If you remember a while back, we did a segment here on SDMcKinley.com called Friday Fun Links. Fun links have evolved into Friday Fun Trifecta, where I will feature one thing of each – music, book and visual arts. Welcome to Friday Fun Trifecta #13, in appreciation for artwork.
🤩YEAH! WE MADE IT TO FRIDAY! PSA: BLOW YOUR CONFETTI GUNS ✨😃
It’s Friday again. How am I doing? Yesterday was rough, but I got through it, thankfully unscathed and in tact. I have terrible anxiety sometimes and it comes out as flipping me into overdrive. I’m hoping for a great weekend filled with positivity, laughter, love and peace, lifting the ones up in my life that help me day in and day out, putting their differences aside, but also firmly standing up for what they obviously believe in. I think we should definitely stand up for what we believe as individuals. You know, we all have times when we clash and have differences ( which is a blessing in itself ), but at the end of the day I believe it’s true and carefully precision’d consideration that really takes us down through there, encompassing all things and ideas possible in order to come to a nice, solid conclusion. THAT shows careful consideration and love for yourself and others around you.
Lyrics @ Genius.com – this is one of my most favored electronic artists a.k.a John Gooch.
Book:
Snow Crashby Neal Stephenson – I’m currently reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson, along with a couple others, but it’s good enough, so far, that I went searching out this other book that I have no idea about.
“She’s a woman, you’re a dude. You’re not supposed to understand her. That’s not what she’s after…. She doesn’t want you to understand her. She knows that’s impossible. She just wants you to understand yourself. Everything else is negotiable.”
If you remember a while back, we did a segment here on SDMcKinley.com called Friday Fun Links. Fun links have evolved into Friday Fun Trifecta, where I will feature one thing of each – music, book and visual arts. Welcome to Friday Fun Trifecta #13, in appreciation for artwork.
🤩YEAH! WE MADE IT TO FRIDAY! PSA: DON’T DRINK BAILEY’S FROM A SHOE ✨😃
It’s Friday again. How am I doing? I had some great relaxation during the night and that makes for a marvelous Friday to wrap the week up splendidly.
If you remember a while back, we did a segment here on SDMcKinley.com called Friday Fun Links. Fun links have evolved into Friday Fun Trifecta, where I will feature one thing of each – music, book and visual arts. Welcome to Friday Fun Trifecta #12, in appreciation for artwork.
🤩YEAH! WE MADE IT TO FRIDAY! PSA: REMEMBER TO USE YOUR COMMON SENSE TODAY ✨😃
It’s Friday again. How am I doing? Well, I stayed up half the night, just thinking about financials, watching Nordic Outback on Disney+ and the lot. It was nice to have some peace and quiet. Yennifer didn’t mind at all. I’m not sure how Misty would like me comparing her to Yennifer? It ain’t safe, it ain’t safe, it ain’t safe, it ain’t safe . . . 😇 She probably like it better than Kamaiyah, though.
Bonus:
Cemetary Gates by Pantera – Lyrics @ Genius.com – This song is beautifully performed ( this song has no vulgarities in it ) and in my opinion is one of the rarities, where we get live music that sounds superior to the original recording. R.I.P. Vinnie Paul and Darrel, we know you are in a better place. 😐
The Witcher 3 Soundtrack OST ( I think this technically NOT OST, it’s in game music ) – The Wolven Storm – Lyrics @ Genius.com – Anyone know what genre you would call this?
“May the wind under your wings bear you where the “Mistakes,’ he said with effort, ‘are also important to me. I don’t cross them out of my life, or memory. And I never blame others for them.”
“I manage because I have to. Because I’ve no other way out. Because I’ve overcome the vanity and pride of being different, I’ve understood that they are a pitiful defense against being different. Because I’ve understood that the sun shines differently when something changes. The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn’t going to do anything.”
Ah, the joys of the internet when you go book shopping on a whim, click ‘Add to Wishlist’ on book #2 in a series and that’s what the family is working off of for Christmas gifts. A cascadial error of sorts. No mind, because this looks like a espionage book / series I can get into with style!
Guys and gals, until next time – may you find all the happiness that your life can fit in it’s happy spot – S.D. McKinley.
If you remember a while back, we did a segment here on SDMcKinley.com called Friday Fun Links. Fun links have evolved into Friday Fun Trifecta, where I will feature one thing of each – music, book and visual arts. Welcome to Friday Fun Trifecta #11, in appreciation for artwork.
YEAH! WE MADE IT TO FRIDAY! ✨😃
It’s Friday again. How am I doing? I’m wore out. People wear me out. Then, I wear myself out. It’s a dangerous combination, especially when you don’t realize it’s Friday until way after you wake up; it’s sort of a nice surprise, however when you learn what day of the week it is. Make no mistake: it’s no where near as superior as Saturday. Let’s escape into a bit of Tolkien and visual arts and music inspired by his works!
“There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Does anyone have any background about the alternative title There and Back Again?
Did we find the source of the moonwalks, here in Tolkien’s writings? Michael Jackson knows . . . Is it because Michael Jackson almost tried to sue over it when he found out, then the lawyers reminded him about what year the book was written!?
I swear this guy is a re-incarnated Michael Jackson, except this is the body he was suppose to be in to begin with:
To be honest and not for any other reason than just because I don’t want to, I won’t be doing any more blog tours after this one, at least not for a long while. This is a USA only giveaway for the hard back hand-out. Be on the look-out for my review of this book, coming Feb. 8th, here in just six days.
If you remember a while back, we did a segment here on SDMcKinley.com called Friday Fun Links. Fun links have evolved into Friday Fun Trifecta, where I will feature one thing of each – music, book and visual arts. Welcome to Friday Fun Trifecta #10, in appreciation for artwork.
Book Giveaway Update:
We’ll have a Rafflecopter giveaway with with the 10 Years of Darkness review coming on Feb. 8th, in cooperation with the authors’ blog tour, but that isn’t the giveaway I’m focusing on, in addition I’ll have two self hosted book giveaways soon on SDMcKinley.com:
You know it’s kind of one of those funny things that just happens sometimes: I ordered and read Gridlinked by Neal Asher and looking back, it’s one of those books I woke up early to read. It’s just that good. I ordered another one to pack in a giveaway with a couple other books, to boot. Sadly, I came close to losing all hope for it arriving, having ordered it around Dec. 15th and no status updates from USPS since Dec. 21st . . . Will I ever see it?
Surprise! Yesterday, Amazon refunded me the money and low and behold, there it was sitting on my coffee table when I arrived. And, what did I do with the refunded money? I ordered another one. Three copies of Gridlinked is what I’ll end up with and I’ll do a astounding two separate giveaways, one will be very soon and the other one will launch when the third copy arrives, which could take a month if it was like the last one. What is happening to USPS? Geez. It could change, but I’m thinking a three book giveaway of different authors. Man, talk about silver linings.
Music:
No lyrics involved with this soothing meditational music, here. – Genre: Electronic chill step.
What is Blackmill? The best way I can describe it: Elevator music for millennials, ha ha. Sometime you just need something without all the words in it, swaying you one way or the other. It’s meditational and naturistic.
Speaking of that, you ever call a company and the on-hold music is so horrendous you can’t even think, like they put a devil frequency in it, with the volume going up and down like a demon-possessed-wire trying to steal all your energy while waiting on the phone for 60 minutes? By the time the company actually picks up, you’ve already pulled your hair into pieces like that crazy Stephanie girl you knew when you were a teenager? Those telephone system-admins could really use a lesson on proper music to put in their on-hold telephone systems straight from Blackmill themselves.
“[The Universe] does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
“Leonardo paints Salvator Mundi possibly for King Louis XII of France and his consort, Anne of Brittany. It is most likely commissioned soon after the conquests of Milan and Genoa.
The 26-inch haunting oil-on-panel painting depicts a half-length figure of Christ as Savior of the World, facing front and dressed in Renaissance-era robes. In his painting, Leonardo presents Christ as he is characterized in the Gospel of John 4:14: ‘And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the World.’ Christ gazes fixedly at the spectator, lightly bearded with auburn ringlets, holding a crystal sphere in his left hand and offering benediction with his right.
Salvator Mundi was at once time believed to have been destroyed. The painting disappeared from 1763 until 1900, when it was bought by Sir Charles Robinson as a work by Bernardino Luini, a follower of Leonardo. It next appeared at a Sotheby’s in England in 1958 where it sold for £45 – about $125 at the time. It then disappeared again until it was bought at a small U.S. auction house in 2005.”
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NOTE: While taking a moment to decide whether I would just use referenced links in the post while writing something condensed for you or rather string it all out in a line. No, I will not be using only links and condensed writings to reference things or attempt to write something that simply skips the surface leaving you in yet another vat of skim milk, instead I will allow you to follow my train of research. The form I will take will cover a myriad of things surrounding what Philip Wylie, including quotes, what he wrote to attract the attention of the USA government and how that worked out for him in the end. Sadly, for now, because of time constraints and the ever impounding requirements of a life in pandemic, this article will purely cover what I find on the internet.
Illustrations for Philip Wylie, “The Paradise Crater,” Blue Book Magazine, volume 81, #6, October 1945. [ Source: allinsongallery.com ]
Today, along with me turning 37 years old, 🥳 ( Happy Birthday to me ) let’s see what we can learn from the internet ( and maybe learn from more, who knows? ) about one of the most important things we should pay attention to: History. In order not to repeat it, but instead liberate ourselves from falling into a worn-out hole.
“Wylie was put under house arrest by the FBI after writing a novel with a post-War Nazi plot to use atomic weapons—cutting a little too close for comfort given that the Manhattan Project had yet to conduct its first live test.”
Philip Wylie is tugging my attention: while he wrote a book titled The Paradise Crater, then he was put under house arrest by the FBI for talking about atomic bombs:
“During World War II, writing The Paradise Crater (1945) resulted in Wylie’s house arrest by the federal government; in this work, he described a post-WWII 1965 Nazi conspiracy to develop and use uranium-237 bombs,”[…]
“Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, he was the son of Presbyterian minister Edmund Melville Wylie and the former Edna Edwards, a novelist, who died when Philip was five years old. His family moved to Montclair, New Jersey and he later attended Princeton University from 1920[-]1923. He married Sally Ondek, and had one child, Karen, an author who became the inventor of animal “clicker” training. After a divorcing his first wife, Philip Wylie married Frederica Ballard who was born and raised in Rushford, New York; they are both buried in Rushford.
Wylie also adamantly refused to allow himself to be labeled. In 1948 he wrote, “I am not a Protestant, or a Catholic, or a Jew; I don’t belong to any church or union. I am not and never have been a communist, fascist, leftist, liberal, tory, or rightist.”
Wow! That’s a lot. This man certainly was busy, and he didn’t like getting put in any sort of box except his house. Bad joke? I’ll let you decide.
What is the Manhattan Project?
“The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom (which initiated the original Tube Alloys project) and Canada.”
What was the problem with The Paradise Crater and why did that get him in trouble with the FBI?
Cover of Blue Book magazine volume 81 #6, featuring Philip Wylie’s The Paradise Crater [ Source: philsp.com ]
From what I gather, at the time, no one was supposed to know anything about Uranium isotopes or atomic bombs in general. It was a secret government project and there was a bit of an arms race itself over who would publish the first story about atomic bombs. Let’s see what Washington State University has to say about it:
“Author Philip Wylie, not fortunate enough to be working for the privileged Campbell, found that when he wrote a story depicting a Nazi conspiracy to rule the world through atomic bombs he could not get it published. According to records in agent Harold Ober’s files, Wylie submitted “The Paradise Crater” to him on January 13, 1944; Blue Book, a popular men’s fiction magazine, bought the story, then canceled its publication. A note dated July 3, 1945 explains the cancellation as prompted by security considerations: “War Dept. objects to the use of this. President Conant of Harvard is working on something similar. He promised not to offer to any magazine. Cancel sale.” (James Conant was chairman of the National Defense Research Committee and very much a part of the Manhattan Project. The source of the quote is a letter from Alice Miller of Harold Ober Associates.) According to H. Bruce Franklin, Wylie was placed under house arrest and even threatened with death for his indiscretion (see Countdown to Midnight, p. 15). A month later, the magazine repurchased the story, and a note was added to the file reading, “Atomic bomb released on Japan Aug. 6, 1945.” So Blue Book accomplished the coup of publishing the first atomic bomb story after Hiroshima even though it had been written over a year and a half before. Thus inadvertently began Wylie’s long collaboration with the government’s nuclear weapons planners which was to result in four short stories and three novels relating to nuclear war.
“The Paradise Crater” is an unexceptional counterespionage story in which the hero sabotages the Nazi villains’ store of atomic bombs. An enormous explosion results: flames shoot forty thousand feet into the air; an earthquake wreaks havoc throughout much of the western United States and Canada; a tidal wave roars west from the shores of California and inundates thousands of “Japanese savages on distant Nippon” (the defeated Asian enemy having evidently reverted to barbarism). The mountain within which the bombs were built becomes a crater two miles deep and thirty across. Ever since writers began to grasp the significance of Einstein’s E = mc2, they had been enthusiastically predicting that a cupful of coal could power an entire city. It is not surprising that Wylie supposed that the detonation of a large number of nuclear weapons would create a cataclysm.”
There is one big question sitting in my mind right now:
Unanswered: How in Hades did Philip Wylie know about atomic bombs before everyone else was suppose to know about them?
EDIT: As Tales From the Neon Beach has pointed out in the comments, this question may be irrelevant.
And, unfortunately I have run out of time for today to cover this subject. Let’s see if we can find out next time I publish this series, and if you wish to contribute at all by what you know in your head or what you can find out, inside or outside the internet feel free to to join in by posting a comment below or sending it straight to me via the contact form. Next time in this series I will focus on the following ( subject to change ):
When did atomic bombs become public knowledge?
How did Philip Wylie know about atomic bombs before everyone else?
Locating the short story that got him in hot water.
What happened to Philip Wylie after his house arrest.
How his involvement with the government worked out for him.
Guys and gals, until next time – may you find all the happiness that your life can fit in it’s happy spot – S.D. McKinley.
Ah, the bookshelf . . . what an interesting place these nooks hold in the universe as a reflection of taste, wonder and intrigue. Last time, I started with bookshelf #2 and #3. Today we are double dipping again with #4 and #5. Bookshelf #4 is . . . no books, but a party amongst toys and miscellaneous objects, only. These toys and things don’t like books:
Bookshelf #4 and #5, in it’s entirety. Bookshelf #4Left side of bookshelf #4, the audio CDs are as follows: Alanis Morsette So Called Chaos, Music from the motion picture City of Angels, Sarah McLachlan’s Possession, Bush’s Golden State, Bush’s Letting the Cables Sleep, Bush’s Little Things, Chevelle’s Point #1, And last but not least, and empty self titled Days of the New CD case. The pinewood derby kit is from when Dad and I used to win these kinds of competitions. This one didn’t get built, so it holds it’s original form in the box.We aren’t fan’s of Pop! Figures in particular, but if we see one of something we like AND we like the design of the figure itself, we’ll pick it up. Even the big ones in which we spotted a huge “the child” from Mandalorian yesterday at the COVID-19 shopping mall. The Cheshire Cat is no joke!Bookshelf #5 in it’s entirety. Hard to see everything here, so next we will move onto see the left and right sides.Left side of bookshelf #5.Right side of bookshelf #5.
If you remember a while back, we did a segment here on SDMcKinley.com called Friday Fun Links. Fun links have evolved into Friday Fun Trifecta, where I will feature one thing of each – music, book and visual arts. Welcome to Friday Fun Trifecta #9, in appreciation for artwork.
Last week sadly, there was no Friday Fun post, so this one comes a day early. I had come down with a bit of a viral cold, nothing too serious. Thank God. I’m still in a bit of recovery mode with little twinges here and there along with slight lethargy. The cold came in sort of a blessing in disguise, since I strangely felt like sleeping and finally got some good rest in this past weekend.
Such a joy it is to hear the music that Adele and her crew put together with Set Fire to the Rain. I absolutely love a nice concert / live performance and this one is more than great, if not better than the original recording, performed at the Royal Albert Hall. The fact that the live performance is so great, it says something in itself about the talent behind the song.
On a slightly unrelated note, I greatly favored Rolling in the Deep as her first hit as well. I’m not a big hits person, but when it’s good, it’s good. Right? The Rolling in the Deep song came at a time in my life that was rocky, ( and so was the music industry ) to say the least and this music helped me through. Thank you for that, Adele. I remember wiring up a lantern battery to my DC radio, so I could listen without municipal power and it worked a charm. Such bitter-sweet memories that I wish to never repeat. Never again.
