Glimpses of Machinery

Discussing droids among us earlier in the month I recalled some songs about futuristic machines.

The earliest I remember is the fabulous Memory of a Free Festival by David Bowie. I was enthralled as a 12 year old with it vision of young people communing with Venusians and a Sun Machine:

We scanned the skies with rainbow eyes

And saw machines of every shape and size

We talked with tall Venusians passing through

And Peter tried to climb aboard

But the Captain shook his head and away they soared

Climbing through the ivory vibrant cloud

Someone passed some bliss among the crowd

And We walked back to the road, unchained

The Sun Machine is coming down, and we're gonna have a party.

Similar but darker is Bowie's Saviour Machine and it's terrifying mantra of My logic Says Burn! 

President Joe once had a dream

The world held his hand, gave their pledge

So he told them his scheme for a Saviour Machine

They called it the Prayer, its answer was law

Its logic stopped war, gave them food

How they adored till it cried in its boredom

Please don't believe in me, please disagree with me

Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now

Or maybe a war, or I may kill you all

Don't let me stay, don't let me stay

My logic says burn so send me away

Your minds are too green, I despise all I've seen

You can't stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

I need you flying, and I'll show that dying

Is living beyond reason, sacred dimension of time

I perceive every sign, I can steal every mind

Don't let me stay, don't let me stay

My logic says burn so send me away

Your minds are too green, I despise all I've seen

You can't stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

More recently those guitaring geeksters Radiohead described in stark terms modern mans' banal future sung-spoken in a robot's spooky voice:

Fitter happier

More productive

Comfortable

Not drinking too much

Regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)

Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries

At ease

Eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)

A patient, better driver

A safer car (baby smiling in back seat)

Sleeping well (no bad dreams)

No paranoia

Careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)

Keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)

Will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall)

Favours for favours

Fond but not in love

Charity standing orders

On Sundays ring road supermarket

(No killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)

Car wash (also on Sundays)

No longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows

Nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate

Nothing so childish

At a better pace

Slower and more calculated

No chance of escape

Now self-employed

Concerned (but powerless)

An empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)

Will not cry in public

Less chance of illness

Tyres that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)

A good memory

Still cries at a good film

Still kisses with saliva

No longer empty and frantic

Like a cat

Tied to a stick

That's driven into

Frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)

Calm

Fitter, healthier and more productive

A pig

In a cage

On antibiotics

On my CD player this month I've been enjoying the cyborg imagery of Turin Brakes' Underdog:

Two black lines streaming out like a guidance line.

Put one foot on the road now where the cyborgs are driving,

With the WD-40 in their veins the screeching little brakes complain.

And their starkly evocative Future boy with lines like:

Why are you pushing info into me,

I have no need for it, I'm from the stars.

Perhaps the earliest futuristic passage that appeared on MC back at the beginning was this brilliant but dark imagery by Damon Knight in his short story Masks. It even references a Moon Prospector! 

The prospector was climbing a crater slope with its handling members retracted and its head tilted up. Behind it the distant ringwall and the horizon, the black sky, the pin-point stars. And he was there, and it was not far enough, not yet, for the Earth hung overhead like a rotten fruit, blue with mold, crawling, wrinkling, purulent and alive.

What's your favourite lyric, line, verse or passage about machines,bots, droids and spaceships readers? 

Harvest Home

Sometimes things come to those that .....

Camp!

We've gone camping again in our cute two-person tent. We like to travel light!

The weather's warm and the site in Hornsea is brilliant. A flock of geese are camping next to us!

Whilst admiring the facilities - pool table, showers, phone chargers - I perused the exchanging bookcase and lo and behold there's a paperback I've been looking for for ten years, one Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon.

Written by US actor and author Tryon, the book, as I've found out online, was a New York Times bestseller in 1973. A folk horror set in rural Connecticut, the plot, centered on a remote community following the old ways, is slightly reminiscent of the Wicker Man. 

Stephen King didn't rate it, a contemporary of his novel Salem's Lot. 

Nevertheless, Harvest Home went on to become a popular spooky US TV film as well back in the mid-Seventies. I've never seen it.

Tryon wrote The Other too, again, an American paperback I've never seen in the wild here in Blighty. 

Have you read or seen Harvest Home readers? 

All My Ducks in a Row

 Imbued with an urge to spring clean the attic, I've stacked my old VHS tapes and sorted them alphabetically (yep, I've too much time on my hands!).

In a similar vein I've uncrated my old horror paperbacks and lined them up neatly in a bookcase.

When I get time (!) I'll sort these alphabetically too.

Always good to have a cold beer to hand when doing stuff like this!

Are you spring cleaning readers?

Worm Wishes

Cleaning up my attic I found my paperback copy of The Worm Ouroborous, which, despite owning for 50 years, I've never read!

My copy is the 1967 edition by American publisher Ballantine. It's a chunky novel.

The fantastic cover art, which made me buy it all those years ago, is by Minnesota-born Barbara Remington, who sadly passed away in 2020.

Barbara Remington also illustrated the covers of the first official (although not the first overall) American paperback publication of The Lord of the Rings on 1965.

Painted in her fabulous style these three books would find a happy home at Moonbase if I found them at a boot sale, although I must say I've never seen them here in Blighty.

Do you like these covers? 

Have you got the books readers?

Paul's Do You Know About 1

At a fair I picked up a paperback book, Do You Know About ? Space Flight, from 1962. A really nice volume, from the dawn of the manned Space Age.

Since I had never heard of the Collins Do You Know About ? series before, I decided to do a little digging. I could not find a lot of information on this series, but it seems there were at least ten titles, published between 1962 and 1964.

The series comprised educational books on natural history, science, and transport, aimed at children. They are very similar to the American How and Why Wonder Books series, some of which I had as a boy.

The Do You Know About ? series was published by Wm. Collins, Sons, and Co., of London and Glasow (the company had started out in Scotland, in 1819). There are not many on-line sales listings for these books, sometimes only one or two for each title.

I do not recall ever seeing these books. They were available in both hardback and paperback, although I do not know if this applies to all the titles.

The length was a standard 48 pages; page size 264 x 206 mm. The illustrations were a mix of colour and black and white artwork, by various illustrators, although one listing I found does mention The Stars having photographs.

All had painted, full-colour covers (some of which are signed), with the cover image repeated on the back. A red panel carries the words Collins Pageant of Knowledge Series.

One oddity is that the two space books (Our Solar System and The Stars) do not list an author on the title page, just the illustrator - Roger Hall. However The Stars does have a small copyright notice on the Contents page, which does name the author.

Given that both books are illustrated by the same artist, might the author of the books also be the same ? If anyone has Our Solar System, and can confirm or refute, that would be great.

I am guessing here, but might Our Solar System and The Stars both be parts of a longer, previously published work, or works ?

Publication Date 1962

Do You Know About ? Birds, by David Stephen, ill by Ralston Gudgeon.

Do You Know About ? Animals, by David Stephen, ill by G.W. Backhouse.

Do You Know About ? Aircraft, by Maurice Allward, ill by T.E. North.

Do You Know About ? Space Flight, by Maurice Allward, ill by I. Teece.

Publication Date 1963

Do You Know About ? Reptiles and Amphibians, by David Stephen, ill by Len Fullerton.

Do You Know About ? Our Solar System, by ?, ill by Roger Hall.

Do You Know About ? The Earth, by Maurice Allward, ill by W.L. Branton.

Do You Know About ? Cars, by Maurice Allward, ill by T.E. North.

Publication Date 1964

Do You Know About ? Railways, by William A. Porter, ill by T.E. North.

Do You Know About ? The Stars, no author is listed on the title page, but at the bottom of the Contents page is 'First published in this edition 1964' and '© 1964 Dr. H.C. King'. Ill by Roger Hall.

The photographs of Space Flight are of my copy; the rest are from Ebay - 14 in total.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Combat Picture Annual 1962

 

I picked up a non-jacketed hardback copy of this interesting book tother week, in a garden centre of all places (South Milford), which often seem to have a few second hand bits and bobs in a corner these days (do you visit garden centres?)

It's an unusual book, at least to me, as it's a novel sized hardback full of black and white army comic strips dated 1962. I assume it's a digest of comics or?

This example I saw online and had it's dust jacket is rather smart indeed.

The strips include (courtesy of LetsGoCommando)

* 

Addendum:

You can read much much more about this book online by an enthusiast, nothingbutafan.

https://nothingbutafan.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/another-pleasant-valley-sunday/

Vintage Otley Outing

 With the Missus and a mate, visiting my favourite vintage toy shop round here, in Kirkham Arcade in Otley, I was really pleased to bag a few great collectables for the Moonbase collection.

The haul comprised of a smart loose JR21 FAB1, a neat re-issue Corgi Black Beauty and an Action Man Rifle Rack along with the golden grenade launcher. I had all of these as a kid and it was great to get them back and a snip at £30 the lot.

In the town's charity shops I bagged an old hardback copy of Brave New World, a paperback horror by Shaun Huston and a hardback Adventure Annual with Pyro toy designs on the cover. 

My final item was a cool multi-rotational tin globe. It rotates on two axes! 

All in all a great day out.

What do you reckon? 

More on all of them to follow.

Spy Stories for Boys:

I so remember getting this hardback one Christmas in the late 1960's or early 70's: Supernatural Stories for Boys. 

A wonderful gift from my parents with a fabulous cover! Alas, I don't recall reading it but I hope I did. I ought to now, I have a copy on the shelf!

A while back I posted a similar book for girls I saw online: Mystery Stories for Girls.

Well, the other day I saw yet another in the range in a charity shop: Spy Stories for Boys.

Did you have anything like this readers? 

BOOK SHELF NEIGHBOURS

 

Googling for vintage plastic novelty toys, I was really chuffed to see my 2019 book Toy Bunnies on Plastic Scooters next to Jean Rossi's Plastic Novelties and Toys of the 40's 50's and 60's.

Coincidentally, I've got Jean's fabulous American Schiffer book from 2002 next to my own own on the bookshelf!

Jean's was very much the inspiration for my own, although hers focuses on American plastic, whereas as my own is concerned with Hong Kong and specifically JR21 toys [many photographs by our very own Wotan Bill I might add!]

Alas, my self-published hardbacked effort is prohibitively priced on Blurb - you have to wait for their special offers before any mortal can afford a copy, unlike Jean's softback which is modestly priced on Amazon [click on the links above].

Despite Blurb's shortcomings I'm planning a second volume to the 2019 book, which itself took 10 years to research. I've already put 5 years into the second one, so it's not too far off I hope! Wotan Bill has already taken a lot of the photo's.

Watch this space.

LOPING ROUND LEEDS

 An impromptu trip to the bright lights of Leeds our nearest big city was a fun and festive experience yesterday, an unusual thing for us to do these days especially on a Sunday.

Evidence of the coming Yuletide was all around like this gorgeous Christmas tree in the Corn Exchange, the erstwhile grand circular Victorian grain market, now a haven for indie shop browsers.

Little shops where you can find ... Devil Man, not a Japanese character I know. You?

and customised Godzilla figures! Is that the King's original box below them? £75 is a king size price tag too! Would you pay that?

Some cute baby Gojiras and lots of new Japanese Manga characters in this cabinet, which are not my cup of cha but I'm sure they'll fly this December.

and this pugnacious fellow's name eludes me. You?

In a small bookstore I clocked new glossy editions of The Killing Joke and Death of Superman graphic novels, neither of which I have and either of which would be welcome under the baubled tree!

Were there graphic novels before the Killing Joke?

Onwards through the Victorian Quarter and its glass-bedecked wings of finery and festive glister ...

.... we arrived at Waterstones the bookstore in search of novels for our Grandson. Armed with a list from his Mum we quickly found them in the 9-12 section and then we began wandering.

I liked the film-related big books.

and the new copies of Dracula, a paperback I used to collect.

So many Star Wars novels these days. I remember when it was just Splinter of the Mind's Eye and Alan Dean Foster's other tomes available. Remember them?

In the Forever Young section It was nice to see Michael Ende's Neverending Story, a flick that will no doubt grace the Christmas schedules this year. I remember how it caught the public imagination. Getting Kajagoogoo and Limahl to sing the opening was a winner. Michael Ende, a Bavarian, died aged just 65, in 1995. I recall seeing his book MOMO in a German bookstore back in the 1980's for the first time - it had parts that read from either end I recall, like the palindromic name.

 Another novel on my bucket bookcase!

Richard Adams' Watership Down, along with The Plague Dogs, was part of my teenage rebellion against animal cruelty, as I'm sure it was for many kids back then. The film adaptation became a Christmas staple, although some scenes were too violent for very small children. Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes was a melodious bonus. Like The Snowman and Father Christmas, it feels like another time, another world, when I see it at Christmastime on the telly.

Ah, fuzzy felt! What a blast from the soft play past. I loved FF as a nipper and used to gingerly place oddments of felt lovingly on those backgrounds. Was there a farmyard? This is the Jungle and is a modern re-release, part of a 'classic series'.

As a teenager in the late Seventies I began to soak up all and everything between covers that today we might call quirky or geeky. Some were children's' books and Moomin troll was one of them. I still have my Seventies Moomin paperback and was thrilled to see an entire section devoted to the Finnish stars.

Always of interest since I read Lord of the Rings in the office drawer of my first paid job in 1978 [don't tell them!] the Tolkein shelves draw me in. My own interest lies in 1970's editions but I always enjoy looking at modern fayre.

When did you first read Lord of the Rings?

Shirley Jackson modern editions have their own section. Last year I read the Lottery, a quite devastating short story. I've loved her work since finding out she wrote the original story which the film The Haunting was based on, a book called The Haunting of Hill House. I adored the Haunting and the movie scared the Bejeezus out of me, an amazing feat given that it relies largely on sound for its scares, a real aural shocker. I've one more book on the shelf at home, which I've yet to read; We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Jackson died aged just 48 in Vermont.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince was a novella  that my wife gave me as a young man when we first got together in 1979, a copy I still have with her inscription when we first began giving each other books, a tradition we've kept going for 45 years.

Do you give your partner books?

I've not read Joan Aiken's 1962 kids' book The Wolves of Willoughby Chase but I remember seeing the film vividly. Starring the late great Mel Smith, it was that quintessential chilly winter Sunday movie to watch with the kids like the Secret Garden, Uncle Buck and Curly Sue. I imagine it'll be on this Christmas season. Have you seen it?

Last but not least, theHound of the Baskervilles is one of my favourite books all round and I adore a couple of the movie versions too. At one time I collected different editions of the Hound and have quite a few loping in the attic. This is a modern edition with a rather nice cover ......

but I prefer the original cover and binding of the 1902 first edition lavished with golden lettering and a simple silhouette of the hell hound, a tome which would set you back upwards of a thousand pounds! I wish!

Have you read it readers? Do you like the film versions? Which one?

So that was our rare wander round Leeds. Do you visit your nearest big city at all?