Under Electric Light‘s “Waiting For The Rain To Fall” starts off an awful lot like David Bowie’s “Heroes,” then goes off in its own direction.
Shoegazer Sunday: Under Electric Light’s “Waiting For The Rain To Fall”
January 17th, 2016Interview With Spinal Tap Manager Ian Faith
January 17th, 2016Here’s a modestly amusing link for a cold Sunday morning, a video interview with Spinal Tap manager Ian Faith on faking his own death, why “Big Bottom” is better than “Stonehenge,” and who he could make a lot of money off of were they to die.
Keep you expectations modest…
Alan Rickman, RIP
January 14th, 2016British actor Alan Rickman has died at age 69.
I’ve never seen the Harry Potter films, and while I enjoyed him as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and the Metatron in Dogma, my favorite of his roles was Galaxy Quest, as a British stage actor trapped into pretending he was an alien by the beliefs of other aliens.
Alas, he shall not be avenged by Grabthar’s Hammer…
Library Addition: Kuttner Times Three
January 13th, 2016Though much of Kuttner is coming back into print thanks to Haffner Press, the following item dates from a period when most (if not all) of it was out of print:
Kuttner, Henry. Kuttner Times Three. Virgil Utter, 1988. First edition chapbook original, one of 200 copies, a Fine- copy with a light crease at head and a thin line of fading along spine, with Erratum slip inserted before the introduction. Contains the stories “The Old Army Game,” “Bamboo Death” and “The Wolf of Aragon.” Bought off the Internet for $10.
Shoegazer Sunday: Savage Sister’s “Harmonize”
January 10th, 2016For your Sunday dose of Shoegaze, here’s Savage Sister‘s “Harmonize”.
Library Additions: July 1 through December 31, 2015
January 7th, 2016Here’s a list of all the books I picked up between July 1 and December 31 of 2015.
Many of the paperback originals here were bought for approximately 25¢ each from Houston bookstore Twice Told Tale’s going out of business sale in November, where prices were $15 a paper grocery sack full of books.
For some reason, the last half year of book purchases has been heavy on Normans. Go figure…
(Dick, Philip K.) Wintz, Henry and David Hyde. Precious Artifacts: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography: United States of America and United Kingdom Editions 1955-2012. Wide Books, 2012. First edition hardback, #77 of 100 signed, hardback copies, a Fine- copy with slight delamination lift along top front spine join gutter, in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued, with errata slip and related postcards laid in. Bought off eBay for $26.
RIP: Murray Wayne Person, Jr. (1943—2016)
January 3rd, 2016My father, Murray Wayne Person, Jr. (May 1943—January 3, 2016) passed away in his sleep this morning in Houston after a two-and-a-half year battle with cancer. He had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer in July of 2013, and after surgery to remove it doctors discovered it had spread to his lymph nodes. In early December 2015 scans showed it had stopped responding to the chemotherapy that had previously kept it in check and he was put on hospice care in his own home, as per his wishes.
He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Delois Person (who cared for him in his final illness and was at his side when he passed), his sister Sharon Evans, his son Lawrence Person, his daughter Camille Person Prevo, and his granddaughter Lyric Prevo. He was a member of Unity Church of Houston, where he managed ushering until stepping down due to his illness.
My father was a smart, stubborn, and occasionally difficult man. He obtained an accounting degree from night school at the University of Houston, and spent his life supporting his family working as a CPA and comptroller for a variety of companies. He had interests in science fiction (and read The Hobbit and part of The Lord of the Rings to me at bedtime when I was a child), astronomy and coin collecting. I generally got along well with him, the only difficulties arising because we were entirely too much alike.
My father had competed in football and track in high school, but his terminal illness gradually robbed him of his strength, as the aftermath of the surgery (including a return stay for an infection) and the regular visits to MD Anderson wore him down. During his own father’s terminal illness, he said “There comes a point when a dying man needs to die like a tired man needs to sleep,” and he had finally reached that stage and was ready to go. Assistance from Houston Hospice (including an in-home hospital bed and liquid morphine) greatly eased the difficulties of his final days.
I came home for Christmas and said goodbye to him on December 29, while he was still (intermittently) lucid.
As he donated his body to science there will be no funeral, but will likely be a memorial service in Houston later this month.
Library Addition: Limited Hardback of Precious Artifacts PKD Bibliography
December 24th, 2015Here’s a Philip K. Dick bibliography I tried to order copies of for Lame Excuse Books when it came out back in 2012, but the publisher didn’t want to deal wholesale.
(Dick, Philip K.) Wintz, Henry and David Hyde. Precious Artifacts: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography: United States of America and United Kingdom Editions 1955-2012. Wide Books, 2012. First edition hardback, #77 of 100 signed, hardback copies, a Fine- copy with slight delamination lift along top front spine join gutter, in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued, with errata slip and related postcards laid in. Bought off eBay for $26.
This is not a review, since I haven’t read all of the book, but flipping through it, there’s been something to irritate me on almost every page:
That said, there’s still a lot of good information found nowhere else on various PKD editions, including thumbnail color pictures of editions (including one showing the different SFBC spine colors for The Man in the High Castle, covering the books published after Levack, etc. But organization is so poor that it makes it far more difficult to find anything than it should be…
Library Addition: Henry Kuttner’s Murder of a Wife
December 23rd, 2015Picked up a not-particularly-common Henry Kuttner hardback:
Kuttner, Henry. Murder of a Wife. Garland, 1983. First hardback edition (originally a PBO by Permabooks in 1958), a Fine- copy with slight bend at head and heel, sans dust jacket, as issued. Number 26 of Garland’s 50 Classics of Crime Fiction: 1950—1975 series. I’m not sure what the print run was, but if they were anything like Garland’s 50 Classics of Science Fiction runs, it was probably quite small. Hubin, Crime Fiction, 1749—1980: A Comprehensive Bibliography, page 236 (for the PBO). Bought for $30 online.
This Might Get Your Goat
December 21st, 2015I blame Dwight.
Evidently there’s a Swedish charity that’s trying to raise goat awareness or some damn thing, and to do so they’ve released a Christmas album.
Sung by goats.
And by “sung,” I mean “torturing you ears.”
Yes, it’s Jingle Cats with goats. If you’re in dire need of finding a way to make guests leave at the end of a Christmas party, I think this will provide the answer…