MINDWEBS was a weekly half-hour radio series created by Michael Hanson and Steve Gordon for WHA/WERN, Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison. Instead of conventional radio plays, listeners heard readings of science-fiction and fantasy stories, usually performed by Hanson and accompanied by music, sound effects, and a handful of other voices. The series began in 1975 and continued into the 1980s. Although the Lafferty letters I have read never mention it, MINDWEBS adapted his “Hand

One question in Lafferty’s thinking about the end of contingent worlds is how to measure a life against the world’s. Everyone grows older and sees worlds fade. That is, anyone who is lucky enough to live long enough to experience that kind of loss. Lafferty certainly went through it. He was probably haunted by this more than most people (I think) because his father was so old when he was born, and he was the baby of the family. His grandparents were a century older than he. H

Okeene Rattlesnake Round Up, Okeene, Oklahoma Vivian was in with a loud rustle, and her footsteps like music as she started up the stair (the tone of her footfall at a frequency of 265, just above middle C, compounded with a vagrant, two harmonics, and a mute). Few men could so analyze their wives' footsteps. Everything about her was in tune, and she hummed the "Dreamer"as she ascended. May God us keep From Single vision & Newton’s sleep! — William Blake, Letter to Thomas But

“The berserks speak of light as though it were white or golden and as though it were singular. Apparently they cannot even see the shattered and dynamic psychedelic lights nor even the kaleidoscopic psychedelic sun. And the berserks, the marching virgins, are serious in their madness.” Only at first glance. In reality he had the plastic smooth, primordial, unfinished look of a typhonian. He could still bemolded into anything. But the noise of him and of his apparatus! Most re

The psychoanalyst C. G. Jung (mostly in the essay Aion) argued that the human person was made up of the Ego, the Self, the Shadow, and those opposing twins the Anima and the Animus. That’s five persons in us, and he hints at quite a few more. But can these different persons in the PERSON be physically separate and visible? They can be, but not as a usual thing. But in certain hysterias and raptures and hilarities and exuberances and plain High Spirits (when the Ghost hangs hi

"LAUGHING KELLY" Black comedy about the burials of several Lafferty characters. The titular Kelly won’t go quietly. He keeps laughing from the grave. Here one thinks of The Devil is Dead and its "Diabolique." "A STRINGLESS-FIDDLE NOTION" This nonsense verse tells the story of an inventor. He creates an impossible stringless fiddle and uses its music to bake waffles. He and his partners open a successful restaurant. Lafferty having fun. "SYLVESTER" Surreal and melancholy. It's

Clone of RAL's Voice