 |
| that was a really, really good white. No idea what it was. |
Before we bid adios to Turkey Day, here's some quick views...
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Thanksgiving Weekend Round-Up 2012
Well, so that was the long weekend for Thanksgiving.
The Thanksgiving Holiday is over, and we head into the Christmas season.
Before we bid adios to Turkey Day, here's some quick views...
Before we bid adios to Turkey Day, here's some quick views...
Signal Watch wishes Noel Neill a Very Happy Birthday!
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Born November 25th, 1920, Noel Neill played Lois Lane in the original Superman movie serials with Kirky Alyn, and then in all but the first season of the 1950's TV series, The Adventures of Superman alongside George Reeves and Jack Larson. She went on to appear as Lois' mother on the train in Superman: The Movie and appeared briefly as Gertrude Vanderworth in Superman Returns.
She is one of our favorite performers in any Superman media, and we want to extend a big birthday howdy to our Lois of choice.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Larry Hagman Merges with The Infinite
Larry Hagman, of Dallas TV fame, has passed at the age of 81.
I am a child of the 70's and 80's, and was living in the Dallas area circa 1979-1981 and Houston, after that. There were four channels at the time. We all watched Dallas. Yes, we all knew who JR Ewing was. And, like much of America, I also wondered who had shot JR.
Son of actress Mary Martin and a native Texan, Hagman's relationship with Texas continued on and off for most of his life.* Hagman was a major wheel in TV, both in the US and abroad, where the show ran in re-runs well past when the show had been cancelled.
Later, I'd start watching re-runs of I Dream of Jeannie, where Larry Hagman played astronaut Tony Nelson. He got to be on TV with Barbara Eden every week, and that ain't bad.
Readers of this blog will also remember him from Superman: The Movie as the Army officer who bravely steps up and assists Valerie Perrine when she fakes an auto accident to distract a convoy for Lex.
Hagman had recently returned to TV in a reboot of Dallas, and was enjoying a second wind of stardom.
Hagman passed today in a Dallas hospital.
*As a side note, the more someone is like the villainous JR Ewing, the more likely it often seems that they'll be elected governor in Texas, over and over and over.
I am a child of the 70's and 80's, and was living in the Dallas area circa 1979-1981 and Houston, after that. There were four channels at the time. We all watched Dallas. Yes, we all knew who JR Ewing was. And, like much of America, I also wondered who had shot JR.
 |
| He drinks your milkshake |
Son of actress Mary Martin and a native Texan, Hagman's relationship with Texas continued on and off for most of his life.* Hagman was a major wheel in TV, both in the US and abroad, where the show ran in re-runs well past when the show had been cancelled.
Later, I'd start watching re-runs of I Dream of Jeannie, where Larry Hagman played astronaut Tony Nelson. He got to be on TV with Barbara Eden every week, and that ain't bad.
 |
| Major Nelson was never any Darren-like pushover |
Readers of this blog will also remember him from Superman: The Movie as the Army officer who bravely steps up and assists Valerie Perrine when she fakes an auto accident to distract a convoy for Lex.
 |
| bravely, bravely ponders a stricken Valerie Perrine |
Hagman had recently returned to TV in a reboot of Dallas, and was enjoying a second wind of stardom.
Hagman passed today in a Dallas hospital.
*As a side note, the more someone is like the villainous JR Ewing, the more likely it often seems that they'll be elected governor in Texas, over and over and over.
'Itiseth yon Season?
Just received this dispatch from the North Pole!
could our Holiday friend be back?
could our Holiday friend be back?
Thursday, November 22, 2012
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Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Noir Watch: The Set-Up (1949)
This is the third time I'd watched this movie, but every time it's been years apart.
The Set-Up (1949) is the story of an aging fighter, well past his prime, but still taking to the ring on a low-class circuit, fighting at the bottom of crummy bills in shoddy venues. Robert Ryan played a lot of heavies, but here he plays the fighter who truly only knows how to do one thing - and that's get up and get back in the ring again and again, not yet shaken off the promise of the one-in-a-million shot, now with much smaller dreams of respectability.
Audrey Totter plays Julie, the woman in his life who has seen his string of losses and watched every fight, seeing the man she loves beaten and bloodied. As the movie begins, they've hit a cross-roads - though it's possible Ryan's "Stoker" doesn't yet fully realize the gravity of the situation.
Meanwhile his manager, who can count on Stoker to lose in every bout, takes a pay-off promising Stoker will take a fall, but cuts his own fighter out of the deal, considering it a no-brainer that his guy can't make it and wont' get lucky.
Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States
A Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
By the President of the United States
A Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Abraham Lincoln
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Your Time Killers For Pretending To Work on the Wednesday Before Thanksgiving
Ah, that magical day in the office where time becomes meaningless. If you're like me, it's you and Nick, the Graduate Assistant as the only ones planning to show up for work on Wednesday. It'll be an odd mix of the clock moving too slowly and the ability to actually get some work done for once without the weird guy from around the corner coming to your door and killing your schedule for the day.
I have a very warm place in my heart for The Addams Family movies. Their commentary on The First Thanksgiving.
Some guy re-enacts a key scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Here's a Thanksgiving puzzle...
I have a very warm place in my heart for The Addams Family movies. Their commentary on The First Thanksgiving.
Some guy re-enacts a key scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Here's a Thanksgiving puzzle...
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