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From: Bufo Calvin <BufoCalvin@aol.com> Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 09:40:52 EDT Fwd Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 16:13:42 -0400 Subject: BAR 199807 Bufo Calvin P O Box 5231, Walnut Creek, CA 94596 Internet: BufoCalvin@aol.com Website: http://members.aol.com/bufocalvin ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (permission is granted to reproduce or redistribute this edition of Bufo's WEIRD WORLD provided that attribution is made to http://members.aol.com/bufocalvin. It is good etiquette to check with strangers before you e-mail them something. If you forward this, please make sure it is clear that you are forwarding it). July, 1998 (Vol 1, #7) Books mentioned in BAR can be ordered on most e-mail systems by clicking on the hyperlink title. This will take you to the book at Amazon.com. You can read more about it at that point and decide if you want to order it. If you do, you add it to your "shopping cart". Then, if you want another title mentioned here, please click on it in this post. If you have questions, please e-mail Bufo at bufocalvin@aol.com. Books are also available by phone from Greenleaf Publications at 1-800-905-UFOs (1-800-905-8367). If you call, please be sure to tell them that Bufo sent you. If you have books to recommend, please let me know. If you would like to be named as recommending it, include that information as well and tell me you would like to be cited. In this issue: Featured Title, Recommended by Others, Recent Additions, and Most Intriguing (FLASH: Most Intriguing was killed by the deadline...that's why they call them deadlines :) . I expect for it to return next issue). ---------- FEATURED TITLE: The Field Guide To North American Monsters Subtitle: Everything You Need to Know About Encountering Over 100 Terrifying Creatures in the Wild http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609800175/bufosweirdworld Field Guide to North American Monsters) by W. Haden Blackman Paperback (272 pages) June, 1998 List Price: $15.00, Amazon Price*: $12.00 "As long as you recognize that monsters free us from stale routine and return to us a sense of wonder lost with the end of childhood, your search for monsters has been a success." --W. Haden Blackman, The Field Guide to North American Monsters If that's all you want, you may be satisfied with this book. If you are interested in cryptozoology (as opposed to what the author calls "monsterology"), you may be a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the book. It's just that it owes far more allegiance to Jeff Rovin's remarkable popular culture reference works than it does to Bernard Heuvelmans. There is no attempt to be scientific: it's quite clear that the point of the book is to entertain. The book contains several inaccuracies and omissions, albeit amusingly written. For instance, Roger Patterson is described as leaping from his horse to pursue bigfoot (when he made the most famous film of the creature). The accounts that I have read have always made it clear that the horse was spooked, and his dismount was due to the rearing. Similarly, the escape of Albert Ostman, who claimed to have been kidnapped by a bigfoot in 1924, is described this way: "...Ostman fired his rifle into the air, startling the family, then bolted from the valley." No mention of the "old man" sasquatch allegedly downing a box of snuff first which incapacitated him. Both of these "plot elements", which to me seem to make the stories more interesting, are reported in the one "classic" bigfoot book cited in Blackman's bibliography (Peter Byrne's THE SEARCH FOR BIGFOOT). Blackman may have chosen not to include them, or perhaps didn't read the book thoroughly. Not surprisingly, he doesn't list other early major bigfoot authors: Sanderson, Green, Napier, etc. These books, sadly, are not that easy to obtain. Books on these topics are treated as ephemera. I had hoped the OPUS Educational Institute could help address this issue. I have renewed hopes for the new Charles Fort Institute. I have only discussed bigfoot, but one of the strengths of the book is the breadth (if not depth) of coverage. It's nice to see mention of some of the less well-known monsters, like the Chicken Man or the Bear Lake Serpent. Unfortunately, cryptozoology students will probably find it =too= inclusive. The author blithely mixes creatures which witnesses have arguably presented in sincerity with urban legends, denizens of "creative taxidermy" (like the jackalope) and Amerind mythology. In at least one case, the entity seems to be directly from fiction: the Flesh Eater type zombie is straight out of George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Has anyone ever actually reported encountering these? I could go on and on: the apparently arbitrary statistics, the way that almost every entry has to be (in some cases contradicting the main body of the article) described as a threat, etc. If any of the Editors on this list would like a longer review, please let me know. Let me sum it up this way: it's fun and well-written, but using it as a reference would be like basing your World War II report on HOGAN'S HEROES. ---------- RECOMMENDED BY OTHERS Interesting, two different correspondents apparently independently recommended the following book: Everything You Know Is Wrong, Book One: Human Origins http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966013433/bufosweirdworld Everything You Know Is Wrong, Book 1: Human Origins) by Lloyd Pye Paperback, January 1997 List Price: $20.00, Amazon Price*: $20.00 >Here is a great book I would recommend to anyone interested in >an alternative explanation to Darwinism and Creationism, based >on the works of Zecharia Sitchin. --phiroc@ix.netcom.com >If you have not reviewed Lloyd Pye's book Everything You Know >Is Wrong; Book I: Human Origins, you are missing the boat on a >most interesting book. Even if you don't agree with all of the >concepts, it is still a most informative book , full of >exceptional information. If you haven't reveiwed it and choose >to, yes, you may use my name as having referred it to you. --grandmagreen@webtv.net I'm hoping to get a copy of it soon, so that I can let you know what I think. Thank you again for your recommendations! If =you= have a book (or video, etc.) to recommend, I'd appreciate the opportunity to pass it along. Please be sure to let me know if you would like to be cited. RECENT ADDITIONS: Some of the items recently added to Bufo's WEIRD WORLD BOOKS: Alien Agenda http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061096865/bufosweirdworld Alien Agenda (paperback)) by Jim Marrs Paperback, August 1998 List Price: $6.99, Amazon Price*: $5.59 Dreamland Subtitle: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679456511/bufosweirdworld Dreamland (Patton) by Phil Patton Hardback, August, 1998 List Price: $25.00, Amazon Price*: $17.50 Edgar Cayce on the Millenium http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446605875/bufosweirdworld Edgar Cayce on the Millenium) by Jess Stearn Paperback, August 1998 List Price: $6.50, Amazon Price*: $5.20 The Mars Mystery Subtitle: The Secret Connection Linking Earth's Ancient Civilization and the Red Planet http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609600869/bufosweirdworld The Mars Mystery) by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval List Price: $26.00, Amazon Price*: $18.20 Time Travelers From Our Future Subtitle: An Explanation of Alien Abduction] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567183077/bufosweirdworld Time Travelers From Our Future by Bruce Goldberg Paperback, July 1998 List Price: $12.95, Amazon Price*: $10.36 The Uninvited Subtitle: An Expose of the Alien Abduction Phenomenon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879518782/bufosweirdworld The Uninvited (Pope)) by Nick Pope Hardback, June 1998 List Price: $22.95, Amazon Price*: $22.95 ---------------------------------------------------------------- *Prices are set by Amazon.com. Clicking on the link will take you to their current listing and reflect the current price. ____________________________ This is Bufo saying, "If =everything= seemed normal, that =would= be weird!" ____________________________ You can stop receiving this from me just by asking (note: it is commonly redistributed, and I can't control you getting it from those sources) by e-mail at BufoCalvin@aol.com. You can also subscribe or unsubscribe to Bufo's WEIRD WORLD Media Alert the same way. Also, please let me know if there is something in the media you think I should cover. Deadline is Tuesday, the week before. _____________________________ **OPUS is the Organization for Paranormal Understanding and Support. I am an Executive Boardmember, and Director of the OPUS Educational Institute. OPUS encourages its officers and Network Associates to express their own opinions: however, it is important to note that I do not speak for OPUS in this piece or others presented under my own name. For more information on OPUS, see its website at http://members.aol.com/josephxx3
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