What is the best thing in life?

Doll drama

Here is my excuse: having virtually no artistic talent, but at the same time a keen interest and need to make some sort of art, I sometimes resort to the "art" of photoshop. Thus, the bizarrely beautiful Enchanted Dolls of Marina Bychkova are magically whisked away to unusual places and circumstances, some defying the laws of gravity. This was an art experiment which only a blog page could love. I wasn't even very good at photoshopping at that point, so it's a good thing these aren't full-screen or you'd see it. (But if you click on them, they WILL be full-screen. So I guess you will.) Fan art is a big part of Bychkova-worship, so hopefully I won't get sued. Not with my usual eleven views, anyway.

Moonstruck moments

Could there be a better (sweeter, sexier) movie than Moonstruck? It features some of the most charismatic actors of their generation, caught in their prime before they went crazy/ruined themselves with plastic surgery. Perhaps Cher and Nicholas Cage really hated each other, but the chemistry when he shouted "GET! IN! MY! BED!" was undeniable. If it happened today, she'd do a Weinstein on him and have him arrested.

A clockwork horse

Who is the Mystery Cat?

The infuriating thing about the internet is that it gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Every year when I start trying to find spring-themed wallpaper, I see. . . this cat. No, I mean THIS cat, this solemn-looking tabby-with-white cat with the unusual grey scarf (and who puts a scarf on their cat?). I thought I was imagining things at first, but then I found more and more shots - well, five of them, but five shots of what is obviously the same cat in the same cherry tree.

OK then - who took these, when, and where? Ever since the devouring dragon of Pinterest, the provenance of things has become impossibly muddy. It seems anyone can post anything at any time, with no restrictions whatsoever. There is no such thing as asking permission. It's a free-for-all. Only the odd time do I find a restricted site where things can't be downloaded or copied. But why aren't there more? If some people can do it, why don't all of them, or at least real photographers and artists? 

I'd like to know who this kitty is, if he's alive still, if he's from Japan or Victoria or wherever-else cherry trees flourish in the spring, but I'll never know. If I try to go on TinEye or Google Reverse Images, all I get are endless replications of the same image, all different sizes and under different names from various websites. So they've been borrowed and swapped and passed around over and over and over again, so many times that the origin is lost forever.

But it intrigues me. Here is this cat, this unknown cat who shows up on wallpaper everywhere, who is sort of famous in his own way (or her own way), even though s/he doesn't have a name or a location or an owner, or even a photographer. It's the Mystery Cat. The Hidden Paw, like in the poem. 

So now I spend quite a bit of time trying to find a sixth picture. There may be one, or even more. It seems to me I remember more than five, from my other searches. Damn. Another obsession - I thought I had come to the end of them.

Weird retro TV: TURNABOUT

I made a one-minute gif of this animated intro to a show from 1979 (Turnabout) that may not even have aired. I'm not sure. I know it didn't last a full season. It's one of those body-switching things where people trade souls or whatever, or trade bodies (or whatever). The animation is so bizarre that I don't think it even needs a sound track. These people are in love, see, but they hate each other because each thinks the other has a better life. So presto, change-o, they wake up in the morning and they "are" each other! The comedic possibilities are endless, but I can't find out much about this show, so I doubt if it was a big hit. Perhaps this impressive one-minute gif is the best part of it, after all.

OH, HEY, WAIT. . . 

I just found an episode guide! Seven episodes were made before this thing sputtered to a halt, the series' producers blaming a bad time slot. This has me as excited as finding all that stuff about Calucci's Department!

Episodes

January 26, 1979

1. Pilot episode: A cursed Gypsy's statue causes Sam and Penny's spirits to take flight and exchange bodies after they made an idle wish, each believing that the other has the better life. Now Sam is his wife and Penny is her husband. 

2. "Penny's Old Boyfriend"

February 2, 1979

Penny's old boyfriend shows up with a job offer that Penny hopes Sam won't refuse now that he literally speaks for her. Sam suspects that the ex-boyfriend is more interested in Penny than in business, and he's in a perfect position to find out.

3. "We're a Little Late, Folks"

February 9, 1979

Penny informs Sam that her former body's "monthly visitor" is late; Sam goes to the gynecologist to find out if "he's" going to become a mother.

4. "Cry Me a Touchdown"

February 16, 1979

Sam and Penny prepare to participate in a charity touch football game, only Sam is now the cheerleader and Penny is the quarterback and neither has a clue on how to perform the other's role! 

5. "Till Dad Do Us Part"

March 9, 1979

Penny's family comes to visit on the occasion of her sister's wedding, and masculine-minded Sam has to be the daughter/sister instead of Penny, to Sam's annoyance and Penny's disappointment.

6. "Crass Reunion"

March 23, 1979

Sam is invited to a fraternity reunion, and the wives are not invited. Too bad Penny is now occupying Sam's body and is the one to get the news! So they both return to Sam's old college for a wild reunion.

7. "Statutory Theft"

March 30, 1979

The magical statue is stolen! Will Sam and Penny be cursed to stay in each other's bodies forever?

(Apparently not. The magical curse which was the premise of the show ended on March 30, 1979.)

Beyond uncanny: full body silicone baby doll Clara

Welcome to Uncanny Valley. This is beyond uncanny, for it's hard for me to even believe that this creature isn't real. Though its limbs quiver from being molded out of liquid silicone, newborns have similar little twitches and shivers. It makes me wonder if people should even have babies any more. These cost upwards of $10,000.00, but compare that to day care, designer clothes, ballet lessons, band camp, university. . .

And this one will never grow out from under you. I know what that grief is like, when children disappear into adults. I honestly tried to "go reborn" at one point, and bought a couple of minis the size of preemies who looked pretty darned realistic, considering they cost me about $16.00 each on eBay.

It didn't take. Instead of taking them on shopping trips in car seats to scare the hell out of the general public (a particularly sadistic habit of reborners), my vinyl babies are stored in a clear plastic box in the closet where I keep my cast-off clothes. They're cute, yes, but - I couldn't cradle them, sing to them, talk to them. Now I'm into trolls (again), and it's a kick because it brings back memories of being ten, the best year of my entire life. Trolls are both cute and subversive, and a tiny bit creepy without being too uncanny. Much.

Giant Octopus Kite

Migraine day, which means depression/debilitation day, so I'll just post this, which I think is really interesting. As usual with YouTube, there is no information with it. I can't even get a decent scale on it. I  originally saw this on Facebook, which explains the complete lack of information! Social media doesn't even seem to care about such things, and just sees them as a momentary, empty entertainment. Or is that just my migraine/depression speaking?

Tightlaced: the glorious prison

The mystery of Alan Gershwin: SOLVED?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/obituaries/alan-gershwin-who-claimed-a-famous-father-is-dead-at-91.html

I was amazed but not surprised to see this fascinating obituary in the New York Times about the extraordinary life of Alan Gershwin, who was either an uncrowned prince cheated of his musical and financial heritage, or a complete fraud.

It surprises me that I still get comments on the blog post I did in 2015 about AG and GG (link below) and the complicated relationship they had, whether face-to-face or only in Alan's imagination.  There is just no simple version of this story, and I think it has the makings of a movie. I have heard that William Shatner has a phantom son who keeps threatening him with exposure. So far he’s ignoring him.

I have had a bit of a problem with his “uncanny” resemblance to GG. People see what they want or need to see. GG was so cruelly yanked out of the world, with so much unfinished business, that maybe a lookalike son was an emotional need for some people. Some make their living “being” other people at parties, etc. – professional lookalikes, and AG didn’t look any more like George than a convincing lookalike. But then, I didn’t know him. 

Some of the commenters on my blog piece are kind of upset or even angry that I don’t just accept the reality of AG being who he says he is. Others kind of dismiss him or talk about how terrible his music was. Yet he’d show up at music festivals and no one would question him. Maybe Alan Gershwin was the unlived life, the continuation in very watered-down form of George once he prematurely dropped away. 

In my unofficial research on GG, I kept coming across stories where people would “see” him in his old haunts after he died. He’d just appear for a moment. Elvis sighting stuff? Could be, or just more of that desire to see someone who left too soon. I read that Ira Gershwin whispered on his deathbed that he “saw” his brother after his death – he waved at him cheerily from the sofa in his workroom. IG was terrified to tell anyone lest they think he was crazy. Another time he appeared at a player piano for a second in front of a crowd, and several people “saw” him. But people see what they want or need to see, which is why AG went so far. Maybe.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2015/04/lost-and-found-mystery-of-alan-gershwin.html