The Propaganda Remix Project

I could not pass up this cool Ace books remix. I'd love to read it. It has all of my favorite authors. Edited by Don Wollheim - you can't beat that!

I don't like to get political because so many of my friends are conservative, but even conservatives are realizing that Bush and Cheney's neo-conservatism is way outside of what they signed up for.

(I'm sorry Skip, but I just love the Ace paperback cover.)


The Propaganda Remix Project: "The Propaganda Remix Project"

Moved to new server

I moved the blog to my new hosting server. It should be a little faster and I can now start to reorganize cthreepo.com.

Free Name A Star Starts Off Well

My free name a star site had a decent first weekend. I got about 20 registrations and $2.00 in ad revenue. That's pretty good for practically no promotion and no search page rank. I had my first spam and my first stupid kid entry (a star named Hitler). I had to write the edit program today to start deleting bad stars. I guess I'll have to watch it closely. I may have to block ip addresses.

Free Name a Star

I've finished setting up my latest get rich slow scheme. FreeNameAStar.com lets you register a star name (I scarfed the Smithsonian's star catalog) and then print out a certificate, just like my NameAGalaxy.com site.

On the original NameAGalaxy site I am doing about 5 new galaxies a day, and most people find the site through search engines looking for free name a star. I guess that nameagalaxy is a second rate alternative to the actual free name-a-star site that they are looking for, so I am giving the people what they want. This time I am charging for extras so we'll see if I make any money.

Also, I have copied Nasa's Near Earth Object catalog and I will think about making a Name-A-NEO site where people can give names to the asteroids that are likely to wipe out all life on earth someday. (other ideas - name-a-wild-wolf, name-a-tree, name-a-lost-kitten, name-a-nuke, name-a-congressman...)

Free Name a Star: "There are zillions of stars out there. Why pay for one? FreeNameAStar.com has set aside a large set of stars. You can register a star name for free."

This project was very satisfying. It had medium complexity. It required some fancy programming to get the PayPal system to work. I am creating PDF files on the fly, very quickly - cool! I even used a free website template to give it that certain look. It has a "designed by a professionals" look that announces to the world that you asked a creative person to spend 5 minutes making a template that looks like every other template out there.

I have not written any spec-fic in months. I get my creative high from programming and web sites. I find programming akin to writing poetry. I use universal symbols arranged in new and fascinating ways. Completing an on-line system is like finishing a short story. I get that same satisfaction. Also, I don't get rejection letters.

Pictures of Mill Today

This is a picture taken from the same place as the poster picture (circa 1896). It has been a wet spring so it looks like a jungle.


This is a picture of the remains of the dam. There is an access road there now, leading to some houses on the other side of the creek


This poor abused white oak is about 200 years old and was probably a young tree when the witch trial occurred.

More on the Polhemus Grist Mill - The Clarksville Witch

Here is the story of the Mill from the last post. I have taken part of this from Now and Then in Rockland County, NY, compiled by Cornellia F Bedell. 1941 edition. The house where the witch lived was probably where my house is today.

The Clarksville Witch - 1816

The belief in witchcraft in our county is shown in the following story. I not only gives information regarding the locality, but it is undoubtedly true.
The supposed victim of demoniac power in this Clarksville case, was the widow of a Scotch physician, named Jane Kannif, who moved into the hamlet prior to 1816, took a small house situated a few rods west of the old church on the New City Road, and devoted herself to the care of her only child, a son by a previous marriage, named Tobias Lowrie.
Jane, or she was called in the Vernacular of the Clarksville people, "Naut Kannif" seems to have been exceedingly eccentric, a person who would now be regarded by alienists as insane, but her vagaries at the worst took a harmless form.
She was odd in dress, preferred part-colors of wondrous diversity, queer in the fashion of arranging her hair. She was unsocial in a neighborhood where everyone knew each other; and morose and erratic when forced to meet people. From her deceased husband she had a smattering of medicine, and now, when placed where she could get at the herbs known to her, she made wondrous concoctions which she treated such as came to her for aid, and I have been informed by those who knew her, with most excellent results.

She was brought to trial on witchcraft after neighbors complained of "difficulty in making the churning come off", cows no giving milk, and sleepless nights.
No legitimate judge would hear the case.

It was finally agreed to put "Naut" to a test that would prove her innocence or guilt, namely to bind her hand and foot, and throw her in the mill pond. If she floated, she must necessarily be a witch, but if she drowned then her innocence would be established beyond a doubt.

They brought the woman to the mill pond, across from my house, where they tied her up and were about to throw her in. Squire Yaupy Vanderbilt and Jake Clark (both ancestors of mine) came and stopped it.

Then other counsels prevailed. Instead of the water test, it was decided to take "Naut" to Auert Polhemus's grist mill and in his great flour scales weigh her against the old Holland Dutch family Bible, iron bound, with wooden covers and iron chain to carry it by.
If outweighed by the Bible, she must be a witch beyond any doubt, and must suffer accordingly. She was taken to the mill against her most earnest protest, put on the scales, and weighed. Weighing more than the Bible, the committee released her.

Shortly after the trial ended, at Pye's fulling mill, down the street from the grist mill, a large hammer used for beating cloth weighing 200 pounds fell on one of Pye's sons and immediately crushed him to death. The Pyes were one of the most vocal speaking against "Naut" at the trial.

This ended the last trial for witchcraft in New York State and probably one of the last witch trials in the country. She is buried in the cemetery next to my house and her grave is defaced to show her year of birth as 1247.

Polhemus Mill

This is a poster of the Polhemus Mill that was put up down at the West Nyack Post office. The Polhemus family live on Germonds Road, West Nyack, a few hundred feet from my house. They had a dam on the Germonds Creek. I am a direct descendent from Theosophus Polhemus who came the New World in the middle 1600s. The Mill was owned by my family until a a hundred years or so ago. I didn't know this when I moved into the house.
The first Polhemus's came on the St. Catarina, known as the Jewish Mayflower from Brazil. Theosophus was a calvanist minister and he and his wife were kicked out of Brazil when the colony got rid of all the non-catholics.
An interesting thing is that the picture was made by Lewis Stockmeyer, who lived across the street from my mother when she was a little girl. I remember Mr. Stockmeyer showing me his pictures when I was a little boy and we went to visit.

Larry and Ward and the 64 Chevy

I found this picture of Larry and Ward. That was a great car, but Larry's job moved to Suffern, about ten miles, and he could no longer afford the gas.
1964 Chevy Bel Air wagon.

Correction: I originally said it was a 65. I have been corrected.

The Sword of Shannara

The Sword of Shannara
By Terry Brooks (© 1977)
Read by Scott Brick. 2003 Books on Tape, Inc.
Unabridged 17 cassettes, List price: $144, available for $115. I paid $40 on eBay

Obviously, The Sword of Shannara is a simplified rehash of themes, characters and even some events from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit without Tolkien’s incredible created universe and wonderful use of language.

We might call Brooks the American Tolkien. He’s a faster, cheaper, simpler Tolkien.

However, I must remove myself from the claims that this book is derivative of Tolkien. The issue now is: should I listen to the book? The answer is: yeah, why the hell not?

If you loved LOTR, you’ll like The Sword of Shannara.

The universe of SoS is the far future of our world. A technological holocaust has devastated the earth and has altered men into races called Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, etc. They are still men, though. Man has forgotten science, but he has learned the secrets of the spirit world and an evil dark lord whose name is not Sauron has risen again to threaten the peace of the developing civilizations. An ancient Druid (not a wizard) whose name is not Gandalf takes a short non-hobbit person with his trusty sidekick on a dangerous quest to find the stolen Sword of Shannara.

There are long passages of back-story in the first three or four chapters. The plot still manages to pull the reader along to an action filled ending. Some of the characters are well crafted. A one armed thief and a Troll with a heart of gold are very well done and have no equivalent in LOTR. Terry Brooks, from past readings, takes a while to warm up. His novels begin slowly and build up to a satisfying ending.

I just finished The Sword of Shannara this morning on my way to work, and I could think of worse ways of spending 22 hours of commuting time. The reader, Scott Brick, uses a variety of interesting accents to help keep the characters straight. He has done a very good job, making a so-so book into a good listen.

The first tape is broken and I have to repair it. Ward, my brother, gets it next. Anyone else want to sign up for a listen?

Chesley Bonestell - Mr. Smith Goes to Venus

I get quite a few hits for my blog entry on Chesley Bonestell scans. I put a link to a more formal page to view the images. I hope that this helps the searchers.
Chesley Bonestell - Mr. Smith Goes to Venus

Free Name A Star

My website NameAGalaxy.com found its way to a few MySpace pages and is now killing me with bandwidth. Hundreds of teeny boppers are naming galaxies after their favorite pet, or heart throb, or their favorite teacher. Mother's Day nearly brought the site down. I have purchased another 50 Gigs of bandwidth. Each PDF certificate costs me 700K in bandwidth and I have a page where you can see all the galaxy names and view the dedications. I am getting 10-20 new galaxy names a day and hundreds of certificate views.

I registered FreeNameAStar.com and downloaded the Smithsonian Institute's star inventory. I have a few test pages on the site, and I expect to finish it up by next week. I put it on the new host where I have 50 gigs of bandwidth, and I hope this will be enough. This time, I am being smart and I am charging for extras. If you want a star visible to the naked eye, it will cost you.

OFFICIAL SCI-FI BOYS WEBSITE

This site recently hit one of my webrings. What I like about it is that it shows the difference between the terms Science Fiction and Sci-Fi. Hugo Gernsback invented Science Fiction as a genre and then created the words Scientifiction and Science Fiction to describe it. Forest Ackerman invented the term Sci-Fi to describe the monster movies that Hollywood called Science Fiction, but was really just horror. Today, the SciFi channel has only the monster movie type of Sci-Fi and none of Gernsback's Science Fiction. Simply put, what you read is Science Fiction, what you watch is SciFi.

OFFICIAL SCI-FI BOYS WEBSITE: "This is the story of the Sci-Fi Boys, who started out as kids making amateur movies inspired by FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine and grew up to take Hollywood by storm, inventing the art and technology for filming anything the mind can dream. The DVD has the 80 minute feature, plus over one hour of bonus features of rare sci-fi treasures, described below."

製品仮組写真

The Astrodea watch. It costs about $400 and is only available in Japan right now, but it should be available in the states by Christmas. Just in time to buy a christmas present for your favorite blogger.
製品仮組写真

Straight Up Blues in Nyack Last Night

I made a gallery of pictures from the gig last night. Lots of fun!

Eliot Engel - Spammer Scum

I hate spam. I hate it more when our elected officials do it. Here's another jerk who has lost my vote. Whoever told Eliot that it is a good thing to spam should be fired. It's harder to be a liberal than ever, especially when idiots fill up my mail box with illegal spam. The no-spam act is there for a reason, but the House of Representatives probably put a loophole in the law to allow this kind of nastiness.

Office Live and Google Adsense

I fooled around with Office Live and I have given up on it. I have the site ScienceFictional.com. Getting content on the site was way too much work, but before I gave up, I was able to get Google Adsense working on the site. It took a major effort.
I am happy to say the at least one person, Anita, as been able to take the ideas that I had about hacking Office Live and expand them. She has been working on a series of sites dealing with addiction. Since my favorite cousin, Frankie, died of heroin addiction, I find this laudable. Here is one of her Office Live sites:

Addiction Flix Booze and Drugs in the Movies: "At their best, movies on addiction give us insight into our flaws and blind spots ..."

Anita's major sites are: drugrehablifeline.org and nationalsubstanceabuseindex.org.

Hacked Electronic Road Signs

I don't usually think these things are funny, but I had to include this one.

"With only a few minutes of road sign hacking, I had programmed an homage to the 1951 sci-fi film The Day The Earth Stood Still, the phrase that was used to stop Gort, the robot in the film, from taking over the world."

Carlos Colina and the Straight Up Blues Band - gigs

My brother's band is gigging in Nyack this Friday. It's free so there's no reason not to go. It's at Casa Del Sol on main street at 9:30.

One of the cool things about a rocking blues band is that people get up and dance. I love to watch swing dancing. I will go down and enjoy for a while on Friday. I can go because there's no poker this week - Jim is in NC on a set with his daughter the actress and Bob is working odd hours at his job as an audio/video engineer at ABC. Blues is a good way to deal with a poker jones.

Carlos Colina and the Straight Up Blues Band - gigs

Fantasy and Science Fiction

40 years ago I got a job working the counter at a coffee shop and for the first time made enough money to buy what I wanted. What I wanted was reading material. I spent hundreds of dollars at second hand shops acquiring over 2000 paperback books - almost all science fiction. I also bought Analog, If, and a magazine called Fantasy and Science Fiction. Of the magazines that I read at that time, the only one that I still buy occasionally is F&SF. I say occasionally because I subscribed to F&SF from around 1963 well into the 1970s. Enough water has passed under the bridge so that I can pick these old issues up and read at random and probably not remember how a story ends. Also, I find less time to read, now that I into my second half century and no nearer to retirement than I was back in 65.

If F&SF came out in podcast, I would be the first to subscribe. I still believe that iPods have changed the way we interact with literature as well as music. I commute about an hour each way (the Tappan Zee bridge is the enemy) and I always have a book on tape playing. (By the way, download and listen to a couple of my stories at AudioCD.com.) iTunes had it's Billionth download a few months ago. A good chunk of those were audio stories. GVG should get into the 21st century before it's over.

I wanted to write SF, which is much harder than it should be. I received a Rejection Letter that Ed Ferman sent me in 1970 to prove it. Now, when I write SF, I think about sending it into F&SF. I don't often do this because snail mail is a hastle, but JJA gets first shot at all of the ones that I like.

Fantasy and Science Fiction: "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949, is the award-winning SF magazine which is the original publisher of SF classics like Stephen King's Dark Tower, Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon, and Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz."

For full and honest disclosure, I am posting this partly to see if Gordon will send me what I still crave - reading material. Read about GVG's offer here.

Update: No Cigar. I was too late. I hope that F&SF get's a page rank boost from all the incoming links as well a few subscriptions. It was a good idea. Internet marketing is an iffy thing (as you might know from reading this blog). It helps if you have a good product to start with. Unfortunately, there ain't much happening at the F&SF website. It needs much more real content. I would propose a web zine with a different editor and for-the-love-of publishing of stories. I bet they would get a bunch of nice stories without having to pay for them, just on the hope that GVG would read them.
I think a for-the-love zine would do well under the F&SF banner. In spite of Sanchez's negativity, I thought even AstoundingTales sometimes hit the mark, despite not paying for stories. Most of the stories were weak and got weaker as time went on, but there were some high points, like the Pole 69 contest. (sigh).

Blooming Yard

The first wave of spring flowers has died back. Here are the May flowers:

These azaleas came in a package about the size of shoebox. Thirty years later they are huge.




The Bleeding Heart plant is at least 20 years old



Last year was the first big year for our blueberries. These flowers look like it will be another sweet summer.


This bridal veil plant came with the house. I over trimed it a few years ago and it is slowly coming back.


This is a coin plant that runs wild back in the woods.


Read Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine if you think this is nothing but a weed.


I planted all of these dogwoods myself from saplings that I found in the woods. The flowers start out ivory and brown but for a few days are bright white.



I don't know what these bushes are, but they grow wild over by cemetery.



I love this mountain laurel, the Graham family flower.



These lilacs have to be 100 years old.


Mouse Ear is a pest in the yard, but it is a pretty flower.


I can't get rid of the poison ivy.


The blue potatos are sprouting.


The brown flower on this Rose of Sharon is from last year.


The sassafras is blooming. It smells like sasparilla.


The lawn is full of wild strawberries.


This wisteria is very old. It is on the ground because it pulled down the tree that it was growing in.


We have wild geranium plants growing around the edges of the yard.


This a front view of the house.

Fawn Found

Check my Too Many Damn Cats Blog and read about the fawn in out back yard.

Terry Brooks

I've been listening to Terry Brooks lately. I bought Angelfire East (unabridged), the third book in a series. It came in a lot of a dozen other books. I listened to it, even though it was out of order. I then bought A Knight of the Word (unabridged), in another lot and I listened to that. It was the second book. I have listened to the last two books in a three part series without ever listening to the first book.

Both books followed the same pattern. The first two-thirds is rehash of back story and a lot of filler where pretty much nothing happens. Then there is a flurry of action and the story ends after some satisfying demon stomping. If I had not been listening to these books while commuting back and forth to work, I would never have been able to finish them. The first parts of both books are too slow. If I had been reading them, I would have put the books down. This is partly because I was reading them in reverse order and I was not involved in Brook's created universe, and partly because Brooks did not really have enough material to fill up 100,000 words and padded quite a bit. He rehashes things and repeats things.

I find Brooks has a good narrative voice that is very relaxed, almost passive. He does not often keep you on the edge of your seat, but instead lets you lean back and soak up his smooth flow. I imagine that this is his claim to fame. He does not write thrillers and the little bit of action at the end of each book is not what his fans are really after. I think of Brooks as a comfortable read.

I eBayed Angelfire East for more than I paid for it and A Knight of the Word is getting listed this weekend on eBay.

I just received The Sword of Shannara (unabridged). I started listening to it yesterday and I have made it through the first few chapters. So far the book has been mostly info-dump, passive tense, and slow moving. When Sword came out, it was obvious that it was published to capture some of the LOTR readership. It was a large fantasy novel with elves and dwarves and magical talismans and an epic journey. It is extremely derivative of Tolkien. In listening to the book, I realize that it is more of an homage to LOTR than a pastiche. It is like reading fan fiction. I am annoyed by the slow pacing and vague viewpoint. I prefer a more immediate reference point with more action and less discussion in the passive tense. Now that much of the back story is finished, the pace is picking up and the characters have started to gel. I can get through this.

I can't resell The Sword Shannara becuse the first tape is damage. I may be able to repair it, but I would have to list it with the disclosure that I repaired the tape. Ward (my books-on-tape listening brother) will get a shot at this when I am done. It is 22 tapes long and is ex-libris, so there may be more damage in the other tapes. The retail price is $140, but I got a good deal on eBay.

12小节BLUES

A chinese site translated my 12 bar blues page on harptab.com. It's cool to see my words in chicken tracks all over the screen.

中国口琴音乐网 - 学习资料 - 如何用口琴演奏12小节BLUES

Cell Phones Full of Clues

I enjoy writing stories about current technology with just a twist to make it science fiction. I read a blog called Defense Tech that summarizes current military technology. The article below is a Defense Tech summary of NY Times story about how cell phones are being used to catch criminals. I have seen the idea used several times on the generic TV cop shows, Crime Scene and Order (or whatever they call them).

I think I have an idea for a story about a criminal being trapped in an overly complex web of technological snooping. Read the story and think about the poor guy texting his girlfriend about his progress evading the police and tell me you can't see a plot or two there.

Defense Tech: Cell Phones Full of Clues
I would have linked to the NY Times story, but they require registration.