Wandering in time and geography from West Los Angeles circa 1977 to Neanderthal prehistory with a side trip to Antarctica ... wondering how those giant blind albino penguins managed to get through customs ... a little R&R in Terry Pratchett's Disc World, and finally landing in 2007 San Francisco.
When I check on books read 30 years ago, often I do search out the authors to see what they are doing now.
I was never able to complete reading Stan Gooch’s Total Man in 1977 (see below) but the book drew me back to keep trying. A similar mystifying but sticky experience happened when I looked him up on the internet. It sounded as if he had fallen upon hard times. M. Alan Kazlev outlines some of Gooch's ideas at This link shows supporters distressed that he was (is? I hope not!) living in a caravan in penury in Wales. another link also shows concern.
Glancing over some summaries of Gooch's work I saw a reference to possible remote Neanderthal civilization in Antarctica before that continent was covered with ice. I couldn’t help being perversely reminded of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and those pesky giant, blind, albino penguins in the abandoned cities of Antarctica. This page describes encountering At the Mountains of Madness at a used bookstore, anyone who has wandered in such places will recognize
the experience.
I know the book cover he’s referring too—creepy!
Lovecraft's GBA (Giant Blind Albino) Penguins served pretty much the same function as the crowds running away in the Godzilla movies: When the penguins were restless in the fathomless underground corridors, nameless horror was on its way. Yet I spent an idle moment considering that those huge flightless, sightless critters might impart a curse, totally apart from slipping on their “detritus’ as Lovecraft calls it, for those who dare to contemplate civilizations beyond time buried under the Antarctic ice. Perhaps not. As of 2005, Gooch’s thoughts on his original psychic encounter with a Neanderthal were released on a CD I hope all is well with Mr. Gooch and that giant, blind, albino penguins are not besieging a trailer park somewhere in Wales.
September 8 to October 5, 1977 I read:
What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?, Michael Medved and Wallechinsky
Total Man, Stan Gooch
Note – I also have this listed a few days later on 9/25, evidently I kept coming back trying to finish it, and finally got to about half way through and gave up.
more on Gooch
Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats, Gene DeWeese, Robert Coulson
Home Free, Dan Wakefield
Note: Couldn’t get into it at all, poorly done.
Crash, Rob and Sarah Elder
Hard-edged, journalistic prose, an unpleasant but very, very well written book
How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer, Jimmy Breslin
Agatha Christie, First Lady of Crime, H.R. Keating, Ed.
The Condensed World of the Reader’s Digest, Samuel A. Schreiner, Jr.
Black Sun, the Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby, Geoffrey Wolff
rather too admiring bio but you get the idea.
Not the guy you want to see your niece or sister involved with, and if she did, she might be well advised to memorize the following phrase – “Sorry, Harry, but I make it a rule not to make suicide pacts on the first date, particularly with married men...”
His poetry is also a clue--anyone reading this poem would certainly be aware that the guy had some serious depression problems, and was also in dire need of a thesaurus...
Man in a Cage, Brian Stableford
September 8 to October 5 I read:
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, Terry Pratchett
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
journal
Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett
Neil Gaiman for fantasy noir and Terry Pratchett for fantasy bright and shiny—both fascinating!
The TV series Huge and what was added (and subtracted) from the book
-
Usually a book contains subtle layers and little touches that are missing
from the more streamlined film version. But *Huge* is that rare video that
adds d...
11 years ago
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