Joan In Tights

Winter break always reminds me of the Christmas vacations of my youth. In 1960s Catholic Bay Ridge, there was no such thing as “winter break;” you’d hear “break” in commands like “if you don’t come in the house when I call you I’m gonna break both your arms and legs,” to which the only reply was “how can I come in the house if I get broken legs?”

These Christmas vacations were mainly for kids but I think it gave the nuns a vacation as well because in those days they had 50 to 60 pupils per class, and none of us were allowed to have ADHD or peanut allergies; you just sat still and tried not to wheeze. Imagine the tension! And we always wondered where the nuns went for Christmas vacation– did they go visit other nuns? What else would YOU do if you were a nun? Sometimes we imagined them running crazily throughout the convent in bras and slips, smoking cigarettes and screaming, but who could say?

I think we usually got two weeks off. In those days it snowed a LOT, and it was often very cold, but we were bundled up and sent outside anyway. We did the same things we did the rest of the year, only slower. What we liked to do was, during a thaw, dam up the flowing water in front of somebody’s house, which would invariably freeze over in the middle of the following night. Two or three parking spaces– gone ! I think we probably set off this current radical change in weather patterns.

In those days, for 75 cents we could go to the movies, and we often did. For six bits you could sit in the Fortway Theatre for six hours between lunch and dinner, watching bad movies and giving grief to the matrons. Ahh, the matrons! They were basically vacation nuns, serving the same purpose– to keep us out of our mothers’  hair during the day so that they could go to the A&P and the beauty parlor and drink rum and Coke. If a movie was particularly boring, we’d drop nickels and summon the matrons with their flashlights to come help us find them, or we’d spill popcorn or sodas (accidentally) and then put our feet up while we watched her sweep the mess up. God forbid if the film snapped or clogged the projector and started to burn; pandemonium would ensue as the matrons ran around trying to keep order while we stamped our feet, screamed, and threw Dots at the screen.

And who could forget the popcorn lady? While filling your cup, she’d stare off into the distance, knowing instinctively when the cup was full. She had a dyed blonde beehive and blue eye shadow, and was probably in her forties. One time I asked for “a small dry,” meaning “a small tub of popcorn, no butter,” and she snarled “whaddya think this is, a cocktail lounge?” I only saw her smile when the toadish theatre manager was around.

I’m sure we saw many, many different movies, but it seems to me that we were always sitting in front of some Joan Crawford potboiler that involved an axe murder or a stabbing. In Berserk  she played a circus ringleader in tights who was trying to run a show, for crying out loud, as performers experienced gruesome deaths all around her. Of course, that kept the circus patrons coming back for more! (Folks is folks.) In I Saw What You Did,  her lover stabbed her to death as he embraced her, but not before she gave HELL to some young teenagers who were harrassing them. Strait Jacket  featured Joan freshly released from a mental hospital for killing her husband and his lover years before, and of course another series of murders takes place around her as soon as she settles into her daughter’s home. In both Berserk  and Strait Jacket  her daughters were responsible for the murders, which neatly foreshadowed the real-life drama Joan and her real-life daughter Christina would re-live during the Mommie Dearest fiasco.  

Joan, Still Alive

Were we children affected by these movies? Of course not. There was no discussion; we were sent to the movies and left to deal with any issues and to sort it out amongst ourselves. No pampering; no pandering. We knew we were seeing something fake, and the fact that Joan Crawford was up there on the screen experiencing mayhem somehow made it all laughable.

It wasn’t always about horror, though; we all sat through The Bible, and the theatre was actually completely silent for a few seconds when Adam and Eve showed up naked, but then the hooting began. And Disney sent a tour bus to the Fortway one day, with Annette Funicello inside, and sixteen million of us surrounded the theatre, blocking traffic, ready to welcome her. She never got out, though; upon seeing the boiling crowd of us, she opened a window a little bit and waved. What did she think we were going to do, tear her clothes off and grab fistfuls of her bouffant? I was so disappointed, because I loved Annette!

Annette, My Love

My mother tells me that, these days, the streets are empty of kids during Christmas vacation. Apparently they’re all inside on their computers or thumbing electronic devices in front of their television sets. They’ll never know the pleasure and community of crowding into an old movie palace and just being lousy rotten kids for a few hours. Every kid should experience that, especially during winter break…  and the memories would last longer than two weeks.

Guess what I am doing this week? Making a strait jacket. The question is, shall I make 2? One for me? My oldest desires a strait jacket for a Halloween costume and we found this “how to” video on Threadbanger. Seems pretty easy, but then again, I’m working on a deadline here. Seems that Halloween wasn’t this close last week when I should have started this project.

jo craw will rock your world in this.

strait jacket is a must see.

but only snuggled up with a southerner on a couch that hates you, but lets you draw on it.

<3 VS

Zwangsjacken können Welten retten – den Beweise tritt dieser Film an.  Schuld, Sühne und literweise Blut begleiten den Zuseher dabei.

David Copperfield’s Las Vegas warehouse, or as he calls it, his “International Museum & Library of the Conjuring Arts” has been raided by the FBI. No, they’re not looking for any missing handcuffs or strait-jackets, but instead are looking for evidence “of possible sexual misconduct by the illusionist.” Mr. Copperfield you see has been accused of sexually molesting a 22-year-old Seattle model. The FBI confiscated his computer hard drive, a digital camera system, and nearly $2 million in cash. Yes, cash. Cash I find is always a good thing to confiscate: “Uh yeah, let’s um, gather up some of that cash too, it might provide us with a lead in this case. He might have taped all that cash over his hands, and then committed the molestation thinking he had cleverly prevented fingerprint detection. But it’ll take more than a Bob Saget look-alike magician to fool us!”

The alleged rape took place in the Bahamas, but because the accuser is also a U.S. citizen, the FBI indeed had jurisdiction in investigating the case.

Copperfield in rebuttal says, the accuser “has a history of lying … which continues in this lawsuit.” And that it is an “extortion for money, plain and simple.”

Copperfield is confident he and his beautiful assistant, lawyer David Chesnoff will make the case disappear. Or if not disappear, they will saw it half and separate it from itself. If things get really tough they might also resort to putting the case in a box and then sticking long knives though it.

P.T. Selbit (1881 – 1938) is the man credited with being the first person to perform the “sawing a woman in half” trick. He was an Englishman, and an inventor, writer and magician, and performed the stunt in 1921.  There are some however who claim that the trick might have been performed before that in 1809, or even as far back as ancient Egypt. And I’m assuming they mean the first “successful” performance of the trick. Cuz, I’m pretty sure cavemen were probably sawing people in half in prehistoric times. For food during hard times and all. Or even just because they were very very angry with the dude.

That’s it for now. Til tomorrow when I might just be reporting on root canal from personal experience. POOF! I’m gone.

(Sources:  AOL News; and Magic & Magicians by Chance Duncan 2007; and “Sawing a Woman in Half” by Gary R. Brown at AmericanHeritage.com)

Spring 2009 Anime

Welcome to another Tuesday with the Girl Nerd’s Podcast, boys and girls! Today we’ve got a review of the Strait Jacket OVA. Since that didn’t take nearly as long as we’d hoped, we also have a little preview of upcoming Spring 2009 anime titles. Clicky image to the left for that.

I’m ALSO excited to introduce the new Girl Nerd’s Podcast theme, courtesy of everyone’s favorite Eric Pratt. He’s done a fantastic job. He hasn’t got a website, but once he does I’ll be linking to it! Anyway, on with the show!

Bit Ratings:
The Girl Nerd: 2 bits
The Gay Nerd: 1 bit

Lowest ratings ever.

Download The Girl Nerd’s Podcast 26 (032409)

In a world of science, sorcery is rediscovered and rapidly adopted in all areas of industry – but at a high price: an invisible pollution is spreading out across the world. Those who do not take proper precautions become infected, lose their sanity, and become demons. The Sorcery Administration Bureau, along with their Tactical Sorcerers, monitor magic uses and respond to any demonic outbreaks that occur. In this world, Ray Otto is a rogue tactical sorcerer who hunts down demons with reckless abandon. Given that he always gets the job done, the administration generally lets his activities slide. Together with the mysterious girl Kapel Theta, Ray risks his life and humanity to destroy demonkind… when the price is right. Source: Anime-planet.com

This anime is pretty much your regular anime. From watching the anime I would derived that there wasn’t much effort put into production. Well, probably just a little on the visual effects or animation anyway. Maybe because 3 episodes, 20 plus minutes each, are too short for anyone to get attached to as an anime, I didn’t feel anything from watching this. Story wise, it felt like a potentially good anime should there had been more episodes.

It would have helped if characters had a bit more casting ‘stance’ instead of repeating the same move over and over again. Strait Jacket doesn’t have many strong points, but it isn’t particularly weak either. It’s just too ‘plain’, with no aspect standing out of other animes among the crowd. A 2-Star then for what felt like could have been a popular anime.

Strait Jacket
Rating: 2-Stars
Torrent: Ureshii

The Makeup Application Gene.  Some women have it; some women don’t.  If you do, go browse WordPress for a blog on beauty tips.  They will make sense to you, and you will go from merely beautiful to stunning, (or from whatever form God delivered you in to even better).

If you, like I, are missing that gene, read on.  Misery loves company.

Of course we all know that the most beautiful women are those who are completely comfortable with themselves without a touch of makeup (and why is it called a “touch” when we can hardly just dab it on?) but those women don’t really walk among us.  They are mythical.  

Anyway, nothing dissolves me into tears faster than trying, for some event that intimidates me anyway, to apply makeup competently.  

Here’s how it typically goes:

Foundation isn’t too hard if I’ve bought the right shade.  Which of course I have, because everytime I go to a makeup counter (under duress, believe me) an impossibly chic woman convinces me of the need for another shade because — duh! — the seasons have changed since I last bought some.  

And since they catalog every last purchase one makes, one can hardly argue that it wasn’t really fall when I was last sitting in this strait-jacket chair under glaring lights.  And besides, the makeup woman remembers that it was fall (because she had just bought her quilted Prada jacket and she totally remembers that that was in October because I was talking about my trip to the pumpkin patch.)

Blush is supposed to go, if I remember the instructions, on the apple of my cheeks, but they have lost a bit of definition with 40 additional pounds.  Is there still an apple there or is it rather more like a muffin with raisins?

Lipstick used to work, but at 48 I have less of an actual mouth and more of a suggestion of a mouth (considering all the little feathery tributaries that meander out from the general idea of that former mouth).

But alas, eyes are the zone that cause my emotional breakdowns.  I used to wear mascara until my opthalmologist found that I had it embedded in my corneas after a particularly rough crying spell (as in days, not hours).  This was not mere melodrama; there was, at least, a death involved.  I knew something was embedded there and was glad to find the culprit until the prescription for relief was delivered: “You can’t wear mascara anymore.”

If there are any men reading this, they will not understand why this is a problem.  But if you men want to understand women, read this one statement: “We feel naked without mascara.”  Or this one: “We would rather go topless than skip mascara” (and that is said, in my case, by a mastectomy patient).  

Why do women suffer these indignities?  Who decided that we need this stuff?  But more importantly, why were they so right?

So imagine my horror when my (female) opthalmologist casually told me that I could use a little cream eyebrow pencil but no mascara.  She was actually casual about it.

And so now when I try to apply the Bobbi Brown miracle eyeliner with a brush, I end up with a line that undulates between pencil thin and wide-tip Sharpie (or, rather, calligraphy-style Sharpie), but erratically. And that’s my left eye, done with my dominant right hand.  Forget the right eye; it’s in danger of that old warning our mothers used to repeat: “You’re going to poke your eye out with that thing.” (Did that ever really happen to anyone?)

So suffice it to say that I am not having much success with the eyeliner concept, and I feel like an incompetent dork, an incomplete woman, a half man/half woman sort of character even (think Tod Browning’s Freaks) who never learned how to do this stuff, and is a linear thinker to boot.  Am I missing some female parts (besides the breast, the lack of which should not technically affect makeup application)?

Oh, in all fairness let me say that my opthalmologist did suggest an alternative route to the pencil-only approach: surgery to remove about 97% of the huge bags that are my eyelids, bags that the whole world (save me up to that moment) saw as extremely obvious and that contribute to mascara and other unnnatural matter being “shoved” (her word) into my corneas due to the massive weight of the eyelids.

Who knew?  Actually she was incredulous that I didn’t know.  Shocked.  How could I have missed something that, now that I know, I can actually use as a party trick?  Squeezing together sections of my eyelids to make geometric patterns is a handy game for entertaining children (or, probably, adults) when waiting in lines or at parties at which conversation flags, should you find yourself in either setting (and have extra eyelid skin on hand).

So anyway, she was right: I do have huge amounts of eyelid skin just sitting there.  Hanging there.  Waiting there to decimate my corneas should I add a snow-melt level of Bobbi Brown (or, let’s be fair, even Almay) to those lashes which are supposed to function like gutters but in my case have downspout problems. 

And it’s true that I don’t really have a deft hand at makeup application (or selection).

Ah, womanhood.  You gotta laugh at this stuff.  Cause it’s actually depressing and humiliating and just cause for doubting one’s femininity — if that were all we were made of or made for.  

Most days I know that my aging body and face don’t define me.  And that God looks at me with utter delight, as a particular manifestation of His likeness (imagine!).  But on those days when the social x-rays (thank you Tom Wolfe!) invite me to a party, and I feel like the lead apron version of Wolfe’s metaphor, I curse the makeup industry, the mirror and my own two-left-handedness and wish that “the natural look” were as in as Ralph Lauren would have us think (or at least the version of natural that is achieved naturally and not with hundreds of dollars of this season’s “product”).  

All I can say, along with George in My Best Friend’s Wedding is, ”The misery! The exquisite tragedy! The Susan Hayward of it all!”  This too shall pass.

Based on the novel by Sakaki Ichirou.

In a world where magic and technology coexist, both sciences are used in the fields of medicine, warfare and research, but with differing results. Overuse of magic is forbidden as it causes mutations which transform the user into violent, uncontrollable and unstoppable monsters. Rayot(to) Steinberg is a lone wolf ‘tactical sorcerer’ dedicated to destroying these demons. Armoured and plated in his metal “mold”, a straight jacket designed to keep him human, he walks a fine line between magic and madness as a rogue monster killer.

Complete OVA: Download subs

Here’s what I plan to make before Halloween:

My haloween costume

To give credit where credit is due, I found this image in this nifty little website:

http://www.esh.dmhmrsas.virginia.gov/crossroads/history.htm

Saturday was a great day for Animail. There were five packages sitting on the front porch. Three of the artboxes I ordered had arrived: Gun x Sword, Ai Yori Aoshi – Enishi, and Requiem From the Darkness.

The Requiem… box was not at all what I thought it would be. Rather than a sturdy box that contains all of a series’ keepcases, this was set up like a digipak with clear plastic disc trays bound like pages in a book. It’s a nice idea, but what do you do with the keepcases that volumes 2, 3, and 4 come in? I guess some people would just toss them out. I’ll probably store them in a drawer somewhere.

My pre-ordered copy of Strait Jacket arrived a couple of days early. It looks pretty cool. I may get around to watching it within the next couple of days. And speaking of early shipping pre-orders, I hold in my hand a copy of Devil May Cry vol. 3! This will also jump up the “too watch” ladder.

There might be an update after I get home from work.

William Castle’s STRAIT-JACKET reminds me of a combo platter of PSYCHO and Douglas Sirk melodrama, sort of a WRITTEN WITH AN AXE or DECAPITATION OF LIFE.  I suppose today’s audience sees it as  ”camp” ( according to Susan Sontag:  Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.”) but I doubt William Castle meant it as anything other than a way to make some money off of  PSYCHO. Joan Crawford really sells the picture with the creepiest scene being her man-handling of her daughter’s deer in the headlights boyfriend. George Kennedy is also great as the anti- Rock Hudson handyman. I wondered why nobody ever noticed that daughter Carol (Diane Baker) was crafting extremely well made “Crazy Axe Murderin’ Lucy” masks. It’s too bad she couldn’t just order one off the back of  FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. I also liked the knitting scene which for some reason reminded me of Martha Stewart and her famous “I just wanna concentrate on my salad” moment. It also seems like somebody might’ve warned the handyman to hide the axes and maybe be a little more discreet with the animal slaughtering, but I guess that was the point.

                                 “I hope I wasn’t too hard on Trog today”  

 Except for SHANKS, William Castle always seemed fairly flat to me but STRAIT-JACKET was a little better due to Joan. It’s no TROG but it has its moments. The ending wrap up explanation seemed to be the lamest part. Thanks again to Final Girl.

Here I am. Waiting for the funny farm people to come get me. I need the valium and the straitjacket in my size. Oh wait, they think fat people are jolly like Santa, so there isn’t a straitjacket in my size. Well crap, guess I’ll get up and go to work. Just another day in paradise~making money, putting out fires and doing everyone else’s job on top of that. Can I just be done with this please? Let me win the lottery! Then I can stay home and do nothing if I want to. Go shopping. Go touring the world on my motorcycle (the one I buy after winning the lottery). hehe. I’m funny today.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged.  To be honest, I actually have an entry ready to be posted, but I’m awaiting the arrival of a few more pictures before I stick it up.  So that will have to wait.

Now that work is finally over, I finally have some time to watch anime.  This is when I stumbled across this short, sweet OVA series.

Quick synopsis (I’ll try to leave spoilers out of this):
The entire story takes place in a fictional world where magic and technology coexists.  A machine called a “Mold” is used by people of all professions and fields in order to control and utilize magic.  However, when the magic-user either overuses magic, or uses magic with a defective Mold, the power goes out of control and contaminates their bodies, thus transforming them into bloodthirsty demons.

So the story is centered around two separate people really… One is Rayott, a man who carries the sin of killing his own master.  The other is Isaac, a man determined to be just like the hero who saved him in his childhood.  Ironically enough, the man who saved Isaac is the very man Rayott had killed.  What will happen when these two powerful magicians clash?  Here are a few screencaps to tickle your ani-tastebuds:

Rayott, the main protagonist

Isaac, the other protagonist in the story

Aftermath of a demon going wild...

One of the better looking demons (no sarcasm whatsoever)

Pissed off Isaac...

The ultimate face-off

Defeated...or not?

Transformation and death

The End.

Wow… short short summary.  It could’ve been a lot longer, but I didn’t want to spoil anything for anyone who wants to watch it.  All in all, I really enjoyed this series.  It wasn’t just mindless bashing and slashing and blood splattering.  Of course, there was some of that as well, which is the reason it initially appealed to me in the first place.  However, they also go in a little deeper to explore several moral issues.

In Rayott’s case, he blames himself for killing his master and many other people for his own survival.  However, in his given situation, should he really be taking the blame?  This situation is a prime example of where there are areas of grey in terms of morality.  It’s like saying lying or killing is always wrong, which, in my opinion, is not necessarily true.

In Isaac’s case… Isaac always saw himself as being a hero, or siding with justice.  However, he eventually finds out that he had been fighting for the enemy, risking his life to serve the very people he vowed to destroy.  How does that impact one’s heart and soul?

This series wasn’t all that deep, but it had a nice balance of action, plot, and the philosophical mumbo jumbo.  I personally think they could have pulled off a 12 episode anime series with this material without it being too draggy… but I guess this 3-ep OVA will have to do.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged.  To be honest, I actually have an entry ready to be posted, but I’m awaiting the arrival of a few more pictures before I stick it up.  So that will have to wait.

Now that work is finally over, I finally have some time to watch anime.  This is when I stumbled across this short, sweet OVA series.

Quick synopsis (I’ll try to leave spoilers out of this):
The entire story takes place in a fictional world where magic and technology coexists.  A machine called a “Mold” is used by people of all professions and fields in order to control and utilize magic.  However, when the magic-user either overuses magic, or uses magic with a defective Mold, the power goes out of control and contaminates their bodies, thus transforming them into bloodthirsty demons.

So the story is centered around two separate people really… One is Rayott, a man who carries the sin of killing his own master.  The other is Isaac, a man determined to be just like the hero who saved him in his childhood.  Ironically enough, the man who saved Isaac is the very man Rayott had killed.  What will happen when these two powerful magicians clash?  Here are a few screencaps to tickle your ani-tastebuds:

Rayott, the main protagonist

Isaac, the other protagonist in the story

Aftermath of a demon going wild...

One of the better looking demons (no sarcasm whatsoever)

Pissed off Isaac...

The ultimate face-off

Defeated...or not?

Transformation and death

The End.

Wow… short short summary.  It could’ve been a lot longer, but I didn’t want to spoil anything for anyone who wants to watch it.  All in all, I really enjoyed this series.  It wasn’t just mindless bashing and slashing and blood splattering.  Of course, there was some of that as well, which is the reason it initially appealed to me in the first place.  However, they also go in a little deeper to explore several moral issues.

In Rayott’s case, he blames himself for killing his master and many other people for his own survival.  However, in his given situation, should he really be taking the blame?  This situation is a prime example of where there are areas of grey in terms of morality.  It’s like saying lying or killing is always wrong, which, in my opinion, is not necessarily true.

In Isaac’s case… Isaac always saw himself as being a hero, or siding with justice.  However, he eventually finds out that he had been fighting for the enemy, risking his life to serve the very people he vowed to destroy.  How does that impact one’s heart and soul?

This series wasn’t all that deep, but it had a nice balance of action, plot, and the philosophical mumbo jumbo.  I personally think they could have pulled off a 12 episode anime series with this material without it being too draggy… but I guess this 3-ep OVA will have to do.