Rish Performs "Nymph of Darkness" on Pseudopod

For some reason, Shawn over at Pseudopod asked me to perform "Nymph of Darkness" by C.L. Moore and Forrest J. Ackerman, a pulpy story from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, about Northwest Smith and his encounter with a fugitive girl who happens to be invisible.

Catherine Lucille Moore was one of the first women to write Science Fiction and Fantasy, and whose most famous work, "Mimsy Were the Borogoves," got made into that LAST MIMZY movie Marshal keeps threatening to make us watch.  She wrote at least thirteen Northwest Smith stories that were published between 1933 and 1940.

Forry Ackerman was the godfather of fandom, and I regret that I didn't get to meet him (or go on his famous house tour) before he died in 2008.  But I didn't know he was an oft-published writer (I did know he was the literary agent for a bunch of famous writers, and I guess that makes a bit of sense), and the co-author of this story from 1935.

They use the word "queer" about eleventy times in the story, but it's only jarring the first ten or so.  Check it out HERE.

I decided to give the Venusians a different accent than the humans, and being a lazy--if brilliant--audiobook narrator, I just gave them a different Earth accent.  I imagine there are narrators out there that would've developed an entirely original accent for their alien characters . . . but sadly, those narrators are now dead.

This was just one story in the Northwest Smith series, and it would be good work to do all the stories (kind of like we had permission to do all the Catastrophe Baker stories on the Dunesteef*), though there's a stark difference between Mike Reznick's stories and this.  In case I forgot to link it above, here it is again.

*Do we still?

Podcast That Dares 42: From the Dead

Rish presents Edith Nesbit's 1893 story, "From the Dead."  

When Arthur overreacts at Ida's revelation, he seems to ruin everything.  But can he make amends before it's too late?

To download the episode, just Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, click HERE.

Logo by Gino "From the Shed" Moretto.

6-21 & 6-22

I wasn't going to be able to come to the cabin today--I had been told yesterday that they would be re-paving the road in for three days in the middle of the week, and next week, I have Indy Jones tickets, and the week after that, I'm going to California with my family (to Oceanside, where my mom once had a beach house, but she ended up having to sell it once she couldn't afford it anymore [sadly, she sold it for way less than she bought it for, since the housing bubble had burst]).  So, I knew I'd not be doing the cabin thing, but I still met my cousin for lunch, as we often do on Wednesday afternoons.

But my brother texted me today to tell me that the re-paving was moved to next week, so I quickly headed back home, and tried to get everything done so I could do my cabin trip after all.

Today's the longest day of the year, but the sun is still getting low in the sky, and I haven't accomplished much of anything while here today (I edited audio for an hour, but it doesn't feel like it).  

Yesterday, I took my nephew to see ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, and really marveled at how well-constructed it was, how emotional and rewarding it was on a second viewing (which is not always the case), and remarked to myself on the way to my cousin's house just how untalented it made me feel, since I had sat down to record more of my 2020 story "Winter Break" the night before, and found almost none of it to be working.  Am I so limited in talent that something I worked on, created from my imagination, fell so short of what I meant for it to do?

Of course, my cousin spent a minute or two telling me how dumb the SUPER MARIO BROS. movie was, and that--I believe--has been the biggest hit of the whole year.  You never know what people will cotton to (I sat down with my nephews the other night to watch a movie and they chose THE ZOOKEEPER--a movie whose trailer was so stupid I lost an entire grade's worth of knowledge after watching it--and I thought, "Huh, this is pretty good.  I wonder if this got better or worse reviews than PAUL BLART: MALL COP.  And I discovered it was absolutely excoriated by critics (except for Ebert, for some reason), and just for fun, I looked up Kevin James's career, and saw that the last movie he starred in was years ago, one I'd never heard of before . . . and it has a ZERO in Rotten Tomatoes.

That's sad.

Is that sad?

The next day, I watched THE LOST CITY, which I recall being a pretty big hit a year or so back, and had a clever trailer, where Sandra Bullock asked Brad Pitt why he was so handsome, and he said, "My dad was a weatherman."

*

Unfortunately, THE LOST CITY was thoroughly mediocre, and I kept being surprised by how weak the dialogue was, like it was all ad-libbed, , but the filmmakers kept saying, "No, no, we'll make it work in post."  There was one kind of brilliant, unexpected moment early on in the film, which was pretty cool, admittedly . . . and then they ended the film by undoing that moment, as a giant eff-you to me, who wasted his time watching it.  

Normally, I would feel better about myself after watching this, because I'd say, "No, no, I can do better than this.  I will do better than this, this I vow," but then I remembered that this flick did very, very well at the box office (indeed, I had to put my name on a waiting list at the library to check out the DVD), so now I'm back to feeling like a failure.  Buh.

I did a lot of work while I was here, and when the sun was getting low, I didn't feel like I had blown it--wasted my time--and that feels good.

There's good and bad in this world, son.  Take an umbrella.

*I picked this poster because it's just so ugly, way too busy, like a child's collage of all the stuff he liked from the film.  Gross.

The Quordle Quell: The Final Chapter

A few months back, I told you about the contest the nefarious Marshal "The Brain Liquidator" Latham dreamed up for his podcast, a writing contest where you had to write a story inspired by the four words that were used in a random game of Quordle.  I wrote a story, called "With A Banjo On My Knee," and submitted it.

And promptly forgot about it, moving on to new and exciting projects that I will never finish (I remain reassuringly consistent, folks).  Until I got a message from Marshal that the contest had ended, the scores were tabulated . . . and I came in Third.  So, there you go.

A better man would learn a lesson from this.  Can you?

Exercise Update

I have not done very well at blogging about my exercise activities this month, but compared to two years of blogging every single day, nothing could measure up.  I have, however, done pretty damn well at the actual exercise part . . . which should be the greater accomplishment.  

My goal, I believe, was twenty-one days in June, and at this rate, I'll actually achieve this one.

In fact, the only day this past week I didn't manage to exercise was the day when I had that exercise bike in front of me, locked away in the attic of the cabin for nearly a year.  It would have cost me nothing--and taken only five minutes--to open it up and climb on, pedal for a few rounds . . . but I didn't.  Weakness is strange.

Return To The Cabin In The Woods

Because of the huge amount of snowfall this winter, we haven't been able to go to the cabin yet, and my brother thought it might not be till the end of June.  But he was going to drive up in his truck last week and see how far he'd get, and then walk the rest of the way, to check on the condition of the cabin (because of the record snowfall, there was a worry that the roof or the deck might collapse, or at least there'd be damage to the cabin).  But on Sunday, he told me that not only had he driven up with barely any difficulty (except for a couple of downed trees in the road, which he cut and moved out of the way), even my little car would make it just fine.

My cousin has a family reunion this week, which meant we wouldn't be getting together (to watch anything or have lunch on Wednesday), so I decided to go up around noon on Tuesday.  Of course, I couldn't get everything done quite on time, but I still made it there around four o'clock.

There was one cabin I saw that the snow had done a number on (my brother said he saw one where a window had been broken in, presumably by a fallen tree rather than the snow), and its deck was pretty much a representation of my opinion of Pauly Shore.

So, for my first trip up to the cabin, it's surprisingly cold for June (there's still snow on the ground in places where the sun rarely shines).  I couldn't remember how much stuff I left there last year (I had meant to clear everything out when I came back from Europe in early November, but my brother had already closed up the cabin for the winter before I came home), so I bought a bunch of food, as well as blankets, clothes, and supplies.

I needn't have bothered, because there was more stuff there from last year than I would ever have guessed, and there was little in the way of spoilage (there were mouse droppings on the floor and on my box of food, but no evidence any had gotten into my food . . . I think the mice might have just now gotten into the cabin, since the thaw), and I had way more than I thought I would. 

Also, the only damage to our place was the back deck had sunk a foot into the ground (from the weight of all the snow), and the benches around the fire pit had also been driven into the ground, and one had snapped neatly in two.

Even though I love going to the cabin, the cold (luckily, I still had dry wood, kindling, and paper to make fires left over from last year), the fact that the lights wouldn't turn on in the living room, on the stairs, or the outside deck, and the unfortunate timing of the gas stopping working as I was making some rice, made it a little less enjoyable than usual (the next day, when it was light, I started the barbecue grill up outside and used it to cook and to warm up some water so I could wash myself . . . but it was still not the same as what I'd grown used to over the past three years).

As usual, I went to the dam to do my run and watch the sun go down (I started the tradition in 2020, and hey, the photos still come out great, despite my lack of that year's romanticism), and saw that the lake is the highest it's ever been, only two feet or so from the top of the dam.  The water was dirty and ice cold, otherwise, it would've been fun as a teenager to jump into the lake from the dam (it occurs to me that the lake is about fifteen feet higher than it was my first trip last year, which would've been in May rather than June).  

I only saw one or two deer in my travels, but there happened to be an entire get-together happening at the cabin above ours on the hill, so people were noisy and active, and sleeping in tents right there where the property line ends.

It started to rain that night, and rained on and off for the next eighteen or so hours.  At one point, it started to "movie rain" (a term I've given to when it's absolutely pissing down, unlike the last ten rainstorms you saw*), and I wondered if the dirt roads I drive in and out on might not become mud roads.  I didn't like not having hot water and food I didn't make in the barbecuer, so I packed my stuff and headed home.  It was already dark, even though it was hours before sundown, due to the stormclouds, but once I got down the mountain and out of the canyon, the sun came back again.

But ah well, there's always next week.

*Big and I were extras in a movie a lifetime ago, and there was a rain scene where they set up this giant sprinkler-type machine to dump hundreds of gallons of water onto the set (and those unfortunate enough to be under it), because you have to have that much downpour (or backlight it correctly) for any rain to show up on camera.

Rish Outcast 252: Have Toys - Will Travel

Rish talks (at length) about being a vendor at a recent toy show.  

With way more to come.

To download the episode, Right-Click HERE.

To support me over at Patreon, go HERE.

Logo by Gino "Have Henry - Will Cavill" Moretto.

New Phone, Who Am I?

So, I've been having all sorts of issues with my phone lately (dropped calls, bad reception, no internet, only sending a signal to one headphone, inability to identify a Smooth Jazz song I hear playing in the background, etc.), and my nephew told me, "It's your phone.  You need a new one."  And I said, "But I've taken care of it.  I thought I'd keep it at least one more year."  And he said, "It won't work anymore because they want you to get a new one."

Well, I didn't believe him, so I went to T-Mobile to ask, and the tattooed, pierced fourteen year old girl behind the counter said almost the exact same thing Kayden said.  She tried to sell me a new phone, but I went home and thought about it.  That night, Big and I were going to record our podcast, but I couldn't hear him when we were planning it, so that made up my mind.

I went over the next day (yesterday), and spent ninety minutes buying a new phone (though sadly, it was a tattooed, multi-piercing twenty-something guy that got the commission--if they work on commissions, that is).  I paid to have the data transferred over, as well as the account (and phone number), and in some ways, it's just like my old phone--same size and shape, with the same apps, just a 5G connection rather than a 2 and 4G one (or none, the last few days).

I went over to my cousin's, we watched some TV, and showed him the phone while there, and put it where I always do to charge when I got home, and went to bed.

I woke up in the night, as I often do, and it was hours before my alarm would go off, so I went back to sleep.

Some time later, I opened my eyes, wondering how much time I had left . . . and it was close to eleven-thirty.  

Oh yeah, I have a new phone, and while it (supposedly) ported over all the information and texts and numbers from my old phone, it didn't include silly stuff like ringtones and alarms.  Crap.

More Cover Art

This was a post I created in April, but never published, because it was going to be the basis for an episode.  Maybe by posting it today, it'll help motivate me to get to work on it.

The cover art by Big Anklevich just keeps coming!

I need to get Big on the phone and have him do an entire episode where he talks about why he keeps doing this, and maybe tells me how bad my original covers were for thirty to forty minutes.  Heck, maybe an hour, if he gets me to cry at some point.

So, as is tradition, here's one I made for Big, though I doubt he'll use it.

Rish Outcast 251: Monitored Conversation

Big Anklevich joins Rish to present the first-ever Broken Mirror Story he participated in.  Alan is a new father, and quite unprepared for the challenges of parenthood . . . including a voice over the baby monitor threatening his son.

Note: This has GOTTA be the longest episode yet, so why wasn't it split into two?  Well, because it nearly wasn't even one.

If you care to download the episode, just Right-Click HERE.

If you care to support me on Patreon, click HERE.

If you care at all, Gino Moretto created the logo.

Exercise Pole--er, Goal - May Update

The weather is nice now, and I should be exercising more.  But it's still sometimes hard to find the energy for.  I said I'd do twenty days in May, and I only got nineteen, but even that was a challenge--there are times when you are busy, apathetic, or just tired.*  

*Every month, I keep setting a goal to do another audiobook of one of my stories (so I can put it out there, either in text form or as a couple episodes of my podcast), and I absolutely won't do it.  Last night, it was the end of the month, so I knew if I just sat down and started recording (I already had to do some re-lines for Abbie), I could hold my head up high on my Patreon address and tell people, "It was hard--and boy does this story blow--but I did it."  And I still found excuses not to do it.  Ah well, goal for next month.