In the early nineties (it might have been 1992, but it’s hard to remember when you’re having a good time) I joined a rock-and-roll band composed mostly of writers. The Rock Bottom Remainders were the brainchild of Kathi Kamen Goldmark, a book publicist and musician from San Francisco. The group included Dave Barry on lead...
The Mabinogion (Welsh pronunciation: [mabɪˈnɔɡjɔn] ⓘ) are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier...
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to...
With insight, humor, and practicality, Natalie Goldberg inspires writers and would-be writers to take the leap into writing skillfully and creatively. She offers suggestions, encouragement, and solid advice on many aspects of the writer’s craft: on writing from “first thoughts” (keep your hand moving, don’t cross out,...
Gertrude Stein moved from California to Paris in 1903 with the aspiration of becoming a writer. She is best known for her art collection, plays, and novels, which involve radical experiments in language and the use of “stream-of-consciousness.” Once settled in Paris, she built up an art collection while living with her...
The Way that can be articulately described is not the Unchanging Way. The name that can be said out loud is not the Unchanging Name. With your mouth unopened, and things left undefined, you stand at the beginning of the universe. Make definitions, and you are the measure of all creation....
Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe......
Black Orpheus (Portuguese: Orfeu Negro [ɔɾˈfew ˈneɣɾu]) is a 1959 romantic tragedy film directed by French filmmaker Marcel Camus, and starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which set the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in a contemporary favela in...
David Day's A TOLKIEN BESTIARY is a scholarly, definitive and enchantingly beautiful explanation of all the imaginary beasts, monsters, races, nations,deities, fauna and flora of J.R.R- Tolkien's fantasy worlds of Middle-earth and the Undying Lands....
I am Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ib Al Abbas, Ibn Rasid, Ibn Hammad. And things were not always thus. At one time, I was a poet in the greatest city in the world. Life was easy and I lived without care. Until one fateful day, I met a beautiful woman who belonged to another man....
HE AWOKE--and wanted Mars. The valleys, he thought. What would it be like to trudge among them? Great and greater yet: the dream grew as he became fully conscious, the dream and the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of the other world, which only Government agents and high officials had seen. A clerk like...
You’re walking in a thick forest, alone. It’s late afternoon, so it’s starting to get dark. The shadows are growing longer. Suddenly you notice that it’s eerily quiet. The birds have stopped singing, the bugs aren’t buzzing, and everything seems to be unnaturally still. Then you hear it. Or did you? Was that a...
Well, that covers a lot of ground. Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself. You better beat it - I hear they're going to tear you down and put up an office building where you're standing. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. You know,...
Why are you such a derelict? Such a piece of human junk? The answer's simple. You're a scanner, which you don't realize. And that has been the source of all your agony. But I will show you now that it can be a source of great power....
The Druid egg is a mysterious little-known tool only described by historical outsiders. This installment of the Druid Tool series explores the Druid egg....
A beloved figure of Ghanaian folklore, Anansi is a spider god and a charming trickster who triumphs over larger and more powerful adversaries by using his wits alone....
Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy adventure film co-written, produced, and directed by Terry Gilliam. It stars Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Peter Vaughan and David Warner. The film tells the story of a young boy taken on an adventure through time...
Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète sauvage; Czech: Divoká planeta, lit. 'The Wild Planet') is a 1973 French-language experimental independent adult animated science fiction art film, directed by René Laloux and written by Laloux and Roland Topor, the latter of whom also completed the film's production design. The film was...
"The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits."...
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition and Astrology. The governess was always getting muddled with her astrolabe, and when she got specially muddled she would take it out of the Wart by rapping his knuckles. She did not rap Kay’s...