The Lair of the Silver Fox.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

And This Was on the Newsstands?

Thinking back to April of 2005, I have to admit, I was rather shocked to see the above magazine on the newsstands. I mean, I'm certainly no prude, but Couldn't they have come up with a better title for their magazine? thought I. It bothered me for some time... until February of 2008, as a matter of fact, when I saw this:

Oops. That's much better.

Silly me.

Umm... Thanks for your time.

Update, July 23, 2915. The first cover was an inadvertent hoax! Read more here!

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Worthy of Note

I only post birthday greetings when they occur to me, whether said "greeting" is to a celebrity (living or dead), or a friend and/or fellow blogger. And if you've ever gotten one, it's probably the only one you'll ever get. Just sayin'.

Having said that...

Today (the 21st) I'd like to send out my best b'day wishes to one of the dearest friends I've ever made on the internet, the woman responsible for the My Five Men blog, a site with an eclectic mix of topics -- serious, humorous, and informative -- depending on her whims.

(Yeah, Betsy, I'm talkin' 'bout you!)

I'm not going to post an actual photo of her (although obtaining one would be remarkably easy, especially for the ol' Fox), nor am I going to list the many reasons why I think she's so remarkable, to save her just a tiny bit of embarrassment ...

But if she thinks I'd let her birthday go by without even a mention, she's nuts!

(And by the way, if you follow her blog with any regularity, you can probably guess what the two photos which I have included have to do with her, and her blog.)

Happy birthday, doll.

Aw, heck... I was going to end there, but I'll take the liberty of adding something else... and since the owners of "Happy Birthday to You" are very litigious when someone uses their lyrics & melody without financially compensating them, I will instead present Betsy with "The Happy Birthday Conga!" (Everybody join in, now!)

Happy, happy, BIRTH-day!

[repeat and fade]

And now, to the rest of you... Thanks for your time, and indulgence.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Shamelessly Sucking Up to the Lady Bloggers

I've noticed during the last two or three years that a lot of the lady Blogger-bloggers like to share recipes with their readers. Ordinarily -- but not always -- my own reaction to those posts is somewhere in the realm of "Oh. Nice... I suppose."

However, in a true spirit of camaraderie, as well as to find out just how influential my blog really is, I am giving you the following "simplified" recipe for Peoples Temple Flavor Aid!

Preparation:

Mix two hundred .15 oz. packets of grape-flavored Flavor Aid (not Kool-Aid) with one hundred gallons of water. Prepare according to instructions on package. Add liberal & large doses of Valium (diazepam), chloral hydrate, potassium cyanide, potassium chloride, and Phenergan (promethazine). Mix thoroughly.

Serves approximately 909.

Thanks for your time... if you're still out there...

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Roll with the Changes -- NOT a "Theme Thursday" Post, About "Theme Thursday!"

THEME THURSDAY

PREVENTING BLOGGER BURNOUT SINCE 2008

So. The format of Theme Thursday is changing!

In the old days, it was pretty simple. Every Sunday -- or, on rare occasions, Monday -- the Powers-That-Be at "TT" would post the theme for the following Thursday. Bloggers would sign up, and post their theme-related entries on Thursday. Or sometimes Wednesday. Or sometimes Tuesday. Or sometimes, even Friday. Whatever. Then, anybody who wanted to would visit -- and hopefully, comment on -- as many of the participating sites' posts as he or she wished to, on Thursday. Or sometimes Friday. Or sometimes, even Saturday.

But now, that scenario is changing, as explained here.

Henceforth, the theme for the week will be listed on Thursday. Those who wish to play along will have up to a week to write their posts. They can post it that very day. Or on Friday... or on Saturday... et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... up to and including Wednesday. Theoretically, this means that instead of calling in sick to work and spending an entire Thursday reading and commenting on other people's blogs, you'll have a whole week to visit everyone's Theme Thursday entries.

Then, on the following Thursday, a new theme will post.

It could work wonderfully.

On the other hand, it could go something like this:

Thursday: "Okay, the topic is PHLEGM. What the hell am I going to write about phlegm? Let's see, twelve people have already posted! *sigh* I'll go read theirs."

Friday: "Where did I leave off yesterday? Nineteen total as of today... Did I read #11? Name's not familiar. But... #12's is?"

Saturday: "Up to thirty-eight today. Did I read the first twenty already, or just the first nineteen? Maybe I should make a checklist somewhere..."

Sunday: "Finally posted mine! They're only at forty, including mine. That's only two more since yesterday! Where the hell does everybody go on weekends?!?"

Monday: "Thirty-eight?!? How the hell did that happen? And did I read the first thirty-two, or the first thirty-four? Where the hell's my checklist?!?"

Tuesday: "I have to work all day, and then I have a date. To hell with the internet."

Wednesday: "One hundred and forty-seven?!? For cryin' out loud, I have to work tonight!"

Thursday: "New theme, PROCTOLOGY? Oh, great. I'll still be spending the next two or three days catching up on last week's theme entries! Who the hell has time to write one?"

On the other hand, it could go swimmingly...

Seriously, despite my own piddling little reservations about this new format, I wish everyone involved the best of luck. I first encountered a lot of my current Blogger-blogger buddies, male and female, through the odd kinship brought about by Theme Thursday. And if one can be grateful to a blog, rather than the person(s) responsible for it, I truly am.

But enough sappy, sentimental crap. Nobody ever laughs at that.

Thanks for your time.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Wolfie

It was none other than Charles Schulz who "turned me on" to classical music, when I was about eight years old. No, really. In the Peanuts comic strip, the character of Schroeder was always more interested in "that stupid Beethoven" than he was in... well... whatever it was that Lucy had in mind for him. Don't forget, this was the same girl who ran her own "psychiatrist booth." I'm sure she had all sorts of sick little fantasies, along with her interest in... umm... pianists. (Insert your own pun here.)

The unrequited love affair between Lucy and Schroeder began in 1953!

I, on the other hand, having been interested in girls from birth, or thereabouts -- Rumor has it that my very first instance of flirting was with a nurse in the delivery room on the afternoon of November 16th! -- wondered what was so great about the classical music (and musicians) with which Schroeder was so enthralled that he preferred it (and them) to Lucy.

Surprisingly, although my mother was an accomplished organist, and many members of her family had been amateur or professional musicians (including her cousin Polly, a moderately famous opera singer), I never asked her about classical music. So she was a bit surprised one day during the mid-1960s when I pulled three LPs from a cheapo rack of Pickwick albums in a department store. Pickwick was a so-called "drugstore records" label that sold for a much lower price than the average LP, which -- IIRC -- went for about seven or eight dollars.

(Hey, did you Americans ever notice, whenever we're faced with a word that we've never seen before and are unsure how to pronounce, we're always told "Sound it out?" Well, if we tried that with a lot of the classical composers -- such as Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Schubert -- we'd be wrong in most cases!)

Anyway, the three LPs I chose were Beethoven's Seventh Symphony (still my favorite symphony of his -- in fact, I've been known to whistle entire movements from it at various jobs over the years -- rather than the fifth or the ninth, which many prefer), his Piano Sonata No. 29, and the third album featured two compositions, Schubert's Eighth Symphony and Mozart's Fortieth Symphony. (The last LP featured a portrait of Franz Schubert on its cover, and for quite some time, that was the image I thought of whenever I thought of Mozart!)

I'd never heard of Mozart before, but I had heard -- somewhere -- of Schubert's so-called "unfinished" symphony. I had a mental impression of all of the musicians on the record playing until some point, at which they'd all just stop.

(Hey, I was about eight, okay?)

From its very first notes, Mozart's music grabbed me. And while there's quite a bit of his music which I have yet to hear -- the gent was quite prolific during his thirty-five years on this planet -- he's been one of my favorite composers ever since.

(In the early 1980s, I worked as a waiter in a local restaurant. We usually had one of several stations playing. Whenever someone wanted to know the artist of a particular song that was on the air, they'd ask me... and I'd always be right. One day, someone had switched the dial to a classical station, and as a joke, I was asked "Okay, who does this one?" when a piece of music was playing. I admitted that I'd never heard the selection, adding "but it sure sounds like Mozart!" Amazingly -- or perhaps, not so amazingly, if I do say so myself -- I was correct. Heh.)

Here's my favorite Mozart anecdote, by the way, from Anecdotage.com:

A young man once asked Mozart for advice on composing a symphony. Mozart replied that, as he was still young, he might begin by composing ballads. "But you wrote symphonies when you were only ten years old," the boy objected. "Yes," Mozart retorted. "But I didn't have to ask for advice."

(Another quick digression: Did you ever notice this peculiar difference between pop music and classical music? If a pop song is playing, and someone asks "Who is this?" the answer is always the name(s) of the singer(s)... or instrumentalist(s), if it's an instrumental number. If the same question is asked during a classical piece, the answer is usually given as the name of the composer. Which is why asking "Who is this?" when listening to Rod Stewart's version of "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" brings "Rod Stewart" as the answer; if it were a classical work, the answer would be "Van Morrison." And if you listen to "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees and ask that question, no one says, "Neil Diamond.")

My actual impetus for writing this post was this recent article from The New York Times, which talked about how there are well over a hundred theories on how Mozart actually died! (I didn't quote a number from the article itself, since it seems a bit undecided about said figure.) Mozart's fictionalized biography, Amadeus, shows one theory, although it almost as quickly discounts it!

When Amadeus was filmed in 1984, I didn't see it right away. For one thing, I was more than a bit thrown by their choice of the actor who played Mozart... Tom Hulce. ("Tom Hulce? 'Pinto' from National Lampoon's Animal House?!?" thought I. He won me over when I saw the flick, of course!) Eventually, I rented it on videotape... and here's my favorite scene from the movie. It's a bit long -- not that that should bother my readers too much -- but it's positively brilliant!

So, to conclude these vaguely-related notes, fellow babies, I'll tell you just one more thing: All these years later, I can't recall which animated Peanuts TV special this happened on, but a few years after my love of classical music had been established, there was a scene in one of the Peanuts cartoons where Schroeder played a purposely childish-sounding, one-note-at-a-time rendition of the very beginning of the first movement of Mozart's Fortieth Symphony!

It's terrific when things come together like that, innit?

Thanks for your time.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Game Is Afoot!

Robert Downey, Jr., in the role of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes

Nope, today's post isn't about feet, fellow babies... nor is it quite as scatter-shot as my last post!

Let me start off by saying that I was interested in seeing the latest filmed version of Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr. in the 2009 movie directed by Guy Ritchie. Downey is one of my favorite modern actors. Hell, if he'd done nothing but Chaplin I'd probably still say that! Unfortunately, as most of you are aware, by the time of the flick's Christmas release I was concerned with much more important things than a trip to the cinema.

In fact, the last time I even went to a movie theater was in 2008, when Downey starred in the first Iron Man film. (Can it really be two years since that came out?!?)

It's no secret that I'm a long-time comic book fan, but that doesn't necessarily carry over into the film world. There are a lot of comic book concepts adapted for the "big screen" that I've never bothered to see. A list of what I've neglected to watch from just the last fifteen years or so would probably amaze you.

Besides, this was "my" Iron Man, from when I was a kid. The "golden era" of the "Golden Avenger," in my mind. That ignores most of the last forty years, with a few multi-issue exceptions here and there.

So I didn't have much interest in seeing the Iron Man movie, either, until I heard that Robert Downey, Jr. had been cast as Tony Stark, a/k/a Iron Man. That made me decide to see it. And I certainly wasn't disappointed, although I must admit that I didn't go as "ga-ga" over it as did many others who saw it.

But enough about Iron Man! I've digressed, obviously, but not completely, because predictably (for me), a lot of my early exposures to the character of Sherlock Holmes came via comic books, too! I won't bore you with the details (for a change), so I'm going to throw a few visual examples at you. That way, if you're one of the many comic book fans who read this site, you should get a kick out of them, but if you're not a comic book fan, you can look at some purty pictures and not get bogged down slogging through a lot of my usual text. On the other hand, if you care to read two of them -- the MAD parody and the DC Comics version from 1975, I've provided links in the appropriate photo captions. (Both stories are under copyright protection, so I have not reprinted them here!)

My earliest exposure to Mr. Holmes may have

been "Shermlock Shomes," one of several features

in a MAD paperback which reprinted classic stories

from that magazine's early comic book incarnation.

This edition of Classics Illustrated was published

several years before it found its way into my

eleven-year-old hands!

I never got hold of this one, but I thought

that the cover was too cool not to include!

This was a 1975 one-shot from DC Comics.

Read it here, if you like!

Twelve years later, in 1987, DC Comics celebrated

the 50th anniversary of Detective Comics with a multi-parter

that included a Holmes story presumably intended for the

never-published second issue of their ill-fated Sherlock Holmes title.

The historic meeting of Batman and Mr. Holmes!

So, now that the comic book cover gallery is done, what's my freakin' point (assuming I have one)?

Well, I do, and it's this:

I own most of the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan O'Brien -- Oops! Sorry, that's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, silly me! -- but typically, I haven't gotten around to reading a whole heckuva lot of them. And admittedly, even my tally as far as having seen any or all of the previous movie and TV versions of the character is relatively limited.

Therefore, my pre-conceived notions of the way Holmes "should" be portrayed are rather nebulous, so I don't have any of the objections some raised when news of the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie hit the press. (You know, those people who hate something before they've even seen it?)

So, fellow babies, since the only "review" I got of Sherlock Holmes was from a friend who didn't even like it enough to watch it until the end... Did you see it? And should I bother?

Yup, believe it or not... I'm asking for advice!

Thanks for your time... and your hoped-for input.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

EQUALS, Or Just Apples and Oranges? -- A "Theme Thursday" Post

A funny thing happened on my way to Theme Thursday. I didn't even know about this week's theme until Wednesday evening!

I'd planned to write an article all on my own about both Sherlock Holmes, and Marvel Comics' Iron Man -- and I'm sure you can think of at least one thing the two characters have in common, eh? -- and got another idea Wednesday morning, for the post after that. My new idea was a goofy post presenting a faux comparison asking the question, "Which are better? Films & TV shows, or comic books?" Truly a case of apples and oranges, and certainly not an argument which I planned to take seriously, but when I read that today's Theme Thursday topic was "Equals," I thought, "Hey! I can make this work!"

As a long-time comic book fan, albeit a serious movie buff as well, I had originally planned to "prove" that comic books had the edge on movies and television programs, and was going to list just one admittedly-ludicrous example as that "proof":

In the original, so-called "Classic Trek" Star Trek show and its filmed sequels, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy was quite well-known for examining some unfortunate crew member who'd contracted an unknown ailment, or been attacked by a rubber-suited actor playing an alien beastie, or whatever... and gruffly pronouncing, "He's dead, Jim." Just like that. Some "doctor."

On the other hand, we have Professor Charles Xavier -- better known as Professor X -- of Marvel Comics' X-Men title and its literally dozens of spin-offs. (And let's ignore the successful franchise of X-Men movies at the moment. I'm just talking about the comics. The movies were based on them.)

Several years ago, in a somewhat forced and silly -- but best-selling! -- mini-series called Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars, Professor X was quoted as saying (although I'm quoting from memory) "It appears that, at some point, true death becomes irrevocable." Well! Look at all the indecisive words in that sentence (with my smart-ass comments added, below)!

"It appears [but may not be true] that at some point [possibly, beyond an apparent death?], true death [not some faked death, or misleading deathlike state] becomes [like, it isn't right away?] irrevocable."

That's a great way of saying that any character killed in a comic book isn't really dead and gone, unless no one ever wants to bring him/her/it back!

Now. If you were going to be medically treated by someone, which character's attitude would you want your doctor to have? A guy who barely looks at you and says, "Ah, screw it... Next?" or someone who'd work to bring you back even after you were buried?!?

So. Comic books are "better" than movies. A shoddy resolution based on one kooky example, I know.

And in that vein, I present the following stream-of-consciousness series of photos:

One weird trait in comic books (as opposed to movies... usually) is that certain things "work" only because the writers say that they work. Listing just one example: In real life, severe radiation poisoning kills you, generally. In comic books, it gives us -- to name only three heroes -- super-powered entities such as Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, and Daredevil.

Another thing in comics that's worked for 72 years is that when mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent takes off his eyeglasses and changes his hairstyle, no one recognizes him! (Funny, I take off my own reading glasses, and no one ever says, "Hey! Where did David disappear to?")

But in films? To my mind, it took the underrated acting ability of Christopher Reeve to make us "believe" that "The Big Blue Boy Scout" and Clark Kent were two different people.

By the way, that's Christopher Reeve, not Reeves. I suppose people were confused because the actor who portrayed both Clark and Supie in the 1950s TV offering The Adventures of Superman was George Reeves. (And by the way, as much as I enjoyed that TV classic, I never bought the idea that his identity switches would fool anyone.)

Of course, the fact that another Reeves, actor & bodybuilder Steve Reeves (no relation to George), played Hercules and similar "strongman" characters in movies made during the 1950s and 1960s no doubt added to the confusion.

So. Back to "Bones" McCoy.

In terms of this entry, it is kinda cool that Patrick Stewart, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation (shown above with DeForest "Dr. McCoy" Kelley himself) was later chosen to play the part of Professor X in the X-Men motion pictures!