No surprise

Hoax:

In a long statement on SearchingforBigfoot.com, Kulls reveals what he found early Sunday morning Eastern time as the body thawed out.

"I extracted some [hair] from the alleged corpse and examined it and had some concerns," Kulls writes. "We burned said sample and said hair sample melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair."

Kulls called Biscardi in California, who told him to heat the body to speed up thawing.

"Within one hour we were able to see the partially exposed head," Kulls continues. "I was able to feel that it seemed mostly firm, but unusually hollow in one small section. This was yet another ominous sign."

Then came the clincher.

"Within the next hour of thaw, a break appeared up near the feet area. ... I observed the foot which looked unnatural, reached in and confirmed it was a rubber foot."

Anyone who is slightly familiar with Bigfoot lore knows about Biscardi. He was involved in another big scam in 2005. He's a con-man who seems to specialize in Bigfoot cons, as weird as that sounds. There's still money out there, and it should be followed.

Someone from the website thehorrordome.com says it looks like one of their Bigfoot costumes.

What about the original Georgia hoaxers?

Asked for comment on Officer Whitton, Clayton County, Ga., Chief of Police Jeffrey Turner, corrected FoxNews.com. "You mean ex-officer Whitton."

"As soon as we saw it was a hoax," Chief Turner explained, "I filed the paperwork to terminate his employment."

Turner said he hasn't heard from Whitton, and that he was mystified at the former officer's involvement in such a blatant scam.

"He was a real go-getter," Turner said, citing Whitton's wounding in the line of duty earlier this summer while apprehending a suspect who had allegedly shot a woman in the head. "For someone to do a complete three-sixty like that, I can't explain it."

I wasn't going to quote that much but the "three-sixty" cracked me up. If he did a "complete three-sixty," wouldn't he be going in the same direction? (I and a few other people I know have used this expression, but only in a spirit of ironic self-deprecation).

By the way, since the last time I linked to Cryptomundo a few days ago, I haven't been able to bring it up. I must assume hackers got to it, too.

That common sense thing

Kelly started it, then Hammer and Drew chimed in. I almost wrote something myself yesterday, but then decided to sleep on it since I often do my best thinking while I'm asleep.

"Common sense": Those of us who believe we have it know it when we see it, but how can it be defined, and why do some people have it and some don't?

Upon awakening this morning, an answer--perhaps--had come to me, and it sounds pretty good, so I'll go with it.

Those people who have "common sense" are those people who have accepted intellectual responsibility for their own thought processes.

Accepting responsibility for one's own thought processes spills over into accepting other kinds of responsibility for other things--it's a chain reaction. So if I had to explain the above statement, I would say that it describes those who believe and behave the way they do because they have decided themselves that it is the best way to go--not because someone else told them to: someone else who they can blame for making a bad decision for them.

I would not be surprised at all if it were revealed that there is a vast conspiracy, a sort of anti-Bene Gesserit who are dedicated to breeding the stupidest person in the history of humankind. A person who won't remove his hand from the box, not because he has the willpower to overcome his own instincts against pain, but because he thinks someone else should remove his hand for him.

That's my take on it, anyway.

I have your soap...

Via Oddee.

Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage...

To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea:

Franklin's vessels are among the most sought-after prizes in marine archaeology.

Tantalising traces have been found over the years, including the bodies of three crewmen in the 1980s.

The bodies of two English seamen, John Hartnell, 25, and royal Marine William Braine, 33, were exhumed in 1986 and an expedition uncovered the perfectly preserved remains of a petty officer John Torrington, 20, in an ice-filled coffin in 1984.

But the ships have never been seen.

Experts believe the ships came to grief in 1848 after they became locked in the ice near King William Island and the crews abandoned them in a hopeless bid to reach safety.

Relief efforts financed by Lady Franklin, the Royal Navy and even the Hudson's Bay Company vainly scoured the region for more than a decade.

An expedition has been launched to try and find the remains of Sir John Franklin's mid-1840s expedition to find the Northwest Passage, which they think might be easier to find now due to "global warming."

Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.

[Lyrics by Stan Rogers.]

Some music news via email

Alex Woodard's self-titled fifth studio album is out tomorrow on Adrenaline Music Group. The album features Brian Young (Fountains Of Wayne) on drums and a duet with Grammy-winning Sara Watkins (of Nickel Creek fame) on "Reno." Here's "Reno," feel free to post the MP3.

So here's the link to "Reno." Very cool song, the kind of borderline-country I can really get into. I must admit I've not heard of either of these artists before, and I'm glad I got this email, although why I got it I don't know.

Lots more info at Shorefire.com.

Selection's from Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem:

The proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is so simple, and so sneaky, that it is almost embarassing to relate. His basic procedure is as follows:

1. Someone introduces Gödel to a UTM, a machine that is supposed to be a Universal Truth Machine, capable of correctly answering any question at all.
2. Gödel asks for the program and the circuit design of the UTM. The program may be complicated, but it can only be finitely long. Call the program P(UTM) for Program of the Universal Truth Machine.
3. Smiling a little, Gödel writes out the following sentence: "The machine constructed on the basis of the program P(UTM) will never say that this sentence is true." Call this sentence G for Gödel. Note that G is equivalent to: "UTM will never say G is true."
4. Now Gödel laughs his high laugh and asks UTM whether G is true or not.
5. If UTM says G is true, then "UTM will never say G is true" is false. If "UTM will never say G is true" is false, then G is false (since G = "UTM will never say G is true"). So if UTM says G is true, then G is in fact false, and UTM has made a false statement. So UTM will never say that G is true, since UTM makes only true statements.
6. We have established that UTM will never say G is true. So "UTM will never say G is true" is in fact a true statement. So G is true (since G = "UTM will never say G is true").
7. "I know a truth that UTM can never utter," Gödel says. "I know that G is true. UTM is not truly universal."

Think about it - it grows on you ...

With his great mathematical and logical genius, Gödel was able to find a way (for any given P(UTM)) actually to write down a complicated polynomial equation that has a solution if and only if G is true. So G is not at all some vague or non-mathematical sentence. G is a specific mathematical problem that we know the answer to, even though UTM does not! So UTM does not, and cannot, embody a best and final theory of mathematics ...

Although this theorem can be stated and proved in a rigorously mathematical way, what it seems to say is that rational thought can never penetrate to the final ultimate truth ... But, paradoxically, to understand Gödel's proof is to find a sort of liberation. For many logic students, the final breakthrough to full understanding of the Incompleteness Theorem is practically a conversion experience. This is partly a by-product of the potent mystique Gödel's name carries. But, more profoundly, to understand the essentially labyrinthine nature of the castle is, somehow, to be free of it. [emphases mine]

Beautiful.

Coleman was hacked

From Loren Coleman:

BTW, my personal websites (lorencoleman.com and the museum site, cryptozoologymuseum.com) have been hacked, destroyed, and I will have to re-build the entire two sites at new locations. For those that think this is all a joke, I just don’t see it that way. If you ask me, hacking in and taking down a website sort of reminds me of, well, burning books.

No word on why Cryptomundo itself was down. For all the news on what's been happening, just go to the top and scroll down.

Heh. "Abominable Snow Job." I like it.

Alien autopsy, anyone?

ABC News: A Monster Discovery: Bigfoot or Big Hoax?

Instead, Biscardi said he plans to keep the body at an undisclosed location while scientists, including two Russian hominid specialists, study the creature. Biscardi said the entire process will be filmed and then released as a documentary.

Bull****.

"As much as we can"

My mind just closed a little.

Cryptomundo is down today, and I hope it's nothing serious. He has been the target of hackers or a DNS attack or something like that before. So I just G00gl3d it.

Here's the link.

Well, they promised a Bigfoot, they promised DNA evidence, they promised a lot. They delivered nothing. For a body that was supposedly fresh-frozen, the results of the three DNA samples were 1) inconclusive, 2) possibly human or (my favorite) 3) a possum.

In what may sum it all up, one reporter asked Biscardi how much money he and the two men hoped to make from all this.

"As much as we can," he said.

And in the process, will make all cryptozoologists look bad.

Wrong again, Monk

I really enjoy the TV show Monk, but they constantly make serious errors just to get their stories to work. Tonight's episode had a murder take place on a U.S. Navy submarine. I am almost positive that the murder weapon was a P-38. Okay, you say, maybe the murderer just snuck that sidearm on board so he could commit murder with it.

No. Because when Monk asked another sailor for his sidearm, he handed him another P-38.

Oh, and if you're about to ask if anyone actually cleared the weapon before decisively stating, "it isn't loaded," then surely you must know that you're about to ask a silly question.

P.S. The most egregious error in the show that I ever saw was when Monk's dad visited. I had to spend the last 15 minutes of the show explaining in minute detail why what was happening to his 18-wheeler was absolutely impossible and could not ever happen under any circumstances whatsoever.

Missing

I keep thinking of albums that I should have but don't. One is a tape of "truck driving songs" that I bought during that phase of my life. I must have lost it somewhere, or possibly I left it in my trainer's truck. It had my most favorite truck driving song on it, and here are the lyrics. P.S. This song has been covered all over the place. I bet some modern cowpop singer could cover it again and it would be a minor hit again.

It was his first trip to Boston in a big long diesel truck
It was his first trip to Boston he was a havin' lots of luck
He was headed the wrong direction down the one way street in town
And this is what he said when the police chased him down

(Chorus)
Give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig round
It's the easiest way that I found
Some guys can turn on a dime or turn it right downtown
But I need forty acres to turn this rig around

When he finally found where to outload he had the dreadful shot
His trailer pointed toward the road and his cab right to the dock
And as he looked around him through his tears he made the sound
Oh give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig round

(Chorus)

When he finally got unloaded he was glad to leave that town
He was feelin' fairy happy goin' back to Alabam
And up ahead he saw a sign said you are northward bound
He said give me forty acres and I'll turn this rig round

He was drivin' down the right lane when ahead he saw a sign
Yet to make the left turn but he could not be gettn' in line
The tears were streamin' down his cheeks and they all heard him yell
Give me forty sticks of dynamite and I'll blow his rig to hell

(Chorus)

Busy

One of the things with which I'm keeping myself busy offline is cataloging my entire music collection. I'm just making a few spreadsheet lists, dividing things into a few basic categories. I'm looking forward to remembering albums that I'd forgotten I had. For example, I knew I had both Sgt. Pepper's and Revolver, but I had forgotten that I also have Rubber Soul. Some of them I can only blame on my wife picking up somewhere, probably at a yard sale or a flea market. For example: Billy Squire? I wouldn't know a Billy Squire song if I ran it down in the street. And Donna Summer? Greatest hits both volumes one and two? Where did these things come from?

Anyway, this should be fun, and it will help me when I get ready to start digitizing records again. I still have a stack of cassettes to go through.

UPDATE: Cher?! WTF?! Still, I'm going to have to listen to them (them! two so far!) out of sheer morbid fascination. Gregg Allman, what were you thinking?

Here it is...

Cryptomundo reports on the official press release for the claimed Bigfoot body that was "found" (didn't they at first say they killed it?) in Georgia. This Friday, August 15, the body and DNA details will be presented at a (closed) press conference.

There are a lot of things I don't like about the secrecy involved in this. And I will not believe it until the so-called "DNA evidence" can be examined by impartial third parties, which may not ever happen if I understand the details as described in the press release.

Still it's worth mentioning, and is big news in the cryptid field.

UPDATE: More here, with photos. Like Mr. Coleman said, I'm retaining my skeptical open-mindedness.

Codex Sinaiticus

I saved this as a note in Scribefire a couple of weeks ago and then forgot about it.

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible's original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

Interesting on more than one level. Not only a very early version of the New Testament, but it is constructed into something that we would look at and immediately identify as a bound book. And 1,600 years ago, book-making wasn't easy.

Codex Sinaiticus was copied by more than one scribe. Constantine Tischendorf identified four in the nineteenth century. Subsequent research decided that there were three, but it is possible that a fourth (different from Tischendorf’s fourth scribe) can be identified. Each of the three undisputed scribes has a distinctive way of writing which can be identified with practice. Each also had a distinctive way of spelling many sounds, particularly vowels which scribes often wrote phonetically. One of them may have been a senior copyist.

To make their manuscript, the scribes had to perform a series of tasks. They had to

1. determine a format (there are very few surviving manuscripts written with four columns to a page);
2. divide the work between them;
3. prepare the parchment, including ruling it with a framework for the layout of columns and lines;
4. prepare the manuscripts they were copying;
5. get pens and ink together;
6. write the text;
7. check it;
8. assemble the whole codex in the right order.

Of course it contains a few books that are now considered "apocryphal," and the order of the books is different from the modern Bible. There is a project now in progress to put the whole thing online in several different languages, but the project is still relatively new and there doesn't seem to be anything available in English yet. Read all about it at Codex Sinaiticus.

This & that...

Ripped the Bob Mould CD that I had somehow missed before. This was his first solo piece after Hüsker Dü split up. The Sport of Kings is not my favorite Triumph album, but right now it's the only one on a dubbed cassette that I can easily digitize. Triumph was always pretty big around here, thanks mostly to a DJ and music promoter named Joe Anthony who used to work for the radio station KISS in San Antonio. He also worked pretty hard to promote Rush around here, back before they were really famous. All of my other Triumph albums are older than Kings, and I'm not really interested in anything that came after it.

There was even one group that sprang out of the San Antonio area in the 80s called Winterkat, who were basically a Triumph sound-alike. I have their only album, an EP-length record with five songs. It's apparently sort of a collectible now ($34.99!). I think I paid something like $5 for it at Stage Door Music in Seguin. Or was it free? Well, I know I didn't pay much for it. That was a music store that carried instruments and so forth, they didn't usually stock any albums, but there was a push on to give Winterkat some publicity so the proprietor there put some of their albums out and told people about them. I think all of its members went on to other bands and are still in the biz.

I've been going through my entire library and snagging all the album cover art thumbnails I can with Winamp. The ones that I can't get via Winamp I'll probably snag from Amazon or somewhere. It's good pipe-smoking work.

Old computer update

I got some stuff from bootdisk.com that really helped. I now have the old machine running. It's a 100MHz Pentium running DOS 6.2 and Win 3.11. The next step will be trying to get Aces running on it. After that, I'll start looking for some good old ham software to put on it. I can't find the install floppy from one of my favorite programs that I used to use. It should have been in a safe stash with a bunch of other old floppies, but I don't know what happened to it. It could still be packed away somewhere from the move.

Scuba fhtagn

Not much activity, but some cool photocthshops Cthulhu's Holiday Photos. NSFW!

The dream has just begun...

To me, Fleetwood Mac is one of those groups that it's nice to have a "Greatest Hits" of, but not really necessary to have anything else. Lindsey Buckingham's voice kind of irritates me, and Christine McVie's voice is so immaculately polished that it seems to have lost its character. I believe this tape was purchased in Abilene when I was in college there. It couldn't have been more than a year after this album was released, yet it was already in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. I've copied the Stevie Nicks songs into her directory on my computer, but I usually don't go much for the group. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until I can get a turntable before I digitize any of her old solo albums. I bought them all on vinyl way back when.

So is a CD. I was looking through all my mp3s and trying to figure out what I've missed. I realized that some stuff was missing last week when I was digitizing the Hüsker Dü tapes and I noticed that I had ripped only one of my Bob Mould CDs. I found about 20 CDs that I had either just not noticed or neglected somehow. I have five Peter Gabriel albums, and they never get old. So is my favorite. I have only one of his eponymous albums (the melting face), and I'd like to get the other two. I had a room-mate once (Brer's brother) who had a bunch of old Peter Gabriel records, and I listened to them all. He had a few that I've never seen anywhere else, and never heard of otherwise. I remember really enjoying the Birdy soundtrack. I also really like Passion.

No, I made a mistake. I have six Gabriel albums in all, and all on CD. I have that double live album of his, too. I always forget the live albums because I don't think of them as real albums, since usually live albums are redundant.

I think next week I'll have to use some of that money I've squirreled away and get a USB hard drive for mp3 storage. I'm down to less than 4 gigs of unused space on this one. By the way, I got the USB floppy drive today, so I'll probably see what I can do with the old computer tomorrow.

TinWiki

TinWiki.org:

tinWiki is the first online encyclopedia dedicated exclusively to all the topics that inspire the authors to consider tin foil hats. Topics such as conspiracy theories, UFO cover ups, extraterrestrial programs, New World Order, Illuminati, secret government programs, top secret bases, and nearly any other "alternative topic" are the focus of this collaborative wiki.

Very entertaining, if you find that kind of thing entertaining. Just hit "random page" a few times.

via Swallowing the Camel

Two more old ones

Down on the Corner is not part of the discography of CCR according to both Wikipedia and the official CCR website. It must be some kind of semi-bootleg, probably printed in Malaysia or something, dated 1991. I had to scan the tape jacket to create a thumbnail for it. Bought it in a truck stop somewhere while I was truck driving. I bought several tapes during that time that I don't listen to much now that that's over. It may be hard to believe, but there are still lots of places in this country where you can't clearly pick up any radio stations. At least not when it comes to FM. I suppose you still might pick up some AM skip no matter where you are. Anyone want to take a guess at what format of FM music station is the most commonly found, no matter where you are? Go on, take a guess, and I'll answer later.

I also have Chronicle (2-record set). Funny story. It arrived in the mail one day. But I never ordered it. I was somewhat perplexed. That night around the supper table I told my family about it. My oldest sister said she had ordered it for me, because she thought I might like it. That was nice of her, but it still had me puzzled, because she didn't normally do that sort of thing. I never really got into CCR that much, but they have lots of songs that I don't mind hearing on the radio. Except, of course, for the song that shall not be named. "Down on the Corner," "Lodi," and "Who'll Stop the Rain" are some favorites from this tape. I also like Bonnie Tyler's version.

The first Heart album I ever bought was Greatest Hits Live sometime in the mid-80's. This one was a few years later, partly because it was in the bargain bin and partly because I thought it might fill in some blanks. I really like Ann Wilson's voice on "Mistral Wind." I wouldn't mind getting more of their earlier stuff, but I'm really not interested in anything after 1980 (although I do have Heart from '85).

Prohibited frogs

Reno:

State wildlife officials raided three residences in the Reno area where they seized more than 100 African clawed frogs, which they say are prohibited because they can pose a serious danger to native frogs and entire ecosystems.

No charges have been filed against the people who illegally possessed a total of 119 frogs because they are cooperating fully with law enforcement to "get any and all prohibited frogs off the streets," the Nevada Department of Wildlife said in a statement on Wednesday.

"We are very pleased we were able to seize them before they were circulated to people in the area and possibly escaped into the wild," said Cameron Waithman, game warden captain for NDOW's Division of Law Enforcement.

African clawed frogs grow about as large as bullfrogs and can destroy entire ecosystems by voraciously eating native fish, amphibians and just about anything they can swallow, he said.

This is not an anti-nanny state rant. There are plenty of good reasons to control how humans might arbitrarily move animal species around the planet. It doesn't matter how you believe they got there; if there was a good reason for any given area to have a certain animal, it would be there. Look at what happened with the cane toad in Australia, for example.

But: why? Why would three people in Reno be hoarding 119 of these enormous African frogs? I also thought "get any and all prohibited frogs off the streets" was pretty funny.

Banned Books Week

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the American Library Association have launched a website to promote the freedom to read: bannedbooksweek.org

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. Started in 1982, Banned Books Week was launched to draw attention to the growing number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries. Banned Books Week is held in the last week of September and is sponsored by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), and the National Association of College Stores. Banned Books Week is also endorsed by the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress.

Books have long been censored for the ideas and words they contain. Often, book challenges were based on religious grounds and included censorship of seminal works such as Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, and the Talmud. In modern times, books are challenged on a variety of grounds including language, race and ethnicity, violence, sex and sexuality, and religion. Challenged books include works by Voltaire, Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Flaubert, Hemingway, Nabokov, Twain, and Fitzgerald, to name a few, as well as contemporary works by authors such as Toni Morrison, Julia Alvarez, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Chris Crutcher, and Judy Blume. J.D. Rowling's popular Harry Potter series has faced numerous challenges for "occult" themes. Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is banned frequently for objections to language. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell has topped the ALA's list of Frequently Challenged Books for two years because the book tells the true story of two male penguins from New York City's Central Park Zoo who parented a chick together.

This year Banned Books Week will be September 27 - October 4. Celebrate by reading a banned book.

via The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression

Memories of memories

Seguin Photo Blog has been posting some photos of cotton bolls, growing in the field.

I remember once when I was a kid and we were going to visit my aunt who lived in Corpus Christi, we passed some cotton fields. It was the first time I had seen cotton actually growing, so I was interested in it. But for my grandmother, it sparked other memories.

She told me how she and her family had worked as cotton-pickers when she was young. Back then they needed money, and they had to work hard for it. Her father was a carpenter by trade, but he couldn't bring in enough to support the whole family. She was the youngest of her family, but even she wasn't spared in the cotton fields. She told me all the details of picking cotton by hand as a child, and there wasn't anything good about it. She wasn't reliving pleasant memories of childhood, but memories of back-breaking, excruciatingly hard, hot labor under the south Texas sun. When she became a teenager, she said, she was able to get a job working as a maid for a "rich family in San Antone." She said she promised herself that she would never pick cotton again.

And one of her duties as maid was to have a mint julep ready for the man of the house when he came home from his job every day. That was a much more pleasant memory, and she told me how to make a mint julep.

And it was still eldritch

From El Capitan via email.

A Thousand Years of Prohibition

Last night before I went to sleep I was studying the old hymnal I had mentioned previously: Treasury of Song. This is the oldest hymnal I have. By checking copyright dates I had guessed that it was published no later than 1920, but later I noticed that someone (probably a seller somewhere back down the line) had penciled in the year 1917 inside the front cover.

1917. Remember that year? Of course not. But what was the Big Thing at the time? Something that would affect our Constitution and change the course of history in a couple years' time?

[NOTE: The paper is very yellowed, really browned, so I tried to make them more legible by adjusting the brightness and contrast. Click all images to enlarge.]

Perhaps the ultimate manifestation of nannyism in the history of the United States: Prohibition. In the back of this old hymnal are included five "temperance songs." Written in standard SATB harmony suitable for congregational singing. I find this horrifying. The above song isn't all that atrocious (just wait!). Only a statement of purpose and a song of encouragement.

This little ditty was written for a male quartet, as shown by the tenor clef in the top staff. This one is almost silly. I could easily sing this myself, if I were drunk enough and feeling especially ironic. In fact, it looks like the lyrics were written by someone who was drunk at the time.

Now it gets a little scarier.

"God's on our side." In spite of: 1) According to the apostle John, the first miracle Jesus ever performed was transforming water in wine. Good wine. ("Why did you bring the best wine out last? You should use it first, and save the cheap stuff for after everyone's drunk!" --my paraphrase). 2) Paul stated that "a little wine is good for the stomach." 3) Deacons of the church are prohibited from being "given to much wine." (Although I will admit that elders are prohibited entirely). So if the old Baptists (I'm about 90% sure this hymnal belonged to a Baptist congregation--based mostly on the piano grace note notation in many of the songs) were really paying attention instead of just being a bunch of nannies, they would have known that the evil is not the drink itself, but how the drink is used.

I saved the best two for last.



It is not fair that I can't control myself. Was it you who allowed me to make the choice as to whether I'd be a useless drunk or not? Was it you who voted to ruin my boy? Because I raised him, so it's definitely not my fault. Sure, he's an adult, but it can't be his fault, either. It's yours, for giving him the choice.

I'm sure the nannies have been with us from the beginning of time. But this was one time when they essentially took over the government. And you know something? We can directly thank them for many of the anti-gun laws we have today, especially the laws concerning fully automatic firearms.

It was Prohibition that gave organized crime its start. Nobody was going to quit drinking, and supplying the populace with illegal liquor gave birth to organized crime. It was mainly due to the bad publicity (stirred up by still more nannyists, I'm sure) of gangsters using machine guns that made it nearly impossible today for the average citizen to own any such gun. There was a time when anyone could order a "Tommy gun" by mail, and I'm sure it made one heck of a coyote gun.

Note: I'm not saying we wouldn't have organized crime if not for Prohibition. There are plenty of other prohibited things that would still have given us organized crime today (drugs other than alcohol, of course).

It seems that almost no one learned a lesson from the failed experiment of Prohibition. But of course the nannies never learn anything, except that they didn't do it hard enough.

It's a sick world...

Today's tape rip is my only Ramones album. Released in 1984, but I didn't buy it until three or four years later, about the same time I was getting several other punk records and tapes (note to self: check the shelf for the Extra Hot Sauce tape). When I bought it, I had intended to get several other albums of theirs, but my priorities kept shifting and I didn't have infinite funds for buying records, unfortunately. I guess "Chasing the Night" is my favorite from this one. Or maybe "Howling at the Moon." It's a toss-up.

The Shape of Things, part 2

Way back in July 2004 I had made a brief post about shape note music. I had linked to a site that had exhaustive information on the subject, however, I just checked it again and the site is gone now. For anyone who read my post about hymnals, the "shape note" remarks might have been confusing. Here's an example of shape note notation from a song I wrote (music only--someone else wrote the lyrics). Click to enlarge.

I understand this may look bizarre to people used to regular "round note" notation, but there is a purpose. The vast majority of church-goers are generally pretty much musically illiterate. Nothing wrong with that. Most people just never get around to learning how to read music, much less sight-read songs they've never seen before. Couple that with congregations that don't use any instruments other than the human voice, and it would be very difficult for most people to learn new songs. Shape notes are a sort of intermediate step between not being able to read music at all and being able to get a pretty good idea of how it sounds. Each shape corresponds to a specific note of the scale. Once you get the key fixed in your head, most people, even if they can't actually read music, have a pretty good idea of which notes are which in relation to the key note. This especially applies to people who have grown up singing two or three times a week during church services.

This is essentially my native tongue, when it comes to music. I first learned to read music...uh...well, I can't remember. I remember right after I learned to read (around the age or 4 or 5) I was reading some elementary church music books that my dad had picked up. But round note notation has always looked strange and, well, lacking in substance to me. I still think in shapes even when I'm only listening to music. Of course I learned to be proficient with round notes because I was in band all through junior high and high school, as well as my stint in college.

Anyway the shapes are:
Do -- Equilateral triangle.
Re -- A cup without a handle.
Mi -- Diamond.
Fa -- Right triangle.
So -- Oval.
La -- Rectangle.
Ti -- Ice cream cone.

This is the seven-shape system with which I am familiar. There is also a four-shape system that uses the same shapes for some different notes, but I'm not familiar with it. Someone explained it to me once about 20 years ago but since I never used it, I've forgotten it. The seven-shape system is, I believe, newer than the four-shape system and was developed so that each note would have a distinct shape with no duplicated shapes. Still, both systems are pretty old.

By the way, I use software called Melody Assistant. It's much easier than writing by hand, and allows one to print the music in a very easily readable typeface. In the olden days (10 years ago or more), the only way to go was to have someone professionally typeset it for you, and that cost money. Melody Assistant was not really meant for this kind of song writing, but it does have all the shapes necessary, and I've fiddled with it long enough that I've come up with a few workarounds when it won't do exactly what I want it to.

Devious, devious

Have you ever seen the SpongeBob with R. Lee Ermy as a tough prison guard? He makes them make their beds so tight that a quarter bounces off of them. My son asked me if you can really do that. I told him yes, but it has to be made just right, and really tight. He's been in his room for 15 minutes making and remaking his bed and tossing coins on it to watch them bounce.

Heh heh.

Technology of the Living Dead

As in: technologies that are dead but haven't yet realized it. Cracked does it again with 6 Technologies That Don't Know They're Dead. Although written for humor, as usual, sometimes their articles contain some real information, and this is one of them. I thought the entry on phone books (photo above) was especially profound. Why are they still around?

Since you've probably never opened one, you may not realize that phone books are chock full of so many ads that they generated $13.9 billion last year. That sort of makes sense when you realize these ads are being force fed to every single household in America, like giant bricks of spam just appearing on your porch once a year. The only difference is you can click out of a pop up ad. Phone books weigh 10 lbs and have to be disposed of in special ways, to avoid becoming even more than 30% of your local landfill. Yes, it would appear that Satan works in advertising, and he's damn good at what he does.

Here's a little tidbit of personal trivia for you. Since we don't live actually in San Antonio, we don't get San Antonio phone books. But we, or my wife really, and some other people we know can really use S.A. phone books. So every year when they come out, I just pick them up from in front of vacant houses. Every house gets a phone book, no matter if someone lives in it or not, no matter if it has a phone in it or not, no matter if it's been condemned and is halfway demolished or not. I once saw a house that was in the process of being moved. Half of the house was already gone, half was still sitting there. They threw a phone book in the driveway anyway. (No kidding. My previous job, when I had to work on the south side a lot. I stood right there and watched them do it). In fact, many houses that do have people in them never pick up their phone book. It just rots in the driveway until somebody decides to toss it next to the garbage can on trash day. (P.S. I know which houses are really vacant because that's part of my job).

I almost never open a phone book. I especially hate looking for something in the Yellow Pages, because whatever I happen to be looking for is always nearly impossible to find. I usually have to hunt under 7 or 8 different categories before I find where they've pigeon-holed it. When I want to use the Yellow Pages, I just go to Yahoo.

I also thought this was a great quote:

How many of you read an actual newspaper this morning? Yeah, didn't think so. If you're reading this you know how to use the internet, and if you know how to use the internet then you have no reason in the world to read a newspaper unless you're sitting in the dark for refusing to pay your electricity bill. In that case, stop reading this and go get a job.

Several years ago a co-worker of mine at the time told me about how the S.A. Express-News had called him to try and get him to subscribe. He had two phone lines at the time: one for regular phone use and one for his internet connection. So he was online while talking with the solicitor. Every single thing they told him he could get from the newspaper, he just did a search for and found it online. And this had to be at least 8 years ago. He said the lady finally, sounding kind of desperate, said, "Well, you can get coupons in the newspaper!" So he typed in "coupons," and poof, there they were. Coupons ready to be printed out on his own home printer and taken to the store. He told her that. She hung up without saying another word.

Anyway, the Cracked article is some pretty good reading. Funny, too.

Today's rip

My only Smithereens album. I don't remember where/why I bought this one. But in 1986 I was working the closing shift at a pizza restaurant and we always put MTV on both big screens when we were cleaning up. Possibly I saw a video of theirs, maybe "Behind the Wall of Sleep."

Great album. Some interesting remarks on it at Wikipedia.

Amen to that

An excellent Wondermark this morning.

The spice must flow...

Warp Speed Engine Designed at Discovery. Well, no, not really designed. More like suggested.

The tricky part is that the ship wouldn't actually move; space itself would move underneath the stationary spacecraft. A beam of light next to the ship would still zoom away, same as it always does, but a beam of light far from the ship would be left behind.

That means that the ship would arrive at its destination faster than a beam of light traveling the same distance, but without violating Einstein's relativity, which says that it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object with mass to the speed of light, since the ship itself isn't actually moving.

The fabric of space has moved faster than light before, says Cleaver, right after the Big Bang, when the universe expanded faster than the speed of light.

"We're recreating the inflationary period of the universe behind the ship," said Cleaver.

While the theory rests on relatively firm ground, the next question is how do you expand space behind the ship and contract it in front of the ship?

Some interesting speculative science. Of course, we could always just change the speed of light.

Nevermore

Converted a couple more old Alan Parsons albums today. These are more tedious than usual, because many of the songs fade into each other. No clean breaks. So to satisfy my aesthetic sensibilities, I first have to decide exactly where I want the break, and then fade out one song and fade in another.

Once I get all their albums digitized, I'm going to create a playlist of all the instrumentals. That should be cool.

Oh yeah, and I know that's not the original cover art for the first printing of Tales. But it is the cover art for the print that I have.

All American Blogger on Keith Olbermann

All American Blogger rips Keith Olbermann a new one on the topic of Heller v. DC and the Second Amendment. Good read.

Collecting Hymnals

[NOTE: This is a post that many regular readers might want to just skip. But it's something I've been wanting to write up for a long time, and today I finally broke open the box that held all these books. So, you were warned.]

[Later addendum: If you do find this of any interest, you may be further interested in my newest blog project, The Hymnomicon.]

Another part of my book collecting intersects with my interest in music: my small hymnal collection. Sunday is a good day for this topic, I think, even though I'm sure most readers won't have any interest it. But I write this post because I've learned that if you write something, eventually someone will G00gl3 it. So if any of this stuff rings bells with a random G00gl3r out there, leave a comment or send an email.

I'm not sure of the exact date of publication for all of these, but I'll take a best guess if I have to. My interest in hymnals, especially older hymnals, is more than just some kind of odd obsession of a hobby. I have become interested in studying and preserving the way old hymns were originally written, because in many newer hymnals, editor(s) have dropped stanzas, changed words, and even changed the music. So here's a list of pretty much all I have. There might be a couple more on odd shelves, but I got the vast majority of them together today in one place. Many of these are small paperbacks that were more or less self-published or published by very small publishing houses. They contain many songs that never were picked up for use in the "mainstream" modern congregational hymnals, unfortunately, because they are usually superior.

Treasury of Song -- No information for this one, but it looks like it couldn't have been published later than about 1920. Round note. Scanning through it, it seems to include some old standards with which I am familiar, and a great many songs I'm not familiar with, which are almost all around 100 years old. UPDATE: I noticed the date 1917 written in pencil inside the front cover.

Gospel Melodies -- 1928 Robert H. Coleman. Self-published. Round note. Unlike many of the hymnals I have collected, this one was not made for use particularly by the Church of Christ. Accompanying books could be ordered that provided orchestration for 15 instruments. Therefore it contains many old standards that never became true "standards" for the C of C, which makes it very interesting for me since it has many songs that I've not seen anywhere else. Older books like this and the one above are especially valuable for preserving the original compositions in the original key, original wording, etc.

New Ideal Gospel Hymn Book -- 1948 Firm Foundation Publishing House. Compiled by Austin Taylor, J.W. Acuff, W.D. Erridge and G.H.P. Showalter. Shape note. Some old standards that are found in other books, and some others that weren't. I think it was published mainly to include these "other" songs that weren't in any other books at the time.

The Majestic Hymnal No. 2 -- 1959 Firm Foundation Publishing House. Compiled by Reuel Lemmons. Shape note. This book is what I think of as one of the last of the old hymnals. It was the standard congregational hymnal for congregations of the Church of Christ for, I'd guess, a good 20-30 years. Includes old standards and some other songs that would have still been quite new at the time. This is another book that I learned to read with in the 1960s.

Sacred Selections -- 1960 Sacred Selections. Compiled by Ellis J. Crum. Shape note. Another hardback that could be used as a stand-alone congregational hymnal, it contained mostly songs that were still under copyright at the time, rather than mostly old standards that had become public domain. Although it may arguably be a better book than The Majestic Hymnal (above), it never became very widespread (as far as I know) as the Majestic--possibly because it cost nearly twice as much per copy.

Great Songs of the Church No. 2 -- 1961 Abilene Christian College Book Store. Shape note. Another competitor with The Majestic Hymnal, and competitively priced as well. Yet, another one that in my experience did not become as widely-used as the Majestic, probably because it didn't have the relative publishing might of the Firm Foundation behind it. Arranged differently than most hymnals, this one is broken into four sections, and within each section all songs are arranged alphabetically. Includes almost entirely old standards, many of which are no longer seen in modern hymnals.

Gospel Quartet Music No. 1 -- 1961 Gospel Quartet Music, Inc. Compiled by the Blackwood Brothers Quartet. Shape note. Although titled as quartet music, it is still written in the format that can be used in regular congregational singing. Includes many older hymns that aren't seen in modern hymnals.

The New Wonderful Songs -- 1944 Firm Foundation Publishing House. Compiled by Thomas S. Cobb and G.H.P. Showalter. Shape note. A collection of hymns that are now old standards, and many that are no longer used in modern hymnals.

Christian Song Album -- 1968. Compiled and self-published by Holland L. Boring, Sr. A collection of what at the time were hymns written by "living song writers," including photographs and biographical sketches for each.

Awakening Songs Number 1 -- 1971 Firm Foundation Publishing House, compiled by Holland L. Boring Sr. Shape note. Similar in form and purpose to Number 4 below.

Awakening Songs Number 4 -- 1971 Firm Foundation Publishing House, compiled by Holland L. Boring Sr. and his son, Holland Jr. Shape note. Similar to Songs for the Master below. "[D]esigned to help fill a glaring deficiency in our church music repertoire." This "glaring deficiency" is that at the time people were stuck in singing nothing but old standards, and the singing had become too mechanical and rote. This book included many new hymns that were just as good as or better than the old standards, collecting them all in one book so people would have easy access to them.

Songs for the Master -- 1973 Firm Foundation Publishing House. Compiled by Holland L. Boring, Sr. Shape note. Made up of songs written by faculty of the Foundation School of Church Music (or "Singing School" as we all called it) as well as the earlier generations of writers who taught and influenced them; also includes some old standards.

Light Reflectors -- 1970s. Another compilation of old standards and new hymns, compiled by Boring. Shape note.

Songs of the Church -- 1977 Howard Publishers. Compiled by Alton H. Howard. Shape note. Here begins (in my opinion) what I think of as "the modern hymnal." I have a lot of gripes about the books put out by Howard. He has a bad tendency to change words and music to how he thinks they should be, rather than leaving them as the original composer wrote them. Includes mostly old standards plus a few songs written by Howard himself and some of his cronies.

Hymns of Praise -- 1978 Firm Foundation Publishing House. Compiled by Reuel Lemmons. Shape note. Although this is what I think of as a "modern hymnal," it includes many old standards the way they were originally written, as well as new (at the time) songs written by faculty of the Foundation School of Music and their associates. Unlike many of the other small paperback hymnals published by the Firm Foundation, this is a full-sized hardback, completely suitable for congregational singing all on its own. One of the best hymnals ever published, in my opinion.

Songs of Hope -- 1979 Firm Foundation Publishing House. Compiled by Holland L. Boring, Sr. Shape note. Similar to Awakening Songs and Songs for the Master, and compiled and published for essentially the same purpose.

Our Garden of Song -- 1980 Howard Publishing Co. Compiled by Gene C. Finley. Shape note. Not meant to be a congregational hymnal. This is a very expensively-bound book that includes only songs written by members of the Church of Christ. Each writer profiled has one example song included, as well as a photograph and biography. Especially valuable to me because it is one of only two hardbacks that I know of that includes Don Boring's "Mighty is the King of Glory" (the other one being Hymns of Praise above).

Gleam of Glory -- Early 1980s (best guess). Compiled by Holland L. Boring, Sr. and as far as I can tell, self-published by him. Shape note. Made up of songs written by students and faculty of the Foundation School of Music (such as your humble blogger).

Songs of Love -- 1985 Leoma Music Co. Compiled by Holland L. Boring, Sr. Shape note. For those who knew and were taught harmony by "Paw-paw," as we all knew him, this is an essential book. It contains all 141 gospel hymns written by him, plus more than 40 other hymns written by other singing school teachers and some old standards.

Golden Song Through the Years 1937 - 1987 -- 1987 National Music Co. Compiled by Robert S. Arnold. Shape note. A collection of songs copyrighted by the National Music Co. from 1937 - 1987, as the title. Seems to be mostly songs written by faculty and students of Gospel music "normal" schools: schools designed to turn out hymn composers and song leaders who in turn could teach others or otherwise possibly pass along what they had learned.

Songs of the Church, 21st Century Edition -- 1990 Howard Publishing Co. Compiled by Alton H. Howard. Shape note. Basically an updated edition of Songs of the Church above, printed in a more easily readable typeface. Not identical to the previous edition, some songs are different and the overall layout is completely different. Still, the same compiler and the same general overall purpose and scheme. Another one I have some complaints about because of the way Howard changes original compositions to make them what he seems to believe is catchier, or easier, or something.

Songs of Faith and Praise -- 1994 Howard Publishing Co. Compiled by Alton H. Howard. Shape note. And here we come to it. This is currently in very widespread use among congregations of the Church of Christ. It is what is used almost everywhere in this area. Hardly a Sunday goes by that I don't see something in it or hear something from it that makes me groan. Keys are changed, words are changed, notes are changed, stanzas are deleted, etc. Includes many old standards as well as many modern "contemporary Christian" pop songs that Howard and/or his cronies tried to turn into hymns suitable for congregational singing. It doesn't work. They were written as pop songs, and trying to turn them into hymns that can be sung by the average and largely musically illiterate congregation just doesn't cut it. Also has songs written by his group who make very bad mistakes in their harmony that I would never have been allowed to get away with. Sometimes it feels like someone is stabbing me through the temples with an ice pick. Parallel fourths, fifths, and octaves; double thirds in a major chord, no third at all sometimes...doubling the Ti in a dominant chord? What the...?! Sigh. It's too bad Howard won the publishing wars.

Two more

A couple of Hawkwind tapes that I had missed. I found them this morning while looking through a bunch of old floppy disks. On the left is the first volume of Friends and Relations, which is a compilation of Hawkwind and other related groups through which the members of Hawkwind permutated (is that a word?). Notable because you get to hear Michael Moorcock sing. Or should I say, "sing." Zones is a live album, or at least mostly live. My favorite song from it is "Dangerous Vision."

Beastie!

Broadsword and the Beast is another album that fueled many a late-night D&D session. I have only two Jethro Tull albums, but I've forgotten what the other one is. I never really was into them too heavily, except that I really like Broadsword. We called that thing on the cover a Tullbeast.

As for the computer, thanks to everyone for the suggestions. The link to bootdisk.com is going to be especially helpful, I think. I don't like the idea of trying to run Win98 with only 16 megs of RAM, and I'm not going to try upgrading the RAM. I'm going to use my old DOS 6 and Win 3.11 disks to turn this into a DOS machine. The old obsolete software that I want to run on it will be much better off in a real DOS environment, anyway. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have a computer that can run Aces of the Pacific again.

I had to buy a USB floppy drive, though, so I'll have a way to get files from my laptop to the old Compaq. I'll have to wait for it to arrive before I do anything further.

A kiss this guy google search

Someone was searching, "gun control for major tom".

Very 'eavy...

Very 'umble. Ah, me and Uriah Heep! The group that provided the soundtrack to many a dungeon-building session when I was in college.

My first-year room-mate had The Magician's Birthday, an original printing that had seen better days. I grew to like it a lot, and later bought my own, although a newer printing with fewer liner notes. Then I got the prequel to that, Demons & Wizards, and a few other albums of theirs on vinyl.

I don't remember which store or really anything else about buying Very 'eavy...Very 'umble. I looked up some info on it yesterday as I was digitizing it, and discovered that there were two versions released. The U.K. version, which looks like this, and the U.S. version, which has different cover art and has one song, "Lucy Blues," changed to a different song, "Bird of Prey." Somehow I got the U.K. version. A very macabre cover, indeed. Even more macabre when you know that the band member pictured died at the young age of 38 in 1985.

This was Heep's first album, vintage 1970. An overly melodramatic Rolling Stone music critic said, "If this group makes it I'll have to commit suicide. From the first note you know you don't want to hear any more." [via Wikipedia] Heh heh. I wonder whatever happened to her. Maybe she decided she'd be better off dancing about architecture. Rolling Stone always hated these guys.

Other Uriah Heep entries in my collection, besides those previously mentioned: Return to Fantasy (LP), Abominog (LP), Equator (LP), and the aforementioned Demons and Magician both on CD as well. "I never thought I'd see these on CD," I said. "They probably never thought they'd see it, either," said the record-store guy. Return is a cool album, with a couple of stereotypically anthemic songs as they were sometimes wont to do. The other two are from later incarnations of the group, and don't thrill me as much, although I do like "Angel" from Equator.

They never got really popular, at least not in the U.S., but they were quite an influence in what people have come to call "progressive metal," that is, metal that is actually musical. That statement is bound to yank someone's chain somewhere.

Kind of a good deal

I've been looking for a vintage computer that I could possibly use for old games, but more importantly, use for ham radio applications. I was hoping for a real DOS machine, but this morning my wife discovered an older Win98 machine at a yard sale down the road. So I got a computer, keyboard, mouse, HP Deskjet printer, speakers and VGA monitor for $5. Yes, five dollars. What's even more amazing is that it actually works.

It's a cast-off from the local school (from 2001), and they didn't bother to unlock the administrator limitations before they cast it off. I can't get to all the system controls that I should be able to. For example, I can't even change the display properties (it's set at 640x480, and should be able to handle at least 800x600) or the wallpaper. Even the system info doesn't tell me everything it should. It tells me that it's a Pentium, but not what speed. It has 16 meg RAM and a 2 gig HD. Also it's a Compaq.

One of the most important things is that this machine has no USB whatsoever, and this is exactly what I was looking for. It's running Win98. It also has a CD-ROM drive, and a 3.5" floppy drive. Perfect.

So...I have a Win98 installation disc that came with another computer from several years ago, and I have the product key so I can use it. From what I've said, does it sound like I can wipe the HD and install the OS from that other disc so I can regain complete control over it? Or would that likely make things even worse? I don't want to lose access to the CD-ROM, and I'm not sure about the drivers.

Or would this be a good time to abandon Windows and install some other OS on it? The main thing that I want to do is be able to still use my KAM Plus TNC with it. Everything else is pretty much secondary. Any ideas?

Ripping right along...

I've always had a hard time getting into Frank Zappa. One reason may be because he was so incredibly prolific, and I just never knew where to start. Another reason is probably because he's not the kind of musician who gets played on the radio, so I never had any real exposure to his music, and therefore, didn't know where to start (I think I said that already).

I don't know if record (or I should say music) companies still do this, but back in the 80s and early 90s, companies would sometimes put out compilation discs made up of various artists on their label just to show a sampling of what that label was like. I loved those kinds of discs. Since they were created primarily for promotion, they were usually only half the price of a regular CD (or even less), made for great listening, and introduced me to some artists that I likely never would have heard of otherwise. One of these samplers which I didn't own myself, but a co-worker did, was called Steal This Disc. It was put out by Ryko (thanks Amazon). One of the songs on it was "G-Spot Tornado" from Zappa's Jazz From Hell.

Side note: I see that some Amazon sellers have this disc used starting at 69¢. That is a steal! Another of my favorite songs from this disc was a bluegrass version of "Hesitation Blues."

Some years went by, I had a different job and a different co-worker who was a big Zappa fan. This co-worker was also an obnoxious a$h0l3 and one of those people who thinks they know everything and are superior to everyone although they don't and they aren't. He had a very esoteric and snobbish taste in music. I didn't like the guy, and avoided him as much as possible, but occasionally we fell into discussions of music. He introduced me to a few artists I probably never would have heard of if not for him. For that, I thank him. For everything else: he's lucky I'm a peaceable person and didn't have a large, jagged rock handy a few times. At one point he even gave me a few tapes he had dubbed of various old Zappa albums, and he loaned me some tapes that he claimed were Zappa bootlegs, but since there wasn't any vocals I have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth. I also gave him a few blank tapes so he could record a couple of his albums for me. One of them was Jazz From Hell.

I love this album. So using this as a starting point, if any Zappa fans come across this post, feel free to comment and leave recommendations for other albums of his that I might like since I like this one. I also have the CD of We're Only In It for the Money together with Lumpy Gravy. That's all the Zappa I have in my collection.

90125 is another album from my college music days. It's another of those that were in great abundance in my dorm back then, but unlike the Asia album, this one I got for myself. Actually I believe it was a birthday present. I remember the day I got it I sat by the stereo and played it about five times, not just listening to it, but studying it. What a day. I have a few other Yes albums, some on vinyl, some on cassette, some just tape dubs of a room-mate's albums. My second year in college I had a different room-mate, a guy from Indonesia. He had an enormous record collection that he said was all given to him by a friend several years before. Many of them were records that you would never find in the U.S. He's another who I credit with introducing me to some artists that I probably would have never known of otherwise. Sometimes I would just grab something out of his boxes at random and listen to it. At the end of that year, he told me that I was free to take any of those records I wanted. I didn't feel really comfortable taking his stuff for free, so I selected only two: Pink Floyd's The Wall and I can't remember the other one. I do remember that he had a picture disk of Heart's Magazine which I have always regretted not taking.

I also remember that he had what must have been a sort of bootleg compilation of Rush on cassette. The liner included the lyrics to all the songs on the tape, but they must have been transcribed by someone who wasn't thoroughly familiar with English, because a lot of the words were wrong. I remember reading all the lyrics and laughing out loud at what was written, as opposed to what Geddy Lee was actually singing. The only thing I remember from it now is the line from "Tom Sawyer" that goes, "catch the spirit," was written "catch the spit." Oh yeah, and "modern day warrior" was "Monday warrior." It was just full of kiss this guy moments.

Remember that fantastic video for "Owner of a Lonely Heart?" Great video. I thought their next video was terrible in comparison. Which song was it for? Either "Hold On" or "Leave It," I don't remember which. It just showed the group all in white floating around against a white background. Blah.

I also digitized one other tape last night, but it's not a real album so I don't have a picture for it. It's a radio broadcast of James McMurty live at the Cibolo Creek Country Club, which I taped as it was being broadcast. McMurtry is a Texan musician who is an excellent guitarist and song writer. By the way, he is the son of author Larry McMurtry of "Lonesome Dove" fame. James also had an appearance in "Lonesome Dove."

Note...

Sitemeter code has been deleted from this website due to the recent problems from their "upgrade."

Nickthulhu

From Hammer via email.

Donald Duck and the Inca Idol

Brer at Power of Babel recently posted about another eBay score: an old Disney comic book called "Donald Duck Sees South America." This was a book he remembered from his childhood, but was lost to the ravages of time and young readers. It reminded me of a treasure I have.

In the early 50s Wheaties held a promotional offer: send in 15¢ and a box top and get a set of 8 pocket comics. It seems that my grandmother did this to get these little books for my mother, who would have been 6 years old when this book was offered (it is copyrighted 1951). She didn't get them all, and perhaps some of them were lost or destroyed, but I have about a dozen in all. I remember reading them myself when I was very young. My grandmother had to repair them occasionally, and now they bear patches of aged yellow cellophane tape. When I "grew up," (cough) she passed them on to me, safely sealed in a heavy-duty ziplock bag. I stashed them away in a safe place, but didn't ever revisit them. (Click to enlarge all images).


Some forty years on now, my memories of these have faded and I hardly remember anything about them except that I did read them, many times, when I was first learning to read, which would have been when I was four and five years old. The one that I remembered best was "Donald Duck and the Inca Idol." Brer's post reminded me of those books, and of this book in particular. The image of that idol perched on the cliff with storm clouds all around was just awesome to my four-year-old imagination.


The story starts with Donald's nephews getting into trouble for hauling Donald's bed outside and jumping off the roof onto it. After he scolds them, they decide to run away. Meanwhile...Uncle Scrooge discovers something with six toes in a mysterious unmarked tome that excites him. By the way, I can't say for sure, but it's a pretty good bet that this was my first exposure to a literary pipe smoker.


Uncle Scrooge calls Donald and asks him to go to Peru to retrieve this artifact for him. The nephews decide to run away some other time.


This picture doesn't seem particularly awe-inspiring now, but when I was four years old the image of that idol perched on the precipice with lightning crackling around it fired my imagination like nothing else. Although I had forgotten most of this book, this image has stayed in my mind since I first read it. "It'll take at least a minute of deep thought!" I have to remember that line.


Of course, there were some misadventures. An uncannily accurate strike of lightning hits the idol while Donald is standing between its strange odd-toed feet. It, and he, plunge off the cliff. OH. MY. GOSH!


Eventually they make it back home, with the idol, but not before risking their necks a dozen times! Uncle Scrooge is ecstatic that the six-toed foot wasn't damaged.

I would now like to repeat that I had forgotten most of this story. It's been at least 40 years since I last looked at it. I had forgotten how the story ended. So I felt surprise, delight, and laughed out loud at the climax.


Now that's a pipe rack!