- Are you a traveler of both time and space? 

- Well I like to think so. I certainly do the "one day at a time" like everyone else. But everyone looks at me funny when I tell them I'm currently living on October 8, 1966. As for space, I tend to fly 707. Sometimes I have enough money for first class. But generally, I'm in coach with the rest of the cattle. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

CHARLIE BENNETT: You are listening to WREK Atlanta. And this is Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll radio show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the virtual studio with Marlee Givens. Each week on Lost in the Stacks we pick a theme. And then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you're here for, we hope you dig it. 

MARLEE GIVENS: Today's show is called On the Trip. We're teasing an event at the Georgia Tech Library next week, called, What Science Fiction Got Wrong and Right, and How You Make The Future, featuring Gideon Marcus of Galactic Journey. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Gideon is on the show today. And here's what you need to know. Gideon is a time traveler, who lives in the present day and 55 years ago, simultaneously. 

MARLEE GIVENS: Can you explain how that happens, Charlie? 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Well there are these science fiction pulp magazines, a big collection, a really sharp suit, and-- no, I can't explain it. 

MARLEE GIVENS: Fair enough. Gideon and the crew at Galactic Journey used this simultaneous past and present living to reflect on where we've been and where we're going. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: It's a long, strange trip that he's on. And we're going to drop in on it for a little while. 

MARLEE GIVENS: 55 years ago is 1966. So our songs are all from the Billboard charts of that year. We have songs about reflecting on the past and future, reconciliation of two very different views, and of course, the weather. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Let's start with a song released as a single in February, 1966, about looking at how the world works, wondering if time will make us wise. This is, Shapes of Things, by The Yardbirds. Right here on Lost in the Stacks. 

[MUSIC-YARDBIRDS, "SHAPES OF THINGS"] 

You just heard Shapes of Things, by The Yardbirds. The jury is still out on whether time will make us wise. 

MARLEE GIVENS: Our guest today is Gideon Marcus, the traveler, from the science fiction and cultural criticism project, Galactic Journey. Gideon is speaking to us from 1966 and today, simultaneously. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: So tell me about 1966. What's it like? 

GIDEON MARCUS: It's a place. It's groovy in some places and a little frustrating in others. If you open up the headlines, we've been in Vietnam now, depending on how you score it from either 1956, or in a big way, since Gulf of Tonkin a couple of years ago. And we're about to beat 300,000 American soldiers in country, which is actually going to be bigger than the South Vietnamese army. 

And you can tell me if that's a wise course of action. I tend to side with the draft dodgers on this one. But there's some bright stuff. There's the Great Society. And Johnson's been pushing on that. 

He's going to sign an extension of the School Milk act and also, provide free breakfasts to struggling kids. So that's exciting. Unfortunately, the latest civil rights bill failed in Congress. That's the first time that's happened. And it's a bit of a bad sign for progress. 

It would have removed discrimination from renters. But there's some exciting stuff going on on television. A new anthology show just came out, called, Star Trek, debuted on September 8. And we've been watching it every week, because it is incredible seeing real science fiction on television for the first time. 

And we have a Black woman on the bridge as a line officer. That's really exciting. We've definitely come a long way. But I'm not really surprised. It's put out by Desilu. 

And Lucille Ball has always been on the progressive end with shows like I Spy and now, Mission Impossible, which is a great ensemble show. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Is Star Trek living up to all of your dreams of science fiction on television? 

GIDEON MARCUS: Well I mean, let's face it. Those of us who have been reading science fiction for decades-- I really started around 1950 with my subscription to the new magazine, Galaxy-- we've seen all this stuff before. But we haven't seen it broadcast to 40 million Americans every week. That's what's really exciting. 

And there are social ideas being put forth, environmentalism , progress in terms of civil rights, just implicitly, without even saying it, just by having women as bridge officers, having a Black woman as a bridge officer. We saw the pilot for Star Trek at Worldcon, in Cleveland last month. Gene Roddenberry himself showed it. And William Shatner was at the convention, too. 

And they had a woman first officer. And understand, here in 1966, women are not officers in the Navy. They are not in line to be in command of a ship. So this is decades ahead of now. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: What's the general impression of Star Trek outside of the science fiction community? Or your particular science fiction community? 

GIDEON MARCUS: It's getting a little bit of discussion in the fan scenes but not much. I think people are still processing it. In terms of the general American public, it seems to be popular. 

I know Man Trap, the first broadcast episode, placed first in its time slot. I know it's struggled a bit after that. But I think last week's episode was up again. 

So it seems to be pretty popular. I mean, it's bright. It's in color. It's dynamic. It's a good show. 

And compared to a lot of the direct we've been watching these last several years, what Nelson Minnow called the "vast wasteland of television," this is definitely a breath of fresh air. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: "The vast wasteland" sticks around for a long time. Do you think Star Trek has legs? Do you think it can make it? 

GIDEON MARCUS: I, honestly, don't know. I mean, it's not The Tammy Grimes Show, which was just canceled after four episodes for being truly, truly bad. But I don't know. 

The Outer Limits made it just a season and a half. And it had some real luminaries writing for it, including Harlan Ellison, who also gave us the amazing, the wonderful, should-be Oscar nominated, The Oscar. I kid. We all kid. 

But Twilight Zone made it for five seasons. So there's definitely a demand for science fiction stories. And Star Trek brings something new to the table in that, you've got the same crew every week. So you can have these anthology style shows but also, really go in depth with character development and personalities, and so forth. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Is it fitting people's idea of what space travel is going to be like? How are people talking about the attempts to go to the moon? Or the idea of exploring the galaxy in reality? 

GIDEON MARCUS: So this is really interesting, right? So in 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. It was only nine years ago this week. 

And science fiction changed overnight. It stopped being about interplanetary stories and started being focusing more on interstellar stories. And that's because you could now get in your newspaper the science fiction stories that you were reading about just a few weeks ago in the magazines. 

And we've just had the 11th Gemini flight, the ninth crewed mission. I say "crewed" instead of manned. Manned is more common. But after Valentina Tereshkova went up, I felt like I needed a word beside manned since, obviously, space is not just the province of men. 

But I mean, we're seeing people walking in space. The first mission of Apollo may happen as early as December, this year. Gus Grissom has already been picked to be the commander of it. We could be on the moon by the end of next year. 

So science fiction is made reality. So Star Trek has to, of necessity, go further than that, because the frontier keeps getting pushed back. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: So I think this is a perfect segue to talk about, what do you want to get into when you present about, what science fiction got right and got wrong, and how we make the future? 

GIDEON MARCUS: In the mid-century, science was moving forward at a breakneck speed, exponentially progressing. After World War II, we had the nuclear bomb and the rocket and the jet, computers, all of these things that set the stage for the modern era. And because of that, there was sort of this idea on one side, that science solves all problems. 

And there was a growing dissent amongst both science fiction writers and people whose job is to just predict the future and make cautionary tales, wondering if things are going to spiral out of control. Would we reduce the death rate, such that, we would have a population explosion and not be able to support people anymore? Would there be mass unemployment? 

Would robots take over the world? Would we mix inadvertently or in a planned way some sort of plague that would wipe out the population? Would we push the button and kill everyone? Would there be an environmental catastrophe? 

All of these things, we could see the writing on the wall. Anyone with a graph could see that these were existential worries. And so I want to talk about them at Georgia Tech because one can look at them and say, well, these are overblown. These never came to pass. These don't even exist. 

Some politicians might say they never existed and that we don't need to worry about them. And the central crux of my presentation is that, people don't make predictions in a vacuum. And people don't respond to them in a vacuum. 

We hear the concerns. We adjust our lives and our society. And we do our best to make sure they don't come to pass. And that is an active process, not a passive one. 

And so I hope that I will show that, because so many of these predictions did not come to pass, and how we kept them from coming to pass, that will be an inspiration to ensure that we don't have future catastrophes come to pass. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: We'll be back with more from Gideon Marcus of Galactic Journey after a music set. 

MARLEE GIVENS: File this set under LB1578.R42. 

[MUSIC-THE SUPREMES, "YOU CAN'T HURRY LOVE"] 

"...long it takes, you can't hurry love. No, you just have to wait..." 

You just heard, You Can't Hurry Love, by The Supremes. Before that, Wrapping Paper, by Cream. And we started our set with, Leaves That are Green, by Simon and Garfunkel. Songs about reflecting on your past to make better decisions in your future. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: This is Lost in the Stacks. And we've returned to our interview with Gideon Marcus, of the website and time traveling project, Galactic Journey. So tell me about your character, the traveler who lives in both 1966 and somehow lives with us, too. 

GIDEON MARCUS: There is a conceit to Galactic Journey, which is the website I founded back in 1958 or to you, 2013. Whenever you see time travel on television or in books or movies or whatever, generally, it's what I call magpie time travel, where you go to a very specific event. You want to stop Kennedy from being shot. Or you want to see the moon landing. 

Or you want to see Jesus on the cross. Or you want to hook up with Cleopatra or Caesar. And it's very out of context. The only way you can really appreciate a time is to live there, day by day, not knowing what's coming next and appreciating what you have and what is in the immediate past. 

And I say "immediate," because back in 1966 and before, we didn't have archived media all over the place, as people do in 2021. And when you do that, you get such a fascinating perspective on the time that, I think, is even more accurate than, say, an older person's memory of the time, which has been tinted and compressed by the passage of the years. And I've been living in the past since 1954. 

I started the project in February, started reading the magazines from April '54, listening to the music of the time, which was all very schmaltzy, overripe, crooning and big band from the '40s, which has finally got foundered on the shores of rock and roll. Thank you, Chuck Berry. And so it's just been a real trip experiencing things day by day. 

We talked about Star Trek early on. Imagine what it's like to find Star Trek after living through 12 years of what came before and the context of it, and understanding how revolutionary it is. It's very easy to look at the past with the standards of today and find it wanting, because we're so much better now. 

At the same time, of course, it's also easy to look at the past with rose-tinted glasses and overlook all the horrible things that were going on back then. And perhaps, the biggest discovery I have made in all this, is just how close 55 years ago is to today. 1966 is not really that different from 2021. It looks just like today. Everyone's a little poorer. Technology's a little worse. 

People are a little worse to each other. But people were still fighting for right. There were still good music. People were still creating amazing things. People were still looking for a better future. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Do you find 55 years ago kind of pushing out your experience of right now? Like, do you have enough time to consume the culture of now and 55 years ago, equally? 

GIDEON MARCUS: Well, and then the question is, do I want to? I'm sure you're familiar with Sturgeon's law. 90% of everything is crap. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: I've heard that, yeah. 

GIDEON MARCUS: And now, because I live in the past holistically, I consume more of the crap than I need to-- and at the same time, because I consume everything, I find stuff that I'd never heard of that I didn't know was great. Like, say, watching Burke's Law, or discovering the People Stories, of Zena Henderson. These are things that, today nobody really knows about. But they were amazing. 

Do I have time to watch everything today? Who does? I'm reminded of a good friend of mine. She also writes for the Journey. And she's only in her 30s. But all of her music is from the '60s and '70s and '80s. 

And when I asked her, "Why don't you listen to modern music?" She's like, "I haven't finished listened to the old stuff yet." 

[LAUGHING] 

So a few years ago, I would have told you, "No, I live in both worlds just fine." These days I will say-- and especially with the pandemic, where no one could leave their house anyway, and the real world was a terrible place for a year and still isn't great. I really took solace in just being in 1965. And my daughter has taken the trip with me. And she's more at home in the '60s than in today, in a lot of ways. 

And it's just been really fun taking the trip. So do I keep them both? I mean, look, I used to run a software company. So I know what the modern world is like. But I'm really enjoying being in 1966. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: How do you find these things that are not well known? 

GIDEON MARCUS: I have a lot of connections. The whole project started because my dad left me an enormous collection of science fiction magazines. And the Journey originally started as just an organized way to read them all, you know? I read them month by month. And that's a bite-sized package rather than feeling overwhelmed by the project. 

So I've got more than 1,000 science fiction magazines just in my house. I know a fellow who's archived a lot of them. The Internet Archive has got a lot of them. I have access to a, as complete as it can be, collection of Star Trek fanzines from the '60s. And that's thanks to the efforts of a couple of people who put them together. 

Music wise and so forth, I mean, I've got all the records. So I get the music, and I put it on the playlist. And then I broadcast it on my little broadcaster, which only goes to the house. So don't call the FCC. 

And same with the TV. A lot of the TV shows can be found online. Some of them are ones I've just bought the DVDs for and turned them into video files that I can broadcast to my analog televisions. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: If we go to www.GalacticJourney.org, we find that you have brought a number of people on the trip with you to make this whole experience. 

GIDEON MARCUS: Yeah, we're kind of a snowball. So when it started, it was just me. And then my wife was doing the editing. 

And over time, we would get people commenting on the website. We started out on Dreamwidth. And then we ended up having to make our own domain when Charlie Jane Anders blogged about us in '09. And all of a sudden we were getting thousands of hits. And I'm like, oh, I should probably have a domain. 

So people would comment, but they comment in character. It was like this LARP, this early 1960s LARP I created. And eventually, there was just some really cool people. And I'm like, hey, do you want to write an article? Or some people would just send me articles. 

And over time, our coverage increased. One other thing we've always tried to do at Galactic Journey is maintain demographic diversity. So I would say the articles are pretty evenly divided, male, female. And we have non-binary representation, as well. 

Geographically we're pretty good. I would love to get writers for other countries. We have British. We have German coverage. 

We've had a Soviet correspondent. We have someone from Australia. As other countries get their science fiction online, science fiction was in very specific countries for a while. Now it's a global phenomenon, right? 

And afrofuturism is the big thing. But in 1966, Africa is just becoming-- I mean, most of the African countries didn't even come into existence until 1960. It's kind of like in Israel. They didn't bother with science fiction until the '80s and '90s, because they were too busy trying to make a country. 

But I would love to, as the journey goes on, get more and more regional representatives. 

MARLEE GIVENS: You're listening to Lost in the Stacks. And we'll be back with more from Gideon Marcus on the left side of the hour. 

KIM STANLEY ROBINSON: Hi. I'm Kim Stanley Robinson, science fiction writer and a fan of the Ramblin' Wrecks of Georgia Tech. This is WREK. 

[MUSIC-THE KINKS, "EVERYBODY'S GONNA BE HAPPY"] 

And I know, and I know, and I know that everybody, and I know that everybody be happy, as happy and you and me. Because I know. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: So Gideon, can you tell me, how does music feel in 1966? 

GIDEON MARCUS: The music is evolving so quickly. You can tell the difference between music in '63, '64, '65. In '63, we had no idea what was coming next. We had all these competing musical forms, from folk to country to Motown to Beach Boys, pop, soul, all these different things. And none of them had ascendance. 

Then the Beatles showed up on The Ed Sullivan Show. And we watched it live as it happened. And it was a revolution. I mean, everybody knows about Beatlemania. And it washed on the shore of America, just as it did in England. 

That really redefined music. So there are still plenty of existing threads that are still going. Motown with the Supremes, and the Impressions and the Temptations, the Four Tops, all these wonderful bands. 

And you still have the Beach Boys. Although now, they're experimenting with weird stuff. And now both sides of the pond are sort of cross-pollinating each other, trying to outdo each other with the weirdness. So starting with the Beatles and their Rubber Soul, and now their Revolution album. 

The Yardbirds have been playing with a lot of weird sounds. The Byrds did Eight Miles High. They're calling it psychedelic rock. And I can see that. I've never actually partaken. 

And in fact, I'm losing my opportunity because this week, California is going to make LSD illegal. So that is a bummer trip, man. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: File this set under QC861.P499I. 

[MUSIC-THE MAMAS & THE PAPAS, "ALL THE LEAVES ARE BROWN"] 

"All the leaves are brown. All the leaves are brown. And the sky is gray..." 

You just heard Bus Stop, by The Hollies. And before that, Sunny by Bobby Hebb. And we started with California Dreaming, by The Mamas and the papas. Those were songs about the weather, because you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. 

MARLEE GIVENS: This is Lost in the Stacks. And our guest is Gideon Marcus of Galactic Journey. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: So along with, this sort of extraordinary performance and experience, you're also a writer. And you have this other thing happening, Journey Press. Is this all mixed in with Galactic Journey? Or were you writing before you started on the trip? 

GIDEON MARCUS: The two were definitely related. So I always had this nagging feeling, like, I had to be a professionally published fiction author for me to lambaste some of the authors I was lambasting in my critiques on the Journey. I've been a professional nonfiction writer since 2005. 

So I worked really hard to get some stories published. I was the lead story in Tales From Alternate Earths 2. I just had a story published in Dark Matter magazine this month. So I knew a little bit about the writing business. And I'm one of the people. 

And then at a convention, I ran into a fellow who had started his own publishing house, to revive this one book that he really liked. And I realized just how easy it is to start a publishing house these days. And I thought, all right, well if I started a publishing house-- and I've run companies before. I know how to run a business. So I might as well do it myself. 

And what would I write about? I'm like, well, I've got years and years of all these stories, a Galactic Journey, why not put together an anthology? And since we've always had such a big focus on women science fiction writers, in the sort of forgotten, unsung women science fiction writers of the time on the journey, why not make an anthology of the best science fiction stories by women in that era that I had covered so far, 1958 to 1963? 

And that's how the Rediscovery series was born. So the publishing house was originally made to put out the Rediscovery series. And that first book has been extremely successful. Not just by small press standards, but I think, by anybody's standards, it's been a popular amazing book. 

And it's, in fact, how I ended up meeting Dr. Lisa Yaszek, which is how I met you, because we're in the same business. And in fact, she's going to do an introduction for the second volume of Rediscovery, which covers '53 to '57, coming out early next year. But we realize, hey, we have a publishing house. Let's publish things other than Rediscovery. 

So I have a YA series called, Kitra. The second book, of which came out just a week ago, called Sirena. We've got a high-fantasy, gay romance, called The Eighth Key. 

We've republished some wonderful stuff from the '60s that should not be forgotten. Sibyl Sue Blue, by Rosel George Brown. I Want the Stars, by Tom Purdom. He's still around, actually, and still writing for Asimov's Science Fiction. And I Want the Stars was the first book to positively portray a queer couple. 

And we've just got amazing things coming down the pike. I think we're going to have four or five releases every year into perpetuity. And I'm loving it. It's so great being able to come out with books. 

And then being on the shelves of hundreds of bookstores around the country. And setting the bar a bit higher for independent press, for having representation of diverse voices, both in the works and by the writers, it's so rewarding. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: So it seems like all of your ventures here have a certain amount of, if not educating the public, then sort of trying to improve the situation. Trying to communicate to people, here's the past so that you can live the present better. Or trying to expand people's empathy through the stories you choose of the press. 

Do you feel that in the immediate? Or did you think about that, at any point in the process, when you were strategizing how you were going to communicate and express yourself outward? 

GIDEON MARCUS: You said that very astutely. That kind of philanthropy and progressivism, and desire to educate and communicate has always been central to all of our missions. And really, should be at the core of anybody's endeavor, I would think, whether they're business or charity, or just living their lives. 

But there is definitely that kind of consideration in everything that we do. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Gideon, thanks so much for taking the time today. 

GIDEON MARCUS: Thank you, for having me on. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Our guest today is Gideon Marcus, the traveler of the science fiction project, Galactic Journey, and the indie publisher, Journey Press. You can see and hear Gideon at the Georgia Tech Library, and virtually during the presentation, What Science Fiction Got Wrong and Right, and How You Make The Future. That will take place Thursday, October 14 at 11:00 AM Eastern time, 2021 and 1966. You can find out all about the event at www.library.gatech.edu/events. 

MARLEE GIVENS: File this set under JZ5597.L66. 

[MUSIC-SAM & DAVE, "HOLD ON, I'M COMIN'"] 

"...I'm comin'. Yeah. Hold on. Don't you worry...." 

That was Hold On, I'm Comin', by Sam and Dave. And before that we heard Trains and Boats and Planes, by Dionne Warwick. And we started our set with Don't Mess With Bill, by The Marvelettes. Songs about bringing people back together and reconciling different views. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's show was all about Galactic Journey, Journey Press, and the upcoming library event, What Science Fiction Got Wrong and Right, and How You Make the Future, featuring Gideon Marcus, taking place on Thursday, October 14 at 11:00 AM Eastern time, this year and way back when. 

Hey, Marlee? How far back would you want to go if you started to relive the past? 

MARLEE GIVENS: I think, 1966 is a great place to start. My parents got married in 1966 and that would have been pretty crazy to see, I think. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, I got to say-- 

MARLEE GIVENS: What about you? 

CHARLIE BENNETT: --1966 seems like the spot. 

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: My parents got married in '68. But clearly, '66 was a really good year for them. The thing is that after '66, the rest of the future shows up. So I don't know. Let's just roll the credits. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library. Written and produced by me, Charlie Bennett, Marlee Givens, Wendy Hagenmaier, and Fred Rascoe. 

MARLEE GIVENS: And today's show was edited and assembled by Charlie, in the home studio, right by that Smith Corona electric typewriter from 1965. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: I'll get it working someday. Legal counsel and a pristine copy of Analog magazine from October, 1966, featuring the Christopher Anvil story, Strangers to Paradise, for provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia. 

MARLEE GIVENS: Special thanks to Gideon for being on the show, to Lisa Yaszek and Katherine Nancy for making it happen, to everybody on the Galactic Journey trip. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: Find us online at www.LostInTheStacks.org. And you can subscribe to our podcast, pretty much anywhere. I don't even know why I say that anymore. 

MARLEE GIVENS: Next week is a brief trip to the past with a rerun. And we'll be back with a new show the week after that. 

CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, time for our last song today. And we're going to get out of 1966 and travel back to the near past, because how could I resist playing this track for you, after a show about time travel, science fiction, and the power of reflection. This is Time Travel?? Yes!! by The Flaming Lips, with a special appearance by someone from Blue's Clues. 

Have a great weekend, everybody, and a great 1966. 

[MUSIC-THE FLAMING LIPS, "TIME TRAVEL?? YES!!"]