at least you get a brief glimpse of Ted Knight

Someone mentioned this YouTube clip recently on a post that no longer exists, but which sadly was still in my RSS feed. Did you know that if you delete a post it doesn't get deleted from the RSS feed? I didn't know that until now. Anyway, this nameless person who decided to spare his blog readers this pain was so horrified by this clip that I had to see it for myself. Words cannot express how wrong this is. P.S. A little background knowledge of Capote's research on In Cold Blood is necessary for the understanding of the wrongitude.



The "accidental" mispronunciation of "mugger" at about 1:50 made my headache come back.

in lieu of actual content

You tell us, Dick.

From everyone's favorite psychotic expressionistic comic strip, Dick Tracy.

because I need youtube vids to express my opinion for me

A video from Jay Smooth about the Roman Polanski thing.



He gets a little wordy in the middle there, but basically, this is a really good and reasonably short primer on why the people who think Polanski needs to be held responsible aren't just prudish flyover American hicks who don't understand what the 70s were about. Because honestly, that's the vibe I get from the pro-Polanski people, and it's disturbing in about 50 million ways.

I tease people when they use YouTube videos to illustrate their own opinions instead of creating their own way to express it, but in this case so much has been said that I'm certain my own words don't need to be added to the 'net noise.

you know it's awesome

You cannot deny the awesome. Click for superhuge version.

this text is not very sub

The interior cross-section schematic of the famous JBL Paragon D44000 stereo system:



Tell me I'm not the only one who sees it.

For more about the JBL Paragon series, see the link above or the post at Pour 15 Minutes D'Amour. Which is in French, so you may have to translate it.

because you'll need something to do Monday while you pretend to be working

About 3 1/2 years ago, some clever people on a clever forum did this:


MackJ on Truth and Beauty Bombs took full Garfield strips and removed Garfield's dialogue, creating some surreal masterpieces of comic art. By "full strips" I mean this was done without the randomizer, utilizing the panels from an actual strip and not 3 random panels. The entire Truth and Beauty Bombs thread is a glorious sight to behold. Don't make any plans for your day, just read the whole thread.

And yes, you probably did see this years ago, but awesome never dies.

you did a what now?

I wish I had one of these so I could send it to someone and confuse the hell out of them.

Courtesy Swistle, photo from re-wolf on Flickr.

hippo birdie

Hippo birdie two mes! Yes, it's my birthday, and I'm gloating because I'm 38; my only regret is I didn't spend enough time last year telling people, "I'm 37, I'm not old."

And you can tell it's my birthday because I got about 3 dozen "happy birthday" emails from various forums I've joined over the years. October 15th is the annual remembrance of forums past. I'm always asking myself, "When did I join the Waffle Fanatics Who Hate Pancakes forums?"

<-- Those are the flowers my hubby gave me. They're pretty, but you can't really tell that because I arrange flowers like a spastic planarian.

taste the fun

I just found this in my grandma's stuff and thought it was neat:



It's a postcard of the Saltair Pavilion (the 2nd version) and lake. This postcard was sent to my grandparents and dad in 1938; dad would have been almost 11 at the time. And look -- it came with a tiny bag of Salt Lake salt attached! I didn't open it of course, but it smells like salt so I don't think it's lying to me. Can you imagine trying to send this through the mail nowadays?

Here is a huge 1500 px size version so you can see the details. These postcards were colorized photographs printed on thick linen cardstock. I love looking at all the people in the picture.

In the lower left hand corner is a man floating that I swear to you is W.C. Fields:



If it is him, the colorist forgot to redden his nose.

Get!

I'm sensing a theme here. From October 7, 2008:



From everyone's favorite Mark Trail-based comic strip, Mark Trail.

headshot

Ok ok ok ok, this is awesome, you have to try this.

First, you need a head shot of someone, yourself or just grab a picture online, doesn't matter. I've even provided one for you if you need one. (I haven't tried with this pic of Bruce, if you use it, tell me how it works.) The pic needs to be on your hard drive.

Then go here:

http://labs.mppark.jp/hige/

It's in Japanese but should be easily navigable. Click CHANGE, wait until it says UP and then click on that. Then choose the photo on your hard drive that you want. It has to be a head shot like that pic of Bruce over there, it doesn't work otherwise.

Wait a minute and then REVEL IN THE AWESOMENESS. Warning: Nightmares may plague you for a few days.

KGB Handbook: Spy Identification Made Easy

When I was a kid I often kept cartoons I really liked, and at some point I got the brilliant idea of saving them by laminating them. Except "lamination" was "cover them with clear Contact paper." You can see how well that turned out:



Even though it's brown with age and wrinkled because the Contact paper shrank over the years, I still love this cartoon. Apparently written by Jim Meddick in 1986, the year he started "Monty", it's a nice slice of Cold War humor. I used to think the first panel was about Pan Am Flight 73, although that wasn't exactly a KGB job. I guess it references the KGB penchant for hijacking planes as mentioned in this interview with Ion Mihai Pacepa, former (Communist) Romania's chief of espionage:

In the late 1960s, a new element was added to the Soviet/PLO war against Israel and American imperial-Zionism: international terrorism. Before 1969 came to an end, the KGB's Thirteenth Department -- known in our intelligence jargon as the Department for Wet Affairs, wet being a euphemism for bloody -- invented airplane hijacking. The KGB constantly lectured at us that no one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should feel safe anymore. The hijacked airplane became an instrument of Soviet foreign policy-and eventually the weapon of choice for September 11, 2001.

During those years of intensive airplane hijackings, I became amazed at the almost identical pride both Arafat and KGB General Sakharovsky exhibited over their prowess as terrorists. “I invented the hijacking of [passenger] airplanes,” Arafat bragged to me in the early 1970s, when I first met him. A few months later I met with Sakharovsky at his Lubyanka office. He pointed to the red flags pinned onto a world map hanging on his wall. “Look at that,” he said. Each flag represented a plane that had been downed. “Airplane hijacking is my own invention,” he boasted.

The second panel is about News & World Report's Nicholas Daniloff, who was taken by the KGB and accused of being a spy. He was held for almost 2 weeks.

I really wish my copy of this cartoon was in better condition. I don't know that it's ever been collected in a book or reprinted anywhere.

ruining the internet, one cat video at a time

Just doing my part to kill you with cat cuteness.

you'll poke an eye out with that thing

An entire 1964 Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue via the Flickr of "What Makes the Pie Shop Tick?" Check out the padded butts on girdles for the "come hither" look. Also, note that the "edgy" bra Madonna wore back in the early 90s during a concert tour is the exact same thing sold in this catalogue. She wasn't daring, she just bought "daring continental look" and "feather light foam pads" bras from this catalogue.

interesting if true

This squirrel will get photoshopped into more pictures than Pedobear.

pimp pants

Check out the pants on Kaz! From everyone's favorite coach-related comic strip, Gil Thorp.

his wife? a horse.

Yes, Sultan is a horse. A sexy stalking horse in love. From my favorite comic and yours, Juggs Parker.

good morning, the world is blocking 4chan

Apparently several sites are blocking 4chan.org. AT&T was discovered to be blocking /b/ and /r9k/ boards earlier, but about 25 minutes ago (3:00 AM Central) moot updated the status page to say:

Cogent Communications has joined the club—they're now blocking all of 4chan. I can't even access the site at this point.

(EDIT: As of 4:05 AM Central, the entry about Cogent has been deleted from the status blog. No idea why.)

I think Cox Communications may be blocking 4chan as well, as I can't get to it at all. Unless there's a DOS attack on 4chan again, which Encyclopedia Dramatica hints at, so it's possible. (EDIT: It came back up at the same time I noticed moot had deleted the bit about Cogent. Plenty on 4chan are reporting they were unable to get on too, from a bunch of different ISPs. I wonder if this was a technical issue separate from the AT&T issue?)

Are ISPs taking it upon themselves to tell their users that they aren't allowed to go to certain websites? If so, that's not the ISP's job. This is a dangerous precedent if it's an ISP deciding it doesn't want to allow people to go to 4chan due to content.

It's possible that the constant DOS attacks against 4chan (presumed to be by Anontalk) has caused ISPs to cut off access in an effort to reduce bandwidth. Since no one is confirming anything -- this happened on a Sunday, just like every other Internet fiasco (Amazon's homophobic sales rank problem, anyone?) -- it'll be Monday before we know more.

Pic related, as kids these days say.

president spaceship head

I welcome our new spaceship-shaped head overlords etc. etc. From obama_daily on LiveJournal.
You really should see the whole post, there is some extreme awesome in there.

the mysteries of the universe are vast indeed

Early in the movie "A Mighty Wind", there is a montage of archival folk musician footage combined with fake archival footage of the fake folk bands in the film. One of the real snippets of footage, just after 1 minute into the film, shows a couple of young guys playing banjos. It appears to be the late 1950s or early 1960s:


Is it me, or does the guy in the middle look like Steve Martin? It's so hard to tell from a screencap, it looks even more like him in the actual footage. It's the right time frame for it to be Martin, too. I can't upload the film online, but if you have "A Mighty Wind" on DVD you might want to check it out.

I don't know what to make of it. It's as weird as Albert Finney in drag for a brief moment in "Miller's Crossing", something that as far as I know was never explained.

Okay, it's not that weird. But I would swear that's a young Steve Martin.

blogger a go-go

Charlie and His Go Go Boys:












The Atoms:


After spending a lot of time collecting these as I found them on the 'net, I discovered tonight that most came from one magical animal: David Greenfield's huge collection of 1960s and 1970s Asian pop records.

Free Jean-Claude!

Just moments ago I finished watching "JCVD". I'm still stunned. It was so amazing, and of course I haven't the words to describe it, because I never do. You know I love films, you know I watch and enjoy a ton of movies, but only rarely do I watch a film that affects me as much as "JCVD" did. It's one of those films where, after watching it, I can't imagine living my life without the memory of this movie affecting my entire worldview. "JCVD" is part of my memory, my consciousness, and everything is the better for it. How do I explain this feeling to those who don't react to films in the same way I do? I can't explain it fully. But I don't need to.

Blog, The Magnificent Ferret

A "New Scooby Doo Movie" is on Boomerang right now (started 7:00 PM Central). It's "Haunted Carnival", the one with Dick Van Dyke as a guest star. About 35 minutes into it, Dick is in front of a carnival attraction which is labelled "Blog, The Magnificent Ferret". This ferret is 6 foot tall and 10 stone! That is magnificent! See Blog for just 10 cents!

I wasn't able to record it because my DVR was busy finalizing a disk, but I am not the only one to report on this amazing discovery. Alternately, you can watch it on this poor-quality Youtube video, starting at 8:10.






Is it not magnificent? The whole episode is filled with that trademark Hannah Barbera accidental pervertedness.

being out in public is fun

I would like to share with you something that happened today at about 6:00 PM at the Kansas State University Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, and which is a very good example of why the K-State vet med can suck it.

I was buying some cat food when a vet (student vet, I'm sure) and 2 customers with their cats in carriers came walking in behind me. They talked a bit about how one of the cats is a real problem behavior-wise. The vet starts a line of conversation that absolutely floored me:

VET STUDENT: Yes, all tricolor cats are behavioral problems. That's because nearly 80% of tricolor cats are female.

MALE CUSTOMER: Ah, it's a woman thing.

VET STUDENT: Yeah, exactly, the female of every species is difficult to get along with and control.

MALE CUSTOMER: *laughs knowingly*

VET STUDENT: Today I was being assigned my patients and I was given a tricolor female, and I put the file back in the pile and grabbed another one. No way will I work with a tricolor female.

This tricolor bitch hag female cat has ruined the lives of many innocent men.

Now, keep in mind a few things: Nearly 100% of tricolor cats are female. It's no "nearly 80%", and a vet student should know that. I knew that and I've never even seen a true tricolor cat. Secondly, I can't find anything online that supports the idea that all tricolor cats, especially female, are behavior problems. (I used keywords like behavior, behavioral problems, unfriendly, and aggressive. Nothing came up.)

And I'm sure customers love hearing that you, their vet, deliberately refuse to help cats just like their own because you have a crazy bias that almost seems sexist. Sexist... against cats. Who thinks like this?

the evil midnight genre what stalks at midnight

That damnable film genre -- 1920s stage plays made into early 1930s movies -- is stalking me again, this time in the form of a film THAT NEVER WAS A PLAY. Well, not until Grahame Greene's 1970s version. But I still recognize the genre when I see it, even if it's in disguise. You bet I do.

"Raffles", the 1930 movie starring Ronald Colman and Kay Francis, isn't all that bad. It's pretty predictable though and some of the supporting cast -- including David Torrence, older brother of Ernest Torrence -- is really awful. I can't believe David Torrence's Scots accent was genuine, it was so completely awful. And both of the Torrence brothers freak me the fuck out. I hate seeing them, they scare me. It's not rational, but there you have it.

The best part of "Raffles" are the few really good sets, designed by my boyfriend William Cameron Menzies and filmed by my other boyfriend, Greg Toland. Just look at this set. Look at that font in the sign at top. Look at those curtains. That floor! It was hard to see in this screencap (my caps aren't very sharp nowadays, since I don't have Beloved Lappy right now) but that door is a lovely art deco iron-and-glass design.

Colman and Francis were, of course, ridiculously glamorous and lovely and fun to watch. Alison Skipworth, as the large and elderly Lady Kitty, was in the tightest gown I've ever seen. If she'd just had a bra it would have been better, but as Pauline Weston Thomas notes:

Big busted girls turned to bandaging their breasts flat, but many adopted the Symington Side Lacer, a bra that could be laced at both sides and pulled and pulled in to flatten the chest.

None of the bras gave much shape, but few ladies were seeking anything more than stopping the bust from wobbling...

Which is clearly what was going on here. Very disconcerting. I don't know why I think about these things when I watch movies, but I do.

this may break your minds

Minds blown yet? No, I have no idea where I got this. Yes, I know it scrolls too far right.

Sorry I've been neglectful of my blogs lately. Life gets busy, etc. etc.

I like movies, except when I don't

I've been on a movie kick lately, because my beloved laptop has gone tits up and there's nothing else to do in the living room except watch movies. And when I say "movie kick", I mean more than the normal 20-odd movies I watch per month. The problem, though, is that I've recorded a bunch of movies that suck on toast.

Well, let me back up: I haven't watched the entire movie in most cases, so the film may actually not suck on toast. It may be brilliant. Perhaps these films include giant mechanical spiders, which automatically elevate any boring old movie to genius level. That was Orson Welles' big secret, you know. Giant mechanical spiders. They always stole the scene from Joseph Cotten, which is why he eventually went mad and invented Cherry Garcia ice cream. But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

These are the films I've recently been unable to finish, some because they might, perhaps, just maybe, suck out loud:

1. Danger Lights (1930) - I should have known that this was going to blow when I saw in the opening credits that Hugh "Captain Mumblypants" Herbert was the fucking dialogue director for this film. Come on, people. Hugh Herbert? The mumblemumbleWOOWOO guy? I actually wrote down a couple of things Alan Roscoe said in this film, which I think you'll enjoy: "Whine on you mumpus menargh!" and "What is the shoe doo, bupuko bakah?" Great job directing the dialogue, Hugh! Alan Roscoe doesn't sound like he's speaking in tongues at all.

Of course, I turned up the volume, as people are wont to do when they can't hear shit. Too bad that every spare moment between lines of dialogue was packed to the gills with train sounds. Loud, stroke-inducing, teeth-grinding, pillow-punching train sounds. I gave up after 25 minutes. Maybe you will, too: the movie is here on archive.org.

2. Within Our Gates (1920) - I only stopped watching because my ding dang DVD got full and didn't record the last half. Very disappointing.

3. Love In the Rough (1930) - I recorded an epic buttload of Robert Montgomery movies a few months ago, and found nearly all intolerable. Of the three films I tried to watch, this was the worst. "Their Own Desire" (1929) was decent enough, despite the fact that the film is not 100% Norma Shearer free, and I made it through that one in its entirety. The next film was "The Easiest Way" (1931), which I'd seen a long time ago and liked quite a bit. The 3rd film, though, was "Love in the Rough", one of those snooze-inducing late-20s stage plays with a ridiculous premise and a sidekick that's supposed to be funny but is really annoying. Like, pluck your eyes out and stuff them in your ears kinds of annoying.

4. Guilty Hands (1931) - I finished this one by judicious use of the fast forward button, stopping only for the luscious Kay Francis. I won't tell you what the super secret trick ending was, but for whatever reason, I saw it coming a mile away. Even though it was stupid. So stupid I yelled at Lionel Barrymore, "Why you so stupid, Stupid?" But he flipped me off and made "The Devil-Doll" just to make me cry. Bastard.

5. Menace (1934) - Okay, this is kind of funny. A friend of mine let me "borrow" some movies, one of which was supposed to be "The Menace" (1932). Instead he sent me "Menace" (1934), which is another one of those early stage-to-film murder mysteries, a genre I had just sworn off of for a little while. I'm being stalked by an entire film genre! It's not a bad movie, really, but I've seen so many that I always know what's going to happen, even when the movie allegedly has a ton of twists and turns. It's my keen mind. No, for serious, I should have been all like a detective and shit.

"Menace" starred Gertrude Michael, pictured here in lovely art deco glory.


Note that neither "Within Our Gates" nor Gertrude Michael were given toasts. There is a reason for this, but it's very cryptic and complicated and, quite frankly, you'd never understand it.

Randopic #4: Scandals!

A 1945 advertisement for Reis underwear. No seams to sit on!

The Kitteh in teh Lake

I discovered today that my kitteh Petey's favorite movie is "The Lady in the Lake" (1946). He usually never pays attention to the TV, but he couldn't stop staring at the movie today, especially when Audrey Totter was on screen. He even ran up to the TV to try to catch her when her bracelet shone particularly brightly.


Audrey Totter is friend to kittehs everywhere!

Best. Day. Ever.

KAZ' EARRINGS ARE BACK WOOOOOOOOOO!!! They're all big and gaudy and you can see them! YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY

Boeing Boeing (1965)

I officially give up on 1960s sex comedies. Enough is enough.

"Boeing Boeing" (1965), also known as "Boeing (707) Boeing (707)", is a sex comedy starring Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis.


Curtis plays Bernard, a reporter in Paris who has an apartment he shares with 3 female flight attendants. None of these women know anything about each other; they're all lead to believe this is their permanent home and that Bernard is their fiance. He makes sure they're all away at the appropriate times by keeping strict control of their schedules and noting the times when they're away on their respective flight schedules.

This is skeevy enough, but his maid Bertha (Thelma Ritter doing the same damn role she did in every movie she made) helps him in his scheme. She changes out the ladies' underwear so the German woman doesn't accidentally find the French woman's bras, changes the photo in the living room to the appropriate girlfriend, stuff like that. Even takes the blame when something suspicious happens so that the girlfriends hate her and think she's the cause of all the weird goings-on. Bertha's ire is almost always directed at the women, too, while she's just moderately frustrated with Bernard.

Not skeevy enough? Good, there's more! Bernard's acquaintance Robert (Jerry Lewis) arrives and decides he likes the set-up so much he's going to steal it from him. Not just the apartment, but the three girlfriends and even Bertha, who he lies to in an extended scene where he tries to woo her away from Bernard.

When I said aloud that this was incredibly skeevy, my husband noted that this wasn't just skeeve, it was a case of "skeeve vs counterskeeve".

Basically, it's yet another 60s sex comedy where women are things. They are rarely referred to by their names, instead referred to by the airline they work for; the German woman is called "Lufthansa", the English woman "British United", etc. They're credited this way on the IMDb.


In the opening credits the actresses' measurements (i.e. 36-24-36) are listed under their real names, with no mention of the characters. So it's not just that the characters are objectified, the actresses themselves are turned into nothing more than objects valued based on the size of their breasts and buttocks.


The best part was when Bertha, told to keep girlfriend Lise away from the other two girlfriends, drugged her with so much sleeping potion she really thought she'd killed her. Ha ha! The fun we have!

The film isn't even funny, so you can't make the argument that objectification is all in fun. There aren't many jokes, it's all Scooby Doo-like hijinks with the running around airports and the hiding women in rooms and the hey. Curtis has all the charisma of soggy cardboard and the comedic talent of dry oats. Thelma Ritter... god, don't talk to me about Thelma Ritter. The most annoying actress on the planet. All she does is play the goofy maid, or sometimes a mom who pretends to be a maid. That she was nominated for an Oscar 6 damn times for playing the same role says as much about the Oscars as it does about her.

Jerry Lewis is wonderful and is sadly, sorely, terribly wasted in this film. The female leads are played as stereotypes, given bad wigs and stilted dialogue, and are all as wasted in their roles as Lewis was. Susanna Leigh's role in "The Deadly Bees" was a lot better than her role here, as was her performance. Go watch "The Deadly Bees" and leave "Boeing Boeing" alone.

As to this genre of movie? Enough. There are so many good movies to watch and, as the cliche says, so little time. I've given the 1960s sex comedy enough of a chance that I'm confident that it will not be a mistake if I avoid it for the rest of my life.

Wayman Tisdale

Wayman Tisdale was the first "wow!" musician I discovered when I started listening to smooth jazz a few years ago. My enjoyment of light jazz first began as a casual listener who just turned on the smooth jazz channel while eating dinner, but then I realized that not everything was just "elevator music". Of course, I knew Tisdale's name because he had been a basketball star, but was surprised at how lively, complex and enjoyable his music was.

Tisdale died Friday, May 15, at age 44. He had been taken to the hospital after having difficulty breathing, and he had been battling bone cancer for two years.

Of course, because some people are insane when it comes to sports, Tisdale once reported that former coaches and players actively wished he would not survive the cancer, their animosity against him from his basketball days was so great.

This seems like hyperbole, but allow me to illustrate: In keeping with being a big fucking asshole, Chuck Woodling, retired reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World, decided it would be a good idea to bring up some trivial college basketball incident for no reason other than to cast the recently-dead Tisdale in a bad light. See, back in 1984, Oklahoma played University of Kansas in Lawrence and the team, led by the arguably psychotic coach Billy Tubbs, acted poorly. Tisdale was a 19-year-old on the Oklahoma team at the time, so Woodling thought now would be a great time to grouse about how horrible Tisdale was because he was associated with the incident.

Except, if you'll read the article, you'll see Tisdale wasn't really involved. And the article isn't about Tisdale at all, except for a sentence or two saying, essentially, "Wayman Tisdale died, oh hey, remember when Oklahoma University was TOTES MEEN to our team?"

Chuck Woodling, you may suck it.

As you can see from the comments in the article, almost everyone thinks Woodling was out of line. And he was. It wouldn't matter if Tisdale was alive or not, the fact is that he was not a big player in the incident, that the incident was 25 years ago, and every sane person in the world has moved on by now.

Every day, I get a little more disappointed in humanity.

Fashions of 1920

I was watching part of "Within Our Gates" (1920) last night -- only part of it because my disk had run out of room about an hour into recording, so I was a wee bit peeved -- but I was absolutely enamored of the fashions of that era. Sylvia especially has a gorgeous white dress in the early part of the film. I'm not usually into fashion of any era, but I was so struck with Sylvia's dress that I thought I'd do a little fashion spam post.



This is Evelyn Preer, who played Sylvia in "Within Our Gates". (sauce: Omega418 on flickr) She's so gorgeous. She was reportedly one of the best actresses of her day, but sadly very few of her films survive.


Sylvia's dress in the movie looked a lot like Bess Truman's, seen here in her 1919 wedding to some guy named Harry. I think he did something once. Maybe a couple of somethings.




Here are some patterns of dresses very similar to ones seen in "Within Our Gates". Alma, the supporting female role, wears a suit almost exactly like the one on the right. (sauce - some fun early fashion stuff here)




Another set of patterns. So pretty.




Sylvia had a coat in the film a lot like the woman on the left does. Photo circa 1925. (sauce)




A 1920 fashion study by photographer Baron de Meyer. Beautiful. (Update March 2010: A terrific link on de Meyer here at Aesthetes Lament, courtesy Dfordoom of Cult Movie Reviews.)


School Frocks of 1919! (sauce)





Paul Poiret fashions (sauce)