"The Place That God Forgot"

That’s the pet name that one of my best friends has for our old hometown of Binghamton, NY. I think it’s a bit harsh, but I do know where she’s coming from.

My sister Leslie flew from San Diego to Albany on August 10, and my mother from Charlotte, NC to Albany on August 12. One doesn’t fly into Binghamton from hardly anywhere; it cheaper to fly into Albany or Syracuse or New York City, then rent a car or take a bus.

Leslie, my mom and I drove down to Binghamton that weekend for my sister’s XXth high school reunion; my mom and I saw friends. I was hanging out with another one of my friends from grade school when three very drunk people approached us about going somewhere on foot at 7 pm; there just isn’t very much to do in downtown Binghamton most evenings, though there are pockets of improvements.

Binghamton is an odd place. Where I grew up in the 1960s, in the First Ward, the housing stock is much the same, and therefore deteriorating or vacant, mixed with these incongruous pockets of yuppie houses with Beemers in front.

But it’s my hometown. More specifically, it’s my mom’s hometown, and she gets joy visiting our old church, her old friends. We’ve done that trip three or four years n a row now. Binghamton’s only 150 miles from Albany, but it feels like a half a lifetime away; for my mom’s sake, it’s worth the trip.

Happy 80th birthday, Mom.
ROG

ROG

Golden Compass QUESTIONS

I was having a conversation online with someone about an upcoming movie, suggesting a backlash against it. I’d just received this e-mail:

THE GOLDEN COMPASS, a new movie targeted at children, will be released December 7, 2007.
This movie is based on the first book of a trilogy by atheist Philip Pullman. In the final book a boy and girl kill God so they can do as they please. Pullman left little doubt about his intentions when he said in a 2003 interview that “My books are about
killing God.”
The movie is a watered down version of the first book and is designed to be very attractive in the hope unsuspecting parents will take their children to see the the movie and that the children will want the books for Christmas.
The movie has a well known cast, including Nicole Kidman, Kevin Bacon, and Sam Elliott. It will probably be advertised extensively, so it is crucial that we get the word out to warn parents to avoid this movie.
You can research this for yourself. Start with this article on Snopes.com, then go to Google.

This letter went on to distinguish it from the Harry Potter books, which were derscribed as having a Christian subtext(!).

I was vaguely familiar with the Golden Compass books, but haven’t read them, so I’m trying to find out:

1. Whether you think the books are anti-God/anti-religion, and if so, how did that affect your enjoyment of the books?

2. Do you plan to see the film? Does a potential boycott make you want to see the movie more or less? Given the limited number of films I see these days, I wasn’t planning to see it at all – it’s just not my kind of flick – yet a boycott somehow makes it somehow more intriguing.

ROG

ROG

Smokin’


There was this front page story, below the fold, a couple months ago After tobacco ban, where there’s smoke there’s ire; As hospitals prohibit smoking, employees begin puffing away off-campus, irritating neighbors. I was thrilled to see this piece, because I experienced the same thing. I even wrote a letter to the editor in response, which didn’t get published. But I DO have a blog:

I walk past the cigarette-smoke gauntlet that is St. Peter’s Hospital regularly. Ironically, the best place to walk to avoid the poisoned stench is through the St. Peter’s New Scotland Avenue parking lot, right past the area where the smokers used to be able to congregate. Of course, I have to negotiate past the moving cars, but that beats walking out onto the busy street.

At least one St. Peter’s employee regularly uses the bus kiosk at the corner of New Scotland and South Allen Street as his personal smoking emporium. I’ve also seen Albany Med employees smoking in the bus kiosk across from the hospital, at New Scotland and Holland.

I appreciate the hospitals wanting to make their campuses smoke-free, but personally, I’d rather let them go back to the designated locations.

I discovered subsequently that St. Peter’s has torn down a building that was behind the hospital where people used to smoke. Alas.

I have my bona fides as almost virulently anti-smoking. Yet why is it, when someone comes up to me and asks if he or she can “borrow” a cigarette, almost inevitably I say something along the lines of “Sorry, I don’t smoke” or “I’m afraid I don’t smoke”? I’m NOT sorry that I don’t smoke; moreover, I’m HAPPY that I don’t have the means to shorten someone else’s life. So, why do I often sound so damn apologetic? Maybe it’s some Piscean need to please.

Anyway, today is the Great American Smokeout, where people are supposed to quit smoking. I hope they do, but failing that, please keep that cigarette away from my family and me.

ROG

What Hast Moss Wrought

Lynn Moss, the wife of Fred Hembeck, has posted pictures of the second FantaCon back in 1980, before she WAS the wife of Fred Hembeck, if I’m remembering correctly. (EDIT: I wasn’t remembering correctly: they were married the year before.) The convention was put on by FantaCo Enterprises, the comic book store I worked at from 1980 to 1988. The pictures feature Fred, Lynn, Bill Anderson, Joe Staton, Wendy and Richard Pini, Dave Simons, and John Caldwell, plus FantaCo artist/front man Raoul Vezina, FantaCo employee Mitch Cohn and FantaCo owner Tom Skulan. The pictures also feature the “art jam” drawing done by Fred, Raoul, Wendy Pini, Berni Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Simons, Caldwell, and Staton, a drawing Fred described on November 28, 2003.

BTW, 21 Central Avenue, Albany, which was FantaCo’s location for its 20 years, has been several things in the years since it closed in 1998. Currently it’s a bazzar (their spelling), a convenience store that sells halal meats and other items.
***
R: You really ought to plug Fred’s upcoming book again.
R: Well, I have all of those FantaCo publications in the Smilin’ Ed and Hembeck series. In fact, just came across them in the attic this weekend.
R: Yeah, but there’s over 600 MORE pages, some of which you’ve never seen.
R: Really?
R: Yeah, and all for about $25.
R: WOW! But I need a new angle.
R: How’s that?
R: I need a new way to plug the book again.
R: How about the cover, with the color scheme they chose NOT to use?

R: That’d work.
***
A bunch of Jack Kirby stories that have allegedly never been reprinted. (Thanks, Dan.)
***
Fred and Rose talk about commerce, of a sort.

ROG

ROG

Happy Odd Couple Day

HAPPY ODD COUPLE DAY!
Here’s a tease for the movie version showing on TCM

And here’s the original TV intro; the voiceover part was dropped in later seasons:

I’m recalling a Mark Evanier post of six months ago, addressing that TV opening:
“On November 13th, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right, but he also knew that someday he would return to her. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend, Oscar Madison. Sometime earlier, Madison’s wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return. Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?”
Specifically, the part about Felix returning to his wife: was that inserted because of fear that Felix and Oscar might be perceived to be…(horrors) gay by the American television viewing audience? Yet that concern apparently DIDN’T exist in the movie version or the play that was produced, of course, in an earlier time.

If his observation is accurate, and I believe it is, why was that done? I suspect it’s because the producers’ thinking was that people go to to the theater and the movies, but TV comes into one’s house, and delicate sensibilities needed to be protected from such “untoward inferences”.
ROG

ROG
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial