Sources of Retro Style

People are nuts about Mad Men, and the search "Mad Men party" in Flickr gets almost 6000 results.  Obviously the fashion is a big draw, since people are partying dressed up like early 60s sophisticates.

I wonder if these maddicts are aware of Peter Gunn on RetroTV (check your local listings).  This is an excellent primary source of retro style and suavity.

Peter Gunn and Lt. Jacoby (Gunn's friend and foil) hunt trouble in a world of noir chiaroscuro.  Harsh neon light flashes on rain-slicked streets and through the windows of cheap hotels, where people are usually hiding from the Mob.  Gunn is impeccable in his charcoal-gray suit; Jacoby, much less so. (He's the foil, remember?)  And both of them stay poker-faced all the time.

Maddicts, don't blow your wad on one TV show!  There's a whole world of historical TV out there to explore and live vacariously through.

An Ed Wood Clone?

Invisible Invaders and Plan 9 From Outer Space both came out in 1959.  If I hadn't known better, I would've guessed that II was some lost Ed Wood creation.  Perhaps Ed Wood had some influence on II director Edward L. Cahn or vice versa.  Certain similarities, such as continuity problems, generous use of stock footage, and recycling of shots can more easily be explained by low budgets.

However, a small purse cannot be blamed for both films using an omniscient narrator or the common theme of aliens who respond to earthlings's nuclear development by resurrecting dead humans, who then attack live humans.  No sir!

I do not believe that 1950s alien invasion films are really about Communism.  I believe that subconscious eruptions fuel our fear of both aliens and Communism (and a lot of other stuff).  The walking dead could be the return of the repressed!  I think of these films as modern folklore, that reveals our collective uncoscious.

In any case I videoed the opening scene of II, which I think is awesomely bad!  You can watch trailers on youtube.

Mechanix Monday

Finally, the back cover of the August, 1933 Modern Mechanix and Inventions.  We close Mechanix Mondays with some clever devices for enhancing our health.

Finally ! Color-Coded Rhyme

As my regular readers may recall, rhyme has been a carrier of Truth to me since childhood.  So I love poetry that uses lots of rhyme and slant rhyme.  Currently I am reading Kay Ryan's latest: The Best of It.  Here are a couple of rhyme-bunctious poems from the book with the rhymes and slant rhymes, same sounds and similar sounds linked using my own color-coding system (patent pending).

GRAZING HORSES (page 166)

Sometimes the

green pasture

of the mind

tilts abruptly.

The grazing horses

struggle crazily

for purchase

on the frictionless

nearly verticle

surface.  Their

furniture-fine

legs buckle

on the incline,

unhorsed by slant

they weren't

designed to climb

and can't.


CHART (page 254)
There is a big
figure, your age,
crawling, then
standing, now
beginning to bend
as he crosses
the stage.  Or
she.  A blurred
and generalized
projection of you
and me.  For a
long time it seems
as remote
from the self
as the ape chart
where they rise up
and walk into man.
And then it seems
the realer part.

Aliens R Us

Inspired by Chuck's recent post, I was checking out what Google searches were leading people to my blog.  One searcher from Norway who retrieved my post Who Are These Aliens Anyway? had used the search terms Colleen and aliens.  Could it be that my thoughts on 50s science fiction had risen to fame-level?!

Perhaps.  Or maybe The Norwegian was looking for this Colleen.

Mechanix Monday

Here's another craft idea, this one actually sounds good to me.  The word handikinks is not in the dictionary.  However, one figuative use of the word kink is " An odd but clever method of doing something; a ‘dodge’, ‘wrinkle," as in "1889 Anthony's Photogr. Bull. II. 110 The hundred and one recent valuable wrinkles, dodges and kinks that float through the photographic press."*

*OED Online

Mechanix Monday

Modern Mechanix and Inventions wasn't just for scientists;  hobbyists liked it too.  I can see Martha Stewart doing these projects.
 
Just a reminder; this is the August 1933 issue.

The Risks of Prediction

I know there have been many grumpy books and articles about the wonderful future that never happened. ( For instance, Where’s my jetpack? : a guide to the amazing science fiction future that never arrived / Daniel H. Wilson ; illustrated by Richard Horne. New York : Bloomsbury USA : Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, c2007)  But I like to think I was in the vanguard, since I mounted a display back in 2000 about the many unrealized predictions for that year.  I limited my material to respectable academics and think tanks, though I did use a few pictures from old science fiction pulps.  Here's a future chronology I used from The Book of predictions / [compiled] by David Wallechinsky, Amy Wallace, Irving Wallace.  New York : Morrow, 1980, c1981

A Chronology of the Future

1985

 People work a 4-day, 32-hour week.

1987

 The U.S. legalizes marijuana.

1988

 The first human being is cloned.

1989

 Weather forecasting achieves accuracy for 30-day periods.

1990

 Daily body checkups by computer provide ample warning of any impending illness

1992

 The first human is brought back to life after being frozen and thawed.

1993

 After a stock market crash and major depression, the U.S. ceases to be a great power.  The Soviet Union dominates most of the world.

1998

 First tourist service to outer space.

2000

 Cocaine is legalized in the U.S.

 A shortage of oil starts a large-scale migration of people from cold to warmer parts of the world.

 50,000people are living and working in space.

 The first children are born off the Earth.

Mechanix Monday

This was Modern Mechanix and Inventions's version of Ripley's Believe It Or Not, though these things are considerably less unbelieveable.  I couldn't find out anything about Nic Sprank, but it is interesting to note that the current fad for spelling variations in common names is not entirely new.

Morning Glory Takes a Stroll Along the WIndow Sill

Office Bloom

Finally the Morning Glory on my office window ledge produces a bloom!

OK, That's Enough

In the name of nostalgia, I watched some old episodes of The Prisoner.  How could I have forgotten so much of this show?  I love it in the opening when number 6's disembodied head comes barreling out at you, as though it were going to smash into your face, but the jail doors slam closed, and you're safe.  Then there were the groovy interiors (number 6 has an orange lava lamp next to his bed) contrasted with the olde-time charm of the exteriors. 

I had forgotten that The Village was patrolled by a gigantic balloon and that the ladies had smashing striped capes.

However, pretty soon I tired of seeing number 6 triumph over number 2 again and again, so I dropped it.  Here's the only bit that had stuck with me before I renewed my acquaintence with The Prisoner:

Mechanix Monday

Bim Gump was a character from The Gumps comic strip.  Bim was the Gumps' rich uncle and, evidently, an enthusiastic smoker.
And now for something completely different: a clock-comb.

Bunny Art

JB is on Youtube! (In second 12 in the background)

Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet. I'm Hunting Wabbits!

Except that these might be Hares.

Maybe they are Eastern Cottontails.


OK, some of my readers will think wild hares (rabbits, cottontails)  are a big ho-hum.  But in the 31 years I've lived in Cambridge, I've never before seen wild hares (rabbits, cottontails) in urban areas.  Now suddenly there are two just between Lamont and Houghton Libraries.  I also spotted one on the lawn of a church near my home.

The Houghton people call the grown-up the Houghton Bunny and the baby Artie, after Arthur Houghton.  However, there is already a movement at  Lamont to sue for custody.

Leporidae (cohort Glires, order Lagomorpha)


The family that includes the rabbits, cottontails, and hares. These are lagomorphs in which the tail is reduced, the hind legs are modified for jumping, and the ears are usually long. Rabbits are adapted for burrowing, and their young are born in burrows, naked and blind. Hares are born above ground, their eyes open, and fully furred. Cottontails do not burrow, but may use burrows dug by other animals. There are eight genera. They are distributed widely throughout the Holarctic region, where they are highly successful (there are more than 30 species), but are less common in Africa (about eight species) and S. America (two species).

How to cite this entry:
"Leporidae"  A Dictionary of Zoology. Ed. Michael Allaby. Oxford University Press 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  Harvard University Library.  3 August 2010  

Mechanix Monday

Page 37 features some interesting inventions...

The most interesting to us futurologists is the early version of the audiobook.

An Invention Worth Blogging: The Clock-Comb

Mechanix Monday

In the tradition of Turtle Tchotchke Tuesdays I present Mechanix Mondays, devoted to the lighlights of the August 1933 issue of Modern Mechanix and Inventions (which is the only issue that Harvard owns).  This week I present the cover!

August is the season for lost gold treasure hunts!  Our hunter sports a tomato-red diving suit with golden fittings and chic claw-style artificial hands.  Happy hunting!

Friday Foodfest

Here's what JB brought for lunch today.

Very healthy, but Diane brought in some fudge for everybody!

It was delicious and so easy; here's the recipe.  Thanks, Diane.

UPDATE:  This recipe works well with Butterscotch chips too!

Chuck's Flying Saucer

Chuck says there is a flying saucer in this picture.  I marked the two places where it might have been traveling in red.

Bug on a Rug

Here's another Photoshop thing made from Dover clip art.

A Nostalgia Fix

During my freshman week (1973) there was an outdoor screening of The President's Analyst at my dorm (Hanszen College).  I remember it being slow in the first half.  In the name of nostalgia, I decided to re-view it.  This time I enjoyed it all the way through.  Silly but fun. Perhaps my powers concentration have sharpened with age.  I did remember this part, presented below, that spoofed those Bell Lab films we used to see in school.  Enjoy!

A Ghostly Omen?

As my regular readers know, I recently bemoaned the absense of The Bird's Nest from the Library of America edition of Shirley Jackson's work.  Then, what should show up on the hedge in front of Lamont but an actual bird's nest!

Perhaps, as Steve suggested, a tree-pruner found the nest and placed it there.....or, could it be a sign from the ghost of Shirley Jackson signaling her agreement with me?
UPDATE:  The LOA is planning another volume that will include The Bird's Nest.  So I guess I will have to retract my haunting-curse on J.C. Oates.

40 Years Later We Still Look Like Ourselves

Here I am today and 40 years ago.

Some of Us Live on the Edge

What Are Ghosts Anyway?

Yesterday in the staff room Chris and I were talking about supernatural fiction.  He was saying that ghost stories were, in a sense, out of date, since people don't believe in ghosts anymore. How could a modern person get scared?  Only movies could do the job with their appalling special effects.

I was struggling to explain my own love of some supernatural fiction; fiction in which the ghosts are taken seriously as characters and there is real character development.  I kept getting stuck in my explanations.  I think the ghost has to have a psychological connection with a living character, but I don't want to say that the ghost symbolizes somebody's repressed something-or-other.  Then people are bound to think I mean it is just in the character's mind. "Just in somebody's mind" usually means, "It's not real."  It means one is taking a pitying or smug attitude towards that character:  "Poor thing!  She's obviously nuts." (I hate studies of The Turn of the Screw that take that attitude.)  I'm a Jungian; I believe in the reality of the psyche.  I think the mind is more than an epiphenomenon of the brain.  I believe in Rupert Sheldrake's "extended mind."  As far as ghosts go, I neither believe nor disbelieve that ghostly phenomenon are spirits of the dead.  So if a ghost in a story is acting out some unconscious complex of a living character, that doesn't diminish the reality of the ghost character at all.

And, speaking of supernatural fiction, I had been eagerly awaiting the Library of America edition of Shirley Jackson's work.  In particular, I was looking forward to owning her novel The Bird's Nest, which is not available new at a reasonable price.  (I read the Widener copy.)  I could have bought a grimey old paperback, but I would so much prefer to reread it printed on crackling fresh new pages.  But what a disappointment!  The editor of that edition, Joyce Carol Oates, didn't think The Bird's Nest was good enough to include.  In fact, in the interview of the LOA site, Oates admiration of Jackson sounded rather restrained. She also makes that distinction (which I disdain) between ghosts that are "psychological" and ones that are "real" I am pissed, and I hope Oates gets thouroughly haunted by Jackson's ghost.
UPDATE:  The LOA is planning another volume that will include The Bird's Nest.  So I guess I will have to retract my haunting-curse on J.C. Oates.

Italy in 1995

In July of 1995 I went to Italy with my old college buddy Barbara.  I took many tourist-style photos: a small person standing in front of an enormous building or statue.  I scanned and cropped a few of them for My Public.

Dinner at Chez Nouveau Julie and Dave

Julie & Dave moved into a wonderful condo in Arlington. It's on a quiet street leading into some lovely conservation land. Last night they fed Sue and me at their new digs.

The kitchen is a muted mustard color that goes well with Dave's cap.

Sue is back from Italy.  She brought us some pasta that we ate with pesto, parmesan, and pine nuts.  She brought us jars of truffles.

Julie gives her new kitchen a workout and puts together four beautiful salads:

Stanley and Clifford are still getting used to their new home.

Here's something I've never seen before: a lard hole.  Under this lid is a bucket into which householders would dump their old lard.  Periodically the lard collector would collect the lard.

Time for a snooze.

The Discreet Charm of Old TV

I am now watching episodes of Secret Agent, which evolved from Danger Man. John Drake is sophisticated and poker-faced, but he has a heart. Unlike 007, he doesn't make jokes about hooligans he has dispatched. For Drake, death is never hilarious.




What's with this penchant of mine for old TV and movies? I don't believe they represent a golden age of innocence, nor do I merely sneer at the outmoded beliefs and think myself superior to all these people now dead or very old. Maybe it's some strange synergy of both, or neither.