Trempealeau, 1874

I have a few pages from a book called Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country. With illustrations on steel and wood which was published in 1874. What a title! The entire text is found here. One of the pages has a nice color illustration:

The text accompanying this illustration reads: "It is sometimes called Mountain Island, for its rocky height attains in one part an altitude of five hundred and sixty feet. But the name which the French voyageurs gave it is so poetical that it would be a sin to change it. It rises sheer out of the water in the centre of the channel, and the French called it "Mont qui trempe a I'eau" (Mountain which dips in the Water). Nothing can be conceived more beautiful than the approach to this most romantic and picturesque spot, which, in the writer's opinion, exceeds in positive beauty the far-famed scenery of Lake Pepin, twenty-five miles up the river."

This earlier post of mine shows what the mountain looks like in modern days, in the winter. I've posted about the place in other posts, including this most recent one about a shipwreck (riverboat wreck). As I may have mentioned before, Trempealeau Island (located on the Mississippi River between Winona, Mn and La Crosse, Wi) is now a sort of forbidden zone: visitors to the area are not encouraged to actually go onto the island. I've not heard of anyone in the modern era who has, and when I enquired of a local about going there, I was told not to, because it was covered in rattlesnakes. But it is possible: there is a Mountain Zone page about it.

Why we have the Internet... (part 2)

So we can find a still from test footage of a "Superman" movie staring Nicolas Cage. A "Superman" movie that thankfully never came to be.

Ordinarily, I like Nicolas Cage movies, and was watching parts of "Ghost Rider" earlier this evening.

I remember one reviewer who said of that movie "If you must see one burning skeleton on a motorcycle movie this summer, let this one be it!"

What a costume Cage has as Superman. It looks like it is made of baked Plastigoop from the old "Thingmaker' toy. Does anyone else remember the Thingmaker? It was what little boys had when girls had the Easy Bake Oven. Instead of little muffins (or whatever girls made in those ovens, I had no idea), boys got to bake up rubber bugs and crabs.

Here is an article about the aborted "Superman" movie, also with this illustration. Something about the photo looks odd to me. Is it it just me, or do the arm joints and plastic sheen make it look like someone popped a photo of Cage on an action figure?

The article also has a video with supposed pre-production designs for Tim Burton's "Superman Lives", that run the gamut from an Edward Scissorhands take on the Man of Steel to designs of a more zombie/Frankenstein look.

Why we have the Internet...

.... so we can see pictures of things people should not have done in the first place.

Theatre Annoyances

Here's a picture of a guy walking in front of the screen during the "kill the cat" scene at the beginning of the recent movie "The Book of Eli". Perhaps this is a pretty good time to have someone walk in front of the screen?

The Traverse City, MI State Theatre has a stated policy: "anyone who pulls out a cell phone or blackberry is banned for life". But the other theatres I've been to tell you this, and don't seem to enforce it. Never mind the 3-D wonders of "Avatar": when I went to see it, there was some important (self-important?) businessman jawing away on his blackberry during part of the movie.

Other annoyances are obvious. My local commercial chain shows bits and pieces of music videos before the movies, hosted by some grinning guy who looks like Lee Harvey from the "Drew Carey Show". I don't mind commercials at the beginning so much if they are something special and never shown on TV. And if they show them, why show them sometimes 5 times in a row? The trailers for other movies aren't a problem for me: I usually enjoy those.

One problem of the past is the blurred movie. A lot of people yelling FOCUS, and after a while, one or two guys leave to find a manager. Must be someone asleep in the projector booth. This isn't so bad now that all of the theatres are digital. But still remaining is the bad theatre in the multiplex. As in, "I hope the movie isn't on screen #6. The sound is always bad there."

So, what are your big theatre annoyances?

Click here for someone else's list.

How I invented the Internet (well, not really)

My imagination goes wild sometimes. I come up with ideas for books, series of books, even occasionally TV shows and movies.

Two of my ideas became rather successful: the TV show "Early Edition' (done exactly as I had envisioned it) and Orson Scott Card's "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" (a lot better than my idea, really). But I can never take credit for these ideas: I never submitted them, leaving others to run with it.

One idea I had in the mid 1970s involved some sort of future telecommunication thing called M.A.R.I.A. (Microwave And Radio Information Access). On MARIA, anyone could access recordings of just about every radio or TV program made at any time. Sure, the Internet was already created by then, but I'd never heard of it and I doubt anyone was talking about it being uses so people could watch old TV shows.

Well, between Hulu, Ch131.com, and Youtube, it looks like we were mostly there. Not much like how I envisioned it, but I got the "microwave and radio' part right, as much of the Internet goes over microwave and radio, along with the cables. I got the part about old radio and TV right (especially TV), even if I did not guess a thing about movies, or that the Internet would be used about anything else at all. Thinking back, I was probably inspired by the idea that TV shows I loved like Sebastian Cabot's 'Circle of Fear" / "Ghost Story" that no one else cared about would never be seen again. The name of this TV-oriented version of the Internet probably came from "West Side Story" (see image above to the right). And yes, the Sebastian Cabot TV show is now on Youtube. Sebastian, better known as the first Mr. French, is seen below.

I still have the ideas for the science-fiction stories that MARIA was part of, but if I ever write them, I'd just call it Youtube or something, if I even left it in at all. It's a lot more fun to predict things than to just name what is already there.

Have any other writers or imaginative types here come up with predictions that have happened at all, or not happened at all? Or really good ideas that someone else ended up running with?

A PB&J Wedding for Haiti

I heard about this news story on the radio this morning...

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/minnesota-couple-donates-wedding-dinner-budget-to-haiti-011910

"MAPLE GROVE, Minn. - A Maple Grove, Minnesota couple is donating 25 percent of their wedding budget, reserved for dinner at their June reception, to the victims of the Haiti earthquake......Bogen said the fact people were suffering in Haiti while she planned an elaborate party triggered her to donate the $2,500 budgeted for dinner to the earthquake victims. What will guests eat? Maybe peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. ...."

Not getting married? Or eloping? There are other ways to send money to Haiti, such as the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

The Raven

Listening to Ron Jolly's radio program today, I was reminded that today was Edgar Allan Poe's birthday. As part of the announcment, he played some of the song "The Raven" from the Alan Parsons album "Takes of Mystery and Imagination of Edgar Allan Poe". A Youtube video of it appears below:



I hadn't heard it for a while, and was glad to hear it. I've come to think that the Alan Parsons Project's "Poe" album is one of the two best rock albums ever made. If you can find the best version, that is. I am not sure it is still available. At one time, it was edited so there is distracting guitar here and there like someone is doing guitar Karaoke. Oh well, I guess that is what they wanted.

The alterations only affect a couple of tracks, and not "The Raven". Give it a listen, and hear how it begins with a Cylon chorus and ends with a very solemn choir.

And, if you want to hear more Cylon voices, listen to this Cylon love song:

By the content of their character (Postcard of the Day)

I haven't done a post for a little while, nor a postcard post for that matter. I figured today I'd do a post that would be a postcard onethat would be somehow Martin Luther King related. I was thinking something to do with Memphis, so I looked in my Tennessee postcards. I found a more interesting one, of Cove Lake State Park in Caryville, Tennessee. Caryville is in the eastern part of the state.This postcard shows a couple of African-American kids at the park. It is a Dexter Press postcard that probably dates from the 1960s.

Dr. King, of course, gave his great "I Have a Dream" speech in the 1960s, which includes this quotation:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

I wonder if things went well for these two black kids in the 1960s, growing up in Tennessee?

Trees on Mars

Here's a recent NASA photo from Mars: Click here to read the story behind it.

It reminded me of views of trees at the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore (see postcard below):

Postcard - 100 years ago in Honor

This postcard is from 100 years ago, and is of Honor, in Benzie Country, Michigan. I think one or two of the wooden buildings in the view might still be standing? The weather is a lot like this right now, but they try not to leave a layer of snow on the roads. And of course there aren't many trees around to make big logs like this.
I can't think of a good song to tie in to Honor, but there is a song called Big Log. I never knew what it had to do with logs:

Locke vs Barack, Round 1

I heard today that the premiere of the final season of ABC-TV's "LOST" has caused the White House to move President Obama's "State of the Union" address. I guess they didn't want the outrage like when a Barack speech wiped out Charlie Brown this past Christmas season.President Obama should probably thank Locke and crew. It's probably a good idea that Obama doesn't do a speech on Groundhog Day, as to avoid the endless jokes about whether or not he will see his shadow.

And Lost fans, go ahead and click on the article [here], and tell me if that isn't the best picture of Sawyer. He looks pretty haggard, like he's about 55 in the picture, and I think he's really only 41 or so.

For more about Sawyer and Locke, watch the video below:

Addendum: Also, do all 4 or 5 networks really need to show prime time Presidential speeches? I'm pretty sure that the percentage of American households without cable or or without a decent broadcast lineup of at least 3 networks has to be extremely low. So, if one or two networks don't show it, everyone (I think) will still be able to see it, if they want. So what is wrong with one or two networks showing regular programming on that night?

How's the weather treating you?

Phoenix C. has a nice post of icicle photos. To the right, the Snow Miser appears to be busy at his machines, working up more snowy weather. Will the groundhog come out on Feb. 2, or is he already frozen to death? I could probably do some icicle photos myself, as there are zillions of huge snowy Andurils all around now. So, how is this weather treating you?

It's Two-Thousand-Ten

There's a movement to get everyone to pronounce "2010" like "Twenty-Ten". Click here for a column concerning it. Radio host Ron Jolly is apparently on board. As for me, I'm sticking to "Two Thousand Ten" for "2010". Why? I've been think of it as "Two Thousand Ten" since 1982, when Arthur C. Clarke's book "2010: Odyssey Two" came out. So I've known this year longer than non-Clarke fans.

"2010: Odyssey Two" was the first sequel to the very well known "2001: A Space Odyssey". Everyone pronounced the sequel book (and movie) title as "Two Thousand Ten", which fit perfectly with "Two Thousand One".

There was even a "2010" movie. Anyone remember this one, starring Roy Scheider from "Jaws"? I remember it mainly for its anachronisms. That is, things that in 1984 they thought that everyone would use in 2010, but they really did not give it a lot of thought. The most glaring one was when they showed Scheider on the beach using an Apple IIc computer. I remember this machine. It was underwhelming in 1984 (a time when PCs and even the Commodore 64 were leaving Apple far behind, shortly before Apple unveiled its first Macintosh). So, why would anyone in 1984 think that 26 years lafter, people would be using 26 year old computers? The "2001" movie from 1968 did a lot better job at having some sort of imaginative vision of the future. The tablet computers they showed in the "2001" movie were ahead of their time, not behind their time.

Back to what to call years, I also never went in for the "and" stuck in the middle of the years of the last decade (example: "two-thousand-and-six" instead of "two-thousand-six". The "and" in there sounded like a stutter. After all, "1975" was not "19 and 75".

So, at this time of year when everyone is still writing "2009" on their checks by mistake, what are my readers saying for the current year? "Two-Thousand-Ten" or "Twenty-Ten" ?

Polar Bears - Postcard of the Day

Today's "Postcard of the Day" was printed in 1999. It was, I am pretty sure, an insert card in National Geographic magazine, and it was to advertise for subscribing to the magazine.
To the left is a Flickr photo of the annual "Polar Bear Plunge" in Empire, Michigan, from the winter of 2009. The photo was by "joerbius". The plunge is part of Empire's "Winterfest" which takes place in February. Basically, people go swimming in freezing water in the middle of the winter. I think Suttons Bay at one time had a polar bear plunge, too. Both Empire and Suttons Bay are in Leelanau County. It's too early for the Polar Bear Plunge right now, so in the meanwhile, enjoy a nice fresh cold bottle of Coca Cola.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

And, not that this has anything to do with the new year, but I keep getting Nigerian scam emails. One of them contained the following interesting account:

"In fact, since the death of my husband, his brothers has been seriously chasing me around with constant treats, trying to suppress me so that they might have the documents of his landed properties and confiscate them. "

At this time of year, I suppose that could be pretty bad, if one is already stuffed with holiday candy, cakes, cookies, and other treats.