LIVING WITH YOUR PARENTS

I have a comfortable little house (above) in the suburbs and all my kids were raised here.

It has the usual amenities: books, TV, etc., etc.

And a well-stocked refrigerator; you gotta have that.

Yes, all in all it's been a good life.

That's why I can't understand what my grown-up kid told me over dinner last night. He said he needed a place to stay for a few months but that he didn't want to live here. I asked why...I mean, the rent here is free, and we like having him around...and he said that he'd never get anything done here. It's way too cozy.

"Too COZY???," I asked. "What's wrong with cozy?" Everything, he said. Everything here is soft and cushy and mushy and quiet...you could spend years here without being aware that time had passed. A house like this could rob you of years of your life.

Yikes! Well, I felt I had to defend the honor of the house so I pushed him to be more specific.

DAD: "Let me see if I understand. You're saying you're suffocating here. The house is dulling your mind."

KID: "Well, yeah, sort of. I don't want to exaggerate."

DAD: "Hmmmm. Come to think of it, when you were a baby you were always trying to escape."

KID: "Well, sure. Freedom. Everybody wants that!"

DAD: "So with ferocious hounds at your feet you escaped the clutches of the evil parents."

KID: "You're taking it all wrong."

DAD: "No, I get it...If you were here you'd be in quicksand. It's a slow death where the mud and the grass fill your lungs (Cough! Cough!) and you can't breathe anymore. That's it, right?

KID: Well....I didn't mean to imply....

DAD: But it's like that, right!? Like the Sargasso Sea???"

KID: "The Sargasso Sea!!!?? What's that got to do with anything?"

DAD: "The Sargasso Sea...a timeless, smelly, weatherless morass of rotting ships mired in decaying seaweed. A sailor caught in that is never seen again. That's what you think this house is like!"

KID: "Not exactly. Look, I don't want to offend. Maybe it's your collection of cats!"

DAD: "Huh? What cats? I don't have any cats!!!"

KID: "Ah, but it's as if you had cats, even if you don't! And your false teeth..."

DAD: "What are you babbling about!!!!??? I don't have false teeth!!!"

KID: "Ah, but it's as if..."

DAD: "I know, I know. It's as if I had false teeth."

KID: "Look, suppose I lived here and I wanted to bring a girl over? I can't do that with you here!"

DAD: "Why not? I wouldn't bother you...oh, wait a minute..."

DAD: "Now I get it! You want make your room into a HIPPIE LOVE NEST! Why didn't you say so? Hey, that's all right with me. I'm a guy myself. You can talk to me about things like that."

KID: "Yuuuuch! Nobody wants to talk to their Dad about sex! "

DAD: "Oh, yeah...right. Well...talk to your Mom about it then."

KID: "Yikes! That's disgusting! Dad, you're not getting what I'm saying."

KID: "I want to take risks! I want to take big risks without carrying a packed lunch and an extra sweater in case the weather turns bad."

KID: "I want to meet the people from the right side of the tracks and from the wrong side of the tracks."

KID: "I want to eat at the finest restaurants..."

KID "...and when my survival depends on it, I want to eat dirty scorpions from the Kalahari Desert."

DAD (REALIZING HE'S BEATEN): "Okay, all this talk is making me hungry. Let's see...I don't have any dirty scorpions..."

DAD: "...but I do have this half-eaten Doritos!"

KID: "Excellent! Let's eat!"

CARTOON SCULPTURES

A friend let me take a few pictures of his porcelain cartoon figures. These used to sell at greeting card stores and gift shops of all kinds.

What better gift than a ceramic string holder?

Here's (above) a Rocky and Bullwinkle ceramic bank.

Wow! What a nice souvenir of The Stork Club!

Hmmmm....maybe this Yogi is varnished wood, I'm not sure.

This one is definitely porcelain! It's (above) Esquire magazine's Dapper Gentleman character.

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE

Last night I saw "The Brain that Wouldn't Die" at John's house. It had a terrific plot. Let's see if I can remember it....

[Spoiler Alert: I tell the whole story here, but you should read this anyway. Knowing the story in advance is actually helpful in appreciating the interesting structure.]

A young, idealistic scientist and his fiance Mildred had a road accident. The scientist survived but Mildred's head was severed. The handsome young scientist quickly wrapped up the head and took it his basement lab where he hooked it up to a life support system.

Mildred awoke to find that she was she was just a disembodied head.

HEAD (ALARMED): "This is monstrous! You shouldn't have done this to me! You should have let me die!"

(THEN...)

HEAD: "Huh? What's that noise? It sounds like a door rattling."

HANDSOME SCIENTIST: "Oh, that....that's just the hideously deformed victim ofmy earlier experiments."

ON THE LOCKED DOOR:

HANDSOME SCIENTIST (VO): "We keep him locked up. He's insane and tremendously powerful. If he ever escaped from that room he'd rip us all to bloody shreds...but don't worry. That little lock cost a whole dollar. He'll never break out."

The handsome scientist goes out on the town to find a suitable body for his girl's head.

He scours burlesque houses and beauty contests.

Finally he finds a perfect specimen, a photographer's model. He invites her home to see his lab.

BACK AT THE LAB: THE HEAD, TIRED OF WAITING, ARGUES WITH THE NEUROTIC LAB ASSISTANT:

HEAD:  "What do you know of anything? Without the encumbrance of a body I've acquired mental powers that I never dreamed were possible. Now I can take revenge for what the world has done to me! With this new power I will create an army of zombies that will take over the world!"

NEUROTIC LAB ASSISTANT: " Powers? Zombies!? Haw! Look at you! You're just a stupid old head! I'm the one with I.Q. points! I was first in my class at Harvard! Whaddaya think of that?"

HEAD: "Well if you're so great then let's see you open the door and peek in at that monster in the room over there."

NEUROTIC ASSISTANT: "Peek in!? Well, er...I don't know."

HEAD: "Okay...if you're scared..."

NEUROTIC LAB ASSISTANT: "Scared? Did I say I was scared? Well, I guess I can take a quick look..."

MONSTER: (Big growl)

NEUROTIC ASSISTANT: (Big scream) "AIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

JUST THEN THE HANDSOME SCIENTIST COMES IN:

HANDSOME SCIENTIST: "Mildred! I found a body for you! (HE SPOTS THE ASSISTANT'S CORPSE ON THE FLOOR) Huh? What's he doing there?"

 HEAD: "That's your neurotic assistant. He tried to take a look at the monster in the room but he got zapped because he didn't open the door properly. With your brains you could  do it safely, but you're probably too....too scared."

HANDSOME SCIENTIST: "Scared? No, I'm...er...not scared. Hmmm...well, I guess a quick peek wouldn't hurt..."

THE MONSTER'S GIANT HAND COMES OUT, GRABS THE HANDSOME SCIENTIST:

MONSTER: (BIG, FURIOUS GROWLS) "RRRRRRGHRRRRRR!!!!"

The hideous monster emerges.

HEAD: (LAUGHS)

She's enjoying this.

A terrible fight ensues.

The two roll around the floor and an oil lamp is knocked over.

The lab bursts into flames.

HEAD: (LAUGHS AND LAUGHS)

Laugh continues...

 ...and continues.                                            

THE END

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CIRCUS?

Over the weekend I payed a visit to Steve Worth's Animation Archive and he kindly let me take snapshots of a few posters in his oversized circus book. 

One of my favorites was of a lion taming act (above). I saw acts like that when I was a kid and they really did take place in a circular cage and it really did contain lots of cats, though not as many as you see here. Working with that many cats is dangerous since it's hard to avoid turning your back on them, and the poor cats are probably irritable from being unnaturally close to each other. 

 And talk about crowding...pity the humans as well as the animals! People are shoulder to shoulder in these pictures. Actually, in spite of the inconvenience, I believe in funneling crowds through relatively narrow spaces if it can be done safely. It makes getting where you're going an adventure and provides lots of opportunities for people watching. You just need to have lots of diversions along the way. 

I also like the fact that the cages are on raised platforms very close to the pedestrians, and not way back in the distance on a flat floor. 

I wonder why circuses ran into trouble. There are probably lots of reasons, one of which might be competition from carnivals. Carnivals are cheaper to mount because they put more emphasis on sideshows and rides. Not only that but visitors can choose which which acts to pass on and which acts to patronize. People like having a choice. 

If most people are like me then they also want to see acts up close. When you sit in a gallery in a giant stadium you're too far removed from things. People want to see the sweat on the performer's brow, which you can do in a sideshow. Of course, you're less likely to encounter really skilled performers there. 

  

Sideshows attracted weird, one-of-a-kind acts. Here's seven women who the poster alleges entertained the crowned heads of Europe with their hair. Haw! Maybe they did a static electricity act...naw, they were probably too classy for that. Maybe they acted out stories from the Brothers Grimm accompanied by music from "Swan Lake."

Aerial shows worked fine indoors. You probably imagine that the poster
exaggerated the number of performers...

...but maybe it didn't. Circuses played in some pretty big venues.

What do you think of this picture (above)? Pretty neat, huh? Seeing beautiful pictures like this (above) makes me think that circuses might have caused their own demise by being too big and expensive. How many people could afford a show like this during The Great Depression?  Carnivals made it easier for people to spend at whatever level they could afford.

I wish mini stadiums like this one (above) hadn't gone out of fashion. Mens athletic clubs used to favor this kind of small indoor theatre. You could stage Hamlet, equestrian shows, boxing matches and small circuses in them. Modern stadiums are too big. Only people in the best seats can see what's going on.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DECORATOR MAKES!

Here's a magazine clipping showing the apartment of Beatrice Wood, a local potter and a devotee of Hindu art. Wood was 104 years old when this picture was taken and she died only a year later. Boy, somebody knew how to decorate! They took a simple corner of a room and made it come alive with interesting color and shapes. 

For comparison, here's (above) an earlier photo of Wood's apartment...Wood herself included... and the room around her has none of the appeal of the opening photo. Everything is dark and splotchy and the large pictures make the room seem small. Maybe some of that is the consequence of bad flash photography, but even so...what happened!?

My guess is that in the case of the large bright photo at the top a professional decorator got involved. The decorator favored smaller pictures and arranged them differently, added a few bookcases, improved the lighting, moved the sofa farther out into the room, added color to the sofa, and lightened up the statuary on the shelf. 

Geez, a professional touch made all the difference. Interesting, huh?