Category: TV

Vroom!

Something that you may not have known about me is that I have a bit of a soft spot for British cars.

I fell in love with the Austin Mini when I was 9 years old, living in France. Over the years, others caught my eye, like the little MG and Triumph convertibles I’d see from time to time in the San Francisco Bay Area. When I was 16, I became enamoured of the Lotus driven by Mrs. Peel, my idol. And what fan of the Prisoner could forget 6’s Lotus 7?

So when John told me he’d heard of a British car show coming up nearby, I put it on the calendar. We went this past Sunday.


The car show was held on the lawn of the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, MA, which is in an incredible park.

3
We picked a shady spot to picnic near this sweet purple MG.


Phoebe and Theo enjoyed the sunny day at the park.

3
John and I enjoyed taking pictures of the pretty cars, most of which were polished up to a high shine, like this Triumph GT6+.

little green berkeley
This little Berkeley, though, appeared to have its original paint.

spider paint crack
The paint showed some really cool cracking patterns, like this spider-like one.


There was quite a variety of unusual sports cars. Here’s an Allard and a Jaguar. Note the leather straps fastening the bonnet of the Allard (left), and the third headlight on the Jaguar (right).

3 3
I didn’t see any wicker seats, but there were a few wicker baskets, like the one strapped to the boot of this classic MG (left). There were lots of two-seaters at the show, and at least one single-seater, like this Lotus (right).

row of triumphs
Here’s a row of Triumphs.

3
I wanted to get a closer look at this (more humble-looking) Triumph, but it drove off as we were walking towards it. (Yes, it started!)

3
This new Mini was parked next to a hand-built reproduction of a Lotus 7.

3
This was the only classic Mini we saw. I wanted to take it home with me.

setting the table

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a holiday marked by primarily by sitting around a table and eating. In honor of the day, I’ll set the table for you.

This ThThTh list features utensils. Actually, just forks and spoons. I’ll keep the knives stored safely away for another day. Likewise, I will avoid the hazards of the spork.
spoon_psf

A collection of spoons (and forks)

  1. Spoon!: The battlecry of The Tick.
  2. spooning: a position for cuddling.
  3. born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth: an expression said of one who is born into a wealthy family.
  4. Silver Spoons (1982-1987) A TV show about a rich kid and his father. (Did anyone else remember that the show had regular appearances from Jason Bateman as a kid?)
  5. Can you hang a spoon from the tip of your nose?
  6. gag me with a spoon: an 80s Valspeak exclamation used to express contempt and/or disgust.
  7. A Spoonful of Sugar: a song from the movie Mary Poppins.
  8. Hey Diddle Diddle: A nursery rhyme in which a dish rus away with a spoon:

    Hey diddle diddle,
    The cat and the fiddle,
    The cow jumped over the moon.
    The little dog laughed to see such fun,
    And the dish ran away with the spoon.

  9. And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon: a picture book by Janet Stevens.

    10. 696px-heydiddle and_the_dish

  10. “There is no spoon”: a line from The Matrix, and a reference to this spoon-bending scene:
  11. fork in the road: a type of intersection.
  12. The Dirty Fork Sketch, from Monty Python:
  • The Blue Rajah: a character played by Hank Azaria in Mystery Men (1999). A superhero who throws forks (and fork-filled dialog):

    • An effete British superhero, to be precise. I am pilfering your tableware because I hurl it. I hurl it with a deadly accuracy. The Blue Raja is my name. And yes, I know I don’t wear much blue and I speak in a British accent, but if you know your history it really does make perfect sense…The point is: Your boy’s a Limey fork-flinger, Mother.
    • I say, what the fork! Let’s do it!
    • May the forks be with us.

    • So there’s my list. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.
    800px-fork6233

    If you’re looking for more tasty bits to gobble up once your t(of)urkey is gone, go stick your fork into the 107th Carnival of Satire over at The Skwib. A spoonful of satire makes the holiday angst go down! (Especially when taken with a Wild Turkey chaser.)

    Silly Men Walking

    Rejoice! There is now a Monty Python channel on YouTube (warning: a video will start playing when you click that link), where you can find a host of Python clips. Okay, so you could find the clips on YouTube before, but they were all unauthorized:

    For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.

    So now you can watch The Ministry of Silly Walks as Python intended:

    In related news, today I also learned of this terribly Silly Short Movie involving Men Walking at The Skwib. Steve Sullivan’s brilliant “A Heap of Trouble” features men walking down the road singing: “…nine naked men just walking down the road…”

    Intrigued? You can watch it yourself: “A Heap of Trouble.’

    As Mark so eloquently warns:
    “Warning: Not Safe for Work if your co-workers are uncomfortable with brief shots of sausage and/or Welsh singing.”

    To read more about this short (where most of the men aren’t even wearing shorts), go visit The Skwib.

    hee-haw, hee-haw

    It’s Thursday again, and that means I’m due for a ThThTh list. What with my having the upcoming election on the brain, it seemed a good time to bring out the donkeys.

    Some donkeys

    • The Democratic donkey: the donkey is an unofficial symbol of the U.S. Democratic Party. The jackass was first associated with Andrew Jackson in his 1828 campaign, according to the official Democratic Party’s website page on the history of the democratic donkey.
    • Pin the tail on the donkey: A party game in which blindfolded participants attempt to attach a representation of a tail to a drawing of a donkey. The one who gets the tail closest to the tail end of the donkey wins.
    • Donkey pronoun: a term in linguistics for a certain type of pronoun in which the syntax does not map straightforwardly to the semantics. Named after this example, in which “it” is the donkey pronoun:

      Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it. — Peter Geach, Reference and Generality

    • Hee Haw: a country-themed (in the sense of “rural” and “Western”) sketch comedy show with a donkey mascot. It was mostly on in the 70s. (The show’s title is the English onomatopoeic word for the sound of a donkey’s bray. For the record, my post titile makes reference to the sound, not the show. I find the show, or the memory of watching the show as a child, somewhat painful.)

    • Eeyore: the gloomey donkey from Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh.
    • The Golden Ass: Another name for the Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, an ancient Roman novel in which the protagonist turns himself into an ass.
    • Nick Bottom: a character in the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bottom’s head is turned into an ass head.
    • Benjamin: the donkey in Orwell’s Animal Farm.
    • Donkey: the animated donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy, from the Shrek movies (2001, 2004, 2007).
    • Dapple: Sancho Panza’s donkey in Cervantes’ Don Quixote.

    think pink

    It was recently pointed out to me that October is Breast Awareness month. Our society is far too oblivious to the existence of breasts. Every day, millions of women around the world have breasts. In spite of this, breasts go largely unnoticed by men, women, and advertisers alike.

    Wait, maybe it’s Breast Cancer Awareness month. That probably makes more sense.

    Pink has become the color associated with breast cancer awareness, originating in the use of the pink ribbon symbol in the early 90s. So this month seems a good time to bring out the pink things. In the spirit of my Themed Things lists of green, red and blue folks and critters, I give you a list of pink animals, characters and other creatures.
    The Breast Cancer Site
    Before the pink fur starts flying, let me direct your attention to the button to the right. If you click on that, you’ll be directed to a site that funds free mammograms to women in need. All you need to do is click a button. So…you know…click on it.

    Ok, once more into the pink.

      Some Pink Creatures

    • The Pink Panther. A cartoon character originally appearing in the credit sequences of the (live action) Peter Sellers movie The Pink Panther (1963), but who later got his own TV show.
    • Barbapapa. A shape-shifting pink blob character who appeared in kids’ books and short animated shows. I have vague but fond memories of the cartoons from when I was little. I also had at least one of the books.
    • Serendipity. A bright pink, aquatic, dragonlike creature from the book (of the same name) by Stephen Cosgrove. (One of the first books that I ever read.)

    • several Care Bears are pink, such as the one called Cheer.
    • There are likewise various My Little Pony characters who are pink. (One called Pinkie Pie, for example.)

    • pink elephants Said to be seen by those who have had too much to drink. The expression seeing pink elephants is believed to have originated in a book by Jack London. Pink Elephants were featured in a scene in Dumbo (1941), along withe song “Pink Elephants on Parade.”
    • some Muppets are pink, such as one of the Martians, or “Yip-Yips.” (You can see the Yip-Yips discover a radio on this YouTube clip.)
    • Pearl: A pink octopus from Finding Nemo (2003)
    • the Energizer bunny. A mechanical drumming bunny toy with pink fur used in Energizer battery commercials.

    • flamingo. A bird with pink feathers, at least as an adult:

      Young flamingos hatch with grey plumage, but adults range from light pink to bright red due to aqueous bacteria and beta carotene obtained from their food supply.

    • Plastic pink flamingos are a popular lawn ornament in the US starting in the 1950s. They are often considered the epitome of kitsch.
    • Amazon River Dolphins. There is a species of freshwater dolphin living in the Amazon. For real. I actually saw some when I was travelling in the Amazon in 1991. (Or I may have possibly seen tucuxi, which are apparently saltwater dolphins, but live in the Amazon and can be pink.)
    • pigs. While the actual pigs I’ve seen haven’t been, pigs are often shown as pink in cartoons, toys, etc. The Disney version of Piglet, for example is bright pink. Cincinnati’s flying pig mascot is pink, as is the Kids in the Hall Flying Pig.

    ————-
    image sources: Barbapapa, Serendipity, Care Bear, flamingo and elephant, Pink Panther.

    some key things

    Damn. It’s now less than an hour before Thursday’s over, and I haven’t put up my Themed Things list. I always think I’ll find more time…

    Anyhow, my lost keys of yesterday (which have now been found, by the way) had me digging around in my mind to find various key-related things. Here are some keys I found in the cluttered piles of my head.

    A few key things

  • key. An item used to unlock something. Traditionally a metal object which fits a lock, but extended to refer to other things that give some sort of access, such as cards, passwords and codes.
  • the key to X: an idiom meaning “the means to achieve X, or gain access to X.” (eg. the key to success, the key to happiness, the key to my heart, the key to my pants…)
  • key. an adjective meaning crucial or primary. As in “the key participants” or “getting sleep is key.”
  • Dawn, the character introduced in Buffy, season 6.
  • Zero Effect (1998). A movie where a detective is hired to find a set of lost keys.
  • “The Golden Key“, a fairy tale from the Grimm brothers.
  • the key to the city. An award that is “presented to esteemed visitors, residents, or others the city wishes to honor,” typically in the form of an ornamental key. At least in TV and movies.
  • keys. The things you push on a typewriter or, um, keyboard. Or piano.
  • key. a musical term about the tonality of a composition such as “in a minor key”
  • “Musical Key.” A song by the Cowboy Junkies.
  • movie/TV cliches featuring keys: I feel like I’ve seen tons of movies and or TV episodes where a character is in a jail cell, and tries to escape by means of reaching keys either left unattended (eg. Harold & Kumar) or held by a dog (eg. the first Pirates of the Caribbean). The spy/heist genre also frequently features the need to sneak a key away from a character who keeps a key on their body. (eg. in Danny Kaye’s Court Jester, or apparently in the second Pirates of the Caribbean) If you can think of examples of these, please share. My brain couldn’t dig up more.
  • Then there’s the scene from The Princess Bride where Wesley, Inigo and Fezzig storm the castle and confront the gatekeeper:

    “Give us the gate key.”
    “I have no gate key.”
    “Fezzig, tear his arms off.”
    “Oh, you mean this gate key.”

    • —
    Okay, it’s 11:56. Still Thursday!

    head in the clouds

    For no particular reason, this Themed Things Thursday list is about clouds.¹

    A Cloud List

    1. Little Cloud. A picture book by Eric Carle about a cloud who likes to change shapes.
    2. Sector 7, by David Wiesner. A Caldecott Honor-winning picture book with no words about a boy’s remarkable encounter with some clouds.

    3. Winnie-the-Pooh. In the first chapter of A. A. Milne’s classic book, Winnie-the-Pooh attempts to pass himself off as a small dark cloud in order to sneak some honey away from a beehive in a tree. Eeyore, for that matter, is often depicted as having a cloud hanging over his head. (In this case, though, it is not Pooh.)
    4. head in the clouds. An expression meaning “having a poor grasp of reality” or “not paying attention.”
    5. on cloud nine: an expression meaning “extremely happy.” (So what if you are on cloud one? Are you only marginally happy?)
    6. every cloud has a silver lining: a saying suggesting that there is always something good to accompany the bad. (And an irritating thing to hear if you are a pessimist.)
    7. head under a cloud: means “in a bad mood,” typically either gloomy (eg. Eeyore, above) or cranky (eg. me, sleep deprived).
    8. (storm) clouds on the horizon: an expression meaning that trouble of some sort is foreseen.
    9. The Simpsons opening sequence: The parting cumulus clouds from the opening to this cartoon are quite memorable.
    10. “Little Fluffy Clouds,” a song by the Orb. (video on YouTube)
    11. “Cloudy,” a song by Simon & Garfunkel. (listen on YouTube )
    12. “Cloudbusting,” a song Kate Bush. The video is a short narrative film featuring a machine that manipulates clouds. (YouTube)
    13. Cloud Jumper: a free flash game you can play online that primarily involves jumping from cloud to cloud.
    14. Cloudscapes stamps: a 2004 series of stamps from the US postal service. You can learn more more about the cloud types depicted in the stamps from this National Weather Service page.

    15. If you find yourself hankering for more clouds and cloud trivia, you could consider joining the The Cloud Appreciation Society. Those people love their clouds.

    ————–
    ¹Sometimes, I just need to write about a light and fluffy topic. What could be lighter and fluffier than clouds?²

    ² Actually, I’m really quite partial to clouds. I recently had a little conversation with YTSL on this topic when she posted about her own affinity for clouds, along with a cool photo of a dragon-shaped cloud. And I found myself thinking: “I should do a cloud list.” So I done went and did it.

    a sopping Thursday

    It’s raining here today. Lots of rain. It’s a good day to bring out some umbrellas, so I give you a ThThTh list of umbrella things.¹

    a selection of umbrellas

  • The Sopping Thursday, by Edward Gorey. This is one of my all-time favorite Gorey books. John and I have been known to send each other messages that are quotations from the book:
  • I have lost my umbrella.
  • I do not find my umbrella
  • I have been poked in the eye with an umbrella
  • None of these umbrellas will do

    • And perhaps our favorite:

    The child has somehow got shut inside its umbrella

  • Mary Poppins: The famed fictional nanny of books, stage and screen uses her wind-propelled umbrella as a mode of transportation. (I think that’s how it works, at least. I confess that I haven’t read the books, and this horror trailer recut video is the most I’ve seen of the Disney movie.)
  • John Steed. A character from the 60s British spy show The Avengers. Carrying a finely crafted traditional British umbrella is one of his trademarks.
  • James Smith & Sons, Umbrellas Ltd.: An umbrella store in London, established in 1830. A place to go if you would like to buy a finely crafted traditional British umbrella .

  • The Correct Way to Kill: An episode of The Avengers. The plot involves a lot of umbrellas, as well as an umbrella store. Also spies with bad fake Russian accents. A favorite quote, which must be spoken with a bad Russian accent is:

    What would a chiropodist want with a case of umbrellas?

  • Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964). A musical starring Catherine Deneuve, featuring an umbrella shop.
  • Chatri Chor/The Blue Umbrella (2005) An Indian movie based on the children’s book by Ruskin Bond. About a poor girl who gets an umbrella, which is then stolen by a shopkeeper.
  • Singin’ in the Rain (1952): The famous scene where Gene Kelly dances around in the rain with an umbrella (though generally not held over his head) singing “Singin’ in the Rain.”
  • Umbrella, a song by Innocence Mission (also the album title):

    You dance around with my umbrella.
    You dance around the obvious weaknesses.
    Around the room with my umbrella.
    You dance around the room with me.

  • let your smile be your umbrella: an expression meaning something like “let a good attitude keep your day from being totally crappy.” It’s probably good that the meaning is metaphorical, because let’s face it. A smile is pretty ineffectual at keeping you dry in the rain.
  • “Under the Umbrella of the United States”. This was a song that I remember singing in my Junior High chorus class as part of a series of jingoistic patriotic songs about America.²
  • umbrella superstitions: It is considered bad luck to open an umbrella indoors. Or give an umbrella as a gift. There are a few others, too.³
  • a Haitian riddle:

    Q: Three very large men are standing under a single little umbrella. But, not one of them gets wet. Why?⁴

  • little paper umbrellas: What can I say about them? They are little umbrellas. Made from brightly colored paper. Often used in tropical-esque cocktails. I really liked them when I was little.⁵


    • ———————-
    ¹ I’ve had this list in mind for a while, but I was saving it for a rainy day…

    ² The song was pretty awful, and I can’t find a record of it. Anyone else ever heard of it? (I fear it may have been written by the chorus teacher himself. And someday he may find my scathing review.)

    ³ My own superstition, if you want to call it that, is that carrying an umbrella with you will prevent the rain. At least, it rarely rains when I bring an umbrella, and I rarely have an umbrella with me when it does rain.

    ⁴ A: It’s not raining.

    ⁵ The umbrellas, that is. I didn’t so much get to try the cocktails…

    a butterfly collection

    A while back, I gave you a list of moths for a Themed Things Thursday list, and I said I’d get around to the other major set of lepidoptera shortly. So here is a collection of butterfly things, which I have carefully skewered with pins and lined up for your enjoyment.

      A Butterfly Collection

    1. butterfly collecting: a hobby that involves collecting specimens of butterflies, and typically pinning them to a board and displaying them under glass in rows. It was a particularly popular hobby during Victorian and Edwardian times.
    2. The Collector (1965) A movie about a butterfly collector who kidnaps a woman to add to his collection of creatures.

    3. butterfly net: a type of handheld net used for catching butterflies (often for a collection). The image of using oversized butterfly nets to catch people is sometimes used in cartoons (or the imagery is evoked in humor writing). Particularly when depicting the “men in white coats” in pursuit of an escapee from a mental institution. (cf: this, this, or this cartoon.)
    4. “The Butterfly”, a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. A tale of a butterfly seeking a flower to be his bride. Unsuccessfully. In the end, he gets caught by people and pinned down, a state he likens to marriage.
    5. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. A picture book about a caterpillar who is hungry and eats a lot before becoming “a beautiful butterfly.” (Sorry, did I give away the ending?)
    6. Heimlich : a caterpillar (who is generally very hungry) from Pixar’s animated feature, A Bug’s Life. At the end of the movie, he emerges from his cocoon as a butterfly with wings disproportionatley small for his body, saying: “Finally, I’m a beautiful butterfly”?) (You can watch the scene on YouTube.)
    7. butterfly kiss: a nickname for the act of brushing one’s eyelashes against another person’s skin as an act of affection.
    8. In the Time of the Butterflies. A novel by Julia Alvarez about 4 sisters who participated in a resistance against a brutal dictator in the Dominican Republic. Their codename was “las Mariposas,” or “the Butterflies.” Also a 2001 TV movie based on the novel.
    9. butterflies in the stomach: an expression referring to temporary minor gastrointestinal distress triggered by stress, such as that due to an anticipated meeting or public performance. (Doesn’t that sound poetic?)

    10. The Monarch. A bumbling arch-villain from “The Venture Bros.”, a cartoon shown on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Wears a butterfly costume, as do his henchman.
    11. Madame Butterfly: an opera written by Giacomo Puccini about a Geisha in Nagasaki called “Butterfly.”
    12. “Butterfly”, a song by Weezer about catching a butterfly in a mason jar. It also makes reference to the opera Madame Butterfly, and is on the album Pinkerton, which is the name of the male protagonist from the opera.
    13. the butterfly effect:
      An idea from Chaos theory whereby minor events can trigger a chain reaction of other events, which can sometimes lead to big events. Such as the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings leading to a tornado changing its path. (Also a 2004 movie.)
    14. butterfly ballot: a voting ballot notorious from the 2000 US presidential election, as its confusing layout may have led some would-be Gore voters in Florida to mistakenly vote for Pat Buchanan.
    15. The Sinister Butterfly: “Nefariously fluttering from leaf to leaf.” John’s blog. Which he doesn’t update very often these days. But he has posted some great photos there before, as well as some other stuff that’s worth reading.

    ————————

    Butterfly collection image source: Worcester City Museums, UK. The Monarch image was found herehttp://cakerockstheparty.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/ncaa-heisman-trophy-avatars/.