Monday, October 29, 2018

The F-bomb

Scottish soldier in World War II: "The fucking fucker's fucking fucked!"

My parents were in Britain in 1966 and saw the live talk show where Kenneth Tynan used the F-word and caused an outcry...

I once saw a funny Irish movie, The Van, about Colm Meany and his friend operating a fish and chips van.  In an early scene he's learning to fry chips, but ends up burning a whole batch.  Just then his wife asks him for an example of a simile, and he says, "me chips are burnt as fuck!" I like the way the Irish twist the English language around to serve their purpose, like James Joyce's "Yes I said yes I will yes!"

I was reading about the time Loretta Young and Ethel Merman were making a movie together. (At least, I think it was them.) Loretta introduced a swear jar where anyone who swore had to contribute a dime.  Ethel got exasperated and finally said, "Loretta, here's ten dollars.  Now go fuck yourself!"

I remember seeing this website twenty years ago by someone who didn't like the anime Sailor Moon. (He said, "Belle would get higher than 30 on an algebra test.") But the funniest part was a group of emails he'd received and posted.  One was a hostile letter full of censored obscenities, no doubt including the F-word, and was signed, "From your loving mother!" The host said, "I don't think my mother knows half the words he used!"

Friday, October 26, 2018

Life-changing event

I've been posting on a blog entries in my diary from fifteen years ago.  In the fall of 2003, I wanted to take another acting course with the TDSB night school program.  I'd taken a couple recently and enjoyed it greatly.  One effect this had is that when I saw Lawrence of Arabia again, I noticed how Peter O'Toole listened when the other actors delivered their lines!

That fall I noticed that the TDSB also offered an opera course.  This interested me greatly, but it was on the same night as the acting class and I gave the latter priority for now.  But in the end the drama class was cancelled, so I got to take the opera course after all.

I've been in the Toronto City Opera chorus ever since, only missing a couple of their annual seasons.  Our next production will be Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, with a Pop Art look.  It looks like I'll be dressed as an Andy Warhol type.

Sometimes I wonder, What would have happened if that drama course hadn't been cancelled?  Would I never have got involved with the opera group?  Our would my nature still have led me to it?  But I don't spend much time on moot questions.

That's me on the lower far right of the photo!

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Adolescence

Among our vast collection of used books, we have a textbook titled Teenagers, evidently for health class in '50s high schools.  Some of it looks pretty funny today.

There's this one illustrated section showing "Why young people fail to keep jobs." One of the illustrations, captioned "No sense of responsibility," shows a guy working in a garage, who thinks, "I know I'm only supposed to be cleaning this motorcycle, but nobody's around so I think I'll take a little ride on it!"

In another section there are illustrations related to a school dance where readers are supposed to evaluate the "social maturity" of the characters.  One illustration in the "After the dance" section shows two couples driving home, and the boy doing the driving says, "Oh, you girls stop screaming!  The road is clear this time of night, and I want to see what this car can do in the way of speed!"

There are also some illustrations about accident prevention.  In one a girl thinks, "I can't swim, and there's already one non-swimmer in the boat.  Oh well, I'll go anyway." In another a guy says, "Here's a gun for your school play.  I don't think it's loaded!"

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Strange fads

Back when I was twelve, the big college fad was streaking--that's running around naked.  Another fad from the '70s was the Pet Rock.  The guy behind it said you could train your pet rock to fetch, by throwing a stick then throwing the rock after it.  He guaranteed that the rock won't return without the stick!

Does anyone else remember deely boppers?  I think they're a hair band with two antennas sticking out of it with flowery things on the end.  I recall they had a very brief heyday with young girls in the early '80s.

Every generation has its fads, of course, especially with college boys.  In the '50s there was panty raids and stuffing people into a phone booth; in 1939 there was swallowing goldfish; and back in the '20s there was a craze for sitting on the top of flagpoles!

Does anyone remember when dirty dancing like the lambada was a craze around 1990?  Then in the mid-'90s there was the macarena...  And don't get me started on clothing fads like earth shoes and painter's pants!

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Flowers

I can't tell a lot of flowers apart.  Sure, there's the sunflower and the rose and the orchid and the tulip and the pansy and such.  Bit I couldn't tell a petunia from a zinnia to save my life.

I think my favorite flower is the sunflower.  This even though some list that said everything different flowers stand for argued that the sunflower stands for haughtiness.

The way to tell an artifical flower from a real one is by looking up close:  the real flower will have tiny veins while the artificials one will have a crosshatched pattern.

I remember going into a flower shop when I was little and the smell bothered me. (Some scents I was sensitive to back then.)

Back in the 1988 U.S. presidential race, just before the Iowa caucus, Richard Gephardt ran an ad ridiculing his rival Michael Dukakis for advising farmers to grow flowers instead of corn, as well as blueberries and Belgian endives.  Well, it was pretty good advice, but the farmers didn't want to hear new ideas.  Heaven forbid that a presidential candidate should actually give people good advice--his job is to tell the voters what they want to hear!

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

MAD magazine

When I was little, we had some Mad magazine paperback reprints, though my mother really didn't approve of such humor.  In hindsight this was classic stuff:  I've reread them in recent years and appreciate the humor more as an adult.

There was one where '50s parents are lecturing their teenage kids, about the ridiculousness of young people's clothes, dancing and language.  Then they show the parents when they were young, back in the '20s, wearing raccoon coats and dancing the Charleston and saying things like "Twenty-three skidoo, small change!"

I also remember "TV Shows We'd Like to See." For What's My Line: "How did you guess the identity of our mystery guest so quickly?" "I peeked!" For the Anacin commercial: "What do doctors take for headache and pain relief? How should I know, I'm only an actor!" When Loretta Young makes her grand entrance in the flowing dress through the doorway, her dress gets ripped in two!

I recall lots of other stuff!  In Edgar Allen Poe's version of Dennis the Menace, Dennis burns down the house with his parents in it! ("No more spanking--nevermore!") And the spoof of interior decoration magazines: "The whole room is set off by the colourful drapes.  The whole apartment is set off by dynamite." They made fun of Bobby Darren and Dick and Jane books a lot. And there was one cartoon of a guy watching The Late Show, then The Late, Late Show, then The Early, Early Show!

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Picnic

Back in the 1950s there was the movie Picnic, based on William Inge's play and directed by Joshua Logan. William Holden plays a drifter stud who comes to a small town on the Fourth of July and electrifies the women!  Holden was a bit too old for the role, but it's still a fun film, in a very '50s sort of way.  The best scene was him and Kim Novak doing this sexy dance.

I've also seen Picnic at Hanging Rock, an Australian movie directed by Peter Weir. It's about a Victorian girl's school having a picnic on this Australian hill, and several of the girls disappear forever. (The mystery never gets explained.) It's kind of about the repressed sexuality of Victorian times.  I particularly remember this shot near the end, of a poster with photos of the missing girls, being worn away by the elements.