Well, the happy weekend is upon us. I’ve left a foolish little treat over on my fictional facade to mark the occasion, and for the traditional Friday Film Fiesta, how about Frankenstein? This is the earliest extant version, the one offered by the Edison Company, and I take a particular delight in presenting it thus, because dear old T.A. Edison was a staunch opponent of movies that weren’t locked inside a peepshow box– how, he raged, could you be sure everyone in the theatre had coughed up a nickel? Someone might sneak in and gander without paying! So, with all our nickels reclining idly in our pockets, on with the show, accompanied by the sound of moaning and grave-spinning from the direction of Llewelyn Park, New Jersey:
If you’ve got some time to spare, there’s also this: Dante’s Inferno in glorious moving pictures. I happened upon it yesterday, and it’s just too seasonal to not present today. Be warned, there’s also a surprising amount of nudity for a film predating The Great War.
Today’s pen: Parker 75 (helps keep werewolves at arm’s length)
Today’s ink: Herbin Bleu Nuit (insert line from Dracula here regarding children and music)
Usually at this time of year, I’m all about looking forward to Hallowe’en, and putting creepy stuff out to enhance the seasonal mood. Stuff like this fun little loop:
But this year, I’m not only dealing with my son’s strange reaction to this most festive of times, but with my own non-Hallowe’en euphoria at the politics of the national. In Canada, we are going from a sour-pussed racist on the national seat of power to this chap:
So the actual and true film for this Friday is a blend of jolly horror and innocent merriment.
When’s the last time I committed a little anarcho-dandyism here? Far too long ago.
Oh, for a dramatically expanded wardrobe budget!
In point of fact, I’m going to be committing a serious act of unrest while being civil on Monday. I’m going to leave the house early, in my best suit and wearing good matching hat, to get into the polling station for the National Election before the start of work. Attired as spiffily (and perhaps stuffily) as I can manage, I’m going to defy the system… of expectations. I’ll be voting profoundly progressive while wearing conservative pin-stripes. Fight the power!
Because I live in Canada, I was observing Thanksgiving last Monday, and trying to get a clear notion in my head whether our version of it is as bound up in pretending at cordial relations with First Nations in the early part of the colonization effort as in the US (I can’t think of an equivalent to the legends of the Plymouth Colony’s “first Thanksgiving”) or if it’s always just been a semi-pagan harvest thing like Lammas or the Dark Morris that happened to get some turkey-eating involved due to proximity to the US and the fact that birds are no respecters of national borders.
No conclusions reached– there’s religion, politics and attempted genocide(s) involved, so it’s hard to get a clear view of the history.
I’m not sure I was shown this as a direct outcome of the thing I posted yesterday at my (mainly) fiction site. I certainly understand the terror of an unfamiliar shift pattern and controls which respond other than they should, though, so I share this for the Friday Film. Be warned that there is an undeleted expletive very close to the end.
There you have it, folks. Not even Germany always gets engineering right, even if it looks really, really cool (from some angles).
The Regular Job presented me with several metaphorical fires to put out today, which has eaten into my lunch break! Thus, a late and entirely thematic Friday Film From Faraway
What's up at Ravens March. 