AND SO, WITH NO END IN SIGHT TO THE PLAGUE outside, or to the lasting absence of a Radio Valencia studio-- possibly, says the rumor mill, we'll re-open in May? --what we have here is, as you have guessed, yet another re-run. But what else can we do? THANKS, by the way, to all those who are still listening to these. Would that the audio quality were better. But it can't be. Legally, as it turns out. Because: copyright. Yes, the world of computers does not allow for "Fair Use," as we used to call it. Under the inflexible tyranny of digital ubiquity-- get used to it! --NO music can be played in a form that is reproducible from the listening end. Of course, here at ADH, music is mainly an effect-- part of what we offer and not the ne plus ultra, the be-all and the end-all. But we have to wear the same chains as everyone else. Why, I tell you there are whole towers full of usually young, usually bearded, usually ectomorphic, young-ish men whose ENTIRE FUNCTION is to monetize whatever used to be free. These are what your soi-dissant "tech" workers are usually up to. The ability of the ultra-rich to make themselves ultra-richer trumps (an appropriate expression) any claim of literature, art or civilization. The humanities are merely fuel for their bonfire. Well, Sir or Madam, this episode was originally podcast May 26th, 2017, when the late Dr. Peter Goldie was still permitted to contribute to the station. Only yesterday... Keep a-listenin', O faithful ones, Etherettes and Rocket Rookies. One of these days we'll emerge from our long slumber, unfold, spread and dry our new wings and take to the sky...

THIS TIME FROM June 23rd, 2017, an episode with the late, great Pete Goldie, a.k.a. Karen Carpenter, aboard. Still, still no word is forthcoming, though, on when or whether the exile of Radio Silencia into non-existence may be expected to end. But, by now, even if "the Station" were to come back this very week, we are now utterly committed to do a Tribute Show for Pete on Reloadio at our scheduled showtime next Friday. How to get to Reloadio? GO to Reloadio on Facebook, where you can find out how to listen live. Remember, you can't download episodes and listen to them at your leisure on Reloadio, which is actual radio, among other things. We hope you'll tune in. As for this RadioValencia show, it may be downloaded and played at any time. We hear that we still have listeners (despite the degraded quality from an inferior bit-rate), which is encouraging even in these Plague times when everything else is choked to a standstill. Of course, there will be one more re-run in this space next time. Let's hope the fates will relent, and it will be the last one for a while...

A RE-RUN FROM JUNE 9TH, 2017-- we offer because we are still without a studio here at Radio Silencia-- Oops! I meant Valencia, heh, heh! In truth, though, there are definite signs in the Noosphere that this period of exile and stasis may, mercifully, come to an end before long. Let's get it built. Then we will gleefully resume our usual weekly presentation, with guests and special features, and, re-assembling our afflicted powers, consult how we might best bring back our former audience. This recorded show from three years past featured our good friend and fellow traveler, the late Dr. Pete Goldie, extemporizing entertainingly on various subjects. We at Ask Dr. Hal! are fortunate in having multiple archival recordings of Pete, some from the live show, where he would deliver the Space Science Report. During this interruption of service, in the meantime, we have been appearing Fridays at 10:00 PM on Reloadio, Pete's radio station creation. As we play "the Classics" here, we are found there, as Pete would have wanted.

BY BRIAN W. ALDISS, an unfairly neglected and superior literary work, in our opinion, read by Dr. H. Owll, originally recorded at an X-Day Drill a number of years ago-- this is the principal feature of another selected re-run episode. Perhaps the fact that it is, essentially, only the sound of a single voice will render this entertainment endurable, despite the low quality of the recording, deliberately so maintained by the shadowy RadioValencia Powers That Be to avoid esoteric legal entanglements. We must, meanwhile, persist in the resolute faith that we will, at some relatively near-future date, get back to doing our former show, which, for all its flaws, had some variety and energy going for it. Yes, we will return, make our way back from this shadowy limbo of non-existence (where we find ourselves through no fault of our own) to broad, sunny and well-lit uplands. Well, it goes without saying we're dying by inches over here-- until they actually get a studio going. But, if we do return then, will any listeners be left?

THE SERVICE INTERRUPTION CONTINUES and we are unable to offer a new show. Everything depends on RadioValencia's ability to secure a new studio space. That still hasn't happened, however. When, if ever, will it? Oh, how we long to be able to do new shows again. The consensus is just not able to agree on which potential location to use, and we are dark, dark as our expectations that this interminable problem will ever be ended. In the meantime, we offer perennial guest Michael Peppe's most memorable moments.

OF COURSE IT'S A RE-RUN. The ongoing Search For A New Studio still has not turned up anything, or at least anything agreeable to all (contentious) participants. No studio, no show-- that's the way it works for us. Without the physical existence of an equipped studio, this show can't be put out. While they argue and move toward a location which may be extraordinarily difficult for us to use, Time stretches on, and... we can feel the audience disconnecting, disappearing. Goodbye, audience! We hope, perhaps, to build you up again. Thanks for your former support, yet we know you have but human patience. Also and nearly equally grievous to us at Ask Dr. Hal! is the inferior bit-rate at which these re-runs are presented. If only it were better. There was a movement toward improving it, but we hear that it has now "fallen through." We hold on to a small hope that someone "out there" will still actually listen in, in spite of this degraded sound quality. We have been broadcasting on Reloadio these Friday nights, but there's no accessing those files from here. It hasn't been the Ask Dr. Hal! Show anyway. This re-run episode: A discussion of the edibility of the archosaurian, perhaps dinosaurian archaic reptile Saltopus elginensis. For those interested, scroll down to the Notes for Episode #2019, originally podcast May 17th, 2019, for the mouth-watering recipe.

ANOTHER RE-RUN (of course), a show in this case originally podcast September 6th, 2019. There is still no studio to do live shows in. But Radio Valencia is endeavoring to find a studio space. The search continues. While this played, we were a guest on Reloadio, along with KrOB and Puzzling Evidence. But Reloadio can't be downloaded. Only those who were listening on Friday night got to hear it. Until there is a studio, there can only be re-runs.

...AS LONG AS IT MAY LAST. Your patience, that is, AND the regrettable indisposition of whatever is RadioValencia.FM. This episode is, perforce, a re-run, since in the current state of things we can't get to do, or post, a new Ask Dr. Hal! podcast. The search for a New Space for the station continues; that's all we're able to say. And, looming is the possibility that such a locus may end up precluding our continuing with the show anyway. Why? Well, one possible roost is a B.A.R.T. train ride away, with an additional walk. That would be fine, except of course for the fact that our current time slot ends, at earliest, an hour after Midnight. And the flaw in the ointment here, Etherettes and Rocket Rookies, is that the B.A.R.T. trains stop running at Midnight, which would leave us stranded at a late hour in a distant and exotic location, e.g. Balboa Park. Oh, well, who can peer into the Abysm of Time to see what finally goes down? If only we had Joseph Smith and his "Magic Peepstone" to "scry" for us. Well, in this exhumed former ADH presentation we featured the 1945 Lux Radio Theater production (No. 488) of THE CANTERVILLE GHOST by Oscar Wilde, starring Charles Laughton and Margaret O'Brien. A few years back we were working in Hollywood on a script about Oscar Wilde. The studio, our employer, gave us the disc of this show among other possibly helpful materials. Being quite familiar with Wilde's haunting, beautiful (and funny) story, we didn't play it at the time. But on this show we did, at last, play the disc, expecting a professionally produced, entertaining version of the tale. What we got, though, was scratchy, frequently interrupted by blaring ads for Lux soap-- and did not have, we found, anything more than a superficial resemblance to Wilde's story at best-- the adaptation by Edwin Blum shoehorned in all sorts of crap about "lovable" doofus G.I.s stationed in wartime England, distorting the whole venture into propaganda-infused Low Comedy. But, having started, we gritted our remaining teeth and let it play. So there's that, and the usual poems and mix. Just three hours this time, though... May it please the Gods we return, before our abused audience haemorrhages away forever...

THIS EPISODE IS A RE-RUN, featuring the Richard Matheson story, "Drink my Blood" and "The Mindworm" by C. M. Kornbluth. It was put in place because the Ask Dr. Hal! Show is not able to continue live at the present time. The building housing RadioValencia.FM has evicted the station, along with its primary tenant, the soi-dissant Impact Arts Hub. The recording/podcasting studio has been dismantled and is no more.

Basically, Impact Hub SF abandoned all of its subtenants. It has recently come to light that its directors actually knew, as much as a year or so ago, that their set-up was, shall we say, not economically viable. Now we find that they had stopped paying their rent, but continued to collect it from RadioValencia. For more on this distasteful subject, paste the following in your browser:

https://missionlocal.org/2020/01/san-franciscos-impact-hub-coworking-space-is-facing-eviction/

We had a show planned for this scheduled episode and hope to present it when RadioValencia.FM finds and moves into a new studio space.

It's particularly painful for us at Ask Dr. Hal! to be interrupted at this time, since we planned to take an on-air moment to announce our appreciation to donors to the Slackless Children's Dinosaur Fund, whose contributions recently enabled us to secure many wonderful new specimens of prehistoric life. When we are again up and running, we wish to thank them individually during our program.

To mention just two, Rev. A. Stoot "Fishy" Nardo of Lilburn, Georgia, made it possible for us to acquire a figure of Shringasaurus, an extinct genus of archosauromorph reptile from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) of India. This was something we have wanted, but were unable to afford, for a long time. The generous contribution of Rev. Bubba of Aptos, California, enabled us to receive into our collection new effigies of Brontosaurus (scientifically restored as a valid genus), Sarchosuchus, Prestosuchus, Edaphosaurus-- a magnificent realization-- Gomphotherium, Dimetrodon, Ceratosaurus, Postosuchus, Archaeopteryx and Ornithomimus. Your generosity and loyalty to the show inspires our highest hope to continue when we can. To all our listeners in this country and overseas, we extend thanks with the wish that you will support our return and continuing Mission.

"THE GREEKS HAD A NAME FOR THEM, which veiled Their essential foulness. The Tree, the Snake and the Apple --these are the vague symbols of a most awful Mystery... a terrible and unspeakable Deed was done in the Beginning. Before Time, the Deed... the seeds of the Deed move through angles in dim recesses of Time." --Frank Belknap Long. "Unusual excellence" --Eudora Welty. Beforehand, the initial recitation for this week's iteration was from Dylan Thomas. Followed next our performance of The Hounds, then an all-new Archival Sampling from SubGenius HQ, then some of the edited Aunt Berthapocalypse of Phineas Narco-- then, the entrance of wanderers of the night Spy Emerson and Jennalex. Puzzling Evidence, too, is there in the stew. Much took place in the studio until all were satisfied. Is this our final bow? Or, our final bow for now? Or, we may continue. We are at the mercy of large, clumsy and impersonal forces. Let us hope we shall be preserved, caught up in the Lap of the Gods.

...BY WILLIAM TENN, is the story leading off this episode. A story which made a great impression on us when we read it in our long-gone youth, many, many years ago. Although, looking at the Chatterbox, we get the impression that few followers of the Show are actually even listening or paying attention to these. It's discouraging... Such an experiment, as prophetically described, might at some time even become possible. And then, would it be attempted? Cordially, we hope not. Puzzling Evidence pays the Show a visit, and a Narrated Monster Movie is in the offing. Sadly, this turns out to be the idiotic STAR CRASH (1978, a.k.a. STELLA STAR), featuring Caroline Munro, and (gulp!) Marjoe Gortner, David Hasselhoff, and, as the Emperor of Everything, Christopher Plummer, slumming his way toward a paycheck. An unending parade of unconvincing plastic kit-bashed spacecraft is but one of the features making this unendurable to watch, the brain-child 0f "Lewis Coates," the de-Italianized nom de cinema of one Luigi Cozzi. And we skipped ahead, of course, rather than attempting to keep it going. By then, the damage may have been done, however... Puzzo, surely we can do better than this. Even THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN, supposedly terminally bad but how could it, really, be any worse? With archival Sub material and poems by Dylan Thomas and (much later) H.W. Longfellow. Remember, the LIVE version, or a version of that version, of ASK DR' HAL! will be happening next Saturday, the 18th, at the "Knockout" in the Deep Mission-- the former Odeon, 3223 Mission St. at Valencia (they do intersect, there). Party starts around 9 PM. This live whatever-it-is will be FREE, Etherettes and Rocket Rookies. NEXT WEEK: MORE cautionary prophetic literature, dramatized!

BY CARL EVERSON AND HUGH DUNN. Everson held the Chair of Physics in the Oslo Institute; Dunn was Dean of Engineering at Glasgow, a Nobel Laureate also. The Story Reading which begins this episode features "Blunder, " by Philip Wylie (May 12, 1902 – October 25, 1971), originally published in COLLIER'S magazine in 1946. An unsuspected problem in an experiment in Bismuth Fission is the subject. The 1946 date accounts for the presence of the British in India and the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Uranium Works in China. In this, for want of a better expression, alternate world, a limited nuclear war has already taken place. The mispronunciation of Worcester, Massachusetts is our fault; we knew that in England Worcester was Wooster and Hampshire Hants, but did not realize a similar trope ruled the name in this country. Taken from the English town of Worcester, the city's name is, in fact, notoriously mispronounced by people unfamiliar with the city. To be clear, as with the original in England, the first syllable of "cester" (from the Latin [military] "camp," castra) is left entirely unvoiced. Combined with a traditionally non-rhotic Eastern-New England English accent, the name can be transcribed as "WOOS-tuh" or "WISS-tuh," the first syllable possibly having a near-close, central, un-rounded vowel. A catastrophic nuclear disaster of such magnitude has long been speculated upon and still, within theory, remains a possibility. In his prophetic (pre-Atomic Age) novel THE WORLD SET FREE, H.G. Wells depicted a deployed nuclear weapon's result as a poisonous, perpetually erupting radioactive volcano. There was not even initial agreement that the first fission bomb would be limited in its reach and effect. Poetry of Dylan Thomas and others, even Stephen Vincent Benet's "Nightmare Number Three," which rounds off a potentially uneasy evening, are also presented here, with mixed and re-presented Archival (SubGenius) material. Around 1:30 AM the Show at last gives way to the underlying randomized Radio Valencia Music Mix.

IN THE FAMOUS STORY by Roald Dahl, an inventor's listening device can hear infinitely high and low sonic vibrations and transpose them into an audible key. The user of the mechanism hears roses cry out when cut, and other infra-sounds... Recently, using a laser-powered microphone, researchers actually have picked up sound waves produced by plants when cut or injured. Although not audible to the human ear, as in the story, the secret voices of plants have revealed that cucumbers scream when they are sick, and flowers do whine when their leaves are cut.

There's also disturbing evidence that plants can hear themselves being eaten. Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia found that plants understand and respond to chewing sounds made by caterpillars that are dining on them. As soon as the plants hear the noises, they respond with several defense mechanisms.

For some researchers, evidence of these complex communication systems -- emitting noises when in distress -- signals that plants feel pain. Others argue that there cannot be pain without a brain to register the feeling. Still more scientists surmise that plants can exhibit intelligent behavior without possessing a brain or conscious awareness. Pedantry, Prophecy, Poetry...

JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS, the famed tale from H. P. Lovecraft (1880-1937) is concluded in this episode, the longest and possibly the most difficult to dramatize of the stories we've been presenting on the show, a format that pleases everybody, we hear-- almost everybody, that is. The late Kingsley Amis praised "The Dunwich Horror" in his great critical book NEW MAPS OF HELL, listing it as one of Lovecraft's tales that "achieve a memorable nastiness..." Lovecraft biographer Lin Carter has called the story "excellent... A mood of tension and gathering horror permeates the story, which culminates in a shattering climax," while in his list of "The 13 Most Terrifying Horror Stories", T. E. D. Klein placed "The Dunwich Horror" at number four. Robert M. Price declares that "among the tales of H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Dunwich Horror' remains my favorite." It is curious that Lovecraft's most formidable (and generally favorable) contemporary critic S.T. Joshi, on the other hand, regards "Dunwich" as "simply an aesthetic mistake on Lovecraft's part", citing its "stock good-versus-evil scenario." However, he has also noted that it is "richly atmospheric." We agree, and in this Ask Dr. Hal! episode, Dr. H. Owll reads the final thirty pages of the novella, aided by only a few strains of accompanying music, taking up after the memorable death of Wilbur Whately (and description of his body) which ended our last episode. Immediately following this, we're treated to the long-wished-for return of Michael Peppe! Hour after hour passes in an intense conversation with the audience-pleasing performance artist/savant, aided by Puzzling Evidence. Over all, this show approaches six hours in length. NEXT WEEK: It is our intention to close this year with yet another (shorter) story and, ideally, equally entertaining content. Before that show, Dr. H. Owll will be a guest on the immediately preceding program on RadioValencia.FM, Witty Banter with Micah Potts. Owing to various difficulties, this did not take place as was planned before the episode now offered.

H. P. LOVECRAFT'S STORY, written in 1928 and published first in 1929 in WEIRD TALES magazine, is read by Dr. H. Owll. Next week's iteration of Ask Dr. Hal! will feature the remainder of the tale. “Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras—dire stories of Celaeno and the Harpies—may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypes are in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which we know in a waking sense to be false come to affect us at all? Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? O, least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyond body—or without the body, they would have been the same. . . . That the kind of fear here treated is purely spiritual—that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in the period of our sinless infancy—are difficulties the solution of which might afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence.”
—Charles Lamb: “Witches and Other Night-Fears”
No guests, but next week Dr. H. Owll will BE a guest-- of host Micah Potts on "Witty Banter," the show just before Ask Dr. Hal!

BY RUSSELL MALONEY, WHICH ORIGINALLY APPEARED in THE NEW YORKER in 1940, looks at a popular and proverbial illustration of the mathematics of probability, widely known to the general public because of its transmission through popular culture-- rather than being referenced in the classroom. This is the so-called Infinite Chimpanzee Theorem, often called, by the taxonomically ignorant, the Infinite Monkey Theorem. According to this, given enough time, six chimpanzees, pounding randomly away at typewriters, would, eventually, write all the books in the British Museum. The image easily stays in the mind.

However, it should be noted as a matter of course that this iconic situation over-simplifies or confuses important aspects of the different scales of the concepts involved: Infinity, Probability and Time-- all of these being in measures beyond average human experience, practical comprehension or comparison.

Later in the show, the dazzling Sarah Zee, by special arrangement with Reloadio, enthralls with a relation of her struggles to retain an outer garment. The segment is touched by the usual delay problem, but surmounted by the inherently compelling nature of the topic. Puzzling Evidence is the show's special guest.

BY JOHN B.L. GOODWIN, leads the Show this time, in another unabridged reading by Dr. H. Owll. An inexplicable (and uniquely horrible) "Insect Fear" story which impressed itself on our impressionable mind when we were a child, its hideous denouement never fails to impress, although we still, after all these years, are without a complete understanding of what actually happened in the tale. The unknown moth-- as its body disintegrated, did its vengeful spirit take form to wreak hideous malice on the child protagonist? Did a giant of its species invade the boy's room in the night? Was the fault the father's, for failing to lend the tobacco jar? And was young Denny's desiccated corpse... exsanguinated? His parent noted the unusual lightness of the corpse. Oh, well, heigh-ho. Another frightful Supernatural narrative in the series, which we expect to continue. Those who don't like the stories can just join us after the first half hour. Puzzling Evidence and KrOB, eventually, paid us a visit. And we also concluded with a horror yarn, as they used to say in the old Pulp Magazine days, "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" by Clark Ashton Smith. Onward!

NOT EVERYONE IS SATISFIED with the contents of the Ask Dr. Hal! Show these days, we find. In particular, we have recently been taken to task by correspondents for "excessive morbidity" and even, in the words of one listener, "ghoulishness." This is all in reference to the introductory readings by Dr. H. Owll of short stories from the canon of the literature of Horror and the Supernatural. More recently, we were accused of "egotism" in our attempt to answer, mid-show, a question concerning the Akashic Records. These, a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred, are believed by Theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the Aetheric Plane. The Sanskrit term, Akasha, was introduced to the language of Theosophy by its most familiar exponent, H. P. Blavatsky (1831–1891), who characterized it as a sort of Life Force; she also referred to "indestructible Tablets of the Astral Light" recording both the past and future of human thought and action. We don't recall Madame Blavatsky calling these tablets (take two with meals and at bedtime) "Akashic Records," however. Remember, this question was lobbed at us mid-show. Our answer was, or attempted to be, that anything already recorded, on this plane or another, had already transpired and was not, therefore, a significator of ongoing or future events. The best we could do on short notice. As for our overweening ego, guilty as charged. At least we didn't mention we preferred the Records at 33 & 1/3 or 78 RPM. And our morbid preoccupations-- sure! We've got 'em. The literature of the Supernatural, you see, primarily stands as a warning against the so-called Occult. The same may also said to be true for many scientific, or quasi-scientific tales, if we accept as Occult what is hidden, or unknown, such as the featured story beginning this episode, THE QUEST FOR BLANK CLAVERINGI by Patricia Highsmith. Yes, the protagonist is painfully devoured by a giant snail at the end. It's so. What puzzles us is why such fastidious and easily-offended respondents are listening to us in the first place. Introduction: The Last Oblivion, by Clark Ashton Smith. "The Quest For Blank Claveringi" by Patricia Highsmith. Address by Dr. H. Owll at the Starwood Pagan Festival, 2019, subject: "Deflecting the Conspiracy." Studio Guest Dr. Penny asks us a series of questions. Arrival of Puzzling Evidence and KrOB. Dr. P. reads Tijuana Bible verse (Adults Only). Tooth-achey Peppe complains from afar (disguised, on Chatterbox)-- get dental help, dear Peppe! Dr. P. reads from Chatterbox. Phineas Narco presents Aunt Berthapocalypse. Fade out is about half an hour before recording ends, but we lack the know-how to cut it short. NEXT WEEK: MORE Gruesome Literature!

C.M. KORNBLUTH'S REMARKABLE STORY, may be found in this episode, dramatized by Dr. H. Owll. And others... with all the usual lollygaggers, soldiers and bedpressers.

Rooms 204, 205, 207, 211,212 and 224. These are authentic recordings and of good sound quality. Video keys included.