| Dec. 5th, 2005 @ 11:16 pm oh sister, my Sister |
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Current Mood:  cold
Current Music: Dark Orange Sunset by orbit Service
Can it be true? will he diverge even for a moment from his hoary coarse to spew forth other crap that no one of you will understand?
Oh sister, my dear sister, not my sister. In Fred's arms, you now rest, as its late, and its cold. Beyond the hairlines lay the scars of battle, once met and fought. I know your pain, I feel your brain. What next? Who can it be next? But, well you are, for the moment, but a scar. What the future holds will be good things and great deeds. Maybe Big Shoes will say how-do-you-do.
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Back to my regularly scheduled rantings.
Phoenix and his damnedable coffee. Many a night after the show, we would arrive at our beloved pancake eatery ready for whatever may come. We sat, we spoke, we told tall tales of small ships. Costumed at times, consumed by what we could only think was profound idiocy. We talked of school, we talked of our friends, we spoke of many things. Did I say friends? yes, we had some of those. more acquaintances as well. but many many friends. I miss some of them the most of all. But I miss some of them not at all. You were there, and you, and you... And we had to follow the yellow stick row, to get to the wizzers house.
He drew up some papers, that one sterno of which I have spoken in the past. "Mind the Oranges Marlon" or was it the 3rd foundation. How then, did one such as I, who abhore things of this vane become enmeshed in the 3rd foundation? That was the ersatz name of the Science fiction club at one High school. Sterno had drawings, now I have them. Sterno had laws and rules, now I have them, Sterno had an explanation and exclamation, now I have them all. I look at them, in his own hand. Written with a pen from outer space. He led the band for a while, as did I.
Most of the people liked the fantasy style of books, me? I really did not care for them. Dungeons, dragons, elfs, hobbits, dreary stuff for me, but somehow Sterno could read that. He even liked it. I liked harder Sciency crap, or so I thought, who knew that asimov was just as hokey as the hobbit? Well, I guess I liked some from Jones, and some from van vogt. But my real read, was wierd tales, old pulpy stuff. Just like my orange juice. But when did I discover my real passion? and whose fault was it? Why Sterno of course! What a maroon!
It was a hot summer in Chicago, as summer is want to be. Humid, broiling, and hot. It was the summer prior to Sterno's senior year. I was working my buttox off at some joe job selling nails and cutting glass. Recovering from surgery on my leg not 6 months earlier. In the heat of one late July day Sterno hands to me a scrappy book of little consequence. Something by H.P. Lovecraft. I read the notes on the back cover, it sounded like CRAP! It was called the "colour out of space" You know that pretentios off spelling of color that all the kids who wanted to be from england used? (Oh they spoke with accents and all... but we knew they were really from Skokie!) Well, it mentions space, so it must not be too crappy I thought. Sterno said "Read this if you are bored, its just the kind of thing that you would like." what did that long haired freak know about what I liked? 'Oh crap, its one of those space fantasies from england, right? some crap with cats in space ships or some such idiocy?" "Nope" he confidently smiled "its just up your alley"
So I took that book off his hands (I still have the very copy, its a bantam paperback). I went home, threw it on my bed and went to work. I had to unload the cement truck that day, and cut about 50 pieces of pipe (my bosses saved money by not buying pre-cut pipe nipples..... long and VERY boring story...). When I got home, I was too tired to read, so I did the next best thing, I watched the "Andy Griffith show" on our little 9 inch black and white TV. Yes, you young rich kids, they did have those still when I was in high school, it was what all the kids on my side of town watched.
That sunday, my Mom was gone, my brothers were no where to be found, so I curled up on the red and gold chintz couch in the living room of our apartment for a read. I finished reading some crap I had to read for school the prior year. Something about sleds, pickle dishes, and frustrated women who hated the loutish oafs they were married to. Fine read for a high school student to be sure. Why was I reading it during the summer? well I still had the book. and since it saw no use during the school year, it was still fresh and new! (I never seemed to do any home work in high school, maybe thats why I didn't get into a good college... he he he). At any rate, after having my fill of Edith Wharton, I decided to give that book from Sterno a try. It turned out to be "short" stories. I say it that way because the title story wasn't 8,10 or 14 pages, like most short stories, no this long winded new englander thought 141 pages was a dandy length for a short story! Oh well, back to the book. As I lay in our sweltering appartment (we did not have air conditioning) I read this twisted masterpiece. The story went no where, and got there very fast. It droned on and on, and yet, I could not seem to put it down. I read each page, and thought, surely, something must happen. It dragged on and on, like this story... But I was mezmerizes. I could not stop reading. Then it happened, about 2/3 the way through the title story I fell asleep. How long I was asleep for, I am not aware, of what I dreamed I did not then, nor do I now, recall. All i do know is that when my mother came home from wherever she was, I lay on the couch, "White as a sheet, perspiring as if I were on fire, and not breathing" or so she said. All I remember is that I knew, whatever dream I had, it was due to the book. Whatever physical effect it had on me, it was all the fault of the book. That night, I finished that book. I read every book I could find at the library by lovecraft. I read every book I could find by the other authors whom lovecraft write with.
For the past 30+ years I have purchased every book of lovecrafts I could get my hands on (in french, korean, japanese even) I have read everything by Howard, bloch, smith, derleth (yes, even the poetry) and the man himself. It was Sterno who was to blame for my biblio-mania, it is all sterno's fault that my personal library numbers in the thousands of titles, more than half of which are by, about, in the style of, or by friends of, H.P. Lovecraft. Dude, you have made moving a living hell!
But enough about me, what do YOU think of my library?
BTW, go to the orbit service web site, listen to their music, then go to the iTunes music store and buy all of it you can, before they run out. |
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