Captain Kirk gets jiggy with the Gorn!

WARNING: graphic violence, may offend some viewers

(I was going to write dialogue for these repeating vignettes - some sort of art doll Kibuki theatre - but I just couldn't do it. These dolls got their mojo workin' and are full of such palpable juju that I don't think I could touch one of them. Yesterday I snapped a Barbie's knees - they cracked audibly, like knuckles - and that was freaky enough.)

THE HOBBIT: where it all began

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, as sung by our favorite vocalist of the '60s. . .the only man besides Sonny Bono (and maybe Illya Kuryakin) who can really rock those bangs.

.

This is a unique form of choreography known as the Bilbo Bop.

                       

"He fought with the dragons! He fought with the trolls!" This involved someone throwing some kind of jumpsuit up in the air.

Yes! They're here. Last night my son showed me how to convert     
YouTube videos into gifs. After much fiddling around on a site called Y2gif, I came up with these, excerpts from one of my favorite videos. 

This is only the beginning. . . 

Gangnam Girl, Part 2

Go, Lauren, Go! The original Gangnam Girl appears on the Jumbotron at the Canucks Superskills 2013. Love that bouncy pompom (and the bouncy hair!). 

In this version, Daddy sees them on the screen and Lauren's glee increases. Daddy happens to be my son Jeff.

WHO'S THAT GIRL??

Who's the blonde in the pink coat? The one rockin' the Gangnam like nobody else? The girl with the pompom? WHY. . . IT'S LAUREN GUNNING! 

Yes, THAT Lauren Gunning. The one you've heard about. The Lauren Gunning you are sure to watch over and over again on this video from .17 to .23! 

The fact that I gave birth to her Daddy (sitting beside her in the stands) has nothing to do with this - I just think she's cute. Must be the Gunning (Gangnam!) genes.

WHO is that person singing?

This movie came on Turner Classics, and it was one of those things where I was going to watch 10 minutes of it, maybe record the rest. . . and I instantly fell in. I've seen it (Alfie with Michael Caine) at least twice before so there were no surprises. But it didn't matter. Like Gone with the Wind, you watch it because you know what's coming next. It sort of brands itself on you because we've all known someone like that, or maybe several someones, or maybe we've seen traces of it in ourselves.

I didn't remember the ending and in fact, the end credits were different in one version I saw on TV, they didn't have the rights to the music or something. . .because I remember thinking, hmmmm, aren't they going to do "that song"?, and they didn't. I knew the melancholy Dionne Warwick version, but WHO was this person singing, this raw, heartstring-wringing, out-on-the-edges-of-loneliness rendition that seemed to squeeze all the bitter pathos out of the detestable, irresistable character we couldn't stop watching for the past two hours?

The arrangement over the stylish black-and-white credits had a definite '60s context, a sort of harpsichord-flute-heavy-percussion feel to it, and that alone should've given me a clue (and it did, after the fact!)  Then partway through the singing I guessed, then held my breath, wondering if I could be right, if it would be in the credits at the very end, and it was. All I can say is, it's a singer whose voice later dissolved into a heap of unattractive mannerisms, but back then, in 1966, before her real heyday even began, she had something, something raw and magnetic, something incredible which literally made me gasp. Artistry, all of it. And Michael Caine, and all that he was able to express. There is something beyond the scurrilous crap we have to live with every day. Listen for it.

(Oh, and - the person who uploaded this cut a few seconds off the end - like cutting the final resolving chord off a symphony - PLEASE don't do this! It matters!)

(And P. P. S.: I dreamed about this song all night! I dreamed about the movie, watching it all over again with a man I was supposed to know, someone with tattoos who spoke Cockney and seemed like some version of Michael Caine. I kept saying I watched the movie twice back-to-back over two days, which I never did, I couldn't stand to.  Like a tattoo by an inept or even sadistic artist, it leaves a bruise, a dark sordid shadow of pity mixed with contempt. For all his seeming redemption at the end of the movie, we know Alfie won't change. He'll keep attaching himself parasitically to women, men too, lower companions that just get lower, until he ends up being found in a cheap room somewhere, a violent suicide. I've seen it. Believe me.)

Biggest idiots I’ve ever seen: or, why do we write?

So late at night

I don’t have to listen to the thumping and tumbling of my soul

Why do we we write?

Where was I born? I remember a front porch, and not

Much else. Always there were books around

A whole room of them, a den lined with books,

Most of them in German, seemingly,

Goethe Werke, Schiller Werke

Whatever the fuck that meant

So I tried to make my way
 

 

One day in the buriedness of deeply sucking at

An author I raptly chose

As my favourite of the moment or the day,

I had this thought: you can MAKE these.

Somebody makes them, somebody DOES them.

They don’t come out of nowhere, someone

Sits down and does them.

I began to write. In shaky block capitals at first,

Always in pencil like they told me to in school,

In case I made an error and had to take a pink pearl eraser

And rub it out, leaving disgusting grey crumbs like dead insects

And when I had finished the story

Which was probably about horses

I thought it was good

And I began to write out copies.

 

 

Does this mean I was published? If publishing

Means distributing written material

To a number of different readers, then yeah,

Just don’t count the numbers

As later on,

Having written novel manuscripts, poetry manuscripts, thousands of

Book reviews and gazillions of newspaper pieces,

I did not wish to count the numbers,

As I did have an income

From writing, a steady one,

Just very small,

So I hoped no one would count it up

And see that a paper boy would make more,

Or a counter person at McDonald’s.

 

Oh but you’re in the arts, someone would say,

So why do you even think about making money?

Why do you sully yourself, what’s wrong with you,

Don’t you think you’re lowering yourself by writing for newspapers?

Especially when they line birdcages the next day.

Or start fires, I mean in the fireplace. Good for that.

I didn’t want to tell them about Dickens and guys like that, I don’t want to

Look them up, lots of guys and maybe girls too, who plied their trade

Whatever way they could.

If it's out there at all,

it becomes Game,

Public property that prompts some people

(who always wanted to write but never

had the guts to even get started)

to send you Criticisms

which are For Your Own Good,

and aren't all writers 

interested in "feedback" from readers,

isn't it always a good thing

an educational thing

a thing that will doubtless hugely improve them

if they're "real" writers?

So then I'm a fake writer,

and you can have your fucking gratuitous, sneakily sadistic criticism back

open your mouth and I will return it to you

(or some other orifice, I don't care)

because you don't know what the hell you are

talking about

anyway.
 

But there are bigger problems than this 

I hope I don't live to see it

Grammar is slowly eroding, not the schoolmarm type, not parsing sentences, I mean the matrix below and beneath vocabularly

That helps the whole mess make sense.

 

I wonder how it will be in 100 years, if I came back,

Which I will not,

Even if I could,

Or 300 or 500, if the planet hasn’t blown up by then or is

Taken over by cockroaches, who could probably

Spell better

Than the lamebrain mutants on Twitter.

I wonder if I’d know what they were saying at all,

With the speed with which they were saying it,

The fractured syntax,

Verb never matching subject EVER,

With no one noticing or caring, not even really educated people

Or will there BE such a thing

As everyone spews Orwellian Duckspeak.

 

Maybe just bouncing brain waves off each other.

I would not mind dispensing with words, I mean for-bloody-ever,

Because I honestly wonder

What good they have done me

Except to light in myself

A feverish desire to be “read”

Which has never come about,

Not even in this-here blog

Which probably has an offputting title

That I sincerely thought might ignite some sales.

 

At the same time,

I am unable to wag my ass

Or kneel down

The way I suppose I am meant to

To “get ahead”, to play the game.

There is a randomness about it

So that squealing ambitious pretenders

Say, look, look, there’s 100 Shades of Swill or what-you-call-it

Look, SHE made it work by writing three atrocious books

Full of appalling sadism against women

And these were ebooks

Did you know that

She didn’t even have to send a stamped self-addressed envelope

Or print out 900 pages and parcel them up and mail them

Or put them all on floppy disks.

 

But this is the business part

I suppose I must keep it purely away

From the mad addiction that keeps me sitting in front of this machine

I know I would write anyway because I am an idiot

I am STILL involved with this abusive person, this sadist

Who throws me a crumb once in a while

And kicks me in the face the rest of the time
 

 

And who needs Fifty Shades of Grey

When you serve a Master

Who is so completely

And utterly

Sociopathic

I'm turning Japanese (I really think so)

I've got your picture of me and you

You wrote "I love you" I wrote "me too" 

I sit there staring and there's nothing else to do 

Oh it's in color 

Your hair is brown

Your eyes are hazel

And soft as clouds

I often kiss you when there's no one else around

I've got your picture, I've got your picture

I'd like a million of you all 'round myself

I want a doctor to take your picture

So I can look at you from inside as well

You've got me turning up and turning down

I'm turning in I'm turning 'round

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I've got your picture, I've got your picture

I'd like a million of them all 'round myself

I want a doctor to take your picture

So I can look at you from inside as well

You've got me turning up I'm turning down

I'm turning in I'm turning 'round

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women

No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark

Everyone around me is a total stranger

Everyone avoids me like a cyclone Ranger

Everyone...

That's why I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

[guitar]

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

Turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so, think so, think so

I'm turning Japanese

I think I'm turning Japanese

I really think so

But I got one of these in a cereal box!

Here was have it, the wonder of the ages, a calculator that only costs $345! I wonder what the expensive ones cost. I remember my Dad furiously working at an adding machine, and before that, I guess, we had the abacus. But this one revolutionized everything. You could actually lift it and carry it around (with difficulty). The only calculator I own now is a fridge magnet doubling as a clip to hold papers (usually my grandkids' fingerpainting and stuff). I got it free somewhere from some place that was trying to get rid of them. 

The mentally-challenged smart phone

Nothing is stranger, or funnier, than watching old TV ads where people gasp in awe over what we now see as dinosaur technology. This one was just jaw-dropping. You had to carry around a 25-pound suitcase around with you to make a phone call. Hell, why not just use a phone booth? It would sure cost a lot less. But hey, this was the '70s (or late '60s), the Space Age. It sure must have looked weird, however, toting that thing around. What happened when it rang, or could you only call out? Today we'd think it was a bomb and the guy would be arrested. Could he get it through airport security?

This is real Maxwell Smart stuff, though not quite as bad as the Shoe Phone.

It's kind of like the Jetsons (without Rosie)

What I remember:

People saying "by the year 2000. . .", followed by some kind of prediction (either really great or really awful)

Domed cities, sort of like in the Jetsons

No more food, everyone would get their nourishment from pills

Robots would do all the housework (Jetsons again)

Computers would do everything (actually, that one came true)

Everyone would use those jet-pack thingies to get around, no cars

World hunger would be solved

No more war

20th Century Fox would change to 21st Century Fox

"The Year 2000" was considered magical, powerful, special. It was something to aim for, to strive for, a shining Olympian ideal, when really it was just a dumb-ass date lumbering along waiting to come at us. Then there was Y2K! Remember Y2K and "the new millennium" (which everybody spelled wrong)? The new millennium this, the new millennium that, when really, all that happened at midnight was a lot of booze and fireworks. Besides, the real new millennium didn't start until 2001, and we all know what happened THAT year. 

It's fun, though, when you're watching, say, an old Star Trek (and I'm into watching them again now that they're in HD and look so much better - how did they do that, I wonder? Now I can see every pock mark on Sulu's face) and all of a sudden they're talking about the awful war of 1992 that annihilated all life on earth except for a few protozoa. Or one of those SF movies from from the '50s where they're making predictions about the future, say, 1980 or 1990, which is now way in the past. So how can it be, like, the past and the future at the same time?

And these time-travel things, I don't know. You'd go back and meet yourself, wouldn't you? You'd watch yourself walking around and eating Fritos and washing the dishes, and it would TOTALLY freak you out. And then what would happen when you saw each other? Which one would be the "real you"? Would you sort of cancel each other out? There'd be this younger you and this older you. Either that or one of you would disappear. Sounds like a crappy deal to me.  Sorry, Mr. Einstein, I think you bombed out on that one.

Things to do with a floppy disk

Blogger's note. I found this delicious article in a magazine called The Magazine (from somewhere in Britain, the BBC I think). As usual I was looking for something else. I got watching old documentaries on YouTube about the history of the computer, The Machine That Changed The World (including one made in 1992 that approached the subject with a mixture of spine-chilling awe and goggle-eyed dread). Then I got watching old Commodore 64 ads ("I adore my 64. . . I rate with it, create with it, telecommunicate with it" - one of the best jingles ever). 

Then I found those old IBM ads with Charlie Chaplin, charming little vignettes designed to take the trembling horror out of this "new technology". The Mad Men of Madison Avenue must have decided to reach deep into the past and use a hapless, harmless, hopelessly anachronistic charmer (one that everyone instantly recognized) to neutralize people's fears of a soulless and totally-mechanized future. Didn't work, but it was a good try.

Anyway, before I get totally sidetracked, this list of "40 ways we still use floppy disks" came out almost three years ago. I just could not post the entire 40, so I did a bit of editing and limited myself to the more intriguing and original uses. 

(Hey, the floppy may not be dead yet. The other day I was on a publisher's web site and, after telling me in a scolding tone that I must type my manuscript on 8 1/2" x 11" white bond paper, double-spaced, on one side of the page only, in 12-point pica type, they told me that if by some far-flung chance they actually decided to BUY my manuscript, I was required to mail it to them on floppy disks. So you see? Some people in the publishing business still get by with 20-year-old computers. That's economy, by Jove!)

40 ways we still use floppy disks 

Floppy disks: headed for the museum, or treasured home for your data? When Sony said this week it was halting the production of floppy disks, the Magazine set out to discover who still buys and uses this anachronistic computer storage medium. Here are (not 40 - just the good ones) explanations for why floppy disks are still needed. 

I regularly buy floppy disks. I own a pub with a retro theme and I use them as beer mats.
Shaun Garrod, Ashby de la Soul

I am an artist from London and I use floppy disks to produce my paintings. I tile them up as canvases. The personal information on each disk is forever locked under the paint, but the labels are left as a clue. I use the circular hubs on the reverse for eyes!
Nick Gentry, London 

Not as much a user as an owner of a great many floppies, I was planning to tile the roof of my shed with them (using the two existing corner holes to take the nails) until my wife forbade it.

Erik Ga Bean, Stevenage, England 

Have you seen the cost of clays for skeet shooting? Pull!
Paul Taylor, St.Helens England

Drilling holes on four sides and interlocking them with industrial clips, I have created a retro futurist sliding curtain for a client's loft. Monochromatic colour floppies with occasional accents of bright red and yellow give different moods on sunny days or ambient lighting by night. On them are stored formulas and theories of leading edge scientists...
Paolo, Montreal

My band released our first single on a floppy as a gimmick last year. It took us quite a while to find somewhere that actually sold them anymore.
Chris Bennigsen, Manchester 

I buy these little beauties for a quite different reason. The floppy disk costs an average of £3.66 for 200, however they have a resale value of £5.50 at any good computer recycling centre, so I buy them in bulk and simply sell them directly at a profit. Take that, Bill Gates.
Cynthia, Tamworth

I still buy and use floppies for my electronic organ and some older synthesizers. Many professional keyboardists still own older synthesizers for their unique design and sheer power.
Nick Chan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I put handles on them and sell them as spatulas. I sell thousands of them a year.
Stan Russell, Squatney, Delaware – USA 

I buy about 100,000 floppies per year as I have a business that makes them into drinks mats, fridge magnets and toast racks.
Ken Pork, London

I have a stack of old 3.5" floppies I keep in a box. They work perfectly for adjusting a bookshelf or the like set up on carpet. If the bookshelf tilts, I just slide floppies under the appropriate corners until it's upright.
Greg Goebel, Loveland CO USA

I've always used an old floppy disk as an ice scraper for the car, just the right combination of rigidity and flexibility. Just don't use the side with the metal sleeve on. They last about a year before they need replacing from my endless pile from the 1990s.
Chris, Swindon, UK

I use a multitude of coloured floppies as a fashion statement, as part of outfits I make. The pieces I create are for cyberpunk/goth outfits.
Alexandra "Chii", Yorktown, Virginia, USA 

Romania's fiscal agency still requests documents on floppy to process taxes. 
Jack, Bucharest

Sad to say but there are a lot of ancient computers in church and school offices, and the old lady at the church or the school runs it the same as she did 20 years ago, so the floppy is her tool of choice. I donated a couple of newer used PCs to the church and had to take the floppy drives out of the old systems and put them in the new systems for her. Simply amazing.
Barry, Dayton Ohio, USA

Recently I decided to lay down some new concrete walkways at my home, and came upon the idea to grind up floppies (along with some other plastics) to mix in with the concrete. The addition of the fibres makes for a stronger concrete, and looks interesting as well.
New Orleans, LA, USA

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

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

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