In 1988 Frank Zappa toured with a twelve-piece band that had rehearsed for months, learned a repertoire of over 100 songs and played an entirely different set each night. It is why, in Zappa's own words, it was -the best band you never heard in your life- - a reference to East Coast American audiences who never got the chance to see this particular touring ensemble. Zappa appointed bass player Scott Thunes to rehearse the group in his absence. In carrying out this role, Thunes was apparently abrasive, blunt and rude to the other members and two factions quickly developed: Thunes and stunt guitarist Mike Keneally on the one side; the remaining nine band members on the other. The atmosphere deteriorated as the tour progressed through America and on to Europe. Before leaving Europe, Zappa told the band that there were ten more weeks of concerts booked in the USA and asked them: -If Scott's in the band, will you do the tour?- With the exception of Keneally, they all said -no-. Rather than replace Thunes, Zappa cancelled almost three months of concerts and never toured again - claiming to have lost $400,000 in the process. 'Zappa The Hard Way' documents that tour. If you think touring can be fun, think again! Yes there were groupies and the usual paraphernalia associated with rock 'n' roll, but there was also bitterness and skulduggery on a scale that no one could imagine. Author Andrew Greenaway has interviewed the surviving band members and others associated with the tour to unravel the goings on behind the scenes that drove Zappa to call a halt to proceedings, despite the huge personal financial losses. This paperback edition includes a foreword by Zappa's sister Candy, and an afterword by Pauline Butcher, Zappa's former secretary and author of 'Freak Out! My Life With Frank Zappa', 'Zappa The Hard Way' might just be the best book you've never read in your life!

    This collection includes the following stories:"Jizzle""Esmerelda""Heaven Scent""Look Natural, Please""Reservation Deferred""Affair of the Heart"

    The Riddle of the Traveling Skull is perhaps his best-loved work. The adventure begins when a poem and a mysterious handbag lead a man to the grave of Legga, the Human Spider — and things just get stranger from there.

    In a turbo-charged romp through the Hollywood of everyone's wildest dreams, Boy Wonder follows the career of Shark Trager—rebel filmmaker and megasuccessful producer—from his birth in 1950 at a drive-in movie theater and his meteoric rise to the pinnacle of Hollywood power, to his equally spectacular descent into obscurity.

    Although he is best known today for his scripts for television and film, including several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Beaumont is being rediscovered as a master of weird tales, and this, his first published collection, contains some of his best. Ranging in tone from the chilling Gothic horror of "Miss Gentilbelle," where an insane mother dresses her son up as a girl and slaughters his pets, to deliciously dark humor in tales like "Open House" and "The Infernal Bouillabaisse," where murderers' plans go disastrously awry, these seventeen stories demonstrate Beaumont's remarkable talent and versatility. This new edition of The Hunger and Other Stories, the first in more than fifty years, includes a new introduction by Dr. Bernice M. Murphy, who argues for reevaluation of Beaumont alongside the other greats of the genre, including Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson.Contents:Miss Gentilbelle • (1957) The Vanishing American • (1955)A Point of Honor • (1955) Fair Lady • (1957) Free Dirt • (1955) Open House • (1957)The Train • (1957) The Dark Music • (1956) The Customers • (1957)Last Night in the Rain • (1956)The Crooked Man • (1955) Nursery Rhyme • (1957) The Murderers • (1955) The Hunger • (1955) Tears of the Madonna • (1957) The Infernal Bouillabaisse • (1957)Black Country • (1954)

    Exposed to the persuasive energies of a sensuous high priestess, the men of science are forced to question seriously their superstitious belief that they can chart, understand, and control the workings of the human mind.

    But even he, with his penchant for fishnet stockings and stiletto heels, is stunned by the antics of his guests - to say nothing of the Butler who invented the ultimate sex machine.The author also wrote "Iron Maiden".

     Well, we offer you YOUR DISGUSTING HEAD by Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey. A world-renowned and much feared expert on everything, Dr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey has seventeen degrees from eighteen institutions of higher learning. With her husband, Benny, she has traveled the world many times over, has learned about all aspects of life, including outer space and food, first hand. The human body is beautiful and mysterious. The mysterious part reeks of cheese. But no part of your body is as scary and horrifying as your head! In YOUR DISGUSTING HEAD: The Darkest, Most Offensive--and Moist--Secrets of Your Mouth, Nose and Ears, Dr. & Mr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey reveal -- through newly discovered discoveries -- all the ways in which your head disappoints you. With such amazing information as: • The ear was invented and designed by Feranando de la Mancini Goldfarb, in 1911, which was also a good year for yeast. • Good Reasons for teeth removal: dentist did it; peer pressure; not sharp enough; found better teeth, like, on the ground; suspected of enjoying flossing; decay and mouth politics. • The real reason your ears can't hear your pets talking. The answer is simple: your pet is a mumbler." With the wit and irreverent sense of humor for which Dave Eggers and McSweeney's is known, comes the second volume in the revolutionary Haggis-On-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance books. More than just entertaining and informative, YOUR DISGUSTING HEAD will help you appear smarter, more in touch with your sensitive side and whiten your teeth. And much, much more that will likely sicken you.

    (1964)Casablanca (1967)

    and the woman of his dreams. Things hit a snag when a bookmaking driver Alex flags down suddenly ends up dead. With its tight, crisp writing comparable to James M. Cain and Chandler, the work translated perfectly on screen into the legendary noir "Detour," perhaps the greatest low-budget film ever made.

    Examines the price we have paid for the stupidity of greed, doubt, red tape, the law, myth & wish-dreams.

    In his portrait of Crab, Éric Chevillard gives us a character who is genuinely strange and curiously like ourselves. A postmodernist novel par excellence, The Crab Nebula parodies literary conventions, deconstructs narrative and meaning, and brilliantly combines absurdity and hopelessness with irony and humor. What distinguishes it most of all is the startling originality of Chevillard’s voice and vision. There is whimsy and despair in this novel, pathos and laughter, satire and warm affection. The Crab Nebula is the fifth novel—and the first to be translated into English—by the brilliant young French author Éric Chevillard. His sympathetic yet outrageous portrait of Crab calls to mind works by Melville, Valéry, and Kafka, while never being less than utterly unique.

    Coot cat Reverend Ivan Stang, high holy of the Church of the SubGenius, has compiled a bestiary of American creeps and crazies so that you can write to them and receive mail that is weird, horrible, wonderfully absurd, or a combination of all three. Each entry has a paragraph or two and the last known mailing address of some fringe loonies. The book is only current through 1988, though; the only thing wrong with it is that it's high time for an update--with URLs, of course. Let's see ... there are catalogs of perpetual motion machines; brochures from South American flying saucer cults; something called "The Battle Cry of Aggressive Christianity" (Christian, not likely--aggressive, you bet); and bizarre roundups such as "News of the Weird," the Church of Beaver Cleaver, and so on. What makes this book so funny is the author's willingness to list (and ridicule) any group, no matter how repulsive. This means, too, that High Weirdness contains a group to offend everyone; consider yourself warned. In fact, if you aren't offended by some of these groups, you must be pretty offensive yourself. So there.

    And for a couple seconds, it was scary—like that meant the world was breaking, or expired, or bruised, or something worse. It was really scary for a couple seconds but then I calmed down. Up above, the moonlit clouds looked rippled, like the ribcage of some giant thing digesting me. And I wondered if the direction I was going went down into the digestive system or up out of it. Wondered what difference it made. There was a bug hovering over a small pool of ice cream on the sidewalk. Like a firefly, but it wasn’t a firefly. And I could’ve stepped on it and killed it. But I didn’t. Be thankful, little bug. For in my world, you are just a little bug.

    L. Moore '75 essay by Lester del Rey Shambleau [Northwest Smith] '33 novelette by C. L. Moore Black Thirst [Northwest Smith] '34 novelette by C. L. Moore The Bright Illusion '34 story by C. L. Moore Black God's Kiss [Jirel of Joiry] '34 novelette by C. L. Moore Tryst in Time '36 novelette by C. L. Moore Greater Than Gods '39 novelette by C. L. Moore Fruit of Knowledge '40 novelette by C. L. Moore No Woman Born '44 novelette by C. L. Moore Daemon '46 story by C. L. Moore Vintage Season '46 novella by Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore Afterword--Footnote to Shambleau & Others '75 essay by C. L. Moore