Podcast appearances and mentions of alec nevala lee

Alec's Astounding is a brilliant account of the 'golden age' of science-fiction when John Campbell, jnr, brought together the writers who would thrust s-f into the public arena - Heinlein, Asimov, Van Vogt and, of course, Ron Hubbard. There is much to be learned from Hubbard's stint at Astounding. Without Campbell, Dianetics might never have seen the light of day. Find how those around Hubbard lost faith in his ideas. Check out Alec's website here.

In 1970 Avon Books published a landmark anthology “Science Fiction Hall of Fame” featuring 16 classic short stories that represent landmark tales of the genre. The stories were voted on by the members of the new (at the time in the late 60s) organization Science Fiction Writers of America. In this series, I will be joined by a panel of different guests to break down these stories and talk about the authors in the book. In this episode, I am joined by two experts on the history of Science Fiction. Alec Nevala-Lee author of Astounding was in part a biography of John W. Campbell and a history of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Kate Heffner is a postgraduate researcher of science fiction and gender studies in the School of History at the University of Kent. She was awarded the Peter Nichols International Prize for best essay in science fiction for her research on feminist science fiction fan cultures. The story we are covering is the 1934 classic “Twilight by John W. Campbell.” This story is considered a game-changer that changed Science Fiction forever. Don't have the story to read before you listen? I got you. So use the link below to read the story before listening. Or listen to an audio version of the story on YouTube. An Internet archive of the original magazine appearance: https://archive.org/details/astounding_v14n03_1934-11_1.1/page/n45/mode/2up?view=theater Audio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0_I4_ILREs The next episode will be Helen O'Loy by Lester Del Rey featuring Robotics Through Science Fiction host Robin Murphy, Professor Lisa Yaszek, and Brian Collins of SF Remembrance. •You can find my books here: Amazon-https://www.amazon.com/David-Agranoff/e/B004FGT4ZW •And me here: Goodreads-http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2988332.David_Agranoff Twitter-https://twitter.com/DAgranoffAuthor Blog-http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/

In 1970 Avon Books published a landmark anthology “Science Fiction Hall of Fame” featuring 16 classic short stories that represent landmark tales of the genre. The stories were voted on by the members of the new (at the time in the late 60s) organization Science Fiction Writers of America. In this series, I will be joined by a panel of different guests to break down these stories and talk about the authors in the book. In this episode, I am joined by two returning guests. First up is the Hugo award-winning fan writer Cora Buhlert who knows her Science Fiction. Steve Davison is the current owner and publisher of one of the longest-running Science Fiction magazines Amazing Stories. Because this is the first episode we talk a lot about the make-up of the book and the process editor Robert Silverberg used to put the book together. The story we are covering is the 1934 classic “A Martian Odessey by Stanley G. Weinbaum. This story is considered a game-changer that changed Science Fiction forever. Don't have the story to read before you listen? I got you. So use the link below to read the story before listening. Or listen to an audio version of the story on YouTube An Internet archive of the original magazine appearance: https://archive.org/details/Wonder_Stories_v06n02_1934-07/page/n47/mode/2up?view=theater Audio version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SikXI-x-5UA&t=143s The next episode will be Twilight by John W. Campbell featuring Alec Nevala-Lee, James Reich, and Kate Heffner. •You can find my books here: Amazon-https://www.amazon.com/David-Agranoff/e/B004FGT4ZW •And me here: Goodreads-http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2988332.David_Agranoff Twitter-https://twitter.com/DAgranoffAuthor Blog-http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/

Alec Nevala-Lee, author of the stellar biographies Astounding and Inventor of the Future joins me for a discussion on Isaac Asimov, the author and his work. All discussions of the works mentioned stay fairly spoiler-lite. Asimov 101: Advanced Asimov: Alec’s Links:

Episode 165 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Dark Stat” and the career of the Grateful Dead. This is a long one, even longer than the previous episode, but don't worry, that won't be the norm. There's a reason these two were much longer than average. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "Codine" by the Charlatans. Errata I mispronounce Brent Mydland's name as Myland a couple of times, and in the introduction I say "Touch of Grey" came out in 1988 -- I later, correctly, say 1987. (I seem to have had a real problem with dates in the intro -- I also originally talked about "Blue Suede Shoes" being in 1954 before fixing it in the edit to be 1956) Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Grateful Dead, and Grayfolded runs to two hours. I referred to a lot of books for this episode, partly because almost everything about the Grateful Dead is written from a fannish perspective that already assumes background knowledge, rather than to provide that background knowledge. Of the various books I used, Dennis McNally's biography of the band and This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead by Blair Jackson and David Gans are probably most useful for the casually interested. Other books on the Dead I used included McNally's Jerry on Jerry, a collection of interviews with Garcia; Deal, Bill Kreutzmann's autobiography; The Grateful Dead FAQ by Tony Sclafani; So Many Roads by David Browne; Deadology by Howard F. Weiner; Fare Thee Well by Joel Selvin and Pamela Turley; and Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman. Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is the classic account of the Pranksters, though not always reliable. I reference Slaughterhouse Five a lot. As well as the novel itself, which everyone should read, I also read this rather excellent graphic novel adaptation, and The Writer's Crusade, a book about the writing of the novel. I also reference Ted Sturgeon's More Than Human. For background on the scene around Astounding Science Fiction which included Sturgeon, John W. Campbell, L. Ron Hubbard, and many other science fiction writers, I recommend Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding. 1,000 True Fans can be read online, as can the essay on the Californian ideology, and John Perry Barlow's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace". The best collection of Grateful Dead material is the box set The Golden Road, which contains all the albums released in Pigpen's lifetime along with a lot of bonus material, but which appears currently out of print. Live/Dead contains both the live version of "Dark Star" which made it well known and, as a CD bonus track, the original single version. And archive.org has more live recordings of the group than you can possibly ever listen to. Grayfolded can be bought from John Oswald's Bandcamp Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [Excerpt: Tuning from "Grayfolded", under the warnings Before we begin -- as we're tuning up, as it were, I should mention that this episode contains discussions of alcoholism, drug addiction, racism, nonconsensual drugging of other people, and deaths from drug abuse, suicide, and car accidents. As always, I try to deal with these subjects as carefully as possible, but if you find any of those things upsetting you may wish to read the transcript rather than listen to this episode, or skip it altogether. Also, I should note that the members of the Grateful Dead were much freer with their use of swearing in interviews than any other band we've covered so far, and that makes using quotes from them rather more difficult than with other bands, given the limitations of the rules imposed to stop the podcast being marked as adult. If I quote anything with a word I can't use here, I'll give a brief pause in the audio, and in the transcript I'll have the word in square brackets. [tuning ends] All this happened, more or less. In 1910, T. S. Eliot started work on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", which at the time was deemed barely poetry, with one reviewer imagining Eliot saying "I'll just put down the first thing that comes into my head, and call it 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'" It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature. In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death", a book in which the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, comes unstuck in time, and starts living a nonlinear life, hopping around between times reliving his experiences in the Second World War, and future experiences up to 1976 after being kidnapped by beings from the planet Tralfamadore. Or perhaps he has flashbacks and hallucinations after having a breakdown from PTSD. It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature or of science fiction, depending on how you look at it. In 1953, Theodore Sturgeon wrote More Than Human. It is now considered one of the great classics of science fiction. In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. It is now considered either a bad piece of science fiction or one of the great revelatory works of religious history, depending on how you look at it. In 1994, 1995, and 1996 the composer John Oswald released, first as two individual CDs and then as a double-CD, an album called Grayfolded, which the composer says in the liner notes he thinks of as existing in Tralfamadorian time. The Tralfamadorians in Vonnegut's novels don't see time as a linear thing with a beginning and end, but as a continuum that they can move between at will. When someone dies, they just think that at this particular point in time they're not doing so good, but at other points in time they're fine, so why focus on the bad time? In the book, when told of someone dying, the Tralfamadorians just say "so it goes". In between the first CD's release and the release of the double-CD version, Jerry Garcia died. From August 1942 through August 1995, Jerry Garcia was alive. So it goes. Shall we go, you and I? [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Dark Star (Omni 3/30/94)"] "One principle has become clear. Since motives are so frequently found in combination, it is essential that the complex types be analyzed and arranged, with an eye kept single nevertheless to the master-theme under discussion. Collectors, both primary and subsidiary, have done such valiant service that the treasures at our command are amply sufficient for such studies, so extensive, indeed, that the task of going through them thoroughly has become too great for the unassisted student. It cannot be too strongly urged that a single theme in its various types and compounds must be made predominant in any useful comparative study. This is true when the sources and analogues of any literary work are treated; it is even truer when the bare motive is discussed. The Grateful Dead furnishes an apt illustration of the necessity of such handling. It appears in a variety of different combinations, almost never alone. Indeed, it is so widespread a tale, and its combinations are so various, that there is the utmost difficulty in determining just what may properly be regarded the original kernel of it, the simple theme to which other motives were joined. Various opinions, as we shall see, have been held with reference to this matter, most of them justified perhaps by the materials in the hands of the scholars holding them, but none quite adequate in view of later evidence." That's a quote from The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story, by Gordon Hall Gerould, published in 1908. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five opens with a chapter about the process of writing the novel itself, and how difficult it was. He says "I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big." This is an episode several of my listeners have been looking forward to, but it's one I've been dreading writing, because this is an episode -- I think the only one in the series -- where the format of the podcast simply *will not* work. Were the Grateful Dead not such an important band, I would skip this episode altogether, but they're a band that simply can't be ignored, and that's a real problem here. Because my intent, always, with this podcast, is to present the recordings of the artists in question, put them in context, and explain why they were important, what their music meant to its listeners. To put, as far as is possible, the positive case for why the music mattered *in the context of its time*. Not why it matters now, or why it matters to me, but why it matters *in its historical context*. Whether I like the music or not isn't the point. Whether it stands up now isn't the point. I play the music, explain what it was they were doing, why they were doing it, what people saw in it. If I do my job well, you come away listening to "Blue Suede Shoes" the way people heard it in 1956, or "Good Vibrations" the way people heard it in 1966, and understanding why people were so impressed by those records. That is simply *not possible* for the Grateful Dead. I can present a case for them as musicians, and hope to do so. I can explain the appeal as best I understand it, and talk about things I like in their music, and things I've noticed. But what I can't do is present their recordings the way they were received in the sixties and explain why they were popular. Because every other act I have covered or will cover in this podcast has been a *recording* act, and their success was based on records. They may also have been exceptional live performers, but James Brown or Ike and Tina Turner are remembered for great *records*, like "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "River Deep, Mountain High". Their great moments were captured on vinyl, to be listened back to, and susceptible of analysis. That is not the case for the Grateful Dead, and what is worse *they explicitly said, publicly, on multiple occasions* that it is not possible for me to understand their art, and thus that it is not possible for me to explain it. The Grateful Dead did make studio records, some of them very good. But they always said, consistently, over a thirty year period, that their records didn't capture what they did, and that the only way -- the *only* way, they were very clear about this -- that one could actually understand and appreciate their music, was to see them live, and furthermore to see them live while on psychedelic drugs. [Excerpt: Grateful Dead crowd noise] I never saw the Grateful Dead live -- their last UK performance was a couple of years before I went to my first ever gig -- and I have never taken a psychedelic substance. So by the Grateful Dead's own criteria, it is literally impossible for me to understand or explain their music the way that it should be understood or explained. In a way I'm in a similar position to the one I was in with La Monte Young in the last episode, whose music it's mostly impossible to experience without being in his presence. This is one reason of several why I placed these two episodes back to back. Of course, there is a difference between Young and the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead allowed -- even encouraged -- the recording of their live performances. There are literally thousands of concert recordings in circulation, many of them of professional quality. I have listened to many of those, and I can hear what they were doing. I can tell you what *I* think is interesting about their music, and about their musicianship. And I think I can build up a good case for why they were important, and why they're interesting, and why those recordings are worth listening to. And I can certainly explain the cultural phenomenon that was the Grateful Dead. But just know that while I may have found *a* point, *an* explanation for why the Grateful Dead were important, by the band's own lights and those of their fans, no matter how good a job I do in this episode, I *cannot* get it right. And that is, in itself, enough of a reason for this episode to exist, and for me to try, even harder than I normally do, to get it right *anyway*. Because no matter how well I do my job this episode will stand as an example of why this series is called "*A* History", not *the* history. Because parts of the past are ephemeral. There are things about which it's true to say "You had to be there". I cannot know what it was like to have been an American the day Kennedy was shot, I cannot know what it was like to be alive when a man walked on the Moon. Those are things nobody my age or younger can ever experience. And since August the ninth, 1995, the experience of hearing the Grateful Dead's music the way they wanted it heard has been in that category. And that is by design. Jerry Garcia once said "if you work really hard as an artist, you may be able to build something they can't tear down, you know, after you're gone... What I want to do is I want it here. I want it now, in this lifetime. I want what I enjoy to last as long as I do and not last any longer. You know, I don't want something that ends up being as much a nuisance as it is a work of art, you know?" And there's another difficulty. There are only two points in time where it makes sense to do a podcast episode on the Grateful Dead -- late 1967 and early 1968, when the San Francisco scene they were part of was at its most culturally relevant, and 1988 when they had their only top ten hit and gained their largest audience. I can't realistically leave them out of the story until 1988, so it has to be 1968. But the songs they are most remembered for are those they wrote between 1970 and 1972, and those songs are influenced by artists and events we haven't yet covered in the podcast, who will be getting their own episodes in the future. I can't explain those things in this episode, because they need whole episodes of their own. I can't not explain them without leaving out important context for the Grateful Dead. So the best I can do is treat the story I'm telling as if it were in Tralfamadorian time. All of it's happening all at once, and some of it is happening in different episodes that haven't been recorded yet. The podcast as a whole travels linearly from 1938 through to 1999, but this episode is happening in 1968 and 1972 and 1988 and 1995 and other times, all at once. Sometimes I'll talk about things as if you're already familiar with them, but they haven't happened yet in the story. Feel free to come unstuck in time and revisit this time after episode 167, and 172, and 176, and 192, and experience it again. So this has to be an experimental episode. It may well be an experiment that you think fails. If so, the next episode is likely to be far more to your taste, and much shorter than this or the last episode, two episodes that between them have to create a scaffolding on which will hang much of the rest of this podcast's narrative. I've finished my Grateful Dead script now. The next one I write is going to be fun: [Excerpt: Grateful Dead, "Dark Star"] Infrastructure means everything. How we get from place to place, how we transport goods, information, and ourselves, makes a big difference in how society is structured, and in the music we hear. For many centuries, the prime means of long-distance transport was by water -- sailing ships on the ocean, canal boats and steamboats for inland navigation -- and so folk songs talked about the ship as both means of escape, means of making a living, and in some senses as a trap. You'd go out to sea for adventure, or to escape your problems, but you'd find that the sea itself brought its own problems. Because of this we have a long, long tradition of sea shanties which are known throughout the world: [Excerpt: A. L. Lloyd, "Off to Sea Once More"] But in the nineteenth century, the railway was invented and, at least as far as travel within a landmass goes, it replaced the steamboat in the popular imaginary. Now the railway was how you got from place to place, and how you moved freight from one place to another. The railway brought freedom, and was an opportunity for outlaws, whether train robbers or a romanticised version of the hobo hopping onto a freight train and making his way to new lands and new opportunity. It was the train that brought soldiers home from wars, and the train that allowed the Great Migration of Black people from the South to the industrial North. There would still be songs about the riverboats, about how ol' man river keeps rolling along and about the big river Johnny Cash sang about, but increasingly they would be songs of the past, not the present. The train quickly replaced the steamboat in the iconography of what we now think of as roots music -- blues, country, folk, and early jazz music. Sometimes this was very literal. Furry Lewis' "Kassie Jones" -- about a legendary train driver who would break the rules to make sure his train made the station on time, but who ended up sacrificing his own life to save his passengers in a train crash -- is based on "Alabamy Bound", which as we heard in the episode on "Stagger Lee", was about steamboats: [Excerpt: Furry Lewis, "Kassie Jones"] In the early episodes of this podcast we heard many, many, songs about the railway. Louis Jordan saying "take me right back to the track, Jack", Rosetta Tharpe singing about how "this train don't carry no gamblers", the trickster freight train driver driving on the "Rock Island Line", the mystery train sixteen coaches long, the train that kept-a-rollin' all night long, the Midnight Special which the prisoners wished would shine its ever-loving light on them, and the train coming past Folsom Prison whose whistle makes Johnny Cash hang his head and cry. But by the 1960s, that kind of song had started to dry up. It would happen on occasion -- "People Get Ready" by the Impressions is the most obvious example of the train metaphor in an important sixties record -- but by the late sixties the train was no longer a symbol of freedom but of the past. In 1969 Harry Nilsson sang about how "Nobody Cares About the Railroads Any More", and in 1968 the Kinks sang about "The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains". When in 1968 Merle Haggard sang about a freight train, it was as a memory, of a child with hopes that ended up thwarted by reality and his own nature: [Excerpt: Merle Haggard, "Mama Tried"] And the reason for this was that there had been another shift, a shift that had started in the forties and accelerated in the late fifties but had taken a little time to ripple through the culture. Now the train had been replaced in the popular imaginary by motorised transport. Instead of hopping on a train without paying, if you had no money in your pocket you'd have to hitch-hike all the way. Freedom now meant individuality. The ultimate in freedom was the biker -- the Hell's Angels who could go anywhere, unburdened by anything -- and instead of goods being moved by freight train, increasingly they were being moved by truck drivers. By the mid-seventies, truck drivers took a central place in American life, and the most romantic way to live life was to live it on the road. On The Road was also the title of a 1957 novel by Jack Kerouac, which was one of the first major signs of this cultural shift in America. Kerouac was writing about events in the late forties and early fifties, but his book was also a precursor of the sixties counterculture. He wrote the book on one continuous sheet of paper, as a stream of consciousness. Kerouac died in 1969 of an internal haemmorage brought on by too much alcohol consumption. So it goes. But the big key to this cultural shift was caused by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, a massive infrastructure spending bill that led to the construction of the modern American Interstate Highway system. This accelerated a program that had already started, of building much bigger, safer, faster roads. It also, as anyone who has read Robert Caro's The Power Broker knows, reinforced segregation and white flight. It did this both by making commuting into major cities from the suburbs easier -- thus allowing white people with more money to move further away from the cities and still work there -- and by bulldozing community spaces where Black people lived. More than a million people lost their homes and were forcibly moved, and orders of magnitude more lost their communities' parks and green spaces. And both as a result of deliberate actions and unconscious bigotry, the bulk of those affected were Black people -- who often found themselves, if they weren't forced to move, on one side of a ten-lane highway where the park used to be, with white people on the other side of the highway. The Federal-Aid Highway Act gave even more power to the unaccountable central planners like Robert Moses, the urban planner in New York who managed to become arguably the most powerful man in the city without ever getting elected, partly by slowly compromising away his early progressive ideals in the service of gaining more power. Of course, not every new highway was built through areas where poor Black people lived. Some were planned to go through richer areas for white people, just because you can't completely do away with geographical realities. For example one was planned to be built through part of San Francisco, a rich, white part. But the people who owned properties in that area had enough political power and clout to fight the development, and after nearly a decade of fighting it, the development was called off in late 1966. But over that time, many of the owners of the impressive buildings in the area had moved out, and they had no incentive to improve or maintain their properties while they were under threat of demolition, so many of them were rented out very cheaply. And when the beat community that Kerouac wrote about, many of whom had settled in San Francisco, grew too large and notorious for the area of the city they were in, North Beach, many of them moved to these cheap homes in a previously-exclusive area. The area known as Haight-Ashbury. [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Grayfolded"] Stories all have their starts, even stories told in Tralfamadorian time, although sometimes those starts are shrouded in legend. For example, the story of Scientology's start has been told many times, with different people claiming to have heard L. Ron Hubbard talk about how writing was a mug's game, and if you wanted to make real money, you needed to get followers, start a religion. Either he said this over and over and over again, to many different science fiction writers, or most science fiction writers of his generation were liars. Of course, the definition of a writer is someone who tells lies for money, so who knows? One of the more plausible accounts of him saying that is given by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon's account is more believable than most, because Sturgeon went on to be a supporter of Dianetics, the "new science" that Hubbard turned into his religion, for decades, even while telling the story. The story of the Grateful Dead probably starts as it ends, with Jerry Garcia. There are three things that everyone writing about the Dead says about Garcia's childhood, so we might as well say them here too. The first is that he was named by a music-loving father after Jerome Kern, the songwriter responsible for songs like "Ol' Man River" (though as Oscar Hammerstein's widow liked to point out, "Jerome Kern wrote dum-dum-dum-dum, *my husband* wrote 'Ol' Man River'" -- an important distinction we need to bear in mind when talking about songwriters who write music but not lyrics). The second is that when he was five years old that music-loving father drowned -- and Garcia would always say he had seen his father dying, though some sources claim this was a false memory. So it goes. And the third fact, which for some reason is always told after the second even though it comes before it chronologically, is that when he was four he lost two joints from his right middle finger. Garcia grew up a troubled teen, and in turn caused trouble for other people, but he also developed a few interests that would follow him through his life. He loved the fantastical, especially the fantastical macabre, and became an avid fan of horror and science fiction -- and through his love of old monster films he became enamoured with cinema more generally. Indeed, in 1983 he bought the film rights to Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel The Sirens of Titan, the first story in which the Tralfamadorians appear, and wrote a script based on it. He wanted to produce the film himself, with Francis Ford Coppola directing and Bill Murray starring, but most importantly for him he wanted to prevent anyone who didn't care about it from doing it badly. And in that he succeeded. As of 2023 there is no film of The Sirens of Titan. He loved to paint, and would continue that for the rest of his life, with one of his favourite subjects being Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. And when he was eleven or twelve, he heard for the first time a record that was hugely influential to a whole generation of Californian musicians, even though it was a New York record -- "Gee" by the Crows: [Excerpt: The Crows, "Gee"] Garcia would say later "That was an important song. That was the first kind of, like where the voices had that kind of not-trained-singer voices, but tough-guy-on-the-street voice." That record introduced him to R&B, and soon he was listening to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, to Ray Charles, and to a record we've not talked about in the podcast but which was one of the great early doo-wop records, "WPLJ" by the Four Deuces: [Excerpt: The Four Deuces, "WPLJ"] Garcia said of that record "That was one of my anthem songs when I was in junior high school and high school and around there. That was one of those songs everybody knew. And that everybody sang. Everybody sang that street-corner favorite." Garcia moved around a lot as a child, and didn't have much time for school by his own account, but one of the few teachers he did respect was an art teacher when he was in North Beach, Walter Hedrick. Hedrick was also one of the earliest of the conceptual artists, and one of the most important figures in the San Francisco arts scene that would become known as the Beat Generation (or the Beatniks, which was originally a disparaging term). Hedrick was a painter and sculptor, but also organised happenings, and he had also been one of the prime movers in starting a series of poetry readings in San Francisco, the first one of which had involved Allen Ginsberg giving the first ever reading of "Howl" -- one of a small number of poems, along with Eliot's "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" and possibly Pound's Cantos, which can be said to have changed twentieth-century literature. Garcia was fifteen when he got to know Hedrick, in 1957, and by then the Beat scene had already become almost a parody of itself, having become known to the public because of the publication of works like On the Road, and the major artists in the scene were already rejecting the label. By this point tourists were flocking to North Beach to see these beatniks they'd heard about on TV, and Hedrick was actually employed by one cafe to sit in the window wearing a beret, turtleneck, sandals, and beard, and draw and paint, to attract the tourists who flocked by the busload because they could see that there was a "genuine beatnik" in the cafe. Hedrick was, as well as a visual artist, a guitarist and banjo player who played in traditional jazz bands, and he would bring records in to class for his students to listen to, and Garcia particularly remembered him bringing in records by Big Bill Broonzy: [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "When Things Go Wrong (It Hurts Me Too)"] Garcia was already an avid fan of rock and roll music, but it was being inspired by Hedrick that led him to get his first guitar. Like his contemporary Paul McCartney around the same time, he was initially given the wrong instrument as a birthday present -- in Garcia's case his mother gave him an accordion -- but he soon persuaded her to swap it for an electric guitar he saw in a pawn shop. And like his other contemporary, John Lennon, Garcia initially tuned his instrument incorrectly. He said later "When I started playing the guitar, believe me, I didn't know anybody that played. I mean, I didn't know anybody that played the guitar. Nobody. They weren't around. There were no guitar teachers. You couldn't take lessons. There was nothing like that, you know? When I was a kid and I had my first electric guitar, I had it tuned wrong and learned how to play on it with it tuned wrong for about a year. And I was getting somewhere on it, you know… Finally, I met a guy that knew how to tune it right and showed me three chords, and it was like a revelation. You know what I mean? It was like somebody gave me the key to heaven." He joined a band, the Chords, which mostly played big band music, and his friend Gary Foster taught him some of the rudiments of playing the guitar -- things like how to use a capo to change keys. But he was always a rebellious kid, and soon found himself faced with a choice between joining the military or going to prison. He chose the former, and it was during his time in the Army that a friend, Ron Stevenson, introduced him to the music of Merle Travis, and to Travis-style guitar picking: [Excerpt: Merle Travis, "Nine-Pound Hammer"] Garcia had never encountered playing like that before, but he instantly recognised that Travis, and Chet Atkins who Stevenson also played for him, had been an influence on Scotty Moore. He started to realise that the music he'd listened to as a teenager was influenced by music that went further back. But Stevenson, as well as teaching Garcia some of the rudiments of Travis-picking, also indirectly led to Garcia getting discharged from the Army. Stevenson was not a well man, and became suicidal. Garcia decided it was more important to keep his friend company and make sure he didn't kill himself than it was to turn up for roll call, and as a result he got discharged himself on psychiatric grounds -- according to Garcia he told the Army psychiatrist "I was involved in stuff that was more important to me in the moment than the army was and that was the reason I was late" and the psychiatrist thought it was neurotic of Garcia to have his own set of values separate from that of the Army. After discharge, Garcia did various jobs, including working as a transcriptionist for Lenny Bruce, the comedian who was a huge influence on the counterculture. In one of the various attacks over the years by authoritarians on language, Bruce was repeatedly arrested for obscenity, and in 1961 he was arrested at a jazz club in North Beach. Sixty years ago, the parts of speech that were being criminalised weren't pronouns, but prepositions and verbs: [Excerpt: Lenny Bruce, "To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb"] That piece, indeed, was so controversial that when Frank Zappa quoted part of it in a song in 1968, the record label insisted on the relevant passage being played backwards so people couldn't hear such disgusting filth: [Excerpt: The Mothers of Invention, "Harry You're a Beast"] (Anyone familiar with that song will understand that the censored portion is possibly the least offensive part of the whole thing). Bruce was facing trial, and he needed transcripts of what he had said in his recordings to present in court. Incidentally, there seems to be some confusion over exactly which of Bruce's many obscenity trials Garcia became a transcriptionist for. Dennis McNally says in his biography of the band, published in 2002, that it was the most famous of them, in autumn 1964, but in a later book, Jerry on Jerry, a book of interviews of Garcia edited by McNally, McNally talks about it being when Garcia was nineteen, which would mean it was Bruce's first trial, in 1961. We can put this down to the fact that many of the people involved, not least Garcia, lived in Tralfamadorian time, and were rather hazy on dates, but I'm placing the story here rather than in 1964 because it seems to make more sense that Garcia would be involved in a trial based on an incident in San Francisco than one in New York. Garcia got the job, even though he couldn't type, because by this point he'd spent so long listening to recordings of old folk and country music that he was used to transcribing indecipherable accents, and often, as Garcia would tell it, Bruce would mumble very fast and condense multiple syllables into one. Garcia was particularly impressed by Bruce's ability to improvise but talk in entire paragraphs, and he compared his use of language to bebop. Another thing that was starting to impress Garcia, and which he also compared to bebop, was bluegrass: [Excerpt: Bill Monroe, "Fire on the Mountain"] Bluegrass is a music that is often considered very traditional, because it's based on traditional songs and uses acoustic instruments, but in fact it was a terribly *modern* music, and largely a postwar creation of a single band -- Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. And Garcia was right when he said it was "white bebop" -- though he did say "The only thing it doesn't have is the harmonic richness of bebop. You know what I mean? That's what it's missing, but it has everything else." Both bebop and bluegrass evolved after the second world war, though they were informed by music from before it, and both prized the ability to improvise, and technical excellence. Both are musics that involved playing *fast*, in an ensemble, and being able to respond quickly to the other musicians. Both musics were also intensely rhythmic, a response to a faster paced, more stressful world. They were both part of the general change in the arts towards immediacy that we looked at in the last episode with the creation first of expressionism and then of pop art. Bluegrass didn't go into the harmonic explorations that modern jazz did, but it was absolutely as modern as anything Charlie Parker was doing, and came from the same impulses. It was tradition and innovation, the past and the future simultaneously. Bill Monroe, Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, and Lenny Bruce were all in their own ways responding to the same cultural moment, and it was that which Garcia was responding to. But he didn't become able to play bluegrass until after a tragedy which shaped his life even more than his father's death had. Garcia had been to a party and was in a car with his friends Lee Adams, Paul Speegle, and Alan Trist. Adams was driving at ninety miles an hour when they hit a tight curve and crashed. Garcia, Adams, and Trist were all severely injured but survived. Speegle died. So it goes. This tragedy changed Garcia's attitudes totally. Of all his friends, Speegle was the one who was most serious about his art, and who treated it as something to work on. Garcia had always been someone who fundamentally didn't want to work or take any responsibility for anything. And he remained that way -- except for his music. Speegle's death changed Garcia's attitude to that, totally. If his friend wasn't going to be able to practice his own art any more, Garcia would practice his, in tribute to him. He resolved to become a virtuoso on guitar and banjo. His girlfriend of the time later said “I don't know if you've spent time with someone rehearsing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown' on a banjo for eight hours, but Jerry practiced endlessly. He really wanted to excel and be the best. He had tremendous personal ambition in the musical arena, and he wanted to master whatever he set out to explore. Then he would set another sight for himself. And practice another eight hours a day of new licks.” But of course, you can't make ensemble music on your own: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia and Bob Hunter, "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" (including end)] "Evelyn said, “What is it called when a person needs a … person … when you want to be touched and the … two are like one thing and there isn't anything else at all anywhere?” Alicia, who had read books, thought about it. “Love,” she said at length." That's from More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon, a book I'll be quoting a few more times as the story goes on. Robert Hunter, like Garcia, was just out of the military -- in his case, the National Guard -- and he came into Garcia's life just after Paul Speegle had left it. Garcia and Alan Trist met Hunter ten days after the accident, and the three men started hanging out together, Trist and Hunter writing while Garcia played music. Garcia and Hunter both bonded over their shared love for the beats, and for traditional music, and the two formed a duo, Bob and Jerry, which performed together a handful of times. They started playing together, in fact, after Hunter picked up a guitar and started playing a song and halfway through Garcia took it off him and finished the song himself. The two of them learned songs from the Harry Smith Anthology -- Garcia was completely apolitical, and only once voted in his life, for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to keep Goldwater out, and regretted even doing that, and so he didn't learn any of the more political material people like Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan were doing at the time -- but their duo only lasted a short time because Hunter wasn't an especially good guitarist. Hunter would, though, continue to jam with Garcia and other friends, sometimes playing mandolin, while Garcia played solo gigs and with other musicians as well, playing and moving round the Bay Area and performing with whoever he could: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia, "Railroad Bill"] "Bleshing, that was Janie's word. She said Baby told it to her. She said it meant everyone all together being something, even if they all did different things. Two arms, two legs, one body, one head, all working together, although a head can't walk and arms can't think. Lone said maybe it was a mixture of “blending” and “meshing,” but I don't think he believed that himself. It was a lot more than that." That's from More Than Human In 1961, Garcia and Hunter met another young musician, but one who was interested in a very different type of music. Phil Lesh was a serious student of modern classical music, a classically-trained violinist and trumpeter whose interest was solidly in the experimental and whose attitude can be summed up by a story that's always told about him meeting his close friend Tom Constanten for the first time. Lesh had been talking with someone about serialism, and Constanten had interrupted, saying "Music stopped being created in 1750 but it started again in 1950". Lesh just stuck out his hand, recognising a kindred spirit. Lesh and Constanten were both students of Luciano Berio, the experimental composer who created compositions for magnetic tape: [Excerpt: Luciano Berio, "Momenti"] Berio had been one of the founders of the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, a studio for producing contemporary electronic music where John Cage had worked for a time, and he had also worked with the electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lesh would later remember being very impressed when Berio brought a tape into the classroom -- the actual multitrack tape for Stockhausen's revolutionary piece Gesang Der Juenglinge: [Excerpt: Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Gesang Der Juenglinge"] Lesh at first had been distrustful of Garcia -- Garcia was charismatic and had followers, and Lesh never liked people like that. But he was impressed by Garcia's playing, and soon realised that the two men, despite their very different musical interests, had a lot in common. Lesh was interested in the technology of music as well as in performing and composing it, and so when he wasn't studying he helped out by engineering at the university's radio station. Lesh was impressed by Garcia's playing, and suggested to the presenter of the station's folk show, the Midnight Special, that Garcia be a guest. Garcia was so good that he ended up getting an entire solo show to himself, where normally the show would feature multiple acts. Lesh and Constanten soon moved away from the Bay Area to Las Vegas, but both would be back -- in Constanten's case he would form an experimental group in San Francisco with their fellow student Steve Reich, and that group (though not with Constanten performing) would later premiere Terry Riley's In C, a piece influenced by La Monte Young and often considered one of the great masterpieces of minimalist music. By early 1962 Garcia and Hunter had formed a bluegrass band, with Garcia on guitar and banjo and Hunter on mandolin, and a rotating cast of other musicians including Ken Frankel, who played banjo and fiddle. They performed under different names, including the Tub Thumpers, the Hart Valley Drifters, and the Sleepy Valley Hog Stompers, and played a mixture of bluegrass and old-time music -- and were very careful about the distinction: [Excerpt: The Hart Valley Drifters, "Cripple Creek"] In 1993, the Republican political activist John Perry Barlow was invited to talk to the CIA about the possibilities open to them with what was then called the Information Superhighway. He later wrote, in part "They told me they'd brought Steve Jobs in a few weeks before to indoctrinate them in modern information management. And they were delighted when I returned later, bringing with me a platoon of Internet gurus, including Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor, Tony Rutkowski, and Vint Cerf. They sealed us into an electronically impenetrable room to discuss the radical possibility that a good first step in lifting their blackout would be for the CIA to put up a Web site... We told them that information exchange was a barter system, and that to receive, one must also be willing to share. This was an alien notion to them. They weren't even willing to share information among themselves, much less the world." 1962 brought a new experience for Robert Hunter. Hunter had been recruited into taking part in psychological tests at Stanford University, which in the sixties and seventies was one of the preeminent universities for psychological experiments. As part of this, Hunter was given $140 to attend the VA hospital (where a janitor named Ken Kesey, who had himself taken part in a similar set of experiments a couple of years earlier, worked a day job while he was working on his first novel) for four weeks on the run, and take different psychedelic drugs each time, starting with LSD, so his reactions could be observed. (It was later revealed that these experiments were part of a CIA project called MKUltra, designed to investigate the possibility of using psychedelic drugs for mind control, blackmail, and torture. Hunter was quite lucky in that he was told what was going to happen to him and paid for his time. Other subjects included the unlucky customers of brothels the CIA set up as fronts -- they dosed the customers' drinks and observed them through two-way mirrors. Some of their experimental subjects died by suicide as a result of their experiences. So it goes. ) Hunter was interested in taking LSD after reading Aldous Huxley's writings about psychedelic substances, and he brought his typewriter along to the experiment. During the first test, he wrote a six-page text, a short excerpt from which is now widely quoted, reading in part "Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist ... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell-like (must I take you by the hand, ever so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resounding bells" Hunter's experience led to everyone in their social circle wanting to try LSD, and soon they'd all come to the same conclusion -- this was something special. But Garcia needed money -- he'd got his girlfriend pregnant, and they'd married (this would be the first of several marriages in Garcia's life, and I won't be covering them all -- at Garcia's funeral, his second wife, Carolyn, said Garcia always called her the love of his life, and his first wife and his early-sixties girlfriend who he proposed to again in the nineties both simultaneously said "He said that to me!"). So he started teaching guitar at a music shop in Palo Alto. Hunter had no time for Garcia's incipient domesticity and thought that his wife was trying to make him live a conventional life, and the two drifted apart somewhat, though they'd still play together occasionally. Through working at the music store, Garcia got to know the manager, Troy Weidenheimer, who had a rock and roll band called the Zodiacs. Garcia joined the band on bass, despite that not being his instrument. He later said "Troy was a lot of fun, but I wasn't good enough a musician then to have been able to deal with it. I was out of my idiom, really, 'cause when I played with Troy I was playing electric bass, you know. I never was a good bass player. Sometimes I was playing in the wrong key and didn't even [fuckin'] know it. I couldn't hear that low, after playing banjo, you know, and going to electric...But Troy taught me the principle of, hey, you know, just stomp your foot and get on it. He was great. A great one for the instant arrangement, you know. And he was also fearless for that thing of get your friends to do it." Garcia's tenure in the Zodiacs didn't last long, nor did this experiment with rock and roll, but two other members of the Zodiacs will be notable later in the story -- the harmonica player, an old friend of Garcia's named Ron McKernan, who would soon gain the nickname Pig Pen after the Peanuts character, and the drummer, Bill Kreutzmann: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Drums/Space (Skull & Bones version)"] Kreutzmann said of the Zodiacs "Jerry was the hired bass player and I was the hired drummer. I only remember playing that one gig with them, but I was in way over my head. I always did that. I always played things that were really hard and it didn't matter. I just went for it." Garcia and Kreutzmann didn't really get to know each other then, but Garcia did get to know someone else who would soon be very important in his life. Bob Weir was from a very different background than Garcia, though both had the shared experience of long bouts of chronic illness as children. He had grown up in a very wealthy family, and had always been well-liked, but he was what we would now call neurodivergent -- reading books about the band he talks about being dyslexic but clearly has other undiagnosed neurodivergences, which often go along with dyslexia -- and as a result he was deemed to have behavioural problems which led to him getting expelled from pre-school and kicked out of the cub scouts. He was never academically gifted, thanks to his dyslexia, but he was always enthusiastic about music -- to a fault. He learned to play boogie piano but played so loudly and so often his parents sold the piano. He had a trumpet, but the neighbours complained about him playing it outside. Finally he switched to the guitar, an instrument with which it is of course impossible to make too loud a noise. The first song he learned was the Kingston Trio's version of an old sea shanty, "The Wreck of the John B": [Excerpt: The Kingston Trio, "The Wreck of the John B"] He was sent off to a private school in Colorado for teenagers with behavioural issues, and there he met the boy who would become his lifelong friend, John Perry Barlow. Unfortunately the two troublemakers got on with each other *so* well that after their first year they were told that it was too disruptive having both of them at the school, and only one could stay there the next year. Barlow stayed and Weir moved back to the Bay Area. By this point, Weir was getting more interested in folk music that went beyond the commercial folk of the Kingston Trio. As he said later "There was something in there that was ringing my bells. What I had grown up thinking of as hillbilly music, it started to have some depth for me, and I could start to hear the music in it. Suddenly, it wasn't just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies playing what they could. There was some depth and expertise and stuff like that to aspire to.” He moved from school to school but one thing that stayed with him was his love of playing guitar, and he started taking lessons from Troy Weidenheimer, but he got most of his education going to folk clubs and hootenannies. He regularly went to the Tangent, a club where Garcia played, but Garcia's bluegrass banjo playing was far too rigorous for a free spirit like Weir to emulate, and instead he started trying to copy one of the guitarists who was a regular there, Jorma Kaukonnen. On New Year's Eve 1963 Weir was out walking with his friends Bob Matthews and Rich Macauley, and they passed the music shop where Garcia was a teacher, and heard him playing his banjo. They knocked and asked if they could come in -- they all knew Garcia a little, and Bob Matthews was one of his students, having become interested in playing banjo after hearing the theme tune to the Beverly Hillbillies, played by the bluegrass greats Flatt and Scruggs: [Excerpt: Flatt and Scruggs, "The Beverly Hillbillies"] Garcia at first told these kids, several years younger than him, that they couldn't come in -- he was waiting for his students to show up. But Weir said “Jerry, listen, it's seven-thirty on New Year's Eve, and I don't think you're going to be seeing your students tonight.” Garcia realised the wisdom of this, and invited the teenagers in to jam with him. At the time, there was a bit of a renaissance in jug bands, as we talked about back in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful. This was a form of music that had grown up in the 1920s, and was similar and related to skiffle and coffee-pot bands -- jug bands would tend to have a mixture of portable string instruments like guitars and banjos, harmonicas, and people using improvised instruments, particularly blowing into a jug. The most popular of these bands had been Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, led by banjo player Gus Cannon and with harmonica player Noah Lewis: [Excerpt: Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, "Viola Lee Blues"] With the folk revival, Cannon's work had become well-known again. The Rooftop Singers, a Kingston Trio style folk group, had had a hit with his song "Walk Right In" in 1963, and as a result of that success Cannon had even signed a record contract with Stax -- Stax's first album ever, a month before Booker T and the MGs' first album, was in fact the eighty-year-old Cannon playing his banjo and singing his old songs. The rediscovery of Cannon had started a craze for jug bands, and the most popular of the new jug bands was Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, which did a mixture of old songs like "You're a Viper" and more recent material redone in the old style. Weir, Matthews, and Macauley had been to see the Kweskin band the night before, and had been very impressed, especially by their singer Maria D'Amato -- who would later marry her bandmate Geoff Muldaur and take his name -- and her performance of Leiber and Stoller's "I'm a Woman": [Excerpt: Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, "I'm a Woman"] Matthews suggested that they form their own jug band, and Garcia eagerly agreed -- though Matthews found himself rapidly moving from banjo to washboard to kazoo to second kazoo before realising he was surplus to requirements. Robert Hunter was similarly an early member but claimed he "didn't have the embouchure" to play the jug, and was soon also out. He moved to LA and started studying Scientology -- later claiming that he wanted science-fictional magic powers, which L. Ron Hubbard's new religion certainly offered. The group took the name Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions -- apparently they varied the spelling every time they played -- and had a rotating membership that at one time or another included about twenty different people, but tended always to have Garcia on banjo, Weir on jug and later guitar, and Garcia's friend Pig Pen on harmonica: [Excerpt: Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions, "On the Road Again"] The group played quite regularly in early 1964, but Garcia's first love was still bluegrass, and he was trying to build an audience with his bluegrass band, The Black Mountain Boys. But bluegrass was very unpopular in the Bay Area, where it was simultaneously thought of as unsophisticated -- as "hillbilly music" -- and as elitist, because it required actual instrumental ability, which wasn't in any great supply in the amateur folk scene. But instrumental ability was something Garcia definitely had, as at this point he was still practising eight hours a day, every day, and it shows on the recordings of the Black Mountain Boys: [Excerpt: The Black Mountain Boys, "Rosa Lee McFall"] By the summer, Bob Weir was also working at the music shop, and so Garcia let Weir take over his students while he and the Black Mountain Boys' guitarist Sandy Rothman went on a road trip to see as many bluegrass musicians as they could and to audition for Bill Monroe himself. As it happened, Garcia found himself too shy to audition for Monroe, but Rothman later ended up playing with Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. On his return to the Bay Area, Garcia resumed playing with the Uptown Jug Champions, but Pig Pen started pestering him to do something different. While both men had overlapping tastes in music and a love for the blues, Garcia's tastes had always been towards the country end of the spectrum while Pig Pen's were towards R&B. And while the Uptown Jug Champions were all a bit disdainful of the Beatles at first -- apart from Bob Weir, the youngest of the group, who thought they were interesting -- Pig Pen had become enamoured of another British band who were just starting to make it big: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] 29) Garcia liked the first Rolling Stones album too, and he eventually took Pig Pen's point -- the stuff that the Rolling Stones were doing, covers of Slim Harpo and Buddy Holly, was not a million miles away from the material they were doing as Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions. Pig Pen could play a little electric organ, Bob had been fooling around with the electric guitars in the music shop. Why not give it a go? The stuff bands like the Rolling Stones were doing wasn't that different from the electric blues that Pig Pen liked, and they'd all seen A Hard Day's Night -- they could carry on playing with banjos, jugs, and kazoos and have the respect of a handful of folkies, or they could get electric instruments and potentially have screaming girls and millions of dollars, while playing the same songs. This was a convincing argument, especially when Dana Morgan Jr, the son of the owner of the music shop, told them they could have free electric instruments if they let him join on bass. Morgan wasn't that great on bass, but what the hell, free instruments. Pig Pen had the best voice and stage presence, so he became the frontman of the new group, singing most of the leads, though Jerry and Bob would both sing a few songs, and playing harmonica and organ. Weir was on rhythm guitar, and Garcia was the lead guitarist and obvious leader of the group. They just needed a drummer, and handily Bill Kreutzmann, who had played with Garcia and Pig Pen in the Zodiacs, was also now teaching music at the music shop. Not only that, but about three weeks before they decided to go electric, Kreutzmann had seen the Uptown Jug Champions performing and been astonished by Garcia's musicianship and charisma, and said to himself "Man, I'm gonna follow that guy forever!" The new group named themselves the Warlocks, and started rehearsing in earnest. Around this time, Garcia also finally managed to get some of the LSD that his friend Robert Hunter had been so enthusiastic about three years earlier, and it was a life-changing experience for him. In particular, he credited LSD with making him comfortable being a less disciplined player -- as a bluegrass player he'd had to be frighteningly precise, but now he was playing rock and needed to loosen up. A few days after taking LSD for the first time, Garcia also heard some of Bob Dylan's new material, and realised that the folk singer he'd had little time for with his preachy politics was now making electric music that owed a lot more to the Beat culture Garcia considered himself part of: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"] Another person who was hugely affected by hearing that was Phil Lesh, who later said "I couldn't believe that was Bob Dylan on AM radio, with an electric band. It changed my whole consciousness: if something like that could happen, the sky was the limit." Up to that point, Lesh had been focused entirely on his avant-garde music, working with friends like Steve Reich to push music forward, inspired by people like John Cage and La Monte Young, but now he realised there was music of value in the rock world. He'd quickly started going to rock gigs, seeing the Rolling Stones and the Byrds, and then he took acid and went to see his friend Garcia's new electric band play their third ever gig. He was blown away, and very quickly it was decided that Lesh would be the group's new bass player -- though everyone involved tells a different story as to who made the decision and how it came about, and accounts also vary as to whether Dana Morgan took his sacking gracefully and let his erstwhile bandmates keep their instruments, or whether they had to scrounge up some new ones. Lesh had never played bass before, but he was a talented multi-instrumentalist with a deep understanding of music and an ability to compose and improvise, and the repertoire the Warlocks were playing in the early days was mostly three-chord material that doesn't take much rehearsal -- though it was apparently beyond the abilities of poor Dana Morgan, who apparently had to be told note-by-note what to play by Garcia, and learn it by rote. Garcia told Lesh what notes the strings of a bass were tuned to, told him to borrow a guitar and practice, and within two weeks he was on stage with the Warlocks: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, “Grayfolded"] In September 1995, just weeks after Jerry Garcia's death, an article was published in Mute magazine identifying a cultural trend that had shaped the nineties, and would as it turned out shape at least the next thirty years. It's titled "The Californian Ideology", though it may be better titled "The Bay Area Ideology", and it identifies a worldview that had grown up in Silicon Valley, based around the ideas of the hippie movement, of right-wing libertarianism, of science fiction authors, and of Marshall McLuhan. It starts "There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' in honour of the state where it originated. By naturalising and giving a technological proof to a libertarian political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian Ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless. The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself. As usual, Europeans have not been slow to copy the latest fashion from America. While a recent EU report recommended adopting the Californian free enterprise model to build the 'infobahn', cutting-edge artists and academics have been championing the 'post-human' philosophy developed by the West Coast's Extropian cult. With no obvious opponents, the global dominance of the Californian ideology appears to be complete." [Excerpt: Grayfolded] The Warlocks' first gig with Phil Lesh on bass was on June the 18th 1965, at a club called Frenchy's with a teenage clientele. Lesh thought his playing had been wooden and it wasn't a good gig, and apparently the management of Frenchy's agreed -- they were meant to play a second night there, but turned up to be told they'd been replaced by a band with an accordion and clarinet. But by September the group had managed to get themselves a residency at a small bar named the In Room, and playing there every night made them cohere. They were at this point playing the kind of sets that bar bands everywhere play to this day, though at the time the songs they were playing, like "Gloria" by Them and "In the Midnight Hour", were the most contemporary of hits. Another song that they introduced into their repertoire was "Do You Believe in Magic" by the Lovin' Spoonful, another band which had grown up out of former jug band musicians. As well as playing their own sets, they were also the house band at The In Room and as such had to back various touring artists who were the headline acts. The first act they had to back up was Cornell Gunter's version of the Coasters. Gunter had brought his own guitarist along as musical director, and for the first show Weir sat in the audience watching the show and learning the parts, staring intently at this musical director's playing. After seeing that, Weir's playing was changed, because he also picked up how the guitarist was guiding the band while playing, the small cues that a musical director will use to steer the musicians in the right direction. Weir started doing these things himself when he was singing lead -- Pig Pen was the frontman but everyone except Bill sang sometimes -- and the group soon found that rather than Garcia being the sole leader, now whoever was the lead singer for the song was the de facto conductor as well. By this point, the Bay Area was getting almost overrun with people forming electric guitar bands, as every major urban area in America was. Some of the bands were even having hits already -- We Five had had a number three hit with "You Were On My Mind", a song which had originally been performed by the folk duo Ian and Sylvia: [Excerpt: We Five, "You Were On My Mind"] Although the band that was most highly regarded on the scene, the Charlatans, was having problems with the various record companies they tried to get signed to, and didn't end up making a record until 1969. If tracks like "Number One" had been released in 1965 when they were recorded, the history of the San Francisco music scene may have taken a very different turn: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "Number One"] Bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society, and Big Brother and the Holding Company were also forming, and Autumn Records was having a run of success with records by the Beau Brummels, whose records were produced by Autumn's in-house A&R man, Sly Stone: [Excerpt: The Beau Brummels, "Laugh Laugh"] The Warlocks were somewhat cut off from this, playing in a dive bar whose clientele was mostly depressed alcoholics. But the fact that they were playing every night for an audience that didn't care much gave them freedom, and they used that freedom to improvise. Both Lesh and Garcia were big fans of John Coltrane, and they started to take lessons from his style of playing. When the group played "Gloria" or "Midnight Hour" or whatever, they started to extend the songs and give themselves long instrumental passages for soloing. Garcia's playing wasn't influenced *harmonically* by Coltrane -- in fact Garcia was always a rather harmonically simple player. He'd tend to play lead lines either in Mixolydian mode, which is one of the most standard modes in rock, pop, blues, and jazz, or he'd play the notes of the chord that was being played, so if the band were playing a G chord his lead would emphasise the notes G, B, and D. But what he was influenced by was Coltrane's tendency to improvise in long, complex, phrases that made up a single thought -- Coltrane was thinking musically in paragraphs, rather than sentences, and Garcia started to try the same kind of th

Alec Nevala-Lee, author of the new biography “Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller,” talks with us about what Fuller has in common (and doesn't) with Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, the myth of the start-up founder, and why design solutions also need to take politics into account.Episode sponsored by Grand Seiko.

Buckminster Fuller was a designer, inventor, and thinker, and a true American original. Alec Nevala-Lee is the author of a new detailed and honest biography of Fuller, "Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller." Dave talks to Alec about Bucky's life, the unusual cast of characters he attracted, and starts to get into some questions that help inform why Bucky's outsized personality might have attracted people who later went on to become attracted to various kinds of disinformation campaigns — a topic we'll explore in some later episodes. Follow Alec on Twitter at @nevalalee — and buy the book wherever books are sold. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59571984-inventor-of-the-future Keywords: Buckminster Fuller, Bucky Fuller, Inventor of the Future, Alec Nevala-Lee, Margaret Fuller, Geodesic Dome, Tensegrity, Gurdjieff, Roerich, Montreal Expo, Spaceship Earth, EPCOT, Bare Maximum, Dymaxion, 4D, Trim Tab, Robert Kiyosaki, Critical Path, Synergetics, Grunch of Giants, Werner Erhard, est training, John Denver, Ellen Burstyn, The Hunger Project, Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalog, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos

In July 1938 Astounding magazine under the editorship of John W. Campbell published a story for the first by future Grand master Clifford D. Simak. This story Rule-18 was not a classic, nor was it considered one of the great SF writer's better stories. OK, so why the hell are we covering it on this series devoted to classic SF stories classics of the 30s? The impact of this story is an interesting case. When the issue ran the story was dismissed in the letter column by a young fan from Brooklyn named Issac Asimov. Wanting to understand his issues with the story the elder Simak wrote Asimov and thus began a friendship. Re-reading the story to answer the letter, Asimov found the story worked; this experience is one he considered crucial to his development as a writer. So I invited Alec Nevala-Lee the author of Astounding (A history of the golden age SF) and Seth Heasley host of The Hugos There podcast to join me for this episode. None of us had read the story before. Rule-18 is about a 24th-century football game between Mars and Earth. In this discussion we talk about the story, the issue of Astounding it appeared in, John W. Campbell's relationship to the writers, the influence on Asimov, and we debate if this story should be canon. Read the story for free here: https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v21n05_1938-07/page/n3/mode/2up •You can find my books here: Amazon-https://www.amazon.com/David-Agranoff/e/B004FGT4ZW •And me here: Goodreads-http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2988332.David_Agranoff Twitter-https://twitter.com/DAgranoffAuthor Blog-http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/

From the Bay Area,  Alec Nevala-Lee was a curious kid growing up, spending most of his time in used book stores or watching old movies. Since the age of 10, Alec knew he wanted to be a writer, and now, that dream has come true. Alec's newest biography, Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller, is out now and you can find a copy of it here!

Welcome to another Fatal Conceits Podcast. In today's episode, we're joined by our good friend and regular favorite on the show, Christopher Mayer. Long time listeners will know Chris as the portfolio manager and co-founder of the Woodlock House Family Capital Fund, which he began with Bill Bonner back in 2018. Chris is also a published author who just released his latest book, Dear Fellow Time-Binder: Letters on General Semantics, which you can find here. His blog, in which he ruminates about life, markets and “this thing we call investing” is considered essential reading around the Bonner Private Research office. Check that out, here.In today's conversation, we take an unhurried stroll through Chris's library and get his take on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Robert Bruner's Deals From Hell, the latest Buckminster Fuller biography and plenty more besides. Please enjoy and feel free to share our work with fellow readers, thinkers and solitary ramblers…Cheers,Joel BowmanThank you for reading Bonner Private Research. This post is public so feel free to share it.TRANSCRIPT:Joel Bowman: All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Fatal Conceits podcast, dear listener, a show about money, markets, mobs, and manias, not necessarily in that order. If you haven't already done so, please check out our sub stack. You can find us at bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com. And on the site there you'll find hundreds of articles on everything from high finance to lowly politics and everything in between including, of course, many more conversations just like this one under the Fatal Conceits podcast tab at the top of the page. Today, we're delighted to welcome back to the show long time friend of Bonner Private Research and the portfolio manager of Woodlock House Family Capital Fund, which he co-founded with Bill Bonner back in 2018. A good friend of mine, Mr. Christopher Mayer. Welcome to the show, mate. How do you do?Christopher Mayer: I am well. Thank you for having me on, always good to talk to you.Joel Bowman: Yeah, absolutely. You're in a new place up in Maryland?Christopher Mayer: Yeah. I live in Mount Airy now. It's a nice little town, very green, lots of golf courses around. It's open, it's nice. I like it here.Joel Bowman: Good stuff, mate. We were speaking just before we hit the record button here and I told you that I would be remiss if I didn't at least throw out one financial question at the very top of the segment here. I guess what everybody wants to know is, after our June lows, we've had a 20 odd percent bounce in the S&P, what many would consider to be the classical definition of a bear market rally. Is this something that, first of all, you agree with? And secondly, does it concern you, as somebody who's in it for the long term and more focused on individual stock selection?Christopher Mayer: Yeah. Well, everybody wants to know the unknowable, right? Is this the bottom or we have more to fall or are we off and running? I don't look at it that way. I'm focused more on the individual companies I own. And I have to say, this is probably one of the easiest bear markets I've been in yet because I have now second quarter reports in hand for all my companies except one, and they're all firing on all cylinders. I mean, if you just looked at the financial statements, you wouldn't see any cause for concern. You'd be surprised that the stocks were down at all. So I think times like this are an opportunity. What's remarkable, I suppose, is the swiftness of this decline. So we're through August, this is the fifth worst start for the S&P 500, going back to 1928. So that's historically interesting and that ...Joel Bowman: Anything interesting happened around 1928-29 or there abouts?Christopher Mayer: Yeah. People like to make different comparisons, and it doesn't have to be catastrophe. I saw somebody on Twitter had put out charts where they said one for the bulls, one for the bears. And they had set up the decline that we see now and matched it up perfectly with '07, '08. But then someone else, they had matched up perfectly with another market where it went straight up. So, when do that kind of data mining you can find the pattern to make whatever argument you want to make, but they're all different in different ways.And this one feels different in that way, in that the underlying performance of companies so far is strong and there are pockets of the market that are weak. Of course, if some of the retailers have disappointed and banks earlier, didn't do so well, but by and large things seem to be holding up pretty good. So I'm not concerned. I think this is an opportunity for sure. And if you have any kind of time horizon, five years at least, I think you're going to do pretty good while picking up some things today.Joel Bowman: When we spoke for your segment on Bill's round table, which we recorded, I guess, maybe a month or so ago, you mentioned of course that with the benefit of hindsight, which we would all love to luxuriate in 24/7, you look back at those other market drops that you saw in 2008 and before and now they look like little blips. So who knows what the future will hold, but if you had the steel to hold and even pick up some bargains during that time with some stock selection, you could do very well.Christopher Mayer: Yeah. And the stock that I mentioned, I think on that call has put in a new 52 week load today, so... It's even better now, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes.Joel Bowman: There you go. All right. Well, looking at your bookshelf behind you there, one of the things that I love about our conversations, and for listeners and viewers now who are just joining us, I know we've got a lot of new readers on the Bonner Private Research sub stack, so welcome if that's you. Chris and I have had a few conversations here now, maybe three or four where we thumb through Chris's bookshelf and just do a little bit of a deep dive into what makes Chris tick as both an investor and a thinker and a writer. So I'll link to a couple of our previous conversations there so readers can get a little flavor of what we're about here. As we were emailing a little back and forth in preparation for this call, Chris, you nominated a typically, characteristically eclectic clutch of books, as you tend to do. Do you want to take us from the top, maybe beginning with the classics? Where do you want to start?Christopher Mayer: Yeah, we can begin with the classics. So a lot of these books behind me are old philosophy books. This is my main study here, but then across the hall, I have another library where my investment books and other books are. And then downstairs, there's another little section where some fiction is. And since we moved this library is about half the size it was, but it's the way it goes. But the classics I had recently read and thought I would share is Rousseau, the Reveries of the Solitary Walker.He wrote this as his last book and it's a series of 10 walks. So he goes off and he writes what he was thinking about on these different walks. If I were to describe it, I would say it's a rumination on happiness. What makes people happy? What makes them unhappy? And so this is old Rousseau looking back, and he's an interesting guy. He's a really good writer, but I have to say he's also a hard guy to like sometimes. I don't know. You mentioned in the email that you had read his Confessions, which I have not read yet, but I've heard about them. Yeah.Joel Bowman: Yeah, I read that recently, actually just in the past, I want to say six months or so, and maybe a spoiler for some listeners who haven't gone through much of their Rousseau yet, but yeah, he had a long running feud with Voltaire after a friendship earlier in their life. Voltaire was pretty savage in his attacks on Rousseau later in his life, especially for perceived hypocrisy around raising kids and education and that kind of stuff. It's pretty hard to like him after you discover some of those warts, those and skeletons in the closet.Christopher Mayer: Yeah. Yeah, it was unbelievable, but there are a lot of things like that. But then I think also he's very thin skinned. He seems to take offense pretty easily. But having said all that, he's also a good writer and deep thinker. And in this book, he talks about things that make him almost sound a bit like an Eastern philosopher. He starts talking about, what makes people happy comes from the inside and not being too bound up with externals and being able to be more unaffected by the vicissitudes of life. And he really comes to appreciate nature. There's one letter where he talks about how he gets in a boat and goes into the middle of a lake and just lays at the bottom of the boat, looking up at the sky and loses himself for hours in a peaceful meditation. So I don't know, it's a fun read. And it's not heavy reading either, it's pretty easy to read.Joel Bowman: Yeah. I think some of these other works, Emile in particular, is notoriously difficult.Christopher Mayer: And he's known for his political stuff, so I know that that can be difficult too.Joel Bowman: Yeah, The Social Contract and whatnot. Do you make anything of the rambling philosopher at all? There were others, differing vastly in their world views, such as Nietzsche who wrote in a very aphoristic style. He would go on these long walks and just meditate on what he thought was important. Obviously more recently, Taleb wrote his book of aphorisms and it seems to be one type of medium through which to distill your thoughts and get some clarity for anything like that.Christopher Mayer: Yes. I think of Henry David Thoreau also. He'd do these walks and he'd write in his journal.Joel Bowman: Yeah.Christopher Mayer: Emerson was a great keeper of a daily journal. Kierkegaard was also someone who wrote avidly in a journal. I have his journals right there. But yeah, I think there's something to that. And then even in some of the great Eastern philosophers too, they wrote in little snippets, like Lao Tzu or Laozi's Tao Te Ching and those guys. And that compares to these heavy, weighty treaties that Hegel and Kant would write, they're impenetrable. So I think there's something to say for that.Joel Bowman: The critique on the top of my finger, yeah.Christopher Mayer: That's critique of pure reason?Joel Bowman: Right there, yeah.Christopher Mayer: I have that there. That's over right here. Yeah.Joel Bowman: These big, weighty tomes. Those system builders, the Hegels and the Wittgensteins and whatnot, they can get so dense. It's almost sometimes a little impenetrable, but going back to ... you and I have spoken about Thoreau before, and of course Walden. He was social distancing a long time before it became cool on the outskirts up there in New England. I often wonder that, just by occupational hazard, we have our noses so close to the screens, we might be watching ticker symbols or analyzing charts or looking at company reports and that kind of things, if we wouldn't benefit a little from just stepping back, getting some perspective, going to play a game of golf, going for a walk in the woods and decluttering from time to time.Christopher Mayer: Yeah, definitely. I think that's a good point. And there's the science about that too, about what happens if you press yourself too much. Your brain needs some time to recharge. Concentration is almost like a resource, and if you constantly are at it, you got to give yourself a chance to regenerate. It's also interesting, some of these philosophers, like Nietzsche, some people think that it's because he had such intense migraines and a lot of other ailments that he preferred to write short because he couldn't sit there for that long and write long pieces. I don't know if that's true or not, interesting theory. But it does also seem like some of the philosophers who write shorter do have some love of nature too. They do tend to get outside and they're walking and then they write down these observations. So yeah, I think there's some value in detaching. Even Bill has told me that before. He says we should have some other outlet other than markets. For him, he likes his masonry and he's always working with his hands, but it's good to have something else.Joel Bowman: Yeah. Over the summer, my wife Anya and I and our daughter were touring around a little bit of Europe. We went to visit the Bonners in their country estate out in very rural Ireland ...Christopher Mayer: Yeah. I was in early June as well.Joel Bowman: Oh, yeah. That's right.Christopher Mayer: We were close in there. We just missed timing.Joel Bowman: That's right. Yeah. But it is funny to see. Bill will do his daily work and then he'll throw on the dungarees and march down the country lane and spend a few hours doing some masonry work and come back all dusted up for lunch or whatnot. But yeah, I think it's almost akin to when you teach your children, for example, when they've forgotten a word, they get stuck on something. They want to say something and for the life of them, it won't come to them while they're thinking about it. And you have to distract them and get them thinking about something else, talk about what they did that day or whatever and then, all of a sudden, there it is.Christopher Mayer: I think in the investing world, I mean, there are freaks like Warren Buffet who seems to have no interests other than investing.Joel Bowman: Big banks. Yeah.Christopher Mayer: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you've ever read The Snowball, which is the biography on him.Joel Bowman: No.Christopher Mayer: He's really a strange guy. He has a diet of a six year old, lives in the same house all that time, not particularly well-read at all. I don't know if he'd even know who Rousseau was. I mean, he just doesn't have that kind of background and no real hobbies or interests. I mean, he does play Bridge, so maybe that counts, maybe that's something.Joel Bowman: Yeah.Christopher Mayer: But it's very strange.Joel Bowman: He's almost like an idiot savant. You have all these arrested developments in other aspects of one's life. But then when it comes to analyzing markets, his the brain just goes into overdrive.Christopher Mayer: A lot of the better investors I know do like to read and they are curious. So I think that's a good trait to have, because when you think about businesses, you're learning about people and people have different philosophies and styles. You often think you can tell this history of the world through any different lens. You could tell it through investing. You could tell it through music. You could tell it through food.Joel Bowman: Yeah.Christopher Mayer: If you go deep enough, they all come together and these same philosophical topics eventually crop up.Joel Bowman: It's interesting, isn't it? That was one of Anthony Bourdain's observations that he would use. You mentioned food and we've talked obviously about travel and music and things like that before. He was a great believer that the same conversations are essential to human nature no matter where you go around the world. And you can use something like food, something as common and as communal as that ceremony, as a way of getting into all of the things that were happening in wherever he was, Phnom Penh or Nairobi or what have you. He would talk to people and then get into the rest of it. You could learn about supply lines. You learn about living standards. You learn about history. You learn about the politics of the place, the economics. All of the kinds of things that you see reflected in a stock market, for example, you might see if you really pay attention reflected in just breaking bread with someone in some far flung place around the world.Christopher Mayer: Yes. I agree with that, and I'm definitely a big Bourdain fan, so maybe that seed was planted. He's a guy I miss. I'd like to have him around, see what he thinks of some of this crazy stuff going on. Of course there's a number of people we could say that about, but he was a good one.Joel Bowman: We were mentioning as well recently reading the biography of Bucky, or Buckminster Fuller.Christopher Mayer: Yeah, Buckminster Fuller. Yeah, it was a big, fat book. It came out just recently. It's called Inventor of the Future by Alec Nevala-Lee. And when I first saw it I was very excited because I thought, "Wow, Bucky, as he would like to be called, getting the Royal presidential treatment, this big, fat biography. It's hard to describe what he did. I mean, he was an inventor and he was a poet and he did all kinds of things in his life. He was a philosopher as well. He wrote books and he was a coveted speaker. So he did a lot of different things.I read this biography and I think it is the definitive biography of his life, the when and the how he did this then and here and there. It sorts through different events and separates some of the myth from what probably happened. So in that sense, it was interesting to read it. But in the other sense, it focused a lot on his personal failings. He had a number of affairs and he had some other problems, so took away some of the magic. If you didn't know who Buckminster Fuller was and you picked up this biography and read it, you'd walk away thinking, what's all the fuss about?Joel Bowman: Right.Christopher Mayer: But he was something. I mean, Steve Jobs loved Buckminster Fuller. You know that famous Apple ad "think different" and it goes through 16 or 17 different icons? Buckminster Fuller is in that ad and that was at the request of Steve Jobs. He received 30 honorary degrees. He had something like 25 patents. This book, I didn't feel like it really brought home any of that. He was again, a very coveted speaker all over the world, he had fans all over the place. So anyway ...Joel Bowman: That's interesting, isn't it? When we talk about historical figures, even as recently as someone like Buckminster Fuller, one wonders if they would even be given a start today or whether they'd be canceled before they got going. I wonder if people would focus so much on their shortcomings? I mean, you're not reading a Buckminster Fuller book for marital advice, presumably. You're reading him for his philosophy on this or his inventions or his thoughts on this and that. I wonder in our haste to dig up the worst dirt on everybody, how much of the good we miss out on.Christopher Mayer: Of course there's a lot of people like that in history, right? If you were going to go through all the shortcomings, you'd hardly read anybody. I mean, shoot, Heidegger's one of the best examples of that for the 20th century. He's a Nazi, he's out.Joel Bowman: Ciao.Christopher Mayer: I mean, look at some of the stuff Hemingway wrote, homophobic stuff and misogynistic stuff. Forget it. So yeah, I don't know. It's a good point.Joel Bowman: All right, mate, let's move on to your second book here. Is it Deals from Hell, I think we've got up next. That's a great title by the way.Christopher Mayer: Yeah. It's called Deals from Hell, M&A lessons that rise above the ashes by Robert Bruner. This book was sent to me by a fellow money manager. And well, most of the book is case studies of M&A deals. But if you were to get this book, I would recommend at least just reading the first three or four chapters, because what it really does is that it kills this myth that M&A is a bad thing, mergers and acquisitions. There's a prevalent negative view among people, even professional investors, they don't like acquisitions. And their view is, when you do an acquisition, most of the time it destroys value for shareholders. And in this book, he goes through a lot of research and studies that have been done in M&A and he comes to the opposite conclusion, that M&A does pay.Joel Bowman: Oh wow.Christopher Mayer: And it's interesting why that is the case. So he says, an objective reading of more than 130 studies supports the conclusion that M&A pays. And one of the reasons why the conventional wisdom fails, as he says here, people generalized too readily from the findings of a single study. So there are some very high profile disasters, right, in mergers. And that's what gets all the attention versus all the little deals that get done along the way that worked out perfectly well. So the tendency is to exaggerate the failures and the key line here that I double starred, he says: "All M&A is local," which I really like. You really have to look at it on a case by case, deal by deal basis. And it took me a while to get over that hurdle, but now I've found some companies that are really great acquirers of other businesses, just systematically are able to add and plug in businesses to their growing little empire and do very, very, very well.Joel Bowman: So is this something that's affected the way that you think about the universe of potential investments that you come across on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?Christopher Mayer: I would say I had discovered this earlier. I wouldn't say this book turned my opinion on what I think, because I'd discovered that on my own, that M&A is really nuanced. And I've discovered a number of these companies. People now call them "serial acquirers" and they have done very, very well. There's a number of them in Sweden. There's a couple in the UK. In the U.S., there are several as well that just continued to acquire companies as their main avenue of growth. And they've been wonderful investments. So what makes those successful versus the failures? This book helps highlight that too. You've got greater propensity of failing if it's a very large deal, if it's very complicated, versus smaller deals, or if you're doing something that's in a business unrelated to yours. There are a number of things he goes through. But I think the value in this book is really busting that general myth and forcing you to think more nuanced about the topic of mergers and acquisitions.Joel Bowman: That's interesting. I like those myth busting books, those that turned things that you might have thought previously on their head. I'm wondering if the general consensus is such that mergers and acquisitions are bad might not offer a little pocket of hidden opportunity, an overlooked opportunity for people who could get past that stigma.Christopher Mayer: Yeah, I think it did for a while. And then I think a lot of these serial acquirers are now priced pretty well. So I don't know that that's necessarily true anymore, but it might be. Part of the reason I think is that it can be difficult to model these things because you don't necessarily know when the deals are going to strike or what they're going to look like. And if they deploy a lot more capital than you model, then there's going to be some big surprises. So it's a tough thing to predict and project.And so if you're willing to go with the uncertainty and you trust the capital allocation, trust the team and the process that they have, and they have a track record of successful deals. And you can do that. You can look back and see whether deals were successful or not. You can see whether there are impairments. You can see what happens to the overall companies' returns on capital, whether they go down over time as they do acquisitions, watering it down, or whether they're able to preserve it or even grow it.And it depends on the amount of disclosures companies give you. Sometimes you can really dig down and you can see how certain subsidiaries they acquired, how they've done sales and profit wise. And you can back in and say, wow, that was a really good deal. So I think that's the key. It's like most things in investing, in life. You can't go through it too generally, everything has nuance. And our culture forces everything to be squished and reduced to a headline or reduced to a soundbite or reduced to a one single powerful message that you can deliver, but on most things, there's a lot of nuance and complexity.Joel Bowman: Yeah. And oftentimes I think that looking beyond that the black and white or the binary conception of the world can flesh out a lot of useful information. I was going to ask, because you touched on a few different investing jurisdictions there, Scandinavia, Europe. I know that you invest, around the world, that you have an international portfolio...Christopher Mayer: Yes.Joel Bowman: Are there things that you'd look at in particular when you go into foreign markets, say for example, the transparency of their reporting, the maturity of the market in general, or does that all depend on price?Christopher Mayer: Yeah, there's definitely interesting jurisdictional differences. So even on this topic of M&A for example, there's a solid pocket in Stockholm where there's a dozen of these serial acquirers and they're all good at it. For some reason, it's like a Silicon Valley of serial acquirers there. Culturally, there's something there. There's about it and you don't see anything like that in Germany or France. It's just different. And in the UK, there are a few. And then in the states, there are several. But it's interesting to me sometimes how you can have such big differences in regional markets, even if you compare Sweden to the other Nordics. I mean, there's a lot of differences there in how business will run. For example, a lot of the Swedish serial acquirers will report on return on capital employed. I mean, they'll be right there, a number that they're tracking and targeting. And as an investor, I'm like, that's fantastic! Here's what you want to think about. Right? And not this BS about sales growth or earnings. These guys are focusing on the real things that matter. They get capital allocation. So yeah, I mean, those kind of things are pretty neat when you find that.Joel Bowman: Yeah. You toss a line over the side of your boat and you find a lot of what you like, you start to bait up again. Good stuff. Just going from the title there, I haven't read the book, but I expected there to be some horror stories in there. Some actual "deals from hell"?Christopher Mayer: Yeah. I mean, well the classic is the AOL, Time Warner deal. Time Warner bought AOL at the top. And yeah, I mean, then you've got some horrific charts here where they announced the merger and then the company becomes worth less than the deal value was. I mean, it's just a remarkable amount of destruction of wealth on some of these things. So yeah, there are definitely horror stories in there.Joel Bowman: Right. They're the headline grabbers that you were mentioning before that shaped public opinion.Christopher Mayer: Well, that's it. That's exactly right. Those are the ones. When people think of disasters, most people can think of these ones.Joel Bowman: All right then. Let's move on, Chris, to your own latest release. How many is this for you now, mate? You've got to be working on half a dozen?Christopher Mayer: This is number five.Joel Bowman: Number five. Okay. All right. Congratulations. Let's get into it.Christopher Mayer: It's called Dear Fellow Time-binder: Letters on General Semantics.Joel Bowman: All right. You're going to have to back up a little bit here for our listeners. We're going to go back into some previous conversations. Maybe you could do as your man Korzybski might do and help "map the terrain" for us.Christopher Mayer: Right, well, if you read, [my book] How Do You Know?, this book is a second crack at those ideas, except that I drop the investing focus. So, How Do You Know is really applying these ideas to investing. And then this is just a more general exploration. I call it letters. I was actually, as I say in the preface, I was inspired by Seneca's letters. He wrote these letters where he explained stoicism, and there's some debate about whether they were really letters or not, whether he would really mail them, but they were written in the letter format as if he was teaching somebody. And I thought that's a good way to do it, so I did this. I thought, if I were teaching someone of these ideas, how would I do it? What are these ideas?You mentioned Korzybski. Yes, Alfred Korzybski was a guy in the 1930s who created this discipline called general semantics. As you can think of it more as an aid to critical thinking. It focuses on the assumptions that we make with different symbols and language and how they interplay with how we behave. And there's a lot to it actually. There's a lot of different things to it. So it can get deep and get into all kinds of things about causation and things we take for granted. So what makes this book different, too, is it's published by the Institute of General Semantics and they gave me access to the archives for Et Cetera, which is their journal they've been publishing since the 1940s. And another publication they have, The General Semantics Bulletin. So I had these two archives.I was able to go back and I mined them because there were some interesting characters that taught these ideas over time. You won't know them now, but they're in the book, people like Wendell Johnson, Irving Lee and S.I.I Caldwell, these different people. They're interesting characters on their own. And so I was able to pull out different things from those archives. So it was really interesting to read in the 1940s, what people were thinking about, worried about. War of course hangs over the whole thing and so it was very appropriate then because they were looking at things like propaganda and taking apart the meaning of all these different terms and phrases and the ideas behind them. So, that's one thing that was really fun about doing this book. And I just did it on the side. Some of the letters were already published in their journal, Et Cetera, over the last couple years. And then finally the book came out this year, so I wrote most of it actually in 2020.Joel Bowman: As you're speaking now, I'm thinking about the messaging, let's call it, what used to be called propaganda before it underwent a public relations campaign itself, and is now called public relations. I think it would've been in the early 1900s when Eddie Bernays was just getting his start in the United States. He was the fellow that brought the world the phrase, "Making the world safe for democracy." And that was the banner under which he convinced Woodrow Wilson to commit American troops to World War I. America was a largely war weary continent as it had only just emerged from its own civil war a generation or so previously. And all of a sudden, with the right "messaging," we have troops marching off to war. And it does make you think, if that was happening then, and if it was happening in the forties, if this was on people's minds, it would be perhaps naive to think that this wasn't happening at some level today.Christopher Mayer: Yes. I mean, it's interesting to think about why that stuff works. Why does that phrase have power, "making the world safe for democracy?" What does that even mean when you think about it? And so that's what general semantics looks at. I think the biggest thing I've taken from Korzybski really is just that, to be conscious of what he would call "abstracting." So there are all these words and phrases that we use that really don't mean anything when you think about it. They mean whatever people want them to mean. They have dozens and dozens of different meanings, "democracy "for example. "Recession" would be one. Capitalism would be one. You hear people talk, especially politicians, about our "capitalist" system. And then you talk about other people and they're like, What are you talking about? We don't have a capitalist system. We've got something else entirely.Joel Bowman: It's a corporatocracy.Christopher Mayer: Yeah, exactly. Right. So all the kinds of labels we throw around. Even political parties. Saying someone is Republican or Democrat doesn't really say much.Joel Bowman: Right.Christopher Mayer: It's freighted with assumptions. And then sometimes words as we know them have become so freighted with connotations that we have to invent new words or we have to drop them. We can't even say the old words anymore. You look like you may have some examples to throw in there.Joel Bowman: I know. I'm not going to a risk cancellation by listing off a shopping list of unmentionables. But yeah, it's certainly the way. And I think also with regards to the way semantics is treated in our modern public discourse. We have a narrowing of definitions that we're permitted to use or that we're almost shoehorned into.Christopher Mayer: Yes.Joel Bowman: I'm wondering if while you were mining these archives, doing research for your own work, if you came across any time when the range of concepts, the range of language that we had available to us was so narrowed that it impacted the way we're even able to conceptualize and think about things in the first instance.Christopher Mayer: Yes. There's a hypothesis I talk about in the book is called the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis. And the idea is that the language we use actually actively shapes what we think, just like what you're saying. I can think of Whorf's examples because he used to work in insurance and he would say things like ... let's say there was a fire started in some factory and he would have to investigate the fire. And he would find out there were these drums that were labeled "empty gasoline drums." People would be very careless with them. They assume they're empty. But they're not empty. They'll have vapors in them that are very flammable and so on and so forth and that led to their mishandling which started the fire. Another one, I remember there was a time where he talked about how there was this pool of water where they would sometimes dump flammable liquids and things. And they would be a vapor there and someone was there smoking a cigarette and then they threw the match in the water, think it would put it out. Instead, it lit the whole thing on fire and ...Joel Bowman: The exact opposite, unintended consequences.Christopher Mayer: Yeah. So his point was you, if you label these things differently, we would actually think differently about them. If you didn't say they were empty gasoline drums, you called them something else, people would behave differently. That's a slightly different point than what you're making, but I mean, it's so endlessly fascinating, because you can go on about this forever. But part of this book too, is there's a lot of little helpers and things. I know just from studying general semantics, to give you one example, there's this whole thing about being mindful of absolutes. So when people say things like "always" and "never." Anytime I hear people use those, it's like a little light goes on in my mind. You have to be careful of that. So you get suspicious of certain words and it can help you ask questions, follow up questions. Like somebody will say, "Well, these immigrants are all thieves. And you'll be like, really? "All" of them?Joel Bowman: Mergers and acquisitions are "always" a bad idea.Christopher Mayer: Exactly. They're "all" terrible. "All" of them? Every single one? So there are little clues like that, words that will perk up. And as an investor, that's important because I spend a lot of time talking to people and asking questions and trying to parse their answers.Joel Bowman: We've never lost shareholders' investments. Never? Interesting. Yeah. All right, Chris, tell us where we can get your book here, it's Dear Fellow Time Bender. I'm assuming it's on Amazon. Anywhere else in particular?Christopher Mayer: Yes. It's not very expensive. It's 12 bucks. It's 150 pages. I think it'll be a fun read for people who like to think about these kinds of ideas. Yeah, Amazon and fine bookstores everywhere as people like to say, right?Joel Bowman: Fine bookstores.Christopher Mayer: And the Institute of General Semantics, they sell it as well, so you can Google that. You won't have any problem finding it. And I don't get any proceeds, by the way. I don't get any royalties or anything. It's done for the Institute, so all proceeds goes toward them.Joel Bowman: Okay. I'll include a link to Chris's book (SEE HERE) and the others that we've spoken about here, Deals from Hell and Rousseau's Reveries, the very last book of his life. We didn't even get into talking more about his other particular ideas about some very interesting things. I think mostly people tend to focus on, as you said, his political persuasions, the Social Contract and that kind of stuff, but his works reward a whole summer of study at the very least.Christopher Mayer: I think so. I think if I had to sum up the big idea from that book, I'd say it was his idea that people were naturally happy, but they become unhappy by comparing themselves to other people and focusing too much on external things.Joel Bowman: Hell is other people, as Sartre said, if you let yourself only exist in other people's opinions. Okay, Chris, I feel like we could go on for quite a bit longer, going through your bookshelves and mine, but let's leave it there and we'll pick it up again next time.Christopher Mayer: Yep. Thanks, JoelJoel Bowman: Thanks a lot, Chris. I really appreciate it. And for listeners, again, please head over to the Substack page. You can get plenty of research reports, columns from Bill Bonner, Dan Danning, Tom Dyson and myself, and many more conversations like this, including the ones I referred to, our past conversations with Chris Mayer, where we noodle through more of his extended archives. And with that, we'll be back next week. Thanks a lot. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/subscribe

Interview with author Alec Nevala-Lee who through research takes a deep dive into one of the main futurists of the 20th Century.The spacehip Earth dome at Disney World was inspiredby Fuller.

Interviews include Terry Crews on his new Tales Of The Walking Dead episode, author Alec Nevala-Lee , Emmy nominee Andrew Baseman for his work on Severance, and Squeal director Aik Karapetian. Get commericial free episodes at scifitalkplus.supercast.com

"From a modern perspective," writes biographer Alec Nevala-Lee, Buckminster Fuller resembles "a Silicon Valley visionary who was born a half century too soon." But the relentlessly optimistic futurist, entrepreneur and geodesic dome pioneer was also a self-promoter who exaggerated his inventions and failed to credit his collaborators. We'll talk to Nevala-Lee about Fuller's scientific and cultural contributions and his complicated legacy. Guests: Alec Nevala-Lee, author, Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller

Interview with Alec Nevala-Lee, author of the new biography Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller. You can support the podcast today by buying me a coffee.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/reading-and-writing-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Saronik talks with Manish Melwani about outdated visions of the future and stale science fiction ideas that just won't die. Manish is a Singaporean writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in 2014, and then completed a master's thesis at NYU entitled Starports, Portals and Port Cities: Science Fiction and Fantasy in Empire's Wake. (That's where he met Saronik.) Manish has published several short stories, with several more—and a novel—on the way. They talk about science fiction's imperialist heritage and how going to Mars is just a distraction from the imaginative (and literal) dead end our civilization faces. They also throw shade on Cecil Rhodes and certain tech moguls who have completely missed the point of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. Manish's perspective has been shaped by many other writers and theorists including: John Rieder's work on Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, Samuel R. Delany's seminal essays, Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding, a group biography of John W. Campbell and other figures from the Golden Age of science fiction, and Kim Stanley Robinson's recent climate sci-fi oeuvre. Further reading includes Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, Chen Qiufan's The Waste Tide, Malka Older's Centenal Cycle, Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers edited by Sarena Ulibarri, and Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland. Image created by Saronik Bosu using open source vectors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Saronik talks with Manish Melwani about outdated visions of the future and stale science fiction ideas that just won't die. Manish is a Singaporean writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in 2014, and then completed a master's thesis at NYU entitled Starports, Portals and Port Cities: Science Fiction and Fantasy in Empire's Wake. (That's where he met Saronik.) Manish has published several short stories, with several more—and a novel—on the way. They talk about science fiction's imperialist heritage and how going to Mars is just a distraction from the imaginative (and literal) dead end our civilization faces. They also throw shade on Cecil Rhodes and certain tech moguls who have completely missed the point of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. Manish's perspective has been shaped by many other writers and theorists including: John Rieder's work on Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, Samuel R. Delany's seminal essays, Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding, a group biography of John W. Campbell and other figures from the Golden Age of science fiction, and Kim Stanley Robinson's recent climate sci-fi oeuvre. Further reading includes Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, Chen Qiufan's The Waste Tide, Malka Older's Centenal Cycle, Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers edited by Sarena Ulibarri, and Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland. Image created by Saronik Bosu using open source vectors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Saronik talks with Manish Melwani about outdated visions of the future and stale science fiction ideas that just won't die. Manish is a Singaporean writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in 2014, and then completed a master's thesis at NYU entitled Starports, Portals and Port Cities: Science Fiction and Fantasy in Empire's Wake. (That's where he met Saronik.) Manish has published several short stories, with several more—and a novel—on the way. They talk about science fiction's imperialist heritage and how going to Mars is just a distraction from the imaginative (and literal) dead end our civilization faces. They also throw shade on Cecil Rhodes and certain tech moguls who have completely missed the point of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. Manish's perspective has been shaped by many other writers and theorists including: John Rieder's work on Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, Samuel R. Delany's seminal essays, Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding, a group biography of John W. Campbell and other figures from the Golden Age of science fiction, and Kim Stanley Robinson's recent climate sci-fi oeuvre. Further reading includes Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, Chen Qiufan's The Waste Tide, Malka Older's Centenal Cycle, Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers edited by Sarena Ulibarri, and Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland. Image created by Saronik Bosu using open source vectors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-fiction

Saronik talks with Manish Melwani about outdated visions of the future and stale science fiction ideas that just won't die. Manish is a Singaporean writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. He attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop in 2014, and then completed a master's thesis at NYU entitled Starports, Portals and Port Cities: Science Fiction and Fantasy in Empire's Wake. (That's where he met Saronik.) Manish has published several short stories, with several more—and a novel—on the way. They talk about science fiction's imperialist heritage and how going to Mars is just a distraction from the imaginative (and literal) dead end our civilization faces. They also throw shade on Cecil Rhodes and certain tech moguls who have completely missed the point of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. Manish's perspective has been shaped by many other writers and theorists including: John Rieder's work on Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, Samuel R. Delany's seminal essays, Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding, a group biography of John W. Campbell and other figures from the Golden Age of science fiction, and Kim Stanley Robinson's recent climate sci-fi oeuvre. Further reading includes Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, Chen Qiufan's The Waste Tide, Malka Older's Centenal Cycle, Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers edited by Sarena Ulibarri, and Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Christopher Wieland. Image created by Saronik Bosu using open source vectors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Alec Nevala-Lee is the author of "Astounding," a group biography of John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard. He's written three novels, a lot of short stories, and has published non-fiction in the New York Times and the L.A. Times. Alec stopped by to chat about sci-fi as a genre, that famous quote about the "Golden Age" of sci-fi being 12, how long it took him to write this book (plus his forthcoming bio on Buckminster Fuller), and the relationship between a writer and their agent. To check out more of Alec's stuff head over to nevalalee.com. Thanks so much for listening!

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 215, in which Cora Buhlert, Joel McKinnon, and I talk about the first season of Foundation on Apple TV+. Cora's reviews of the first season of Foundation are here  ...  also check out Joel McKinnon's Seldon Crisis podcast and his What I Like about the Show on Reddit Talk to us on Twitter:  @CoraBuhlert @JoelGMcKinnon @PaulLev Enjoy the video of this podcast episode. earlier Paul Levinson podcasts about Foundation:  November 19, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.10 ... November 12, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.9 ...  November 5, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.8 ... October 29, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.7 ... October 22, 2021 Review of Foundation 1.6 ... October 15, 2021: Review of Foundation 1.5 ... October 8, 2021: Review of Foundation 1.4 ... October 1, 2021: Review of Foundation 1.3 ...  September 24, 2021:  Review of Foundation 1.1-2 .... July 17, 2021: Thinking about Asimov's Foundation Series on AppleTV+ ... March 12, 2009:  Asimov's Foundation and Herbert's Dune Trilogies as Sources of Philosophy Postcard from Isaac Asimov to me in 1979 about the Foundation trilogy In addition to Asimov's novels and autobiographies, these three books were discusseded in this episode: Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee (see also review) In Pursuit of Truth: Essays on the Philospphy of Karl Popper edited by Paul Levinson Practical Criticism by I. A. Richards

Hello all. We here at Dickheads Podcast hope you are all staying safe and happy. Me and Anthony are holding up pretty well here in the lockdown, but David gets antsy if he's stuck in one place for too long. So, to stay sane during the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided to start doing some Zoom discussions. Our Patreon ►► http://www.patreon.com/LanghorneJTweed Find David Agranoff: Amazon ►► www.amazon.com/David-Agranoff/e/…1580511880&sr=1-2 Find Lisa Yaszek: Amazon ►► www.amazon.com/Lisa-Yaszek/e/B00…yline_cont_book_1 The Future Is Female! ►► www.amazon.com/gp/product/159853…_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 Find Alec Nevala-Lee: Amazon ►► www.amazon.com/Alec-Nevala-Lee/e…yline_cont_book_1 Syndrome ►► https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/ Find Gary K. Wolfe: Coode Street Podcast ►► https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-coode-street-podcast/id417617929 Find Seth Heasley: Hugos There Podcast ►► http://hugospodcast.com/ Music on this episode is from - Valis: An Opera by Tod Machover Check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/Valis-ANNE-BOGDEN…EMA/dp/B000003GI2 FIND US: Twitter ►► https://twitter.com/Dickheadspod Facebook ►► https://www.facebook.com/Dickheadspodcast/ Soundcloud ►► https://soundcloud.com/dickheadspodcast Instagram ►► https://www.instagram.com/dickheadspodcast/ YouTube ►► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5…UlAAoWtLiCg --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/support

Hello, DickHeads. Finally, after a month of holidays and a month of illness, we are back. And with something a little different. This time we got a pair of authors (Lisa Yaszek/The Future is Female and Alec Nevala-Lee/Astounding) together with LJT and David to discuss Cancel Culture and its relevance in light of the numerous award name changes; most notablyJeannette Ng's Campbell Award acceptance speech, in which she condemns John W. Campbell. NOTE: This was recorded in December of 2019. Our Patreon ►► www.patreon.com/LanghorneJTweed Find Lisa Yaszek: Amazon ►► https://www.amazon.com/Lisa-Yaszek/e/B001JS5ZJS/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 The Future Is Female! ►► https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598535803/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 Find Alec Nevala-Lee: Amazon ►► https://www.amazon.com/Alec-Nevala-Lee/e/B0062DMJ0S/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction ►► https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006257194X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 Music on this episode is from - Valis: An Opera by Tod Machover Check it out here: www.amazon.com/Valis-ANNE-BOGDEN…EMA/dp/B000003GI2 FIND US: Twitter ►► https://twitter.com/Dickheadspod Facebook ►► https://www.facebook.com/Dickheadspodcast/ Soundcloud ►► https://soundcloud.com/dickheadspodcast Instagram ►► https://www.instagram.com/dickheadspodcast/ YouTube ►► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5…UlAAoWtLiCg --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pkdheadsbonus/support

Welcome to the Scary Basement where each week, Mikey McCollor and Roxy Polk are trapped in the scary basement full of cursed items and horrific monsters until they review the movie set for them by the DemonBot. This week's film The Thing (1982) directed by John Carpenter, written by Bill Lancaster based on a short story by John W. Campbell Jr. starring Kurt Russel, Keith David, and Wilford Brimley. ----- This Week's Film The Thing (1982) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/ Streaming on Starz https://www.starz.com/us/en/movies/the-thing-44792 ----- Referenced in the Episode The translation of what the Norwegian says is “Get the hell out of there! That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing! It's imitating a dog, it isn't real! Get away you idiots!” Also, the language primarily spoken in Norway is Norwegian. 30 Days of Night (2007) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389722/ The Thing (2011) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0905372 Blumhouse Productions and John Carpenter Announce The Thing Reboot (from August 2020) https://variety.com/2020/film/news/the-thing-reboot-blumhouse-john-carpenter-1234746844/ Update from October 2020, “We're working on it. [I have] no details to share, but we're working on it.” – Producer Jason Blum https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/the-thing-remake-confirmed-blumhouse/ First rumor from January 2020 that indicates the film will be based on an unpublished longer version of the original story “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr. titled “Frozen Hell”, which is “practically a different story” according to Alec Nevala-Lee https://www.newsweek.com/thing-movie-remake-frozen-hell-manuscript-campbell-who-goes-there-1484710 Alec Nevala-Lee's book Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction where he found the original manuscript to Frozen Hell doing research https://amzn.to/3cBtilg Don't Wake Daddy (originally released in 1992) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Wake_Daddy Fermi Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Random Horror Movie Title Generator http://www.generatorland.com/glgenerator.aspx?id=62 Clear Eyes Fanzine on Bandcamp https://cleareyesfanzine.bandcamp.com/releases ----- Hosted by Mikey McCollor and Roxy Polk Post-production and editing by Darryl Mott

Author Alec Nevala-Lee stops by to discuss his monumental biography of the early days of science fiction. His book, Astounding, details the rise of SF through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. This was the age of a magazine called Astounding, today known as Analog Science Fiction and Fact. In those early decades, John W. Campbell served as editor of Astounding and he left an indelible mark on the genre, for better or worse. Campbell fostered talented writers like Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, L. Ron Hubbard, and so many more. He indisputably shaped what we understand as Science Fiction today. But he upheld a distinctly white, male, capitalist outlook. Meanwhile, as science fiction found its footing in American culture, it also spun off the creation of a new religion. Was this an accident, or was it inevitable? We discuss this and some of Nevala-Lee's own fiction feature in the collection, Syndromes. Learn more about Alec Nevala-Lee's work: https://nevalalee.com Read Astounding: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062571946 Listen to Syndromes: https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2020/04/14/listening-to-syndromes/ Learn more about Mikel's work at www.mikelwisler.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mikeljwisler/support

My sincere props if you can tell me what I am alluding to in the episode title. Books mentioned in this episode: Who Goes There?/Frozen Hell by John W. Campbell, Jr; In Heaven, Everything is Fine: Fiction Inspired by David Lynch [short stories]; The Mammoth Book of Nightmare Stories [short stories]; Songs for the Unraveling of the World [short stories]; Cries in the Desert by John Glatt; The Night in Question [short stories] by Tobias Wolfe Sources: Campbell Jr., John W. Frozen Hell (2019) preface by Alec Nevala-Lee. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vulturewriter/support

Topics: William H. Gass, The Tunnel, John W. Campbell, 25 Years. SF Chronicle, Hitler, Fascism, US, Trump, Party Of Disappointed People, Joyce, Golden Age Science Fiction, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Murch, Heinlein, Asimov, Hubbard, The Thing, The Master, Sc...

Topics: William H. Gass, The Tunnel, John W. Campbell, 25 Years. SF Chronicle, Hitler, Fascism, US, Trump, Party Of Disappointed People, Joyce, Golden Age Science Fiction, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Murch, Heinlein, Asimov, Hubbard, The Thing, The Master, Sc...

Topics: The Tunnel at 25, William H Gass, Milestone, Washington University Library, Alec Nevala-Lee, Perdue, Nazi Sympathizer, Through a Glass Darkly, Outtakes, Architecture, Gaddis, Williams, Shelly Jackson, Revelation, Novel, Semantics, Train, Perspective,...

Topics: The Tunnel at 25, William H Gass, Milestone, Washington University Library, Alec Nevala-Lee, Perdue, Nazi Sympathizer, Through a Glass Darkly, Outtakes, Architecture, Gaddis, Williams, Shelly Jackson, Revelation, Novel, Semantics, Train, Perspective,...

Robert Heinlein was one of the first major authors to write science fiction specifically for children. In this episode, we explore how he did it and what sets him apart from his contemporaries in this area, along with the other classic children's sci-fi books up through the golden age. Book recommendation: Have Spacesuit--Will Travel Other books mentioned: The Tom Swift Series The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The Chrysalids by John Wyndham Grumbles from the Grave, Chapter 3 John J. Miller on Starship Troopers Adam Gopnik on The Little Prince Farah Mendlesohn on children's sci-fi Alec Nevala-Lee on Heinlein's writing

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Writer, professor, and Strange Horizons founder Mary Anne Mohanraj chats with Gary about launching a new cookbook just as everything got locked down, how virtual conventions seem to be improving—and are likely to change the way all cons are conducted in the future, keeping busy sewing masks, serving as a public library board member, and teaching online, why SF doesn't have enough food in it, South Asian SFF writers, and even how the word serendipity came into the language. Books mentioned include: A Feast of Serendib by Mary Anne Mohanraj A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher Best American Food Writing 2019 edited by Samin Nosrat Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee

John is in the wrong Zoom, Alison is tactful, and Liz went to her first online convention. Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media! Letters of comment were sent from Mark Plummer, Claire Brialey and Ian Sorensen Chadwick Boseman has died of cancer Ryan Coogler expresses his sorrow Chadwick Boseman surprises fans Shuri has been the Black Panther M'Baku has not been the Black Panther The Marvel Symphonic Universe New York Times: The Week Old Hollywood Finally, Actually Died NASFiC 2020 was held online Liz attended: Researching the Golden Age with Alec Nevala-Lee and Farah Mendlesohn The Technological Dreams of AfroFuturism with Dan Tres Omi, Eboni Dunbar, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Sheree Renée Thomas Panel recordings do not appear to be available, but the schedule is here Virtually Expo was the online UK Games Expo John got a lot of badges Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.

H.P. Lovecraft and John W. Campbell were writers and editors who ruled science fiction in the mid-twentieth century. Their names graced some of the genre's biggest awards. They ran influential magazines. And they were also racist, authoritarian jerkwads who alienated generations of writers and fans. We talk about the rise and fall of these two men, and how to deal with their legacies. Joining us is Alec Nevala-Lee, author of a new book about Campbell and his circle called Astounding. Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Back when I started my pandemic deep-dive book-reading binge in late February, the first book I started with was Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and … https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/08/24/notes-astounding-by-alec-nevala-lee/ Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science FictiontweetstormGreat Weirdinglivetweetingpulp eraAstounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science FictionLink to Astounding archives.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PsionicsNew Wave

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Hugo-nominated biographer, Analog contributor, and novelist Alec Nevala-Lee talks with Gary about his current research for a biography of R. Buckminster Fuller, who was a good friend of Arthur C. Clarke but also once gave a lecture at a Hubbard organization in the early 1950s; Alec's own fascination with the cultural history of the 1960s, the evolution of futures studies, and the comfort to be found in returning to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, and the metafictional “grand game” that has evolved from them. Alec's first collection, Syndromes, is available now as an audiobook original from Recorded Books. Books mentioned include: Syndromes: Science Fiction Stories by Alec Nevala-Lee Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlen, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968 by Norman Mailer The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer  The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by W.S. Baring-Gould The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes by Leslie S. Klinger

David and Perry talk about their recent reading, both good and bad; and special guest W. H. Chong talks about Ghost Species by James Bradley. Coping with the pandemic (01:20) Locus Awards (04:38) Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore (07:55) Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee (04:49) Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller (00:43) The Second Sleep by Robert Harris (03:30) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jnr (01:15) The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts (05:11) Wings Above the Diamantina by Arthur Upfield (05:43) Silver by Chris Hammer (11:53) Ghost Species by James Bradley (36:24) Discussion with W. H. Chong (33:09) Literature or SF? (02:05) Wind-up (01:27) Photo by Akshar Dave from Pexels

David and Perry talk about their recent reading, both good and bad; and special guest W. H. Chong talks about Ghost Species by James Bradley. Coping with the pandemic (01:20) Locus Awards (04:38) Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore (07:55) Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee (04:49) Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller (00:43) The Second Sleep by Robert Harris (03:30) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jnr (01:15) The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts (05:11) Wings Above the Diamantina by Arthur Upfield (05:43) Silver by Chris Hammer (11:53) Ghost Species by James Bradley (36:24) Discussion with W. H. Chong (33:09) Literature or SF? (02:05) Wind-up (01:27) Click here for more information and links Photo by Akshar Dave from Pexels

The Robotics Through Science Fiction podcast returns! Today we're joined by the fantastic Alec Nevala-Lee.

Alex Grand, Jim Thompson and guest co-host Larry King discuss books that remark on Comic History and give those books and those segments of comic history a second look, discussing science fiction pulp history written in Astounding by Alec Nevala Lee in 2018, commentary on The Great Comic Heroes by Jules Feiffer in 1965, and the representation of color and mood in comics like Mike Mignola's 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula. Music - Standard License. Support us at https://www.patreon.com/comicbookhistoriansPodcast and Audio ©℗ 2019 Comic Book HistoriansSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/comicbookhistorians)

After another long hiatus, Jonathan and Gary return with a ramble saying farewell to 2018 (actually recorded when it was still 2018 in Chicago and already 2019 in Perth). This time we look back on some of our favourite novels, novellas, collections, anthologies, and nonfiction from the past year, agreeing enthusiastically about Sam J. Miller's Blackfish City, Kelly Robson's Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, Gardner Dozois's The Book of Magic, Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (diverting into a side discussion of whether “golden ages” actually mean anything), and several other books and stories which one or both of us liked. We also name Blackfish City as our official Coode Street Book of Year! Did we draw any insightful conclusions about the overall health of the field last year, or what the field seems to be becoming? Of course not, but we have our opinions, and we had some fun. And who knows? We should be back sooner than you'd think.

Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding is the first comprehensive biography of John W. Campbell, who, as a writer and magazine editor, wielded enormous influence over the field of science fiction in the mid-20th century. “His interests, his obsessions, and his prejudices shaped what science fiction was going to be,” Nevala-Lee says. Many people are familiar with Campbell’s name because it’s on the award given out every year by the World Science Fiction Society—the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. (This year, the award went to Rebecca Roanhorse, who was on the podcast in September; other winners who’ve been on the show include Ada Palmer, Andy Weir, and Mur Lafferty.) From 1937 through the 1960s, Campbell used the magazine Astounding Science Fiction (now named Analog) to popularize science fiction and its potential to predict the future. But he also used the magazine to promote pseudosciences (like psionics and dianetics), and his legacy is tarnished by views that were “clearly racist.” “He was quite content to keep publishing stories by writers who looked like him... And the characters were almost all white,” Nevala-Lee says. “Campbell thought that maybe black writers weren’t interested in writing science fiction or they weren’t good at it. It never seems to have occurred to him that they might be more interested in writing for his magazine if they saw characters who looked like them.” Astounding is a powerful contribution to the history of science fiction, offering fascinating stories about the careers and personal lives of Campbell and his stable of talented and influential writers. But its immediate effect may be to spark a conversation about whether the best way to honor today’s emerging talent is with an award bearing the name of a man whose legacy is so problematic. A similar conversation occurred earlier this year over the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award; the debate ended when the American Library Association decided to change the name of the award. “That debate has not yet extended to the John W. Campbell Award. I think it's a legitimate discussion because Campbell’s opinions on race, in my opinion, are far more offensive than anything Wilder expressed," Nevala-Lee says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding is the first comprehensive biography of John W. Campbell, who, as a writer and magazine editor, wielded enormous influence over the field of science fiction in the mid-20th century. “His interests, his obsessions, and his prejudices shaped what science fiction was going to be,” Nevala-Lee says. Many people are familiar with Campbell’s name because it’s on the award given out every year by the World Science Fiction Society—the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. (This year, the award went to Rebecca Roanhorse, who was on the podcast in September; other winners who’ve been on the show include Ada Palmer, Andy Weir, and Mur Lafferty.) From 1937 through the 1960s, Campbell used the magazine Astounding Science Fiction (now named Analog) to popularize science fiction and its potential to predict the future. But he also used the magazine to promote pseudosciences (like psionics and dianetics), and his legacy is tarnished by views that were “clearly racist.” “He was quite content to keep publishing stories by writers who looked like him... And the characters were almost all white,” Nevala-Lee says. “Campbell thought that maybe black writers weren’t interested in writing science fiction or they weren’t good at it. It never seems to have occurred to him that they might be more interested in writing for his magazine if they saw characters who looked like them.” Astounding is a powerful contribution to the history of science fiction, offering fascinating stories about the careers and personal lives of Campbell and his stable of talented and influential writers. But its immediate effect may be to spark a conversation about whether the best way to honor today’s emerging talent is with an award bearing the name of a man whose legacy is so problematic. A similar conversation occurred earlier this year over the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award; the debate ended when the American Library Association decided to change the name of the award. “That debate has not yet extended to the John W. Campbell Award. I think it's a legitimate discussion because Campbell’s opinions on race, in my opinion, are far more offensive than anything Wilder expressed," Nevala-Lee says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding is the first comprehensive biography of John W. Campbell, who, as a writer and magazine editor, wielded enormous influence over the field of science fiction in the mid-20th century. “His interests, his obsessions, and his prejudices shaped what science fiction was going to be,” Nevala-Lee says. Many people are familiar with Campbell’s name because it’s on the award given out every year by the World Science Fiction Society—the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. (This year, the award went to Rebecca Roanhorse, who was on the podcast in September; other winners who’ve been on the show include Ada Palmer, Andy Weir, and Mur Lafferty.) From 1937 through the 1960s, Campbell used the magazine Astounding Science Fiction (now named Analog) to popularize science fiction and its potential to predict the future. But he also used the magazine to promote pseudosciences (like psionics and dianetics), and his legacy is tarnished by views that were “clearly racist.” “He was quite content to keep publishing stories by writers who looked like him... And the characters were almost all white,” Nevala-Lee says. “Campbell thought that maybe black writers weren’t interested in writing science fiction or they weren’t good at it. It never seems to have occurred to him that they might be more interested in writing for his magazine if they saw characters who looked like them.” Astounding is a powerful contribution to the history of science fiction, offering fascinating stories about the careers and personal lives of Campbell and his stable of talented and influential writers. But its immediate effect may be to spark a conversation about whether the best way to honor today’s emerging talent is with an award bearing the name of a man whose legacy is so problematic. A similar conversation occurred earlier this year over the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award; the debate ended when the American Library Association decided to change the name of the award. “That debate has not yet extended to the John W. Campbell Award. I think it's a legitimate discussion because Campbell’s opinions on race, in my opinion, are far more offensive than anything Wilder expressed," Nevala-Lee says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding is the first comprehensive biography of John W. Campbell, who, as a writer and magazine editor, wielded enormous influence over the field of science fiction in the mid-20th century. “His interests, his obsessions, and his prejudices shaped what science fiction was going to be,” Nevala-Lee says. Many people are familiar with Campbell’s name because it’s on the award given out every year by the World Science Fiction Society—the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. (This year, the award went to Rebecca Roanhorse, who was on the podcast in September; other winners who’ve been on the show include Ada Palmer, Andy Weir, and Mur Lafferty.) From 1937 through the 1960s, Campbell used the magazine Astounding Science Fiction (now named Analog) to popularize science fiction and its potential to predict the future. But he also used the magazine to promote pseudosciences (like psionics and dianetics), and his legacy is tarnished by views that were “clearly racist.” “He was quite content to keep publishing stories by writers who looked like him... And the characters were almost all white,” Nevala-Lee says. “Campbell thought that maybe black writers weren’t interested in writing science fiction or they weren’t good at it. It never seems to have occurred to him that they might be more interested in writing for his magazine if they saw characters who looked like them.” Astounding is a powerful contribution to the history of science fiction, offering fascinating stories about the careers and personal lives of Campbell and his stable of talented and influential writers. But its immediate effect may be to spark a conversation about whether the best way to honor today’s emerging talent is with an award bearing the name of a man whose legacy is so problematic. A similar conversation occurred earlier this year over the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award; the debate ended when the American Library Association decided to change the name of the award. “That debate has not yet extended to the John W. Campbell Award. I think it's a legitimate discussion because Campbell’s opinions on race, in my opinion, are far more offensive than anything Wilder expressed," Nevala-Lee says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alec Nevala-Lee’s Astounding (Dey Street Books, 2018) is the first comprehensive biography of John W. Campbell, who, as a writer and magazine editor, wielded enormous influence over the field of science fiction in the mid-20th century. “His interests, his obsessions, and his prejudices shaped what science fiction was going to be,” Nevala-Lee says. Many people are familiar with Campbell’s name because it’s on the award given out every year by the World Science Fiction Society—the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. (This year, the award went to Rebecca Roanhorse, who was on the podcast in September; other winners who’ve been on the show include Ada Palmer, Andy Weir, and Mur Lafferty.) From 1937 through the 1960s, Campbell used the magazine Astounding Science Fiction (now named Analog) to popularize science fiction and its potential to predict the future. But he also used the magazine to promote pseudosciences (like psionics and dianetics), and his legacy is tarnished by views that were “clearly racist.” “He was quite content to keep publishing stories by writers who looked like him… And the characters were almost all white,” Nevala-Lee says. “Campbell thought that maybe black writers weren’t interested in writing science fiction or they weren’t good at it. It never seems to have occurred to him that they might be more interested in writing for his magazine if they saw characters who looked like them.” Astounding is a powerful contribution to the history of science fiction, offering fascinating stories about the careers and personal lives of Campbell and his stable of talented and influential writers. But its immediate effect may be to spark a conversation about whether the best way to honor today’s emerging talent is with an award bearing the name of a man whose legacy is so problematic. A similar conversation occurred earlier this year over the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award; the debate ended when the American Library Association decided to change the name of the award. “That debate has not yet extended to the John W. Campbell Award. I think it’s a legitimate discussion because Campbell’s opinions on race, in my opinion, are far more offensive than anything Wilder expressed,” Nevala-Lee says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This morning I was able to sit down (on Skype) with author of Astounding, Alec Nevala-Lee. I got to pick his brain about the Golden Age of Science Fiction, John W. Campbell, Asimov, Heinlein, Hubbard, the futurians, and so much more! PICK UP YOUR COPY OF ASTOUNDING HERE. You can... Continue Reading

The Pulp Fiction Literary Podcast is back this week with a great episode about the new book ASTOUNDING by Alec Nevala-Lee! It’s about John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. You have to go get it. Plus, We... Continue Reading

Alec Nevala-Lee is a science fiction novelist, essayist and biographer. He’s known for the scifi novels: The Icon Thief, City of Exiles, and Eternal Empire. He’s written for Analog Science Fiction, and he’s had essays and non-fiction published in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, The Daily Beast and more. We chatted about growing up in California, the influential book that inspired him to become a writer, his early career, life at Harvard, and quitting his job to become a struggling – then successful novelist. Alec also shared a bit about his writing tools and techniques. Finally, we explored his new biography entitled: ASTOUNDING, a critical look at the life, writing and mutual influences of four famous scifi authors: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard during the Golden Age of Science Fiction in the 1940s and 50s.

Worldcon 76 in San Jose, California this past August was a busy time. Thousands of science fiction and fantasy writers, readers, artists, publishers, and fans of every stripe travelled across the country and, in some cases, around the world to celebrate the best in SF. We (Gary and Jonathan) had a wonderful time while we were there and managed to record four special episodes. Our final conversation is one of our favourites. Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction is a fascinating and probably definitive examination of Astounding, John W. Campbell and the writers who made up that time.  Andy Duncan, a long-time friend of the podcast, also just published "New Frontiers of the Mind", his first story for Analog (successor to Astounding) which examines the connection between Campbell and Rhine. Both Alec and Andy sat down with us in San Jose to discuss Campbell, Astounding, and their own work.  As always, we'd like to thank Alec and Andy for making time to talk to us and we hope you enjoy the conversation!    

This week's episode ranges from a discussion about the growing importance of novellas and their advantages both for readers and writers, the difficult question of which story you might pick to introduce a new reader to a favourite author, the importance of distinctive voices in both short fictions and novels, the upcoming 87th birthday of the great Gene Wolfe, and James Cameron's new TV documentary on SF, which features appearance from several SF writers and critics, including Gary. Then Jonathan springs on Gary the question of what his favourite book is, so Gary tossed it right back to Jonathan. We both came up with answers that date back to our respective childhoods. In addition to Gene Wolfe, some of the authors mentioned include R.A. Lafferty, Ted Chiang, Margo Lanagan, Kelly Link, Robert A. Heinlein, T.H. White, Sam J. Miller, Kate Wilhelm, Ursula Le Guin, Andy Duncan, Howard Waldrop, Catherynne Valente, Jeffrey Ford, Lavie Tidhar, John Varley, James Patrick Kelly, Alec Nevala-Lee, and Joseph Heller. In other words, another ramble.

Your life is a singular journey; a generation is a collective journey.We're circling an 11,000-degree fireball as it shoots through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet. If this dirt-covered rock we occupy was the size of a standard schoolroom globe covered with a coat of varnish, the thickness of that varnish would represent the air we breathe. Like it or not, we're all in this together. All seven and a half billion of us. When it gets dark tonight, look up at the stars. You'll be looking out the window of our spaceship.If we could aim our 11,000-degree fireball at the nearest of its siblings – those things we call the stars – it would take us 63,000 years to get there even though we would be shooting through space at 52 times the speed of an 865 mph bullet.1 Right now you think I'm going to talk to you about cultural tolerance or global warming or world peace or some other big idea. But you're wrong. My goal today is to teach you how to use metaphors to make your data more interesting so that you can persuade more people.I borrowed the metaphor of the earth being a spaceship from Buckminster Fuller and the varnish on the globe came from Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. A metaphor relates the unfamiliar to the familiar, the unknown to the known, effectively translating your data into a language your listener can understand. A good metaphor sharpens the point of your data. Once you've chosen your metaphor, your second challenge will be to select nouns and verbs that carry the voltage of mild surprise.I might have said, “The earth orbits the sun as it moves through space at 0.0004842454 au. (astronomical units).” But I chose instead to say, “We're circling an 11,000-degree fireball as it shoots through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet.” “We're circling” causes you to see yourself in the story. This is the first step toward reader engagement. “11,000-degree fireball” is more vivid than “the sun,” “shoots through a limitless vacuum” is more exciting than “moves through space,” and “52 times the speed of a rifle bullet” packs more of a wallop than “astronomical units.” Brilliant communication isn't a product of wit or charm or even talent.Preparation is what it takes to click the brightness of your message up to high beam so that it pierces the darkness like a lighthouse at midnight. In the words of Alec Nevala-Lee, “A good surprise demands methodical work in advance. Like any form of sleight of hand, it hinges on making the result of careful preparation seem casual, even miraculous.” “Like a lighthouse at midnight” wasn't technically a metaphor, by the way. It was a simile. Metaphor: The earth is a spaceship. Simile: The earth is like a spaceship. A simile feels like a metaphor and can be used to accomplish the same effect. Write down what you want to say. Don't overthink it. Just get some words on paper. Find a metaphor that relates your information to an idea that your audience already understands. Now look at what you wrote and replace the weary, dull words with energetic, bright ones. Want to know a secret? There's really no such thing as good writing. There's only good rewriting.Ernest Hemingway won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Each time he came to a place where the words weren't flowing, he would set his work aside and answer some correspondence so that he could take a break from, “the awful responsibility of writing” — or, as he sometimes called it, “the responsibility of awful writing.” 2  In a letter to 22 year-old Arnold Samuelson in 1934, Hemingway advised that after writing something you think is pretty good, you should, “leave it alone and don't think about it; let your subconscious mind do the work. The next morning, when you've had a good sleep and you're feeling fresh, rewrite what you...

Coming Up Fact: Science News by J J Campanella 00:30 Fact: Cheapskates by Adam Pracht 31:30 Main Fiction: The Boneless One Part 2 by Alec Nevala-Lee Annual Meta Talk by Tony C Smith See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Coming Up Fact: Gaming the Future with Simon Hildebrandt 02:20 Main Fiction: The Boneless One Part 1 by Alec Nevala-Lee 12:00 Interview: Gareth Powell 01:00:00 Fact: Poetry Planet by Diane Severson 01:20:00 Narrator: Josh Roseman See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.