Tag: Sharp Little Pencil

April Rambling: Kiwi marriage equality; Eddie’s aunts

Jaquandor has been doing this musical A to Z, and they’re all interesting.

moi, a couple of years ago

“If every kid having a mom and a dad is really what you are concerned about,” Miriam Axel-Lute expects “to also see you showing up” for these struggles.

The Fagbug meets Equality House.

Arthur: “When I was a kid, I expected life to be a certain way, and that way did not include being true to myself. I simply couldn’t imagine that one day I might be a full citizen.” Here is his favorite speech (it IS a hoot) and his favorite moment in the marriage equality passage in New Zealand.

The Man On the Street: Three Decades of Street Harassment.

This month in 1889, the so-called “Unassigned Lands” in what is now central Oklahoma were opened to white settlement, the celebrated Oklahoma Land Run. “The Native tribes, you may be sure, aren’t quite so enthusiastic about celebrating.”

Mr. Frog re: Spike Lee’s School Daze and a Ramble About Racism.

10 Cover-ups That Just Made Things Worse.

27 science fictions that became fact in 2012.

Meryl: Logos: The power of grounding logic and expectations in our communications. Also, Optical Illusions and their role in Education, Brain Training, and Visual Literacy; at least check out the video at the end of the latter one.

J: The sexiest letter.

Neil Gaiman: There wasn’t anything in there that indicated that I was going to be a writer, a real writer, with something to say, except for one thing, and it was this: I was writing. There was lots of writing going on.

I whine a lot about writing, but I never have whined quite so persuasively as this.

Healing the Wounded Womb.

MY FAVORITE STORY OF THE MONTH: Eddie writes This is the Story of Gussie and Bertie, two of his aunts, of a sort.

Tegan tells a story.

Amy’s momoir.

Mark Evanier sells the house he grew up in.

Happy Navroze – a personal look at the Zoroastrian holiday

SamuraiFrog’s fond memory of Turkey in the Straw.

Math Anxiety: What it is and How to Relieve Its Stress and Impact.

Here’s an alphabet mural Ken Jennings painted on his daughter’s wall when she was a newborn. Very clever.

Jaquandor has been doing this musical A to Z, and they’re all interesting. Cheri asked what music makes me cry. One of them is his B. “Bach’s music is, to me, architectural. It is mathematical. Now, to some that might make it sound like the music is clinical and sterile in emotion, but nothing could be further from the truth.” Another is his D; funny story therein. He ALSO wrote a great obit of trumpeter Bud Herseth, who you’ve probably never heard of – I hadn’t – but still a most worthwhile read, and listen.

Lost in translation: CHEERS theme in German, and an ad for the musical Wicked when it got to Helsinki, Finland. Also, If you don’t understand this commercial…

The latest Carl Reiner book, and an anecdote about a funeral.

From the 1940 Charlie Chan movie, Murder Over New York: The police round up every Hindu in town.

Always liked Jonathan Winters, and sorry he died. Here’s what Ken Levine had a nice piece. Mark Evanier wrote several pieces; first thoughts; Jonathan receiving the Mark Twain Award at the Kennedy Center in 1999; him at a recording session for Garfield and Friends in 1990.

Willie Nelson turns 80 this week, and Coverville celebrates the occasion.

I probably watched Pat Summerall announcing sporting events for 40 years. And Maria Tallchief, a great dancer.

Never DID trust Winnie the Pooh.

Someone on Facebook wrote: “If you’re a geezer, you’ll hear it in your head.” And I do.

K-Chuck Radio: Miles to go before I sleep…

Contraptions: Oreo separator machine. Also, a recipe for making ice.

The state capitals.

Photos of Insects with Drops of Water On Their Heads

Revealing deep dark secrets

Blogging has set ME free too.

Amy, who wields that Sharp Little Pencil wrote:

If you were a tree… oh, never mind.

I’ll tell you anyway. It’s a chestnut tree. In my neighborhood, I remember collecting horse chestnuts, which were inedible, because they were a pretty dark brown, and so smooth. I’d collect them for a while, and then dump them to pick new ones in the new season.

How about this: If you had one of those “shameful secrets,” would you speak out about it?

I only wonder because I write a lot about being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (usually most women’s “secret” and a shame that can grow like a pustule in your gut) and my past drug use and my mental illness all the time. I get notes from folks saying, “I can’t believe you said that.” And yet, it gives me back my own power. I live life on my own terms and write what I want.

It’s difficult to say in the abstract. I wasn’t sexually abused. I tried cocaine once and didn’t like it; think of the scene in Annie Hall. Even marijuana, which was readily available in the 1970s, was something I could take or leave.

If I were to have become addicted to anything, it would have been pharmaceuticals. My father once gave me one of his sleeping pills, and it felt SO good, it scared me. I tend to avoid them for that very reason.

I’ve told you about getting arrested and being briefly married 40 years ago. I’ve shared more about my parents because they’re both deceased. Haven’t told some other details about my life because it involves other people who are still alive. (My college ex-wife is still alive, too, but I figure the statute of limitations has run out.)

I WILL say that getting older has been rather liberating in this area. It’s a combination of the passage of time since some events, and my understanding of my mortality, which has generated a degree of freedom.

Blogging – and therapy – have set me free. Love your blog, Rog, and you are wonderful. Amy

Blogging has set ME free too. Love your blog, Amy, and you’re wonderful as well.
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More Chris:

If you were a character in a book or a comic, what would your standard or symbol be?

A green peace symbol, maybe with some prongs at the end like a trident. Peaceful, but I have my limits.

I’ll ask this one like I asked Jaquandor: Have you ever fantasized about being a female character in a novel or a story?

Yes, and she really kicked butt.

Actually, any number of characters run through my brain. None of them are coherent enough to write down.

A little bit more specific question than “ask about racism”: have you mentioned the Cinna/ Hunger Games thing [to the Daughter]? She’s the right age for Hunger Games and I can say for me that struck me as a huge example of “Wow, racism has gotten complicated but is still lurking around behind people’s eyes.”

I haven’t watched/read Hunger Games. My sense, though, is that it’s too intense for her. There have been other things that were age-appropriate but just terrified her.

To the specific question: I’ve seldom worried what the fanboy/fangirl base says about anything. (I used to sell comic books.) That said, I’ve long favored unexpected casting. If I were enough of a fan, I’d be watching that show Elementary with Lucy Lui, an Asian woman, as Dr. Watson to Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock Holmes.

March Rambling, about ME – oh, and other things

Chuck Miller: Every day you survive, every day you thrive, every day you achieve and succeed, is a big eff ewe to the haters.

I may have mentioned (once or twice?) that it was my birthday this month. Thank you for the 70-odd comments (some VERY odd) on Facebook, and a couple of tweets, not to mention comments at this blog. Dustbury cited my March 8, day after my birthday, post.

I won second prize in Pret-A-Vivre’s Oscar game. Thanks!

But the person who best got into the “celebrate Roger” spirit has to be Jaquandor. He answered my Ask Me Anything questions to him here and here, AND he ASKED me an Ask Me Anything question before I even requested it!

He also linked to a couple of my posts, AND he wrote a whole post for me. Yay! The first YouTube clip in his piece features Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as Roger, and others, in a wonderful comedy segment from the movie Airplane!

Here’s some weird trivia.

The winner of the game show JEOPARDY! episode on Friday, November 6, 1998, was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in a celebrity tournament. The winner of the JEOPARDY! episode on Monday, November 9, 1998, the next one aired, was MOI. Kareem and I – likethis.
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Usually, I write about International Women’s Day on March 8. this year on that date, though, I wrote about, er, ME instead. So here’s Reader Wil’s contribution instead.

Shocking New Evidence Reveals Depths of ‘Treason’ and ‘Treachery’ of Watergate and Iran-Contra

Melanie’s grandfather; also her humanness, fighting inertia.

SamuraiFrog needs help, and is getting it. Huzzah!

Chuck Miller: The toughest part is letting go. Letting go of the anger and the hatred and the feelings of worthlessness and regret and fear and sadness. And: Don’t ever give up. Giving up means that the bullies and the haters have won. And every day you survive, every day you thrive, every day you achieve and succeed, is a big eff ewe to the haters. He wrote a couple of years ago about the Chestnut Prison, which informs his current philosophy.

I think that an uncomfortably large amount of comedy these days springs from the same mental space from which bullying comes.

Benjamin Zander’s TED talk: The transformative power of classical music.

Sharp Little Pencil: Lucky Girl Child.

An Olympian with a physical disability; no, not Oscar Pistorius, but Olivér Halassy.

Character actor Malachi Throne died this month; trust me – you HAVE seen him perform. Mark Evanier tells an interesting tale about his appearance on the Batman TV show.

Steve Bissette: “Your Tax Dollars At Work for Disney Dept: So, NY state tax breaks are going to help the next Marvel/Disney SPIDER-MAN movie get made—while Marvel/Disney merrily fleeces Steve Ditko yet again. A Modest Proposal at MYRANT from guest columnist Richard Gagnon.

Some religion, and any philosophy that claims certainty, creates a false sense of security that leaves people sucking their finger rather than going where the finger is pointing.

STRIPPED: The Final Kickstarter Push for a feature documentary on the world’s best cartoonists: Talking about the art form they love & where it goes as papers die.

If you speak two languages fluently, in which do you cuss? There’s a study about that.

The one thing we know for certain about coincidence is that they are anything but coincidental. But what does it mean? Don’t know, but read this story, and the second comment anyway.

Review of ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ from 1949.

EXTERIOR: Suburban Buffalo — KFC — Afternoon — Winter. My, some people are…

Pennsylvania stadium aims to please fans with urinal video games. “The game is aimed at increasing prostate health awareness.”

K-Chuck Radio: Enjoying Jose Feliciano!

Amy wants me to write about health care

 

Amy of Sharp Little Pencil, who, like me, grew up in Broome County, NY, writes:

So Roger, do a piece on health care if you haven’t already, please. My post cited numerous reasons why Americans DON’T want it (as George Harrison would sing, “I, Me, Mine,” also the fear struck in their hearts. Could not believe how many FOX talking points turned up on my blog!! Let me hear about it soon! Love your blog and you, Rog. Peace, Amy

Here’s the problem, Amy. I don’t know how to speak of it in any better terms than others have. From what I could learn more in this article, the fact that catastrophic illness and injury has contributed to most personal bankruptcies. The fact that preventative care will lower costs over time and provide a healthier population to boot. The fact that a larger pool of consumers, historically, has lowered the costs of goods and services. But these anyone can tout.

For me, though, it’s always been about that same Harrison song you quote. And I have told the story before, back in 2009, but I’ll tell it again.

Two days before I was going to graduate school, for the first time, in 1979, that disastrous foray into the School of Public Administration at UAlbany, I was at a friend’s house and somehow got an infection under my toenail. You have NO idea how much this hurt. We are talking root canal level of pain, and I’ve had a root canal.

I had no health insurance, for I had, I would have gone to a doctor. Or probably the emergency room, because, now that I think of it, I didn’t HAVE a doctor, because I didn’t have insurance, so I didn’t see the point of having a doctor. But I WOULD have insurance in a couple of days. So I hobbled through college registration, feeling worse by the minute; if I had had a walker or wheelchair, or pain medication stronger than Tylenol, or whiskey, I would have used it. Only then did I go to the college infirmary.

By this point, the infection was going up my leg; if it had reached my heart, I almost certainly would have DIED, at the age of 26. And that would be a REALLY embarrassing thing to put in an obit; “died of a toe infection.” As it was, I spent the next six days – the first six days of the semester – in bed.

So NOT having insurance altered my behavior that might well have been fatal. I’m sure that if this is true of me, it’s true of millions of others who go untreated for illnesses and injuries until it’s a crisis. Yeah, I think health care is a right, not a privilege. Yeah, my own narrative has colored my outlook about this, but is that not usually the case?

I’ve been painfully aware of every MINUTE I’ve been uninsured since, from November 1988, when I left FantaCo, to March 1989, when I got covered by Blue Cross; from April to September 1990, after I left Blue Cross, before I went to library school; and from May to October 1992, the period between library school and my current job. I was always aware that any accident or sustained illness would do me in financially. You KNOW stress is a contributing factor to poor health, and I was stressed a lot in those uninsured periods.

I don’t understand the opposition to the new healthcare law using terms like “freedom.” Being uninsured is more like a prison.

Oh, and I love you too, Amy. Gotta love someone who knows and loves pirogi!

April Rambling: Ads about Rape, and Media

“To be able to catch genius when it’s just beginning, just starting out; when it’s in its embryonic form, or in its very nest. It’s an unforgettable experience.”

In response to her strong poem, Reflector Babe, Amy at Sharp Little Pencil received a link from Anna at HyperCRYPTIcal. It is to a UK ad considered the most shocking ad ever? Rape campaign aimed at teens to be shown. It’s sexually explicit (no ‘bits’ are shown), but it is powerful. This could not air in the US, I’m fairly certain, but the problem it addresses is very much an issue here.

What the New Sgt Pepper Cover Tells Us About Modern Britain.

And speaking of the UK, How news coverage evolves. Imagine how the Guardian “might cover the story of the three little pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper’s front-page headline, through a social media discussion, and finally to an unexpected conclusion.”

Goldie Hawn recalls an unpleasant encounter with a famous cartoonist.

Sex’s first revolution. The author of “The Origins of Sex” explains how the ’60s – the 1760s – changed our views of lust, adultery, and homosexuality

“ALEC is accustomed to hiding its agenda and its legislation behind closed doors. At secretive conferences and over e-mail chains the public never sees, the organization allows its corporate donors to manufacture bills and then send them to be passed in state legislatures without the public ever knowing about their origin. But these ALEC staffers can’t hide who they are, and what they do for an organization that harms almost every area of American life.” And now, corporate America is jumping off the ALEC ship, and ALEC Retreats, Sort Of, though its vision of pre-empting EPA coal ash regulations passed the House this month.

For China’s driving test, be ready for almost anything: “There are questions on the proper way to carry an injured person in a coma (sideways, head down), the best way to stanch the bleeding from a major artery, and how to put out a passenger on fire (hint: do not throw sand on the victim).”

SamuraiFrog’s 30 Favorite John Williams Pieces (and Then Some).

50 minutes of songwriter-math teacher Tom Lehrer doing a live show in Copenhagen in 1968. Includes that smash hit Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.

Thought the Monkees were a faux band? Wait until you read about Gary Lewis & the Playboys. I was always a sucker for the song Jill, for no discernible reason.

Jaquandor launched yet another series, this one called the ‘A to Z Challenge’ and he decided to “give it a Fantasy and Science Fiction turn,” as is his wont. (I love the word ‘wont’.) So each entry in this series will take its inspiration from something or someone from F&SF, that starts with the respective letter of the day.

Original pitch-reel for the Muppet Show is delightfully bonkers. Plus, the much more recent Kermit’s Party.

To be able to catch genius when it’s just beginning, just starting out; when it’s in its embryonic form, or in its very nest. It’s an unforgettable experience. BTW, the author in question has seen this piece.

Pop culture’s Rosetta Stone. A company known for its memorable full-page comic book ads continues to influence graphic design today.

Robert Crumb: Interview by Paul Gravett

Two actors turned 75 this month and I missed them. So here are Jack Nicholson: Unpublished Photos of an Actor on the Brink from LIFE magazine, 1969, and the website of George Takei.

Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin, finally off the daily schedule after 8 years, 4 months. This means, if I keep this up for another year and a half, I can pass him!
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GOOGLE ALERTS

What could Archie Andrews possibly have meant?

Long-time Exploring and Special Programs volunteer and advocate, Roger Green, was presented the 2012 Silver Beaver Award during the Council Court of Recognition Dinner held at Base Camp on Saturday, March 31.

Everything about Roger is designed to impress and attract attention, from his demeanor to his augments to his actions. While he’s naturally piss-poor at stealth or shutting the hell up…

For The Right Price: Roger is willing to render practically any service he’s capable of, provided that he is adequately compensated. He’s not the type to turn his back on his current employer(s), but whatever’s required of him, he’ll do it.

 

The cartoon is from an e-mail; original source unknown to me.

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