When I was in kindergarten, in the late 60's, Mike Nesmith was my favorite rock star. He's remained one of my favorites ever since.
I am next to him on this album cover. The blurry little head below his elbow is me.
Seriously, check out his album "...and the Hits Just Keep on Comin'". It's just Nesmith on rhythm guitar and singing and Red Rhodes on steel guitar. A classic.
The link below goes to my tribute to him. It is one of he most popular posts on this blog
Circa 1981, I found this record, used, in a bargain bin for a dollar. I had no idea what the heck it was. It changed my life. It took my brain to places it had never been before. It's stupid, it's absurdist, it's creepily, mysteriously, darkly psychedelic.
There is no other various artists / compilation album like it. There is NO OTHER album of any type like it.
Here is side one;
THE DIAMOND MINE by DAVE DIAMOND AND THE HIGHER ELEVATION
SUZY CREAMCHEESE by TEDDY & HIS PATCHES SUICIDAL FLOWERS by CRYSTAL CHANDLIER SWAMI by WILLIAM PENN V
I'M ALLERGIC TO FLOWERS by THE JEFFERSON HANDKERCHIEF
listed only as 'Bonus Track', actually PRANA by THE UNFOLDED. (Only about the first minute and a half is on the album.)
FLIGHT REACTION by THE CALICO WALL LOOSE LIP SYNC SHIP by THE HOGS
THE REALITY OF (AIR) FRIED BORSK by THE DRIVING STUPID
I was actually thrilled to find PEBBLES 3 available in a CD version in 1992. Back then, it wasn't a forgone conclusion that every last obscure little thing would one day become a CD release -- especially a bootleggish item like this. I was a little disappointed that some of my favorite tracks were missing, and some of these added tracks were a little too mind boggling, even for me. Missing in action; Prana by The Unfolding and Soggy Cereal by Mike Condello.
Frank Zappa - 200 Motels (Various versions; 6 CD /2 CD /2 LP (black vinyl or red vinyl) - 29 October 2021
Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels” turns 50! In celebration of FZ’s famous 1971 “Surrealistic Documentary,” Zappa Records, UMe and MGM are pleased to present an extensive 7-disc box set. Contains the original soundtrack remastered by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering along with a massive amount of never-before-heard audio documentary material surrounding the project. Unearthed from FZ’s Vault are original demos, studio outtakes, work mixes, interviews and movie ads along with newly discovered dialog reels revealing an early audio edit of the film. This incredible set contains a replica of the movie poster, a custom motel keychain, Do-Not-Disturb motel door hanger and the original 1971 soundtrack packaging along with new liner notes from Pamela Des Barres, Ruth Underwood and Vaultmeister, Joe Travers.
CD 1:
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK – REMASTERED 1.Semi-Fraudulent / Direct-From-Hollywood Overture 2.Mystery Roach 3.Dance Of The Rock & Roll Interviewers 4.This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich (Prologue) 5.Tuna Fish Promenade 6.Dance Of The Just Plain Folks 7.This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich (Reprise) 8.The Sealed Tuna Bolero 9.Lonesome Cowboy Burt 10.Touring Can Make You Crazy 11.Would You Like A Snack? 12.Redneck Eats 13.Centerville 14.She Painted Up Her Face 15.Janet’s Big Dance Number 16.Half A Dozen Provocative Squats 17.Mysterioso 18.Shove It Right In 19.Lucy’s Seduction Of A Bored Violinist & Postlude 20.I’m Stealing The Towels 21.Dental Hygiene Dilemma 22.Does This Kind Of Life Look Interesting To You? 23.Daddy, Daddy, Daddy 24.***** Dimension 25.What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning
CD 2:
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK – REMASTERED (Cont’d) 1.A Nun Suit Painted On Some Old Boxes 2.Magic Fingers 3.Motorhead’s Midnight Ranch 4.Dew On The Newts We Got 5.The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts 6.The Girl Wants To Fix Him Some Broth 7.The Girl’s Dream 8.Little Green Scratchy Sweaters & Courduroy Ponce 9.Strictly Genteel (The Finale)
200 MOTELS DEMOS, 2ND MOVEMENT – ROCK MUSIC 10.Road Ladies (Alternate Mix) 11.What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening 12.What Kind Of Girl Do You Think We Are? 13.Bwana Dik 14.Daddy, Daddy, Daddy 15.Do You Like My New Car? 16.Magic Fingers 17.Phyllis & Aynsley 18.What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning (Alternate Mix)
200 MOTELS DEMO SESSION OUTTAKES 19.Tell Me You Love Me (Mix Outtake) 20.Road Ladies (Alternate Take) 21.What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening (Studio Outtakes) 22.What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening (Alternate Take, Incomplete) 23.“Aynsley Dunbar, Ladies & Gentlemen” 24.Magic Fingers (Version B, Mix Outtake) 25.What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning (Mix Outtake) 26.Tell Me You Love Me (Alternate Take)
CD 3:
200 MOTELS – DIALOG PROTECTION REELS 1.Scene 1-2: Semi-Fraudulent/Direct-From-Hollywood Overture 2.Scene 3: “What’s The Deal?” 3.Mystery Roach 4.Scene 32: “It’s A Good Thing We Get Paid To Do This…” 5.Scene 14: What’s The Name Of Your Group? I 6.Scene 32: “We Haven’t Formed The Group Yet” 7.Scene 15: What’s The Name Of Your Group? II 8.Scene 17: “When Do We Get Paid?” 9.Scene 18: Went On The Road 10.Scene 19-20: “Special Delivery” 11.Scene 21: Centerville 12.Scene 21: Janet & Lucy 13.Scene 22: This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich 14.Scene 23-24: Tuna Fish Promenade 15.Scene 28: The Sealed Tuna Bolero 16.Scene 29: Lonesome Cowboy Burt 17.Scene 30: JCB & Rance 18.Scene 21: Larry The Dwarf 19.Scene 81: Magic Fingers 20.Scene 47: Larry The Dwarf In The Hotel Room 21.Scene 33: The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts 22.Scene 40-41: The Girl Wants To Fix Him Some Broth 23.Scene 42: Little Green Scratchy Sweaters & Courduroy Ponce 24.Scene 45: A Nun Suit Painted On Some Old Boxes 25.Scene 57: The Perverted Nun 26.Scene 87: “*****!” 27.Scene 58: She Painted Up Her Face 28.Scene 60: Janet’s Big Dance Number 29.Scene 61: Half A Dozen Provocative Squats 30.Scene 62: Lucy’s Seduction Of A Bored Violinist 31.Scene 63: Shove It Right In 32.Scene 67: “I Am Bwana Dik!” 33.Scene 68-69: What Will This Morning Bring Me This Evening 34.Scene 77: Daddy, Daddy, Daddy
CD 4:
200 MOTELS – DIALOG PROTECTION REELS (Cont’d) 1.Scene 90: Biff Debris & Jeff 2.Scene 84-85: ***** Dimension 3.Scene 32: Mystery Roach (Acoustic) / “Yeah? Well Fine!” 4.Scene 71: What Will The Evening Bring Me This Morning 5.Scene 92: Jeff Flips Out / I’m Stealing The Room 6.Scene 100: Strictly Genteel 7.Scene 100: 200 Motels Finale
BONUS SWILL, PART I 8.“I Was Gonna Make A Movie One Time…” 9.200 Motels Movie Ad #1 10.What’s The Name Of Your Group? (FZ Edit) 11.200 Motels Movie Ad #2 12.FZ on Ringo Starr 13.Ringo Starr on 200 Motels 14.200 Motels Movie Ad #3 15.Motorhead’s Midnight Ranch (Mix Outtake) 16.Looking For Newts 17.“They Are Only In It For The Money” 18.200 Motels Movie Ad #4 19.200 Motels Commercial Session Outtakes 20.Does This Kind Of Life Look Interesting To You? (Mix Outtake) 21.“I Shall Ruin All The Tapes” 22.Janet’s Big Dance Number (Basic Tracks) 23.Martin Lickert Voice-Over 24.Touring Can Make You Crazy (Mix Outtake) 25.***** Dimension (Instrumental Alternate Take) 26.Centerville (Mix Outtake) 27.Mystery Roach (Alternate Master) 28.Magic Fingers (Mix Outtake) 29.200 Motels Movie Ad #5
CD 5:
200 MOTELS – ALTERNATES AND OUTTAKES 1.“What Is 200 Motels?” 2.Theodore Bikel Voice-Over 3.Semi-Fraudulent/Direct-From-Hollywood Overture (Mix Outtake) 4.What’s The Name Of Your Group? (Complete Sequence, Part I) 5.What’s The Name Of Your Group? (Complete Sequence, Part II) 6.What’s The Name Of Your Group? (Complete Sequence, Part III) 7.Can I Help You With This Dummy? 8.Pianos For The Pleated Gazelle 9.Synth Tracks (Part I) 10.Would You Like A Snack? (Alternate Take) 11.Howard Kaylan/Mark Volman Voice-Over 12.Centerville (Rough Mix) 13.This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich (Prologue, Mix Outtake) 14.Tuna Fish Promenade (Mix Outtake) 15.The Sealed Tuna Bolero (Alternate Take) 16.Lonesome Cowboy Burt (Mix Outtake) 17.Naval Aviation In Art? 18.Redneck Eats/The Restaurant Scene (Basic Tracks) 19.Mystery Roach (Basic Tracks) 20.I Have Seen The Pleated Gazelle 21.Dew On The Newts We Got (Rough Mix) 22.The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts (Rough Mix) 23.Motorhead’s Midnight Ranch (Rough Mix) 24.The Girl Wants To Fix Him Some Broth (Rough Mix, Alternate Ending) 25.The Girl’s Dream (Rough Mix) 26.Little Green Scratchy Sweaters And Courduroy Ponce 27.Scene 43: A Cardboard Box 28.Scene 44 29.A Nun Suit Painted On Some Old Boxes (Rough Mix) 30.She Painted Up Her Face (Compressed Mix) 31.The Secret Stare 32.Half A Dozen Provocative Squats (Compressed Mix) 33.Lucy’s Seduction Of A Bored Violinist (Basic Tracks) 34.Shove It Right In (Compressed Mix) 35.Postlude (Basic Tracks) 36.What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning (Mix Outtake)
CD 6:
200 MOTELS – ALTERNATES AND OUTTAKES 1.Daddy, Daddy, Daddy (Alternate Take) 2.Magic Fingers (Alternate Take) 3.***** Dimension (Basic Tracks) 4.Scene 86 5.Scene 87 (Alternate Take) 6.Synth Tracks (Part II) 7.I’m Stealing The Towels (Basic Tracks, Alternate Take) 8.Scene 94: “He’s Always Watching Me” 9.Dental Hygiene Dilemma (Part I, Basic Tracks) 10.Does This Kind Of Life Look Interesting To You? (Mix Outtake) 11.Dental Hygiene Dilemma (Part II, Basic Tracks) 12.Strictly Genteel (Basic Tracks) 13.200 Motels Finale (Alternate Take) 14.200 Motels Finale (Basic Tracks, Unedited Ending)
BONUS SWILL, PART II 15.Movie Theater Skit (Commercial Session Outtake) 16.200 Motels Album Ad #1 17.Script Rehearsal Trim 18.Lonesome Cowboy Burt (In Rehearsal 1969) 19.Lonesome Cowboy Burt (In Rehearsal 1970) 20.200 Motels Album Ad #2 21.***** Dimension Jingle Music 22.TV Hype (Commercial Session Outtake) 23.200 Motels Movie Ad # 6
I turned 16 in 1979. I thought all the stuff on TV and radio was an insult to my intelligence. What a conceited little creep I was!
Although, even at 16, I knew the show title should have been 'Whom Done It'.
RE: "Makin It" I can see the TV execs' logic -- "We've got a golden opportunity to do "Saturday Night Fever" as a sit-com. We've lined up John Travolta's older sister!
Check out that unforgettable 1979 TV line up;
Now, here's something I hope you'll REALLY enjoy. CLICK HERE
Of course, The Rutles were Beatles' impersonators. The were The Beatles of Beatles' Impersonators.
Contrary to what you'd think from the following video, their songs were seldom written to sound like parodies of specific individual Beatles songs. Their leader, the great Neil Innes, actually recycled several songs he had written for projects years earlier, with no original intention of emulating The Beatles. The modus operandi was to arrange and produce the songs in an accurate parody of The Beatles' records.
'Piggie In the Middle' and "Get Up And Go' (like 'Get Back') however, were too close!
The Dukes of Stratosphear -- Mole from the Ministry (1985)
Of course, this is actually the British pop group XTC getting psychedelic. Like The Rutles, none of their other songs sound this much like another song, as far as I know.
In 1976, the rumor spread that this anonymous band were actually The Beatles. The rumor seemed to be a suspiciously useful way to promote Klaatus' lackluster record sales. They were actually three Canadian studio musicians. They don't really sound like The Beatles -- just Beatles inspired. This song is an exception -- starting off like a good mid-70s Wings track and ending all too much like The Beatles' 'All Too Much'. Another of their songs fades out like 'I Am the Walrus', but it takes something like seven minutes to get to it!
The Residents -- Beyond the Valley of A Day in the Life (1977)
Another anonymous band once rumored to be the fab four. These guys sound NOTHING like 'em! Probably the person who made up the rumor assumed that only a band with connections to The Beatles could so openly repurpose their material without getting sued out of existence!
Here is the cover of their debut album from 1974;
It would seem almost indecent to utilize all the following 'samples' with NO permission to do so, but that's exactly what The Residents did. Recently, The Residents' spokesman Homer Flynn marveled that, after much sampling of famous artists and utilizing frequent quotes from other compositions, (for 47 years and counting!) The Residents have never been sued -- an indicator that The Residents' 'victims' might actually choose to 'look the other way' out of respect for The Residents' as artists.
Alice Bradley Sheldon (born Alice Hastings Bradley; August 24, 1915
– May 19, 1987) was an Americanscience fiction author better known
as James Tiptree Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death.
It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman. From
1974 to 1977 she also used the pen name Raccoona Sheldon. Sheldon
was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in
2012.[2]
Alice came from a family in the intellectual enclave of Hyde Park, a
university neighborhood in Chicago.[3] Her father was Herbert Edwin Bradley,
a lawyer and naturalist, and her mother was Mary Hastings Bradley,
a prolific writer of fiction and travel books.[4] From an early age Alice traveled with her parents, and in
1921–22, the Bradleys made their first trip to central Africa, which later contributed to
Sheldon's short story, "The Women Men Don't See." During these trips,
she played the role of the "perfect daughter, willing to be carried across
Africa like a parcel, always neatly dressed and well behaved, a credit to her
mother."[4]
Between trips to Africa, Alice attended school in Chicago. At
the age of ten, she went to the University of Chicago Laboratory
Schools, which was an experimental teaching workshop with small
classes and loose structure. When she was fourteen, she was sent to finishing school in Lausanne in Switzerland, before returning to the US to
attend boarding school in Tarrytown in New York. Later on, she became a graphic
artist, a painter, and—under the name "Alice Bradley Davey"[5]—an art critic for the Chicago Sun between 1941 and 1942.
Alice was encouraged by her mother to seek a career, but her
mother also hoped that she would get married and settle down.[4] In 1934, at age 19, she met William (Bill) Davey and eloped to marry him.[4][6] She dropped out of Sarah Lawrence
College, which did not allow married students to attend. They moved
to Berkeley, California,
where they took classes and Bill encouraged her to pursue art.[4] The marriage was not a success; he was an alcoholic and irresponsible with money
and she disliked keeping house.[4] The couple divorced in 1940.[4]
After the divorce, she joined the Women's Army Auxiliary
Corps where she became a supply officer.[4] In 1942 she joined the United States
Army Air Forces and worked in the Army Air Forces
photo-intelligence group. She later was promoted to major, a high rank for
women at the time. In the army, she "felt she was among free women for the
first time." As an intelligence officer, she became an expert in reading
aerial intelligence photographs.[6]
In 1945, at the close of the war, while she was on assignment in
Paris, she married her second husband, Huntington D. Sheldon,
known as "Ting." She was discharged from the military in 1946, at
which time she set up a small business in partnership with her
husband. The same year her first story ("The Lucky Ones") was
published in the November 16, 1946 issue of The New Yorker, and credited to
"Alice Bradley" in the magazine. In 1952 she and her husband were
invited to join the CIA, which she accepted. At the CIA, she
worked as an intelligence officer, but she did not enjoy the work.[6] She resigned her position in 1955 and returned to college.
She studied for her bachelor of arts degree at American University (1957–1959),
going on to achieve a doctorate at George
Washington University in Experimental Psychology in
1967. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the responses of animals
to novel stimuli in differing environments. During this time, she wrote and
submitted a few science fiction stories under the name James Tiptree Jr., in
order to protect her academic reputation.[7]
In her personal life, Alice had a complex sexual orientation,
and she described her sexuality in different terms over many years. This
statement, for example, is how she explained it at one point: "I like some
men a lot, but from the start, before I knew anything, it was always girls and
women who lit me up."[8][9]
Alice began illustrating when she was nine years old,
contributing to her mother's book, Alice in Elephantland, a
children's book about the family's second trip to Africa, appearing in it as
herself.[10] She later had an exhibit of her drawings of Africa at the
Chicago Gallery, arranged by her parents.[11] Although she illustrated several of her mother's books,
she only sold one illustration during her lifetime, in 1931, to The New Yorker, with help from Harold Ober, a New York agent who worked with
her mother. The illustration, of a horse rearing and throwing off its rider,
sold for ten dollars.[12]
In 1936, Alice participated in a group show at the Art Institute of
Chicago, to which she had connections through her family, featuring
new American work. This was an important step forward for her painting career.
During this time she also took private art lessons from John Sloan. Alice disliked prudery in
painting. While examining an anatomy book for an art class, she noticed that
the genitals were blurred, so she restored the genitals of the figures with a
pencil.[13]
In 1939, Alice's nude self-portrait titled Portrait in
the Country was accepted for the "All-American" biennial
show at the Corcoran Gallery in
Washington D.C., where it was displayed for six weeks. While these two shows
were considered big breaks, she disparaged these accomplishments, saying that
"only second rate painters sold" and she preferred to keep her works
at home.[14]
By 1940, Alice felt she had mastered all the techniques she
needed and was ready to choose her subject matter. However, she began to doubt
whether she should paint. She kept working at her painting techniques,
fascinated with the questions of form, and read books on aesthetics in order to
know what scientifically made a painting "good."[15] She stopped painting in 1941. As she was in need of a way to
support herself, her parents helped her find a job as an art critic for
the Chicago Sun after
it launched in 1941. Newly divorced, she started going by the name Alice
Bradley Davey as a journalist, a job she held until she enlisted for the army
in 1942.[5]
Bradley discovered science fiction in 1924, when she read
her first issue of Weird Tales, but
she wouldn't write any herself until years later.[16] Unsure what to do with her new degrees and her new/old
careers, Sheldon began to write science fiction. She adopted the pseudonym of James Tiptree Jr. in 1967.
The name "Tiptree" came from a branded jar of marmalade, and the
"Jr." was her husband's idea. In an interview, she said: "A male
name seemed like good camouflage. I had the feeling that a man would slip by
less observed. I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first
woman in some damned occupation."[17][18] She also made the choice to start writing science fiction
she, herself, was interested in and "was surprised to find that her
stories were immediately accepted for publication and quickly became
popular."[6]
Her first published short story was "Birth of a
Salesman" in the March 1968 issue of Analog
Science Fact & Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell. Three more followed that
year in If and Fantastic.[1] Other pen names that she used included "Alice
Hastings Bradley", "Major Alice Davey", "Alli B. Sheldon",
"Dr. Alice B. Sheldon", and "Raccoona Sheldon".
Writing under the pseudonym Raccoona, she was not very
successful getting published until her other alter ego, Tiptree, wrote to
publishers to intervene.[19]
The pseudonym was successfully maintained until late 1977,[19] partly because, although "Tiptree" was widely
known to be a pseudonym, it was generally understood that its use was intended
to protect the professional reputation of an intelligence community official.
Readers, editors and correspondents were permitted to assume gender, and
generally, but not invariably, they assumed "male". There was
speculation, based partially on the themes in her stories, that Tiptree might
be female. Robert Silverberg wrote:
"It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a theory that I find
absurd, for there is to me something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's
writing".[20] Silverberg also compared Tiptree's writing to Ernest Hemingway, and in fact, found Tiptree
to be "superior in masculinity".[21]
"Tiptree" never made any public appearances, but she
did correspond regularly with fans and other science fiction authors through
the mail. When asked for biographical details, Tiptree/Sheldon was forthcoming
in everything but her gender. According to her biographer, Julie Phillips,
"No one had ever seen or spoken to the owner of this voice. He wrote
letters, warm, frank, funny letters, to other writers, editors, and science
fiction fans". In her letters to fellow writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ, she would present herself as a
feminist man; however, Sheldon did not present herself as male in person.
Writing was a way to escape a male-dominated society, themes Tiptree explored
in the short stories later collected in Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.
One story in particular offers an excellent illustration of these themes.
"Houston,
Houston, Do You Read?" follows a group of astronauts who
discover a future Earth whose male population has been wiped out; the remaining
females have learned to get along just fine in their absence.
In 1976, "Tiptree" mentioned in a letter that
"his" mother, also a writer, had died in Chicago—details that led inquiring fans to
find the obituary, with its reference to Alice Sheldon;
soon all was revealed. Once the initial shock was over, Sheldon wrote to Le
Guin, one of her closest friends, confessing her identity. She wrote, "I
never wrote you anything but the exact truth, there was no calculation or
intent to deceive, other than the signature which over 8 years became just
another nickname; everything else is just plain me. The thing is, I am a
61-year-old woman named Alice Sheldon — nickname Alli – solitary by nature but
married for 37 years to a very nice man considerably older [Huntington was 12
years her senior], who doesn't read my stuff but is glad I like writing".[22]
After Sheldon's identity was revealed, several prominent science
fiction writers suffered some embarrassment. Robert Silverberg had written an
introduction to Warm Worlds and
Otherwise arguing, from the evidence of stories in that
collection, that Tiptree could not possibly be a woman. Harlan Ellison had introduced Tiptree's
story in the anthology Again, Dangerous
Visions with the opinion that "[Kate] Wilhelm is the woman to beat this year,
but Tiptree is the man".[citation needed]
Only then did she complete her first full-length novel, Up the Walls of
the World (Berkley Books, 1978), which was a Doubleday
Science Fiction Book Club selection.[1] Before that she had worked on and built a reputation only in
the field of short stories.
Tiptree/Sheldon was an eclectic writer who worked in a variety
of styles and subgenres, often combining the technological focus and hard-edged
style of "hard"
science fiction with the sociological and psychological concerns of "soft"
SF, along with some of the stylistic experimentation of the New Wave movement.[citation needed]
After writing several stories in more conventional modes, she
produced her first work to draw widespread acclaim, "The Last Flight of
Doctor Ain", in 1969. One of her shortest stories, "Ain" is a
sympathetic portrait of a scientist whose concern for Earth's ecological
suffering leads him to destroy the entire human race.[citation needed]
Many of her stories have a milieu reminiscent of the space opera and pulp tales she read in her youth, but
typically with a much darker tone: the cosmic journeys of her characters are
often linked to a drastic spiritual alienation, and/or a transcendent
experience which brings fulfillment but also death. John Clute, noting Tiptree's
"inconsolable complexities of vision", concluded that "It is
very rarely that a James Tiptree story does not both deal directly with death
and end with a death of the spirit, or of all hope, or of the race".
Notable stories of this type include "Painwise", in which a space
explorer has been altered to be immune to pain but finds such an existence
intolerable, and "A Momentary
Taste of Being", in which the true purpose of humanity, found
on a distant planet, renders individual human life entirely pointless.[citation needed]
Another major theme in Tiptree/Sheldon's work is the tension
between free will and biological
determinism, or reason and sexual desire. "Love Is
the Plan the Plan Is Death", one of the rare SF stories in
which no humans appear, describes an alien creature's romantic rationalizations
for the brutal instincts that drive its life cycle. "The Screwfly Solution"
suggests that humans might similarly rationalize a plague of murderous sexual
insanity. Sex in Tiptree's writing is frankly portrayed, a sometimes playful
but more often threatening force.[citation needed]
Before the revelation of Sheldon's identity, Tiptree was often
referred to as an unusually macho male (see, e.g., Robert Silverberg's
commentaries) as well as an unusually feminist science fiction writer (for a
male)—particularly for "The Women Men Don't
See", a story of two women who go looking for aliens to escape
from male-dominated society on Earth. However, Sheldon's view of sexual
politics could be ambiguous, as in the ending of "Houston,
Houston, Do You Read?", where a society of female clones must
deal with three time-traveling male astronauts.[citation needed]
A constant theme in Sheldon's work is feminism. In "The
Women Men Don't See" Sheldon gives the tale a unique feminist spin by
making the narrator, Don Fenton, a male. Fenton judges the Parsons, the mother
and daughter who are searching for alien life, based on their attractiveness
and is agitated when they do not "fulfill stereotypical female
roles", according to Anne Cranny-Francis.[23] In addition, Fenton's inability to understand both the
plight of woman and Ruth Parsons' feelings of alienation further illustrate the
differences of men and women in society. The theme of feminism is emphasized by
"the feminist ideology espoused by Ruth Parsons and the contrasting sexism
of Fenton".[23] The title of the short story itself reflects the idea that
women are invisible during Sheldon's time. As Francis states, "'The Women
Men Don't See' is an outstanding example … of the subversive use of genre
fiction to produce an unconventional discursive position, the feminist
subject".[23]
Sheldon's two novels, produced toward the end of her career,
were not as critically well-received as her best-known stories but continued to
explore similar themes. Some of her best-regarded work[citation needed] can be found in the collection Her Smoke Rose Up
Forever, available in paperback through Tachyon Publications as
of 2004.
Sheldon continued writing under the Tiptree pen name for another
decade. In the last years of her life she suffered from depression and heart
trouble, while her husband began to lose his eyesight, becoming almost
completely blind in 1986.[24] In 1976, then 61-year-old Sheldon wrote Silverberg
expressing her desire to end her own life while she was still able-bodied and
active, but saying that she was reluctant to act upon this intention, as she
didn't want to leave her husband behind and couldn't bring herself to kill him.[25] Later she suggested to her husband that they make a
suicide pact when their health began to fail. On July 21, 1977, she wrote in
her diary: “Ting agreed to consider suicide in 4–5 years.”[26]
Ten years later, on May 19, 1987, Sheldon shot her husband and
then herself; she telephoned her attorney after the first shooting to announce
her actions. They were found dead, hand-in-hand in bed, in their Virginia home.[27] According to biographer Julie Phillips, the suicide note Sheldon left
was written in September 1979 and saved until needed.[28] Although the circumstances surrounding the Sheldons'
deaths are not clear enough to rule out murder-suicide, testimony of those
closest to them suggests a suicide pact.[29]
The James Tiptree Jr.
Award, honoring works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or
explore our understanding of gender, was named in her honor. The award-winning
science fiction authors Karen Joy Fowler and Pat Murphy created
the award in February 1991.[30] Works of fiction such as Half Life by Shelley Jackson and Light by M. John Harrison have received the award.
Due to controversy over the circumstances of her and her husband's deaths, the
name of the award was changed to the Otherwise Award in 2019.[31]
