Book Review: The Eye of the World

Book Review: 'The Eye of the World' by Robert Jordan

3 / 5  Stars

‘The Eye of the World’ first was published in hardcover by Tor Books in January, 1990. A mass market paperback edition was released in November of that year. In 2022, as a tie-in to the amazon.com series based on the ‘Wheel of Time’ franchise, Tor released 'Eye' as one of the volumes in a boxed set of trade paperbacks compiling the first five novels in the series.

Robert Jordan was the pen name of author James Oliver Rigby, who published the first 12 volumes in the Wheel of Time series prior to his death in 2007. Thereafter, based on notes from Rigby, Brian Sanderson completed an additional three novels. So the entirety of the Wheel of Time series consists of 15 novels. Most of the cover illustrations were done by Darrell K. Sweet. 

Some of these 'Wheel' novels are gargantuan, approaching 1,000 pages in length as mass-market paperbacks. The trade paperback edition of ‘The Shadow Rising’ is 955 pages long…………

Back in the early 1990s I was aware of the Wheel of Time novels, but had no real desire to read them, mainly because the decade saw the advent of the practice by publishers of releasing lengthy novels that were components of multivolume series. I already had committed to David Wingrove’s ‘Chung Kuo’ franchise, and there was only so much content I could process.

Having procured the five-volume box set at a discount from Ollie’s Bargain Outlet this past Fall, I decided I was in the proper frame of mind to approach the Wheel of Time. 

I learned that the initial volume in the series is ‘New Spring’, which was released in 2004 as a prequel. It was a digestible 299 pages. After that, I ventured into ‘Eye of the World’, which is a hefty 779 pages. So between them I processed some 1,078 pages of Wheel of Time content.......

It’s no spoiler to say that the Wheel of Time franchise is modeled on Tolkien; indeed, anyone familiar with the 'Lord of the Rings' will recognize characters and themes that have been imported into ‘The Eye of the World’. 

The world in which the Wheel novels are set has no formal name, but fanboys apparently have designated it ‘Randland’. It is the standard-issue medieval landscape where magic is practiced, and the safety and peace of the world gradually are being threatened by a Dark Lord.

‘New Spring’ introduces us to two of the lead characters in the initial novels in the series, a female incarnation of Gandalf, known as Moraine; and her taciturn bodyguard Lan, who is an Aragorn clone. 

‘New Spring’ was a chore to get through, and I almost gave up on it numerous times. The novel, which is set in a kind of Hogwarts academy for sorceresses, is entirely devoted to exposition. Exposition about interior décor, furniture, fabrics and textiles, wardrobes, mess hall comestibles, student hijinks, student rivalries, student jealousies, enigmatic Prophecies of Doom, sorcery proficiency exams that can be fatal, and the political machinations of various nations embedded in Randland.

After finishing ‘New Spring’ I took a deep breath and started in on ‘The Eye of the World’. The first 106 pages are more exposition, serving to introduce the reader to the large cast of characters, including Rand Al’ Thor, the Wheel’s counterpart of Frodo Baggins. Rand lives with friends and family in the placid hamlet (and Shire clone) of Two Rivers, where people live as they have done for centuries, vaguely aware of momentous events that took place far, far away and long, long ago.

As it turns out one of the boys residing in Two Rivers is a Chosen One who, alone among the innocents of the world, can defeat the Dark Lord (aka Shai’ Tan, aka Ba’alzamon, aka Lord Foul, aka Sauron………….you get it). 

So, the minions of the Dark One arrive, with murder and mayhem on their mind, on page 106. Thereafter novel embarks on its main narrative, which is a Quest to the eponymous Eye and, hopefully, a resolution of the conflict with the Dark One.

Inevitably with a novel of its length, ‘Eye’ can drag at times, but it must be said that the author does inject moments of suspense and action at regular intervals so the narrative is not as dilatory as it perhaps could be.

I approached the end of the book aware that it was simply an opening installment in a franchise, but the denouement of ‘Eye’ does deliver some degree of resolution and is not simply a ‘continued in the next volume’ contrivance.

I am comfortable with giving the tandem of ‘New Spring’ and ‘The Eye of the World’ a Three Star Rating. Those readers who have the patience and temperament for contemplative, lengthy narratives will find the Wheel of Time to be rewarding. Those preferring shorter works, with more compact world-building and characterization, might want to think for a bit before sitting down with 'The Eye of the World'. 

Robocop 2 comic adaptation

Robocop 2
Official Comic Book Adaptation

Marvel, August 1990

The official comic book adaptation of the movie Robocop 2 was published by Marvel in August, 1990 and is 61 pages in length. The book was adapted by the script by Frank Miller and Walon Green by Alan Grant, and Mark Bagley provides the pencils.

The comic book adaptation adheres pretty closely to the script, so there are no surprises in terms of including scenes that were present in initial drafts, but cut from the shooting script.

Presumably the licensing deal for the comic book did not include the rights to the likenesses of the major actors, so Bagley's art renders the characters in a generic fashion. 

Bagley's art is serviceable, but not very impressive. I will say that reading the book, when I hadn't seen the film in some 10 or more years, had me laughing and brought back an appreciation of the sardonic humor that Frank Miller suffused in almost every scene in the movie. In my opinion, Robocop 2 was a sequel that surpassed the original.

Who will want a copy of the comic adaptation of Robocop 2 ? Well, it's clearly a least-possible-effort by the Marvel editorial staff: they were looking to get something out to capitalize on a movie release, not to make a comic that would be cherished by fans for decades to come. If you are a hardcore Robocop fan and you just have to have Everything Robocop, then you'll probably want to grab this adaptation. 

If you're someone who wants a good treatment of the second installment in the franchise, I would direct you to the 2007 Avatar graphic novel that compiles the issues of 'Frank Miller's Robocop'. Unfortunately, that graphic novel is long out of print, and used copies have exorbitant asking prices (i.e., $99 on up). So the 1990s Marvel version at least has affordability in its favor..........

Book Review: The Dragons of Heorot

Book Review: 'The Dragons of Heorot' by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes

1 / 5 Stars

‘The Dragons of Heorot’ was published by Orbit Books (U.K.) in 1996. The cover illustration is by Fred Gambino. 

Given the title ‘Beowulf’s Children’ in the U.S., this is the second volume in the so-called ‘Heorot’ series, the first being ‘The Legacy of Heorot’ (1987), and the third being ‘Starborn and Godsons’ (2020).

[ My review of ‘The Legacy of Heorot’ is posted here. ]

‘Dragons’ is set twenty years after the events of ‘Legacy’. Having secured their island redoubt, Camelot, from the hostile life forms indigenous to the planet Avalon, our multi-ethnic, sexually liberated team of colonists have set up a safe and prosperous society that fulfills the dreams and wishes of everyone who agreed to place themselves in cryosleep for a one-way trip to colonize the stars.

However, as the novel opens, discontent is rising among the 280 sons and daughters – known portentously as the ‘Star Born’ – of the colonists. Smart, physically impressive, and ambitious, the Star Born chafe at their elders’ prohibitions against setting up colonies on the mainland of Avalon. Whiling away their time with orgies, glorified boy scout camping trips, surfing, and pranking the old folks, is only increasing the impatience of the Star Born and their de facto leader, a golden boy named Aaron Tragon.

Cadmann Weyland, the hero of ‘Legacy’ and the embodiment of the legendary Beowulf, now is older and a little wiser, but still the authority figure in the colony. Weyland is willing to allow the Star Born greater autonomy in setting up operations on the mainland, but the collective trauma the colonists suffered at the hands of the monsters causes them to overmanage these efforts, angering Tragon and his followers. 

But even as tensions between the Star Born and their parents threaten to give rise to overt violence, the wildlife of Avalon presents a new danger to the Earthmen who thought they had tamed an alien world………. 

‘The Dragons of Heorot’ is a mediocre book. I had to struggle to get through it.

I gave ‘The Legacy of Heorot’ four stars, because it was a well-plotted, action-adventure sci-fi novel with touches of horror. I was rooting for the monsters all throughout the novel (which probably was not the authors’ intentions) and while the colonists won in the end, there was a sufficiently high body count that I was satisfied that the monsters got their due.

‘Dragons’ suffers in comparison. Its length of 594 pages works against it, because the authors fail to provide a single, focused narrative as they did in ‘Legacy’. ‘Dragons’ is not an action novel but a world-building novel, meandering and scattered. 

For example, there is exposition on the cultivation, processing, and consumption of coffee on Avalon. There are lengthy passages describing efforts to convert the indigenous herbivores into the equivalent of pack animals. There are passages that provide ‘first person’ insights into the thinking and behavior of one of the monsters. And the presence of much bed-swapping triggers plentiful soap opera-style melodramas. 

The monsters don’t make an appearance until nearly 200 pages into the novel, and then, only in a brief and cryptic fashion. Afterwards, they primarily stay offstage, emerging every now and then to lend some brief momentum to an otherwise dull narrative.

The book’s denouement, which commences on page 532, is lumbering, obtuse, and seemed to take forever to unfold, probably the result of being having to accommodate ingredients from three authors. It is gratifying in that the monsters finally get do so some crunching and munching on the colonists, but it seemed a thin reward for having to plow through the preceding chapters.

For a book published in 1995, the prose in ‘Dragons’ reads as if it was composed in the 1970s. Dialogue is wooden, and segments detailing the emotional and psychological conflicts of the lead characters have a trite quality that indicates that Niven and Pournelle were not all that motivated to try and emulate the advances in the qualities of sci-fi prose brought about by the New Wave era and the cyberpunks.

The verdict ? I finished ‘The Dragons of Heorot’ with no interest in pursuing the final volume in the series. 

‘Dragons’ mainly will appeal to those who are keenly interested in the fate of the protagonists in ‘The Legacy of Heorot’. All others can pass on this novel.

'Disciples' by Gardner Dozois

'Disciples' by Gardner Dozois
from Penthouse, December 1981

Gardner Dozois (1947 - 2018) mainly published shorter fiction over the course of his career. In my experience his pieces written during the New Wave era were among the better such entries seeing print in digests and anthologies. Some of his stories were understated and humanistic, such as 'Strangers', while others, such as 'Flash Point', presented a much more acidic analysis of man and his actions.

I get the impression that 'Disciples' first was submitted to Omni before subsequently being forwarded to Penthouse. It got a nice treatment in the December 1981 issue of Penthouse, underscoring the role the 'slick' magazines played in sustaining science fiction in the print media during the 70s and 80s.

'Disciples' is brief, only a little over three printed pages in length, but it's well-plotted and well-written. The story is set in wintertime New York City in the early 1980s, with the city in all its shabby, scabby glory. The protagonist is a professional panhandler, and quintessential New York character, named Nicky the Horse. Nicky has little regard for the other denizens of the gray and gritty streets that are his enterprise:

........Occasionally a group of med students would go by or a girl with a dog or a couple of Society Hill faggots in bell-bottom trousers and expensive turtlenecks, and Nicky would call out, "Jesus loves you, man," usually to no more response than a nervous sideways glance. One faggot smirked knowingly at him, and a collegiate-jock type got a laugh out of his buddies by shouting back, "You bet your ass he does, honey." A small, intense-looking woman with short-cropped hair gave him the finger. Another diesel dyke, Nicky though resignedly. "Jesus loves you, man," he called after her, but she didn't look back.

As the panhandling day wears on, Nicky has an unexpected encounter with hot dog vendor Saul Edelman. Saul, it seems, knows something the goyim do not. And Nicky confronts a dilemma: what if you learned the Rapture was coming..........but it's a Jewish rapture ?!

In my opinion, 'Disciples' is one of the best sci-fi short stories of the 1980s. It's available in the 1994 Ace Books anthology of Dozois's short stories, 'Geodesic Dreams'.

National Lampoon January 1981

National Lampoon

January 1981

It's January, 1981, and the number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 is 'Starting Over', by the late John Lennon.

Looking at the latest issue of National Lampoon, the lurid cover promises more than the contents deliver. This usually was the case with these 'sexy' Lampoon covers. Deceptive enticements !

Here, at the dawn of the 1980s, the magazine noticeably is thinner as compared to the glory days of the 1970s. Far fewer record album ads, cigarette ads, liquor ads, clothing ads, etc. 

P. J. O'Rourke now is the editor, and Matty Simmons, the publisher, is off on the West Coast, working on film treatments of Lampoon properties, such as the forthcoming National Lampoon's Class Reunion (which turned out to be a dud).

The Letters page makes fun of people of Puerto Rican ethnicity:

We are alerted to the latest album from Stevie Wonder.

There is a cartoon. And an advertisement for a film, The Idolmaker, which I never saw and know nothing about.

An ad parody takes presents urban wastelands as new venues for federal parks.

John Hughes, on the cusp of fame for the movies National Lampoon's Vacation and Sixteen Candles, contributes a satire of 'The New Millionaires'.

There is quite a lot of comics content.

The Iranian Hostage crisis was ongoing early in January, and only when Ronald Reagan took office as President on January 20 did Iran release the hostages. The Lampoon imagines the crisis as a sales and marketing opportunity:

There's an ad for comedy and rock record albums from Passport records. The ad uses the 'New Wave' color scheme: pink and black, that was popular in the early 1980s. 

All of these albums are available at YouTube, and they are not that special. The best-known track on the album That's Not Funny, That's Sick is the 'Bass Player Interviewed by Mr. Rogers' bit, featuring Bill Murray.

Let's close with a 'Foto Funnies' about kids and drugs.

And that's how it was, 43 years ago..........

Book Review: Nothing's Bad Luck

Book Review: 'Nothing's Bad Luck: The Lives of Warren Zevon' by C. M. Kushins

4 / 5 Stars

'Nothing's Bad Luck: The Lives of Warren Zevon' (406 pp.) was published by Da Capo in May, 2019. It was the first published book for author Kushins, who in 2021 published a biography of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, titled 'Beast: John Bonham and the Rise of Led Zeppelin'.

If you're a Baby Boomer, then the music of Warren Zevon likely is part and parcel of your memories of the 70s and 80s. I was in my senior year of high school when 'Werewolves of London' began heavy rotation on FM radio, and I later procured Excitable Boy, which remains one of the best rock albums of the 1970s. Zevon's followup albums, Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School and The Envoy, never achieved the chart and commercial success of Excitable but contained their share of worthwhile tracks.

Zevon positioned himself as a more eccentric member of the 'California' genre of rock that included the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, J. D. Souther, and Jackson Browne, among others. Zevon was as likely to sing about mercenaries, psycho killers, and werewolves, as he was to sing about failed love affairs and heartbreak. 

'Nothing's Bad Luck' covers Zevon's life and times from his birth on January 24, 1947 in Illinois; his childhood and adolescence in Fresno; and his initial forays into the music business. I was not aware that in 1966, Zevon joined White Whale records, the label best-known for having The Turtles on its roster. Performing with his girlfriend at the time, Violet Santangelo, as the folk rock duo 'lyme and cybelle', Zevon had a minor hit with the single 'Follow Me'.

Zevon spent the next ten years as yet another of the struggling musicians wandering L.A., making connections and bouncing from one never-realized project to the next, in the hopes of getting a recording contract with a major label. Zevon's 1976 album, titled Warren Zevon, attracted critical praise but didn't have much of a commercial impact. But Excitable Boy, recorded late in 1977 with the participation of the stars of the California rock world, was a major success following its release in January 1978, and made Zevon a rock star.

'Nothing's Bad Luck' is at its best in chronicling the interval from 1978 to 1989, when Zevon saw his fortunes rise, then gradually fall. Like many singer-songwriters who prospered in the 70s, Zevon experienced difficulty in transitioning to the era of the music video and New Wave, and after the release of Sentimental Hygiene in 1987 and Transverse City in 1989, he was dropped by Virgin records.

The period from 1990 to Zevon's death at age 56 was one of reduced expectations, for Zevon's album releases and his tours. In his later years he branched into composing soundtracks and making cameo appearances in television shows like Suddenly Susan, and remained a favorite guest on Letterman and other late-night programs. 

The book's closing chapter describes the events following Zevon's diagnosis of lung cancer in August 2002, and center on his efforts to record a final album (The Wind, 2003). This chapter is poignant and imparts a redemptive quality to Zevon's last year of life. 

review of 'Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School', Rolling Stone magazine, March 6, 1980, illustration by Robert Clarke

'Nothing's Bad Luck' is not quite a hagiography, nor is it an unbiased and objective biography. Kushins makes clear that throughout his life Zevon could be unpleasant to those around him, particularly in his years of rock-n-roll excess when he overindulged in drugs and alcohol. Zevon could be cruel and vicious towards his wives and girlfriends: 

Only a few nights after the studio altercation [between Zevon and] Wachtel, Browne received a frantic phone call from Crystal [Zevon's wife]. Warren was on a drunken rampage. In fear - and at her wit's end - she pleaded for Browne's help. He immediately sped to their home in Los Feliz and spent hours calming Warren down. He later recalled, "I went over to his house because a bannister had been ripped off the wall. It was late when I got there, one or two in the morning, and he had no memory of doing this."  (p. 94)

Reading between the lines of Kushins' prose, it's clear that when Zevon dedicated himself to sobriety in 1986, he tempered his objectionable behaviors to some extent, but did not eliminate them. I finished the book with the conclusion that Zevon was one of those creative individuals whose actions regularly veered between the engaging and the intolerable, demanding considerable forbearance from those close to him in both personal and professional capacities.

Summing up, 'Nothing's Bad Luck' will be a recommended read for those interested not just in Zevon's music, but in the California sound of the 70s and 80s. The book also will direct the reader to some of Zevon's lesser known recordings, which certainly offer their rewards to those with a fondness for the singer-songwriter musicianship of past decades.  

The Wild Wild West theme song by Neil Norman

Wild Wild West Theme
Neil Norman and his Cosmic Orchestra

from the CD Greatest Science Fiction Hits Vol. IV

Crescendo Records, 1998

It's not easy to take a theme song as iconic as that for the television show The Wild Wild West and rework it into something that stays true to the original, but at the same time, brings a new sensibility to the composition. 

But Neil Norman (and his Cosmic Orchestra) succeeds with this interpretation, from the 1998 album Greatest Science Fiction Hits IV. 

(The Crescendo Records website is here). 

Book Review: The Dream Lords: A Plague of Nightmares

Book Review: 'The Dream Lords: A Plague of Nightmares' by Adrian Cole

2 / 5 Stars

'The Dream Lords: A Plague of Nightmares' (176 pp.) first was published by Zebra Books in 1975. 

The followup volumes in the so-called 'Dream Lords' trilogy are 'Lord of Nightmares' (1975) and 'Bane of Nightmares' (1976). Zebra subsequently reissued the series, with different covers, in 1976 and 1977. Trying to figure out the order of the books, based on the cover numbering of the Zebra titles, is confusing: both 'Lord of Nightmares' (1977) and 'Bane of Nightmares' (1976) are numbered 'Volume 3'.......?! While 'Lord of Nightmares', from 1975, has no cover numbering at all................. 

My copy of 'A Plague of Nightmares' was issued in July 1977 (176 pp.) and features striking cover art by Tom Barber. 

While the cover art suggests that 'A Plague of Nightmares' is a fantasy / sword & sorcery adventure, in fact, the novel is science fiction with a heavy overlay of fantasy elements. So readers will encounter hovercraft, spaceships, ray guns, and robots, along with telepathy and occult phenomena.

The plot is set in the far future. Earth, convulsed by wars, has degenerated into a wasteland ruled by warlords and inhabited by 'barbarians'. For the colony worlds, settled centuries ago by Terran fleets, Earth - known simply as 'Ur' - has become nothing but a legend. Foremost among the colonies is the planet Zurjah, whose potentates, a cabal of powerful telepaths known as the Dream Lords, pacify the population with a constant flow of psychic sendings. 

Protagonist Galad Sarian is the son of one of the Dream Lords, and destined to take his father's place. However, Sarian can't help feeling that something is wrong with the seemingly placid world ruled by the Dream Lords, and as the novel opens, he makes the acquaintance of an elderly seer named Chalremor, who informs Sarian of the underlying reality that is hidden from the people by the psychic machinations of the Dream Lords.

When Sarian confronts his father and the other Dream Lords about their machinations, he is reprimanded and exiled to the plant Gargan, one of the polities in the Zurjah Federation. There, Sarian learns of a conspiracy to overthrow the Dream Lords and place all of the Federation under the rule of a homicidal despot. Hunted by his enemies, and forced to rely on a group of rebels armed only with swords and spears, Sarian will need to unleash his own psychic abilities if he is to have any hope of saving the Federation from slaughter and slavery......

UK writer Adrian Christopher Synnot Cole (b. 1949) began publishing short stories in the small press in the early 1970s, and has since become an accomplished author of novels in the fantasy, science fiction, and sword & sorcery genres (my review of his 1993 novel 'Blood Red Angel' is here.) 

Given that 'A Plague of Nightmares' is one of his first published novels it would not be appropriate to give it an intense critical scrutiny. It is safe to say that 'Nightmares' reads like the sort of novel that would have been serialized in Amazing or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the 1960s. The prose style is reminiscent of pulp-era horror and fantasy fiction, and is intended to lend a Lovecraftian flavor to the proceedings.

As far as plotting goes, the first 86 pages are devoted - in a leisurely fashion - to characterization and background, and the very first action scene doesn't arrive until page 87. Thereafter events unfold at a frantic, at times contrived, pace, which is maintained until the very last paragraph (which necessarily introduces a cliffhanger ending, since the story is continued in volume two).

I suspect that eventually I'll tackle the other two volumes in the series. For volume one, I am comfortable with giving 'A Plague of Nightmares' a 2 Star Score.

For another take on this novel, readers are directed to a 2016 review over at the MPorcius Fiction Log.

David Soul R.I.P.

David Soul, R.I.P.
1943 - 2024

David Soul passed away on January 4 at age 80.

He was a seventies pop culture icon, surfacing first in the TV show Starsky and Hutch. I was a fan of the show, and its at-times wild storylines (which arguably reached an apogee with the 'light bulb killer' episode from November, 1976).

In 1976, Soul released an LP, titled David Soul, that had the hit song 'Don't Give Up On Us Baby'. I remember how that song dominated the FM top 40 playlist in the Spring of 1977, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in April of that year.

A followup single, and another good track, was 'Silver Lady'.

For fans of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, Soul perhaps is best remembered for his lead role in the 1979 television production of Stephen King's Salem's Lot.

Salem's Lot was not the best film or television incarnation of that novel, but given the constraints of network TV at that time, it was a significant acknowledgement that there was an audience for horror content among American viewers. This was some 31 years before the debut of The Walking Dead, mind you. Soul's performance was a decent one despite the at-times awkward plotting, and to this day I retain a fondness for the quirkiness of 'Salem's Lot.

1979 also saw David Soul immortalized in the pages of the Warren magazine Eerie. He was the lead character in 'Gotterdammerung', a Budd Lewis sci-fi story published, in issue 100, about a post-apocalyptic, near-future Earth. 

Soul's character, 'Juda', specialized in taking out cannibal zombies with a scoped laser gun - ! How fuckin' cool is that ?!

Rest in Peace, David Soul !

Penthouse January 1973

Penthouse magazine

January 1973

Time once again to dip into our archive of back issues of Penthouse magazine. Why not showcase the January, 1973 issue, and see what Bob Guccione has for us ?

Back then (January 13, 1973), the number one single in the land was 'You're So Vain', by Carly Simon.

An eclectic array of albums are featured in the magazine's 'Disc Discussion' column.

Back in '73, an electronic calculator was a precision instrument with an accordingly high price tag. And instead of Alexa and amazon Echo, you had 'video voice'.

The Pet of the Month is an amazing young woman named Maggi Burton, from Australia. Guccione photographed her portfolio, and he knew what he was doing.

There is a feature article, by Donn Pearce, on country music performer Merle Haggard, who at the time was riding high on the success of the 1969 song 'Okie from Muskogee'. Pearce's article is an unflattering, even depressing, look at how it was for a singer and his entourage to travel through the north-central USA in the early 1970s, staying in budget motels, and doing shows at middle-of-nowhere venues like Goose Lake, Michigan, and Ponderosa Park, Ohio. 

As Pearce tells it, Haggard and his band (the 'Strangers') spend their road trip stalled in various motels due to poor weather. They pass the time having perfunctory assignations with various groupies, ladies who sport bell-bottomed jeans and dyed-blonde hair.

The January issue takes a skeptical view of two personalities who were immensely popular in the early 1970s: David Reuben, the psychiatrist whose book 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)' was a monster best-seller, and psychologist Arthur Janov, whose 'primal scream' therapy was very trendy among celebrities.

We've got a cartoon.........

.........and a feature on the 1983 R-rated softcore film 'Cheerleaders'.

We'll close with a second portfolio, this one involving an athletic young woman named Susan Backlinie, of Washington, DC. Susan gets gets in very close proximity to a real, live, lion. Ahh, workplace safety standards were a little looser, back in 1983.........