Book #5 for 2024. My only experience of Tarzan thus far is the TV version with Ron Ely (which I haven’t seen since I was quite little so don’t remember much) and Looney Tunes parodies of the Johnny Weissmuller films, so reading the original book (which I was spurred to do by Burroughs enthusiast Michael Vaughan on YT) was a fascinating experience. Tarzan, of course, is raised by anthropoid apes in Africa, rescued after the deaths of his parents who were stranded somewhere in Africa by a crappy mob of mutinous sailors; the young human boy is obviously unlike the other members of his “family”, and as he grows and sights other humans for the first time, he discovers he is in fact much more like these other creatures. It must be said the book’s handling of racial issues is… of its time, perhaps, and makes H. Rider Haggard look relatively progressive, although Tarzan’s first encounters with other white people are about as confusing to him as the black villagers who’ve fled the Congo (and Burroughs is clear about the latter’s hatred of white people being justifiable given the atrocities perpetrated there by the Belgians). And the intro to the Modern Library edition does make it clear that Tarzan’s whiteness is kind of the point, it’s what makes him the near superhero the book paints him as. Unsubtle, but undeniably rip-roaring stuff, I liked this a lot; I did it find the last part a bit unlikely, in that Tarzan adjusts to Western civilisation with almost undue haste, to the point of having learned to drive somehow before the fiery climax, I found this a bit hard to swallow—as opposed, obviously, to the gritty realism of the rest of the book—although certainly not enough to put me off the whole book too much. Must read more Burroughs.
Month: January 2024
RIP Harry Keogh
News just came through that Brian Lumley left us at the start of the month. Orrin Grey offers what strikes me as an even-handed obit here:
Like most of the rest of the horror community, it would seem, I learned last night that Brian Lumley passed away earlier this month at the age of 86. Lumley’s is a name that never quite attained the same sheen as certain other writers who were his predecessors or contemporaries, but he is nonetheless one who was an important stepping stone for many of us, myself included. […]
I’m not sure how many of the Necroscope books I actually read, but it certainly wasn’t all of them. Reading that first one at a formative age, though, had a big impact on me. Here was pulp horror in a vein I had, at that time, rarely encountered, told with scope and ambition to spare, and crammed with big (and sometimes goofy) ideas. […]
Lumley did have many standout stories, though. He wasn’t one of the best writers we’ve ever had. His stories were pulp throwbacks through and through but, like the best of the pulp writers, they were usually entertaining, quick to read, and full of ideas, even when the execution was sometimes lacking. And even then, it wasn’t always. Lumley could do atmosphere, when he set his mind to it, and he could describe monsters with the best of them.
That seems about right. Not exactly the greatest writer—I’ve mostly read his Cthulhu Mythos stuff, and it’s a bit… oof at times; he clearly took more cues from August Derleth than from Lovecraft—but I must concede he was perfectly readable in a somewhat pulp way, and I recall really liking House of Doors when I read that a long time ago… plus I suppose Necroscope was a sort of stepping stone for me, too, it would’ve been one of the first modern (only a few years old at that point) horror books I read while making my first inroads in that genre back at the start of the 90s… I’ve been giving some thought for quite a while to going back to that series, just the bewildering number of books he wound up writing in that series has daunted me, especially given the length of most of them; we’re not quite talking Wheel of Time proportions, but still pretty big. Still, it might be nice to see how well they hold up, so maybe this year I’ll finally do it…
Welcome to Nu Earth
So Duncan Jones is making a Rogue Trooper movie.
In other news, this is the first I’ve heard a Rogue Trooper film was even being contemplated, let alone actually being made; Jones says he’s finished principal photography, which I find an odd phrase for a film that’s going to be animated (maybe he means photography for motion capture?), but either way we can apparently look forward to it next year. Apparently Jones has been wanting to make this for 20+ years, so this really does appear to be something of a passion project; I just wish I’d known about it before this so I could’ve been excited about it longer…
The Women of Weird Tales
Book #4 for 2024. I said I would read this as a follow-up to Monster She Wrote and so I did. Something of a variable mixed bag, as you might expect; I will confess to struggling a bit through the first few stories, but as the volume progresses things pick up and on the whole I’d call it pretty successful. About two thirds of the stories come from the 1920s, with Mary Elizabeth Counselman’s two coming from the late 30s and Greye La Spina’s last three from the ’40s; interesting that La Spina gets five stories in here despite only being mentioned in passing in MSW, while the evidently enigmatic Eli Colter only makes one appearance, and not with the intriguing-sounding “weird western” described in that book. Everil Worrell completes the quartet, and she gets some of the more interesting stories in the collection cos they have science fiction elements; classically dubious early SF science, of course, but they give a certain additional flavour to proceedings (which can be kind of predictable at times, e.g. the revelation that a character in the last story, La Spina’s “The Antimacassar”, is a vampire is kind of telegraphed on the second page or so). Occasionally only historically interesting, but for the most part enjoyable stuff; another volume of this stuff wouldn’t go astray at all.
Important images 29
Nudity… a bit. Also contains Meghan McCain and Tucker Carlson. (Sorry.)
(Tommy) Robinsons
WOOF. Susanne Horman is the owner of Robinsons, an independent bookstore chain in Victoria, who has some clearly… interesting opinions about some of the books she sells. She tweeted the above guff about five weeks ago but it seems to have only started circulating yesterday, I got the above screenshot from Reddit; perhaps unsurprisingly Susanne’s deleted her Twitter and the company posted an apology on Facebook, which, because they’re obviously cowards, they closed comments on, so I’m responding here. This was their apology:
And this is my response:
Now, that was a screenshot of Susanne’s tweets. I obviously can’t confirm 100% if she’s deleted her Twitter, but it’s an image. It’s not just a text transcription. If they’ve been “edited by individuals” and taken out of context, 1) how and 2) what the hell context was that going to sound good in? She’s tried restating it, though to be honest I’m not sure she made it sound better:
Horman said her buying team at Robinsons have noticed publishers were releasing an overflow of similar books with “little variation of themes” in the past two to three years, which has caused what she described as an “imbalance” in the market.
“For one reason or another, we have various categories of books not being written or published in sufficient quantities to meet customer demand,” Horman said. “Some genres are overflowing on our shelves and others are noticeably bare. Positive stories with men and boys as the hero are almost missing from the mix.”
Look, I’m not an expert in the book trade so I don’t know all what books are in fact out there, but I’m sure SOMEONE must be writing books like that, and Susanne isn’t looking hard enough. And it’s not just this perceived lack of positive male hero stories that’s her problem, clearly, when you look at what else she said in her tweets. Other family arrangements, disability, queerness, indigenousness… these things are bad too, apparently, despite being, you know, the daily reality for a lot of kids out there (I am particularly struck personally by the disability thing, of course). Did a non-binary Koori person from a single parent household run over Susanne’s foot with their wheelchair or something?
Susanne’s tweets may not represent the views of Robinsons, but they evidently DO represent the owner of the business, who is clearly unhappy about some of the stuff she’s selling (though she should be happy that professional racist and gay homophobe Douglas Murray is one of Robinsons’ best-selling non-fiction writers) and wants more books about straight, white, able-bodied people in traditional families. Which, you know, she has the right to sell that sort of stuff if she wants. It’s just that she could’ve done that without looking like a complete arseclown on social media. Not saying the quiet bits out loud is usually the best move…
Poor little rich cunts, eh
The right wing is still malding over Albo modifying their precious tax cuts, but David Shittleproud is really being silly about it:
An income of $190,000 is “not a lot in this day and age” the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has claimed while criticising Labor’s tax changes which are set to benefit working-class and regional areas. […]
On Monday Guardian Australia published an analysis by the Australian National University associate professor Ben Phillips finding that working-class communities in Coalition-held remote and regional electorates stand to gain the most, including Leichhardt, Forde and Herbert in Queensland.
The average taxpayer in Whitsunday, in the electorate of Dawson, East Pilbara in Durack, and Cairns in Leichhardt stands to gain over $600 more from Labor’s package than the Morrison government’s stage-three tax cuts. In Littleproud’s seat the average taxpayer in the Darling Downs (west) and Maranoa area will receive $595.
Asked on Monday about that local impact, Littleproud told Sky News that “those people in my electorate, many of which who are on much of the lower end of the scale in wages, did already get a tax cut”.
Littleproud cited the Coalition’s earlier two stages of tax cuts, explaining the third stage was about the “aspiration” of families including “tradies, who have kids at school and mums at home looking after some of the kids”.
“They’re getting caught up in this and it’s all relative,” he said. “Their mortgages are still up there.”
“Their cost of living’s still there and they’re only on $180,000, $190,000. And that’s still not a lot in this day and age.”
The Graun writer then goes on to note that if you’re making more than $180k per annum, that puts you in the top four percent of all earners in this country. I make under $30k each year on my pension, for what it’s worth, and I only do as well as I do because I was able to build up savings for years before needing it (folks never charged me rent or anything for living at home, which was handy). But they’re the ones not making much, not me. This really is just about conservatives hating poor people, isn’t it? Even poor people in their own electorates who voted for them and who’ll be better off because of the ALP. Great vote-winning there, David.
I didn’t know you could do this as a job
Yo! Daily Wire Raps!
I’ve said that I’m trying to be more positive on here, and in the interests of that I give you the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages:
This is FUCKING TRANSCENDENT. I saw something on Facebook the other day about Boon Shabibula teaming up with Canadian rapper and all-round conservative shithead Tom Macdonald for a “song”, and, well, the story is true (though I prefer to link to this commentary video rather than give them the view)…
…but that’s the Youtube video thumbnail image, which I think says it all: Ben looking REALLY COMFORTABLE AND NATURAL in a hoodie with “Facts don’t care about your feelings” on the front, and White Canadian Dude in another hoodie reading “I don’t care if I offend you”… and that’s a lie, of course, cos a few lines later after saying that at the start of the chorus, he then says “I hope I offend you”. So it does matter to him, and let’s face it, offending people seems to be all this tedious cunt has…
As for Ben, I think it’s kind of hilarious he’s in a rap video given that he doesn’t even think rap is music; I suppose when it’s someone like Cornrows & Face Tattoos Motherfucker doing it, though, that makes a difference, it’s not a black person expressing their perspective. And to be honest, hip hop is an art form I personally have no real use for; I think it’s been pretty bereft of interest for decades and there’s not really much to it beyond this sort of posturing bullshit (with a few exceptions like Zaid Tabani). But this is hardly a serious contribution to the art in any case, it’s just a shitty bit of trolling by both of these clowns, cos that sort of vacuity is all Ben has too…
Hilariously, in the course of looking for stuff on this subject, I found this video from a few years ago called “Ben Shapiro if he could rap”. Now that we’ve heard the real Ben actually rap, all I can say is the creator of this video VASTLY overrated Ben’s abilities…
Happy 30th anniversary of “Australia Day”
Amazingly, it wasn’t until 1994 that the whole country—all the states and territories—actually celebrated Australia Day on January 26 itself; for decades before that, they’d mark it on the nearest Friday or Monday to make sure they got a long weekend out of the deal. (Assuming they marked it at all, which apparently they didn’t in Canberra during the 1960s. Only the capital of the fucking country.) That’s how much people really gave a shit about January 26 per se, it was far from the sacred date some people want you to believe it is; as I’ve said since the whole “change the date” debate started heating up, as long as we get the public holiday no one really cares when.
Anyway, Stilgherrian posted… this on Mastodon earlier today:
They found whatever this is out front of some antiques shop in Katoomba, where apparently this sort of thing is a frequent occurrence. Also, the shop has a red ensign flag out front, which is evidently a sign of sovereign citizen bullshit and other far right idiocy. Charming people running this place, obviously. Slightly puzzled by the logic of the sign, we should boycott businesses that insult our servicefolks who died for us though “the bankers” made them do so… given that was arguably a greater insult to them than Woolworths not selling Australia Day merch, maybe we should boycott “the bankers” instead? But why do I feel like “bankers” here is code for THE JOOOOOOOOOOS? Maybe let’s not do that.
Talking of people not into our Hebrew cousins…
…this was the rather more WTF story from today:
A group of men wearing all black, including balaclavas, have sparked a police operation in North Sydney.
A train travelling into Sydney abruptly terminated at North Sydney Station due to the operation.
A number of men wearing all black were inside one of the carriages.
They produced a banner referencing a Neo-Nazi group.
The operation led to Sydney buses diverting services to the Pacific Highway, missing up to two stops.
The police operation began at 11:30am this morning and ended just after 4pm.
NSW Police said there were no injuries and there was no threat to public safety.
Obviously, cos if there’s one thing I associate with a mob of sixty-odd fucking NEO-NAZIS (including Thomas Sewell, apparently) gathering in public en masse, it’s A LACK OF THREAT TO OTHER PEOPLE. I don’t think somehow that these cunts were just there to have a nice picnic or something for the public holiday. (Not this particular one, at any rate.) Can’t say I’m a big fan of these guys running rampant around my city while being only minimally challenged. That’s something I think we should boycott.