“Time to Man Up!”, or: Mother’s Escaped to a New Dimension and Here’s What I’ve Read in the First Six Months of 2024 (three months late)

My mother’s end was sad and pathetic, and very painful to me. Don’t get me wrong—I hated her guts—it’s best she’s gone—but it’s still painful.

The death of the Parasite lasted basically the first half of 2024 (parasite is what I started to call her at the end; she’d burned all her bridges with her preference for drugs and mental delusions over family and friends—I was the last one left who tolerated her—she probably had longer conversations with the pawn broker than her own flesh and blood). She died May 6, then the rest of May and June was spent dealing with the mess she left behind—not just the sizable physical mess (the loon hadn’t thrown away her junk mail for the last five—at least!—years), but the physic, legal, metaphorical, etc. messes left behind as well. 

She was someone who loved to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory just to prove she was right. But she was a dopefiend, and that ALWAYS guided her thought patterns—which were already scrambled; although I’m glad she was half in the bag most of the time: It allowed me to escape from her clutches and live the rich and rewarding life of a feral latchkey child. Did you know I taught myself to make gunpowder at the age of eleven? (Thank you, Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments!) 

[Stuff about books after break...]

The Best Reading of 2023 (About Three Months Late...)

Oh, dear…  Looks like I haven’t posted in more than a year…

Yep, I’ve been busy.

The Best Reading of 2023
[*) = reread]

I look at my selections of Top Books Read for 2023 (as well as the larger list of what I read, and yes, everything I read last year eventually gets reviewed here, so hang on to your hats), and I try to assess patterns. I will tell you, I’m not really one for the “Quality Lit Game” or “Contemporary Literature,” whether snooty NYTimes bestseller, or the YA crowding the book department at Target, or the action-packed Bourne/Reacher-rip-off techno-thriller you’ll find in the last places that still sell mass-market paperbacks. And the things that usually interest me are hardly the norm…

Trip City Overdrive—The Bestest Books of 2022 (which is the clickbait title since it really should be titled “The Best Books That Ivan Read in 2022, Which May or May Not Actually Include Books Published in 2022”)

Two great cosmic explorers and
authors; one of them is
William S. Burroughs

BEST BOOKS [that I read] of 2022:

All these books are trippy (in some vague way—at least to me)
Jouuuuuurneys of Self-Discovery! [Echo effects included]

The essay portion is below the break; up top, this is just a delicious listicle! (Which sounds kinda gross, actually…)

BESTEST Book of 2022!!!—
— The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes by Tim Lucas (based on the original screenplay by Tim Lucas & Charles Largent with Michael Almereyda & James Robison) (2022) 

The Rest of the Best (listed by year published)
—Against Nature (À Rebours) by J.-K. Huysmans (1884)
—Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung, edited by Aniela Jaffe (1961)
—Billion-Dollar Brain by Len Deighton (1966)
—Downward to the Earth by Robert Silverberg (1969)
—The New Journalism by Tom Wolfe, with anthology edited by Tom Wolfe and E.W. Johnson (1973)
—True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise by Terence McKenna (1993)
—Huế 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden (2017)
—Rated SavX: The Savage Pencil Skratchbook by Savage Pencil (Edwin Pouncey) (2020)
—The Strange Death of Alex Raymond by Dave Sim & Carson Grubaugh (2021)
—Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross, based on characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (2022)

Honorable Mention:
—The Yage Letters: Redux by William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; edited by Oliver Harris (1963; 1975; 2006)

BEST REREAD:
—*) Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth! by Jack Kirby (1972-1976; #1-#40)

More details below! Read on, MacDuff!

Roger Corman and His Search for Legalized Spiritual Development: A Review of "The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes" by Tim Lucas

A book I’m proud to own—and am sure that I will reread soon—The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes by Tim Lucas cannot be recommended enough. 

Ostensibly the “Making of” Roger Corman’s 1967 cult/camp classic The Trip, this is a Non-Fiction Novel about one of America’s greatest and weirdest artists at a crucial juncture in his life, trying to solve a personal spiritual crisis, and doing so through art, friendship, and serious mind-bending drugs. 

Featuring a cast of highly recognizable characters (I mean, they are movie stars), often sidesplittingly funny, and with a fabulous, perfect ear for dialogue, The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes recreates the time and place magically. It’s easy enough to imagine this being lensed in that delicious late-1960s Technicolor, the type where neon at night simply crackles, and everything is just a tad grainy—but that graininess on the edges? It’s perfect when you’re entering the realm of describing the LSD experience…

Released in Spring 2022, the book is published in the UK by Electric Dreamhouse/PS Publishing, and is available in the U.S. via mail-order (through the usual suspects). 

Buy it now! 

[more of The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes review below!]

COSMIC!

 

In Hyperspace, You Can Hear Everyone Scream....for Ice Cream

 

Whaddya say? Let's WING IT!

“Ivan! Where Are You?” (In Hyperspace…?)

 

“Ivan! Where are you?”

THAT is a good question, Natasha, when regarded metaphorically. In relative space-time, I’m in the basic NYC area—take your standard 50-megaton Hydrogen Bomb, and using the Empire State Building as Ground Zero (a la Blackie in Fail-Safe), you’d vaporize me along with the rest of Manhattan.

But where is my spirit, my drive, my energy aimed? Kinda animalistic in that I’m in total job hunt mode—and I still whip myself for not doing enough.

BASTA! I’m not letting this turn into “Fear & Self-Loathing in Hyperspace”—

Let’s talk about T-shirts and collages!