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Post by ropardoe on Apr 24, 2022 15:29:08 GMT
Yes, his song was one of the highlights of the musical episode, topped only by Amber Benson's lovely voice (and Anya's bunny song!). I don't know how often I involuntarily sum "Going through the Motions" in my mind. But Willow's and Tara's "Under Your Spell" also comes often to mind. It is just lovely. It is, isn't it? I miss Tara more than almost any other Buffy character except for Spike.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 24, 2022 8:04:49 GMT
James Marsters has a good singing voice as well, and I have heard nothing but nice things about his personality. I too am sorry that he hasn't gone on to greater fame. Yes, his song was one of the highlights of the musical episode, topped only by Amber Benson's lovely voice (and Anya's bunny song!).
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 22, 2022 19:45:55 GMT
Love Spike, hated Dru. That ridiculous accent. Okay, Spike had a ridiculous accent too, but compared with Dru's it was perfect. Right, they were supposed to be Brits. Here in the foreign markets they were of course dubbed.
Spike had a great voice in dubbing, a top voice actor, David Nathan, - he did also voice Johnny Depp - who also does terrific audio books, much horror. A lot of Stephen King, Lovecraft readings and so on. I always choose the original audio on my Buffy and Angel DVDs. While German dubbing is on the whole very good, I couldn't stand the work on Buffy. Inspired by the scans I put some early Angel in the player and watched the first episode of Spike guest-starring. Still hilarious the scene, where he mimics Angel from above.
I always thought it a bit sad that Marsters didn't had a big career after his work for Wheedon.
Yes, Marsters did some good guest starring in shows like Warehouse 13 and Smallville, but maybe he's a bit too quirky for most. One of my favourite scenes involving him - I can't remember the episode - was where he was called upon to do a bad fake American accent. So - an American, playing an Englishman, faking an American accent. He did it brilliantly - it was hilarious.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 22, 2022 15:36:41 GMT
Love Spike, hated Dru. That ridiculous accent. Okay, Spike had a ridiculous accent too, but compared with Dru's it was perfect.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 13, 2022 20:09:20 GMT
Absolutely. I said when it was first published that I wished he'd expand it into a full-length book.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 13, 2022 11:14:26 GMT
Having ISSN numbers has nothing to do with sending copies to the British Library. Legally every publication is supposed to do that, and at least in SF fandom most did/do. I know all of mine have gone there, ISSN or not. And there are quite few fanzine collections: this is a good one: www.gostak.org.uk/mh/catalog.htm I heard that Greg Pickersgill had to buy a second house to store it. There is also the SF Foundation collection at Liverpool University. Over in the USA one of the universities has Ned Brooks' vast fanzine collection which he stored in a warehouse until his Nigel Pargeter style death. It shouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility for a keen researcher to put a book together based on these collections (though I wouldn't envy anyone trying!). Ah, thanks Ro. I had no idea these existed. I'm still not sure too many of the Goth etc. zines bothered with the British Library - in fact the editor of Lowlife received a visit for not doing so. Keen researcher or otherwise, it would be easy to compile a book from the most modest collection - Martin Lacey's excellent El Tel Was A Space Alien reprints material from just a dozen football zines. It's the obtaining of permissions would be the difficult, most likely insurmountable bit? Yes, permissions could be difficult. Some contributors will no longer be in the land of the living, for a start, and some of those who are might be hard to contact. I've been lucky so far in tracking down people to reprint their Ghosts & Scholars stories in my Sarob Press books, but that has been down to pure luck (and the internet!). I agree though - even a book on the subject which made no claims to completeness would be a marvellous idea. Meanwhile, SF fandon does have some good books which deal with the subject to some degree: I'm thinking of Peter Weston's With Stars in My Eyes (2004) which goes into some detail on the zines he was involved with; and Rob Hansen's excellent Then: Science Fiction Fandom in the UK: 1930-1980 (2016). I recommend them both.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 13, 2022 7:59:15 GMT
There are a number of volunteer-run zine libraries over here, in both the US and Canada. The concern I feel as a professional (of sorts) librarian is that the collections feel quite ephemeral in terms of conservation. They're dependent on communities of people who often have few resources and are likely to move around a lot. We used to have one here in the Metro Boston area; last I heard of anything about it was in 2019. The library had had to move several times over the past few years. Update: here's the website for the local zine library. There were a couple of updates a year ago, in February of 2021, and seemingly nothing since then. www.papercutzinelibrary.com/I had to look up Nigel Pargetter, a character on the radio show The Archers who died falling off his own roof, I suppose while trying to fix something up there. I did hear a few minutes of an episode of The Archers on the BBC World Service back when I was living in Taiwan in the 1980s. It didn't really capture my interest, unlike Hinge and Bracket. I remember my friend giving me an amused look when I commented "what dear old ladies they are!" Beautiful cover on that issue of Factsheet Five; again, a zine I heard about back in the 1990s but never managed to get hold of. H. It's a fair point, but at least the collection at Liverpool University and the one at the university where Ned Brooks left his collection are (one hopes) safe. As is the huge collection at the British Library. Yes, Nigel Pargeter was a favourite character on The Archers and neither his fans nor the actor himself have forgiven the writers. Nigel's scream as he fell off the roof lives with many of us forever.
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 12, 2022 18:25:37 GMT
As far as the Goth Rock/ Fishnet & Fang/ Pagan-Occult titles go, it's a shame Mick Mercer didn't follow his directory with a 'Best of ...' showcase — the football 'zines were particularly well served in this respect. I don't think you could compile such a book now, even were there an audience. Very few mags bothered with an ISBN number, so wouldn't imagine the British Library have a vast selection, and copyright clearance would be very difficult to come by. People move on, and not everyone will look back on their participation with fondness. You are right. It has become as good as impossible to get first-hand accounts of the people responsible for genre-novels in the mid-70s. They are either dead or can't remember the details as it was just a job a lifetime ago. It should have been done in the early 2000s. And of course fanzines are a different and even more difficult. Who would have a full collection, if such a thing even would have been possible? Having ISSN numbers has nothing to do with sending copies to the British Library. Legally every publication is supposed to do that, and at least in SF fandom most did/do. I know all of mine have gone there, ISSN or not. And there are quite few fanzine collections: this is a good one: www.gostak.org.uk/mh/catalog.htm I heard that Greg Pickersgill had to buy a second house to store it. There is also the SF Foundation collection at Liverpool University. Over in the USA one of the universities has Ned Brooks' vast fanzine collection which he stored in a warehouse until his Nigel Pargeter style death. It shouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility for a keen researcher to put a book together based on these collections (though I wouldn't envy anyone trying!).
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Post by ropardoe on Apr 2, 2022 15:19:14 GMT
Sorry it took a while. Have been otherwise preoccupied so set #42 aside until mind clear enough to give issue the attention it deserves. M. R. James & John Linwood Grant - Speaker Lenthall's Tomb: Wealthy clergyman Mr. Cave and son Harry (23, Trinity, Oxford) are bent on renovating the chapel of St. Mary's, Burford. They are especially keen to be rid of the hideous marble tomb of the Regicide, Speaker Lenthall, but permission must first be obtained from his octogenarian great grand-daughter, Elizabeth, scourge of the almshouse and last of the line. Madam Lenthall takes delight in flatly refuses a bribe and, unimpressed by Harry's short temper, advises that, should they dare disturb the monument when she's dead, they are likely to receive an unwelcome visitor. Can only agree that young Miss Mary Cave and, especially, Madam Lenthall, steal the limelight. Aside from the great Lady Wardrop herself, I think these are pretty much the two best women in MRJ's stories.
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Post by ropardoe on Mar 19, 2022 9:09:57 GMT
(plus the forthcoming G&S Book of Follies and Grottoes). Not this sounds intriguing. I was unfamiliar with what a Folly is, kind of understood it ( I hope) when I saw one of the Poirot tv movies Dead Man's Folly. In hindsight it is clear why this could be a worthwhile topic for a Ghost story. As Michael McDowell wrote one in his novel Blackwater about empty houses: 'you can’t have a big house like that just sitting there with nobody in it, and all the furniture covered up in sheets and them little stickers still on the windowpanes and all the keys in the doors, and not have somebody move in it. And when I say somebody I don’t necessary mean white folks and I don’t necessary mean black folks' (says the black cook). Guess this can also be said about little empty houses sitting alone all day on your ground. I quote from my introduction for the Follies and Grottoes book: "Follies may be fake temples, belvederes, pyramids, obelisks and towers, sham castles and ruins, eye-catchers, faux druid circles and hermitages (with or without fake hermit!), and many other things besides."
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Post by ropardoe on Mar 18, 2022 15:26:30 GMT
This is from 1986. How about a second one? I take it the answer is no. Quite a large number of stories from G&S have been reprinted in Sarob volumes like The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Folk Horror and The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Mazes (plus the forthcoming G&S Book of Follies and Grottoes). Doing another Best of G&S now would feel like going over old ground again.
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Post by ropardoe on Mar 14, 2022 14:46:10 GMT
Arrived midday. Caroll Tyrrell [ed.] - Ghosts & Scholars #42 (Haunted Library, March 2022) Rosemary PardoeFront: Angel: Back Arachne Caroll Tyrrell - Editorial Rick Kennett - Jamesian Podcasts Rosemary Pardoe - Lady Wardrop's Notes Jim Bryant - In the Tracks of M. R. James: V.
Fiction M. R. James & John Linwood Grant - Speaker Lenthall's Tomb Victoria Day - Hadesons Hall Folly
Reviews Benjamin Harris, Eleanor Scott's Randall's Round Katherine Haynes, Peter Bell's Sacred and Profane: Seven Strange Tales Peter Bell, Joyce Carol Oates's The Ruins of Contracouer and other Presences Tina Rath, Paul Finch [ed.], Terror Tales of the Scottish Lowlands Antonio Monteiro, Ghosts of the Chit-Chat, narrated by Robert Lloyd Parry C. E. Ward, The Mezzotint, directed by Mark Gatiss Parrick Petterson, Ron Weighell's King Satyr Rosemary Pardoe, Simon Loxley's A Geography of Horror: The Ghost Stories of M. R. James and the Suffolk Landscape (A Travel Guide)According to Rosemary on the M.R. James Appreciation Society on Facebook Ghosts & Scholars 42 went out of print prior to publication. Luckily, I paid my subscription two weeks ago! Next time I'll pay my renewal immediately. If there is sufficient demand, will there be a reprint? There can't be more than 250 copies for copyright reasons (some of the images - not the covers - are used with this proviso).
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Post by ropardoe on Mar 9, 2022 16:13:15 GMT
Ro announced earlier today on social media that this issue has gone out of print prior to publication (I do not understand how this can be, but that's what she said). I failed to get my email to Mark Valentine in on time, so I'll miss it. cheers, Hel More new subscriptions than expected, despite upping the print-run. Which means that all copies (just back from the printer) are spoken for.
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Post by ropardoe on Mar 8, 2022 9:50:18 GMT
Careful what you wish for! There's a bit more of me than usual in this issue. My "Lady Wardrop's Notes" column (on dogs in MRJ's stories), an introduction to "Speaker Lenthall's Tomb" and a review. Is it a review of "The Mezzotint"? All I remember about is now is that Frances Barber sliced the ham very thick. No, Clive Ward has reviewed that (and liked it better than I did - I loathed Frances Barber). My review is of Simon Loxley's A Geography of Horror: The Ghost Stories of M.R. James and the Suffolk Landscape.
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Post by ropardoe on Mar 2, 2022 15:31:37 GMT
Thanks for posting, Steve. So glad there's another Vicky Day story to look forward to, and well done John Linwood Grant! The guest editors have each done a magnificent job, but I still can't get used to the relative lack of Ro. Careful what you wish for! There's a bit more of me than usual in this issue. My "Lady Wardrop's Notes" column (on dogs in MRJ's stories), an introduction to "Speaker Lenthall's Tomb" and a review.
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