Cha-cha-cha! The Meghan Markle two-step/sidestep (with accompanying "barge")

"Awwwwww, Bentley!" (totally silly cat gifs)

The Dutch Boy's Lead Party

Spinning heart troll animation

 

 

OSTRICH MANIA!

The Amazing Disappearing/Reappearing Christopher Walken Dance Video

This is a version of what I call the Amazing Disappearing/Reappearing Christopher Walken Dance Video. It has popped up in various guises, including a shorter, more tightly-edited version set to the neo-disco classic Dance Now. I preferred the music on that one to the various other versions, but it was taken down not once but twice on copyright grounds (for the music or the video, I don't know, because other versions of it still exist on YouTube). 

The music here doesn't have that funky hip-hoppish madness to it, is more laid-back and even somewhat sexy, which Walken both is and isn't. I can't even figure out what I think about him, how I feel, if I feel anything. It's more of a fascination. I can't stop reading about Meghan and Harry, either, and I definitely cannot stand them.

Some of his roles have been jaw-droppingly sociopathic, though he has gone on record to say he won't play anyone who doesn't live up to his moral standards (or something). Either he can't stop working, or can't stop needing the paycheque (he lives not in a house but a mansion, on an estate somewhere in Connecticut, with staff). 

He lives like a movie star, in other words, and as we all know, character actors have much longer careers because it doesn't matter if they get old and ugly. He has not aged well, AT ALL, has let his hair get frizzed and wears dumb old man glasses and ratty sweaters and has this annoying whistle when he talks.

In short, he now seems bent on making himself look as hideous as possible, like some Galapagos turtle on an island somewhere far away, WAY far, the last turtle of his kind. Anyway, as a dancer he is eccentric but capable of some nice moves, though his work in Communion was execrable and consisted mainly of spinning his arms around. 

The low point of this whatever-it-is I keep returning to, the one I am really embarrassed about, is the Walken 101 podcast, which is without a doubt the worst scummy excuse for a podcast I have ever listened to, yet I keep listening to it. It's just these two guys who claim to be filmmakers and actors (unemployed!) sitting around in a rec room complaining that they hate Christopher Walken. Meanwhile the whole purpose of the podcast is to watch every single movie, TV show or anything else Walken has ever done, in chronological order, and comment on them all. So far, they hate everything. I got started listening to this thing after they made four really funny initial YouTube videos about Walken, then stopped and did this thing instead.

At any rate, if you just want to see him dance and don't care about the music, this one is OK. I can find a nice visual version AND a separate audio of the music I like, but my God, why go to all this (or ANY) trouble about someone I don't particularly like, or at least can't make my mind up about?

"Don't spill the tea!" (glorious tea-pouring gifs)

Cat steals the show during classical music concert

Cute cat video of the year, if not the century (and it's only February)!

Big Hair Claire!

Just ordered this beautiful lady today from Etsy (Lucretia's Lair, my favorite custom/OOAK troll store). This is courtesy of the Canada Council, who once in a while remembers that I published three novels and sends me a cheque in compensation for my total poverty.

EXCLUSIVE: 3-D Movies from the Civil War!

These stereoscopic images from the Civil War represent perhaps the first 3-D "movies", if a movie can consist of two alternating frames. Which it can! These folks look as if they drank a fearful amount of coffee.

Tiny dancer (Victorian ballerina gif)

"Bad kitty!" Cat vs. toilet paper

L'isle joyeuse

This is still the best version of one of my favorite piano pieces - wild, fey, mystical, an island of ponies from my girlhood, ponies of pink and green and silver. And joy, pure joy, joy from another time, brought wildly and prancingly into the present.

RATS-Os and JOE BUCKwheats

 

Very small horse animation

Horse animation in three speeds

Dead man Walken

In theTrain Compartment (Paul Gustav Fischer)

David, I miss you so!

This is a montage of photos that my best friend David West sent me on receiving his copy of The Glass Character, my failed novel about Harold Lloyd. (Compare and contrast to my former friend, Matt Paust, who wrote a piece about it under the title Friday's Forgotten Books, then scratched his head over why I was so upset.) I made it into a gif, then, because I have finally figured out how to do it, posted it on YouTube with music. I guess this is the only goodbye I will ever be able to say to him, because his death was not marked by any memorial. The situation was so fraught that I couldn't enter into it at all. So I had to do something to celebrate him, and to help me (at last) say goodbye.

David West: my friend deserved better than this

(For the second year in a row, some of David's Facebook "friends" wished him a happy birthday, no doubt because the algorithm told them to. A notification popped up, so a feigned note of celebration automatically popped up along with it. No energy, investment or emotion was required: it practically sent itself, which most people on social media seem to feel is the ideal way of sending a note of celebration/caring and concern to their "friends".

There is only one problem with this. But it's a big one (I think). He has been dead for two years, so one can only guess at the depth of their connection with him while he was alive. I had something to say about this on Facebook, knowing I would make myself very unpopular, but sick and tired of the barter that stands in for Facebook "friendship". With authors, the most self-involved and narcissistic segment of the population, it is all a matter of "you review my book, I'll review your book" - no one actually READING any of these books, of course - just to score that coveted five-star rating.

It means nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

So here is what I posted, and I am "off" Facebook now, except perhaps to peruse my "saved"  pages, history, vintage ads, favorite shows like Dateline, old cars, birds, all the things that truly interest and uplift me. The feed and my so-called friends can fuck off right now, with probably more energy than they deserve, and certainly more than it took to hit that birthday button for a dead man.)

"Once more, as with last year, David West received birthday greetings from some of his Facebook 'friends'. He has been dead for two years. I think David would have gotten a kick out of this bizarre scenario, but I don’t. 

And I know the justification will be “but I didn’t know”. This does not take away this feeling of hollowness and utter isolation that I have had to live with for two years as people’s meaningless birthday notifications just keep on automatically popping up. 

“Happy birthday” no longer means even a greeting card, but just something you do because it’s on the notification list, which is a great system because it frees us from the NEED to remember that person’s birthday or find out anything else about their circumstances. It’s one of the great things about social media (and I’ve heard this over and over again from people). 

David was my best friend, a superb poet and gifted teacher who spent the last years of his life battling every illness under the sun. The understanding between us was unique, and I will never experience that again or see him again, or hear his voice. He died alone, with no emotional support except what his few friends could give him. 

The next objection will be, “But his page is still active”. No one knows his password, so no one can take it down. And as with his Facebook page, no one looked in on him. These jolly two-word greetings prove it. This gives me a weird, hollow feeling of the more macabre and even dehumanizing aspects of social media.

This is how we do things now, and as always, I don’t belong on the playground. I know this will be a very unpopular thing to say, and I may be savaged, as I have been before just for expressing an opinion. But maybe this is the best way to say goodbye.