Hurley House Blog Feed

White Teeth

2013-05-17T18:58:25-05:00

You know how you read a book, then re-read it several years later and you’ve pretty much forgotten everything? It can be kinda cool, really. You know… you get to experience it all again and it’s like the first time.

That’s how it was with White Teeth* for me. We read it for the Civil Life reading group. Of course we met to discuss it on April 15, and I didn’t finish the book until like May 10 or something… Yeah.

It’s really a cool book. Set in London in the 70s through the 90s, it traverses time, cultures, religions…. it questions beliefs, motives, emotions… It’s really complex, yet simple at the same time.

Just go read it.

"Expendable" July 1953

2013-04-11T15:01:02-05:00

Fantasy and Science Fiction July 1953
PKD V1 * (157-161)

An unnamed man scurries about terrified of insect informers. The ants are gods. They inhabited the earth before man came from another planet; it has been war between them ever since. The ants have been kept at bay until now. But the spiders, along with the birds and a few others, oppose the ants. There is a chance they may be able to save man … in general that is, as a species. Our poor unnamed character, however, is doomed.

Original drawing by Patrick.

New Arrivals Weekly Roundup 2013-04-07

2013-04-03T11:01:56-05:00

"The Preserving Machine" June 1953

2013-04-03T15:12:50-05:00

Fantasy and Science Fiction June 1953
PKD V1 * (149-156)

Doc Labyrinth is concerned that civilization is on the brink of destruction, as was the Roman Empire during its period of decline. What he most dreads losing is music, so he designs a machine to transform musical scores into animals so that they might survive the coming changes. But when the creatures are released into the wild, they adapt in order to defend themselves. Some, like the wagner animal, attack others. When the Doc puts a bach bug back through the machine to hear what a fugue sounds like, it is now cacophony. The experiment fails. As the narrator drives away, he sees the beethoven beetle wall himself away from the world inside a mud structure.

Image from Vintage Printable

New Arrivals Weekly Roundup 2013-03-31

2013-04-03T11:00:13-05:00

Titus Andronicus

2013-03-30T11:17:27-05:00

Oh wow. I’m glad I read a comedy before reading this one… Tarantino and Greenaway have nothing on Shakespeare. Patrick and Jim both warned me that this was probably Shakespeare’s most violent play, so I was prepared, but yeah, wow.

So it’s all about revenge. Titus, like Coriolanus, is a hero for his country, but is soon betrayed by it. Sorrow upon sorrow is heaped on him. Revenge, he needs. Revenge, he gets. But not without a price, of course… this is a tragedy, after all, and we all know how tragedies go.

I’m a little nervous about watching a performance of this (if there is one recorded), I have to say. Violence isn’t really my thing. But I’ll deal. It’s my plan and I intend to follow through with it.

UPDATE 2013-03-30 11:27: There is a recorded performance… starring Anthony Hopkins… “quid pro quo.”

A little note: I’m taking a break from Shakespeare to read White Teeth * by Zadie Smith for The Civil Life Brewing Company’s Civil Reading Group.

"The Infinites" May 1953

2013-03-29T13:50:06-05:00

Planet Stories May 1953
PKD V1 * (131–148)

A crew of three visits asteroids to prospect for minerals. They come across an asteroid with all the necessary conditions to sustain life, yet is does not. They are preparing to send some pigs (at one point referred to as “hamsters” p. 132) to the surface to see if it is safe when they are hit with a blast of radiation. They evolve several million years in a moment, gainer greater tactile and cognitive powers, but lose their hair and become physically weaker. Blake becomes a megalomaniac and wants to return to earth and conquer it, then the whole universe, under the guise of helping humanity. He kills Sylvia with a disk weapon he has invented. They are heading back to Terra, but Blake’s plans are threatened when five embodiments of pure energy arrive. They kill Blake and resurrect Sylvia. They are the hamsters/pigs, who have evolved much further than the humans, due to the fact that they were the first to feel the radiation and that they had, evolutionarily speaking, much further to go. Sylvia and Eller are returned to their normal states by the advanced hamsters, who have no interest in the human race, whose potential for advancement, not to mention ethical behavior, is considerably less than their own.

"Piper in the Woods" February 1953

2013-03-27T17:52:17-05:00

Imagination February 1953
PKD V1 * (113–129)

A young patrolman from Asteroid Y-3 believes he is a plant. He sits in the sun all day and sleeps when it is dark, refusing to do any of his duties. The syndrome spreads and Dr. Harris investigates. He interrogates these “plants” with the shock box and learns that they were taught to be plants by “the Pipers.” Harris goes to Asteroid Y-3 to find these Pipers. He sees a native who says she will lead him to these Pipers. She has the same supple movements as the plants. Harris returns to the base commander and says he has solved the problem but not cured it. He sees the Pipers as a psychological projection, allowing the plants to refuse work and to lounge about as primitives would have before the speed and duties of modern society changed us all. Harris says he will start them all on therapy in the morning. Then he covers the floor of his room with nice warm dirt and settles down to sleep. He too is now a plant.

Photo from The Public Domain Review

"Mr. Spaceship" January 1953

2013-03-26T15:19:26-05:00

Imagination January 1953
PKD V1 * (87-111)

In order to defeat an enemy whose living, intelligent mines seem impossible to fight effectively,Terra implants a spaceship with the brain of an old professor. They think that the disembodied brain will have no consciousness; they are wrong. The professor thinks and consequently retains his human identity despite his inanimate embodiment. His hatred of war causes him to try an experiment. He will be like the god of a new world, peopled by Phil Kramer and his wife (separated) Delores and then their offspring. They will be divorced from the Terran customs and traditions that the professor so strongly feels are the root causes of conflict. The question is, is war a learned habit or an ingrained human instinct.

Photo from The Public Domain Review

New Arrivals Weekly Roundup 2013-03-24

2013-03-23T08:49:54-05:00

“The Defenders” January 1953

2013-03-21T16:54:57-05:00

Galaxy January 1953
PKD V1 * (67-85)

It has been eight years since war broke out between the Americans and the Soviets. The surface world is radioactive and unlivable. “Leadies” conduct the war up above while all the humans live deep underground, producing war materials nonstop and following news of the progress of the war. They subsist on artificial light and food. The humans must rely on the leadies for information on surface conditions since they themselves cannot visit the surface because of the high levels of radioactivity. Then a non-radioactive leady visits some officials below and they become suspicious. On surfacing, they find the beautiful old world still intact, with all the old animals, plants, etc. The leadies had analyzed the war they had been created to fight by proxy and found it pointless and stopped it. They are caretakers of the world until the Americans and Soviets can transcend war and form a global society based on cooperation and mutual understanding. The Americans immediately try to restart the war but are stopped by the leadies. Ultimately, they join a few Russians in living together in a village, and the story ends on an optimistic note with a glance forward toward all mankind will be able to achieve when they work together instead of against one another.

Photo by Post of the Soviet Union, designer N. Litvinov (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

“The Skull” September 1952

2013-03-21T16:44:41-05:00

If September 1952
PKD V1 * (47-65)

Conger is a hunter serving a prison term for some sort of illegal trading. The authorities need his special skills. They want him to go into the past and kill the “founder” of a non-violent sect of quasi-Christians. They show him the skull for identification. He takes the skull and a gun into the past. First he goes to just after when the founder died and researches the papers. Then he travels further back to kill him before he can deliver his message. Ultimately, he holds the skull next to his own face and realizes that he is the founder. He gives the assembled crowd a brief paradox, then waits to die, knowing he will be seen to have risen from the dead in “the near future.” By a neat accident, the authorities of his own time have brought about the very thing they had hoped to prevent.

"The Gun" September 1952

2013-03-21T15:38:08-05:00

Planet Stories September 1952
PKD V1 * (35-46)

Seeing evidence of what looks like atomic fission on a large scale, a planet sends a ship and small crew to investigate this hitherto unknown place. Nuclear war has destroyed the entire planet. The crew members repeatedly show complete bewilderment that two peoples on the same planet would fight one another. Their ship is hit by atomic shells just when it flies close to the ruins of a city. The captain is injured and later dies. Nasha, his dark-haired girl assistant leads a search party to explore the ruins of the planet. They find a giant gun that launches nuclear warheads at anything that moves close to the surface of the planet. As in the old myths, it is the “dragon” that guards the treasure. The treasure turns out to be primarily the former society’s literature, art, etc. They decide to bring it back to their planet to study it, but first must disable the gun, which they do easily by following the universal myth that describes the dragon’s soft underbelly—its vulnerable spot. Having disabled the gun, they repair their ship and start back toward home, where they will prepare to return for the now unguarded “treasure.” As they leave, a red light goes off in the damaged gun sending a signal that summons a series of repair carts to bring parts and new warheads to the gun.The gun will be ready for them when they return. Like similar stories from the era, it is largely cold-war parable, but there is a good deal more going on.

The Comedy of Errors

2013-03-21T14:51:13-05:00

Anyone who follows this section of the Hurley House blog knows I’ve been reading Shakespeare’s plays for the last few months. I’d started because I had re-watched Slings & Arrows. I have to say, I could watch that series over and over again. The more Shakespeare I read, the more references I get. And the more I get, the more emotional the show becomes for me. I mean, it’s a comedy, true, but I burst into tears at least once a season. Twice. More than that. OK, almost every time I’m watching them perform one of the plays well, I burst into tears.¹

So the first two plays I read were the featured plays for seasons one and three of the show: Hamlet and King Lear (I skipped Macbeth because I’d read it before, and I’m saving all the plays I’ve already read until last… you know, in case I die or something before I get through them all…). Then I read all the plays we had as Pelican Shakespeare editions, because those books are so easy and comfortable to read. Finally, I started reading from The Riverside Shakespeare,* in chronological order (as listed in The Riverside). I just finished The Comedy of Errors. And I finally get who Cyril’s talking about when he sings “Either of the Dromioes” in the opening theme of the second season.

So in S&L, Geoffrey and Oliver hammer home the point about theater being that thing, that place, that asks the audience member to momentarily suspend her disbelief. Not like film or television, though. Film and television often don’t even come close to asking you to do that. They often create a completely alternate reality and place you in it. Often the unbelievable is believable in film an television. There often is no disbelief to start with. But the stage is different. Even if the effects are beyond terrific, it will still seem less real. You bring disbelief with you, but you’re asked to check it at the door. Consciously. And Geoffrey, anyway, seems to like it that way. So do I.

Take this play, for example. I read it, but haven’t seen it performed (yet). And while I was reading it, I was asked to suspend my disbelief:

A twin and his servant go searching for the twin’s long-lost brother and finally arrive in the country where the brother lives—wearing exactly the same clothing as the brother and his servant, who happens to be the twin’s servant’s twin—then they get caught up in all kinds of mistaken-identity confusion and silliness with the brother and his wife and sister-in-law, the servant’s twin and his mistress, a courtesan, merchants, an abbess, and the law.

Wowza.

Talk about suspension of disbelief. I did it, though, and it was really worth it. The play is delightful, and I can’t wait to see a performance of it.

It’s a short play… go read it.

¹ There is an instance of a play being performed badly… sort of… but it’s good. You’ll understand when you watch it. I don’t burst into tears at that one.

New Arrivals Weekly Roundup 2013-03-16

2013-03-16T21:04:11-05:00