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(Background noise might make this episode a challenging listen.)
Episode image is a detail from the cover of Underground Kingdom by Edward Packard, published in 1984 by Bantam Books; illustration by Anthony Kramer.
Join guest Nathan Penlington as he astonishes our host with tales of a relatively mediocre performance prodigy and reminisces about that staple of a certain kind of childhood, the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Charles Adrian hits back with the original private dick.
Another book by Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, is discussed in Page One 110.
Underground Kingdom by Edward Packard is also discussed in Page One 157.
This episode was recorded at the Wilton Way Café for London Fields Radio.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 6th November, 2012.
Book listing:
Learned Pigs And Fireproof Women by Ricky Jay
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Underground Kingdom by Edward Packard
Links:
Episode transcript:
Jingle
You're listening... you're listening to London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the... what is this... the 10th edition of Page One? This is the 4th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm here with Nathan Penlington. He's sitting opposite me. This... This show is going to go up on or around the 5th of November, I've worked out. Remember, remember! So the first track I'm going to play is, appropriately enough, called Fireworks and I've written down on my... on my crib sheet it's by Louis Armstrong. I didn't check that. I don't know if it's by him or not. He does play on the record but there obviously... there are other people playing as well. I haven't... I haven't researched this very well.
Music
[Fireworks by Louis Armstrong]
Charles Adrian
So that was... that was Fireworks from... from one of my Louis Armstrong CDs. Hello. I'm... I'm sitting opposite Nathan Penlington, as I said.
Nathan Penlington
Hello.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Hello Nathan.
Nathan Penlington
Thank you for having me.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Thank you very much for coming. So, Nathan, how... This is my... This is, like, the question I ask every time. How would you describe yourself. Nathan Penlington comma...
Nathan Penlington
I'm a writer, performer and obsessive, essentially. I think a combination of those three things.
Charles Adrian
Great. Is one of them more important than the other two or are you an even... If... You know, in the... in the Venn diagram of your life...
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] I would like to think...
Charles Adrian
... are they all equal circles?
Nathan Penlington
I would like to think I was an even awkward person.
Charles Adrian
You're just right in the middle. [laughs]
Nathan Penlington
Yeah, right in the middle of those awkward things.
Charles Adrian
Brilliant. And... So this week, if we imagine ourselves in the week that this is actually on... first on... It's a weird thing to imagine because obviously this goes out...
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] Time travel. This is essentially time travel.
Charles Adrian
It is! It is a kind of time... But it's a... yeah. It's a strange sort of time travel because it doesn't send us to any specific point in the future. It sends us... It gives us a starting point.
Nathan Penlington
That's what I imagine that the first time travellers would... They wouldn't know exactly where they were going to end up. You'd, sort of, end up...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. That's a good...
Nathan Penlington
... in a vague point in the future. So I like to think we're pioneers.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I hadn't thought of that. In a way we are. But... So, in the week that this first, perhaps... which... well, it might be a historic week by the time that the listener who is listening to this is listening to this, you're... you're at the Royal Festival Hall.
Nathan Penlington
At the South Bank, yeah. I've got a show called...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] At the South Bank Centre.
Nathan Penlington
... Choose Your Own Documentary, which is a real-life interactive stand-up documentary.
Charles Adrian
I'm very excited about this. When you first gave me your card, you gave me - I have it here with me just in case I needed to call you and say “Where the hell are you? I need to start recording the radio show” which didn't happen because you came in exactly on time - on the back, it's got... it's got one of the ten best worst deaths. And you picked one to give to me, quite by chance, which I remember from my childhood.
Nathan Penlington
Yeah, I mean, Choose Your Own Adventure books were an incredibly big phenomena, which wi... without ruining the surprise about the book I've brought you...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Of course. [laughs]
Nathan Penlington
We will talk about that later on in the show.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Wonderful! We're going to start with the book that you like. So this is just a... this is just a book to show us something of you... something of the kind of person that you might be.
Nathan Penlington
Well, I love second hand book shops. I love second hand books.
Charles Adrian
You're my kind of person.
Nathan Penlington
I was on the bus going through Dalston - it was only about a month ago - and the Oxfam Books... a book shop, the Oxfam on Kingston Road... I was on the bus, on the top deck, and the... and it went past. I thought I'd glimpsed in the window a book by an author that I really, really like...
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Nathan Penlington
... and I was, like: “Oh God, do I get off and..?” just on the off-chance I was right...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nathan Penlington
... that I'd glimpsed this book.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Okay.
Nathan Penlington
And I did. So I went back to the shop and in the window was... was a copy of this book, which I brought with me today.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] This one that you've brought, which is a huge book?
Nathan Penlington
It's a huge book. It's by Ricky Jay, who's an [indistinct]...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Can I admit that I'm quite pleased you're not giving that to me because...
Nathan Penlington
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... I cycled here today and I don't [indistinct].
Nathan Penlington
Oh no, I'm not letting this out of my hands.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's like a telephone directory! Okay.
Nathan Penlington
Yeah, it's by Ricky Jay, who's a...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nathan Penlington
... who's an American magician, also historian of oddity, essentially.
Charles Adrian
Aha.
Nathan Penlington
Human and performance oddity.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Nathan Penlington
And this book is called Learned Pigs And Fireproof Women...
Charles Adrian
Wow.
Nathan Penlington
... and it's a brilliant cornucopia of... of pigs who can add up and women who are fireproof...
Charles Adrian
All those things that are most useful.
Nathan Penlington
There's the world's first singing mouse, for example, that's also pictured in here.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] [speaking over] How amazing. There seems to be a picture of a man without any legs.
Nathan Penlington
Yeah. There's some really famous people in here like the world's shortest man, the world's fastest man... Obviously that's... those kind of things have changed over time. But there's horses who can mind read...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And women with dogs' faces. Wow!
Nathan Penlington
It's an incredible book. And, unfortunately, page number one, I can't read out because it's just got a picture of a pig...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] No... Well... Yes. [laughs]
Nathan Penlington
... with the number one?
Charles Adrian
I appreciate being able to see it. Yeah, page...
Nathan Penlington
Well, I'll read...
Charles Adrian
You can... You can pick a page... You can pick a page.
Nathan Penlington
Well, I'll read the first page of the introduction.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes, that sounds like a good choice.
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] So, it's in roman numerals so it kind of... it kind of counts.
A nervous participant was ordered to aim and shoot a pistol at an East Indian man he had never even met. Reluctantly, he fired a shot. The Indian smiled, quickly moved his hand forward and caught the bullet. Triumphantly displaying the projectile which had previously been examined and marked for identification, Kia Khan Khruse bowed to hearty applause in the Green Man Assembly Rooms, Blackheath, England, on March 18th, 1822.
But this was not the conclusion of his performance. He followed his demonstration of invulnerability with a grotesque Indian dance and a second, more incomprehensible, two-step, this time barefoot on a sheet of red-hot iron. Next, he rolled a smoldering bar over his body then, extending his tongue as if for some primitive communion, he had it anointed with boiling hot wax from which he allowed spectators to take a seal with their own signet rings. Finally, a 700 pound stone was lifted and placed on his breast and smashed to pieces with a giant sledgehammer. Earlier in his act, before appearing as a human target, Khruse had swallowed some pins and then extracted them from his eyes; he lifted a water bottle using only a common straw; he balanced seven glasses of wine on his forehead and an additional full glass on his chin and in this posture passed through... his body through a small hoop without upsetting his cargo; he ran a circular race on the top of twenty ordinary drinking glasses, swallowed a case knife which, when magically transformed into a bell, was heard to ring in various parts of his body, walked on his hands with one of his feet in his mouth, changed a small ball into a large toad and mysteriously fried eggs on a sheet of writing paper.
But the most remarkable thing about Kia Khan Khruse is that he was not remarkable enough to warrant a chapter in this book.
Charles Adrian
That's ex... He's... [laughing] He's a serious overachiever, that man.
Nathan Penlington
But the thing is - and the point of that is - that this guy, as amazing as his act was, he was, kind of, replicating feats that other people had pioneered and he's talking about pioneers.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh I see.
Nathan Penlington
And people are, kind of, you know... Performance is amazing and...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Absolutely.
Nathan Penlington
... the human mind is [indistinct]. And also what the human body can do and people who might have...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Nathan Penlington
... what are now called disabilities, perhaps, kind of, exploited them...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Nathan Penlington
... at other times too and...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Nathan Penlington
... amazing, remarkable human strength and ingenuity, I guess, is the key, for me.
Charles Adrian
Fantastic. I think that's... that sounds wonderful. That's given us quite an interesting glimpse into your soul, I think, Nathan. I'm going to... I'm going to play one of the tracks that you suggested. I hadn't heard of any... any of his music. This is by someone called Garnet Mimms.
Nathan Penlington
Yeah, amazing soul singer.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's a wonderful name.
Nathan Penlington
I'm a big fan of...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] He's got such a great voice.
Nathan Penlington
... yeah... Northern soul and this guy's voice is incredible and this is... this is a great song.
Charles Adrian
This is As Long As I Have You.
Music
[As Long As I Have You by Garnet Mimms]
Charles Adrian
So. Now, the second part, Nathan, is the book that I brought for you.
Nathan Penlington
Ooo.
Charles Adrian
And, of course... you know, I do... I do always sit at home and think “I wonder if this is a good choice” before I... before I set out on my bicycle. I will tell you why I've chosen this. This is... this is a collection of Raymond Chandler books.
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] Brilliant.
Charles Adrian
And if I'm being completely honest - because I am, I think, deep down, a... I want to seem to be an honest person - I will say that one of the reasons that I'm happy to give this away is that I accidentally bought a collection of Raymond Chandler novels and so this book here, which contains The Big Sleep and other novels is... is extraneous. But the reason why I want to give it to you particularly is because it struck me that this is a little bit like a Choose Your Own Adventure in the sense that these novels... that... the way their plots work is... is very much... it's as if some[indistinct]... But we don't get to choose. Raymond... Raymond Chandler chooses for us. I think... I don't... Do you... Have you read any of these?
Nathan Penlington
I haven't actually. I'm a big fan of detectives and detective fiction but I haven't really read much hard-boiled stuff [indistinct]...
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Nathan Penlington
... if you can say it like that.
Charles Adrian
He's definitely... He's... I mean, his... his detective is... is one of the orig... He's the, kind of, the archetypal private eye. You know, if you... And even... even someone like Columbo on TV comes, probably, from Philip Marlowe. He's this, kind of, slouchy guy with a... with a bottle of whiskey in his desk drawer. And... you know, he's sitting there with nothing to do and a blonde comes into his office and that sets off this whole train of... They're... They're really fun. And they're... you know, they're full of gangsters and ridiculous rich people drowning in lakes up in the mountains and imitating others.
Nathan Penlington
I guess the mystery to be solved is how you accidentally bought a copy.
Charles Adrian
Of the other novels? Yeah. I'm going to leave that a mystery.
Nathan Penlington
What were you intending to buy [indistinct]?
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Nathan Penlington
If anybody can solve that mystery...
Charles Adrian
Yes. Yeah. It was not... It was not so much that I was [laughing] intending to buy something else as that I had just... I'd forgotten that I had already read these...
Nathan Penlington
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... and had a copy at home.
Nathan Penlington
Ah. It's not so interesting.
Charles Adrian
No. I should have left that veiled, shouldn't I? I'm going to read the first page. It's also quite long. And it should be read in a... in a really, kind of... It should be read by... oh... Humphrey Bogart. That... He's the guy who played Philip Marlowe and he's the... he's... You know, a lot of people's image of this guy is his... But I can't... I can't do that so I'm just going to read it in my own voi... I've... I'm having a break from accents. So I'm just going to read this in my own voice. I'm going to switch you off.
The Big Sleep
1
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troupe of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn't have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn't seem to be really trying.
There were French doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a wide sweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim dark young chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packard convertible. Beyond the garage were some decorative trees trimmed as carefully as poodle dogs. Beyond them a large greenhouse with a domed roof. Then more trees and beyond everything the solid, uneven, comfortable line of the foothills.
On the east side of the hall a free staircase, tile-paved, rose to a gallery with a wrought-iron railing and another piece of stained-glass romance. Large hard chairs with rounded red plush seats were backed into the vacant spaces of the wall round about. They didn't look as if anybody had ever sat in them. In the middle of the west wall there was a big empty fireplace with a brass screen in four hinged panels, and over the fireplace a marble mantel with cupids at the corners. Above the mantel there was a large oil portrait, and above the portrait two bullet-torn or moth-eaten cavalry pennants crossed in a glass...
That's it. That's the first page.
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] Amazing. Thank you very much for...
Charles Adrian
So, it's a hell of a lot of description. I was surprised because it's... his novels are full of unlikely action. But I think there's this kind of interplay of... of something... something slow happening and then something very unexpected and fast happens.
Nathan Penlington
Brilliant.
Charles Adrian
I hope you'll enjoy it.
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] I look forward to it.
Charles Adrian
I'm going to play your second track, which is called Abominable Snowman In The Market.
Nathan Penlington
Yeah. I love this song.
Charles Adrian
This is by Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers?
Nathan Penlington
Yeah. They're fantastic.
Charles Adrian
When was it recorded? Do you know?
Nathan Penlington
I'm not entirely sure. The first Modern Lovers album was produced by John Cale, the Welshman that was in the Velvet Underground so it's...
Charles Adrian
Ah. Okay.
Nathan Penlington
... it's got... it's got a good history and this song, I guess, fits in with my first choice of book in that, you know, if you found a learned pig in the market, you might have a sim... some people might have a similar response.
Charles Adrian
Absolutely. This is... This is really not available online. This is The Abominable Snowman In The Market by Jonathan Richman.
Music
[The Abominable Snowman In The Market by Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers]
Charles Adrian
Okay. Let's do a jingle very quickly.
Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
As some listeners may have noticed, I like to do a jingle beginning and then a jingle at about this point of the show just in case anyone's forgotten that we're on London Fields Radio. We're in the Wilton Way Cafe. I don't know if I said that at the beginning. I feel like I ought to say that because it's a wonderful place and people should come.
Nathan Penlington
Yes, it's good. It's a really nice cafe. It's good area [indistinct].
Charles Adrian
It's nice, isn't it? Let's... I want to know what you're... what you're going to give to me.
Nathan Penlington
Well, we did mention earlier in the show about Choose Your Own Adventure books...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes.
Nathan Penlington
... and, for those of you who don't remember, Choose Your Adventure books were the big phenomena of the 1980s where you would... you'd read a page of story and then there'd be two or three options about where you choose to go next. As part of the show and the documentary I've been making, I went and tracked down the originator of Choose Your Own Adventure, Edward Packard, who is now 81 and a, kind of, s...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I can't believe there is a man who is responsible for this phenomenon.
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] He was brilliant. He was brilliant. He's a, kind of, semi-recluse but we managed to persuade him to talk to us and we hung out with him and he's brilliant. But I... So I brought for you...
Charles Adrian
[gasps]
Nathan Penlington
... Choose Your Own Adventure number 18 Underground Kingdom.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh. Amazing! Do you... I was... I was secretly hoping... This is not the reason why I asked you to come on and be a guest but I was secretly hoping you'd bring a Choose Your Own Aventure book.
Nathan Pennington
This is... This is a classic of its genre...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's amazing!
Nathan Penlington
Edward Packard is the best writer of Choose Your Own Adventure. There were... there were some other authors.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] This is actually an Edward Packard book?
Nathan Penlington
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Ah. Brilliant.
Nathan Penlington
So I'm just going read to you page one.
Charles Adrian
Fantastic.
Nathan Penlington
[indistinct].
You are standing on the Toan Glacier in northern Greenland, staring down into the black void of the crevasse. You shiver as you wonder whether you were lucky or unlucky to be invited on this expedition.
Standing next to you are Gunnar Larsen of the National Research Institute and Dr. James Sneed, a geologist. A small black box containing a signal transmitter is suspended over the crevasse by two long poles. The transmitter is wired to a console a few yards away in the ice. Dr. Sneed tuns a dial as he monitors the display screen.
“Well?” Larsen's voice is impatient.
Sneed looks up, a broad smile on his face. “This is it, friends - the Bottomless Crevasse.”
“Any radar return,” Larson asks.
Sneed shakes his head. “None.”
For a minute no one speaks. Like you, the others must feel excited to have reached their goal but also a little sad. It was just a year ago that your old friend, Dr. Nera Vivaldi, radioed from this spot that she had reached the Bottomless Crevasse. A few moments later, her radio signal went dead. She was never seen again.
Go on to page 2.
Charles Adrian
I'm feeling the same excitement, hearing you read that, as I felt when I was... I don't know, eight or nine and I read... I read the... the two or three that we had at home.
Nathan Penlington
Well, it's amazing. It's just the tone. It's the second person. It really puts you in...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah.
Nathan Penlington
... in that position and... and it sets up the story really well. I mean, he says you don't know whether you're lucky or unlucky to have been invited...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes.
Nathan Penlington
... on this adventure. Already you don't know.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes, that's right. You've got this... You... Yeah.
Nathan Penlington
[speaking over] The mystery is there.
Charles Adrian
And this... And this... The entrance to a place which could contain anything...
Nathan Penlington
...is amazing. All good storytelling should do that too.
Charles Adrian
Definitely. Definitely. Thank you so much. That is... that is just... Oh, I'm so excited! It's got a picture of... On the front, it's got a picture... There are these, kind of... [uncertain] apes or... They look like, kind of, a cross between an ape and a person.
Nathan Penlington
Yeah. It looks like, kind of, ape-type creatures in a cave and then a golden bird with a...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Nathan Penlington
... a boy riding on the back of it. So you're in for some adventure, that's for sure.
Charles Adrian
Very much so. I can choose from twenty-one possible endings. Brilliant. Nathan, we have to finish now.
Nathan Penlington
Ah. Well, thank you very much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Thank you so much for coming. It's been... It's been really... It's been a pleasure for me as well. And it's been... it's been a pleasure to hear your choices and it's been a pleasure to hear your music. And it's been a pleasure to talk to you. I'm going to finish with a track of my own now. Back to... Back to Fireworks Day. This is another track called Fireworks. I just... Basically, I just... I play around in my iTunes library [laughing] to see what is... what is... what is thematic. This is... This is by Drake and Alicia Keys. I didn't know I had it but I quite like it. It's nice. It's Fireworks.
Music
[Fireworks by Drake and Alicia Keys]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]