Nov 30
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ash966 Comments: Why, hello there, giant-brain-eyeball-octopus-bat-guy! And what’s behind your head? It’s not the moon, because it doesn’t go all the way around. An enormous cantaloupe, perhaps?
Published 1976

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Tagged with: C M Kornbluth • daemons • evil children • exposed brain • eye-yi-yi • Frederik Pohl • Gary Viskupic • glow • jeans and a t-shirt • monsters • monstrous humanoid • Nelson Doubleday SFBC • tentacles • wings • WTF
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November 30th, 2011 at 9:23 am
It’s unfortunate when you have your photo taken, and the aspidistra behind you appears to be growing out of your head. This poor child had the misfortune to stand in front of a bat, an inverted octupus, an explosion, a brain…
Actually, it looks like he has an afro hairdo, and it’s morphed into a brain.
Good. Show. Sir.
November 30th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Just noticed the label at the bottom. It seems this image depicts the mind of the city of St Paul. Not somewhere I’d care to live!
November 30th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Looks better than those hats Beatrice and Eugenie wore.
November 30th, 2011 at 10:19 am
“I’ve just had my brain washed and can’t do a thing with it…”
November 30th, 2011 at 11:23 am
Keep the One-Eyed Octopidistra Flying!
November 30th, 2011 at 11:56 am
“Papa! You’ve cut me hair ALL WRONG! And I’ve got a date with Allison in half an hour!”
November 30th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
“Trick or treat! Go ahead, guess what I’m dressed as. GUESS!”
November 30th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I’m just trying to imagine the rationale here. “Dude, it was the ’70s, man. We were all dropping acid and doing Extreme Watercolors.”
November 30th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
I’m trying to figure out which library this is from, but it’s just not coming to me.
November 30th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
It’s on the plastic overlay over the dust jacket, the Saint Paul (Minnesota) Public Library.
Publishers back in the ’70s — and maybe still, I don’t know — produced hardcover science fiction and young adult books for libraries that I never saw anywhere else. Maybe they were special printings? Anyway, they often seemed to have this sort of cover illustration, kind of selfconsciously arty-literary.
November 30th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Please let me know when you have returned this book to the library, I want to check it out next.
Oh, and octopidistra is my new favorite word.
November 30th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
I’m still not certain if the title of the book is “The Mind of the City – St. Paul Library”, or “The Best of C.M. Kornbluth”, or simply “Kornbluth” and C.M. is the author’s initials.
November 30th, 2011 at 7:25 pm
That shirt must come from the same place The Hulk gets his pants.
November 30th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
@Phil: Good catch–I’m so used to looking at our library books, the brain/mind of the city connection didn’t occur to me. Maybe we should use the image along with a new slogan, “This is your brain on books!”
@Alessandra: yes, St. Paul Public Library, MN, USA
@drlemaster: I will try to hurry it back in anticipation of enormous demand due to GSS publicity. Memo to me: A Best of Good Show Sir library display.
@Anti-Sceptic: The yellow strip on the bottom is a label we used to brand books with back in the day. Patrons complained at some point that all the labels made the books look fugly, so we stopped. I’m also sad that this magnificent cover is marred by a barcode, but what can you do?
December 1st, 2011 at 8:33 am
“This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”
(Well, somebody had to say it…)
January 4th, 2012 at 3:05 am
…and that’s why Chtulhu no longer rape Playboy girls
June 2nd, 2015 at 1:43 pm
Listen, there is NO way this can be the BEST of C.M. Kornbluth unless it includes that one story about the kid with bat wings whose oversized brain was eaten by a one-eyed squid while he was trying to reach the giant slice of cantaloupe.
Mmmmmmm… cantaloupe.
June 10th, 2015 at 5:22 pm
Never LARP Splatoon.
August 25th, 2015 at 3:45 am
@Mefista: That’s what I thought – this looks seriously Lovecraft to me.
But, seriously – LSD STRIKES AGAIN!