Happy Saturnalia, everyone!

[LeeVanCleef]

'Cause the Romans were there first! Not counting the Druids they ripped it off from.

 

[sleepy]

What would that be?
Would that be a tribute to the planet Saturn all decked out in twinkle lights and no Christmas tree, or the Christmas tree rammed smack through a depiction of the planet Saturn all decked out in twinkle lights?

Would Saturnalia be A Busman's Holiday? Would people be expected to work on Saturnalia but receive time and a half for it?

Would other people still be in trouble for rejecting Saturnalia?

~~~~~~on another subject >>>>>>

Has anyone seen this years version of "twinkle lights"?
The ones that flash violently in pale Ice Colors at high speeds like A Strobing Psycho Tree Twinkle Light?



P.S. I am eating a box of Warren Buffett Vanilla Caramels right now.
They are delicious!

 

[sleepy]

Oh no!
Warren used margarine and vanillin this year...

...well...I sure wouldn't want to die from eating a real vanilla caramel made with real sweet dairy butter...I suppose a bullet to the head would be better...

...well..maybe not.
But the butter sure tastes like it's been cut by canola.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

happy saturnalia! fun stuff i've read recently:

- sometime earlier in US history, perhaps during WWI and for some time afterwards, having a christmas tree was considered unpatriotic; un-american. this, because the tannenbaum was a north germanic / baltic tradition for centuries before it eventually caught on in other places. and anti-german sentiment was pretty high here at one time...

- speaking of the druids, the giant "wicker man" was an interesting celtic device. it was apparently a giant human figure made out of sticks and branches, burnt during a ceremony. possibly with the bodies of human sacrifices stuffed inside. or possibly that was just propaganda devised by julius caesar, meant to whip up the senate for a britannica war campaign. also, the annual "burning man" artists festival in new mexico is a direct modern tribute to the wicker man.

- the film "a christmas story" evidently had at least four sequels(!) also, turns out the narrator for the film was also the writer, who was in fact one of the great characters, presenters and DJ's in american history, name of jean shepard. his WP was pretty fascinating for me.

over.

 

[sleepy]

I was introduced to Jean Shepherd by a PBS telecast of American Playhouse, "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters" way back in, was it the 70's or the early 80's???

Mind you, I haven't seen this since then, so my memories of it might be funnier than it actually is, and being on dial-up, I am unable to keep up with the video atm, so let me know if it's a goodie!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8118EC2B9576BC3A

What a bitch! For some reason youtube forgot to allow a "Use Old EMBED Code" option and I've been there for HOURS looking for a way to EMBED the playlist for this video using OBJECT tags that are PN-friendly.
The youtube playlists Share/Embed controls only have IFRAME code for playlists and it does not work here at PN.
So, when you go to the link, click the "Play All" at the top and I hope it works!
Else note the parts 1-6.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

oh, oops... i hit "part I" out of neanderthal reflexology. anyway, seems fun so far. shepard's voice really does the thing for these movies... sort of ties everything together with a percolating level of curiosity, familiarity and humor. and yea- date of 1982 according to IMDB.

btw, one more thing i learned about a christmas story-

the old man's worst battles against the downstairs coal furnace evidently took place when one of the coal chunks contained a significant amount of iron. as i understand it, these were called "clinkers" because they tended to get thrown against the walls of the furnace, producing noise. they also stirred up a lot of ashes and produced much more smoke than usual, which would leave layers of soot on the walls of the house. sometimes the clinkers even damaged or destroyed the furnace.

in fact the whole coal-home heating system sounds borderline insane to me.

EDIT: the videos do indeed chain. good work.

 

[StevOz]

Clinkers or not I gather it was whatever works?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Says the guy from Australia where it's probably 80 degrees right now... lucky bastard!
I learned that Jean Shepherd was actually in the running to host The Tonight Show after Steve Allen quit, but lost the job to Jack Paar. He probably would have hung around a lot longer than the temperamental Paar, which means Johnny Carson would have spent decades hosting forgettable game shows.

 

[sleepy]

And Jack Parr lost his job to Carson when Parr walked off the set for two weeks in 1961 over a contract dispute.
A case of "Famous Last Words"...but Parr was an interesting host. A certain "Barefoot Executive" liked Carson from his "Who Do You Trust?" days.

The "Clunkers" sound like they were Iron Pyrite.
Pyrite is mildly explosive and the easy way to determine "Fools Gold" pyrite from the real deal is to throw it in a fire...and run like Hell.
They snap and crackle like a giant Pop-Rocks or Cap Snapper (the kind you throw down hard to any convenient concrete surface to detonate) and the exploding particles can easily smack you.

In coal the Iron Pyrite will surely not look as Gold.
When boiling gold compounds in sulfuric acid, the resulting auric sulfide* that forms (gold sulfide, the conversion of which is dependent upon its original compound and its interactions with sulfuric acid; not all compounds behave equally!) precipitates as a corona of black goo when wet, to the bottom of the boiling pot, or so I've been told. Auric Telluride (Tellurium is a member of the sulfur family; so is oxygen and selenium) is a gray sticky, icky goo when wet and tellurides have a mild odor similar to garlic which is mildly toxic and can take a long time to leave the body when ingested. The victim will smell mildly of "garlic mixed with carpet fibers" and "Carpet Fresh" carpet freshener scent. Sort of a muslin garlic odor mixed with stale white flowers and cilantro. Cilantro from the Mediterranean area is known as "coriander"
Telluride, Colorado is named accordingly.

*EDIT: I should note that, regarding auric sulfide and burning it to extract the metal, there is a phrase:
"Now you see it, now you don't".
Because sulfur + alkali make gold compounds by attacking the metal, when you burn it, the finite particles of gold may depart along with the noxious sulfur smoke; not recommended for one's sanity!
The rule of thumb when heating is to cover it, then heat it in a well-ventilated area Outside.

*Edit: Using A Traditional Bonfire, followed by washing the Result, taking extra care and time to allow for slow precipitations,
may be the best way to accomplish this.

 

[sleepy]

As for the video, is that the one with the story about the movie theater and "Plate Night"?

"Plate Night" is what I was looking for. :)

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

i'm watching the segments pretty erratically so far.

re: movie theater,
matt dillon, i.e. ralphie, spills his load (symbolised by good n' plenty candies) all over the theatre floor when he spots the girl of his dreams. meanwhile his mother has lost the family's entire stock of wash clothes to a chain letter, if that somehow makes sense.

ring a bell?



EDIT: and here's a completely, totally random note that has nothing to do with anything here. just now i was reading frank sinatra's WP entry and came across this:

Sinatra did not serve in the military during World War II. On December 11, 1943, he was classified 4-F ("Registrant not acceptable for military service") for a perforated eardrum by his draft board. Additionally, an FBI report on Sinatra, released in 1998, showed that the doctors had also written that he was a "neurotic" and "not acceptable material from a psychiatric standpoint". This was omitted from his record to avoid "undue unpleasantness for both the selectee and the induction service". Active-duty servicemen, like journalist William Manchester, said of Sinatra, "I think Frank Sinatra was the most hated man of World War II, much more than Hitler", because Sinatra was back home making all of that money and being shown in photographs surrounded by beautiful women. His exemption would resurface throughout his life and cause him grief when he had to defend himself.

wow.

 

[StevOz]

knock on wood

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I gotta call bullshit on that, Nic. I know for a fact that Sinatra proudly served in the armed forces in Hawaii. The only reason he didn't go down in history fighting the Japanese on December 7th, 1941 was because he was beaten to death by Ernest Borgnine just days before. So many of our brave boys were lost to Ernest Borgnine. I'd believe the "too nuts" diagnosis over the perforated eardrum nonsense. After reading a couple of Sinatra biographies, I firmly believe that he would not be the best person to be standing next to with a gun in his hand. You'd have a better chance as a TV in Elvis's bedroom.

 

[sleepy]

Sinatra's been posing for years as "Sting", so he's not even dead...

Have you ever seen Borgnine in a skirt?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Sinatra's been posing for years as "Sting", so he's not even dead...

Have you ever seen Borgnine in a skirt?

No, I haven't... and I pray to the god Saturn that I never do!
Please never mention Sinatra and Sting in the same sentence. It offends music, the arts in general and, frankly, is an insult to sentences themselves.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

ouch!

seriously, sinatra is a pretty interesting dude. admirable in some ways (his civil rights work stands out) and rather childish / boorish in others. his hissy-fit suicide attempt over the next hot singer to come along stood out for the latter.

i've gotta catch up on his body of work, though, because i don't think i've ever heard a bad song from him.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Interesting to say the least. Other than Elvis, I don't think I've read two biographies about anyone. Although Kitty Kelly's His Way is more an extended issue of the National Enquirer than an actual biography.
I've always been a huge fan of Frankie's Capitol years; the stuff he did in the '50s that includes the career masterpiece Frank Sinatra Sings Songs for Only the Lonely, one you should definitely check out. The Reprise Years, which is '60s onward, is a little more spotty. That's when he recorded "My Way", a song I never need to hear again.

 

[sleepy]

I was on the job at Warner Bros./Reprise Records when the news broke that Elvis had died and it was strange to me that there was no shock, no grief, no despair.These were professionals who had been working there since the label started in 1958-59. Of the era.
On that day it was just another day on the job.

I think it was because around here the folks in the industry pretty much know what's going on with the performers, more like a Dead Pool, and I think there was a comment about his drug use.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

"only the lonely" by roy orbison... er, frank sinatra. found it. listening. i'll let you know how i like it. BTW, another fun fact from the WP entry- that although "my way" was his signature song, he never actually cared for it.

re: elvis,
makes sense. he had been going downhill for quite a while, so perhaps they felt that he had previously left the building.

re: this sinatra thing,
i was trying to remember what prompted me to read about frank, and i'm still not totally sure, but i think it *might* have been one of these collections, which shows pics of performers hanging out.

example:

L-R: davis, mitchum, newman, martin, garner.

from this collection:
http://awesomepeoplehangingouttogether.tumblr.com/

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

ugh. actually that album isn't working for me at all, bill. four songs in, and there'll all too slow, wandering and... dare i say it... self-indulgent for me.

could you recommend one with more energetic selections?

(there's always the possibility that i'm nothing more than a liker of sinatra's hits, but just don't know it yet)

 

[LeeVanCleef]

ugh. actually that album isn't working for me at all, bill. four songs in, and there'll all too slow, wandering and... dare i say it... self-indulgent for me.

could you recommend one with more energetic selections?

(there's always the possibility that i'm nothing more than a liker of sinatra's hits, but just don't know it yet)

LOL! I guess that one could be for more acquired tastes! If that had been the first Sinatra album I listened to, I doubt I would have cared much for it, either! My bad! Try on Songs For Swingin' Lovers... all upbeat and a good number of hits as well. And you can never go wrong with any of the Capitol Years Best Ofs... there's several iterations and most of 'em good.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Jesus! I just noticed that picture you posted, Nic! Mitchum and Newman? Not to mention the rest of that wacky crew! I gotta check that site out!

 

[sleepy]

Once when I was laying around bleeding while waiting for an ulcer to clear up (like Shark Bite),
I was laying there listening to a swing+ station 'cause the selections were Great, comforting and energetic. Never sleepy.

They played a Bing Crosby tune from, I think they said, 1928, and I swear, this tune was right up there with Pete Townshend's "Face the Face" from '85 as if it was written from the same page, hooks and all. It was truly a forerunner of and every bit a swing rocker.
This tune was/is the real deal.

But I don't know the name of the tune!

Please, if someone can point the way.

 

[sleepy]

I'm drawing a blank on Garner.

Geez, if I had a camera. I camped out at The Grammys once just to do it.
In the backlot behind The Shrine Auditorium I saw Bill Murray talking to Billy Joel about 50 yards away from the sidewalk I was standing on, and the odd thing was, they both stopped talking and just stared at me from the side.

There was also the time I canvassed for Circus Vargas, asking storefronts to put the circus posters in their window as a favor to The City of Burbank.

One of the businesses I stopped in at was Stereovision, then distributors of 3D glasses and films such as The Stewardesses in 3D. The desk was being manned by Jason "Herb" Evers, known as the cad doctor in "The Brain That Wouldn't Die"

Another stop was at a sheltered room with shuttered windows on Ventura Blvd. occupied by 12 or so young Asian teen boy immigrants being tutored by Rock Hudson...

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

They played a Bing Crosby tune from, I think they said, 1928, and I swear, this tune was right up there with Pete Townshend's "Face the Face" from '85 as if it was written from the same page, hooks and all. It was truly a forerunner of and every bit a swing rocker.

arne, i think your best bet is to find a 'baby boomers'-type webforum to ask these kinds of questions. i love discovering the nostalgia and all, but i wasn't brought up in it. which is probably the standard case with gen-Xers. we're working backwards to be cool, you might say.


re: bing crosby,
i've been building a kind of alt / lounge / ecclectic xmas playlist the last few years, and bing became a big part of it, recently. this song is corny as hell on the surface, yet has a level of charm and nuance that makes it impossible for me to get out of my head. it's barely on the web in any form, so i had to upload it to my channel (privately) in order to share.

bing crosby - a time to be jolly:

and here's another couple excellent finds from the season--

the monkees - riu riu chiu:
Monkees - Riu Chiu - Offical Video - High Quality - YouTube


mormon tabernacle - silent night with a crazy counterpoint organ and amazing vocal arrangement (had to again upload it on my channel, ugh):
Silent! - YouTube



and one more completely random discovery- a barely audible quarrymen tune that i'd love to sing one day: