Saturday, April 5, 2025
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Madeline Brandeis revisited
I thought I had just this week learned that the children's author was also a director, taking the helm of 1918's silent fairy tale film The Star Prince. But I guess I had known that, too, as I wrote in 2015: "In her amazing and too-short life, she was also a pioneer filmmaker. You can read about those efforts at the Women Film Pioneers Project." You can also read about Brandeis' The Star Prince in this review from one of my favorite film bloggers, Movies Silently. That review notes: "The story is heavily influenced by fairy tales and there are bad aspects to that as well as good. Equating beauty with goodness is not such a great lesson, nor is making the main villain a dwarf. I think Brandeis’s heart was in the right place but some of the decisions do not exactly work."
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Psychedelic book cover: "Tongues of the Moon"
- Title: Tongues of the Moon
- Additional cover text: "A plot to set the stars on fire ... chilling science fiction"
- Author: Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)
- Cover illustration: Unknown!! It would be really nice to sleuth this one out, so the groovy artist can be acknowledged for the record.
- Publisher: Pyramid Books (T2260)
- Year of this edition: Second printing, July 1970
- Original publication date: 1964 (also by Pyramid Books, with a different cover)
- Pages: 143
- Format: Paperback
- Cover price: 75 cents
- Back cover excerpt: "This is Science Fiction — but — perhaps less Fiction than Science ... Man's fate has always been to play deadly games with the enormous forces of the universe ... tempting doom. And now it may be too late ..."
- Grim opening passage: Fireflies on the dark meadow of Earth ... The men and women looking up through the dome in the center of the crater of Eratosthenes were too stunned to cry out, and some did not understand all at once the meaning of those pinpoints on the shadowy face of the new Earth, the lights blossoming outwards, then dying. So bright they could be seeen through the cloudmasses covering a large part of Europe. So bright they could be located as London, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Leningrade, Rome, Reykjavik, Athens, Cairo ... Then, a flare near Moscow that spread out and out and out. ...
- Excerpt #2: Earth, dark now, except for steady glares here and there, forest fires and cities, probably, which would burn for days. Perhaps weeks. Then, when the fires died out, the embers cooled, no more fire. No more vegetation, no more animals, no more human beings. Not for centuries.
- Excerpt #3: "He'd have to be a raving maniac to do that!" said Broward. "He's a maniac all right, but he knows what he's doing and how to do it," said Scone.
- Excerpt #4: Broward patted her back and said, "I know, sweetheart. Try to forget what's happened, think of it as a nightmare. Now we're awake and in a world that needs to be gardened and needs love as never before."
- Rating on Amazon: 3.6 stars (out of 5).
- Rating on Goodreads: 2.97 stars (out of 5).
- Goodreads review #1: In 2023, Jim wrote: "One of PJF's earlier books, from 1964, and not one of his better books, but still of interest. In this one, Earth is destroyed in a nuclear war — but the war is not over. There were Earth colonies on the Moon and Mars, and led by power-mad dictators, are going to continue the war. Our hero, Broward, is one man who wants to stop the fighting ... and killing. Farmer has a rather cynical view of human nature — much like Mark Twain. However, in this story, he gives us a hero who has the courage to stand up against the insanity of war."
- Goodreads review #2: In 2019, Dave wrote: "Awful! Lol. I was hoping for a little cheesy sci-fi but this was terrible! No chapters, just one long run on story with weak one dimensional characters. Unbearable. I pity the Little Free Library that will house this. Not only will it cheapen the company of the other books where it resides, but some poor soul may choose it thinking it a small hidden masterpiece. Only when they reach home and crack it open will they realize their fate. I can’t even bear to stash it during daylight; one night, soon, I’ll be off to some darkened street to hide this poor mistake of a story."
- That's really harsh: Agreed. There's no need to disparage books that are placed in Little Free Libraries. Let readers explore and decide for themselves. A much more in-depth and thoughtful review of the strengths and weakness of Tongues of the Moon can be found in this 2022 post on MPorcius Fiction Log, which has been going strong since 2013 and already has 42 posts (!) this year. MPorcius writes: "I like the broad outlines of the plot of Tongues of the Moon, and its themes and ideas. All the Biblical references and the theme of an atheist acquiring faith are a good change of pace from the references to Greek and Norse mythology and to Shakespeare, and the insistence that religion is a scam, that is the norm in the science fiction I generally read. ... There is a lot of talk about culture and ethnicity in Tongues of the Moon, and while it seems Farmer admires all the various people of Earth, and the whole point of the book is that we should all get along, some of his depictions might be considered uncomfortably stereotypical."
- Related headlines from this morning, 61 years after the novel's publication: Trump says he’s "angry" at Putin’s remark questioning Zelensky’s legitimacy: The president said he would mull secondary tariffs on Russian oil if Putin stalls the peace process with Ukraine ... and ... Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA — and Mars (Musk & government officials have discussed a scenario in which SpaceX would give up its moon-focused Artemis contracts to free up funds for Mars-related projects) ... and ... Nuclear risk from military AI prompts calls for US, China and others to seek agreement
Saturday, March 29, 2025
1910 letter inside "Legends & Tales of Old Munich"
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Phillies Opening Day 2025
- A neat piece of Phillies history (1970 hex sign giveaway)
- John Doll's 1929 baseball predictions
- Down memory lane with 1983 Topps Baseball Sticker Album
- Collection of Phillies ticket stubs
- Baseball-themed advertisements from a 1953 Phillies scorecard
- Inside the 1973 Spartanburg Phillies program
- Some Phillies Fever from the Bicentennial summer of 1976
- It's been five years since Harry Kalas, the Voice of the Phillies, died [2014]
- Steve Jeltz's greatest day (Phillies 15, Pirates 11)
- Connie Mack has some advice for the 2013 Philadelphia Phillies
- For Opening Day, great Phillies hairstyles of the late 1970s
- Ches Crist, baseball player
- It's Opening Day! Do you have Phillies Phever?
- Philadelphia Phillies spring training photos from March 1984
- 1959 Fleer baseball card showing the "Ted Williams Shift"
- Baseball program ads for Coca-Cola and Hires
- An all-star lineup of Camel smokers from 1954
- Postcard: The haunted hotel that spooks Bryce Harper
- Charlotte Clymer: "If you think what happened to Rumeysa Ozturk can't happen to you because you're a citizen and she's not, you are sorely mistaken. Ozturk was snatched off the street not for being a national security threat but for having a wrong opinion. If we don't put a stop to this, it's coming for all of us."
- Gillian Branstetter: "No matter your station in life, there is astoundingly little separating you from those men in that cage behind Kristi Noem. No charges, no attorneys, no hearings, no trial. Just conjecture and brute force could be enough to justify completely dehumanizing you, too."
- Erin Reed: "It’s not just trans and gender nonconforming people who should be worried — most every marginalized group will be impacted by this measure, as well as huge impacts on married women."
- Prem Thakker: "So the position of the Trump-Vance administration — and every member of Congress unless they explicitly say otherwise — is quite literally you do not have guaranteed free speech rights in America if you say things they don't like. That is the headline."
- Andrea Pitzer: "As long as thugs in hoodies can disappear people from our streets, we do not have a functioning democracy."
Sunday, March 23, 2025
James Baldwin, 62 years ago
In light of the weekend headlines1, I thought I'd share this compelling passage at the start of an essay that James Baldwin penned for The Saturday Review of December 21, 1963 ("A Talk to Teachers").
Footnote
1. For example:
- Greenland is hard to defend. As Trump threatens, the Danes are trying.
- New Trump memo seen as threat to lawyers, attempt to scare off lawsuits
- Autocrats worldwide rolling back rights and rule of law — and citing Trump's example
- Musk and Trump ratchet up involvement in Wisconsin Supreme Court race
- Musk Is Positioned to Profit Off Billions in New Government Contracts
- IRS nears deal with ICE to share addresses of suspect undocumented immigrants
- ICE in Florida detaining Cubans during immigration appointments
- White House seeks corporate sponsorships for Easter event
- After losing millions in federal funds, Texas food banks must now rely on donors
- Trump turbulence leads allies to rethink reliance on U.S. weapons
- Germany unlocking billions to supercharge military
- Russia launches massive drone attack on Kyiv ahead of ceasefire talks
- Bernie Sanders is drawing record crowds as he pushes Democrats to 'fight oligarchy'
- Bernie Sanders and AOC draw huge crowd to Tucson’s Catalina High School
- Iowans Are Backing Trans People After Lawmakers Legalized Discrimination
- RFK Jr. Vows To Make Measles Deaths So Common They Won’t Be Upsetting Anymore [The Onion, but not wrong]
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Book cover: "A Dream of Dracula" — plus other vampire stuff
- Title: A Dream of Dracula
- Subtitle: In Search of the Living Dead
- Author: Leonard Wolf (1923-2019). He was featured in a 2023 Papergreat post about another book of his: 1968's Voices from the Love Generation.
- Dust jacket design: John Renfer, using a 1941 photo that's copyrighted by RKO Pictures.
- Publication date: 1972
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 327
- Dust jacket price: $8.95 (which would a steep $67 in February 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Dedication: "This book is dedicated Bram Stoker on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of DRACULA."
- Excerpt #1: "Meanwhile, somewhere in that field of desire and Coca-Colas, hashish, LSD and old-fashioned, ordinary picnic pleasure, a child is born." [Wolf is writing about the Altamont Free Concert of 1969.]
- Excerpt #2: "Dracula is from the moment that we meet him in Bram Stoker's novel a dry horror, which is a way of saying that he is intelligent evil, unlike the wet, slime-covered things that slide through our instinctive dreams."
- Excerpt #3: "Vampires have even been reported in Outer Mongolia. And if Hollywood is any prophet, they will be found waiting for mankind on planets where our rocket ships have not yet landed."
- Excerpt #4: "Christopher Lee is the best and most famous screen Dracula since Bela Lugosi. I sat in his London living room, which felt as if all of its mirrors, couches, tables and walls had been dipped into a tasteful sea-green dye. Lee had the color television on and was watching an important cricket match. ... He spoke more or less nonstop, in a rich but curiously charged voice. It was at once evident that he took the role of Dracula with great seriousness and had read all about Stoker and the folklore of vampires. He had very clear opinions about his relationship to the role. He pointed out that he had nothing to do with the scripts of the films he made."
- Excerpt #5: "Dracula, then, is a novel that lurches toward greatness, stumbling over perceived and unperceived mysteries: Christianity, insanity, identity, a spectrum of incest possibilities, marriage, homosexuality, immortality and death."
- Excerpt #6: "The vampire fascinates a century that is as much frightened as it is exhilarated by its rush toward sexual freedom. ... He kiss permits all unions. ... Moreover, his is an easy love that evades the usual failures of the flesh. ... And it stands for death."
- Rating on Goodreads: 3.68 stars (out of 5)
- Goodreads review: In 2014, Aric Cushing summed it up thusly: "A personal journey through a landscape of childhood dreams, melancholy, and vampire sentiment."
- Rating on Amazon: 4.1 stars (out of 5)
- Amazon review excerpt: In 2004, mirasreviews wrote: "'A Dream of Dracula' is a meditation on the novel 'Dracula' and its 20th century progeny — literary, cultural, and personal — published on the 75th anniversary of Bram Stoker's novel, in 1972. A few years later, author Leonard Wolf would publish the most elaborately annotated version of 'Dracula.' Wolf is one of the world's foremost 'Dracula' scholars, but the novel has touched him more intimately than other academics. 'A Dream of Dracula' is a collection of ruminations on 'Dracula,' vampires, blood, and death, often is a stream of conscious style, all connected, directly or loosely, to the 19th century gothic novel whose popularity is set to survive longer than even its vampiric villain did. The book's ten chapters weave in and out of the past and present."
- Other views: The book is discussed by "Tinhuviel Artanis" in a 2006 LiveJournal post: "This is ... one of the best books on the subject of vampires, vampirism, the folklore of the the vampire, and the vampire's influence on popular culture. Published in 1972, it has that air of revolution, the quest for freedom, and the celebration of the absurd wrapped neatly in its poetry." ... And Alex Bledsoe wrote about Wolf's book on his blog, stating: "Wolf was actually born in Transylvania, and the book is a dive into both the legend of Dracula in popular culture, and into the psyche of Leonard Wolf. One is obviously more interesting now than the other, but even the personal asides and extended vignettes have their entertainment value. Wolf was writing at the end of the Sixties, so some of his interviewees actually use phrases like, 'groovy' and 'turned on.'"
But wait, there's more
I've been keeping some vampiric tidbits tucked away, but they'll never make their own standalone post, so I'm posting them here:
Also in 2014, Hodgson wrote a fun post on Black Hole about visiting Bela Lugosi's former home.