you have to be kind of a weirdo to be a sci-fi writer i suppose

Yeah, according to this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick he had some serious issues. Strange visions, paranoia, etc... Kinda sad really.

kind of sad really i guess. from what i understand, though, he kind of started to get over it after a while. like post Scanner... I thought that book was kind of a purging of a lot of his madness- mostly that madness which was caused by drug use. i'm sure that he suffered from it for a long time.

The sister thing-
i thought that it was a dream...also something really similar to this happens in the book Confessions of a Crap Artist. a visiting girl randomly with a golden chain necklace. i don't know...

kind of interestingly-weird, but also an incredible author. one of my favorites and i think one of the best of our time.

s.

there's also a part in valis about a girl with a golden chain neckalce on with a fish symbol on it (the one from early Xtianity). it tips the main character into contacting somebody that is living inside of him named "thomas".

s.

http://www.philipkdickfans.com/weirdo.htm

finding nobody,
that's awesome. thanks for it. and for the link, too. have you read anything from exegesis that wasn't in the books? i've heard that the whole thing is on the 'net somewhere, but i can't seem to find it.

s.

schizophrenia is based on divine invasion ....

"I can't get laid cause everyone is dead" is lifted straight from Valis

Anyone else ever think Tom Violence was PKD inspired?

yeah, i think that TomV might have been pkd inspired. maybe. i also think that it might be a autobiographical song about thurston.

so, what is the song, Reena about? i remember an interview that Kim did where she said it was based on a book. anybody remember that? i'm googling the interview right now...

from here:
http://www.mp3.com/features/stories/4879.html

Kim Gordon: I was sort of inspired by this book, Reena Spauling, who is kind of a fictional character. It's a collaborative piece of writing by a bunch of people. It's a fictional character about this fantastic kind of girl creature who makes her way in the art world, art fashion world, in New York. And she kind of reminds me of people that you meet who seem fascinating, but they're crazy. And you don't know why they're fascinating, and it just could be in simple things they do or some mystery. It's kind of like one of those gross friendship crush songs, because I just thought I had never written a song about that. And it's also--the name of this became the name of this gallery where I've shown. So, I kind of wanted to continue the myth of Reena Spauling.

also,
how do you guys think they do this? take notes? i have read a bunch of these books and i don't think i could write a song about it. maybe i'm just not of that type of personality or maybe i can't translate my literary life to my music life. or vice versa apparently.

s.

I started reading PKD because of Sonic Youth. Now I own and have read many of his books.My favorite is Follow my Tears the Policeman Said.

GreenStageCoach,
awesome! i haven't read that one. i'm gonna pick it up next.

s.

Which ones have you read? I think PKD is a great author, I have also read many of his short stories, A Scanner Darkly, Time out of Mind, Ubik, Martin Time Slip, and Puttering about in a small land. Next for me is Now wait for last year.

I mean Time out of Joint. Time out of mind is a Dylan album. Sorry

Don't know if this has been said already but, I recently saw the movie Minority Report again, and in it the place where Tom Cruise goes and buys drugs and hides from the police is called "The Sprawl". The movie was based off the short story with the same name that Phillip K. Dick wrote. Maybe SY named the song after that.

I mean to check out some of his stuff.

The Sprawl is a Gibson reference, as far as I can remember, there was never any mention of such a place in any of Dick's works.
I don't know why there was a Gibson reference in Minority Report, though I've wondered about it before.

they are making a movie of radio free albemuth (starring alanis morrisette) and a pkd biography (starring paul giamatti)

now wait for last year is awesome

I don't know if i have time to say all that i have read and i don't want to go to my book shelf and list them all. but i have read Ubik and Time out of Joint like you did. (lol, though i haven't heard Time out of Mind, so i might check that out). I really liked Ubik and especially Time out of Joint. Which copy do you have (or have you read)? I have the second printing of the Carroll and Graf Edition. the afterword was written by Lou Stathis and is really interesting.

went to look at what i have:
Second Variety and other classic stories by PKD.
Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
We Can Build You
Martian Time-slip
Ubik
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer [one of my favorites]
The Man in the High Castle
The Divine Invasion
VALIS
A scanner Darkly
Paycheck and other classic stories by PKD

I have also read Radio Free Albemuth, but I don't own it. A Scanner Darkly was probably my least favorite, but after seeing the movie a few times and reading a bit about PKD's life, i like it a lot more.
also on the suggestion of others, i have recently read The Difference Machine and Pattern Recognition by Gibson. love those. The Difference Machine was co-authored with a guy named Bruce Sterling. does anybody know his stuff? the cover says that he wrote, "Holy Fire".

s.

Just finished A Scanner Darkly & in the note at the end reminded me of Expressway to yr Skull. "We're gonna find the meaning of feeling good & we're gonna stay there as long as we think we should."

Also in one of the last chapters when Bob Arctor's doing all the tests, the term Pattern Recognition gets mentioned.