News Roundup

Getting back in the swing of things here. At least on this Sunday morning.

I think we should begin preparing ourselves for the restarting of the PKD-article machine to coincide with the release of Adjustment Bureau which imdb.com says will open in July. I will not be writing about or even linking to many of these this time, not unless they provide some new information, or suck so bad that they must be critiqued mercilessly.

But things are happening.

It looks like the Exegesis is happening! According to this article in Publishers Weekly, Dick's new high-power agent is shopping "Philip K. Dick’s The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, culled from hundreds of handwritten notes and journal entries by the late sci-fi icon; the agency calls it a work that “charts Dick’s attempts to reconcile the diverse strands of scientific, philosophical, and theological thought” that inspired his writing, and it is edited and introduced by Jonathan Lethem and Pamela Jackson." A close reading of that sentence should focus on the word 'culled,' which implies that this volume will include excerpts, which seems sensible as the corpus of handwritten notes fills two big file-cabinet drawers. But how will this differ from Sutin's volume of excerpts from the Exegesis? Of course that's no longer widely available. Certainly the publishing of new Exegesis material will provide grist for many, many mills.

Radio Free Albemuth has a Facebook page and the movie will have a special screening at the Sci-Fi London Festival next week. You can buy tickets here. I am very excited about the more widespread release of this film, and hope director John Simon can update us soon on when we can expect that.

The Philip K Dick Festival's website has been updated (and fixed, it was a little wonky for a bit). I'm getting excited about this and plan to attend and give a talk or two (if anybody's interested in carpooling or caravaning discuss in the comments).

Finally, Ben Loory, a committed PKD fan (responsible for Philip K Dick's Myspace page), recently had a story published in The New Yorker. It's great, and I think shows a bit of PKD's influence - at least enough to warrant mention on this page. Read Ben's story, "The TV," and then this really cool interview with him.

More Reading Material

I only have time to throw a few links up here today. I hope over the weekend to write a more substantive post, but I just haven't had any time for Dicking around lately. Regardless, here are a few important articles from around the Intertoobz:

Here's an interesting article about Dick's friendship with roommate Jack Spicer posted at Strange Horizons - sure it's from almost a year ago, but I hadn't read it.

Then there's this io9.com story that suggests PKD's Man in the High Castle is a work of brilliant prescience, predicting our nation's current fall from grace. The article of course overlooks how similar the Allied and Axis powers were DURING WWII!!! (I think that was one of the points PKD was raising with the book)

And the Fortean Times has an article delving into a few of Dick's weirder letters of 1975, specifically his paranoia over the cracking of his safe in San Rafael, and it's possible connection to an anti-American conspiracy involving a new strain of syphilis. One could write a lot of articles about weird letters Dick wrote in 1975.

Some Reading Material

I'm too busy celebrating my freedom this weekend to do much more than link to some important PKD-related articles.

First off, there's a long and in-depth article about PKD's life in Orange County in Orange Coast Magazine. Not only does the article include interviews with Tessa Dick, Linda Castellani, and Tim Powers, it also has a shout out to this blog. Read the whole thing here.

Second, there's an exclusive interview with Jonathan Lethem about PKD's third volume from the Library of America. Download the PDF file here. The volume hits stores July 30. I'm interested in seeing how thoroughly footnoted VALIS and Transmigration are in this edition.

Pre-order your copy: