June 11, 2025 • 51 mins
What's up, Slackers!
This week we take a journey through the pages of the books and magazines that shaped our Gen X childhoods!
From choose-your-own-adventure stories to fantastical tales of chocolate factories and epic fantasy worlds, we’ll revisit the books that sparked our imaginations. Plus, we’ll flip through the colorful, quirky magazines filled with comics, humor, and puzzles that kept us entertained for hours.
The Books: Relive the thrill of interactive adventures, whimsical stories about magical elevators, sci-fi paperbacks, epic quests with hobbits, enchanting Greek myths, and the timeless humor of Snoopy and the Peanuts gang.
The Magazines: Dive into the world of kid-friendly publications with hidden pictures and quirky characters, plus the irreverent humor of satirical comics featuring iconic mascots and legendary artists.
These stories and visuals resonated with us, influenced pop culture, and gave many of us a lifelong love for reading,
This week we take a journey through the pages of the books and magazines that shaped our Gen X childhoods!
From choose-your-own-adventure stories to fantastical tales of chocolate factories and epic fantasy worlds, we’ll revisit the books that sparked our imaginations. Plus, we’ll flip through the colorful, quirky magazines filled with comics, humor, and puzzles that kept us entertained for hours.
The Books: Relive the thrill of interactive adventures, whimsical stories about magical elevators, sci-fi paperbacks, epic quests with hobbits, enchanting Greek myths, and the timeless humor of Snoopy and the Peanuts gang.
The Magazines: Dive into the world of kid-friendly publications with hidden pictures and quirky characters, plus the irreverent humor of satirical comics featuring iconic mascots and legendary artists.
These stories and visuals resonated with us, influenced pop culture, and gave many of us a lifelong love for reading,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Stuck in the Middle Podcast, the podcast
dedicated to the music, movies, and generation. What is up, slackers,
and welcome to another episode of the Stuck in the
(00:31):
Middle Podcast. I am your host, Jason Eck, and I
just have to say the human body. It's such a
weird thing because you're at work, you're having a perfectly
fine day, and then you're in the ride the drive home,
and all of a sudden you feel like, wait a minute,
am I am I sick? I feel like I'm all
(00:53):
of a sudden sick. Now, mind you, the sinuses and
all that. It's been my curse for for ages, and
my daughter kind of has a sinus infection, but it
kind of came out of nowhere, which is what's so interesting.
It's like one minute you're fine, the next minute you
feel like absolute garbage. But hey, it is what it is.
(01:13):
Let's see, I have a birthday coming up this weekend,
and my family has something apparently in store for me.
I don't know what that is as of yet. I'm
always curious when my family is plotting such things because
I'm never quite sure exactly what's going to happen. I
(01:37):
just have to plug in another cable here because I
seem to be having some Ah, there we go. My
laptop was running low on juice, so sorry for the
noise there. But yeah, they have something planned for me,
and I'm very fortunate is that I get to have
my birthday and Father's Day usually all happening at the
same time. So yeah, this weekend's all about me. So
(02:00):
hopefully I'm not sick, because I'm kind of stoked that
something is in store for me that I have absolutely
no idea what it is, so that's kind of cool.
So I always say this, not always, but often say
that this one's probably gonna be a quick one. This
one might be, but we'll see. We'll see if we
(02:22):
end up getting forty five minutes to an hour, as
I often do. But I was thinking about all the
different things that I've talked about on the show before.
So I've talked about TV, I've talked about movies. I've
talked about music, and I even talked about rock magazines,
which still is music, conspiracy theories, world events, all those
kind of things. Serial killers in depth reviews of particular
(02:47):
artists and their careers. But I have been and I
think this is by virtue of being close to a birthday,
I start to get a little bit more nostalgic I
think around this time of year. And there's also the
part of it of like going to have two kids
off at college. It's just a different time in life.
(03:08):
And I guess I'm you know, part of the reason
I do the show is so I can talk about
these things that I remember. And I am thinking about
complete tangent here, not related, but I am thinking about
some conversations that my wife and I had had recently.
And she went to a networking event that was also
a charity fundraiser and it was a trivia night. Now
(03:30):
I've never been to a trivia night. I've never done it.
And Lord knows, my brain is going to rapidly deteriorate
at some point and I should probably go ahead and
use this store of odd miscellanea that runs through my
cranium all the time, maybe to make a little money
(03:50):
here and there. And you know, Maggie is telling me
what some of the questions were, and I'm like, oh,
that's this, that's this, that's this, that's this and anything that.
So some of these you know, trivia will run a
gamut of timelines right. It'll go from you know, a
couple of questions about something that is early nineteen hundreds
or even late you know, nineteenth century, you know, some
(04:12):
the eighteen hundreds, and then it will be something that
might be current that I may or may not know.
So I said, you know, if our family, just the
five of us went to a trivia night, we would
absolutely crush. We would crush. So we're thinking about doing that.
I think it'd be a lot of fun. And apparently
these things have popped up all over the place, and
(04:33):
I don't know, I've just never done it. So I
think I'm going to have to do that at some
time or another because it just seems like a blast,
and if you could make money doing it, why not. Hey,
speaking of making money, I am also coming to the
point where I realize I'm probably going to have to
replace my roof, my water heater, and my furnace. So
(04:56):
if you could, just as I say at the end
of the show, share, like, get more listeners to the show,
I'd really appreciate it. I know the burdens upon me
to have content that people want to listen to, but
if you could spread it around, so maybe this thing
brings in a few more bucks. I'd appreciate it because
I am not looking for it to all this work
that needs to be done. We knew and we moved
(05:16):
into the house that we were going to have to
do the roof. We dodged the bowl at our last house,
and the people who bought it from us, they ended
up doing a roof a couple of years in. But yeah,
water heater I know is about to go not super
expensive if I want to just go with a similar
tank to what I have, but I have the opportunity
to maybe go through one of these programs. In Massachusetts,
(05:37):
we have something called mass Save where you can basically
retool your entire system something high efficiency. There's always concerned
they say high efficiency is actually going to keep me
warm in the winter and make sure I have hot water.
So if any of you have experience with these indirect
on demand water heaters, let me know. I'm curious to
know your perspective on it of whether it actually is
(05:57):
a quality way to get hot water five people when
we're all home and it's a lot of hot water,
particularly if multiple people have to shower at the same time,
which is often the case. So anyway, let me know
your thoughts on that, So let's get into the topic
for tonight. So books. When I was a kid, I
(06:17):
was a voracious reader. I haven't been as much probably
the past two years of reading the way that I
used to. There was a series that I absolutely loved
and typically a new book would drop every summer or
every other summer. I'm not going to get into it today,
but let's just say that the direction that the final
(06:39):
two books of this series that I had followed, I
think it was like seven books in or something like that,
it just went to a place that I couldn't reconcile
and I just couldn't get into it. And it was
such a bummer because it was my summer respite and
I would go and reread the books if I didn't
get one, and I basically purchased everything that this author
put out outside of this one series, really a big
(07:01):
fan of the work. And then you know, it just
took a turn that I was like, I can't even
read this. I can't even read it. It just doesn't
work for me. But I do enjoy reading if I
can find a book that I really enjoy. I have
two books for this summer that I have kind of
planned on. So one is the biography of Michael Sweet.
(07:24):
I started reading it last summer. But the binding is terrible.
I have to be honest. I don't know who did
the distribution and the manufacturing. The book itself minor complaint,
but like the pages are dodgy, had a couple that
fell out. It's a bad binding and that sucks. And
number two is The Witcher one of the collected series
(07:46):
or one of the main novels, because I do know
there's a series of short stories as well as full novelizations,
and I just haven't sat down to read it. I'm
going to be traveling in the next few weeks and
that's oftentimes something that I'll do on the airplane if
I don't just say screw and bring my Steam deck.
Because I'm also looking for my summer video game. I
typically will pay a game every summer. It's been Witcher three.
(08:07):
I tried to play elden Ring, hated it, and then
I played God of War. The God of War Ragnarok
is now available on Steam, so I might just play
that anyway. Books loved books, and I'm sure some of
you are familiar with these, but not just books. So
when we were kids, we also had magazines, and I'm
(08:31):
just going to go over a few of my favorite magazines.
And if I didn't have a subscription, I would certainly
see them at doctors and dentist's office, or at the
school library or the town public library. So let's start
off with I think the granddaddy of them all, which
is still in print, so running from nineteen forty six
until present day, Highlights Magazine. I don't know about you.
(08:56):
I only had a subscription one or two years, and
I would typically just do it at the doctor's office.
And I remember even being a teenager and going going, oh,
look Highlights. Right, It's like I was way beyond that.
But Goof is and Galant, the one kid who was
a mess and a goof and Galant who was always
(09:17):
a good boy. Right, they were basically Poleder opposites. I
loved it. The timber Toes, remember the timber Toes and
their dog spot what fun. The Bear family was also
in there, and of course there was always the hidden pictures.
And I remember looking at, you know, back issues, like
I said, go to the dentist's office. Maybe there's a
(09:38):
weight you get through a whole one. You go Okay,
I'm gonna grab last month's issue and go through the
whole thing. It was just so fun and it was
appropriate for that age level. Like I said, even as
a teenager, I'd go, oh, Highlights. And one of our
good friends when they first started having kids, they started
having kids pretty young, and they had Highlights and we
(09:59):
went over there. I'm like, oh, Highlights and the kids
like immediately like would come and like all sit around
me so in my lap and like, oh, can we
go through it? And I'm like absolutely, so really good stuff.
So then in that kind of elementary to middle school phase,
there was Dynamite Magazine. Now, the reason that Dynamite always
pops into my head with JJ Walker is that mister
(10:21):
Dano Might was on the cover of Dynamite Magazine, and
that cover has been etched in my brain. I think
he's wearing a turtleneck and a cago, just looking as
JJ Walker as he possibly could. But you know, Dynamite
Magazine ran from nineteen seventy four until nineteen ninety two,
(10:43):
so basically had an eighteen year run. But it's really
unfortunate because it had been one of the most successful
publications in history and inspired four similar periodicals. So Bananas,
which I don't remember Bananas Wow, hot Dog, Oh gosh,
there's not even a link for hot Dog. I remember
(11:04):
hot Dog. And then there was Peanut Butter. So the
guy who started it actually Janette Cohn wait from DC Comics.
Janet Cohn. Yeah, So she started Dynamite, published by Scholastic,
and then she went on to become the publisher for
(11:25):
DC Comics from nineteen seventy six until she was promoted
five years later to president. She stepped down as publisher
and assumed the title of editor in chief while retaining
the office of president. After twenty six years with DC,
she left the company in two thousand and two. Now
that lady ruled, and I remember like letters to the
publisher and letters to the editor. Holy cow. Jeanette Kahn
(11:49):
started Dynamite. I had note, Oh my gosh, what's on
the Wikipedia page. It's Jimmy Walker and he is, in fact,
he's not in a maybe it's a cant go. It
is a bucket app and a cable knit turtleneck and
it's a cover within a cover within a cover. Oh
my gosh, this is the one. And a friend of
(12:11):
mine had this cover framed in her college dorm. Oh
my gosh. But what I didn't know was that the
next one hundred and nine issues were edited by Jane Stein,
wife of children's author R. L. Stein, who hadn't yet
started doing Goosebumps and he had done some work on
(12:32):
Dynamite Magazine. The final issue, Dynamite number one sixty five,
was dated March nineteen ninety two and featured actress Julia
Roberts and Austrian actor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover. But yeah,
I mean it started to move into some teen idle territory.
Covers had Johnny depp Alis Milano, Corey Haynes, Corey Feldman,
(12:52):
Will Smith, along with two eight by eleven mini posters
in each issue. Features included the Dynamite Activity Center, Dynamite
puzzle pages, and spooky stories by R. L. Stein, also
known as Jovial Bob Stein, who would later create the
Goosebumps series. Ah good stuff. So then in kind of
(13:15):
a different category you might remember, and a magazine that
is still running today which I did not realize, Mad
Magazine nineteen fifty until present. Of course, the mascot was
Alfred E. Newman. Still the mascot Alfred E. Newman, with
art by people my name of Sergio Aragones and Mort Drucker.
(13:37):
Mort Drucker did that fantastic artwork for the band Anthrax
as well. Nevertheless, Mad was a and is a satirical
magazine with some really over the top artwork could sometimes
trend into crass territory, which is completely okay, but you
had a counterpoint a little bit cleaner less, let's say,
(14:00):
controversial Cracked magazine, which ran from nineteen fifty eight to
two thousand and seven with their mascot Sylvester P. Smyth,
with most of the main artwork being done by John Severn.
Now this one you might remember. I don't, but it
was considered one of the big three of this style
of magazine, the satirical comic magazine. There was Crazy Magazine,
(14:24):
which was published from nineteen seventy three to nineteen eighty
three by none other than Marvel Comics Group. I had
no idea or I just don't remember it. Let's see
Crazy Magazine. Excuse me. Let's see Crazy Magazine, an illustrated
satire and humor magazine published by Marvel Comics for a
(14:46):
total of ninety four regular issues and a Super Special
in nineteen seventy five. The magazine's format followed in the
tradition of Mad, Sick, Cracked, and National Lampoon, with contributors
such as Stanley will Eisner, Von Body, Frank Kelly Frees,
Harvey Kurtzman, Mike Pluge, Basil Wolverton, Mary Severn, Mike Carlin,
(15:08):
Oh Mike Carlin, editor Marv Wolfman, who was one of
my favorite all time comic writers he did the New
Teen Titans as well as Crisis on Infinite Earth's and
executive editor Roy Thomas, with mainstream art writers like Carlon
Ellison and Arch Butchwald also contributing. Yeah, I mean, I
(15:28):
don't remember this magazine at all. Did they have like
a crazy character or anything created The magazine's first mascot,
a short, bug eyed man in a large black hat
and draped in a black cape. Initially unnamed, the mascot
was dubbed the Nebish and later Irving Nebish. Wolfman recalled
(15:50):
Stanley wanted to be more Mad Cracked where I wanted
it more Lampoon. We sort of split the difference. Yeah,
I don't recall this at all. I do recall that
some members of the Marvel or DC Comics Pantheon would
certainly be satirized over in Mad and Cracked magazine at
(16:10):
a fairly robust clip. But nevertheless, those are just some
of the fun you know, youth and teen magazines from
the nineteen well, I mean some of these, going back
to the nineteen fifties, nineteen forty six for highlights, through
the nineties, and even into today with a few of these,
so you may remember, you might remember those. I had
(16:31):
a blast reading them, and my aunt had a bunch
of the back copies of those, and it was always
great fun. So now let's get into books. Now. I'm
going to go through some of these, and many of
them are fairly obvious, but I'm also going to mention
a couple that at least one of them that I
(16:53):
had stumbled upon at a library. But let's go through this. So,
I don't know if you all know who Edward Packard is,
but Edward Packard was a genius who changed book reading
for our generation single handedly because he was the guy
(17:14):
who brought us to choose your own adventure books. I
did not realize how many there were. The one that
I always remember is the very first one, the Cave
of Time, which came from nineteen seventy nine. But if
you go and you look, and I'd seem to remember
(17:35):
the cover one way, and it was amazing to see
how many of these books he actually did. So he
was the creator of the Choose your Adventure book concept
and author of more than fifty books in the series.
So it's one thing if you're writing a linear narrative,
(17:58):
but imagine that you're just going through true and it's like, okay,
now you need to pay you know, turn to page
fifty six based upon whatever decision that you make. It's
in genius. It's ingenius. But I was looking for the
entire kind of bibliography here. Let's see, does it have
(18:22):
anything here? It does? Holy cow? Um, Nope, this is
not This is basically a biographical note by him. What
is this copyright twenty twenty four. Let's see. I'm trying
to find like the whole list because it was quite impressive.
(18:47):
Let's see choose your own Adventure book concept. Is it
going to give me a redirect right back to him? No,
it does not. Okay. So the format originally created for
seven to fourteen year olds. The books are written in
the second person, the protagonist, that is, the reader takes
on a role relevant to the adventure, such as private investigator,
mountain climber, race car driver, doctor, or spy. Certain books
(19:09):
in the series allow readers choice of whom to take
the role. For example, in an adventure book, readers may
be prompted to choose between a climber, a hiker, or
a traveler. Stories are generally gender and race neutral, though
in some cases, particularly in illustrations, there is presumption of
a male reader who had been the target demographic group.
(19:30):
In some stories, the protagonist is implied to be a child,
where in other stories the protagonist is an adult. So
the number of endings would vary from as many as
forty four in the early titles to as few as
seven in later adventures. Likewise, there is no clear pattern
among the various endings regarding the number of pages per ending,
(19:51):
the ratio of good to bad endings, and just so
you know, that whole concept continues today primarily in video games,
which are video games where your choices dictate the ending,
where you can go good ending one, bad ending five.
This allows for a realistic sense of unpredictability and leads
(20:12):
to the possibility of repeat readings, which is one of
the distinguishing features of the book. So let's see. So
some of the key ones here, let's see. Ummm is
it just giving me yeah, not really giving me the
(20:32):
full list. I am going to see complete list of
Choose your own adventure books. What do we gots? What
do we got? Okay, here we go. Number one The
Cave of Time. As I mentioned, Journey under the Sea
by Balloon to the Sahara. I'm not gonna read them all,
but Space and Beyond pretty sure I read. Oh the
(20:54):
one that I remember reading the Third Planet from Altaire
reissued as a Message from Space that came out in
nineteen eighty. I definitely liked that one inside UFO fifty
four forty let's see Survival at Sea. Definitely read that one.
Escape read that, Space Patrol read that? And what else? Oh,
(21:22):
I never read the Vampire Express That sounds great. Journey
to Stonehenge, I feel like I read that one, and yeah,
I think that's the last one I remember reading. But
some other titles are A Spy for George Washington, Danger
at Anchor Mine, Return to the Cave of Time, Magic
of the Uniform, Unicorn, The Trumpet of terror, the anti
(21:46):
matter formula. That sounds excellent. Let's see Sugar Cane Island,
Mystery of This Secret Room. Anyway, you get my point.
I used to love this book series. I would check
them out of the live. The Cave of the Time
is the only one that I think I specifically owned
and did in fact read multiple times. Loved it, loved
(22:09):
it as a concept. My kids got a couple, but
they weren't necessarily from I think the actual Choose your
Own Adventure series. I think they were similar, kind of knockoffs,
if you will, because the content concept itself became very,
very popular. But yeah, good stuff, absolutely good stuff. The
(22:29):
next one I'm going to share it's because I was
gifted some books and they were trade paperbacks, a collection
of Peanuts. Now some of you may not know this,
or you haven't been reminded of this, but did you
know that the Peanuts Gang, of course i'm talking about
Charlie Brown and Lucy and Snoopy and Linus actually aged
(22:54):
subtly throughout the series. So this set of paperbacks that
I had, which i've leave I got from either my
mom or my aunt a captor. Bear in mind that
it ran from nineteen fifty to two thousand, right, But
in the earliest comic strips, Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Schroeder
were depicted as young kids roughly four to six years old,
(23:19):
with simpler designs and more toddler like proportions right, big head,
small bodies, naive behaviors. For example, Charlie Brown in nineteen
fifty was a mischievous, less introspective kid with a buzz
cut as opposed to an anxious everyman. Lucy debuted as
a toddler like character barely able to count, while Schroter
(23:39):
was introduced as an actual baby in nineteen fifty one,
only later becoming the piano prodigy we all came to
know and love. So by the mid fifties, Schultz aged
them to be more consistent for elementary school, a whole
different set of dynamics as far as interpersonal development and characterization.
Setting the characters between six and eight years old. Their
(24:03):
designs evolved, faces became more expressive in their personalities deepened,
and Charlie Brown's insecurities and obsession with baseball solidified, with
Lucy becoming the bossy know it all and Snoopy initially
a more realistic puppy started walking upright and developing his
imaginative inner world. By the nineteenth sixties, new characters like
(24:24):
Sally and Linus, introduced as a baby in fifty two,
all aged up to join the school age crew, though
Linus stayed younger than Charlie Brown and Lucy So finally,
in the later issues I shouldn't say issues. In the
later comic strips, Charlie Brown's age was implied to be
around eight and a half or perhaps nine, maybe even
(24:47):
ten years old by the time this series came to
an end. But if you go back and you look
at the early strips, it is different, and it's not
as though the tonal shift as the characters got older
was obvious. But man, I could have spent an entire
afternoon just reading it, just reading it and reading it,
(25:07):
and then okay, boom, read the other one, and I
must have reread them so many times. But Charles Schultz,
it was fantastic. But it really was curious to see
Charlie Brown was not like the Charlie Brown later on.
You know, I like how it says, you know, mischievous
and just being a little kid before what the world's
(25:28):
maxing the face and all of a sudden, your insecurities
become so obvious and blatant. And he was not the
best baseball player, but man, he loved the game, and
the game did not love him back. I don't know,
I really loved that that series of books. I wish
I could I could find him now, you know. And
I didn't include it for tonight because it's very much
a little kid thing and too many volumes to go over.
(25:49):
But so my grandmother, she worked at kmart and a
lot of these places had kind of like membership plans,
like you sign up for a book, and she decided
that she was going to keep them at her house.
And I had my own bookshelf when I went over
to my grandmother's, which was typically on Sundays, so I
(26:09):
would oftentimes go to church with my grandmother. We'd hit
McDonald's afterwards and then go back to the house. And
she didn't want me to just playing it in front
of the TV the whole time, So she began to
get the Disney books and that has like you know, uh,
Mickey in the Haunted House, as well as you know,
a smaller, shorter, bite sized readers of you know, your
(26:32):
Bambies your snow whites, but these kind of independent, unique
stories mixed in there well, like you know, the you know,
the Mickey and the Haunted House, which was a short
but they kind of fleshed it out that made the
story for the book Beautiful Illustrations much better. But I
could go into a whole thing just on those Disney
books because I didn't really see a ton of the
(26:54):
Disney movies when I was a kid, and then not
having cable, we didn't have the Disney Channel or anything
like that. So unless it was something that was going
to be played on network television, it really wasn't into
the Disney stuff. And I think that's why I'm kind
of like me now. But my kids grew up with
having Disney Channel, whether it was the channel on cable
or streaming, so just very different. But the books is
(27:17):
I think what gave me the lore, if you will,
and kind of the appreciation for what Disney had been
up until I don't know, past twenty years were who knows,
such a massive conglomeration. But nevertheless, moving on, so Charlie
and the Chalco Factory, Rowood Doll. Everyone knows the movie,
(27:39):
everyone knows, you know. I think the superior version. Of course,
is the original, right, absolutely the original. No offense to
Charlie Charlie Sheen, Wow, that would have been interesting. Imagine
Charlie Sheen as Willy Wonka. So no offense to Johnny Depp.
(27:59):
But is the definitive Willy Wonka on film? Just period,
There's just no way around it. It was fantastic. He
got the character, he got the book, and Roll Dahl
writes in a very particular, rather peculiar way. But I
had the library at oh gosh, what was the name
(28:23):
of that first elementary school, Jonathan Trumbull. So Jonathan Trumbull
was a school that ended up closing after my first
grade year, and they had a fantastic library, and they
had the great glass elevator. Now I didn't know this
was a thing. So I look in there and I
see Charlie and Chock Factory. Great, I'm gonna read this,
And I see next with great glass elevator. Like, I
(28:46):
got to read that next, and I went home right.
Charlie and Chocolate Factory loved the kind of the differences
between the film and the book. It was my first
real opportunity to see an actual intellectual property. If you
will seeing a book then being translated to the big
screen and kind of reconciling the differences. Now I'm little
(29:07):
when I'm seeing this first grade, but then I'm like, Okay,
Great Glass Elevator, I'm in and it is the most
batshit crazy thing that you can imagine. The President of
the United States. There's space there. It's bonkers. It's absolutely bonkers.
And my kids so one time for some long card
(29:32):
trip that we were doing, we got Great Glass Elevator
on audiobook and it was excellent. Oh my gosh, I'm
forgetting the name of the aliens. Oh my gosh, I
am failing myself from the uh trivia perspective. Oh my gosh,
(29:53):
what are they called? Because it got turned into a
band name, Vermicious Canids. Vermicious Canids. Excellent. What a fantastic
name for bad guys. Right, So, the Vernicious Canids are
also mentioned other Doll stories, including James and the Giant
Peach and the Minpins. But seriously, if you have never
(30:17):
read Great Glass Elevator, just for yourself, just do it,
because it's so much fun. It is so bonkers. It
is all the grannies, you know, not just Grandpa Joe
This is all of them going on an adventure into space.
It is bonkers, you know, highly recommended the president, President
(30:40):
Lancelot are Gilligras, who has accused of the group of
being foreign enemies. But there's like a space hotel. Honestly,
check it out. I'm hoping someday a movie would be made.
It might be difficult to do, if I'm being perfectly honest,
like it is very difficult. I felt as though there
(31:04):
were supposed to be a third one, though, but it
never happened. Anyway. I read that book. I must have
checked it out three times because I couldn't get enough
of it. Excellent stuff. If you read it as a kid,
you know exactly what I mean. The next one I
also checked out of that library, and I remember gazing
(31:27):
upon it for hours at a time. So again all
of it. But this one had amazing illustrations. It's Da
Laire's Book of Greek Myths. I had already fallen in
love with Greek mythology from this book. So then when
like Clash the Titans comes out Hercules, all that kind
of stuff, Jason and the Argonauts, I remember seeing the
(31:49):
stop motion gorgeous, couldn't get enough of it. And this
book's illustrations are so breath taking, truly breathtaking, and I
wanted my own copy. I'm an adult. I can buy
my own copy. Gosh darn it. Yeah. I ended up
(32:12):
finding some of the pages, you know, online and it
really is tremendous. There's this one page in particular, that
is the family tree, Zeus's family tree, you know, Cronus
to Zeus and Hera, Demeter, Hestia Hades Poseidon their progeny.
(32:35):
After that, Persephone Hermes have I always get this drunk
he Fidus, ares Athena, Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysus. It's a
beautifully illustrated book and if you see it, you'd be like, okay,
I get exactly why, or if you were like me
as a kid, you couldn't get enough of it. And
(32:58):
it was written in such a way that it was
meant to be four kids. I think it was meant
to be for kids. I mean, who knows. Yeah, it
was introduced to generations and it was meant to be
four young readers. This is in stock really, huh? It
(33:19):
is still in print. It was reprinted what year? It
is available in hardcover for sixteen dollars and eighty cents,
or in paperback per ten dollars and twenty nine cents.
The paperback was a reprint in March of nineteen ninety two. Huh,
(33:41):
the author of Wonder RJ. Palacio, I dobt it would
have grown up to be the writer and artist I
became had I not fallen in love with j'a Lair's
Book of Greek Myths at the age of seven. Brother,
that's exactly the age that I'm talking about, and I
get it. So those of you who remember this book,
let me know if you were so enthralled by the
(34:05):
visuals and the storytelling and the richness of Greek mythology,
I know for me it was immediately hooked and kind
of a lifelong love. You know. My kids have always
said to me, well, why don't you read the Percy
Jackson series and all that kind of stuff. And I
almost don't want to go down the route of anything
(34:25):
that is a reimagining or taking liberties with the myths.
But I like the original stories and bearing in mind
that this was the religion of the people, the Greeks
and later the Romans with their own you know, renaming
of all of the Greek gods. Yeah, it's really something else.
(34:50):
It's a rich world with generations of storytelling within it.
It is also not so I think that the dla
Airs did a great job of parsing some of the language,
because much of what happens in Greek mythology is lustful,
(35:11):
it's violent, it's vengeful, and I think you have to
be careful about how you broach those subjects with young minds,
and I think they just really focused on the fact
that it's this really fractured family tree with a lot
of interpersonal drama. I mean, realistically, the Greek myths was
the earliest form of like soap operas, to be perfectly honest,
(35:35):
and you know, Zeus was always up to Shenanigan's right
and all this progeny and his wife back home going
this guy is ridiculous and I'm going to take revenge
on all of these little Demi gods. It's just fantastic stuff.
So Dlair's Book of Greek Mythology. I loved it as
(35:58):
a kid. Now jumping forward a little bit when I
was a little bit older, middle school, and I think
it's a right of passage. So for kids nowadays, I
think Harry Potter, is the right of passage of them
really digging into a novelization, a novel series that is
aimed directly at them. So this one that I'm going
(36:19):
to mention was not necessarily aimed at kids necessarily, but
I still felt that it was a major right of passage.
And the books are actually from the nineteen forties and fifties,
and I'm talking about The Hobbit and The Lord of
the Rings by Jay R. Tolkien. I decided that I
was going to read this. So the summer gosh was
(36:41):
it sixth grade or seventh grade? It might have been
the summer before six or seventh And I knew that
for the coming school year we were going to get
to choose our own books, excuse me, and do book
reports for each term four terms. And I remember telling
(37:02):
my teacher this was my plan, and she goes, that
is ambitious. I'm like, yeah, but I've decided this is
what I'm gonna do because I'd read The Hobbit. Now,
for anyone who knows the Hobbit is a very different
journey and story than the full Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit is an easy reader in comparison. I remember
(37:27):
reading The Fellowship of the Ring, going I may have
bitten off more than I can chew here, and I
remember struggling to get to the end of Return of
the King fourth term of either like I said, six
or seventh grade. It was ambitious. But I loved the
Ralph Bakshi animated films. I wish that was able to
(37:48):
be more fleshed out, particularly that first Fellowship of the Ring.
They just called it Lord of the Rings. I love
the animation style. It was so cool. And the books themselves,
there's a reason that they're classics. There are sometimes that
people say this book is a classic, and you read
it and you go, really seems overhyped, doesn't seem as
(38:09):
good as everyone makes it out to be. Lord of
the Rings is an actual classic that will be read
for hundreds of years. It is a lush world. It
is fully fleshed out, the characters, the different races of
man and elf and hobbit and orc and ent and goblins,
(38:34):
the languages that were invented for for example, for example,
Elvish in and of itself is such a master work
by Tolkien of saying I'm going to give you the
modern the modern mythology if you will. He was as
invested in stories like Beowulf and the Greek gods, but
(38:58):
he wanted something that was very rooted in English, but
also the history of the English language. And that's where
I think his delving into Elvish was so interesting, is
looking at the entomology of words and the history of
the English, Gaelics and the Celtic and all of it
(39:20):
and creating this amazing narrative. It's tremendous storytelling. And honestly,
Peter Jackson he got it some liberties, sure, but what
were what liberties was he taking? When he's digging into
the Silmarillion, which is basically like the Bible of Middle Earth.
(39:40):
Try reading that sucker. It is dense, dense, And he
was able to flesh out some side characters or things
that if you read this some earli and you go, yeah,
that was happening concurrently to what was happening, beautiful. Tolkien
is a genius. He knew the story was, or at
(40:01):
least it seemed that he did so. Gr R Martin
in your Game of Thrones, brother, figure it out, Figure
it out. You should have known where the ending was
going to be at least kind of an idea and
get on it. But I loved those books. Maybe it's
time for a reread. Perhaps, And now here's the one
(40:24):
that I think most of you probably don't know, and
I think I have been able to track down a copy.
I'll be honest, I don't recall anything other than the
moment I found it. I remember that moment, but I
don't remember if it was I was in the sci
(40:47):
fi aisle initially, I was looking specifically for a book.
I don't know how I came across it. I just
know that I did, and as soon as I saw
the cover. Maybe it was the library. And what are
you into here? Check this out? It's a book called
Xandra by William Rotzler, published in nineteen seventy eight. I
(41:13):
just think I track down a copy that seems to
be in good shape. So the Xandra Saga by William Rosler.
The series is set in the Bermuter Triangle kind of
It's because by flying through the Bermuda Triangle, this whole
airplane full of people are transported to the planet Xandra,
(41:35):
a feudal world with anti gravity airships, slaves, and medieval
like societies. The stories follows the protagonists using modern knowledge
and skills to navigate this alien world, often with action,
adventure and some romanticized elements. So published by doubl Edday
one hundred and ninety two pages. You have the first
(41:56):
one Xandra, then you have the Hidden Worlds of xandralished
in nineteen eighty two. I read both. I could not
tell you the resolution of the story. I really could not.
All I know is it was pulpy. It was it
(42:16):
got a little not tawdry. Now bear in mind that
William Rotzler was a pornographer, but this was his sci
fi world, and in fact he moved out of being
just a just a pornographer, if you will so. William
(42:36):
Rotzler was an American artist, cartoonist, pornographer, and science fiction author.
Rozler won four Hugo Awards and once one time at
Nebula Award nominee. And I'm just gonna leave here what
some of the stuff that's included in some of his
earlier work. But then he just went all in as
(43:02):
being a cartoonist for a large number of science fiction magazines.
For example, National Fantasy Fan Volume seven, Issue Too, was
published back in nineteen forty eight. A famous author by
the name of Harlan Ellison encouraged Rochzler to write science
fiction stories, so he won a Hugo Award for Best
(43:22):
Fan Artist four times seventy five, seventy nine, ninety six,
and ninety seven. He also won a retro Hugo for
his work in nineteen forty six and was runner up
for nineteen fifty one. He's also the author of Rozler's
Rules for Costuming, which addresses the cosplay often found at
conventions and equipped that people are making rules for themselves
(43:43):
and always finding loopholes. Through his illustrations, Rottler also helped
perpetuate the image of science fiction fans wearing Propeller Peeni
site I don't remember that. Nevertheless, this Zander series I
was also immediately. He also did some work for Marvel
(44:05):
and Call My Killer Modoc. Did he create Modoc or
is it just that he wrote a novelization? Oh, he
wrote a novelization about Modoc. This is back in nineteen
seventy five, excuse me, nineteen seventy nine, and The Nightmare
also in nineteen seventy nine. Yeah, this Xandra book, I'm
(44:27):
really thinking that I'm just going to buy it if
for no other reason than to be transported back to
when I was like twelve years old, ten eleven, twelve,
somewhere in there, and I discovered this random book in
you know, the library. Now, bear in mind the Bermuda Triangle.
You know, there's a couple of memes that are that
are out there on the internet talks about you know,
(44:47):
I thought quicksand is going to be a bigger issue
than it ever turned out being right, stop, drop and roll, useful,
but have you done it? Duck and cover? Sure, but
the Bermuda Triangle was a terrifying thing. And the thing is,
unless you were actually flying somewhere in that general direction,
it was the most benign danger and risk. So I'll admit.
(45:09):
And maybe because I read this book when I was
a kid, we had our honeymoon in Bermuda, and I'm like,
oh shit, I hope we don't end up on another planet.
No knows the fuck I'm talking about when I talk
about that, because no one's read this book. So if
you or someone you know has read Xandra, send him
by way. I'd love to talk about it, because I
am planning I'm buying this crazy book. Yeah, it was
(45:30):
just so cool. I remember like the lead the lead
male was like a football player on Earth and like
the gravity was wonky. They talked about anti gravity ships.
So he's already strong as hell because he's a football player,
NFL guy, and now he has the ability to deal
with a lighter gravity situation and he's just like destroying dudes.
(45:52):
And I was like, that's so cool. Now. I think
that is a similar conceit to John Carter, because I
think John Carter, which I've heard about both the book
and the movie. The movie got maligned terribly, and every
time I see clips from it, I'm like, you know,
(46:13):
this kind of looks good. So if anyone's watched it,
let me know. So this was based upon a princess
of Mars Barsoom Edgar Rice Burrows. Yeah, this is back
in nineteen twelve. He wrote this Wow. Ten sequels followed
over the next three decades. No, Kidden, I always think
(46:37):
of Tarzan, huh. He wrote twenty four Tarzan books and
eleven of this Barsoom series, along with the Elucidar series,
the Amtur series, and the cast Back trilogy. Holy cow,
how many published works does he have? Moon series, Mucker series,
(47:00):
these other science fiction Western novels, historical novels. I mean,
this guy was as prolific as it gets. What was
his reputation, though, I'm curious um In something of myself,
published posthumously in nineteen thirty seven, Rudyard Kipling wrote, My
jungle books begat zoos of imitators. But the genius of
(47:23):
all the GNI was one who wrote a series called
Tarzan of the Apes. I read it, but I regret
I never saw on the films where it raged most successfully.
He had jazz the motif of the Jungle books, and
I imagine had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was reported to
have said that he wanted to find out how bad
a book he could write and get away with, which
is a legitimate ambition, tremendous. You know what, I'm also
(47:48):
going to try and write as bad a book as
I can and see if I can get away with it.
So Rudyard Kipling begat Edgar Yes Burrows, who begat mister
Rotzler and his Xandra series. Yeah, so check it out,
if for no other reason it was a lot of
stupid fun. You know. A bunch of the literary criticism
(48:11):
of the Xander series is it talks about the problematic
relationship between male and female. Now bear in mind this
was written in the late nineteen seventies, there would have
been a very different dynamic. And you're also talking about
a guy who was a pornographer. So yes, the male
female dynamics are. It's very much a masculine based book.
(48:35):
And I'm fairly certain that one of the groups of
alien women were like buckso whatever, not so different than
James T. Kirk, everyone's favorite hero from Star Trek was
betting every alien from here to God knows where, from
here to deep space nine and Knowing thinks twice, I
don't know. People have their own views on things. They're
(49:00):
entitled to them. I guess that maybe as a preteen boy,
I was quite taken with some of these descriptions. Perhaps,
But I'm going to read the book and I'll let
you know if it is quite as lustful as it's
been made out to be by some of the reviewers.
So here we are about the fifty minute mark. I
thought I was going to be about forty five minutes,
(49:21):
but had a little bit more, I guess on the
tip of my tongue that I thought i'd share with everyone,
But that is the kind of review of some of
my favorite books from childhood, some of the series, some
of the things that I know that I was quite
smitten with. I loved reading. I loved reading. My very
first book that I read was a biography of the Beatles,
(49:42):
and I was probably like four or five years old,
and it was one of those who is kind of series.
And I remember my mom would like quiz me on
this book because she didn't believe that I was reading it.
She thought that I was just memorizing it from her
having read it to me, and she would like, go, okay,
read this, and I would just read it. Yeah. I
(50:03):
just fell in love with the written word too. About
I can't speak, that would actually be super helpful. And
my syntax when I'm writing is just atrocious. My grammar,
I have dangling participles everywhere. Anyway, let me know if
you read any or all of those books. I doubt
you read, Xandra, but I've been surprised before by people
(50:26):
who have sent me something going, hey, I was listening
to the show and I clearly remember whatever. Yeah, let
me know. I'd love to get your feedback or even
some books that might be out now that you might
recommend because I'm definitely looking for some more sub to read.
I do like sci fi and horror. Urban fantasy in particular,
(50:46):
I think is really great, but I'm also up for
any biography. So any of the stuff that you might
have heard me talk about that you go, hey, have
you ever read this? Hey? I'm happy to hear it.
So how can you let me know? You can email
me at Stuck in middlepod at yahoo dot com. You
can find me on Instagram x and YouTube at stock
pod x. Heading over to the Facebook page Stuck in
the Middle Ofgenics podcast, please like, comment, share, leave five
(51:09):
star reviews, and most importantly, please subscribe to the podcast.
So until next time, Later slackers,
Welcome to the Stuck in the Middle Podcast, the podcast
dedicated to the music, movies, and generation. What is up, slackers,
and welcome to another episode of the Stuck in the
(00:31):
Middle Podcast. I am your host, Jason Eck, and I
just have to say the human body. It's such a
weird thing because you're at work, you're having a perfectly
fine day, and then you're in the ride the drive home,
and all of a sudden you feel like, wait a minute,
am I am I sick? I feel like I'm all
(00:53):
of a sudden sick. Now, mind you, the sinuses and
all that. It's been my curse for for ages, and
my daughter kind of has a sinus infection, but it
kind of came out of nowhere, which is what's so interesting.
It's like one minute you're fine, the next minute you
feel like absolute garbage. But hey, it is what it is.
(01:13):
Let's see, I have a birthday coming up this weekend,
and my family has something apparently in store for me.
I don't know what that is as of yet. I'm
always curious when my family is plotting such things because
I'm never quite sure exactly what's going to happen. I
(01:37):
just have to plug in another cable here because I
seem to be having some Ah, there we go. My
laptop was running low on juice, so sorry for the
noise there. But yeah, they have something planned for me,
and I'm very fortunate is that I get to have
my birthday and Father's Day usually all happening at the
same time. So yeah, this weekend's all about me. So
(02:00):
hopefully I'm not sick, because I'm kind of stoked that
something is in store for me that I have absolutely
no idea what it is, so that's kind of cool.
So I always say this, not always, but often say
that this one's probably gonna be a quick one. This
one might be, but we'll see. We'll see if we
(02:22):
end up getting forty five minutes to an hour, as
I often do. But I was thinking about all the
different things that I've talked about on the show before.
So I've talked about TV, I've talked about movies. I've
talked about music, and I even talked about rock magazines,
which still is music, conspiracy theories, world events, all those
kind of things. Serial killers in depth reviews of particular
(02:47):
artists and their careers. But I have been and I
think this is by virtue of being close to a birthday,
I start to get a little bit more nostalgic I
think around this time of year. And there's also the
part of it of like going to have two kids
off at college. It's just a different time in life.
(03:08):
And I guess I'm you know, part of the reason
I do the show is so I can talk about
these things that I remember. And I am thinking about
complete tangent here, not related, but I am thinking about
some conversations that my wife and I had had recently.
And she went to a networking event that was also
a charity fundraiser and it was a trivia night. Now
(03:30):
I've never been to a trivia night. I've never done it.
And Lord knows, my brain is going to rapidly deteriorate
at some point and I should probably go ahead and
use this store of odd miscellanea that runs through my
cranium all the time, maybe to make a little money
(03:50):
here and there. And you know, Maggie is telling me
what some of the questions were, and I'm like, oh,
that's this, that's this, that's this, that's this and anything that.
So some of these you know, trivia will run a
gamut of timelines right. It'll go from you know, a
couple of questions about something that is early nineteen hundreds
or even late you know, nineteenth century, you know, some
(04:12):
the eighteen hundreds, and then it will be something that
might be current that I may or may not know.
So I said, you know, if our family, just the
five of us went to a trivia night, we would
absolutely crush. We would crush. So we're thinking about doing that.
I think it'd be a lot of fun. And apparently
these things have popped up all over the place, and
(04:33):
I don't know, I've just never done it. So I
think I'm going to have to do that at some
time or another because it just seems like a blast,
and if you could make money doing it, why not. Hey,
speaking of making money, I am also coming to the
point where I realize I'm probably going to have to
replace my roof, my water heater, and my furnace. So
(04:56):
if you could, just as I say at the end
of the show, share, like, get more listeners to the show,
I'd really appreciate it. I know the burdens upon me
to have content that people want to listen to, but
if you could spread it around, so maybe this thing
brings in a few more bucks. I'd appreciate it because
I am not looking for it to all this work
that needs to be done. We knew and we moved
(05:16):
into the house that we were going to have to
do the roof. We dodged the bowl at our last house,
and the people who bought it from us, they ended
up doing a roof a couple of years in. But yeah,
water heater I know is about to go not super
expensive if I want to just go with a similar
tank to what I have, but I have the opportunity
to maybe go through one of these programs. In Massachusetts,
(05:37):
we have something called mass Save where you can basically
retool your entire system something high efficiency. There's always concerned
they say high efficiency is actually going to keep me
warm in the winter and make sure I have hot water.
So if any of you have experience with these indirect
on demand water heaters, let me know. I'm curious to
know your perspective on it of whether it actually is
(05:57):
a quality way to get hot water five people when
we're all home and it's a lot of hot water,
particularly if multiple people have to shower at the same time,
which is often the case. So anyway, let me know
your thoughts on that, So let's get into the topic
for tonight. So books. When I was a kid, I
(06:17):
was a voracious reader. I haven't been as much probably
the past two years of reading the way that I
used to. There was a series that I absolutely loved
and typically a new book would drop every summer or
every other summer. I'm not going to get into it today,
but let's just say that the direction that the final
(06:39):
two books of this series that I had followed, I
think it was like seven books in or something like that,
it just went to a place that I couldn't reconcile
and I just couldn't get into it. And it was
such a bummer because it was my summer respite and
I would go and reread the books if I didn't
get one, and I basically purchased everything that this author
put out outside of this one series, really a big
(07:01):
fan of the work. And then you know, it just
took a turn that I was like, I can't even
read this. I can't even read it. It just doesn't
work for me. But I do enjoy reading if I
can find a book that I really enjoy. I have
two books for this summer that I have kind of
planned on. So one is the biography of Michael Sweet.
(07:24):
I started reading it last summer. But the binding is terrible.
I have to be honest. I don't know who did
the distribution and the manufacturing. The book itself minor complaint,
but like the pages are dodgy, had a couple that
fell out. It's a bad binding and that sucks. And
number two is The Witcher one of the collected series
(07:46):
or one of the main novels, because I do know
there's a series of short stories as well as full novelizations,
and I just haven't sat down to read it. I'm
going to be traveling in the next few weeks and
that's oftentimes something that I'll do on the airplane if
I don't just say screw and bring my Steam deck.
Because I'm also looking for my summer video game. I
typically will pay a game every summer. It's been Witcher three.
(08:07):
I tried to play elden Ring, hated it, and then
I played God of War. The God of War Ragnarok
is now available on Steam, so I might just play
that anyway. Books loved books, and I'm sure some of
you are familiar with these, but not just books. So
when we were kids, we also had magazines, and I'm
(08:31):
just going to go over a few of my favorite magazines.
And if I didn't have a subscription, I would certainly
see them at doctors and dentist's office, or at the
school library or the town public library. So let's start
off with I think the granddaddy of them all, which
is still in print, so running from nineteen forty six
until present day, Highlights Magazine. I don't know about you.
(08:56):
I only had a subscription one or two years, and
I would typically just do it at the doctor's office.
And I remember even being a teenager and going going, oh,
look Highlights. Right, It's like I was way beyond that.
But Goof is and Galant, the one kid who was
a mess and a goof and Galant who was always
(09:17):
a good boy. Right, they were basically Poleder opposites. I
loved it. The timber Toes, remember the timber Toes and
their dog spot what fun. The Bear family was also
in there, and of course there was always the hidden pictures.
And I remember looking at, you know, back issues, like
I said, go to the dentist's office. Maybe there's a
(09:38):
weight you get through a whole one. You go Okay,
I'm gonna grab last month's issue and go through the
whole thing. It was just so fun and it was
appropriate for that age level. Like I said, even as
a teenager, I'd go, oh, Highlights. And one of our
good friends when they first started having kids, they started
having kids pretty young, and they had Highlights and we
(09:59):
went over there. I'm like, oh, Highlights and the kids
like immediately like would come and like all sit around
me so in my lap and like, oh, can we
go through it? And I'm like absolutely, so really good stuff.
So then in that kind of elementary to middle school phase,
there was Dynamite Magazine. Now, the reason that Dynamite always
pops into my head with JJ Walker is that mister
(10:21):
Dano Might was on the cover of Dynamite Magazine, and
that cover has been etched in my brain. I think
he's wearing a turtleneck and a cago, just looking as
JJ Walker as he possibly could. But you know, Dynamite
Magazine ran from nineteen seventy four until nineteen ninety two,
(10:43):
so basically had an eighteen year run. But it's really
unfortunate because it had been one of the most successful
publications in history and inspired four similar periodicals. So Bananas,
which I don't remember Bananas Wow, hot Dog, Oh gosh,
there's not even a link for hot Dog. I remember
(11:04):
hot Dog. And then there was Peanut Butter. So the
guy who started it actually Janette Cohn wait from DC Comics.
Janet Cohn. Yeah, So she started Dynamite, published by Scholastic,
and then she went on to become the publisher for
(11:25):
DC Comics from nineteen seventy six until she was promoted
five years later to president. She stepped down as publisher
and assumed the title of editor in chief while retaining
the office of president. After twenty six years with DC,
she left the company in two thousand and two. Now
that lady ruled, and I remember like letters to the
publisher and letters to the editor. Holy cow. Jeanette Kahn
(11:49):
started Dynamite. I had note, Oh my gosh, what's on
the Wikipedia page. It's Jimmy Walker and he is, in fact,
he's not in a maybe it's a cant go. It
is a bucket app and a cable knit turtleneck and
it's a cover within a cover within a cover. Oh
my gosh, this is the one. And a friend of
(12:11):
mine had this cover framed in her college dorm. Oh
my gosh. But what I didn't know was that the
next one hundred and nine issues were edited by Jane Stein,
wife of children's author R. L. Stein, who hadn't yet
started doing Goosebumps and he had done some work on
(12:32):
Dynamite Magazine. The final issue, Dynamite number one sixty five,
was dated March nineteen ninety two and featured actress Julia
Roberts and Austrian actor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover. But yeah,
I mean it started to move into some teen idle territory.
Covers had Johnny depp Alis Milano, Corey Haynes, Corey Feldman,
(12:52):
Will Smith, along with two eight by eleven mini posters
in each issue. Features included the Dynamite Activity Center, Dynamite
puzzle pages, and spooky stories by R. L. Stein, also
known as Jovial Bob Stein, who would later create the
Goosebumps series. Ah good stuff. So then in kind of
(13:15):
a different category you might remember, and a magazine that
is still running today which I did not realize, Mad
Magazine nineteen fifty until present. Of course, the mascot was
Alfred E. Newman. Still the mascot Alfred E. Newman, with
art by people my name of Sergio Aragones and Mort Drucker.
(13:37):
Mort Drucker did that fantastic artwork for the band Anthrax
as well. Nevertheless, Mad was a and is a satirical
magazine with some really over the top artwork could sometimes
trend into crass territory, which is completely okay, but you
had a counterpoint a little bit cleaner less, let's say,
(14:00):
controversial Cracked magazine, which ran from nineteen fifty eight to
two thousand and seven with their mascot Sylvester P. Smyth,
with most of the main artwork being done by John Severn.
Now this one you might remember. I don't, but it
was considered one of the big three of this style
of magazine, the satirical comic magazine. There was Crazy Magazine,
(14:24):
which was published from nineteen seventy three to nineteen eighty
three by none other than Marvel Comics Group. I had
no idea or I just don't remember it. Let's see
Crazy Magazine. Excuse me. Let's see Crazy Magazine, an illustrated
satire and humor magazine published by Marvel Comics for a
(14:46):
total of ninety four regular issues and a Super Special
in nineteen seventy five. The magazine's format followed in the
tradition of Mad, Sick, Cracked, and National Lampoon, with contributors
such as Stanley will Eisner, Von Body, Frank Kelly Frees,
Harvey Kurtzman, Mike Pluge, Basil Wolverton, Mary Severn, Mike Carlin,
(15:08):
Oh Mike Carlin, editor Marv Wolfman, who was one of
my favorite all time comic writers he did the New
Teen Titans as well as Crisis on Infinite Earth's and
executive editor Roy Thomas, with mainstream art writers like Carlon
Ellison and Arch Butchwald also contributing. Yeah, I mean, I
(15:28):
don't remember this magazine at all. Did they have like
a crazy character or anything created The magazine's first mascot,
a short, bug eyed man in a large black hat
and draped in a black cape. Initially unnamed, the mascot
was dubbed the Nebish and later Irving Nebish. Wolfman recalled
(15:50):
Stanley wanted to be more Mad Cracked where I wanted
it more Lampoon. We sort of split the difference. Yeah,
I don't recall this at all. I do recall that
some members of the Marvel or DC Comics Pantheon would
certainly be satirized over in Mad and Cracked magazine at
(16:10):
a fairly robust clip. But nevertheless, those are just some
of the fun you know, youth and teen magazines from
the nineteen well, I mean some of these, going back
to the nineteen fifties, nineteen forty six for highlights, through
the nineties, and even into today with a few of these,
so you may remember, you might remember those. I had
(16:31):
a blast reading them, and my aunt had a bunch
of the back copies of those, and it was always
great fun. So now let's get into books. Now. I'm
going to go through some of these, and many of
them are fairly obvious, but I'm also going to mention
a couple that at least one of them that I
(16:53):
had stumbled upon at a library. But let's go through this. So,
I don't know if you all know who Edward Packard is,
but Edward Packard was a genius who changed book reading
for our generation single handedly because he was the guy
(17:14):
who brought us to choose your own adventure books. I
did not realize how many there were. The one that
I always remember is the very first one, the Cave
of Time, which came from nineteen seventy nine. But if
you go and you look, and I'd seem to remember
(17:35):
the cover one way, and it was amazing to see
how many of these books he actually did. So he
was the creator of the Choose your Adventure book concept
and author of more than fifty books in the series.
So it's one thing if you're writing a linear narrative,
(17:58):
but imagine that you're just going through true and it's like, okay,
now you need to pay you know, turn to page
fifty six based upon whatever decision that you make. It's
in genius. It's ingenius. But I was looking for the
entire kind of bibliography here. Let's see, does it have
(18:22):
anything here? It does? Holy cow? Um, Nope, this is
not This is basically a biographical note by him. What
is this copyright twenty twenty four. Let's see. I'm trying
to find like the whole list because it was quite impressive.
(18:47):
Let's see choose your own Adventure book concept. Is it
going to give me a redirect right back to him? No,
it does not. Okay. So the format originally created for
seven to fourteen year olds. The books are written in
the second person, the protagonist, that is, the reader takes
on a role relevant to the adventure, such as private investigator,
mountain climber, race car driver, doctor, or spy. Certain books
(19:09):
in the series allow readers choice of whom to take
the role. For example, in an adventure book, readers may
be prompted to choose between a climber, a hiker, or
a traveler. Stories are generally gender and race neutral, though
in some cases, particularly in illustrations, there is presumption of
a male reader who had been the target demographic group.
(19:30):
In some stories, the protagonist is implied to be a child,
where in other stories the protagonist is an adult. So
the number of endings would vary from as many as
forty four in the early titles to as few as
seven in later adventures. Likewise, there is no clear pattern
among the various endings regarding the number of pages per ending,
(19:51):
the ratio of good to bad endings, and just so
you know, that whole concept continues today primarily in video games,
which are video games where your choices dictate the ending,
where you can go good ending one, bad ending five.
This allows for a realistic sense of unpredictability and leads
(20:12):
to the possibility of repeat readings, which is one of
the distinguishing features of the book. So let's see. So
some of the key ones here, let's see. Ummm is
it just giving me yeah, not really giving me the
(20:32):
full list. I am going to see complete list of
Choose your own adventure books. What do we gots? What
do we got? Okay, here we go. Number one The
Cave of Time. As I mentioned, Journey under the Sea
by Balloon to the Sahara. I'm not gonna read them all,
but Space and Beyond pretty sure I read. Oh the
(20:54):
one that I remember reading the Third Planet from Altaire
reissued as a Message from Space that came out in
nineteen eighty. I definitely liked that one inside UFO fifty
four forty let's see Survival at Sea. Definitely read that one.
Escape read that, Space Patrol read that? And what else? Oh,
(21:22):
I never read the Vampire Express That sounds great. Journey
to Stonehenge, I feel like I read that one, and yeah,
I think that's the last one I remember reading. But
some other titles are A Spy for George Washington, Danger
at Anchor Mine, Return to the Cave of Time, Magic
of the Uniform, Unicorn, The Trumpet of terror, the anti
(21:46):
matter formula. That sounds excellent. Let's see Sugar Cane Island,
Mystery of This Secret Room. Anyway, you get my point.
I used to love this book series. I would check
them out of the live. The Cave of the Time
is the only one that I think I specifically owned
and did in fact read multiple times. Loved it, loved
(22:09):
it as a concept. My kids got a couple, but
they weren't necessarily from I think the actual Choose your
Own Adventure series. I think they were similar, kind of knockoffs,
if you will, because the content concept itself became very,
very popular. But yeah, good stuff, absolutely good stuff. The
(22:29):
next one I'm going to share it's because I was
gifted some books and they were trade paperbacks, a collection
of Peanuts. Now some of you may not know this,
or you haven't been reminded of this, but did you
know that the Peanuts Gang, of course i'm talking about
Charlie Brown and Lucy and Snoopy and Linus actually aged
(22:54):
subtly throughout the series. So this set of paperbacks that
I had, which i've leave I got from either my
mom or my aunt a captor. Bear in mind that
it ran from nineteen fifty to two thousand, right, But
in the earliest comic strips, Charlie Brown, Lucy, and Schroeder
were depicted as young kids roughly four to six years old,
(23:19):
with simpler designs and more toddler like proportions right, big head,
small bodies, naive behaviors. For example, Charlie Brown in nineteen
fifty was a mischievous, less introspective kid with a buzz
cut as opposed to an anxious everyman. Lucy debuted as
a toddler like character barely able to count, while Schroter
(23:39):
was introduced as an actual baby in nineteen fifty one,
only later becoming the piano prodigy we all came to
know and love. So by the mid fifties, Schultz aged
them to be more consistent for elementary school, a whole
different set of dynamics as far as interpersonal development and characterization.
Setting the characters between six and eight years old. Their
(24:03):
designs evolved, faces became more expressive in their personalities deepened,
and Charlie Brown's insecurities and obsession with baseball solidified, with
Lucy becoming the bossy know it all and Snoopy initially
a more realistic puppy started walking upright and developing his
imaginative inner world. By the nineteenth sixties, new characters like
(24:24):
Sally and Linus, introduced as a baby in fifty two,
all aged up to join the school age crew, though
Linus stayed younger than Charlie Brown and Lucy So finally,
in the later issues I shouldn't say issues. In the
later comic strips, Charlie Brown's age was implied to be
around eight and a half or perhaps nine, maybe even
(24:47):
ten years old by the time this series came to
an end. But if you go back and you look
at the early strips, it is different, and it's not
as though the tonal shift as the characters got older
was obvious. But man, I could have spent an entire
afternoon just reading it, just reading it and reading it,
(25:07):
and then okay, boom, read the other one, and I
must have reread them so many times. But Charles Schultz,
it was fantastic. But it really was curious to see
Charlie Brown was not like the Charlie Brown later on.
You know, I like how it says, you know, mischievous
and just being a little kid before what the world's
(25:28):
maxing the face and all of a sudden, your insecurities
become so obvious and blatant. And he was not the
best baseball player, but man, he loved the game, and
the game did not love him back. I don't know,
I really loved that that series of books. I wish
I could I could find him now, you know. And
I didn't include it for tonight because it's very much
a little kid thing and too many volumes to go over.
(25:49):
But so my grandmother, she worked at kmart and a
lot of these places had kind of like membership plans,
like you sign up for a book, and she decided
that she was going to keep them at her house.
And I had my own bookshelf when I went over
to my grandmother's, which was typically on Sundays, so I
(26:09):
would oftentimes go to church with my grandmother. We'd hit
McDonald's afterwards and then go back to the house. And
she didn't want me to just playing it in front
of the TV the whole time, So she began to
get the Disney books and that has like you know, uh,
Mickey in the Haunted House, as well as you know,
a smaller, shorter, bite sized readers of you know, your
(26:32):
Bambies your snow whites, but these kind of independent, unique
stories mixed in there well, like you know, the you know,
the Mickey and the Haunted House, which was a short
but they kind of fleshed it out that made the
story for the book Beautiful Illustrations much better. But I
could go into a whole thing just on those Disney
books because I didn't really see a ton of the
(26:54):
Disney movies when I was a kid, and then not
having cable, we didn't have the Disney Channel or anything
like that. So unless it was something that was going
to be played on network television, it really wasn't into
the Disney stuff. And I think that's why I'm kind
of like me now. But my kids grew up with
having Disney Channel, whether it was the channel on cable
or streaming, so just very different. But the books is
(27:17):
I think what gave me the lore, if you will,
and kind of the appreciation for what Disney had been
up until I don't know, past twenty years were who knows,
such a massive conglomeration. But nevertheless, moving on, so Charlie
and the Chalco Factory, Rowood Doll. Everyone knows the movie,
(27:39):
everyone knows, you know. I think the superior version. Of course,
is the original, right, absolutely the original. No offense to
Charlie Charlie Sheen, Wow, that would have been interesting. Imagine
Charlie Sheen as Willy Wonka. So no offense to Johnny Depp.
(27:59):
But is the definitive Willy Wonka on film? Just period,
There's just no way around it. It was fantastic. He
got the character, he got the book, and Roll Dahl
writes in a very particular, rather peculiar way. But I
had the library at oh gosh, what was the name
(28:23):
of that first elementary school, Jonathan Trumbull. So Jonathan Trumbull
was a school that ended up closing after my first
grade year, and they had a fantastic library, and they
had the great glass elevator. Now I didn't know this
was a thing. So I look in there and I
see Charlie and Chock Factory. Great, I'm gonna read this,
And I see next with great glass elevator. Like, I
(28:46):
got to read that next, and I went home right.
Charlie and Chocolate Factory loved the kind of the differences
between the film and the book. It was my first
real opportunity to see an actual intellectual property. If you
will seeing a book then being translated to the big
screen and kind of reconciling the differences. Now I'm little
(29:07):
when I'm seeing this first grade, but then I'm like, Okay,
Great Glass Elevator, I'm in and it is the most
batshit crazy thing that you can imagine. The President of
the United States. There's space there. It's bonkers. It's absolutely bonkers.
And my kids so one time for some long card
(29:32):
trip that we were doing, we got Great Glass Elevator
on audiobook and it was excellent. Oh my gosh, I'm
forgetting the name of the aliens. Oh my gosh, I
am failing myself from the uh trivia perspective. Oh my gosh,
(29:53):
what are they called? Because it got turned into a
band name, Vermicious Canids. Vermicious Canids. Excellent. What a fantastic
name for bad guys. Right, So, the Vernicious Canids are
also mentioned other Doll stories, including James and the Giant
Peach and the Minpins. But seriously, if you have never
(30:17):
read Great Glass Elevator, just for yourself, just do it,
because it's so much fun. It is so bonkers. It
is all the grannies, you know, not just Grandpa Joe
This is all of them going on an adventure into space.
It is bonkers, you know, highly recommended the president, President
(30:40):
Lancelot are Gilligras, who has accused of the group of
being foreign enemies. But there's like a space hotel. Honestly,
check it out. I'm hoping someday a movie would be made.
It might be difficult to do, if I'm being perfectly honest,
like it is very difficult. I felt as though there
(31:04):
were supposed to be a third one, though, but it
never happened. Anyway. I read that book. I must have
checked it out three times because I couldn't get enough
of it. Excellent stuff. If you read it as a kid,
you know exactly what I mean. The next one I
also checked out of that library, and I remember gazing
(31:27):
upon it for hours at a time. So again all
of it. But this one had amazing illustrations. It's Da
Laire's Book of Greek Myths. I had already fallen in
love with Greek mythology from this book. So then when
like Clash the Titans comes out Hercules, all that kind
of stuff, Jason and the Argonauts, I remember seeing the
(31:49):
stop motion gorgeous, couldn't get enough of it. And this
book's illustrations are so breath taking, truly breathtaking, and I
wanted my own copy. I'm an adult. I can buy
my own copy. Gosh darn it. Yeah. I ended up
(32:12):
finding some of the pages, you know, online and it
really is tremendous. There's this one page in particular, that
is the family tree, Zeus's family tree, you know, Cronus
to Zeus and Hera, Demeter, Hestia Hades Poseidon their progeny.
(32:35):
After that, Persephone Hermes have I always get this drunk
he Fidus, ares Athena, Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysus. It's a
beautifully illustrated book and if you see it, you'd be like, okay,
I get exactly why, or if you were like me
as a kid, you couldn't get enough of it. And
(32:58):
it was written in such a way that it was
meant to be four kids. I think it was meant
to be for kids. I mean, who knows. Yeah, it
was introduced to generations and it was meant to be
four young readers. This is in stock really, huh? It
(33:19):
is still in print. It was reprinted what year? It
is available in hardcover for sixteen dollars and eighty cents,
or in paperback per ten dollars and twenty nine cents.
The paperback was a reprint in March of nineteen ninety two. Huh,
(33:41):
the author of Wonder RJ. Palacio, I dobt it would
have grown up to be the writer and artist I
became had I not fallen in love with j'a Lair's
Book of Greek Myths at the age of seven. Brother,
that's exactly the age that I'm talking about, and I
get it. So those of you who remember this book,
let me know if you were so enthralled by the
(34:05):
visuals and the storytelling and the richness of Greek mythology,
I know for me it was immediately hooked and kind
of a lifelong love. You know. My kids have always
said to me, well, why don't you read the Percy
Jackson series and all that kind of stuff. And I
almost don't want to go down the route of anything
(34:25):
that is a reimagining or taking liberties with the myths.
But I like the original stories and bearing in mind
that this was the religion of the people, the Greeks
and later the Romans with their own you know, renaming
of all of the Greek gods. Yeah, it's really something else.
(34:50):
It's a rich world with generations of storytelling within it.
It is also not so I think that the dla
Airs did a great job of parsing some of the language,
because much of what happens in Greek mythology is lustful,
(35:11):
it's violent, it's vengeful, and I think you have to
be careful about how you broach those subjects with young minds,
and I think they just really focused on the fact
that it's this really fractured family tree with a lot
of interpersonal drama. I mean, realistically, the Greek myths was
the earliest form of like soap operas, to be perfectly honest,
(35:35):
and you know, Zeus was always up to Shenanigan's right
and all this progeny and his wife back home going
this guy is ridiculous and I'm going to take revenge
on all of these little Demi gods. It's just fantastic stuff.
So Dlair's Book of Greek Mythology. I loved it as
(35:58):
a kid. Now jumping forward a little bit when I
was a little bit older, middle school, and I think
it's a right of passage. So for kids nowadays, I
think Harry Potter, is the right of passage of them
really digging into a novelization, a novel series that is
aimed directly at them. So this one that I'm going
(36:19):
to mention was not necessarily aimed at kids necessarily, but
I still felt that it was a major right of passage.
And the books are actually from the nineteen forties and fifties,
and I'm talking about The Hobbit and The Lord of
the Rings by Jay R. Tolkien. I decided that I
was going to read this. So the summer gosh was
(36:41):
it sixth grade or seventh grade? It might have been
the summer before six or seventh And I knew that
for the coming school year we were going to get
to choose our own books, excuse me, and do book
reports for each term four terms. And I remember telling
(37:02):
my teacher this was my plan, and she goes, that
is ambitious. I'm like, yeah, but I've decided this is
what I'm gonna do because I'd read The Hobbit. Now,
for anyone who knows the Hobbit is a very different
journey and story than the full Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit is an easy reader in comparison. I remember
(37:27):
reading The Fellowship of the Ring, going I may have
bitten off more than I can chew here, and I
remember struggling to get to the end of Return of
the King fourth term of either like I said, six
or seventh grade. It was ambitious. But I loved the
Ralph Bakshi animated films. I wish that was able to
(37:48):
be more fleshed out, particularly that first Fellowship of the Ring.
They just called it Lord of the Rings. I love
the animation style. It was so cool. And the books themselves,
there's a reason that they're classics. There are sometimes that
people say this book is a classic, and you read
it and you go, really seems overhyped, doesn't seem as
(38:09):
good as everyone makes it out to be. Lord of
the Rings is an actual classic that will be read
for hundreds of years. It is a lush world. It
is fully fleshed out, the characters, the different races of
man and elf and hobbit and orc and ent and goblins,
(38:34):
the languages that were invented for for example, for example,
Elvish in and of itself is such a master work
by Tolkien of saying I'm going to give you the
modern the modern mythology if you will. He was as
invested in stories like Beowulf and the Greek gods, but
(38:58):
he wanted something that was very rooted in English, but
also the history of the English language. And that's where
I think his delving into Elvish was so interesting, is
looking at the entomology of words and the history of
the English, Gaelics and the Celtic and all of it
(39:20):
and creating this amazing narrative. It's tremendous storytelling. And honestly,
Peter Jackson he got it some liberties, sure, but what
were what liberties was he taking? When he's digging into
the Silmarillion, which is basically like the Bible of Middle Earth.
(39:40):
Try reading that sucker. It is dense, dense, And he
was able to flesh out some side characters or things
that if you read this some earli and you go, yeah,
that was happening concurrently to what was happening, beautiful. Tolkien
is a genius. He knew the story was, or at
(40:01):
least it seemed that he did so. Gr R Martin
in your Game of Thrones, brother, figure it out, Figure
it out. You should have known where the ending was
going to be at least kind of an idea and
get on it. But I loved those books. Maybe it's
time for a reread. Perhaps, And now here's the one
(40:24):
that I think most of you probably don't know, and
I think I have been able to track down a copy.
I'll be honest, I don't recall anything other than the
moment I found it. I remember that moment, but I
don't remember if it was I was in the sci
(40:47):
fi aisle initially, I was looking specifically for a book.
I don't know how I came across it. I just
know that I did, and as soon as I saw
the cover. Maybe it was the library. And what are
you into here? Check this out? It's a book called
Xandra by William Rotzler, published in nineteen seventy eight. I
(41:13):
just think I track down a copy that seems to
be in good shape. So the Xandra Saga by William Rosler.
The series is set in the Bermuter Triangle kind of
It's because by flying through the Bermuda Triangle, this whole
airplane full of people are transported to the planet Xandra,
(41:35):
a feudal world with anti gravity airships, slaves, and medieval
like societies. The stories follows the protagonists using modern knowledge
and skills to navigate this alien world, often with action,
adventure and some romanticized elements. So published by doubl Edday
one hundred and ninety two pages. You have the first
(41:56):
one Xandra, then you have the Hidden Worlds of xandralished
in nineteen eighty two. I read both. I could not
tell you the resolution of the story. I really could not.
All I know is it was pulpy. It was it
(42:16):
got a little not tawdry. Now bear in mind that
William Rotzler was a pornographer, but this was his sci
fi world, and in fact he moved out of being
just a just a pornographer, if you will so. William
(42:36):
Rotzler was an American artist, cartoonist, pornographer, and science fiction author.
Rozler won four Hugo Awards and once one time at
Nebula Award nominee. And I'm just gonna leave here what
some of the stuff that's included in some of his
earlier work. But then he just went all in as
(43:02):
being a cartoonist for a large number of science fiction magazines.
For example, National Fantasy Fan Volume seven, Issue Too, was
published back in nineteen forty eight. A famous author by
the name of Harlan Ellison encouraged Rochzler to write science
fiction stories, so he won a Hugo Award for Best
(43:22):
Fan Artist four times seventy five, seventy nine, ninety six,
and ninety seven. He also won a retro Hugo for
his work in nineteen forty six and was runner up
for nineteen fifty one. He's also the author of Rozler's
Rules for Costuming, which addresses the cosplay often found at
conventions and equipped that people are making rules for themselves
(43:43):
and always finding loopholes. Through his illustrations, Rottler also helped
perpetuate the image of science fiction fans wearing Propeller Peeni
site I don't remember that. Nevertheless, this Zander series I
was also immediately. He also did some work for Marvel
(44:05):
and Call My Killer Modoc. Did he create Modoc or
is it just that he wrote a novelization? Oh, he
wrote a novelization about Modoc. This is back in nineteen
seventy five, excuse me, nineteen seventy nine, and The Nightmare
also in nineteen seventy nine. Yeah, this Xandra book, I'm
(44:27):
really thinking that I'm just going to buy it if
for no other reason than to be transported back to
when I was like twelve years old, ten eleven, twelve,
somewhere in there, and I discovered this random book in
you know, the library. Now, bear in mind the Bermuda Triangle.
You know, there's a couple of memes that are that
are out there on the internet talks about you know,
(44:47):
I thought quicksand is going to be a bigger issue
than it ever turned out being right, stop, drop and roll, useful,
but have you done it? Duck and cover? Sure, but
the Bermuda Triangle was a terrifying thing. And the thing is,
unless you were actually flying somewhere in that general direction,
it was the most benign danger and risk. So I'll admit.
(45:09):
And maybe because I read this book when I was
a kid, we had our honeymoon in Bermuda, and I'm like,
oh shit, I hope we don't end up on another planet.
No knows the fuck I'm talking about when I talk
about that, because no one's read this book. So if
you or someone you know has read Xandra, send him
by way. I'd love to talk about it, because I
am planning I'm buying this crazy book. Yeah, it was
(45:30):
just so cool. I remember like the lead the lead
male was like a football player on Earth and like
the gravity was wonky. They talked about anti gravity ships.
So he's already strong as hell because he's a football player,
NFL guy, and now he has the ability to deal
with a lighter gravity situation and he's just like destroying dudes.
(45:52):
And I was like, that's so cool. Now. I think
that is a similar conceit to John Carter, because I
think John Carter, which I've heard about both the book
and the movie. The movie got maligned terribly, and every
time I see clips from it, I'm like, you know,
(46:13):
this kind of looks good. So if anyone's watched it,
let me know. So this was based upon a princess
of Mars Barsoom Edgar Rice Burrows. Yeah, this is back
in nineteen twelve. He wrote this Wow. Ten sequels followed
over the next three decades. No, Kidden, I always think
(46:37):
of Tarzan, huh. He wrote twenty four Tarzan books and
eleven of this Barsoom series, along with the Elucidar series,
the Amtur series, and the cast Back trilogy. Holy cow,
how many published works does he have? Moon series, Mucker series,
(47:00):
these other science fiction Western novels, historical novels. I mean,
this guy was as prolific as it gets. What was
his reputation, though, I'm curious um In something of myself,
published posthumously in nineteen thirty seven, Rudyard Kipling wrote, My
jungle books begat zoos of imitators. But the genius of
(47:23):
all the GNI was one who wrote a series called
Tarzan of the Apes. I read it, but I regret
I never saw on the films where it raged most successfully.
He had jazz the motif of the Jungle books, and
I imagine had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was reported to
have said that he wanted to find out how bad
a book he could write and get away with, which
is a legitimate ambition, tremendous. You know what, I'm also
(47:48):
going to try and write as bad a book as
I can and see if I can get away with it.
So Rudyard Kipling begat Edgar Yes Burrows, who begat mister
Rotzler and his Xandra series. Yeah, so check it out,
if for no other reason it was a lot of
stupid fun. You know. A bunch of the literary criticism
(48:11):
of the Xander series is it talks about the problematic
relationship between male and female. Now bear in mind this
was written in the late nineteen seventies, there would have
been a very different dynamic. And you're also talking about
a guy who was a pornographer. So yes, the male
female dynamics are. It's very much a masculine based book.
(48:35):
And I'm fairly certain that one of the groups of
alien women were like buckso whatever, not so different than
James T. Kirk, everyone's favorite hero from Star Trek was
betting every alien from here to God knows where, from
here to deep space nine and Knowing thinks twice, I
don't know. People have their own views on things. They're
(49:00):
entitled to them. I guess that maybe as a preteen boy,
I was quite taken with some of these descriptions. Perhaps,
But I'm going to read the book and I'll let
you know if it is quite as lustful as it's
been made out to be by some of the reviewers.
So here we are about the fifty minute mark. I
thought I was going to be about forty five minutes,
(49:21):
but had a little bit more, I guess on the
tip of my tongue that I thought i'd share with everyone,
But that is the kind of review of some of
my favorite books from childhood, some of the series, some
of the things that I know that I was quite
smitten with. I loved reading. I loved reading. My very
first book that I read was a biography of the Beatles,
(49:42):
and I was probably like four or five years old,
and it was one of those who is kind of series.
And I remember my mom would like quiz me on
this book because she didn't believe that I was reading it.
She thought that I was just memorizing it from her
having read it to me, and she would like, go, okay,
read this, and I would just read it. Yeah. I
(50:03):
just fell in love with the written word too. About
I can't speak, that would actually be super helpful. And
my syntax when I'm writing is just atrocious. My grammar,
I have dangling participles everywhere. Anyway, let me know if
you read any or all of those books. I doubt
you read, Xandra, but I've been surprised before by people
(50:26):
who have sent me something going, hey, I was listening
to the show and I clearly remember whatever. Yeah, let
me know. I'd love to get your feedback or even
some books that might be out now that you might
recommend because I'm definitely looking for some more sub to read.
I do like sci fi and horror. Urban fantasy in particular,
(50:46):
I think is really great, but I'm also up for
any biography. So any of the stuff that you might
have heard me talk about that you go, hey, have
you ever read this? Hey? I'm happy to hear it.
So how can you let me know? You can email
me at Stuck in middlepod at yahoo dot com. You
can find me on Instagram x and YouTube at stock
pod x. Heading over to the Facebook page Stuck in
the Middle Ofgenics podcast, please like, comment, share, leave five
(51:09):
star reviews, and most importantly, please subscribe to the podcast.
So until next time, Later slackers,
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