FLY GIRLS! Amazing Aerial Stunts in 1930s Movie

I suppose I have to get back to this blog some time, especially since, to my surprise, I'm still getting comments on some of my past stuff. Lately it's been far too personal, but I assume nobody reads them anyway. I've always been against getting too personal online, but there's a temptation when you've been through an ordeal, and I've never faced anything even remotely like this before. One more of  those, and I'm finished for sure.

It's slow. I'm used to 45 minutes of brisk walking  a day, and am now lucky to get in 15 or 20 at a much slower pace. I lost 8 pounds from the ordeal, and am making a concerted effort to gain as much of it back as I can. My obsessive counting of calories for my entire life has been completely reversed. Now I have to eat all the things I couldn't have before, but ironically, I no longer want them. Food is like medicine now. I suddenly feel like an invalid. I'm getting my life back bit by bit, including my channel, but it has been and will be a long haul, with many backsteps. I know recovery isn't a straight line - God knows I've had to face it over and over again in my life - but this seems more like a vortex or a whirlpool determined to suck me down forever.

The video, well, I had to go into a long explanation about the women's dresses "blowing off" (yet another of many illusions in this brilliant scene), and how they wore bodysuits underneath. Why did I have to do this? YOUTUBE, that's why. I almost certainly would have gotten a "decency strike" (again) if I had allowed this flagrant display of "nudity". So who thought they were actually nude? You can plainly see one of the women pull up her strap, which I am  sure was left in to appease the censors. The bit where the woman "falls" also had to be carefully explained. She didn't really fall, folks! It was all "pretend"!

Yet other channels post the most appalling stuff, with no penalties. 

I finally had to go with YouTube Premium, which basically means no ads (or is supposed to - when will they break their own rules?). Nothing is free any more, but YouTube now is not even remotely like it used to be when I signed up. That was another lifetime ago, of course. I am actually purposely not looking at views, and trying to focus on the many comments I get every day on my much older stuff, including things I posted five years ago and forgot about. The mad chase for views and $$ and all that stuff was wearing me out, and when I returned to my channel after a four-month hiatus, I promised myself I wouldn't do that any more. It means I can't even look  at them now for fear my eye  wanders down to the view count. If I could find a way to  disable it - and maybe there is, but I just don't  see it.

SURREAL: Fred and Eleanor in extreme slow-mo

 

Oh how I love making animations! This is a small excerpt from Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell's classic tap number, Begin the Beguine. Even at this slowed-down speed, their grace is incredible. The music syncs up better than I had hoped! 

Still working on blog problems. . . I hope someone can see this, at least. I can't be sure.

A smoggy day in London Town

Heaven. . . I'm in heaven

Weirdball gifs

BACKSTORY. I got watching The Bandwagon again last night, Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, the incomparable Oscar Levant, etc. Astaire gave one of the best graceful, effortless comic performances of his career.

These odd little gifs aren't from that show. That show has a very, very strange number in it called Triplets, in which Astaire and Nanette Fabray and that other guy (? It was supposed to be Levant, but his knees were shot) play three supposedly-identical babies. I think they did it with their shoes on their knees. Long ago, I saw a sort of surreal version of this number in Spanish and posted it somewhere on my blog. But do you think I could find it? How to search for it? Spanish version of Triplets? There went my idea for a great gif.

Somehow I ended up with this strange number, Astaire with Eleanor Powell, one of his better dance partners (though the public loved Ginger more). But my usual program, Gifsforum, is down AGAIN and I had to use MakeaGif, which doesn't make a gif very well. You can go up to 20 seconds on them, which is nice, but look at how they come out! Jerk-a-rama. I decided to go for it and use it for effect. There are much better-quality clips of this dance, but I liked the surreal phosphorescence of this one.

The age of miracles

A beautiful, gorgeous, luscious chunk of movie impressionism, with Fred Astaire to boot. And he's singing Gershwin! Mr. Gershwin and I took a blow today - quite a bad one - someone claimed our relationship was bogus and in fact didn't exist. One wonders, sometimes, just who is the fraud. WE know what is important, and we know what transforms a life, and it's love, George, isn't it. You knew all about it and lived it through your songs. So away with the naysayers and phony psychic prophets. They know nothing, and are jealous of our connection, no doubt. We survived the hit, we survived the attempt to discredit us and hang us out to dry. Love will win: it always does. The age of miracles hasn't passed.

But the age of miracles hadn't passed

Skate! Skate! Skate!

 

 

 

 

 

We hate each other very much!