I recently saw 1922's "Safety Last" with Harold Lloyd, with a soundtrack played on a 1932 Wurlitzer organ at the Fargo Theater, and it was wonderfully entertaining. Buster Keaton will always be my favorite silent movie star because of his comedic chops and amazing stunts, but Harold Lloyd was on par with the best of his antics. If you get a chance to see a silent movie with live soundtrack, do it. It's so much fun!
I actually found (and bought for a dollar) a signed copy of his autobiography.
The book was largely fictive and designed to promote a movie starring Donald O'Connell, but it was actually signed by Buster in a distinctive, square, style.
Years later, I would sometimes see his widow at screenings.
Oooff! Also lost a comfortable retirement in a move. Was working the front desk at Balto. Holiday Inn during 1970 World Series. The AL umpires always stayed with us; one of them brought me a used ball from that day’s game so I could get some signatures and, boy howdy, did I ever! Casey Stengel, Bobby Johnson, Ernie Banks, Gil Hodges & I can’t even remember who all else. Didn’t have to account for it until I bought my first house in 1980 & was unpacking things in the attic. Best I could backtrack, it was likely left in a tote bag at an Exxon in Cookeville TN when I had to empty my trunk for a tire change in 1973. Hopefully, some local kid got to go to Vanderbilt on me.
I recently read that if you get an earworm, the best way to get rid of it is by... chewing gum! Similar to how adding up numbers in your head can help shy pee syndrome.
I love silent movies, but they also make me feel very wistful for some reason.
Also--and Betty Boop yesterday made me think of this--during the worst fever I ever had, I started hallucinating and silent movie stars were crowding into my room and berating me, and my favorite (Clara Bow) was up in my face screaming "why don't they remember me?!"
Walt Disney contracted Spanish Flu as a teen. I always imagine him waking up in a total fever and hallucinating a conversation with a local Chicago mouse.
Lord, as a kid with measles and a high fever, I saw MM in the corner of my room. Then my hands swelled up Like MM gloves. Then mom came in and said it wasn't real. She did all the things to bring fever down. I'm still here. That woman knew all the things, having lived in the era before antibiotics.
Mel Brooks has a very funny anecdote about how his mom talked him out of being afraid that the Creature was coming to "get" him. Such a masterpiece of a film :)
Maybe something of a stretch as far as villains' lairs go, but here's The Haunted House in Kent, Ohio. The pic's from James Michener's "Kent State: What Happened and Why." Basically off-campus housing at a public university in the early 70's. {Shudder}
Our villain's lair comes from the incorrect reporting in the book that this house was the basis for the set in "Psycho", a popular urban myth in Kent at the time.
More bad news in MAGAt land as Jenna Ellis takes a plea deal and flips on Trump and the Republicans still cannot fill the Speaker's chair.
All of those wedge issues that the Republicans have been pushing for the last 40 years have finally split the GOP. Every Republican is finally a RINO to all other Republicans.
I'm sure a lot of you know this already but Liam Hogan, Irish librarian & historian extraordinaire, has done the lord's work in research on Irish indentured servitude in the Carribbean & tangentially the Americas.
"Man the Hunter has dominated the study of human evolution for nearly half a century and pervaded popular culture. It is represented in museum dioramas and textbook figures, Saturday morning cartoons and feature films. The thing is, it's wrong."
Couple of anthropologists wrote a book in 1968, "Man the Hunter". Sounds like they started with a theory and cherry picked data to tell their story, ignoring evidence that countered their suppositions. Scientific American always has the receipts.
Amazon bought Audible and it is the best way to make money on Amazon! Or so I keep being told on YouTube... Ugh, they're selling podcasts now, aren't they?
I recently received an email from Google telling me that they're doing away with their dedicated podcast app and moving all podcasts to YT Music (I believe next year.) These tech platforms need to stop screwing with how their customers consume media. Just give us access to our stuff!
“But I think rain also increases our population. People stay home and they reignite their love affair.”
Or your kids are stuck in the house and their “my parents are trying to find 10 free minutes for sex” radar is on high alert to interrupt any attempt with knocks on the door until you just give up.
The Oliver Willis article points out the problem well. Bloodlust took over after 9/11 and we made the world drastically more unsafe. Creating a pile of countless dead Iraqis and Afghans did nothing to solve the issues of terrorism; it produced more terrorists.
Re: Gendered theories about how men and women evolved; same old long-exploded, confirmation-biased, racist crap, like the nonsense Stephen Jay Gould drove a fucking tank through in his "The Mismeasurement of Man", about how 19th and early 20th century comfortable white men misused specious, ever-shifting rationales for putting themselves at the top of the evolutionary heap. Just more bad science propping up predetermined results, using the language of "objective observation" in the service of subjective, unavowable prejudice.
Man, this new YouTube ad algorithm sucks. It's showing me a meal-replacement shake sold by a bunch of top-knotted "yoga-bodied" white guys who are totally not actors and totally drink shakes. In 2023. Are we bringing back that fad for stupid kids who like to be influenced?
There's a You Tube channel called "Shredded Sports Science" which pokes fun at the goofballs selling worthless supplements. Unfortunately, you have to get through the You Tube ads to get there.
Thanks so much for the interesting AD video, Stephen! Loved the movie references and It brought back memories of my visit to Falling Waters a few years ago while camping in the area with my college BFFs. Our 40 year reunion. I need to watch North By Northwest again.
Buster Keaton in “The Haunted House” for your header gif today. Links to the archived film short and other info here: https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/ghosts-busterin-out-all-over-the
I’m always stunned by how gorgeous he was. 😍
I recently saw 1922's "Safety Last" with Harold Lloyd, with a soundtrack played on a 1932 Wurlitzer organ at the Fargo Theater, and it was wonderfully entertaining. Buster Keaton will always be my favorite silent movie star because of his comedic chops and amazing stunts, but Harold Lloyd was on par with the best of his antics. If you get a chance to see a silent movie with live soundtrack, do it. It's so much fun!
I've seen Lloyd's films. Incredible stuff.
Keaton was a handsome fella. Of course I've always loved a man in eyeliner.
Buster Keaton has long been one of my imaginary boyfriends.
Same here!!!!!!
I actually found (and bought for a dollar) a signed copy of his autobiography.
The book was largely fictive and designed to promote a movie starring Donald O'Connell, but it was actually signed by Buster in a distinctive, square, style.
Years later, I would sometimes see his widow at screenings.
Can you believe it? I lost that book in a move.
Oooff! Also lost a comfortable retirement in a move. Was working the front desk at Balto. Holiday Inn during 1970 World Series. The AL umpires always stayed with us; one of them brought me a used ball from that day’s game so I could get some signatures and, boy howdy, did I ever! Casey Stengel, Bobby Johnson, Ernie Banks, Gil Hodges & I can’t even remember who all else. Didn’t have to account for it until I bought my first house in 1980 & was unpacking things in the attic. Best I could backtrack, it was likely left in a tote bag at an Exxon in Cookeville TN when I had to empty my trunk for a tire change in 1973. Hopefully, some local kid got to go to Vanderbilt on me.
Wow!
Also, too: condolences.
Boooooooo! Scary ghosts!
Buster Keaton, my hero.
Buster Keaton for Speaker!
If there's something strange
In the Chamber halls
Who you gonna call?
Ghost Buster!
If there's dysfunction
And it don't look good
Who you gonna call?
Ghost Buster!
I will now be hearing that infectious bass line all day long.
I've had far worse ear worms.
I recently read that if you get an earworm, the best way to get rid of it is by... chewing gum! Similar to how adding up numbers in your head can help shy pee syndrome.
"The more you know..."
I ain't 'fraid of no bass!
FLASH! AAAAAAAAHHHH!
I love silent movies, but they also make me feel very wistful for some reason.
Also--and Betty Boop yesterday made me think of this--during the worst fever I ever had, I started hallucinating and silent movie stars were crowding into my room and berating me, and my favorite (Clara Bow) was up in my face screaming "why don't they remember me?!"
Walt Disney contracted Spanish Flu as a teen. I always imagine him waking up in a total fever and hallucinating a conversation with a local Chicago mouse.
I think he hallucinated "Fantasia," his best movie ever.
"Is Clara Bow in the room with us right now?"
Terrifying!
Lord, as a kid with measles and a high fever, I saw MM in the corner of my room. Then my hands swelled up Like MM gloves. Then mom came in and said it wasn't real. She did all the things to bring fever down. I'm still here. That woman knew all the things, having lived in the era before antibiotics.
There's a song in there somewhere.
Comfortably Numb "when I was a child I had a fever, my hands swelled like two balloons"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrOQC-zEog
For me it was Frankenstein's monster...with the bolts in the neck and all.
Mel Brooks has a very funny anecdote about how his mom talked him out of being afraid that the Creature was coming to "get" him. Such a masterpiece of a film :)
The It Girl!
she was pretty cute, in a style you only see in anime these days
Stephen, thanks so much for that video, it was delightful from start to finish!
Maybe something of a stretch as far as villains' lairs go, but here's The Haunted House in Kent, Ohio. The pic's from James Michener's "Kent State: What Happened and Why." Basically off-campus housing at a public university in the early 70's. {Shudder}
Our villain's lair comes from the incorrect reporting in the book that this house was the basis for the set in "Psycho", a popular urban myth in Kent at the time.
https://open.substack.com/chat/replies/33138302-fc2a-4541-88b8-b2640337c369
More bad news in MAGAt land as Jenna Ellis takes a plea deal and flips on Trump and the Republicans still cannot fill the Speaker's chair.
All of those wedge issues that the Republicans have been pushing for the last 40 years have finally split the GOP. Every Republican is finally a RINO to all other Republicans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht0XM4Z9CXs
Spies Like Us
I'm sure a lot of you know this already but Liam Hogan, Irish librarian & historian extraordinaire, has done the lord's work in research on Irish indentured servitude in the Carribbean & tangentially the Americas.
Here's his Humanities Commons link: https://hcommons.org/members/liamhogan/
Even if you have fled the hellsite, it's worth looking at his thread taking on counterfactual Irish slavery memes: https://x.com/Limerick1914/status/897801340004560896?s=20
The peerless Mr. Keaton! Thank you, Martini G!
I wish the architect had gone over the Lex Luthor pad from the 1978 film. Now there was a villain lair!
"Man the Hunter has dominated the study of human evolution for nearly half a century and pervaded popular culture. It is represented in museum dioramas and textbook figures, Saturday morning cartoons and feature films. The thing is, it's wrong."
Couple of anthropologists wrote a book in 1968, "Man the Hunter". Sounds like they started with a theory and cherry picked data to tell their story, ignoring evidence that countered their suppositions. Scientific American always has the receipts.
Amazon bought Audible and it is the best way to make money on Amazon! Or so I keep being told on YouTube... Ugh, they're selling podcasts now, aren't they?
I recently received an email from Google telling me that they're doing away with their dedicated podcast app and moving all podcasts to YT Music (I believe next year.) These tech platforms need to stop screwing with how their customers consume media. Just give us access to our stuff!
“But I think rain also increases our population. People stay home and they reignite their love affair.”
Or your kids are stuck in the house and their “my parents are trying to find 10 free minutes for sex” radar is on high alert to interrupt any attempt with knocks on the door until you just give up.
The Oliver Willis article points out the problem well. Bloodlust took over after 9/11 and we made the world drastically more unsafe. Creating a pile of countless dead Iraqis and Afghans did nothing to solve the issues of terrorism; it produced more terrorists.
Re: Gendered theories about how men and women evolved; same old long-exploded, confirmation-biased, racist crap, like the nonsense Stephen Jay Gould drove a fucking tank through in his "The Mismeasurement of Man", about how 19th and early 20th century comfortable white men misused specious, ever-shifting rationales for putting themselves at the top of the evolutionary heap. Just more bad science propping up predetermined results, using the language of "objective observation" in the service of subjective, unavowable prejudice.
Connie Bias upfists this.
Man, this new YouTube ad algorithm sucks. It's showing me a meal-replacement shake sold by a bunch of top-knotted "yoga-bodied" white guys who are totally not actors and totally drink shakes. In 2023. Are we bringing back that fad for stupid kids who like to be influenced?
There's a You Tube channel called "Shredded Sports Science" which pokes fun at the goofballs selling worthless supplements. Unfortunately, you have to get through the You Tube ads to get there.
Ouroboros then?
Jenna Ellis is taking a Plea in GA....
LOL. Her allocution to the judge expressed regret that she trusted more experienced lawyers that she was working with.
"YesindeedMr.Judge! I am THE VICTIM here! And I regret my victimization!"
PAB claiming she wasn't his lawyer and that he barely knew her in 5...4...3...2...
She was just the coffee girl....
That's why they are all so nervous now.
Awesome!
WHAAAT
Yeppers....
Thanks so much for the interesting AD video, Stephen! Loved the movie references and It brought back memories of my visit to Falling Waters a few years ago while camping in the area with my college BFFs. Our 40 year reunion. I need to watch North By Northwest again.