The American West is stripped down, to undies. It is naked. It is ready for a bath, which never comes. In the American West, there are water shortages. There are also sweat baths, hot springs-- and outhouses! The American West is appropriate to an examination of good versus evil, with all else being neutral. In a desert, there's very little, or maybe nothing, living. The desert is deadly. The Apache are living here, nevertheless. Has an Apache ever had, or ever will, an outhouse? It is quite amazing to think an Apache, squatting over dry sand, gets away with it. The desert is a lawless land. I've heard of taking a bath in sand. The sand scrapes away the irritating grease and oil, of the skin, both grease and oil known to stink. Rancid. Ranch, rancid, rape!

Hey Scott, i'd love to see a video on "Mindswap" by Robert Sheckley (my all time fav SF book) 😊

Hey hey you got to 5K! -- congratulations Scott!

Thanks so much for your insight. Working my way through this wonderful book and have been stumped a wee bit along the way. Just starting this chapter and some of the the things you have said have helped get me started.

Bring on the detectives 🕵️‍♂️! Lew Archer #1 PI, … reading Walter Mosley-Farewell, Amethystine, Easy Rawlins is back…1970 LA…Easy has past the mid-century mark… really enjoying it. 🛁

Love all things silverberg nightwings is beautiful!l ! I was very impressed by the saliva tree when I read it 40 years ago I must dig it out again great-stuff as ever Scott thanks🫡

Big fan of Aldiss and had forgotten Saliva Tree, a favorite of mine way back when. Agree about Nightwings. The lead story is fantastic. Remainder of the fix-up, not so much. In that regard it does remind me of Wolfe's Fifth Head of Cerberus. Off-topic: I'm halfway through McCarthy's The Passenger and it's proving to be his most taxing novel -- beautiful, weird, and tedious.

the mash-up event of the century... the mash-up I never knew I needed. will be keeping an eye out for Leigh brackets. And love the idea of HG wells pastiche. any influence on Pynchon's against the day, you think? I love Pynchon-digested genre fiction

Never heard of Leigh Brackett but the fact she was involved with easily the best Star Wars scripts of the lot makes me interested. Also interesting she starts stories in the middle. I think that's part of the reason for the successes of many stories. I always think of Alien but also the original Star Wars of course started in the middle because Lucas couldn't afford to produce it from the start. Probably you're also familiar with the classic sci-fi novel Gateway, which I first read as a kid and loved, which I think also has this idea which is just so powerful for some reason. + Arguably one of the first stories available to us does this, The Iliad, so it's a pretty old technique I guess.

Didn't think I would live long enough to witness such a convergence. Must be fate!

Long time no see!!😊

Hi Scott, The hodgepodge/roundabout mashup was a success! I just want to comment on the Silverberg comparison to Oates regarding novel length. His peak era works from the late 60s into the 70s, including Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, Tower of Glass, and others, don't run longer than 250 pages (if that) in mass market editions. I highly recommend having a few splashes in the tub with some of these Silverberg novels. Best, Kevin

Gongrats on the 5k subscribers. There is something strange I checked just now which is this: I usually write a classic si-fi author followed by your name (the youtube channel) to find out about your opinion reading that particular author ( Lafferty, Shaw...) and whether they are bathtub worthy or not. I made a search now with Robert Silverberg but found nothing from you about him, which is surprising given he is very well known and regarded and you are most likely aware of his oeuvre.

5000 Subscribers!! Congratulations Scott! Please hug your fine feathered friend and fine furry friend for me.😁

Looking forward to Paradise Lost. That should lose you a few subscribers!

I keep being offered money by the estate of Gene Vincent to unsubscribe. But I decline out of loyalty to the channel.

I never liked Full Metal Jacket, way overrated.

my comment from last night disappeared, again hahahah...just as that small thumbnail of ice at the bottom of your fruit tinctured clear mountain glass of waterl....i had the same 'fruit tinctured' water last night, from japan...since my wife left for 3 month business trip to taiwan and this is my free of distraction writing quaterly....and i left my comment late, after reading and a few hours editing...i blame said tinctured water....i must have hit cancel instead of comment button hahahahah...anyway, have a great trip and if you swing by toronto, let me know....will treat you and mrs for a tour...happy bathing scott....bb

That Dorothy Parker bio looks right up my alley, thanks for the recommendation.

Hey Scott, I love the intro music. You’ll be at 5K in no time! Thanks for sharing the books. Yeah, I’m not fussed on Shawshank Redemption either.. Hi to the kids! (Lucky-licious & Dodo-rific)

Maybe a clickbait title could bring the subscribers in? Such as 'This Book Could Totally Change Your Life!' or '5 Books That You Must Read Now'. Of course this could come with a drop off in subscribers too who hate that stuff. I'm curious to read JCO short stories now since I read We Were The Mulvaneys (454 pages) and honestly didn't like it at all, very boring and clearly a morality tale which felt kind of third rate Tolstoy. I'm always ready to give writers a second chance though so hopefully will get round to some of her horror stories sooner or later.

Yes, yes, yes. I adored MAD MAG. My parents were on the fence about forbidding it - it confused them. I wouldn’t have stopped though so, wisely, they said nothing. My favorite TV Show was Bonanza - I read the take off on it in MAD. Bananaz was its name , did you know that all their girlfriends died in MADD ways? I bet you suspected it. The last one, Hoss’s, was procured through a mail order Bride outfit - she suffocated in the mailbox. I laughed until I couldn’t breathe. I was a kid, I knew what was funny. Otherwise life in the middle remains ok. I’m leaving for the left coast next week for a sojourn by the Pacific. I’ll probably cry when I leave there, maybe I shouldn’t go… I’m 75 as of August. Will I make it there and back again? And I’m reading Joan Didion, finally - my goodness, she’s remarkable. Recommend me a book and I’ll read it in your honor 😊Scotty, keep on. Hey, I noticed that I fell off the subscription list so I resubscribed, one more toward 5K! Health and happiness to you, you do a heap of good stuff & I speak for us all, I hope, when I say that you make our lives better in these dark-ish days of Trump. Thank you.

Did you coin the phrase "non-pixelated water?"

I found your Pychon videos. I subscribed yesterday. Good luck on 5k!

Colin Wilson for me was a genius. His ideas around the peek experience, and the robot are critically important for anyone who wants to understand the “meaning crisis” of modern man. Wilson through his personal experience along with the influence of G. I. Gurdjieffs ideas discovered for himself a way out of the world of the mundane and how we outsiders can learn to reconnect with real meaning that is always available to us despite our having forgotten or fallen asleep to the true significance of our existence on this planet today. He stands as a true guide for those seeking to reconnect with the vital forces that we each need to connect with a “higher world “. One of real meaning and profound significance. He is unfortunately overlooked even though he was desperately trying to share these miraculous possibilities that mankind seems to have forgotten.

Did your bird open a window and fly south for the winter? The neighbours cat? Drown in a boating accident? Cleaning the gun?

Dave Berg and Sergio Aragones were great, but my favorite was Don Martin! He drew these people with big clown shoes and either perplexed or idiotic looks on their faces. His running character, Capt. Klutz, was one of my role models!

I think of the bathtub as a melting pot, and from my point of view, I was glad the apache didn't want to melt. What if we'd left the apache to themselves? Why wouldn't we? Cormac paid allegiance to Ireland, where the warrior, or the hotheaded, also subsisted, much as the apache. When the Irish entered the Americas, they did it through the East Coast, most often, Ellis Island. NYC. They were fleeing what was called the "potato famine", and what were the apache living on during that time? Bugs. Scorpions are bugs. Probably to the apache, outhouses were an affront. A front. For the pooping going on. The Catholic Church has nothing to be blamed. Ireland was, north and south, Catholic. The apache were not Catholic, and this is remarkable. For, upon those shrores, which the Catholic had established missions, citrus fruits were grown in abundance. Citrus has lots of Vitamin C, from the sunshine tree. The apache w're in a friggn' desert. Too much sunshine! Except of course, if there is violence, carnage, and a burning off of Vitamin C.

lol, I love to fart 💨 just finished a bowl of chili 🌶️ should go and blow some bubbles in the 🛁

awesome....MAD was one of the best comics along with SPY vs SPY, that was the opening of my life in taiwan: my grandmother on a visit brought copies of MAD magazine and i was obsessed especially with Spy vs Spy...and there is Spy Vs. Spy Omnibus....and i know you have but have you read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay?...Michael was the reason i studied at PITT originally even though i'd been accepted to yale and princeton: cause michael dated for a bit (while in college) my best friend in high school's older sister and i met michael when one night when he was a sophmore and i was a junior in high school...he LOVES comics and LOVES old paperbacks....i thing you two would like each other...i'd love if you did a review of Spy vs Spy or another of the Peanuts volumes....anyway, the madmen with the orange skin came apart at the debate...and well, as you know now, the Republicans are just using their horrific racism by attacking the haitian community....the usa is lost...i can see that, even from up here behind the MapleLeaf wall....im convinced Harris will win...a relief...anyway, thanks SB, a great vide......stay safe.....your bathing bbuddy and friend, bob....p.s. did you and your wife have a chance to meet WJ Anderson this summer>....cheers, bb

I do love JR, but I have a preference for A Frolic of his Own, which is written in the same style (ie completely of dialogue), is as funny and is quite a bit shorter! Carpenter's Gothic was my first Gaddis, another wonderful book. I DNF The Recognitions and will not go back to it.

do you like Sherwood Anderson?

Learning about Ms. Babb was MUCH better than watching the yellow haired Caesar! Liked what you read a lot.

Just finished The Grapes of Wrath a few days ago and I look forward to reading your piece about Sanora Babb and your thoughts about Whose Names Are Unknown, although after Grapes I'm a little okie'd-out for the time being!

I had my alarm set, but the (near) 5000th BATHTACULAR was just too early for this Manila-based reader. And eventually listening to the stream made me regret missing out on the live one even more! Still, congratulations! 🥳 I was going to ask whether you like the works of John Crowley, specifically "Little, Big". And whether my preference for Avram Davidson over Harlan Ellison is defensible.

Doing a video on Portis with a bird on your head is some peak booktubing.

Congratulations on your upcoming 5000th, Scott! Glad to have been a part of this journey.

Congratulations on the big 5000! How do we get added to the map?

A PHD is worth nothing, Zero. Its for the weak, and fat. The nerds who view litterature as some form of lesuire.

Congratulations Scott! Thanks for all you do and for my fave KZbin book channel..

great stuff. I have been reading some Vance and am going to read this to get into some Gene Wolfe to compare. Planet Adventure books were great

Congratulations on 5K subscribers well deserved and long overdue 🫡

I first watched your channel as a college student looking for discussions of against the day. Been watching ever since, and though I am not a member of the alliance yet, I would like to express my appreciation for your channel. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on all these great books!

Wanted to join the fun yesterday, but family matters interfered. But it looked fun. I'm a big Goodis fan myself and James Wilcox is a name I have not heard in a decade. Read Modern Baptists, which I give to Baptist relations who I know will enjoy it. Heinrich von Kleist was a Romantic era contemporary of Geothe, who wrote great stories. "The Earthquake in Chile" is a good place to start. The Magician's Wife is scheduled for October, along with The Statement. I could only get through Swan's Way, one section at a time, before running aground. Congrats on 5,000!

Personally, not all Lem novels translated well into English in those Avon books, so maybe when new translations become available they may be worth checking out. I agree with you about comparing him to Calvino but he is less mythological.

Rushdie's review of Vineland in NYT was positive.

congrats-I tried reading in the bathtub and it is so much better than reading in the shower as the books become soggy when wet

Sorry I couldn’t make the bathtacular - I was at work 😢

Read Cornell Woolrich for the first time this year and was absolutely blown away. in the process of moving at the moment but once I settle in Im definitely getting a copy of that cinderblock you cant get rid of. Never know what Im going to see when I watch your channel, love it.

In our involvement with Cormac-- thank goodness we don't merge with him-- we've had some good, good times. I see the bathtub as more an invitation to merger, lotus eater style, which involves pools of water, than the desert, for it is a desert environment in which Blood Meridean thrives. Say you're in a bathtub in Montreal, Canada, and who knows what time it is? This is the time of the French and Indian wars, with George Washington, a colorful character who never got down to the brass tacks of guerilla warfare, because he was British. Now say you are a brave, but an apache. You are down into the deep of a desert. You aren't going to take a sweat bath, nor a blood bath, but because this is deep desert, you'll need a bath. There is nothing but sand around, so you'll have to take a sandbath. Gritty realism. You really can get a lot of the dirty, stinky grime off you with sand.