The Real Tarzan
Chris M. writes on the Black Sun Gazette:
Tarzan is the creation of pulp fiction superstar Edgar Rice Burroughs and the prefect blend of two archetypes the feral child and the wild man. His name means “Skin Boy” and he is the son of English aristocrats who were marooned in the jungle after a mutiny at sea. Tarzan’s mother dies from an illness and his father is killed by an ape.
The orphan seems doomed until adopted by Kala, another ape, and taught the ways of the jungle. When he matures he discovers he is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke and returns to England to claim his title only to reject his inheritance and return to his true home in the wilderness.
He joined the comic book world in 1931, having series by both…
Fear And Loathing On Sesame Street
Poor Count … One, two, three … via All That’s Interesting:
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A Million Library Books To Be Sent Down The Mines
Manchester Central Library
By Deborah Linton for the Manchester Evening News:
One million books from Manchester’s Central Library – including valuable volumes dating back to the 15th century – are to be put into temporarily storage with many going deep underground in the Cheshire salt mines.
Works from the city’s reference library will be stored in the mines, hundreds of feet below ground, for the next three years while the landmark city centre site undergoes a massive refurbishment to save it from ruin.
Experts say the mine’s caverns – the size of 700 football pitches – provide the perfect environment for preserving the manuscripts, which include the works of eminent academics.
A phased shut down of the St Peter’s Square library will begin next month, with the site closing its doors in June. The Library…
Save Watkins Books!
For anyone interested in esoteric and occult books, one of the very finest shops in the world is London’s Watkins Books. For those of you with deep pockets, please dig deep and buy the business out of bankruptcy/administration. From The Bookseller:
London’s oldest esoteric bookshop and Cecil Court ‘institution’ Watkins Books has gone into administration with 11 members of staff losing their jobs.
The bookshop, which was founded in 1897 and moved to Cecil Court in 1901, closed down yesterday (23rd February), following the appointment of administrator Harris Lipman. A sign displayed on the shop’s window read: “Shop Closed Today”.
Tim Bryars, secretary of the Cecil Court Association, told The Bookseller that it had “taken everybody by surprise”. It is understood that trading had been slower than usual, for a number of reasons…
Atomic Bomb Book Author Admits He Was Duped
You have to feel sorry for the author I guess, but shouldn’t his publisher have checked the facts? From the New York Times:
A new book about the atomic destruction of Hiroshima has won critical acclaim with its heartbreaking portrayals of the bomb’s survivors and is set to be made into a movie by James Cameron.
“The Last Train from Hiroshima,” published in January by Henry Holt, also claims to reveal a secret accident with the atom bomb that killed one American and irradiated others and greatly reduced the weapon’s destructive power.
There is just one problem. That section of the book and other technical details of the mission are based on the recollections of Joseph Fuoco, who is described as a last-minute substitute on one of the two observation planes that escorted the Enola Gay.
But Mr. Fuoco, who died in 2008 at age 84 and lived in Westbury, N.Y., never flew on the bombing run, and he never substituted for James R. Corliss, the plane’s regular flight engineer, Mr. Corliss’s family says. They, along with angry ranks of scientists, historians and veterans, are denouncing the book and calling Mr. Fuoco an impostor…
One of the Popes Wrote an Erotic Book
The following is the second chapter from Russ Kick’s classic bite-size Disinformation book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know, published in 2003.
For more on Russ Kick, check out his website, The Memory Hole.
_____________________________________
Before he was Pope Pius II, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini was a poet, scholar, diplomat, and rakehell. And an author. In fact, he wrote a bestseller. People in fifteenth-century Europe couldn’t get enough of his Latin novella Historia de duobus amantibus. An article in a scholarly publication on literature claims that Historia “was undoubtedly one of the most read stories of the whole Renaissance.” The Oxford edition gives a Cliff Notes version of the storyline: “The Goodli History tells of the illicit love of Euralius, a high official in the retinue of the [German] Emperor Sigismund, and Lucres, a married lady from Siena [Italy].”
It was probably written in 1444, but the earliest known printing is from Antwerp in 1488. By the turn of the century, 37 editions had been published. Somewhere around 1553, the short book appeared in English under the wonderfully old-school title The Goodli History of the Moste Noble and Beautyfull Ladye Lucres of Scene in Tuskane, and of Her Louer Eurialus Verye Pleasaunt and Delectable vnto ye Reder. Despite the obvious historical interest of this archaic Vatican porn, it has never been translated into contemporary language. (The passages quoted below mark the first time that any of the book has appeared in modern English.)
The 1400s being what they were, the action is pretty tame by today’s standards. At one point, Euralius scales a wall to be with Lucres: “When she saw her lover, she clasped him in her arms. There was embracing and kissing, and with full sail they followed their lusts and wearied Venus, now with Ceres, and now with Bacchus was refreshed.” Loosely translated, that last part means that they shagged, then ate, then drank wine.
Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes
Fotie Photenhauer, author of Natural Harvest, describes this book as:
Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food.
This book hopes to change that.
Once you overcome any initial hesitation, you will be surprised to learn how wonderful semen is in the kitchen. Semen is an exciting ingredient that can give every dish you make an interesting twist. If you are a passionate cook and are not afraid to experiment with new ingredients — you will love this cook book!
Glenn Beck Helps Turn Anarchist Book Into Bestseller
Judith Rosen for Publishers Weekly:
The old saw that there is no such thing as bad publicity could be behind the success of The Coming Insurrection, published under the pen name the Invisible Committee, which rejects the official Left and aligns itself with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe against immigration control and the “war on terror.” Published by Semiotext(e), a small California press, best known for works of French cultural theory by Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault, the book has spent much of the week on Amazon’s top 10 bestsellers list, alongside better known titles like Game Change and The Help.
True, when Semiotext(e) launched its Intervention series last August with an English translation of The Coming Insurrection, it hit #24 at Amazon. After that it settled…
It’s a Conspiracy! No, It’s Not: A Debunking of the Classic Theories
Image by quarkscrew via Creative Commons
The New York Times’s Michiko Kakutani, so often the purveyor of eviscerating book reviews, for once truly loves something: an all-out mockery of a myriad of conspiracy theories, from 9/11 to Princess Diana, by David Aaronovich, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History:
The principle of Occam’s razor suggests that the simplest hypothesis is usually the correct one — or as the character Gil Grissom in “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” succinctly puts it, if you hear hoofbeats, “think horses, not zebras.”In his lively new book, “Voodoo Histories,” the journalist David Aaronovitch uses Occam’s razor to eviscerate the many conspiracy theories that have percolated through politics and popular culture over the last century, from those that assert that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were…
Sarah Palin Spent $63,000 In Donations On Copies Of Her Book
Here’s one way to get your book on the bestseller list — money laundering:
Sarah Palin has been using her political action committee to buy up thousands of copies of her book, “Going Rogue.”
The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate had her political organization spend more than $63,000 on what her reports describe as “books for fundraising donor fulfillment.” The payments went to Harper Collins, her publisher.
On the web site of her PAC, Palin posted a special letter to supporters upon the release of her book. “My book, ‘Going Rogue,’ is dedicated to you — to Patriots — who fight for freedom!” she wrote in the note, which concludes with the opportunity to donate.
Photos of Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts
Mark Frauenfelder on BoingBoing recommends taking a look at Life magazine’s great photo gallery of famous literary drunks and addicts; it’s pretty cool. One of my favorites:
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005): Everything
“I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs, or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
‘Catcher in the Rye’ Author J.D. Salinger Dies at 91
“People always think something’s all true.”
— J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 2
Hillel Italie writes on the AP Via Yahoo News:
J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose The Catcher in the Rye shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91.
Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author’s son said in a statement from Salinger’s literary representative. He had lived for decades in self-imposed isolation in the small, remote house in Cornish, N.H.
The Catcher in the Rye, with its immortal teenage protagonist, the twisted, rebellious Holden Caulfield, came out in 1951, a time of anxious, Cold War conformity and the dawn of modern adolescence. The Book-of-the-Month Club, which made Catcher a featured selection, advised that for “anyone…
Werner Herzog Reads Curious George
A must-watch deconstruction of the classic children’s text, as done by your favorite German art-house film director.
The 10 Most Pirated Digital Books of 2009
Sex and Photoshop, what a combo! At least those damn Twilight teenage vampires can’t be #1 at everything. Via FreakBits:
1. Kamasutra
2. Adobe Photoshop Secrets
3. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amazing Sex
4. The Lost Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
5. Solar House – A Guide for the Solar Designer
6. Before Pornography – Erotic Writing In Early Modern England
7. Twilight – Complete Series
8. How To Get Anyone To Say YES – The Science Of Influence
9. Nude Photography – The Art And The Craft
10. Fix It – How To Do All Those Little Repair Jobs Around The Home
The Most Shoplifted Book is the Bible?
Isis Madrid writes on Flavorwire:
Bookworms are an interesting sort. Some compulsively hoard literary nuggets until their shelves sag and creak, yet never bother to actually read their collection. Others can barely tear themselves away from the freshly-vacuumed bookstore corner in which they devour the newest Malcolm Gladwell for fear that the trip home will forever interrupt their cozy date. There are bookworms with Kindles, and bookworms juggling the four paperbacks they’re reading at once. There are bookworms who get turned on by first editions, and bookworms keen on newer, abstract renditions. There are bookworms who follow the Tao of Oprah, and others who only listen to Deepak Chopra.
But perhaps the most intriguing bookworm of all is the bibliokleptomaniac, or what we like to call the kleptobrainiac. These people are book…
Books You Can Live Without
Now here’s an end of the year/decade literary debate that’s actually quite interesting, versus the morass of “best of lists”, courtesy of the New York Times. Here’s an excerpt from author David Matthews:
Things I will never, ever read:
The authors who get to stay did something the others did not — they saved me.
The biography of Willem de Kooning. Ditto the 600 pages devoted to Wittgenstein’s life and thought. Malraux’s “The Voices of Silence” will remain mute, its spine un-cracked, the book’s presence meant to imply to anyone perusing my “library” that I’m a man of serious ideas and scholarship.
Sadly, I’m too far along to absorb whatever Bertrand Russell’s history of philosophy has to teach me, so out it goes. For that matter, what with the urgency of global warming and…
Did Google Steal From Philip K. Dick’s Brain?
Great observation from Charlie Jane Anders of io9.com:
Philip K. Dick’s daughter, Isa Dick-Hackett, is considering suing Google because their phone handset may be called the Nexus One.
The Replicants in Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? were Nexus-6 models.
Would you want a Roy Batty phone?
Read More on io9.com
Sarah Palin Meets Her Clones On Book Tour
At a Going Rogue book signing a couple days ago in Noblesville, IN, Sarah Palin bumps into her doppelganger. Apparently she is like a gremblin, multiplying at a frightening rate. (No word on how many more clones are out there.) From The Daily What:
Firing Bullets of Data at Cozy Anti-Science
Janet Maslin reviews Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives in the New York Times:
“I always say that electricity is a fantastic invention,” the British economist Michael Lipton once told Michael Specter, whose bristling new book, “Denialism,” explores the dangerous ways in which scientific progress can be misunderstood. “But if the first two products had been the electric chair and the cattle prod,” Mr. Lipton continued, “I doubt that most consumers would have seen the point.”
Here is what they would have done instead, if Mr. Specter, a staff writer for The New Yorker and former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, correctly captures the motifs that shape the stubbornly anti-scientific thinking for which his book is named: they would have denounced electricity as a force for evil, blamed its prevalence on venal utility companies, universalized the relatively rare horrific experiences of people who have been injured by electrical currents and called for a ban on electricity use.
The term “denialism,” used by Mr. Specter as an all-purpose, pop-sci buzzword, is defined by him as what happens “when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie…
