Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

The most merciful thing in the world is, I think,
that the mind is unable to connect and link
all the disparate pieces of things that we know
and thus learn of the horrors that lurk down below.

Read it here.

Milk of Amnesia

We here at the "Dump" are awfully proud of our colleague and pal, Donna Lethal and the publication of her first commercially published work: Milk of Amnesia.



Donna Lethal’s debut is an authentic, can’t-put-it-down page-turner, an astonishing first-time work about growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts (Jack Kerouac’s home town) in the 1970s. With a stern ex-nun for a mother, a rascally bookie for a dad and a brother behind bars as often as not, Donna’s purgatory years in Lowell make for unforgettable reading. Her book is peopled with a rogues’ gallery of memorable local personalities, most hovering on the edge of small time crime, alcoholism, drug abuse and general oblivion. Funny and melancholic, sweet and brutal, it is everything a family memoir should be, a vivid flashback of haunting and hilarious memories arriving unbidden in the consciousness. Unlike some compulsive reads that evaporate after you’ve finished them, MILK OF AMNESIA’s images will stay with you, making you laugh or tear up at unexpected moments.

Speaking for the crew here at PCL, we wish her the best and urge all her faithful minions to go to Create Space and experience the Lethal magic.

Literary pets

Gilbert Alter-Gilbert at A Journey Round My Skull presents a handful literary pets.

"Nerval enthusiast Evonne Kummer with lobster at NY World Fair"


(c) Kate Simon, print, Burroughs and friend

The Good Soldier Švejk

Many of the fantastic illustrations from Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk by Josef Lada are uploaded to Flickr by Peacay. (via Bibliodyssey)

Charles Bukowski "poems and insults" (1973)

Public recordings from Charles Bukowski available at Paul Durango's music blog.
Thanks Paul!

Harry Stephen Keeler

HARRY STEPHEN KEELER (1890-1967) is one of the strangest writers who ever lived. In his time, he was pegged as a mystery novelist who also wrote some science fiction. Today, if you've heard of him at all, it's as the Ed Wood of mystery novelists, a writer reputed to be so bad he's good.



Some typical Keeler situations:
*A man is found strangled to death in the middle of a lawn, yet there are no footprints other than his own. Police suspect the "Flying Strangler-Baby," a killer midget who disguises himself as a baby and stalks victims by helicopter. (X. Jones of Scotland Yard, 1936)
*A disgruntled phone company employee calls every man in Minneapolis, telling him the morning papers will name him as the secret husband of convicted murderess Jemimah Cobb, who runs a whorehouse specializing in women with physical abnormalities. (The Man With the Magic Eardrums, 1939)

Yet another part of Keeler's charm is his unmitigatedly bad titles: Finger, Finger!, The Yellow Zuri, The Amazing Web, Find the Clock, and The Face of the Man From Saturn.

I have just finished reading The Case of the Crazy Corpse which features a mind-numbing plot involving a corpse discovered at the bottom of Lake Michigan. The body is unusual in that the bottom half is a Negro man and the top half is a Chinese woman who are joined together by some sort of greenish glue.

If that scenario floats your boat, check out these links:
Harry Stephen Keeler Home Page
HSK Society
RambleHouse

Roy Orbison In Clingfilm

"In this heartwarming seasonal tale Roy is now my neighbour in Dusseldorf and often pops round to my house to borrow kitchen necessities.
It is Christmas eve and Roy has popped round to enjoy a warming glass of Glühwein and help me affix tinsel to Jetta.
'Ach,' says Roy suddenly, 'I find I have forgotten to obtain a Christmas present for my Mother who is wintering at Baden.'
I sip my Glühwein carefully and remark, 'This will lead to familial tensions and unseasonal strife.'
'It is so,' says Roy.
'You know,' I say thoughtfully. 'It strikes me that the best gift a son can give his mother is himself.'
'What you say has a certain validity yet how are we to dramatize this concept in such a way that my mother will not merely feel gypped out of a present?'
'Perhaps if we were to wrap you in Christmas wrapping paper and convey you to Baden.'
'Also,' says Roy, rising. 'You will wrap me in Christmas wrapping paper and convey me to Baden at once.'
'Regrettably I find we have run out of wrapping paper and the shops have now closed. Logically some substitute will have to be found.'
'Yes, that is logical, but I cannot think what.' Roy looks around the room seeking that in which he may be wrapped.
My mouth is dry. I tickle Jetta's paws idly and say, 'You know, I believe I may have some cling-film in the kitchen.'" (Excerpt from 'Roy in Clingfilm at Christmas')

Mr. Ulrich Haarbürste likes to write stories about Roy Orbison being wrapped up in cling-film. If you have written any stories about Roy being completely wrapped in clingfilm please send them to him and he may put them up on his site.

Well?? What are you waiting for folks?!?!?!

Ulli's Roy Orbison In Clingfilm Website (via YesButNoButYes)

Where was Kerouac going?

"Jack Kerouac’s proposed design for the front cover of the paperback edition of On the Road (1952)."

"... And yet, if On the Road long ago ceased to be a revolutionary narrative, it did introduce a pair of legends that remain persistent—and, I’d argue, counterproductive—ideals. The first is that of spontaneous composition which Kerouac promoted throughout the ’50s, even banging out a short guide, “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” ...

... Kerouac, however, had been trying to write On the Road for two and a half years before he started working on this version; he’d struggled through several drafts that lacked the necessary immediacy and voice. That’s one reason the book has so much power—it’s the expression of an artist wrestling with a problem, the problem of how to make language and experience explode off the page. ...

... Nonetheless, he understood that spontaneity is not always the best strategy, and when he worked on Buddhist-themed books like The Scripture of the Golden Eternity (1960), which he considered holy, he wrote “in pencil, carefully revised and everything, because it was a scripture. I had no right to be spontaneous. ...”

Fifty years after the publication of On the Road, the question remains: Where was Kerouac going?, article at bookforum.com. (via BoingBoing)

Daniil Kharms

The offbeat Danish site The Scampton Veterinary Optician has collected some of the works of Daniil Kharms (1905-42), a Soviet author of absurdist stories and poems published in underground magazines. Kharms was arrested for writing "defeatist propaganda", and was sentenced to a Leningrad prison prior to the siege of Leningrad, where he died in 1942.

Besides the collected Kharms stories, the Scampton Veterinary Optician also offers useful phrases in several different languages as a public service:

German:

I'm up to my knees in entrails!
Ich stehe bis zu den Knie in Eingeweide!

Hebrew:
Where can one find a reliable soap-importer?
Eifo motz'im jevuan-sabon meheiman?

Georgian:
Willingly or unwillingly, you will swallow this pill!
Nebsit tu unebliet gadaq'lap'av am abs!

My Epitaph

"Here Lie The Ashes Of A Man. Yes - A Real Man - A Man Never Simpsonized."

But of course in Swedish:
"Här Vilar Stoftet Av En Man. Ja - En Riktig Man - En Man Som Aldrig Blev Simpsoniserad."

The Day of the Triffids

First edition hardback cover 1951

The Day of the Triffids, the complete 1962 sci-fi classic:

(via Hugo Strikes Back!)

Also: Bongolong Land shares a six part dramatization of the John Wyndham book as produced by BBC.

Interesting book cover scans

'Crackpot' - John Waters, 'The Penguin Private Eye' and Clifford Simak - 'Shakespeare's Planet'
Click images for better view at source.

Nice set of book cover scans uploaded by scorzonera.
And check it out! "The Mortal Trio" (cover art for Playing Around - Peter Bennett) (via comment at Percy Trout)

Love Scenes Adapted from D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover

The 2:nd edition of the 356 days project at WFMU's Blog features " ... a record dramatizing the novel's [Edit: Lady Chatterly's Lover] steamiest scenes, complete with orchestral accompaniment ...

Unless you consider “phallus” and “sex” to be obscene words, you'll find yourself quaintly charmed by the idea that this once caused an uproar, even though the anonymous actors do their best to sell the sex with breathless, melodramatic readings. ..."

As 2 hot mp3s: Love Scenes Adapted from D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover.

On the Road with Jack and Steve

Jack Kerouac at Steve Allen Show, 1959

Added by hutsell