Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Shel Silverstein's Secret, Raucous Recording Sessions

Shel Silverstein's 80th birthday was last Saturday, and since my admiration (okay, uh, general fannishness) is hardly a secret in these quarters, it seemed like as good a time as any to write about the series of recordings he did approximately 40 years ago that were too profane to release to the general public. That piece runs today on TheAtlantic.com's culture channel, and includes YouTube clips for two of the unreleased recordings: "Fuck 'Em" and "I Love My Right Hand."

Because of time and space constraints, the final version of the piece didn't include some of my recollections of how I first got a hold of one version of these bootleg sessions:

In early 1999, I was still a college student, a fan of Silverstein's works for children but barely cognisant of his work for adults. Thanks to a long-defunct site run by one Carol Arnett, I got up to speed in record time, my own dormant archival instincts awakened. On April 17 of that year - just three weeks before Silverstein died - a curious item went up for auction on eBay. It was an acetate, with two sides of eye-popping titles like "Fuck 'Em", "I Am Not a Fag" and "I Love My Right Hand." It bore the marks of Glenbrook, CT-based blank tape manufacturer Audio Devices Inc., which would be bought by Capitol Records in 1972 and closed down just two years later. The seller, now consigned to the dark, dank basement of the Internet, seemed just as bewildered as the small but enthusiastic community of Silverstein fans made aware of the acetate for the very first time: "This acetate was probably never intended to see the light of day because 1) Shel Silverstein sounds as though he is high on something and 2) the subject matter of most of the songs is-shall we say-adult rated? I realize that Mr. Silverstein is a very unusual artist, but this material is out there even for him."

Eventually the acetate sold for $431.60. I, being a frugal-minded college student, didn't bother to bid, though eBay secured me a rare 1963 Silverstein interview published in a college magazine, first editions of out-of-print titles and other material currently gathering dust in my parents' house. But then an out-of-the-blue email came from a fellow Silverstein enthusiast. He could burn me a copy of a slightly different version of the acetate, did I want a copy?

Indeed I did. Per the estate, there are no plans to release these tracks commercially, and it remains to be seen if Silverstein ever intended them to see the light of day or if it was just him having way too much fun in the recording studio. But there are still so many unanswered questions: where were the sessions recorded? Who was the producer who says "take number one, Fornicate Them" and is privy to Shel's madcap lyrical stylings? Was the acetate that sold on eBay a decade ago the master of all the recordings or a multiple-generations-removed copy, like the version I have? Or does the master actually live in one of CBS's vaults somewhere?

One more note: this piece would never have been written without the power of Twitter. So thanks first to Alexis Madrigal for expressing his interest, and to his colleague Eleanor Barkhorn, the culture channel editor at The Atlantic, for signing off and whittling the piece down by about half. And I think I'd better go listen to the "Julie's Working" outtake again...

It's That Kind of Week

Deadlines and other major events have pretty much reduced my brain to 140 characters or less and to watching YouTube clips off the WTF charts*. But then along comes a story too strange and too bizarre to be fiction that must be shared:

A man plotted to kill his adoptive parents with the help of a friend he met on the internet, a court has heard.

Christopher Monks, 24, wanted Shaun Skarnes to murder his parents Christopher and Elizabeth Monks while they slept and then perform an extreme sex act on him, Preston Crown Court was told.

The bisexual pair are alleged to have hatched the plot after meeting on an internet site about "Furries" – people who pretend to be animal characters and share sexual role-playing fantasies.

Naturally, that's only the beginning...

(via)

*cursory Googling reveals far, far stranger things, possibly revealed in a future blog post or story. But for now, why not see what Janet Maslin had to say about this amazing piece of cinematic glory so many years ago?

The Secret Talents of Literary Critics

Okay, so a while back I wondered whether it was such a good idea to place James Wood on a pedestal, and that knowing what he thinks on or does with things that have nothing whatsoever to do with literature would be good. This is a welcome start, but Guitar Hero is so clearly next on the to-do list...

Vacation, btw, is more or less done. More soon.

(via)

One Possible Resolution to the Minnesota Senate Race

Because at this rate, it might be the only way to iron this mess out...

Dead Poet Told to Pay Up

I can see how this would happen, but come on, this is funny:

Two notices were delivered by GEZ, a licence-collecting agency, which threatened to mount legal action against the literary hero, who is best known for his poem Ode to Joy, which was put to music by Beethoven, unless he quickly settled his monthly €17 (£14) bill.

They were sent to a primary school bearing Schiller's name in Weigsdorf-Köblitz, a town in the eastern state of Saxony.

The second came despite the school's headteacher sending the agency a letter informing them that "the addressee is no longer in a position to listen to the radio or watch television".

GEZ replied saying Schiller would only be exempt if he could prove he did not own television or radio sets.

After the confusion was settled, a spokesman for the agency apologised. "We have to deal with such a huge amount of data, that something like this can happen, and the name Friedrich Schiller is not so unusual that it stood out as strange," she told The Guardian. "We will now alter his status in our computer system."

Because as we all know, the computer is never wrong!

Fun with Passwords

Well, not for the guy who tried to set his up, I suppose:

A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it's not".

Steve Jetley, from Shrewsbury, said he chose the password after falling out with Lloyds TSB over insurance that came free with an account.

He said he was then banned from changing it back or to another password of "Barclays is better".

The bank apologised and said the staff member no longer worked there.

All because of a travel insurance dispute...

This Must Be a Movie

It even has third-act plot twists:

PORTLAND, Ore. - When Susan Kuhnhausen returned home from work one day earlier this month, she encountered an intruder wielding a claw hammer. After a struggle, the 51-year-old nurse fended off her attacker by strangling him with her bare hands.

Neighbors praised the woman for her bravery, and investigators said they believed the dead man — Edward Dalton Haffey — was burglarizing Kuhnhausen’s home.

But after an investigation, police now say the intruder Kuhnhausen strangled was apparently a hit man hired by her estranged husband — Michael James Kuhnhausen Sr. — to kill her.

Although if it was a movie it would turn out the hitman and the woman actually knew each other previously, but right, this is real life...

This is the Sound of an Exploding Head

In Act One of this story, a 57 year old woman has her dead pitbull, Booger, cloned in South Korea. Five times over.

In Act Two, the story is reported all over the world, and Bernann McKinney attracts fame and celebrity in many corners - including Britain.

Which brings us to Act Three, the discovery of McKinney's previous life:

The secret life of the owner of the first cloned pet dog has started to emerge after she was unmasked as the “manacled Mormon” kidnapper Joyce McKinney.

The middle-aged blonde calling herself Bernann McKinney made headlines this week when five identical puppies were created using an ear from her dead pitbull.

Confronted with allegations yesterday, she denied being the woman who fled an Old Bailey trial in the 1970s accused of kidnapping her former lover at gunpoint, handcuffing him to a bed and forcing him to have sex.

However, a resident of Joyce McKinney’s home town of Newland, North Carolina, who saw footage of the woman with the cloning scientists in South Korea, told The Times: “That’s her. That is the woman I am familiar with.”

More here and here. I wonder if she will face trial now? (thanks, Jenny D!)

Is This the Greatest Book Deal in the History of the Universe?

Read on at Vulture to find out.

Not Your Average Break-In

Why does this seem to me the perfect story right before a long weekend?

Police say an Appleton family is still recovering from a scary incident early Wednesday morning when a man covered with barbecue sauce was in their basement.

Investigators say 35-year-old Aaron Maurice broke into the family's home on North Wilmer while they were sleeping around 4:30 A.M.

Not only was it frightening but police say it was very strange. At the time of the break-in, police say Maurice was whistling and covered in barbecue sauce.

When police asked Maurice why he was in the house, he said he was on the run from the government. And about the barbecue sauce: "The officers asked him that. He told the officers that it was urban camouflage." Well, that's one way to put it...