Category: Uncategorized

I’ve finished both the detective handbook for Fridays and the first disc of the  Jonny Quest DVD set, so I’m going to take it easy this week. Weird anecdote from my adolescence on Wednesday!

 

(Episode: “Calcutta Adventure”)

Synopsis: It’s Hadji’s origin story! The awesome orphan meets the Quests for the first time and helps foil a plot to manufacture nerve gas. Also on the scene is Hadji’s friend, the greedy Pasha Peddler, who has a knack for making timely rescues profitable.

Tip 30: No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

When you’re in a tight spot—if, say, your boss started a mini-avalanche and got captured by the bemasked minions of a secret nerve-gas factory—there’s no need for a new plan if you can adapt an old one.

That’s why Race decided to make some alterations to the old Cleopatra gag.

 

Next time: We find out if I can make a blog post out of two glossaries.

Next time on TQfM!: What not to do in a secret nerve-gas factory.

 

Things I’ve decided not to do till next week:

• Write about the Quests’ return to Hadji’s homeland.
• Watch Barton Fink 20 years after the first time to see whether my feelings about it remain the same (“the same” meaning “basically unprintable unless I were somehow writing a reboot of Deadwood in which Al Swearengen has seen Barton Fink and isn’t happy about it”).

Things I plan to do this week:

• Finish reading that one Dresden Files book I own.
• Finish reading that Lovecraft-inspired anthology I own.
• See if any of my weird drafts might be polished up into an Apropos of Nothing post for Wednesday.
• Spend some time returning to the roots of the site.

….yes, that last one means “watching Highlander.”

See you all Monday if not before!

Stream-of-consciousness film/words nattering ahead…

Back in the Blacula post, I noticed I’d referred to the movie as a “cultural artifact.” This seems to be my go-to term for movies made in the ’60s–’80s that have very specific period-appropriate styles: If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium, Blacula, and Valley Girl are all cultural artifacts, for example, in their language and costume and general look.

Oddly, I don’t often find myself describing movies from before 1960 as “cultural artifacts,” even though the world I live in more closely resembles Dracula AD 1970 than The Third Man or His Girl Friday. In some cases, I suspect this is genre-related: a noir is a noir is a noir, and usually the only thing that changes is the level of gore/sex shown, the weapons used, and the quality of telephony.

So there’s a gap of thirty to forty years between what I think of as “period clothing” (flappers and earlier) and “cultural artifact” clothing (chest medallions, polyester miniskirts), even though there’s a big difference between Hildy Johnson’s suits in His Girl Friday and Donna Reed’s dresses on her titular show, to pick two examples out of the gap. Perhaps it’s because some of the ’60s-plus paraphernalia was in common use during my lifetime?

At any rate, the tl;dr here: I am far too young to think of Leave it To Beaver as some sort of aesthetic baseline, yet some part of me clearly does. Weird.

Episode: “Treasure of the Temple”

Synopsis: An Australian-sounding adventurer tries to stop Team Quest from exploring an ancient jungle temple the looter has his sights on, even going so far as to subjugate the natives. This show not being called Guy Who Would Almost Certainly Be Played By Tim Roth In The Movie Version, though, he does not prevail.

Tip 19: Don’t trust nature to do your dirty work (a lesson some of us learned around tiger o’clock in the last episode).

There’s simply too much chance of someone stopping by to help—and to communicate by speaking English loudly and slowly.

Just don’t risk it. I mean, what if your victim and his rescuer can actually understand each other? Total disaster.

Next time: Finally! Friday meets Blacula.

Next time on TQfM!: More Scooby-Dooing among the pyramids.

The holidays seem to be making me too scattered to lead our little expeditions, but the Po-Ho have agreed to cease doing anything interesting until the new year. Fridays will continue as usual, and there may be another Apropos(t) of Nothing or two.

At any given moment, if I am not actively working, I am probably pondering one or more of the following:

• The possibility of running out of Found-Again Friday ideas
• My progress on The Fanfic That Should Not Be
• My lack of progress on The Fanfic That Really, Really Should Not Be
• Progress and/or lack thereof on The Detective Stories That Should Be, Given How Many Years I’ve Spent On Them, And Yet Thus Far Fail To Really Be
• The book I just read
• The books I should have read by now—which have usually been skipped over for the book I just read
• Tea
• “Must…not… start… watching… Arrow”*
• The feasibility of making an app that buzzes loudly when people abbreviate “Route” improperly
• What my pets are probably doing in my absence, i.e., nothing good, even if two of them are confined to aquaria
• Things to cook with the stuff in my freezer (leave any andouille-related recipes in comments, please)
• The Thin Man
• Hats

 

*Not at work, of course: in general. My TV heroes-in-outfits dance card is pretty full.

I had the opportunity to take an impromptu vacation, complete with a trip to the science museum. The result?

Sloth, of course.

New Jonny next Monday! You know, the real Monday.

Jonny and friends are taking a small hiatus, lovelies.

Fridays will proceed as usual: I’m already trying to decide between the sublime and the ridiculous.