What did the agnostic dylexic do when he had insomnia?
Stayed up all night wondering if there is a dog.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
OVERLOOKED PRODUCT PLACEMENT: ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON
After viewing this fourteen-minute disguised commercial, I could see why it was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is truly one of the greatest What-the-Heck-Are-They-Doing films of all time.
Songwriter Jeff (Ward Ellis, creator of The Doodletown Pipers) and Mary (Virginia Gibson, Tony nominee for Happy Hunting) have been married for a year and are finally about to go on their honeymoon when he gets a telephone call from Gordon (Alan Mowbray, Topper, My Darling Clementine, My Man Godfrey), the producer for the show he's been working on. The show's star does not like one of the songs and wants a new one asap. Jeff and Mary's plans seem doomed are time goes by, a gazillion cigarettes are smoked, and no musical inspipration comes to Jeff.
Help comes in the form of Wilbur (Chick Chandler, Lost Continent, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the Soldier of Fortune television series), Jeff and Mary's guardian angel. Sent down by the head angel to fix things, Wilbur, invisible and wearing very stupid-looking sunglasses stays on the roof, tangled in the television antenna and tossing pixie dust (actually, it's angel dust, but if I used that phrase it may be mistaken for the angel dust of today's parlance) downwards.
Mary goes into the kitchen to make some coffee for Jeff and she faces a leaky faucet, a refrigerator door that won't close, and a pilot light that won't stay lit. With the help of the pixie dust, she dreams of a modern (well, 1956 modern) kitchen where she can sing and dance joyfully. Still under the influence of the pixie dust, her mind transforms the drab living room (and puts Jeff in a tuxedo) and then the bedroom (serarate beds, natch; sex was invented until well after 1956) where her mind transforms it through several decors -- still singing and dancing all the time, mind you. (So maybe I should have called it angel dust.)
Then, poof! Back to reality. Back to the drab, yet horribly decorated house, back to poor uninspired Jeff who most likely will have black lung before the films fourteen minutes are up.
Ah, but Wilbur has some more pixie dust up his sleeve (literally). Jeff tells Mary to call Gordon and say that he can't come up with an idea. Mary rotary dials the pixie dust-laden phone. (Remember rotary phones? Half the time when you dial a number 7 or beyond, your finger slips and you have to start all over again. Those were the days, my friend, those were the days...) INSPIRATION! Jeff tells Mary to dial the phone some more. The clickclickclick noise of the rotary dial sounds out a beat and Jeff starts playing the piano to the beat and then Jeff and Mary start singing a song and Gordon and the diva hear the song over the telephone and Jeff and Mary keep singing and dancing while Jeff picks Mary up in his arms
an grabs their bags and dances/sings their way out their door and into their honeymoon. And we are left with invisible Wilbur playing the piano.
As I indicated above, what the heck?
Please note that this film was directed by Gower Champion (Forty-Second Street), a pretty big name in the entertainment/song and dance world at the time.
Again, what the heck?
Well, the film is actually a commercial, designed by Bell Labs to promote their latest innovation, colored telephones. In the dream sequence, there's a red phone in the kitchen, a blue phone in the living room, and phones to match the various decors in the bedroom. The head angel uses a white phone, of course, and Wilbur also uses a white phone, except his looks like a hand hair dryer my wife had in the Seventies. Basically, the entire thrust of this film was to say, "Ptah! to your plain old black phone!"
Sadly, few people made the connection. (Haha, I made a pun. Aren't I clever?) (By the way, there's no indication on the credits of Bell Labs involvement.)
Anyway, here's the non-informercial. This is not the MST3K version (sorry), but see if you can outsnark Crow and Tom Servo anyway while you watch this.
http://archive.org/details/OnceUpon1956
**********
For today's links for Overlooked Films and/or A/V, drop in on Sweet Freedom, where Todd does his thing.
Songwriter Jeff (Ward Ellis, creator of The Doodletown Pipers) and Mary (Virginia Gibson, Tony nominee for Happy Hunting) have been married for a year and are finally about to go on their honeymoon when he gets a telephone call from Gordon (Alan Mowbray, Topper, My Darling Clementine, My Man Godfrey), the producer for the show he's been working on. The show's star does not like one of the songs and wants a new one asap. Jeff and Mary's plans seem doomed are time goes by, a gazillion cigarettes are smoked, and no musical inspipration comes to Jeff.
Help comes in the form of Wilbur (Chick Chandler, Lost Continent, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the Soldier of Fortune television series), Jeff and Mary's guardian angel. Sent down by the head angel to fix things, Wilbur, invisible and wearing very stupid-looking sunglasses stays on the roof, tangled in the television antenna and tossing pixie dust (actually, it's angel dust, but if I used that phrase it may be mistaken for the angel dust of today's parlance) downwards.
Mary goes into the kitchen to make some coffee for Jeff and she faces a leaky faucet, a refrigerator door that won't close, and a pilot light that won't stay lit. With the help of the pixie dust, she dreams of a modern (well, 1956 modern) kitchen where she can sing and dance joyfully. Still under the influence of the pixie dust, her mind transforms the drab living room (and puts Jeff in a tuxedo) and then the bedroom (serarate beds, natch; sex was invented until well after 1956) where her mind transforms it through several decors -- still singing and dancing all the time, mind you. (So maybe I should have called it angel dust.)
Then, poof! Back to reality. Back to the drab, yet horribly decorated house, back to poor uninspired Jeff who most likely will have black lung before the films fourteen minutes are up.
Ah, but Wilbur has some more pixie dust up his sleeve (literally). Jeff tells Mary to call Gordon and say that he can't come up with an idea. Mary rotary dials the pixie dust-laden phone. (Remember rotary phones? Half the time when you dial a number 7 or beyond, your finger slips and you have to start all over again. Those were the days, my friend, those were the days...) INSPIRATION! Jeff tells Mary to dial the phone some more. The clickclickclick noise of the rotary dial sounds out a beat and Jeff starts playing the piano to the beat and then Jeff and Mary start singing a song and Gordon and the diva hear the song over the telephone and Jeff and Mary keep singing and dancing while Jeff picks Mary up in his arms
an grabs their bags and dances/sings their way out their door and into their honeymoon. And we are left with invisible Wilbur playing the piano.
As I indicated above, what the heck?
Please note that this film was directed by Gower Champion (Forty-Second Street), a pretty big name in the entertainment/song and dance world at the time.
Again, what the heck?
Well, the film is actually a commercial, designed by Bell Labs to promote their latest innovation, colored telephones. In the dream sequence, there's a red phone in the kitchen, a blue phone in the living room, and phones to match the various decors in the bedroom. The head angel uses a white phone, of course, and Wilbur also uses a white phone, except his looks like a hand hair dryer my wife had in the Seventies. Basically, the entire thrust of this film was to say, "Ptah! to your plain old black phone!"
Sadly, few people made the connection. (Haha, I made a pun. Aren't I clever?) (By the way, there's no indication on the credits of Bell Labs involvement.)
Anyway, here's the non-informercial. This is not the MST3K version (sorry), but see if you can outsnark Crow and Tom Servo anyway while you watch this.
http://archive.org/details/OnceUpon1956
**********
For today's links for Overlooked Films and/or A/V, drop in on Sweet Freedom, where Todd does his thing.
Monday, May 28, 2012
MICHAEL DOWD
Today would have been my son-in-law's 38th birthday.
Michael was one of five children adopted from different families by John and Carole Dowd, may they always be blessed for that mitzvah. He was three when he was adopted and he told a (perhaps apocryphal) story of how he got his middle name. John and Carole were driving him home for the first time and they asked what middle name he would like to have. They happened to be passing a pizza parlor at the time, so Michael said, "Pizza!" The restaurant was Tim's Pizza so Michael became Michael Timothy.
He was a sweet child, always smiling -- something that carried through his entire life. Michael could irritate the hell out of you at times (something that always happens between fathers-in-law and sons-in law), but you could never stay mad at him. He had a giving heart and never met a person he did not like; he had a special place in his heart for children and old people. And he loved to laugh.
He loved sports of all kinds, reading (especially history), and cooking, but his one major, abiding love was for Jessie and the girls. He spent his last afternoon making home-made soap with Ceili and Amy.
Because he was adopted, we had no idea about his medical history. He played lacrosse in college and appeared hale and healthy, but shortly before he passed he went through a nasty episode of Crohn's disease, then he had what we thought were minor heart problems. One Sunday morning, he walked across the living room, telling Jessie he had to buy some golf balls later, and dropped to the floor. He was 31.
Too soon gone. I don't think a day has gone by since that we haven't thought about him.
As I type this, his legacy is here visting us for the holiday: two beautiful, loving, smart, and talented girls whom I know will stand the world on its end once they get older. Thank you, Michael, for that. And thanks for the warm memories.
Michael was one of five children adopted from different families by John and Carole Dowd, may they always be blessed for that mitzvah. He was three when he was adopted and he told a (perhaps apocryphal) story of how he got his middle name. John and Carole were driving him home for the first time and they asked what middle name he would like to have. They happened to be passing a pizza parlor at the time, so Michael said, "Pizza!" The restaurant was Tim's Pizza so Michael became Michael Timothy.
He was a sweet child, always smiling -- something that carried through his entire life. Michael could irritate the hell out of you at times (something that always happens between fathers-in-law and sons-in law), but you could never stay mad at him. He had a giving heart and never met a person he did not like; he had a special place in his heart for children and old people. And he loved to laugh.
He loved sports of all kinds, reading (especially history), and cooking, but his one major, abiding love was for Jessie and the girls. He spent his last afternoon making home-made soap with Ceili and Amy.
Because he was adopted, we had no idea about his medical history. He played lacrosse in college and appeared hale and healthy, but shortly before he passed he went through a nasty episode of Crohn's disease, then he had what we thought were minor heart problems. One Sunday morning, he walked across the living room, telling Jessie he had to buy some golf balls later, and dropped to the floor. He was 31.
Too soon gone. I don't think a day has gone by since that we haven't thought about him.
As I type this, his legacy is here visting us for the holiday: two beautiful, loving, smart, and talented girls whom I know will stand the world on its end once they get older. Thank you, Michael, for that. And thanks for the warm memories.
THE INCOMING THAT ATE SOUTHERN MARYLAND
Some pretty good stuff this week, including the Adams' anthologies, the Jackson collection, the Dell Ten-Cent, and the coffe-table reference books. You cannot hear me, but inside I'm going, 'Squee!"
- John Joseph Adams, editor, The Living Dead and The Living Dead 2. Horror anthologies. Almost a 1000 pages of zombie badness spread over 78 stories.
- Lawrence Alexander, Speak Softly. A Theodore Roosevelt mystery.
- Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now. Brief pieces of advise, wisdom, and observation from an admired author.
- "Piers Anthony" (Piers Anthony Jacobs), Firefly. Billed as "a novel of ecstatic terror."
- Philip Athans, editor, Realms of the Dragons. Gaming (Forgotten Worlds) tie-in anthology with fourteen stories taking place in the Year of the Rogue Dragon universe.
- Marian Babson, Whiskers and Smoke (aka, A Trail of Ashes). Mystery. I've been hooked on Babson for some time now. Her books are consistently readable.
- Keith Baker, The City of Towers. Gaming (Eberron) tie-in fantasy; Book I in The Dreaming dark series.
- Faith Baldwin, Bride for Broadway. A Dell Ten-Cent Book (#5) -- perhaps it should have been a Dell Fifty-Cent Book, because that's what I paid for it. Baldwin was a very popular author in her time, but I've never read her before (although a book she co-authored with Achmed Abdullah is currently on Mount TBR).
- "L. A. Banks" (Leslie Esdaile Banks), Minion. Horror, a Vampire Huntress novel, the first of a series.
- Stephen Baxter, Titan. Hard SF.
- Edward Bolme, The Alabaster Staff. Gaming (Forgotten Realms) tie-in novel, part of The Rogues series.
- Gwendoline Butler, Coffin Underground. A Chief Inspector John Coffin mystery.
- David Chacko, White Gamma. Spy-guy thriller, part of the Stephen Warfield series.
- David Cian, Transformers, Book 2: Annihilation. Part of a toy tie-in trilogy.
- Susan Collins, Gregor the Overlander. YA fantasy novel by the author of The Hunger Games. This one is Book One in The Underland Chronicles.
- Donn Cortez, CSI: Miami: Cut and Run, CSI: Miami: Harm for the Holidays, Part One: Misgivings, and CSI: Miami: Riptide. Television tie-in novels. I've read all of MAC's CSI novels and graphic novels so it's time to try some others.
- Greg Cox, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Devil in the Sky. Television tie-in novel.
- Richie Tankersley Cusick, The Mall. YA horror novel.
- Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, editors, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Ninth Annual Collection. Annual with thirty-five stories and ten poems, along with seventy-five pages of introductory material.
- Troy Denning, Giants Among Us. Gaming (Forgotten Realms) tie-in novel, Book II of The Twilight Giants series.
- Terrance Dicks, The Bermuda Triangle Incident. YA SF short novel, part of The Unexplained series.
- Dannielle Doggett, project manager, Mythology: Myths, Legends, & Fantasies. Coffe table book -- if you have a very sturdy coffee table. This sucker is HEAVY!
- "Tabor Evans" (house name begun by Lou Cameron, who wrote one -- and probably all three- of the books listed), Longarm, Longarm on the Border, and Longarm in the Indian Nation. Books #1, 2, and 5 in the long-running adult western series.
- Matt Forbeck, Marked for Death. Gaming (Eberron) tie-in novel; Book 1 of The Lost Mark series.
- Holly George-Warren and Patricia Romanowski, editors, The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. 2001 edition, "revised and updated for the 21st Century." Jon Pareles, consulting editor.
- Gavin Gibbins, They Rode in Space Ships. Nonfiction? Accounts of two persons who claimed to have flown in flying saucers. This is a British book published in 1957, which was when the saucer craze was in its heyday; it was published by a respectable publisher and not by some fly-by-night outfit or vanity press.
- Barb & J. C. Hendee, Dhampir. Vampire novel.
- Charlie Higson, Silverfin. YA novel, the first in a series featuring a young James Bond.
- Declan Hughes, City of Lost Girls. An Ed Loy novel by one of Ireland's best crime writers.
- "Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck), Mama Black Widow. Gangsta crime novel about a ghetto homosexual queen.
- Shirley Jackson, Just an Ordinary Day. Collection of fifty-two uncollected or unpublished stories, some fantastic, some psychological, some romantic, but all magical. Edited by two of the demons she raised, Laurence Jackson Hyman and Sarah Hyman Stewart.
- Cameron Judd, The Shadow Warriors and The Phantom Legion. The first two books in the Mountain War Trilogy of Civil War era novels.
- Stuart M. Kaminsky, CSI: New York: Blood on the Sun. Television tie-in. See my remarks on Donn Cortz, above.
- William H. Keith, Jr., Battletech: Operation Excalibur. Gaming tie-in novel.
- T. H. Lain, Oath of Nerull and The Savage Caves. Gaming (Dungeons and Dragons) tie-in novels.
- Jane Langton, Dark Nantucket Noon. A Homer Kelly mystery.
- Richard Laymon, The Cellar. Horror.
- Tanith Lee, Wolf Tower. YA fantasy. Book I in the Claidi series.
- Madeline L'Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet and A Wind in the Door. YA fantasies.
- Edward Levy, TheBeast Within. Horror.
- [Mike Linaker, ghost writer], Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan: The Judas Project. Part of the long-running men's adventure series.
- James Lowder, editor, Realms of Valor. Gaming (Forgotten Realms) tie-in anthology with a dozen stories.
- George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, editors, Warriors 2. Fantasy anthology with seven stories.
- Walter R. Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults. Written from an evangelical point of view and first published in 1965, this seems to be a heavily documented, bleak picture of western religions that don't necessarily agree with the author's viewpoint. Among the cults are Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Mormanism, Spiritism, Theosophy, Zen Buddhism, Swedenborgianism, Bahai, Seventh Day Adventists, and Unitarians. No mention of Scientology, which moved beyond Dianetics a dozen years before this book was first published and two dozen years before the revised edition that's before me.
- Anne McCaffrey, A Gift of Dragons. Fantasy collection with four stories.
- Danica McKellar, Math Doesn't Suck. Math tricks and instuction from Winnie Cooper. Everybody loves winnie Cooper, right?
- "Jack McKinney," Robotech: The Macross Saga: #4 Battlehymn, #5 Force of Arms, #6 Doomsday. Toy/anime tie-in omnibus of three books from the series. "McKinney" is a pen name used alternatingly by Brian Daley and James Luceno. Evidently Daley wrote the odd-numbered books in the series and Luceno the even ones; each writer then revised/edited the other's manuscript.
- [Nathan Meyer, ghost writer], Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Volatile Agent. Number 350 in the men's adventure series.
- Larry Niven, creator, Man-Kzin Wars V. Two novellas in the SFshared universe series.
- Mary Packard and the Editors of Ripley Entertainment, Ripley's Believe It or Not! Special Edition. A 2001 compilation. Grandson Mark loves this stuff.
- Lauren Paine, The Running Iron. Western.
- John Pelan, editor, A Walk on the Darkside: Visions of Horror. Anthology with twenty-one stories.
- Steve Perry, Aliens, Book 2: Nightmare Asylum. Movie/graphic novel tie-in.
- Steve Perry and Stephani Perry, Aliens, Book 3: The Female War. Movie/graphic novel tie-in.
- "Ellis Peters" (Edith Partiger), A Nice Arrangement of Epitaphs. An Inspector George Felse mystery.
- "Christopher Pike" (Kevin McFadden), The Tachyon Web. YA SF.
- [Nick Pollotta, ghost writer], Don Pendleton's Stony Man: Act of War. Number 94 in this men's adventure series.
- Thomas M. Reid, The Ruby Guardian. Gaming (Forgotten Realms) tie-in novel, Book II in The Scions of Arrabar trilogy.
- Anne Rice, The Mummy; or, Rameses the Damned. Horror.
- Kim Stanley Robinson, Fifty Degrees Below and Sixty Days and Counting. SF, the the second and final books in the trilogy begun with Forty Signs of Rain.
- [Charles Rogers, ghost writer], Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Ambush Force. Numer 354 in the men's adventure series.
- Norman Schmidt, Best Ever Paper Airplanes. Kitty says her father made the greatest paper airplanes. He was an aeronautics engineering. I'm not. I need help. So there.
- Mickey Spillane, The Body Lovers and The Snake. Mike Hammer mysteries. Also Day of the Guns, a Tiger Mann thriller.
- Leonid Tarassuk & Claude Blair, editors, The Complete Encyclopedia of Arms & Weapons. Reference.
- Brian Thomsen and J. Robert King, editors, Realms of Magic. Gaming (Forgotten Realms) tie- in anthology. Seventeen stories.
- Vernor Vinge, Across Realtime. SF omnibus with novels The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime, plus a related novella.
- David Weber, editor (?), The Service of the Sword: Worlds of Honor #4. SF anthology of six stories in the Honor Harrington universe, four of which are novel/short novel sized, on a novella, and a short story.
- Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Weird Vampires Tales. Instant remainder edition with thirty tales from the weird fiction pulps.
- Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, editors, The Dragons at War. Gaming (DragonLance) tie-in anthology with fourteen stories.
- [Douglas P.Wojtowicz, ghost writer], Don Pendleton's Stony Man: Splintered Sky. Number 97 in this men's adventure series.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
HYMN TIME
As I get ready to post this early Saturday evening, 89-year-old Doc Watson is in critical condition in the hospital. My prayers are with him, one of the greatest nusicians of our time.
Here's Doc and Bill Monroe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkR_DYAlYSQ
Here's Doc and Bill Monroe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkR_DYAlYSQ
Saturday, May 26, 2012
MY FRIEND
We fall into habits without realizing it. I was not really conscious of one habit that I have had for a number of years: addressing my 12-year-old grandson as "my friend," as in, "How are you today, my friend?" and, "Mark, my friend, it's good to see you."
I know that I have other ways of greeting Mark, but I now realize that I use the "my friend" address more often than not. I also realize that I seldom use that greeting with anyone else I know. I wonder why that is? I consider myself just as good a friend to my other three grandchildren (all girls), but I don't think my address to Mark is a sign of hidden sexism. From the moment he learned to print, Mark always signed his thank-you notes with "Your Friend, Mark" -- although early on, the spelling was much more inventive. I think that I subconsciously picked up that phrase and associated it with him.
However...
Looking back, I find that I haved used the phrase "my friend" often when I am driving, and always when I come across a particularly stupid or reckless driver. I always use a steady, calm tone. "Go ahead, my friend, you're obviously in more of a rush than I am," "Oh, my friend, you really cut that one close," "I don't think I'm going to get close to you, my friend; you're all over the road," and so on. It just seems to me far more civilized than road rage or indiscriminately flipping the bird.
I wonder if it would be a better world if we just addressed everyone as "my friend."
I know that I have other ways of greeting Mark, but I now realize that I use the "my friend" address more often than not. I also realize that I seldom use that greeting with anyone else I know. I wonder why that is? I consider myself just as good a friend to my other three grandchildren (all girls), but I don't think my address to Mark is a sign of hidden sexism. From the moment he learned to print, Mark always signed his thank-you notes with "Your Friend, Mark" -- although early on, the spelling was much more inventive. I think that I subconsciously picked up that phrase and associated it with him.
However...
Looking back, I find that I haved used the phrase "my friend" often when I am driving, and always when I come across a particularly stupid or reckless driver. I always use a steady, calm tone. "Go ahead, my friend, you're obviously in more of a rush than I am," "Oh, my friend, you really cut that one close," "I don't think I'm going to get close to you, my friend; you're all over the road," and so on. It just seems to me far more civilized than road rage or indiscriminately flipping the bird.
I wonder if it would be a better world if we just addressed everyone as "my friend."
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