Attention, audiophiles!

Did you know that Aldous Huxley's dystopian classic "Brave New World" is available on LP, narrated by the author? Neither did I. Better yet, you can download it for free.

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Tube twins

Michael Garrett sighted this example of the "tube-girl" meme at this amazing gallery*.

While a purist might argue that the structure encapsulating the twins is too wide to qualify as a genuine tube, I would argue that the presence of two women justifies the unusual proportions.

*Be sure not to miss the weaponized lobster.

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Tube-girl sighting!

I found this while browsing Golden Age Comic Book Stories' collection of Andre Norton covers.





For more, click here, here and here.

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I always suspected.

Reading Kafka Improves Learning, Suggests Psychology Study

Reading a book by Franz Kafka -- or watching a film by director David Lynch -- could make you smarter.

Enough said.

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"The Cosmic Puppets"

This edition of Philip K. Dick's "The Cosmic Puppets" features a bona-fide tube-girl on the cover. (I've read the novel and don't remember any tube-girls figuring into the plot, but I digress . . .)

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The meme that wouldn't die

I was browsing vintage science fiction art today and found myself confronted with this:





That's right -- yet another tube-girl!

And while this isn't a "true" example of tube-girl art, it's damned close. (The woman in the illustration appears to be emerging from a vat of espresso.)

Now I'm wondering if I should expand my search from "Golden Age" pulps to more contemporary genre illustration . . .

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Little green men

I'm always on the lookout for images that might have helped to popularize/disseminate the appearance of the quintessential alien (as depicted in Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and on the cover of Whitley Strieber's "Communion").

This charming cover art, dating from 1959, shows levitating humanoids not unlike the famed Hopkinsville goblins, who made their dramatic appearance just four years earlier.





Note the conspicuously Martian-looking terrain, a staple of 1950s science fiction. Somehow the notion of a desert planet, bereft of recognizably human structures, speaks to our innate sense of the "other."

Related: The Deep Politics of Hollywood: Close Encounters with the Pentagon.

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Tubular

The "women in tubes" meme is astonishingly prevalent in Golden Age genre fiction. To the best of my knowledge, this album remains the definitive resource, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover additional illustrations. The following are just a few examples I've amassed while editing this blog.













Lastly, here's a contemporary example (designed to mimic its pulp counterparts):





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Abducted by space Amazons!

Semi-random pulp science fiction cover illustration of the day:





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"Sandman Slim"

A pivotal text of my pre-Internet years was Richard Kadrey's "Covert Culture Sourcebook," a lyrical guide to emerging authors, zines, fringe technology, and music. Only much later did I discover Kadrey's fiction; "Metrophage" and "Kamikaze "L'Amour" are among my favorite cyberpunk novels.

Kadrey's forthcoming "Sandman Slim," needless to say, is on my to-read list.



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Household pests of the apocalypse

I'm tempted to write a short-story based on the cover illustration above just to say I did it.

More far-out Spanish genre covers here.

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Burroughs and Acker

William S. Burroughs discusses art, writing and consciousness with Kathy Acker in this insightful interview, posted in its YouTubed entirety by Renegade Futurist.



I had the good fortune to see Burroughs and Acker onstage together in the mid-90s, the former in his customary suit and Acker decked out in intimidating leather and sporting dark hair. Although I hadn't yet seen it, both had appeared in a Nike commercial (which, miraculously, seems to be absent from YouTube).

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The motherlode?

Not quite -- but not too shabby, either. (Click here to go straight to the vintage science fiction gallery.)

(Tip of the hat to Michael Garrett.)

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The art of Thomas Allen

Many more here!

(Hat tip: Boing Boing.)

You're going to like this.

I promise.

Video tribute to J.G. Ballard

0164 (a tribute to J. G. Ballard, 1930-2009) from Jesús Olmo on Vimeo.

"When you cut into the present the future leaks out."

Cut-Ups from Matti Niinimäki on Vimeo.

Goodbye, J.G. Ballard.

J.G. Ballard, one of my favorite writers, has died. (The frightening prospect is that his apocalyptic legacy might be just beginning.)

Here's an interview with me about Ballard's influence on my own ideas.

To share your own Ballard remembrances, visit Ballardian.

The language of the future

Nine Words You Might Think Came from Science but Which Are Really from Science Fiction

I have a deep, lurking suspicion there are a hell of a lot more where these came from. "Cyborg" springs to mind as a possible candidate.

Ah Pook returns

"Ah Pook is Here": Unseen William S Burroughs Graphic Novel Art Show

Originally conceived as a graphic novel in the pictographic format of the surviving Mayan codices, the project -- eight years in the making -- consisted of over 100 illustrations by Malcolm McNeill, 30 in full color and about 50 pages of text. "Ah Pook is Here" would have been prohibitively expensive to publish at the time. As Burroughs wrote "over the years of our collaboration Malcolm McNeill produced more than a hundred pages of artwork. However, owing partly to the expense of full color reproduction, and because the book falls into neither the category of the conventional illustrated book, nor that of a comix publication, there have been difficulties with the arrangements for the complete work."

This is some serious surrealism, as savagely hallucinatory as Burroughs' best fiction. Click here if you dare.