THE PRINTED WORD WILL BECOME THE DOMAIN OF PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO READ THE PRINTED WORD

Our pal Faux Smoke writes, “What's your take on all this e-reader/e-book business of late? Think it'll be the item that saves an industry, or just is all of this just a marketing tactic?" (Click here for a really dumb puff piece on the Kindle.)

My reply has to be that I don’t believe that the Kindle or any similar device will save book, newspaper, and magazine publishing as so many desperately hope. The e-book has never caught the public imagination and I feel it’s highly unlikely this will be changed, even by more evolved user-friendly hardware. The truth is that books have a special affinity for those who read them. They not only have a total functionality, but a unique warmth -- a smell even -- that cannot be replaced by a machine. A book also fills the very important need for collectable objects that reflect the owner’s tastes, ideas, and personality. In the necessary brevity of a blog, I can’t reason the case at the maybe needed length. All I can say is look to the rise of vinyl audio in the age the mp3 by way of a model.
Much of the problem in book publishing is rooted in the cowardice and stupidity that has increasingly gripped the mass publishing industry. Hundreds of viable authors have been dropped, while multi-million dollar advances were handed out to literary nonentities like Sarah’s Silverman and Palin (and OJ bloody Simpson.) The corporate thrust has been to sell books to the illiterate, avoiding the real truth that mass publishing (with the exception of the occasional big score like Harry Potter) is mutating into a highly plural, boutique business. Major publishers have also traditionally been the bankers of literature, who provide the capital so authors can write the books and -- like the actual banks -- they are now failing in that function.
Newspapers and magazines are also suffering from their own management failures, despite how much they bleat about being ruined by the internet. They have a huge internet readership but are unable to create a business model that can capitalize on it. They have done nothing to address the almost total loss of revenue from classified advertising caused by Craig’s List, and, worst of all, they have failed to cater to their loyal core of readers by dumbing down content, reducing it to sound-bite sized idiocy, and failing to recognize that city-centric papers are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. They cut the pay of the trivial, but lay off the profound.
I could go on for pages about all this, especially how I grieve for the destruction of the alternative press that I help to create forty-some years ago. Just take this as a first salvo to which we will have to return.
Faux Smoke ends his letter – “Hope for a sequel in the Renquist quartet sooner than later? Sooner? Please say the word is good... or tell me who I need to start sending death threats to.” My answer is that the word is currently not good. Another freak LA heat wave makes it hard to be an optimist and, as I sweat, I wonder if I am unemployable, if I’ll even survive. But, damn it, I continue to write. I’ll work on a list of worthy candidates for death threats.

The secret word is Evolution

DOWD?

You wanna read some Maureen Dowd while the New York Times is still around? Lately I’ve been kinda off Ms. Dowd. She’s been too much at odds with my beliefs and tastes, and feuding with people I tend to go along with, but this column is kinda fun. Click here

SPACE OPERA

Supplied by Valerie. They call them Starbucks.

MORE CROWS

These are by the late lamented Edward Barker

THE CROWS HAVE IT

Here at Doc40 we have a special affinity with crows. Dr. Crow is our logo, and crows rule the wildlife on the street where we live. I am well aware that they are expert tool-users, and have often noticed the local crow crew giving me a look that indicated the food chain might well be differently linked if the black birds only had opposable thumbs. Now Aeswiren sends us this report that confirms many of our suspicions and even a few of our paranoias.

"In the past, people thought birds were stupid," laments the aptly named scientist Christopher Bird. But in fact, some of our feathered friends are far cleverer than we might think. And one group in particular - the corvids - has astonished scientists with extraordinary feats of memory, an ability to employ complex social reasoning and, perhaps most strikingly, a remarkable aptitude for crafting and using tools.
Mr. Bird, who is based at the department of zoology at Cambridge University, says: "I would rate corvids as being as intelligent as primates in many ways."
The corvids - a group that includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays and magpies - contain some of the most social species of birds.” (Click here for more and some fairly amazing videos)

The secret word is Tweet
The secret message is 54686520626972642069732074686520776f7264

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Aboard the alien spacecraft, Uncle Bill reads his Manifesto to the Cosmos.

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

(Lifted from No Smoking In The Skull Cave)

NOW EAR THIS

In a new book, Van Goghs Ohr: Paul Gauguin und der Pakt des Schweigens (Van Gogh's ear: Paul Gauguin and The Pact of Silence), German scientists Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans tell the story of what happened when Vincent lost his ear Christmas Eve 1888 in the French city of Arles. According to the official version, the Dutch painter cut off his own ear with a razor after a row with Gauguin in 1888. Van Gogh then walked into a brothel and presented the severed ear to a prostitute called Rachel before going home to sleep. But, after ten years of research, the scientists say they are sure it was painter Paul Gauguin who cut off his friend and colleague's ear after a fight. (Click here for more)

The secret word is Slice

"But we're already dead, you dig? Now we can do any damn thing we like, and totally get away with it."

Pic lifted from Tom Sutpen

WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? (Leave those buffalo alone)

Another emergency message has come in from Francis at the NRDC…

“Right now, newborn wild bison -- better known as buffalo -- are grazing under their mothers' watchful eyes on the lush Horse Butte peninsula near Yellowstone National Park in Montana. But on May 15, this pastoral scene could turn ugly if the government begins hazing the buffalo back into the park with helicopters, horses and ATVs, as they did last year at this time. If this operation proceeds, some buffalo could die, including young calves and pregnant cows. Please speak out immediately to stop the government's annual hazing operation.This wildlife tragedy replays almost every year on Horse Butte -- a birthing ground for the buffalo. First, a helicopter invades the stillness, circling low to scare wild buffalo out of the woods, so that government agents on ATVs and horses can chase them back to Yellowstone. With no time to rest or nurse during this relentless chase, some calves collapse and even die of exhaustion before ever reaching their grazing grounds deep within the park. The saddest part? This senseless tragedy is unnecessary. The justification for hazing and killing buffalo is that they could spread the disease brucellosis to domestic cattle. That is why buffalo are generally not welcome outside Yellowstone Park in Montana -- and why thousands have been slaughtered or hazed back into the park in recent years. But the fact is, there has never been a documented case of brucellosis transmission from buffalo to cattle in the wild. More to the point, there are no cattle at all on Horse Butte, so there is absolutely no reason to haze and endanger Yellowstone's wild buffalo. So please, help us give newborn buffalo a better chance at survival this spring. As living links to the great herds that once thundered across America's plains, Yellowstone's buffalo are a national treasure. Please join me in urging our government to protect them -- instead of subjecting them to needless suffering. Tell the Secretary of Agriculture to intervene right away and prevent the hazing of wild buffalo in the weeks ahead.” Click here to register your protest.

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 401k)

In which Marilyn, in a rare quiet moment, reflects on all that has been lost and the little that has been gained in the absurd and endless conflict between Apollonians and Dionysian, and how she had never wanted to be involved in the first place. With a grim and weary smile, she wonders how long she can confront the fray and the mountain of problems that are none of her making, and still operate in the fragmented disorientation of a non-linear multiverse, with its Howdy drops and wormholes, its glittering nothings and towering green Martians, its clear and constant dangers, its anomalies and paradoxes, its lost tribes and extinct species, its strings and complex membranes, idiot authorities and absence of orgasm, and its vast quadrants of damaged Earth realities, all plunging to the random and insectoid oblivion of the Nineteen Ways. Marilyn sighs deeply. Why does she even have to know about all this? Why is she even aware of the Nineteen Ways? She reaches for the Nembutal.

(THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN NOW HAS IT’S OWN PAGE SO THE WHOLE THING CAN BE READ WITHOUT SCROLLING. CLICK HERE)

SPACE OPERA (Wanna buy a used Viper?)

NBC/Universal is auctioning an actual full size Mark VII Viper Raptor fighter ship used in Battlestar Galactica. Also up for sale? A full size Raptor that has a “full, functional interior with light-up panels and monitors throughout...” Or so reads eBay's enthusiastic description of the 30-foot ship. After 43 bids, the price was $28,100.00 -- but this didn't meet the auction's reserve, which means it's still up for grabs at a "live" auction beginning May 8 in Pasadena. (Click for more)

The secret word is Frack

The secret message 5365656b20796f7572206c6f7374207472696265
2e

POT SUCKERS FOR SWINE FLU

Today is something of a grab bag. Too much on my plate to pontificate or even imagine too hard. Munz sent this over, and, although I figure it’s more of a PR stunt than anything else (and also having certain reservations about the medical marijuana movement in that there are times when it seems as much a loophole for the well-heeled stoner as a step to recreational sanity) I’d post it anyway out of a general will to subversion.

“Cannabis Science Inc., an emerging pharmaceutical cannabis company, reported today on the current state of development of its whole-cannabis lozenge in response to Homeland Security Administration Secretary Janet Napolitano's declaration of a public health emergency to deal with the emerging Swine Flu pandemic. The Company's non-toxic lozenge has properties that could alleviate many of the symptoms and harmful effects of the H5N1 bird flu and H1N1 swine flu viruses, and has offered its assistance to HSA today in a letter to Secretary Napolitano. The Company has offered to produce up to 1 million doses of its whole-cannabis lozenge, and provide them to HSA for distribution at cost. Cannabis Science Inc., President & CEO, Steven W. Kubby said, "We have the science and preliminary anecdotal results confirming the anti-inflammatory properties of our new lozenges and indicating they may present an effective and non-toxic treatment for minimizing the symptoms and harm from influenza infections.” (Click here for more)

The secret word is Linkage

The secret message is 4120626f6f6b2069732061206c6f616465642067
756e20696e2074686520686f757365206e657874
20646f6f722e

TRIVIAL PURSUIT

Stephen Saban is my old time homeboy from the SoHo Weekly News. He’s now editing a website called World of Wonder. If you like New York-style style trivial gossip that comes at you like it was really fucking important just click here.

Valerie has also hooked me up with a blog called Violet Planet which is just about the diametric opposite to World of Wonder but should checked out by clicking here.

EL TOPO

And finally Sea Urchin Ben has sent us the original 1970s trailer for Alejandro Jodorowski’s El Topo. Click here.

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

CARS VANISH...

Aeswiren sent us the following…

“Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car's appearance. She created the illusion in the car park outside her studio at Uclan's Hanover Building in Preston. The car is now being used for advertising by the local recycling firm that donated the vehicle. Ms Watson, a second year student, said: "I was experimenting with the whole concept of illusion but needed something a bit more physical to make a real impact." She was given the Skoda Fabia from the breaker's yard at local firm Recycling Lives. Owner Steve Jackson described her work as "amazing". "When I first saw the photos I was convinced it was something which had been done on the computer," said Mr Jackson. “But when you look more closely you see the effort and attention to detail she has put into it. It is just amazing."

...AND PARROTS DANCE

Both Aeswiren and Valerie flagged this story of avian hepcats…

"People aren't the only ones who've got rhythm. Two reports published online on April 30th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveal that birds – and parrots in particular – can also bob their heads, tap their feet, and sway their bodies along to a musical beat. The findings show that a very basic aspect of the human response to music is shared with other species, according to the researchers. "We've discovered a cockatoo [named Snowball] that dances to the beat of human music," said Aniruddh Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, lead author of one of the studies. "Using a controlled experiment, we've shown that if the music speeds up or slows down across a wide range, he adjusts the tempo of his dancing to stay synchronized to the beat." One of Snowball's favorite dancing tunes is none other than the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody." (Click here for more and click here for more plus videos)

The secret word is Cracker

SPACE OPERA

“In space no one can hear you squeal.”

And if the above is too sexist for ya, click here for an ancient episode of Space Patrol sent by Wendy..

BIG BROTHER IN CYBERSPACE

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that George Orwell conceived the idea of 1984, and the total surveillance police state in the United Kingdom…

“British Internet service providers and telecoms are being asked to retain individual user data for a year's time as part of a new move to solidify police crime surveillance. The British government has said the information is needed to keep tabs on criminal and terrorist activities and is not linked to anti-piracy lobbying and such, though opponents see it as a potentially oppressive big-brother move. The plan calls for the tracking of all e-mails, phone calls and Internet use, including visits to social network sites. reports British newspaper.
Originally, Britain's Home Office Secretary Jacqui Smith sought to create a centralized national database, which drew the ire of many critics and was shelved, she announced Monday. "My key priority is to protect the citizens of the UK, and communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and pedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Smith told British media, including the BBC. "It is essential that the police and other crime-fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job. However, to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."
A state-run database run containing personal data was considered "extreme" and a great intrusion of citizen privacy. The government said with the new plan, its interest lies more in communications rather than content.
Companies such as BT, Virgin Media, O2 and others will be required to keep a customer's personal data with regard to phone and Web usage for up to 12 months. Law enforcement and other security agencies will have to request data from the ISPs and telecoms on a case-by-case basis. "What we are asking the industry will put a burden on them," Smith said, adding companies would be "recompensed" in some manner.
According to the Financial Times, the Home Office will spend 2 billion pounds (about $3 billion) over 10 years to pay for the new plan, which is still in the agreement stage with communications companies. British telecoms already provide data traffic information in some form to assist anti-crime and anti-terror units.”

The secret word is Data
The secret message is 44696420796f75207265616c6c79207468696e6b
20697420776f756c6420626520736f6d65746869
6e6720696d706f7274616e743f

Tom McGrath – RIP

FACECRIME

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..." – George Orwell, 1984

A BAG OF WEED

But it's Saturday, so lets leave the worry and paranoia for Monday. Click here to watch the Family Guy production number “A Bag Of Weed.” (Donated by the good Munz.)

MAYDAY

YESTERDAY...

“I found these rather fantastic photographs from Google’s Life magazine collection. They feature some teenagers at a ‘rave’ on Eel Pie Island at Twickenham on a Wednesday night August 31 1960. There is practically no other information other than the photographs were taken by a Peter Hall (I’m presuming not the theatre impresario who became Sir Peter Hall).”

When I saw the above (and the below) on the excellent Nickel In The Machine site, I suffered a definite pang. 1960 was in my first year in art school, I was a precocious 16 year-old junior beatnik, and such as these were the first girls I ever lusted after. They seem a little more self-invented than today, but, otherwise, what has really changed, except time has long-gone moved on and taken from me the glory of youth?

The secret word is Lost

The message is 5768656e20746865206d75736963e2809973206f
7665722c207475726e206f757420746865206c69
6768742e

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG

Back when the world was young
Drunk on cheap well whiskey
And confused on mescaline
Walking rattlesnake curves
On sidewalks that refused to lay down
Resisting
Resisting
Resisting all the importunate invasions of reality
Back when the world was young
Searching for the gateway
To the Secret Garden
The Maps to the Labyrinth
And the Silver Key
With a woman in red shoes
Whose name was maybe Dolores
Dolores?
Or perhaps her name was...Laverne?

Back when the world was young
And fear was so perfectly academic
And the scales were so perfectly poised
That I could still pace the razor’s edge
Without cutting my feet or losing any further toes
And I believed
And I believed
And I believed in every fucking drop of rain that fell
Back when the world was young
And you had but to softly ask
The crushed whisper of velvet
The sheer innocence of pure desire
And the requested favor was granted and gratified
So will somebody give?
So will somebody give?
So will somebody please
Give the anarchist a cigarette?

This poem can be found, with accompaniment by Jack Lancaster, Wayne Kramer, and Doug Lunn, on the CD The Deathray Tapes (Alive Records)

MORE TALES OF ARLEN SPECTER (but Elvis?)

Elvis? Yes, Elvis!
Four days before Elvis Presley died, a Philadelphia psychic called Marc Salem wrote a prediction of his death that included pre-quoting the exact headlines from both the Philadelphia Daily News (The King Is Dead) and the Philadelphia Inquirer (The King Dies At 42). Salem wrote out his prediction on slips of paper that he then placed in an empty aspirin bottle, which was, in turn, baked into a pretzel, with orders that it should be broken out and opened if Elvis died. And guess who supervised the entire bizarre process? None other than Arlen Specter, a former Philadelphia DA and a future senator. Such is the measure of man who holds a nation’s fate in his hands.

The secret word is Flummoxed

The secret message is 4e6f206f6e6520686572652067657473206f7574
20616c697665

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill suits up for his second trip in the alien spacecraft.

SPECTER’S MAGIC BULLET

As Senator Arlen Specter changes side from the Republican to Democrat, and moves President Obama closer to an absolute majority in the Senate, let’s not pretend that Specter is looking out for anyone but Arlen Specter. Specter’s political career was set in motion back in the 1960s when, as an aggressive young staffer on the Warren Commission, he was rewarded for concocting the Magic Bullet Theory of the JFK assassination on which the entire Warren Report depended for the credibility of its “lone gunman” scenario. Who could forget the Magic Bullet – Commission Exhibit CE399 – that went through 15 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, and 15 inches of tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone with its copper jacket totally intact, and was then supposedly found, in its near pristine condition, on the stretcher used for Governor Connally, in the corridor at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, after the assassination.
And while we’re at it, check out the fine careers of other Warren Commission notables, starting with Gerald Ford who got to be president for his loyalty.
(Click here for more on the Magic Bullet or here for a longer Wikipedia entry.)

The secret word is Labyrinth

The secret message 506172616e6f696120737472696b657320646565
702e20

HELP ME! I’M THREATENED!

The following arrived today with more bad news about our wildlife…

Dear Mick,

In the next few weeks, the U.S. Forest Service plans to reopen a road that runs through the heart of grizzly bear habitat in Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. With encroaching development on nearby lands, the Sweetwater Valley -- inside the Shoshone National Forest -- has become a secure oasis for threatened and imperiled wildlife. In the eight years that the road has been closed, an abundance of wildlife has thrived here, including grizzly bears, wolves, lynx, cougars and moose. In fact, grizzlies that have just come out of hibernation are grazing right now on grass and other plants found in the valley.
There is no rationale for the Forest Service's proposal to reopen the road, which leads nowhere and has languished for years. Reopening the road would only disturb and threaten the Sweetwater Valley's wilderness and wildlife.
Please urge the Forest Service to leave the road closed. Time is running out, as forest officials plan to reopen the road in the next few weeks.

Sincerely,Frances Beinecke

President Natural Resources Defense Council

Click here to send your protest

This blog is still approved by the Corleone Crime Family

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 2135)

In which, for some days, Marilyn has been followed everywhere by the wholly inane and annoyingly butch drag-queen Jane Russell replicant, who not only shows off her legs and wears identical clothing to Marilyn, but insists on looking at herself in a small mirror at approximately three minute intervals. Marilyn first theorized that the replicant was some kind of infiltrated Apollonian psyops device, but this was rejected out of hand by Dionysian Intelligence. (An oxy-moron, Marilyn thought, if every there was one.) They informed her that the Russell was a model 20 back-up guardian, and that Marilyn was lucky to have such singular personal protection. Realizing that she has no immediate way of ridding herself of the unwelcome presence, she turns her back on the thing and drinks a Coke.

(Pic supplied by Valerie)

(THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN NOW HAS IT’S OWN PAGE SO THE WHOLE THING CAN BE READ WITHOUT SCROLLING. CLICK HERE)

WANT A DRUGLESS HALLUCINATION?

As a longtime connoisseur of hallucinations, I can totally assure you that this works really well, despite the somewhat lame music. Click here and follow the instructions.

OR WOULD YOU PREFER A BIZARRE RELIGIOUS ILLUSION?

As in the face of Jesus in the wafer of a Kit Kat. (Image supplied by Wendy)

The secret word is Worship
The secret message is 47616262612d67616262612068657921 (If you need the decoding instructions, just shout.)

SWINE FLU AND PUPPIES GLOWED IN THE DARK

Did someone say creepy, or maybe our just desserts? As the media panics about a swine flu pandemic, the following was sent by our friend Diva. Is humanity stone crazy now? Goddamn

“A cloned beagle named Ruppy – short for Ruby Puppy – is the world's first transgenic dog. She and four other beagles all produce a fluorescent protein that glows red under ultraviolet light. A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones. Lee and researcher Woo Suk Hwang were part of a team that created the first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005. Much of Hwang's work on human cells turned out to be fraudulent, but Snuppy was not, an investigation later concluded.” (Click here for more.)

WILD ONE

WILD TWO

WILD THREE

WILD FOUR

WILD MORE

The secret word is Rebellion

The secret message is 576174746120796f7520676f743f

THEY'RE BACK...

I was sitting down to write some piece of Saturday cynical amusement and then, with dire synchronicity, I received this link from our good pal Jimmy, and also a breaking-news email that the WHO fears swine flu could become a pandemic. And, of course, should the Third Horseman really show up with all his droogs, the USA doesn’t have a healthcare system worth shit. But the good news is that an infestation of venture capitalist swine will make beaucoup bucks from the plague, and they are very fucking happy.

“LOS ANGELES, April 24 (Reuters) - The swine flu outbreak is likely to benefit one of the most prolific and successful venture capital firms in the United States: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Thomson Reuters Private Equity Week reported on Friday.
Shares of the two public companies in the firm's portfolio of eight Pandemic and Bio Defense companies -- BioCryst Pharmaceuticals and Novavax – jumped Friday on news that the swine flu killed a reported 60 people in Mexico and has infected people in the United States. The World Health Organization said the virus appears to be susceptible to Roche's flu drug Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, but not to older flu drugs such as amantadine. (Click here for the whole story)”

Can we hang them now, please? From lampposts? (And isn’t there something very dubious about Tamiflu? I can’t quite remember the conspiracy theory.)

The secret word is plainly Pestilence

The secret message is 4920746f6c6420796f752049207761736e277420
6665656c696e672077656c6c2e

…OR IS HANGING TOO GOOD FOR CAPITALISTS?

This is from 1914. Sadly little changes unless forced to.

PROLETARIAT PINUP Saturday Special -- Jane Fonda

"No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time." – Emma Goldman

THE HEAT COOLED DOWN

The heatwave has passed and I'm back. Without irony or sarcasm, I’m touched by how, when I don’t post anything on Doc40 for a few days, some of you worry that I have died, burned out, been held for ransom or otherwise become incapacitated. Thanks for all the enquires and good wishes. I really appreciate them, but do remember that now and again I have to take time off to maintain my health, sanity, and also earn a living, which is a huge obstacle in itself through these troubled times.

The secret word is Stress

The secret message is 50656f706c652061726520737472616e67652077
68656e20796f75e280997265206120737472616e
6765722e

THE GUITARPLAYER'S BRAIN

Munz sent over this story from multi-instrumentalist Chris Darrow. We’ll ignore the obvious jokes.

“New German research indicates that when musicians play together, they think together as well.
Study author Ulman Lindenberger of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and his co-investigators looked at electrical activity in the brains of eight pairs of guitarists. They monitored patterns of brain waves as the musicians played a short jazz-fusion melody together up to 60 times, and published their findings in the journal BMC Neuroscience.
The study reported that the frontal and central regions of the guitarists’ brains synchronized to a high degree. But, more surprisingly, the temporal and parietal regions also showed significant synchronization in more than half of the pairs. These regions may be involved in simply enjoying the music, researchers suggested.To my mind, this study highlights one of the great joys of playing music, one voiced by many musicians: a sense of self-transcendence. Playing music together creates a rare chance to step outside of ourselves and our small concerns and join our minds wholeheartedly with others in creating something no individual could make alone. Seen in this light, creating beautiful music is simply a wonderful byproduct of a larger reward – connecting deeply with other human beings.”

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill is convinced the typewriter moved and he waits for it to move again.

THE HEAT AND THE HANGOVER

As cynics surmised, it did take me a couple of days to get over Friday night’s Hawkwind tribute. At events of that kind, I do rather feel obliged to address the alcohol and other stimulants with some rigor, if only to show the young people how it’s done. Then, just complicate matters, a 95F heat wave dropped on the city out of nowhere, leaving my brain limp and unusable, and my liver feeling like it attacked Akabar by land, plus generally demonstrating that I am not made of sterner stuff. Doubtless I will write more as it cools off.

THE BLACK LEATHER JACKET

Back in the 20th century I wrote an excellent book called The Black Leather Jacket which latter became a Channel 4/PBS documentary narrated by Dennis Hopper. Confirming that nothing ever really goes away, although the documentary isn’t be seen on TV too often these days, it has appeared on YouTube chopped into a bunch of multiple episodes. (Click here for the first.)

J.G. Ballard – RIP