Hear Edgar Allan Poe’s Horror Stories Read by Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, James Earl Jones, William S. Burroughs & Others

in Audio Books, Literature | October 31st, 2024

Here on Hal­loween of 2024, we have a greater vari­ety of scary sto­ries — and arguably, a much scari­er vari­ety of scari­er sto­ries — to choose from than ever before. But what­ev­er their rel­e­vance to the spe­cif­ic lives we may live and the spe­cif­ic dreads we may feel today, how many such cur­rent works stand a chance of being read a cou­ple of cen­turies from now, with not just his­tor­i­cal inter­est but gen­uine chills? With each Hal­loween that brings us near­er to the 200th anniver­sary of Edgar Allan Poe’s lit­er­ary debut, the works of that Amer­i­can pio­neer of the grotesque and the macabre grow only more deeply trou­bling.

“The word that recurs most cru­cial­ly in Poe’s fictions is hor­ror,” writes Mar­i­lynne Robin­son in the New York Review of Books. “His sto­ries are often shaped to bring the nar­ra­tor and the read­er to a place where the use of the word is justified, where the word and the expe­ri­ence it evokes are explored or by impli­ca­tion defined. So crypts and entomb­ments and phys­i­cal mor­bid­i­ty figure in Poe’s writ­ing with a promi­nence that is not char­ac­ter­is­tic of major lit­er­a­ture in gen­er­al. Clear­ly Poe was fas­ci­nat­ed by pop­u­lar obses­sions, with crime, with pre­ma­ture bur­ial” — obses­sions that haven’t lost much pop­u­lar­i­ty since his day.

Exam­ined more close­ly, “the hor­ror that fas­ci­nat­ed him and gave such dread­ful uni­ty to his tales is often the inescapable con­fronta­tion of the self by a per­fect jus­tice, the expo­sure of a guilty act in a form that makes its rev­e­la­tion a recoil of the mind against itself.” This is true, Robin­son writes, of such still-wide­ly-read works as “The Fall of the House of Ush­er,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

You can hear all of those sto­ries and more in the Youtube playlist above, nar­rat­ed by a vari­ety of per­form­ers imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­niz­able by voice alone: Christo­pher Lee, Vin­cent Price, William S. Bur­roughs, Orson Welles, Bela Lugosi, Basil Rath­bone, and the late James Earl Jones.

Whether read aloud or on the page, Robin­son notes, Poe “has always been reviled or cel­e­brat­ed for the absence of moral con­tent in his work, despite the fact that these tales are all straight­for­ward moral para­bles. For a writer so intrigued by the oper­a­tions of the mind as Poe was, an inter­est in con­science leads to an inter­est in con­ceal­ment and self-decep­tion, things that are secre­tive and high­ly indi­vid­ual and at the same time so uni­ver­sal that they shape civ­i­liza­tions.” While there are civ­i­liza­tions, there will be tell-tale hearts; and while there are tell-tale hearts, there will be an audi­ence respon­sive to Edgar Allan Poe’s brand of hor­ror, on Hal­loween or any oth­er night.


Relat­ed con­tent:

Down­load The Com­plete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre Sto­ries as Free eBooks & Audio Books

Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe? An Ani­mat­ed Video Explains

7 Tips from Edgar Allan Poe on How to Write Vivid Sto­ries and Poems

Hear the 14-Hour “Essen­tial Edgar Allan Poe” Playlist: “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart” & Much More

Hear Edgar Allan Poe Sto­ries Read by Iggy Pop, Jeff Buck­ley, Christo­pher Walken, Mar­i­anne Faith­ful & More

Watch a Strange Ani­ma­tion of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart,” Vot­ed the 24th Best Car­toon of All Time (1953)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Hear 2.5 Hours of the Classical Music in Haruki Murakami’s Novels: Liszt, Beethoven, Janáček, and More

in Books, Literature, Music | October 25th, 2024

Haru­ki Murakami’s hit nov­el 1Q84 fea­tures a mem­o­rable scene in a taxi­cab on a grid­locked free­way whose radio is play­ing Leoš Janáček’s Sin­foni­et­ta. “It is, as the book sug­gests, tru­ly the worst pos­si­ble music for a traf­fic jam,” writes Sam Ander­son in a New York Times Mag­a­zine pro­file of the nov­el­ist: “busy, upbeat, dra­mat­ic — like five nor­mal songs fight­ing for suprema­cy inside an emp­ty paint can.” Muraka­mi tells Ander­son that he “chose the Sin­foni­et­ta because that is not a pop­u­lar music at all. But after I pub­lished this book, the music became pop­u­lar in this coun­try… Mr. Sei­ji Oza­wa thanked me. His record has sold well.”

In addi­tion to being a world-famous con­duc­tor, the late Oza­wa was also, as it hap­pens, a per­son­al friend of Murakami’s; the two even pub­lished a book, Absolute­ly on Music, that tran­scribes a series of their con­ver­sa­tions about the for­mer’s voca­tion and the lat­ter’s avo­ca­tion, a dis­tinc­tion with an unclear bound­ary in Murakami’s case.

“I have lots of friends who love music, but Haru­ki takes it way beyond the bounds of san­i­ty,” writes Oza­wa, and indeed, Muraka­mi has always made music a part of his work, both in his process of cre­at­ing it and in its very con­tent. His books offer numer­ous ref­er­ences to West­ern pop (espe­cial­ly of the nine­teen-six­ties), jazz, and also clas­si­cal record­ings — fif­teen of which you can hear in the video from NTS radio above.

We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured NTS, the Lon­don-based online radio sta­tion known for its deep dives on themes from spir­i­tu­al jazz to Hunter S. Thomp­son, for its “Haru­ki Muraka­mi Day” broad­cast of music from his nov­els. Open­ing with Le mal du pays from Franz Liszt’s Années de pèleri­nage, the NTS Guide to Clas­si­cal Music from Muraka­mi Nov­els con­tin­ues on to “Vogel als Prophet” from Robert Schu­man­n’s Wald­szenen, and there­after includes  Beethoven’s Sym­pho­ny No. 7 In A Major, Mendelssohn’s Cleve­land Quar­tet, Wag­n­er’s Der Fliegende Hol­län­der, and much else besides. You may not be able to recall where you’ve seen all of these pieces men­tioned in Murakami’s work right away, but you’ll sure­ly rec­og­nize the Sin­foni­et­ta the moment it comes along.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Haru­ki Murakami’s Pas­sion for Jazz: Dis­cov­er the Novelist’s Jazz Playlist, Jazz Essay & Jazz Bar

A 96-Song Playlist of Music in Haru­ki Murakami’s Nov­els: Miles Davis, Glenn Gould, the Beach Boys & More

A 3,350-Song Playlist of Music from Haru­ki Murakami’s Per­son­al Record Col­lec­tion

A 26-Hour Playlist Fea­tur­ing Music from Haru­ki Murakami’s Lat­est Nov­el, Killing Com­menda­tore

Haru­ki Muraka­mi Day: Stream Sev­en Hours of Mix­es Col­lect­ing All the Jazz, Clas­si­cal & Clas­sic Amer­i­can Pop Music from His Nov­els

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Kurt Vonnegut’s Lost Board Game Is Finally for Sale

in Games, Literature | October 9th, 2024

Kurt Von­negut’s life was not with­out its ironies. Fight­ing in World War II, that descen­dant of a long line of Ger­man immi­grants in the Unit­ed States found him­self impris­oned in Dres­den just when it was dev­as­tat­ed by Allied fire­bomb­ing. To under­stand the rel­e­vance of this expe­ri­ence to his lit­er­ary work, one need only know that his cap­tors made him live in a slaugh­ter­house. It’s not sur­pris­ing that anti-war sen­ti­ments would sur­face again and again in the books he wrote after com­ing home. But one would hard­ly expect him to have spent his time away from the writ­ing desk on a mil­i­tary-themed board game.

“After releas­ing his first nov­el, Play­er Piano, in 1952, to pos­i­tive reviews and poor sales, he need­ed oth­er streams of income to sup­port his grow­ing fam­i­ly,” writes the New York Times’ Julia Carmel of the young Von­negut. Of all his endeav­ors — which includ­ed pub­lic rela­tions, a car deal­er­ship and a very brief stint at Sports Illus­trat­ed — he was most pas­sion­ate about design­ing a board game called Gen­er­al Head­quar­ters.” Read­ers of Von­negut’s nov­els might expect a sar­don­ical­ly didac­tic object les­son on the futil­i­ty of war, but in fact, “GHQ is a fast-paced two-play­er bat­tle game in which each play­er maneu­vers mil­i­tary units — infantry, armored vehi­cles, artillery and an air­borne reg­i­ment — to cap­ture the oth­er player’s head­quar­ters.”

Von­negut nev­er did man­age to sell the game, which has only just come avail­able for pur­chase at Barnes & Noble stores. Its long-delayed pro­duc­tion was the project of a table­top game design­er called Geoff Engel­stein, who ran across a brief men­tion of GHQ that even­tu­al­ly inspired him to inquire about the game’s sta­tus with the writer’s estate. The 40 pages of notes amid Von­negut’s papers include sev­er­al revi­sions of its rules, but also pitch let­ters to board-game com­pa­nies sug­gest­ing that GHQ could “become the third pop­u­lar checker­board game” — and even “be used to train cadets at the U.S. Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my at West Point.”

Despite prob­a­bly hav­ing missed its chance to enter the stan­dard mil­i­tary-acad­e­my cur­ricu­lum, the game could nev­er­the­less become a must-have among col­lec­tors of Von­negutiana. Accord­ing to the Kurt Von­negut Muse­um & Library’s online store, “this first edi­tion of GHQ fea­tures deluxe wood­en pieces and a 24-page com­men­tary book­let, show­ing Kurt Vonnegut’s actu­al design notes to give insight into his cre­ative process.” It may “lack the sig­na­ture dark sense of humor that runs through Mr. Von­negut’s writ­ing,” as Carmel puts it, but it sure­ly could­n’t be with­out his less wide­ly acknowl­edged — but no less char­ac­ter­is­tic — instinct for enter­tain­ment val­ue.

via The New York Times

Relat­ed con­tent:

Kurt Von­negut Dia­grams the Shape of All Sto­ries in a Master’s The­sis Reject­ed by U. Chica­go

22-Year-Old P.O.W. Kurt Von­negut Writes Home from World War II: “I’ll Be Damned If It Was Worth It”

A New Kurt Von­negut Muse­um Opens in Indi­anapo­lis … Right in Time for Banned Books Week

The Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Board Game, Inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s Rol­lick­ing Nov­el

Jack Ker­ouac Was a Secret, Obses­sive Fan of Fan­ta­sy Base­ball

The Fiendish­ly Com­pli­cat­ed Board Game That Takes 1,500 Hours to Play: Dis­cov­er The Cam­paign for North Africa

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Thomas Edison’s Recordings of Leo Tolstoy: Hear the Voice of the Great Russian Novelist

in History, Literature, Technology | October 8th, 2024

Born 196 years ago, Russ­ian nov­el­ist Leo Tolstoy’s life (1828–1910) spanned a peri­od of immense social, polit­i­cal, and tech­no­log­i­cal change, par­al­leled in his own life by his rad­i­cal shift from hedo­nis­tic noble­man to the­olo­gian, anar­chist, and veg­e­tar­i­an paci­fist. Though he did not live to see the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, the nov­el­ist did see Tsar Alexan­der II’s sweep­ing reforms, includ­ing the 1861 Eman­ci­pa­tion order that changed the social char­ac­ter of the coun­try. Near the end of his life, Tol­stoy saw the com­ing of new record­ing tech­nol­o­gy that would rev­o­lu­tion­ize the direc­tion of his own life’s work—telling sto­ries.

In his lat­er years Tol­stoy appeared in the new medi­um of film, which cap­tured his 80th birth­day in 1908, and his funer­al pro­ces­sion two years lat­er. He was the sub­ject of the first col­or pho­to­graph tak­en in Rus­sia (top) also in 1908. And that same year, Tol­stoy made sev­er­al audio record­ings of his voice, on a phono­graph sent to him per­son­al­ly by Thomas Edi­son. You can hear one of those record­ings, “The Pow­er of Child­hood,” made on April 19th, 1908, just above.

You’ll note, of course, that the great author reads in his native lan­guage. Most of the record­ings he made, which he intend­ed for the edi­fi­ca­tion of his coun­try­men, are in Russ­ian. Below, how­ev­er, you can hear him read from his last book, Wise Thoughts For Every Day in Eng­lish, Ger­man, French and Russ­ian. The book col­lects Tolstoy’s favorite pas­sages from thinkers as diverse as Lao-Tzu and Ralph Wal­do Emer­son. As Mike Springer wrote in a pre­vi­ous post on this record­ing, “Tol­stoy reject­ed his great works of fic­tion” as an old man, “believ­ing that it was more impor­tant to give moral and spir­i­tu­al guid­ance to the com­mon peo­ple.” To that end, he made a series of short record­ings, which you can hear at this site, on such sub­jects as art, law, moral­i­ty, pover­ty, non­vi­o­lence, and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

The sto­ry of how Tol­stoy came to make these record­ings is a fas­ci­nat­ing one. Inter­est­ed in the new tech­nol­o­gy, Tol­stoy made his first record­ing in 1895, when, writes The Moscow Times, “an Edi­son rep­re­sen­ta­tive came to Yas­naya Polyana, Tol­stoy’s estate, to record the author’s voice. Those record­ings were tak­en over the bor­der to Berlin, where they lay in an archive until they were brought back to the Sovi­et Union after World War II.” When Stephen Bon­sal, edi­tor of the New York Times learned of Tolstoy’s inter­est in record­ing tech­nol­o­gy in 1907, he promised to send the nov­el­ist an Edi­son phono­graph of his own. Edi­son him­self, hear­ing of this, refused to accept any pay­ment, and per­son­al­ly sent his own machine to Tolstoy’s estate with the engraved mes­sage “A Gift to Count Leo Tol­stoy from Thomas Alva Edi­son.”

Edi­son asked Tol­stoy for many mul­ti-lin­gual record­ings, request­ing “short mes­sages” in Eng­lish and French, “con­vey­ing to the peo­ple of the world some thoughts that would tend to their moral and social advance­ment.” Tol­stoy dili­gent­ly made sev­er­al record­ings, some of which were then shipped to Edi­son in 1908. On Feb­ru­ary 21 of that year, the New York Times pub­lished an arti­cle on the exchange titled “Tolstoy’s Gift to Edi­son. Will Send Record of His Voice—Edison Gave Him a Phono­graph.” The world eager­ly await­ed the world-famous author’s mes­sage to its “civ­i­lized peo­ples.” It seems how­ev­er, that the mes­sage nev­er arrived. Accord­ing to Sput­nik News, the fate of that leg­endary record­ing “has yet to be found out.” Nev­er­the­less, thanks to Edi­son, we have sev­er­al oth­er record­ings of Tolstoy’s very well-pre­served voice, the record of a life lived to the end with fierce con­vic­tion and curios­i­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Leo Tol­stoy Became a Veg­e­tar­i­an and Jump­start­ed the Veg­e­tar­i­an & Human­i­tar­i­an Move­ments in the 19th Cen­tu­ry

The Only Col­or Pic­ture of Tol­stoy, Tak­en by Pho­tog­ra­phy Pio­neer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1908)

Leo Tol­stoy Reads From His Last Major Work in 4 Lan­guages, 1909

Vin­tage Footage of Leo Tol­stoy: Video Cap­tures the Great Nov­el­ist Dur­ing His Final Days

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Hear Moby Dick Read in Its Entirety by Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, John Waters, Stephen Fry & More

in Audio Books, Literature | September 24th, 2024

moby dick big read

Image of Moby Dick by David Austen.

In 2013, Ply­mouth Uni­ver­si­ty kicked off Moby Dick The Big Read, promis­ing a full audio­book of Her­man Melville’s influ­en­tial nov­el, with famous (and not so famous) voic­es tak­ing on a chap­ter each. When we first wrote about it here, only six chap­ters had been unveiled, but boast­ed actors like Til­da Swin­ton (read­ing chap­ter one below), author Nigel Williams, and poet and jour­nal­ist Musa Okwon­ga.

We’re glad to say the project reached its suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion. And they cer­tain­ly called on an impres­sive ros­ter of celebri­ty read­ers: Stephen Fry, Neil Ten­nant, Fiona Shaw, Will Self, Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch, Chi­na Miéville, Tony Kush­n­er, John Waters, Simon Cal­low, Sir David Atten­bor­ough, even for­mer Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron. Pulitzer Prize win­ning poet Mary Oliv­er fin­ish­es off the whole project, read­ing the Epi­logue.

All 135 chap­ters are avail­able to be lis­tened to in your brows­er, down­loaded on iTunes, or streamed on Sound­Cloud. How­ev­er, do check them out online, as each chap­ter comes with a work of art each cre­at­ed by 135 con­tem­po­rary artists such as Matthew Bar­ney, Oliv­er Clegg, and Matthew Bene­dict. (See David Austen’s work above.) The project is a mam­moth under­tak­ing befit­ting such a mon­u­men­tal book, and if you’ve nev­er read it this just might be the way to go.

Copies of Moby Dick can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. Mean­while, this big read­ing will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Why Should We Read Melville’s Moby-Dick? A TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion Makes the Case

How to Mem­o­rize an Entire Chap­ter from “Moby Dick”: The Art and Sci­ence of Remem­ber­ing Every­thing

An Illus­tra­tion of Every Page of Her­man Melville’s Moby Dick

How Ray Brad­bury Wrote the Script for John Huston’s Moby Dick (1956)

Orson Welles Reads From Moby-Dick: The Great Amer­i­can Direc­tor Takes on the Great Amer­i­can Nov­el

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

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Orson Welles Narrates Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner in an Experimental Film Featuring the Art of Gustave Doré

in Film, Literature | September 23rd, 2024

Around here we sub­scribe to the the­o­ry that there’s no such thing as too much Orson Welles. In years past, we gave you Welles nar­rat­ing Pla­to’s Cave Alle­go­ry and Kafka’s “Before the Law,” and, before that, the Welles-nar­rat­ed para­ble Free­dom Riv­er, and the list goes on.

Now, we present The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a 1977 exper­i­men­tal film cre­at­ed by Lar­ry Jor­dan, an inde­pen­dent film­mak­er who tried to mar­ry “the clas­sic engrav­ings of Gus­tave Doré to the clas­sic poem by Samuel Tay­lor Coleridge through a clas­sic nar­ra­tor: Orson Welles.” As Jor­dan describes it, the film is “a long opi­um dream of the old Mariner (Welles) who wan­ton­ly killed the alba­tross and suf­fered the pains of the damned for it.” You can watch above.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orson Welles Nar­rates Ani­ma­tions of Plato’s Cave and Kafka’s “Before the Law,” Two Para­bles of the Human Con­di­tion

Hear Orson Welles’ Icon­ic War of the Worlds Broad­cast (1938)

Orson Welles Nar­rates an Ani­mat­ed Para­ble About How Xeno­pho­bia & Greed Will Put Amer­i­ca Into Decline (1971)

Who’s Out There?: Orson Welles Nar­rates a Doc­u­men­tary Ask­ing Whether There’s Extrater­res­tri­al Life in the Uni­verse (1975)

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Watch the Opening Credits of an Imaginary 70s Cop Show Starring Samuel Beckett

in Literature, Writing | September 18th, 2024

Samuel Beck­ett: avant-garde drama­tist, brood­ing Nobel Prize win­ner, poet, and…gritty tele­vi­sion detec­tive?

Sad­ly, no, but he had the mak­ings of a great one, at least as cut togeth­er by play­wright Dan­ny Thomp­son, cofounder of Chicago’s The­ater Oobleck.

Some 35 years after Beckett’s death, Thompson—whose cred­its include the Com­plete Lost Works of Samuel Beck­ett as Found in a Dust­bin in Paris in an Enve­lope (Par­tial­ly Burned) Labeled: Nev­er to Be Per­formed. Nev­er. Ever. Ever! Or I’ll Sue! I’ll Sue From the Grave!!!-–repur­posed Rosa Veim and Daniel Schmid’s footage of the moody genius wan­der­ing around 1969 Berlin into the open­ing cred­its of a nonex­is­tent, 70s era Quinn Mar­tin police pro­ce­dur­al.

The title sequence hits all the right peri­od notes, from the jazzy graph­ics to the pre­sen­ta­tion of its sup­port­ing cast: Andre the Giant, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jean “Hug­gy Bear” Cocteau. (Did you know that Beck­ett drove a young Andre the Giant to school in real life?)

Thomp­son ups the verisimil­i­tude by cop­ping Pat Williams’ theme for The Streets of San Fran­cis­co and nam­ing the imag­i­nary pilot episode after a col­lec­tion of Beckett’s short sto­ries.

He also jok­ing­ly notes that a DVD release of the first, only and, again, entire­ly non-exis­tent sea­son has been held up by the Beck­ett estate. Alas.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Samuel Beck­ett Walk the Streets of Berlin Like a Boss, 1969

The Books That Samuel Beck­ett Read and Real­ly Liked (1941–1956)

Hear Samuel Beckett’s Avant-Garde Radio Plays: All That Fall, Embers, and More

An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Samuel Beck­ett, Absur­dist Play­wright, Nov­el­ist & Poet

When Samuel Beck­ett Drove Young André the Giant to School: A True Sto­ry

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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David Bowie Songs Reimagined as Pulp Fiction Book Covers: Space Oddity, Heroes, Life on Mars & More

in Comics/Cartoons, Literature, Music | September 15th, 2024

In the last year, screen­writer Todd Alcott’s hob­by has blown up into a legit side career.

This Etsy sell­er isn’t ped­dling kom­bucha SCOBYs, let­ter press­ing new baby announce­ments, or repur­pos­ing old barns for use as cut­ting boards.

No, Alcott’s crafty for­tunes fall square­ly at the inter­sec­tion of pulp fic­tion and rock and roll, with clas­sic song titles, lyrics, and oth­er cun­ning ref­er­ences replac­ing the cov­er text of pre-exist­ing vin­tage paper­backs.

David Bowie’s life­long fas­ci­na­tion with space trav­el, tor­tured anti heroes, and out­ra­geous fash­ion make him a nat­ur­al fit with Alcott’s ongo­ing project, which has lav­ished sim­i­lar atten­tion on such lumi­nar­ies as Bob Dylan, Radio­head, Talk­ing Heads, and Elvis Costel­lo.

As Alcott, who con­ceives of his mash ups as trib­utes to his long time musi­cal favorites, told Open Cul­ture:

Bowie dressed as an androg­y­nous alien, went out onstage and told his audi­ence “You’re not alone, give me your hands,” I can’t think of a more encom­pass­ing ges­ture to a mis­fit. No mat­ter how weird you were in your com­mu­ni­ty, you would always find some­one like you at a Bowie con­cert. Dur­ing a time of my life when I felt incred­i­bly iso­lat­ed and alone, (Bowie was one of) the key artists who made me feel like I was part of a big­ger world, an artis­tic con­tin­u­um.

Mean­while, Alcott is tend­ing to anoth­er con­tin­u­um by posthu­mous­ly pair­ing such late greats as Bowie and Queen’s Fred­die Mer­cury (“co-author” of the deep sea-themed Under Pres­sure cov­er, above) with the sort of adven­tur­ous, occa­sion­al­ly steamy read­ing mate­r­i­al that were among the hall­marks of their 1950s’ boy­hoods.

Many of these items have found their way to used book and thrift stores, where, tat­tered and worn, they pro­vide a vast trove for some­one like Alcott, who brows­es with his favorite acts’ cat­a­logues deeply imprint­ed on his men­tal hard dri­ve.

It must’ve been a grand day when he hap­pened across the above 1970s sci fi cov­er. A few deft tweaks, and Life on Mars, a nonex­is­tent “new adven­ture from the author of Space Odd­i­ty,” was born.

(Hard­core fans, take note of the doc­tored pub­lish­er in the upper left cor­ner)

Heroes, which takes its inspi­ra­tion from the 1981 X‑Men com­ic Days of Future Past, is crammed full of such East­er eggs. Can you spot them all?

What a fit­ting trib­ute to the Starman’s endur­ing hold on the public’s imag­i­na­tion.

Browse Todd Alcott’s Bowie-themed pulp fic­tion col­lec­tion in his Etsy shop.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury & David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

The Art Col­lec­tion of David Bowie: An Intro­duc­tion

Behold The Paint­ings of David Bowie: Neo-Expres­sion­ist Self Por­traits, Illus­tra­tions of Iggy Pop, and Much More

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