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Slinging tuneage like some fried or otherwise soused short-order cook

19 April 2009

J.G.Ballard R.I.P.

Author J.G. Ballard died Sunday, April 19, 2009 6:53:31 PM, aged 78.


from The Crystal World,1966:

"He awoke into brilliant sunshine in a street of temples, where rainbows spangled the gilded air with the blaze of colours. Shielding his eyes, he lay back & looked up at the roof-tops, their gold tiles inlaid with row upon row of coloured gems, like pavilions in the temple quarter of Bangkok.

A hand pulled at his shoulder. Trying to sit up, Sanders found that the semi-circle of clear pavement was vanished, & his body lay sprawled in a bed of sprouting needles. The growth had been most rapid in the entrance to the depository, & his right arm was encased in a mass of crystalline spurs, three or four inches long, that reached almost to his shoulders. Inside this frozen gauntlet, almost too heavy to lift, his fingers were outlined in a maze of rainbows.


Sanders dragged himself to his knees, tearing away some of the crystals. He found the bearded man in the white suit crouching behind him, his shot-gun in his hands.

'Ventress!' With a cry, Sanders raised his jewelled arm. In the sunlight the faint nodes of the gem-stones he had stuffed into his cuff shone in the tissues of his arm like inlaid stars. 'Ventress, for God's sake!'

His shout distracted Ventress from his scrutiny of the light-filled street. His small face with its bright eyes was transfigured by the strange colours that mottled his skin & drew out the pale blues & violets of his beard. His suit radiated a thousand bands of colour.


He knelt down beside Sanders, trying to replace the strip of crystals torn from his arm."


One of my all-time favorite authors. I will grieve his passing.

3 comments:

  1. Sad to hear. Nice Panther edition scan.

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  2. I have no idea how it has taken nearly a month for the news to reach me that JG Ballard has died. Maybe I saw it mentioned before and I just edited it out, so thanks for marking his passing. I can finally say that all the authors I love are now dead, hardly a comforting thought. It is hard for me to imagine just how my consciousness would have turned out had I not discovered him in the second hand bookshops that used to exist all over the UK in the early eighties - along with WSBurroughs, PK Dick, Robert Anton Wilson and Terence Mckenna - he provided so much more than words, he gave us a way to see the world that was unique and for that I will always be grateful

    By the way - you have such a wonderful music blog, you can tell you were a big Ballard head just from the choice of music!

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  3. Love yr blog, music and books - great stuff. My all time fave Ballard there with fave cover art too - Max Ernst! Walked around the corner of a college museum in St. Louis last year and ran smack dab into the original. Just about crapped my pants. My wife had to drag me away or I'd still be there.

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