Poor Old Johnnie Ray...

Poor old Johnny Ray
Sounded sad upon the radio
He moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried and sang along and who'd blame them

I was watching the Come On Eileen video the other day and started to get a little choked up. (Now don't laugh.) It's not '80s nostalgia that got to me, it's '50s nostalgia, in a sense. The video showed footage of girls going crazy for the singer Johnnie Ray. Until that point, I thought "Johnny Ray" was a made-up name, but he's very real. And I had never heard of him. His song "Cry" spent 11 weeks at Number 1, but now...poof, he's gone, likely unremembered by many under 50. As far as I can tell, he was either very, very early rock-n-roll, or just pre-rock, and his popularity never survived into the late '50s. The one notable thing about him is that he wore a hearing aid (although that's apparently not the motivation for "moved a million hearts in mono"). As with everything else on the Internet, there's a web site devoted to him -- johnnieray.com. So listen to Dexy's Midnight Runners sing "Come On Eileen" or the Save Ferris version, and remember poor old Johnnie Ray...

Bears Discover Fire

OK, I admit it; I bought this book in large part for the title, and the cover (sadly not available at Amazon), which shows bears with torches.

Wallace was the first to speak. "Looks like bears have discovered fire," he said.

Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories by Terry Bisson is a collection of short (often very) stories. Many, like the title story are based on a single conceit -- everything else is the same, except, well, bears discover fire. And instead of hibernating, they're camping out in the medians of interstates. Or in "England Underway," England starts moving around Ireland, swings past Bermuda and comes to rest off the East Coast of the U.S. The best comparison I can make is to Steven Wright jokes. "Press Ann" can't really be described here, but is now one of my all-time favorites.
Bisson admits he sometimes writes "odd mainstream works" that get passed of as fantasy and SF. While only a handful of his works "count" as true fantasy or SF, they are no less enjoyable. 5 stars.

Future Perfect...

The premise of the anthology How to Save the World, edited by Charles Sheffield is jokingly put forward that science fiction writers have the best ideas; they just never get to implement them. This collection is a mixed bag; some, like "Raw Terra," weren't interesting enough for me to finish. A major theme of this collection is the law of unintended consequences -- "Choice," "The Meetings of the Secret World Masters," "Souls on Ice," "The Product of the Extremes," and others all show less than utopian outcomes when the solutions are implemented. But for near-future SF, this is a pretty good collection of short stories. 3 1/2 stars.

Kartchner Caverns

We toured Kartchner Caverns Thursday. Kartchner just opened up in November, but it's already really popular. Tours are sold out into June. The Caverns were discovered in 1974 by a couple of guys who kept them a secret. In 1978, they clued in the Kartchners, who own the land, and in the 1980s, they brought the state of Arizona in. The neat thing is that since the caves were kept a secret until the state took over, they've never suffered from any vandalism and are in pristine condition. It's a "wet" cave, which leads to some very interesting formations. Unfortunately, they didn't let us take any pictures, but I have a feeling pictures wouldn't capture these amazing formations. Some looked like Cthulhu, but the "cave bacon" was especially neat. It really looks like bacon. Anybody who's in southern AZ should have a look at some really impressive caves...but make your reservations months in advance.

It's No Hitchhiker's...

Well, today in Arizona was spent looking for the ghost towns of Gleeson, Courtland and Pearce. It actually snowed, so the weather wasn't really up for poking around in the ruins. And to the extent it was, well...the ruins weren't so exciting.

But the car trip did give me a chance to finish Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic by Terry Jones. Take a computer game written by hilarious author Douglas Adams, get Monty Python's Terry Jones to write the novel (naked), and you get...a novel that reads like it was based on a computer game. Some talent shines through, but not worth a full review. Sigh. 2 stars.

Rocket Boys

Greetings from Arizona, where I'm kicking back, relaxing and getting some reading done. My latest read is Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys, the based-on-a-true-story tale of the author's childhood growing up in a coal town of West Virginia and making his dreams of building rockets come true. (This book was the basis for the movie October Sky.) One of the more enjoyable books I've read in a while. 4 1/2 stars. Read my review. Also check out homerhickam.com.

Dungeons and Dragons

I started a new weblog for Ben's D&D campaign. Check it out for my tale of adventure.

The Last Days of Disco

"Disco will never be over. It will always live on in our minds and hearts. Disco was too great and too much fun to be gone forever"

We rented The Last Days of Disco last night. Read my review. 2 1/2 stars.

Y2K@CNN

Marlee was working on New Year's Eve, so we rang in the new year (and millennium, depending on whom you believe) at CNN's Washington bureau. Check out the photos.

Martian Race

I just finished reading the book Martian Race by Gregory Benford. This book is the latest in my series of "Mars books". 3 1/2 stars. Read my review.