To rip myself off from a forum posting:
Is it wrong to lust after your vice-president? (assuming Ms. Palin - oh, and McCain - win. Which I don’t think is going to happen) Imagine if she becomes president - yowzah!
I am steadfastly and proudly a Tennessean; however, I was born in Kentucky and consider it a fine state. But sometimes, I gotta tell ya, things like this make me embarrassed:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/128391.html
Well, to be fair, the wacky part of the story doesn’t necessarily have to do with the involved persons being Southern; it has more to do with them being complete anal idiots.
Ah, the 1980’s. Goofy beyond imagining. People make fun of the 70’s, but, by God, I think the later decade takes the cake for sheer, unabashed silliness.
Here’s Toni Basil doing a Devo cover from her 1982(?) album Word of Mouth. See if you can watch the full 2 minutes and 9 seconds of this without the word ‘goofy’ appearing in your mind. But whatever you think about the video, remember this: Toni Basil is one talented lady.
Confession: I used to have this album back in the day.
Starting sometime in the late 1960’s, a pop culture phenomenon could be seen floating around in the greater American (and sometimes European) consciousness. I’m not sure if it started with Dark Shadows, but definitely had its roots in the Gothic-fiction revival that cranked up briefly.
What I’m talking about is a specific image: a young woman, probably dressed in a nightgown, running away from a spooky, turn-of-the-century mansion, which often sported a single lighted window. Practically anyone of a certain age can point to this and say it is ‘Gothic,’ and that’s correct. But more even than the style of fictional novel which spawned it, this single image - with its myriad variations - was itself a minor phenomenon.
Gothic fiction, supposedly, had started at least a century earlier - many point to a work called The Castle of Otranto being the first real example of the genre. Its finest flowering, of course, was supposedly Jane Eyre.
But, really, from a pop culture standpoint, what concerns me is the revival of the genre (if that’s what it really was) in the form of women’s fiction. It quickly became a sort of hybrid of horror and tragic romance, and its formula was a simple one: a young woman travels to a place, usually a mansion or other large building of some antiquity, and is confronted with mysteries which only she is in a position to solve. Usually, there is the possibility of a romance during the proceedings - she often fears that the man she loves is guilty of some horrible crimes, past or present.
Dark Shadows brought this back into the forefront with the tale of young Vickie Winters who comes to the great estate of Collinwood and meets all sorts of mysteries and mysterious people. She gets romanced by dashing young men (like revenge-obsessed Burke Devlin) and, far from being merely an observer, becomes a part of the weird goings-on.
What I’m concerned with, mainly, is this: how did this single image become so indelibly linked with this genre of fiction? Where was it first used, when did it start to become seriously popular? I find it difficult to research the situation. But it definitely haunts me.
If anybody has any thoughts on the matter, please let’s hear them.
From the Department of the Inevitable: the head of the fake Bigfoot that was part of the recent hoax is now available on the increasingly-crappy auction site: Bigfoot head
Here’s a quick reminder of the… ahem… real one:
I’m a huge fan of this 1969-70 Gerry & Sylvia Anderson production. It had great stories, great actors, and the production design is just gorgeous.
Ah, Gabrielle… (sigh)….
I intend to put up some Christmas catalog page images on this spot in the near future.
But for now… check out the fine webpage stylings of Plaid Stallions.
From IMDb:
Veteran actor Christopher Plummer is livid an injury he suffered during from a one-night stand meant that William Shatner played his part in Henry V - because it made the Star Trek actor a star.
Plummer was lined up to perform in the Shakespeare play in 1956 - but an unplanned romp left him unable to take to the stage, according to New York gossip column PageSix.
He says in his autobiography In Spite Of Myself: “I woke up alone the next morning… (pain) all around my groin and lower abdomen… I started to whimper like a whipped dog. ‘So this is what syphilis is like?’ I thought. ‘I suppose I deserve it, but Christ, how the hell was I to know?’
But instead of being struck down by the disease, Plummer had dislodged a kidney stone and had to undergo a medical procedure with a surgical wire to resolve the problem.
He adds, “It began to sink in… Shatner, my understudy, would have to go on… (It) instantly brought back the pain. I screamed for a nurse who jabbed me with more morphine.
“I knew then that the Sob (son of a b**ch) was going to be a ’star.’”