Pixel Scroll 5/22/21 In Odin Days, A Glimpse Of Stalking

(1) THE MARS MY DESTINATION. “China’s Zhurong Mars rover kicks off roving mission after driving off landing platform”Global Times has the story.

Named after an ancient fire god of Chinese mythology, the 1.85-meter-tall and some 240-kilogram Zhurong Mars rover safely drove off the landing platform and reached the surface of Mars at 10: 40 am on Saturday, kicking off its roving mission, the Global Times learned from the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

China has become the second country in the world to successfully deploy a robotic rover onto the surface of Mars, breaking up US’ monopoly in the field, Chinese space analysts hailed.

The rover will carry out environmental perception and scientific detection in the patrol area as planned. At the same time, the orbiter will operate in the relay orbit to provide stable relay communication for the rover’s patrol and exploration. The orbiter is serving as a data relay station for communications between Zhurong and mission controllers on Earth.

(2) HERE WOLF, THERE HASSLE. The question of what an author would want done with a work like this by his estate is always interesting: “John Steinbeck’s estate urged to let the world read his shunned werewolf novel” in The Guardian.

Years before becoming one of America’s most celebrated authors, John Steinbeck wrote at least three novels which were never published. Two of them were destroyed by the young writer as he struggled to make his name, but a third – a full-length mystery werewolf story entitled Murder at Full Moon – has survived unseen in an archive ever since being rejected for publication in 1930.

Now a British academic is calling for the Steinbeck estate to finally allow the publication of the work, written almost a decade before masterpieces such as The Grapes of Wrath, his epic about the Great Depression and the struggles of migrant farm workers.

“There would be a huge public interest in a totally unknown werewolf novel by one of the best-known, most read American writers of the 20th century,” said Professor Gavin Jones, a specialist in American literature at Stanford University…

… But Steinbeck’s literary agents, McIntosh & Otis, told the Observer they would not be publishing the novel. “As Steinbeck wrote Murder at Full Moon under a pseudonym and did not choose to publish the work during his lifetime, we uphold what Steinbeck had wanted,” they said. “As the estate’s agents, we do not further exploit the works beyond what had been the author and estate’s wishes.”

(3) TAKE THE CASH AND LET THE REDDIT GO. “Wanda Sells AMC Theatres Stake For $426 Million”The Hollywood Reporter sums up the transaction.

Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group has sold off essentially its entire stake in AMC Theatres, officially exiting the U.S. theatrical exhibition business.

Wanda has had a controlling stake in the exhibition giant since 2012, but January’s Reddit-fueled rally saw the company trade in its super-voting Class B stock for Class A common stock, giving up control but giving it the option to cash out.

And cash out it did. On Friday, AMC disclosed that Wanda sold all but 10,000 shares in the past week, netting $426.7 million. It previously sold three tranches last month for $220 million.

(4) SELF-PUBLISHED FANTASY BLOG-OFF 7. Mark Lawrence starts SPFBO 7 – the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off 2021 – PHASE 1 with a full board, titles listed at the link. He shared some statistics about the 300 entrants.

A list of most of the entries is on Goodreads thanks to Hiu Gregg.

From the list I discovered that:

40 entries ~13% have 100+ ratings on Goodreads.

 97 of the entries have 25+ ratings.

 0 of the books were published 10 or more years ago – the oldest is 9 years old.

 0 of the books have more than 1,000 pages. The longest is 986 pages.

 5 of the books have over a 1,000 ratings, the most ratings is 3,769.

(5) SOUVENIR BOOK. If you happened to take in the World’s Fair while you were in New York for the first Worldcon, here is a nifty souvenir book you could have bought, reproduced in full by Past Print: ”New York World’s Fair / Souvenir Book / 1939”.

Donald Deskey’s superb design of this World Fair book must have made it one of the more worthwhile souvenirs amongst the of hundreds cheaply made commercial items. Perhaps the best souvenir of all was the plate (right) designed by Charles Murphy for the Homer Laughlin company, unfortunately I don’t have one.

    Deskey is probably better known as a furniture designer of the streamline era but his graphic work appeared in every household across the land because he designed the Tide soap box with the red, orange and yellow bulls eye and boxes for Oxydol and Cheer. The design for Crest toothpaste was also his.

    The design of this book with 144 (unnumbered) pages still looks fresh today, seventy plus years after they were printed. Large photos and graphics, angled text and the clever use of ten short pages to introduce the various sections work really well and provide enough visual interest to keep turning the pages. I particularly liked these short intro pages that used spot color and cleverly designed to blend into the page underneath. Turning over the cover to reveal a bird’s eye view of the complete Fair with color on the left and mono on the right seems rather unusual design choice though.

(6) FREITAG OBIT. The New York Times commemorates Ruth Freitag (1924-2021), a librarian renowned for her knowledge of science, technology, and astronomy: “Ruth Freitag, Librarian to the Stars, Dies at 96”.

Isaac Asimov was enthralled with her and wrote her a limerick. Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan wrote in their introduction to “Comet” (1985) that “one of the most pleasant experiences in writing this book” was meeting her. Numerous other science writers acknowledged their debts to her in forewords to their books.

Ruth Freitag, a reference librarian at the Library of Congress for nearly a half-century, was unknown to the general public. But she was, in more ways than one, a librarian to the stars.

Known for her encyclopedic knowledge of resources in science and technology, Ms. Freitag (pronounced FRY-tog) was sought out by the leading interpreters of the galaxy. She developed a particular expertise in astronomy early in her career.

Her learnedness became so comprehensive that she opened up new worlds to Mr. Asimov, the pre-eminent popular science writer of his day, and Mr. Sagan, the astronomer who introduced millions of television viewers to the wonders of the universe.

(7) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.

  • May 22, 2012 — On this day in 2012, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls premiered. The fourth film in the franchise to date, it was directed by Steven Spielberg and was released nineteen years after the last film. Produced by Frank Marshall from a screenplay by David Koepp off of the story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. And starring Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett,  Karen Allen,  Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Shia LaBeouf. Despite the myth around it in the net that it was a critical failure, critics overwhelmingly loved it though admittedly the audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes give it a mediocre fifty three percent rating. 

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born May 22, 1813 – Richard Wagner.  His fantasies The Flying Dutchman (“fly” in the sense we still have in “flee”), TannhäuserThe Ring of the Niebelung (four-opera series), Parsifal, are masterworks of music and theater.  Complicated life and opinions less admirable.  (Died 1883) [JH]
  • Born May 22, 1859 — Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve read all the Holmes stories a long time ago. My favorite is The Hound of the Baskervilles as it allows him to develop a story at length. Favorite video Holmes? Jeremy Brett.  Looking at ISFDB, I’m see there were more Professor Challenger novels than I realized. And the Brigadier Gerard stories sound suspiciously comical… (Died 1930.) (CE) 
  • Born May 22, 1938 — Richard Benjamin, 83. He’s here because he was Adam Quark on the all too short lived Quark series. He also was Joseph Lightman in Witches’ Brew which was based off Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife novel (winner of the 1944 Retro-Hugo Award at Dublin 2019) though that’s not credited in the film. And he was in Westworld as Peter Martin. Finally he did a stint on the Ray Bradbury Theatre as Mr. Howard in “Let’s Play Poison” episode. (CE)
  • Born May 22, 1914 – Sun Ra.  In the avant-garde of jazz he played keyboards and sang, led a variously-composed band under names more or less like “The Solar Arkestra”, still performing; recorded dozens of singles and a hundred full-length albums with titles like We Travel the SpacewaysSpace Is the PlaceStrange Celestial Road.  Said he was taken to Saturn in a vision, changing his life and art.  (Died 1993) [JH]
  • Born May 22, 1922 – Bob Leman.  Fanzine, The Vinegar Worm; two pieces in The Best of Fandom 1958.  Fourteen short stories in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, one added in collection Feensters in the Lake.  With Gerald Bishop, “Venture Science Fiction Magazine”, a Checklist of the First American Series and the First British Series.  (Died 2006) [JH]
  • Born May 22, 1939 — Paul Winfield. He’s best remembered as Capt. Terrell in The Wrath of Khan, but he was also in the Next Gen episode “Darmok” as the signature character.  He showed up in Damnation Alley as a character named Keegan and in The Terminator as Lt. Ed Traxler. Oh, and let’s not forget that he was Lucien Celine In The Serpent and the Rainbow which surely is genre. (Died 2004.) (CE) 
  • Born May 22, 1943 – Arlene Phillips, age 78.  Dancer, choreographer including the film Annie and the Royal Shakespeare production of A Clockwork Orange, judge for Strictly Come Dancing and the U.K. version of So You Think You Can Dance?  Six Alana, Dancing Star children’s books.  [JH]
  • Born May 22, 1964 — Kat Richardson, 57. Her Greywalker series is one of those affairs that I’m pleased to say that I’ve read every novel that was been published. I’ve not read Blood Orbit, the first in her new series, yet. Has anyone here done so? (CE) 
  • Born May 22, 1968 — Karen Lord, 53. A  Barbadian writer whose first novel, Redemption in Indigo, won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for its inventive use of Senegalese folklore. I’d also recommend her The Best of All Possible Worlds novel as it’s as well done as her earlier novel but different and fascinating in its own right. Lord was Toastmistress of Worldcon 75 in 2017. (CE)
  • Born May 22, 1979 — Maggie Q, 42. She portrayed Tori Wu in the film adaptation of Veronica Roth’s novel Divergent, a role she reprised in its sequels, Insurgent and Allegiant. She played a female agent in a comedic version of the Jackie Chan fronted Around the World in 80 Days. And she’s in the recent remake of Fantasy Island that critics hated but was a box office success. On a brighter note, she voices Wonder Woman on the Young Justice series. (CE) 
  • Born May 22, 1979 – Kagami Takaya, age 42.  (Personal name last, Japanese style.)  Nine light novels available in English.  Here is the most recent I know of; see here.  [JH]
  • Born May 22, 1985 – Arwen Mannens, age 36.  Three novels; so far I find them only in Dutch.  Samples of her 2006 and 2021 drawing here.  [JH]

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – the word Carbonite should be enough….

(10) DISNEY PLUS WITCHES. “Bette Midler announces that ‘Hocus Pocus 2’ is happening: ‘We’re back!’” says Yahoo! Entertainment.

Here’s yet another reason why you should always bet on Bette (Midler). Last year, the acting and singing icon confirmed to Yahoo Entertainment that she would “absolutely” be back for Hocus Pocus 2 — the long-rumored sequel to Disney’s 1993 Halloween favorite — alongside her witchy onscreen sisters Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker. “As soon as we sign on the dotted line,” Midler promised at the time. 

Flash-forward a few months, and it looks like that dotted line isn’t blank anymore. Hocus Pocus 2 will start production later this year for a 2022 premiere on the Disney+ streaming service. And all three Sanderson sisters promptly confirmed the news on social media. “It’s been 300 years… but we’re BACK!” Midler teased on Instagram. 

(11) GET THE LEAD OUT. Past Print takes you on a visual tour of its collection of “Type tools before the pc”. I remember using a hand-held composing stick in Print Shop back in nineteen-ought-sixty-eight.

(12) NOT LOST, JUST THROWN AWAY. CrimeReads’ Keith Roysdon decided to rewatch the bad final season of LOST. He explains why he thinks it was bad and notes the many mysteries of the show that were never answered: “Coming To Terms With ‘Lost,’ All These Years Later”.

…Like millions of other viewers, I found the series riveting television. I loved the characters and situations and twists. The polar bear. The hatch. The slowly-unfolding story of the Dharma Initiative. And I was never more horrified at a TV plot point than when “the Others” kidnapped young Walt.

The intense reaction the series inspired in me and others backfired, though, when “Lost” ended with a disappointing final season and a two-part finale that didn’t just disappoint but outraged some.

I was so disappointed that, in the 11 years since the finale aired on May 23, 2010, I’ve never revisited it, never rewatched the DVD set that collects dust on a shelf. I’ve never gone back to revisit the cult ABC series on streaming….

It’s not just the failure of the show to answer many of its mysteries that is so off-putting. Remember that scene in the cult movie “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension” when Jeff Goldblum’s character asks about a watermelon in a complicated piece of machinery and Clancy Brown’s character says, “I’ll tell you later” but then never does? That did not ruin “Buckaroo Banzai” for me.

But “Lost’s” mysteries were so many and some were so largely unanswered….

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Out of the Inkwell: The Fleischer Story is a documentary, narrated by Carl Reiner, about the Fleischer studios which explains why Max and Dave Fleischer were great cartoonists. It first appeared around 1990. Leonard Maltin and Mark Evanier are two of the talking heads.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Lise Andreasen, John Hertz, Mike Kennedy, Will R., Andrew Porter, Brian Z., Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Daniel “Anything Geas” Dern.]

39 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 5/22/21 In Odin Days, A Glimpse Of Stalking

  1. First!

    13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Out of the Inkwell: The Fleischer Story I’m looking forward to watching this fascinating documentary.

  2. I must not have left in any typos for Filers to correct.

    Reminds me of how Robert Moore Williams said he made a point never to write science fiction stories that are too literary — “You got to stink ’em up just right.”

  3. 8) It’s several degrees of separation from Arthur Conan Doyle, but…

    I’ve been slowly browsing thru the British Library’s collection of book illustrations (there are over 10,000 pages, with about a hundred illustrations per page) on Flickr, saving a bunch to my Favorites folder, a lot with fantasy or sfnal associations, and almost all in public domain.

    One from “The World of Romance. A treasury of tales, legends and traditions. Illustrated” (1892), features a woman in medieval dress supplicating to the hovering figure of the goddess Diana. The initials “H.M.P.” on the piece identified it as by Henry M. Paget.

    Here’s where the link to ACD comes in: Henry Paget was the brother of Sidney Paget, best known as the OG illustrator for ACD’s Sherlock Holmes stories. There was also a third brother, Walter Paget, an illustrator as well. (Walter illustrated a late-period Holmes story after Sidney’s death.) Three brothers, all skilled artists and popular illustrators of their time. Quite a heritage.

    I was impressed by the Henry Paget piece, so I cleaned it up in Paintshop Pro, removing the yellow-with-age tint and cropping out some text trying to sneak in on the border of the British Library’s scan. I posted the edited image on my Twitter account, if anyone cares to take a look:

    https://twitter.com/BruceArthursAZ/status/1395991214843863043

    It was fun, so I’ll probably be posting more images on Twitter from time to time. (Though I’m pondering whether it might be better to set up a separate Twitter account for such images.)

  4. 2) Fie on ethics and scruples and respecting the author’s wishes. I want to read that!

    8) There was a ballet version of A Clockwork Orange? The mind reels, or possibly chaines.

  5. Cat: Re ACDoyle’s Professor Challenger stories, if you read only The Lost World, you’ll be fine. In The Poison Belt, Challenger learns the planet is going to pass through an expanse of killing gas, and only elects to save three friends — not even his own servants. In The Land of Mist, the skeptical Challenger learns to embrace spiritualism. Deciding that part of the earth’s crust is sentient, in “When the World Screamed” he rides an earth-boring machine into it to see what it will do when pricked. I didn’t like “The Disintegrating Machine” either, but it was at least okay. He has to save the world from a scientist who has invented a disintegrating ray.

  6. I was thinking it was from Anything Scrolls…

    (I’m shocked about how little of the lyrics of Anything Goes I do know. After a glimpse of stocking being shocking, I’m totally at sea.)

    It was Hergé’s birthday (b. 1907) Tintin went to the moon and under the sea and met the Abominable Snowman. I always wondered what Spielberg would have done if the movie had been more of a success. Would he have done a whole series of Tintin movies? A Tintin and young Indy crossover might have worked if they could decide on real life or that weird animated style.

    Ev’ry time we say hello, I scroll a little
    Ev’ry time we say hello, I wonder why a little

  7. @ Jack Lint —
    Here’s the first bridge. A lot of singers in this New Victorian Age just repeat the first verse, but it goes on…

    If driving fast cars you like,
    If low bars you like,
    If old hymns you like,
    If bare limbs you like,
    If Mae West you like,
    Or me undressed you like,
    Why, nobody will oppose.
    When ev’ry night the set that’s smart is in-
    Truding in nudist parties in
    Studios.
    Anything goes.

  8. (8) I’m glad Quark is still appreciated. Richard Benjamin was also in the horror parody “Saturday the Fourteenth.” It doesn’t seem to be as appreciated… But I think it has its moments. (It was Jeffrey Tambor’s third film.)

  9. Anne Marble says I’m glad Quark is still appreciated. Richard Benjamin was also in the horror parody “Saturday the Fourteenth.” It doesn’t seem to be as appreciated… But I think it has its moments. (It was Jeffrey Tambor’s third film.)

    I’m not a horror fan, so that’s an an area of genre (if it’s genre) that’s best appreciated by others.

    Now listening to Walter Jon Williams’ This Is Not A Game

  10. Jack Lint says It was Hergé’s birthday (b. 1907) Tintin went to the moon and under the sea and met the Abominable Snowman. I always wondered what Spielberg would have done if the movie had been more of a success. Would he have done a whole series of Tintin movies? A Tintin and young Indy crossover might have worked if they could decide on real life or that weird animated style.

    It was a commercial success, grossing over $374 million against a budget of $135 million. The perception that it was a box office failure is interesting as it definitely wasn’t. I don’t think Spielberg ever intended to make more films in the Tintin series. If you’ve seen interviews with him that indicated otherwise, I’d be interested in reading them.

  11. (8) Doyle wrote a body swap short story, too: The Great Keinplatz Experiment

    Leman is great!

    Cat: I’ll be rereading This is Not A Game soon too (book club)

  12. Andrew (not Werdna) says Cat: I’ll be rereading This is Not A Game soon too (book club)

    It’s the first novel in a superb trilogy as I suspect you know. It’s one of the few near-future set series that didn’t get outdated instantly. This is also a re-encounter with it for me.

  13. I’m told that Simon R. Green has a new Deathstalker story coming out this year. When I know where and when it’s being published, I’ll tell y’all the details. There may be a Deathstalker novel if all goes well.

  14. If Steinbeck hadn’t wanted anyone to read his werewolf story, he’d have destroyed it as he did the other early work. Publish it. Donate the profits to a charity he would have approved.

    I enjoy Quark. I wish there was more of it.

  15. @Cat
    I recall an interview about two years ago with one of the actors in the Tintin film (I don’t remember who for certain, but it may have been Andy Serkis) where they stated that the cast had been contracted for two films and they were still waiting for the call to do the second.

  16. Stuart Hall says I recall an interview about two years ago with one of the actors in the Tintin film (I don’t remember who for certain, but it may have been Andy Serkis) where they stated that the cast had been contracted for two films and they were still waiting for the call to do the second.

    Yeah the online stories indicates that two more films were planned but nothing was progressed since the original film came out. Lots of rumors but no actual news from the Company itself.

  17. I read through Doyle’s Brigadier Gerard stories a couple of years ago. They are fun tall tales/action stories about a caricatured vain, courageous, not particularly bright officer in Napoleon’s army. I like Doyle. When I was young I read a number of his historical novels. The White Company, about English knights in France in the Hundred Years War, was a favourite. As I recall I also liked Micah Clarke, about a protestant lad participating in the Monmouth Rebellion, an episode of which I had not previously been aware. A somewhat darker story, I think.

  18. I like Doyle. When I was young I read a number of his historical novels. The White Company, about English knights in France in the Hundred Years War, was a favourite.

    Samuel Aylward turns up again in S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse series, with no more explanation than that the author wanted him there.

  19. Re Steinbeck and the Estate, each case is different, but generally I support estates being conservative. Steinbeck could have managed to publish the werewolf novel later in life if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t.

    Alice Sheldon wrote a fair amount of fiction in the years before she started the Tiptree stories, but she never tried to publish it. As her literary trustee, I have limited myself — with a few minor exceptions — to only publish those pieces that she actively prepared for publication. What will happen to those unpublished pieces after I die…I won’t know.

  20. 2) Can’t help but to notice a slight disparity between the way Steinbeck’s estate handles things and the Tolkien estate.

    Two Dorothys diverge on a yellow brick road.
    One not quite dead, the other not quite alive
    And sorry, I was thinking about schrödingers Cats
    And that made all the difference

  21. Tolkien, at least, never really gave up on the Silmarillion material, and left teasers for it in the Lord of the Rings. Once Christopher Tolkien assembled and published that, it opened the floodgates for all of the History Of Middle Earth material. It sounds like Steinbeck gave up on his werewolf story after it was rejected, if the “did not choose to publish” claim is at all accurate.

  22. (2) It seems to me (a reader, not knowledgeable about the duties of literary executors or related matters) that at some point the interest of readers in seeing minor or “lost” works of a popular or distinguished writer deserves to be satisfied. If it’s any good there might be a significant market for this Steinbeck book. It sounds interesting to me. Steinbeck died over 50 years ago.

  23. It might have been hard to find a publisher, back then. Easier now, I would think: werewolf stories aren’t so unusual or strange.

  24. Copyright in unpublished works in the US currently runs at life + 70 years. Assume this isn’t changed to life + 95 years in the interim, and assume that some copies of the texts survive, I guess we’ll see the story about 2038. For those of us still alive ourselves.

  25. 2) Can’t help but to notice a slight disparity between the way Steinbeck’s estate handles things and the Tolkien estate.

    Much different situation On the one hand, we’re talking about a one off genre novel from someone who didn’t do genre. On the other hand, we’re talking about a tremendous body of work all intimately related to the central work of his career.

  26. rochrist says Much different situation On the one hand, we’re talking about a one off genre novel from someone who didn’t do genre. On the other hand, we’re talking about a tremendous body of work all intimately related to the central work of his career.

    I think it’s amazing what the Tolkien estate has done with his literary efforts since his death nearly fifty years ago. I can’t say that I’ve read everything that has been published but I’m absolutely impressed with the sheer amount of material that has come out.

    The History of Middle-Earth is the single most impressive publication to date after of course The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings.

  27. Christopher Tolkien was an academic publishing the manuscripts and notes of a famous author (who just happened to be his father as well). HoME is a bog-standard scholarly series … that happens to be attractive enough to a non-academic audience to merit publication.

  28. @Brown Robin

    If Steinbeck hadn’t wanted anyone to read his werewolf story, he’d have destroyed it as he did the other early work.

    In Steinbeck: A Life in Letters is quoted a letter to his agent, Mavis McIntosh:
    “I have no readable carbon of Murder at Full Moon. . . . The quicker I can forget the damned thing, the happier I shall be.”

    So it may be that he did destroy his copies, and that there is one in the archives only because a copy he sent out to potential publishers was saved. I’m not sure that of the three stories, the fact that there is still a copy of this one extant should be taken to mean that Steinbeck himself thought more of it.

  29. Jeffrey Jones on May 23, 2021 at 10:33 am said:

    I just had an image of someone looking up out of an inkwell.

    It feels like there’s a few contemporary comic book citations here, like Splash Brannigan from Alan Moore’s ABC (America’s Best Comics), and some older refs I’m blanking on, ditto, IIRC, Fritz Leiber’s story “A Deskful of Girls.”

    Scroll-title-wise, yup, I was channeling Cole Porter. (In my first year or three of submitting titles I would include my sources/inspirations for Mike’s reference, but eventually, for the most part, stopped, figuring either he knew or didn’t, and would ask me if he wanted to know. As for how many Filers know the source, I often wonder — there’s many that I don’t know whether they’re referring to something and I’m missing it…)

    That said, here’s one of Ella Fitzgerald’s many recordings, and here’s video of Sutton Foster and rest of the cast at the 2011 Tony’s … and here’s a rehearsal version where you can see Joel Grey dancing rather than just (in the Tony’s) introducing…

  30. Daniel Dern: figuring either he knew or didn’t, and would ask me if he wanted to know.

    Quite right, you reached the happy medium point!

    I further confess that I have used a couple titles that likely are references even though I didn’t get them, because the word salad tickled my inner palate….

  31. I think that Point Happy Medium is somewhere in New Jersey, east of where the NJ Parkway and NJ Thruway intersect (including, after many years, tho now it’s also been many years, an actual highway-to-highway interchange).

  32. @Bruce Arthurs, I like that Henry Paget piece! Lacking any and all context, I can only imagine Diana is saying “Man trouble? No prob, I can get a bunch of the girls together to go shank a guy.”

    I’m…. probably a little too influenced by the webcomic Lore Olympus.

  33. BTW, if you’ve got a nagging feeling that “Anything Goes” sounds familiar in an
    sfnal way, you’d be right, it was the opening scene in Indiana Jones & The
    Temple of Doom (here with reasonable-guess English subtitles), before the great barfight scene.

    (Back in the previous millennium, I tested (my) VCR(s) (including fast vs slow recording speed) using this scene, from my laserdisk.)

Comments are closed.