Sister Wives: hot and bothered in the kitchen!

(I shouldn't watch this program, shouldn't shouldn't, but I do. I found that this recipe somehow best represents the spirit of the show, especially in terms of spiritual nourishment.)

Sister Wives Recipes

Janelle's Peanut Butter Fritos

Janelle's Peanut Butter Fritos

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup corn syrup, like Karo Syrup
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 large bag Fritos scoops

PREPARATION:

1. Spread fritos out on a big jelly roll pan turning them so most of the scoop sides
are up.

2. In a sauce pan combine corn syrup and sugar and stir gently.

3. Cook only until little bubbles begin to form. Do not cook too long or it will get
 too hard when it cools.

4. Remove from heat and mix in peanut butter until it melts. Pour over chips on pan.

Good to eat immediately. Sometimes we melt chocolate chips and drizzle 
over the top.

(Emphasis mine.)

Oh OK then. . . ONE more recipe. . .

Meri's Soda Cracker Surprise Toffee

Meri's Soda Cracker Surprise

INGREDIENTS

• saltine crackers
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 package chocolate chips
• 1 cup finely chopped walnuts

PREPARATION:

1. Line jelly roll pan with foil and spray with pan spray. Place saltine crackers close together covering entire pan.

2. Bring butter and sugar to boil for 2-1/2 minutes, pour over crackers.

3. Bake at 400 for 5 minutes. Pour chocolate chips on top, spreading as they melt. Sprinkle with chopped nuts.

So what does patriarch Kody Brown say about all this? "As polygamist cooking goes, this cookbook surpasses all the rest. I mean, our house hasn't seen a vegetable since 1983, but our starch favorites can't be beat! Right, Brigham?"

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Mystery solved?

   

Could this be the one? 

Like the Handsome Prince, I have sought Cinderella for years now. I've schlelpped around a very big glass slipper - glass boot maybe  - trying to find The Car, the gaspingly beautiful car I saw a long time ago, years ago, when I was standing at a bus stop.

I don't care two figs about cars. I don't drive them, and I think they are the worst culprit in global climate change. I hate them, in fact. But every once in a while. . . 

I seem to favor the late '30s - early '40s models, maybe because they were featured in hyper-romantic movies like Casablanca. I love the bulges, the sleek lines, the tiny freakish rear windows you could barely peep out of.

Anyway, I was standing there minding my own business, when something sailed past me. A ship in full billow. It was huge, sleekly curved, and two-toned, painted gleamingly in maroon and cream with chrome trim. I remembered that there was a local car show on the weekend, and wondered if it had come from - somewhere - to take part in the annual orgy of hopeless yearning.

It did a strange thing then. Rather than drive on, it turned into a demi-strip-mall, but the driver didn't get out. He (I could just barely see it was a he) drove around the perimeter in a half-circle, very slowly, then pulled out and drove away.

Was it preening, primping, parading just for me, or were there other gawkers? It was obviously a vanity move. Look at me. Rather, look at "it", this treasure from another time, beautifully restored in probably about a billion hours for a billion dollars.

I realize now that in spite of the similar coloring, this isn't the car. There was more chrome on it, and the colors were placed differently, separated sort of diagonally.  It sloped down more dramatically at the back, and was quite a bit longer, with those odd covered back wheels I could never understand, giving the impression the car was growing out of the pavement. And it didn't have a running board, meaning it was probably a year or two newer than this photo.

For a long time I thought it was a 1940 Mercury Westergard, and I guess it's possible. Anything is possible, except I've never seen a Westergard (even in a photo) that wasn't gleaming cherry red. Seems like some sort of an automobilic law. 

But this is the closest I have come. It's called a Stowe Vermont Packard, which means  nothing to me except that many of the car photos I'm collecting now are Packards. 

It's not the car. But maybe a distant cousin. 

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Children of the Damned

                                                 
                                                 Cellophane Brand bread.

                                            Brings out the vampire in little girls.

  What is this gory mess, and why are there 1 1/2 hot dogs 

sitting on the table beside his plate?

Beware of Hamgirl!

Hamgirl's demented sister, Cakeface.

Mmmmm, mmm!

Beyond car

1950 Buick

Beauty!

1951 Hudson Hornet

Ditto (likely copied from identical image above)

1940 Oldsmobile

1942  Oldsmobile

Really old car

1938 Packard

Mid- '30s Packard (guess)

Gaspingly beautiful car (probably Packard)

Beyond car.

Cars I just happen to like. In no particular order. I like turquoise cars with lots of chrome trim (whatever happened to chrome? People used to brag that their cars had "lots of chrome".) I picked vintage magazine ads because they reminded me of Mad Men, but I cropped out most of the cars so I could use them as Facebook covers. Plus the ads are pretty repetitive, with too much text. I do like the backgrounds on a lot of them, but many of them have a sort of Dick and Jane quality, wholesome, indicating a "family car". (A couple of them are "artistic" in a way that is frankly gorgeous.) Interesting that the two Hudson Hornet ads depict identical cars, reminding me of the Harold Lloyd caricature which was obviously copied from a photograph. Maybe even traced.

I guess you can see I favor late '30s to early '40s. Cars were bulbous tanks then, with a certain erotic quality. You could get up to a lot in the back seat.

Before they were famous (most of them were nerds)

???

http://www.viralnova.com/young-famous-people/

Very very weird. . . don't you think?

I don't know what it means either.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Hey, Landlord (please don't put a price on my soul)

Gotta go fast here - no time - but in scrounging around old TV on YouTube, I got into theme songs of either failed pilots or one-year wonders like this one. I don't remember much about the show, but I DO remember the theme song, which is why I looked it up. Oh yeah - it was just as great as I remember it! I didn't think I'd be blessed enough to find out who wrote the end theme, but. . .




Keep watching. You'll find out!

My strange obsession: the auto-erotic car

Behold, the only car I've ever been truly obsessed with: the 1940 Mercury Westergard convertible. I thought I saw one of these driving around town years ago, before a local car show, but I may have been wrong. It was painted maroon and cream, with a lot of chrome trim. But it was basically the same enormous, bulbous shape, with rear wheels completely obscured (so how did they ever change a tire?).

It was only by digging around that I found out anything about this. There's nothing at all in Wikipedia except some sort of vague reference to the Ford Mercury line, started in 1937 by Edsel Ford (and we all know who HE was!). This wet dream of a car came later, when an auto-erotic genius named Harry Westergard  revamped the whole design.

In showrooms, they almost look pornographic. The universal gleaming cherry color, like a red lollipop that has been sucked and licked and set out in the sun, makes it look as if it would be hot to the touch. The car is both male and female, with a great thrusting phallus at the front (not to mention round, staring eyes and a bow-shaped, frowning mouth) and a big round ass in back, crouched almost as if in submission, waiting to be fucked (or for that tire to finally be changed).

When you think about it, it's downright obscene.

I want to slide down that fender-thingie (and I'm not even sure I should call it a fender, it's so odd-looking, like some sort of elevated running-board), curl up in the curvature of that massive trunk. I can only imagine what the interior looked like.

 Whew.

But that's not why we're here today, boys and girls. I am about to show you some truly-over-the-top Popeye porn.

It's from a cartoon called (strangely) Service with a Guile, and it's about an "admiral" (this must've been a wartime cartoon) who drives up in the car pictured above, wanting "just some air in the tires". Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl manage to  make a hash of the whole thing.

You know things are getting a little symbolic here: Olive rubs and rubs and rubs the fender, while the tire swells and swells.

Popeye goes into crisis mode. The fender suddenly bends up, looking alarmingly erectile. This car seems impossibly aroused!

But it just goes on and on. Though Bluto thinks he has solved the problem by shutting off the air, the tire just begins to "pock", burgeoning with straining balls of air like so many swelling breasts or engorged testicles. There is definitely something disturbing about this!

And I can't find the fifth one. Perhaps I saved it somewhere else? It pictures Popeye, Olive and Bluto being blown back through several walls, leaving them-shaped holes, before falling into a clothesline and into various outfits (Bluto is in some kind of corset) and taking off back to the ill-fated car.

Which, except for the color, looks exactly like the 1940 Mercury Westergard.

(Found it!)

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Forget it's by P & G, and it will tug at your heart, I guarantee

Simply hair-raising

It's cool, what Harold does. I like to think so. Probably next-in-line to his famous clock-dangle is his famous "hair-raising" move. This was actually achieved with static electricity, and if you don't believe me, try rubbing a cat on your sweater real hard and see what happens.

This probably wasn't his first hair-raise, as it's from a movie called Hot Water that I think he made in 1923. In this one, he thinks he sees a ghost, and as we all know, thinking you see one is even worse than actually seeing one.

This one's from High and Dizzy, and it may well be the first Harold hair-raise. This time he's terrified to realize he's  teetering along a ledge 20 stories off the ground. It has two parts: he manages two hair-raises in rapid succession. Good for you, Harold!

This is probably my favorite due to the symmetry of the hair (he had a good, thick head of Welsh hair that stood up like porcupine quills) and the open-mouthed, childlike facial expression. There are one or two other examples of this signature Llloydian effect, but I don't have clips of them now so can't gif them. 

This is the emblem we so often associate with Harold Lloyd, the screaming man with his hair standing on end. Neat effect, and I don't think anyone else achieved it. And look into those eyes - real terror, telegraphed directly into the camera lens in a way that was almost disturbing. We always forget what a great actor Harold Lloyd was. Hal Roach famously said he didn't have a funny bone in his body, but studied his craft so meticulously that he was able to act the comedian to perfection.

So what is all this leading to??

I can't tell you yet, but let me tell you this: after much trepidation about approaching him, I got a blurb for the back of The Glass Character from Kevin Brownlow, one of the most distinguished film historians/producers/directors/authors the world has ever seen. He is singlehandedly responsible for rescuing hundreds of silent films from oblivion/destruction, and has spent a lifetime educating the world about the irreplaceable worth of these films. Even better, he's quite approachable and easy to connect with: if you love silent film, then he's happy to talk to you.

 AND HE HAS DONE A BLURB FOR ME! I can't keep this to myself, but the other part of it - the cover - well, yes, we're almost there with it, we have a mockup that - well - made my hair stand on end! So it isn't quite official yet, but if all goes according to plan we'll have a cover which is quite surprising, even shocking. Both comic and a little disturbing.

I hope Harold would be pleased.

Eli Wallach, Francis Ford Coppolla, and Kevin Brownlow all received  Lifetime Achievement Oscars in 2010.

SPECIAL BONUS HAIR-RAISE! Just found another one, in two parts, from which movie I don't know because it was taken from a YouTube compilation. But it's cool. It's the only one I've found where he smiles that sweet adorable smile of his. 

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

Order The Glass Character from:

Amazon
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Barnes & Noble

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Thistledown Press

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Chapters/Indigo
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