EBAY - Heinlein Books

I found this auction on eBay.

The cover for Sixth Column is by Edd Cartier whose art I am collecting.

I thought that $1500 might be a little much for books, but I did some research and it is not that far off. The juveniles had a large printing and most are available on alibris.com for under $100 each, and all are very cheap if you are willing to go ex-libris. Sixth Column is only the dust jacket, but it may be the rarest of the six and most valuable. You can't find any Door Into Summer first editions, so that might be valuable.

I will watch this auction. If these books do well, at least I'll know I can sell some of my library and be able to buy cat food. (My retirement portfolio is down around $19,000 for the day at this moment.)

I have the same editions of 4 out of these 6, but only two of mine have dust jackets. I own The Star Beast, The Rolling Stones, The Green Hills of Earth, and and Rocket Ship Galileo, but only have a DJ for Rolling Stones and Green Hills of Earth. I bought all at flea markets for about $1 each.

Commute

This morning it took me two and a half hours to travel 15 miles. Nyack was repainting the lines on the road and rerouted the buses in an odd pattern and the construction plates on the bridge were installed incorrectly and caused a series of tire blowouts. They had to close two lanes on the bridge to repair the plates. By the time I got there the plates were all screwed up again and there were disabled cars that we had to get around. Luckily there was nothing happening this morning at work. I have to make up for coming in late by leaving early. (Why doesn't my boss laugh when I say this?)

Where the flavor starts

After Henry James kissed Edith Wharton's hand she told him, "The flavor starts at the elbow".

Kontera Context Links Results

I've had Kontera links in for three days now. I am going to keep them for a while as they pay about $2 to $2.50 per day. I put them on several web sites and I feel I should be getting about 8,000 impressions per day, but Kontera is reporting only about 3,000 impressions. Some of my older sites are not consistent in how they display ads, so it could be that they simply do not appear on some sites, but the difference is significant. I am investigating. If I can get these ads on all 10k per day impressions that my sites get, that should be about $7 a day or $2,700 a year. That's far less than Google, but much better than Chitika.

The ads are pretty dumb. They link generically to most any empty phrase at random. If they had paid less than a dollar per day I was going to drop them. The one thing about Amazon was that the ads were always to pertinent items, usually books, which fit well with what I wanted for my sites. I hope Google comes up with an alternative soon.

The eBay partner network makes me over $4 per day due to the music gear sites that I maintain. The CragisList search sites are making me about $3 per day. This was a surprise as I made no money off of search links in the past. The star site is doing better, although it is erratic. Yesterday I made $61, but the day before that I made $2. The total from all Internet sources is hanging at somewhat less than twice the poverty level for two people in New York, still not enough to retire on.

I need one more good idea. The Craigslist search idea was great and even though only a month old is making a little money. I need another couple of good ideas and then I can enjoy my life before it is over.

Ray Bradbury - Quicker Than the Eye

Continuing with reading only Ray Bradbury books in October - This is the fourth book that I've read. I am averaging a little less than a new book every two days (not counting weekends when I don't have much time to read).

I have the feeling that I've read some of the stories in Quicker Than the Eye. The stories were published in 1995 and 1996, but I don't remember where I would have read them. I don't read Playboy or American Way, but many of these appeared in F&SF and Omni, so I might have read them there.

Comparing these stories to the stories in Golden Apples of the Sun, you realize that Ray has mellowed over the years. There is no lurking danger or hidden fear in any of these stories. They, for the most part, are much happier and romantic than the earlier works. Many of the stories are downright maudlin (Maudlin: Extravagantly or excessively sentimental; self-pitying; Affectionate or sentimental in an effusive, tearful, or foolish manner, especially because of drunkenness).

To give you an example, in the story Another Fine Mess, Ray writes about a pair of ghosts haunting a stairway in Hollywood. The ghosts are Laurel and Hardy trying to move a piano. You can't be afraid of the ghosts of Laurel and Hardy. At the end, the two women who try to banish them invite them to come back once a year. Maudlin, I said. Maudlin, I meant.

There are other stories about the ghost of Bradbury's mother and the death of a dog, but the sweet sentimentality ruins the stories for me. I smile when I read them and I did enjoy them, but I am eager for the chilled spine or the goose bumps on my arm. I don't want these feel-good stories.

There are a couple of more chilling stories. Dorian in Excelsus is about what happened to Dorian Gray's portrait, but it is a one dimensional story where just the one thing happens and then it ends, no real plot to it, just an interesting idea. There is also The Finnegan about a hidden monster in the woods, but that too is over quickly and the final revelation is telegraphed a little too early in the plot to have an impact.

I am going back to his earlier works. I still have a couple of new books in the queue, but I want to cleanse my pallete a little and read some stories from Weird Tales before I get back to the more recent Bradbury.

Dimming the Lights in Westchester

When I was the manager of Integrated Systems at Lockheed I would go into my office, pull the blinds down, turn off the lights and work on my computer in the dim room. It was cozy and comfortable. I never like the harsh florescent lights of the typical office. When I went to work for IBM they crowded Jingdong and myself in a little closet, and when one by one the florescent tubes went out we never told anyone. It was nice to work on our computers in the dim light.

The maintenance crew just went around taking two out of the three lights out of every light fixture on the floor. I like it and I much prefer it to the perpetual glare. I figure that in the whole building they are removing about 2,000 40 watt light bulbs and saving as much as 500,000 kwh of power per year. This will save about $100,000 a year. It doesn't seem like much, but it is something.

Kurt Vonnegut on Heinlein

From 1990, this very cool Vonnegut article sums up how he felt about Heinlein.

From the article - a Heinlein quote about Stranger:

I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers . . . . It is an invitation to think -- not to believe.

Heinlein Gets the Last Word

A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success

Donald Mass, a Literary Agent, is giving away his book The Career Novelist: A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success as a free download.

The price is right, although I am not certain that reading about strategies to get your book published will do you very much good. If your novel is good, reading this book will at least prevent you from making any bad mistakes, however. If your novel sucks - well, then there is always LuLu.com.

I may finish a novel some day, but I doubt that it will sell. If I do finish one I will spend the time to read A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success and follow its advice.

Mike Sivy is retired

Mike went to Nyack High School with me. He was a smart kid and had skipped a grade or two, but we got along well. I consider him one of the good friends that I had back then. Of course, we all went our separate ways and I haven't heard from him since. In the mean time I got married and started a career and Mike became an Editor at Money Magazine and lost his hair.

Someone mentioned on the news today that he is going to Oxford to study. I am glad he is doing it. Mike was smart, real smart, but he wound up in this position of writing about money and investing. I know Mike, and I am sure that he was great at it, but it seems to clash with the personality of the guy I knew back in Mr. Meyer's physics lab back in 1968.

A year or so ago Jim Callan and I tried to call him to invite him to up to play cards. Mike played cards a lot back in '68. I guess that because of his position, he has to have an army screening his calls and we never got through to him. He wrote his last column back in August, so he must be off across the Atlantic self-actualizing. I guess that a poker game is out of the question, now.

Sivy on stocks: What every investor should know

Demolition Derby

Here's something for your backyard. Rye Playland, one of the oldest amusement parts in the United States, is selling off one of their rides. I work for Westchester County so I watch these auctions. I have to program some of the systems at Rye Playland, so it is interesting to see this.

You can buy the whole Demolition Derby ride for your kids (or yourself) for a mere $10,000.

The only catch is that you have to go to Rye with a very big truck, disassemble it, and carry it away.

AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE - DEMOLITION DERBY - eBay (item 230297016968 end time Oct-10-08 09:00:34 PDT)

Ed Patnode

As I wrote the preceding post I thought that Mr. Patnode might read it if he googled his name. It occurred to me that I should google him to see what he was up to. I am afraid that what I found was his obituary.

Edward M. Patnode, 81, died Friday, Jan. 5, 2007 after a brave struggle with cancer. He was a retired English teacher. Born Jan. 8, 1925 in Lake Placid, he was the son of Bartholomew and Winifred Patnode. He grew up with seven siblings. He left high school to join the U.S. Navy and served in the Pacific during World Ward II. After the war, he attended Union College in Schenectady, and received his bachelor’s degree in 1949 and his master’s degree in 1950. He taught English in Pawling from 1950 to 1954; then in Mohawk from 1954 to 1960. He joined the high school staff of Nyack in 1960, served as assistant principal for several years and retired in 1985. He then moved to Lake Placid. Sports was one of his major interests and he encouraged many young people to participate in a wide variety of sports. He officiated and coached for hockey, swimming, soccer, football and lacrosse and had an international rating in luge. He was an official at the 1980 Winter Olympics, as well as at many sporting events throughout the year in Lake Placid. Mr. Patnode’s interests included reading, swing music and volunteering with a number of organizations. His volunteer activities included ambulance work, college recruiting, health care providers and many other charitable groups. He had a lifelong love of the Adirondack Mountain region. He is survived by his former wife, Kip Smith of Middletown; four children: Michael Patnode of Lexington, Mass., Mark Patnode of New London, Conn., Anne Wilson of Lake Placid and Maggie Szeliga of Long Lake, Minn.; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandchild. Visitation will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Monday at the Clark Funeral Home in Lake Placid. An American Legion prayer service will be held at 7:30 p.m. A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 9 at the St. Agnes Church in Lake Placid. Burial will be in the St. Agnes Cemetery.

Ray Brabury - Golden Apples of the Sun

Ed Patnode, my high school English teacher gave me Golden Apples of the Sun when I was 17. Mr. Patnode was, as far as I could tell, a dead ringer for Robert Heinlein, except that he was a teacher. He had a crew cut and was gung ho about the Vietnam war and at one time was an Olympic ski jumper. He was also a nice guy. As far as I know he is still alive and well up in Lake Placid, New York.

You often hear how teachers inspire you, but Mr Patnode wasn't like that. He just surprised me, like when he gave me this book. I think he knew that I was trying to write stuff, and that I liked Science Fiction, but it took me totally by surprise when he gave me this 1953 edition of Bradbury's Golden Apples of the Sun. It was falling apart and from his own personal collection. I was collecting Bradbury and I did not have a copy of this one. I was very happy to get it. I hope he knew how much I appreciated it. I am not very good socially and I may have just muttered "Thanks".

Once Mr. Patnode asked us to write a story based on a the last lines of Yeats' poem Under Ben Bulben, and when he returned mine to me he had written on the top that it was good enough to be published. I have cherished that encouragement down the years, even though I have yet to make a professional sale.

If the book was in original condition it would be worth about $50. The binding had come apart and I had to cut a piece of cardboard and glue it back together. I did a little hokey art on the cover with some magic markers. This is Bradbury's third collection. His first Collection, Dark Carnival was re-released as October Country and the second was The Illustrated Man.

As I read these stories, I am amazed at how much a part of me they are. Bradbury stories have entered my mind like a parasite that wraps itself around my ganglia and colors my memories.

Golden Apples of the Sun contains many of Bradbury's greatest hits. Perhaps all of you reading this will remember The Fog Horn, A Sound of Thunder, The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl, The Pedestrian, or The Flying Machine. These have been anthologized and some made into movies. Maybe you have forgotten The April Witch about an old woman who convinces a boy that she can make him invisible in order to have someone to talk to. The Great Wide World Over There about a woman who, with the help of a nephew, sends to all the addresses in the back of pulp magazines to receive free samples and information, just so she can get mail from the outside world to relieve her loneliness.

These are 22 of Bradbury's best. He was at the height of his writing ability when he wrote these. Hardly any of them are speculative fiction. Bradbury wrote Bradbury stories. He invented his own genre.

I remember now, writing stories when I was 16 and 17 years old. I was not trying to write Science Fiction then, because I had not yet figured out how. I was, however, trying to write Bradbury stories. As I read The Golden Apples of the Sun, I remember what I was trying to do. I wrote stories about a family finding bottles in the landfill, a man trying to buy firewood during a deadly winter, and a boy who could make it rain. I could not sell these stories because there was no magazine that would buy them, then or now.

Ed Patnode, when he gave me that old copy of Golden Apples of the Sun, probably changed my life, although I am sure that was not his intention. I remember going home and reading these stories until the book literally fell into pieces as I read it. I glued it back together and made the new cover, pasting the old one to the inside cover to protect it. I read it again and again until I found the 1967 edition and bought that. I wore out several of Bradbury's books in the next few years. I used to cover them with clear plastic "contac" to make them last longer.

If I didn't say it clearly at the time:

Thanks, Mr. Patnode, I really appreciated the book.

Ray Bradbury - The Cat's Pajamas

I found The Cat's Pajamas at the Allendale Town Wide Garage Sale two weeks ago. The hardcover cost me only 50¢. It was a pretty good buy for four bits and just in time for October. I figure to read 12 to 15 Bradbury books this month.

The Cat's Pajamas was published in 2004 and half the stories are fairly recent and half are old, mostly unpublished, stories from early in his career. Ray has a cellar full of stuff that he has put aside. He claims he has written a thousand words a day since he was 12 and that he still has all of it.

I never thought that Ray Bradbury would have a writer's "trunk", that box of stuff that every writer has that he has written, but never sold, but I can understand now. Ray Bradbury writes what comes into his mind and not all of that is publishable. The first story, Chrysalis, not the one published in S is for Space (he liked the title so he reused it), but one sitting in a trunk, is about a black man who wants to be white. It is not an easy subject even now, but 60 years ago, no publisher would touch it with a ten foot pole.

I can remember finding out from my friend Billy See that he had a sunburn. He was black and I couldn't tell he had burned, but he showed me his back and the skin was peeling. Black people can be more sensitive to the sun than white people. I never dreamed that Billy could have a sunburn because I connected it to having a tan and Billy had a permanent tan. I remember coming back from a few weeks in South Carolina and Billy laughing at me, saying, "You're one of us, now" because I had a really dark tan from playing 12 hours a day on the beach.

Bradbury must have had a similar experience, wrote about it, and discovered that editors did not want to publish it. He found it in his trunk and luckily it appears now, more than 60 years later.

Many of the stories in this collection are like that. They are all interesting stories, but each has an element that has kept them out of print. Some of the early stories are not O. Henry-like in that they have emotional impact, but no real plot. I can see an editor who did not really know Bradbury rejecting these stories with a polite note and Ray putting the story away.

Every other story is a more modern story. These are better written and more story-like, but I mostly like the older stories, even with the flaws. The older stories have the emotional intensity, bright colors, scents and sounds, and the dark imagination that marks Ray's first 20 years. I did like the title piece. The Cat's Pajamas is very cute story of two people who find a stray cat and fall in love as they fight over who gets to keep it. It is beautifully written, as only Bradbury can write, but the execution is weak. It could have used some rewrites and could have had some stronger points here and there. The young Bradbury would not have let the story away in the version that's in the book. He would have worked it a little and given it much more impact at the end. As it stands, it is just cute, but not great. I am a cat lover, so I liked it. I am a lover of Bradbury's stories, so I liked it, but it does have its flaws.

Lastly, there are Bradbury's poems. They are not to my taste. I skimmed them, but would not recommend them, even to a lover of Bradbury stories.

If you like Bradbury, read this for the old stories, and enjoy most of the new stories.

Switched to Kontera Context links

I you see light blue links with a double underline on my web pages, that is Kontera dynamically adding context links to the page. From what I have seen the keywords seem to be generic. Amazon's links were usually much more relevant. I'll leave it up, but if I decide it the intrusive aspect of the links is not justified by the income I'll pull them off. The links are on pages that total about 8,000 hits a day. I'll know in a day or two if they work.

Bailout Bill: Full Text Of Plan

You can't believe how hard it was to find this. Everyone talks around this bill, but there are precious few details.

I scanned the document, but I am no lawyer. It seems that the Secretary of the Treasury will be given a maximum of 700 billion dollars to buy up bad assets from financial institutions. He then can make deals with the home owners to lower interest, pay less, or just about anything to provide relief. There is language about unreasonable executive compensation, but I doubt if it will mean anything.

Basically, the government is buying up all the bad mortgages, including all the unpaid interest and penalties on them, and then probably forgiving them. There is no down side for the financial institutions. They do not lose any money on the deals. They will make a hefty profit on items they were expecting to write off.

In order to get this bill passed, they had to include $150 million in tax breaks to rich people.

My question is this: how do I get a piece of that $700 billion. Is it too late for me to get in line?

Bailout Bill: Full Text Of Plan