@Tat Wood—I guess that’s why they say De Gustibus Non Disputandem Est, cuz I kind of like that cover. At least it’s free of these vamping poseurs half of whom seem to have their heads wrapped in dry-cleaning plastic bags (don’t they know? “This is not a toy”).
@B.Chiclitz: horses for courses but given that the book’s about a Phoenician thief on a mountaineering expedition the use of a topless white chick’s a bit weird, even if the neck-brace and shoulder-guard in the picture can in fact be worn like that. Unless she dislocates her scapula that pose isn’t possible.
I’m fairly sure I sent that cover in five years ago.
This reminds me of that time Management decided we should all go on a “team-building seminar”… by busing the entire office staff to a Norwegian mountain top.
A busload of IT people, some of us dressed in sneakers and jeans… on a snowy mountain peak! Don’t get me started!
@Juan Paul and Dead Stuff. It appears to be a crossbow- there’s a string, if you look closely. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have any moving parts, so…
I think this is what mimes have nightmares about after eating bad picnic food.
Perhaps this is all in the head of the inexplicably small, pink-clad figure frolicking especially cheerfully in front. It would explain the lack of visible picnic and the snow covered mountains…
P.S. Tomorrow at work people are going to stare at me, I know, because I am going to think of “Group Mime Time!” and laugh for no discernible reason.
@HappyBookworm: the phrase “Group Mime Time!”, the age of this book, and AR Yingve’s group exercise make me think that the cover illustrates “That time Shields and Yarnell’s class field trip went horribly wrong”.
@Dead Stuff: it must be one of those ‘universal’ American things, like ‘Gilligan’s Island’ or Dunkin Donuts. I was at the 4th July events at Bristol, Rhode Island, and they wheeled on a Buffett tribute band. They do this a lot; they don’t have a huge pot of money for booking acts. Nobody under fifty knows any of the songs but the band can never comprehend why they’re having such a hard time getting the crowd to join in. I was relieved that my utter innocence of this berk’s existence wasn’t just me being a furriner.
(That said, they were inoffensive enough and made sound while people bought stuffies: they got a more polite reception than a Soft Machine tribute band would have had, or a couple of Pet Shop Boys impersonators at a Trump rally).
@Tat: Actually, it was my wife who insisted I listen to her JB/Alan Jackson album. It’s fascinating to me what of American culture she knows: she can still list most of the cast of the Muppet Show and listens to Country and Western music on the radio, but had never heard of Andy Griffith or Otis Redding.
Speaking of Rhode Island and Dunkin’ Donuts, she heard that there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts Arena in Providence, and now she wants to take a road trip! Maybe I’ll visit the gravesite of the author of the Doom that Came to Sarnath if we go.
@Dead Stuff: It’s actually the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. I made the usual joke about ‘what a hole!’ and was looked at oddly. Dunkin’ not only eschew holes in their products but sell ‘Munchkins’, which purport to be the excluded middles. So that old gag about dieting by only eating the holes also fell flat. Considering what is considered edible in the Biggest Little State, and the weird names they give things, I have no yardstick for what’s acceptable.
I’d not heard of Andy Griffith until I arrived; now I’m just amazed that ‘Salvage One’ was broadcast or even commissioned. I watch oldies station MeTV to find out who the guests on The Muppet Show were (apart from Bruce Forsyth and Chris Langham, obviously)..
If you do pop to Friartown, bear in mind that Lovecraft’s house and environs are part of the Brown University complex and that, assuming you find somewhere to park, you’ll need pitons and ropes to get up and down the street: it’s like a sunnier Edinburgh or the proper Bristol in that regard. In the 70s Buddy Cianci had to be dissuaded from putting a heliport where the Dunky Center is now but I can’t help thinking it would have been the best way to commute to campus.
(And maybe try Cellar Stories, just of Westminster Street, where many GSS-worthy 60 paperbacks wind up.)
December 14th, 2016 at 2:01 pm
Extraordinary books demand extraordinary covers.
December 14th, 2016 at 2:02 pm
I see no evidence of cheeseburgers. I remain skeptical.
December 14th, 2016 at 2:14 pm
Next time I climb Everest I’m going to pay more for real Sherpas.
December 14th, 2016 at 2:37 pm
It has two virtues: it’s at least approximately like incidents in the book and it’s not the 1976 Star Books cover.
https://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/book-review-picnic-on-paradise-joanna-russ-1968/
December 14th, 2016 at 4:56 pm
We don’t talk about the year Holiday on Ice went avant garde.
December 14th, 2016 at 4:57 pm
Shoulder rings: the epitome of future fashion. That’s how we know they’re from the future, people.
December 14th, 2016 at 5:40 pm
Abominable Mimes.
December 14th, 2016 at 5:52 pm
Anna T. is correct: you only see shoulder rings in the future.
@DSWBT: No hot dogs, sammiches, or ants either.
December 14th, 2016 at 6:53 pm
@Tat Wood—I guess that’s why they say De Gustibus Non Disputandem Est, cuz I kind of like that cover. At least it’s free of these vamping poseurs half of whom seem to have their heads wrapped in dry-cleaning plastic bags (don’t they know? “This is not a toy”).
December 14th, 2016 at 7:46 pm
its like everyone just got distracted by a different shiny object.
December 14th, 2016 at 9:24 pm
@B.Chiclitz: horses for courses but given that the book’s about a Phoenician thief on a mountaineering expedition the use of a topless white chick’s a bit weird, even if the neck-brace and shoulder-guard in the picture can in fact be worn like that. Unless she dislocates her scapula that pose isn’t possible.
I’m fairly sure I sent that cover in five years ago.
December 14th, 2016 at 11:37 pm
Is that a crossbow or a crucifiIIIIIX
He holds so tightly in his hand?
December 15th, 2016 at 12:17 am
In the large view, those are some lumpy, unappealing-looking suits.
“The new Toad-Man line of winter wear – now with hip fat-blisters!”
Is that guy in back preparing to throw a snowball?
December 15th, 2016 at 8:23 am
This reminds me of that time Management decided we should all go on a “team-building seminar”… by busing the entire office staff to a Norwegian mountain top.
A busload of IT people, some of us dressed in sneakers and jeans… on a snowy mountain peak! Don’t get me started!
December 15th, 2016 at 11:20 am
@AR: perhaps they wanted you all to freeze to death as a cost-saving measure?
December 15th, 2016 at 1:18 pm
@dswbt I had assumed it was an ice axe. But then that would be too practical, wouldn’t it.
December 16th, 2016 at 12:22 am
@Juan Paul and Dead Stuff. It appears to be a crossbow- there’s a string, if you look closely. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have any moving parts, so…
December 16th, 2016 at 1:13 am
Since it has no moving parts, I was figuring it was a T-square, and the mime in chartreuse was going to draft his way out of there.
December 16th, 2016 at 6:52 pm
@GSS noob, that one is going to draft his way out; the one in gold near the back is looking to summit the peak by doing the Australian crawl….
December 17th, 2016 at 1:11 am
The instructions on ‘how to do a high-five’ were incomplete
December 30th, 2016 at 3:08 am
I think this is what mimes have nightmares about after eating bad picnic food.
Perhaps this is all in the head of the inexplicably small, pink-clad figure frolicking especially cheerfully in front. It would explain the lack of visible picnic and the snow covered mountains…
P.S. Tomorrow at work people are going to stare at me, I know, because I am going to think of “Group Mime Time!” and laugh for no discernible reason.
December 30th, 2016 at 10:23 pm
@HappyBookworm: the phrase “Group Mime Time!”, the age of this book, and AR Yingve’s group exercise make me think that the cover illustrates “That time Shields and Yarnell’s class field trip went horribly wrong”.
August 11th, 2017 at 1:37 pm
GSS Parrothead@8: I didn’t think Jimmy Buffett was so obscure!
August 11th, 2017 at 2:44 pm
@Dead Stuff: it must be one of those ‘universal’ American things, like ‘Gilligan’s Island’ or Dunkin Donuts. I was at the 4th July events at Bristol, Rhode Island, and they wheeled on a Buffett tribute band. They do this a lot; they don’t have a huge pot of money for booking acts. Nobody under fifty knows any of the songs but the band can never comprehend why they’re having such a hard time getting the crowd to join in. I was relieved that my utter innocence of this berk’s existence wasn’t just me being a furriner.
(That said, they were inoffensive enough and made sound while people bought stuffies: they got a more polite reception than a Soft Machine tribute band would have had, or a couple of Pet Shop Boys impersonators at a Trump rally).
August 11th, 2017 at 3:31 pm
@Tat: Actually, it was my wife who insisted I listen to her JB/Alan Jackson album. It’s fascinating to me what of American culture she knows: she can still list most of the cast of the Muppet Show and listens to Country and Western music on the radio, but had never heard of Andy Griffith or Otis Redding.
Speaking of Rhode Island and Dunkin’ Donuts, she heard that there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts Arena in Providence, and now she wants to take a road trip! Maybe I’ll visit the gravesite of the author of the Doom that Came to Sarnath if we go.
August 11th, 2017 at 4:25 pm
@Dead Stuff: It’s actually the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. I made the usual joke about ‘what a hole!’ and was looked at oddly. Dunkin’ not only eschew holes in their products but sell ‘Munchkins’, which purport to be the excluded middles. So that old gag about dieting by only eating the holes also fell flat. Considering what is considered edible in the Biggest Little State, and the weird names they give things, I have no yardstick for what’s acceptable.
I’d not heard of Andy Griffith until I arrived; now I’m just amazed that ‘Salvage One’ was broadcast or even commissioned. I watch oldies station MeTV to find out who the guests on The Muppet Show were (apart from Bruce Forsyth and Chris Langham, obviously)..
If you do pop to Friartown, bear in mind that Lovecraft’s house and environs are part of the Brown University complex and that, assuming you find somewhere to park, you’ll need pitons and ropes to get up and down the street: it’s like a sunnier Edinburgh or the proper Bristol in that regard. In the 70s Buddy Cianci had to be dissuaded from putting a heliport where the Dunky Center is now but I can’t help thinking it would have been the best way to commute to campus.
(And maybe try Cellar Stories, just of Westminster Street, where many GSS-worthy 60 paperbacks wind up.)
August 12th, 2017 at 6:07 am
@DSWBT: Not at all! You’d taken the “paradise” part, so I was only left with the “picnic” part to joke about. Nobody wanted “on”.
Clearly these people should have vacationed in Margaritaville instead. Tiny person in front seems to have suffered frostbite damage to both hands.
August 12th, 2017 at 12:37 pm
@GSS Salt Shaker: I may be in the minority here, but I’m claiming there’s a woman to blame for that frostbite.
August 12th, 2017 at 11:47 pm
@DSWB Parrots: It might be your own damn fault. And fix your flip-flop.