Keep Reading

I am half way through "The Keep" by F Paul Wilson and thoroughly enjoying it, with it's second world war setting , links to vampires and HP Lovecraft with the release of  Molasar a possible strigoi or as described in the book moroi . Hence the title of this post, it's an easier read than a lot of my recent ones, but it's always good to keep reading, and this is the first in a series of six books , so that's going to be a bout two thousand pages of The Adversary Cycle

I am so glad that we have Wikipedia to at least point you in the right direction when I can't be bothered to expand on what I am writing.

Today I have been listening to "Tommy" by The Who on vinyl , and it shows how magpie like like I have been with my buying. I didn't even know is was an American Decca release. Also disc one consists of sides one and four and disc two sides two and three , implying it was meant to played on a stack deck like you did with singles. I don't think I've seen any new decks like that although I am sure RPM will have some around. The think is singles have a raised edge around the label to ensure the grooves don't come into contact with each other , whereas albums don't (why would you want to stack albums , twenty minutes of music should be more than enough for you).

So we'll go with a live take of the "Overture" from "Tommy" from 1989 . I have ten takes on "Tommy" including I think five live sets from various live albums and was shocked to see the deluxe version of "Who's Next" going for £1200 on Amazon and the extra disc on that has a live take of "Tommy". The thing is you can put any price on anything, but it's only worth it if someone want to buy , and I don't want to sell although if someone was to chuck me a grand I may be tempted

A Library ...

I've just finished "A Shadow On The Wall" by Jonathan Aycliffe which I wrote about in my last post here and like many of his books, you are just coming down from the relief of everything being resolved ... and then in the last line of the book you realise it might not be.

So I went looking for another book to read and decided on a Daniel Easterman and then noticed "Not The End of The World" by Christopher Brookmyre , which looks interesting and one that I had got from Barter Books in the old Railway Station in Alnwick. The book looks good and I can't remember reading it, again this is possibly my magpie mentality kicking in , buy or acquire and then forget about it.

A sad incident was when my mum gave two sets of impressive Encyclopedias which our family had had for years , to my younger (disowned by me) brother , saying she didn't want any books in the house because she didn't like them. My girls would have loved and used those books, but  sometimes things don't happen as you would want them to. I used them for schoolwork and research although now we generally have the internet which is brilliant if used properly.

I was then thinking , that because of my imperfect memory, I probably don't have to buy another book ever, there are some which I had forgotten about and many that I  remember which I want to revisit, I'm thinking "The Adversary" series by F Paul Wilson , six books starting with "The Keep" and finishing with "Nightworld" , plus various William Hope Hodgson , and these are all books I have.

Although there are bookcases round the house , effectively this is a small personal library, and the do look good but book are there to be read or referred to , but I often see people's books and big libraries and think "Have these books been read, or are they just there for show?" , and I know not all of mine have been read and I have slightly shifted my perspective to discover what I already know that I have.

I think everywhere should have physical books although I now put the bigger tomes on my Kindle as it's easier to read them that way , essentially five hundred pages or less , physical book , over that Kindle. There is a complete HP Lovecraft collection on Kindle for 75p here although for some reason individual books are more expensive.

Going off on a tangent I'm going to share a live take of the beautiful "Book of Love" by Stephen Merritt , but here's the Magnetic Fields take and a Peter Gabriel take from "Scratch My Back" which is stunning.

A Haunted Palace

While the visits to this blog hit half a million this week after 13 years I found that a friend is a part collaborator in The Haunted Palace blog. If you liken my diaristic ramblings to a Gregg's pasty, great if that's what you fancy and like, A Haunted Palace is a three course meal at a Michelin starred restaurant.

Taking it's title from an Edgar Allen Poe poem it has a wonderful gothic look and every post is a long and detailed book chapter on it's particular subject with references and links, a haunted library of dark corners, happenings and imaginings. I've have dipped my toe into it and am impressed by the standards it sets itself , and each article shows me something new that I didn't know.

While we are in the realms of ghosts and the unknown , The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing came to mind for a possible song to accompany this, they are one of my favourite live bands and a Venn Diagram would find a few overlaps between them and The Haunted Palace.

The Haunted Palace was also the name of a 1964 Vincent Price film but it was based on the HP Lovecraft story "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" which I shall have to track down and watch again, as I tended to watch any film based on HP Lovecraft in my youth. A modified version (to avoid copyright issues) is on youtube here.

So we'll go with "This House Is Not Haunted" by The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing which is a wonderful take on things that go bump in the night.

Double Dutch

Again I switched on 6Music  and "Double Dutch" by Malcolm Mclaren on the Radcliffe & Maconie show and it is one of the most uplifting records you will here. "Double Dutch" has (ironically) two meanings:

1. unintelligible language. 
2. the jumping of two jump ropes rotating in opposite directions simultaneously.

The second being the subject of the Malcolm McLaren song which is obviously included here. It is a Saturday so for people like me there is no work, but I am sure that I will find plenty to do.

Currently "The Illuminatus Trilogy" has veered into HP Lovecraft territory in which a protagonist stumbles into a church with rats running between pews and a rusted marble altar, it's not rust it's blood, so obviously not High Church.

That takes me to "Fleabag" which I finished watch ig last night, superb cast and writing and only six episodes in each series so I will continue with "Parks and Recreation" on the Amazon Prime subscription. I am quite surprised, but it's a good business modell to make money, how many people have Netflix , Now TV and Amazon Prime subscriptions but never watch them.

So time to get off now and wander round

#AprilSongs #16 Groovy Tuesday

First time I hears The Smithereens it was a compilation and the song was "Behind The Wall of Sleep" which is fairly dark haunting American country rock with Lovecraftian overtones to the title, so today I am going for their excellent "Groovy Tuesday" which is just more of their excellent sound , brooding and not taking any prisoners.

The Smithereens are a band I've never seen but if they come back into my vicinity I will definitely make an effort. I do have an anthology in my collection, but it's one of those things having a large collection , it's seldom you accidentally come across new music because you usually buy an ablum for a particular reason.

It used to be great when you would get the loss leader samplers such as "Nice Enough To Eat" or "All Good Clean Fun" which meant you could get new music for little investment , then that would hook you to buy more.

I now need to do a post about samplers don't I ?

Have a great Tuesday.

Apathetic

I wanted to write something this morning but could not bring myself to do it. There is nothing wrong but it has been one of those days when I felt I should have been doing things but just couldn't motivate myself to do anything..

I am reading the Simon Singh book and he has a chapter about about a guy called Bill James who is an expert on Baseball statistics and the connection with the Simpsons in that Lisa teaches Bart scientific ways to succeed in Baseball using these statistics. Incidentally I have a friend who is also called Bill James who works with finance so similar area , all numbers.

There are some great quotes, obviosly Mark Twain's

"Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics"

The there's

"The man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches"

And

"The average human has one breast and one testicle"

Statistics can be useful but only if the are used with extreme care.

I actually managed 15K steps today, that's about six miles, and I have got round to actually writing this. I have also updated some web sites and watched an interesting documentary on HP Lovecraft called "Fear of The Unknown" but still feel I could have done more.

Anyway using a tenuous Baseball link I'll leave you with Babe Ruth's take on Willam Bell & Judy Clay's "Private Number" which still sounds great today.

Behind The Wall Of Sleep

When I was young I had problems sleeping , which persisted up to getting a job as a computer operator working continental shifts which meant I learnt to sleep anytime anywhere when the opportunity came. Certainly didn't do me any harm . I can sleep on buses , trains anywhere where it's safe to do so. In my life I've never missed a train stop and only missed a bus stop twice so I do have it down to a fine art.

The problem is my body is so well adjusted to the concept is I get  situations like now. Yesterday I had a lot of important stuff on at work , I had a hospital appointment in the morning and needed to provide one small report ideally by ten o' clock , plus some data extracts.

Something woke up , I don't know what , so then my mind started racing and thought if I spend an hour now I can get that report done, then I can have a nap during the day when I am bound to need one. Well report and data extracts got done , went back to bed , got up , went to hospital got back and worked through to just after five  (why does everything become really important at 4:30 on a Friday?) , then eventually got out to meet some friends at The Strawberry at six o'clock.

A good night was had by all severely tempted by Lynn and Julie's bowls ofchilli and chips / curry and chips (you must try if you ever go in there), but I resisted , and came home. By half past nine was shattered so went to bed.

Half past three I woke up. I've had six hours of sleep so it's time to get up my body say. My eyes say different , but thought I may as well write this down. I hope what will happen today is that I will have a lie in or nap or something and by tonight I will be back to normal , in fact I know that's what will happen. Anyway I thought an excellent song for this post was The Smithereens "Behind The Wall Of Sleep" , Black Sabbath do a song of the same name probably based on the HP Lovecraft story.. Maybe I can find that soon .