Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

QUESTION: Bring It Back


The local newsweekly/arts publication Metroland had a civer story last week called Bring It Back, things “vaudeville to roller disco and trolleys to pterodactyls” that the writers want to see return. I’ll tell you my three, and you tell me yours. You are not limited to three, BTW.

1. Single-screen movie theaters. Generally, they were not only much larger screens, but the place was more ornate as well. Love to see films at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, not that far from Albany, NY. Even if the movie’s not good, the experience is still worthwhile.

2. The Ed Sullivan Show. Yes, I know Ed’s dead. I’m talking about something as eclectic as the Sullivan program, where you wade through the guy spinning plates to see the singer you really want to see, and realize that you sorta LIKED the guy spinning plates, either genuinely or as kitsch.

3. Public civility. Yes, I’m old-fashioned, but I really HATE it when people on the bus/on the street curse in front of my four-year old daughter. Yeah, yeah, “she’ll learn it eventually”, and “everybody curses” (not true, BTW) and “it’s just words” (true in a George Carlinesque way, but still), blah, blah, blah. It still bugs me. My aversion in that situation should be differentiated from language in music, books, movies, blogs, etc., where one generally can choose to be, or not.
Sidebar: I’ve said this before, but the overuse of cursing minimizes the power of the words. If/when I say “F*** you!” to you, you’ll know that I’m royally p.o.ed.
***
From About.com, this Madonna quote: “I always thought I should be treated like a star.” Shouldn’t we all feel that way, really? Madonna turns 5-0 today.

ROG

ROG

FantaCo redux

How do you leave the past behind
When it keeps finding ways to get to your heart.
– From the musical Rent.

As some of you know, I worked at FantaCo Enterprises, a comic book store that was involved with conventions, mail order and publishing from May 1980 to November 1988. After I left, I figured, “OK, that was THAT chapter in my life,” and I would just move on.

Well, no.

In part because of the nudging of a certain party, I wrote a piece or two about the place I spent 8.5 years working, with another piece coming later this month. Then I discovered that some people had warm recollections of FantaCo, the store, the conventions and the various, and eclectic, line of publications.

What brought this to mind were TWO e-mails I got in the past week. One wanted to get hold of FantaCo owner Tom Skulan concerning a publication about magazines such as EERIE and CREEPY, and he wanted to include the FantaCo publications of the genre.

(Truth is, I have a three-year-old e-mail of Tom’s and don’t know if it’s any good.)

The other e-mail was from a guy who wrote:
One question I have is about the Fantaco/Tundra imprint. According to many sources, right around 1990, FantaCo proper disappeared, and instead comics with a Fantaco/Tundra imprint appeared. Kevin Eastman, publisher of the short-lived Tundra Publishing, seems to have been involved (as a book of his, “No Guts No Glory” was published by Fantaco/Tundra). In my Wikipedia entry, I deduced that Eastman bought out or absorbed Fantaco around this time. Am I correct in assuming that? If not, do you know the real history? (I know you left the company around 1988, but I thought you might have kept up with their story.)

I have no idea. The idea of Tom allowing anyone to “absorb” FantaCo seems out of character, but as the writer notes, I wasn’t there. (Hey, anyone out there know?)

This latter writer, not so incidentally, has put together the FantaCo Wikipedia post. It is incomplete, as it does not even mention the book publications, such as Splatter Movies, Video Screams, The Amazing Herschell Gordon Lewis, a couple HGL screenplays, Midnight Marquee #33 (I think), and two books about Famous Monsters. I was tickled, though, to see the list of references, including Steve Bissette, who I knew in the day, and have been reacquainted with as a result of the Internet; and, well, me. I’m also cited, BTW, in the Fred Hembeck Wikipedia post.

Somehow, I have, much to my surprise, started to feel some responsibility towards the history of the FantaCo flame, even the stuff that happened after I left. It must be the librarian in me. Steve Bissette has already tackled some of this in his four-part series on Gore Shriek Steve’s contributions to Henderson State University also addresses the topic. Others who have noted it include Fred Hembeck, of course, and Dennis Dread.

So, at SOME point, I’ll have to deal with the incomplete legacy of FantaCo. I’ll probably start with the Mile High listing. But, for all sorts of reasons, which will be revealed sooner or later, not for a few weeks. Meanwhile, if you all have some solid information re: FantaCo, especially FantaCo publications, and the FantaCo/Tundra relationship, please let me know. My thanks. The information gods will truly thank you.

ROG

ROG

Oscar-Worthy Movies I’ve Seen: 1938


Man, I was going to do this once a month, but haven’t done it since November and last July before that:

Picture:
“YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU”, “The Adventures of Robin Hood”, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “Boys Town”, “The Citadel”, “Four Daughters”, “Grand Illusion”, “Jezebel”, “Pygmalion”, “Test Pilot”
Actor:
SPENCER TRACY in “Boys Town”, Charles Boyer in “Algiers”, James Cagney in “Angels With Dirty Faces”, Robert Donat in “The Citadel”, Leslie Howard in “Pygmalion”
Actress:
BETTE DAVIS in “Jezebel”, Fay Bainter in “White Banners”, Wendy Hiller in “Pygmalion”, Norma Shearer in “Marie Antoinette”, Margaret Sullavan in “Three Comrades”
Supporting Actor:
WALTER BRENNAN in “Kentucky”, John Garfield in “Four Daughters”, Gene Lockhart in “Algiers”, Robert Morley in “Marie Antoinette”, Basil Rathbone in “If I Were King”
Supporting Actress:
FAY BAINTER in “Jezebel”, Beulah Bondi in “Of Human Hearts”, Billie Burke in “Merrily We Live”, Spring Byington in “You Can’t Take it With You”, Miliza Korjus in “The Great Waltz”
Director:
FRANK CAPRA for “You Can’t Take It With You”, Michael Curtiz for “Angels With Dirty Faces”, Michael Curtiz for “Four Daughters”, Norman Taurog for “Boys Town”, King Vidor for “The Citadel”

I know I’ve seen Boys Town, fairly sure I saw Angels with Dirty Faces, and may have seen You Can’t Take It with You. Either don’t remember or not loving any of them that much. The Adventures of Robin Hood, though, I recall liking and it was generally thought that Errol Flynn should have gotten nominated.

Two films that were shut out altogether by Oscar: Bringing Up Baby (Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant), which I saw so long ago that I can’t recall it much; and Alfred Hitchock’s the Lady Vanishes, which I don’t believe I’ve seen.
ROG

ROG

Songs That Move Me, 10-2

10. Neil Young – Harvest Moon
A beautiful song, with specific recollections of a romance that burned brightly, then ended.
Feeling: autumnal.

9. Crying- Roy Orbison And k.d lang.
As good as Roy’s original is, this one is better. It’s the harmonica. And when lang gets to sing, by herself, the chorus, it is stunning.
Feeling: there’s something in my eye.

8. Biko – Peter Gabriel.
The story of the slain South African is penetrating, but the vocals, the rhythm, and that ending!
Feeling: ticked off.

7. John Hiatt – Have a Little Faith in Me
How does this rate so high? It’s just a guy on the piano. Well, it’s the quality of both. Hiatt remade this song with more orchestration for a greatest hits album; it was not improved, and in fact was somehow diminished. Not so incidentally, a key song on a mixed tape I made for my now-wife.

6. When Love Comes To Town – U2/B.B. King.
From the opening drumming to King’s guitar lines, to King’s and Bono’s vocals, I almost always platy this song twice.
Feeling: struggling with the power.

chops off 1st notes and then too soon.

5. Billy Joel-Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
As beautiful as it is, the piano on the bridge just lifts it higher. I heard an a cappella version of this, which was lovely.
Feeling: melancholy.
HERE.

4. Roberta Flack – Gone Away.
I was watching the Grammys in the last couple years and discovered someone has sampled this. This song, part of the group of songs I used to play when love went south, really builds after the 1:30 mark, with instruments (a painful guitar line, and is that a tuba?) plus mournful vocals that feature the late Donny Hathaway.
Feeling: brokenhearted.

3. I Only Have Eyes For You – the Flamingoes.
I hear those first three or four chords and I am always surprised how it leads to such a lush tune. My first favorite song, probably for 30 years.
Feeling: loving.

2. Let’s Go Crazy – Prince.
Unfortunate that the video overlays the preach part with the musical beginning, for it’s both elements that I love. The danceability, plus my favorite guitar solo possibly ever. I have a 7-minute version that’s even more fun.
Feeling: let’s get nuts!

So, here are
the rules.
100-91.
90-81.
80-71.
70-61.
60-51.
50-41.
40-31.
30-21.
20-11.

Anyone want to venture a guess as to #1?

(Confidential to T&C, who started before I did, but somehow will finish after: it’s from my top 10 with which one or more of your Top 40 will converge, I’m guessing.)
ROG

ROG

"Obama is No MLK" and other pieces of GOP thought

One of the things I find that I need to do, as a citizen as well as a librarian, is to get summaries of differing points of view politically, delivered by e-mail because I’m not likely to remember to go to the sites. On the left, it’s Common Dreams which I find less strident, and less likely to get into internecine battles than, say, the Huffington Report, which, at this point I seldom read. On the right, it’s Human Events, which features some political heavyweights such as Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan; the latter is so iconoclastic that he sometimes gets criticized by people on the right end of the spectrum.

Now and then – OK, often – Human Events will offer up an ad, such as from the McCain camp. One recent one, from the National Black Republican Association is currently trying to get a lot of mileage out of the assertion by a niece of Martin Luther King, Jr, that MLK was a Republican. I don’t doubt it for a minute; my parents were Republicans, the party of Lincoln. Particularly in the South in the 1960s and before, the Democratic Party was the party of segregation; think George Wallace, Lester Maddox, and Strom Thurmond before he switched; lots of blacks in the South were Republicans. What’s bothering me is the implication that the GOP of 1968 is the GOP of 2008, and therefore, of MLK were still alive, he would still be a Republican. This, of course, is utterly unknowable.

Meanwhile, a Human Events contributor, whose initials are the same as Alternating Current, has been beating the drum on this John Edwards story for weeks that the National Enquirer “broke”. She has submitted that the story did not make it into the MainStream Media because of its liberal bias. One could make the case that it didn’t make it into the MSM because the original source was the National Enquirer. The Washington Post may have just felt uncomfortable trusting it enough to quote the Enquirer as the source of its stories. Also, the Enquirer story is still suggesting that Edwards is the father of his former lover’s child, something Edwards is still denying, even as he admitted to the affair.

Suddenly, all those stories about John Edwards’ $400 haircuts can be/will be spun into a symbol of his general narcissism. I’m just happy, in retrospect, that his candidacy never really caught on, though John McCain (and Newt Gingrich for that matter) have been accused of the same thing; having sex with someone not his spouse, while the wife suffered from various ailments.

This political season is getting really…interesting, and it’s not even Labor Day yet.
ROG

ROG
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