Category - Writing

I’m not exactly sure how this came to pass, but I learned this week that The Man Who Mastered Gravity has been discussed at considerable length on the Mysterious Universe podcast.

You can find the podcast here.

Discussion of the Townsend Brown story begins about 38:20 in – after some discussion of something called “The Ghost Moose.’  I guess that’s one thing I can cross off the bucket list: playing second-fiddle to a ‘ghost moose.’

Mysterious Universe is a very popular and long-standing podcast, ranking #5 in Apple’s listings of social science podcasts.  From the listing:

Always interesting and often hilarious, join hosts Aaron Wright and Benjamin Grundy as they investigate the latest in futurology, weird science, consciousness research, alternative history, cryptozoology, UFOs, and new-age absurdity.

Just a quick scroll through the Mysterious Universe home page displays the depth and breadth of this podcast and its affiliated enterprises. These guys cover a lot of territory,  some of it within the wheelhouse of my work (i.e. ‘lost science’ outside the realm of orthodoxy) and some of it, let’s be charitable and just say, ummm…. not so much.

Most of the discussion that is freely available is a recap of the early chapters of the book.  There is a further discussion that gets into The Caroline Group and the rest of the story, but that’s behind a prescription paywall.

Gratitude

I have reached out to the producers of Mysterious Universe to see if I can get access to the subscriber-only edition. And (perish the thought!) offering myself up for an interview.

As I said, I don’t know how this came about, or how the book fell into their hands. I’m just glad that it did.

Yesterday, I listened to the episode in my – and had something of a moment.  I listen to dozens of podcasts.  I rarely listen to radio any more, just podcasts.  And too often I’m listening with a twinge of envy, like “hey, I’ve written books… I’m interesting… why doesn’t anybody want to talk to me?”

So yesterday… finally! Hearing my own name and work mentioned in a credible manner was the most ‘external validation’ I’ve had for about twenty years.  I know, we’re not supposed to rely on ‘external validation,’ we’re always just supposed to believe in our own work and purpose and just forge on in obscurity.

Well, fuck that.  It’s nice to know that somebody else finds merit in the work.

I think there is more to come.  Stay tuned.

I discovered last week that The Man Who Mastered Gravity is rocketing to the top of the charts on Amazon.com .

(…in the admittedly narrow category of “New Releases in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History” but… who’s counting? A win is a win.  Take the win.)

If you are among the faithful who have purchased a copy of the book….

First, THANK YOU.

Second, if you find the material worthy, it would be great if you’d take a minute to rate or review the book on Amazon.

I thank you and Buster thanks you.

(This is a cross-post of an item posted to ttbrown.com on March 18, 2023)

“Writing a book is adventure to begin with. It’s a toy and amusement; then it becomes a mistress and then it becomes a master and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

– Winston Churchill

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The deed. Is. Done.

I can’t believe I’m saying this… it’s been such a long haul, and for a minute there it felt like the universe was putting up an impenetrable goal-line defense.

But the deed. Is DONE.

As of yesterday morning (Saturday March 18, 2023), all three versions of the The Man Who Mastered Gravity are available from Amazon. com. <– That’s the link.

That’s hardcover ($29.99), softcover ($19.99) and Kindle edition ($9.99).

What can I say other than, “I hope y’all will run right out (well, actually, sit right down) and buy a copy – and leave a glowing review on Amazon!”

Please note, the hardcover and softcover editions are print on demand (PoD), so delivery times are a tad longer than typical Amazon titles that are pre-printed and sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

I guess this is what the self-publishing gurus call a ‘soft launch.’  I don’t think of it so much as a ‘launch’ as just, well… like Churchill said, flinging it out to the public.

I am reasonably certain this edition is 98% perfect in terms of proofreading.  I just haven’t found the other 2% yet.  I was still finding typos etc. right up until I uploaded the files, so I am sure there are still some waiting to be detected.  If readers will point them out to me, I’ll round ’em up and fix as many as I can all once.

The title has also been established with IngramSpark, which will distribute the print editions to bookstores if there is any demand.

Demand.  Right.

Now comes the hard part.

….what I’ve been up to…?

Mostly this.

This long-ago-abandoned project resurfaced in the months after I got fired from Apple.  I suddenly found myself with all of my time on my hands.  I dunno, maybe that’s a dangerous thing – quite arguable in this case, since the project continues to be a bottomless rabbit hole in which there is quite possibly no rabbit.  Or maybe the rabbit is a squirrel. Still beats the fuck out of me.

Even though I set it aside – quite abruptly – back in 2009, this story always lurked in the back of my mind.  When I ‘published’ the first draft of the manuscript that I’d written between 2005 and 2008 (Q: What’s that book about? A: About 500 pages…) I did it under the masthead of ‘Embassy Books and Laundry.’ That was a callback to a front-business that Townsend Brown and his wife operated in the 1950s when he said he was ‘done with science.’  I wasn’t done with the book, either, but I didn’t think it would be thirteen years before I returned to it.

I worked on the manuscript all summer and into the fall.  I whittled 200,000 words down to about 100,000.  I don’t know if what’s left tells the story, but it tells a story.

In December I sent it to a volunteer from my fusion website for proofreading. I got the file back from him at the end of January, and then had to spend a couple of weeks sorting through the fixes, prepping the illustrations and fixing the endnotes.

Last Saturday (February 11 – Thomas Edison’s birthday), I sent the file to a layout/designer in Pakistan.  That was a bit of a monumental moment, representing nearly twenty years of thought and effort since I first went down the rabbit hole in 2003.   (Incidentally, I found the layout/designer in Pakistan, and the woman who created the cover from Bangladesh, on Fiverr.com).

In some ways, getting this book out there is the culmination of the primary theme of my life has been for almost fifty years. There is a thread through these two stories, and maybe a reason that they’re tied together.

I don’t know, really, what it all amounts to.

I just know I have to be careful, because I still don’t believe a lot of the things I think.

BTW, if anybody wants a copy when it’s finally ready, I’ll send you one if you’ll write a review on Amazon.  I’m imagining an April 1 publication date.  April Fools Day.

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People sometimes ask me if I cook for myself, and my usual weisenheimer answer is ‘well, I prepare meals, I don’t know if I’d call it ‘cooking’ exactly…

But last week I made chicken tikka masala from scratch and it turned out pretty well.  I have a mason jar of sauce in the fridge so it’ll last me awhile.  I don’t generally do photos of my food, but this is what the cooktop looked like before I started the cleanup:

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It’s either been a mild winter – or a late one.

Storms that have devastated other parts of the region just left a nice sheen in my neighborhood:

I dunno if I mentioned but I started reading Shakespeare last year.  First Saturday of each month I meet up with the good folks from the Nashville Shakespeare Festival to read one the plays.  Last month was “Much Ado About Nothing.”  This month is “As You Like It.” Some evenings I sit in the treehouse while the sun sets and read a scene or two:

In the meantime, life goes on out here in West Bumfuque.

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Oh, and, one other thing.  That pop-popping sound you hear?  Pickleball.  I’ve been playing a couple of hours nearly every day since last summer.  I am powerless over pickleball and my life has become unmanageable, but I impress myself with my septuagenarian ability to nimbly chase after the balls I just missed.

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Back to the new book, and it’s extension of the focus that started with the first book…

I think a lot about what a weird destiny this has turned out to be, a life preoccupied with these two obscure, esoteric subjects.  I need to write more about that, and what ties these two stories together – if I can ever figure out what it is exactly I’m thinking. Or, more precisely, find the nerve to actually say it.

Which often reminds me of this: