Happy Birthday, Luther, and thanks for that free copy of The Benevolence Archives!

Even though I *said* I wasn’t publishing anything this weekend that wasn’t already written, I just have to wish Luther of Infinite Free Time a happy birthday. He’s celebrating it by giving the rest of us a gift! How cool is that? From today through Monday, his sci-fi collection, The Benevolence Archives, vol. 1, is free at Amazon.

Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. You can get a free reader for your PC or mobile. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up an account, and you don’t even have to give them a credit card number if you’re just doing a free download. If you like science fiction, you really don’t want to pass this up. And if you’re as big a book nerd as I am, you must have some version of my own personal rule: When somebody offers me a free book, I accept it and say “thank you.”

Silent Saturday 6

© 2014

Weekend Music: Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock

This needs no introduction except to say:

• Lots of people have tried to re-create this performance. There is no substitute for the original. Sorry, Joe Satriani, Slash, Steve Vai, Edge, and and all you other electric guitar virtuoso-type people. As much as I love your own music and appreciate your renditions of ” The Star-Spangled Banner,” you haven’t touched this. Even Stevie Ray Vaughan never touched it.
• If you pay attention, you can hear him playing “Taps”  at about 2:45. You’d better believe the crowd noticed that in 1969.