Teevee Time: Powerpuff Girls

I’m still not clear: what did he do with Professor Utonium? And was the professor on board with it?

Take Two Tuesday — Per mi amico: Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day, “Happy birthdohs, Jonohs” edition with brief bookfoolery

This post originally appeared on July 19, 2010 at 5:05 pm. Congratulations on another trip around the sun to you, my good true friend, and I hope you have many more to come.

Happy birthday to the one and only Jonohs Danger Welchos!

Nolite te bastardes carborundum.

This encouragement is doubtless unnecessary because I doubt that you ever would. I’m sure you would talk the bastardes around to your point of view and you’d all have Fin du Monde and play Beatles Rock Band and they would vow never to carborundum again. I’m finishing Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter shortly and I’ll be starting next on my yearly Atwood. How nice to know this year when I re-read it that you will have just done so recently too. Last year I knew you, and was re-reading Handmaid’s Tale as always, and you had not read it yet. This time it will be different and I’ll know that I’m reading words that yet another of my friends has also enjoyed. See the interstitial power of the shared unconscious experience of reading? That’s impressive shit. If that is not impressive enough, I will buy you some sushi the next time we are both in town. But really, dude — the gift of reading. Come on. Be excellent.

But just in case you ever do feel down, remember that you are an awesome friendoh and I’m so glad to have gotten to be friends, and that I know great things are going to happen for you like in a perpetual motion engine powered by amazing karma for all your kindnesses and good humor to others.

And, of course, be prepared for whatever befalls you on this, the day of your birth —

A very recent addition to the pantheon of inside jokes via uglyxdutchling on the tumblr.

Hope you’re off work and having a great birthday, Mr. Welchos! But do try and hold it together.

I will be thinking of you!

Mean Girls Monday: Sluts of the world, unite

No shame in a name.

Movie Millisecond: Garbo explains

Related to the last post, since we’re on the subject of GG —

Mata Hari (George Fitzmaurice, 1931.)

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Garbo writes

Cecil Beaton photograph of Garbo, 60, in Greece. Late 1965.

Letter from Greta Garbo to Grace Kelly, 1965.

via.

Being “upside-downy”: Garbo gets it.

Movie Millisecond: Inquiring minds

Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn in Stage Door (Gregory La Cava, 1937).

GREAT STARS! GREAT STORY! GREAT PICTURE!

(Text of original print advertisement for Stage Door.)

As you can see, caps lock has menaced innocent readers for over seventy-four years. When we will shut down this pervasive affront to eye-dom once and for all? Won’t anyone think of the children? My god, the children?

Does Rob Reiner know about this?

Movie Millisecond: The Birds, “hectic” edition

The Birds (Alfred Hitchock, 1963).

Click here to visit Shambala Wildlife Preserve online, established in 1972 and funded by the ROAR foundation, which Tippi started in 1983 when she purchased Shambala. Shambala is an exotic pet and big cat open range preserve, primarily catering to animals which have been abandoned by irresponsible owners, dumped by zoos or bankrupt circuses, or found wandering.

This is not the doll from the following story. It’s just a doll.

You may have previously heard about Shambala. But did you know that Tippi Hedren’s daughter is Melanie Griffith? She was already a primary school student when The Birds was filming. Hitchcock gave her a doll that was a replica of her mother, creepy to begin with — kept in a wooden box. Melanie thought it was a coffin and started crying.

KNOWLEDGE BOMB.

Teevee Time: The Brady Bunch, “Choices.”

It’s Friday. Do what feels right.

via.

More than anything else, I adore her stupefied look of delight from beneath the towel. Florence Henderson is my little candy-coated filthy miracle. Get it, girl!

Movie Millisecond: “You shouldn’t smoke”

Closer (Mike Nichols, 2004).

Some days quitting smoking is harder than others. It’s cliche, but I’m very nervous about a major examination I’m taking tomorrow and I’ve been finding myself wanting to smoke more than any time in at least three weeks.

Heinlein Month: Intelligence is a misdemeanor

Vnixie by PaperMoon, via.

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

(Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love.)

What? She looks smart.

Advice: Eff the ineffable and See you on the flip!

Still phoning it in. This post is originally from last year, but I took out the stuff about the Wonder Woman project (later aborted because when it comes to her I’ve got the attention span of a baby gnat). This year I’m needing to let go of my anxiety about a job with an amazing non-profit for which I interviewed last Friday and I Really, Really, Really want. So the advice still stands!

via.

“Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable, let’s prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”

(Douglas Adams.)

Let go and get in that “jump!” frame of mind. Eff the ineffable, indeed, and don’t let all the shit that doesn’t matter get in the way of the shit that does.

Happy Fourth of July — ‘scuse me while I slap on my Wonder Woman wunderoos and conquer the world! Scheduling a Daily Batman, maybe a Girl of Summer and then I will catch you on the flip.

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Prada Marfa

“Prada Marfa” by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, via.

Prada Marfa is a permanent art installation near Valentine, Texas, USA. (Where Giant was filmed.) Erected October 1, 2005, it’s modeled after a Prada store, with all the needless shit inside it, but the door doesn’t work.

On the front of the structure there are two large windows displaying actual Prada wares, shoes and handbags, picked out and provided by Miuccia Prada herself from the fall/winter 2005 collection; Prada allowed Elmgreen and Dragset to use the Prada trademark for this work.

Prada Marfa “was intended to never be repaired, so it might slowly degrade back into the natural landscape.” Again — no repairs, so that “50 years from now it will be a ruin that is a reflection of the time it was made.”

It’s a commentary on, like, society. (Deep drag on clove cigarette.)

Three days after it went up, the artists’ lofty plan for Prada Marfa to naturally degrade in to the landscape with no interference or repair was shot to hell when vandals broke in, stole six Prada purses and 14 right shoes, and graffitied the outside of the building with the word “Dumb” repeatedly.

The graffiti was quickly covered up, the windows repaired, and security cameras went in to the installation’s handbags.

That’s a commentary on, like, society.

Movie Millisecond: Gracious

B @ T’s (Blake Edwards, 1961).

Nobody expects a ukulele!: Greta Garbo edition

Garbo strums.

Greta Garbo for “Torrent,” 1925.

Since my unexpected New Years’ acquisition of two of them, my uke playing is going swimmingly, not that you asked. I’d love to have the courage to be one of those people who records and accompanies herself covering songs with their ukulele on YouTube but I doubt I’ll ever follow through. Scrutiny of my physical self terrifies me. But I’ll tell the Internet all kinds of private shit about my emotions. Contradiiiictoryyy …

Movie Moment: Secrets! Secrets! Secrets! — Brand Upon the Brain! A remembrance in 12 chapters

Brand Upon The Brain! A Remembrance In 12 Chapters (Guy Maddin, 2006).

I don’t often do this, because I’m not keen when people force me to watch videos and I don’t like inflicting that on others, but here’s the full trailer. It’s only about a minute and a half long and there is boobs.

That’s Isabella Rossellini’s voice repeating “The past, the past,” like a bad French student film (in Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World, 2003, she played a tragic baroness who has two glass legs filled with beer).

The thing with Maddin is that there is nearly always a point, usually 20 or 30 minutes in, while I’m watching his stuff that I’m like, “Oh, come on,” because I’m over the striking visuals that sucked me in to begin with and I’m beginning to be irked by how it’s become over-the-top or maudlin in its cult precosity, like on-purpose cheesily cult or derivative, and I become uncertain.

Are these overtly contrived, look-how-symbolic-I-am moments and their anachronistic cinematic dialogue part of an abstract ironic technique made to make me question the tropes of arthouse garbage, or is this straight arthouse garbage? So often with other deliberately unusual movies I go with “straight arthouse garbage,” because I get like that due to dramatic over-exposure to pretentious hipsters in my short life (I’m looking at you, Portland), but with Maddin I pull back from that judgmental jump. There’s a third category: (1) parody of overwrought indulgent nonsense, (2) actual overwrought indulgent nonsense, or (3) … something else? better? deeper? more effective?

Because right when I’m supressing the urge to roll my eyes and spoil any avant garde cognescenti cred I have accidentally accrued, suddenly some really great moment will have a huge impact on my emotional experience of watching the film and I’ll be sucked in and by the end just sure it’s my new favorite.

But then the next time I pop it in to show some friend, I’m back to thinking I’ve been duped by either the ultimate sly hipster or a genuine savant who sometimes falls flat, and I’m initially embarassed for us both. But then — TUG — in to it again.

It’s a rapid, repetitive cycle, like an awkward date with your own gynecologist — you both have an idea of what’s going to happen but you don’t know what to expect. Or watching a really close friend fuck the lines to a scene badly in a drama class, but totally sell it with their eyes, and you worry that only you can see that though it looks messy it’s probably headed somewhere amazing. Uncomfortable and anticipatory. That’s Guy Maddin movies for me.

I kind of love him.

Uncomfortable is, well, uncomfortable, yeah, but it’s so often just right because it’s the truth.

Anyway, I recommend Brand on the Brain!, is the upshot.

(All the caps came from the trailer because I do not [yet] own this movie.)

Daily Batman: A colorless female brain

Barbara Gordon prepares to go from librarian to Batgirl. I’d be more interested in the opposite direction, but to each their own.

Flashback Friday: Pricklypear li’l G and couch fort bravado

This entry originally appeared in slightly different form on October 28, 2009 at 1:45pm.

Photographed by Sally Munger Mann.

Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner — something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were —– she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”

via.

“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.

“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”

(Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre. Cornhill: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1847. pp. 3-4.)

Worst. Christmas. Ever.

Do you remember the positive indignation of adult severity in the face of your early self-expression? I think the knife really twisted because you knew they were just flying by the seat of their pants, arbitrary jerks running scared, threatened by your stabs at mastery. They had no more particular power or experience than another kid facing you down in a play war.

Another by Ms. Mann.

Don’t forget that. Every person who attempts to wave some type of banner of authority in your face is probably prickly-sweaty under the arms and hopped up on 90% couch fort bravado. Poke their pile of cushions with a stick and see if it tumbles down.

Movie Moment and Hot Man Bein’ Hot of the Day: Corey Feldman, Teddy Duchamp edition

It’s been forever since we had a Hot Man Bein’ Hot of the Day. Shame on me! Some lady fan service. Depending on your viewpoint.

Stand By Me (Rob Reiner, 1986; adapted from the Stephen King novella “The Body”). This is the first of what I hope will be a series of Corey Feldman entries. He’s totally an O.G. hottie. Did You Know?

Okay, so before you castigate me as a freak and a pedophile, let me explain.

Understand that I’m coming at the “hot” aspect with the eyes of the little ’80′s girl who saw him in this and Gremlins, Goonies, Lost Boys*, et al and conceived a giant, throbbing, lifelong crush on Corey Feldman. My feelings when I see him with wet hair and his dorky glasses are timeless because of this. I am not generally turned on by pictures of 15-year-old boys.

Yes, he was 15. He was just playing a 12-year-old. Moderately better, yes? So please all around don’t look too askance at this entry. Appreciate with me that Terry Duchamp is all kinds of pimp in this movie! A total Unlikely G. That’s hot at any age, in the general-heat way, not the get-it-on heat way.

Totally pimp!, but I’m still feeling hinky. Gonna end this one early. Look for more Corey Feldman, hopefully with greater legality of age, in the near future.

*Don’t even act like I’m not in The Lost Boys because I totally am. I’m on the carousel in the boardwalk footage. Never Forget.

**Yellow subtitled caps are via One Day, One Movie, white subs are from FilmSubs, both on the tumblr.

Daily Batman: Unlikely G — Jim Dandy to the rescue edition

By me. Click to enlarge.

Only Jim Gordon could still look like a dork even inside the Batmobile. Lord love him.

Take-two Tuesday — Daily Batman: Enter the Bookworm and Up With Love plus Surprise Connections and Zodiac-quackery

This post originally appeared on January 5, 2010 at 8:05 pm.

Roddy McDowall and Francine York, Batman, “The Bookworm Turns,” Season 1, Episode 29. Original airdate April 20, 1966. Well, that’s inauspicious. Shit.

I hate to come off as a down-at-the-mouth grump on the topic of love. I am a romantic. Here is the Bookworm and his lady, the lovely librarian Miss Lydia Limpet, and may I add that I rooted like gangbusters for this pair to win?

via Batman villains database — I love clunky contraptions on men’s heads. I find it so fucking cute. I really do.

In fact, I remember pretty strongly wanting him for myself (girls like a boy who reads!), but I rightly understood Miss Limpet having him was almost the same thing. Later, when I figured out he was in Planet of the Apes, I was even more impressed, but, being a fickle little girl, I soon made way for other crushes, like Matthew Broderick and the Great Mouse Detective — shut up, because that could work — to the point that, when I stayed at La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona several years back and was given the “Roddy McDowall room,” I merely remarked that I’d “once thought he was cute,” and meant nothing more by it.

Interestingly, after his role as the Bookworm in the live-action television series, McDowall continued to wreak villainy in the DC world. He voiced Jarvis Tetch/the Mad Hatter for both Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, as well as performing him in a brief cameo for the late ’90s animated Superman.

In the original television series, the Mad Hatter was played by David Wayne. More on the Mad Hatter another day cause he was really depressed as a character and had some killer-great deadpan lines, even though no one matches King Tut in my estimation for the male villains’ comedic value. But back to love, because that is what I’m trying to prove is probably more important than trivial details of cartoons and old lunchbox-selling serials.

No, I can’t stop talking about it. Okay, because I’m looking at his page on the imdb to make sure I had the dates and titles right and it ends up Roddy McDowall was also the Breadmaster on Edlund’s masterwork The Tick, which is of grave emotional significance to me, and, moreover, had cameos on Darkwing Duck, Quantum Leap, and mother-effing Gargoyles. Also, he was monumentally in to photography and experimental camerawork. So, holy hell, I was smart to have a crush on him as a kid and now I’m going to have to get back to Roddy McDowall another day; he’s obviously been far more of an important thread in my life than I ever could have possibly understood … y’all please excuse me because Roddy McDowall has just now blown my mind.

Finally, according to authorities on these matters, the Catwoman outfit regularly worn by Julie Newmar appears to have been “upcycled” and worn by Francine York (who played librarian Miss Limpet on Batman) for the Lost In Space episode “The Colonists.” Also, in looking for pictures of her, I stumbled across a page where a woman had collected a bunch of pictures of famous Virgo women and though I always claim to put almost zero stock in that stuff, I have to say that they/we all have the faces of birdlike closet freaks who are too shy to smile with our lips parted but rock straight-up crazy do-me eyes despite our distrust of other people — to say nothing of the number of patron saints in her gallery of too-close-to-home horror. Good thing I think that’s largely bunk, or the unnerving similarities might have me concerned that my chakras weren’t aligned with the downward dog position of my chi and I’d have to bury a peeled potato under a full moon or some shit.

Truly the end of this post. Moving on for my own sake.