penguin hoomer and the north pole faux pas

you've probably wondered when i'll revert to penguin stuff. here's some my kind of penguin cuteness that i happened on courtesy of b3ta.com, an english based website that operates as an outlet for a bunch of young computer players with creative skills and irreverence. one of those folks calls her[?]self mata and has a website with definitely interesting contents including cartoons, animations and corsets: http://www.matazone.co.uk/theotherside.html. the cartoon above comes from her. she also has a penguin flash animation that's good notwithstanding its inclusion of polar bears and the north pole and a non-upbeat ending:

http://www.matazone.co.uk/animpages/krark-the-penguin-animation.html. i'm trying to figure how to include it here as we speak.

i hope that mata will not be offended by reference to her arctic penguin faux pas. she dealt with it in a neat way in the animation. putting penguins in the arctic is an off repeated mistake and at least she didn't stick in any polar bears. i recently spotted a hundred year old version from france and i've included it above. i found it in an article talking about the equally old dispute over whether either frederick cook or robert peary was the first person to travel to the north pole: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Cook-vs-Peary.html. the article is a good historical tale. and there is no reason to point out that the claim ignored native 'discovery' of the area long before. natives apparently had had no reason to go to this inhospitable spot whose importance was mostly theoretical until being called into service by 'explorers'.

love’s labo[u]r lost - meatloaf for the mind
i saw meatloaf on a closing season monk show a couple of weeks ago. the memory coils sprung back to some 15 years ago when i finally found my way to meatloaf courtesy of the jukebox at a no longer existing bar that treated me well. the loaf was, of course, the musical backstop of the rocky horror pic, the cult movie classic with an oklahoma branch cult assembling for years at the may theatre. the may was the saturday spot of my youth for movies and serials but i didn’t make it there in adult life probably because i didn’t have my big ol bicycle anymore.
meatloaf sang love stories that didn’t require you to be in love at the time. paradise by the dashboard light was one of the best. it was a rock operaesque retelling of love’s first gropes on the dimly lit streets and in the drivein movies. this was the rule in the late 50's of my growing up when all groping was forbidden and secret and the baseball - first base, etc, imagery was seriously understood. the object of my first love and hoped for lust was nancy hill and my attempts were made in just those venues. i came back to visit her from college to see her and be pictured with her and an unknown baby, not realizing that it was already over. the newspaper image is the announcement of her marriage - not to me. [i apologize to you and her, wherever she is, for the quality of the pictures.] meatloaf replayed the agony and ecstasy of the times wonderfully for me. so i take you there courtesy of meatloaf and youtube.

its not too far of a stretch to another meatloaf’s love insight songs which was also on my favorite list - 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. i think i should present it without comment:

finally a little perking up with jack black and meatloaf. i’ve noticed jack black popping up all over with old hair, rock and roll love and happy irreverence. wikipedia gives a good little history talking about his group tenacious d: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenacious_D. he seems a natural ally of, or inheritor from, meatloaf and in my last youtube offering there’s a direct connection. the video is called kickapoo in honor of a town in missouri and has meatloaf playing the straight father of a young rocker jack. the story-telling is as efficient and musical as a meatloaf song. and it will wake you back up after my words.

and now for something mostly different

tired of my too cute penguins, try a website that’s dedicated to disapproving rabbits:

http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/.

the rabbits there are obviously committed to disturbing their too cute anthropomorphized image. the titles are a little lame and unnecessary - but there’s still giggles there for us undeserving humans in pictures like the one above.
flowers are a less complicated pleasure. hibiscus are one of my favorites. my morning wakeup puzzle today from jigzone, http://www.jigzone.com/, was a hibiscus and here it is for you to play with. [it will route you to jigzone to work, so please come back if you work on it before you read on.]



p.s. the pythons of completely different are out and about again. They’re coming back for a special week on ifc and the times has a good article with current and past news about them:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/arts/television/04mcgr.html

here's a quote that taps into my personal history memory including beyond the fringe. i would apply the terms happily to my oklahoma growing up:

With the exception of Mr. Gilliam, the sole American, the Pythons all grew up in middle-class families in provincial towns and were very much a product of postwar British culture: cautious, decorous, respectable, nice. They wanted to blow it up.
“That culture wasn’t hard enough to be rigid,” [John] Cleese recalled .... “It was more stuffy — it was like wrestling with a sponge. I
remember going to see ‘Beyond the Fringe’ in 1962 and hearing screams of laughter. They were screams of liberation.”

turn on the tv quick - rabbit proof fence
i spent the late morning watching one of my absolute favorite movies, rabbit-proof fence. i wrote quickly without much decoration to try to catch anyone who might want to see it at 330. now i'm to the after the fact edited edition to which i am adding a worthy youtube video
the movie rabbit-proof fence is a 2002 retelling of a true story of of the 1931 escape of three aboriginal girls from a boarding school and their 1000 mile trek courtesy of the rabbit-proof fence. american indians will make the obvious connection to their boarding schools. nonindians need not fear the underlying truths - the movie is beautiful and exciting and sad and wonderful.
here's some links and the promised video.

ifc on the movie:

http://www.ifc.com/movies/262133/Rabbit-Proof-Fence
imdb on the movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252444/
a good trailer:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi144572697/
the schedule for future showings on ifc: monday, oct. 19 at 11:00 am edt; monday, oct. 19 at 4:05 pm edt; wednesday, oct. 28 at 7:35 am edt; wednesday, oct. 28 at 2:35 pm edt.

and last but not ... a beautiful 'tribute video which mixes still from the movie and peter gabriel soundtrack material.