers, the topics covered, university level writing, mistakes, Lovecraft had a syndicated astronomy column across the USA, the local newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, the Province, 5 days a week, not doing Mondays anymore, the fonts are big, the end times for newspapers, Bryan’s new book, Universities On Fire by Bryan Alexander, the bleakest thing Bryan’s ever written, possible extinction, Scientific American used to be amazing, magazines are dead, retired teacher magazines are better than national general topic magazines, encouraging people to get vaccinated, insisted they didn’t need vaccination, the wackiness of Q Anon, silver colloidal treatments, oceans of scientific stuff, the evolution of Wikipedia on SARS, we have a stupider media, access to scientific material, mis and dis information, reading wrong stuff, getting indoctrinated by it, we lived through COVID in real time, the vaccine(s), distributed quickly, excited about the science aspect, prediction supposition, action, correction, new prediction, combined with the emotion, ring the bell, all four of the men, a very religious image, smart, how do you communicate with a whole lot of people, Doyle also makes a point, the churches had never been so packed, the end of Soylent Green, not slept in weeks, it’s people, a very similar kind of image, a utopia, golfing at the world’s end, keep golfing, a dystopian vision, a continuity, the bucolic English countryside, Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, Jane Austen, J.G. Ballard, pastoral, industrial, tamed nature, a lawn, feedstock for our machines, Kim Stanley Robinson’s The High Sierra: A Love Story, Switzerland, all about the hiking, under Mercury’s surface, Ministry Of The Future, catastrophes into eucatastrophes, he loves this environment, this landscape, lightly pissing on Yosemite, I hate Yosemite, The Comet by W.E.B. Du Bois, searching for other survivors, about to kiss, we have to procreate, only New Yorkers were killed, almost lynched, a cash reward, Pseudopod, another British writer, M.P. Shiel, the movie is pretty good, Harry Belafonte, The Purple Cloud, he just steals other people’s stuff, this is nothing like British Columbia, same story different location, different title, The Place Of Pain, a lens that allows you to see the Moon’s surface like no other telescope can, super-duper-liar, lifting and using ideas, The World, the Flesh And The Devil (1959), heavy-handed, Star Trek, bring back Jim Crow, the cyanogen scare of 1906, Cosmos, Carl Sagan, never explicated to any great degree, a lake in central Afica that had a burp and killed everybody around it, a Fortean style gas, a heavy gas, Lake Nyos in Cameroon, impeding in Salt Lake, invisible, the entire text, Z For Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien, we don’t know what happened to cause Jenny’s death, her funeral over zoom, they had just adopted a kid, Redonda, this guy’s really kill, this guy’s horrible, fun, a liar, it might be worse than that, Colin Wilson, Michael Moorcock, The Yellow Invasion, child molestation, everything about him is monstrous, his grift goes on and on, a kind of stature, a couple of handfuls of books from that period, palate cleanser, a lot of fun, very moving, done more with it, end of the world/British invasion stories, good writing, just as valuable for the context, if you’re interested in genre history, Francis Ford Coppola, an ongoing joke, roots in a lie, his dad ennobled him, his way of inveigling his way into the good graces of publishers, not occupiable, ESP and reincarnation, would you like to be a lord, a way of having a conversation with Vincent Price, Hollywood creepy, giant cosplay, Arthur Machen, Umberto Eco, another creepy guy, pedophiles out in the world, Sailing Alone Around The World by Joshua Slocum, not acting on best behavior, Jesse’s politics: pirates stabbing liches, Anne McCaffrey, Jesse can beat her ghost, live afraid, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, Gutenberg.org, a great story, 30 pages, about 45 minutes to read aloud, Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel, he is that guy, lost an eye and lost an arm, a portal fantasy, the story is very illustrative, intermural television, can it be done?, 1930, only 100 years off, Science & Invention, Dick Tracy’s two way radio, Metropolis by Thea von Harbou and her husband, contemporaneous with the making of the film, Alan Dean Foster, an amazing BBC radio drama adaptation, novelizations of movies based on novels, Philip K. Dick and Blade Runner, audiobooks of the damned, pirate audiobook narrations of novelizations, The Terminator, get inside Sarah Connor’s head, based on the script, Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Alien, fantastic, a stage adaptation of Aliens, a high school production, Sigourney Weaver in the audience, it stages really well, with film we don’t have to restage, refer people back to the original film, take care of that flood, rising tide, good book, Logan’s Run, Downward To Earth, Sixth Column, photography stuff, bud and stuff, hang out with Terence and see his beautiful southern France, abandoned lunatic asylum, changed it back, flash photography, photography takes practice, ghost hunters, flicker every so often, invite any spirit to play with it, arrange a card game with a couple of spirits, wild fun, the later end of Conan Doyle’s stuff, historical tours, hand hewn stone, 2nd biggest structure on Earth, built just before the Civil War, the rump state of Virginia, a Union unit seized all the money, ghost stories, the idea situation, a trash fire algorithm, the host with the most, do some Silverberg, life is really good, spoiled, choosing not to believe.

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #752 – READALONG: The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff

The SFFaudio Podcast
Jesse, Paul Weimer, Bryan Alexander, and Terence Blake discuss The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff

Talked about on today’s show:
Nice, France, 1939, The Cataclysm, Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder, Manuscript Found In A Bottle, Manuscript Found In A Fortune Cookie, The Little Red Bag, 10 years later, old science fiction magazine, I got one too, the genre conversation, The Cold Equations, Null-A, A. E. van Vogt, Null-B, Null-F, ripostes, William Tenn, decades later, two kinds of science fiction, hard and soft, what would make this hard SF, calculations, what is causing the moon to hit the earth, never explained, magnetic attraction, gravity, totally crazy, a really good book and enjoyable, gold and platinum, a bold claim, petroleum, oil and coal, fossil fuel, non-biological processes, more than one kind of coal, abiogenic oil, something inside the earth we don’t understand, don’t roll your eyes, Paul has a B.A. in biology, Jesse studied geology, Bryan studied literature, filled the ocean with gravel theory, the weather inst very effected, so he doesn’t suffocate, no Atlantic ocean, there’s no stream, merry old England, weather more like Calgary, central Siberia, where is the water gonna be taken up from?, desertification of Britain, the front framing, the Addis Ababa people dismissing this book, corrected grammar, making fun of his own writing, the Roald Dahl “corrections”, Skiffy And Fanty podcast, there was no conclusion, sidetrack, what about George Lucas and Star Wars, is that kosher?, whoever said that is a radical, the right to do so but probably shouldn’t, what they did to Shakespeare, for the sake of the children, the frame is active, poor broody, how cozy it is, movie script writer, if not in a time machine, The Dam Busters (1955), The Night My Number Came Up (1955), a flight from Hong Kong to Japan, some Wing Commander had a dream, Liberator vs. Dakota, a snowy coast of Japan near a lighthouse, Okinawa, a fantasy in a sense of the dream element, based on a true story, a prophetic dream that came true, WWII, Pat is him, senseless violence, this thing in the moon, upholding the British empire, they’re depending on us, the logic of empire, not a hard economics model, British foodstock, do they starve?, interwar fiction, interesting Janus face, armistice, War Minister, Jaeger, Bismark, no mention of Italian facists, no mention of German, Britain has its own slice, such a good social science fiction book, just imperialism, take this book as a setting, 700 years in the future, museum edition, fun steampunk, untapped resources for science fiction, a computer game with aircraft carrier, FMV cut-scenes, Crimson Skies, airship society, railroad across the moon, the seigniorial system, London townhouses, we’re in railroading time, again, we should shoot our foots off, both of them, fuck ourselves even more, and then everything will be fine, to serve the pride, no good politicians in this book, the prime minster who was good, mutual aid, looses his position, kinda Chamberlainy, we shall avoid award at all costs, Munich by Robert Harris, an interesting spin, a little England play, the narrative arc, more and more convinced, snide and disdainful, such a prat, masterful, he makes us sympathize, he’s above his station, I’m the man who won the chicken contest 17 times, he comes from nobility, retire from being a schoolteacher, telescopy and chickenbreeding, a foresight move, I’m fucked and these kids are gonna need some local neighbour and not so distant government, that’s your best resource?, bummin around london, burning her Vermeers, very bleak, very John Wyndham, very cozy catastrophe, the John Wyndham feel, how this impacted our little community, Invasion (Apple TV series), do not watch Foundation, the camera never pans up, slow, three authors are called out, Rudyard Kipling, good war material, H.G. Wells, the script for The Invisible Man, a different book than what you think it will be, a chicken farmer inordinately proud of himself, maybe gay, bachelor, sexual tension between him and Pat, indignant, he never objects to the uncle thing, strange distance, if it is like any book it is like The War Of The Worlds, so innovative, devastating and overturning, black or grey or brown horde, the colonized come back to colonize, everything rots up there in the rain, a really solid book, Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, The Wind And The Willows, adventures in your backyard, giant ocean liner in his backyard, a very H.G. Wells scene, let’s get ourselves into a war, such a flawed character, very much about government, admiring his government factory built car, they are communists in the most obvious sense, anarchist communists, money is not what motivates people, I need a cow and a bull, the hunting and the housework and the chickens and gardening, Brexit, England standing alone, we don’t need the empire, we don’t need Europe, they’re heroes, we don’t need anybody else, isn’t that the conclusion unless we take the very long view, Eric S. Rabkin, everyone is expelled from London, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, the Eden complex, London being quashed, Oxford, the end of empire?, the metropol, Britain is diminished, a tangible sign, a retreat from empire, Suez crisis, the empire is finished, countries that get a slice, countries that don’t get a piece, the Soviet Union gets nothing, taking the piss, the bankruptcy of a European centered world, they play no role in the book, the isolationist part, fight among europeans, the rebellion of the colonized peoples, religious, anti-white European lines, Blood And Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945 by Richard Overy, WWII as the last colonial war, sought colonial dominions, a very young Ho Chi Minh, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Michael Moorcock’s Land Leviathan novels, giant super-tank, Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein, a fascinating book, on archive.org, Islamic exploration quest, as from sio many science fiction pulp covers, the monkey book, Planet Of The Apes, the statue of liberty in ruins, what is that statue for?, Washington, D.C., Gustave Dore, a New Zealander visits the ruins of London, The Chrysalids, back to Frankenstein, the Byronic hero, Ruins Of Empires, hordes, that David Sirota movie Don’t Look Up, when Jesse reviewed that movie, “pretty good”, understatement, overstatement, not the greatest thinker ever, the central core of this movie, jockeying at the Moon club, the book proper, losing his money, losing his farm, telegraphed it very well, what is the theme of this book?, pride, excessive pride, almost every level, WWI is because of pride, what if you’re wrong about your level of quality?, who is responsible for WWI?, thrown into a duck pond, playing darts on Sundays, a very very good book, not the exact same tier as The War Of The Worlds, The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Challenger, Brian Blessed, focusing only on Sherlock Holmes, that very stupid man named Conan Doyle is really smart, he made those girls, chemicals that are poisonous to Earth, hard science, social science, later Doyle, melodrama and emotion, Challenger and his wife, a response to it, The Strand, Scoops, super-fun premises, a ton of books like this, Stowaway To Mars by John Wyndham, so cozy, so catastrophe, The Children Of The Damned, Village Of The Damned, the pertwee inspired series, Quatermass And The Pit, Nigel Kneale, in the wreckage of the 20th century, totally off the radar, a prejudice against stories set in a future that never was, immediately destroyed by history, no mention of WWII, not irrelevant, an amazing artifact, an amazing book, why it doesn’t stand shoulder to shoulder, American publishers, we love disasters, two days holiday to the Moon, emerging thing, cozy comfort SF, trying to understand it, it irks, Becky Chambers depresses Bryan, a cup of tea and a quilt, those cat mystery books, The Cat Who…[books], The Cats Who Walks Through Walls, how important tea is, coffee without milk, half the time, egg for tea, grammatical mistake, the university of Afghanistan, the society, the community of earth, another former British colony, Addis Ababa, a complete overturning, archaeologist, this place is uninhabitable, striking a match in the middle of the Sahara, the lack of the moon light ever night, light from that reflection, a pretty solid book, Robert Jackson Bennett, City Of Stairs, humbled, colonial oppressors, an investigator, gods afoot, colonialism and reverse colonialism, a society that’s repressed yours, Salim coming to humble, Selene, the moon is the liberator, Jesse’s on team moon: Smash that earth, the theory of the great replacement, not worth replacing those Brits, uninhabitable wastes of forests and wild dogs, climate change, a human response to a non-human event, climate change is caused by humans, agreeing to the science, giant corporations don’t play a role, layers of cynicism and suspicion, the newspaper account, making that up to calm us down, Bryan’s new book, Universities On Fire, John Hopkins University Press, Tantor Audio, Bryan’s previous book, Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, terrible remake, we’ve got this great Philip K. Dick, drill, come back with a can of gasoline, no good comes from people writing shit like that, conflates the issue, the reason this book has a moon crashing is it does something important, The Poison Belt, the introduction to this book, how could the moon actually hit the earth, gravitation aside, Space: 1999, Rocket Ship Galileo, how do you know the back of the moon exists?, a philosophical conversation, not impossible, Martians trying to destroy the Earth, our relationship to the moon and the earth distance, a cloud of interstellar gas, how long would it take?, at what density?, does the calculations, months or years, the Earth’s orbit around the sun, air at sea level, everything would be broken, the status of the moon separating from the earth, the moon is receding, friction of the tides, hopw do you know the moon and the tides are connected?, never mentioned, what is the effect of the tides on the water cycle, wind connected to the sun, the wind is a gas effected by the tides, would the level of oxygen go down in the ocean?, not a hard SF book, the earth’s long term well being, a sharp criticism of humans, heated roosts, raising chicken, light vs. heat, egg production, chickens can be disgusting, he’s done something on your shirt, his love for broody, the love story, the octopus teacher, a scruffy looking cockerel, the only thing available, prideful chicks, an incisive look into a person’s brains, what novels can do, what short stories are for, masterful, so H.G. Wells, hate his characters, silly, wisdom in his dumbness, science fiction as a cozy, do delivery of actual material, reading gothic horror, actual threats and danger, pulling punches, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), a stray planet collides with the earth, depressed by their lives, the conclusion is based on physics, emotional pain, staying home and not talking about what happens to London, Lovecraftian description of the Moon, he uses the word cozy, the life of uncle Henry and aunt Rose, being older, he chooses chickens, he makes a family, cultivate your garden, Jesse with his podcasts, Terence with his blog, Paul with his photography and reviews and gaming, such a dark book, a horror, his surrogate children, taking pride in your car, she’s a hero, his soul goes off, there is darkness here, 20th century British genre fiction, Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven, what we do when we know we only have the night to live, admire that Niven is a such a misanthrope, makes him incredibly incredibly human, the blinding of the human race, something we’ve been working on in the background, we can do it ourself, genetically augmented plants, hedonism, John Stuart Mill, going to shows, epicurean philosophy, what is missing?, no Bruce Willis going to blow up the moon, there’s no guns, becomes violent, played for laughs, that’s not a real problem, he’s ridiculous, the people in government, if I don’t win this war I might loose my seat as the prime minister, let people know how stupid they are, despite how he’s broken, they know he’s egocentric, don’t let him go, you can’t stop him, you have a choice, Eric S. Rabkin again, he’s probably not coming back, a failure of the oedipal romance, the Eden complex, there’s nothing productive, in the desert countries but not here, Threads (1984), the Hartnell years of Doctor Who, it’s teach people about history, they go to Skaro in the second serial, radiation and mutants, the radiation dial, radiation danger, its invisible, something we did something went wrong, why is my hair falling out, another part of Seveneves, two suggestions, Poison Belt, a mere 3 hours, LibriVox, The Angel Of The Odd by Edgar Allan Poe, one of his funniest, The Gift Of The Magi by O. Henry, makes total sense, Eric’s been married for 55 years, a very very old story, he’s choking up, of course that makes total sense, [Wilfred Owen], a crying ball of tears, revealing of character, a lecture on The War Of The Worlds, ‘she had counted me as I had counted her among the dead’, the Tom Cruise adaptation, this silly man who’s telling us this story, his own position in his limited society, Jean Luc Godard, Schindler’s List (1993), Life Is Beautiful (1997), grievous circumstances, most of their oppressors go on to live regular lives, The Act Of Killing (2012), a documentary, reenact, The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982), how did you do the killings, a repeated theme, Linda Hunt movie and Sigourney Weaver, The Killing Fields (1984), The Lack podcast, Benjamin Studebaker, Nina Power, a generative lack, Compact Magazine, a 15 minute essay, Freudian takes, labour history takes, really interesting, obscure movies, that is the central core message, the babies are missing, the fecundity aspect, because the egg, a personal recommendation, you get half, are these people richer than me?, fairly die hard, make time to listen to their show, fourth or fifth wave podcasting?, Terence’s videos on first paragraphs of philosophy books, Agent Swarm on YouTube, adblockers on everything, the Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, demonetized years ago, the first apocalypse, evil but water, they’ve added context, throwing it up as a podcast, Anchor FM, HYPER-THINKING THE ABSOLUTE, an AI transcription, Terence anti-Roald Dahled himself, floor to ceiling books everywhere, HD 4k, why Stalin was a megachad, young Stalin, would you let this bank robber into your house, profile people by their books, what are they hiding?, what are they doing?, get rid of books, a terrible feeling, phantom limb, limit the number of incoming paperbooks, kindle collection, its pure evil, we really need to focus on the government factory making the cars, Triumph and MG, they’re all government owned, British Leyland, Range Rover, overseas car industry, a planetary economy then, Brexit, the whole thing with Europe, sovereignist at every level, power and money hungry, that’s the way it is, the treatment of science, the treatment of censorship in the newspapers, the media, radio broadcasts, Conrad Black leaves Canada becomes a British Lord by buying a British newspaper, Lord Black of [Crossharbour], you’re a good old boy now, they all play along, Bezos/Musk, the New York Times owners, Jeff Bezos’s middle name, Preston!, call him by his middle, their nasty side, what did I do?, what have I done?, you will not be upset by reading it, worth the length, 11.5 hours, a very solid novel, a repetition of the same thing, people haven’t learned, avoidance behavior, it starts up all over again, you need the long first part of the book, would it be as gripping or meaningful?, back to Don’t Look Up, David Sirota, parallel thinking, following the same colonialist lines, the anti-science, a very Eric idea, born naked into the garden of Eden, a comedy, a serious topic, a parody vs. an indictment, criticism from both ends, it doesn’t nail the idea of a condemnation, people were reading Meryl Streep as Trump, the Steve Jobs like character, the unhelpful young people, the main lead, Leonardo DiCaprio, reactions, go cultivate the garden, Epicureans vs. go on the news, a delaying action, you’re fighting against the tide, she even forgot her son, a much better movie is 2012 (2009), When Worlds Collide, Edwin Balmer and his buddy [Philip Wylie], proles, plebs, arcs not dugouts, makes it personal, millions of falling buildings, the Y2K disasters, fancies, witchcraft, moral panics, Steven Baxter’s Flood, beyond climate change, Waterworld (1995), over time, a side-plot leads to the sequel, a relentless book, The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, C.J. Cherryh’s Morgaine novels, can’t recognize it as water, the data is coming into my eyes, I don’t have a symbol for that yet, why chickens?, the problem of induction, induction is a fallacy, the turkey is fed everyday, it had never happened before so it can never happen, alimentary, artisanal, with ten days food, none of this needed to happen, it’s about human nature, it’s bleak, contingency, lack of induction, moments of productivity and fecundity, a cozier world order, specif people grabbing for power, Churchill, he doesn’t think it is inevitable at all, through Pat, behind uncle’s back, he’s intoxicated, my forefathers were all military men, his sister says he’s getting fat, he’s a young, government mandate, the easy way to become an officer, wounded in WWI, he can’t be pro-war, an unnecessary stupid war, just pride, all the lies, how we got into that situation, David Hume like impossible event, other than the Black Hand, Germany was largely to blame, blank cheque, a great warlord, they’re responsible too, historiography, dive into this in great detail, the opposing view, Barbara Tuchman, send me back in time with a rile and I’ll work on this as best I can, what’s my job, to help the cogs or resist?, finding targets we hope are the right targets, what if we’re wrong?, so I can make the best decisions I can, a careful reader, what caused the Moon to fall, subtle about it, hard to recapture, civilization wide horror, until 1940, the Oxford pledge, WWII occludes, Neville Chamberlain is a fuckup, conventional wisdom got us to where we are now, form entangling alliances, some pickup team, book that Challenger book, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, deep into April, if a pile of gravel filled the North Atlantic, one land mass from British Columbia to Japan, the longest walk ever, a long train ride, from Los Angeles to Vladivostok by train, how many horse archers, how little water overspilled, Terence with two Rs, repeated letters, pirates, two fs and two rs, Arkansas, oversupplied, could’ve saved money, an extra vowel, I am to be, Cartesian, Rene Descartes is not the most popular character in the bible, meditation is a contranym, the Sam Harris style of meditation, handy, talking to young kids, that’s what I studied at university, philosophy is a history of all the mistakes people made about what is, some stuff about what’s pretty, not even wrong, broken from the beginning, eventually Benjamin Franklin doing some science, no snow in Nice, between 7 and 15, the Promenade des Anglais, is Terence’s wife French, the kids went to Australia, Melbourne, On The Beach, Connor Kaye, folk horror, art to illustrate the essays, he’s young, reading an old book, there are people out there that are interesting and interested, making only friends with old people, Jenny Colvin died [probably from her COVID vaccine], boom dead, had she not been in the hospital, Moderna or Pfizer, weird chemicals put into my body, a really good system, pushing it in the province super hard, not a week, Daniel Ellsberg, the pancreatic cancer, not going to do chemo, not with pancreatic, the height of the COVID hysteria, blood clots, the heart, still pushing them, one of the reactions, we’d adapt, becomes endemic, two kinds of corona viruses, flu and corona, made in a lab and leaked out, two competitors, everytime cells replicate there’s a chance of cancer, unless you’re a shark, tissues that are resistant to cancers, engineered a virus, standard government shit we should be on the lookout for it, the newspapers lying, we learn that it’s a lie, and we go for the next lie, they take it in but they don’t take it in, cozy reading, things that confirms, shakes you up, Ancient Apocalypse, Graham Hancock, something of value there, his theory is probably bad, the things he’s pointing to are interesting, Joe Rogan, when confronted, tell me more, we can make oil in a lab, spilled petroleum, a wacko theory, the heart is not a pump, no that’s impossible, that’s not allowed, what if we’re wrong?, being wrong with you beliefs, very bad logic, it wouldn’t shatter my world, I misremembered, somebody who sneaks in, woke up and had three legs, is this a dream?, we can do some fun stuff with this, as something as profoundly familiar, who’s that guy?, he has grey hair and he’s so fat, a question of principle, Erich Von Daniken, in terms of the particular culture, a message to the aliens, fakes evidence, lies, just on principle, wow, what does this mean, that’s science, the phenomenon he’s seeing, why not hot air balloons, I want aliens, a long time ago there was a disaster on the earth, civilization than we think, what archaeology finds, the older things get, somewhere in there, after the dinosaurs (probably), well before 6,000 years ago, rocks aligned to the stars, misreading, we got lots of books and computer games, folkdancing, no podcasts, labouring to get their food, they played a lot, I’m making a circle, what dudes do, maybe this will help us, why do bower birds build their bowers, hot air balloons are more likely than aliens, entirely possible using the tech that they had, dirt piles, we did that, Chariots Of The Gods?, people like dirt bikes, why not, all slaves theory, the slaves built the pyramids, concentrate enough capital, beautification projects, the dugouts, those really in the know knew five years before, the big reveal speech, the vicar, of no use at all, a little contradictory, levels of initiation, where they had an airplane stored, it worked great, everybody loved it, making coffee and fixing little wounds, comraderie with the lower classes, this common goal, enjoy your chicken coop, Jesse’s podcasts, Terence’s blogs, bond wherever you can, feel a bit superior, very prideful about this, on Jesse’s gravestone: the bird in The Raven is not a raven, its really there, old illustrations, does this guy know, a Reading, Short And Deep, The Road Not Taken, trusting, we go centuries reading, I think this bird is not a raven, reading Shakespeare, so sexualized, look at what he’s saying, literal asshole in her ass, the prudish high schools as 2023, the code is not very difficult to crack, The Tempest, fart jokes, the bark, lying under a gabardine, the witches, in Macbeth

First Witch. Where hast thou been, sister?

Second Witch. Killing swine.

Third Witch. Sister, where thou?

First Witch. A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d:—
‘Give me,’ quoth I:
‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.

Second Witch. I’ll give thee a wind.

First Witch. Thou’rt kind.

Third Witch. And I another.

First Witch. I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I’ the shipman’s card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se’nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.

Poe: likes dead ladies, a relationship with alcohol, Shakespeare: fart jokes, sex jokes, the Christian brothers didn’t point it out, playing to the absolute base, they don’t have to change his words like Roald Dahl, King Lear, there’s grass there on the verge, killing curiosity, making it dumb, Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron, I don’t like his satire, he pointed out in the world, mental continuity broke it down, what’s happening today, newly dated place, look at this, banned from one of them, the mound builders, peer review is the worst thing that ever happened to science, a big circle jerk, electricity from lighting bolts, this Asimov science book, the heliocentric hypothesis, Galileo, Copernicus, obliged to put in his own epicycles, a rule of thumb attitude, string theory being a big waste of time, in trouble, somebody’s lying, no evidence, due for some reexamination, interesting observations and claim, dark matter, dark energy, fucking epicycles on the grandest scale, great for making money, 16th time they put the flying car on the cover, doing math for physics, build more colliders, Sabine Hossenfelder, the end of science, really really abstract theories, higher energy cyclotrons, more abstract than before, Eric Weinstein, UFO bullshit, wasting money and wasting time, sucking their own dicks, Michio Kaku, formally equivalent, given what we know about Galileo’s instruments, persuasive and convincing, holy fuck he was right, confirmation by little effects, the beauty of the thing that’s important, money and fame, that’s just capitalism, science used to be the hobby of rich dudes with lots of free time, I mostly like thinking about lightning, they make the disease, the make the cure for the disease, they control the government and make you have to take it, being retired but fairly wealthy, a schoolteacher, retired at 47, you need time, breed prize hens, willing to buy a telescope, lectures from people who used a telescope, what happens if you do that, listen to the guy who read about a microscope, time, money, curiosity, people are going for the money, pride, the ass-licking to succeed, university professors are never surprised so many of their students, what’s wrong with me, some memorization, kids don’t have much time with their teacher, become a good writer, grammatical sentences, count the mistakes and subtract from the A, the psychology of the teacher as somebody who is overworked, add some humour, make a little joke, stands out, write shorter paragraphs, do something great for the introduction, terrible teachers out there, they’re getting worse, a new curriculum in British Columbia, land expropriated by Canada, having lost all of Alberta, bulldozing Indian land, feel bad for them, competing narrative, studying natives, first nations is the most popular pc term, your job is to go to this website, the teachers getting the kid to do the homework, a flood of this stuff, an Indian teacher who’s an Indian, a whole new industry starting up, first cars coming out of the factory are shit, skip a meal every few weeks, retired but doing other things, covid devastated in person tutoring, asthma, distance education, online teaching is terrible, teaching on an empty ritual, oof, terminal classes, tell them stuff and they laugh, trying to engage students with ideas, the more students you add the harder it is, the more you add the worse it is, science students who could hack, roblox, you make your own games, a Doctor Who thread, 68 and two thirds, Oh Doctor, you’re so gay, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, good as a concept, twisted and morbid, The Last Of Us, scary fungus things, zombies aren’t scary, but blind fungus zombies are scary (probably), pretty good, The Peripheral, the end is silly, fit all the novel in (sort of), second series, a comic William Gibson did [Archangel], Gattaca, The Man In The High Castle, a book is not a film, the show is churn, the way Harry Potter is constructed, Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton, archive.org, Keys Of Marinus, each episode in this serial is standalone, beautiful silk, gorgeous cup vs. dirty old mug, Jesse’s obsessed with A Wrinkle In Time, E=mc², hot garbage, a Robert Silverberg novel, alien elephants, Downward To Earth, audiobook, Dying Inside, I’ve got a big stack of them in the basement, Passengers, The Book Of Skulls, The Poison Belt, big format, library genesis, good pirate, so many other sources, maybe Christmas in Australia, one r in Terence.

Virgil Finlay, 1964 - R.C. Sherriff's The Hopkins Manuscript

The Hopkins Manuscript

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!