The College Crowd Digs Me

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (1968) Published - New American Library Hardcover, 222 pages NO SPOILERS: I'm not a sci-fi reader of habit but I saw this early hardback with the attached sleeve in the used library bookstore for a dollar and picked it up.  I've watched the classic film at midnight-movie offerings a time or two and always had questions about it...so it was cool to trip on the words for a change.  I'm glad I finally got around to turning pages.  The  Arthur C. Clarke  classic is short, reads easily, and is not a time-suck.  And having seen the movie first doesn't hurt the reading experience one bit.   The world is a conflict of sterile, yet oddly warm, experiences and ultimately about exploration and pushing the limits of space travel.  The descriptive prose along the way on this space journey is often a breathtaking mind-blow.  And, as anyone who has seen the film already knows, A.I. has been foretold in these pa...

"Planet P"  - Planet P (1983) Planet P has always been a bit of a guilty-pleasure for me.  And I don't disparagingly mean this.  It's just that synth pop-rock has never been something I've actively sought out.  But then there are always exceptions, right? Several years ago, I was driving back to Wichita from a comedy spew I did in Kansas City.  It was long after midnight before I got out of the suburb traffic, and finally found some highway space.  I picked up a radio station playing a three-fer from an artist I didn't catch.  The songs were... "Static" … "Top Of The World" …and "Why Me."   Never heard any of them before.  I was having one of those pitch-dark solo drives where songs can sneak up and smack ya in the mouth and buzz right into your head.  And for the next 15 minutes, I was drive-trippin'. Many months passed before learning it was  Planet P  I had been listening to on the radio.  And I rushed out and bou...

"The Wizard Of Oz and Other Trans Love Trips"  - West Coast Workshop (1967) This is a wonderful psych album to add to the collection.  I suppose this offering falls under the exploitation hashtag, but don't be too quick to dismiss the West Coast Workshop goodness found within.  Nothing on "...Trans Love Trips" sounds the least bit cheap or throwaway.  This is an ambitious piece of avantgarde psych-jazz fusion.  Slices of sitars and flutes.  Guitars, brass, and percussion fall in beside a light dose of Eastern vibes.  Nothing is as it first appears.  The West Coast Workshop one-and-done offering might be cash-in but this spin gives back to the listener way more than it steals.   There are brief cops of a familiar melody, here and there, but just a dip.  And then only to remind us where we're at.  Nothing overstays its welcome.  Little is known about  West Coast Workshop,  but a member or three might have slipped ...

LATER by Stephen King (2021) Paperback, 248 pages NO SPOILERS: This is the third in Stephen King's... Hard Case Crime... novels.  It's a shortie and not King's best use of the QWERTY keyboard, but the story doesn't hurt none and reads like melted butter.  LATER  is told in the first person narrative by Jamie, a youngster who has the occasional brush with dead people who have recently passed.  Jamie is quick to remind the reader that it's a horror story he is sharing, and I suppose it is, but it doesn’t smack you in the mouth.  It's not a nerve-rattler, but it scratches a bit of the itch.    tccdm Arissa Chambers Unlike King's previous  Hard Case Crime offerings, LATER   is told in a single "Point-A to Point-B" style plot.  Not a bad thing.  Some supernatural shenanigans are definitely going on, but LATER   never reaches the level of "Get the fawck outta here" territory.  And this might be a dealbreaker for some, but...