3 July 2008

I was wondering when today was going to get here.

Check this youtube video out: Gene Simmons of KISS on the Mike Douglas talk show, 1974. In case you don't know, the target demographic of the old Mike Douglas show was extremely conservative, like ages 55-80 or something like that. Not unlike the old Lawrence Welk Show. And here's the bat-lizard himself, with mile high platform boots and snakey tongue. So, it's a funny juxtaposition to begin with. But what makes it even funnier is the presence of borscht belt comedienne Totie Fields, who is not at all impressed or intimidated with Gene. You've got to love the expression on her face when Gene, pathetically in character, muses about biting throats. Best of all is her line, "I bet you're really just a nice Jewish boy under all that!" (Gene Simmons' real name is Chaim Witz; he was born in Israel.) "You can't hide the hook!" (Nose.)

I remember Fields as being a frequent host on various talk shows during the 60's and 70's. I don't recall thinking that she was especially funny at the time, but my appreciation for her sense of humor has increased. A diabetic, in 1977 she had to have a leg amputated. Here she hilariously describes shopping for a prosthetic leg.

There's a book I want to read: The Seven Daughters of Eve, by Bryan Sykes. It has to do with mitochondrial DNA, and the mitochondrial most recent common ancestor (mt mrca) of every living human. You, me and everyone else has her mDNA. Sykes called her "Eve," which is confusing. She's not a first human female, nor is she the helpmeet of the Y-DNA Adam (who lived approximately 30,000 years later). And... well, read the article.

(Where would this blog be without wikipedia?)

Anyway, mitochrondrial Eve is your mother's mother's mother's mother... and so on. How far can you go? I can go back to my 10th great grandmother, a Frenchwoman named Helene Tellier, who was born in Paris in about 1605. Notice how, in this list, the name Mary (Marie in French) is so common. My Mom told me that everyone in her family, and she was one of eleven siblings, got the name either "Mary" or "Joseph," depending. When she told me that I instantly thought of Larry, Darryl and Darryl. But that's not all, oh no. French-Canadians were apparently addicted to names. Her sister Alice (Mary) was usually known as Shirley (Mary). No, Shirley was not her middle name. Her brother Ronald was known as Tom. Why? I don't know. Thomas was not his middle name. And looking at the federal census for 1930 I find a "Tressie." Who on earth was that? I have no idea. The names of the kids seem to change each decade, too. Same kids, different names. My grandfather must have had a smile on his face when he was being interrogated by the census taker.

And don't get me started on French-Canadian dit names again...

All of which leads me to this funny little genealogical in-joke. If you've ever done any family research you'll get the humor.

I am now reading Gastroanomalies, by James Lileks. Lileks is a wonderfully funny writer - his famous website is here - and this is his second book collection of images from 1930's, 1940's and 1950's cookbooks. Mainly, photos of the venomous swill of the era with funny captions. A couple page scans will suffice to give you the "flavor" of the piece: Eyes, Screaming meat. It's hard to believe that Americans considered eating this crap. Anyway, if that's not enough to kill your appetite, here's the online version of his first book, The Gallery of Regrettable Food. Browse through that and see if you can hold your last meal down.

Have a great Fourth of July three day weekend! Tomorrow night we're going to do our usual thing: park in the North Parking lot of the Pentagon, possibly put up the minivan hatches and tarps for any stray thunderstorms, and have a tailgate dinner with the Five Families. Then, walk to the nearby Lady Bird Johnson Park and set up folding chairs to watch the firework show, right across the Potomac. This is the way to do it!

2 July 2008

I watched "C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America" (2004) last night. It's a fake documentary - mockumentary - based on the South's having won the Civil War. Being a Civil War reenactor and buff, I felt I had an obligation to watch it.

It was DREADFUL. It wasn't anywhere near as clever, as funny or as thought-provoking as it thought it was. And I write this not because I do Federal reenacting - really, I can keep an open mind about the consititutionality of secession, Southern political thought, etc. It was just so heavy-handed as to be nearly unwatchable. For one thing, it presumes that if the South had won the Civil War slavery would be perpetuated and continue to exist into the modern day, something that no serious historian ever proposed. I believe just about every book I have ever read about the Civil War mentions that slavery was a dying institution by 1861, and probably wouldn't continue even if the South had been able to broker a peace with the North. So it starts with a highly questionable premise. But okay, let's enter into the world of the work (as my English Lit professors used to say) and give them this one.

You also have to accept the film's premise that, after Gettysburg and war's end, the South could somehow dominate the North militarily, socially, economically and industrially so far as to be able to rename the United States of America the Confederate States of America into a later period, including all fifty states. And South America! Please. I suspect that the writers of this documentary never got around to reading many books about the 19th Century North and the South.

One thing's for sure: the producers did very little research on Confederate vexillology. They kept showing the Confederate navy jack (a rectangular flag) being used as the national flag, and a Confederate battle flag (the square one) is flying over the White House, for example. The real C.S.A. National Flag was a white affair with the familiar starred X in the upper left corner. The flag also had a red vertical stripe on the right edge. Here. You never saw this one in the film. Oops.

By about the half way point, I got very tired of this production. And this film included something I have never before seen in a film: a misspelling on a title card in a (fake) news broadcast. This film was that amateurish.

The only edifying thing about C.S.A. were the references to various actual household products and places featuring outrageously sterotypical black figures. One such was the "Coon Chicken Inn" located in, I hate to say it, Salt Lake City. (It was a chain and there were other locations, but the company was based in Salt Lake City.) Check out this mind-blowing postcard; one entered the restaurant through the mouth of an enormous black man's face. Or what passed for one way back when. Amazing.

Funny thing, though... while making implicit criticisms of black stereotypes, the producers were happy to use stereotypes of white Southerners in this film. This suggests to me that their thought was that there's nothing wrong with stereotyping people as long as they're politically acceptable stereotypes to advance an agenda.

Anyway, C.S.A. was an awkward, clunky and poorly-written mockumentary which does little, if anything, to cause one to consider American history or improve race relations in America. Avoid.

1 July 2008

From my desk calendar: More Tom Swifties.

There are three mysterious natural numbers that seem to describe our universe in some way. (And no, one of them isn't the speed of light, c. I'm talking about pure numbers, not rates.)

3.1415926... - pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter
1.6180339... - phi, the so-called "golden mean"
2.7182818... - e, called "Euler's constant" and the natural logarithmic base

Like many people, they are irrational - that is, they never repeat (unlike many people).

Pi: You know about this one as it's the most famous of the constants. It's also the name of an excellent independent movie made in 1998. The plot concerns a young mathematician who stumbles across a special 216 digit number that is the Hebrew numerological name of God - which can also be conveniently used to predict the New York stock market. So people are after him. It's what you might call a mathematical thriller, believe it or not.

In college, one of my calculus profs told me that 3.14 (and so on) upset the Greeks, who tried to understand why an elegant shape like a circle didn't have a correspondingly elegant value to describe it. So, peeved, they named it with the Greek letter that had the worst connotation, pi. (You know, like how we have an "f-word?") But wikipedia has this: "The constant is named pi because pi is the first letter of the Greek words for periphery and perimeter, probably referring to its use in the formula to find the circumference, or perimeter, of a circle." Who is correct?

Did you know there's a Pi Day? How nerdy.

Phi: Used as a ratio this is a value that describes the growth of living things (sunflower seeds, nautilus shells, ferns, petals on flowers, etc.) The Greeks prized architectural proportions based on phi as especially pleasing to the eye, and when we design postcards, rectangular stamps, 3 X 5 index cards and neo-classical government buildings in D.C. we are perpetuating this obsession. But, once again, phi is an annoyingly inelegant number, like pi. I'm sure there's a philosophical point that could be drawn about how "ugly" numbers create beautiful things - but I won't make it.

By far and away the best visual explanation of phi I have ever seen is a Disney short, "Donald in Mathmagic Land." (It also does a great job in explaining how to make billiards shots.)

e: Too hard to explain. It has important properties in calculus, which I got tired of deriving and proving mathematically in college classes. But check this out, from the wikipedia article: "In the IPO filing for Google, in 2004, rather than a typical round-number amount of money, the company announced its intention to raise $2,718,281,828, which is e billion dollars to the nearest dollar."

Geeks.

30 June 2008

Great weekend! On Friday night, my reenacting pard Chris scored some VIP passes to see the Marine Corps Evening Parade (the one with the silent drill platoon you sometimes see on TV) at their Eighth and Eye Barracks in D.C. Various NCOs were on hand to interpret Marine Corps customs and traditions and barracks history for the crowd. I got to see the official USMC mascot, Sgt. Chesty the Bulldog. Also met the Drum Major for the Marine Corps Band - very cool. Best of all, we had snacks in the Staff NCO club afterwards. A splendid time was had by all!

At Saturday morning yard sales I found yet another treasure trove of Lego, this time for only $6. Must be up to a thousand or so pieces there (those tubs are deeper than they appear in the photo). Okay, that's it - no more grandchild Lego purchases for grandchildren I don't have!

Sunday I got a lot of annoying little bits of work completed around the house, including pulling down dead branches high up in our weeping willow. A wind storm had snapped a branch, causing all the willows below the snapped section to die. So for a while we had a brown and green willow tree in our front yard. Not pretty.

Saw U-571 over the weekend. A good film, but while watching it I kept thinking of other submarine films, like the superior Das Boot. But... it was a good film. My main complaint with it is everyone else's commonsense complaint: what's with giving the Americans credit for capturing the first Enigma machine? That was a British achievement. Way to insult an ally, Hollywood. Would it have been a lesser film were it based more solidly on actual history? No, of course not. So, then, why not make an historical accurate account? That kind of thing drives me nuts about Hollywood - they're always willfully getting it wrong. And then spending time and money with publicity emphasizing how historical accurate the production is. Blockheads.

Also saw the Gregory Peck Horatio Hornblower film from 1951. Not too bad, but the more recent A&E series starring Ioan Gruffydd (British casts and direction) is much, much better. If you haven't seen any of the episodes, you should. They are truly first class. Definitive Forester, I think.

And now... Monday. Bleah. Roll on, Fourth of July three day weekend.

27 June 2008

I like what are called dark rides. I have ever since I was a little kid, riding the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland. I recall being frightened when our ship would dip down and head towards skull rock - for some reason that freaked me out. Later, my parents would try to get me to eat a tuna sandwich on that smelly Chicken of the Sea pirate boat in Fantasyland, which just happened to be parked next to yet another skull rock. No, thanks.

Have you ever counted the number of skulls and skeletons in Disneyland? Hundreds. They appear in the Snow White and Peter Pan dark house rides, on the Jungle Cruise, in the Haunted Mansion, in the Indiana Jones ride, and in large numbers in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. One could make the assertion that a rotting corpse is as emblematic of Disneyland as Mickey Mouse. It's curious, given all the promotion about happiness that Walt Disney claimed for the place. Fact was, Walt had a dark side. From some text about a Neal Gabler biography: "Gabler also reveals a wounded, lonely, and often disappointed man, who, despite worldwide success, was plagued with financial problems much of his life, suffered a nervous breakdown, and at times retreated into pitiable seclusion in his workshop making model trains." I suspect he may have had a morbid fear of death. It seems to come out occasionally in his classic animated films, as when Bambi's mother is nailed by the hunter, or in Snow White. And I have always had a sneaking suspicion that there is a gloomy subtext to Mary Poppins.

The tradition continues... when I was at Downtown Disney in Orlando earlier this month this is what I found greeting guests walking into the big Disney store: a display of quivering, moaning decomposing skeletons. Am I the only person who finds this a bit odd?

I am now reading "A History of the Vikings" by Glyn Jones, a 430 page book I bought in 1997 (yes, at a yard sale). It's very scholarly and I have avoided reading it ever since. But every book in my collection has its day. Jones points out that Bronze Age Scandanavian rock wall carvings feature men with ridiculously large erect phalluses, which I guess suggests that these proto-Vikings thought a lot of themselves.

A friend of mine and I attended a concert given by the U.S. Army Men's Choir last night; it was excellent, as I knew it would be. (I'm telling you, these armed forces musical ensembles are top notch.) They did one piece entitled "Last Letter Home" by Lee Hoiby, which took as its text the last letter written by a soldier, PFC Jesse Givens, serving in Iraq in 2003. He was killed when his tank crashed into the Euphrates River. It was very moving; when it concluded nobody wanted to applaud right away to break the mood. The letter is described here. Here's a youtube video. God Bless all such as Givens who give their lives in our defense...

They also sang a beautiful, dreamy piece in Latin entitled Lux Aurumque.

Actually, last night's program was light-heartedly entitled "Stuff and Nonsense" after a three part piece by Dwayne Milburn. I liked the middle part, a poem by Ogden Nash entitled, "The People Upstairs." The last part was funny, too: New Kid on the Block.

Have a great weekend!

26 June 2008

I have but three words: ICE ROAD TRUCKERS! I saw an episode of this show on the History Channel last night... Yeesh! Talk about grueling conditions. They have shots of big, heavy sixteen-wheelers rumbling across the ice taken from below the ice, in the water! Amazing. An engrossing series. You wonder why anyone (other than Wolverine) would want to live up there. ("Up there" being northern Canada.)

But... what's it doing on the History Channel? Isn't this a topic more suitable for, say, the Learning Channel or the Discovery Channel? Frankly, I have to admit that the old HC has been something of a disappointment. It started off with an over-emphasis on World War II (I know reenactors who call it "the Hitler Channel") and now seems to be heading off in just about any old direction.

One of my favorite reality series, the endearingly contrived and lame "Who Wants To Be A Superhero?" on the Sci-Fi Channel, doesn't seem to be headed for a third season (it normally airs in July). A pity. It's just kitschy and goofy enough to be enjoyable.

I am now reading "The Look of the Century - Design Icons of the 20th Century" by Michael Tambini. Yes, a yard sale book - $1. It examines how all sorts of manufactured objects - cars, furniture, clothing, hair dryers, typewriters, etc. - have changed from 1900 to 2000. So far the most unexpectedly interesting part is about jukeboxes. (Page one, Page two.) I really like that AMi Continental 2. That plexiglass dome is the living end, as we used to say. Lots more fascinating jukeboxes here. By 1967 the designs started to get boring, I think...

Berkeley Marines. Actually, I'm putting this link here because I can't watch the video at work very well; if it's here I'll remember to watch it at home. Berkeley, California, is an odd place. It's simultaneously the nation's biggest supplier of pathetic hippies and excellent rugby players.

Last but not least, there is FACIAL, my son Ethan's blog. "Starting June 20th, 2008 and ending June 20th, 2009, I will draw a single cartoon face EVERY DAY. I've been cartooning since age 3, and have decided that faces are one of the most interesting things to draw. You may see some faces that are unusual, plain, odd, abstract, or ugly. Sometimes the face will depend on my mood for the day, or the amount of time that I have to draw." I have a hunch mine is bound to be one of the 365...

25 June 2008

Here's an interesting blog link sent to me from a British reader: "German Bunker in my Garden." "Our house is in an old quarry, and when we bought it five or so years ago, the previous owner told us that there was a tunnel built by the germans during WW2. He said it was big enough to drive into, and that his father had buried the entrance during redevelopments, but not before filling it with stuff that was lying around the property..." Some history from the Channel Islands, in the U.K.

But that's a promising blog. Today's subject is bad blogs. I was talking to a friend yesterday on the bus home about bad writing and, by extension, bad blogs. About a decade ago one fellow came across one of my web sites on the Internet and mailed me a copy of his self-published book, entitled, "It's in the Book." The idea was that when he talked to people and they asked him his opinion of, say, beer, he would refer them to his book, saying, "It's in the book." Hence the title. Clever, huh? That way he can almost entirely avoid any conversation at all - just continually refer people to a book he's written.

It was truthfully one of the worst books I had ever read. This fellow was single, apparently never thought about anything other than what he could buy, and, really, had nothing to say. And I suspect that if you have nothing to say conversationally, you have nothing to write about, either. Anyway, as I recall, a typical chapter went something like this:

Chapter Five - Beer

I work as an expatriated American defense contractor in Kuwait. I like beer like most guys. I like Bud but you can't get that here. So I drink the local stuff. It's mostly good but sometimes bad. I make a lot of money so I sometimes order beer from overseas. I get Bud Michelob & Coors. I like Coors the best. It has a flavor I like. Did I mention I like beer. Ha! I think America is #1 because we have better beer. Coors is my favorite.

I read this volume from cover to cover - it was like a trainwreck: horrible, but you can't avert your eyes - and then encouraged my wife to read it. I was sitting in the living room one day when I heard a scream from upstairs, followed by, "Give me an icepick so I can gouge out my eyes!" She got about twenty pages into it and had to quit. Good bad writing is like that - it provokes a powerful response. I then threw out the book and was sorry ever since that I did. After all, owning the worst of something is almost like owning the best of something.

I once was directed to an early Internet blog by James Lileks, who writes very, very well. He was kind enough to link one of my sites on his site. The blog in question was written by a lunkhead who apparently had no other higher functions in life than drinking beer and getting laid. (Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking, "But aren't rugby players like that?" No, they're not. They are, by and large, far more intelligent than virtually everyone gives them credit for.) Incredibly, this paleolithic blogger considered himself something like the beau ideal of manhood. And yet, and yet... reading his braindead journals was fascinating. Once again, like witnessing a trainwreck, to use a tortured analogy.

So I'm looking for BAD blogs. The kind of cringe-inducing nattering that causes you to shake your head and wonder about the future of humanity. Do you have any candidates? Tell me! You know, like bad Christmas letters. That's what I'm after!

(And, no, I have no illusions about my own writing, Gentle Reader. Somewhere out there I know there are e-mails along these lines: "Check out this blog by some clown calling himself 'Brigham.' He thinks he knows it all and compulsively writes about only himself, and other weird, random stuff. Who cares?")

Saw a funky, late-period film noir on Turner Movie Classics last night: "The Crimson Kimono" (1959), directed by Sam Fuller. As it doesn't seem to be released on VHS or DVD, I've waited years to see it; it's one of those noirs I've known about but haven't seen. It's fairly typical of Fuller's sensational style: abrupt edits, odd characters, over the top situations. For instance, in the first five minutes or so we see a stripper (Gloria "Voluptua" Pall, shown above) doing her show, taking a drag off a cigarette backstage and suddenly getting shot, falling dead in the center of Main Street in Los Angeles. The title of the movie, by the way, is from the name of her proposed new strip routine featuring a karate artist breaking a piece of wood in two.

The most fun about it, to LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, worked at the Burbank Theater as the organist on the house Wurlitzer.

LaVey, who shaved his head and wore a goatee long before it became fashionable, was a somewhat popular guest on talk shows in the Sixties, as I recall. Well, I got sick of looking at his puss, anyway. Somewhere, I think, there's footage of him discussing wickedness with Merv Griffin circa 1968. That ought to be funny. ("Oooooh. Stepping on the Bible. That's so evil, Anton. We'll be right back!")

24 June 2008

From my desk calendar: FAGOTTIST - one who plays the bassoon. "You could tell by her lips that she was a faggotist." No comment.

I must be getting old. I just spent a good while working out an electronic slide show birthday card for a friend at hallmark.com, something I'd never consider at an earlier age. (Hallmark cards and birthday cards in general have never really been my thing.) I guess I figure that the older I get, the more big a deal every birthday is!

I'm almost done with that 1066/Bayeux Tapestry book I'm reading (see entry for 20 June). One of the odd features about the famous tapesty is that it mentions people for whom we haven't a clue as to their identity, for instance, the dwarf Turold. Who was he? And why is he singled out for mention? The name "Turold" was fairly common in Norman society, and so there could be any number of candidates. A Turold is supposed to have written the famous medieval epic "The Song of Roland," and the book's author, Andrew Bridgeford, makes a rather unsatisfactory claim that the Roland author and the dwarf Turold are one and the same. Hmmmm.

The juiciest mystery behind the tapesty is certainly the section captioned, "Where a priest and Aelfgyva" (dot dot dot you figure out the rest, nudge nudge wink wink). What has incited comment for many years is the naked man in the border, mimicking the pose of the priest and gesturing up Aelfgyva's skirt. Think of it as a sort of 11th century Jerry Springer thing. It has apparently nothing to do with the story the tapestry deals with, the 1066 invasion of England by William the Conqueror. The inescapable conclusion is that it refers to some contemporary sexual scandal, but we don't have a clue as to what it was. Bridgeford writes a lengthy chaper about an historical Aelfgyva, but ends by stating that her connection to the 1066 invasion must still remain unknown.

Anyway, the Bayeux Tapesty reinforces my pet theory that REAL history is always a bit puzzling. And, once again, "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." - L.P. Hartley

Fun fact: When a team of Victorian embroiderers reproduced the Bayeux Tapestry in the 20th C., they put a pair of pants on the little guy in the border. Some online commentary about Aelfgyva is here. And on that salacious note I'll end.

I got my wife to look at a website that sells Bayeux Tapestry reproductions from Belgium. (I like the one entitled "The Battle.") And the other day we got our economic stimulus check. (Hopeful smile.)

Finally, one of my sites is now the definitive online reference for what the San Val drive-in theater in Burbank, California looked like in 1972. (Can you imagine living next door to this, looking out your window and seeing scenes from "Super Fly?")

My quest to provide increasingly bizarre niche information to the masses continues apace.

23 June 2008

From my desk calendar: Marriage terminology. It lacks some of the choice terms some married couples use to describe their relationship with one another. Which reminds me of a story.

When I was a little boy, let's say about four or so, we had crazy, middle-aged neighbors named Edith and Bob who fought continually. They'd have loud and angry arguments, and many is the time I can recall playing in my back yard and seeing Bob, in his wife-beaters, walk outside, slam the back door loudly and yell at his wife, "BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!" as a final word to some disagreement. As this was something of a favorite retort, I used to hear it rather frequently. So... one night, when company was present, Mom told me to go and clean up my room, and, being miffed at thus being dismissed, I innocently repeated Bob's line to her. I recall a stunned look on her face which strongly suggested that I had erred somehow.

Fast forward forty years or so, and I am greatly amused to hear that my son and his friend enjoy dining at Bob and Edith's, a diner in Arlington County. (He wondered why my wife and I started laughing when told of the place.)

I have a photo of Edith and Bob: click here and scroll down about half way. It's the pool photo.

One night Edith got drunk and, remembering some slight my mother had said or done, drunkenly staggered over to our front door and started yelling abuse at Mom. Edith then opened the screen door, walked in and proceeded to assault her. Dad couldn't do a thing because he was just back from the hospital earlier that day and was as weak as a kitten, and was lying on the sofa. As it turned out, Mom, a large-boned French-Canadian woman of fearsome strength, was kicking Edith's butt and decidedly getting the best of the tussle. I can still recall Dad yelling out the door, "Bob! Come and get Edith!" He eventually did, dragging Mom off of her, and that was the end of that friendship; no more pool invitations for Edith and Bob.

You see from this what a genteel upbringing I had.

Yard sales were pretty good on Saturday morning. I found a big 617 piece Lego set - the Dino Research Compound - for $3, probably $50 or $60 when new. I'd say about 614 of the pieces were actually in it (as you can see, I sat on the floor and built it on Saturday). Also thrown in was a big universal set and a little arctic exploration vehicle kit of some kind. As those of you with kids know, Lego sets are expensive. I always like finding them at yard sales.

This purchase was something of a milestone in that it was my very first grandfather purchase. No, one isn't on the way, but I didn't buy this for myself or any of the kids. It's a future presentation.

I also found a couple of Columbia Masterworks Lps I didn't have... I have what may be the oddest niche collection, ever. I'm not really a collector of anything, not having the collector's instincts. My one and only indulgence, however, is in finding Columbia Masterwork Lps ("vinyl") from approximately 1958, when the first stereo recordings were issued, to about catalog number MS-6700, say about 1970. It's not just vinyl and it's not just classical vinyl. It's Columbia Masterworks vinyl from a specific era. The artists who recorded for Columbia in this era included Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, E. Power Biggs on organ recordings and Rudolph Serkin on piano. Best of all, the Stravinsky conducts Stravinsky recordings. In fact, I have twelve of these Lps - the ones with intriguing cover art - framed and up on the wall of my basement. I usually find 'em at yard sales and at library sales for fifty cents to a dollar each, so it's a minor expense. And, of course, I listen to them every now and then.

What motivated this odd desire? When I was twelve I took over the family console stereo, and started digging though the family's record collection finding stuff I liked. One album Dad bought in the past was a Columbia Masterworks sampler, which had a fold out section promoting a bunch of their recordings. "Hey, this is cool," I thought. Ever since, I've casually searched out these recordings and buy them when I find them. One time, when I was eighteen, I stopped in a record store and was amazed to find Columbia Masterworks on a shelf, in order of their catalog numbers. "Some day..." I thought.

By the way, I have always liked their logo, what record collectors call the "walking eye." (Which is suggestive of an Lp and a tonearm.) I am very sorry to report that Columbia Masterworks are no longer known by that name. Sony bought the catalog in 1990, and releases are now known as Sony Classical. Paugh. But they released these great old Lps on CD in their original jackets, which is a step in the right direction.

20 June 2008

Friday! Hooray!

I am now reading "1066 - The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry" by Andrew Bridgeford. So far, it is excellent. You know the Bayeux Tapestry, don't you? You may not recognize it by name, but you've probably seen sections from it. The wikipedia entry is here. It is at once one of the great works of art and great historical documents of Medieval Europe. The beginning of this (revisionist) book states that it's not pro-Norman propaganda, as is usually written, but really a subversive Anglo-Saxon account. I read with interest how that is to be established. Oddly enough, what it isn't is a tapestry - it's really an embroidery. And the French call it La Tapesserie de la Reine Mathilde, according to an old belief that it was ordered made by William the Conqueror's wife Matilda. It isn't that, either.

I understand in Bayeux, in France, the shop associated with where the tapestry is on display sells all sorts of 1066-related trinkets and gifts. If I ever go there I'm buying the place up. About twenty years ago in a local mall I once saw a Bayeux Tapestry reproduction of one of the scenes for about $300; at the time we didn't have the money for it. A pity.

Want to see something really cool? The animated Bayeux Tapestry. It's abridged from the complete story the tapestry tells, but it's still excellent.

I once attended a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings in Maryland in October 1988. As medieval reenactments go, it was the usual thing: guys with wooden swords banging on guys with wooden shields. (We black powder burning types scorn this, generally.) It was quite noisy. But the Norman reenactment unit, Milites Normannorum, was impressive in that they got the chain mail and arms right. The guy who portrayed William the Conqueror was impressively dedicated as well, and shaved the entire back of his head in the Norman style for authenticity. Well, I was impressed. Nowadays it's well within "xtreme" grooming styles.

The other night I enjoyed the British "The Cruel Sea" (1953) one of the Don Tracey collection of Maritime Videos. Brilliant, a truly excellent film. In fact, it was one of the very best World War II films I have ever seen. I now have a new name for sausages: "Snorkers! Good oh!"

Me and a friend (whose birthday it was), went out to Manassas to see a U.S. Navy Sea Chanters performance, which we really enjoyed. Given that he spent twenty years in the Navy, he probably enjoyed it more than I. They did a great Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons/Jersey Boys set, and also asked the musical question, "What Can You Do With A Drunken Sailor?" But as I've blogged before, I really like the local U.S. military musical ensembles and see them whenever I can. Top notch musical performances for free... Army Band, Navy Band, Air Force, Marine Band.

Finally, I watched an interesting show on the Speed Channel last night: "Livin' the Low Life," about low rider cars. (By the way, somebody needs to put Vida Guerra and Kat Von D in the same show...) Being from L.A., I've always been interested in these. Not because I think they're especially artful, but because of the motivations and social culture behind them. One of the questions asked in this particular show is one I've always wondered myself: Why are Impalas so especially popular? The answer given was kind of weak - "Because they look good." I suspect it's because they're kind of blocky and give paint artists a lot of flat surfaces upon which to throw paint. And it's also an agreed-upon social/cultural gathering point of sorts.

At any rate, I used to get a kick out of watching those low riders throw 4,000 pound cars ("hoppers") up and down with hydraulics... it really is a sight to see.

Have a great weekend!

19 June 2008

Well, that's it for us with the public school system! My youngest child graduated from Lee High School earlier this week; we went to the commencement exercises on Tuesday at the Patriot Center and I helped out the other night at the all night grad party. (Actually, it's called a "celebration," probably to manage teenage expectations.)

Grad Nights in Southern California, where I'm from, are great - we spend the night at Disneyland! Well, my friends did. For some odd reason having to do with an overly-introverted and reluctant personality, I didn't. I've regretted it ever since. The Lee High grads spent the night at the South Run Rec Center, where we used to practice rugby. All sorts of games and activities were set up in the fieldhouse, including an area where Texas Hold'em and 21 were played. Not for money, of course, but, still, I wonder about the message we send eighteen year-olds... One Fred Flintstoneish-looking kid was sitting at a 21 table wearing a wife-beater, all by himself with the dealer; he had a hairy back and shoulders, and generally looked like he was 18 going on 46. I half expected him to inquire where to make book for the seventh race at Pimlico. Most of the other kids looked like kids. The casting directors for movies and television shows about teenagers seriously need to visit real high schools.

Another activity in the main building was the application of removable tattoos. As a lark I tried to get a USMC tattoo put on my lower arm, but it wouldn't stick because there was too much hair. My conversation with the Mom putting on the tattoo went like this:

Middle-aged Mom: This isn't going to work, there's too much hair on your arm. I need to apply it where there's no hair.
Me: I'm over 45. There isn't a square inch on my body without hair.
Middle-aged Mom (peering at my receding hairline): How about your upper forehead?
Me: Well, har-de-har-har. I see you have some impressive blue tattoos of your own, running up and around your legs.

Okay, I didn't say that. I would never be that rude.

I did my last grad night party as a volunteer in 2005, when my middle child graduated. Not knowing any better, I asked to be put on a traditionally female assignment: tattoo parlor. At one point a nubile eighteen year-old in a scandalously low cut top plunked herself down and asked for a tattoo on her upper arm; I sent her to a Mom after wondering whether or not the bovine growth hormone in modern hamburgers isn't developing children way faster than normal. My discomfort was relieved when the guy running security walked in and announced that he was short guys to patrol. Since I'm 6'3" and what might be termed husky, I'm a natural candidate, and so I did that for the remainder of the evening. This time I simply voluteered for security, knowing that's where I'd end up anyway.

Security sometimes means posting onesself in front of a fire alarm and ensuring that no prankish teens pulled the lever, which would effectively end the party as the firemen closed the place down and evacuated everyone. This didn't happen in 2005 and, I'm proud to say, it didn't happen on my watch in 2008, either. Another duty was to hover around menacingly at the ticket table near the front door at the start, looking like a formidable deterrant to some kid considering grabbing the cashbox. The flyers for the event emphasized that each kid bring his or her Lee High ID - we didn't want uncontrolled guests for obvious reasons. The number of kids who totally blew off this minor requirement suggests that there will be some immediate wake-up calls regarding personal responsibility come college time.

It was a long night. A further indication of my advanced age came at about 3 AM with the D.J. blasting a heaving, blaring number in the fieldhouse which I am certain is D.J. Beelzebub's personal selection for background music for the Third Ring of Hell in Dante's Inferno. Naturally, the kids loved it, but every now and then a parent would walk by and give me a sympathetic glance. After 45 minutes at that post I'm fairly confident I would have snapped the wrist of any teen daring to touch the fire alarm lever.

By and large, however, as Pete Townshend observed in 1965, the kids are alright. While the activities were great, all that was really required for a successful party was food, the pool and each other. At one point, about 2 AM, one kid who was playing a fantastically fast-paced and skillful game of one on one basketball at a machine asked me if I wanted to play after his companion left. I politely declined. There was also a mechanical bucking bronco, which made mincemeat out of any eastern kid who dared ride. I noted that there were very few rednecks among the Class of 2008 who might be expected to step up to such a challenge. A climbing wall was also available, as was an inflatable horizontal bungee challenge. I noted with approval that the party planners incorporated many such energy-burners into the activities; I am confident that this made my job in security easier.

I brought a CD recording of the Beach Boys' classic song "Graduation Day," which Beelzebub the D.J. kindly played at the end. I'm convinced that neither he nor any of the kids had ever heard it before - a shame. Geez, what's graduation without it?

All in all a wonderful time was had by all, myself included.

18 June 2008

I got a complaint about the image I used for yesterday's blog; the word "Yeach" was used. Apparently some of you don't think Peter Paul Rubens had good taste for calligypian females. (By the way, that's a detail from "The Judgement of Paris," which is significant because it depicts three of the most reputedly beautiful women in mythology: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite.) Obviously, the standard for beauty has changed during the centuries. Back then, poverty or crop failures led to starvation, therefore a well-fed woman was beautiful. I guess. Anyway, were Paris alive nowadays he'd probably find our taste in female beauty odd, too.

When L.P. Hartley said, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." this is kind of what he meant.

Let's take Cleopatra, for example, a fabled beauty. Have you ever seen a bust of her from antiquity? Check this one out. For me, that nose is just a bit too big. Wikipedia has, "In most depictions, Cleopatra is put forward as a great beauty and her successive conquests of the world's most powerful men is taken to be proof of her aesthetic and sexual appeal. Whether or not she would have been considered beautiful by current standards is unknown, but clearly she was appealing by the standards of her time. In his "Pens‚es," philosopher Blaise Pascal contends that Cleopatra's classically beautiful profile changed world history: 'Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed.'"

Personally, I think the greatest beauty from ancient times is Queen Nefertiti; her bust is more famous than Cleopatra's - and I've seen it in person (insofar as a 3,330 year old bust can have a personage) at the Altes Museum in Berlin, Germany. My wife and I just stood there gazing at it. Indeed, I have a large poster of it in my house. How realistic was it? We cannot tell. It could be that it's an idealized image. But idealized or actual, there's a coolness and elegance there that is simply... classic.

By the way, somebody, was it P.D.Q. Bach?, said that a milliHelen was the amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

But my all-time favorite quote about physical attractiveness comes from Joanne Woodward, the wife of Paul Newman (in his prime, frequently described as the sexiest man alive). It's, "Looks are great but looks fade. If you've got a man who can make you laugh every day, then you've really got something." I smile victoriously at my wife when I cite that one.

And who do I think is the greatest beauty of modern times? For me, there is only one answer: my wife. Period.

17 June 2008

Word of the day: Calligypian. On Saturday morning, while browsing yard sales, I saw a tee shirt with the word "callipygian" on it. Knowing it to be a Greek word and not able to figure it out for myself (which I can do sometimes), I asked the woman what it meant. She had a blank face and shrugged "I don't know," and asked her friend. Her friend hesitated a moment and said, "Nice ass," with some embarrassment. I then narrowed my eyes and peered at them both (they were both seated). The knowledgable woman said, "You could wear it!" and then, when I returned a puzzled stare, added, "... it's an extra large." Not bothering to ask if one thing didn't negate the other, I said, "No thanks" and moved on.

I did get a VHS tape of "U-571" for a buck. I like submarine films. But I'm told this one isn't as good as "Das Boot." I'll decide when I see it.

I also found a neat hardbound commemorative book about Disneyland's 25th anniversary (1980) for $1. The first date my wife and I went on was a 1979 trip to Disneyland, so these pages depict that park. (But... why are the pages beginning to yellow? And what's with that horribly dated font, and the funny clothing and hairstyles on the people in the pictures?) On the drive down I agreed to lend her a nice book about Henry VIII I had; it was my sneaky way of ensuring that I'd see her again.

Speaking of Disney... yesterday I blogged about the Disney Vacation Club. A constant reader of this blog sent me an e-mail and commented, "Take it from a bankruptcy attorney - timeshares are an awful investment and not a good value for the money. ...I would be really leery of buying a Disney timeshare. Disney is the king of hide the ball, non-economic value-based marketing. They are way too savvy for me to enter into any kind of substantive negotiations with them (and I negotiate for a living). I always thought it was interesting that the DVC sales pitch offers free ice cream for the kids while other timeshare pitches in Orlando will actually get you into Disney for sitting through their torture sessions."

I forgot to mention that when I arrived back from Orlando and mentioned that I attended a 45 minute timeshare pitch from Disney, the professional timeshare brokerage couple quickly asked, "What did they give you?" Nothing. It hadn't occurred to me that negiotiating a gift for sitting through a timeshare pitch is part of the game. So now I feel like a minor sap; if surveyed, I will check the "the sales presentation did not fully provide me with a good overall experience" box. Yet another reason why I should probably avoid timeshares entirely. But! Despite constant pressure I refused to give my home telephone number for a follow up call. It was funny... when talking to a cast member about a "reservation" I was waiting for the line, "But we need your phone number in order to make the reservation," in which case I'd say, "Fine. Goodbye." and watch that little play fail entirely.

Self-confidence, backed by some experience, is one of the comforts of middle age. After successfully negiotiating with realtors (we once sold a home by ourselves), car salesmen (there is no new automobile on earth we can't walk away from), doctors and oncologists (I once watched my wife squabble with a doctor over medical procedure while dressed in a surgical gown, seated on a hospital bed), teachers (innumerable conferences) and public school administrators at every level my wife and I are intimidated by nobody.

One of the great bits of knowledge in life is knowing which purchases are necessary and which are not. In other words, being able to determine what is a luxury and what is a necessity. Not only does it give you the upper hand with salemen of all kinds, it just might keep you financially solvent. I have to admit that seeing yard sale prices for things every Saturday morning is sobering, too. It's awfully hard for me to justify the purchase of, say, a $30 DVD set when I get perfectly watchable and entertaining VHS tapes for fifty cents or a buck. (Or free.) When I was a teen I used to think that media was worth what they were asking. Now I know it's worth what you can get it for, which is a different thing.

Today my youngest child attends her high school graduation ceremony, and an important chapter in her life and mine (the public school system) ends. Men who have been trying to be good fathers can have terribly conflicted emotions about this. When you've been a dad for the last 24 1/2 years and your last kid will soon move out of the house, you feel like, "Now what? What good am I anymore? Is there any possible use for me? What do I do with myself now?" and so on. I suspect that from now on life affords a greater degree of self indulgence and more service, but to different entities. Older couples keep assuring me that the financial dependence is still there to some extent... Swell. Now I'm a colossal walking wallet.ÿ

Well. If my blog entires start to seem a little depressive, that's why, Gentle Reader.

16 June 2008

The months of the year (and Latin sundial sayings). They missed, "Grow old with me, the best is yet to be" and, "I only count sunny hours."

When I was in Orlando earlier this month, feeling curious about seeing a lot of "Disney Vacation Club" (a Disney-themed timeshare condo system) people all over the resort hotels, I drove over to the "welcome center" and gave them 45 minutes before I had to be at the airport to make their pitch. Of course they wanted longer and made a fuss about having to get a manager approve an "appointment time," but I cheerfully informed them that I would hurl off any number of cast members assigned to me in order to make my flight. (I happened to be wearing a rugby shirt when I made this assertion.) That led to a wonderfully to-the-point briefing.

Simply stated, the system works on points. You buy at least $16,640 worth of them at the start and enter into a timeshare condo purchase agreement. Each point costs $104. You sign up for a 50 year plan. Each resort costs a certain number of points per night, and you can choose between larger or smaller sized apartments. The Disney system is extended to cruise ships and with nationwide and worldwide associations with other resort systems, so it's not just Orlando. The system offers a lot of flexibility, which most timeshare condo systems don't. (You sign up for a week at one place.) At first it sounded good.

However, my BS alarm went off when the cast member (a realtor) described this as "An investment in my family's vacation planning for the next 49 years." Hmmmm. And being a straight dollars and cents kind of guy - I am not especially good with finance, but fortunately my wife is - I thought about the costs. The points breakdown for their least cost resort, Disney's Key West Resort in Orlando, not far from Downtown Disney, is 10 points per night. It goes up - costs more points - for certain seasons and, of course, for larger apartments. So let's say we want to have a four day vacation at the Key West resort with a small studio apartment. 10 points X $104/point is $1,040 a night. Times four nights is $4,160. Add in the approximately $700 in DVC yearly fees and you get $4,860. Yikes!

But that's just lodging. You also have to consider what's not included: airfare (which I can attest is getting more expensive every day), park admission, car rental (if you do that) and food. Clearly, we're looking at a pricey vacation! And, at the end of 49 years you have... nothing. No real estate to pass on, nothing. The deal ends.

Obviously, you can get a lot of hotel for $4,860 for four days. For instance, the Disney Grand Floridian, which is a gorgeous hotel, starts at $385/night to $710/night. The Polynesian, which I like better being a tiki kind of guy, is somewhat less. Two bedroom suites are more, of course, but, costly as it is, it's a lot less than owning a Disney timeshare. And, needless to say, you can find much better rates at other Orlando hotel chains.

So... what do you get with a Disney Vacation Club membership that you can't get with a travel package pre-negiotiated by, say, COSTCO? Frankly, I don't know. Goofy phoning you up for a wake up call, perhaps. A cheery cast member greeting you at the timeshare with a somewhat contrived, "Welcome home!" greeting upon arrival. To be honest, some truly inspired and cleverly-themed architecture and landscaping. But is it worth it?

When I arrived back in town from Orlando I mentioned the briefing to a couple who, as it turns out, makes a partial living by renting and leasing timeshares other people have unloaded. (At least I think that's what they do.) As it turns out, most people become disenchanted with their timeshares after five or ten years, and then this couple starts wheeling and dealing. The whole thing kind of made me think of vultures waiting to pounce on real estate, to be honest.

I don't think I'm ever going to be a timeshare condo owner.

Watched "Sink the Bismarck" (1960) last night. Excellent film. When I was a kid I remember seeing another kid in a pool leap upon a fat kid screaming, "Sink the Bismarck!" Now I get the reference.

13 June 2008

Friday the Thirteenth! See this.

We put down a new carpet in the basement last night; we retired our eleven year-old hunter green one and got a beigey semi-shag that makes the whole room look lighter. I have always liked the smell of new carpet because it smells like affluence. Back when I was a kid, when my parents finally carpeted our family room and I no longer had to lay on cold linoleum, I associated the new carpet smell with luxury, and so it continues to this day. So ignore all those dire prognostications about the tanking economy. There's a new carpet in the basement Chez Clark!

The preceding paragraph makes me think of the old Depression era song, "We're in the Money." This, in turn, makes me think of and of the lavish Busby Berkeley production number of the song featuring gigantic coins and Ginger Rogers wearing coins to modestly conceal her crotch - check it out here on youtube. (It's from "Gold Diggers of 1933.") I like when Ginger rolls her eyes and sings in pig Latin. Those 1930's women would be attractive, if it weren't for that period style of plucking their eyebrows to an angstrom or two of width. Well, whatever. That's what passed for beauty "back in the day" and Berkeley always catered to the Y chromosome bearers in the audience.

For me, however, the ultimate mind-blower Busby Berkeley number is "I Only Have Eyes For You," from 1934's "Dames." As one commenter wrote, "Before there was CGI there was Busby Berkley." This freaks out all who see it.

(You can appreciate the mighty leap in style and mood when, 25 years later, Terry Johnson of the Flamingos brilliantly rearranged the song into what is arguably the best romantic nocturne of all time. Click here.)

More Berkeley? Okay, here's a good one: Ruby Keeler taps her little heart out in the finale to 42nd Street. Incredible. Just tell me you don't have that song stuck in your head afterwards. I won't believe you.

More Keeler? Here she Shuffles Off to Buffalo. No doubt about it, she was a doll.

One last one, with an interesting tie to American history: Joan Blondell remembers her forgotten man. Wow! What was THAT all about? In the 1930's "the Forgotten Men" were out of work and impoverished World War I veterans. They're associated with the Bonus Army March on Washington D.C. in 1932, which wikipedia neatly describes here. It's a fascinating incident in American history, when, right in the nation's capital, Federal troops attacked former Federal troops, leaving two veterans and two infants dead and various others maimed and injured. Not one of the Republic's shining moments. But we have now remembered the Forgotten Man.

And now... BRING ON THE WEEKEND!

12 June 2008

I am now reading "The Poe Shadow," by Matthew Pearl. It's a mystery about the death of Edgar Allen Poe; I found it at a yard sale last month. A few years ago I read a book which looked at the circumstances of the author's death (John Evangelist Walsh, "Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe," 2000), so this is of interest to me.

The usual account is that Poe died of some alcohol or drug-related cause. Wikipedia states that the newspapers of the time gave the cause of his death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. However, the book I read gave a convincing account of his possibly being drugged and beaten (cooping), and dying of a concussion. Oddly enough, Poe wasn't wearing his own clothes when his body was found.

The wikipedia article about Poe's mysterious death is here - interesting reading.

I read all of Poe's short stories as a teenager. I first got interested in his work when I was eight, when my friend Jimmy's older sister took us out to the movies one lazy summer day in 1964. She was a huge Beatles fan (in fact, she was the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Beatles fan club and once met them), and was curious about the Roger Corman film "The Masque of the Red Death," which starred Vincent Prince and Jane Asher. Asher, at the time, was Paul McCartney's girlfriend. So Kathy was sizing up the competition, I guess. Anyway, I fell in love with the artsy and coloful film, and was gratified to learn, years later, that it was accounted one of Corman's best. Even better, when I finally saw it again in 1981, as a young adult, I was satisfied to see that it was as good as I remembered. I always like when that happens.

Poe's short story the Masque of the Red Death really isn't long enough for a feature film, so Corman's script writer cleverly inserted another short Poe tale, Hop-Frog, to flesh it out. The two stories merge perfectly.

As a kid, I always wondered: what exactly was the Red Death? The short answer is, a literary invention. There never was an historical plague by that name. However... I once read a fascinating - and frightening - book about the Spanish influenza outbreak of 1918 (yes, a yard sale purchase). It also discussed mutated varieties of other flu viruses, including the candidate for the next great pandemic, H5N1, the so-called avian flu virus. According to the book's author, in 1918 victims frequently bled from every orifice, leaving sheets awash in blood, and an H5N1 outbreak would probably have the same characteristic. Horrible! Medieval!

By the time I moved out to the East Coast, I was happy to finally be able to visit the Poe Museum in Richmond. A visit is highly recommended, if you like the author's works.

Also cool: I got to visit Poe's room while attending the University of Virginia. Fittingly enough, it was #13.

Another Poe curiosity, concerning his wife, Virginia. Her one and only likeness that survives is a watercolor of her modeled from her corpse!

And finally, I can't forget to mention the mysterious Poe Toaster. I want to see him place the roses on Poe's tombstone sometime before I move out of the area...

11 June 2008

From my desk calendar: A Good Match. How complicated. Lust, unfortunately for John William Taylor, just doesn't work that way.

Here is mangofalls.com. What's it all about? It's a website of random, unidentified slides from abandoned cameras. The webmaster doesn't know who any of these people are (unless they happen upon the site and identify themsevles, but that apparently hasn't happened yet). What's interesting about them to me is the quality of the Kodachrome process, which is famous as an archival medium. Colors still look good.

There's a cottage industry for this kind of thing. Charles Phoenix takes his old slides out on the road. Nice racket.

Archeologists uncover the world's first Christian church. If they dig deeper I bet they'll find a cassarole dish down there, somewhere.

Remember bulletin boards? That is, BBS (bulletin board system), the electronic ones you used to dial up with modems in your PC? They were the forerunner to the World Wide Web. You would dial up a telephone number where, at the end of the line, a PC with a modem would be waiting to take your call. Then you'd connect to an ASCII interface with, more likely than not, a Tolkien or Star Trek theme ("Welcome to the Black Gate of Mordor!") and download and upload software. Or chat. I was thinking about them the other day and it occurred to me that there might be an entire generation of people who have never used one. Indeed, I confirmed this with a 31 year-old friend; he has never dialed one up. The last time I did so was, I think, in 1994. It was where I downloaded my very first .jpg image: a shot of Leonard Nimoy as Mister Spock. Shortly thereafter I got my account to the workplace Unix Internet system (called, appropriately enough, "pioneer") and have never looked back. I remember being stunned that I could actually routinely send and receive e-mails to anywhere in the world from my PC and modem at home - this was about in 1995. Now, we expect to do that with BlackBerrys. It's funny... once upon a time "http://" looked decidedly odd and unfamiliar.

Anyway, in late 1994 I set up the very first Internet discussion group about Civil War reenacting, CW-reenactors, which was hosted on a George Mason University computer. I was the moderator until I got really, really tired of crazed neo-Confederates attempting to use the service to argue the constitutionality of secession. YAWN. So I turned it over to a guy named Al Aronson, who turned it over to Betty Barfield. It's still around!

My first website, JonahWorld!, went up in 1996. It's still up, of course, and I wrote a little piece about the good old days of the early WWW. I guess I'm proud of my longevity and grandfather status on the World Wide Web.

"I heard they have the Internet for computers now!" - Homer Simpson

Want some fun? Here's what the Internet looks like. That is, snapshots at various points in time.

10 June 2008

As I mentioned yesterday, I was at the GFirst conference in Orlando, Florida last week. This involved sitting in classes and seminars where I received all sorts of new information, phrases and buzzwords.

For instance, one guy kept using the phrase "black swan," and mentioning that 9/11 was one such "black swan" occurance. What on earth is that? Wikipedia gives an answer. It has to do with the probability of random acts that have huge consequences. As you can imagine at an information technology (IT) security conference, 9/11 got mentioned a lot. One guy called 9/11 a "Digital Pearl Harbor" (because it forever changed awareness of the threat of computer security).

Another term popped up, Botnet. Don't know how I missed that one before, but I did. Geez, sounds like the Internet is totally out of control. Actually, it is - that was the summary of one of the briefings I attended. I was told the interesting story of the time that the government in Pakistan blocked youtube from Pakistani users - and knocked out youtube to the rest of the world for about two hours as well. Fascinating, but that's the way the Internet works. There isn't a single controlling entity and one rogue nation can foul things up for everybody. The wonder is that it doesn't happen more often.

Another odd term that popped up in my conference was "Folksonomy." Funny thing was, when I raised my hand and asked what a folksonomy was, I got an entirely different answer than what wikipedia supplies. This suggests that the presenter didn't really know what he was talking about... Come to think of it, the same presenter came up with this whopper quote in one of his slides, "More change will occur between 2009-2020 than in all of human history prior to today." Oh, really? What change, exactly? Economic? Technological? Social? Any? All? And what's missing from this bold statement is the phrase, "...if present trends continue..." - and they almost never do. What futurist nonsense. But then, back in the 1960's those people assured me that we'd all be using videophones and driving about in air cars.

(By the way, have you noticed the subtle shift from "global warming" to "climate change?" If the trends don't fit your prediction, change the phrasing of the prediction.)

Also mentioned in the conference was the Morris worm, the world's first Internet worm.

I also caught another pair of interesting terms: "Typo squatting" and "SAM" (Socially Awkward Male). Typo squatting is when, for instance, you mistype "rugbyfotball.com" and wind up at a web site that loads malware on your PC. SAMs, of course, may be found in video game stores across the country.

I also sat in a session where some law enforcement types described the electronic trail of clues leading to the apprehension of Max Ray Butler, a.k.a. the "Iceman", a formidable internet scam artist. What was interesting was hearing them describe the physicality of the break in and apprehension. Butler is 6'5", 225 pounds and, at the time of his arrest, naked. (Naked because all of the computer equipment in his room - servers, routers, etc. - heated the air to the point where the apartment's air conditioning system couldn't keep up.) Now, looking at it as a rugby player, taking down a naked guy is far easier than taking down a clothed guy, once you get over some squeamishness about physical contact - being a scrummie helps there. Think about it: no matter how big your opponent is, getting your hands on his cojones will render him very, very docile. And, as we know from the rugby episode of "Friends," ruggers will grab anything.

9 June 2008

I am back!

Attended the GFirst conference in Orlando, Florida. Naturally, I brought a camera and, at night, I did some sightseeing. Click here for the photos and write up.

30 May 2008

I digitized my high school graduating class yearbook (Burbank High Class of 1974) the other day, just for the heck of it. The Seventies were indeed a strange time. Check out the clothing on these members of the faculty. No, they didn't dress up for the photographer - this is what they normally wore. My philosophy is that you should only go so far to gain the acceptance of your students; clown bowties and LSD shirts are beyond the pale.

And despite the fact that I have grown grayer, fatter, balder, harder of hearing and poorer of eyesight, I'm glad I no longer look like this. (It could have been worse, though.)

In the 5/22 entry I mentioned having a crush on fellow student Leslie Haviland. Here she is.

Back in 1974 there was a (mercifully short) fad for "streaking," that is, running around wearing only socks. My yearbook duly commemorated this - as tastefully as possible. In rugby we know it as a "Zulu."

Far more comical to me, however, was modern interpretive dance. This was where girls and hopeful, opportunistic boys dressed in tights and sort of grouped themselves into odd structures, all while managing to keep serious expressions on their faces. (Hey, this is ART we're doing, here.) Do high schools do that any more or has this been relegated to the dust bin along with the clown bowties?

I recall one memorable assembly where a league of modern dance girls came out dressed like sluts and bumped and grinded (ground?) to a recording of David Bowie's "Sorrow." ("With your long blonde hair/And your eyes of blue/The only thing I ever got from you/Was sorrow/Sorrow.") Here they are. Check out the ones at right. Bet Mom was thrilled with that "interpretation." Needless to say, we boys loved it. It was kind of like attending a school board-sanctioned burlesque show.

Barbershop singing was popular for some totally unaccountable reason. The sound of a barbershop quartet is right up there with accordions in my estimation. Both actually make me feel queasy. But barbershop? In the Seventies when every established thing was considered totally unhip and uncool? Who would have thought?

Since Burbank High had a pool, water polo was one of the sports that got yearbook coverage. The sport left me unconcerned. Far better was playing an aquatic form of "smear the queer" if we got to use the pool during P.E. In it, one kept the ball as long as one could while being gripped and held under water by opposition players. Since we had a backyard pool I was quite practiced at holding my breath. It was rather like pool rugby, actually, or rugby without sweating. No wonder I took to the game...

And also, inevitably, there is high school drama. I have since come to appreciate it since both my daughters took part, but I'm still glad I missed "Trio '74."

Mitch Vogel was in my graduating class. Remember him? He played Jamie Hunter Cartwright in the last years of "Bonanza." In the show he was an orphan adopted by the Cartwrights. Mitch Has Multiple Daddies! IMDB bio here. The most famous person appearing my my yearbook, however, is director Tim Burton, who was a sophomore when I was a senior. He had my art teacher, Miss Frey. According to a classmate, "...the case can easily be made that without Frey, there would be no Tim Burton as we know him." Perhaps if I had paid more attention in her class I could have been a contender, too, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

No updates all next week; I'll be away at training.

Have a great weekend!

29 May 2008

I watched half of a great old WWII Navy movie last night, "Destroyer" (1943). It stars one of my favorite actors, Edward G. Robinson, a man who conveys intelligence in every role. The comic relief is provided by Edgar Buchanan ("Uncle Joe" in the 1960's "Petticoat Junction" TV series - geez, he seems old in 1943!) and Leo Gorcey, "Spit" of the Dead End kids. Gorcey makes a fine sailor. I really like Navy films. They make me gung ho to be aboard a ship. (My friend Don Tracey, who served in the Navy in Vietnam, assures me that the attraction fades with time...)

My desk calendar tells me that on this day in 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest for the first time. Norgay is an interesting character; his wikipedia entry is here. An interesting quote: "Tenzing and Hillary were the first people to conclusively set their feet on the summit of Mount Everest, but journalists were persistently repeating the question which of the two men had the right to the glory of being the first one, and who was merely the second, the follower. Colonel Hunt, the expedition leader, declared, "They reached it together, as a team." Tenzing stressed the unity of such teams and of their achievements. He shrugged off the allegation of ever being pulled by anyone, but disclosed that Hillary was the first to put his foot on the summit. He concluded: "If it is a shame to be the second man on Mount Everest, then I will have to live with this shame."

"Merely the second." Typical newsie slant. They're always overlooking the real story for manufactured ones.

I know what Norgay means. I have always placed greater importance on teamwork than on individual accomplishment. Growing up as something of a loner, I have always greatly enjoyed my participation in teams and collaborative efforts. If I were an actor, I think I'd look for ensemble pieces to be in, for instance. This is why, I think, I became attracted to rugby, which has rightly been called "the world's greatest team sport."

I'm in the process of doing some research on John West Haley. Who? Click here. Haley is my favorite Civil War diarist, a soldier in the 17th Maine. Yesterday I made contact with a library in Saco where he used to work (he died in 1921). His writings are housed in a collection there. I was told to e-mail a ninety year-old man who recently gave a talk about Haley; I hope to gain some interesting insights into the life of this interesting fellow. The librarian is mailing me his notes from the talk. She also told me that one of the gems in their collection is a private, gossipy work Haley wrote describing the goings on in each household in Saco in tiny, precise handwriting. She said it's hilarious and yet another example of Haley's acid wit. She also said that she suspects that he wasn't well liked around town. Perhaps not... but he's one fellow I hope to meet in the afterlife!

The amazon.com link for Haley's indispensable book "The Rebel Yell and the Yankee Hurrah" is here. Buy it! It's highly recommended for any Civil War buff and a classic of its type.

28 May 2008

ANIMMMMMMAAALLLLLLS IN SPAAAACE!

Scroll to the 2000's, where you can read this: "Nematodes (C. elegans) from one experiment were found still alive in the debris after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster." Sheesh, again with the nematodes. (Click here, where I discuss these weird creatures.) Nematodes freak me out!

I am now reading "Medieval England - A Social History and Archealogy from the Conquest to 1600 AD" By Colin Platt. Well, that's not quite true. I'm scanning it. It's entirely too dry and academic, even for me. I like the subject matter, but, geez, I'm not terribly interested in each phase of construction of every abbey and church in England.

So how, then, did I end up with this book in the first place? No, not from a yard sale. A guy I didn't know died (his wife and mine were in the same exercise class) and the widow invited us over to buy what we wanted out of his truly HUGE book collection. So I gathered up every book I could find about medieval England - about thirty - and made an offer. This guy also had Glocks, old Nikon F-series bodies and lens, fireworks, old Playboys and booze. The Playboys and booze I sold to Western Suburbs and then gave the widow the proceeds. The widow kept the Glocks.

Last night I watched a bunch of Roxy Music videos; I bought a two DVD set with some birthday money. Are you familiar with the band? Bryan Ferry's group. The funny thing about them was that they looked like a bunch of art school types except for the drummer, who looked like he came out of a sheet metal shop. (Click here - can you spot the drummer?)

They made news in late 1974 when they released their "Country Life" album, which had - how do I put it? - exploitative cover art. Record outlets like Sears had a fit and refused to stock it, so an alternative cover was quickly devised. None of the songs were even remotely offensive; it's an excellent, tasteful work. The follow up album, "Siren," from 1975, featured Mick Jagger's common law wife Jerry Hall on the cover, as a mermaid with unusually flexible shoulder joints.

Other interesting Roxy Music album covers:

Stranded (1973 - this one would get them in trouble with feminists these days)
For Your Pleasure (1973 - that's Vegas in the background)
Roxy Music (1972 - self-titled)
Flesh+Blood (1980 - there's another girl in white on the back)
Manifesto (1979 - the party's over)
Avalon (1982 - everyone said, "Hey, where are the girls?")
Viva! (1976 - a live album)

Come to think of it, they've always had classy, art schoolish design elements to go with their classy, art schoolish music.

They're reportedly working on a new studio album, their first since 1982. I'm interested in hearing it.

27 May 2008

It's a Tuesday, but it sure feels like a Monday.

From my desk calendar: Ink color. I'm an advocate of just plain old black. I have to laugh about the use of green ink by knaves and the insane. There used to be a Civil War reenactment event organizing company calling itself "Napoleonic Tactics, Inc." run by a guy named Pat Massengill. (I am not kidding.) Since their logo was in green, he used green ink in correspondence.

A reader sent this in, The Eight Least Intimidating Gangs in Movie History. Agreed about the utter cake buttedness of the Baseball Furies in "the Warriors." The worst thing they could do a passerby is to enlist him into their ranks. And ditto with the Greasers in "The Outsiders." Nothing ruins gang creds like Patrick Swayze.

Speaking of disappointment, I saw the latest Indiana Jones film (no, I'm not even going to bother to spell out the stupid title) on Friday night because others wanted to. I thought it was juvenile and tedious; I zoned out at about the 2/3rd mark, when the Jones family were having a squabble in the quicksand. My jaw dropped when the flying saucer took off. Retire this franchise. Now.

I still want to see "Iron Man," which has much better word of mouth reports. I guess the movie-going crowds have thinnned out by now.

The Turner Movie Classics channel has been playing a lot of Frank Sinatra material in May. I watched "Frank Sinatra: A Man and his Music" parts one, two and three (1965, 1966 and 1967) and "Ol'Blue Eyes is Back" (1973). I don't think much of 'Ol Blue Eyes as a person (he had some pretty unlikable characteristics), but as an artist I really have to admire him. Every nuance and gesture communicated the song. And the phrasing and voice... it's wonderful watching him sing a song. Like Judy Garland, he could sing the phone book listings and make it interesting. I truly think, more than anyone else, he was the dominant entertainment personality of the Twentieth Century.

I remember exactly when I heard the most depressing song I know: Frank Sinatra's "It was a Very Good Year," which was a hit for him in 1965. (Lyrics here.) I was nine, and Sinatra was 50. It was playing on the car radio, and I asked my father questions about the song - why it was so sad, what it was about, etc. My Dad (who was then 53, one year older than I am now) responded that it was a song about a man who was, ".in the September of his years."

This was the first time I ever heard this phrase and puzzled over it. When exactly can a man be said to be in "the September of his years?" With a sinking feeling that I have already reached that point, I have calculated it. (This is why people call me "Chronos.")

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the average life expectancy for an American male and female combined is 77. For a white male it's 74.8. But let's be optimistic and use, say, 77. Dividing 77 into 12, gives, roughly, 6.4 years. So each "month" of a man's life lasts 6.4 years. Doing the math gives the following result, and you may check to see where you are on life's calendar:
January: birth to 6.4 years
February: 6.4 to 12.8 years
March: 12.8 to 19.2 years
April: 19.2 to 25.6 years
May: 25.6 to 32 years
June: 32 to 38.4 years
July: 38.4 to 44.8 years
August: 44.8 to 51.2 years
September: 51.2 to 57.6 years
October: 57.6 to 64 years
November: 64 to 70.4 years
December: 70.4 to 76.8 years

A few things become apparent: 1. This scheme makes some poetic sense. After all, when a man is between 25 to 44 years old he may be said to be in his prime, or high summer, of his years. 2. This scheme kind of falls apart for me in December. That's a jolly, lively month - like the repentant Scrooge. I'd expect one's last failing years to psychologically be more like February (the dead of winter).

Being 52, I am now in the September of my years. Ugh. Never liked September. That's when school started.

23 May 2008

Yesterday another reader gently took me to task for perhaps overstating the case for the excellence of (real) Confederate troops and Robert E. Lee's generalship. No, no... I won't get snagged into any prolonged discussions of who was the better general, Grant or Lee. That matter can be and is endlessly debated. Yet, I stand by my assessment. While it is true that Grant had an excellent strategic sense of how to wage modern warfare and occasionally out generaled Lee - and, let's face it, compelled Lee to surrender! - I think when all is said and done, Lee was the more brilliant general.

As for Confederate troops - the real ones - I stand by my assessment that they were the better fighters. I think the Yanks were the better soldiers, but that, too, is a matter for endless debate, which, like the consitutionality of secession, I won't entertain. Snore.

Have you ever spent any time on Wikipedia Commons? Good stuff there. Take this painting for example, "Ivan the Terrible Showing His Treasury to Jerome Horsey" by Alexander Litovchenko. (Click on the image for higher resolution.) Gorgeous! Ivan's son Fyodor is shown... this isn't the son Ivan killed, also named Ivan. Wikipedia commons has many good images of Ivan and Ivan-related stuff; take a look!

By the way, Ivan's nickname in (transliterated) Russian is "Grozny," which is more correctly translated into English as "Ivan the Threatening" or "Ivan the Dread." Did you know that?

I am now reading D.J.V. Fisher's "The Anglo-Saxon Age, c.400-1042." I have always liked learning about the migration of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes from upper Germany to Britain, and of the subsequent Northumbrian, Mercian and Wessex kingdoms. There are lots of groovy old Saxon names in this book: Pecthelm, Oswiu, Raegnald, Sihtric, Eardwulf, Hlothere, Aethelthryth, Hwaetbert, Hygeberht, Aelfheah, Aelfthryth, Brihtheah, Byrhtnoth, Ohthere, Plegmund, Hygeberht, Oshere, Saxulf, Ulfketel, Widukind, Waerferth, Wynfrithand... and my personal favorite, Eorpwald. Here's some fun: One of these names is for a female. Can you guess which one? Answer below.

In the Seventies a ethnic custom arose with African names being adopted by American blacks; this was once hilariously sent up in an episode of Sanford and Son. Can you imagine a similar Anglo-Saxon ethnic awakening, using these names? Suddently little Hwaetberts and Aelfheaths start appearing in elementary schools...

I was hoping to see one of my favorite relics from those olden times, the celebrated Alfred Jewel, at the British Museum when I was there in March. (Photo here.) Whoops! It isn't located there; a patient museum employee told me that it's in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. Bummer.

Saw a funny little movie the other night about surfing penguins, "Surf's Up." That computer-generated animation is getting better and better. Those images of rolling waves and sunsets looked hyper-real. Notice the artifical lens flare in this shot. This being CGI, there are no lens, of course. But the animator put it in there thinking that we subconsciously associate such optical artifacts with reality. Interesting. Bring on summer!

Speaking of which, as you know, Monday is Memorial Day. It started out as Decoration Day, to honor the Union soldiers who died during the Civil War, and later was changed to include all U.S. soldiers of all wars. Confederate Memorial Day is a different matter entirely.

Wikipedia mentions the Charles Ives symphonic poem "Decoration Day": "...depicts the holiday as he experienced it in his childhood, with his father's band leading the way to the town cemetery, the playing of Taps on a trumpet, and a livelier march tune on the way back to the town. It is frequently played with three other Ives works based on holidays as the second movement of 'A New England Holidays Symphony.'" This is a rip-snorter of a work because all of the various elements - a band playing one march, another band playing another, fire bells, etc. - all play at once at the end. Ives was into dissonance, polyrhythms, and, in general, cacophony.

Have a great weekend!

(It's Aethelthryth, the saintly abbess of Ely. Perhaps not surprisingly, she was usually known by a shorter pet name, Audrey. It led to our modern word "tawdry." Go here and scroll down!)

22 May 2008

Yesterday a reader took me gently to task for making fun of Confederates and asked if I could write something nice about Rebs. If you read carefully you will notice that I am not, at any time, slighting real Civil War soldiers, for whom I have the highest respect, North and South. (Well, okay, perhaps more North than South. Dad was from Brooklyn and Ma was from New Hampshire, after all.) My cutting comments are directed at Confederate reenactors. The real soldiers of the American Confederacy have created a legacy of fighting excellence which is far beyond my poor powers to add or detract, and I freely admit that Robert E. Lee was probably the greatest American military genius, ever. And I do not throw the word "genius" around easily. The Rebel soldier 1861-1865 was possibly the greatest American fighting man in history. No professional military historian disputes this greatly and neither do I.

All right? Okay.

Dreams can be created out of such meager inspiration. Last night I was thumbing through an old high school yearbook (Burbank High Class of 1974 - Go Bulldogs!) when I chanced upon the tiny photo of Leslie Haviland, brown of eye and blonde of hair, for whom I had a major crush. She sat on the opposite side of the room from me in a class facing in my direction, which gave me ample time to admire her. Nothing ever came of the crush as I uttered not a word to her; the social circles she inhabited were far different than mine (as I supposed). So I suffered in silence. I looked at the yearbook photo for just a moment without really thinking about it and continued on, then put the book away and went to bed.

Last night in my dreams I conjured up a situation where I mustered up the courage to speak and asked if I could write a few lines in her yearbook on the last day of school, in June 1974. She nodded her head "yes" (without speaking to me, you notice) and I filled a half page with words and phrases that, at the time, meant absolutely nothing but I knew would have significance later on: "9/11/01 - Verizon Wireless - Nokia Cellular - Reagan - Bush - Clinton - Jurassic Park - Raiders of the Lost Ark - Madonna - PeeWee's Playhouse," etc. and, on the last line, "See you in September 2008." September 2008, you see, is the planned 100th anniversary of Burbank High School; I plan to be there. In my dream I handed her yearbook back to her with what I hoped was an earnest look and... and... nothing. I woke up.

So, what was THAT all about? I have no idea. Using waking logic I suppose it's a deeply-rooted desire to impress somebody meaningful from my past with my current self. Kind of a, "Look-at-me-now-am-I-worthwhile-yet?" sort of insecurity, perhaps. Or maybe it reflects the way I think about the past, present and future - all mashed up. It is worth nothing that I met Leslie at my twentieth high school reunion, in 1994. She was with her husband, my wife didn't go. I mentioned that I once had a crush on her and she looked surprised, with a look that suggested she was thinking, "But who were YOU?" The moment passed and that was that. Will I see her this September? I don't know and it doesn't matter - I don't care.

Frankly, I am far more interested in seeing Diane Manley again, for reasons stated here. (Scroll to about a third of the way down.) I feel I owe her a "thank you."

And, for the record, I am happily married. Cari, if you're reading this, as the Flamingos and Dick Powell once sang, I Only Have Eyes For You, Dear.

Yesterday I finished a book about Edward, the Black Prince (son of Edward III). As it turns out, he wasn't a very interesting guy. A very skillful military commander, but that's about it, really. A rather dull book. After 244 pages it addresses his legend, and discusses why he was called the "black" prince. Was he swarthy, with black hair? No. Like his fellow Plantagenets Richard I, Edward I, Edward III and Edward IV, he was tall, blond and physically imposing. The traditional reason given was that he wore black, or darkened, armor, but the book's author calls that into question. The real answer is that we just don't know. He left a mighty cool-looking effigy, however, in the Canterbury Cathedral. (Photo one, photo two.) I once built a plastic model of it when I was a kid. Painting those fleur-de-lys and lions on that armor with Testor's enamel was a real pain.

21 May 2008

It happened again. I stumbled upon yet another annoying instance of a writer's use of the phrase "America's loss of innocence," this time in a review of the film American Graffiti! From what I've read and depending upon the writer's own personal views, America is either ever-virginal or has lost its innocence, 1.) During the American Revolution, 2.) During the American Civil War, 3.) During World War II, 4.) Sometime after the 1950's, 5.) When JFK was shot, 6.) During the Viet Nam war, 7.) At the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert, 8.) With the Watergate scandal, or, 9.) On 9/11/01. Enough, already! It's time to give this worn-out rhetorical flourish a rest. It highlights nothing more than the writer's lack of perspective and desire to dramatize.

Frankly, I don't think America was ever innocent. For instance, we've had human slavery here from the early seventeenth century to 1863. How can a nation do that and claim innocence? Or take the attacks upon civilians during the Revolutionary War, or even Indian depredations during the earlier French and Indian War? Or go back further, to King Philip's War in 1675/1676. From wikipedia: "Colonial historian Francis Jennings estimated that the War killed nearly 7 of every 8 Native Americans and 30 of every 65 English settlers. King Philip's War was proportionately one of the bloodiest and costliest in the history of America." Sure looks like a better candidate for a "loss of innocence" to me than Altamont.

Were I an editor I'd make any writer using this hackneyed phrase go to the back of the room for a remedial session of cracking open some history books.

And while we're at it, can we also retire the silly phrase "world class?" I saw it the other day in conjunction with an American truck. That could mean that we Americans build trucks as well as, say, Estonians. Or, heaven help us, the French. It might make sense to call a particularly successful rugby match by the U.S. Eagles "world class," in which case we're playing rugby as well as, say, Australians. But to use the phrase in conjunction with an area where we do well in is ridiculous.

Okay, I'll take a deep breath now and end my rants about rhetoric.

No! Wait! One more!

I work in the IT (Information Technology) field, and am constanty bombarded with silly, aggressive, para-military phraseology. For instance, we don't plan to install computers. We strategize to deploy workstations. Good grief, how tedious. The all-time whopper of this style was in an ad I saw once encouraging tech geeks to subscribe to a computer magazine. Check out the language: "wimpy fluff," "head to head," "sparks fly," "brutal." It's interesting that this hard-hitting magazine, PC Computing, doesn't exist anymore - at least not by that name. Somebody perhaps realized a magazine named Personal Computer Computing was a bit redundant.

My pard Don Tracey - a.k.a. "Mal Stylo" - wrote a brilliant interpretation of yesterday's "The Lee Stooges" image (see below). Click here. Great to have you back, Mal!

Perhaps Mal's greatest contribution in the field of Civil War research was his A Brief Histrionic Sketch of the Parrot Gun, a classic I enthusiastically recommend to you. (You see, the joke is that there was a Civil War weapon called the Parrott Gun.)

Also excellent is his poem about the C.S.S. Hunley - click here. I was at an event last year, talking about the C.S.S. Hunley and wondering how the Confederacy was able to continue recruits to man a submarine that kept killing its crews (32 men in total - about as many casualties as could be expected from a good Yank company of musketmen in a battle). One wag suggested that they must have renamed it the "Funley" at some point. Har!

I will also note that Don recently gave me a bunch of his VHS tapes, many of which were about the U.S Navy in World War II. I love those, especially the ones about submarines. And, once again, I feel regret at not having served some time in the Navy. Not that I regret being the Marines, of course - certainly not! It's just that when I was in high school I sort of heard the Call of the Sea and never responded. Now I'm kind of sorry. Anyway, last night I watched "They Were Expendable" (1945), about the PT Boats. Good John Ford movie; as usual, he does an excellent job with casting and presenting interesting "types": the very young sailors (one of whom drinks milk), the battle-harded Irish sailor, the retiring old Navy man, etc. And John Wayne!

Interesting IMDb trivia about this film: "During the shooting of this movie, John Ford had put John Wayne down every chance he got, because Wayne had not enlisted to fight in World War II. Ford commanded a naval photographic unit during the war rising to the rank of captain and thought Wayne a coward for staying behind. After months of heaping insults on Wayne's head, costar Robert Montgomery finally approached the director and told him that if he was putting Wayne down for Montgomery's benefit (Montgomery had served in the war), that he needed to stop immediately. This brought the tough-as-nails director to tears and he stopped abusing Wayne." Geez, can you imagine a Hollywood director abusing today's "stars" about their lack of military service? They'd all be wetting their pants.

Click here, on that subject.

20 May 2008

I watched a number of crappy films over the weekend. My therapist says I will hasten my recovery by sharing these with you.

The first is a cult classic, "Wild in the Streets" (1968), with what could be cinema's most hyperbolically over-the-top premise. A rock star heads up a youth revolt with his crappy band - Richard Pryor is the drummer - that leads the states to pass laws giving the vote to those age fourteen and above. ("Fourteen or Fight!") Said rock star then becomes President of the United States and puts all citizens over the age of 35 into re-education camps where they're fed LSD and kept high. It also has Shelly Winters in a loud, annoying and utterly unnecessary part as the rock star's mother. And... and... well, this one was so thoroughly odd it was fun. Reality trumps Hollywood for weirdness, however, in that this film was actually nominated for an Oscar (for film editing - which causes me to wonder).

There are interesting shots of circa 1967/1968 Sunset Strip crowd scenes. I fondly recall my parents taking me out for Sunday drives up and down the Strip to gawk at the hippies. "Look at the hair on that one! He looks just like a chimp!" etc.

In "Wild in the Streets" there's a fleeting shot of my hometown (Burbank, CA); I paused the DVD and confirmed "Olive Ave." on a street sign. There's no mistaking those two bedroom, one bath, post-war, stucco-covered ranch style Burbank homes...

The other two films were Roger Corman stinkers. One was "Gas! - or, It Became Necessary To Destroy The World In Order To Save It" (1970). Another bizarre premise: a gas is let loose upon the world that kills everyone over the age of twenty-five. The young people left alive then venture out and... do nothing even remotely interesting. Humorless scenes and jokes about rapine ensue, and nothing is edited sensibly. It's even worse than "Easy Rider," if that's possible. Incidental music by Country Joe and the Fish, who gave us the Unofficial Anthem of the Viet Nam War.

The other Corman film was, in fact, Jack Nicholson's first movie, The Cry Baby Killer (1958). Would I be disappointing you if I revealed that nobody gets killed in this disappointing entry into the J.D. genre? I thought not. The theme song was like listening to nails being scraped on a chalkboard. Something tells me that there may be no more good J.D. films to be seen. But still I plow along.

I had high hopes for the WWII movie The Battle of the River Plate (1956), an Archers Production about a true British Navy incident in 1939. Sadly, however, this was something of a yawner. Well, never mind. Thanks to viewing this film, I now know what a pocket battleship was, so it was worth it.

My desk calendar points out the existence of something called Tom Swifties. I wonder if there are also Nancy Drews?

19 May 2008

My photo essay of the New Market event on Saturday.

Hankie slang - Remember I told you on Friday that Civil War era hankies looked different? Here's proof, from my Schott's Almamac desk calendar. All sorts of interesting colors - what I didn't know was that they had names.

Hybrid animals - Napoleon Dynamite's Liger actually exists.

Watched an episode of the original Star Trek series last night, "The City on the Edge of Forever," by no less a writer than Harlan Ellison. Now that's good science-fiction! I recall seeing it as an eleven year old - I was blown away. Loved that time doughnut (as I called it.). Good sci-fi always has a sense of wonder.

An interesting bit of trivia from wikipedia: "With the exception of some stock footage of New York City used on this episode, all the exterior shots were filmed on "the back forty", Desilu Studios' film backlot in Culver City, California. The 21st Street Mission was part of the back forty set known as Main Street and was referred to originally on The Andy Griffith Show as the Grand Theatre. (Look also for an appearance of "Floyd's Barber Shop" in the scene with Kirk and Keeler holding hands in the street.)"

16 May 2008

Tomorrow my pard Chris and I head out to New Market, VA for the 144th anniversary battle of New Market. Yahoo! Sloshing about on puddly grassy fields and firing off black powder! It'll be a Jonah's Flying Camp event: We pull up perhaps an hour or two before the 2 PM battle, do the battle, look around sutler row, then head home. I'm kind of sorry that we're not camping out tonight, however. Last year, while sitting around a campfire in the rain, we were amused by watching a tent burst into flames. (A candle sitting in hay fell over, probably.) But tonight my band is reviving itself and we're doing a rehearsal for some as yet undefined Summer gig. I haven't touched my Fender bass since, oh, I don't know, last November?

I had a conversation with Chris yesterday about my fanciful rumble between the two fearsome Bronx gangs the Diapers and the Gaylords (5/14 entry). Once again, yes, there were actually two street gangs by these names.

It confirms my theory about how history is portrayed. If you are watching, say, a movie set in some historical time and you are entirely comfortable with everything you are seeing - you are being had. The producers or directors have changed something to keep you from being distracted by something jarring, puzzling or odd, what I call "the shock of authenticity." (I once wrote an entire article about this.) A Bronx street gang named the Diapers is this kind of shock.

It reminds me of when I was doing a lot of Civil War reenacting in the late Nineties. At one point guys started wearing funny-looking cotton sleeping caps around the campfires. The camps looked like they were inhabited by a bunch of Travelodge Bears walking around with candles. Weird! I assumed that it was more a case of sutlers finding a new "must-have" item to sell to reenactors than a case of a documented, authentic item. Imagine my surprise when, visiting the Gettysburg Battlefield Museum one day, I came across a display case full of relic Civil War soldier sleeping caps!

Another surprise was bandanas. Back in the Eighties a reenactor fad began (or was continued, I was never sure which) with the wearing of bright red railroad bandanas. This didn't look especially odd to me; I was more or less conditioned to it by Hollywood productions of the 1950's and 1960's. But guess what? That's not what they wore. In the Eighties sutlers started selling what the real Civil War troops had: larger, pastel-colored (lemon yellow, pink, light green) cotton squares with little flowery patterning. When these started appearing around the necks of reenactors things started looking... gay. The Shock of Authenticity. Of course, these are rarely, if ever, shown in period daguerrotypes of the troops, so it calls into question whether or not it was common to wear these things, but still...

(We reenactors are kind of nutty. Here's a website from a guy who wants to walk from Fairfax Courthouse to the Gettysburg reenactment. In June/July. Wearing wool.)

But getting back to the shock of authenticity, let's revisit the Bronx gang members we met earlier this week:

Setting: A run-down neighborhood somewhere in the Bronx.

A Diaper: What are you Gaylords doing on our turf?
A Gaylord: It's cool. Just passing through. Have my card. (He offers a business card.)
A Diaper: You may pass.

Business cards for gang members? Yes, indeed. The Gaylords started handing out business cards in the 1970's; this website has a display.

Or here's one for you... name some gang weapons. A switchblade, chain, car antenna, pipe, umbrella. Umbrella? Yep. Check this out, from 1959. One famous gang member was known as The Umbrella Man (pictured above). If I were in the Media I'd have called him the Penguin.

We all know gangs wore leather jackets, right? Well... take a look at this. The Gaylords wore sweaters. The Imperial Gangsters wore pink ones!

Or let's say a new film comes out about gangs. One gang member wants to caution another about a possible sneak attack by another gang. The correct period phrase would have been, "Pull a jap" (referring to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor). But do you think you're likely to hear this politically incorrect phrase in a film made nowadays? Probably not.

I just finished a book about America's more agreeable side, by Eric Sloane, "Once Upon A Time - The Way America Was." As is the case with all Sloane books, it has excellent line drawings by the author. For instance, did you know so many different woods went into the making of one rocking chair?

Have a great weekend! Photos from New Market on Monday, most likely.

15 May 2008

Yesterday I introduced you to "Tunak Tunak Tun," which I thought was pretty funny. The world applauded, and my inbox was filled with acclaim.

Okay, so it wasn't.

But some wag added a "translation" that makes it even better.

Elsewhere on the foreign song video front is the Finnish couple Armi Ja Danny singing "I Want To Love You Tender." I have to admit, however, I get a kick out of the way the dancers continually intrude upon the song. And, of course, how could I leave out the Indian Thriller, an Internet classic?

In the "Bollywood Sucks" category we also get Indian Superman (dancing with Spider Girl).

University of Oklahoma freshman, 19, elected mayor of Muskogee. I know you optimists out there will swear that this can work, but we know better. It's a fact: teenagers are unsuited for high elected office. Just look what happened, back in 1973, when a teenager became president ("Prez") of the United States. A vampire wound up in the White House and terrified senior military advisors were unable to help. Who knows what horrors Muskogee will face?

I was considering throwing together a page of the J.D. films I have seen until I found this one. There's a bunch on here I have to see! The reviewer seems to have the same opinion I do of Teenage Gang Debs (1966), a guilty favorite of mine... Lady Macbeth in a J.D. setting, what a great concept!

Hey... the murderous Lady Macbeth was based on a real Scottish queen, Gruoch ingen Boite. Cool. Didn't know that.

I watched the final installment of the Up Series last night, 49 Up. I feel like I should be getting a diploma or something. It's interesting to note that as the series progressed, the upper class people who went to the best boarding schools and universities Great Britian could offer, started to bow out. Why? They don't need or want the publicity. John, who usually managed to convey an impression of himself as an insufferable snob, is now a Queen's Counsel. Can a knighthood be far away?

It reminds me of a book I once read, "Class - A guide through the American status systems" by Paul Fussell. In it he identifies two groups who are diametrically opposites, the extreme rich and the extreme poor, who nevertheless have a defining trait - they are "out of sight." The multi-millionaires and billionaires don't want us to know about them (Donald Trump seems to be an obnoxious exception) and have lawyers to ensure this is the case, and the destitute poor who don't vote and so don't have influence, voter impact or identity, are out of sight due to their powerlessness. Interesting.

But I do feel some sympathy for those who became a part of the Up Series and who now refuse to take part. It is all too easy to make an ass out of yourself when the media is involved. And, when it comes down to it, the media's main interest are sound bites and sensation - not concern about the interviewed. (In 1992 I was quoted in a local paper as stating that Confederate reenactors were wackos. I'm lucky some cracker didn't hunt me down and sprinkle corn pone in my gas tank.) If I were in an American version of the Up Series - and there is one - and was interviewed when I was 21 when I was a Marine sergeant, there's no telling what idiotic statements I would have been recorded uttering. Every seven years I'd have to confront them anew upon rebroadcasts.

Roger Ebert describes what makes this series so fascinating: "You could make this series in any society. As its installments accumulate in my memory, they cause me to regard the arc of my own life -- to ask if I, too, contained at 7 the makings of who I would become." It's impossible to watch these documentaries and not ponder about the meaning of life, how it's to be lived, and the transitions of marriage, parenthood, sickness, and, in general, aging. Thought-provoking stuff...

14 May 2008

Tunak Tunak Tun. It is far too easy to make fun of foreign music videos... which is why I plan to continue. If I were in this video I'd insist upon wearing the green turban and robe. (Green is my favorite color, you see.) I suspect the award winner in the foreign music video category is still the classic Yatta, however. I once played this at a Suburbs Rugby annual banquet; the incredulous stares were priceless. Not to be overlooked, however, is I Have A Bad Case of Diarrhea. The Japanese are hard to top when it comes to utter weirdness.

But enough of that.

In all of English history there has been only one king accorded the title, "the Great," and that is Alfred. I'm now reading about him in a book by Eleanor Shipley Duckett, which was printed back in 1956, so it's hardly cutting edge scholarship. But that's okay. The facts are pretty much as they have been since the 9th century, when Alfred was alive.

Have you ever heard of the Viking Blood Eagle? A charming little practice which involved the ripping out of the lungs behind a man's back with an axe; it's described in a wikipedia article here. The Vikings threatened to do that to Alfred of Wessex, but, Ha Ha!, he had other plans and soundly defeated them in battle. And that's only one of the reasons why he was great. (He peed in the font when he was baptised, that's yet another reason.)

We watched the second to last installment in the Up Series last night, 42 Up, filmed in 1998. T'was that year I took up rugby, at the tender age of 42. Nobody in this series took up rugby at that age. I think they'd be happier if they did. Anyway, it's still interesting and thought provoking, but I'm looking forward to seeing the last one and moving on to something else. My ADHD restlessness is starting to kick in... it makes me unsuitable for any sustained academic or mental effort.

Went to Tyson's Corner Mall last night, and looked at the expensive Swiss watches in the window display of Lenkersdorfer. The Breitling window was playing a promotional video showing John Travolta's love of flying. I'm a little puzzled by the marketing angle with this one. Danny Zucco Wears Breitling seems ill-starred. I'd find a different celebrity. Or a rugger.

I was doing some casual research on Bronx gangs (as depicted, sort of, in "The Wanderers") the other day, and came across this page, which describes a gang calling themselves The SB (South Bronx) Diapers. That's right, The Diapers. That one sort of jumped off the screen at me. Whoa, scary, huh? What were they thinking? It is unrecorded. As I always tell people, if you're doing historical or genealogical research of some kind, expect to be constantly surprised and/or puzzled. While human nature doesn't change, customs do, and sometimes you come across some odd stuff.

Take, for instance, the Chicago Gaylords, named way before the word "gay" became synonymous with "homosexual." Like many 1950's-1960's gangs, this lot started out as a post-war athletic club (which is why you see "AC" on gang jackets sometimes), organized to play softball. They were intially known as "clubs." Later on they morphed into a predominantly white gang, with branch organizations in the Bronx and elsewhere.

Setting: A run-down neighborhood somewhere in the Bronx.

A Diaper: What are you Gaylords doing on our turf?
A Gaylord: Diapers turf? This don't look like no play pen.
A Diaper: Bite me, Gaylord.

et cetera.

13 May 2008

My wife and I watched 35 Up last night - the children are now (in 1991) 35. One fellow, Neil, who was clearly emotionally troubled, was asked about someday having children. His reply was wrenchingly sad. He said that even though he managed to marry a perfect woman, any child of his would be tainted with his own inheritance, personality, etc. Most people, when considering having children, look forward to passing on something of themselves on to the future. At the time this fellow saw that as a detriment to society. What miserable self-esteem. Reading ahead, however, I see that things turned out for him... which is one of the many things that makes the Up Series so fascinating as a documentary.

I don't like greens. (Little Paul, age seven, in 1964.) It's one of the quotes from the Up Series. You see this clip again and again, and it sort of burns itself into your head. In fact, Paul describes my encounter with greens. My wife started feeding them to me when we first married. Now I like them. In the 28 Up edition, Paul's wife informed viewers that Paul now likes his greens as well. So... eat your greens. They're good for you.

Last night I used a $40 FCC coupon to buy a digital converter at Wal-Mart to keep my 1986 vintage bedroom TV viable. It worked! I can now watch over-the-air digital broadcasts on it, which look and sound much better than the analog reception we were getting. Ha! No need for a television replacement. Corporate America, screw you!

Yesterday I finished my last book on the War of the Roses. What did I learn over and above my readings on the same subject during my teenage years? Well, like most English historians I greatly admired Henry V. Let's face it, Shakespeare makes that easy to do. No more. The historical truth of his campaigns in France paints a much different picture of him. He was a ruthless opportunist who caused France a generation of needless misery and suffering. Also, his son, Henry VI, to me, was always a figure of little interest that I had to get past in order to get to the more interesting stuff of Edward IV and Richard III. Now I find him interesting in his own right. But I must confess that this was greatly helped by Peter Benson's sympathetic portrayal of him in the BBC Shakespeare Henry VI trilogy. (See 31 March entry.)

There is also Jehan (Joan), the French peasant girl who heard voices and who managed to thwart the entire English military presence in France - and all that Henry V had achieved. I now find her a much more compelling historical personage than I ever have. When I was a kid I used to consider her an enemy. Now she is a patriot, and perhaps a holy patriot.

And finally there is Richard III, whom I was always sure was innocent of the deaths of the Princes in the Tower. Now I'm not so sure. I guess, in all, my new reading of old material now causes me to have doubts about everything that I used to "know," which, I think, is an essential trait of a good historian. Hooray for maturity!