Arthur@AmeriNZ Archives - Page 32 of 50

Coverville: All-Beatles covers Thanksgiving show for the 12th year in a row! “Track by track tribute to Rubber Soul for the 50th anniversary of its release, as well as a tribute to Paris with a full set of French-spoken Beatles covers.”

Chuck Miller wants to be buried with Stevie Wonder’s “Hotter Than July”, which I consider his last great album.

Funnies

AV Club’s favorite graphic novels, one-shots, and archives of 2015.

Mark Evanier continues to list the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968, including Paul Winchell (Tigger) and Howard Morris (Atom Ant) and Stan Freberg (Junior Bear), and Paul Frees (Boris Badenov, Professor Ludwig Von Drake, Poppin Fresh the Pillsbury Doughboy) and June Foray (Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale) and Daws Butler (Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Captain Crunch).

Buster Keaton – the Art of the Gag.

Smilin’ Ed Comics by Raoul Vezina & Tom Skulan. Hardcover on IndieGoGo.

GOOGLE alerts (me)

Time to Ask Arthur Anything. He answered mine about Prez and Veep candidates and Ranking the Republican candidates and The USA’s gun problem.

SamraiFrog’s 50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums.

Twing toustlers.

GOOGLE alerts (not me)

St Peter’s set for £1.2 million renovation. “Admitting to being “very nervous” about taking on the large-scale project, Friends chairman Roger Green, who this year won an award for his volunteering, has agreed to stay on and see through the changes, which are not likely to be complete until at least the end of 2019.”

The Advent post

It was more like the opening scene of The Life of Brian, where the lead character is clearly NOT Jesus of Nazareth.

Keef – Cartoon: Tis the Season.

Giant Santa Vs. The Brontosaurus That Wanted to Eat Christmas!, plus Eddie, the Renaissance Geek’s tradition.

Babe Ruth as Santa Claus, 1947.

Let’s play Christmas Song BINGO!!

The Wreath of Khan

Stephen Colbert Puts The Christ Back In C(hrist)offee.

The Salvation Army Just Killed Your Excuse That You’re “Out of Change”.

The Elf on the Shelf is preparing your child to live in a future police state, professor warns.

Some warranted Black Friday cynicism (video #1)

UK department store John Lewis’ 2015 Christmas TV advert, “The Man on The Moon”.

Both SamuraiFrog and Jaquandor have – and will have – nifty seasonal stuff.

Some months ago, my terrestrial buddy Bruce posted this picture on his Facebook page, and I rather liked it. Someone, though, “as a Christian,” was terribly offended.

I thought it was more like the opening scene of the Monty Python movie The Life of Brian, where the lead character is clearly NOT Jesus of Nazareth. Of course, some people were offended by that film too, and as a Christian, I just don’t get that, either.

Gold, Frankenstein, and mirth.

November rambling 2: Walmart returnables, and Blotto musicology

A Writer Gets Grilled By His 18-Year-Old Self

Dan said: “Perhaps someone absquatulated with an important part.”

Meanwhile, in America…, the succinctly brilliant viral meme from Andy McClure.

Trying to follow what is going on in Syria and why? This comic will get you there in 5 minutes.

9 questions about Daesh you were too embarrassed to ask.

Jeff Sharlet: The Darkness Show: On Jokes and Terror in Paris.

Gate A-4.

Walmart employee fired for redeeming a few dollars of cans and bottles. Local story goes national. And international. And becomes a cause.

It’s a tawdry catfight… between bourgeois actors who desperately seek to inherit the imprimatur of the Civil Rights struggle.

Being frugal with outrage.

High Cheekbones and Straight Black Hair? “100 Amazing Facts About the Negro: Why most black people aren’t ‘part Indian,’ despite family lore.”

The Original Conscious Uncouplers.

Texas Women Are Inducing Their Own Abortions.

If you enjoyed a good book and you’re a woman, the critics think you’re wrong.

The Internet Is Freaking Out Over This ‘Jeopardy’ Contestant’s Voice. “It’s time to stop policing the way women sound.”

A Writer Gets Grilled By His 18-Year-Old Self In ‘Later That Same Life’.

Dustbury has a birthday.

the death of comedy.

The oldest known video footage of New York City.

Now I Know: Not Safe, But Fired and Prisoner of Honor and Comma Chameleon Law.

Explaining Einstein. We have a winner!

How to count coins.

Miss Rose Marie, The Longest Active Career In Entertainment, Honored with Shirley Temple Award.

Justin Bieber Just Beat The Beatles’ 51-Year-Old Billboard Record.

It’s time to have a Blotto musicology conference.

The New Yorker Editor Who Became a Comic Book Hero. (Françoise Mouly).

Smilin’ Ed Comics Kickstarter Only Hardcover Editions!

Muppets: From the mouth of frogs and Bert is sick and commercials and Little Muppet Monsters (1985) and miscellaneous stuff.

GOOGLE ALERT

Arthur’s Internet wading. And it’s all my fault!

SamuraiFrog: I Spend Thanksgiving Alone Every Year. I’ve done so, and at a very basic level, I understand his position.

Ten and a half

If I know the topic I might tackle, it’ll kick around in my head, subconsciously.

126 months of blogging, 10.5 years, every day, without fail. I’ve been without Internet access, I’ve been sick. And still, I blog.

I wrote to a couple of my blogging buddies at the end of August to announce – the title of email was “This is sad” – that I had written a blog post for every day in September, save for two, and those two are the link posts, which I can’t put together beforehand UNLESS I were psychic, which, alas, I am not.

And the last one I wrote wasn’t for September 29, it was for September 11, because I needed to find a fresh angle. This is not to say I didn’t write about anything I experienced in September, or that I pushed them off until October.

This was a good thing because my output for October was dismal; 20 posts written in 31 days. So it ebbs and flows. Something Eddie wrote about blogging is true of me as well: “Once I get out of the habit of doing something, it gets harder and harder for me to get back into it, even if it was something I really loved doing.”

Basically, there are three types of posts that I write: those that need to be on or near a date (holidays, birthdays, ABC Wednesday), those that should be sooner than later (news items, movie reviews), and those that are evergreen, or nearly so (quizzes, odd musings). When I decided to write a bit about the death of Wayne Dyer and others that month, I bumped something to four days later, and THAT piece got bumped a month.

I had a Labor Day post scheduled for September 7, but then I realize that was also my half birthday, and someone (OK, it was Arthur) had written a blog post about half birthdays, which was a swell idea. Half birthday wins, Labor Day post gets moved up a day.

The Daughter I ALWAYS write about on the 26th of the month. If Thanksgiving is November 26, I write about turkeys on the 25th. The 26th I’ve written about her EVERY month, and I’m not messing with success.

All this moving around of posts means that I often have NO idea what will pop up on my blog on any given day, which is kind of nice. Sometimes I don’t remember until it shows up on my Facebook feed and someone LIKES it.

It does help a lot to know WHAT I want to write about. If I know the ABC Wednesday, or other, topic I might tackle, it’ll kick around in my head, subconsciously. And I absolutely do NOT write them in order. D was written before B. Heck X was written before J, because, having FOUND an X, I was loath to have the opportunity to let it slip away.

Dustbury wrote about not blogging for the money; that’s right. Periodically, I get offers to “monetize” this blog. I don’t know how many of them are legitimate, but I’ve eschewed almost all of them, and I should have avoided the one I took, which gleaned me almost $100 some years ago, but wasn’t worth the effort.

BTW, is Facebook “blogging”? I don’t know. Apparently, I don’t think so, in part because one can post random things, such as cute kittens, or paeans to God, not written by oneself. Or some political bit that’s as likely wrong as correct. And it’s too easy to manipulate the narrative on FB, because some prankster thinks it sounds like something another person might have uttered.

While I’m perfectly capable of making errors in the blog – we won’t even talk about typos, or words left out – the ease of LIKE and SHARE on FB makes it feel like…something other than blogging. And, as I’ve mentioned, I used to find it disconcerting to get more LIKES from some FB repost than from something I actually put some thought and time into writing.

Also, the nature of FB is that I’m less likely to read something a person posted there a week ago than a blog item someone composed a month ago, which I might link to in my blog. I almost never link in the blog to a Facebook posting – if I can even find it again.

This I found odd. It was a picture of a flag-draped casket, and the caption, “it is not about a three-day weekend.” But it was actually early September, and Labor Day most assuredly IS about the three-day weekend. If it had been Memorial Day, it’d been another thing.

Thus endeth my semiannual rambling about blogging. Amen and amen.

October rambling #2: absquatulate

I have a stuffed lion with a wild mane which I named Lenny.

The office move is mostly complete, but the inner offices are chaos. The recovery goes well, so now I’m trying to catch up on everything that got put on hold.

How Propaganda Works.

The Rise and Impact of Digital Amnesia.

Re: Hassan v. City of New York lawsuit against the NYPD over its surveillance program targeting Muslims. Plus the dreadful Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Greenland Is Melting Away.

MIT Technology Review: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

There are No Innocent Black People.

Buck Rogers and the Copyright Trolls.

Plus The Orwell estate is cracking down on people who dare to use the number “1984” without permission.

Pope Francis has NOT endorsed Bernie Sanders for President.

The 1,657 TV shows that spent less time on the air than the Hillary Clinton Benghazi hearing.

Pastor, former Arkansas governor, and current Republican candidate Mike Huckabee Suggests Poor People Should Be Sold Into Slavery For Stealing.

The Atlantic has a LOT of interesting videos on various topics, among them ‘Don’t Sneak’: A Father’s Command to His Gay Son in the 1950s.

Say “no” more often. You’ll be happier and healthier.

6 Phrases With Surprisingly Racist Origins.

Jim Crow-Era Travel Guides for Black Families Now Online Through Schomburg. Hey, I wrote about this.

Arthur does some Internet Wading: Truth and facts. I almost picked items 2 and 3 myself for this feature in my blog.

There’s an online petition to Congress to end Daylight Saving Time, which I signed, because DST makes no sense.

Happy 600th Anniversary of The Battle of Agincourt.

Cole slaw killed Ogden Nash.

I still need to see more films with Maureen O’Hara, the lovely actress who died recently at the age of 95.

Albany basketball legend Luther “Ticky” Burden died.

Marty Ingels, R.I.P. I watched I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster the year it was on. And Al Molinaro died, who I watched on The Odd Couple and Happy Days.

‘First Lady of Jazz,’ Lee Shaw, dies at 89. I talked with her a couple times during breaks in her sets. She was a wonderfully gracious, and an amazingly talented musician.

This month marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the passing of Leonard Bernstein. True: I have a stuffed lion with a wild mane which I named Lenny, in honor of the composer and conductor.

The Beatles “Revolution” Original Video, Remastered, New Audio Mix. My FAVORITE iteration of this song. Also, A Day In The Life.

LISTEN NOW, before it disappears. First Listen: Bob Dylan, ‘The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12’.

There’s a reason so many people love ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’

K-Chuck Radio: The Rocshire Memories. Featuring a song by Eddie Munster.

The three times Nasreddin was called upon to speak in public.

The word absquatulate came out of an odd fad in America in the 1830s for making playful words that sounded vaguely Latin. My spell checker recognizes it, too, Dan!

Now I Know: The Epidemic That Saved Lives and Winnie the Pooh-Poohed and Cattaxtrophy.

Advice From the Creator of Calvin and Hobbes; Comic by Zen Pencils. Words by Bill Watterson, art by Gavin Aung Than.

About comic book inking.

Ken Levine mentions Oscar Levant, confuses readers, comes up with a list of some people you might want to know.

Bob and Ray, and Dave Garroway, plugging the new show called TODAY.

GOOGLE ALERT (me)

The TWCQT gang reflects on which penciler/inker teams have had the most impact on them.

Alan David Doane Remembering His Mom on Her 90th Birthday.

GOOGLE ALERT (not me)

Would-be Bond: The naked truth. “Enter New Zealander Roger Green – ex-All Blacks rugby union player, ex-sheep farmer, and party animal.”

Colonial Heights (VA) mourns loss of Roger Green of the Chamber of Commerce. “Green had been battling Urachal cancer, a rare form of bladder cancer, for several months. He was 64 years old.”