I lied. . . THIS is the first sound recording!

Leon Scott's COMPLETE DISCOGRAPHY 1853 - 1860

These are generally considered the first sounds ever recorded (on a lamp-blackened sheet of paper stuck to a spinning cylinder, the sound waves etched by a stylus), and sometimes I wonder if they were really worth playing back. In the early '00s, when the discovery of an ancient recording of a ghostly voice singing "Au Clair de la Lune" was storming the media, I honestly thought it was a hoax. Reminded me of the time someone claimed to have found a recording of Chopin playing the Minute Waltz back in 1840 or something, only to find it was an April Fool's joke. The claimed technology was the same, strangely enough, etchings on dirty paper that in fact WEREN'T designed to be played back at all. A curious guy just wanted to see if sound waves might make an actual, visual pattern, and they did. Experiment done. There was a huge hubbub around this discovery, press conferences, public presentations, a specialized website (and I think it's still there, looking about as up-to-date as the Heaven's Gate cult site from the '90s) - but there was no followup on this miracle of early technology, because in spite of all the "THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING" hype, that's all there was - squeals, burbles, fuzzy might-be-voices, and one rather grisly voice haltingly singing a phrase or two from an old French folk tune. Interesting that someone had SOME idea of how sound waves might look when traced on paper, but that's all. 

PLEASE NOTE. This might be badly written, because I am badly sitting up and fog-brained from having COVID. Yes. I have it, as does my entire family now, and it is without a doubt the sickest I have ever been. I have to go lie down now. 

ADDENDA! Out of curiosity, I looked up the First Sounds website, and yes - nothing, but NOTHING has changed about it, including the P. T. Barnum hype! This is on the introductory page. Seems they were out to save humanity with this stuff.

First Sounds strives to make humanity's earliest sound recordings available to all people for all time.

First Sounds seeks out the world's oldest sound recordings—wherever they are.
We rewrote history in 2008 when we discovered and resurrected humanity’s first recordings of its own voice, created in 1860 in Paris by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. Since then, we have identified and played back even older recordings. First Sounds remains the authority on Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville and his recordings.

First Sounds is dedicated to audio preservation.
We have digitally preserved every airborne sound recording known to exist from before 1861, plus many recordings made thereafter.

First Sounds pioneered the playback of the oldest sound recordings in 2007 and has been in the forefront ever since.
Sound recordings made before the invention of the phonograph were not intended to be played back. Extracting their sounds remains our specialty.

First Sounds is collaborative.
David Giovannoni, Patrick Feaster, Meagan Hennessey, and Richard Martin founded First Sounds in 2007 to facilitate, coordinate, and promote the efforts of individuals who share their passions and of organizations that share their goals. First Sounds is unincorporated; we neither solicit nor accept financial donations.

First Sounds offers free and universal access to its work.
We believe humanity's earliest sound recordings are the patrimony of all mankind. We present them here under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) license which conveys certain privileges and responsibilities. We encourage everyone everywhere to study and enjoy them.

Email us at info@firstsounds.org.

🦆SYNCHRONIZED DUCKS!🦆

These parallel dabblers really surprised me! I could even hear their busy little bills dribbling and drabbling in the delicious muck. I'm not sure what this is called, really, because "dabbling" actually means dunking their heads under, asses up, to dredge food out of the water. This is more like nibbling. I love how you can actually hear the mucky little sounds they make. I've never seen a mated pair act exactly like this, pretty much mirroring each other, with the odd little tiff as they stake out their own square millimeter of muck. Ah, nature!

A Family Occasion. . .

SILENT VERSION. . . 

Creepy 1961 Computer Sings DAISY (HAL'S song from 2001)!

 

OK then, so this one has OVER FIVE MILLION VIEWS now. It's still rising, along with my subscription count, which is WAY higher than I ever expected. And it's really dumb! But by coincidence, the song, sung by a computer in 1961 (and quoted, slyly, in the movie 2001 when HAL was being shut down) was also "big" on TikTok, which I barely knew about, and now DON'T want to know about because all I hear about it are negative things, and all I've seen of it is pure crap and bad for kids. BUT. . . I didn't put any more effort into this than I did into literally thousands of other videos (I generally post at least one per day). In fact, somewhat less, as all I did was put two videos together which were initially posted well over 10 years ago. More like 12, and on maybe half a dozen other channels. Let's just say it was well within the public domain! But even at that, YouTube ludicrously put a song credit at the bottom so I wouldn't get a copyright strike. It doesn't matter if a HUNDRED other channels post the EXACT same video. I'd still get dinged, and maybe even shut down for good. It's all done by bots - no human being ever sees them - and I have had "warnings" and copyright strikes for the most ludicrous things. You just have to go ahead with it and hope for the best, while watching some of your favorite channels being terminated for doing nothing at all but tell the truth.

🦆A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A DUCK🦆

My nature walks keep me sane, or at least as sane as I can expect to be in these horrific times. I love extreme closeups of mallards, as they seem to have actual facial expressions. Sometimes they're not too happy I'm there, though the zoom lens makes it look as if I am much closer than I am.

Harry and Meghan: THE NOVEL! (not really).

 

What DO they do every day? Harry and Meghan solemnly pledged themselves to a 'life of service' and 'global action' after their Oprah interview - alongside their lucrative work for Netflix and Spotify. So how's it all going? Prepare to be underwhelmed!

• A year after the so-called 'interview of the decade' with Oprah, what have Meghan and Harry actually done? 
• According to our audit, their accomplishments have been scant after promising a 'global wave of service'  
• World events rarely pass without some intervention from Meghan and the self-appointed Prince of Woke
• All in all, the controversial duo's schedule hardly compares with the daily work of the royals they left behind
• The couple can tell whether their year happened as intended but it doesn't seem to have added up to much

By Richard Kay and Barbara Mcmahon For The Daily MailPublished: 17:01 EDT, 11 March 2022 | Updated: 20:07 EDT, 11 March 2022

With its bucking broncos, yee-hawing cowboys and pitchers of cold beer, the Fort Worth Stockyards is a rowdy and testosterone-fuelled throwback to the old days of the American West.

While today tourists throng the mule and horse-barns that were once the last 'civilised' outpost for livestock traders on Texas's famous Chisholm Trail, breeders compete for trophies for their longhorn cattle and prize bulls.

Last weekend, however, there was another spectacle at the first night of its championship rodeo — a Stetson-wearing Prince Harry. 

Judging by the photographs posted online — before they were mysteriously deleted — the Duke of Sussex did not look entirely comfortable.

Perhaps it was the gushing posts that appeared on Instagram. 'We get a lot of rodeo royalty but this is the first prince I've seen,' enthused Cory Melton, a muscular wrangler who breeds bucking bulls. 

Yet his genial observation — which also claimed that Harry was going to enter the bull-riding competition but had lost his 'rigging bag', an essential piece of rodeo kit — was swiftly removed.

As, too, was a message brimming with Southern hospitality from rodeo secretary Cindy Reid, in which she generously thanked Harry for his visit.

No doubt some will wonder if an event reeking of 'toxic masculinity' might sit uneasily with Harry's image as the self-appointed Prince of Woke. But was there, perhaps, another explanation why he might not be pleased to see pictures of himself at the so-called 'Cowtown coliseum'?

The visit coincided almost exactly with the first anniversary of his and Meghan's Oprah Winfrey interview from which, we were assured, a 'global wave of service' would be unleashed by the couple. 

An appearance at a kitsch tourist attraction can hardly be described as an illustration of their 'shared commitment' to a life of good works. Indeed, the embers of their incendiary claims about cruelty, neglect, snobbery and racism aimed at the heart of the Royal Family are still glowing.

More than 50 million people around the world — including 12 million in Britain and 17 million in the U.S. — tuned in to hear Meghan discuss how royal life had made her suicidal, blame sister-in-law Kate for making her cry at a bridesmaids' dress-fitting and, infamously, allege that a member of the Royal Family had questioned what colour her son Archie's skin would be.

The repercussions are still being felt as are the memorably damning soundbites: 'Were you silent, or were you silenced?'; 'My family literally cut me off financially'; and complaints that Archie 'won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title'. 

More significantly, 12 months after the so-called 'interview of the decade', we are entitled to ask what on earth a couple who set themselves the loftiest of standards has actually been doing since — apart from overseeing the stream of platitudes and wearily right-on slogans that are issued with monotonous regularity from the luxury of their nine-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion?

Take, for example, their attendance at last month's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Image Awards, where they accepted the President's Award that recognises special achievement and distinguished public service.

Over the years this venerable organisation — set up in 1909 in response to violence against black people — has handed its most prestigious award to some significant individuals, who have done much to raise the aspirations of America's black population, from boxer Muhammad Ali to preacher-turned-politician Jesse Jackson and former U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

 No wonder questions have been asked about the frankly modest achievements, by comparison, of the duke and duchess.

Yet according to the citation, they received this honour for 'heeding the call to social justice' and 'joining the struggle for equity' in America and around the world.

Doubtless it was merely a coincidence that the media for the awards was organised by Sunshine Sachs, the New York-based public relations outfit that has been advising Meghan since her days as an actress.

Activism, of course, is part of the identity the couple have moulded for themselves since abandoning their royal lives for California. As the website for the Archewell Foundation, their American-registered charity, grandly proclaimed: 'Each of us can change our communities. All of us can change the world.'

But for all this and other high-minded declarations, the 'shared purpose and global action' has not quite materialised.

For instance on her 40th birthday last August Meghan launched her '40 x 40' project, a scheme which asked 40 of the duchess's friends to give 40 minutes of their time to advise women how to get back into the workplace after the Covid-19 pandemic. In a video with actress Melissa McCarthy, Meghan promised the scheme would have a 'ripple' effect across the world as each person asked 40 of their friends to take part and so on.

But what has it accomplished? According to reports, the initiative has since gone rather quiet.

There is one area, of course, where there has not been silence — the various legal battles they have fought with newspapers and broadcasters including The Mail on Sunday, The Sun and the BBC, and more recently, the Home Office, which Harry is suing over the loss of their police protection in the UK, for which he has offered to pay.

It is only fair to point out that the main event in the Sussexes' lives in this 12-month period has been the birth last June of their second child, Lilibet, and Meghan has therefore spent much of the past year on maternity leave.

The Queen has still not met the great-granddaughter given her family nickname and it is not clear when that situation will change.

We now know Harry and Meghan will not attend the thanksgiving service for Prince Philip later this month and their presence at June's Platinum Jubilee celebrations — which coincides with Lilibet's first birthday — is increasingly uncertain. In fact, relations between the Sussexes and the Royal Family have barely improved since the Oprah 'truth-bombs'.

If anything, they have worsened. Harry's revelation that he has collaborated with a ghostwriter on a tell-all memoir, due out this autumn, has spread a deep anxiety across the royal household. 

A well-placed source this week told the Mail that the Royal Family were 'absolutely dreading' its publication. 'God knows what one-eyed nonsense will be in it,' the source said. The fear that its contents could overshadow the Queen's anniversary is more intense than those that surrounded Prince Andrew before he settled his sex-abuse lawsuit.

We understand that recent reports that Harry and his father are in frequent contact are wide of the mark. Prince Charles is often unavailable when his son calls and, because he does not have a mobile phone, Harry relies on officials to patch him through when he does ring. And that is often not possible.

This is an extraordinary case of history repeating itself. At the height of the marital differences between Harry's parents, Princess Diana was similarly thwarted in phone calls to both Charles and other senior royals.

And in both cases there has been an issue of trust. Thirty years ago, Charles never forgave Diana for leaking intimate family secrets to author Andrew Morton. Now, Palace aides believe Harry could damage Charles's hopes of making his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, his queen if he raises new questions about her role in the break-up of his father and mother's marriage.

Pointedly, Harry was silent when the Queen announced her stated wish that Camilla should be her son's queen when the time comes — rather than a mere princess consort as was originally planned

There has been at least one phone call between Charles and his son where voices were raised.

As a friend of Charles says: 'Simply put, the worry is how on earth will things be resolved if Harry is unkind about Camilla.'

As for Harry's relationship with his brother, that has still not recovered from the Oprah interview — and the allegations (still being investigated) that Meghan had bullied royal staff, something that Meghan's lawyers have denied.

Whether the Duchess of Sussex ever returns to Britain remains to be seen. She was absent from Prince Philip's funeral because of her pregnancy and did not accompany Harry to the unveiling of his mother's statue in Kensington Gardens in July.

Glimpses even in the U.S. have been rare. Her first post-Oprah appearance was in the trailer for The Me You Can't See, an American documentary series on mental health featuring Harry, the singer Lady Gaga and actress Glenn Close. Then there was her toe-curling turn on the Ellen DeGeneres show where she took part in a skit, drinking from a baby's bottle and singing a song about kittens.

Television is, of course, crucial to the Sussex brand. Their biggest commercial deal on moving to the U.S. was a £75 million contract to make shows for Netflix. And what do they have to show for that? Precious little so far.

Only two series are thought to be in the pipeline — Heart Of Invictus about Harry's initiative for wounded warriors, the Invictus Games, and an animated show titled Pearl, the adventures of a 12-year-old girl inspired by influential women in history. Meghan and David Furnish, Sir Elton John's husband, are producers.

So what else have they done since that Oprah spectacular? Have they achieved even one of their ambitions, or has it been a year of living aimlessly?

The answer, according to our audit, suggests accomplishments have been scant. Two weeks after Oprah, Harry was unveiled as 'chief impact officer' for mental 'wellness' app BetterUp, described as 'a platform for coaching and mental fitness' in the workplace.

On May 3, the duke was a participant on stage at the 'Vax Live' awareness concert at the SoFi stadium in California with artists such as Jennifer Lopez and the Foo Fighters and which called on world leaders to make Covid vaccines available all over the world.

A fortnight later he was happily filmed going through therapy on an Apple TV+ series that focused on the importance of mental health. Four days after the birth of their daughter, Meghan published her children's book The Bench, with hundreds of copies given away free to schools and children's libraries across the U.S.

Although it became a New York Times bestseller within a week of release, overall sales are said to be disappointing. Certainly, it has not been flying off shelves at the couple's local book store, Tecolote in Montecito. A store saleswoman was reported saying: 'Meghan has never come into the shop.'

On July 1, Harry was in London for the flying visit to unveil, alongside William, the Princess Diana statue outside Kensington Palace. Then, 18 days later, came the bombshell announcement from Penguin Random House of his autobiography with his grandiose statement: 'I'm writing this not as the prince I was born [sic] but as the man I've become.'

World events rarely pass without some kind of intervention from the Sussexes. Thus, on August 17, with Kabul in crisis following the return of the Taliban, they issued a statement about the 'many layers of pain' in Afghanistan while also pontificating on the humanitarian disaster in Haiti following an earthquake.

So far so predictable. Making the cover of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People issue last September was surely validation for all their endeavours.

Next stop New York, where then mayor Bill de Blasio pulled out all the stops for the couple's 'royal' visit. On stage at the Global Citizen Live, a 24-hour broadcast from Central Park, on September 25, they held hands.

Intriguingly, their participation came after Global Citizen was named Organisation of the Year at the 2021 American Business Awards — nominated by none other than . . . Sunshine Sachs.

Six weeks later, the couple were back in the Big Apple for the November 11 Salute to Freedom gala, which honoured military veterans and to which Harry wore his insignia as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO), a medal he received from the Queen.

That same month, Meghan was criticised for using her royal title to lobby U.S. senators on the issue of paid parental leave.

Then came the couple's Christmas card — showing the first photo of their daughter — and its cheesy message: 'Archie made us a Mama and Papa, and Lili made us a family.'

In February, Harry opened up to BetterUp about how he sets aside 45 minutes a day to 'build resilience' and meditate. He admitted to 'burning the candle at both ends' before he learnt how to embrace what he described as 'inner work'.

All in all, the couple's schedule hardly compares with the daily work of the royals they left behind.

So might this indicate they have been busier in their private lives?

The evidence does not suggest so. They have shared information about Archie's chicken coop and in April there was footage of them playing with their new dog Pula on the beach in Montecito.

Last month, accompanied by his cousin Princess Eugenie, Harry was photographed at the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, American football's blue riband event. And on February 22, Harry, Meghan, Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank were pictured dining out in Santa Barbara.

But sightings in their neighbourhood are rare. Harry has been spotted pootling on an electric bike while being trailed by his security team and also at the wheel of his Range Rover. He has also been seen buying groceries while Meghan was spotted in December carrying bags from the Pierre LaFond delicatessen.

They did attend the town's July 4 parade. But according to Sharon Byrne of the Montecito Association, 'no one knew it was them'. And they contributed as sponsors for Montecito's Christmas parade.

With so few local appearances, rumours circulated that they may even have moved out — but this does not appear to be the case.

Certainly, locals are protective of their celebrity residents.

For example when reporter Richard Mineards revealed that Archie had taken his first riding lesson, he did not name the upmarket stables he attended.

But it's always been that way in Montecito. There are no 'maps to the stars' or tour buses past their homes, as in Beverly Hills.

A neighbour who has lived near the Sussexes' property said he had never clapped eyes on them. 'I've only ever seen their security,' he said.

The bodyguards who constantly patrol the couple's perimeter fence in golf carts are far more visible.

Only Harry and Meghan can say whether a year that began with the hype and rage of their Oprah interview has turned out quite how they intended.

On the face of it, however, it doesn't seem to have added up to much.

🥣CRAZY CEREAL LADIES!

I love old commercials more than life itself, and I can't resist playing around with them a bit. I was amazed how many views this got! I am nearing 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. Never expected it!

Ferociousgumby's YouTube Channel! Check it out!

🦆 Squeaky-toy Duck: It's a WIGEON!

The wigeons are back! After a long, cold, lonely winter, spring and the birds have finally arrived. Birds are my spiritual salvation, so this is no small thing for me.

💀SUPER-CREEPY! SKULL FACE appears on fallen log💀

Strange are the things I find on my walks around Como Lake. Even stranger is the fact that this is the first time I noticed it, though I've been walking around the lake for at least five years.

Lament for the world

PSALM 74      A maskil of Asaph.

¹ O God, why have you rejected us forever?
    Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
² Remember the nation you purchased long ago,
    the people of your inheritance, whom you redeemed—
    Mount Zion, where you dwelt.
³ Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins,
    all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary.

⁴ Your foes roared in the place where you met with us;
    they set up their standards as signs.
⁵ They behaved like men wielding axes
    to cut through a thicket of trees.
⁶ They smashed all the carved paneling
    with their axes and hatchets.
⁷ They burned your sanctuary to the ground;
    they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.
⁸ They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely!”
    They burned every place where God was worshiped in the land.

⁹ We are given no signs from God;
    no prophets are left,
    and none of us knows how long this will be.
¹⁰ How long will the enemy mock you, God?
    Will the foe revile your name forever?
¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
    Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!

¹² But God is my King from long ago;
    he brings salvation on the earth.

¹³ It was you who split open the sea by your power;
    you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.
¹⁴ It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
    and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.
¹⁵ It was you who opened up springs and streams;
    you dried up the ever-flowing rivers.
¹⁶ The day is yours, and yours also the night;
    you established the sun and moon.
¹⁷ It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;
    you made both summer and winter.

¹⁸ Remember how the enemy has mocked you, Lord,
    how foolish people have reviled your name.
¹⁹ Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;
    do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.
²⁰ Have regard for your covenant,
    because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.
²¹ Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace;
    may the poor and needy praise your name.
²² Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
    remember how fools mock you all day long.
²³ Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries,
    the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually. 

CORSET LADIES RIDE SIDESADDLE in Victorian photos

A particular aspect of Victorian culture was the sidesaddle. For the sake of modesty, women were not allowed to ride astride - such things were indelicate, if not immoral. But what amazes me is how a woman could attain great heights of horsemanship sitting sideways on a saddle that was flat as a chair, with only one stirrup and a HUGE, voluminous skirt hanging down to her high-buttoned shoes - not to mention a very tight corset which restricted her breathing. Some of these shots are of trick riders, who still managed to do things like jump rope on horseback - sitting sideways! For a while, divided skirts were allowed, but this may have been the influence of the bicycle, which became wildly popular with women as it gave them a measure of freedom they hadn't known before. They could even get away from "mashers" without having to stab them with a hatpin. But even bicycles were frowned upon in some quarters as being too "stimulating" in an intimate way. Victorian women just couldn't catch a break.

BLOGGER'S NOTE! I just realized that one of these women is the world-famous sharp-shooter and horsewoman, Annie Oakley! She was a pattern breaker in a totally male-dominated field, outshooting all her rivals with a rock-steady hand - even once winning a competition with a broken arm. But even she couldn't ride astride - it was too indelicate.

😾BENTLEY'S IN THE PICTURE!💗

This is a bit of a classic: Bentley trying to be right inside a TV program. It was a Nature of Things documentary about CATS, and though he has never given the TV a second glance, he jumped right up and began to paw the screen as if to try to get inside. By the end, he is posing very elegantly along with his fellow "video cats".

"Ah, the French" - Orson Welles REMIX

Part Two of the Orson Welles wine ad that made me laugh for the first time in YEARS.

Orson Welles Drunk Outtakes for Paul Masson Wine Commercial

"AHHHH! The French. . ." I found this gem late at night, and COULD NOT stop laughing, until tears rolled down my face. Then it struck me with a certain shock that I had not laughed like that in . . . years. I could not tell how many. And yet, I cry almost weekly. I don't know what that means, but I am grateful to the spirit of Orson Welles for giving me a good laugh, AT LAST.

CRAZY '80s CELLPHONE LADY!

What can I say? You could build some mighty muscles lifting one of these.

💀TOXIC SMOKE: Cigarettes are KOOL!

Come up. Come up. Come ALL THE WAY UP . . . to Kool. Or lung cancer.

1000 Baby Turtles, 100 Little Dolls

 

I can say nothing about this gorgeous work of art  (so I'll say something): it symbolizes every summer I ever spent at the cottage, sand on my feet, still wrapped in the innocence of pre-puberty, the Jimmy Olsen Annual clutched in my hand, and all my life (such as it was) still ahead of me. Beach sand and lake water and very short, very short holidays, and long periods of wondering what these marvels would look like if we really had them. No one I knew ever sent away for them, perhaps because the addresses were always in the States somewhere. It was just too intimidating.

Were my comic book ads ever this lovely? I doubt it, and I think they left out some of the most important ones:

The "100 Little Dolls". They were little all right, an inch and a half tall, kind of like those plastic soldiers that stood up on a base, but much more slender. I've seen pictures of them, and they remind me of those plastic cocktail skewers that look like things or people. 

These are now a valued collectible on eBay, for much more than $1. These dolls were made "not of paper or rags but of STYRENE plastic and hard synthetic rubber," a wonder-substance in those days. The dolls were described as having a strange quality known as "Lilliputian cuteness", a bizarre expression if ever there was one, and one that no child (and few adults) would understand unless they had read Jonathan Swift.

I think you had to sell something here - photos, this time, which might have been a somewhat easier sell than going door-to-door with salve. I wonder if anyone ever did "win" the chihuahua in a teacup. I feel sorry for a tiny dog, likely sent through the mail, traumatized. They don't even call it a chihuahua, but a "miniature dog".

Here is the text, or as much of it as I can read:

"I'll be happy to send you without you paying a penny, this lovable, young miniature DOG that is so tiny you can carry it in your pocket or hold it in one hand, yet it barks and is a reliable watch dog as well as a pet. You can keep it in a shoe box and enjoy many amusing hours teaching it tricks. . . active, healthy, intelligent and clean. Simply hand out only 20 get-acquainted coupons to friends and relatives to help us get that many new customers as per our premium letter. I enjoy my own lively, tiny dog so much. It is such wonderful company that I'm sure you'll simply love one yourself."

I can't find any accounts from people who actually did get the dog, but there are a couple of horrendous stories about the fabled squirrel monkey, and they are so horrible - the worst animal abuse I can think of - that I won't recount them here. People were actually surprised that their monkey bit them, acted terrified, and pooped on the floor. One of the stories was supposed to be "humorous" and appeared on national public radio. Shame on them - it was a story of abject animal suffering and terror, which - surprise! - is NOT FUNNY.

Another mystery, Grog. I wondered how this would work. Would it be sort of like those Hawaiian ti plants that used to be so popular then? They "grew like mad" too, except I could never get one to grow.

"GROG GROWS OWN TAIL. PLANT TAIL OUTSIDE AND IT GROWS LIKE MAD INTO A  BEAUTIFUL SHADE TREE! Grog, amazing prehistoric monster, comes with half-a-tail. In a few days the tail starts growing. It grows, grows, g-r-o-w-s. Remove the tail from Grog's body and plant it outside and it springs quickly into a flowering, fragrant shade tree. Then Grog grows another tail. Remove the tail again and he grows another, and another. . . endlessly. Only $1 plus 25 cents postage. Satisfaction or money back."

And then there were the baby turtles. I never even hoped for these. They just seemed too good to even dream about:

At first, of course, I thought you'd send away for 1000 baby turtles, which made me wonder where I'd keep them all, how I could hide them from my mother. You could get live baby turtles at the Metropolitan (what used to be called a "dime store", an expression you still hear once in a while), along with a plastic tank with a ramp in it, and a plastic palm tree. I was astonished to find out that you can still get these - they're called turtle lagoons - and that people still keep actual turtles in them. In Canada they're banned, for some reason - perhaps they smuggle contraband under their shells.

 

"Here's one of the most exciting toys you've ever owned. Just think - a baby turtle all your own. What's more, a real growing garden to keep him in, a garden you plant and grow all by yourselef. You can teach him to recognize you when you feed him. Watch him swim - see how he pulls his head and feet into his shell when he's frightened. You can have turtle races - you can make a" (oh, fuck the rest). I don't like the idea of calling a living creature a "toy", but I guess that was the attitude back then. The turtle likely wouldn't survive shipment anyway.

And how cool is this? You could actually grow, harvest and eat the peanuts. Maybe sell them! Except that it would never work in Southwestern Ontario, with our three feet of snow in the winter, and the ground like iron. The text is a little too small/boring to transcribe. 

I confess I didn't see these ads until I found them on Google. Just as well. Why didn't we see how creepy these things were? It's kind of like the way we didn't see the creepiness of clowns. Back then, "rubber wonderskin" was a GOOD thing.  A cowboy ventriloquist's dummy smoking a cigarette was something every boy ought to have.

And these need no explanation.

                        

Dancing Dawn Fashion Doll

💀FANATIC: a face in the crowd💀

This few seconds of film has haunted me for years. I did not give it a context, because I felt it was more powerful if I didn't - and YouTube would likely brand it as "hate content"if I did.  But in truth, it's historic footage, because it provides a tiny glimpse into the phenomenon of mass worship/hysteria and how easily the mindless crowds can be swept along. The woman with the crazed look in her eyes, almost fainting from rapture, is eerie and disturbing in the extreme. She would likely do ANYTHING for the cause - which in this case was world domination through mass extermination. It didn't work, but if the rest of the world hadn't risen up in protest and marshalled all their forces, it could have. Watch troops goose-stepping in North Korea, and you will see the same mentality, the same dreadful uniformity. Read the news about what is happening right now in Ukraine, five million desperate refugees fleeing for their lives, and you will tremble. What is wrong with the human race, and can I opt out now and be something else?

GOOSE PARADE!

😾BEDTIME for BENTLEY: Sleepy, yawny kitty is begging for treats!💗

Bentley and I have a bedtime ritual which never varies. He has to beg for (no, ASK for his treats) by raising his paw. Undignified for a cat like Bentley, but if he wants his treats badly enough, he does it. 

"Hello, my Baby" (or: time capsule full of shyte)

Newly Unearthed Time Capsule is Just Full Of Useless Old Crap

TOPEKA, KS—A deep sense of disappointment gripped the citizens of Topeka, KS, Tuesday, when a 60-year-old time capsule unearthed from the site of a demolished library was found to contain a bunch of useless old crap.

"What were the people who buried this thing thinking?" asked Topeka mayor Donald Kirschward, following a capsule-opening ceremony at Topeka Town Hall. "None of this stuff is worth a red cent. It's all a bunch of stupid, worthless junk: newspapers, photographs, children's toys, sheet music, a pen knife, an iron and some rusty kitchen appliances. Big deal."

The capsule—a large wooden crate bearing the words, "For The People Of The Future, So That They May Come To Know Us"—is believed to have been buried in 1939 during the dedication of the just-built Topeka Public Library. Earlier this month, as the library was torn down to make room for a new Steak & Shake, demolitions workers came across the capsule, which had been sealed in the building's cornerstone.

Though the capsule also bore the instructions, "Not to be unsealed until 2939 A.D.," civic leaders decided it should be opened as soon as possible.

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"Everyone was very excited about the capsule," Kirschward said. "We thought, 'What if it contains gold? Or pirate treasure? Or a deed to a diamond mine?' We also figured that by the time 2939 rolled around, folks would probably know how to synthesize gold and other precious metals anyway, so why let them get all the good stuff when we could really use it now?"

As word got around Topeka that the contents of a circa-1939 time capsule were to be revealed in a public ceremony, rumors about its contents began to fly. Local residents conjectured that it contained everything from solid-gold Egyptian tomb idols to the British crown jewels to vials of pure uranium.

"The speculation really got ridiculous," Kirschward said. "How would a Kansas farm town get a hold of Egyptian tomb idols, especially during the Depression? It's just absurd. Now, Disney stock certificates, that's what I was counting on."

But when the capsule was finally opened, a collective groan rose up among Topeka residents. Instead of treasure, the capsule merely yielded banal items of everyday function. Among the "artifacts" were photographs of prominent Topeka residents, postcards of town landmarks, a spoon, a vacuum tube, a measuring pitcher, an alarm clock, a Bakelite comb, a washboard, a pair of spectacles, a die-cast toy car, a Sears-Roebuck catalog, a pair of leather shoes made in the now-defunct Topeka Shoe Works, detailed statistics of Topeka County's 1938 agricultural output, and a stack of hand-written county birth records.

"The first question was, 'Why?' Why would the town fathers bury a box full of junk?" Kirschward asked. "A letter included with the time capsule explained that the items are designed to give future generations an idea of how people lived and what life was like in Atchison in 1939. Well, who cares about that?"

Added Kirschward: "Yeah, pretty impressive, people of 1939. Thanks for giving us the priceless, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look at all of your old garbage."

Perhaps the most unusual item in the capsule was an elaborately calligraphed document titled, "A Proclamation To The Peoples Of The Distant Future."

"It is our profound hope," the document read, "that as the clouds of war once again darken the Earth here in 1939, you, our descendants of the year 2939, will have come to realize that the destruction of civilization in the name of nationalism is too great a price to bear. It is also our hope that peace, harmony and prosperity will embrace your world as it has eluded ours."

"Boring!" said Cub Foods cashier Sherri Gower, 20, who witnessed the capsule-opening ceremony during a cigarette break. "It would've been a lot more interesting if they'd included something cool, like a signed murder confession from a famous citizen or a severed hand or something. Instead, they give us some big lecture about how bad war is. Well, duh."

University of Kansas history professor Dr. Curtis Dandridge said the capsule's dullness is a reflection of the time from which it came.

"The 1930s were one of the most boring eras in American history," Dandridge said. "People didn't have a lot of money or education, so they amused themselves in simple ways. Yes, there were movies, but they were in crude black-and-white and didn't have any swearing, nudity or special effects. Radio also existed, but the programs were hokey and old-fashioned. So planting a time capsule was, for these people, a departure from their horribly dull routines. But their poverty, combined with their naïvete and limited knowledge of the world, left them no choice but to put cheap, uninteresting stuff in their time capsule."

The capsule's contents are currently being stored in a broom closet in Topeka Town Hall.

- The Onion

UPDATE: Jazz, Exulansic, and the phenomenon of detransitioning

 

(PLEASE NOTE. This entire post is a repeat from 2014, so you'd think it would be hopelessly out of date. It isn't. Since I published it, expressing my concerns about the seeming stampede towards flipping one's gender identity just because it seems like a cool idea, we have been inundated with pushback against the dreadful, stomach-lurching phenomenon of ten-year-old children being given Lupron, a treatment for prostate cancer, to deliberately suppress puberty so that they can "transition" more easily to the gender they SHOULD have been born into. God makes mistakes, apparently, pretty bad ones, but not as bad as humans continually make.

There's just too much on this subject to even begin to deal with: the jaw-dropping TLC show I Am Jazz, the blistering gender-critical posts of one TT Exulansic (since banned from YouTube and taking refuge on Odysee), and a new wave of young people discovering they made an awful mistake and want to try to find their way back.

TT Exulansic (gender-critical content)

So this is supposedly old stuff, but I still mean all of it, and then some.)

https://www.outsports.com/2019/10/15/20915287/lgbt-sports-history-christine-daniels-transgender-transition-death

Though it is far from the complete picture and is definitely slanted towards conventional transgender ideology  this article at least attempts to address the complex, thorny, politically- and socially-charged issue of gender identity, which is (as far as I am concerned) impossible to untangle from human identity. In this case, in spite of a valiant effort, it all went disastrously wrong. I believe the current prevailing attitude is to believe that if a person is unhappy with their birth gender, transitioning will help them be "who they really are", and as a result, much happier and more fulfilled. If a person's experience does not fit this preconceived idea, everyone gets very uncomfortable.

In this case, Christine Daniels initially embraced a lifestyle that seemed to fit the new woman she had become via surgery and hormones. But the internal conflict was brutal and never resolved, and she committed suicide before even reaching a truce. She found it impossible to be a "real woman" because there were just too many hoops to jump through.  Myself, I often wonder why women's identity seems so bound up in hair extensions, makeup and stilettos, all the trappings that social pressure demands must be done as perfectly as possible. To "pass" (a rather shocking word used in this piece), you have to get everything right.

As for myself, and most of the women I know, we don't feel that pressure, at least not in midlife. It's not that we're slobs. The inside may well match the outside, if the inside isn't shallow and vain and obsessed with appearances. And here I talk of the popular culture at large, the whole Kardashian monstrosity of instant celebrity/rampant narcissism. 
It's distressingly mainstream, and seems to indicate that so long as a transgender person matches up, everything's fine. But there are undercurrents, and I did stumble across a provocative statement from a plastic surgeon who has stopped doing gender reassignment surgery because from what he has observed, people are no happier post-surgery than they were before. But again, that's something we just don't say.

In digging into all this, I found statements to the effect that only a microscopic proportion of transgendered people ever feel any regret about their decision, maybe 1/10 of 1%. Then another article says no statistics have ever been kept. How to set up such a study, then, when everyone is so uncomfortable even with the idea? I'm not saying "study transgender regret so people will stop having sex changes" - I'm not Archie Bunker. I'm saying that whenever I see fog or a dense curtain, I have an overwhelming desire to see what's behind it. Knowledge is the only way to clarity. There is just so much we don't yet know. 

Other things float to the surface. There used to be a regulation that a candidate live as the opposite sex for two years before undergoing surgery. Then it was one year. Now it's down to six months. Hey, I'm not saying "don't transition," I'm just saying don't keep accelerating the whole process at the speed of light (typical of our "no waiting" mentality with its microscopic attention span) until it's down to nothing. My feeling is that it would be crucial for a candidate to have a substantial span of time to feel out what it's like, really like, the good, the bad and the indifferent, especially with regards to existing relationships.

I don't know about any of this because I haven't been through it. But I can talk about gender, see, because I seem to have one. I don't want to be male, though there are days when being female, particularly an older female, is kind of a drag (if you'll pardon the expression). Though I love being a grandma, and I like men's bodies if they're nice ones, and I really love the way men smell (especially good-smelling ones), making me "traditionally female" in some people's books, I refuse all molds and categories. Throughout my life, most of my close friends have been men (some of them even gay! Shrieks of horror!), I love looking at photos of women in Victorian gowns which might be seen as gay-ish (but I don't care, and even cherish it), and for the most part, I identify not as male or female, nor even androgynous, but human.

I do wonder however, whenever I delve into this subject, particularly with MTF transition, why there is such a tremendous emphasis on appearance. There are even  schools where the transitioning can learn how to act like women, how to walk and talk and speak like a proper lady rather than a flower girl (so to speak). It's real finishing-school stuff, which fork to use, balancing a book on your head, etc. Amazes and dismays me that we focus on something so relatively shallow. I'd flunk that course for sure. If anyone tried to show me "how to act like a woman", I'd bite them. Where it hurts. 

POST-BLOG-POST BLOG POST: (or something). Yes, I've furthermore found just tons of stuff on this, and it is alarming. I think it's an example of activism at its worst, starting off with a clear purpose and even good intentions, then snowballing into an alarming imperative of "we-think" (and there is nothing more deadly than "we-think", because "we" lose our individuality), eventually forcing conformity to new and equally soul-destroying norms. 

In other words, if anybody in the "transgender community" bails, reverses, detransitions, or just desires to sort out their own human complexity in some new and less-entrenched way, they are not just ostracized but attacked. Meantime the "detransitioners" (awful terms, sorry) are beginning to point out that the medical establishment, the new, cool, socially-enlightened medical establishment (you know, the one that doesn't exist) has been a major force behind a lot of current thinking about gender reassignment and the "surgical cure". It's getting easier and faster all the time to get this shit done, which means there's not much time for changing your mind.

Am I the only one that gets queasy about all this? News stories are presented with soft-focus light and tender music, depicting Jesse, a 5-year-old boy who knows he's a girl because he plays with Barbies rather than trucks. (No kidding, it all comes down to that. If we are what we play with, then I guess I must be a pail of frogs.)

Then we hear that Jessica's parents (they're calling him Jessica now) plan to give him hormone-blockers to suppress male puberty, just so's he'll be more comfortable with himself as he slowly turns into a . . . girl?

It pushes us all, I think, into deep and spooky realms. Who are we? What's male, what's female, besides our anatomy which sometimes seems crucial (when having a baby, for example), and sometimes utterly irrelevant? Why is it so hard to get past, if it isn't that big a deal? 

But maybe it IS that big a deal.

I haven't failed to notice, in the many stories I've recently read, that when a confused, pain-filled man rushes to embrace a new female identity, there's a rash of facial plastic surgery (Caitlin Jenner, anyone?), with the usual bizarre, puffy-lipped, ping-pong-cheeked results, followed by magazine photo-shoots of the New Woman wrapped in tight leopardskin and sprawling on the floor with a provocative expression and fuck-me shoes. Her hair, the new hair, the extremely perfect salon hair styled to look casual, wafts gently back in an electric-fan breeze. This is somebody's idea of a woman, and my idea of a "what??"

Dismays me, is all. Dismays me that people who insist they are really women inside have to go through such a meat grinder to pass inspection. Please! These are cartoons.

(Just a kicker at the end. Under the heading "victories" on the sexchangeregret.com site is this strange message from "Robert John". It appears that lurking behind this supposed attempt to unmask an uncomfortable truth is an even more uncomfortable truth - fundamentalist Christianity. It's mentioned nowhere else on the site.)

I had irreversible gender reassignment surgery in 1997 absolutely convinced I was a woman in a man's body. I anticipated living happily ever after, however I had persistent difficulties and fell into deep depression. I began reading the Bible, unsatisfied with superficial proclamations of diversity, inclusiveness,and tolerance. I happened upon King David's famous repentance Psalm 51 and discovered, like David, I could be forgiven for all my sins. I also learned God chastens those whom He loves and I was being guided to seek repentance, and faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. I knew identifying as a woman was not living in truth,and returned to my given names and birth gender without further surgery.

My victory has come by allowing the Lord in my heart, becoming God-focused instead of self-centered, and am thankful for my birth sex and many blessings. despite the consequences and challenges. God has led me to witness His truth and love, and I can testify: indeed, God's grace, mercy and truth do set one free.

God bless,
Robert John