Monthly Archives: October 2012

Edgar Allan Poe – Style Icon

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Today is All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween. The modern holiday comes from an age-old tradition honoring the supernatural blending of the world of the living and the world of the dead. Halloween is based on a Celtic holiday called Samhain. The festival marked the start of winter and the last stage of the harvest, the slaughtering of animals. It was believed that the dark of winter allowed the spirits of the dead to transgress the borders of death and haunt the living.

Eventually, Christian holidays developed at around the same time. During the Middle Ages, November 1 became known as All Saints’ Day, or All Hallows’ Day. The holiday honored all of the Christian saints and martyrs. Medieval religion taught that dead saints regularly interceded in the affairs of the living. On All Saints’ Day, churches held masses for the dead and put bones of the saints on display. The night before this celebration of the holy dead became known as All Hallows’ Eve. People baked soul cakes, which they would set outside their house for the poor. They also lit bonfires and set out lanterns carved out of turnips to keep the ghosts of the dead away.

The best photo I could find by Megan Murphy at MurphyPop.com

NAME: Edgar Allan Poe
OCCUPATION: Writer
BIRTH DATE: January 19, 1809
DEATH DATE: October 07, 1849
EDUCATION: University of Virginia, U.S. Military Academy at West Point
PLACE OF BIRTH: Boston, Massachusetts
PLACE OF DEATH: Baltimore, Maryland

Best Known For:  American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his tales and poems of horror and mystery such as The Raven.

Born January 19, 1809, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of mystery and horror initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. His The Raven (1845) numbers among the best-known poems in national literature.

Early Life

With his short stories and poems, Edgar Allan Poe captured the imagination and interest of readers around the world. His creative talents led to the beginning of different literary genres, earning him the nickname “Father of the Detective Story” among other distinctions. His life, however, has become a bit of mystery itself. And the lines between fact and fiction have been blurred substantially since his death.

The son of actors, Poe never really knew his parents. His father left the family early on, and his mother passed away when he was only three. Separated from his siblings, Poe went to live with John and Frances Allan, a successful tobacco merchant and his wife, in Richmond, Virginia. He and Frances seemed to form a bond, but he never quite meshed with John. Preferring poetry over profits, Poe reportedly wrote poems on the back of some of Allan’s business papers.

Money was also an issue between Poe and John Allan. When Poe went to the University of Virginia in 1826, he didn’t receive enough funds from Allan to cover all his costs. Poe turned to gambling to cover the difference, but ended up in debt. He returned home only to face another personal setback—his neighbor and fiancée Elmira Royster had become engaged to someone else. Heartbroken and frustrated, Poe left the Allans.

Career Beginnings

At first, Poe seemed to be harboring twin aspirations. Poe published his first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems in 1827, and he had joined the army around this time. Poe wanted to go to West Point, a military academy, and won a spot there in 1830. Before going to West Point, he published a second collection Al Aaraaf, Tamberlane, and Minor Poems in 1829. Poe excelled at his studies at West Point, but he was kicked out after a year for his poor handling of his duties. Some have speculated that he intentionally sought to be court-martialed. During his time at West Point, Poe had fought with his foster father and Allan decided to sever ties with him.

After leaving the academy, Poe focused his writing full time. He moved around in search of opportunity, living in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Richmond. From 1831 to 1835, he stayed in Baltimore with his aunt Maria Clemm and her daughter Virginia. His young cousin, Virginia, became a literary inspiration to Poe as well as his love interest. The couple married in 1836 when she was only 13 (or 14 as some sources say) years old.

Returning to Richmond in 1835, Poe went to work for a magazine called the Southern Literary Messenger. There he developed a reputation as a cut-throat critic, writing vicious reviews of his contemporaries. Poe also published some of his own works in the magazine, including two parts of his only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. His tenure there proved short, however. Poe’s aggressive-reviewing style and sometimes combative personality strained his relationship with the publication, and he left the magazine in 1837. His problems with alcohol also played a role in his departure, according to some reports.  Poe went on to brief stints at two other papers, Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and The Broadway Journal.

Major Works

In late 1830s, Poe published Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, a collection of stories. It contained several of his most spine-tingling tales, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “Ligeia” and “William Wilson.” Poe launched the new genre of detective fiction with 1841′s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” A writer on the rise, he won a literary prize in 1843 for “The Gold Bug,” a suspenseful tale of secret codes and hunting treasure.

Poe became a literary sensation in 1845 with the publication of the poem “The Raven.” It is considered a great American literary work and one of the best of Poe’s career. In the work, Poe explored some of his common themes—death and loss. An unknown narrator laments the demise of his great love Lenore. That same year, he found himself under attack for his stinging criticisms of his fellow poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Poe claimed that Longfellow, a widely popular literary figure, was a plagiarist, and this written assault on Longfellow created a bit of backlash for Poe.

Continuing work in different forms, Poe examined his own methodology and writing in general in several essays, including “The Philosophy of Composition,” “The Poetic Principle” and “The Rationale of Verse.” He also produced another thrilling tale, “The Cask of Amontillado,” and poems such as “Ulalume” and “The Bells.”

Mysterious Death

Poe was overcome by grief after the death of his beloved Virginia in 1847. While he continued to work, he suffered from poor health and struggled financially. His final days remain somewhat of a mystery. He left Richmond on September 27, 1849, and was supposedly on his way to Philadelphia. On October 3, Poe was found in Baltimore in great distress. He was taken to Washington College Hospital where he died on October 7. His last words were “Lord, help my poor soul.”

At the time, it was said that Poe died of “congestion of the brain.” But his actual cause of death has been the subject of endless speculation. Some experts believe that alcoholism led to his demise while others offer up alternative theories. Rabies, epilepsy, carbon monoxide poisoning are just some of the conditions thought to have led to the great writer’s death.

Shortly after his passing, Poe’s reputation was badly damaged by his literary adversary Rufus Griswold. Griswold, who had been sharply criticized by Poe, took his revenge in his obituary of Poe, portraying the gifted yet troubled writer as a mentally deranged drunkard and womanizer. He also penned the first biography of Poe, which helped cement some of these misconceptions in the public’s minds.

While he never had financial success in his lifetime, Poe has become one of America’s most enduring writers. His works are as compelling today as there were more than a century ago. A bright, imaginative thinker, Poe crafted stories and poems that still shock, surprise and move modern readers.

I cannot seem to find a better copy of this video:

Ezra Pound – Style Icon

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Today is the birthday of Ezra Pound, born 125 years ago today in Hailey, Idaho (1885). He was known as “the poet’s poet” because he was so generous about promoting the work of other writers — including James Joyce, William Carlos Williams, D.H. Lawrence, Marianne Moore, Hilda Doolittle, and T.S. Eliot.

NAME: Ezra Pound
OCCUPATION: Journalist, Poet
BIRTH DATE: October 30, 1885
DEATH DATE: November 01, 1972
EDUCATION: Cheltenham Military Academy, University of Pennsylvania, Hamilton College
PLACE OF BIRTH: Hailey, Idaho
PLACE OF DEATH: Venice, Italy

Best Known For:  Poet Ezra Pond authored more than 70 books and promoted many other now-famous writers, including James Joyce and T.S. Eliot.

Poet Ezra Pound was born on October 30, 1885, in Hailey, Idaho. He studied literature and languages in college and in 1908 left for Europe, where he published several successful books of poetry. Pound advanced a “modern” movement in English and American literature. His pro-Fascist broadcasts in Italy during World War II led to his arrest and confinement until 1958.

Early Years

One of the 20th century’s most influential voices in American and English literature, Ezra Pound was born in the small mining town of Hailey, Idaho, on October 30, 1885. The only child of Homer Loomis Pound, a Federal Land Office official, and his wife, Isabel, Ezra spent the bulk of his childhood just outside Philadelphia, where his father had moved the family after accepting a job with the U.S. Mint. His childhood seems to have been a happy one. He eventually attended Cheltenham Military Academy, staying there two years before leaving to finish his high school education at a local public school.

In 1901, Pound enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, but left after two years and transferred to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. By this time, Pound knew full well that he wanted to be a poet. At the age of 15, he had told his parents as much. Though his chosen vocation certainly wasn’t something he had inherited directly from his more conventional mother and father, Homer and Isabel were supportive of their son’s choice.

In 1907, after finishing college, Pound accepted a teaching job at Indiana’s Wabash College. But the fit between the artistic, somewhat bohemian poet and the formal institution was less than perfect, and Pound soon left.

His next move proved to be more daring. In 1908, with just $80 in his pocket, he set sail for Europe, and landed in Venice brimming with confidence that he would soon make a name for himself in the world of poetry. With his own money, Pound paid for the publication of his first book of poems, “A Lume Spento.”

Despite the face that the work did not create the kind of fireworks he had hoped for, it did open some important doors for him. In late 1908, Pound traveled to London, where he befriended the influential writer and editor Ford Madox Ford, as well as William Butler Yeats. His friendship with Yeats in particular was a close one, and Pound eventually took a job as the writer’s secretary, and later served as best man at his wedding.

Success Abroad

In 1909, Pound found the kind of success as a writer that he had wanted. Over the next year, he produced three books, “Personae,” “Exultations” and “The Spirit of Romance,” the last one based on the lectures he had given in London. All three books were warmly received. Wrote one reviewer: Pound “is that rare thing among modern poets, a scholar.”

In addition, Pound wrote numerous reviews and critiques for a variety of publications, such as New Age, the Egoist, and Poetry. As his friend T.S. Eliot would later note, “During a crucial decade in the history of modern literature, approximately 1912–1922, Pound was the most influential and in some ways the best critic in England or America.”

In 1912, Pound helped create a movement that he and others called “Imagism,” which signaled a new literary direction for the poet. At the core of Imagism, was a push to set a more direct course with language, shedding the sentiment that had so wholly shaped Victorian and Romantic poetry.

Precision and economy were highly valued by Pound and the other proponents of the movement, which included F.S. Flint, William Carlos Williams, Amy Lowell, Richard Aldington, and Hilda Doolittle. With its focus on the “thing” as the “thing,” Imagism reflected the changes happening in other art forms,  most notably painting and the Cubists.

Pound’s maxims included, “Do not retell in mediocre verse what has already been done in good prose” and “Use no superfluous word, no adjective which does not reveal something.” But Pound’s connection to Imagism was short-lived. After just a few years, he stepped aside, frustrated when he couldn’t secure total control of the movement from Lowell and the others.

Literature’s Best Friend

Pound’s influence extended in other directions. He had an incredible eye for talent and tirelessly promoted writers whose works he felt demanded attention. He introduced the world to up-and-coming poets like Robert Frost and D.H. Lawrence, and was T.S. Eliot’s editor. In fact, it was Pound who edited Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” which many consider to be one of the greatest poems produced during the modernist era.

Over the years, Pound and Eliot would become great friends. Early in his career, when Eliot abandoned his graduate studies in philosophy at Oxford, it was Pound who wrote the young poet’s parents to break the news to them.

Pound’s lineup of friends also included the Irish novelist James Joyce, whom he helped introduce to publishers and find landing spots in magazines for several of the stories in “The Dubliners” and “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” During Joyce’s leanest years, Pound helped him with money and even, it is said, helped secure for him an old pair of shoes to wear.

The Cantos

Pound’s own work continued to flourish as well. The years immediately following World War I saw the production of two of his most admired works, “Homage to Sextus Propertius” (1919) and the 18-part “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” (1921), the latter of which tackled a wide range of subjects, from the artist and society to the horrors of mass production and World War I.

In late 1920, after 12 years in London, Pound left England for a new start in Paris. But his tolerance for French life, it seems, was limited. In 1924, tired of the Parisian scene, Pound moved again, this time settling in the Italian city of Rapallo, where he would remain for the next two decades. It was here that Pound’s life changed significantly. In 1925, he had a daughter, Maria, with American violinist Olga Rudge, and the following year he had a son, Omar, with his wife, Dorothy.

Professionally, Pound had turned his full attention to “The Cantos,” an ambitious long- form poem he had begun in 1915. A work he self described as his “poem including history,” “The Cantos” revealed Pound’s interest in economics and in the world’s changing financial landscape in the wake of World War I.

The first section of the poem was published in 1925, with later editions appearing later (“Eleven New Cantos,” 1934; “The Fifth Decade of Cantos,” 1937; “Cantos LII-LXXI,” 1940).

Fascist Connections

As Pound’s interest in economics and economic history increased, he showed his support for the theories of Major C.H. Douglas, the founder of Social Credit, an economic theory that believed that the poor distribution of wealth was due to insufficient purchasing power on the part of governments. Pound began to see a world of injustice shaped by international bankers, whose manipulation of money led to wars and conflict.

Pound’s impassioned feelings on the matter soon led him to support the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. In 1939, Pound visited the United States in the hope that he could help prevent war between his native country and his adopted one. But success eluded him, and upon his return to Italy, Pound set out recording hundreds of broadcasts for Rome Radio in which he threw his support behind Mussolini, condemned the United States, and claimed that a group of Jewish bankers had directed America into war.

In 1945, partisans arrested Pound and handed him over to U.S. Forces, who held him for six months at a detention center outside Pisa. He was then flown back to the United States to stand trial for treason, but was found to be insane and was directed to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington DC, where he remained until 1958.

Pound’s exact state of mind during this time has come into question over the years. In the early 1980s, a full decade after Pound’s death, a professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin presented evidence that Pound was indeed sane enough to stand trial for treason. However, it was certainly true that Pound was healthy enough to work. During his imprisonment in Italy he finished the “Pisan Cantos,” which The New York Times praised as “among the masterpieces of the century.”

Pound continued to write during his confinement at St. Elizabeths as well. There he completed additional sections of his long poem, “Section: Rock-Drill,” published in 1955, and “Thrones,” which appeared in 1959.

In 1958, Robert Frost spearheaded a successful campaign to free Pound from the comfortable confines of St. Elizabeths. Pound returned to Italy immediately, and in 1969,  published “Drafts and Fragments of Cantos CX-CXVII.”

Publicly, Pound spoke little about his work, but on the rare occasion he did, he described “The Cantos” as a failed work of poetry. Whether Pound truly felt that way about his defining work is often debated.

Pound passed away in Venice in 1972 and was buried on the cemetery island Isole di San Michele. Over the course of his long, productive lifetime, Pound published 70 books of his own writing, had a hand in some 70 others, and authored more than 1,500 articles.

A Message for Mankind: Charlie Chaplin’s Iconic Speech, Remixed

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A Message for Mankind: Charlie Chaplin’s Iconic Speech, Remixed

by Maria Popova

“We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery.”

From the same remix artist who brought us yesterday’s Alan Watts meditation on the meaningful life comes “A Message for Mankind” — a stirring mashup of Charlie Chaplin’s famous speech from The Great Dictator and scenes of humanity’s most tragic and most hopeful moments in recent history, spanning everything from space exploration to the Occupy protests, with an appropriately epic score by Hans Zimmer.

I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.” The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

via A Message for Mankind: Charlie Chaplin’s Iconic Speech, Remixed | Brain Pickings.

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Mary Astor – Style Icon

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NAME: Mary Astor
OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Theater Actress, Journalist, Author
BIRTH DATE: May 03, 1906
DEATH DATE: September 25, 1987
PLACE OF BIRTH: Quincy, Illinois
PLACE OF DEATH: Woodland Hills, California
ORIGINALLY: Lucille Vasconcellos Langhanke

BEST KNOWN FOR: Mary Astor was an Academy Award-winning actress of the stage and screen. Her best known role was in The Maltese Falcon.

Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) was an American actress. Most remembered for her role as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.

She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost saw her career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband during a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to even greater success on the screen, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Sandra Kovak in The Great Lie (1941). She was an MGM contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to act in movies, on television and on stage until her retirement from the screen in 1964. Astor was the author of five novels. Her autobiography became a bestseller, as did her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career.

Director Lindsay Anderson wrote of her in 1990: “…that when two or three who love the cinema are gathered together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played.”

Mary Astor has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6701 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. She has been quoted as saying: “There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who’s Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who’s Mary Astor?”

Cupcakes – Creativity’s Antagonist

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“Is there anything more blandly sweet, less evocative of this great city, and more goyish than any other baked good with the possible exception of Eucharist wafers than a cupcake?” – David Rakoff “Half Empty“

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Literally – Self Help

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“Literally” is the opposite of “figuratively”, so many authorities object to the use of literally as an intensifier for figurative statements. For example “you literally become the ball”, by the primary sense, would mean actually transforming into a spherical object, while it is likely that the speaker means “figuratively” and is using literally as an intensifier. However, it is now common in very informal speech for this mistake to be made, as in, “she was literally in floods of tears”.

ᔥ What it means when you say “literally” – The Oatmeal.

Barack Obama – Style Icon

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NAME: Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.
OCCUPATION: Lawyer, U.S. President, U.S. Representative
BIRTH DATE: August 04, 1961 (Age: 51)
EDUCATION: Punahou Academy, Occidental College, Columbia University, Harvard Law School
PLACE OF BIRTH: Honolulu, Hawaii

Best Known For:  Former Illinois Senator Barack Obama is the 44th and current president of the United States. Inaugurated on January 27, 2009, he is the first African-American to serve as U.S. president.

Why He’s A Style Icon

Barack Obama has transcended politics and become an American Icon by adhering to the very old rule of dressing for the job you want. Most campaign-trail politicians in America like to appear in jeans to show they are one of the people, but Obama’s campaign already had that image and feel, so he never had to dress down for the cameras. In the process, he has taught men how to wear suits again. The clean lines and drape of his jacket never seem ill-fitting or bulky. The trouser cuffs break across his cap-toe oxfords just enough to perfectly end the slim silhouette that begins with the soft shouldered jacket. More importantly, by always wearing a suit so well, he never looks out of place. Few realize that he began his campaign wearing Ermenegildo Zegna suits, but just as Nicolas Sarkozy was lauded in France for wearing Prada, Obama soon found himself at the center of sartorial questions. Rather than change his look, however, he merely changed to similarly designed and fitted suits from Hart Schaffner Marx. Here, then, is another lesson to be learned: Be yourself and true to your own style no matter the designer or manufacturer.

Dress The Obama Way

The foundational rule of Barack Obama’s style is to keep your wardrobe simple with finely made dark suits, a crisp white shirt and the camera-friendly pale blue tie or a deep red tie just to change things up. At his most casual, you might see him wearing the suit without the tie or perhaps without the jacket and the tie with his sleeves rolled up just above the wrist. It is here at this moment that all men who aspire to greatness should take note: Obama rolls his sleeves in even folds revealing his only accessory — a sublime watch given to him as a gift from his Secret Service detail. At the beginning of his campaign, he sported a Tag Heuer on a black leather band, but nowadays he wears the Secret Service chronograph, which bears the seal of the United States Secret Service on a black dial with a black Buffalo leather strap.

Karl Lagerfeld – Humanity’s Antagonist

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History has shown us that you can be a genius and a monster at the same time.  We have examples of the various perversions and mutations of the genius, but I am guessing that genius or not, the monster part is actually more rooted in insecurities.  A genius should be confident in his abilities and talents.  An evil genius may have come by the “genius” title accidentally and his insecurities of being “found out” have caused him to become a notorious asshole.  When you are a monster, no one bothers to get close enough to find out that you are really just an insecure man guarding the secret that he is merely average.  But David Rakoff (as always) says it best.

“All of the designers I have met up to this point have been very nice, although upon being introduced to Karl Lagerfeld, he looks me up and down and dismisses me with the not super-kind, “What can you write that hasn’t been written already?”

He’s absolutely right, I have no idea. I can but try. The only thing I can come up with right now is that Lagerfeld’s powdered white ponytail has dusted the shoulders of his suit with what looks like dandruff but isn’t.  Not having undergone his alarming weight loss yet, seated on a tiny velvet chair, with his large doughy rump dominating the miniature piece of furniture like a loose, flabby, ass-flavored muffin over-risen from its pan, he resembles a Daumier caricature of some corpulent, overfed, inhumane oligarch drawn sitting on a commode, stuffing his greedy throat with the corpses of dead children, while from his other end he shits out huge, malodorous piles of tainted money. How’s that for new and groundbreaking, Mr. L.?”
― David Rakoff, Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems

Night of the Comet – Not So Secret Obsession

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This movie is available on Netflix streaming and Comcast on Demand, I know you have seen it there, you should watch it, it is epic.  Watch it for the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” abandoned mall shopping spree montage alone.

I want to also mention that yesterday broke the record of the highest traffic day here at my little dog and pony show.  I owe it  to Howard Stern, Robin Quivers, and everyone at the Howard Stern Show and everyone at the website of the same name.  But mostly, I owe it to Swifty Lazar.  You can see how they linked to this blog here.  Lower right-hand corner:  Swifty Lazar’s signature glasses.

 

Directed by: Thom Eberhardt

Produced by: Andrew Lane, Wayne Crawford

Written by: Thom EberhardtRelease date: November 16, 1984

Night of the Comet is a 1984 film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Robert Beltran, and Kelli Maroney. It has elements of such diverse genres as science fiction, horror, zombie apocalypse, comedy, and romance. The film was voted number 10 in Bloody Disgusting’s Top 10 Doomsday Horror Films in 2009.

The Earth is passing through the tail of a rogue comet, an event which has not occurred in 65 million years, the last time coinciding with the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. On the night of the comet’s passage, large crowds gather to watch and celebrate the event.

18 year old Regina “Reggie” Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart) is an employee at a movie theater in southern California. Annoyed that her #6 high score on the arcade game Tempest was beaten by someone with the initials “DMK“, she decides to have sex with her boyfriend, the theater projectionist, in the steel-lined projection booth. Meanwhile, Reggie’s 16 year old sister Samantha “Sam” (Kelli Maroney) argues with their stepmother, and she gets punched in the face.

The next morning, a reddish haze covers everything. There is also not one sign of life, only small piles of red dust and empty clothes. Reggie and her boyfriend wake up, unaware that anything strange has happened. Her boyfriend steps outside behind the theater and is immediately killed by a zombie. When Reggie comes looking for her boyfriend, she finds the zombie eating him. The zombie tries to attack, but she escapes. Finding herself in an empty world, Reggie goes home to find her sister. Sam had spent the night in a metal yard shed after the fight and is also alright.

After figuring out what has happened, they hear a radio disc jockey and race to the station, only to find it is automated and just a recording. They do find another survivor there, Hector Gomez (Robert Beltran), who spent the night in the back of his steel semi truck. When Sam interrupts the recorded show and makes an announcement, the broadcast is heard by government researchers in an underground think tank. They call the station, telling the survivors that a rescue team is on the way. The scientists note that the zombies, though less exposed to the comet, will soon disintegrate into dust themselves. Reggie tells Hector that, as military brats, she and Sam were taught how to use firearms by their father. Hector then leaves to see if any of his family survived, while Reggie and Sam go foraging at a local mall. After a surprise firefight with some zombie ex-stock boys, the girls are taken prisoner but are saved by the rescue team from the think tank.
Reggie is immediately taken back to their base. Audrey White (Mary Woronov), a dying, disillusioned scientist, offers to remain behind with Sam to wait for Hector. Another scientist who stays with them believes Sam has been exposed and should be executed. However, Audrey realizes that Sam is actually healthy. After purportedly euthanizing Sam, she then kills the other scientist. When Hector returns, Audrey provides enough information for him and Sam to try to rescue Reggie. Audrey then gives herself a lethal injection.

The researchers had suspected and prepared for the comet’s effects, but inadvertently left their ventilation system open during the comet’s passage allowing the comet’s deadly dust to permeate their base. Meanwhile, Reggie has become suspicious, escapes, and discovers that the dying scientists have hunted down healthy survivors and rendered them brain-dead, so they can harvest their untainted blood to look for a cure.
Hector and Sam find Reggie, along with a young boy and a young girl Reggie has rescued. Some of the researchers are killed in the escape, while the rest presumably perish from the comet’s after-effects.

Eventually, rain washes away the red dust and the world is left in a pristine condition. The group becomes a conventional family unit, except for Sam who feels left out. When she ignores Reggie’s warning and crosses a deserted street against the still-operating signal light, she is almost run over by a sports car driven by Danny Mason Keener, a teenager her own age. After apologizing, he invites her to go for a ride. As they drive off, the car is shown sporting the initials “DMK” on the vanity plate.

No Ovaries Removed

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No Ovaries Removed

On April 28th of 1952, medical staff at the Cedars of Lebanon hospital in L.A. wheeled an extremely nervous Marilyn Monroe to surgery where she was to have her appendix removed. Some time later, with Monroe unconscious and the procedure about to begin, doctors pulled back her gown to find the following note taped to her stomach. It was addressed to her surgeon, Dr. Marcus Rabwin.

Transcript follows.

(Source: MM-Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe; Image of Monroe in 1952, post-appendectomy, via.)

Transcript

Dear Dr. Rabwin,

cut as little as possible I know it seems vain but that doesn’t really enter in to it. The fact I’m a woman is important and means much to me.

Save please (I can’t ask enough) what you can – I’m in your hands. You have children and you must know what it means – please Dr Rabwin – I know somehow you will!

thank you – thank you – thank you – For God‘s sakes Dear Doctor no ovaries removed – please again do whatever you can to prevent large scars.

Thanking you with all my heart.

Marilyn Monroe

via Letters of Note: No Ovaries Removed.

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