Category: TV

flagging enthusiasm

Tomorrow is July 4th, which is the US is known as the Fourth of July. (Oh, right, it’s also called Independence Day.) It’s a day traditionally marked by fireworks and displays of flags. Lots and lots of flags.

Flags are often used as symbols of national and political identity, but this list isn’t about those. I figure that enough flag-waving of that sort will be going on tomorrow. Instead, I’ve lined up a few other types flags to wave around for this week’s ThThTh list.

  1. capture the flag: an informal game or sport, typically played outside. Two competing teams try to steal each other’s flags.
  2. flag someone down: an expression meaning to gets someone’s attention who is moving in order to get them to stop. Generally signalled by waving, though not necessarily by waving a flag.
  3. raise a red flag: an expression describing a situation when a person perceives that some action or event should be taken as a warning. As in “When the man showed up at the interview without pants, it raised a red flag as to the applicant’s suitability as a funeral director.”
  4. white flag: a symbol of truce or surrender. Wave the white flag (or raise the white flag) is also used metaphorically for signalling surrender or defeat.
  5. Black Flag: a punk band. For a quick sample, check out a video of their song “Wasted,” which clocks in under a minute long.
  6. Black Flag: a line of bug-killing products, the most famous of which is the Roach Motel.
  7. International Marine Signal Flags: flags representing letters and numbers that can be strung together and displayed on a ship to spell out messages.

  8. semaphore: a system of long-distance communication that commonly uses flags.
  9. Okay, I admit. This whole list is just a premise to share with you one of my all-time favorite acts of flag-waving: Monty Python’s brilliant production of Wuthering Heights in semaphore.

having my cake

I got to have me some cake this week.¹ I ate it, too. And this cake-having inspired me to think about cake. So I’ll be serving up a list of cake-oriented things for this week’s ThThTh.

Bon appétit!

A Cake List

  1. Cakes are used for lots of holidays and celebratory events in many cultures. Some examples include birthday cakes, going away cakes at office parties, French bûches de Noël or German stollen at Christmas. Also…
  2. Wedding cakes. Usually elaborately decorated multi-tiered cakes meant to serve all the guests at a wedding. They can be quite tall, and easily knocked over or smashed for comedic effect in movies or sitcoms.
  3. stripper in a cake. A tradition (if it really happens outside of TV and movies) of having an exotic dancer jump out of a large cake-shaped container. (You can make your own, if you like.) (I toyed with making a list of movies/shows where you see a stripper cake, but could only remember “Under Siege,” where the stripper fell asleep in the cake. Anyone have any others?)
  4. sexy cakes. A sketch on Saturday Night Live with Patrick Stewart as a baker of cakes decorated with erotic images. That is, erotic if you have similar ideas to the baker as to what’s “sexy”. (The video seems not to be up on the SNL website, but you can read the transcript. Come on, go read it. It’s funny. Especially if you imagine Patrick Stewart’s dignified stentorian voice for the baker’s lines.)
  5. “Let them eat cake!” A phrase attributed to Marie-Antoinette, reflecting her insensitivity to the hungry masses who could not afford to buy bread. It was likely not really said by her. (And certainly not in English.) Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote of someone using a similar phrase under similar circumstances in 1767, several years before Marie-Antoinette even arrived in Versailles.

  6. the icing on the cake. An expression meaning an additional bonus, benefit, or other desirable thing. As in something good on top of something else that’s good.
  7. cupcake. A small individual serving-sized cake. Also an endearment.
  8. babycakes. Another, even cutesier, endearment. (Want to see something creepy? Check out this YouTube video of someone making a realistic sculpted baby cake. Perhaps not as deeply unsettling as bread made to look like dismembered body parts, but creepy nonentheless.)

  9. Pat-a-cake. (or Patty-cake). An English nursery rhyme. Also used for a clapping game.

    Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.
    Bake me a cake as fast as you can.
    Pat it and roll it and mark it with “B”
    And put it in the oven for Baby and me.

  10. a piece of cake. An idiomatic expression meaning “easy.” As in “eating up all that chocolate was a piece of cake.”
  11. have your cake and eat it, too. An expression describing a desire to have things 2 different ways that are not compatible. More along the lines of “save your cake and eat it too.”
  12. takes the cake. An expression meaning “the most extreme example,” such as the winner of a contest or other comparison. As in “I thought Martin was a geek, but his brother Andy really takes the cake.”
  13. Cakewalk. A game, set to music, where the winner gets win a cake. I hadn’t realized it had origins as an actual dance:

    Cakewalk is a traditional African American form of music and dance which originated among slaves in the Southern United States. The form was originally known as the chalk line walk; it takes its name from competitions slaveholders sometimes held, in which they offered slices of hoecake as prizes for the best dancers.[1] It has since evolved from a parody of ballroom dancing to a “fun fair” like dance where participants dance in a circle in the hopes of winning a free cake.

  14. Cake. A band. My favorite song of theirs is probably their cover of Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive.”

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¹ Actually, what I technically had was a celebratory fresh fruit tart, with a preamble of a couple of donuts holding some candles. But these were symbolically cake:

leaping lepidoptera!

Here we are, moving from Spring towards Summer up here in the Northern Hemisphere. The days are getting longer, the trees are getting leafier, and the bugs are coming out in force. Excitingly for many small people, this includes large numbers of caterpillars. Around here, we get lots of Eastern tent caterpillars, fairly big brown hairy things with patterns of black stripes and blue dots. It is not uncommon to hear a gleeful cry of “I found a cater-pidder!” from Ms. Phoebe.

This army of furry future moths¹ has inspired this week’s moth ThThTh list.²

  1. Arthur: The Tick‘s sidekick. Wears a white moth suit in the comics, cartoon and live action TV show.
  2. Gypsy Moth, a moth character from A Bug’s Life voiced by Madeline Kahn
  3. Luna Moth, a fictional comic book character from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon. That is to say, the fictional characters in the novel created a comic book character named Luna Moth, a mothy superhero. (I just saw that there is going to be a movie based on the book. It was a really good book by the way. You should read it.)
  4. The giant luna moth from Dr. Dolittle. Carries Dr. Dolittle back to England at the end of the movie. (I’m not sure if the moth is in any of the books.)
  5. Mothra/Mosura: a (fictional) giant moth monster. Fought with Godzilla in a few movies, like Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) and Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)

  6. Silence of the Lambs (1991). The serial killer in the movie raises imported Death’s-head hawk moths, which are noteworthy for the skull-like pattern that appears on their back. The moths shown in the movie were apparently actually another type of moth, in costume.
  7. silk A fabric. The fibers come from silk worms, which are actually caterpillars of a moth that is now completely domesticated. The cocoons are boiled to unravel the long, continuous strand of silk produced by the catepillar. The boiling must happen before the moth emerges, as the moth would otherwise make a hole, making the fibers too short.
  8. Boiled silkworms are eaten in some places in the world. In Korea, it’s called beondegi.³
  9. The Moth, an episode of Lost.⁴
  10. The Moth, by Aimee Mann. A song:
  11. Bedtime for Frances, by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Garth Williams. A picturebook about a little badger who has trouble going to sleep, and imagines all sorts of possible dangers and adventures. It ends with her deciding that a moth going “bump and thump” against her bedroom window is not a real threat, so she goes to sleep.

——————–
¹ Can I mention that I have a bit of a moth phobia? Maybe I’ll share it later.

² I was going to include butterflies, too, but the list was getting out of hand, and I do need to get some work done tonight. Also sleep. So perhaps butterflies will flutter back this way next week or so.

³ A friend of mine from college was somewhat scarred by having tried them as a child when visiting Korea. There was a certain kind of carob-flavored soymilk I got which she couldn’t stomach, as the flavor reminded her of beondegi.

⁴ I’ve never actually seen Lost…

sweet tarts?

Here’s something else I wanted to share that I came across in Brazil: this package of little snack cakes. Not so much the snack cakes, but the packaging:


A package of Bauducco Gulosos, Bolinhos Sabor Morango (Strawberry-flavored little cakes)

Recognize the the cartoon characters?

Bubbles, is that you?

In case you are not familiar with the Powerpuff Girls, a animated TV series from Cartoon Network, this is what they usually look like.

The Powerpuff Girls looking more like sweet-looking little girls. (image source)

However, it would seem that in Brazil, the little kindergarteners are not quite sexy enough to sell snack cakes. So they have been tarted up a bit.¹

This is, of course, not the first time the little superheroines have been given a more grown-up makeover. In Japan, they were transformed into leggy anime teenagers:


The girls from Powerpuff Girls Z: not in kindergarten anymore. (image source)

Anyhow, my package of snack cakes unabashedly displays both the Cartoon Network and Powerpuff Girls logos. The transformation of the characters is somewhat mysterious to me, and is possibly only snack-cake-related. I haven’t been able to find any other similar images of them. Even on the Bauducco website itself, the same product is shown this way:

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¹Anyone else reminded of Xuxa, the scandalous sexpot hostess of a kids’ show?

(By the way, this post title is in part inspired by a recent post I read involving a whole hell of a lot of Sweetarts.)

flower power

Today is the first day of May, or May Day. Since I haven’t found an opportunity to dance around a maypole, I’ll present this flower-themed ThThTh to you as a sort of virtual May basket.

a bunch of flowers

  • “April showers bring May flowers.” An expression that makes reference to the frequency of rain in the month of April (in the Northern hemisphere, at least), and the Spring flowers that benefit from the watering. It has the meaning “Some unpleasant occurrences bring about better things.”
  • Flower children: a term for hippies, based on their tendencies to wear flowers as symbols of peace and love.

    • morning glory

  • Victorian Language of Flowers. A means of sending messages during the Victorian era. Specific flowers or colors of flowers had specific meanings attached for the recipient to decode. For example, a lobelia meant “malevolence” and a morning glory meant “love in vain.”
  • (s)he loves me, (s)he loves me not: a tradition of plucking the petals off a flower to determine whether one is loved. For each petal, the plucker alternates saying, eg. “he loves me” and “he loves me not.” The final petal, and which of the two phrases is slated to be spoken as it is plucked, establishes or refutes the love being questioned.

  • “Roses are Red.” A short poem (with many variants), sometimes used in Valentine’s Day cards. For example:

    Roses are red, violets are blue
    Honey is sweet, and so are you.

    I like this one better:

    Roses are red, violets are blue
    Some poems rhyme
    But this one doesn’t

  • American Beauty (1999) A movie with Kevin Spacey, which features rose gardening. It also has the famous dream scene with Mena Suvari in a pile of rose petals. (Why did I think it was Heather Graham? I guess it’s been a while.) American Beauty is also the name of a variety of roses¹
  • “Edelweiss” A song about the small white Alpine flower that is widely believed to be a traditional folksong, but was actually written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for the musical “The Sound of Music.”

    Edelweiss, Edelweiss
    Every morning you greet me
    Small and white, clean and bright
    You look happy to meet me

    • blue bonnet poppycarnationsunflower

  • El Seed from the animated Tick series. A megavillain who is an anthropomorphic sunflower. (The name is a play on El Cid.)
  • Certain poppies are used to produce opiates (opium and heroine). Poppies also have a drugging effect in the field of poppies from the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her companions (at least those that are mammals) are drugged to sleep when they enter a field of poppies. (Here’s the corresponding book chapter.)
  • The Orchid Thief: A non-fiction book by Susan Orlean about a man who illegally collects rare wild orchids. The movie Adaptation (2002) is in part about this story, and in part about the process of adapting a book into a screenplay.
  • Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Gregory Maguire‘s second novel for adults². This reinterpretation of the Cinderella fairytale is set in 17th century Holland during the peak (and then crash) of the tulip craze.
  • Carnation: In the Avengers series, Steed would typically wear a carnation in his buttonhole. Characters in various fictional stories, especially spy stories, will wear a red carnation in order that they may be identified by someone who doesn’t otherwise know their appearance.
  • “Dennis Moore,” the Monty Python episode where a bumbling Robin Hood-type character steals lupins from the rich to give to the poor. “Your lupins or your life!”

    • ——
    ¹ There are so many rose-related things out there, including several fairy tale rose references, that I could easily do a list just of roses. I probably will at some point down the line. Consider this a token rose for now.)

    ² He had written several young adult/kids’ novels before writing Wicked.)

    flower images: source

    a supplemental banana

    My laptop is restored, thanks to John, and it’s been back to the grindstone. (And while Phoebe does appear to have an intestinal bug, so far, John and I both seem to be resisting it.)

    In any case, no time for a ThThTh list. Instead, I hope this supplement to last week’s banana list will tide you over:

    Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and assistant Beaker demostrate the banana sharpener.

    green day concert

    What better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than with a moving rendition of Danny Boy? As sung by some muppets.

    (hat tip to crooked timber, via John.)

    ribbit

    Here it is, February 28th. What is typically the last day of February. However, this year, as I’m sure you are aware, is a leap year. So we get another day this month, making this year 366 days long.¹ Anyhow, this leaping business of leap year has inspired me to think about frogs.² And thus you get a froggy ThThTh list.
    florida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpgflorida_tree_frog.jpg

    A Few Frogs

    1. leap frog: A game you play by leaping over crouched people. (I can’t really describe it. Go see what Wikipedia says.)
    2. Frogger. A classic 80s arcade game. The goal is to get a frog to hop safely across a road and a river without getting squashed or dunked. You can play online.
    3. Kaeru: This Japanese word means both frog and return, leading to frog charms being carried for luck by travellers.
    4. The Frog Prince. A fairy tale about a princess prince-turned-frog-turned prince. It has some variations I’m less familiar with:

      Although in modern versions the transformation is invariably triggered by the princess kissing the frog, in the original Grimm version of the story, the frog’s spell was broken when the princess threw it against a wall in disgust.[1] In other early versions it was sufficient for the frog to spend the night on the princess’s pillow.

    5. The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, a book by Beatrix Potter. Mr. Fisher is a frog who goes fishing for his meal, but after some mishaps, opts to dine on grasshopper.
    6. Frog and Toad. Characters from the series of books (including Frog and Toad are Friends) by Arnold Lobel. They are a frog and a toad. Who are friends.

      7. crane_frog4.jpg     beatrix_potter_jeremy_fisher_cover.jpg     frog_and_toad.jpg

    7. Kermit the Frog. The beloved Muppet, created by Jim Henson. The orginal version was made from a discarded coat and ping pong balls.
    8. Michigan J. Frog. The singing frog from the classic Warner Brother’s cartoon.
    9. Keroppi Hasunoue. A Sanrio character. (It’s not actually clear to me what he is a character of, beyond toys and other merchandising.)

      10. kermit28.gif     mjfrog3.gif      keroppi.jpg

    10. Froggy, a character in various books by Jonathan London, such as Froggy Gets Dressed.³

      11. magnolia.jpg

    11. The frog scene from the movie Magnolia (1999). It rains frogs. Really big frogs. It gets messy.
    12. Frog Went A-Courting. An English folk song.
    13. Five Little Speckled Frogs. A children’s count-down song:

      Five little speckled frogs,
      Sitting on a hollow log,
      Eating some most delicious bugs,
      Yum, Yum.
      One 1 frog jumped in the pool,
      Where it was nice and cool,
      Now there are four 4 speckled frogs,
      Glub, glub.

    14. A frog in one’s throat: an expression describing the gurgling and croaking⁴ that people sometimes get when talking with phlegm in the throat.
    15. Crunchy Frog: a Monty Python sketch about a chocolate confection with a dead frog center.

      We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest-quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.

    ———————–

    ¹ Has anyone else noticed that this is perhaps an unfortunate year to choose for the inaugural year of Blog 365, where people commit to blogging daily for the whole year? But I see they have a planned day off for tomorrow.

    ² Because they leap.

    ³ We recently got a different Froggy book for Phoebe from a Scholastic catalog, namely Froggy Eats Out, and were a bit dismayed by the message of this particular one. In it, Froggy behaves like a brat and embarrasses his parents so badly at a nice restaurant that they must leave. They then reward him by going out to a burger joint, like Froggy had originally wanted.

    ⁴ Or irregular phonation. Which sounds less frog-like than croaking and gurgling.

    heart in my hands

    figure12.png Happy Valentine’s Day. Or what’s left of it.¹ Well, today is a day most strongly associated with one symbol: the heart. Whether it’s heart-shaped boxes of cheap-ass waxy chocolate, chalky-tasting little candy hearts with messages, or the good old-fashioned construction paper heart cut-out, Valentine’s Day is an affair of the heart. Or at least the heart shape. Because let’s face it, the actual organ itself gets the short shrift. So this ThThTh list is for you, you hard-working, blood-pumping bundle-o-muscles.

    A list for the Heart

  • “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allen Poe. The sound of his victim’s beating heart haunts a murderer. (There’s a Simpsons episode that features a diarama of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Someone out there has also made a Tell-Tale Heart scene Legos.)
  • Angel Heart (1987). This movie has a bit about someone eating a human heart.
  • The episode “Hush,” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the one where everyone loses their voice. The villains in this one steal people’s voices in order that they may accomplish their goal of collecting 7 human hearts without the inconvenience of screaming victims.
  • There’s also the famous scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) in which a man rips the still-beating heart out of another man’s chest as part of a sacrificial ritual.
  • Aztec sacrifices: check out the Wiki bit (and do note the “[citation needed]” bit. I really have know idea whether this is true.)

    The Aztec civilization used the heart as a sacrificial token during the sacrifice of a human being. The priest used a stone knife to cut into the thoracic cavity and remove the heart, upon which it would be placed on a stone altar as an offering to the gods. The greatest sacrifice under the reign of Montezuma involved the removal of the hearts of over 12,000 enemy soldiers.[citation needed]

  • Las Dos Fridas (The Two Fridas): a painting by Friday Kahlo with two versions of the artist with heart exposed.(Go have a look.)
  • Looking for something to impress the cephalopodophile in your life? Consider one of the lovely tentacled-heart images of Ben Lawson. (ht to raincoaster and MasterCowfish.)
  • Still want to give your true love the semi-traditional gift of candy? Why not consider the gummy heart, or the one-pound solid milk chocolate human heart?

    • —————-

    ¹ Here it is, almost 11:00, and I’ve been meaning to toss up a list all day. My plan, you see, was to post something heart-related. John suggests that I should prioritize sleep over posting a list. Pah! I scoff at your well-reasoned suggestion. And anyhow, I’ve got most of the damn thing already outlined.

    image: The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Child’s Day, by Woods Hutchinson,