News You Can Bruise for 1998 May 12

Time for another update. I got a bunch of books over the weekend from the used bookstore. I got 3001: The Final Odyssey, which was a big disappointment; The Elements of Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction Using LISP, which is interesting; The Simarillion, continuing my tradition of getting cheap Tolkien paperbacks at used bookstores; and a two-volume set of Steven Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb and The Mismeasure of Man, both of which would have cost me $14 apiece, but which I got for $12 total for huge savings. There is a cute panda cartoon on the back of The Panda's Thumb. I have no idea what Louis Agassiz's statue is doing on the grounds of Stanford. I guess it's not doing much, anymore.

    I also got the soundtrack album to Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. It's really rockin', man.

    Oh, I have a Zappa story to tell. I went to this sidewalk record sale for Rhino Records, which is down on Westwood. And I was hunting around and I found a Zappa album. And I said "All right, Zappa!" cause it was a good find. And this old musician-type guy was next to me, probably about 40, and he looked over at my album and he said "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention." with this sinusoidal intonation that hit its maximum on the syllables "Zap", "Moth", and "vent". And you could tell that this guy knew the score, just by the way he said "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.". You can't fake that kind of thing. I still haven't heard the album, though. I don't have a record player.

    I scanned Atlas Shilled on Saturday, but apparantly I only uploaded the first two scans. Here is Panel 0 and Panel 1. The guy in the cap is Kris and the guy who kicks sand in Kris' face is Adam.