A music professor introduced me to Gentle Giant in college (1977). He taught a course called "Art Rock" which covered the evolution of rock from early blues/jazz covers to what today we call Prog. We would hang out and have tea after class and one fateful day he pulled out 'Free Hand'. I love creative percussion and the title song blew me away. The band never got the deserved recognition but I am so glad they became part of my life
I saw the North American Civilian tour. 5 or 6 new songs with Playing the Fool to complete the setlist. It was freaking amazing! A top 5 concert for me, and I've seen some great ones.
Nice work, guys. Can't think of anyone who loves and protects the honour of GG more than I do and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the reaction of the younger members or the panel who have accepted to carry the torch into the future. Gentle Giant is and always has been a genuine British Treasure. It's an honourable thing to keep on spreading the word about these true giants. Among my younger friends, Playing the Fool has managed to make 3 lifetime converts. That lead to Free Hand, Three Friends, and eventually Octopus and the others. I like to leave In a Glass House for last, just when they don't think it can get any better! Cheers! ❤
Gentle Giant's usage of counterpoint really impressed me. Counterpoint was often utilized in their composition as a band. Sometimes a few different instruments would play counterpoint..for example..bass guitar, xylophone, and piano would play a short counterpoint section in a particular song. This particular style was occasionally played by different Prog bands in the 70s but clearly Gentle Giant were masterful in that area. They were very creative with that vocally too. It sometimes seemed like they tried an idea that had been used in Classical music and formed their own sound with it. From that point on everytime I'd hear a different Prog band doing it...people present would remark that they sounded like Gentle Giant. No doubt it became cemented into Gentle Giant's signature sound.
Agreed on the importance of counterpoint, I love the right left action while listening on studio monitors for Octopus in particular. Well recorded album.
Listening and reading to everyone's comments there's an obvious admiration for Gentle Giant as a whole , and as you said Scot, individually the band members are at the top of the tree when it comes to talent and skill. A great great TOTALLY UNIQUE band of merry gentlemen. Awesome era of Prog good buddy! Loved the input from your guests and everyone in the chat too ! 😍
Octopus was my first GG purchase when it first came out, I heard a few cuts on WOWI-FM (in Norfolk ,Va. of all places) and my life changed forever! The song structures just hit me like a ton of bricks (In a good way!)The year before and after were just a hurricane of amazing music, the best albums by Genesis ,Crimson, Mahavishnu, ELP, Yes, it was like a dream. I'll remember '72-'75 as the greatest music era ever.
GG fans can say what they want about Giant For A Day. That song got a then 13-year-old into them back when it came out. After seeing it on one of TVs music programs of the day. Might have been In Concert or Don Kirchners Rock Concert ?Anyways, it made me a fan and wanting to delve deeper into their back catalogue.Definitley underrated!
Fantastic discussion on this amazing band. I do have to comment on the pronunciation of Panurge. The final vowel is pronounced as an I sound .. If you listen to the chorus in the song "My name is Panurge and I have come from Hell"...
A one off band! Wish I’d seen them live. They started locally to me in Portsmouth.. I think Ray was born there but the family moved down from Glasgow. The original drummer Martin Smith was from Southampton (where I live) and had a drum store.. died too soon sadly. The song “Kites” by Simon Dupree is still on every decent pub jukebox here!
@@TheProgCorner this has inspired me to watch some “Three Friends” band on UA-cam… great version of Pantagruel’s Nativity with Gary Green & Malcolm Mortimore.. I think their vocalist was from 10cc… Apparently the Shulman Brothers wanted nothing to do with it .. a shame.
The Prog Corner guy I think of is being like a hippie teenager from the 1970s who just never changed anything that was good about himself as he grew older. He grew older as all of us do, but he never grew up -- in a good way.
First off! Naming themselves GENTLE GIANT was absolutely genius because it FIT their two headed extremely opposite personalities perfectly. I saw them twice > 74, in a small popular live Jazz venue right near the floor stage / 76, Headlining with RENAISSANCE at a half empty performance arts Deco Theater. The FUNKY CLASSICAL unpredictable diversity of instruments & styles was overwhelming! So, the DEBUT is cool, though rough around the edge, there are still some great moments of unique magic. ACQUIRING is uniquely BRILLIANTLY beautiful, a 10. Pantagruel is early Prog crescendo heaven! THREE FRIENDS is just an incredible 10, From P&tG here on we have 10 straight through to INTERVIEW until THE MISSING PIECE which is leaner and cleaner but brighter and lighter, is a 9. Never liked or owned G FOR A DAY but surprisingly GG transformed their sound excellently into Rock & Pop with CIVILIAN, a 8. I was nervously yanked into each song. And there is no doubt that INSIDE OUT should, could & would have been their great big HIT if promoted on commercial radio! I have no doubt with that success they could have merged smoothly into the 80's sound for a few more years.
Another great stream Scot. We apparently love Gentle Giant! As always the peanut gallery was alive and kicking. Looking forward to those upcoming streams. 🤘😳🤘
Both In a Glass House and The Power and the Glory were never released on Vertigo in the UK. In the UK both were released on WWA, but they did come out on Vertigo in other places in Europe. The WWA's are the UK originals, though.
Hey Scot! Great numbers today. Record number in chat for #19. You hit 80 at the 60 minute mark. You basically averaged 65 throughout the livestream! L33 had 52 for his Steely Dan Sunday with The Royal Scam. You both have similar subs, see who hits 10K first. Lee also did a reaction to Endless Dream on Saturday. It was a great chat with nothing but positive comments. ProgRadio was awesome on Friday!! Loved that you broke your own rule with AWAKEN. Lol!! Ok, have to get to my chat. Aly hit 325K yesterday. Talk later my brother.👍☮️👑😎
in my humble opinion, the only band i ever saw that compared to gg live was fz. saw them at philly venues for their 1976-1980 tours. great time for live music. i bought missing piece, giant for day, and civilian on vinyl when they were released. i loved civilian on first listen. and still do.
Yes, GG were the most underrated band ever but I'm delighted to see them featuring often on all the best UA-cam channels getting their due respect finally. Octopus is in my top 20 ever but Power and the Glory is not far behind and ALL the albums have some great spots but...I think VdGG are even better!
My favorite band, first listened to them in 73 In a glass house found in Penquin feather headshop we used to have in the DC area. My favorite is Three friends❤ Scott, yeah that Collage album is addictive!
I'm not musically articulate enough to analyse it - but I pretty much love everything GG did. To me it is playful prog by brilliant musicians who never took themselves too seriously.
So it's a good idea to have someone on a panel about Van Der Graaf Generator who despises them, but no room for a detractor of Gentle Giant in a panel discussion about them? Hmm...
@@TheProgCorner They said: "A backhanded tribute to our roadies; our musical parody could only be drawn to a wily old dog. Surely two more unmatched sounds as the Regal (a medieval reed organ) and string section could not be found, but they seem to successfully convey the whine of both dog and roadie."
Personally I think New Radiant Storm King is the most underrated band ever. Enigmatic really. Gentle Giant has been exposed on many prog rock channels or reviews. If not their music, then their peach album cover.
Only properly got into GG in the last 18 months. Brilliant band. I think it's because they are multi instrumentalists they aren't mentioned in specific best categories. Giant for a Day is not a bad album, just not a great Gentle Giant album.
Maybe you'll grow out of it. I did. They were in fact pretentious. Obnoxious deliberately. Being 'weird' to be 'weird'. Ray Schulman was not a very good violinist. Derek Schulman couldn't sing for sh*t. There's a reason Phil left. 20th century 'classical'/orchestral innovations from the likes of Schoenberg, was all just cultural sabotage. Garbage. Trash to be forgotten. Dissonance didn't need to be experimented with.. it was already known about.. we even had a word for it.
I admit this is strange, but all the other hard core Giant fans I know just LOVE "Power and the Glory". I, on the other hand, can take it or leave it. It's not a bad album, but it's in the bottom 3 or 4 Giant albums as far as I'm concerned. "Proclamation" could have been a great song except that the band, in the middle of the song, decided to stop making music and create a cacophony instead. "Hail to the power and to glory's way! Haaaaaail . . . " This bit of screaming almost prompts me to throw things at my own stereo. I mean, what's the point? "So Sincere" sucks. "Cogs in Cogs" is a pretty mediocre song. "Playing the Game" is good, but "Aspirations" makes this album. Still, it's no rival to "Octopus" or "Free Hand".
To me their debut is one of the best albums ever. Then probably Octopus. Then, to me, goes Three Friends. Then The Power, I think. So, yes, the listeners are different.
Your GG tastes are fairly typical , but your premise is correct. While there is only one reason to dislike Gentle Giant, there are dozens of reasons to lo love them. I guess tastes vary widely , even within the same genre. Thank You, Robert BTW, I love their debut album, too!
A few good points there mate, but I part ways with you on Cogs In Cogs! One of my fave GG tunes (if you can call it a tune!) Maybe it's just the way I take in music, but it fires on all cylinders for me, gets my blood pumping and makes me crank it up! On the other hand, the overall tone of Power and the Glory has a sort of morose, downbeat flavor, I guess it reflects the theme of the album- how government is cynical and self serving in a continuing cycle.
Yes, "Cogs in Cogs" is a good tune. It's apparent what comments P&G is making here about gov't, but for me, it just doesn't work. Like I said, I am not proud to be in the minority. Thanks!@@user-tn5xq6fe7x
They couldn't afford to keep up with the developments in synths. Example: Sight And Sound In Concert from Feb 78. GG: Minimoog and a cheap Yamaha preset monosynth. Be Bop Deluxe: Minimoog, Polymoog, Yamaha CS80.
This band makes my ears bleed. I loathe everything about them. And I'm a huge Prog fan. Just hate the disjointed sounds coming from the vocals and music. Count me as a NO, overrated if anything
@@pauloles2475 Fact check- they are more popular now more than ever and having a big resurgence compared to back when they were together as a band,On the contrary to the people you know most fans of prog music love them and rank them as either in the best band category or very close to it.
Everyone with good music taste raves about how great GG is but no matter how hard I try, I can never get into it! To me, that's overrated!@@TheProgCorner
@@Jay_Tee2023 Have you tried Free Hand? If you like prog in any shape or form, it's difficult to understand why you wouldn't like Gentle Giant. I think they're more accessible than King Crimson for example, not as dissonant or avant--garde.
@@Jay_Tee2023 I have exactly the same problem with Yes (except for Fragile), most of ELP (except for Tarkus) and especially with 90% of KC. You must take into account that GG were of course partly pop (of the time). They made quite songs rather than compositions. Also, as a big fan of Robert Sheckley, I like his novels Options, Minotaur's Maze, Mindswap, Journey of Joenes - while for the most modern day readers Sheckley (at best!) is the ancient writer of some funny short stories from the 1950-60s.
My favourite PROG band. Love everything they did.
Me too.
A music professor introduced me to Gentle Giant in college (1977). He taught a course called "Art Rock" which covered the evolution of rock from early blues/jazz covers to what today we call Prog. We would hang out and have tea after class and one fateful day he pulled out 'Free Hand'. I love creative percussion and the title song blew me away. The band never got the deserved recognition but I am so glad they became part of my life
Ha! I played On Reflection for my music theory professor back in 1980. He was impressed!!!
I saw the North American Civilian tour. 5 or 6 new songs with Playing the Fool to complete the setlist. It was freaking amazing! A top 5 concert for me, and I've seen some great ones.
Wow!!!
Nice work, guys. Can't think of anyone who loves and protects the honour of GG more than I do and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the reaction of the younger members or the panel who have accepted to carry the torch into the future. Gentle Giant is and always has been a genuine British Treasure. It's an honourable thing to keep on spreading the word about these true giants. Among my younger friends, Playing the Fool has managed to make 3 lifetime converts. That lead to Free Hand, Three Friends, and eventually Octopus and the others. I like to leave In a Glass House for last, just when they don't think it can get any better!
Cheers! ❤
Indeed!!! What an amazing band!!!
My favorite prog band. One of the greatest unheard bands ever. Thankfully they are finally getting their due.
They were magnificent.
Gentle Giant's usage of counterpoint really impressed me. Counterpoint was often utilized in their composition as a band. Sometimes a few different instruments would play counterpoint..for example..bass guitar, xylophone, and piano would play a short counterpoint section in a particular song.
This particular style was occasionally played by different Prog bands in the 70s but clearly Gentle Giant were masterful in that area.
They were very creative with that vocally too. It sometimes seemed like they tried an idea that had been used in Classical music and formed their own sound with it. From that point on everytime I'd hear a different Prog band doing it...people present would remark that they sounded like Gentle Giant. No doubt it became cemented into Gentle Giant's signature sound.
Counterpoint!!! I love it. The music theory guy inside of me is happy.
Agreed on the importance of counterpoint, I love the right left action while listening on studio monitors for Octopus in particular. Well recorded album.
@fedgegern5670 That is incredible stuff!! I agree...Octopus is really interesting.
Gentle Giant became stuck in that. Once they made Octopus, they just remade that album 3 or 4 times. Over rated, immature music.
Listening and reading to everyone's comments there's an obvious admiration for Gentle Giant as a whole , and as you said Scot, individually the band members are at the top of the tree when it comes to talent and skill. A great great TOTALLY UNIQUE band of merry gentlemen. Awesome era of Prog good buddy! Loved the input from your guests and everyone in the chat too ! 😍
It was a great show!!!!
Saw G.G. twice in '75 Newcastle City Hall. Outrageous and brilliant band
Amazing
Octopus was my first GG purchase when it first came out, I heard a few cuts on WOWI-FM (in Norfolk ,Va. of all places) and my life changed forever! The song structures just hit me like a ton of bricks (In a good way!)The year before and after were just a hurricane of amazing music, the best albums by Genesis ,Crimson, Mahavishnu, ELP, Yes, it was like a dream. I'll remember '72-'75 as the greatest music era ever.
GG fans can say what they want about Giant For A Day. That song got a then 13-year-old into them back when it came out. After seeing it on one of TVs music programs of the day. Might have been In Concert or Don Kirchners Rock Concert ?Anyways, it made me a fan and wanting to delve deeper into their back catalogue.Definitley underrated!
There you go!!!! 👍👍❤️
Btw, have you ever noticed its similarity to Queen's "Slightly Mad"?..
Long live the Shulmans & co !..RIP Ray...one of the top 10 prog bands ever..
No doubt!!!
The debut album is my favorite album. It's underrated among GG fans. So, an underrated album from an underrated band. Let that sink in for a minute.
Great show guys! Watching this caused me to drive to Cody’s store and grab a couple GG albums that I was missing in my collection. God save the King!!
Cody is the man!!!!
Fantastic discussion on this amazing band. I do have to comment on the pronunciation of Panurge. The final vowel is pronounced as an I sound .. If you listen to the chorus in the song "My name is Panurge and I have come from Hell"...
A one off band! Wish I’d seen them live. They started locally to me in Portsmouth.. I think Ray was born there but the family moved down from Glasgow. The original drummer Martin Smith was from Southampton (where I live) and had a drum store.. died too soon sadly. The song “Kites” by Simon Dupree is still on every decent pub jukebox here!
I never got to see them either…
@@TheProgCorner this has inspired me to watch some “Three Friends” band on UA-cam… great version of Pantagruel’s Nativity with Gary Green & Malcolm Mortimore.. I think their vocalist was from 10cc… Apparently the Shulman Brothers wanted nothing to do with it .. a shame.
The Prog Corner guy I think of is being like a hippie teenager from the 1970s who just never changed anything that was good about himself as he grew older. He grew older as all of us do, but he never grew up -- in a good way.
I think you nailed it. Maybe never having children of my own had something to do with it…👍👍👍
First off! Naming themselves GENTLE GIANT was absolutely genius because it FIT their two headed extremely opposite personalities perfectly. I saw them twice > 74, in a small popular live Jazz venue right near the floor stage / 76, Headlining with RENAISSANCE at a half empty performance arts Deco Theater. The FUNKY CLASSICAL unpredictable diversity of instruments & styles was overwhelming! So, the DEBUT is cool, though rough around the edge, there are still some great moments of unique magic. ACQUIRING is uniquely BRILLIANTLY beautiful, a 10. Pantagruel is early Prog crescendo heaven! THREE FRIENDS is just an incredible 10, From P&tG here on we have 10 straight through to INTERVIEW until THE MISSING PIECE which is leaner and cleaner but brighter and lighter, is a 9. Never liked or owned G FOR A DAY but surprisingly GG transformed their sound excellently into Rock & Pop with CIVILIAN, a 8. I was nervously yanked into each song. And there is no doubt that INSIDE OUT should, could & would have been their great big HIT if promoted on commercial radio! I have no doubt with that success they could have merged smoothly into the 80's sound for a few more years.
What a band!!!
Another great stream Scot.
We apparently love Gentle Giant!
As always the peanut gallery was alive and kicking.
Looking forward to those upcoming streams.
🤘😳🤘
A good one!!!
Both In a Glass House and The Power and the Glory were never released on Vertigo in the UK. In the UK both were released on WWA, but they did come out on Vertigo in other places in Europe. The WWA's are the UK originals, though.
That’s right!!! 👍
Hey Scot! Great numbers today. Record number in chat for #19. You hit 80 at the 60 minute mark. You basically averaged 65 throughout the livestream! L33 had 52 for his Steely Dan Sunday with The Royal Scam. You both have similar subs, see who hits 10K first. Lee also did a reaction to Endless Dream on Saturday. It was a great chat with nothing but positive comments. ProgRadio was awesome on Friday!! Loved that you broke your own rule with AWAKEN. Lol!! Ok, have to get to my chat. Aly hit 325K yesterday. Talk later my brother.👍☮️👑😎
Oh, L33 will definitely beat me to 10k. He’s on fire!!!
@@TheProgCorner Not so sure about that.😎
in my humble opinion, the only band i ever saw that compared to gg live was fz. saw them at philly venues for their 1976-1980 tours. great time for live music. i bought missing piece, giant for day, and civilian on vinyl when they were released. i loved civilian on first listen. and still do.
Yes, GG were the most underrated band ever but I'm delighted to see them featuring often on all the best UA-cam channels getting their due respect finally. Octopus is in my top 20 ever but Power and the Glory is not far behind and ALL the albums have some great spots but...I think VdGG are even better!
Yes!!!!
My favorite band, first listened to them in 73 In a glass house found in Penquin feather headshop we used to have in the DC area. My favorite is Three friends❤
Scott, yeah that Collage album is addictive!
I knew it was good but wow…
Fantastic show, long live GG. Cheers and prog on.
Thank you!!!!!!
Yes
Lots for me to listen to. Thank you all!
Thank you!!!
Perfect. No Kyle. No crappy audio signal!
👍👍👍
@@TheProgCorner haha
You'll never hear any officially released demos from Gentle Giant. It would completely destroy their image.
I'm not musically articulate enough to analyse it - but I pretty much love everything GG did. To me it is playful prog by brilliant musicians who never took themselves too seriously.
Love GG!!!!
So it's a good idea to have someone on a panel about Van Der Graaf Generator who despises them, but no room for a detractor of Gentle Giant in a panel discussion about them? Hmm...
It just happened that way.
They were an unbelievable band. Probably the best prog band.
Amazing band!!!!!
@@TheProgCorner Incredible, I still can't understand why they were not bigger sales-wise.
@@CloseToTheEdge-Prog Because they were crap. It's that simple.
@@coltonbeatty6117 and please do tell me why you think that?
Gentle Giant is a great band Scot.They have influence to other new bands today.
Definitely!!!
@@TheProgCorner 👍
Influence clear in both XTC and Cardiacs,
@@brianparker663 👍
The only reason your wife didn't complain that it was too long is because she knew it was Gentle Giant!
Yeah. Probably true!!!
Frank Zappa ones said one of the few bands worth listening to at the moment is Gentle Giant 🤏😊
He said it!!!
@@TheProgCorner something like that
He have mentioned GG in several interviews.
There is a cut from one of those interviews on youtube.🤏😊
@@TheProgCorner I Just fond it.
Frank Zappa praises Gentle Giant 🤏😊
Actually, A Dog's Life is an ode to their roadie's!
I did not know that!!!!
@@TheProgCorner They said: "A backhanded tribute to our roadies; our musical parody could only be drawn to a wily old dog. Surely two more unmatched sounds as the Regal (a medieval reed organ) and string section could not be found, but they seem to successfully convey the whine of both dog and roadie."
Personally I think New Radiant Storm King is the most underrated band ever. Enigmatic really. Gentle Giant has been exposed on many prog rock channels or reviews. If not their music, then their peach album cover.
Only properly got into GG in the last 18 months. Brilliant band. I think it's because they are multi instrumentalists they aren't mentioned in specific best categories.
Giant for a Day is not a bad album, just not a great Gentle Giant album.
Such a great band!!!!
Maybe you'll grow out of it. I did. They were in fact pretentious. Obnoxious deliberately. Being 'weird' to be 'weird'. Ray Schulman was not a very good violinist. Derek Schulman couldn't sing for sh*t. There's a reason Phil left. 20th century 'classical'/orchestral innovations from the likes of Schoenberg, was all just cultural sabotage. Garbage. Trash to be forgotten. Dissonance didn't need to be experimented with.. it was already known about.. we even had a word for it.
🤩
👍😎
👍👍🤪
I admit this is strange, but all the other hard core Giant fans I know just LOVE "Power and the Glory". I, on the other hand, can take it or leave it. It's not a bad album, but it's in the bottom 3 or 4 Giant albums as far as I'm concerned.
"Proclamation" could have been a great song except that the band, in the middle of the song, decided to stop making music and create a cacophony instead.
"Hail to the power and to glory's way! Haaaaaail . . . "
This bit of screaming almost prompts me to throw things at my own stereo. I mean, what's the point?
"So Sincere" sucks. "Cogs in Cogs" is a pretty mediocre song. "Playing the Game" is good, but "Aspirations" makes this album. Still, it's no rival to "Octopus" or "Free Hand".
To me their debut is one of the best albums ever. Then probably Octopus. Then, to me, goes Three Friends. Then The Power, I think. So, yes, the listeners are different.
Your GG tastes are fairly typical , but your premise is correct. While there is only one reason to dislike Gentle Giant, there are dozens of reasons to lo love them. I guess tastes vary widely , even within the same genre. Thank You, Robert
BTW, I love their debut album, too!
A few good points there mate, but I part ways with you on Cogs In Cogs! One of my fave GG tunes (if you can call it a tune!) Maybe it's just the way I take in music, but it fires on all cylinders for me, gets my blood pumping and makes me crank it up! On the other hand, the overall tone of Power and the Glory has a sort of morose, downbeat flavor, I guess it reflects the theme of the album- how government is cynical and self serving in a continuing cycle.
Yes, "Cogs in Cogs" is a good tune. It's apparent what comments P&G is making here about gov't, but for me, it just doesn't work. Like I said, I am not proud to be in the minority. Thanks!@@user-tn5xq6fe7x
They couldn't afford to keep up with the developments in synths.
Example: Sight And Sound In Concert from Feb 78.
GG: Minimoog and a cheap Yamaha preset monosynth.
Be Bop Deluxe: Minimoog, Polymoog, Yamaha CS80.
It could put a keyboard player in the poor house!!!
Since the years when they were releasing new music, their reputation has grown. Too much. They are now over rated if anything. Very over rated band
Wow. I don’t know about that…
@@TheProgCorner It might be good for views if you get someone like me to debate the merits of different 'Prog' bands like Gentle Giant, for example.
This band makes my ears bleed. I loathe everything about them. And I'm a huge Prog fan. Just hate the disjointed sounds coming from the vocals and music. Count me as a NO, overrated if anything
You are not alone. Many struggle with this band!!!
So wrong and totally misguided i feel sorry for you they are/were the greatest most epic legendary genius band ever.
Your opinion. Not mine and alot of other prog fans I know?
Music is funny like that!!!
@@pauloles2475 Fact check- they are more popular now more than ever and having a big resurgence compared to back when they were together as a band,On the contrary to the people you know most fans of prog music love them and rank them as either in the best band category or very close to it.
No but they may be the most OVER rated band ever!
Stop!!!! You know better!!!! 👍
Everyone with good music taste raves about how great GG is but no matter how hard I try, I can never get into it! To me, that's overrated!@@TheProgCorner
@@Jay_Tee2023 Have you tried Free Hand? If you like prog in any shape or form, it's difficult to understand why you wouldn't like Gentle Giant. I think they're more accessible than King Crimson for example, not as dissonant or avant--garde.
Hey, at least you tried!!!
@@Jay_Tee2023 I have exactly the same problem with Yes (except for Fragile), most of ELP (except for Tarkus) and especially with 90% of KC. You must take into account that GG were of course partly pop (of the time). They made quite songs rather than compositions. Also, as a big fan of Robert Sheckley, I like his novels Options, Minotaur's Maze, Mindswap, Journey of Joenes - while for the most modern day readers Sheckley (at best!) is the ancient writer of some funny short stories from the 1950-60s.