davefischer

@davefischer@beehaw.org

Artist / hacker from Providence, USA.

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davefischer,

From the original "pulp" era: Sax Rohmer. Love that 1920s pulp fiction. He's horribly racist, but it's enjoyable if you just swap the "heroes" and "villians" in your head as you read. (Fu Manchu is the most evil man in the world because... he wants to free China from British colonial rule? Right. Go Fu Manchu!)

Also, Doc Savage. I like Doc in the same way I like the 60s Batman TV show: I don't particularly like the "heroes", I just enjoy the environment. (In one Doc Savage story I read recently, Doc's plane is described as being so INCREDIBLY high-tech and bleeding edge, that the WHEELS RETRACT WHEN IN FLIGHT. Amazing. WHAT ELSE WILL THE FUTURE BRING!?!?)

I grew up on Lovecraft, but have discovered that what I like most in his work was done better, previously, by Lord Dunsany. (Particularly the Dream Quest stuff.)

I own a few magazines from the end of that era. These are issues #2 & #3 of Fantastic Magazine, 1952:

Image

davefischer,

Some writers you can use the reverse trick on, some you can't. Some stuff is just horrible and should be avoided. But I'm definitely against pretending there's no problem.

davefischer,

My dad lost his TV show when that was cancelled. (He had one of those obscure once-a-month crack-of-dawn talk shows.)

davefischer,

Thanks! When I was first getting interested in "serious film" in the mid 00's, one of the ways I would find new movies was to search for two obscure movie titles that I like, that have NOTHING to do with each other. If I could find a forum thread in which both titles appeared, that thread was sure to provide other interesting suggestions.

davefischer,

IBM's book was very interesting for explaining the competing ideas at the dawn of computers. I generally think of the 50s as the decade it took to impliment von Neumann & Turing's ideas, but it's a lot more complex than that. It was not clear what the end goal was.

Schulz's short stories are up there with Gogol and Borges. Rereading this made me realize that my favorite surrealist/fantastical style is that of a child's misunderstanding the world.

Lathe: Le Guin writes a better Philip K Dick style story than Philip K Dick ever did...

davefischer,

Droid 4. Love that keyboard. It barely functions as a cell device now that 3g has been shut down though. I just use it as a wifi device / tiny laptop.

davefischer,

I used to let my cats out on the roof, but my youngest cat is TINY, and there's a hawk in the neighborhood... no roof for the cats any more!

davefischer,
  • Philip K Dick - Galactic Pot-Healer
  • Jose Donoso - The Obscene Bird of Night
  • Alfred Kubin - The Other Side
  • Ursula K Le Guin - The Lathe of Heaven
  • Stanislaw Lem - Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
  • Boris & Arkady Strugatsky - Roadside Picnic
  • H G Wells - When The Sleeper Wakes
  • Stefan Wul - Oms en Serie
  • Yevgeny Zamyatin - We
  • Jerzy Zulawski - On The Silver Globe

I also really love all the Moomin & Oz books.

What scared your pants off as a kid that you just laugh at looking back?

When I was a kid (I'm guessing 5), there was a house nearby where my grandma lived which had a statue of a small dog outside their house. The eyes on this statue were made of glass, and looked incredibly real. I remember standing there staring at the thing, extremely tempted to try and touch the eyes just so I could convince...

davefischer,

When I was in 5th grade, I was worried about vampires, so I started wearing a cross. But I was an atheist and I didn't want anyone to think I was a christian, so I also wore a star of david.

davefischer,

I mostly like crazy underground punk rock chaos, however... One of the best concerts I've ever seen was assigned seating, so I can appreciate both styles. (Diamanda Galas, mid-90s.)

davefischer,

I help run a small computer museum. Among other things, I do all the photography. Last year I published a book of black & white abstract images of the insides of machines in our collection - details you don't normally see.

Image

Museum

Book

davefischer,

Claudius The God, which I'm enjoying. (I watched the BBC adaption years ago, but only got around to reading the two books recently.)

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