I picked this up before Armadillocon through one of Half Price Books’ coupon sales:
Farmer, Philip Jose. Down in the Black Gang. Signet, 1971. First paperback edition (Currey says the SFBC hardback, which I also have, precedes), a Very Good+ copy with faint spine creasing, very slight spine lean, edgewear, and darkening to pages. Inscribed by Farmer to Bruce Sterling.
I thought that was a nice association copy to pick up for $12…
The final batch of books I bought from Lloyd Currey, all reference works.
(Lovecraft, H.P.) Brennan, Joseph Payne. A Select Bibliography of H. P. Lovecraft. Self-published, 1952. First edition chapbook, a Fine- copy with a tiny bit of wrinkling. Joshi, Lovecraft Bibliography, III-B-8. Bought for $10.
Here’s Fresno, California’s The Sleepover Disaster with “Oceanographer,” which sounds a tiny bit like Radiohead.
Longtime Saturday Night Live announcer Don Pardo has died. I think he was the last person who worked on the inaugural season of SNL who stayed on with the show for it’s entire run. (Lorne Michaels went away for five years before coming back to the show.)
He was a great announcer, and he did a lot of work in radio and on TV game shows like Jeopardy.
Here he is on why script writers should use short words:
Don Pardo passed away yesterday. But he will receive some lovely parting gifts.
— John Walters (@jdubs88) August 19, 2014
Since their reunion, Slowdive seems to be a vastly better touring band than they were in their heyday. I think it helps that they’ve brought on more touring musicians to fill out the sound. According to the band on Twitter, it’s just the original five members.
Here they are covering Syd Barrett’s “Golden Hair” (from that post-Pink Floyd recording session here he never played anything the same way twice). The Barrett original is some two minutes long, and the original cover Slowdive did was four minutes long. This version is eight minutes long, and ends with one of the most beautiful, multiguitar Shoegaze solos ever recorded. (No wonder that one woman in the audience looks like she’s having a religious experience…)
This was recorded at the Best Kept Secret festival in The Netherlands on Saturday, June 21, 2014.
(Cross-posted from BattleSwarm to here for non-political tank buffs.)
I hope you like tanks.
Here’s the first batch of pictures taken at the Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset, which I visited on Saturday as a gift to my inner 12-year old. (There are few prospects more pleasing to the preadolescent male mind than being encased in a 30 ton metal killing machine.) The first batch is all German tanks and tank destroyers from World War II. Let’s face it, the Germans had far and away the best tanks, and shortly after the allies managed to catch up, Germany would be about ready to introduce something better. Germany’s problem (as compared to America or the Soviet Union) was an inability to manufacture enough of them. (Good thing for us.) They had an enormous array of German tanks, and probably the best collection outside Germany’s own tank museum in Munster.
The first picture of the first of two King Tigers (AKA Tiger II, AKA Königstiger, Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B) they had on display. The most powerful tank Germany produced during the war, its 88mm main gun could destroy any tank on the battlefield. It didn’t get on the battlefield until 1944, and Germany produced less than 500 of them.
The other Tiger II they had there.
Here you can see the Zimmerite anti-magnetic mine coating the Germans used.
Selfie, with tank.
The first of several tank destroyers.
![](https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/q85/s720x720/10565260_10202661383075873_4578005483423743023_n.jpg?oh=73e44c9d01b5a077ae8157cda7687085&oe=5470F705")
This is a German tank destroyer that ended up in Finland. Stalin thought he could walk all over Finand, but the Finns tore the Soviets nine different new assholes in the Winter War, though this tank destroyer obviously post-dates 1940.
Alternate barrel used for the Sturmtiger close assault variant.
Here’s an early Panzer Mark I command tank. It’s amazing to realize that the initial German blitzkrieg was carried out with relatively slow, under-armed, and underpowered Mark I and Mark IIs, that, with Heinz Guderian’s new tactics of mechanized warfare, were simply Good Enough.
A Mark II.
I think this is the Mark III, would would be the mainstay of the Wehrmacht armored divisions through the end of the war.
A muzzle-eye view.
Armoured car.
An 88mm field canon.
Robin Williams dead of an apparent suicide at age 63.
Williams, along with Richard Pryor, was one of the true authentic comic geniuses of my lifetime. As a stand-up comic, his mind was so quick and his work was so manically innovative that his basic appeal actually survived transition to the straitjacket confines of a prime-time sitcom. He was a solid dramatic supporting actor, but it’s a shame that (unlike Pryor) he never found a movie that served the true essence of his comic genius.
Jason Pontin at MIT Review has done a nice interview with Gene Wolfe. It even references the Nova Express interview with him.
(Hat tip: Derek Johnson.)
The sound quality is not the best, and the vocals pretty much suck, but this cover by Alcian Blue (AKA The Antiques) is still the best live cover of “Primal” I’ve heard from anyone (including Slowdive, who only played it at early shows, and not particularly well).
Like I’ve said before, anyone doing good cover of “Primal” will get linked in this space.
As for Slowdive, their new tour shows their live shows have improved considerably, as we shall see next Sunday…
The Swells were an Austin-based Shoegaze band. Here they are with “Golden.”
Evidently they’re now known as Seaholm Electric.