And here’s Philadelphia-based Nothing with “B & E.”
Shoegazer Sunday: Nothing’s “B & E”
April 26th, 2015Blue Bell Recalls ALL Products
April 20th, 2015“Brenham-based Blue Bell Creameries is pulling all of its products from the shelves after more ice cream samples tested positive for a life-threatening bacterial infection.”
The voluntary decision, announced Monday, is the latest and most sweeping development to plague the Texas business icon since a recall last month, the first in the company’s 108-year history.
It came after an “enhanced sampling program” that found half-gallon containers of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream produced on March 17 and March 27 contained the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, company officials said.
Plus this:
“The latest tests mean the company had several positive tests for Listeria in different plants.”
Pretty hard to fathom a wide-spread outbreak in multiple plants. The only explanations I can think of:
Anyway, if you have any Blue Bell in your freezer, it’s probably safest to throw it out…
Library Addition: Philip K. Dick’s Young Authors’ Club
April 20th, 2015Here’s an odd Philip K. Dick item it took me a bit of effort to track down:
Dick, Philip K. (Frank T. Hollander, editor). Young Authors’ Club: The Wartime Adolescent Writings of Philip K. Dick. Frank T. Hollander, 2014. First edition trade paperback original, #58 of 100 copies signed by the editor/publisher, a Fine copy. A 94 page chapbook containing Dick’s published writings from 1942 to 1944 in the Berkeley Daily Gazette newspaper, consisting of fiction and poems, some of which are fantasy. Includes bibliographic information and story notes. Something likely to drive Dick completists crazy. I’ll have one copy available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Shadows are, as usual, a scanner artifact.
Shoegazer Sunday: Echodrone’s “Noisebed”
April 19th, 2015Still grooving on Echodrone’s new album Five. My favorite piece from the album is “Noisebed,” which has some absolutely lovely harmonies:
So consistent is their sound that only after repeated listenings to Five did I notice that original lead singer Meredith Gibbons had left and been replaced by Rachel Lopez (who seems to have a bit higher range).
New Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer Drops
April 16th, 2015Not seeing it on YouTube just yet…
Library Addition: Charles Lewis Hind’s The Enchanted Stone
April 15th, 2015Here’s a book I read about in By the Book World Remembered that sounded intriguing.
Hind, Charles Lewis. The Enchanted Stone. Adam and Charles Black (London), 1896. First edition hardback, a Very Good copy with repaired hinges, slight spine fading, bookplate on insider front cover and uneven foxing on front and rear free endpaper. By the Book World Remembered, page 106, which describes it as a “Fantastic tale of a vast Chinese city under London.” Tietler, By the World Forgot, page 53, which notes that this UK first edition has an extra chapter not in the American edition. Bleiler, Checklist (1978), page 100. Reginald, page 253. A very odd sounding Wainscot (to use Clute’s term from The Encyclopedia of Fantasy) indeed. Bought off the Internet for $36 plus shipping from Canada.
Shoegazer Sunday: Echodrone’s “Glacial Place”
April 12th, 2015Echodrone’s new album Five is now out, which is cause enough for Shoegaze fans to celebrate.
The video below is for the song “Glacial Place”:
The footage in the video is taken from the Philco Ford Corporation’s 1967 industrial futurist film The Home Of The Future: Year 1999 A.D.:
As glimpses of retrofuturism go, it hits a lot closer to the mark than most, offering a central home computer (“which is secretary, librarian, banker, teacher, medical technician, bridge partner and/or all-around servant”), computerized learning, bookeeping, etc., and lots of glowing screens. It even predicts online shopping! As always, the hairstyles immediately tell you the film’s actual era.
Philco actually manufactured the Mission Control monitors NASA used well into the 1990s. Ford sold Philco to GTE, and since then the brand has been broken up and licensed to various companies around the world.
Library Addition: Future War Novel From 1909
April 6th, 2015I saw this on eBay, put in a lowball bid and picked it up cheap.
Fitzpatrick, E. H. The Coming Conflict of Nations, or the Japanese American War. H.W. Rokker, 1909. First edition hardback, a Very Good copy in black cloth boards stamped in gold, stamping on spine dulled bit still present, a few spots of wear or discoloration, slight bends at head and heel, newspaper review clipping pasted in on inside front cover, resulting in considerable foxing to front free endpaper. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: “Professor John Syphers/with the best wishes/of the author./Ernest Hugh Fitzpatrick/L.R.C.P., Ed./Pontiac, Illinois/March 5, 1910.” There’s also a long inscription by the recipient of the inscription on the other side of the front free endpaper. Bleiler, Checklist (1978), page 73. Bleiler, Science Fiction: The Early Years, page 247. Reginald, page 188. Possibly the first novel to predict a war between the United States and Japan. Bought off eBay for $10.50. Given that Currey has an unsigned copy that looks a bit worse at $350, I think it was a good buy…
Shoegazer Sunday: The Casket Girls’ “The Chase”
April 5th, 2015The Casket Girls are sisters Phaedra and Elsa Greene backed by the ubiquitous Ryan Graveface. Here’s “The Chase,” the concluding song on True Love Kills The Fairy Tale.
I picked up True Love Kills The Fairy Tale. If you like this, there’s more where that came from. The problem is, there’s a distinct sameness not to the songs themselves, but to the approach to the songs. Naive and slightly lazy female harmonies from the Greene sisters (a little like the Roaches but only two=part harmony, or the female harmony bits from Polyphonic Spree), a buzzy wall-of-sound backing electronic instrumentation from Graveface, some electronic percussion, and vey little else. A few more backing tracks and more varied harmonies would seem to be in order…