Indian Summertime

Day Hormazd, Month Ava - Year 1378 Y.Z.

October's been busy so far. One of the panels of our back garden fence decided, after months of being pressed by the triffid growing in the neighbour's garden, to become unattached from the rest of the fence. It's now rested at a jaunty angle. We've had the fencing bloke over to check it out and he's replacing two of the panels soon. We've also had a plumber round to fix the hot water tap for the tub and the cold water tap for the bathroom sink. Ah, home repairs...

You may have seen on some other blogs, namely Only Maybe, Fly Agaric's blog and Clinamen, Borsky's blog--that there's now a Maybe Quarterly print edition. It's called simply "Maybe..." and the first issue is culled from past MQ on-line editions, with excellent artwork from the very talented Bobby Campbell. Your humble author had his Robert Anton Wilson haikus published in "Maybe..." and there's contributions from Fly, Borksy, Bogus Magus and other MLA'ers like Zenpunkist and Minja. It's a fantastic read--I breezed through it in about an hour or so. Big thanks go out to Bogus, Bobby and El8ted1 for cobbling it together and making it available..with extra cheers to Bogus for hooking me up with a couple of sample copies (complete with R.A.W. patatows! They've gotta be worth as much as pounds, dollars & yen at the moment). El8ted will send you a box of "Maybe..." copies, as long as you pay the postage fee. I'm going to order some for distribution to friends & anyone who's interested. Let me know if you'd like a copy and I'll get you one as soon as. Hail Eris! Hail Pope Bob! Hopefully, we'll all get cracking on some new stuff for another issue. I've been a bit quiet, as far as the MLA goes, lately. There's some great courses happening at the moment--I'd really like to take the Crowley Tarot one, led by Lon Milo DuQuette, but again...the bread hassles, man. Ah well, I've got his Crowley tarot book and a set of the cards, so it may work out better if I read the book on my own and take the course later.

I've nearly finished the 6th podcast episode! The tough work is all done, I just need to upload it to MyPodcast.com and write the blurb. I'll post a link here once it's ready. Send in some requests...post 'em in the comments here or at MyPodcast.

Our pal Singing Bear sent us some musical goodies a couple of weeks ago. The brand-spankin'-new Lambchop record, OH (ohio). It's the 2-disc special edition and it's nice. Sorta typical sound for them, but still, Kurt Wagner ain't fixin' what ain't broken and I don't mind too much. He also sent a copy Duncan Browne's 1968 psych-folk album, Give Me Take You and Ivor Cutler's A Flat Man. All recommended, especially the Duncan Browne--he sounds like a more sombre Donovan and the arrangements are high quality--those very-British late 60s strings, harpsichord & flute sounds. Cheers, Bear!

I'm waiting on the rest of my stuff to arrive from Conn. My brother dropped it off at the shipper's a few weeks ago. I think it's in the UK now, the shippers will let me know when it'll be dropped off at the house. It'll be nice to have all of my LPs again...and my sitar. That sucker's gonna need a tuning, though. The last time it was properly tuned was probably six or seven years ago. My battered old Strat and acoustic 12-string will be delivered too--it's gonna be time for a jam session! I'll post more about that when the stuff is actually here.

Besides Bear's fine additions to the collection, I treated myself to some other musical goodies. Robert Fripp & Brian Eno's seminal 70s ambient collaborations, No Pussyfooting and Evening Star, have been re-issued through Eno's Opal and Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile labels. They sound great and the digi-pak cases add a nice touch--pick these up before they are housed in plain old jewel cases. I've nearly got all of The Moody Blues SACD editions of the first seven records (well, the second to the eighth--if you count "The Magnificent Moodies" as their first official LP and not Days Of Future Passed). I just bought A Question Of Balance--so now, I've just got the 2-disc "Days...", Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Seventh Sojourn to go. "A Question.." definitely benefits from the SACD mastering--it sounds much crisper than the '97 re-issue. I'm selling off all of my Moodies Japanese mini-LP editions--hopefully I'll get a bit of dosh from them. I've also started buying the recent Os Mutantes re-issues. I've got the Omplatten re-issues of the first three albums, but a couple of years ago, Universal/Mercury/Polydor/etc/etc decided to re-release the entire Mutantes catalogue, aside from the last two (Tudo Foi Feito Pelo Sol & Ao Vivo). I've got a mish-mash of different labels for the rest of the albums, so I figure I'll snap up the rest of the 2006 re-issues. They're about £5 each, if you check Amazon's 'new & used' section. There's a bunch more stuff...The Nice's 2-CD editions, Second Hand's Reality (the Sunbeam Records re-release), Ange's Par Les Fils De Mandrin Millesime '77 and two of the Genesis 1970-'75 SACD + DVD re-issues (Foxtrot & Selling England By The Pound)...but I'll stop here.

I'll post when the next Kaleidophonic Stroboscope goes live. See you soon.