Sk8 or die: “Uh-oh” with bonus Pulp Fiction style conceit

So … die?

Found all kinds of claimed “sources” for this picture in various places on the internet. I was concerned about accuracy and quickly chased down the leads. This confirms that the picture was taken above the notably unusual Dean’s Office at Los Angeles High, 4650 West Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90019. If I had to guess, I’d say the picture probably was taken during this event, the Xbox 360 “Get Up” tour (but I’m not suggesting the skater in this picture was affiliated with the tour).

The school’s websitehas galleries of pictures with identical architecture and painting to the one in the sk8 or die shot, with the same brick pattern and lettering typeface, along with pictures featuring the distinctive slanted roof of the office. So I’m positive. I’m also unbelievably full of myself about finding the school quickly and correctly. Like, so arrogant right now.

Booyakasha. Research, motherfuckers; can you do it??

Milton May: Out of the earth

Oh, Milton May. You say goodbye, but I say hello — to John Milton June! Coming tomorrow.

This is a far more relevant picture for me than you, likely.

Out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation.

(John Milton. Paradise Lost, Book 1, 710.)

I’ve been trying to quit smoking so I can, like, live longer or whatever. Mixed results but I’m doing pretty well all in all. I just hate to admit anything like that because then if you fuck up or fall off the wagon everyone knows and people can’t know things about me. Anyway, hence the smoking picture simply because of the word “exhalation.” I’ve made flimsier illustrative leaps to promote vice along with literature, but usually for nudity, not cigarettes.

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.

Movie Millisecond: Bogie edition — African Queen, procrastination defined

via.

African Queen (John Huston, 1951).

Art of the cover: Year of the Rabbit inaugural edition

Technically it’s the year of the Hare. The metal Hare, even, which sounds like a band name: TONIGHT ONLY — Metal Hare with openers Loose Gravel — $3 cover charge — featuring Open Trench and Soft Shoulder! (I get a lot of band name inspiration from road signs, sorry). But I’m going with rabbit.

via.

Elegant both physically and intellectually, Rabbits will always stand out from the crowd either as extremely stylish dressers or because they create an individualistic fashion statement of their own.

(source.)

It happens.

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Breaking news, corset edition

Lingerie suffrage has taken a giant leap forward.

Taken by me. Portland, OR. October 31, 2008.

There are a couple of possibilities here.

“Just in corsets, vote.” (Only vote in corsets.)

“Just in — corsets. [And remember to] Vote.” (Referring to upcoming election.)

But my favorite is:
“Just in: corsets vote!” (We now live in a truly inclusive democracy.)

1939.

To answer your next question, they vote as independents. They don’t support either of the major two parties’ agendas. Free thinkers, corsets. Not like stockings, those slaves to the Man (eye roll). Tiresome parrots of right-wing media outlets, them.

Talk nerdy to me: Sith lord’s best friend

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The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s.

(Mark Twain.)

Funny, I would have pegged Vader as a cat person.

Art of the cover: Moby-Dick reimagined

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed; and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

(Herman Melville. Moby-Dick, final sentence. 1851. *SPOILER ALERT, the seas do not gang dry. Don’t tell.*)

This imagined cover art for Melville’s Moby-Dick was done in 2009 by Mark Weaver for the Kitsune Noir Poster Club, the collaborative brainchild of Bobby Solomon (the Fox is Black) and Society6.

Teevee Time: “I have a prestigious blog, sir.”

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“FYI, I wouldn’t pay to see Edgar Allen Poe fight vampires sober.”

“Nobody gives a shit what you think, dink.”


(Party Down. Season 1, Episode 6: “Taylor Stiltskin Sweet Sixteen.” Original airdate April 24, 2009.)

Glamburger: Adele, Rolling in the deep edition

Went to a Dixieland Jazz festival yesterday, which is great because I’m always getting my Dixieland on, can’t hardly stop me, and there was so much rad bad-for-you food.

Adele.

Luckily once you stepped through the food area’s gates you discovered that a simple grilled fair-fare meal with accompanying potato product was as expensive as a down payment on a car. Why is stuff like that always a racket, at every single booth? It feels like it was less of one even as recently as a decade ago. Am I crazy? Anyway, I stuck with a chicken kebab and a lemonade. Healthy choices: This Guy!

… Plus like I said, so expensive that I suspected Rumpelstiltskin was behind the Sun Chips prices. Folklore. Don’t need that. Full disclosure: I ended up dropping most of my allotted money on records later, but I remain confident in my budgeting. Food — in your stomach for a couple hours, tops. Records — years in your ears. Keep sharp and make good decisions.

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Keeping the ghosts inside us alive

Happy Memorial Day.

Close-up.

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Daily Batman: Bat tat, too

Daily Batman: the Goddamn Batman redux

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Reference here and here.

It happens: “Friends without benefits” edition

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Happens all the time.

PSA: Gotta keep ’em separated — “Keming” edition

PSA: I would like to impart some valuable knowledge about kerning and keming. Kerning is a typography term used to describe the process of spacing out a font to make it visually pleasing and easy to read.

fig. 1: “keming,” illustrated by me.

When type becomes too narrow, it can be difficult to read and even unintentionally misleading. Sometimes disastrously. This is called “Keming.” The name is damn clever and originated with this guy. See how the ‘r’ and ‘n’ of Kerning might, if crowded, look like “keming”? There you go. Clever.

fig. 2: “keming,” inadvertently illustrated via yimmyyayo.

Do you understand why I am bringing this up?

Keming: Don’t let it happen to you.

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Good doc edition

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Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Stay metal edition

Movie Millisecond: Word of the Day

Scream real loud.

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Contes immoraux / Immoral Tales (Walerian Borowczyk, 1974).

Daily Batman: Batpachino

via pandaeraser on the tumblr.

Foam art.

Movie Moment: Stop. Margot time.

By Esra Roise, Norway.

“I think I’m in love with Margot.”
“Margot Tenenbaum?”

(Richie and Royal. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001).)