Stuff From All Over

I'm right in the middle of a huge stack of papers to grade, but the PKD-related news stops for no man. Here are a few interesting items.

First, this touching story from the Fort Morgan Times in Colorado about people leaving stuff at Phil's grave. "Toy and stuffed sheep are frequently placed at the tombstone of Philip K. Dick, who was buried at Riverside in spite of his family's wishes because he wanted to be interred next to his twin sister, who died in Fort Morgan in infancy." Except of course, Jane died in Chicago, not Fort Morgan....

Second, a few MP3s of interviews Dick did with Paul Williams have turned up on the web. Nothing new, but perhaps if you've been trying to find these interviews you're now in luck. They're worth listening to. In the interview Dick talks about Robert Heinlein, parenting, Now Wait For Last Year, Mussolini, writing novels, along with some great stuff on Jung, Freud, and Kurt Vonnegut. Interesting error. Phil is totally wrong when he says "Freud never left Vienna."

Finally, in this review of Lethem's new book, Chronic City, which is garnering a lot of attention, the author writes: "Lethem's love of New York, his heartfelt appreciation of the city and its boundless possibilities, enables him to not get lost in the ether in the way that Dick (who, it must be said, was absolutely a child of Los Angeles) almost always did."

Why must that be said? Perhaps because it isn't true, and without at least one person unafraid of error we may never have heard that sentence uttered...?

Now that these are all assembled I notice the common theme is that each article contains at least one substantive error, but such is life.