Daily Batman: Let your fingers do the walking

Let your fingers do the walking!

…and the crime-fighting.

Daily Batman: Flimsy allusion edition, feat. special guest star Alessandra Torresani’s breasts

Pretty flimsy allusion to Catwoman, but … it’s my blog. I mean, I can chuckle sheepishly, but I’m not truly sorry. If you feel it is too tenuous and I’ve pushed the envelope too far, start your own blog with stronger and super-safe-for-work daily connections to Batman and watch me never visit it.

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.

Daily Batman: Phantasma-Gorey

Art by Jesse E. Larson.

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.

Daily Batman: Batpachino

via pandaeraser on the tumblr.

Foam art.

Daily Batman: You don’t need a plane to fly

This one’s for my goddaughter — SpongeBob Batpants.

You don’t need a plane to fly,
Plastic wings can make you cry.
Kites were meant for windy days,
Lawn chairs with balloons fly away,
Inflatable pants, you might as well skip,
If you want to fly, all you need
Is friendship!

(SpongeBob Squarepants. “The Sponge Who Could Fly (The Lost Episode).” Season 3, Episode 16. Originally aired March 21, 2003.)

Last night after sushi I headed back to panda eraser’s pad and had a bonding moment or ten with Little V, my goddaughter. She was giving me a tour of her toys and suddenly started saying, “Bubbo, Bubbo,” which I finally figured out was a reference to SpongeBob coming on the television at that moment. I said, “I know that guy. He lives in a pineapple under the sea,” and she laughed and stuck the bottom half of a bisected doll in her mouth. She’s pretty rad.

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: Vintage advertising — Men Aren’t Attracted to a Girl In Glasses, Bettie Edition.

You know. That type.

Miss D has just today (Monday as I write this) upped the ante, “we need new glasses”-wise. She actually made an appointment to get a new prescription and frames. Dang! I had got a new prescription (same as the old boss) in November so, really, I need only go with her to get frames. I’ve been putting it off for too long. Hoping to get newly spec’d out shortly. The only trouble is I’m not sure in which direction to go for frames. My old Buddy Holly glasses have begun to crop up all over, which is not so bad because I don’t need things to be “underground” in order to like them, but their shape forces my lashes to moosh up against the lenses, which I hate. I need to go in a new direction. I’m just not sure which.

Am I daring enough to rock a monocle for my astigmatism? Only time will tell!

…no.

Daily Batman: Year of the Cat, redux

This.

via.

The Dark Knight Rises fan poster art. I cannot find a credit for the artist and would like to get one up as soon as I can. If you know who did it, please let me know.

edit: Tentatively ID’d as http://rodolforever.deviantart.com/, thanks to Paul in the comments, whose smiles make lights turn green.

Keep the suggestions comin’.

Daily Batman: Year of the Cat

“Year of the Cat” by RealityMisfit06 on the d.a.

You’ve probably heard by now that Anne Hathaway, as I speculated and fervently hoped in the past, has been cast as Selina Kyle in the new Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight Rises.

I’m reading sassy molassy left and right about how Ms. Hathaway is unsuited to the role because she is “too nice” and wholesome. I guess you just don’t know her like me, fans of Havoc, GQ readers, the FBI, and the Vatican do.*

I predict this beautiful, complex, and plenty dark actress will prove the doubters wrong. Yes, I’m biased, because I’ve said before that she’s one of the best and most interesting actresses out there today, but even I am prone to take the long view when it comes to my number-one all-time favorite comic book character, so I hope my defense does not get dismissed out of hand.

I further add that she has merely been cast as Selina Kyle, and we have no idea in what direction the character will go in this particular film, as Nolan is slowly developing his own universe in his Batman movies — and, as a final warning to those who are up in arms about this casting choice, you think all people everywhere in the world were in unanimous excitement when Michelle Pfeiffer was cast in Batman Returns? Was there unilateral rejoicing at the decision to put Halle Berry in the Catwoman movie of which it’s best I just stop speaking?

Of course not. This is an iconic character. There will always be rumblings of discontent, no matter what. All I can say is, remember how you felt when you first heard Heath Ledger was tapped as the Joker? Misgiving-less? I wasn’t: I thought it was an inexplicable and potentially terrible decision. And how do I feel about that choice now? How do you?

Exactly.

Give Nolan, and the lovely and talented Anne Hathaway, a chance.



*The Vatican?? What am I talking about? Answer: I’m talking about taste in men almost as historically bad as that of your hostess. Read all about the sad affair. Saw her mock herself on SNL for it, though. You have to really respect a good sense of humor.

Puttin’ on the Ritz: Twiggy edition

Getting prepped and pumped up for Paolo’s birthday bash tonight with a massive crew of friendohs.

Twiggy, aka Lesley Hornby Lawson, 1967. via fyeahfemmes on the tumblr.

His birthday is the one night of the year where, by group consent, Paolo gets to go completely nuts. Miss D always throws him a wonderful theme party of his choosing* (this year is redneck/white trash, which is of course a delicate minefield of walking the line between good-natured cultural tropes and accidental offense, but we had an insane amount of fun shopping for it) and he gets to go all-out in the business of debauchery. What will the night bring? Only time can tell! Have a fabulous Friday and I’ll catch you guys on the flip.

*Memorable past parties have included Paulopalooza: the Battle of the Bands; Disco Fever; Pauloggio: Casino Night; and a fiesta where Miss D taught me how to make her bomb-ass ceviche.

Daily Batman: Talk nerdy to me — Nostalgia for that which never was

Caroline Munro, the fantasy Catwoman cast in this poster, cross-reference for the young’uns:

Catch Ms. Munro in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Starcrash, and the Hammer horror films. You can also see her go head-to-head on the small screen with Joanna Lumley — Pats from AbFab and a Bond girl herself — in “The Angels of Death,” which is Season 2, Episode 2 of The New Avengers (original airdate September 29, 1978). Catfiiiiight!

Ms. Munro was also attached through most of the 1980’s to a developing big-screen Dr. Who project which sadly never materialized.

But for me, Caroline Munro is now and ever shall be smokin’ hot helicopter pilot Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me, the tenth James Bond flick. Having worked her way up to righthand-man status in an industry traditionally dominated by males, and with her whole life ahead of her, the lovely but deadly young henchwoman is grievously murdered by 007 when he shoots a missile at her from under the ocean. Dick move.

Oh, my lord, why have I not done a Bond Girls series?! I’m a horrible, selfish, remiss person! I’ll get on that, stat. Promise. Let’s make it a February theme! If you have a favorite, shoot me pictures and I will try to include them.

Wednesday Wednesday: College first

Wednesday Addams: The original Suicide Girl.

Wednesday brought in this picture. Uh, “Calpurnia Addams?”

Ah! Wednesday’s great-aunt, Calpurnia. She was burned as a witch in 1706. They said she danced naked in the town square and enslaved the minister.

Really?

Oh, yes. But don’t worry. We’ve told Wednesday — “College first.”

Dip, dive, socialize. Get ready for the Saturday night.

via.

Hitting a luxe banquet with wonderful old friendoh the Axeman tonight (aka Misterr Anndersonnn: say it in the Matrix voice). Free food, open bar — really fun company that he works for. And as for attire, am I Hep-burning it up? You bet your sweet Aunt Fanny I am. It’s the only way to fly.

via.

Have a great night out there and I’ll catch you on the flip!

First B@T’s Movie Moment of 2011. Balloons just fell all over us all.

Fight Club Friday: Destroying something beautiful

Painting by Danae8 on the d.a.

You take lymphoma and tuberculosis —

No, you take tuberculosis. My smoking does not go over at all.

Destroying something beautiful: sometimes Marla feels like doing it, too. I can say I mean to quit smoking cigarettes, I can say I know I should, I can say I don’t know how, and that everyone should have a vice and I’m banking on them discovering a cure for cancer by the time I get it, and a million other excuses or clever deflections, but it’s all lies, and worst of all to myself. I just don’t want to. I’m not ready.

So I guess that’s what I’ll tell my lungs when they decide to try and fail me, too. Sorry, guys — I wasn’t ready to quit.

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 42, DA, the Ballet, and Hip 2 B Squarr

Oh, hey, synchronicity: just had a DA post and here comes 42. Hell and goddamn! It’s going to be a good weekend. Numerical coincidences are powerful omens and portents in the Book of E. It’s good timing because I’m going to the ballet tonight. Time to get my Nutcracker on. Shit, yeah. Droppin’ king-size cusses and psyched for the ballet: that is me. I am the squarrest. L-7. Right here.

Knitted by insanely talented kaby on the craftster.

“Look, I’m up to here with cool, I’m so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month, I’m so hip I have trouble seeing over my pelvis. Now will you move before I blow it.”

(Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Chapter 19.)

69 Days of Wonder Woman: Day 36, Muppet connections

Now this is the quickest way to my heart.

One-way ticket, express train. Complementary snacks and beverages.

Lynda Carter appeared on Episode 36 of The Muppet Show as herself, Lynda Carter. As with the Roger Moore “Bond” episode, where he appeared as himself, much to the consternation of the cast who were hoping for spy action, the Muppets’ running gag was to continually try to draw out Wonder Woman.

Appearing in a sketch as Wonder Pig, Miss Piggy asks Lynda if she regrets not bringing her costume along. All the Muppets take superhero lessons to impress Wonder Woman and Fozzie learns the value of bullet-deflecting bracelets.

Another Muppet venture, the Children’s Television Workshop, referred to the character of Wonder Woman in the recent Sesame Street “Preschool Musical” episode (a parody of High School Musical), when little Mariella up there sang about dress-up and how it made her in to someone else, someone that reflected the dreams and desires of who she wanted to be. Mariella spun until she changed in to the above outfit, and she remained in her superhero costume for the rest of the sketch.

Yesterday, Paolo was taking Corinnette back over to the coast for school, so I slid down to C-town to keep Miss D some company. We watched Muppets Take Manhattan on the television and folded laundry. “Sea Breeze Soap — Use it so you don’t stink.” It was truly wonderful. Besides the great writing and the actual entertainment value, I think that what makes the Muppets special for me is their relatability, their familiarity, and the comfort of their consistency. Maybe this is part of what has made Wonder Woman, too, an enduringly popular character, a standout hero in the genre, and a classic element of how we tell certain types of stories: if a girl is going to triumph, then she is Wonder Woman. “You’d have to be Wonder Woman to get all that done!” There is something special about that.

I need to give her credit for this: people love Wonder Woman, not only in comics but also in her pantheon of moving viewing material. They come back to her again and again and feel retro and nostalgic about it. I respect that, because I have things that I, too, love in that way.

Movie Moment: Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman

Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman (Nathan Juran, 1958).

Credit for all these great screencaps is due to meltdownclown on the lj.

Oh, no, it’s a giant lady and is she pissed. I think everyone should see this movie so I will only give you the barest bones of the lowdown and let the caps do the convincing, here. I think I’ll blather about Allison Hayes after a brief plot summary.

Allison Hayes plays Nancy Archer, a wealthy but unhappy wife with a dick of a husband who drives her to drink. All that dandy Harry, played by William Hudson, wants to do is hang out at the bar with his trampy girlfriend named (wait for it) Honey.

Honey is played by the lovely and talented Yvette Vickers, who we will see much more of, well, ALL of, later this month in her Girls of Summer appearance.

Besides Honey and Harry pissing her family money away on gin and poorly rolled cigarettes in a van down by the river, Nancy has other troubles too, as ladies sometimes do, such as spending time in sanitariums and getting hit with rays from alien orbs that make her huge.

When Nancy sees evidence of aliens landing and insists on her story’s truth, Harry decides it’s the perfect opportunity to get her committed for good, the better to spend her money and bang Honey free of nagging.

Because it’s hard to ask your husband where he’s going or how come a check bounced when you’ve got that clampy-downy-so-you-don’t-bite-off-your-tongue-while-the-jokers-make-an-epileptic-of-you electroshock mouth guard thingy in your mouth. Better living through electricity. Tell a friend.

Honey and Harry, because they are good and god-fearing people, flirt with the idea of just o’d’ing Nance on her sedatives, but it’s too late! The most repressed and angry drunk in town, pretty much the last person you’d ever want to grow into a strong super-giant, has — grown into a strong super-giant!

Oh, shit, you did NOT expect her to come down to the bar and wreck the joint. And even if you thought it was a dim possibility, you probably didn’t picture her 50 feet tall.

Nancy’s well-deserved rampage doesn’t come until nearly the end of the film and is sadly brief at that, but she does manage to kill both Honey and Harry, so that’s a check in the win column.

Allison Hayes (née Mary Jane) was labeled by Life magazine in one of the few other before Fifty Foot Woman pics I found of her as “Miss Washington 1949,” confusing all the way around because she was really Miss District of Columbia and it was as a Miss USA candidate, NOT Miss America. More on Miss USA in a sec.

According to the wiki she was also crowned Miss Dixie in 1951, which pageant has come up before in our Valentine Vixen post on Nancy Jo Hooper. The lovely and talented Sophia Loren lookalike Ms. Hooper was runner-up in the 1962 Miss Dixie pageant. Remember?

To refresh your memory on the super-fair and reasonable rules of the beauty contest, via pageantopolis: “Each contestant was judged on five qualities: intellect (5%), personality (10%), appearance in evening gown (15%), talent (30%), and appearance in swim suit (30%).”

“The judges each picked the girls they rated from first to seventh in each classification of competition. The girl with the highest cumulative point score became Miss Dixie.”

You may sneer at the low rating of intellect on the judging scale and I agree it’s not entirely amiss. But if you are ruffled by the equal weight of “talent” and “appearance in a swimsuit” please remember that the Miss USA pageant continues not to have a “talent” portion at all.

Let’s give credit where credit is due: kudos to the Miss USA organization for not sugar-coating the fact that this is a contest where what really matters is bikinis.* Let’s call a spade a spade and make no bones of this thing — leave your cello at home, honey, because what we want to know about you is how you look in a “formal” dress that would make a pimp blush.

*The Miss USA pageant organization and its sister organization, Miss Universe, provide women with the opportunity to travel, further their education and serve the international community through philanthropy. Charities aligned with the Miss USA organization include the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Foundation, the USO, and, most importantly to me, Gilda’s Club.

I’m not knocking Miss USA herself nor any titleholders or competitors past or present. They’re hard working good looking gals and that’s great. I’m just saying — a talent portion would make the pageant look better. Also, no more Donald Trump and reality television programs built around it would help.

Ms. Hayes was lifelong close personal friends with the quietly wonderful fag of our fathers Mr. Raymond “Perry Mason” Burr, beginning with the time of filming 1954’s Western film Count Three and Pray. After her own tv and screen careers started petering out, Burr wrangled her 5 separate guest appearances on Perry Mason.

That makes so much sense cause everyone knows that gay guys love beauty pageants, am I right. Hey everybody it’s mildly-hateful generalization day! mildly-hatefully generalize with me! Black guys like purple. Chicks like shoes. Irish people unilaterally drink.

I’m sure you will be shocked, given the care and craft evidenced in these photos, to learn that Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman was made for only around $88,000. The picture was a huge hit and talk of a sequel was shopped about but never materialized.

There was a 1993 remake by Christopher Guest (Best in Show, Spinal Tap) for HBO that was rated a critical failure. I disagree but I am widely known for my devotion to its star, one Miss Daryl Christine Flyass Mothafuckin’ Hannah!!!, so I admit to enormous bias.**

**Flyass Mothafuckin’ is a family name. If she was a boy it would have been her first name, not her middle. Girls in the family are named Daryl and boys are named Flyass Mothafuckin’. Did You Know?***

***This is the opposite of true.

In the 1993 update, the Nancy character is not so much an alcoholic, though she is neurotic and repressed. There is also the addition of a really overbearing father and her husband is bossier with her too. As with the original, when she gets her “day,” you are pumped as shit for her.

I like this type of story. I always liked to see the quiet kid with glasses ignoring his lunchroom tormentors just up and flip the fuck out and go nuts and bloody noses and make rich kids cry. But the truth is, the couple times I’ve seen something similar, and I am this way as well, come to think of it so I’ll switch to “we” on this one — it never quite works out.

We hold-it-all-in types are so out of practice at being expressively furious that we tend to sputter when we try to swear at our oppressors, and somehow we do not entirely break things that we throw at the wall even if we thought we threw it pretty hard.

Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman has been widely satirized and paid homage to, I hope I am convincing you justly.

As a few examples, the image of Nancy in her white dress from the poster pops up on album covers for alternative bands now and again, and on people’s walls in movies a lot. The shot of her next to the power lines (to demonstrate her shocking height!!) has become fairly iconic because it’s a great composition.

In the recent animated film Monsters vs. Aliens, the character of Susan, voiced by Reese Witherspoon, is an obvious parody of Nancy Archer. When Susan first becomes Ginormica, she is exactly fifty feet tall, although she grows slightly larger a few times throughout the film.

Susan/Ginormica’s character backstory is also similar to Nancy’s. She is a sweet, self-sacrificing girl who is put upon by her arrogant, grandstanding fiance, and frequently represses her own feelings in favor of giving his primacy. She does not consider herself strong and generally relies on others to rescue and advise her.

By the end of the film, she has become resolutely strong and self-sufficient, and it’s a very enjoyable transition to watch. I think I might have to give it its own Movie Moment one of these days, because it is also hilarious.

Subject jump. The mind is such an extraordinary thing. My grandmother has been having a terrible Bad Day, and keeps insisting I take her home and that we are in Idaho and not California, and that I am her cousin and not myself and she is sad because she keeps remembering that all of her brothers and sisters are dead and she just wants to see her dogs, and it has basically been a heartbreaking afternoon —- but as I was putting this post together and selecting the pictures for it, she came by and stood behind me (probably to ask me again to take her home, which we are driving to Washington/Idaho next week to do but likely only to clean it up and sell it, I hope to God that does not sink in).

She saw the pictures on the monitor and said immediately, “Oh, Lord, I remember that at the drive-in! That must have played all Summer after it first came out. What’s her name? Hayes, Hayward?”

I said, “You got it. Allison Hayes.”

She laughed and shook her head and said, “Fifty foot woman. My word. I think everyone in Spokane probably saw it three times each.”

Now she is on the phone with my mother patiently explaining that when she comes home from work, could she please just run her home because Priest River is not so far from Spokane and then she could sleep with her dogs tonight.

I hate what’s happening to her. I think I hate it enough to maybe need a book about how to deal with it or a meeting to go to or something.

Daily Batman: Inspiration Station — From Boudicca to Selina to Dana Scully (and Bettie in between)

Bettie Page in catsuit. Unknown date. R.I.P., Queenie.

Like Batman, the Catwoman operated outside the law within her own code of morality. She predated the creation of Alfred, the Penguin, and even famous heroines like Wonder Woman, Miss Fury, and Black Cat. Catwoman broke the glass ceiling of the comic industry and raised the bar for future female characters. From their first battle in Batman #1, the caped crusader has uniquely allowed her to escape.

Selina Kyle became a foil to Batman, a reflection of his own dark desires and need for healing, as well a Jungian anima to his animus.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “History of a Femme Fatale.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

Fans of different generations of the Catwoman archetype make their own attractions to the character. Obviously she fills a void in comics of complex female characters; women that both male and female readers can relate to and admire. The largest difference between our modern mythology and the fairy tales and Greek myths of yore is the silent exclusion of half of our population.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “Feminist Role Model.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

Originally comics were bought by almost as many females as males, so economics does not explain the lack of female representation in the DC universe. Unlike societies that told tales of Hera, Diana, the Amazons, Boudicca, Judith, Matilda, Cleopatra, Inana, Jinga, Queen Elizabeth, Morgan, Joan of Arc, and many other strong women, as a culture Americans lacked the archetype of the Warrior Queen.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “Feminist Role Model.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully, The X-Files) in purple catsuit. Jesus wept.

The invention of Catwoman begat a new generation of powerful characters like Wonder Woman, Xena, and Agent Scully that may not have been heard without Selina’s birth in 1940.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “Feminist Role Model.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

William Blake Month: Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: “The Tigers of Wrath”

Berlin, Germany

The quote comes from “Proverbs of Hell,” a chapter in William Blake’s gnostic text The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

The book has been interpreted as an anticipation of Freudian and Jungian models of the mind, illustrating a struggle between a repressive superego and an amoral id. It has also been interpreted as an anticipation of Nietzsche’s theories* about the difference between slave morality and master morality.

(the wiki)

*cf: in particular Nietzsche’s camel – lion – child model of human thought and behavior as outlined in Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen / Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (1883-1885).

Portions of this post appeared originally on December 5, 2009.