Saturday, January 19, 2013

Oddments of Different Kinds ~~~

While searching for something else I stumbled upon this superb video cartoon, it's one segment of a half-hour film, Why Man Creates written by Saul Bass and Mayo Simon, and directed by Saul Bass, available in full HERE The rest of the film is interesting, but this segment, The Edifice Sequence is the stand-out, in my opinion.





This photograph is one of husband's vintage acquisitions. He posted it on his Flickr pages recently, wondering whether anyone might recognise the subjects, who have a rather VIP/"celeb" air about them, and appear to have arrived in, or are about to depart from, Hawaii. From the woman's hat style one commenter puts the date of the pic around the mid 1930s. Some commenters suggested names, not always seriously: Cantinflas (from husband) but he'd have been the wrong age in the mid-1930s; Ethel Rosenberg, Shelby Foote, Tim Curry's uncle......

Does any passing reader here recognise either the woman or the man?






Peter Mark Roget, he of the famous Thesaurus, was born at this time of year (18 January 1779, in London): Capricorn/Aquarius cusp country:





Snippets: Pocket Paradigms from the Writings of Sam Smith

Media
The greatest power of the mass media is the power to ignore. The worst thing about this power is that you may not even know it's being used.

Politics
The system that envelops us becomes normal by its mere mass, its ubiquitous messages, its sheer noise. Our society faces what William Burroughs called a biologic crisis -- "like being dead and not knowing it." The unwitting dead -- universities, newspapers, publishing houses, institutes, councils, foundations, churches, political parties -- reach out from the past to rule us with fetid paradigms from the bloodiest and most ecologically destructive century of human existence. What should be merely portraits on the wall of our memories run our lives still, like parents who retain perpetual hegemony over the souls of their children.

Why bother? Only to be alive. Only to be real, to be made not just of what we acquire or our adherence to instruction, but of what we think and do of our own free will. Only, Winston Churchill said, to fight while there is still a small chance so we don't have to fight when there is none. Only to climb the rock face of risk and doubt in order to engage in the most extreme sport of all -- that of being a free and conscious human. Free and conscious even in a society that seems determined to reduce our lives to a barren pair of mandatory functions: compliance and consumption.

Life is a endless pick-up game between hope and despair, understanding and doubt, crisis and resolution.




On a lighter note, something from the husband's blog Thinks Happen (vintage 2008) also via Flickr. He used to write fanciful narratives to some of his vintage found photographs- not everybody "gets" this type of deightful wackiness, but I always have... and that's what got me where I am today, I guess. ;-)


It was to be a work-free week-end in the hills at the famous Woodsnipe Walls Manor for the members of the Waistdeep Nature Club. After gathering for the get-away in the gilded grand foyer, the group wandered out on the grounds for this group picture to commemorate the great event.

Just as the photographer yelled “pose” someone pinched the butt of Geary Stype, standing third from the right. Geary obviously suspects Gilda Goldflue standing just to his left. Gilda is ignoring him, of course. Geary did not see the guilty grin on Baldwin Molepost, just to his right. Actually Baldwin is grinning because he is secretly wearing a tie fashioned from a scarf belonging to Caldera Soo (standing, far left). Caldera designed her own blouse, hat and matching scarf. This morning her scarf went missing.Caldera, it must be noted is standing next to B. F. D. Blasko the well known vampire and vacuum cleaner repairman. They are not related.

The women of course perceived immediately that there were not enough men to go around. The men, of course, in typical masculine fashion, perceived that there were not enough women to go around.

All the girls are wearing hats for identification purposes.

Inside, the cook was making celery soup and singing "Heart and Soul” along with the wireless which was playing, “Night on Bald Mountain” by the Harmonicats.

Someone noted later in green ink, that Ivie Leak (seated fourth from left) was not a Waistdeep Nature Club member at all but an undercover writer for Popular Séance magazine.

But then, that’s another story, isn't it?




8 comments:

mike said...

Interesting oddments, Twilight! Sadly, the cartoon is all too real a depiction of humans' evolution. The more advanced we perceive ourselves, the more artifice we enact, the more separate from nature we become. Our own little insider joke upon ourselves, I suppose.

The photo of the couple was taken in Ohio in the depth of winter...they were attending a luau party (to break winter's monotony) for an Aquarian's birthday.

Roget's astrology has Sun, Moon, Pluto conjunct, square Mars, but trine Jupiter conjunct Neptune. He made the most of his obsessive aspects.

An interesting collection of beings in the Waistdeep Nature Club! I like the lady sitting to the far right in the photograph. I think she imbibed a greater share of the elixir that morning...she seems to be hanging-on to the bench as if entrained in a wave at sea with a matching expression.

Twilight said...

mike ~~ But of course! A luau Aquarius birthday party in deepest Ohio....it's obvious! It's also why the chap is wearing that heavy 3-piece suit to ward of the January Ohio chill. :-)

At noon Roget's Moon hit my Sun degree within a few minutes ,and his Mercury and mine are in same degree of Capricorn. Quickly - let make a list!

Yes, the far right lady is looking a bit sepia-green in the gills - maybe she side-stepped the Waistdeep crowd last night and found herself time travelling to a mysterious birthday luau in Ohio where the Mai Tais flowed rather freely.
;-)

anyjazz said...

I failed to mention that Ozzie Krall, standing tenth from the right, was also a member of the Knights of Oblivion, an officer in the Prune Brigade and a closet bio-accordionist, third class. He was the newest member of the Waist Deep Nature Club, joining only that morning while still asleep.

Twilight said...

Well, I can see why that would slip your mind aj! But don't you mean Ozzie Krall is the fellow standing 9th from the right? 10th from right is "B. F. D. Blasko the well known vampire and vacuum cleaner repairman."
Of course the two were always easily confused - and confusing - to the rest of the Waistdeep gang.

Vanilla Rose said...

It's Dolly Parton's birthday today!

mike (again) said...

Now I'm really confused...aj's comment about "tenth from the right". Depends whether I click on the photo or observe the photo as-is in your post, Twilight. And, if I assume that you are correct, Twilight, with your observation that it is B.F.D.Blasko, aka vampire and vacuum repairman, then there's something fishy here.

If I'm not mistaken, vampires die in the sunlight...B.F.D.Blasko looks quite alive to me (hard to truly know in this 2D photo). Perhaps aj should have identified this fellow as the lead singer in Vampire Weekend...here's their hit, "Holiday" official video...look at the close resemblance of the singer to the alleged B.F.D.Blasko:
http://vampireweekend.com/

Twilight said...

Vanilla Rose ~ So it is/was!
She's a very Earthy gal with Sun Mercury and Venus all in Capricorn, Moon and ascendant in Virgo.
Happy B'day to her!

Twilight said...

mike ~~ Odd - when I click on the photo it's exactly the same as in my post....never mind!

I can see the likeness, for sure, but...you see the description of Mr Blasko is a tad confusing - to clarify: he's a vampire repairman as well as a vacuum cleaner repairman. What he does is go around in broad daylight repairing the punctures in the lily white necks of vampire victims - it's a non-profit service to humanity don't ya know?
;-)