Imagine

Late birthday ponderings

Two days late in posting about my birthday that was celebrated on Wednesday the 10th! This year was a bit easier stepping forward into the 50-year-olds camp than last year since I have had a full year to getting accustomed to turning 50 an now I have 51 to deal with. Well after much contemplation, pondering, wondering and whining I have come to realize that the best way to deal with this increase in numbers that represent my years in this wonderful world is to abide by the plans I followed when turning 30....ignore it and have fun in whatever you do! Anyhoo...celebrations abound for me and my friends who share November as the month of their birth!

Queen Victoria : the 19 century's answer to Buffy

Oooookkkaaaaayyy. So. Alexandria Victoria, born of the House of Hanover. Known officially as Victoria Regina, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India; a monarch busy ruling Great Britain and the commonwealth, fawning over her Prince Albert, raising the Heir and the spares, introducing the Christmas tree... was in her free time eradicator of all thingies bad and evil. Rule Britannia. We are amused.

-photo courtesy of Amazon

Hallowed October and remembrance of Gloria Stuart

Once again it is the hallowed month of October and time for Countdown to Halloween (C2H2010 as it will be referred to from now on). I hope to contribute to C2H2010 with more posts than just the one measly contribution like last year!

To start off this Occasion I want to dedicate my first post for C2H2010 to actress/artist Gloria Stuart who recently passed away on Sunday, September 26 at the age of 100. Why? Well I'll tell you why. Ms. Stuart deserves this honor on my little blog because she was a connection to what I consider the most fruitful, prosperous, and challenging decade in Hollywood film history: the 1930's. She was lucky to be in not one but two classic horror films: "The Old Dark House" (1932) and "The Invisible Man" (1933) both directed by the talented James Whale. With those two laurels under her belt, Ms. Stuart's remembrance in this post goes hand-in-hand with welcoming C2H2010. Another event in her early career was being one of the early supporters of the Screen Actor's Guild established in 1933.

Outside of her acting career, Ms. Stuart was a talented self-taught painter and had her paintings shown in many art galleries. Not bad for someone who did not go to art school. Later in life she took interest in printing hand-made books. This talent too was rewarded with many of her works housed in institutions such as Library of Congress and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Gloria Stuart was a true artist at heart living a full and busy life and never looking back.

She is best known to moviegoers as "Rose" in James Cameron's film "Titanic" (1999) receiving a much deserved SAG award for her work. I will remember her though in memorable scenes from "The Old Dark House"; standing alone making whimsical shadow puppets by firelight and dressed in a silky, slinky evening dress rushing down the long, dark hallway like a fleeting ghost.

-top photo courtesy of...I forgot who but thank you!

Hounds of Love 25th anniversary!

This fantastic work of music by Kate Bush was officially released 25 years ago today. Hounds of Love is my favorite of her discography and it shows how her music continually matures and grows with each record. All of her works are unique and worthy of praise. With my first listening, HoL struck a chord (pun intended??) with me especially "Hello Earth" and "The Big Sky". Kate is a film fan and sometimes she refers to movies and adds bits of film dialogue in her songs. Two examples from HoL are"Hello Earth" and "Running up that hill". "Hello Earth" uses the same haunting men's choir piece that was in Werner Herzog's 1979 film "Nosferatu". All seven songs on side two make up the The Ninth Wave a sort of storytelling theme. Some of the hits to be released from HolL are "Running up that hill" and "The Big Sky". It is wonderful to listen to this album (like all her others) closely to catch the richness and melodic tapestry of music and overlapping chorus of voices woven into the songs. Kate Bush puts layer upon layer in her songs and you want to just pull them out one by one and dig deeper and deeper to hear how it is done. HoL is carefully thought out and is unhurried in its creation. You can tell. There are synthesizers winding around spurts of harmonic rhythms of voice and at one time you hear a plane roaring overhead. We hear beat box drums meshed with English/Irish traditional instruments and rhythms.
Twenty-five years down the road Kate Bush's Hounds of Love still mesmerizes me and is as fresh and amazing as the first day I heard it on its release day. Give it a listen. You will not be disappointed.


-image courtesy of Gaffaweb a tribute site to Kate Bush.

ZBS and the adventures of Jack Flanders!

The Fourth Tower of Inverness is a wonderful adventure story starring Jack Flanders and was aired originally as a multi-episodic radio show in the 1970's. The story is filled with colorful characters such as Lady Jowls, Dr. Mazoolah, Chief Wampum, Old Far Seeing Art, and Little Freida who likes to smoke Cuban cigars. Jack travels to other lands found within the fourth tower and meets up with mythological characters and creatures found in Hindu tales and a Wurlitzer of Wisdom that plays selections from Ram Dass and the Venerable Van Vleet. The background music for FTH is chock full of rock n' roll ditties from the 1950's to big band swing music. I first heard the story in 1978 and loved it! Many years later I found the story on audio tape and listen to it still. So far I have obtained a few other Jack Flanders adventures on compact disc from ZBS foundation where it all began. ZBS has created oodles of stories starring Jack Flanders since the release of FTI in 1972. The latest adventure-and I think the last ever we'll hear starring Jack- is 2008. Take a look at the ZBS website for they have a wide range of audio stories to choose from. Three cheers to Meatball Fulton and ZBS! If you are a fan of audio stories and love imaginative, original stories that feed your mind, you will not be disappointed.

Karloff: Today's Hip Celebrity

Why do these photos of the Monster kind of remind me of photo shoots of curent day pop celebrities posing in a dark suit with thick soled shoes? Yes, Mr. Karloff, your photo shoots are meant to promote the movie but to me the photos predict the "celebrity" status he acquires as a horror film great. Little did he know.
Little did they know. It must have really been exciting to be there and be a part of the early days of the horror film genre starting with Universal studios followed by MGM and other studios wanting a piece of the pie. My film geekness and love of old flicks is showing right now, can you tell? I always feel sorry for the Monster because he is so misunderstood. Whenever I watch the films"Frankenstein" (1931) and "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) I feel a mix of sadness and awe. Sadness because how sad the Monster's life is once created and awe because of the cinematic beauty of both films.
The first glimpses we see of the Monster in "Frankenstein" are memorable. Super! The richness of black and white movies. Gorgeous. Why the need for colorization decades down the road....I just don't get it. Anyhoo...on with the show.

Boris Karloff's birthday 11/23

Happy Birthday Boris Karloff~November 23~

My birthday today...

I am 50 years old today and boy is it a scream.

40th Anniversary of Strange Paradise Oct.20

It has been many years since I watched "Strange Paradise" when it first aired. I don't remember much of the plot...but I do remember the exotic location, the laboratory...kinda spooky storylines, odd characters, the scientist and of course, the cliffhanger at the end of each 30 minute episode. Weekday afternoons were spent with several of us kids gathering at a friend's house after school hunkered around the television in rapt attention and anticipation spending an hour of delightful escapism away from the rigors of daily life (and homework) to eagerly watch back-to-back Strange Paradise" followed by "Dark Shadows" ". Why "Strange Paradise" lasted less than a year is a mystery to me. My juvenile mind loved the suspense and quirky storylines and it made a strong impression on my fifth-grader mind. Can't say that about many programs on television nowadays.

Happy Howl-oween!

This Halloween Hounds photo was sent to me in an email a few years back and I have kept it ever since because it is so cute! Dogs will do the darndest things for their pets. The origin of the photo is lost to me but I have seen it listed as a reference point on Google Images quite a few times so apparently it is very popular and has been used in many blogs.

woof!

Who'd a thunk! Yesterday while watching the CBS News Sunday Morning a segment about The Twilight Zone was aired in celebration of it's 5oth anniversary. Yep, the first episode aired on October 2, 1959. I still remember watching the show in reruns when I was five or six and feeling creeped out by the episode that dealt with the dolls in the donation bin. My favorite was "The Bewitchin' Pool". Over the years I have enjoyed watching them again during marathon runs on Sci Fi channel (now SyFy...what gives with that?). Twilight Zone truly made a lasting impression on my young, impressionable little brain. Happy Anniversary Twilight Zone. Thank you Rod Serling.


I highly recommend a biography on Rod Serling written by Joel Engel, "Rod Serling: the dreams and nightmares of life in the twilight zone: a biography", published in 1989.

Ah...the month of Halloween!

Years ago just for fun I started a tradition in watching horror movies throughout October to celebrate the Halloween month. Hey, why not? This year I couldn't wait so I started a month early and have been enjoying many fun, scary movies: The Black Cat, Young Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy (Hammer), Mad Monster Party (taped back in '99 on AMC and it has the introduction by Roger Corman who presented a Halloween film series for AMC at the time!). The Hammer version of The Mummy I taped off of AMC, gosh, back in the 1990's (before they changed their format-boo!- and also started showing commercials, yuck!) is showing a few little pops and markings on the tape but is still enjoyable to watch.

The photo above (image source here) is from The Black Cat, a rather bizarre, fascinating, expressive, twisted, kind of creepy film and truly fun to watch. It's right up my alley. In one scene, Polzeig (Karloff) and Wedergast (Lugosi) play chess to decide the outcome of a young insuspecting couple who accidentally get in the middle of the personal vendetta between the two men. Be afraid, be very afraid for you are trapped in a remote location (of course) and surrounded by some wierd characters out for blood/revenge (of course), with a coven tossed in for good measure. A solid foundation for any scary Dark-Old-House-type thriller recipe. The film's imaginative storytelling visuals (see photo) tickle your imagination. It is expressively told with the beauty of black and white.

Happy Birthday to Bilbo and Frodo!

This is a day late but Happy Birthday to Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins of the Shire! Hobbits know a thing or two about celebrating birthdays and not a week passes by that it is somebody's birthday in Hobbiton .

Perhaps a stop at the Green Dragon Inn at Bywater in the Shire to start the birthday fete with dinner: a good hearty stew, potatoes, a tasting of the local cheese, a berry pie, and wash it all down with some delicious ale. Sing some cheery songs, down some more ale and realize it is time to have some supper. A nice way to celebrate a birthday don't you think?

#23 Summarization of "23 Things" tutorial

23 Things has been an enjoyable experience and I am happy to learn more about Web 2.0/Library 2.0. Many tools I had never heard of before: mashups, Del.icio.us, Library Thing, Technorati. There were also tools I had seen online but did not know anything about i.e. online application tools, RSS feeds, Flickr. YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Bloglines, RSS feeds, Pandora.com, podcasts were a hit with me. Creating my own Blog has helped me learn the tools in "23 Things" and applying them toward the blog. So much information can be obtained online with Web 2.0 tools. The Internet is truly a one-stop center for research tools, educational tools, communicating, increasing your knowledge, discovering information on topic of interest, etc. The learning never ends.

#22 Net Library

All those times you have a yen to read a particular book and it is unavailable at the library, no copies are available at you local book store. You have even scoured the shelves of Goodwill and leave empty-handed. E-books is an easy-access to many book titles offered through NetLibrary. The snag I discovered with NetLibrary is one out of four titles I entered came up. Hmmmm....bit of a drag that. But when you DO find titles you want to read or listen to you can save them under "favorites" for future use. It seems that most current and popular titles and classics are listed. I searched for:

1. "Oliver Twist"
2. "The Witches of Eastwick"
3. "Farewell to Manzanar"
4. "Hoot"
5. "The Lovely Bones"

Only 1 and 5 were found. #3 was Cliff Notes edition.

#21 Podcasts

Podcasting is the Internet answer to radio shows only listened to online. Accessing podcast directories is a one-stop search for topics that may interest you and beyond. In fact, you have a wider range of subjects to listen to than scrolling up and down the radio bandwidth. For example, I looked for something from BBC and discovered an antiques show "The Antiques Man". This podcast is a professional production but there are podcasts available created by amateurs who also have something to share.

Week 13 - #20 Here's Looking at You(Tube) Kid

A scene from "Casablanca" is my chosen YouTube download. This is a wonderful film and I never tire of watching it. Another reason why it was chosen was because back in 1992, a friend of mine who worked at Apple showed me a short film clip on his computer from "Casablanca". This was the first time ever I had seen anything like this at all displayed on a computer. This was still the era of "dummy" computers mind you. Though the clip was small in size on the screen the preview was embedded in my memory. I was fortunate as a sample of what the future in computer technology would bring.

Of all the gin joints in all the world...I so love You Tube. Browse and look for clips pertaining to events in recent filmed history, old commercials, film clips, videos you saw on MTV, etc. I am one who enjoys looking for various topics to see if it has been posted to YouTube. It is surprising how many clips are transferred from home video tapes and are archived. Reminisce watching Jim McKay at the Olympics or Miss Monroe singing happy birthday to President Kennedy. Recently, I watched home movies of a group of Santa Cruzans who did knee-boarding during the 1960's. It was great watching. Many people download from their cell phone cameras so we get personal views of incidents like for instance the fires in southern from October (see my blog on Malibu fires).

Week 11 - #19

Pandora - found at http://www.pandora.com/- is a personal disc jockey tool. By selecting a type of music or artist, Pandora will then select artists that match or are similar to your original choice. This is a fun way to learn about musicians and music you are not familiar with. Also, you can select from the choices and save for future listening. As a listener of music, I am always open to discover new artists and music I have never heard of and appreciate the ability to broaden my music-listening horizons.

For a library environment, this would serve a helpful learning tool for a selection librarian who orders music. The librarian can use Pandora to learn about music the community requests/borrows at the library that they themselves may be unfamiliar with. It can be a learning tool for students to discover all types of music and may encourage them to learn more about the subject.

Week 11 - #18 web-based applications & Zoho

I like the idea that people can do so much more with the Internet. Zoho and Google Doc are just two examples of online applications compatibile with any PC. People can become like "Computer gypsies". Accessing their documents saved on Zoho or any online documant application from an Internet Cafe in Paris, France to their local library Internet computer. This may be the answer to people who do not want to invest in a computer but still want the ability to use one. All you need is your username, password, jump drive (optional) and there you are. It enables the user's ability to create, collect, and share information online.