Red Sonja for no reason whatsoever

I have to keep looking at my calendar to remember what day it is. My kid had furlough days off of school, plus Memorial day weekend and then an extra day for reasons I can't remember--a Union stipulation perhaps. Hence: my confusion. Is it garbage night? Does the mail now come after two days of no delivery? Are people bitching on Facebook about nothing important? OK--getting back to normal then.

Here's Red Sonja starring 80s sensation, Brigitte Nielsen. "They" say she's a bad actor, but I really like her in this. Kind of stiff and cold, but she's supposed to be, having been mauled by marauders and left for dead without any counseling afterwards. She gets along well with animals and beats the crap out of people (mostly men) with her broadsword. She's got a killer mullet and she's properly physical, which is all in keeping with her Amazon warrior-like status.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Kalidor (basically Conan in everything but name--a legal issue) as good-natured, but smirky. Whenever I happen to be channel-flipping and this is on, I linger. But I do yell out (spoiler) "NO!" when Sonja finally succumbs to Dumbhead's charms. She obviously should find contentment with an equally cool lady.




Check out these clips. With Dino De Laurentiis at the helm, you will definitely be entertained.




Epic, huh? Sandahl Bergman is the evil Queen Gedren. I would hate to be in a girl-band with her. I think I was in a girl-band with her.



Bergman was originally slated to play Sonja but turned the role down to play Gedren instead. What might have been!


And take a look at Conan's, I mean, KALIDOR's pad. Manly.



It's all a grand journey into the demented mind of...someone, and though it tanked at the box office and critics have been laughing at it since 1985, I like it--wrong as it is. It paved the way for Xena, Buffy and Seven of Nine--half-human/half-warrior chicks who didn't need men, opting for femme girls, conscious-tortured vampires and the Borg, respectively.

The Way We Get By - Memorial Day 2011

If you get a chance, you should watch the documentary The Way We Get By, which aired once again on PBS this Memorial Day. It's a very heartfelt and touching look at a group of older people who send off and greet U.S. troops out of the Bangor, Maine airport, 24 hours a day. Some have served in the military. Some have family members in the military. All have differing views of politics and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they're united by one philosophy: to thank the young people in the U.S. armed forces for their service.

Trailer


Watch it on Hulu.

Sasquatch Festival streaming live on NPR

Neglected the blog unintentially but here's a treat: listen to Sasquatch Fest live this weekend on NPR, May 28-30, all the way from the mid-eastern quadrent of Washington State. Sasquatch country.

AV Undercover 2011 - handpicked bands test their cover limits

AV Undercover asks readers to suggest a list of 25 songs and then invites underground bands into the office to cover them. Some covers are inspired. Some are pretty anemic. That's how it goes with would-be innovative covering techniques. As the list shrinks, the question lingers: who will get stuck covering The Power of Love by Huey Lewis & The News?

Of Montreal covers White Stripes' Fell In Love With A Girl. I can't help but opine that some Of Montreal members may eventually regret their stylistic tendencies in the near future. Is it possible to pre-date your dated look? Because I think that's kind of going on here. No matter! My standard blogging uniform also needs work. Enjoy Of Montreal gettin' gnarly for a couple minutes.



Dum Dum Girls cover Big Star's September Gurls in dreamy, surf-rock fashion.



Wye Oak covers Danzig's Mother. Sure, why not? Nice job. Is that a flugelhorn?


For last year's series, Wye Oak covered The Kinks' Strangers. Niiiice.

The Low Anthem covers Wilco's A Shot In The Arm. I've never been as ape-shit about Wilco as most music-writer types but this is a perfectly fine cover featuring a clarinet and enough scruffiness for a room-full of bloggers.



If you start craving a Starbuck's frappuccino after this, please blame our current rock & roll culture of advertising.

John Lithgow does Gingrich

John Lithgow performs Newt Gingrich's recent press release. This is what politics are all about: acting.

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

source: Crooks and Liars

George Takei for Supreme Ruler of the Universe

Be cool, like George.

I Wake Up Dreaming: Haunted World of the B Film Noir at The Roxie

I meant to write about the two-week film noir festival at San Francisco's Roxie Theater, but I got sidetracked. It started Friday, May 13 (of course--the perfect night to begin a film noir B-movie festival), and runs through May 28. Billing itself a showcase for darkly demented B budget curios of American style, most of the films are not available at a store near you. This is a great chance to see low-budget, hard-edged weirdness on the big screen, surrounded by the sights and sounds of the real-life noir of today's gentrifying Mission District.

Rated: dark. Synopsis here. Show dates/times (don't go by the synopsis page--it's on hashish or something).

Female violence in The Story of Molly X (1949)


Witness to Murder (1954) with Barbara Stanwyck and George Sanders--pinch me, I must be imagining the perfect dream cast!


Private Hell 36 (1954) written by and starring the great Ida Lupino.


Wait, you haven't seen Kiss Me Deadly? Probably one of the most disturbing films I've ever had the displeasure of seeing, but it's worth it for shock value alone. And it's been very influential over the years.

Zoetropes, Phonographantasmascopes and Praxinoscopes for Friday

I certainly can come up with the timely topics. I made a zoetrope many years ago in fine-arts summer school in a really bitching animation class and it was one of my favorite things ever. How I wish I still had my little zoetrope that spun on a pencil--so cool. You can buy kits to make these or just craft your own at this point, thanks to YouTube. Phonographantasmascopes are the best-named things of all time and look really cool too--like a 3D zoetrope that seems to be animating before your very eyes whilst trodding upon a turntable. Praxinoscopes use mirrors in a clever way and will wow you in an ol' fashioned manner, my friend.

You know that long ago, people sat around parlours admiring their hosts' praxinoscopes and exclaiming that it really looked like a tiny goat was jumping over an obstacle a hundred million times before their very eyes. No wonder people have always loved to entertain. To watch the little goats, of course.

Basic zoetrope demo. It fools the eye!


Pixar has made the ultimate zoetrope (of course). It's lovely.


Time on your hands? Make a high-tech zoetrope. Be the envy of everyone.


What's a phonographantasmascope? So glad you asked.




The praxinoscope makes good use of tiny mirrors.


And don't forget the other interestingly named, round, spinny animation device, the phenakistoscope.

Help! I've fallen down a K-tel Commercial wormhole

And I never want to get out. The 1970s was the era of ridiculous products and so called "inventions" that everyone had to have, making garage sales more junked out than ever for several decades. And K-tel was right in the forefront of this consumerist madness with their super-cheap, excitedly announced product line that we loved so well.

Mood shirts for your every mood. Family life made everyone "tense" in the 70s, hence the high divorce rate. I'm sure this product didn't help.




Do you remember? Husker Du was a memory exerciser that was virtually "impossible to memorize." A rainy-day staple at grade schools across the country.




Kids! Why catch a ball with your hands, when you can order two vacuum handles with thumb holes instead? Television posed numerous questions such as this while we were growing up. It led to a lifetime to questioning and formed the great society that we are today.




If you're getting up there in years, you might remember K-tel Record Selector. The Tape Selector was its bastard cousin. Eight-tracks didn't stick around long enough to create a profit on this, I'm sure.




Excuse me for a heavy-metal moment while I have an Axe Attack.




K-tel's "Block Buster" is an excellent example of the schizophrenic top-40 programming mentality that existed throughout the 70s. Listen to disco, soft rock, r&b, prog-rock and power ballad all within the space of 7 minutes (or less!).




We still have this one. It features Hot Butter's "Popcorn" so you know we're never giving it up.

Adele for Monday

What a voice! Adele! On Monday!



Ice sculptures? Why? Good make-up though.


Adele takes it down a notch.


Adele keeps it real.


That voice! That voice! Swoon.

Terrence Malick on the big screen (MOMI May 13-15)

The Films of Terrence Malick (MOMI, May 13-15) from Matt Zoller Seitz on Vimeo.

New Yorkers get a treat next weekend, May 13-15, when The Museum of the Moving Image screens Terrence Malick's Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The New World for one big cinematic, philosophical retrospective of awesomeness. I've never seen Days of Heaven on the big screen, nor The New World for that matter. We of the West Coast salute you, and hope you think of us when it's time to tour the show.

Going "Popeye" on ya

Today's Popeye Appreciation Day around here. I rented some original cartoons from the 1930s so my kid could appreciate the mythological triad of The Sailorman, his fickle girlfriend Olive Oyl, and arch-nemesis Bluto. Alongside hungry, lazy Wimpy and mischievous Sweetpea, Popeye was our entryway to the surreal world of cartoon adulthood while we were growing up on syndicated television.

We had no idea why these characters looked and acted the way they did. We only knew that their world was stranger, more vibrant, and certainly funnier than most of what we encountered after walking out our door. Even in black and white. And the muttering--the never ending muttering. Popeye is a blueprint of good vs. evil and the powerful, wondrous qualities of green vegetables.

Say it with a unicorn

Normally a president couldn't get away with this, but I think this whole action-packed mythological mish-mash is working for Obama. I don't know who put this together, but whoever you are: you are a genius.



Art: it's important

Update: be sure to celebrate Obama's 2012 victory with the new, improved updated Obama Unicorn.

Today's word: Zesty

In my middle-of-the-night bout of insomnia, one word came to mind and wouldn't leave: zesty. Let's explore some zesty concepts on this sunny spring day.

May is national bike month and Bike to Work Day is scheduled in your area in the next 30 days (Thursday, May 12th for the Bay Area). Nothing is zestier than having a job. Riding your bike to your job is even more fulfilling. Even if you can only ride to public transportation, think of how much you're saving the planet by not spewing carbon emissions all over the air we breathe. If so, thank you!

I work at home mostly, but I try to bike whenever possible. Or even walk, since I'm lucky enough to live in a pretty compact, well-developed area. Some might call it a small city, but others who live in actual cities might scoff at that. But that's not very zesty of them.


You know what else is zesty? Comedian Erin Gibson attempting to take a pole-dancing class. Better her than me. I hope this embeds OK. Give it a shot.



For true zestiness, try some delicious North African cuisine. Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya combine geographical influences with creative spice blends in genius food formations.


Remember Bad Manners? They were so zesty! They've reformed and are playing with The Uptones at The Uptown in Oakland on Saturday, May 21st.



Awww, Chihuahua! Playing pool!

Hamster in need of attention

Fifi lives for attention. Who knew hamsters could be so social? We made up this word, "poogy" to describe the look of extremely full hamster cheeks. And as you can see, she's quite poogy here. How she manages to climb up the walls of her cage without toppling over remains a mystery. Anyway, when she's not stuffing her face with every morsel of food in sight, she's trying to run away from us. Hamsters live to run--they apparently run six miles every night in the wild. So eating and running--that's what you get.

Whenever Fifi makes it to the blog it usually means I've not been able to focus my full attention to this online endeavor. Today is no exception. We had a series of duties to fulfill for the past several weeks that took precedent over everything else. Like: getting healthy; then getting healthy again; and still again--sure, why not? There was a need for doctors and much medication around here. Plus special dietary recommendations that had to be shopped for. And supplements--so many supplements.

I learned about two excellent pressure points to apply. One for pain: close up your thumb next to your hand/forefinger--see that fatty fold between thumb and hand? Press there against the hand bone slightly. Alleviates pain! Even though it hurts a little to press there--pressure-point irony in action.

Here's one for immunity: close up your forearm against your upper arm and see the fold where your arm bends? Press on the side of that fold slightly--ouch. That builds immunity. I could have used that one a month ago, but I'm storing it away in the old mental files for future reference. My acupressure friend showed me these and she knows her stuff. I hope she doesn't mind if I share. I just find this pretty helpful and there's no side-effects other than weird little sore spots from too-enthusiastic pressing.

Things are looking healthier now and we should resume our regularly scheduled nonsense post-haste. Maybe there's a pressure-point for absurdity and fulfillment. I think I know where that body-part is and it's NSFW. Heh.

In the mean time, please pay attention to this hamster for the next few seconds and I'll be with you shortly.

The Art of Silliness - online class for recession-busting artists everywhere

I didn't mean to neglect the blog this week. But real-life intrusions kept...intruding. There was nothing I could do except occasionally tweet my dismay and Tumblr-link to my weirder Internet finds. I even Facebook'd here and there, but this blog is more of a heartfelt-effort type of endeavor, and my heart was busy taking care of reality.

And reading over my first paragraph, I must say: when did I turn into such a massively computer-addicted geek? That's something to work out another day.

Carla Sonheim is our subject today. She's a Seattle-based artist who wrote a fine drawing-exercise book, Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists, and she curates a series of online art classes that are ridiculously affordable and fun. If you sign up for her class, you get daily PDF downloads of easy, silly, fun drawing exercises (and an occasional photography assignment, if her husband happens to be co-teaching).

You don't even have to be an artist. The exercises are designed to get you into a "drawing is fun" mode from way back in childhood when you didn't care what people thought of your creative output. This is a healthy place to be, if even for just ten minutes a day.

You can share the downloads with your family, or if you're a teacher, with your class. My son and I had a blast doing this together. He likes art but he likes doing a lot of other stuff too, so this was a good focusing technique for him to do some daily artwork and it was Fun, I tell you. Fun with a capital "F." I just realized I could substitute the word "me" for "my son" in the above sentence, and it would be just as true. Focus--it's a good thing.



Watch Carla paint a bunny with a watercolor charcoal pencil base.


Carla succinctly discusses her book.


I made some art. I'll make some more.

How to get rid of gophers, in theory

We started a garden (officially in actual dirt, not in pots) and it's already annihilated by slugs and gophers. I can handle the slugs--I got organic bait for them (it keeps them from eating for three or four days--then they die--gnarly!). The gophers are tough though. I've been reading all available organic solutions for them. I don't want to set out poison in the middle of my vegetable garden, after all. But currently, it doesn't look like it's going to be much of a vegetable garden, thanks to you, gophers. So here are some of the suggestions:

Place fish heads in their entrance-ways. Like most creatures on God's green earth, gophers don't like fish heads in their burrows.

Here's Barnes and Barnes' 1979 cult hit, "Fish Heads," for inspiration. (Song starts at 2:19)


Or you can rent a "gopher vac," which will suck them out of the ground for a one-way ticket out of your yard. Gophers are not harmed by the vacuum but moved to another location, far far away. Perhaps their minds will be affected, but who cares? I couldn't find a video of a gopher vac, but here's a prairie dog vac in action--same thing.


Or you can build a cool-looking owl house to attract some predator birds. At night, they're supposed to eat your gophers, post-haste. There's some debate about whether an owl will feed in its nesting area, so you're encouraged to ask your neighbors to place an owl house in their yard, if you do the same. Great--interacting with neighbors over gophers and their predators. I guess it's better than just being on Facebook all the time.

Castor oil and camphor oil pellets are supposed to keep gophers away. Spread it around the plants and the smell disturbs them enough so they move out. Or so they say...

This answer comes from the Berkeley Parents Network--a bastion of organic solutions to life's pestering problems:

Shake Away. We used the one for rodents like voles, moles, mice and rats. It contains garlic oil. They have another product for Small Critters like gophers and a number of other animals that contains fox urine; we did not use that product. They charge $15.95 for each of their cans.

We also used garlic tablets from another company called www.gardeners.com. They also sell castor oil which apparently repels moles and gophers and is the most cost effective product. They also have Shake Away for $19.95.

We used the garlic oil from shake a way once and the garlic tablets from gardeners.com once. The next day the gopher disappeared; we have only had gophers twice in the last year. One gopher can make many tunnels and they are solitary animals. You probably have only 1 gopher.

Gopher traps are another option. Let me know if you want info on that; we did not need to try the traps. - JUDY

Thanks, Judy. When I need advice, I turn to the inhabitants of Berkeley. They read up on things and they're here to help.

So, sorry to be so gopher-obsessed today, but they're obnoxious. And hungry. And they've taken my sunflower seeds, dammit.

Eddie Izzard - Easter and Christmas

Le Reno Amps - Best Band from Scotland I've Heard Today

It's been a helluva week. Health scares, a volunteer gig that got out of hand, rain (always like to get rain around here though--we practically live in a desert half the year otherwise), HMO runaround. At least there were no catastrophic events. Oh, wait--never mind. OK--so anyway, this band, Le Reno Amps, based in Glasgow, just washed into my consciousness this morning and I'm thoroughly enjoying their pop weirdness. You go, Le Reno Amps. Get popular so I can say I called it first. And as usual, no one will hear me say that.

Listen to and download their crackin' good new album, "Appetite for Construction."

Le Reno Amps!

DIY Voyeur

Maybe you need something to do this week, or just a place to see what other people are doing. Thanks to the Internet, we can all sit here, staring blankly at the industrious efforts of other people. Perhaps inspiration will strike. One thing to remember before starting any do-it-yourself project is to have plenty of root beer on hand for when you get stumped and need to take a break. Also: try to keep the swearing down--us lazy people are trying to read around here.

IKEA Hackers is exactly what it says it is: a blog about revamping IKEA products to your own desires. Like this ingenious topsy-turvy-like tomato planter that Ninjarita from Minneapolis made from VASTLIG bags.

Some hacks are kind of "eh," like I can't get excited about the kitty litter boxes housed in repurposed laminated cabinets, but this is impressive--Ramvik Arcade Machine by Jed


Make Magazine's blog makes me feel inadequate. I'll never be as tech-savvy as this crafty bunch. Check out Shep's Lego Quad Flexipicker, which can sort 48 Lego bricks per minute.


Craft Magazine is such a mixture of stuff. Browse away. I'm partial to this crocheted viking costume by Veronica Knight.


But enough about that. Let's learn some basic blacksmithing with Meg and Alex Himmelbaum, shall we?