Philip K. Dick Fan Site

I have been waiting to get my hands on the newer version of Dave Hyde’s PKDweb site for a little while now before I put up a version of that site within a site essentially (or his own site if he wanted it that way). The version that was on the on philipkdickfans.com was from 1999 which I never realized until Dave himself told me. And then he said he had a revision from 2003 that was updated. I pestered him for it and patiently waited and worked out a way for Dave to send it to me. I had the site in my hands just over a week ago and I have been using that time to upload test and make some fixes to it. As a proof of concept I put the old one up on the site first and configured the site to host this type of site within a site. Then I archived the old 1999 one here: http://1999pkdweb.philipkdickfans.com and put the new code in place on the server the other night at http://www.philipkdickfans.com/pkdweb/

Immediately, I realized that we had an issue that Dave developed the site on a PC which is case insensitive and the site is going to live on a case sensitive server. Several of the site links were broken that I fixed and let Dave look at it before going live. Obviously, he gave is okay! So the site is live with some deployment issues. I will be working to fix what I know about in the week or so ahead but if you see a broken link or any other issues, feel free to report it to philipkdickfans[at]gmail[dot]com

Another thing that I recently noticed is that there are many links to Dave’s pages on Wikipedia.org in the Philip K. Dick Bibliography area. I think that says much about Dave’s work on this content. When I asked him about it, he claimed that he didn’t know about it… A project I put on my list is to increase the number of links to philipkdickfans.com and Dave’s content from Wikipedia.org to help interested fans find the site and to help the site’s rankings in search engines. And fix any broken links to his content with the new site change.

I really appreciate all that Dave contributes to the community and I’m very impressed with this site he did by himself without knowing html. Maybe in a few years, we can squeeze a 2010 version out of Dave!?!?

In the comments section, please add your your review, your criticism or a link to as post when you have much more to write than would fit in a comment.

 

I just watched Next and while it wasn’t one of my favorite films or a film of outstanding value over time; it was a typical Hollywood Thriller action picture with all the typical elements of the chased, the chaser, the love interest and another chaser who is much more ruthless than the first. It held my attention and I liked the movie but this one will be forgotten about in a way that Blade Runner will not be. It doesn’t stand out in direction or story in any way. It was as Hollywood bland as Paycheck at taking a Philip K. Dick idea and then throwing all the action tropes onto it to make a movie. Other than a few exceptions the movies adapted from Philip K. Dick stories weren’t crafted to retain his vision in the original work or his overall vision from entire library of writings.

Next isn’t a bad movie in of itself but as a Philip K. Dick movie I think I was not very enjoyable. I believe for a Philip K. Dick to be successful especially in the long run, the movie needs to respect Dick’s point of view and treat the film as if that point of view was being communicated to the audience, as if Philip K. Dick wrote and directed it himself.

In the comments section, please add your your review, your criticism or a link to as post when you have much more to write than would fit in a comment.

 

I recently rewatched The Gospel of Philip K. Dick after first seeing it about ten years ago and honestly it was a little worse than I remembered. The animation went on and was more difficult to watch than I remembered and when the animated Philip K. Dick spoke, it was really uncomfortable to watch. I’m not sure why because I usually don’t have that reaction to animated content. The credits at the beginning and the animated typed pages that gave written information instead of narration both seemed like padding to the film to meet some specific number of minutes. The lack of a narrator may have been a cost issue or thinking the animated PKD could compensate may have thought to have been a excellent idea but it wasn’t. Those parts plodded along.

What I liked was seeing the interview sections which were fascinated and the film was broken up into a number of topic areas related to the gospel of Dick, like the visions and the Xerox missive but there were only a few viewpoints given in each section with the interviews for extremely complicated topics. I think an entire movie could be made exploring the 1971 break-in or pink beam visions and related events. What could have been an interesting view that many fans may not have the resources to see is the visit to the collection at Fullerton but the detail there goes overboard including a librarian running through the process to view the collection pieces. Overall I was disappointed in this documentary and hoped for more content and less filler.

Announcing a contest on this site in which the winner will receive a coupon code for a free Exegesis :: BookPulse for their iPad. For more information about the application see this post, visit the Facebook site, or the iTunes Store Preview.

To enter you need to write a 500-1000 word blog post about anything related to the Exegesis. I will be the final determination if it’s relevant so if you’re not sure email me at philipkdickfans[at]gmail[dot]com. The blog post is due by the end of January and can be emailed to philipkdickfans[at]gmail[dot]com with the Subject of “Free Exegesis BookPulse Entry”. Please include your name and preferred email address so the winner can be notified. The best, most interesting and well written entry will be determined to be the winner. The winner should expect that the entry will be posted to the philipkdickfans.com as a guest blog post. Please email if you have any questions or clarifications.

A new issue of PKD Otaku has been published on this site, http://www.philipkdickfans.com/, which is to be the new home for the online fan created journal. Issue 23 has a new look and articles about the newly published Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. You can view it here: PKD Otaku Issue 23 or view past issues. Issue 23 also has a page of Additional Links for more exploration.

Please be patient after clicking on the link for this issue. The file is large and requires more time to download. An alternative would be to save the file to your computer and read the issue from there.

I found this Philip K Dick Timeline and I had to post it here also. The timeline was created by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and posted here to scribed.com. You can view it larger here: Philip K Dick Timeline (Original link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/66406787/Philip-K-Dick-Timeline)

Put on your reading glasses because it seems a little hard to read unless you blow it up to 150-200%, but this is a great way to represent the data.

I noticed on another blog that there is a lite version of the Exegesis :: BookPulse application that only includes the first few chapters of the Exegesis but appears to have all the other features. It is free and seems to me to be a good way to test the application out before you buy the full version. (Unfortunately, I don’t happen to own an iPad…)

The lite version is here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-exegesis-philip-k.-dick/id492161170.

In the comments section, please add your your review, your criticism or a link to as post when you have much more to write than would fit in a comment.

 
It must be hard to write a memoir. I’ve never written one myself and what writing I’ve done has all been fiction. I repeatedly noticed that Ms. Dick would start down a narrative/memory path and then get far ahead of where she intends and then backtracks. This structure didn’t bother me because I have some familiarity with the events but someone who doesn’t might find it hard to follow.

In fiction you trust the reader to remember the details of the narrative later. It appears that Ms. Dick doesn’t trust the reader to recall and there are repetitions of events and explanations in this structure which leads to an absolutely clear discussion that can repeat itself. The memoir felt somewhat like you were having a conversation with Ms. Dick which suits the material that she covered in the book.

One of my favorite parts is the discussion of the infamous abscessed tooth/fish
necklace/pink beam experience at the beginning of Chapter Four which slightly changes the events as I knew them but they still retain the essence. That event has always fascinated me and to read a slightly different version makes me wonder what exactly happened. For example, Ms. Dick writes that the necklace didn’t cause the anamnesis but a piece of pink glass in their window with the sun shining through and the events remembered weren’t the events of Roman times but events that happened in Vancouver that I’d never read about.

The memoir has a structure more like put together a puzzle or creating a painting than a linear narrative and I think it suits the events that happened. Ms. Dick would describe an event fully chronologically even if it overlapped another event so that the reader has a better understanding of what happened and what she has put together in hindsight.

The book has parts which wander off the topic like the discussion of the movies made from Dick’s works but the discussion of the adaptation of A Scanner Darkly is fascinating because Ms. Dick helped work on the novel with him. Philip K. Dick would explain to her his intentions with that novel and all the novels after it so that she has an excellent understanding of Philip K. Dick’s purpose in writing the books.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in this period in Philip K. Dick’s life. The memoir provides a second viewpoint on events that Philip K. Dick wrote about, a viewpoint of someone who was there to witness the events.

Other Reviews

Amazon.com Reviews

There is an youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvF2XMD7fks) circulating the fan base in which Tessa Dick, Philip K. Dick’s Fifth Wife, pleads for financial help because she is struggling much more than many of us are. She is disabled and waiting on the paperwork to be processed which takes some time.

If you would like to make a donation to her, send it to her by Paypal to tuffy777@gmail.com or snail mail:

Tessa Dick
PO Box 1942
Crestline, CA 92325-1942

But if you would rather not donate directly, I would strongly encourage you to purchase one of her books. I don’t believe that one biography, one viewpoint can describe someone’s life. With the recent publication of the Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, one excellent choice is Remembering Firebright because she was present when he was experiencing and writing about the events in the Exegesis. I am reading it right now and the second viewpoint on events that I have become familiar with from Philip K. Dick’s telling is fascinating. Without the other viewpoints, we risk falling into solipsism like Dick was fond of writing and considering.

You can purchase her books at Tessa’s Amazon Author Page. A review of Remembering Firebright will be posted on http://www.philipkdickfans.com soon.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt recently released their iPad application for The Exegesis called ExegesisBookpulse in the iTunes store. There is also a Facebook page for the appplication called Exegesis :: BookPulse. The application allows you to share annotations, interact with other readers, connect with Facebook and share your reading experience. It is available on the iPad and will soon be available on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android.