I just signed up for audible and got Skyward and Starsight to listen to during my work commute.

My first stop to kick off my vacation was a book sale around the corner from my house. Scored mint massive hardcover collections of the writings of Jules Verne and of Ray Bradbury - over 1700 pages of classic science fiction, for just $1 each!

This is going to be a great week!

https://i.imgur.com/pnnmckjl.jpg

^ Yep, that's a nice purchase, innerspace: an old, good condition hardcover copy is so much more satisfying to have imo, and you've got good value in terms of words per cent too - but of course it's not just the quantity of words you get that's important :laughing:
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^ That's an interesting essay about a story I really enjoyed reading. Thanks for posting it Mindfulness. :thumb: I hope on your title page or somewhere you mentioned the date that CPG wrote The Yellow Wallpaper because as you say, the period is an important bit of context. And for me, the date added to my pleasure in reading: 1892 was a long time ago and yet the narrator's circumstances and state of mind are laid out so vividly that the story reaches out across the years and pulls you into its eerie mood.
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Mental health is also the theme running through this memoir that I've just finished:-

https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/com...500_SS500_.jpg

It's a light, even amusing read although many of the events have a distinctly dark side - I guess that's because the author has such a laugh-in-the-face-of-adversity determination to survive his bizarre adolescence.
To judge from the internet, the book is now "a major motion picture." Anyone seen it?

Went to a Retro Toy and Collectibles show in my old home town today to continue my vacation festivities and took home a humble treasure.

My late father taught me to read using Sergio Aragonés' Groo: The Wanderer comics in the 80s. (Were my first words, "feckless mendicant?")

I'm not into comics, but I saved about 100 issues as I grew up, and eventually scored a certified Pacific Comics Groo #1 signed by its creator, Sergio.

Today at the show I claimed a copy of Destroyer Duck #1 - noteworthy as the first-ever official appearance of Groo.

Thanks for the memories, Dad!

https://i.imgur.com/qa4gT5Il.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/FJ840LYl.jpg

You touch upon a curious facet of my character, which I've been grappling with for ages. Namely, that this title aside, I've never read any comics. And I've mentioned elsewhere that I've never been into any of the other standard fandom fare which people commonly associate with "nerd culture."

That has been challenging when I try to join "nerd" communities online in an effort to find "my people" only to be completely lost by all of their memes and cultural references. I've not seen any superhero films, or TV shows, or anime, am not into cosplay, or video games, or RPGs, have never seen Star Wars, or participated in any of the other standard nerd activities.

But my musical interests are all-consuming. The most concise response I've been able to pen summarizing my sonic proclivities clocks in at just under 350 words and closes with a Fruchterman-Reingold graph, to which I'm usually met with jeers or dismissal for my use of terminology like "quasi-geometric transformational linearity."

All the more reason that I'm glad MB is here.

Sergio was a favorite in Mad Magazine while growing up. I always had an issue or two of either that or CARtoons Magazine laying around amongst the stacks of Marvel and DC rags. Groo may have kept him fed, but I think his best work was in Mad.

http://images.tcj.com/2013/10/SergioA0002.jpg

Great stuff! Thanks for sharing it!

You should check out Watchmen. Anything by Alan Moore in general tbh: Miracleman/Marvelman, Swamp Thing, etc.

Thanks, Batty! I recall Moore being the writer of V for Vendetta. I have a great interest in post-apocalyptic, dystopian, Discordian, and anarchist themes. Might the Wachowskis' film or the graphic novel be up my alley?