The Perfect Fool is the first novel by comedian and music journalist Stewart Lee (of the double act Lee And Herring)

It tells the story of two musicians, Sid and Danny, who quit their job in a Dire Straits tribute band to go to America to search for Luther Peyote, a reclusive legend of acid rock who is Sid's hero.

Characters who get wrapped up in this include:

An amnesiac astronaut who was part of a Masonic conspiracy to retrieve the Holy Grail from space, where it had been sent by NASA

A woman who played a nun in a porn film where she had sex with a pig

Sherrif Matthew Hopkins, a religious maniac who is searching for a serial killer who no-one else believes exists

A Hopi clown

And Luther Peyote himself who is definitely not in any way meant to be Roky Erickson - there are just a few minor simillarities, like they were both pioneers of psychedelia, both were on International Artists records, both were arrested for drug possession, both pled insanity and both had ECT which sent them insane.
Oh, and half of Peyote's quotes come word for word from a 1995 interview with Erickson in MOJO magazine...

The book is fairly funny, as one would expect from Lee, and while bizarre, is tightly plotted. It might appeal to the same sort of people who like Preacher graphic novels, although it is far less violent than these. It does however have a flaw, in that it seems to have been written with at least one eye on a film adaptation.

Opera in one act by Gustav Holst (1922)

Ask most people if they've heard of Gustav Holst, and if they answer "Yes", ask what he wrote. Almost without exception they will have heard of the "Planets" Suite and little else. I was the same regarding J.D. Salinger - all I'd ever heard of was Catcher in the Rye.

It's a shame, because Holst was no fool - as a music teacher and composer, he produced a wide variety of work. The lesser-known works are often superb, as is this parodic opera. Light in tone, it takes a gentle swipe at Wagner's opera Parsifal. Despite the slight dig, the Fool of the title is not Wagner, but the antihero, married off by his mother to a princess. His folly is in failing to take advantage of the situation he finds himself in, to his mother's chagrin.

In spite of the composer's libretto, the piece is best known for its ballet music - the opera itself never achieved much acclaim or success. Few performances have been given since its first at Covent Garden in 1923, and it is usually heard as a companion to recordings of the better-known Planets Suite.

Alas, poor Holst is seemingly condemned by many as a "one-hit wonder", like so many bands, and poor Mr Salinger.

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