Happy National Sea Monkeys Day! Hope Your Sea Monkeys Worked Out, Because Mine Did Not.

Still mad about it.

The lovely Sierra, who is not a Sea Monkey, courtesy of our pal JustJames.

Happy weekend!

Today is National Sea Monkesy Day — or, I guess, National Freeze Dried Brine Shrimp Day. Like most children, I spent years and years and years begging my mom to let me get Sea Monkeys. I wanted them so badly. I also legitimately thought they were going to somehow have outfits and play volleyball, which I now understand is not the case. Alas, I couldn’t have them, my mom said, because they were a scam. This, weirdly, made me want them more because SCAM HOW?

Then, one day, when I was out shopping with my Nana, I saw them. In person. At the Ocean State Job Lot (it’s like Big Lots but much better). And she let me get them because she did not know I was forbidden. Victory! At last!

Anyway, as you can probably imagine, I took them home, got them all set up, followed the directions, fed them every day and, uh, I’m pretty certain they were dead. They certainly were not wearing fun outfits. I know other people they worked for, but I got nothing. I guess I should have paid retail?

Still, we want to be festive here, so your first present this week is an episode of The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys, an absolutely horrifying television show that I was definitely not aware of at the time I was out there pleading for Sea Monkeys.

Today is also the 96th anniversary of the Academy Awards, and as such, I present you with the very first winner for Best Picture (called “Outstanding Picture” back then), Wings, starring Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and Richard Arlen (plus a brief cameo from a young Gary Cooper.

However! I actually happen to be a much bigger fan of Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, which won for Best Unique and Artistic Picture and was directed by F.W. Murnau, who, of course, also famously directed Nosferatu.

Sunrise starred Janet Gaynor — who won Best Actress for that film, along with Street Angel and Seventh Heaven, becoming the only person ever to win Best Actress for three separate films. I actually like all three of those better than Wings, if I am being honest. There’s just a lot more to them than there is to Wings, which is by no means a bad picture.

Gaynor, you should know, also starred in the original A Star Is Born, the one written by Dorothy Parker. I feel bad that I don’t know that much more about her, other than that she was married to a very gay man, the MGM costume designer Adrian, who by the way was the nephew of Alla Nazimova. Adrian was actually quite out in Hollywood, but had to fake it for the rest of the world, because the rest of the world was stupid. Also there was maybe something going on with Gaynor and Mary Martin of Peter Pan fame? Never confirmed, of course, but they did live in Brazil together (with their husbands) together and there was talk. I kind of hope that they did get together, because that sounds awesome and I would have loved that for them.

There was also the disaster that was the Broadway production of Harold and Maude, but let’s leave that for another day, shall we?

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