22 May 2013

Tan Ming's Disappointing Post-Apocalyptic World



The new Canadian Notes & Queries has landed, bringing with it another Dusty Bookcase column. The eighth to date, it's a review of Tan Ming, a fantastic, post-apocalyptic, pseudonymously self-published novel by electric organ pioneer Morse Robb.

So dull.

Oh, but doesn't Tan Ming look good? How about that cover!

It sounded good, too. In Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction 1895-1984, Washington State University professor Paul Brians begins his description thusly: "An amusing fantasy in which a department store window dresser falls in love with a robot mannequin and manages to conjure into its body the soul of a princess named Tan Ming from a postholocaust future." The ever-reliable Wikipedia once claimed that the novel inspired Mannequin, the romantic comedy starring Kim Cattrell and Andrew McCarthy.

 

You'll remember Mannequin for "Nothing's Going to Stop Us Now", which topped the American charts back in 1987. The new CNQ comes with music – much better music – in the form of a flexidisc by Al Tuck.


When was the last time you bought a magazine with a flexidisc?

The last I picked up was the April 1981 issue of Smash Hits. It came with a live recording of "Pretending to See the Future" by Orchestral Maneoeuvres in the Dark and "Swing Shift" by our own Nash the Slash.


Not to slight Hazel O'Connor  – or Messrs Lydon, Levine, Wobble and Weller  – but don't you prefer this?


The cover, as always, is by Seth. Inside you'll find Mike Barnes, Michel Basilières, Devon Code, Michael Deforge, Emily Donaldson, Jennifer A. Franssen, Lorna Jackson, Mark Anthony Jarman, Evan Jones, Adrian Michael Kelly, Mark Kingwell, Lewis MacLeod, Marion MacLeod, David Mason, Ross McKie, Robert Melançon, Shame Nielson, Patricia Robertson, Ray Robertson, Sean Rogers, Mark Sampson, Michael Schmidt, Norm Sibum, Dan Wells, Paul Wells, Bruce Whiteman and Robert Wiersema.

At $20 per annum, subscriptions are a great deal. You can get one here.

5 comments:

  1. Smash Hits and Flexi-Discs...I'm getting all teary-eyed.

    Knuckles G

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    Replies
    1. And yet Mannequin doesn't raise so much as a faint sigh.

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    2. Never saw it. So, unfortunately, no strings are being pulled.

      Now, had you referenced "The Breakfast Club"...

      Knuckles G

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  2. I think my last flexidisk (or songsheet, as they call it) might have been in Hot Wire, Vol. 3, No. 3. .

    For some reason I can't seem to post a link.

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    Replies
    1. Karin, you're reminding me that Al Tuck's is the second flexidisc to enter our home this year - following the one included in my daughter's copy of Rookie Year One.

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