This was an idea that never got fleshed out.
“The 5 Stooges meet Frank Perdue” will be filmed at Shorebirds Stadium. The movie culminates in a baseball match where two teams have to play a game of “chickenball.”
I’m not totally sure what “chickenball” is, let alone looks like when crossed with cinematic possibility and 2 additional Stooges.
H.P. Thomcraft sojourns to a cloudy living room in an undisclosed location of the nether-regions/places to weave three hazy tales of mystery and murk while playing a most deadly game of death. “H.P. Thomcraft’s Game of Pawns” is the sequel to the water-logged “H.P. Thomcraft’s Box of Tales.”
H.P. Thomcraft's Game of Pawns from Mike Gray on Vimeo.
This audio clip is from DIC’s Pole Position cartoon that aired in the ’80s. I canned it months back so that I could share it with a friend. At the time, it struck me as quite heavy and yet light in that ’80s way, when chatter turns to biological warfare. Mind you, this is Pole Position. With that said, “What’s up Uncle Zack?”
Two pen and ink drawings.
I think it was 10th grade English (maybe 11th) where we learned that back in the days of Shakespeare, one of the spectacles people used to attend for entertainment was ‘apes on ponies.’ I think the idea was that you tied an ape to the top of a pony and watched it destroy the pony.
The phrasing of this always made us laugh. I have never seen another reference to ‘apes on ponies’ in my life.
BREAKING UPDATE — Apparently I finally figured out what to search for. The ‘sport’ is horse baiting or bear-baiting.
A Spanish nobleman of the time, who was taken to see a pony baited that had an ape tied to its back, expressed himself to the effect that “to see the animal kicking amongst the dogs, with the screaming of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable.” (from Encyclopædia Britannica 3, 1910)
People have always been awful.
I’m not going to write much about this other than to say it’s pretty cool. A new Super 8 camera from Kodak! It looks pretty neat with a lot of modern features.
Looks like it will in the $400-750 range.
It is dated, and it sounds like mud, but it will never get any better.
Everyone is very excited that Bernie Krause’s Desert Solitudes arrived today. And yes, it is a Japanese Import.
Update: Click “Continue Reading” to see reactions.
It was pointed out to me the other day that I kept turning around the cereal box to showcase the Avengers’ secret message I had decoded. I was unconscious I’d been doing this; if anything I was just upset that I’d bungled entering “E’s” where the “N’s” should have gone.
I recently joined the movie streaming service Mubi, which I highly recommend 1. Mubi is distinct in that it is curated; any film is only availible for a period of 30 days, with a new title added and another removed daily. I watch a lot of stuff, but like many I usually default to a predictable algorithm of watching. With Mubi, it’s a multifarious grab bag; some of the films I’ve seen so far I love like Hong Sangsoo’s The Day He Arrives (2011), while others I dislike, like Butter on the Latch. (2013), directed by Josephine Decker. Thumbs up or thumbs down, though, the fact that the movies on Mubi are selected by someone with an intellectual agenda means that, whatever the viewing is, it will still stir opinions and summon reactions.
Mubi also tends to show several films by a specific filmmaker in any given cycle. This allows one to really get a sense of someone’s work, and also see some things that even if you are aware of such-and-such a person, you probably don’t know that obscure film in their back catalogue. Recently Mubi streamed a number of films by documentarian Kazuo Hara who is perhaps best known for The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987). I’d seen the film some years before and having no idea what it was about was completely captivated. If you think you might check it out yourself, I’d recommend going in blind, but be forewarned Hara is not for the faint of heart.
During his career, Hara has only made a handful of films, Mubi streaming most of these, and one being Goodbye CP / Sayonara CP (1972), a film about adults living with cerebral palsy in Japan in the early ’70s. The film is dated, and not without its problems, but Hara pulls no punches, and love it or hate it, it is affecting.
If you don’t check out Mubi, you can watch Goodbye CP / Sayonara CP over on Vimeo.