Archive for October, 2009
Rumor has it… Harold Lloyd’s “Glasses character” was the inspiration for Superman’s identity as Clark Kent. Like that character, Lloyd found that he could hide his identity simply by taking off the glasses.
Rumor has it… Silent film star Charlie Chaplin was a big believer in developing an affordable color film process for movies. He announced that he often performed for free (under another name and without the trademark toothbrush moustache) in many experimental color films.
Rumor has it… Before movie-houses became popular, films were usually shown as sideshow attractions at carnivals and state fairs.
Rumor has it… Stunt doubles were virtually unknown. During the filming of Pandora’s Box (1928), the scene in which Nancy runs alongside of and boards a moving train, no stunt double was employed. The movie’s star, Louise Brooks, actually performed the stunt.
Rumor has it… The first stand-up comedy film appeared during the silent era. Jerome Reed performed a stand-up comedy act in front of an audience in Newark, NJ. He stood next to a large easel in front of a brick wall and told his jokes while an assistant revealed a series of caption cards. Occasionally the film woild cut to show the audience who had been given a series of placards that read words such as “Laugh,” “Groan,” “Applause,” and “Wild Applause.”
Rumor has it… Buster Keaton’s stunts were so dangerous that no insurance company was willing to insure him or his films. Instead, Keaton acquired financing by taking out a series of gambling wagers depending on the number of injuries he and his crew would suffer in each film. As a result, Keaton’s films were the most profitable films made in Hollywood at the time until state treasury officers shut down his operation. By this point, though, Keaton was a popular enough star that studios were willing to sign him on even without insurance.
Rumor has it… In 1919, Harold Lloyd lit a cigarette with what he had been told was a prop bomb. Instead, it turned out to be real and exploded, blowing off Lloyd’s right thumb and index finger. After he recovered, Lloyd took to a white glove while on screen to conceal the damage. He performed the infamous clock-clinging stunt in Safety Last (1923), using only eight fingers.
Rumor has it… Clara Bow hooked up and had an affair with Bela Lugosi (before Dracula (1931) made him infamous) in the late ’20s. Lugosi displayed a nude portrait of Bow in the bedroom of his Hollywood apartment until his death.
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Today’s link goes to a new webcomic I’ve stumbled across created by T Campbell, Erica Henderson, and Phil Kahn. Check out Guilded Age. I’m not familiar with two of the creators, but I’ve been a fan of T Campbell’s Faans! for many years. Guilded Age looks to be a heroic, epic fantasy story. It’s still in the first chapter and we’re still meeting the main characters, but it shows a lot of potential and I heartily recommend keeping an eye on this one.
Cheers!
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Welcome to Friday! Today’s mailbox contained no envelopes, but two handwritten notes. The first note appears on paper yellowed with age in a rusty-brown colored ink.
Dear Mr. Grocer,
Please receive this, our list of monthly supply requests. I know it’s a little less than usual, but Smith Jr. is still under the Klondike and is not expected back for another three months. You know how teenagers get. Anyway…the list:
1 antelope side
4 cases of thrush
1 box of salted tuna fin
20 pounds of Caspian coffee
1 bar of Madagascar butter (frozen)
2 jars of Haxil’s Powder
2 jars of Haxil’s Ointment
1 jar of Haxil’s Flakes
1 bottle of Flavor of Egypt
2 oranges (seeded)
2 oranges (unseeded)
4 pints of orange juice (with seeds)
3 bottles of Mongoose sauce
3 Mongoose
In addition to the consumables, I’ll also need the usual monthly kitchen cutlery set, flour sifter, and coal bucket.
Oh, and some blackberry gum if you have any. If you’re out of blackberry, then forget the gum altogether.
Thank you. Delivery should be made at the usual place and the usual time–sunset at the Grievous Smith Caves. You’ll find the money en route in its usual spot under the gatekeeper’s tongue.
Thank you.
The Smith Family
Slipped within the folded yellow page is the expected note on rag paper with the expected crimson ink. It reads:
To Whom It May Concern:
We are thinking of ordering lunch. While we await your signal, we also await news on what you’d like.
We’re thinking Chinese
signed
(unsigned)
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Today’s link goes to the webcomic Least I Could Do. It’s a pretty fun webcomic. I’ve heard some accuse the authors of engaging in wish-fulfillment fantasy, but I take it more as a feel-good sort of comic where fun things happen to a guy who knows how to have fun and happens to be insanely lucky enough to be able to act on it. Be forewarned…some of the humor is risque–maybe even offensive to over-sensitive types, but there’s a lot that can be enjoyed by anyone.
There are several years worth of archives. The artwork does not start out great, but stick with it for the writing, and in a few years–particularly when Lars Sohmer takes up the pen–the art becomes quite good. This is the same team that brings us Looking For Group.
Checking it out is the least you could do.
Cheers!
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With Halloween coming up, this week’s Rumor file features its Spooky edition.
Boo!
Rumor has it… The most haunted building in recorded history is the former asylum for the insane in Vienna which once housed Salieri, a contemporary and rival of Mozart. Reports of piano music, moaning, apparitions, doors opening and closing, strange lights, specftral visions, darkmen, and unexplained screaming have plagued the edifice for generations. Today the building serves as a storage facility for the Austrian municipal park system and is still haunted.
Rumor has it… Ghosts and hauntings are mentioned six times in The Bible.
Rumor has it… According to the International Paranormal Institute, there are twelve documented cases of dogs being haunted, and three cases of of parrots being haunted. Also, while there are countless cases of ghosts being sighted on ships and submarines, there are no documentated cases of apparitions aboard airplanes.
Rumor has it… According to the journal of the pilot of the Mayflower which delivered the Pilgrims to the New World, a sailor who signed on in Denmark was accused of vampirism by a pair of Pilgrims (John and William Water) and thrown overboard. Both men died of dehydration before landing in Plymouth. The incident is not mentioned in any of the colonists’ documents–and there is no mention of anyone, not even wives or children, with the surname of Water.
Rumor has it… Dracula author Bram Stoker was a member of The Golden Dawn, a mystical organization based in Great Britain devoted to magical studies based on esoteric interpretations of the Kaballah and Egyptian mythology. Other members included Eliphas Levi, Arthur E. Waite, and Aleister Crowley. Stoker left the organization after one of is many re-organizations following the creation of the American branch in Chicago.
Rumor has it… In Asia, vampires don’t so much fly as they jump around.
Rumor has it… Vampires fall victim to sunlight, garlic, holy water, and stakes through the heart. Werewolves succumb to silver bullets and wolfsbane. According to legend, a mummy can only be stopped by placing sheets of clean rice paper in its path, then setting the paper ablaze from a flame fed with beeswax and jasmine.
Rumor has it… Speaking of mummies, they were once so prevalent in Egypt that they were often used as fuel in steam engines.
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Today’s link goes to ComicBookScriptArchive.com for a fairly decent collection of MSWord Docs and PDF files of various comic book scripts. If you’re looking for info on how to format a comic book script, this is a good place to check out.
Cheers!
Filed under: Blogosphere, Humor, Rumor | |1 Comment
Welcome to Friday, and welcome to the mailbag–which is actually a mailbox if you want to get technical about it. The first piece of mail comes in a plain white business envelope from a Manhattan address. It reads:
Dear Sir(s),
It has come to our attention here at Winter & Nash that you’ve been in contact with an individual who calls herself Dr. Petula Gregorii and who claims to be an investigator for an unnamed group of so-called scientists are studying certain phenomenon.
We feel it is our duty to warn you that Dr. Gregorii (if a doctor she truly is) is skilled charlatan of the highest order. Her unlikely claim to have discovered the full skeleton of a blue whale in the Himalayas was intriguing, but the later claim to have ruled the whale’s death as a result of impact from falling from a great height strikes us as entirely ludicrous and calls many of her other claims into question. Likewise, her outrageous claims and poor follow-up has become a source of embarassment for many of those who have previously funded her epeditions.
For instance:
Regarding her discovery of a species of 13-tentacled giant freshwater squid residing in the far depths of the Caspian Sea suggests a carelessness in observation and a tendency toward rushing to conclusions without proper scientific evidence. As to the the remains she claimed to have found, she blames the crew of the Baku with “poor preservation techniques by peasant fishermen” for its supposed dissolving.
We do not believe she has discovered a sequoia in western Canada that has grown, as she puts it “upside-down” with branches and leaves buried in the soil, and its roots sticking up into the air. The only proof she supplies are a few dirty and gnarled branches. There is no photographic or other proper evidence of her claim. Likewise…
Her claim that from the northern slope of Kilimanjaro, one can observe clouds passing behind the moon strikes us as the fanciful conclusions of careless observers who do not understand the basics of optical illusion.
She recently made headlines in certain newspapers not known for dedicated journalism in her announcement of a secluded valley in South America being discovered in which stone pylons depict such historic events as the moon landing, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, and the Reagan assasination attempt. The photos supplied in these newspaper stories are, without exception, blurred beyond belief and the occasional accompanying drawing looks to have been done by a five year old with palsy.
We understand that this Dr. Petula Gregorii is contacting your organization in hopes of securing funding for an expedition to the Australian outback where she claims she and her party expect to uncover the lost remains of several noted cases of missing persons (to whit: Amelia Earhart, Judge Force Crater, and Ambrose Bierce). We understand all too well how the potent comibination of Dr. Gregorii’s charm, charisma, and misguided devotion to her cause can aid in securing her funding (we ourselves contributed to the Himalayan expedition), which is why we here at Winter & Nash feel compelled to warn you.
Save yourself the grief and the funds and avoid any one-on-one meeting with Dr. Gregorii. Be unexpectedly out of town. Be out of the country, or better yet, off the continent. Get quarantined in a sickhouse. Get sent to prison. Believe us when you say you will lose less money in any of these ways than if you were to sit down with Dr. Gregorii and allow her to make her proposals to you in person.
Don’t say we didn’t try to warn you.
Your servants,
Winter & Nash
Next up is the old familiar rag paper with crimson ink note, but this week rather than being folded carefully, I found it crumpled and stuffed into the bottom of the mailbox. It reads:
To Whom It May Concern,
We are being followed. We are rushed in writing this, and likewise rushed in delivering.
We await your signal, but for God’s sake wait until whatever is following us grows bored or dies.
signed,
(unsigned)
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Into UFOs? Me neither, but you’d be surprised how many people are and how many sightings are reported each day. Check out the website of MUFON - the Mutual UFO Network who, for forty years, have been the central meeting point for UFO buffs the world over.
Enjoy, and keep watching the skies!
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Sorry I’ve missed the past week of Rumor Tuesdays and Friday Mailbags. The cold had me set on slow for longer than I like and certain things had to get cut out. Now I’m back, tall in the saddle, so tall I’m at risk for a nosebleed. And now we’re returning to our regularly scheduled truths, half-truths, white lies, and total fabrications. This week, we’re going underground.
Rumor has it… The sewers of Paris contain many of the long-lost treasures of the Templar Knights including King Solomon’s crown, a piece of the True Cross, and the actual Shroud of Turin (as opposed to the more famous fake residing at the Vatican).
Rumor has it… At one point in the 14th century, there were more people living beneath Cairo than above it.
Rumor has it… The band The Velvet Underground got its name after Andy Warhol did an exploratory photoshoot in the sewers beneath Greenwich Village and commented that all the moss growing on the sewer walls made it look like “a velvet underground.”
Rumor has it… The story of full-grown alligators being found in the sewers of New York originated from the discovery of dinosaur bones–specifically a Velociraptor mongoliensis which were stolen from The New York Museum of Natural History and stashed there by thieves.
Rumor has it… An underground chamber maintained by the US National Security Agency is so large that a small twin-engine plane can take off on one end, cruise for ten minutes, and land at the opposite end.
Rumor has it… Speaking of sewers, Edgar Allen Poe was a big fan of the Providence’s and once found a route leading from his rooming house to the Athaneum that was nearly all underground. Author H.P. Lovecraft was aware of this route and claimed it as part of the inspiration for his story “The Shunned House.”
Rumor has it… More people are lost and killed in Carlsbad Caverns than are kidnapped and killed by serial killers nationwide.
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Today’s link goes to a short history of the Irish banjo by famed player Mick Moloney. Did you know Irish warriors in the 5th century preferred the Irish tenor banjo as a club? It’s not true, but would’t that be something?
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