France – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #895 – READALONG: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about Timeline by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
1999 novel, a very chonky book, 464 pages, Congo?, this genre of Crichton, John Lange, a lot of success, Stephen King syndrome, a writing machine, weird psychological stuff, powerful books, drinking, cocaine, a stern talking to, a post-Jurassic Park book, went forward, The Andromeda Strain, a great novel and a very good movie, Eaters Of The Dead, A Knight’s Tale, electric guitar jousting, they look pretty similar, pale versions of Neo from The Matrix, remember it fondly, rock music, condensed it in many ways, 36 hours, cut out a lot, weird changes, trivia wise, the movie that broke Michael Crichton, rolling over for every Jurassic World movie, Jesse doesn’t believe in spoilers, making the French the good guys, Lady Claire, less of a complete shitbag, you’re the special one that I love, she sleeps with the abbot, apparently that works out, a woman worth abandoning your timeline for, projecting, a very Michael Crichton, the protagonist of the fictional text woven into the Lucasarts Tie Fighter game, X-Wing, collector’s manual, in my bedroom, study up, Star Wars novel, secret conspiracy with the emperor, Crichton’s brain, the Elephant, Joseph Merrick, the most cool things, too many characters, some other handsome guys, villainous guys, a Scottish guy, a good cast, the girl, looks sweaty, rock climbing, caving, a big unweildly book, really cool stuff in it, Cricthon’s outsider science fiction status, Asimov of H.G. Wells, King Solomon’s Mines, War Of The Worlds, The Terminal ~~Experiment~~ Man, Frankenstein, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, literally starts the same, suddenly a knight charged at me with a lance, that’s not a science fiction novel, getting the facts right, mythological space, tons of fuckin research, the 100 years war, necessary for Crichton, just French and English, a few subtitles, wave away the language problem, really good excuse, suddenly communicate, Occitan, prot-southern French, standardized post-Napoleon, regional thing, more confederated, the official French dictionary, Quebec, lots and lots of castles, a lot of renactors, French speakers, woodsy Canadian, Eaters Of The Dead, armour looked pretty good, all fine, Castlegar, two houses somewhere, a real budget, the script, why movies work (popular or not), viking barbarian land, a smaller scale setting, dozens, one magnetic character, Paul Walker, fun to watch, part 10 or whatever, so American it’s shocking, Billy Connolly, the most California guy to ever live, so blank, not designed to be a movie, a treatment for a film, a bastard sword, so many things going on in it, 7 characters?, trying to do a lot, the whole universe explanation for it, this mystery, the guy in the desert, never explain, yes they don’t, the flaw that they missed, what’s wrong with the book, it’s a criticism of the new tech bros that are comin, the Elon Musks, as opposed to governments, zany experimenters, all corporate now, corporate criticism, he’s like the facebook guy, he’s like a Zuckerberg, they want to kill him, the book feels colder, the evil megacorporation, definitely a jerk, master race, not yet, in that direction, hints at some of that, we’re gonna have to kill you now, why does he do that, prevent a pr disaster, we need him to die, it gives us catharsis, the catharsis for the film, like Gomez, immediately beheaded, bubonic plague, loves history, science, medicine, combines all of these things together, Travels, astral projection, he’s not a druggie, breathing exercises, accessing inaccessible parts of experience, weird tricks, weird weird guy that’s supersmart and now dead, Arizona, France, Eruption, Vulcan, marketing at train stations and airports, all Dean Koontz titles are like this, all the same, you have to make it dumber, a Star Trek book, we have to fix it, this concept, instead of doing as a playful satire, quantum shit, it’s not novel, he’s doing that sort of work, not basing it on the golden age 50s stuff, he seems to have no interest in it, not everything that Wells wrote was science fiction, creating it independently, hit the same checkpoints, checkboxes, this mode of science fiction, infodumping, Jesse loves Ringworld, flicked into existence, the same idea, talking to an alien, big dumb object, all about sex, a sex companion, Teela Brown, Nessus gay sex?, Speaker, females are non-sentient, weird drives, very silly, the human characters, Merrick, the only intriguing character in the book, screen time, that’s what’s wrong with the book, cool ideas, well developed, stuff happening, when you go back in time, a first person one guy story, here’s my story, sidetracks himself, a double text, interspersed, thins was bullshit, we can become annoyed and like that annoyance, the found document with a frame narrative, you gotta get them out of your system, everything worked that day, not every souffle, different ingredients every time, don’t change a thing, keep experimenting, more of that, what most readers want, give it to me again just like you gave it to me before, BBC piece from the 70s or 60s, 38 women live in this council house and all begin their day by shaving, down to a formula, that little doc, how poor these authors are, ladies go to the library and borrow the books, the dustman, the library’s fault, disposable books, more different, stretch you legs, good ideas and a noble failure, all the action, none of them are essential, not core, better Crichton books out there, way better, lost city in the jungle adventure, dropping people in the middle ages, too much flashing back to the company in the desert, no fucking idea how their technology works, how any of this works, shooting in the dark, you don’t know how any of this works, that’s all cool, drop it for the movie, one place and time, too much time back in the office, stuff’s happening, escaping across the rafters, each of the modern characters, important later, she was brought in to clamber over the ruins, practice our longbow skills, a good setup, it doesn’t gel, fine but forgetable, a fun character, a terrible person, the scene with the abbott, a surprise, she’s the one that comes out, not a faker, the opposite of Crichton is L. Ron Hubbard, a writing machine, gimme a picture I’ll write to that, John W. Campbell, things that he’s gonna be writing about, the sci-fi magic wand, completely accurate, Harry Stubbs, Hal Clement, Jerry Pournelle, what if there was a world that had this gravity, Mission Of Gravity, heavy gravity planet, shaped like centipedes, how would your existence be shaped, Flatland, essay?, text, going with an idea, competent characterization, infodump is important, a 15 hour book, about to do the time travel now, quantum foamy book for the first five hours, understanding what the concepts are, the transcription errors, why the badguy can’t get home, bones are misaligned, his arteries don’t line up, go to see the cat, body horror, nose tissue, a third eye, much better handled, the reveal, touched on twice, mishandled, maybe there’s a third guy from the past, no hint, hey pal, a real plot point, the facial scar, a transcription error, a very cool idea, you could do the story without it, makes the book bigger, more interesting, we’re destroying these people, very calm about everything, the tech guy, he’s Crichton, helping us along, how and why things are happening, will the glue hold, what about these water cracks, a pistol?, so the equipment can be destroyed, feels like a puzzle, mashing pieces together to make it fit, it has transcription errors, the book is flawed, it has a schism, the bad guy, Dekker made French, their version of the story, a year earlier, repair the damage, a lot of speeches given, trying hard to do a good book, it just didn’t really land, cool ideas in it, Sphere as an abridged audiobook, reset the timeline so none of the book happens, when did it start going wrong?, intermixed, they’re Epstein people, asshole fuckheads full of arrogance, the experience is bad, raw and talented, super into literature, all classical, ancient scientists, enlightenment era scientists, the list, Jurassic Park, is it good? a great movie, a very good book, the sequel, as a book is really good, 1990, a big gap, 1966, how early he started, late 80s early 90s kind of guy, 1976, The Great Train Robbery, his 1970 novel Drug Of Choice aka Overkill, fake vacations, real vacations, scuba diving, but why?, he likes scuba diving, almost died scuba diving one time, an incredible urge to have sex, he would write it, your sister might read the book, an interesting phenomenon, it’s about interesting phenomenon, flaky new age guy, best explain them, salacious details, living with a girl on the beach, fourth breakup, reset, really strange experience where the cactus was talking to me, evil corporation, giving them diets, fat reduction, Ozempic, helps you stop smoking too, the addiction of eating, the pleasure response of food, the circumstances you’re in are wonderful, everything is wonderful, under a hypnotic state under the drug, really bad food, you fall down, you got that in a tennis match, anything you’re suggested becomes your experience, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, the vacation is in realtime, that would be a way better movie than this, double framing, why is there pain involved?, because film, grimacing into a windmachine, you’re being destroyed, they don’t destroy them in the movie, it’s not even a science fiction movie because they just don’t care, why he didn’t like it, Coma by Robin Cook, organ harvesting, a conspiracy thriller from the 70s, Robert Wise did The Andromeda Strain, John McTiernan, a lot shorter, what went wrong?, a book that works, Rising Sun, weird relationship in the 80s with Japan, their population, all of that came to nothing, a love and fascination and a hate and a fear, not that important, Canada, not super important, they’re treating it like England, except culturally, samurai movies, cars, an economic fear, trends continuing on, Japan will own everything, a samurai comes in to fight RoboCop, that fits the trend, a lot sexier, a high school kid, nostalgic for things that happened before I’m born, adventure stories, an evil corporation, murder prostitutes, weird Japanese sex fetishes, sexual harassment in the workplace, we talked about Airframe, only the Crichtony bits, corporate espionage, expecting it, I know how this is going to go, he’s losing it there, Pirate Latitudes, why wasn’t it published?, whatever happened to him went wrong, State Of Fear, people around the world, still afraid of climate change the way they were programmed to be, the biggest climate change disaster in human history, they don’t actually care, why are we pretending to care, people hate that book, go to Bluesky, a hate for Michael Crichton, what that argument might be, worked in a library, service hours for something, the item list, somebody has to go find that book on the shelf, once a week, 90 books that have been requested, the Dewey decimal system, so many interesting books, a half dozen books, read a lot, in that period, not Prey, 2002, he got mad about climate change, allow him to rant about it, him wanting a forum, if he had a blog, contracted to write a novel, Next, genetic engineering book, horrible oversized paperback, narrower and taller, Dragon Teeth, Micro, Richard Preston, A Murder In Hollywood, an excerpt from Scratch One, Stag Annual, spy book, Grand Prix, Monaco, James Bondy, except for that one, Easy Go, the Egyptian one, Binary, Man’s World, December 1970, the death divers, Pollen or somebody, Norem, somethin to see, how to decide, dinosaur fossil hunting in the old west, other people’s hands on it, it should be good, even him touching stuff, a few left to read, a really good movie, that happens a lot, 3.5 quarters, it didn’t improve the experience of either, very-mid, definitely a movie, technically a film, it’s not awful, they tried, perfectly fine, it doesn’t hold together, he didn’t get to use Sean Connery again, experienced Sean Connery, he directed a movie, it could have been a novel, Looker (1981), Runaway with Tom Selleck, Physical Evidence (1989) starring Burt Reynolds, Theresa Russel, Ned Beatty, well executed, extremely a heist movie, the sexual jokes, very 70s, Donald Sutherland is great in that movie, nobody talks about Looker, Albert Finney, James Coburn, Susan Dey, a scanning machine, 3d models, 3d actors, tastefully #StrategicPlacement, the transcription error, a portable version of this, a hand scanner, 3d printing now, very awesome cool technology, without their consent, a hypnotic effect, plastic surgeon, reusing that idea, that’d be a fuckin awesome book, a book about a theme park, deep dark May, some kind of a trip, in-laws in Arkansas, Virginia, that’s what I got a wife for, absolutely true, they know when anniversaries are, birthdays, caring about that stuff, important for social relations, I need to send the book out on time, The Great Impersonation, how awesome it is to have so many good Simak novels still to read, a writer passed his prime, a Wizard of Oz setup, the past, another dimension, The Visitors, giant big black slabs show up in the sky, 2001: Monoliths, small town Minnesota, they start eating the trees, the cellulose like poor, food for their babies, eating cars, then found in fields, new cars that never break down, ingest a person, some houses, free houses, all built in somehow, magic, not supposed to be magic, high tech, aliens, the final scene, newspaper editor hero, what should be published about what’s going on with these alien visitors, a house out in the woods, shadows inside, people inside, part of the aliens, super suggestive, early 80s, Ring Around The Sun, free homes, super-cheap, the forever car, economic disruption in the United States, a threat in the 50s, by the 80s, Japanese cars, the 70s in fact, super-sensitive, rural America, an experience about human relations, so valuable, oh boy I get another Simak, disturbed, food for thought, Hard Case Crime, they definitely exist, Blackstone just republished them with terrible covers, one of them’s a recycled, next week.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #889 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Travels With A Donkey In The Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

The SFFaudio Podcast #889 – Travels With A Donkey In The Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (3 hours 51 minutes) read by Patrick Wallace for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion are Jesse and Maissa Bessada

Talked about on today’s show:
1879, blanked out on the Cévennes part, a CBC ideas, travel writing, a Mark Twain, couldn’t do the show, abandoned the book, sad sad story, travel literature, living in Egypt for two years, everything is different, letters home, describing what’s happening, bringing up baby, Bringing Up Baby (1938), exaggerate a little bit, Travels by Michael Crichton, private about a lot of the stuff, public about a lot of the stuff, travels with his sister, before he died, a bunch of things that happened to him, picked from earlier and later things, his parents, what income bracket they’re in, guessing, early stuff is all travel stuff, exotic locations, Spain, very good writer, extraordinarily thing to write down, scuba diving, the bends, not enough air, lucky to be alive, I had to resist that quite strongly, an incredible thing to say, in the desert, elide the relationship, some movie start, a spiritual retreat or something, not a super-spiritual guy, nobody understands, profound effects, hike Kilimanjaro, tall, weird, super-smart, a wealthy background, might have been CIA, lot of people’s dads were CIA it turns out, more like a memoir, not exactly travel, being in medical school, attitudes towards corpses, young horny guys who think they are able to cure all diseases, resisting that, The Terminal Man, writing on the side, instead of being a doctor, more of his stuff, that’s definitely true about him, travel incident, Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonia Express, Eric Idle, travel writing, A Year Off by H.P. Lovecraft, does this sound familiar, a grand tour, really?, a travel guy, so expensive to travel, it fits, the poetry of it, over the top, he’s so cheap, he’s a dreamer, the dream, an inheritance, a small budget, Let’s Go Europe, Let’s Go Central America, a cheap place to eat, you’ve got to if you can, travel broadens the mind, going everywhere, much cheaper: read about those places, we don’t always agree on everything, animal abuse, I’ve made Modestine my slave, it has to have been, he’s much softer that the average person, he felt guilty, he’s in love with her, he had the good manners to cry about it as he’s selling her, wait a minute, I’ll cry now, a new boss, locked herself out of the school, she had her bible group there, a rumor about Jesse, show a student something inappropriate, wallpaper, Mort Kuntsler painting, no nudity, a painting of a woman, offended a student years ago, Predator (1987), just 3 years older than me, go down the street to the bookstore and read the novelization, books don’t have literary restrictions on them the way games do, in this book there’s a scene where Robert Louis Stevenson after a cow, he calls them sluts, referring to Modestine, her faults are based on her race and sex, it’s hilarious, disparages women left right and center, a word for female women, [wench], other than a physical journey, a lot of religion, the least religious parts, going through time, donkey pilled, donkeys are cool, cat pilled, dog pilled, a she ass, a jenny would be the right word, jack and jenny, second in his estimation, even though the wife can read and the husband can’t, they’re inferior, second class citizens if even citizens, up and down stuff, catholic vs. protestant, non-christianness vs. christianness, geopolitical landscape, I’m a lame woman who can’t get out of bed, go next door, it’s like time travel, he’s alive while we’re reading the book, casual sexual partners, a woman with low standards of cleanliness, going into a monastery, not converting, very reasonable, finest set of wrinkles on her face, we won’t meet again because I’ll be dead, my man is completely ignorant of everything, these are all real encounters, shades of his interpretation, just 12 days, felt like months, the audiobook not in the original, it doesn’t fit the book very well, it is not the journey, and now the book is starting, reading with your eyes vs. reading with your ears, following characters, from moment to moment, a section that really caught me, some thoughts are the most beautiful things and then they vanish, wow I love that, so beautiful, “vanish”, more deeply, an atmosphere of pleasure, so disposed my spirit, in another country, in a different time, done me good, scan their features, a god travelling by our green highways, ope, the lighter about our business, I dined with a pair of Catholics, captivated by him, the one that everybody knows, Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde, a guy who’s one guy who’s two guys, transforms like The Hulk, all the superhero stories are derived from older stuff, nothing that isn’t, Silver Surfer, Galactus is god, Spider-Man, Superman is the most simple, he has no characteristics, he’s from space, his wife didn’t like it, he threw it in the fire, you could have fixed it, he wrote it again, the sparks of his wife, it was supposed to be a surprise, go in with no spoilers, The Sixth Sense (1999), oh he’s a ghost, not art films, fell asleep while watching the movie, the little boy’s saying: I see dead people, Bruce Willis and the kid, it’s dark, slow paced, a build up, the whole point of the movie, so heavily on the twist being the thing that makes it good, you know who the hulk is right away, the origin story is just to get to the thing, unassuming New Yorker, tension there, with great power comes great responsibility, they’re the same guy, that was the sensation of the book, doing something nobody had really done before, reading Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat, axes his wife and burns down the house, The Tell-Tale Heart, murders in the domestic sphere, it’s a parody, he’s making fun of something, a guy who drinks too much, out of perversity he kills his cat, the cat comes back the very next day, a curious colouration, who owns this cat, he kills the cat a second time, that’s the question: why does all this stuff happen, you drink too much, it’s about teetotalling, what is The Tell-Tale Heart about?, feeling so guilty, the narrator, he’s so upset about what he’s done, he’s hearing the heart under the floorboards, a powerful piece, we interpret him at the end, they can hear the sound of the beating heart under the floorboards, nervous very dreadfully nervous, the hidden thing inside of Poe, late last year, it’s about his adopted father, disowned him, John Allan, Poe and his older brother, orphaned, father disappeared, mother died, this one child, they broke up the kids, explains so much, of this famous actor pair, stage actors, adopted mother who loved him, was jealous of him?, win back their relationship, the richest guy, fucking around with Poe, Poe was a handful, a lot of stress, a great artist, I have to be forgiving, a professional writer, they traveled to Scotland when he was a child, early 19th century, wouldn’t fund his education, gambling debts, why the psychology is so awesome, he has massive passions, gave nothi9ng to Poe, his illegitimate children, enmity, some trauma, The Cask Of Amontillado, revenge for something never stated, people’s interpretation, all coming from the personal, hwy he’s going anywhere, an affair with a married woman, trying to walk it off, still living with his parents, get some life experience, Fanny Osborne, adopted the son, Jack London revered Robert Louis Stevenson, makes total sense, Jerry Of The Islands, Call Of The wild but in the South Pacific with a Terrier, boat life, Brother Of Jerry, a Pacific guy, Japan’s invasion of Korea, massive success, big career, very short, Wolf ranch, he buys a boat, many other science fiction stories, he goes to where RLS is buried, Tahiti/Samoa, traveling for his longs, a weak constitution, consumption, photos of him old, 44, brain hemorrhage, a lot of coughing, not good for ya, he wrote a ton, a few famous things, A Child’s Garden Of Verse, age 7, young man, wearing a fez, huge 20 hour biography, précis it, Requiem, by Robert A. Heinlein, the starry sky, poetry of them, almost the people were the problem, sleeping inside, outside with his stars, oh here’s the desk, we don’t use it, the horror of this book, causing so much strife, strife between people, an ultra-right wing, crazy woke leftist, not religious at least in clothing, 1 protestant region, a lot of governesses, their religions are compatible, peaceably together, exporting their people, the means of dividing people, the one paradigm, things are happening in the world, that guy is a demon, he’s just demonic, doing demonic things, if you literalize things too much it clouds your thinking, the way to escape this, alternative points of view, not hiding things from your kids, not allowed to DM any more, keeps kids out of trouble, creates love of vocabulary and reading, positive things, explore morality in ways that are safe, ruinous, never lie to them, tell the kids about stuff, etymology, pencil, pen, peninsula, a male body part, that’s the root of it, penne pasta, it is cool, whenever we’re talking about vocabulary, not bird or bark, metaphor roots, understand, misunderstand, not as things to memorize, a list of SAT words, not designed to last, inscribed, cut into written into, epitaph, euphemism, Phemie’s not a name, well spoken, a name from 6000 years ago, number one and number, I gotta go, misinterpret, the word piss pisses people off, the letter, the letter p has now become a word, caca, don’t mention the t word, the trump word, manupulae comprehension, banning words, banning speech, correcting people’s speech, without censorship, the word “nigger”, the offensive word, changed it, censorship is a kind of manipulation and control of people, a good person in a weird time, in the religion discussions, changing words for other words, that was beautiful, he’s insightful, I learned a lot about a dead donkey, her and her personality, she’as pretending it is too heavy, giver her a switch, times in the book where she’s running, approaching something, sharing his meals with her, not just master and slave, words in the book, horses react to spurs, that’s why spurs exist, give it the heel, the programming that you want to communicate, they enjoy running, if Will were here, girls love being chased more than boys love being chased, little girls, “chase me”, why?, boys want to hit each other with sticks, jungle gym, jumping over rivulets, not going to disagree, it’s built in, knows how to stand up, books allow us to communicate not just by modelling our parent’s but with the ancients through codexes, naughty girls, in the context of it, tripwires for people, how much has things changed, I have a goad!, a pinpricking stick, that’ll make it go, almost nobody rides horses anymore, a famous streamer shocking his dog, shock collar, it wasn’t, it’s not a shock collar!, to stay on the bed, part of the set, a very horrible person, those shock collars are legal, enough pressure, relatively unpowerful, animal abuse, shocking part, for training, prevent them from doing damage with their teeth, contemptible, dogs are tools, protection for our animals, comfort creatures, we are in a strange relationship with animals, 1878, definitely different, haven’t touched a real animal, Alex (Cirsova), the farm animal part of the zoo was the most popular, books about cows and pigs and chickens, that screen, a farm in the middle of Toronto, kids want to see these things, we live in light pollution, behind screens, screens and screens and screens, a donkey braying, go to the feed store and pet the cat, we need to and we don’t, most of them don’t have pets, most people didn’t have pets until the 20th century, menageries, a collection of pets, Poe in The Black Cat, monkey, birds, a cat, an attack on teetotalling, drinking is bad, the love of animals, central, cat moms, fur babies, a little overboard, oh yeah, Cévennes, not super far from Spain, what we know about the world, only partially correct, French wasn’t one language for a thousand years, small languages that came together, English has changed significantly in that same time frame, England invaded by the French, Norman French, right near Paris, the borderlands, North of Nice, more towards Andorra, a country between Spain and France, a valley, a little valley, kinda related, the first modern nation state, the borders of France as they are today, let’s get everybody on the same system, meterize gods, the god of justice, the French Revolution, a pretty simple language, a funny thing early on in the book, in the Scottish, answer a question with a question, a hippopotamus or a alligator, I just need to know where I’m going, the water your swimming in, the people of Quebec, still a colony, evolved somewhat, old France, not wholly frozen in time, a time capsule, a colony cut off from the empire, when they import French teachers to be their tutors, also twice removed, the Acadians, regular French, the accent’s going to be different, the culture, an effort to rationalize French, that French rationalization was much harsher, a fashion to add new words all the time, kids fighting against that, the official discipline of it is pretty strong, recreate his his journey, the prequel part, floundering, the kind of book you need to be with it, nice and short, more and more and more, I really like this book, went on a journey with it, probably should be excised, why some things should be excised, The Sinking Ship by Robert Louis Stevenson, Fables, half shaved, to the philosophic eye, she is settling fast, the expression is a strange one, time is only relative, in Davy Jones’ Locker, by parity of reasoning, the position of the ship, spoken like a good officer, the spirit room, there is nothing new in our position, he’s predicting his own death, struck by lightning, something inside you might burst, eating dinner, money in the savings bank, too far gone, or whatever it is, getting drunk since they came aboard, an old salt, good god cried the captain, as she were going down, nothing new in our position, a man’s handsome fashion, hope to be eternal, omit to take a pill, or doing anything at all, perfectly conclusive give me a cigar, a glorious detonation, really really really great, his parents get a doctor, might as well start digging his grave now, find a lady to like me, to lie under the stars with me, where did this person come from?, all of my eggs when I was born, she came into existence around the time of the big bang, I don’t think you take my meaning, the captain has a philosophic eye, his trainee, the wine dark sea, the new day is always rosy fingered dawn, a mental trick to fill time and remember what happens next, Homer is not the author, a beautiful morning, the next day, once upon a time, Brothers Grimm world, When tigers smoked, bad arguments, greeks not having the colour blue, a metaphor, the sea tosses you left and right and makes you a drunkard, when you drink too much you vomit, it’s all metaphor, the effect of drinking unmixed wine, drink wine at parties, put a lot of water in it, tipsy and fall over, snoring on the couch, the host’s duty, mix the wine at the right amount, fell out of fashion, drinking as a vice, a way to make your water purer, we can’t have nice things, when gin came into the UK, blasted drunk, small beer, reading something a little bit older, a lot wiser, bible study, you need read to more than one book, don’t just listen to the one guy’s interpretation, stories from the bronze age and a little later, stories about Spider-Man and Batman, a really good character, trouble in the world, Superman, good hearted, pay your taxes, circumspect, your relationship to the good, old books making think good thoughts, out of the horror of the current thing they want you to care about, a way of engaging, be honest all the time and damn the torpedoes, a man condemned to death, I’m still gonna be me, blowing up early, fits both ways, or do anything at all, convinced by the argument, everything is shaped by what you know, don’t know what cancer is, making really scary faces, smoking causes cancer, the propaganda was, the message little Jesse received, misinformed, skin cancer, what you put into the minds of little boys, looking at it for a long time, schizophrenic, in order to make him less schizophrenic, calmed it down?, afraid of it, a little shaky, gives us a little buzz, a little speedup, largely afraid of alcohol, mothers against drunk driving ads, be a control freak about things, addictive and expensive, if you mix your wine properly, heavy marijuana users, positive effects, chill me out, medical marijuana, stop vomiting, you can sue when they spike your shit, a grow house, filters on cigarettes, a half measure, tar in cigarettes, the disease was solved by having woodsmoke in your home, peanut allergies, exactly, celiac disease, gluten intolerance, glyphosate, why you can’t have any bread, the poison they put on it, our food is contaminated, if you go to Italy, genetically modified wheat, blame autism on Tylenol, when your baby is growing inside of you, folic acid, a good diet to begin with, how did people survive without all the supplements, sold a bill of goods, what happened to consumption, name a guy who isn’t Doc Holiday or Edgar Allan Poe’s wife, the diseases get less worse, at Christmas, with this last name, alcohol drinkers, smokers, 6 uncles, drinking was dangerous, smoking was a bad idea, sailors smoke, everything is explained by looking at the backstory, abstinence from alcohol, get rid of this scourge, husbands to beat wives, cheap alcohol is a tech, fix itself by giving it enough time, China was addicted to opium, a revolution against their occupiers, fentanyl, smaller, cheap spirits were the problem, from too much gin, alcohol poisoning, nobody’s going to be talking about it in 1000 years, maybe we’re talking about, teams and brave talk, our telepathy works fine, cursing you, had faith, chose right, in 2 weeks for a Dortmunder book, space brain, Misha Burnett, Killing Time, this book is great, reading it again, so easy to read Westlake, see the hands spreading apart, audio drama, aphantasia, do you think the way I think, in dreams, see when I’m dreaming, look at the blue ocean, there is a sea, an ocean, rosy fingered dawn is just breaking over the horizon, the sea is wine dark, what colour is the sea, imagine it, good at drawing?, draw a boat, a rowboat, a dinghy, a fantastic artist, another guess, no, do you see things in dreams, the same part of your head, you don’t have conscious access, pink, the colour of wine, the darkness, its deep, hiding its contents from you, why it is evocative, Pulpcovers recorded Rogues In The House, full of colour, a very angry gorilla, takes his cape, I am the master now, monkey see monkey do, a red caped monkey, why is it a red cape?, little red riding hood, all subject to metaphor, monkey men are men who act like monkeys, what’s the difference between us and an animal, a Simak recently, The Visitors, kinda like War Of The Worlds, the invasion of the Earth by slabs from 2001, obelisks, colonizing the planet, bales of cellulose, have a fantastic day.

Travels With A Donkey

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #878 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

The SFFaudio Podcast #878 – A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain (15 hours 33 minutes) read by John Greenman for LibriVox, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson and Cora Buhlert.

talked about on today’s show:
1880, western Europe?, France, Switzerland, mostly Germany, 6 travel books, the semi-official sequel, Innocents Abroad, 1869?, the answer is none, Paul [Weimer] and Trish [E. Matson] and David J. West, a really good book, tipped hand, the audiobook, washed over, some gaps, non-fiction, pick it up again wherever, not so much a cohesive story as a series of coorespondences, Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck, very first cruise ship, the start of modern tourism, 9 years later, in full swing, pilgrimage, requisite Grand Tour, 1878, Switzerland, the hotels, makes fun of the German language, difficult to learn, pitfalls, he’s Twain now, much more interesting, Baden Baden, from the South, exaggerations not lies, student swordfights, fraternity, young men, suspicious, still have swordfights, the swordfighting section, Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s commando, non women at the time, all men, the elites, dueling scars, what killed off these fraternities, post-WWII education reform, people from different areas, left wing liberal, 1848, pro-limited democracy, conservative, 1960s-1980s, own events, steal the caps, a bounty for every cap stolen, much diminished, 2024, just boys being boys, 1933, epee, goggles, nose protection, went into the brain, old universities, student prisons, they still exist, German-Polish border, graffiti the students left behind, that scene is illustrated, smites, very proud of it, so you could see it, that’s why they’re doing it, showing off their manliness, Bismark in prison, writing on the wall, RACHE, means vengeance/revenge, A Study In Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, a carving in blood or red paint, the police are baffled, Rachel, a red herring, Conan Doyle was an avid reader, where he’s stealing stuff from, stealing from Poe, how dare you compare me to C. August Dupin, very interested in foreign affairs, things outside of London, the KKK, the Mormons, A Scandal In Bohemia, guy from India, rip stories from the headlines, to Reichenbach Falls, Easter Germany, Czechoslovakia, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, this specific, the Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), George Lazenby, San Fransisco Chronicle, daily correspondence, people tuned into the newspaper everyday, what is this funny guy doing, very sequential, everything is incidents, a travelogue, a diary, bluejays for 3 chapters, whatever strikes him, local legends, the Lorelei, no nymph, no statue, the way the best understood, hilarious exaggerations, close studies, highly accurate, plays it for fun sometimes, an immensely close recreation, the next chapter he’s in France playing the second of a duel, the funniest thing you’ve ever read, the contrast between the two, a journalist, he’s playing it for comedy, choose your weapons, Gatling guns at 15 yards, attendees, apologize and hug each other, some grain of truth at the bottom, climbing Mount Blanc, all the things they bring, tobacco and beds, 138 umbrellas, mountaineering, reason to climb, outlaws fleeing the law, pay a yodeller, endlessly entertaining, stumbling around in his bedroom, a whole chapter, this is what people are paying to read, what’s so striking about it, through movies, he’s Hamburg, Germany gets its sense of identity by what Julius Caesar said about the Germans, this is us, only a united nation for 7 years, small kingdoms, dukedoms, so clean and so nice and so new, in about 2000 years, describe Switzerland to the Swiss, a foreigner coming in, everything that he writes in this book, unimpeachably true, a guy named Harris, in really fun and good American literature, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, a travel book, there’s no way to have that experience and be able to write about it, the aftermath of a party in a room, how it looks, what must have happened, these soap bars, journalists, cars haven’t been invented yet, the train, rafting, very Twain, a steamboat guy, Twain was a civil war officer for the South, they’re best friends, John Jakes’ North And South, anti-slavery, his unit disbanded promptly, went off to Nevada, San Fransisco, Travels by Michael Crichton, very different people, romp, tramp, a good genre, pilgrimage to Spain, the medieval pilgrimage, Anthony Bourdain’s show, quality of the narration, the street food, a vacation through the stomach, Michael Palin, Jeremy Clarkson, infamous, popular, what they have in common, the populace likes them, with airs about it, the finest restaurants, the kitchen, German coffee, chicory, a giant vat of boiling water, here’s your coffee sir, real coffee, fake coffee, malted grain, has to be imported, Heidelberg, the coffee ports, Bremen, they have to carry it by donkey, trains, a real guy, Goethe wrote a play about him, the iron hand, fight with an archbishop, he may lick my ass, this book in mind, a radio show, brief in the book, the Lion of Lucerne, carved into this cliff, this is something to see, there it is across the water, a wound in it, dying or dead, in memory of some event, to see it, a tourist destination, a kind of a secular version of pilgrimage, recreating Byron’s life, that book is inspiring, an activity, Antarctica, At The Mountains Of Madness, you hate cruises, literature, how powerful it is, there are countries created out of fantasy, Israel, Germany, the second German empire, what to include, why Austria is separate, the Prussian king, keep Austria out, weird south east European places, into modern Russia, minorities, a book set in Antarctica, Edgar Allan Poe, the act of imagination, William Dean Howells, A Traveler From Altruria, a commune, the secret is that books are incredibly powerful, I would like to go to Europe, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Karl Mai, an early cosplayer, read for generation, hike the mountains, Kurdistan, why the obsession, why do you go to Baker Street?, a museum, destroyed in WWII, answers letters to Sherlock Holmes, humans are monkeys, monkey see monkey do, tictock dances, I wanna be a cowboy/astronaut, you’ve found your identity, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, archaeology, sociology, a chemist, Paul Krugman, Newt Gingrich, Osama Bin Laden, one of those books, it will wreck you at the right age, travel agencies and cruise operating, free copies of At The Mountains Of Madness, a few other things that are striking, the American who has the same conversation with everyone he meets, what ship did you come over on?, is this your sister?, that personality, you meet people like this, a character sketch, in the previous one, he went into a church, gave a blind woman a gold coin, steals it from her hand, that incident, visiting again, the Acropolis, broke in, climbing over fences, chasing after them, if you’re an animal, see food you eat it, read another of his books, so personable, so relatable, whatever he’s thinking, not crass, what was actually happening there, is this a prostitute?, very young girls, he doesn’t take advantage, Dorothy Quick is great, encouraged her to write, her friendship, they were friends, a really good incident, looking at a woman, how old is she?, are you 18, I’m so glad you came over, how is this person, what did you name him?, not admitting the truth at the beginning, delightful and breezy and easy, still tremendously enjoyable, laughed out loud several times, the essay on the German language, I attack them, so funny, convincing one of the guides to jump off the cliff with the umbrella, let someone else do it, a giant extended joke, how credulous can you be?, he is funny, an appendix on portiers, extinct by now, the American way, giving everybody tips, concierge, high end luxury hotels, the Ritz, Singapore, such a weird thing, still has these, New Orleans, Arthur Hailey’s Hotel, the courier, in chapter 32, courier du bois, the tradesman, this job has disappeared, find some natives, load up with furs, come back to the fort, how Canadian history works, eventual shipment to Europe for hats, not for furs, something else, chocolate coloured, still it was worth it to inquire, ask for the price, above all not to reveal, it’s a hundred francs too much, broken German, a pleasant surprise, please do not let your courier know that you’ve bought it, I do not have to pay you a percentage, 100 francs, twice or thrice, both get a percentage, getting ripped off, travel without a guide is completely horrible, the guides get lost, Philip K. Dick, the assumptions, pulling the rug out from under us, never a maliciousness, not even mean, what he’s doing, it works everytime, met the pope, there was a guide, exactly what to do, get close to the aisle, had bad seats, extremely helpful, knows all the rope, tour guides, a different name now, on the Neckar river, barge, travel within the United States, the air b&b route, a neighbourhood, living like the people who live there live, how to do the research?, people to meet, local guides, a seminar conference, looked up online, see this, see that, an uber, extremely easy, there was a book, Let’s Go Europe, Let’s Go Mexico, Ford Prefect, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, gets a percentage, canny, a travel agent, cheap the whole way, the cheapest whatever, when the museum is free, largely replaced with online stuff, a paper map of the city, a painting in a museum, on the Rome trip, St. Peter’s, a guided thing, they hired somebody, a historian, spent the whole day there, get around, if you live in a place for a couple of weeks, vs. passing through, the ideal way of doing it, commenting on all sorts of different experiences, schoolboys fighting, get involved, white hats, how many boys fight per day, French honour, very present to whatever it presented to him, take him on a certain ride, disappointed by something, becomes very memorable, the squalor and poverty of the people, the animals, starving to death, very old, a hotel like that, it was a grand hotel, pay the full freight, it doesn’t come across as mean spirited, Edgar Allan Poe tried to start a magazine, she was rich, his hobby of a magazine, died right before the wedding, just wait, 15-20 years later, Mark Twain becomes wealthy because of the popularity of his books, being honest, a savage critic, he would scalp you, he would let you know, the guy who hated him Rufus Griswold, puffed everybody, no matter what you write you get puffed, this crypto-bro scheme of becoming writers, selling on Amazon, 20booksto50k, if you don’t play the game, to not offend anybody, completely non-offensive, the recipe for success, thoroughly entertain everybody, they thought it was bad, kept investing in things, what a great writer, his major stuff, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Joan Of Arc, a funny book for him to write, The Prince And The Pauper, Poe mostly wrote short stories and a lot of criticism, as a journalist, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Cannibalism In The Cars, senators eating each other, the sense of humour, the reverence for experience and life, why do you want to go on a trip to Europe?, experiencing these things, that is what he is seeking, that delight, just the pictures, half the men are smoking, weird old-fashioned pipes, something we pass over now, the same software, there’s no electricity, there’s no electric anything, impressed by the gaslight, what happened to the hotel, entranced, the discourse on Wagner, nobody likes Wagner, you get to like it, the longer the better, serialized chapters, comes at you in waves, go out and pick specific things?, wouldn’t you pay?, they stopped hiring Mark Twain, on tv sort of, Netflix, the personality of the deliverer, also dead, Herman Goutmann, a slightly different personality, an abrasive personality, a witticism for everything, Hermann Gutmann, Dave Barry, The Ultimate Melody by Arthur C. Clarke, every wedding, Lohengrin, pyromania, opera house, sweaty, Angela Merkel enjoyed it, sweatspots, stuffy, talk about Twain for a minute, never fell anything by him that fell flat, whatever he does is super-reliable, the guy you can always turn to, there is a Mark Twain I haven’t read, every book has worked, how he came to do it, very episodic, it’s not the coherence that matters, A True Story by Mark Twain, laughing on the front porch, servant/cook/maid, there is no funniness in it at all, making fun of the maid, she’s making fun of them, that man is alive in that text, a man who’s still with us, this is a living man, Shakespeare, very excited about maybe Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare, as Borges points out, he’s thinking about how people are actors, players, wherever Mark Twain goes he’s right there, she’s illiterate, all he does is transcribe what she said, it’s not a fossil it’s alive, reading good books, kept comparing, what it looked like in the 19th century, German and American education system, very accurate, university is very specialized, listen to lectures, more school-like today, go in line with, somewhat like this, a lot of freedom, you could not attend a lecture, it’s different now, school-track school-system, gymnasium, academic track, very well educated, more than a U.S. high-school diploma, college in the U.S., the kind he describes, ancient Greek and Latin, 1970s brutalist school, still require Latin, take Latin at school, a year from now?, Following The Equator (More Tramps Abroad), The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, a reason to keep reading, good book, learned a lot, reduced to Huckleberry Finn man, mean true things about the German language, more John Irving and Anne Tyler, if not the greatest, Westlake, sad story, Two Much next sunday, Simak the week after, Phantasties, Travels With A Donkey.