Mark Twain – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #911 – READALONG: The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein

Jesse and J. Daniel Sawyer talk about The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
A Comedy Of Manners, walking the earth, a goodbye to everybody, 14 hours into the 16 hour audiobook, throwing it across the room, the abridged version, read by Robert Vaughn, amazing as a voice actor, The Man From Uncle, maybe that’s not true, the George Wilson narration, Tom Weiner narration, the 1999 cassette version, how difficult it was to get audiobooks back in the day, why everybody is very frustrated with him and his later books, All You Zombies with a lot more pages, promising to be a murder mystery, on page 7, murdered at the table, very unusual for Gwen, lie doggo, why thank you my dear, a treasure beyond price, if I plotted a story, in its classic form, aka the rest of the novel, aka this chapter, right at the end of the book, eight times, so annoying, page 387, anyone who would kill a baby kitten, I despise you, they might be back, Gay Deceiver, my bean gun was exhausted, I explored her handbag, even into battle, the tardis, 12 chocolate bars, 8 in the clip one in the chamber, four darts were still in it, Heinlein!, so frustrating, jerking his readers around, a smart guy, why science fiction is so incestuous, the answer is it should be, it is necessary for good writing, all the different timelines, reconciling his timelines, the future history, a grand unified theory of Heinlein, Podkayne, Variable Star, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, other stuff, Guy De Maupassant, George O. Smith novels, super reliable, always gives you Heinlein, a John Sladek parody of Heinlein [Engineer To The Gods – in Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1972], ai versions of people, sample writing, didn’t think about very much back then, more than once, the problem of this book, repetition of scenes, as big and sprawling as it is, a great roadtrip book, a series of short stories in between, wait thirty words, same voice, different kind of book, incestuous, almost all dialogue, Jubal Harshaw, Stranger In A Strange Land, six other guys, the promise of the book, we were tricked into reading the whole thing, Golden Rule, dystopia/utopia, a very good look at what the Moon looks like, slang terms, they’re culture, time corps, time patrol stuff, a book that bootstraps itself into existence, Bill is the pet for the first three quarters of the book, the Twain line, the villainous nature of the thing, the bullies from the juveniles, the old Heinlein we know, most annoying, doesn’t quite work on its own, in terms of narrative structure, philosophical ideas, snap into focus, The Number Of The Beast, New English Library, spans the front and back cover, The Pursuit of the Pankera, a particular set of glasses, a grimoire, the same character, later in the timeline, the Burroughs family and the Long family, the opposing team is the Time Lords, an anagram of Heinlein’s name, the big bad in this book, the meta, it’s on page 7, the Galactic Overlord, retiring him, By His Bootstraps vs. All You Zombies, solipsism, mispronounced by the narrator, Heinlein teaching, Heinlein haters, you do need to read Heinlein, politics outside of your native bubble, grew to hate Heinlein, they teach Starship Troopers, if they taught Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, good values, very fruitful, the one everybody wants to respond to, weird things, dirty old man Heinlein, dirty young man, dirty middle aged, they don’t edit like they used to, the bestseller’s list, the sexual revolution of the 1920s, Alexei Panshin’s hit-piece, a conservative fuddy-duddy, going off in the woods with your boyscout master, going to Yale, becoming an officer, if you read a Heinlein book long enough you’ll find a transgender character, Mike and Michelle, so much sex and gender stuff, a gay sex scene, all water brothers, a fuckton of sex, never does explicit sex, doesn’t describe the anatomy, an icicle, discuss sexuality frankly, Valentine Michael Smith doesn’t see it, part of that book, the POV character engages, relax and enjoy it, wakes up in bed with Galahad, David Gerrold, male homosexuality is spiritually inferior, very gay, people hating on Heinlein, the Our Opinions Are Correct pair, model minds, anti-Heinlein, what you find, alive on twitter today, might have a trans-flag in his bio, you can’t perfectly model a man’s mind, being associated with group, Quebec by reputation, don’t salute the king, not hurting other people, what does hurting other people mean?, shame or bullying, he’s dead, he cannot fight back, no children to get offended, some advocate there, you might be wrong about what you’re saying, what’s so cool about Heinlein, read his texts, a man who thought all sorts of things, changed his mind, appreciate it differently, I like kittens too, the pitons of the claws of the kittens, not being as tight a novel as it could be, a book worth reading and worth revisiting, vast and sprawling, really excellent, running around on Luna, describing, fresh-looking or red-headed, too many characters, that incestuous ouroboros thing going on, Fritz Leiber’s snakes vs. spiders, Poul Anderson, Asimov, Back To The Future (1985), the closed box paradox, the moral education of Marty McFly, the worldview destruction of Richard, interesting parallelism, cruise ship, a resort version of Babylon 5, Universe, Common Sense, of value, some of the Heinlein greatness, very frustrating, hard science fiction, predestination, freewill, masculine and feminine, community and isolation, he’s teaching himself about how to be a human being, playing with those themes, a different take that builds on each other, the deep alienation endemic to the human condition, a plaything of fate, not having agency, finding peace in the face of a hostile universe, the supposed smart people who run the world, Ray Kurzweil, Robert J. Sawyer, consciousness uploading, rejuvenation, he’s the least interesting Heinlein character, his avatar, Jubal Harshaw, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Murder At The A.B.A. analogs for real people, Darius Dust, a really angry short guy, Harlan Ellison, modelling a real person, he loves Dejah Thoris, Rudyard Kipling, new poem by Rudyard Kipling, fifth Blue Yeti, fiddle with it, the thickness, 16 hours is small by today’s novels, 9000 words an hour, a lot of Michael Crichton, the editors and the marketers, 1985/1986, book club editions, ebooks are big, audiobooks are huge, asking for longer, the economics of publishing, the typesetting costs, optimize the price, an every changing recipe, what do people actually want to read, about the same length, a tight narrative, Mike and Manny and Wyo and Prof, using Marxist tactics, Heinlein defies the categorization of the simplistic, happily cancel for any slights, dressing up as a Japanese lady, a black main character, white hair, how many times does that happen in the juveniles, Tunnel In The Sky, Starship Troopers, Rocketship Galileo, okay bro, okay Heinlein, whatever Heinlein, I’ll allow it Heinlein, how many books aren’t referenced, Pete is not Pixel, the same idea, the same cat, Glory Road, Castor and Pollox, sold themselves into slavery, having too much fun, too self-referential, an experience we’ve never had before, the bad relations with the management, a cruise ship in space, for the shareholders, the fresh new stuff, get Mike back online, natural sequels, Requiem is a sequel to The Man Who Sold The Moon, the spacesuit stuff in here, he cares about how spacesuits react to vacuum, the Philadelphia Naval Yard, a couple of black and white photos, where was he prior to WWII, Leslyn was a scriptdoctor, Destination Moon (1950), George Pal, alcoholic psychosis, Colorado, altitude sickness, a driving book, settling in Santa Cruz, world tour, one world government, H.G. Wells, we’re here now, nationalist, anarchist, pragmatic compromises, writings ruined by selling out to becoming scriptdoctors, Joe Eszterhas, Basic Instinct is not a high minded thing, crappy genre, sex-thriller, James M. Cain, name a book The Postman Always Rings Twice, brutal psychology, borderline personality disorder, appreciated it, being a writer, the model for the style of this novel, wrote confessionals under pseudonyms, he had to have done that, girl sex books, Forest Ackerman’s dead, work for hire, the materials were probably not renewed anway, textual analysis, pretty easy to tell Heinlein, the great secret of the pulp era, comfortable living, true confessionals, pseudonyms, the number of titles that Westlake and Block and Silverberg wrote, dozens for each of them, Michael Crichton novels, adventure novels, a rich kid, the residency, structurally impossible, the setting of Golden Rule is excellent, a reminder of how engineering based science fiction Heinlein is, orbital mechanics, was their Volvo sabotaged?, Nil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, insanely readable, the throw it across the room book, compelled to play at the casino, contrary to initial expectations, a break, For Us, The Living, read between 13 and 22, 2006, Variable Star, a collaboration, he had a podcast, his wife died, Bowen Island, a residential island, the Travis McGee books, thrift store, 20 of them, John D. MacDonald, god that guy could write, he did science fiction, the same way Westlake, throw science fiction across the room, they’re one true love, Heinlein tried to get into mystery, They Do It With Mirrors, an ideas guy, a genre other than science fiction, I’m metafiction now, I’m god, that’s the problem and why it is funny, super quotable, floatin around, the good ones to pull, Notebooks Of Lazarus, *Women And Cats Will Do What They Do*, an a to z quote, a little research, give up on your account, prole feed, algorithm bait, not here for the processed pablum, quite subtle, wrapped in this murder mystery at the beginning, the epigraphs, violence never solved anything – Genghis Kahn, what he’s aiming for, a meditation on hypocrisy, If This Goes On, the entire edifice of western civilization, older and wiser, approach death, Saki, he is one of those people who would enormously improved by death, a gay deceiver, The Story-Teller, a confirmed bachelor, an aunt and nephews and nieces, doesn’t know the answers to anything, “don’t”, “why”, a gentleman’s garden, the kids have questions, he takes the story and inverts it, “horribly good”, introduces a wolf, cowering in a bush, she gets eaten, Saki you’ve done it again, The Interlopers, generations long battle for this land, mighty cold under here, best of friends, their wolves, god’s cruel joke, a funny god, a good bit of fun, it’s good in the sense that it’s good fun, a great read, not a good novel, frustrating, there’s so much in it, the fez, the hat, the shriners, the freemasons, what they are, what they were, he knew a little bit more about what’s going on, pot-bellied and balding, less sinister than could be presented, worth having sex with, a different creed, a fraternal organization, the science fiction future, 2188?, Hazel, Space Family Stone, The Rolling Stones, colonel, doctor, senator, could be another Thorby, a quasi-villaian, why is Tree-San a character, a bonsai tree gets more lines than Bill does, living in the hallways of this dystopia, a kill mission, never resolved, I’m not sure I can believe in a god, Thomas Paine, the internal cultic workings, hermeticism, sun-worship, a way to get your corruption under control and move up the ladder, benign and sinister, a Hells Angel rather than a Freemason, you become part of the system, The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Sean Connery and Michael Caine, a first contact story, stealing a Shriner’s hat, a secret society that’s out in the open, a Masonic hall, a Hells Angels clubhouse, benevolencey drives, landscape terrorism, do their lawns, anarchists of free-association, the officials who operate outside of that, don’t know how to use to apostrophes properly, when you do you have to abide by the rules, what’s his get along to go along, he has no agenda other than working through the ideas, super-fuckin waste, probably the last time that got assassinated, doing something noble?, things that Heinlein gets wrong, drugs, an armoured car heist sort of book, before the show, not super-long, a paperback, marketing to paperback, the library system, the content of the book, astounded to learn, scribner’s juveniles were all hardcovers, illustrations, Nancy Drew or Tom Swift, Starman Jones, The Star Beast, Time For The Stars, Waldo And Magic Inc., when we lose materials it’s a loss, psychology is real easy to understand, what the words actually say in the book, a Jack Finney story called The Love Letter, time-travel romance, Somewhere In Time, a love body to nobody, another hidden drawer!, Jack Finney wasn’t writing in the 1990s, 1882, 1994, they just updated it, you can’t fuck around with people’s words, he was gay enough as it was, don’t delete anything, easy to understand the importance of the primary text, it was okay, influenced by Heinlein, you can respond without lying about it, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, Orson Scott Card, conventional, cutesyer, disturb the world he comes from, a frisson, the internet, the forums, the most sparky, helps tell the story of the world in a really interesting way, Ender’s Shadow, not a sequel guy, his worst are also excellent and better than most, more pure of heart, less incestuous, necessary for the form, might as well allow it, the late 1940s, writing mythology, ancient myth, archetypes, origins and generations and whatnot, thematic weight, explicitly on the exandry hunt, from far away, okay you go girl, all fun and fine, “other better writers”, male on male gay sex, what age is appropriate, ‘husband height’, leaps around, ‘husband high’, how people get reproduced, the very idea is disgusting to most people, Amish Planet, the pneumatic amish internet, when kids were getting married, in the Ozarks, the last holdout of child marriage, a subject of scandal, a social crusade on the part of WASPy culture, Jerry Lee Lewis’ shenanigans, not old enough to vote you can’t have children, fuck you on your on-high, Edgar Allan Poe seemed to really love his 13 year old cousin/wife, her death killed him, a perpetual alcoholic delirium, John Wilkes Booth was a freemason actor time traveler, John Allan, a lot of anti-Masonic stuff going on, might have been killed by the masons, a prominent critic, lawsuits with people, at least two stories where it’s very clear, one of the Masons, very chummy fellows, it was like a war in the 1840s, they ran the whole show, a potent political force, the nature of secret societies, the populist instinct, The Cask Of Amontillado, the guy he kills is a Mason, bricks him up in the wall, set in Italy, really choice, the whole thing is a confession, a deathbed confession, Montressor, my treasure, the villain of the piece, Fortunado, lucky, his family motto, why does this story exist?, they are not just for us, a political treatise, discover of something, The Raven, he is denying its, what bird does, it’s a psychopath, get out my fuckin door, surely she’s up in heaven waiting for me, negative answer, it’s only stock-and-store, an awesome piece, The Philosophy Of Composition, not show the bird, presented to us so young, on The Simpsons, freshman English, Annabel Lee, A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner, a nested narrative, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, contraposes that beauty, radiant maiden, my bride, kids, it’s not consummated until its consummated, always a maiden and always dead, an eternal theme, immortality is worse than love and death, a mighty theme, he’s back again, a man confronting god, this giant sea creature, homosexuality, married to Queequeg, squeezing out a lot of juice, the interactions of the themes, as an intellectual exercise, works the theme out, a happier cable, The House Of The Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a nice old lady, you can mash it up, cheap and fast, you can share it, the restricted market where it was hidden, The House Of The Seven Anne Of Green Gables, an occult cookbook, the empty, Tennyson, an investigator named Charlene Dexter Ward, a great narrator, Very Bad Deaths, John Dortmundery style, the chronology, the seeds of the different novels, early in the juvenile era, girls of a certain age, Hadrian’s Flight, The Wolf Of Venus, Secrets Of The Heinlein Juveniles, mildly dyslexic, if it is dense enough, The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft, excitement and joy, they don’t trust, a Borges non-fiction, his poetry’s not very good, his anti-Masonic story, Death And Compass, reviewing King Kong when it was in the theatres, he wrote a Lovecraft story, Heinlein stops reading after a certain point, stopped reviewing publicly, the subtitle of the book, where the book goes wrong, Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, killing is more of a hobby with me, long talks between meals and sex, six Heinleins all in the room, in most Heinlein, bathos and pathos, Pixel dies off-screen, the bit right after they break up in Hong Kong Luna, Walker Evans, a secret society, it has no meaning, it’d be like not knowing who Marilyn Monroe was, the most iconic photographs of the Depressions, he lives with a poor family, having sex with the wife, there is no Walker Evan, a message, a code to remind me of a debt, one of the mighty themes of this book, the setup is so good you need to have it paid off, it’s a closed circle, looking at your old photos of you in previous decades, living in the 1930s, carrying his own tools, Drinkwater, Saskatchewan, J. Daniel (Jim Gifford), A Reader’s Companion, The Heinlein Society, Mr. Pulpcovers website, a little New York Times blip, wrap it up, almost Heinlein length, excited, Heinlein and he met, a champion, he’s still great, Rah, Rah, R. A. H.!, a Canadian liberal, American draft dodger liberal.

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #907 – READALONG: Highways In Hiding by George O. Smith

Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Highways In Hiding by George O. Smith

Talked about on today’s show:
Space Plague, the Spanish title: Caminos Occultos, 1956, 1955 for the serialization, a 70s vibe, the previous book was more 50s, the way the space drive worked, a road book, a plague from space?, no space, pick from the following writers, Floyd C. Gale, Sam Moskowitz, Sturgeon, which do you like, let’s here from Sturgeon, Adventure Science Fiction, November 1957, type and time, buy it instead of food, selling you on, revised paperback, the field needs more of this by George!, a review of Two Sought Adventure, the shortest review, another?, Analog, July 1968, E.E. Doc Smith, both scientists, interplanetary communication, telepathy and dirty work, so John W. Campbelly, Satellite, February 1957, resident review, Gnome Press, the electronic laboratory, the pace and high level of interest, one of the years best fantasy books of the year, pretty positive, the first Hugo awards, it’s a science fiction novel, a lot of it was fantastic, Floy C. Gale’s five star shelf, lie Bester in The Demolished Man, an ESPer, a car pile-up, a perceptive such as he, his fiance has disappeared from the car without a trace, a tickling memory, something wrong with the highway signs, tangled of morass of paths, Mekstrom’s Disease, you’ll go for this, hardboiled dialogue, all positive reviews so far, from Infinity, Damon Knight, the yearest dumbest sounding title, an underground organization, from Maine to California, the fleur-de-lis, disarmingly cheerful and vigorous, the only known carrier, pretend she was never there, woman-hunt, hypnotized from, Rhine institute, a telepathy or clairvoyant, surprising firmness, psionic dead stop, neologism, #you dirty slob#, Heinlein’s worst, the virtues of first rate science fiction, a lot less superficial than it used to be, to stand there and watch the eyes of a woman, poignant touches, cheerful bloopers, the law of least reaction, piracy and pillage, in the realm of grammar, a tin-ear, science fiction is literature, I hope that whomever he was, Astounding, 1956, P. Schuyler Miller, Van Vogtian melodrama, a rattling good yarn, incurable fatal, they disappear, an ingenious network, much action, rapid juggling, out before the deadline, Anthony Boucher, easily Smith’s best book to date, wild melodrama, seeking to control a mysterious disease, indestructible supermen, plot contrivance, unflaggingly excitingly, rich in typographical errors, what do you think Goodreads has to say?, a 3.68, slightly above the average, full of misogyny, the bad guys are woman haters, really interesting, the ESP, a road trip, Venus Equilateral, in Astounding in the 1940s, a rocky relationship with John W. Campbell, a Scott guy, an electronics guy, tons of parallels between this and Hellflower, a road book with lots of cars, not as good as Westlake, the venn diagram, people who write in a plain way, super-effective, exactly the same set up as the last one, before the book started, a space accident, she wasn’t there in the first place, tapped to be a secret spy, go undercover, he thought he did it himself, exactly the same plot, different baddies, intriguing, a space accident later in the book, the girl crashes the car, the art for the original serial, April, May and June 1955 issues of Imagination, a woman stepping out of a completely wrecked car, a 227 page PDF, introducing the author, create loyalty to the magazine by making the authors real, William Hamling, cluttering up science fiction magazines, 100,000 words per year, I write science fiction because…, 20 years in the electronics field, oatmeal box, a radio set of my own build, atoms were still indivisible, Mt. Wilson, distant galaxies, “island universes”, Pluto was confirmed and named, astronomy and celestial mechanics, liberally peppered, honest fact and bafflegab, a technical background, just excluded almost every modern science fiction writer, a traffic ticket for jaywalking in Cincinnati, fell heir to a typewriter, magazines pay money for printable material, writing yarns that I like to read, 3 subsequent replacements for item 1, melodramatic, a hotel detective, everybody is gaslighting him, one of the most damning indictments, a stuff happening book?, the gaps and the ESP and all that, two different groups with solutions from a disease, different motivations for wanting to keep it secret, make it for the elites vs. give it to everybody, almost a Simak idea underneath, sees evil in the world, going for a walk with your best girl and your dog, my girlfriend is a liar, overall pretty good, not just stuff happening, not a comics guy, totally X-Men, mostly action things, clairvoyance and remote viewing, on the bullshit wagon, ESP things, maybe there’s something to some of this, fucking testing this forever, the dead areas thing is never explained, natural depleted mana zones, the Niven method, The Magic Goes Away, a wasteland of telepathic ability, not reproducible, the dead area kind of explains that, underexplained, scratchin my chin at the end, the Rhine institute, making everybody telepaths and espers, the heroes, Professor X, the gene, a cross or a helix, recruited to help humanity in a secret way, the League Of Evil Mutants, are we the baddies?, lead by Gandalf (Magneto), in the concentration camps as a Jew, on a mission to let any of his people be controlled or killed by the government, not on the government side, what to do in a post-mutant society, what this book is about, the medicalized rhine society, doctorates of telepathy and physiognomy, all of them have superpowers, Cyclops, shoot light out of his eyes, they get pounded on all day, Wolverine, hardened skin, nearly indestructible bodies, this strain coming out of Analog, call from his mom, his father had died in the night, a twitter thread, an essay by Mark Twain, Mental Telegraphy, a letter came to him, travelling with his lawyer, held the letter up to his head like that Johnny Carson bit, it is kinda uncanny, if you squint a little bit, really well explained, driving down the highway, radio and microwave radar, listing to something happening elsewhere, almost like telepathy, to see through things, what an MRI or x-rays, knowledge and speculative thoughts, if those were in human bodies, make it longer, that happens some more, another one by George O. Smith, much like Simak, shares that space with Simak, in the Fishhook book, Time Is The Simplest Thing, so many gimmies at the beginning of this book, I bought it, he sold it, some of his books are like a kitchen sink, feels like thinking through, feeling your way, ends quite abruptly, why the book exists, a common technique in writing, a space, a page break, capitalization of the first word, doesn’t show up well in audio, the coda without saying coda, inoculating the families of the victims, we’re still underground for two reasons, unless you have trouble, Steve Junior, further plans, what makes the book even better, stop at the gas station to fill up, cleaning the windshield, at the spinner rack near the checkout, this makes it an underground book, written for the underground, what’s this book really about, about the underground railway, they look like us but they’re not like us, it isn’t about racism, it’s about moral intention, the question of race, how do you tell if someone is good or bad, perceive them with your esper skill, they’re intention is good, team elite or team bottom up, the tension between the two, this figure within the movement, us reading it and saying I’m inspired, these groups have merged, defeating the baddie at the center, reorientation, Babylon 5, Brad Dourif, [Passing Through Gethsemane], entirely demolished, built up from a blank, he suffered demolition, did our hero get manipulated to do everything in the book, hypnogaged?, sniffing out the highways in hiding, the whole world becomes maybe, there stories line up, a solipsism, the girl was against him, what do you do with that, not quite on the level of The Demolished Man, this might have been a science fiction classic that everybody talks about, these three concepts, there comes to be a character who is both telepath and esper, one of the best movies ever to come out of Hollywood that’s an original science fiction idea…, Rogue One, The Book Of Eli (2010), Gary Whitta, he’s not blind because he sees the world as god sees it, or as Daredevil sees it, the best literary exploration of this, innovative things, following the letter, a piece of his girl’s cloth, he goes and sits by the mailbox, Apple airtag, a psychic airtag, a book in your desk drawer about me, not this, Van Vogtish, every 2000 words change everything, he does spark, long enough to do the thing, quite beautiful to explore, things blossom in conversation, this big Simak read, books that don’t use action plots, making the girls more girly, his thinking voice, his writing voice, she [Jessica Martin] had to do all the girls, if she [Jessica Martin] could have been a male narrator, a very excellent narration, miscalculated, Spacemen Lost aka Lost In Space, the alien spaceships were watching and waiting, The Fourth “R”, an electromechanical educator, a stuff happening book!, extraordinary intelligence, Operation Interstellar, those who don’t want him to succeed, Three Skeleton Key, in the Atlantic, waiting for rescue, covered in rats, the rats took over the ship, they ate the crew, this tall tale, swarm all over the lighthouse trying to get in, a really good radio drama, waves of rats, taking over their little island, thousands of them, the same appeal as all the zombie stories, they’ve taken over, a horror story, Leiningen Versus The Ants by Carl Stephenson, I am German I will stop it, the story of a siege, escaped from a prison, Papillion (1973), like Playboy without the nudes, Esquire, catering to the same class, high class rich middle class set in the 1930s, Fred Greenhalgh, Suspense and Escape, radio drama can do things that nothing else can do, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, J. Daniel Sawyer, his name came up, got to his website, auto-didactic, talking about Heinlein stuff on twitter, For Us, The Living by Robert A. Heinlein, the plot barely exists, get out of the house, now they go to San Fransisco, a crush on, in the future you can like more than one girl.

Highways In Hiding by George O. Smith

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #546 – A Curious Pleasure Excursion by Mark Twain

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #546

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss A Curious Pleasure Excursion by Mark Twain

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story |PDF|.

A Curious Pleasure Excursion was first published in The New York Herald, July 6, 1874, page 10

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #897 – READALONG: The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim

The SFFaudio Podcast #897 –Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Talked about on today’s show:
family names, English people are weird, disappointing, what year this book came out, a prolific writer, the reader’s digest version, it’s really cool, no one else has read it, post WWI, it has to be 1920, there’s a movie in 1921, a weird and good book, the ending obviously, four different things going on, the 39 steps meets The Prisoner Of Zenda, a lot more swordfighting, talk about previous swordfights, he fell on my sword, came away with a broken arm, it skips all the fun in a certain sense, subdues Robert Urthank, smokin, alcohol, a lot of guns on birds, like it a lot, the only way it could be constructed, a new student, choose your own adventure book, if you do this turn to page 18, death, premature imprisonment in a skull mountain, the best ending, rewrite this as a Choose Your Own Adventure, do you drink the whiskey?, at some point in the narrative, the author tricks us, a possibility, really suspicious, my fake wristwatch that I don’t have, that’s a slip-up if…, the main character is called by his proper name by the narrator of the book, the twist is he’s not lying, it comes out of nowhere, a clever book, oooh!, The Sixth Sense, sitting around in rooms with a little kid, a good twist, missed the twist, the revelation which was kinda cool, massively improved, do you go on another hunt?, do you go in the black wood?, is this a little Hound Of The Baskervilles thing too, her brother who’s mentally deficient, we don’t have the butler, we’re supposed to be in on it, very cool, how can you do this to me?, I was not your buddy Leopold, does the book play fair?, misses something he should have known, I’ve been gone for so long, he also was gone for a long time, a teenager, a trick for us, in on the secret, the German guy, we will expand!, we need breathing room, use this for inspiration!, take my papers, hold them for me, two documents that are opposite, Germans are nice fellows, evil conquerors, in combination with the black wood, haunted place from the past, a body buried there, Baron Ragstein, his own demon in his backstory, his real demon?, fought a man and was exiled, mirroring, at Oxford, both at the same school, one is charged with the other’s bills at school, a nice little touch, a very good condensation of scenes in the book, other Universal Horror movies, a werewolf story, the calling in the night, a fakeout, clearing the black wood, the resolution of the valance, which is he?, the spy or the counter spy, he’s the hero, we never see him meeting with the British, the white linen, what happened in Africa, Africa changes a man, the cousin, Africa, India, all the same, the women are black and there’s lots of beasts, he took the Baron’s money, and followed the Baron’s plan, quite striking, guys gone to seed, the first of his name not to waste all his money, degenerate, regenerate, the family line always degenerates, a Lovecraftian family, in the basement eating your friend, I’m paying off the family debts, his skin looks better, standing a little straighter, like you’ve been a military uniform, a great surprise as a possibility, the author knew what he was doing the whole time, turning old novels into Choose Your Own Adventures, poor student, every poor kid, The Great Gatsby, a rich guy observed by an acquaintance/friend, the very first Hard Case Crime book, Grifter’s Game, conmen, a supersolid horrible noir awesome ending, the lobby was air conditioned, his tone apologetic, every stinking dive, palm up, he liked to receive it, a great opening, the girl is tied to the chair, making her a heroin addict, the great dissipation, you don’t want to have him for a boyfriend, great writing carries you from page to page, overly long, the lack of action, The Thirty Nine Steps is a bad book in a certain sense, written during the war, a spy book, a chase sequence, Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, at the Eagle’s Nest, some SS guards discover him, he goes to ground on the run the whole book, it never says Adolph Hitler, a WWI book with the knowledge of WWII, awesome pace, what’s going to happen next, Hitchcock movies, this is a spy book, is it though?, you’ve got a secret mission, what’s the special mission?, elected maybe?, an English nobleman that’s secretly a German spy, spend all this money, we will back you to the hilt, the meeting with the Kaiser, a cameo, Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Kaiser Wilhelm, over muscled Kaiser, we’re going to win World War One, a fluff piece of fun, a really good twist, not as tight or compelling as Lawrence Block, pre-war English dialogue, not well remembered, The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson, his poetry for children, Treasure Island, how often have you thought about Kidnapped, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, it has been spoiled, it is very possible…, the way the book was written, bad writing?, the Englishman was seen in Africa and was not dead, he’s in the room with us right now!, the rumor is true?, the way the book handles this is to never give a definitive reaction from our viewpoint character, too long for what the idea does, Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde, a cool idea, Two-Face, a man who is both men, it works better as a film, never being inside somebody’s head, the camera goes to their pov, or over narration, doing the original star wars with old Luke, narrating the events of the original star wars, I didn’t know at the time, now I’m a blue milk addict, you can do things with viewpoint, on a desert island, Chagos, Prisoner Of Zenda everytime, on every page level, piled up coincidence, sparky and fluffy, almost a play, drinking and meetings, a little romance, the romance storylines, falling in love with Lady Domini, she’ll find you out, she’s a very nice kid, Hungarian princess, unrolls the scroll, their both in exile in Africa, killed a guy, disgraced and can’t come home, a collision in Africa, the way I’m going to kill him, very very salty, passive aggressive way of killing somebody, fighting to the death off-screen, the flashback to that fight at the end, make the whole movie filled with lots of flashbacks, Memento (2000), tell the story backwards, nice awesome noir reveal, have meaning in his life, the only thing that matters is me, companion books, now let’s see it from the other guy’s point of view, which universe you’re in, a burning desire to live, that setup at the beginning, that contrast at the beginning, beaten down and thin, the shakes from the alcoholism, erect Prussian, definitely the German guy, turned his entire life around, that’s the mental work we have to do, if you’re not second guessing the book review already, a goodreads review, 1 star, is that guy lying to me, you used to have curly hair?, can you grow out of curly hair?, a very girl book, lack of outdoor action, The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, a swordfighty action movie, no a brooding plotter, clockwork vengeance machine, swordfights with people, work em in there, it would make sense for either persona, on the riverbank, the most interesting character, madman, the schoolteacher, a nice period piece, rowing, the fencing team, a big smite on his face, a secret scar, why he can’t get undressed with his wife, new scars, a birthmark, arm break, not a short book for what it is doing, that big a disparity, Timeline by Michael Crichton, condensation, the movie just zips along, a few too many filler scenes, repetition, adapt this well into a film, fun movie stuff, the definite film version of this is yet to be made, Trading Places (1983), The Prince And The Pauper by Mark Twain, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, inherit the kingdom, they’re both barons or a baronet, a woman back home who’s mad/in love with him, injuries and deaths on both sides, the balancing act for the mirror, William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe, for the present, a call me Ishmael situation, making a joke about the publication, this other kid, degenerate gambler, reflected badly on the narrator, a long short story, stabbed in a swordfight, split personality, a split self, which one am I, The Prestige, a very good book, an estate in it, a weird dark land, a confection, a bon bon, very delicious, greatly declined, the Star that was E. Phillips Oppenheim, lost authors, no champion, Mr. Grex Of Monte Carlo, 2 books a year for years and years, the concept binds him in certain ways, the secret he wants to reveal, knife’s edge, a certain distancing effect upon the reader, imagine this as a Hard Case Crime book, the first 16 cover proofs, what Charles Ardai was doing, he took a Sherlock Holmes story and published it as by A.C. Doyle, a screaming lady in a nightgown, contractually obligated, I wanna tell stories about the KKK, the mormons, playfulness of an author in his element, a good place to be for a reader, in contrast, some people on the internet are either biobots or dumb, a photograph of some books at the drugstore, food deserts, book deserts, you have to walk into a driver, the newsstand, the spinner rack, the gas station, stumble across things, more and more unusual, the oasis of the library, free books on the internet, you have to go find them, confronted by things that attract your eye, a bbq place with great smells, thousands of views, silly comments, too many James Patterson and Bill Clinton, who wrote this book?, a Stephen King, new paperbacks out now, a wasteland, the same thing is happening with movies, kids these days are not watching movies, never watches movies, old movies, so many rereleases of classic movies, not the reboot, make another couple million bucks, once the culture of film becomes so backward looking, breaks that cultural transmission, theatre, the stuff they put out is limited, an apartment near Broadway, some variety, elitist, ballet, new operas, performing the Nutcracker a dozen times a year, a high culture low culture, horse racing and dog racing, just degenerate gamblers, just dog food, if you thought that it had value, subsidization is another scam, lots of scams going on, the point of the movie The Producers was, something special about the book one, the codex as we don’t often call it, the paperback, the publicity materials, they did the thing, “pulp revival”, Pulpcovers.com, noir and hardboiled, fantasy, high fantasy, low fantasy, dragon on a big pile of gold, little invisible guy, The Black Arrow, N.C. Wyeth, anything N.C. Wyeth draws you in, Men Of Iron by Howard Pyle, a movie, 1891, a student of Howard Pyle, impulsive rash, hard knocks, carefully watched and guided, a key player, too many possibles, early boy’s adventure, middle school, a big tournament, barely stand, lifted by a crane, that’s not how armour worked, maybe Crichton read that, responding to it, no one could possibly move in this armour, much tougher guys, speaking with authority, using other sources to make this claim, ignore the weird Victorian ideas about how armour worked, betrayal the Prince of Wales, who’s responsible, Sir Walter Scott is responsible for all of this stuff?, Ivanhoe, 1819, the other Waverly books, more influenced by Waverly and Ivanhoe than any other cultural phenomenon, plays and books, other than music, less about story, patriotism, Charles Dickens, an industry unto himself, now we’re James Patterson, a crest to this wave, John Buchan is not the beginning of the wave, books start coming into their height?, as soon as you get paperbacks, cheap entertainment, mass market, that attraction of the cover, grab the workman on his way to the cover, a scantily clad screaming lady on the cover, with a brass bra and a leg cling, beware of the 3 volume novel, Oscar Wilde’s, if not him, the cheapest thing is ticktock, reconstruct his life, wait until sleep comes, they’re watching youtube shorts and tiktok shorts, it’s right there in your hand, riding a bike while looking at his phone, everybody is looking at his phone, listening to my phone, consuming video, playing a video, this is the new phenomenon, a very heavy hardcover from school, the death of…, did the book industry do it to themselves, Hollywood definitely did it to themselves, easier lower common denominator, cheap and easy, trying to relax, mass market entertainment, Doritos taste better than celery sticks, project right into my eyeballs, old tv, a lot of writers from books, a lot of plays, adaptations of stuff, regular broadcast tv, unbelievable, 9-1-1, everybody on the show is retarded, a fire in space episode, I can’t believe this got produced, the thing that used to produce Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, even easier, free, the most addictive possible content, plugged directly into your brain, the Larry Niven, a tasp, just pure pleasure, the way you get interested in the theatre, essentially dead as the major media, a skinsuit of was the most popular medium at one time, Lincoln was shot in a theatre, shot by an actor too, the music hall, if you want to see this play played out, the best actors, the perfect version of it, why would you go to the theatre, further down that path, it was always low-brow, the friction was the point, as things get easier they become worse, computer games, super compelling, home computer, school computer, that’s where the money is, a little more interesting, guys in their 50s, I wish my kid would just play a game, watching livestreams of other people playing games, games teach stuff, stuff about geography, almost every time it’s some singer or a video game, the literary people can’t get work in literary places, independent, a guy in Finland making Lovecraft games, popular culture, this legacy of older stuff, not born into the pulp or paperback industry, are we the weird outliers?, it’s awesome, we can find an old book and appreciate it, lost treasure, enjoy it, appreciate it for what it was doing at the time, a level of appreciation, whoe’ver’s listening to this, 80s and 90s kids watching movies from the 50s and 60s, Lawrence Of Arabia, I heard it is really good, short attention span, the Jake Paul of authors, a modern sequel of The Cannonball Run, Camille Paglia and Slavoj Zizek, slop videos, I’ll do anything for attention, the personalities have changed, the rat pack guys, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, pretending to be priests, a couple of hot girls in a Lamborghini, guy who thinks he’s a superhero, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), already old, middle aged people in the audience, Buster Keaton, Spencer Tracey, Don Notts shows up, that pool of people who fit that mold, Jack Chan was introduced to the world, Jamie Farr, Roger Moore’s biggest fan, facial surgery to look like Roger Moore, that meta-stuff, weird reality, what’s the mcguffin?, just the pleasure of having done the race, bragging rights, trace it all down, the blame on lack of land reform, 1958?, the newsstand corporation, the kid who inherited or whatever, distributing books and magazines, in 1953, in 1958, down to 10?, back to 4, no distribution means no eyes on magazines, tv from the 1950s, shifting tastes, a lot of it went to paperbacks, a whole different channels, comic book stores, even that’s not doing well, vhs was a new distribution system, laserdisc and all that stuff, early access, you don’t understand it, it may have gone terribly, Gilbert and Sullivan, expensive, don’t live in England in the 19th century, some new medium before the tasp, vr stuff happen, the theory there, get all that exercise, watch someone else streaming, the rise of livestreaming videogames, so passive, mostly scams, massive amounts of scams, corporate subsidies to political ones, look at the chat, almost not even words, strings of emojis, people alone looking at a guy playing a game, not particularly interesting or smart, a lot of euphemism, bizarre and pathetic, complaining about pulp magazines being badly written, are they James Patterson bad, incompetent filler, the editors did a pretty decent job of rejecting stuff, professional editors, next month’s issue, this was a lot of fun, good stuff now?, hype for things of the present vs. hype for things of the past, it is happening, a new John Lange novel, the drawer book, A Murder In Hollywood by Michael Crichton, not co-authored, a Tom Clancy in that picture too, an Agatha Christie, you can’t trust it, there’s an estate there, fucked with her whole career, And Then There Was One, out of copyright, less likely to have bad books out there, rewrote The Cats Of Ulthar as a cute story for children, baby’s first Cthuhlu, Dr. Seuss versions of Lovecraft, pre-ai, The Tomb, print editions probably still being made, cheap public domain classics, in one volume, faux leather, slap the gutenberg text in there, new introduction if you’re lucky, all about the money, not about the ideology, an honest mercenary, Ian Fleming, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Guy, all Canadian public domain, through and past, Jurassic Park, a month out, “so so”, that’s fair, so okay it’s average, the book has merit, hauled into its saddle and can’t fight on its own, see you on twitter.

The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim

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.

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #522 – A True Story by Mark Twain

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #522

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss A True Story by Mark Twain

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

A True Story was published in Atlantic Monthly, November 1874

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!