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Archive | August, 2019

The Paragon of Animals

By on August 9, 2019 16

One of my favourite summer jobs in my college days was working at this place, Paragon Park, just four miles from where I was living in Hull, Mass. (so I could walk there when I had to). I worked there in the summer of 1984, which turned out to be the last summer of its existence. (I was bummed that in the following summer I had to work as a bagger at the Purity Supreme grocery in Weymouth instead.)

This isn’t my video, but it was taken during the time I was there:

One of the main rides I worked on was the Bermuda Triangle, glimpsed here at 0:22:

(The other two were the Ghost Train and the Tilt-a-Whirl.)

Plus this is where it was located:

SciFi SongFest, Songs 81-82

By on August 9, 2019 2

Two songs about gigantic, multi-armed entities who have departed:

81. David Bowie, “Glass Spider” (1987):

82. Leslie Fish, “Where, Oh Where Has Cthulhu Gone?” (1996):

Fish’s line “The old god woke at once and screamed” seems like it might be a callback to the lines “Then once by man and angels to be seen, / In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die,” in Tennyson’s almost-sonnet “The Kraken” – which in turn was very likely an influence on Lovecraft’s original conception of Cthulhu in the first place.

Middelboe Chronicles, Part 29: Richard III

By on August 8, 2019 0

If yesterday’s Shepherd Boy Tumur illustrated Plato’s dictum that the best ruler is one who doesn’t want the job, today’s Richard III (“Shakespeare: The Animated Tales,” 1994) illustrates the corollary: that the worst ruler is one who wants the job very, very badly.

It’s a bit surprising that we don’t get to see Clarence’s famous butt:

GLOUCESTER: Simple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so,
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven ….
But, soft! here come my executioners. …

FIRST MURDERER: Take him over the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then we will chop him in the malmsey-butt in the next room. …

CLARENCE: Where art thou, keeper? give me a cup of wine.

SECOND MURDERER: You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon. …

FIRST MURDERER: I’ll drown you in the malmsey-butt within. …

DUCHESS OF YORK: Was never mother had so dear a loss! …
These babes for Clarence weep and so do I …

GLOUCESTER: That is the butt-end of a mother’s blessing.

I can’t resist appending a clip of my favourite version of Richard III – Ian McKellen, of course:

SciFi SongFest, Songs 79-80

By on August 8, 2019 3

Two songs of attempts at alien contact:

79. David Bowie, “Baby Universal” (1991):

In “Baby Universal,” the titular baby – who may be an echo of the Star Child who arrives in the skies of Earth at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey – attempts to address the human race, apparently via telepathy: “Hallo humans, can you feel me thinking? / I assume you’re seeing everything I’m thinking”:

80. Klaatu, “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft” (1976):

On the other hand, Klaatu – a band taking its name from the extraterrestrial visitor in The Day the Earth Stood Still – attempts telepathic contact in the other direction:

For better or worse, the Carpenters’ cover version is better known:

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