I don’t
usually even remember dreams, but once in a while I have a doozie – not really
a nightmare (I don’t remember those either), but one that is so bizarre it
defies any explanation. It means what it means, I guess. As Bob Dylan put it in
Gates of Eden:
"At dawn my lover comes to me And tells me of her dreams With no attempt to shovel the glimpse Into the ditch of what each one means."
But this
one - . Anyway, Bill and I were in New York (I think – at least, some teeming
urban centre that I wasn’t familiar with, at all. Here we were in Gotham. The Big Apple. This Is The City.)
We were standing at a sort of crossroads, a busy corner, although I had no idea
where we actually were and even less idea of the names of the streets, what hotel we
were staying in, etc. THEN – suddenly – I was sitting in a wagon. It was a
wagon FULL of Amish people. Just chock-a-block. Not one of those smart
carriages – this was a fairly primitive wagon, kind of like a covered wagon
only un-covered. I didn’t quite know how I had gotten there, although I vaguely
remembered climbing aboard. No kidnapping or coercion was involved.
But I was
sitting next to this woman (she was on my right, maybe 30ish, very Amish in costume and demeanour, the
kind of woman who already has a dozen kids) who kept talking and talking. It
was Amish talk, but as usual I can’t remember much content. Pro-Amish, of
course, though since I was not handcuffed, I didn’t think I was required to join
the cult.
BUT. And
this was the hard part. Though I had climbed aboard somewhere in the teeming
downtown, I had no point of reference. I had no phone. Where was my husband? I
wanted out (or “off”), but didn’t see a way. I could have, I guess, said (and I
think I tried), “Stop and let me off”, but the Amish woman told me “no, we’re
going up to the Lake
country”. I envisioned being away to hell and gone in some isolated rural
community living completely off the grid. It was a helpless feeling. I was cut
off. I was part of this. . . group. Religion? I finally said, “Can you take me
back to where I got on and just drop me off?” They looked at me in bafflement.
Like most
of my dreams, it didn’t “end” but just sort of petered out. Of course, my mind wants
to put puzzle pieces together, so I wondered if this whole thing was an allegory
for the church I attended for fifteen years. THAT ended badly too, though I had
been disaffected and unhappy for the last three or four. I stayed too long, and
began to feel a creeping sense of “we-think” – in other words, if you start
thinking OUTSIDE that box, you are no
longer welcome. This coincided with a horrible meltdown in leadership
that I won’t even go into. But still I didn’t leave!
Eventually,
as I regained my mental health and saw the light, my relationship with the
church also petered out and I no longer wanted to attend. I was tired of the
whole thing. I now see mainstream church attendance as something out of the
last century. Big drafty 100-year-old buildings being used for two hours a week, doctrine
and cant that is always vigorously denied, hidden agendas that create constant
guilt and a sense of inadequacy, an INSISTENCE that everyone is welcome and
people can interpret God any way they want . . . but if you go too far, the minister will summon you to his office for a friendly chat.
The
pandemic has virtually wiped out "liberal" church congregations except in a very limited
capacity. Some have gone to “hybrid worship”, which sounds to me like something
out of Soylent Green or some other cinematic dystopia. I am not sorry, for
so-called liberal churches are an anachronism. We didn’t really help anyone. If
someone in need came to us, they were given a bus ticket and a token for the
food bank, all the way across town. And that’s it. People grumbled about having
to pay for those tokens and wondered why people didn’t just get a job.
Oh, but one time we tried. Having dutifully brought our canned food donations to the church, someone made the mistake of getting up at the front and saying, "We also need can openers." To a person, the congregation roared with laughter. Someone needs CAN OPENERS?
The Amish
thing, well, I’ve never had too many feelings about the Amish either way,
except to say that we often hear about alarming genetic diseases that have not
even been heard of before. The Mennonites, Hutterites, Anabaptists and Amish
have been profoundly inbred for centuries, but as young people leave in droves to
live more normal lives, the gene pool is getting smaller and smaller. Marry
your first cousin? Maybe you have no other choice. So you end up with a sort of
horrifying Habsburg situation, with children stillborn, hopelessly deformed, or dying of untreatable
medical conditions.
The only
churches which are flourishing now are Pentecostals, led by evangelicals who prey
on the weakest and most needy. Shameless grifters, the sort that preach at us
from our TVs, buy private jets with the congregation’s monetary “seeds”, and
eventually get into sex scandals. I’m so tired of it all. We have two gigantic
churches in our area, very recently built, which I
have heard are full every Sunday. Pentecostals. The UnitedChurch is foundering on the verge of
collapse, and is even thinking of converting some of those huge drafty
buildings into low-income housing (an idea that horrifies almost everyone!). I don’t care what is happening to my former
church now because it outlived its usefulness thirty years ago.
Now I’m
thinking: if that cart was pulled by horses, why didn’t I see them or at least
smell them? Was it an oxcart, perhaps? DID I ever get off? The dream tapered
off before I could answer any of those questions. But I would not willingly
climb aboard any sort of wagon now, Amish wagon, bandwagon, wagon train with no
end. Stop the horses – I want to get off.
I received this email just now, regarding a post I did in 2016. I feel a little too stunned to write about it now. We were pretty certain Bosley had died/been killed (he looked more like a domestic duck than a wild one, and whenever we see domestic ducks in the wild, we know they will not last long).
It's a sense of loss that I've already had for a couple of years. I tell myself: it's nature, it's the life cycle, etc. But Bosley wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, duckwise, and more than once I saw him waddling around on land. Once he was actually being chased by a mallard drake. But I think it may have been a predator that got him, as coyotes, bears and even cougars roam around within our city limits. The other thing is, I never did see him fly, and if he was bred for meat, as many ducks are, perhaps his wing capacity was too limited to get him out of trouble.
Anyway, here is her message, and I will try to assemble a proper memorial when I can.
"I found the duck you write about dead in the water over by the playground area. I called him Shep. He was my friend for 9 years. The brown one that hung around with him went missing 3 weeks ago. I looked for her everyday since. Today when I was at the lake I saw a huge amount of feathers float down the lake from the same area I found Shep. I know it hah to be Belinda as you called home. I believe the Mallards may have drowned him during mating time. I witnessed a few big mallards weeks prior chasing/harassing him so I am guessing rough play during mating season was the cause of his death. When Shep died a few years ago Bentley was extremely sad. He searched for Shep calling him for a long time. The green mallard that hung around with Shep and Bentley went missing a few months after. Him and Shep were very close. The three of them were bonded. I believe the green mallard was so depressed he stopped eating and got weak for predictors. Bentley lived 2 years and 2 weeks without them. After some time after his friends deaths, he paired up with a mallard and a female brown duck. They were friends for a long time until his demise 3 weeks ago. They are all in heaven now swimming together. I hope this information answered your questions and put your mind at rest. Don’t feel sad, they had a great life and now they are finally all together at last. Shep died April 14, 2020,he was 9 years old, his mallard friend died August of same year, and Belinda (was really a he), he died 3 weeks ago. Sorry, I got the Belinda and Bentley names mixed up in my last post. Hope this sorts it out for you."
Here is my reply:
We were pretty sure something had happened to him - we used to see him every time we went there, then it just stopped. I am not sure if nine years is a long time for a duck, but I think it is for one living in the wild. And now his companion as well - I do remember the three of them swimming around together. This takes away something of the magic of the lake. It seems almost deserted now, which baffles me. I know birds are very cyclic, but I'm not seeing a lot of birds anywhere now, not even at Burnaby Lake which is usually teeming with them. I appreciate your letting me know what happened. I know this is all part of nature, but I still feel the loss. I will miss him and "Belinda" and the drake. Nature does very interesting things, as in creating a little flock of three.
So they are all gone - the odd little flock of three (which we suspected were all male, though Belinda was so gorgeous with her curly tail, and MASSIVE - more the size of a goose). I have seen domestic birds (most recently, a glorious white dove which ate out of my hand)
and even white waddly barnyard creatures, three of them, then two, then one - easy pickings for birds which are not "street-smart" in the wild.
Sadly, this year Como Lake is practically deserted. Our lagoon is also very sparse, except in one of the lookouts which was 2 inches deep in goose shit! It was as if someone had just dumped a barrel of it on the boards. A goose convention? We've seen them before, a sort of stopover, usually VERY loud. We have also seen sandhill cranes, a red-tailed hawk and five wild swans in our lagoon. Why is all the magic being taken away? When will they return?
One of my funner animations. This was made from a few frames of the infamous Patterson-Gimlin "footage" of Bigfoot which some people still vigorously defend, analyzing it frame by frame and believing in it as fervently as a religion. But I have also read that the footage was debunked long ago by someone who was actually involved with the hoax, and he claimed if you zoom in far enough you can see the zipper down the back of the suit. Certainly "Bigfoot" walks like someone's idea of an upright ape. Sorry, guys, I just don't see anything that convinces me! But it was fun to make a video out of it.
Gorilla soldiers! Actually, two guys in very bad gorilla suits. I find it amusing that you can see the men's dress shoes on the soles of their feet. But I suppose bare feet or athletic shoes would have been just as bad.
WARNING! "Frankenstein 1970" is the most blood-freezing horror ever created! This picture may be too dangerous for people with weak hearts! Beware!
Storyline
Baron Victor von Frankenstein has fallen on hard times; he was tortured at the hands of the Nazis for not cooperating with them during World War II and he is now badly disfigured. As his family's wealth begins to run out, the Baron is forced to allow a TV crew shooting a documentary on his monster-making ancestors to film at his castle in Germany. However, the Baron has plans of his own: using the money from the film crew's rent, he buys an atomic reactor and uses it to create a hulking monster, transplanting his butler's brain into the monster and using it to kill off the film crew for more spare parts.
Dismal, low-budget horror film shot (for no good reason) in Cinemascope. It starts off great with a young, screaming woman being chased around on a dark, foggy night by a barely glimpsed monster. The sequence is beautifully atmospheric and hearkens back to the glory days of Universal horror movies. Sadly, this is the best sequence in the entire movie. Then it turns out it's only a movie being filmed near Baron Fankenstein's (Boris Karloff) estate. Yup there's ANOTHER Frankenstein who is a victim of Nazi tortures. For no discernible reason he's making a monster too...and decides to use the film crew and cast for parts.
Karloff hams it up and has a whale of a time with his performance. That alone gives it two stars. The rest of the film is drab and dreary with a pointless plot full of loopholes (just why is Frankenstein making another monster?) and one of the stupidest "monsters" ever seen. It's just some clown in a big ill-fitting suit made of bandages--everything is covered including his head! All the victims seem so terror stricken at this that they never run away and politely stand there and let the monster kill them (never shown). Truthfully they should all be helpless with laughter at this! There's next to no blood or gore either. This was 1958--blood WAS being shown in horror movies at this time but this one shies away from it. Also what's with the title? The 1970 implies a futuristic angle. Aside from reanimating the monster from an atomic reactor there's NOTHING futuristic or new here! It's also flatly directed not using the large Cinemascope image at all. Also with the exception of Karloff and Charlotte Austin the acting is truly terrible. Worst of all Karloff was pretty obviously in poor health when he did this and it's somewhat uncomfortable to see him slowly walking around slowly bent over and looking terrible. A very depressing poor horror film. Karloff deserved better. I give it a 2.
It's sad to see Karloff nearing the end of his career in such a mess of a film. Hammy effects and almost silly attempts at chills make this mess almost a spoof more than a horror.
Boris Karloff(at the low-point of his brilliant career) plays Victor Von Frankenstein, last-surviving descendant of the original Baron Frankenstein(though NOT connected to the Universal Studios series Karloff had starred in!) who, because of financial necessity, allows a film crew to make a movie of his ancestors in his castle; the money he receives he plans to use to create a new monster, this time by using atomic energy generated by his own reactor. The actors from the film will make very convenient parts to compose the new monster, much to their surprise and horror... Pathetic attempt at a "futuristic" Frankenstein film is an abject failure, both poorly made and written, with Karloff looking embarrassed about the whole thing; thankfully, his career would pick up soon when he was chosen to host "Thriller"...
The concept is kind of interesting, but the script is horrible. It's full of long winded soliloquies by Boris, pontificating on this or that and they will put you to sleep.
Could have been a fun comedy/horror, but it takes itself too seriously.
This is one of the scariest movies of all time. 4.7 it underrating it. In this movie the mean character is the Grand son of Doctor Frankenstein. It is a sequel to Frankenstein. That takes place in the future. This a movie good for any one who like a good horror movie. See this movie. It is a great movie. This movie has great acting. It also has a great story line. It also has great special effects. It is no 4.7 it a great film. It is very intense. Do not watch this movie alone. Boris Karloff was a great actor. Tom Duggan was a great actor. Jana Lund was a great actor. This movie is a must see. This movie is true horror classic.
I loved it. I never have seen it. I love these simple old sci fi. But hey I'm a simple kind a guy
(Final thoughts. I just sat through this entire thing on Svengoolie, and . . . I have to agree with all but the last two reviews, one of which is fairly incoherent, and the last of which states that he hasn't even seen it. As I wish I hadn't. I'll never get those 83 minutes back. The posters are OK, but kind of schlocky - and why FOUR posters for a movie which garnered two-star reviews?)
This little glimpse of Enrico Caruso donning the motley is eerie, ghostly, and somehow oddly real, making a legend/disembodied voice into an actual person. Almost.
This narrator has to be the most over-the-top commentator I've ever seen! The divers went down there expressly to get shots of the octopus close-up. At no time was there an attack! It's well-known that even the largest octopus does NOT atack humans. I can just see the film editor looking at the footage and saying, "Oh boy, is this boring! We have to spice it up somehow." It's a great example of male hysterics.
For some reason I remembered this scene from my early childhood. I think it's from the first Popeye cartoon, Popeye the Sailor Man (not counting the one where he co-starred with Betty Boop). Of course I've played around with it a little bit!
At first I thought this was a cow, until I realized it's two guys in a suit. I pity the guy on the back end, for obvious reasons. But this old pantomime trick is even more tricky on rollerskates.
This beautiful work of art featuring gorgeous Parisian ladies in various stages of dress/undress is so lavish and detailed that I can hardly take it all in. So, as an experiment, I cropped out some close shots to get a better look. The original poster had some sort of very finely-written text, undoubtedly in French. I would have loved to make some sort of animation out of this, but the frames were not the same size (unless I cut them up into TEENY little pieces!). I am not always the best at determining if pictures are circa Victorian or Edwardian, but I'm tending towards the latter because of the pigeon-breasted stance and huge bustles.
Sometimes I think that if I had been raised by ducks, I would have turned out a whole lot better. This mother mallard is incredibly brave in fighting off a seagull predator which would have grabbed her babies for a light snack. I've seldom ever seen such courage in any being, human or animal.
Oh boy, this took a long time to make! I took the Monty Python "foot stomp" gif and literally grafted the image of the bee onto it, frame by frame. I didn't do a perfect job - I see stuff in the background that I swear I got rid of! But for me, it's pretty advanced animation. I couldn't use the Sousa Liberty Bell March (the Monty Python theme), so I found the next best thing, the Washington Post March (by Sousa, of course).
I honestly do not know how I have lived my life not knowing about this! I never reveal my sources, but suffice it to say it has been around YouTube for a long time. It has to be in my current top five.
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
