Robert Louis Stevenson – Page 2

The SFFaudio Podcast #680 – READALONG: The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #680 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Will Emmons talk about The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
published in a book, Heinlein almost always renewed his copyrights, no great interior art, boardrooms and offices, spacecrafts and diamonds, Pike’s Peak, Harriman pointing and winking, underground bunker wife, dissemble to his wife (again), the covers, Jesse is not a philatelist, numismatics, Paul’s not keeping up with philately, Brewster’s Millions (1985), Charade (1963), forever stamps, “here’s the extras from my collection, son”, Canada Post, Star Trek, Superman, Captain Canuck, Archibald Lampman, Lawrence Block, when not killing people, grandpas working on it, a moment of history that’s captured, the Apollo 11 launch, here at the blast-off, then you become a famous serial killer, acquires value, a first day cover is infinite cachet, mail fraud, legit fraud, shading the truth, 6+ button, Moka Cola, x-fuel, bribing judges left and right, philatelic stores are done through the mail, a license to print money, has government value, its almost you could pay your taxes in stamps, mostly selling intangibles, TV advertising rights, the actual physical object, it plays an important role, they also forget to put him in, meta-framing, there are no intentions its all Heinlein, Harriman is the stamps, an excuse for him to go to the Moon, he’s been defrauded, he knew what he was doing, Requiem by Robert A. Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon is a prequel to Requiem, his heart is bad, a spit and gumball guy, barnstormers, he gets to the moon and dies on the Moon, maudlin and schmaltz, they bury him on the Moon, an oxygen bottle is his headstones, Robert Louis Stevenson’s grave in Samoa, glad did I live and gladly dive, the hunter home from the hill, TIA (pre-heart attack), Job: A Comedy Of Justice, long pig, Farah Mendlesohn, Home Is The Hunter by Henry Kuttner, Weird Al Yankovic, poingiant, The Green Hills Of Earth, sentimental vs. excessively sentimental, hear the voice of Robert A. Heinlein, what does his voice sound like?, Heinlein with Arthur C. Clarke commenting on Apollo 11, so excited, change the date of humanity, today is the year zero, a Moonbase, Mars, off to the solar system, it did not work out how he wanted, how Elon Musk would like Space X to be, a private space program (not subsidized by the government), why we’re doing this show, billionaires going to so called space, Musk doesn’t go up with his rockets, aptain Kirk in space, a fascinating footnote to history, “I don’t wish any harm to William Shatner”, clapping for celebrities, on the backs of poor people, the government’s involvement is nil, the regulation agency for the fuel and the stamps, the real reason we have space exploration (is military expenditure), commerce and bootstrapping and loans, Space X, their one and oly client (uther than Musk’s side-business) is the government, NASA being defunded, capitalism eating itself, me too companies, Blue Origin/Virgin, not even orbital, extended vomit comet stuff, checkboxing, things to do, a conga-line of people up to Mt. Everest, I went to space, save Maissa’s sensibilities, dickswining, putting Musk at the back of the guillotine line, we will coup whoever we want, he wants to do what he wants to do, Jeff Bezos and the Virgin Guy [Richard Branson], what’s different about the D.D. Harriman like figure of Elon Musk, his wild dreams, he put a car in space, the product that is Elon Musk, you get the product that is him, when you buy a Tesla you buy into a piece of musk, Chevrolet Volt, Teslas everywhere, these other kinds of cars are stupid, electric cars are cooler, D.D. Harriman is not an engineer, dirty tricks, fucks over his wife and partners, right up to mail fraud, the most prosecutable crime, you’re crossing the biggest baddest bitch in the room (the government), people standing around, 12 Angry Men-style, do it in black and white, don’t put out this manifesto in the world, Elon Musk reads this story, he is this story, I got my own emerald mine, PayPal, I’m gonna go to the fuckin’ Moon, that single-mindedness, who do I have to fuck to get this to happen, something deeply sick, a sociopath, who did they get to the American Moon program [Wernher von Braun], the Soviet space program, The Chief Designer by Andy Duncan, Sergei Korolev, Comrade we’re doing Moon program, the sociopath that is the American government, certified denazified, SS tattoos, when NASA had his own rocket program, come look, we’re going to name this one Enterprise, Desilu Studios in the 1960s, Galaxy Quest (1999), you thought Idiocracy (2006) wasnt a true story, Red Plenty, Ascent by Jed Mercurio, a secret history of the Soviet Moon Program, Stalingrad, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, he’s got a camera, he dies on the Moon, that struggle, technical problems that need to be solved, Pike’s Peak is not ideal, Panama or Florida, he lives there, you should launch from near the equator, its not all about the engineering, the technical problems will not happen unless I get the sizzle, leveraging the government, people get inspired to do stuff, 1950/1949, seventy years for that vision to start to come true, a failure of Heinlein’s imagination, an ideology, space might become a frontier in the Cold War, he goes into the newspaper with a hammer and sickle on, that’s the media, the ideology is government is not the solution, purposely bypass, the only purpose of the government is the stamps, government is in the way, let me loose, Musk will not get to space without a contract to service the ISS, the Chinese Russian International space station, oh please private business, not a good Chinese accent, not good to do either accent, fail better, release all of your failures, greatness out of badness, Chris Hadfield, Marc Garneau, The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield, he sings/writes/takes picture, never a Mountie, F-16 fighter pilot, Heinlein’s future history, wildly wrong, seventy years later, Canada was created out of a railroad scheme, if we build this railroad, it makes more sense to be late, it makes more sense to be overbudget, government expenditure is the best way to make money always, Contact (1997), Carl Sagan was a bit naive, his big problem in that book was the religious figure, communication from aliens would languish for hundreds of years, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, leaving government out in an ideological way, squid-like vampire sucking, bribes most judges, why it has hate, powerful and therefore important, this manifesto turned into a movie, The Turner Diaries [by William Luther Pierce], Pallas by L. Neil Smith, corporations colonizing an asteroid, the government is evil bad an corrupt, that’s “freedom”, For All Mankind, Skylab was a sideshow, the alternative to GPS [is “GLONASS”], Russia has a very small GDP and yet they somehow seem to keep their rocket and GPS programs going, tax breaks for the 1%, we’re selling seats on this thing, selling seats on Russian launches, sell-outs, now NASA focuses on probes, what’s cape Canaveral, Maissa saw a Falcon Heavy launch, like a fireball going up into the sky, it was like a sword of the archangel Gabriel, Chris Hadfield’s Wikipedia entry, government propaganda, Canada has plastic money, you can wash your money in the sink, when the government is in control, tests, skills, loyal, I’m gonna hand pick my son, comparatively, I’m going and my brother, did the cowboy hat go up with him, I found these in the stratosphere, 10th birthday party, we’re going to make two corporations, put all the debts onto that company and keep all the assets in this company, to bilk the investors, defraud collectors, defrauds the boy scouts, always be honest, when it really counts fuck anybody, not bragging as much as stating facts, its a real sad thing, the naked horror, going to Mars, ginning up a war with the Martians, another song reference, not much of a Rocket Man, the Moon can control the Earth, Musk’s dream of Mars, Musk has made a big dent in the world, the guillotine party, give him some ice cream, somewhat mitigated badness, an earnest desire for extension, the Moses reference was telling and touching, dialing in the prophecy, Moses is denied the promised land, the Post Office was God, a very strange interpretation, it kinda fits, Butler, Missouri, religious fanaticism, a more sympathetic character, Musk is all me me me but he still hasn’t gone to space, a one way mission to Mars, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, a lot of dummies, depressive and pessimistic, not good in two ways, a lot of people think it is real, Beggars In Spain by Nancy Kress is a troubling book, like Ayn Rand but more current, super-evil, people who are just better than you, a “Fans are Slans” style story, special people, this mass of black or white people who need to die, Hitler’s manifesto book, the argument that it makes is what makes it evil, what’s cool about the X-Men, Magneto and The League Of Evil Mutants, its a fantasy, if you have brain you need to sleep, they’re more elite than you, they studied harder than you, Justin Trudeau’s 1.2 million dollar trust fund, face-painting costume, gets to be prime minister when his dad dies, novels vs. novellas, Our Opinions Are Correct: “Heinlein is turgid”, this novel, you should just read Scalzi, women would be present, Harriman’s wife, couldn’t give Harriman a baby, lives in Colorado, just the Heinlein story, Heinlein’s infertility, Friday, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, ret-con, I’m not really sexist, standard Heinlein, very incestuous, rehabilitates Harriman’s story, she’s not important to this story, how important the Post Office, don’t go against the government interest, you can use the Soviets as a whipping tool to et the media, a military industrial complex vs. a space industrial complex, Ospreys and F-22s, “defense”, you can sell people on fear, the commies in Russia today, China wants to take Taiwan, the Alpha Centurians are stealing our precious bodily fluids, space fear, the Coca Cola corporation, Dr. Strangelove (1964), another novel, Firestar by Michael Flynn, female entrepreneur capitalist, Elon Musk but not as evil, Flynn’s views on education, a shooting star, the comet would be good at this point, a dinosaur apocalypse is needed, digitize it and get it up to the moon, NFTs, bitcoin is currency, pre-orders equal love, the character’s supposed to be sympathetic, space space space, fighting in the Balkans, quasi-libertarian is (mostly) evil, in the 90s Paul’s politics were not as enlightened as now, public schools vs. private schools, save a few, no offense, some offense, slap in the face no offense, we need to face facts, this has been a blueprint for people, echoes with what’s going on, what other books are lurking effecting people’s reality, some phenomenon happening on the earth, Asimovs and Heinleins, Bezos vs. Musk, I gotta focus on my plan, set up a Foundation somewhere, Paul Krugman thinks he’s Hari Seldon, I’m a psycho (historian), too good for Jesse, Sir there’s somebody waiting to see you, a historical setting, Overlord (2018), tell me a lie story, who has women in their space program?, the Soviets, part of their ideology is women ARE equal, team human, Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series, the Mercury 13, what if we weren’t super sexist?, a country that has to turn less sexist, Luke Burrage’s SCIENCE FICTION BOOK REVIEW PODCAST review of The Calculating Stars, the Nazis didn’t want women fighting, making strudel and soldiers, not caring about certain facts about ballistics, how many stages the rockets needs to be, recycling the capsule from a previous rocket, designing the capsule for the lifting device, Musk’s plan, a fuel tank with a little spaceship on the end, get this, this story was written before the actual Moon program, whether the fuel will ignite from gamma rays, how can we not care about those details, Heinlein cared so much he kinda made it happen, John F. Kennedy was trying to direct the military industrial complex into an Olympics style competition, for all mankind, now there’s a Space Force, the instincts to restrain insanity have gone away, more and more in the Harriman situation, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the Law Of The Seas, the Americans never ratify, a Dutchman named Hugo Grotius, why don’t we just be tolerant?, no torturing people, that’s all gone now, public schools are terrible, Jesse a nihilist, human civilization, asteroid/meteor/comet, When Worlds Collide, Rogue Planet, not focusing on the ballistics?, Jesse prefers to read books that are out of print?, public domain, [is Jesse an obscurantist?], gotta winnow, Will’s initial Heinlein journey, a deathmarch?, stop doing that, he’s got the goods, The Star Beast, would D.D. Harriman sell N.F.T.s, what wouldn’t he do to get to the Moon?, he wouldn’t break his word to a person, personal loan, personal honor, down the slippery slope lying road, skirting that line, NFTs are a scam, Tulipmania, Odo and Quark, Jesse doesn’t Grok what its about, you should sell some SFFaudio listener NFT, Philip K. Dick drawings NFTs?, the motivation is the mistake, an artificial scarcity, not for hateful means, the Kingdom of Redonda, M.P. Shiel was crowned King of Rednoda as a boy, this rapist plagiarist, its a scam that has legs, pretty sure these are NFTs, Vincent Price as a lord of Redonda, basically NFTs could be anything, software license keys, why do we want that?, infinitely replicable, why do we want to make it scarce, Substack will integrate NFTs, a technology that we don’t have a use for, your password for your account, the jpegs are largely useless proof of concepts, etherium wallet, software should be free, digital clothing for their avatars, PUBG, a book takes paper, sewing, glue, and trucks, stupid and wrong and evil, Elon Musk needs lithium for his car batteries not because he likes couping people, the purity of the goal, Bezos’s pure goal is *ME*, the people climbing Everest, me shaking Obama’s hand, flying back to Kathmandu, helicopter rides for everybody, why Shatner going to space is a marker as a society, government control of how we spend and communicate, the jpg thing is ridiculous.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #621 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #621 – The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen; read by Mr Jim Moon. This is an unabridged reading of the story (2 hours 47 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Juett

Talked about on today’s show:
how to pronounce his name (mack-in is fine), a short story, The Whirlwind, 1890, The Great God Pan and The Inmost Light, a confusing horror story, the Jeffrey Epstein of the 1890s, not what Juett thought it was about, fantasy, a science fiction horror, a capital S on Science, a mad scientist, a metaphor, a symbol, more Alan Moore than Hellboy, pretty timely, the abuse of underage girls, people getting suicided, not getting prosecuted, a conspiracy, a direct response to Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson pulls his punches, he tramples a boy, a mystery, the secret of the story (Jekyll and Hyde were the same person), it’s a science fiction story!, the way this book is structured, the structure Dracula uses, Bram Stoker, down and up through time, a fixup, its disconnected, a more ethical and pleasant book, evil island, revenge, Prince Andrew, surprising it was written when it was written, a shocking book to read, Mr Jim episode 7, 2015, Aleister Crowley, our perceptions of what the Victorians were really like is broken, sex and drugs, Oscar Wilde, getting on the private plane with Clinton and going to that sex island, suicided in prison, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, research ability, type “Pan” into google, the drawings were not allowed to see in the book, the horror that totally effects Lovecraft, From Beyond, The Dunwich Horror, fucking with stuff inside your skull, Dr Raymond, cutting the corpus callosum, very minor brain surgery, the pineal gland, The Tomb, the panisci and the nymphs, Wasteland by W. Scott Poole, The Bowmen, kind of like Alex Jones except as an author, pizzagate, Hillary Clinton, New York, a game of telephone, focused on the wrong things, he wrote a fiction piece, republishing, changing the details, Q Anon and 4 Chan, WWI, having snow on your boots = he’s a Russian, in responses to the bowmen, Russian troops being landed in Scotland and on their way to London now, cultural legacies of weird wacky conspiracy theories, rumours, ill repute, a reputable public face, an association we think is a problem, what is now the first chapter, what is the third chapter, written in a single evening, it opens and it closes, an unsatisfactory resolution, no longer a being like we want her to be, the girl belongs to the witness, the witness is there to witness, the consent problem, problematic, “even if the worst happened”, “her life is mine”, he’s evil, Going Aquatic Apeshit, Capital is the narrator of the book, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic by Peter Linebaugh, Francis Bacon, The Horror At Red Hook, of this length and of this quality, The Undying Thing by Barry Pain, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, a werewolf story, a cursed lineage story, this veil beyond, these yellow books, a critical biography of Arthur Machen: Arthur Machen, Weaver Of Fantasy by William Francis Gekle, so elliptically, a Welsh childhood, London, a story that took bottom up support, the people want this to be true, an anecdote from WWI, the ghosts of the Agincourt bowmen, god is on our side, witnesses, within six months its out of his hands, transferred into WWII, one of his shittiest stories, a fantasia, childhood and reminiscence, The Lost Club, club society, gentleman’s clubs, the Hellfire Club, The Cosy Room, the fear of being hung, Out Of The Earth, Arthur’s castle, the war has turned the country evil, a reality behind the veil, folk beliefs, The Witch-Cult In Western Europe by Margaret Murray, witches were real, peasant people cast magic, heterodox beliefs, occult traditions, networked, The Call Of Cthulhu, The Festival, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, The Dunwich Horror, networks of vernacular knowledge is the real tentacle running through H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction, the horseshoe on the door, embracing whatever folklore’s out there, the Bros. Grimm, Aarne-Thompson index, so many of the characters suffer from faceblindness, three is a magic number, these are lessons, knowledge being imparted, stories full of dwarves, Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves, Aladdin is only in the European version of 1,001 Nights, The Tinder-box by Hans Christian Anderson, behavior test, how to act and how to be, Hansel And Gretel, the step-mother is the witch, illiterates educating their children, sex clubs, capitalism unrestrained, a powerful woman at his side, a very intellectual guy, a kind of play and a kind of reality (he knows is fake), The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle, the meaning of the word “turgid”, swollen, congested, distended, it’s a slur, Lovecraft is complicated, striving for a common reality, a literary technique, a feature not a bug, a misunderstanding, byzantine, this cosmic dimension, class, sexuality, gender, look how divided the city is, why you need to be spoiled on it, the Victorians can’t go there, Escher, the veil runs through the entire story, there’s one story, Jesse is a supergenius and everybody needs to know, The Tree, its a murder mystery, The Unnameable, Cotton Mather, just got raped by Pan, two artists, the narrator learns of the two artists from a beekeeper, why does this story suck so much, a secret story inside, the bees know, the interpretation (his friend’s art is better than his), he hid it so well you don’t even know its there, nature knows, you have to know how to interpret it, every time we’re going to get a revelation the words are whispered, never another good night in your life, From Beyond, a metaphor and a symbol, the symbolists, The Hound, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Robert W. Chambers, The Yellow Sign, The King In Yellow, the Yellow 90s, I love this suggestion, it matches our perception, a symbol behind the veil, Pan is not like the other gods, Stephen Fry’s Mythos, the word panic, The Origins Of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, a war between them in the mythology, sky gods vs. earth gods, The Parasite by Arthur Conan Doyle, when the surgery is about to be done, Clark, green velvet chair, whatever gas, another way of reading it is the brain surgery is on Clark, see reality for what it is, reality distortion, another Austin, Miss Penclosa, sulfuric acid, this powerful woman in London society, dispelling the idea of this being an attack on new womens’ power, a product of male predation, there’s a lot to think about, in a more subtle way, a social critique like that of The Time Machine, born victimized, Morlocks aren’t the bad guys, becoming monstrous, Weena and the Eloi, there’s no judgement, satirizing vs. critiquing, the old Doctor Who, playing up to Juett, Man-Thing, The Devil In The Dark, The Horta vs. The Horla, can’t they all get along?, if this goes on…, why we should all read science fiction, the consequences of unchecked untruth is, not really fantasy at all, its science fiction, misunderstanding who this god is, the truth of the reality is horrible, Thomas Ligotti, sympathy, lifting the veil on the society, vote for Biden everything will be okay, put on the They Live sunglasses, the reverse of the removing of the veil, Faith Of Our Fathers by Philip K. Dick, imagine how much people would read it if it was public domain…, visit sickmyduck.narod.ru, stop listening to this podcast, one last connection, disgusting (a book published in the last 30 years), heedlessly, Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Strange Case Of The Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, those materials were destroyed, the monstrous woman has to be destroyed, paternal figure takes advantage of someone under their care, three stories, it has to percolate up on its own, bottom up pressure, you need to spoil it for me, all these guys are jerks, young women get revenge on bad fathers, Captain Nemo is the secret hero, a bad dad, like Goliah or Colossus, Raʼs al Ghul type character, Poison Ivy, anti-imperialism, an internationalist, Canadian lumberjacks, a brown dude wearin a turbin yelling at people torpedoin ships, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne, Robur The Conqueror, that book’s a series, In Search For The Castaways, The Mysterious Island, the end of Nemo’s career, a sikh, N by Stephen King, one of the greatest horror stories ever written in the English language, Revival by Stephen King, devotes his whole life to studying electricity, do the Frankenstein thing, Sleepwalkers, Flatliners (1990), Stand By Me, a report on the afterlife, similar in feel, Angel Heart (1987), fear of miscegenation, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, a modern setting, race relations, Crossroads (1986), Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs, Jesse wants to be edified, not merely enjoy things, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), no Pan in it at all, is this a kissing book?, you just don’t want to know where the kiss is being kissed, not a good touch, Robert A. Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, afraid of what he might say, no one else needs to read Heinlein because I read him, before we become beasts.

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

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The SFFaudio Podcast #602 – READALONG: An Exchange Of Souls by Barry Pain

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #602 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
a huge post script, some Latin, darkness, the poetry of Catullus, the afterlife, is this all about gender, Ex Oblivione by H.P. Lovecraft, a Platonic explanation, uses drugs, a Dreamlands story, set in the Dreamlands, The Cats Of Ulthar, The Quest Of Iranon, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, that horrible Heinlein novel, I Will Fear No Evil, yelling at Heinlein the whole time, kissing, a synonym for kissing, old married couples, a synonym for soul, spirit, aspire, expire, inspire, exhaling, the breath being the soul, very basic, Christian theologians, a Vorkosiverse reference, Barrayar, how deep is this book?, The Undying Thing, Paul in another form, frustrating, where to go with its gears, supernatural events out of nowhere, contact from beyond the grave, philosophy and medical science, not totally out of nowhere, she was physically changing, the metamorphosis, mind-body relationship, how does the mind control the problem, the change in mind affects the body, the mind IS separate from the body, cheated, the railway accident, can Alice be Alice again, Alice Daniel, bored, interesting, Strange Case Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, he wants to part (by walking over kids), very banal Victorian stuff, wills, blackmail, dressing like a man, a mystery, men didn’t understand women at all, up on a pedestal, wanting to wear men’s clothes, freedom of movement, the woman becoming the man, a sort of queer story about transformation, the exciting undercurrent, a subtextual reading, deep into the subtext, reading it subversively, was there a murder?, a chivalrous man, their class relationship, emotional relationship (or lack there of), underground family secret, basically The Hound Of The Baskervilles but literally supernatural, some sort of sin tainting the genetics, divine retribution, by murder and theft, I am due elsewhere, he was killed twice, who smashed up all the equipment, we don’t see it on screen, Jesse’s reading, class revenge and gender swap, with our stupid narrator, so timorous, so conventional, a tool of the person who wants something, the two protagonists, we see so little from her point of view, The Thing On The Doorstep makes these things much more explicit, very subtle, The Moon-Slave, fairy tale France, The Glass Of Supreme Moments, Guy de Maupassant, a less passionate Philip K. Dick, an envious student, an Ayesha kind of figure, ascending through the fireplace, the way to read it, a glimpse of reality, dying of smoke inhalation, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, very interested in women, a princess who does not want to marry, a garden labyrinth, either Pan or the Devil, a story about menstruation, very subtle and very sensitive, the Victorians didn’t have twitter so they could focus pretty well, a contemporary review, The Sketch, cars, tires, women flying airplanes, high tech fun toys, Lord Dunsany, an unattributed review from June 4th, 1911, poets nowadays are tired, Science is assertively awake, the origins of Life, the purposes of Death, Poetry, the determination of the ego, in what does your self consist?, preserved in an asylum, the man’s self still persists, after luncheon, souls or selves, wropped in unscientific mystery, the kind of craft one would expect as a craftsman like the author, the character names, Alice In Wonderland, her Miss Lade, what has been mislaid?, laden, her soul weight is doubled at one point, Daniel = god is my judge, doing a good job, son of the earth, the will the estate, bundling the mom off to New York, background, Daniel’s interest in food, a point or a thesis, what humankind’s souls are, a Frankenstein story, scorned by his peers, a happy soldier, an Igor who’s also his wife, it feels “boring”, the book doesn’t have any the stuff we care about until half-way in, distracted by the blackmail, the Salvation Army, the other transformation, he’s trynna save his soul, is he wrong?, his blackmailer’s accusations, he was a bad dude, he musta lead thousands astray, a projection of his own guilt, our viewpoint character, the empty protagonist, he’s quite witty, as men get older they’re more likely to become neat, the phone calls, off to the countryside, a country home, killed on the way, train “accident”, this is too early for that person to have died, all part of a scheme, the premise, how exchanges of souls work, anesthetized too, the smoke as an anesthetic, a hypnogogic state, a story about immortality and avoiding death, transferring your consciousness into another person, a whole new life, Altered Carbon, a story about class, methuselahs never lack for bodies, an evil plan, revenge, the female spirit inside the physical brain of an old man, the haircolour change, Tuvix, Star Trek: Voyager, actor contracts, an answer to that question, the Federation seems really nice all the time, fucked up things in Federation culture, only normal from an American point of view, Star Trek: Picard, two hours of analysis and sensitivity reading, crossing the streams, The Boy Who Really Got It by Jesse, The End?, Daniel Dennett, a Twitter beef with Sam Harris, wrong about everything, a theory about what consciousness is, consciousness transference, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, the center of narrative gravity, a teapot, a uranium block glued to a teapot, anything with mass has a center of gravity, Rene Descartes, Phineas Gage, looking for a particular part of the brain, best mic, drop in history, souls aren’t real, a Douglas Adams reference, dreams where dead people come, a very cool dream, jellyfish style thing, you’re not dead, I got eaten by this monster thing, would you be back alive again the way you were, shot in the head, personality change, our spirit is physiological, its a software thing, Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh, the software is the hardware, silly theories about what sleep is for, all the studies looking for souls, a phone call in the middle of the night, spiritualism, Doyle wanted to believe, massive character flaw, giving money to grifters, a cultural judgement, this thread of mind-transference, quasi-spirtuality to scientific, they thought they were high tech doing spirtualism, Ghostbusters, psychokinetic energy, Dan Akroyd believes in that stuff, ghost hunting, hunting bigfoot is for exercise, playing a culturally important role, the essential work of ghost hunting, not reading enough books, religious people, rejecting the vast reality of the human experience, a character flaw Jesse is proud of, Evan’s missing out on, William James, Contact, Arthur C. Clarke, conflating vs. mentioning, materialist, Robert Sheckley, Gregg Margarite, Mindswap, picaresque, bildungsroman, travel to mars, vacation to Mars through consciousness transference, swapping genders and species, The Strange (RPG), he roamed the stars in a borrowed body searching for his own, pretty funny, a prurient 12 year old, the sexual aspect of switching bodies, like Dollhouse, back to the book, Compton the narrator, with eye-rolling frequency, too French, floppy tie, disgusted by music-hall female impersonators, tidying away this mystery, beloved research, historical letters from the Peninsular War, this great mystery of life, a rather revolting annoyance, humours essays, social satire, people who try not to be like other people are very tiresome (hipsters), another comic book biography of H.P. Lovecraft, translated from French, some factual errors, a really interesting letter Lovecraft wrote in the Omaha Bee, what does this mean?, his father sold some property there?, what does Compton do when not doing blackmail?, a bunch of letters from Wellington, a really publicly important thing, the equivalent of Churchill, the word, Evan!, after you die you can still have your will done in a WILL, it’s amazing, a part of somebody’s consciousnesses, what you’re doing is evil Will, Cecil Rhodes, an evil alliance that kinda worked out, Henry Ford’s estate, being an executor is a burden, harm through social structures, the fairer sex, why she wants to be a man, Barry Pain is very good at not making it super-obvious, the ratings are very high, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, he’s going to his death in a calm and nice way, there’s a poignancy, his personal world is going to end, The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters, which is the best Ringworld book?, they get progressively worse, diminishing returns, Larry Niven, self-criticism, take lessons, sometimes people write about stuff, the best general history of The Reformation, getting all corrupt, a very Douglas Adamsy thing, More Of God’s Greatest Mistakes, a trilogy in 5 parts, exchange of dogs, a subsequent chapter, hinted very strongly, the face being disfigured was deliberate, transferred into another body, Jesse wants to read it subversively, Trish didn’t see it at all, in cases of supermen stories, breaking it down, Captain America: The First Avenger, the hydra guys, bald guy actor, the recipe can’t be repeated, one and done, Stanley Tucci, Big Night (1996), once the equipment is destroyed, who wants to do this again?, is Jesse crazy?, accursed of murder, she burned her hair in the oven, covering up, smells bad, a lotta lies, Compton is incompetent, a window on events almost too passively, a distraction, British murder mysteries, inheritance of property, the whole book is a distraction to Compton, coming to terms with death, literally doing what Frankenstein wants to do: defeat death, abandoning progeny, both ghosts, all delusions, another lie, incurious, covering up, if this was a true story, he’s a briber, he doesn’t do anything immoral, he’s trying to be dispassionate, I found I had a lot more friends than I though I did, hilarious, if you buy a beach house you suddenly find you have a lot of relatives, upperclass twits, who are their patients?, paying off, class stuff, drinking to much, gambling debts, class concerns going up and down, rich people’s problems, the exploitation of a nice person, a more sinister story than it looks and feels, proposing a term, back and forth, social customs, the science fictional aspects, the main aspects, a tragedy of manners, not a comedy of manners, what gives the story its juice, weird customs and judgements, what they say about each other when their not around, I’ll tell him what you said, you see that in science fiction too, space opera, who’s on the cover, who’s being looked at, that’s a really striking cover, that lady is our subject (object), A Princess Of Mars, her husband is the subject of the sentence and she’s the object, who’s that behind her, his tie is not that floppy, looking at her askance, sort of faded, astral projection, he’s got some doubt in his mind, the mom, what is she in there for?, what’s the point of that?, the governess, light and fluffy, pairings we want to see, European princesses, my son should marry her, he’s an up and comer, servants are sources of amusement, golf cartoons, Trump golfing when 100,000 people were dead, Jimmy Carter was near the bottom, a business man’s thing, money money money, ground Alice, her accent changed, London accent to upper-crust accent, so malleable, why he’s choosing her, he really likes the apartment, access to materials, disgraced, moving people away, they’re betrothed, she thinks it is for Alice’s health, supposed to be read subversively, he doesn’t kick his audience in the balls and run off he tweaks their nose, people need Paul, he’s the nexus the axis the axel.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #530 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #530 – The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs; read by Mr Jim Moon. This is an unabridged reading of the story (29 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Mr Jim Moon, Julie Davis, and Maissa Bessada

Talked about on today’s show:
Harper’s Monthly, September 1902, the illustration Maurice Gryffonhagen, 1900, rejected by The Strand, too morbid, maybe morbid, am elaborate explanation to make it a naturalistic story, out of character for W.W. Jacobs, comic tales about sailors and boating, messing about on the water, a spooky tale, the characterization of the family, perfect, warm, a fool (in a nice way), joking around, blame is neutralized, Mrs White is meta, something out of the Arabian Knights, antimacassar, a lace doily, hair oil, smoking jackets, fezs to prevent hair stink, to keep your clothes from becoming smoky, other smells, no six showers a day, that dark turn, small sketches, we feel it when the tragedy happens, Lakesnam Villa vs. Laburnum Villa, The Lady Of The Barge, a tree, ornamental, friendly, poisonous seeds, a golden chain tree vs. a snake, chances vs. changes, Otto Penzler’s Big Book Of Ghost Stories, 203 separate publications, 5th grade reading, ingrained in the culture, everybody knows that idea, be careful what you wish for, The Toll House, Herbert White, Mr. White, the company name: Maw and Meggins, the Sergeant Major Morris, a jerk, how dare you, wish for death in the end, take money for it too, he threw it in the fire, they always turn bad, conflated, The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Twilight Zone, “and so it came to me”, their humourous attitude vs. his seriousness, they’re us, a dreamer, just to look around, 21 years of it, totally clicking, the number three, three times seven, the three family members, three different men, all the wishes get used, no natural sequel, all its wishes used up, many adaptations, most of the adaptations are pretty terrible, The Simpsons adaptation, the dried turkey sandwich, squirming like a lakesnam, very visual, rule out all the logical terrible consequences, “alive and whole”, The CBC Nightfall audio drama, Chris Wiggins, a friend of Vandredei, cursed objects, Friday The Thirteenth: The Series, a doll that kills people at night, classic!, a teacup with strangling ivy, a pair of faith healer’s white gloves, super-creepy, disconnected from the movie series, there was a plan for a cursed hockey mask, late at night, a spell put on it by a very holy man, the moral of the story, fate ruled people’s lives, get to the wishes, nothing comes of nothing (King Lear), Lucretius‘ On The Nature Of Things, the clutches of a dread, he doesn’t want to be that kind of guy, “just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps”, reading his actions, a great bit of gossip, the other reading, get him lubricated, his three listener leaned forward, his host fills it for him, in vino veritas, rubicund, they met in a bar, he doesn’t stay the night, does he have an arm?, how you could do sequels to this, his glass topped against his strong teeth, a bad dude, he’s careless, I don’t know, a first time reader of this story: “Give it to me.”, stories where wishes are granted, deals with the devil, how you word what you want, classic fairy tales, Grimms Bros, the magic (talking) fish, stuff you lot, one gloss, embroider, half finished, The Mouse, The Bird, And The Sausage (is probably about polyamory), Hansel And Gretel, an even older one, Charles Perrault, a woodcutter or a fisherman, if you spare me I’ll grant you three wishes, I wish I had a sausage, you wasted a wish, Interstate 60 (2002), a half-leprechaun, negative wishes, the 1948 film adaptation, The Monkees’ Paw, Tales From The Crypt (1972), Wish You Were Here, Robin Hood, back from the dead, eternal pain, the HBO Tales From The Crypt adaptation, kinda fun, The Alfred Hitchcock Presents adaptation from the 10th season, Lee Majors as Herbert, races in Haiti, all just foreign, witch doctoress, frills and elements, the dynamics, the husband starts it off, the wife and the son encourage it playfully, “wish to be an emperor, father”, he never will!, ill-gotten gains, a little monster on the sideboard, something simian looking back from the fire, there’s no blame, the last bit out loud, such a great job reading it, thank goodness, ask for him whole, go away, other glosses, almost perfect for what it does, maw = ma, meggins = beggins, an insurance company, three sections, how adaptations could work, the 2013 adaptation, in name only, built into the story, reverse order, the sergeants story, got close, it rewards you but not in the way you wanted, he will never share, some interaction, the fakir, the paw as India’s revenge on England, the face he put on, enforce government will, as a revenge story, wishes for immortality, be happy that we’re mortal, voodoo, A Podcast For The Curious, M.R. James, industrialization, coincidence or not, when Julie was not a Christian, when a coincidence happens and it was meant for you to understand (you know it), I’m going to be talking to Julie, discover it for themselves, a solid believer in whatever it is, evaluate for yourself, they get it, we get it, it means nothing, the story means what it means because of the framing, a long time ago Jesse had another website (Aural Noir), merged together, hidden away, Jesse knows all the movies about grifters, James Coburn in Harry In Your Pocket (1973), Jesse’s D&D class was always thief barbarian or barbarian thief, this is a scam, a naturalistic way of explaining this story, having sold the paw, Nigerian prince scams, a crate full of Monkey’s Paws, a scam that works this way, bet on tonight’s horserace “Laburnam to win in the first race”, Bet on “Lakesnam to win”, for today’s results…, this was a scam that was actually employed, a known scam, framing it from inside your house, adaptable as a play (none of the scenes are set outside the house), a new silk hat, it means something, we’re not liable, inside the family circle, “what about the knocking on the door, Jesse?”, we never actually see the zombie here, what the author intended to tell us is contained in his text, the psychology going on, chess to while away the evening, living vicariously, I’m a mysterious stranger, reverse psychology, literally the way con-men work, [Jesse describes the opening scam in The Sting (1973)], a dark and stormy night outside, stories of this kind, a very self aware story, stories are valuable, a confection, massive power over us, this need not be a horror story, a different genre, a Star Trek: Discovery episode with Harry Mudd, an now forgotten genre: the club story, the Jorkens stories by Lord Dunsany, Arthur C. Clarke’s Tales Of The White Hart, Asimov’s The Black Widowers, the Binscombe Tales by John A. Whitbourn, “The Monkey’s Spa”, Japanese snow monkeys (cursed to be comfortable), If I Had Three Wishes, it never works out, a comfortable lesson, the father says he’s happy, the guilt is so evenly spread, the meta-chess move, a metaphor for the story, why she’s so desperate, Jordan Peele, comedy and horror turn on the same thing, hilarious or horrific, E.F. Benson, Ripping Yarns, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, “The Curse Of The Claw”, looking through old magazines, The Haunted Tomb by C.H. Shanan, Assoc. M. Inst. C.E., that tomb was haunted, you’re the detective, a ghost story or a Scooby Doo story, stories of the uncanny (we find out some truth about reality we were not privy to prior), everybody knows about magic (it’s just rare), things seem to be magical (the Gothic tradition), Weiland by Charles Brockden Brown, The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, a knife raised over his girlfriend, Scooby Doo is Gothic!, Old man Willard!, the new Scooby Doo is opposite, they’re detectives, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound Of The Baskervilles, a boundary hedge, salt tax, Lagaan (2001), exotic stuff, just a slip of a lad, a rubicund visage, a wondrous horrible story, a masterful story, a joy to read, could have been written yesterday, where the hell I am, damn near one take, 30 or 40 doilies, very easy for kids to read, answers to homework, 5th grade, 10 years old, Poe, what the heck is a tarn?, I found a tarn, he breath inaudible, good writing, a callback, mother and father, American Gothic.

The Monkey's Paw - Illustration from The Lady Of The Barge

Easton Press' illustration for The Monkey's Paw

LISTENING LIBRARY - The Monkey's Paw And Other Classic Tales Of Terror

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #527 – READALONG: Herbert West: Reanimator by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #527 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa Vu, Mr Jim Moon, and Evan Lampe talk about Herbert West: Reanimator by H.P. Lovecraft

Talked about on today’s show:
Gruesome Tales, Home Brew Magazine, The Lurking Fear, Clark Ashton Smith, the Weird Tales serial, Damon Knight illustrated, Reanimator, assembly, twenty years later, serialized, reading it as a serial, internal summaries, “previously on Re-Animator”, Jeffrey Coombs, Mr Jim Moon’s tin-foil hat theory, the unwilling hero, he hates everybody, Hypnos, no trace of Herbert West, was there ever really a Herbert West?, unlike the movie, sociopathic in his regard for other people, no descent into corruption, the charnel horror, The Hound, aren’t we terrible?, it’s awful, awful really, he never ages, interaction between West and the rest of the world, in an asylum, it makes things fit, he liked the idea so much he wanted to save it for a good story, not junk, only options, changes in Astounding and Amazing, cheap storytelling, pretty amazing, S.T. Joshi, secretly enjoyed writing it, it is fun, progress gone off the rails, its all his fault, the animals, worse and worse, larger transgressions, killing someone, a lizard from New Zealand, indescribable reptile, scientific progression, Frankenstein’s mom died, Star Wars prequels, Darth Vader wants to conquer death, the soul is a myth, no other motivation, a better story about science,

Age has more charity for these incomplete yet high-souled characters, whose worst real vice is timidity, and who are ultimately punished by general ridicule for their intellectual sins—sins like Ptolemaism, Calvinism, anti-Darwinism, anti-Nietzscheism, and every sort of Sabbatarianism and sumptuary legislation.

rub his face in it, thinking of Lovecraft as all the characters, childhood illustrations by Lovecraft, “anglo puritanism”, a war within his own mind, writing as getting out your demons, the solution (vs. the reagent),

It had at first been his hope to find a reagent which would restore vitality before the actual advent of death, and only repeated failures on animals had shewn him…

the Harlem Smoke has forelegs instead of arms, the reagent isnt racist, the character is racist, reality isn’t racist, objects and things, the more you look into it, things to play with, Lovecraft’s racism, pathologizing his writing, secret autobiography, trying to explain away creativity, what if it was this, really interesting, the war in his own mind, going to a play with black actors, C.M. Eddy Jr. Dead Dumb And Blind,

A little after noon on the twenty-eighth day of June, 1924, Dr. Morehouse stopped his machine before the Tanner place and four men alighted.

June 28th 1924, the Democrats not denouncing the KKK, Richard Wagner, race is central to Lovecraft, if you read his letters, to understand lovecraft we have to understand his racism and his racial, black characters in Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold Bug, he’s not interested in race, race is central to everything except for his dream stories, Re-Animator and Bride Of Re-Animator, adding the love element, all the bodies are male, the Dark Adventure Radio Theatre adaption, Dr Gordon Stuart, showing how racist both of the characters are, they lean into it, the factory town part, we’re not supposed to sympathize with these guys, Dan (the narrator character), student loans, Bryan Alexander, they revoke his student loans, the wild monster, straight up murdering a dude, so as I could be witness, ‘you towheaded freak don’t inject me with that needle’, for perverse reasons, a Peruvian civil war, looking at the two films together, quite faithful to the original serial, the women, the love interest, the plagiarist professor, in the Canadian army, what’s in the box?, isn’t he directing the army of the dead?, why would he deliver his own head, the man on the inside

As I have told the police, there was no wagon in the street; but only a group of strange-looking figures bearing a large square box which they deposited in the hallway after one of them had grunted in a highly unnatural voice, “Express—prepaid.” They filed out of the house with a jerky tread, and as I watched them go I had an odd idea that they were turning toward the ancient cemetery on which the back of the house abutted.

Arthur Jermyn, they are always living together, a touch of homo-eroticism, the same streak in Hypnos, the dissociated self, I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, part six is so preposterous,

When I slammed the door after them West came downstairs and looked at the box. It was about two feet square, and bore West’s correct name and present address. It also bore the inscription, “From Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, St. Eloi, Flanders”.

a Thing On The Doorstep moment, a ghoulish wind of ice, the charnel bowels of a putrescent earth, a horde of silent toiling things, The Black Cat, a set of fingers and an eye, the shout-out to The Rats In The Walls, like an army, a beautiful head made of wax, a mad eyed monstrosity, fabulous abominations, they have servants?, unidentifiable ashes, the Sefton Tragedy, those accursed tomb-legions had not been so silent, the framing story, testimony in exchange for immunity, The Tell-Tale Heart, talking to his own defense attorney, a psychotic break, Guy de Maupassant, Philip K. Dick, Herbert West will hold him, controlled by West, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, a reluctant fascination, if these were case notes, it would be so clear, suicide, at the end of the PDF, BUY WAR BONDS, an unconscious joke by the publisher, who watched the 2017 Italian film?, Jesse’s review: “It has a lot of Italian cafes, some yellow liquid, Italian ladies and men, violins, chain, lots of darkness, a shoutout to Frankenstein, dripping liquids, blood. Waiting for improv class to end and the script to begin.”, 100% accurate, they never read the original story and only ever saw the trailer for Stuart Gordon’s movie, what the fuck is going on, you have never seen three more confused people, what is beyond death, was it a chamber?, was it a non-continuous experience, screaming in rebirth, birth is always painful, Lovecraft is a materialist, they just keep shooting and stabbing each other, death is horrific, limbo, stop motion and black and white, the makeup was good, the film was terrible, death is just the beginning, blame Jesse, Beyond Reanimator, having a female in the story, the Tyler Durden Fight Club story, a love story to the original Re-Animator and Frankenstein and Bride Of Frankenstein, the parts, lobotomies to make the dead controllable, the original film is very interested in Lovecraft’s story, a horror comedy and so is the original, The Loved Dead, he wants to make it with them, Lovecraft had a sense of humour, a very pathologized view of the man, if you read his letters, surprisingly funny, self-deprecating, naughty risque humour, hysterically funny, Barry Norman, this is hilarious, once you start seeing the humour, M.R. James’ jokes, very uptight and very straight-laced, reading Lovecraft, so engaged, engaged with other fiction, One Summer Night by Ambrose Bierce, McCall’s, The Body Snatchers by Robert Louis Stevenson, very very ill, no philosopher was he, pathological indifference, a gigantic negro named Jess, not so populace as its register had shown it to be, pallid and haggard, all eyes and teeth, a missing adventure, working class bodies, Monsters Of The Market: Zombies, Vampires And Global Capitalism by David McNally, capital punishment, Burke and Hare, a Burke-skin book, experimentation on working class people The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, Curwen’s dungeon, they haven’t eaten in hundreds of years, once you’re a reanimated zombie, another Frankenstein reference, James Whale’s Frankenstein, the first of a new race, man becomes god, man should not meddle, remaking James Whale’s Frankenstein, working class victims, a sound animal, more asleep than dead, class anxieties, the silent working class, the first illustration, we laid the specimen on the improvised dissecting table, alien autopsy, the cloaked figure may be the narrator, up is down and black is white, an unreliable narrator in his own testimony, the last sentence, their silent because its an hallucination, for the years that followed, literally the narrator, the patient whose banging his head against the wall, age 12 H.P. Lovecraft illustration [I may have been conflating the source, not even sure it is by Lovecraft or even age 12, here’s the source], sword of puritan ethics, the narrator is not as sure about the afterlife as Herbert West, its in his head, being a gentleman, Randolph Carter, The Hound, not as equally as bad as the other, a bust, Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant, The Horla, all his furniture is leaving his house, it all mysteriously reappeared, the furniture of his mind, if there’s any pattern to H.P. Lovecraft its ending up in an insane asylum, poor H.P. Lovecraft, mom and dad, a common trope, the last confession, “there are demons, honest”, losing your reason, losing who you are, the quality of mental health care, gone to the asylum, not a big fan of doctors, their ethics are somewhat questionable,trust and paranoia, second opinions, the hierarchies in asylums and hospitals, The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar, bad science, parallels, gruesomeness, is the M. in M. Valdemar a missing word?, a hoax, a japer, The Man Who Japed, a comedy magazine, Grewsome is a pun on Home Brew, getting intoxicated, a magazine of entertainment, a low brow version of The Smart Set, anarchist cookbook territory, charging 25 cents, the slickest fanzine Jesse’s ever seen (if it is a fanzine), a prozine, their version of the internet, homepages vs. letters, a parallel to a slow version of the internet, fan forums, a lot of it is preserved, Stuart Gordon, Robert E. Howard, in the late 60s and early 70s, when Lovecraft hit paperback, beatnik and hippies, fandom/cult, the trailer for the musical theater version of Re-Animator, just as horrific, the sets, the security guard, Boudoir magazine, so distracted with his pornography, in keeping with the serialization, its good comedy.

From The Dark (typescript)

Home Brew, February 1922

Home Brew, June 1922

ReAnimator art by Francesco Francavilla565

‘

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #357 – READALONG: Captain James Hook And The Curse Of Peter Pan by Jeremiah Kleckner and Jeremy Marshall

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #357 – Jesse and David Stifel talk about Captain James Hook And The Curse Of Peter Pan by Jeremiah Kleckner and Jeremy Marshall.

Talked about on today’s show:
that Burroughs guy (or Captain Hook), Jeremy Marshall, Jeremiah Kleckner, a modern book?, a little under six hours, a take off on a well known property, not a kid’s book, the Peter Pan play, the starting point for this book, childish irresponsibility, a Twilight Zone episode, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, written for adults, vocabularies, they got a dog, in-jokes, Alice In Wonderland, he workshopped it, Hook wasn’t in the play originally, kids love pirates, this kid kidnaps other kids, a sequel, the timeline, Harry Potter of a hundred years ago, Hook, Pan, the Disney film, the black and white Broadway broadcast, kinescope, what a great role, the prototypical adult, the Etonian accent, Cyril Ritchard’s voice, The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, the writing is so good, subtly twisted scenes, why it is short, Jeremiah Kleckner is an English teacher, how to enjoy reading, pre-production, the competition, an ACX book, Jeremiah Kleckner’s blog, auditions, the new publishing model, the cover art, Jesse is very cynical, so is David, self-published, word-wooze, wound and wooze, guberreality?, Chinese food, David Baldacci, what writing is about, a lot of gushing, an alternate take, a prequel to Peter Pan, fairies, a crocodile, Neverland, the Lost Boys, a jigsaw puzzle, who is Captain Hook?, Hook is right, Peter Pan is a self-indulgent little brat, flying, too bad!, Peter Pan treats the Lost Boys like toys, set on a course for evil, with Billy Mumy, It’s a Good Life, “happy fun”, the alliterative punctuation, the god Pan, the god of lonely shepherd boys and the god of panic, panopticon, pan was able to multiply himself infinitely, not the horny goat god, the god of wildness, children and childhood became a thing, children’s literature, child focused culture, child labour, Barrie was the peak of child culture, anti-science, “who believes in fairies?”, why we need Mr Jim Moon, the push pull of science, science killing all the fantasy of being a child, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he just wants to believe, The Best Of Sick Jokes,

Willie, with a thirst for gore,
Nailed his sister to the door.
Mother said, with humor quaint,
“Willie, dear, don’t scratch the paint.”

the symbol of how good the writing is, James Hoodkins, breaking the bottle, the night before his thirteenth birthday, “have fun forever”, a lucky escape, Michael Darling, the Darling family, a failed adult, a funding problem, Smee, Captain Hook’s boatswain (bo’sun), an interesting backstory for Smee, “it’s me”, Blackbeard, Long John Silver, Treasure Island, Black Sails mixes historical and fictional pirates, Robert Louis Stevenson, the second reality, Jesse Labette, Smee by A.M. Burrage, clean fun, hide-and-seek, The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, sardine, a retelling, why does Hoodkins have a sidekick in William, responsibility, double-sided reality, watch out for William, a first step towards manhood, be his mommy, what if…, a stunning achievement, “I’m taking them to heaven.”, a child’s heaven, death, never land, just step out the window, jumping off the roof, almost a real place, The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through The Hidden Connections Of The English Language by Mark Forsyth, the impact of Peter Pan, Wendy, Jonathan Swift, Vanessa, Hermione, a romp, a great performance in a meaty role, natives will tell, by today’s standards, losing regionalisms, mid-Atlantic accent, the Edgar Rice Burroughs audiobooks, a swashbuckling adventure, a completely flawless performance, a sleeper that deserves to be heard, a really fine audiobook that deserves more exposure, the Amazon.com reviews are excellent, “masterful narration”, little Billy at 5, an undersold masterpiece, with the marketing budget…, David’s tastes, science fiction as a modernization of fantasy, thinking critically about a classic, Hook was right!, Hook’s the hero!, it’s not just what you know about Peter Pan, a lot of pirate research, more real than The Pirates Of The Caribbean, not an arrrgh until the appearance of Long John Silver

Posted by Jesse Willis