Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 30: A Song You'd Like Played At Your Funeral

And complete...at last.

Day 30: A Song You'd Like Played At Your Funeral

Since I've always thought I'll die before or at the age of 30 (I dunno.  Somewhere around there) I've had my funeral planned for a while.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 29: One Song That Gives You the Creeps

Almost done!

Day 29: One Song That Gives You the Creeps

And we come back around to Garbage once again.  Something about the song Happy Home just TOTALLY wigs me out.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 28: One Song That Needs to Never Be Played Again

This was another very simple one...

Day  28: One Song That Needs to Never Be Played Again

Strippers dance to it, Def Leppard fans rock to it.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 27: One Song in Your MP3 Folder You're Pretty Sure No One Else Has

Pretty sure I've nothing THAT obscure...

Day 27: One Song in Your MP3 Folder You're Pretty Sure No One Else Has

I do have a fair number of songs that I'm pretty sure not many people have.Like

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 26: Your Favorite Movie Video

Another easy one for me!

Day 26: Your Favorite Movie Video

Hands down, the best ever is the video for Queen's Princes of the Universe which intercut footage from the film Highlander with footage of the band (and Highlander star Christopher Lambert).

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 25: Your Favorite Song From 2010 (So Far)

Haven't heard much impressive music so far this year.

Day 25: Your Favorite Song From 2010 (So Far)

Of all the music I've heard so far, I've found one really great new song.  Stone Sour's single Say You'll Haunt Me caught my attention, however, and hasn't let me go.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 24: Your Favorite Cover Song

Can't believe I've made it this far.

Day 24: Your Favorite Cover Song

You probably think this is gonna be another Garbage one, don't you?  Wrong.  It's Nirvana this time.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 23: Your Favorite Duet

This one was REALLY easy.

Day 23:  Your Favorite Duet

I love the movie Victor/Victoria, and my favorite number is the Julie Andrews/Robert Preston duet You and Me.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 22: Your Favorite Song From a Movie

Songs from movies...geez, so many.

Day 22: Your Favorite Song From a Movie

I guess I'd have to go with a song from the great rock opera The Phantom of the Paradise.  This movie has a lot of fantastic songs sung by a lot of great performers, but my favorite is Special to Me as sung by Jessica Harper.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 21: A Song That Makes You Want to Break Stuff

Usually music calms me down...

Day 21: A Song That Makes You Want to Break Stuff

When in doubt, go for a song about anarchy.  Namely, Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 20: Your Favorite Breakup Song

This one wasn't so hard as the previous...

Day 20: Your Favorite Breakup Song

Well folks, it's Garbage again, with the song Can't Cry These Tears off their 2001 album Beautiful Garbage.
I know, I know, I'm a Garbage-obsessed freak.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 19: Your Favorite Love Song

Love songs kinda suck.

Day 19: Your Favorite Love Song

I'm a sucker for love songs with a maudlin side.  We're talking lost love with the hope of a return.  It was a hard choice, but I picked Last Kiss.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 18: An Instrumental Song You Like

So many great instrumentals...

Day 18: An Instrumental Song You Like

I've always been partial to the guitar piece Classical Gas.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 17: The Last Song in Your MP3 Folder

 This is a song I don't listen to nearly enough.

Day 17: The Last Song in Your MP3 Folder

I got this song via Spinner's Free MP3 of the Day, and I rather like it, though it's not my topper or anything.  The Pains of Being Pure at Heart has the sort of band name I love, and this song, Young Adult Friction, is just fantastic.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 16: The First Song in Your MP3 Folder

This one took some juggling since my songs are sequestered into sub-folders...

Day 16: The First Song in Your MP3 Folder

I shifted all of my songs temporarily into a single MP3 set folder, and the first one was...#1 Crush, by Garbage.  Many of you have probably heard the Nellee Hooper remix that featured on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet, but this is the version that was a B-side to one of Garbage's first singles, Vow.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 15: A Song You Liked in High School

Hard to narrow this one down.

Day 15: A Song You Liked in High School

Technically, the song Pink, by Aerosmith, came out a couple of years before I was in high school.  Still, by the time high school rolled around, the song was still getting some play on radio stations I listened to, and it caught me up for some reason.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 14: A Song From the Year You Were Born

 I'm gonna go with an easy one that EVERYONE remembers...

Day 14: A Song From the Year You Were Born

Possibly one of the best-known songs from 1985 is that multi-celeb charity hit We Are the World.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 13: A Song You Sing in the Shower

We'll just pretend that this applies to me; as if I would sing in the shower.

Day 13: A Song You Sing in the Shower

 A while back, The Simpsons did yet another episode about Marge and Homer's dating days.  This one was bumped up from the 70s/80s to the early 90s, of course, since the show itself has since progressed (with no aging of characters, this being a cartoon).  The Homer of this ep became a Grunge singer and, with his band Sadgasm performed a little song called Margerine.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 12: A Song That Makes You Want to Have Sex

I was nearly stopped dead by this one, as sex is something that I no longer do at this point in my life, nor do I plan to do it at any time in the future.  (PS: Today's my birthday.  Just so you know.)

Day 12: A Song That Makes You Want to Have Sex

I'm going with a song that used to make me want to have sex.  That song, ladies and gents and sundry, is Queer, by Garbage.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 11: A Song That Reminds You of Your Mother

Ah, finally, something about the parent I liked better and loved more!

Day 11: A Song That Reminds You of Your Mother.

The reason this song makes me think of Mum is because it comes from what I think of as "her era" and, when she was young, like in high school, Mum looked a little like Brenda Lee, the most famous singer of the number.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 10: A Song That Reminds You of Your Father

Let's just put this one in the category of "But I have serious father issues and don't really like to think about him" and do it anyhow.

Day 10: A Song That Reminds You of Your Father

My father was no trucker, but he was a fan of singer Red Sovine, who sang a lot of songs about truckers.  One of the songs I heard him play the most was "Phantom 309".

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 9: A Song That Reminds You of an Ex

One problem: which song and which ex?  'Cos there are a few of each...

Day 9: A Song Which Reminds You of an Ex

I chose, for various reasons, "Back of a Car" by one of my fave bands, Big Star.  I'm a sucker for most of this band's catalogue, and when I learned back in March that Alex Chilton had died, I wept.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 8: One Band/Singer Whose Popularity You Will Never Understand

This one was rather easy...

Day 8: One Band/Singer Whose Popularity You Will Never Understand

Justin Bieber, okay?  Like I said yesterday, I don't get sucked into the tween/teen pop.  I get that maybe this guy fits the teen heartthrob mold of being bland and non-threatening with just a hint of "edge", but I just don't see how he achieved earth-shattering fame.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 7: One Band/Singer You're Ashamed to Admit You Like

This one took some real thought.

Day 7: One Band/Singer You're Ashamed to Admit You Like

I've always prided myself on NOT getting sucked into the tween/teen popster trap.  Most of those kids are annoying, far too peppy, and can't sing worth a damn without auto-tune shoved down their throats.  Also, most of them sing through their noses (It works for Barbra Streisand, kids, but you are not her).  However, I've found myself rather enjoying the singing of Miranda Cosgrove, a girl who got her start in the film School of Rock and the Nickelodeon show Drake and Josh before moving on to her own series, iCarly.

Book Review: Love is a Mix Tape

I honestly hesitated to write this review.  I hesitated because I knew it meant reading the book again, and that meant another round of laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe and crying so hard that I thought I'd never stop.

I had to write this review.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 6: Your Favorite Band

This should make it apparent that I'm forever stuck in the past to a degree.

Day 6: Your Favorite Band.

I know that it's fashionable, when a band has come to define a certain type/genre of music, for those "in the know" to trash them as "not really ________".  The Sex Pistols were "not really Punk", Nirvana was "not really Grunge", etc., etc.  Well, screw that.  I don't care what a band was or wasn't, or how they're judged just because they got famous.  Nirvana's my favorite band and always will be. 

She Must've Been Asking For It...

Seriously...that line up there?  I thought we were over that as an excuse for a woman getting harassed/treated like a sex object/raped/etc.  Apparently not.

I didn't care much when the story of reporter Inez Sainz being allegedly harassed by members of the New York Jets football team broke.  It seemed sort of the typical thing, and she wasn't even the one to file the major complaint.  But then, I heard people on the news saying that, because she wore tight jeans, she was asking for it.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 5: Your Favorite Female Singer

If you know me, you might be able to guess this one.

Day 5: Your Favorite Female Singer

It's Shirley Manson.  No competition here, at least not where I'm concerned.  Shirley's a kick-ass singer and a great person and she doesn't take guff from anyone; she's her own person. 

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 4: Your Favorite Male Singer

Occasionally, I have odd taste in music and singers.  I don't think this will be a case of that, however.

Day 4: Your Favorite Male Singer.

I love a lot of voices.  Most people have, at best, one song stuck in their head at any given time; I have usually four different versions of the same song, all by different singers, trying to decide who I like the best.  But if I have to narrow it down to one singer, I'll pick Gavin Rossdale. 

The Various VMA Flaps

Pictured: TEH HORRA!

So if you didn't watch the MTV Video Music Awards last night, everyone is OMG SO OFFENDED/SHOCKED because Lady Gaga wore a dress made from meat.  She had previously done so on a magazine cover and caused a rather minor stir.  Now, though, she had the effrontery to wear such a thing IN PUBLIC!
C'mon, people.  Get past it.  The woman is out to be provocative and controversial.  She's modeling herself on every controversial pop star of the past 30 or 40 years.

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 3: A Song That Makes You Dance

This is gonna be a bit of a blast from the past.  Just warning you now.

Day 3: A Song That Makes You Dance

I don't dance very much, but I am capable of it, even good at it.  And the one song that can get me dancing without fail is "How Bizarre" by OMC. 

The Insidious Technological Plot to Destroy Life As We Know It; or, Lela Thinks All That Terminator Stuff Might Come True

Ever since I was a young girl (I played the silver ball!)

Ha ha.  Oh, I am a caution.

Seriously.  Ever since I can remember, I've loved science fiction.  Books, movies, whatever.  If it smacked of technology and THE FUTURE, I was probably all for it.  Robots I loved especially.

Pictured: Your best friend and your
mom. Time travel and the impending
robot apocalypse tend to make people
somewhat careless.

And then, when I was around eight, I saw both The Terminator and Terminator 2 for the first time.  And I was sore afraid.  Not that I'd never been introduced to the idea of machines turning on their owners (that's a big part of the backstory of Dune, and Dune was, is, and probably always will be a big part of my life), but this...they were stopping at NOTHING to destroy this one guy BEFORE HE WAS EVEN BORN!  Also, I learned that time is really a mess (long before I got so fully immersed in the world of Dr. Who), Arnold Schwarzenegger is more than just a buzzard-biting barbarian, and that sometimes, the best friend you send back from the future to save your mom so that you can be born really turns out to be your dad.  Talk about confusion!

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 2: A Song That Makes You Cry

Memes don't suck...until a saddish bit comes up.

Day 2: A Song That Makes You Cry

"Wild Horses" is the song.  Hands down.  Normally I'd say "Wind Beneath my Wings" or "In My Darkest Moments", but the first only makes me cry if it's the Bette Midler version (due to the Beaches association) and the second doesn't ALWAYS make me cry. 

Self-Indulgence: 30 Day Music Meme: Day 1: Your Favorite Song

I always swear I won't get sucked into memes, but I always do...a friend was doing this one over on LiveJournal, and I decided to transplant it here...because I am a sick, music-loving monkey...

Day 1: Your Favorite Song
I go all 'round on this, always hearing another song or a new song and thinking "oh, this is my favorite" and then thinking the same moments later on another.  But "Milk" is one I go back to time and again. 

New Zealand Week: Day 7: Star Profiles: Danielle Cormack

Danielle Cormack

Danielle Cormack got her start in theater in her native New Zealand and first came to real prominence as a teenager with a role in the soap opera Gloss.  She's compiled quite the list of credits since then, with her abundant talents for both comedy and drama making her a natural choice for a rich variety of roles in television, film, and theater.

New Zealand Week: Day 7: Star Profiles: Karl Urban

Karl Urban

Karl Urban is one of New Zealand's stars who has managed to start getting some real footing in the entertainment industry outside of his homeland as well.  Though he is primarily a star of action-type films where Americans are concerned, a review of his career shows an actor also adept at comedic roles, and at deep drama.

New Zealand Week: Day 6: Star Profiles: Rena Owen

Rena Owen

As one of New Zealand's top female stars, Rena Owen has taken on many roles through the years.  From her beginnings in theater to breakthrough roles in film and television, she has shown herself to be among the top acting talents around.  She's also overcome personal problems and addiction, never letting life beat her down.

New Zealand Week: Day 5: Star Profiles: Temuera Morrison

Temuera Morrison

Temuera Morrison is one of New Zealand's biggest stars, known at home and abroad as an amazing actor capable of handling everything from comedy to intense drama to action with ease.  In a career that has thus far spanned over 20 years, he has proven himself a powerful performer who can enfuse almost any role with true feeling and heart.

New Zealand Week: Day 5: Author Profiles: Ronald Hugh Morrieson

Ronald Hugh Morrieson

Ronald Hugh Morrieson (29 January, 1922-26 December, 1972) was one of those unfortunate artists whose fame does not cement itself until after death.  He even semi-predicted this outcome in a comment to a friend several years prior to his demise.  In Morrieson's case, his real fame arrived a decade after his death, with the successful film adaptations of three of the four novels he had written.

New Zealand Week: Day 3: Review: The Price of Milk (2000)

This is a film that, after even one viewing, you won't soon forget, whether you like it or not.  It's magical, mystical, weird...altogether trippy.  It's got romance, betrayal, danger...everything that makes a fairy tale great.  Don't let that put you off though.  This is a film with a heart and a message.

New Zealand Week: Day 2: Author Profiles: Alan Duff

Alan Duff.

Alan Duff, born 26 October, 1950, is one of New Zealand's leading authors.  He is best known for his novel, Once Were Warriors, the first book in a trilogy dealing with the troubles of a Māori (New Zealand aboriginal) family in modern New Zealand.

New Zealand Week: Day 1: Star Profiles: Lucy Lawless

Lucy Lawless

I've already kicked off New Zealand Week over on my horror blog, and now we're gonna start things off here with a profile of a star who'll be recognizable to a lot of people outside of  New Zealand. (I'm easing you into things, see?  Aren't I nice blogger?  Say it.  Say that Lela's a nice blogger!  Very good.  Here.  Have an apple.)

Just a note for my U.S. readers (pretty sure that's all three of you), I'll be using international dating conventions in these profiles; for example, rather than writing, say, January 1, 1954, it would be 1 January, 1954.

Lucy Lawless is best known for her roles as Xena on the series Xena: Warrior Princess and D'anna Biers on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.  She's also had roles on everything from The X-Files to Veronica Mars and made a small cameos in the first Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man film and Boogeyman.  To the average person (read: not an obsessed fan), it might seem that Lucy's fame just happened overnight.  But it's not as if Lucy just appeared one day, rising from the dust of Aotearoa and taking a small part on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and then bursting into stardom.  No, she's a bit more complicated than that.

Happy 70th Birthday, Raquel!

That's right, folks.  Pop culture icon Raquel Welch is the big 7-0 today.  Hard to believe, because she still looks damn good.

1970 publicity shot for Raquel's film
Myra Breckenridge

Raquel earlier this year.

And the Count Drops by One...

Eleanore Cammack 'Cammie' King Conlon died of lung cancer on Wednesday.  She was 76.  Perhaps you've not really heard of her, but chances are you've seen her or heard her voice; at least, the voice she spoke with in her youth.

She was better known as Cammie King and, in 1939, she was one of the actresses chosen to portray Bonnie Blue Butler, daughter of Scarlett and Rhett in the classic film Gone with the Wind.  She would also provide the young voice for Faline the doe in the Disney animated feature Bambi.

Though Cammie left acting while still a child, she remained proud of her role in Gone with the Wind, and she continued to appear at gatherings and retrospectives about the film as recently as last year.  She had also written and published a memoir of her childhood experiences at the time of Gone with the Wind.

An autographed photo of young Cammie on the set of Gone with the Wind with her onscreen father Clark Gable.

Cammie more recently, holding a copy of her memoir.

I'm Magic! or, How I Really Decided to do This Blog's First Theme Week

Earlier today I was kicking back, working on some possible blog posts.  I noticed that I was doing reviews of a lot of films from New Zealand.  The entire culture and entertainment industry of that place has interested me for a long time, and then I started to think that it might be fun to do a weeks worth of overviews and guides to films, music, and television from New Zealand.

A few hours later I learned that, while I was dreaming up Kiwi Theme Week, there was a magnitude 7.0 earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand.   The international dateline means it happened on Saturday morning for them, but still!

My thought must've caused it.  That or it's the earth warning us, what with the earlier quake up near the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.

But I'll stick with the "Lela has a magic brain" theory.

I'm monitoring Radio New Zealand, national stream, to keep up.

Next week is New Zealand week on EPP.

So...yeah.

Everyone is Gay?: The Strange Obsession with Keeping Stars in the Closet...or Not

I've gone through life with so many people telling me that anything but heterosexuality is a bad thing.

Yet in This Modern Age, bi and homosexuality are slowly becoming accepted, at least in some quarters.  Some say this is a bad thing (I'm looking at you, Westboro Baptist Church) and that allowing people to practice non-heterosexuality will be the death of this country.  Being homosexual myself (though not homosocial, should any guys wanna, ya know, hang out and shoot the shit), I don't want to believe that.  There are plenty of other problems with this country that will probably inevitably lead to its downfall.  Teh ghey is the least of our worries.

What bothers me about the whole thing is that, even with different forms of human sexuality finally becoming so accepted in the Western World, celebrities, be they actors, musicians, or what have you, have such a hard time coming out of the closet.  Of course, they couldn't come out of the closet years ago when being gay was something that most of the general public feared and hated.  But now, they still seem to think it will ruin their careers.  Who knows; it might.  After all, there's been controversy lately over whether an out gay actor can believably portray a straight romantic lead.  That hinges not only on the performer's ability, but on the ability and willingness of the public to look beyond the reality of the person's private life and to immerse themselves in the story being played out on the stage or screen.

I read Blind Gossip on occasion, and it seems that 3/4 of the items are concerned with this actor or that actress or some musician being in the closet but being dangerously close to being outed, or being told by their "people" to get further in.

Frankly, who cares?

It's time for the public to admit that, just as sexuality typically has no bearing on the ability of a person to perform most regular, every day jobs, it has no bearing on entertainment either.

It's time for Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general, from the producers and publicists to the stars themselves, to get their heads out of their asses and understand that, if a performer is good at what they do, if they have fans who love their work, then coming out as gay is no longer going to be a complete end to their career.

Or maybe I'm insane.

Links, Shout-Outs, and Assorted Gibberish

First off, I finally have a follower!  Bad Ronald suddenly popped up in my follow box for both this blog and All the World's a Horror Show.  Probably because of the little shout out I gave to his comments on James Cameron's comments on Piranha 3-D.  Awesome, because now, I'm not going around in a constant state of "BAWWW, no one's ever gonna follow my blogs!"

If you're a relative newcomer to the world of science fiction literature, head on over to io9.com for this excellent syllabus and book list and start immersing yourself in the good words.  Also be sure to check out their list of 21 sci-fi films they don't want to see remade, with suggestions of books that could be made into films instead.

I'm on a bit of a sci-fi kick today, so bear with me and check out Cull, a fascinating and somewhat frightening short story by Robert Reed, author of the Hugo winning novella A Billion Eyes.

The Silent Majority: Everyone was There

A random selection of photos featuring several stars of the silent era.

When You Get Caught Between the Moon and Pointless Remakes

(Before I get down to me real complaint o' the day, I must commend Bad Ronald for his excellent and incisive article on James Cameron's claim that Piranha 3-D is cheapening the medium of 3-D.  Seriously...how do you cheapen 3-D, Mr. 7 foot tall blue cat people?)

On to the rant of the moment.  They're doing it to me again.  They're remaking a movie that I love, a movie that was already perfect, or at least as close to perfect as a film can get.

They've started on a remake of Arthur, the classic early 80s gem that starred Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli, and John Gielgud.

To be fair, not all remakes suck.  And they have gone the British acting royalty route once again when casting the role of Arthur's servant-cum-caretaker.  Now, rather than a stodgy butler, the character is a stodgy nanny played by the great Helen Mirren.  The title role will be played by Russell Brand, who's about as far from Dudley Moore as one can get, at least if we're discussing height.  Greta Gerwig, an actress mostly known for her independent film work, takes over the Liza Minnelli role.

As I said, not all remakes suck.  But it seems that, in the past few years, an overwhelming number of them have.  Granted, this one comes from a script by Peter Baynham, who has previously been nominated for a screenwriting Oscar...but that nomination was for Borat.  Granted, the script also passed through the hands of the writing staff of the acclaimed, Emmy-winning television comedy Modern Family thanks to the fact that Jason Winer, the director of this remake, was also a primary director on the first season of that show.  But then the script went back to Baynham.

I want this to be all right.  I want to believe that Arthur can be reimagined and remade into a film that will be both undeniably modern and a loving remembrance of the original.

Who'm I kidding?  I have almost no faith in the Hollywood machine anymore.

The Silent Majority: John Gilbert

As I mentioned in the first post of this feature, I had been planning for a while, once I got this blog started, to do a series on my favorite stars of the silent screen.  The impetus to finally do it (as well as the feature title) came from a Facebook friend who has recently gotten very interested in silent films herself.  In particular she's developed a fascination with John Gilbert.  So here, in the latest edition of The Silent Majority, that fine actor will be showcased.
Elizabeth, this one's for you.

Self-Indulgence: Christina Hendricks

It occurs to me that my recent post about how the entertainment industry is destroying all the beautiful, healthy, natural looking women was a little bitter and cynical.  After all, there's one gal out there with a real figure just made of curves and she's making a name for herself.  (The only fake thing about her is her hair color.  She's a natural blonde, but she's gone red for years.  Even better!)
Christina Hendricks is currently best known for her role as Joan on AMC's Mad Men, but she's appeared in plenty of other programs, and she's sure to go far (I hope!)
So here then, a few images of one gal who's keeping it real in the entertainment industry.

A Life of Horror and Wonder

213 years ago, at twenty minutes past 11 on the night of 30 August, 1797, a baby girl was born to a pair of intellectuals residing in Somers Town, London, England.  She was named Mary, after her mother.

In less than two weeks, the mother was dead.

Little Mary grew up surrounded by the intellectual and literary figures who made up her father's social circle.  Except for difficulty in getting along with the woman her father married when she was four, Mary grew up fairly happy, close to her half-sister Frances and stepsister Clara (better known as Fanny and Claire).


And then, when Mary was a teenager, she met and fell in love with a radical poet, a young man from the landed gentry.  His name was Percy, and when he and Mary fell in love, he was already married.  To escape his wife and the scrutiny of society, the young couple ran off to the Continent, taking Claire with them.


Things only went downhill from there.

This Vain World...

So I read something on Facebook that upset me.  (I'm sure those of you who know me are shocked.  I'm cheesed off over some random internet thing!)

Shirley Manson asked her fans if it's possible that she's insane because she, unlike some of her friends and a large chunk of people in the entertainment industry, refuses to do the whole plastic surgery/Botox/"oh just go and pave your face already" thing.  Prior to this, Shirley has always come out strongly against that sort of physical tampering, at least for herself.  I suspect this sudden insecurity could be the result of a recent birthday, but it brings up a few important points for me.

I'm not against the idea of people changing themselves physically in any way that they find personally fulfilling.  Piercings, tattoos, nose jobs, body modification...whatever you're okay with, whatever you want, that's great.  However, I am against the way that the media continues to push a ridiculous and often impossible ideal of beauty, even with all of the backlash and outcry against such portrayals.

Once upon a time, it was all right for entertainers to look fairly like the selves they had been born as.  Oh, sure, someone like Fanny Brice might have a nose job, but a lot of the time, make-up and good lighting hid a multitude of "imperfections".  Then came Hollywood, and starlets had to be thinner, and thinner, and thinner...because the camera ads weight...and they've continued to get thinner and thinner until they look like a crop of starved urchins.  Now, I'll grant you that some people are naturally thin; but when you have to be so thin that you begin to look ill, that's too far.

After the jump: some photos of the way women in the entertainment industry were once allowed to look, along with commentary on how they might end up now.

The Silent Majority: Olive Thomas, Colorized

This was sent along by Elizabeth (the same friend who gave me the name for this feature) after my latest Silent Majority post about the Pickford family and their associates.

Lovely, wasn't she?  The coloring of this portrait really captures the deep violet-blue of her eyes.

The Silent Majority: Tragedy and Triumph with the Pickford Kids and Co.

Mary Pickford is one of the best known stars that the silent film era produced.  What many fans don't realize is that she was not the only Pickford to make it in pictures; she was simply the one who lasted.  Her brother, Jack, was, for a time, a juvenile heartthrob and might have been a matinee idol of the first caliber had personal problems and alcoholism not derailed him.  Sister Lottie was rated the weakest of the siblings talent-wise, but she still managed an output of around 25 films over the course of several years.  Of course, all three had made names for themselves on the stage before that, touring their native Canada and the U.S. with a number of companies.

Here then, some pictures of Mary, Lottie, Jack, along with Olive Thomas, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Marilyn Miller, and others.

The Silent Majority: Clara Bow and Louise Brooks

I had been wanting to do a semi-regular series on this blog featuring some of my favorite stars of the silent film era; the new interest of a friend in silents has led me to go ahead, as well as giving me a title (thanks, Elizabeth).  So here it is, ladies and gents, the first enstallment of a picture feature I'll call The Silent Majority.

(NSFW due to one instance of what I like to call tasteful nudity!)

Clara Bow is still remembered today by many as "The It Girl," while Louise Brooks was, until recently, often forgotten by all except film historians and a group of loyal, dedicated fans.  Clara and Louise were both influential as far as the "look" of the flappers and jazz babies of the 1920s.  Chances are, if you've seen a film set in the 1920s or 1930s and there are any pictures of then-popular film stars featured, then you've seen both of these ladies.

Hungry Like the Wahrwilf Wuhrwulf Werewolf

(A companion piece to my earlier article about vampires...)

It is no surprise that, when humanity began to romanticize the vampire, the werewolf would also be enthusiastically reimagined and reinvented.
Where once the two sorts of creature were on something of an equal footing, being night-walking terrors that one wouldn't want to tangle with, they are now rather like opposite sides of the same coin flipped in the dark of a moonlit night.  The vampire is now most often seen as the slick, sophisticated monster, a gentleman (or woman) out for blood, seducing their victims along the way.  The werewolf, on the other hand, is ever the animal, a person transformed, whether through chance, fate, or will, into a ravening beast.

Lindsay Lohan, Symbolism, and...Wait, She's Licking a Gun...is That Hot?

By now, we've all seen the infamous Lindsay Lohan poster for the new film Machete.

I've kind of been interested in the idea of Machete since it was just a phony trailer that ran alongside the films Planet Terror and Death Proof.  It looks to be an interesting throwback, just as those films were: unabashed trash and cheese.

The hilarious thing about all of this is the way the entertainment news reporters are handling all of this.  They're treating this poster, Lindsay as gun-licking nun, as the "redemption" that they all really, really hope she'll find, m'kay?  NOT!  They don't want her to redeem herself anymore than a good deal of the public does.  I mean, I'd like to see her clean up and get back to her career or just her life.  Most people, however, just ADORE a total wreck.  And the entertainment reporters...well, they wouldn't be out of jobs, but their shows wouldn't have half the ratings they do if there weren't people like La Lohan struggling to deal with fame and success.

So, in sum, the above is just a freaking movie poster.  Yes, Lindsay plays a drug-addict-turned-nun in the film, but then, she's an actress.  She's played a lot of different types of roles.  This one was just another job.

Can we all move on now?

Self-Indulgence: Ladies I Adore...

This is one of those droolerific posts where I admit to being incredibly homosexual in the way that some women are.
Over the course of my pop culture obsession, I've found myself drawn to certain actresses for any number of reasons.  So, after the jump, here are just a few of the lovely ladies who are tops in my book.

Why Vampires are OHMIGOD SOOO Romantic.

(This post started life as a set of comments on the blog of a friend who just doesn't understand why people so romanticize a bunch of walking corpses.  It was really an attempt to explain why they are romanticized when, face it...they're just dead people who drink blood.)

Vampires have long been romanticized.  However, if one reads up on some of the more ancient, classic vampire legends, particularly those from Eastern Europe, it quickly becomes clear that a vampire isn't a beautiful, romantic creature; it's a freaking WALKING CORPSE!  As one scholar put it, originally, being bitten by a vampire was about as romantic as being bitten by your dead Uncle Boris.

The concept of the vampire as more than just a walking corpse came about because, as well as being immortal, they were well-nigh invulnerable (fire was bad...and decapitation...but most other stuff was just a scratch. Oh, and staking wasn't originally to kill them...it was to pin them down so you COULD kill them...so you had to drive the stake ALL THE WAY THROUGH.) Invulnerability=you don't rot=you are eternally young/the way you were, which is a very attractive prospect to some.

Shameless Self Promotion and Me!

Hey all, started a poetry blog.  Read it or...or...ya know, not.

Quickly! Shield your Children from Everyday Human Behavior in Cinema!

Let me start this off by saying that I am not a supporter of the tobacco industry or of the idea of cigarette smoking.  I spent much of my life up to earlier this year seeing the effect that smoking had on my mother's health.  I do not smoke.  I will never smoke.  However, I am not against the idea that it is the right of each adult individual to decide whether or not they will smoke.

Recently, there's been a big flap because of talk that films which show any scene in which a character smokes may be forced to carry an R rating.

Uh.  'Scusa me?

Upstairs and Downstairs and Back Again

I remember clearly the very first time I ever saw an episode of the classic British television drama Upstairs Downstairs.  I was a small child, no more than 3 or 4 years old, and the show was being re-run on our local public television station.  The very first scene I remember seeing, one scene that stuck with me for years when I couldn't readily see the show, was the very first scene of the first episode: a young woman, Sarah (Pauline Collins), goes to the front door of 165 Eaton Place to apply for the position of a house-parlourmaid.  This being London in the year 1903 when people below a certain social status did not dare try to enter a posh house via the front door, Sarah was quickly directed down to the area door by the butler, Hudson (Gordon Jackson).

I've always loved shows set in various historical time periods, and in my own opinion, Upstairs Downstairs was one of the best of those ever made.  The first item I ever purchased with money from my first ever income tax return was the complete series on DVD, accompanied by the single-season spin-off Thomas and Sarah.

After moving from the house where I spent the first 21 years of my life, my mother and I had no regular television service for a time.  For filmed entertainment, we relied on my somewhat-extensive DVD collection, and Upstairs Downstairs was one of our regular go-to shows when we wanted to really watch something we knew we'd love.

I haven't watched Upstairs Downstairs since before Mum passed away in February, but I still have my DVDs and I may pull them out soon and give them a watch.  You see, I'd been hearing rumors that there were plans to sort of continue the show, reincorporating the beloved character of head house-parlourmaid Rose (Jean Marsh) into a new household at Eaton Place 6 years after the end of the original show.  Now normally, I'm not one for reboots, remakes, and sequels, but when this one comes along, I'll watch.

And I know my Mum would have too.

FINALLY digitizing most of my record collection...that means MORE RARE AUDIO FOR YOU!

As I've noted before, I'm a collector of older recordings, mostly vinyl albums.  I'll pick an album or single because of the performer(s), the cover art...and sometimes it's the luck of the draw.

I've purchased, on occasion, small lots of 45 singles and 33 1/3 EPs, and I've found some interesting and great music thanks to the gambles I've taken.

This offering comes from a French 45 (Panorama imprint).  It's Katia Valère singing Itsy Bitsy Petit Bikini b/w Andre Girard directing an orchestra in the traditional French instrumental Marjolaine Rock.

 

You've probably heard the A side in English, but it sounds just as swingingly catchy in French, and the B side is a dancy little number.  Be prepared for the traditional hissing and other sounds of a record...this is why I love old recordings...the disturbances make them so individual from copy to copy.

This is a pretty nice, clear recording.  Should you care for a listen, you can get both sides and the sleeve scan here.

Frankenstein, Marfan's Syndrome, and Everything

I've always been a fan of the actor Boris Karloff.  He had a haunting voice, a graceful style of movement, and some of the most expressive eyes I've ever seen.

Karloff's eyes in his classic role in The Mummy


Of course, Karloff will always be best remembered for his portrayal of Frankenstein's creature in three films throughout the 1930s.  It just so happens that I'm also a big fan of most anything to do with Frankenstein.  Boris gave the first portrayal of the creature in a style that was in step with the original novel.  Though his incarnation was incapable of much speech, the Karloff creature was sympathetic; a lost, sad being who never asked to be born and only wanted to be accepted by humanity.

Where Glory Ran Screaming From the Room...

When you're addicted to pop culture, you sometimes find yourself, like many addicts, sucked into a sleazy underbelly, a world of terror and amazement and bizarre things such as most of the world probably never imagines.  You might find yourself up 'til all hours watching some movie so strange and shocking that it would drive a clinically insane person right back into the arms of sweet, sweet Mama "Sanity".  You might pick up and read (with delight) some book which, were you not a pop culture addict, you would fling across the room in disgust.

And sometimes...yes, sometimes, my friends, you get sucked into the world of outsider music and "rare audio".  Everything from vanity recordings (where someone actually bought studio time so they could release an album) to old answering machine tapes and hours and hours of unfunny prank phone calls.  Yes, this is the kind of stuff some of us live for.

Radio station WFMU has twice now (once in 2003, once in 2007) done something they call the 365 days project.  Basically, every day for one year, someone posts a strange, rare, bizarre, or just funny recording to the project, and the files are left up for download indefinitely (barring an artist request that they be removed).

I didn't discover the little gem I want to tell you about on the 365 project, but that's how I managed to actually hear the amazing LP that is Esther Lee's "Where Glory Began".  First, as a little taste, I'll let you soak up the cover art of this amazing recording.