The Golden Age

Finally a non-music related post.

There was a time in my life when I devoured science fiction. I was about 10 years old and we had moved from the city to the country and I was bored shitless. My safe, secure childhood had turned to uncertainty, insecurity and, looking back, I needed some escapism. This is before the guitar became my main obsession.

I had just seen 2001, then read the book, so the stage was set. Joining the SF book club (8 books for 99 cents!) sealed the deal. The two volume A Treasury of Great Science Fiction came in the mail, and well, it was. It contained the novels The Stars My Destination (Bester) and Rebirth (Wyndham), as well as a pile of classic short stories, which I read, and my mind was blown. I was best buds with a cousin, who had similar interests and we bought and cataloged our paperbacks with glee.

In the space of a bright, molten summer in either 1970 (or was it '71?), I went from Heinlein juveniles and Bradbury to the out there experimentalism of the Dangerous Visions anthology. I read all the Clarke I could get my hands on, and, even though I really didn't care for him that much, Asimov.

The devouring lasted a couple more years, through junior high (even more need to escape) and started to taper off once I hit freshman, too much time spent maintaining relationships with friends and doing what you do at that age to get grownup. All those paperbacks got packed away in a box somewhere, or donated to the library I suspect, so now I'm on a quest to re-acquire those titles, one at a time, volume by pulpy volume.

From memory, and by author, here's a list of what I read in that, my Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Arthur C. Clarke: 2001:A Space Odyssey, Childhood's End, Tales from the White Hart, The City and the Stars, A Fall of Moondust Isaac Asimov: The Foundation Trilogy, I,Robot, The Gods Themselves Robert Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Red Planet, Have Spacesuit Will Travel Ursula K. LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness, Rohannon's World Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man C.S. Lewis: Perlandra, Out of the Silent Planet, Edgar Rice Burroughs: Carson of Venus, A Princess of Mars Alfred Bester: The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination Frank Herbert: Dune, Dune Messiah

And numerous short story anthologies, The Hugo Winners, etc..

Splinters

I've released a collection of (mostly) acoustic oriented improvisational tunes, realized on solo 6, 12 string, resonator guitars and koto. These were created while taking part in the weekly improvFriday events over the last several months. For the most part they are acoustic, one take creations recorded live with no overdubbing, however the last tune (Kneejerk) is a bastard piece with some electric guitar and some live looping.

what is music?

Cave Street asked this at the listening party as it was winding down the other night (we were the only ones left)..he was extolling his own views on self-expression and was still on a high from seeing Akron/Family in Austin the previous night. I said, depending on who you are it can be a mode of commerce at one extreme, or a connection to spirit, love, God or whatever you choose to call it, on the other. Then there's always what Tom Waits said at his hall of fame induction that music (songwriting) is "just moving air around". I like that one.

improvFriday submission 4/1/11

Not much to say about this one. Started out with some Harry Partch virtual instruments, filtered through Sound Doodle, which I had to abandon because the program was so unstable. Added some gtr thru the DL4 and some live looping.


In the Nanoforge