I have been meaning to post about this every October since I have been putting my mundane thoughts on the web some 15 Halloweens ago. As Halloween nears lots of listicles are coming out now with things to read, watch, wear. eat, and numerous other verbs. Most of them are being generated by Ai scraped out and plopped in your feed like so much pumpkin guts…or brains… When the pumpkin becomes a head the guts become brains…Anywho, this isn’t about pumpkin innards; it’s about a mysterious beast in Scotland (not that one) and a curse.
Continue reading A Long Way from DuckburgCategory Archives: Popular Culture
A World Away
And a lifetime ago.
Twice.
Posting this today as it’s been 20 years since the return of Beakman’s World (in reruns not new episodes) was announced (or reported, rather) in the New York Times. And that was 14 years after the show originally aired.
Why was it back?
Continue reading A World Away
Ben and Me; Me and Ben
Today marks the 320th birthday of America’s favorite statesman, diplomat, scientist, and inventor. Having just missed posting Keaton on his birthday and Darwin on the annIversary of the Beagle sailing (and my new strategy of working across multiple days in drafts and not all at once) I am setting this one down. So here we go, on the correct day and in celebration of an American who has more books about him than he would have candles on his cake.
Continue reading Ben and Me; Me and Ben
Darwinning or Dar-Winning
Another installment of my son’s exhibits outside my office. Timely as ever we just finished this one up before the building closes for Christmas break. And as the HMS Beagle set sail with Darwin aboard on December 27, (1831), it’s worth sharing now.
Continue reading Darwinning or Dar-Winning
Too Many X-Overs
If you read comic books in the 90s you’ll know exactly where this is going, even if it didn’t read the X-men titles. I’d argue they were the worst offenders, but it seems like everyone was suffering this same malady back then. Onslaught, Offslaught; Distraught, Dattraught. Po-tay-to; po-tah-to.
Continue reading Too Many X-Overs
Bang, Bang Lucky Luke
One of the benefits of a job like mine is constantly mining for material that might make a good exhibit. An added bonus, and one that cannot be overstated, is working in a library where you have access to an amazing amount of potential–including some surprises.
Continue reading Bang, Bang Lucky Luke
In the Trenches
Other top contenders for the title of this post were “Consider the Trench Coat,” “Understanding the Trench Trope,” and “The Wearing of the Trope Coat.”
Gathering the content for my earlier Fantastic Four post brought to mind something else I have been wanting to put together. This one has to do with costumes, or more appropriately disguises over costumes, at least in these early cases.
Well That’s…Fantastic
One of the things we consciously try to do with (or for) our children is to not dump our nostalgia or fandoms onto them so they can develop their own affinities. Most of the time, it turns out they end up liking what we like. Other times it goes off in a different direction than you experienced and can open up a whole new world, or worlds.
This is one of those times.
Continue reading Well That’s…Fantastic
Nobody Was Faster or A Letter From the Dead
A few weeks ago I had the first dream of my grandfather since he died in 2022. Most of the time when I see a relative who has passed on my lucid dreaming kicks in and we end up talking about them not being alive, but bar none, they’ve always been great visits that I have been glad to have. What makes this one a little different, and worth writing about on the internet is the very context in which it appeared.
Continue reading Nobody Was Faster or A Letter From the Dead
The Circus Ship
Recently a friend of mine posted they had dropped in on their child’s first grade class as the guest reader for the day. He read The Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen. He mentioned it was one of their favorites so I hopped over to some used book sites to see if we could pick one up.
Continue reading The Circus Ship