The Mysterious Island

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, 1865

Read in May 1971

I read this as part of my early fascination with Jules Verne science fiction while traveling the world on a Navy ship. Saw a few mysterious islands myself back in those days but no giant crabs.

2666

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

2666 by Roberto Bolano, 2008

Read this in June 2012

I found this book to be fascinatingly weird and compulsive. This was a very good novel but probably not the great work of art that many critics exclaimed it to be. Yes, it is literature and yes I did enjoy reading this book. It was complicated and the plot did always resolve the many loosely interconnected plot lines but it did keep me coming back to it despite the bleakness and somewhat depressing characters.  It is also considered long, ambitious and unfinished. And compelling.

 

This was Bolano's last book and supposedly he died right after sending this to his publisher.

Vinyl Spins - Bruce & John

Vinyl Spins - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle, 1973.

I always associate early Springsteen with my friend John who passed away a few years ago. I came home on leave a few times in 1973 and John was always there to go downtown and take me to a small club to see some musician I hadn’t heard of before like Jackson Browne, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen. In 1974 John moved in with me in the house I had just bought and I loved exploring his record collection. We saw a lot of music together in those years.

We went to 6 Springsteen shows together in 1973-1975. Twice in a small club, twice in a college gym and twice at the Tower Theater. They were all long fantastic performances. The best. I miss John and haven’t seen Springsteen since then when I stopped going to arena concerts.

I saw Springsteen perform six times in 1973-1975. Twice in a small club, twice in a college gym and twice at the Tower Theater. All six I saw with my special music friend John. I came home on leave a few times in 1973 and John was always there to go downtown and take me to a small club to see some musician I hadn’t heard of before like Jackson Browne, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen.

All six I saw with my friend John who took me to a club to see him when I was home on leave back in 1973. John was a special music friend, we shared a house for a while and I loved exploring his album collection. John passed away a few years ago and I have great memories of the music we saw together.

Grandfather

My grandfather was George J. Emery Sr. He was born in 1898 and died in 1950 which was the year before I was born. He married my grandmother Katherine Galvin in 1921. They had five children together and my father George J. Emery Jr. was the eldest.

The family had a small corner grocery store on Tioga Street in North Philadelphia which kept them afloat during the Great Depression. They lived in the building above the store which was about a block away from the busy corner of Broad and Erie avenues. That intersection was a public transportation hub for several trolley lines and the subway system with lots of stores and restaurants near by including a Horn and Hardarts automat. I spent my high school years at that corner every school day but never knew the old family store and home was around the corner.

Running the store was a family business. My grandmother's mother and her aunt also lived in the house and helped with the store. 

My grandmother died a week or so after giving birth to their first daughter in 1932. My grandfather with the help of his mother-in-law and her sister continued with the store and raising the four boys and the new baby girl. The boys were George, Joe, Ed and Jack. The little girl was Kate.

During World War II my father worked at the Navy Ship Yard as a machinist. He was turned down by the draft board because they determined he had TB in his lungs. Later the advance in x-ray technology showed that instead of TB he actually had some tiny metal debris in his lungs from working in the machine shop. Uncle Joe and Uncle Ed served in the Navy during the war. 

My grandfather married Clara Smith in 193x and they had two children. Charles and Dorothy. 

They sold the house and business in the 1940's near the end of the war and relocated the family to the Germantown section of Philadelphia. They bought a house on the corner of Greene and Logan across the street from St. Francis of Assissi Church and school. At that time the convent for the parish was next door. The home had been a doctor's office and later it would be converted into a funeral parlor. The family lived in that house for about eight years along with Granny and Aunt Nellie. Seven kids and four adults.

A couple of years after my grandfather died in 1950 Nana (Clara) sold the house and moved the family down the street to the 4700 block of Greene. That was the house I remember as a child. Nana would live there with Granny, Aunt Nellie and her two children. By this time the older children were married and out of the house.

My father met my mother in the little corner grocery store across the street from the house on the corner of Greene and Logan. My mother was raised about a block away on Seymour Street near Greene.

• My great grandfather was George Walter Emery born 1872 died 1926 age 54. 
• My great grandmother was Teresa Agnes Maguire born 1872 died 1955 age 82. She was Granny and lived down the street from us. Her sister was Aunt Nellie Maguire who I remember very well.
• My great grandfather was Edward Galvin born 1869 in Ireland died 1929 age 59.
• My great grandmother was Katherine Finley born 1872 in Ireland died 1946 age 73.

Naked Lunch the Book

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, 1959

Read in May 1977

Supposedly the title refers to a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork. I read this while on semester break after a long discussion of Burroughs the previous semester. I had heard a lot about the man

A strange rambling story without a clear plot that jumps around in space and time. This book was banned in many places in America.

The band Steely Dan was named after a steam powered dildo mentioned in this novel.

Love In The Time Of Cholera

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1985

Read in May 1989

I guess this would be on a pandemic reading list.

Grandparents in 1919

This is a hundred year old photo of my grandparents George Emery and Katherine Galvin at a costume ball in 1919 according to the writing on the back of the photo. There is a little controversy because in the photo you can clearly see that both of them are wearing wedding rings. We know that they were married in 1921 and their first child, my father, was born in November 1922 so the photo may have been taken in early 1921. Doesn't really matter. It's old. 

It also shows two people in love who just survived the 1918-1919 global pandemic. They must have been courting during that national crises. Did they wear masks?  You would think at a costume ball everyone would be wearing masks. 

They lived in the Tioga section of Philadelphia near Broad and Erie Avenues. Her mother and her mother's sister also lived in the house with the family. There was a ground floor grocery store on Tioga Street that was owned and run by the family. It helped them get through the Great Depression.

My grandmother here in this picture died from childbirth complications after delivering her fifth child our Aunt Kate following four boys. My grandfather would marry again and have two more children and then move the family to the Germantown section of the city to a house on the corner of Greene and Logan streets across the street from the parish church.  He would also die young from a ruptured brain aneurysm. My grandfather would have 34 grandchildren but would only live to meet one of them, my sister Betsy.

I never talked with an older relative about that earlier pandemic and there were a lot of them around when I was a kid. My great grandmother Ada Morris who lived with us for a number of years loved to talk to us about her life and how different things were when she was growing up. She was born in 1878, although I need to check that, and she always referred to cars as "the machines" right through to her 80's. She never said anything about the 1918 pandemic.

The Handmaid's Tale

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, 1985

Read this in spring 1987.

This was the first of many of her books I would read. It's a horrifying powerful satirical warning about a christian take over of society that's right on the mark. 

Looking back on it now it seems more possible then ever before.

I haven't watched any of the TV series on Hulu yet. It's on my list.

I have also recently read her followup novel The Testaments.

It's Four In The Morning - mix

Morning kitchen listening... an old CD mix I made in 2003. 

One of my favorite mixes from my Late Night series that has evolved over the years. I'm surprised I was still concerned enough about track times to put them on the back cover. So I think I was putting the track list times on the covers because many of the discs were given away or traded and this was a way to know approximately the size of the file for that particular song. Back in the early days of burning CD mixes hard drives were much smaller and it helped to know how much space a song or mix was taking up.

It has been updated and revised several times. 

I later posted it to the online mix group Art of the Mix in 2007 where it won Mix of the Week.

There is also a version of this mix on Spotify linked at the bottom of this page.

Benediktiner Hell - Glass of Beer

After a day of gardening...Benediktiner Hell, a Bavarian style lager beer from Benediktiner Weissbraul, Germany.

And playing the Dark Was The Night compilation of indie rock.

Yeast

Pandemically Speaking

Got our pound of yeast today. Priority mail. Package says good until 2022.

Pandemic baking craze. Yeast sold out everywhere.

Blindness

The What When Book List

Blindness by Jose Saramago, 1995

Read in March 1999

Another plague novel.  This one is about the suddenly appearing and quickly spreading disease of "white blindness" and the resulting disintegration of society by Nobel Prize for Literature winner Jose Saramago. This book was a very frightening and a realistically shocking revelation of inhumanity and loss but also of strength and endurance under unspeakable hardship. 

Uncontrollable Urge - 2003 mix

Kitchen listening at dinner.. Uncontrollable Urge, another old CD mix but this one was originally on a cassette tape I put together in the early 80s. Robert Quine on the cover.

This mix has undergone various configurations over the years and has been redone recently in both the Decade 3 version in 2014 and as part of a much longer Mega Mix version in 2018. This CD mix was put together in 2003 and posted to Art of the Mix in 2004.

Here is the post comment I made about

the mix back then... "1977, 78 were great years for music. It was also a great time to be going to college parties where all that music was being discovered for the first time. My wife (to be) was in art school from 1976 to 1979 at Tyler in Philly. I was in the film/video program at Temple. We went to lots of the art school parties and these albums were cranking on the stereo. I heard a lot of this music for the first time at these house parties. It was a great time and all these songs are from that period. Patti Smith was the goddess and the Ramones were the party animals. We would also go up to NYC in the afternoon to the art galleries and then check out the bands at CBGB's at night. There was also a lot of funk and disco at those parties but that's another mix. Robert Quine on the cover. RIP."

Here is a copy of the feedback for that mix.

FEEDBACK:

MAHDISHAIN
DATE: 6/14/2004

very nice. i have been thinking about doing a mix of my college years (76 - 81). i was a slow learner but i learned about most of these bands.
stay tuned!

THE MISFIT
DATE: 6/14/2004

It doesn't get any better than this!

ROB CONROY
DATE: 6/14/2004

Yep, really great, every track a winner.

CURTIS_BURNS
DATE: 6/14/2004

What the Misfit said. And it's still true all these years later.

THOMAS_MOHR
DATE: 6/14/2004

Nice.

G.A.B. L@BS
DATE: 6/14/2004

ahhh...college dance hall days, this has style it's got class, so strong I can't let it pass;... too c...coo...cOoL!

SEAN LALLY
DATE: 6/14/2004

what they said - GREAT! just saw patti smith the other night - she is better than ever.

12VMAN
DATE: 6/14/2004

Great mix - not a bad track here - - - from a fellow RTF grad!

ERIK1966LUTIG
DATE: 6/14/2004

Love this!!!

RMLONDON
DATE: 6/14/2004

Greatmix .. like the guys said - I was lucky enough to see many of these bands live in London during this time Dammned, Pere Ubu and Talking Heads at the Roundhouse; Jam at the Marquee; even travelled to Brighton to watch Eddie and the Hot Rods .... And bizarely NYD's supported Rod Stewart and The Faces at Wembley (in I think '73?) Elvis Costello on the first Stiff tour...Great memories of great music Thanks!

BUGLADY
DATE: 6/14/2004

I absolutely love this mix!

JANA
DATE: 6/14/2004

Classic!

MUZAG
DATE: 6/14/2004

Absolutely beautiful, George. Every one a classic.

MO TWANG!
DATE: 6/14/2004

Great stuff.

ADAM BRISTOR
DATE: 6/14/2004

Every track is gold.

NEST OF VIPERS
DATE: 6/14/2004

Uber cool!

SIOBHAN
DATE: 6/14/2004

This is so good! I love the Jam, Clash and Devo picks especially, but there are too many to mention. A great deal of my favourite bands are late 70s/ early 80s - I was born way too late...

KRIS LANGLEY
DATE: 6/14/2004

What kind of fool do you think I am? The kind of fool that wishes Ben Harper had never tried to cover "The Modern World," I guess. Damn good mix.

LANCELOT LINK IV1
DATE: 6/14/2004

Nice overview of a golden era.

P THE SWEDE
DATE: 6/14/2004

When I started to buy records on a regular basis this was the stuff I bought, it's still brilliant stuff

DOM1
DATE: 6/14/2004

Ditto everyone else! Great cuts!

LO-FI JR.
DATE: 6/14/2004

Dynamite mix of a wonderful time to have had your ears to the ground. Nice cover too. I've been spinning some old grooves also since hearing about Robert's death. I'll likely have a companion for this one up here soon.

A.D. 69
DATE: 6/14/2004

This looks fabulous, I love all of these songs.

EX-SPECTATOR
DATE: 6/15/2004

yep, love this.

SAAF
DATE: 6/15/2004

Born a little too late and little too far from NYC. Admired from afar.

STARRYMOUSE
DATE: 6/15/2004

holy crap. solid gold!

JAMES JACKSON
DATE: 6/20/2004

In the late 70s, I attended college, was living with an artist, and partying was not just a pastime but a way of life. This could be the soundtrack to my life. Excellent.

NICHOLAS VEGAS
DATE: 6/20/2004

OMG , Magazine on a Mix.
I already forgot that group. Nice to see again it remembers me a lot of my Youth.
"THIS MICKS KICKS"
Great job.
NV

SLACK-A-GOGO
DATE: 6/21/2004

Now THIS is my idea of a party mix!!!!

NICHOLAS VEGAS
DATE: 7/2/2004

this is Acoustic TIME TARVEL , it remembers me my first Punk Concert ( Times ago )

NV

5/14/20

The Day of the Triffids

The Day of the Triffids film released in 1963. I saw it at the New Lyric theater in our neighborhood on a Saturday matinee in late 1963 or early 1964. So I was 12. That was also a scary movie and a creepy science fiction story. The frightening part was that the meteor shower made everyone blind before the plants started eating people. These plants, the triffids, in the movie are alien creatures that came from spores brought to Earth by the meteor shower.  

I thought it was a great twist that in the end that in frantic desperation the hero suddenly learns that the alien plant creatures can be killed by saltwater. Cool.

Many years later I realized the movie was based on a science fiction novel of the same name by John Wyndam written in 1951.  I read the book in April 1985. It was different from the movie in some significant ways for example the plants

were an experimental species that escaped from the lab after 99% of the population is blinded by the meteor shower. This story is much more and end of the world dystopian novel without any kind of happy ending using saltwater. No, this was more about the apocalypse and how people cope with the chaos rather than a scary monster story. It is about the self-destruction of human society through scientific carelessness and maybe biological warfare. It was still a great book. 

John Wyndham had written other apocalyptic science fiction novels and I had intended to read at least one more but have not done it yet. 

I just did a quick search and it looks like the public library has several of his books on the shelves.

First Memory

People say you have your first real memories around the age of two and a half to three. I can date my first memory that I’m really sure of to April 1954 which would make me two years and 4 months old. That was the day my sister Cathy was born and I have very vivid memories of that day.

Cathy was born at home in my parent’s bedroom. The family doctor lived two houses down the street and was there to deliver the baby but something went wrong. The fire rescue ambulance was called and the house was full of men in firefighting uniforms. There was chaos.

I remember being in the second floor hallway sitting on the floor outside the bedroom I shared with my younger brother Tom. My older sister Betsy was also sitting there with us. Our Aunt Mary was with us and had her arms around us. She was our grandmother’s sister and lived up the street from us. Her sister Aunt Frances was also there but more in the background.

The hallway had a fence like bannister overlooking the stairs that led directly into my parent’s room. Our room was between the bathroom and our great-grandparents room. Betsy’s room was between our parent’s room and the bathroom. So from our spot on the floor in front of our room I could see the rescue workers coming up the steps just below us and then go into our parent’s room carrying a stretcher. A little later they came back down the stairs with our mother in the stretcher. We were crying and Aunt Mary was comforting us.

I remember that scene like it was yesterday.

 

The Right Stuff

The What When Book List 1970 - 2020

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, 1979

Read in Sept. 1980

Today the folks with the right stuff are in our hospitals instead of space and certainly not anywhere near the white house.

The book here was an interesting account of the test pilots engaged in the post-war research into high speed rocket powered aircraft and the stories of the Mercury astronauts who came out of that earlier testing program based on extensive research by Wolfe. He recounts the enormous risks that the test pilots took and the intense mental and physical characteristics needed to get into the space program.

It was adapted into a very good movie of the same name in 1983.

He also wrote The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test in 1968 but that is another story.