Do animal hybrids exist? Ask Betty Boop

You can always tell I've run out of inspiration when I begin to post totally bizarre gifs.(Never mind that it's every day.) I seem to be obsessed with these tiny captured cartoons that repeat, and repeat, and repeat, without even having to click "play".

Betty Boop is still emblematic of the 1920s flapper/sexpot character, her pre-Code outfit leaving nothing to the imagination. Her dress is about the size of a postage stamp, and no one knew how the front stayed up (Max Fleischer's iron will, I guess - but I can imagine what the stag reel was like). She often flipped up her microscopic skirt to reveal garters, thigh, and (let's face it) ass.

But her first appearance in a bizarre thing called Dizzy Dishes begs the question: did anyone know who or what Betty Boop was supposed to be? She wasn't even named here, and maybe originally she was just a one-off. Certainly, she was so grotesque that no one would ever want to see her (or hear her - that screechy chalkboard voice) again.

Nevertheless, she was significantly remodelled in time for a return engagement, the mental-institution eyes toned down, the spiky head gradually getting bigger and bigger until it barely balanced on her slutty little body. Huge heads on tiny bodies remind us of dolls, or babies - an instinctive response. I think men secretly lusted after her.

Then came the Hollywood Code as enforced by the Hays Office, a repressive legion of decency that took all the fun out of the movies. Betty's hemline plunged, her neckline shot up, and she began to look increasingly matronly. Here she even pulls her apron down over her knees. Betty! What happened to the little sex fiend who flipped her skirt up in the animal cafe?

Later I think she sold war bonds or something, wearing plaid woolen skirts and brown Oxfords.

The fact is, Betty was originally a dog. Either that, or a human-dog hybrid (a phenomenon I explored in a previous post: FOUND: Cujo's Rogue DNA!). A hideous one, too, flirting shamelessly with that whatever-it-is who pushes his erection-like heart back into his chest. Those aren't earrings you see dangling from her head: they're EARS. Her snout pops in and out as she offers grotesque kisses and flaunts her canine cleavage. Just what were the animators trying to tell us here: that Betty was a bitch?

The odd thing is, her humanizing (or humanization) happened in stages. The flappy ears remained even as her face began to look more normal.  Eventually she graduated to long pendulous earrings that still look a lot like those fleshy flaps.

Perhaps some minute trace of dog genes lingered. I would hate to see her children.

(Post-post: I just noticed, in that third gif, that she isn't wearing any panties.)

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Time traveller on Blackfriars Bridge: Director's Cut

I've posted the entire video of Blackfriars Bridge, filmed in 1896.  Pay attention to the man who walks in to the right edge of the frame at 11 seconds, just to the right of the lamp post, pulls his hand out of his pocket at 22 seconds, then walks off at the left side of the frame at 25 seconds.

Note his insouciance, his open coat flapping, his hatlessness and bold staring into the camera. Just a fleeting image of a young bounder, a ne'er-do-well walking across a bridge? Or a man mysteriously transported in a time machine?

You decide.





Special bonus footage: here is the complete Edwardian sequence, most of which consists of everyday activities of the era. But pay attention to people's facial expressions as they went about their day. I don't know how this film was restored, but it came out eerily three-dimensional and surreal, probably from converting the frames-per-second (i. e. there would be frames missing that would have to be filled in). This is nothing but sheer cinematic magic.

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

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

Time traveller on Blackfriars Bridge

Could it be? Or have I been watching too much of the Big Bang Theory and Sheldon's endless theorizing about the possibility of time travel?

I have this little habit of making gifs out of YouTube videos - the shorter the better (which is why some of the gorgeous ones I made tonight wouldn't post - they were probably way too long). I found some stunning footage taken in London around 1900, in an era where the horse was the main mode of transportation, women wore corsets and skirts to the ground, and men were always properly attired in dark suits, overcoats and bowler hats (top hats for more formal occasions).

The uniformity of dress is one of the more remarkable aspects of these tiny visual time machines (along with the eerie three-dimensional quality of the ancient film: how did they ever achieve such an effect, or was it somehow pulled out of the depths of the antique silver nitrate by digital restoration and HD?). The aspect of the people, their facial expressions and formal bodily postures, reveal how very different these times were. Again and again I see women wearing a sort of uniform: a white blouse, often with puffy sleeves,which they called a shirtwaist, and a long dark skirt. The waist is so small that it's plain it didn't get that way on its own. Hair is piled atop the head with pins, and going without a hat is simply unthinkable.

Men are similarly hatted. Even poor blokes could afford an old battered one. A straw boater didn't cost you much, did it? To go about hatless - well, it was simply disrespectful, almost criminal. At the very least, it was suspicious.

As this three-second snippet of time on Blackfriars Bridge (first gif) endlessly repeats itself, we see carriages going by in a kind of dreamy haze, and people walking along the bridge - a woman all in black, a widow perhaps, walking in that stiff-spined way corseted women were forced to walk. Behind her is a couple so properly attired that they could have been cut out of a magazine. But who's this out front? Who's this bloke, not very visible at first because he's walking beside a carriage - the one pulling his hand out of his pocket and looking right at the camera (bloody sauce!)? He's wearing a fine enough coat, and he walks as if he owns the bridge, with a sort of swaggering stride.

Where's he going, then, that he should be walking (hatless!) with such an important air? Who does he think he is?

I'll tell you who *I* think he is.

He is not of his time.

He's from Somewhere Else. More specifically, he's from Now. Whether he projected himself into the past (meaning he's in two places at once: hey, quantum physics tells us it's a cinch, and the saints have been managing it for centuries) or just jumped, bodily, with his whole being, I KNOW this guy did not belong in Edwardian England striding, bareheaded and insouciant, across Blackfriars bloody Bridge back in 1896.

Looking more closely - and it's too bad I can't get a tight closeup of such a grainy figure - it may be that he isn't even wearing a tie. No one went without a tie unless they were in hospital - in a lunatic asylum, I mean. He just sort of flaps along without a care, so informal as to alarm the passersby.

If you plucked out any of the other figures and plunked them down in modern society, we'd think, oh, how lovely, there must be an Edwardian exhibition at the museum. Or something. If you plunked HIM down,  no one would pay him any notice.

BECAUSE HE IS NOT OF HIS TIME. 

He is not of 1896, he is of "now", which means that he knows things. Why do you think progress accelerated so wildly in the 20th century? Was it seeded by these blokes from the future (their future, I mean - this time shit is full of slippery concepts and paradox).

What shall we call him? Roger? How did he get back there? Is he from OUR future, when time travel  really does exist? Why don't we see time travellers walking around in the here and now? The only ones I've ever met believe in conspiracy theories and wear hats made of tin foil.

Roger will ever remain a mystery, breezing along the bridge 117 years ago. Not one atom of him would remain - not in a normal time-line, I mean. In truth, Roger may be walking around right now. The other Roger, the parallel one? My brain aches - a drowsy numbness pains my sense - and it's definitely time to go to bed.

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

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

Day of the Ice Heave (or: the Earth Strikes Back)

This is raw footage, shot in portrait rather than landscape (which I thought went out of style 5 or 10 years ago), but I include it in its entirety because it is way more dramatic than anything that was shown on the news.

This is an ice heave, a bizarre weather phenomenon in which an ice sheet on a lake is bulldozed by winds with such force that it becomes alive. It moves with frightening speed, making a deafening sound like a shattering chandelier, with an even more bizarre "sh-sh-sh-sh-sh" sound that reminds me of the locust-like cameras flashing in The Right Stuff. This is a glacier forming not in thousands of years but in a couple of hours, and comparably moving at light speed.

This video goes on pretty long and includes some confused, shrill commentary, but I still like it better than the snippets shown on the news. It's more immediate and captures the confused reactions of people who do not know what the hell is going on (including the woman who keeps yelling at her kid, "Keep away from that!"). The tinkly fingers of the edge of the eerily accelerated glacier sneak forward like spider's legs, and the ice sheet moves with so much relentless force that it shatters windows and pushes in walls.

Nature is striking back. There is no doubt about it now. We've become completely accustomed to stories about wildfire, flood, insane amounts of snow and parching drought: what is happening to the weather now? We all walk around with question marks hanging over our stupid heads, when we bloody well know the answer.

What we've done, all that we've done through industrial pollution, millions upon millions of cars, and other forms of casual rape, is to destroy the world's millenia-long balance of climate permanently. Whatever we do now is too little, too late. We have barely begun to awaken to a nightmare which can't and won't go away: we can't fix it now and still refuse to take responsibility for it. 

This will only escalate, and soon: the ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, species are going extinct, and green space is being ruthlessly ripped out to build soulless condos not suitable for a robot to inhabit, let alone human beings. Nowhere is that better illustrated than around here, where the horror of narrow, ugly attached "homes" assaults the eyes. With unusual candour, these have been named "saltbox" homes, but to me they look more like crackerboxes made of particle-board, cement and wire. These "homes" have no yard, front or back, and only the odd sickly sapling bolstered on both sides with sticks. I can only imagine how a family would ricochet off those narrow, cramped walls. A bed would take up the entire room.

What does it mean? Can you guess?

We've run out of space.

How have we come to live like this?  Rip out the green space, pile all our discards into the landfill and forget about it, and I won't even get into the massive, ever-growing, floating horror called the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch (and I have news: they've found another one in the Atlantic) made of discarded computers and other throw-away plastic debris. We look at these things, think "too bad", then quickly push the delete button in our minds and carry on. 

My husband is a scientist, and he refuses to see that any of this is related to climate change or global warming. He just says "everything goes in cycles", meaning that very soon, perhaps next year, everything will return to calm, pastoral beauty with gentle rains and benevolent sun.

Don't count on it. It's not going to happen any time soon. Or ever.

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

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

Pig drama: like you've never seen it before!

(Ready for some more? I didn't think so.)

Sweet dreams.

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

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

Escapism at its finest

The traffic! The boss! The baby! THE DOG!!!

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

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

Taco Time: fun with the Shatmeister

They don't call him Kinky Jim for nothing.

"That. . . last. . . taco. . . too. . . much. . . hot. . .sauce. . ."

"Calgon! Take me away!"

"My wife doesn't understand me."

"Yes, but Sulu's busy tonight."

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

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

Chased down with horse and hounds

“Happiness leaves such slender records; it is the dark days that are so voluminously documented.” 

Oh MY my. This was a quote by Truman Capote that rattled around in my head for years and years. But I only remembered the gist of it, something about not remembering when we've been happy. Like all Capote quotes, it was elegant, graceful and went straight to the point. I never thought I'd find it again, and even doing a google search was pretty unfruitful (to coin a phrase) for the first couple of hours or so. Then, under the tag "happiness". . . 

Oh yes.

Back in his youth, he was a sort of male literary Marilyn Monroe, probably showing his hairy leg to journalists if it would get him laid. He was like that.

But Jesus-bloody-Murphy and hell's bells, wasn't he beautiful?

What can I say? These exotic poses pre-dated the Advocate Personal Ads by quite a few decades. But I guess that pouty lounging look got him noticed. His infuriating ability to stun with a phrase did the rest.

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

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

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,

Without one thing, all will be useless,

I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,

I am not what you supposed, but far different.

Who is he that would become my follower? 

ho would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

The way is suspicious - the result uncertain, perhaps destructive; 

You would have to give up all else - I alone would expect to be your

God, sole and exclusive,

Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,

The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives

around you, would have to be abandon'd; 

Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further - Let

go your hand from my shoulders,

Put me down, and depart on your way.

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,

Or back of a rock, in the open air,

(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not - nor in company,

And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,) 

But just possibly with you on a high hill - first watching lest any

person, for miles around, approach unawares,

Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or

some quiet island,

Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,

With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss, 

For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,

Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,

Carry me when you go forth over land or sea; 

For thus, merely touching you, is enough - is best,

And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried

eternally.

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,

For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,

They will elude you at first, and still more afterward - I will

certainly elude you,

Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me,

behold! 

Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this

book,

Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,

Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,

Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) 

prove victorious,

Nor will my poems do good only - they will do just as much evil,

perhaps more; 

For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and

not hit - that which I hinted at; 

Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

Walt Whitman

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

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

'Scuse me while I kiss this guy (or commit suicide)

Truman Capote: Quotable Quote!

“There were hints of sunrise on the rim of the sky, yet it was still dark, and the traces of morning color were like goldfish swimming in ink.”

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

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

Jon Hamm, the Kent-Smoking Man

I think we may have walked this way before. But it's time to walk it again. This is the Kent Man, with the gleaming skyscrapers of Madison Avenue towering above him. Though the ad copy refers to "scientists and educators", my first thought was, "Like fuck!  He's an ad man."

The ad is circa sometime in the early '60s, when medical experts were beginning to grumble about the negative health effects of smoking. Imagine the panicked discussions in boardrooms across the nation! "How are we going to put a positive spin on this so people think it's GOOD for them to smoke?" One astonishing television ad from the era had a bellicose man with a cigarette in his mouth proclaiming, "I want a treat, not a treatment."

Unfortunately, his "treat" all too often DID lead to a "treatment", usually received too late.

The ad guy puffing away on his Kent ("For the best combina-tion of fil-ter and good taste/Kent satisfies best!" went the cheery little jingle) looks so startlingly like Don Draper of Mad Men, it's downright eerie. I wondered if I could get Don's head into the Kent ad, and was almost successful.

Of course it's never perfect. Head shape and angle, skin color, all that stuff, will never match up exactly.
Besides, in the ad the guy is looking up, squinting actually, in a cool Madison Avenue sort of way.

Kind of like this? Looks a bit like Rod Serling on a bad day. One eye looks more or less OK (these are the Kent Man's eyes, by the way) but the other one, well. . . It would have been best to have that eye in shadow, but I don't have those kind of skills.

Here Don stares into nothingness in his typical God-how-misunderstood-I-am-because-I-was-poorly-mothered-if-in-fact-I-was-ever-mothered-at-all expression. I guess he stares at the sidewalk when he lights up.

DEFINITELY not mothered. At all. Ever.

Plus it looks like he's going to throw up.

This is my personal favorite. His hands have suddenly turned into brown oven mitts, but never mind.

At least he looks happy.

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

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