Re-Post: MA-55 - Adventures of Superman - More Library Recordings

In the enclosed liner notes for this release, I tell about buying some Adventures of Superman music on cassette long ago, and my discovery of a second super-fan who had bought different Superman music from the same source.

These are the tracks. along with a few others found elsewhere:

01. Eerie Night - F G Charrosin (3:10)

02. Tragedy - Unknown Artist (1:26)
03. Lost in a Fog - Ronald Hanmer (1:25)
04. Dismal Swamp - King Palmer (1:37)
05. Mists - Unknown Artist (1:18)
06. The Tell-Tale Heart - Jack Foulds (2:48)
07. The Ghost Walks - F G Charrosin (1:41)
08. Stealthy Footsteps - F G Charrosin (1:49)
09. Confusion - F G Charrosin (1:17)
10. Rebellion & General Havoc - Edward Carmer (1:34)
11. Disorder - Edward Carmer (1:20)
12. Desert Caravan - Granville Bantock (3:02)
13. Storm at Sea - Unknown Artist (2:52)
14. Tenebrae - Unknown Artist (3:05)
15. Condemned - Unknown Artist (3:02)
16. Dramatique - Unknown Artist (1:03)
17. Tumult& Commotion - Miklós Rózsa (1:20)
18. Mechanical Monster - Unknown Artist (1:50)
19. Danger Ahead - Unknown Artist (1:45)
20. Men of Steel - Miklós Rózsa (1:39)
21. Informal Interview - Ronald Hanmer (2:38)
22. Bits and Pieces - Ronald Hanmer (0:58)
23. Just Whimsical - Ronald Hanmer (1:40)
24. Way Out East - Ronald Hanmer (2:59)
25. Dagger in the Dark - Ronald Hanmer (3:06)
26. Magic Necklace Cue - Modest Mussorgsky (2:00)
27. Seven Souvenirs Cue - Modest Mussorgsky (1:44)
28. Catacombs - With the Dead in a Dead Language - Modest Mussorgsky (3:58)


So I hope you like the mix!  Here you go!

 

Blog Post Lite

Just going to share some dumb Amazon suggestions because we're babysitting.

 

 

These top two suggestions are textbooks.  Perhaps the book Our Hero: Superman on Earth is used as a textbook?  If so, that might explain why Amazon suggested that I want to buy these tomes which appear to be college textbooks.

 

I'm still trying to figure out why being the purchaser of a menopausal aid (hormonal regulation type of stuff) would make me more likely to want to buy NOTEBOOK PAPER??!!

 

 

See you next week ... Andrew and Araya say HOWDY

 



Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Some of my younger friends may not be familiar with this time in history.  It was a different time  ...

When the end of a TV show came, you read the credits on a full-size screen while in the background played music specifically arranged for you to listen to during the showing of these end credits.  Although most of the time a local or network announcer would do a voiceover on top of the music.

There were big places full of flashing lights called video arcades, where the big, freestanding machines were about the size of a fridge, and it took one quarter to play them.  I saw guys whose hands had blisters from the knob at the end of the  Pac-Man joystick.

There was an amalgamation of countries collectively called "the Russkies" or "the Reds" and they wanted to bomb us off the planet.  Or, as in the 1984 film Red Dawn,  they wanted to invade & take us over.

And perhaps most amazingly, there was cable TV -- more channels than you could ever imagine -- perhaps thirty channels!  One of them was called "MTV," and -- get this -- they played music videos!

As my friend Thomas said, "These fragments I have shored against my ruins."

These songs remind me of the GOOD PARTS of those bygone days:

01.   MTV Theme “Man on the Moon” - Jonathan Elias; John Petersen (0:55)

02.   I Think I'm in Love - Eddie Money (3:10)
03.   We Belong - Pat Benatar (3:43)
04.   Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer (4:06)
05.   Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel (4:51)
06.   Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads (4:10)
07.   The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun - Julie Brown (4:42)
08.   Message of Love - The Pretenders (3:27)
09.   Turning Japanese - The Vapors (3:48)
10.   Theme from “The Greatest American Hero” - Joey Scarbury (3:16)
11.   Roll Over Beethoven (album version) - Electric Light Orchestra (8:11)
12.   Hold Me - Fleetwood Mac (3:47)
13.   Shakin’ - Eddie Money (3:11)
14.   The Warrior - Patty Smyth and Scandal (3:59)
15.   Words - Missing Persons (4:31)
16.   Shadows of the Night - Pat Benatar (3:40)
17.   Mickey - Toni Basil (3:39)
18.   Mexican Radio - Wall of Voodoo (4:12)
19.   Walk Like an Egyptian - The Bangles (3:25)
20.   Shock the Monkey - Peter Gabriel (3:57)

And you may now dive into the time capsule.


 

Welcome to the Fortress of Markitude! #4

NOTE:  all of these pictures were taken a few years ago when the place was less cluttered.  All text is in the present tense anyway.

             Here we will travel along one wall of the Fortress, beginning with the back of the entrance door. 

            This Superman figure was picked up at a thrift store before I started living in them.  He’s stitched together pretty cheaply with a screen-printed face.  He’s got no tags or identifying labels.  This was probably part of a lot of hundreds of “toys” that were illicitly manufactured in bulk somewhere and destined to be prizes at carnivals or some such.

             The name placard dangling around ole Supes’s neck has an interesting history.  It hails from April 1987, when NOSFA (the Norman Oklahoma Science Fiction Association) held its first convention, a one-day affair on April 18, called PseudoCon.  I quote from The STAR OKC Chronicles:  On April 18, NOSFA holds its first PseudoCon, aided by STARs Claire Stephens, Mike Hodge, Syd Henderson, Larry Nemecek, “Mike” [actually Mark] Alfred, and later STAR Karen Dorrell. One of the day’s highlights is a panel, “The Ersatz Vulcan vs. the Reel McCoy,” in which Mark A. as Spock and Larry N. as McCoy indulge in an hour’s worth of verbal wrangling and blustering.

 

            This placard hung around my neck, and Larry Nemecek’s said of course “Larry Nemecek ‘McCoy’,” or something in that vein.  I can still remember how long it took for the spirit gum (holding my latex ear tips on) to dry.  Good ol’ Larry stood behind me in the Student Union bathroom waving a hair dryer at my ears for a while.

            Above the door (on which you can see stuffed Superman hanging) are a series of plastic lunchboxes.  The blue one on the left is from Star Trek: TNG and the rest are Super-related.

 

            Blocking the bottom half of the Superman doll thing is one of those bouncing saucer things.  It’s a plastic ring, in the middle of which is an inflatable ball just like a smaller version of those red textured-rubber dodge balls we had in grade school.  The ring is sitting on top of a couple of metal file-card drawers, sitting on a metal file cabinet that contained mss. of various songs, poems, novels-in-progress (only one completed but with rejection letter), and other writings.

            On the wall above all this is a plate shelf with various Star Trek and Super plates.  That lime-green thing is an inflatable carnival-type prize, bearing clip art from Superman: The Animated Series.

            The books in the shelves in the middle ground are from when I had my books dis-integrated -- that is, grouped separately as “Mysteries,” “Media,” and general stuff.  You can tell the category by a couple of the spines (recognizably DC Archives) that you can spot with your eagle eyes.

            Now, at the center of the tallest shelf you can see the yellow front of a stuffed dog in a super costume.

 

            This is a photo of one of these little guys for sale.  Now, mine has no tag, but is otherwise the same.  It’s a promo for the Mighty Dog brand dog food, from the 1980s.  One of my drivers at the thrift store came across this in a donation.  Randy knew that I was a Superman fan, and he tossed it to me.  He said the “MD” on the chest stood for “Mark’s Dog,” which was a pretty good spur-of-the-moment confabulation!

 

            At the closest to the camera are the shelves holding audio cassettes.  All these are gone now, dubbed and donated.  The actual wood-grained shelves bearing the cassettes-in-plastic-drawers are originally from the convenience-store trade.  They were merchandisers for cartons of cigarettes, and originally had clear plastic barriers across them.  They wanted people to see (and want them) but not be able to snatch-n-steal them.

            Now sitting atop these shelves you can see the edge of a metal kids’ TV tray with a picture of Mr Spock at his science console from ST:TMP.

            The most important “thing” in the photo is the farthest away from the camera -- that’s Joyce far away on the right of the shot, “upstairs” in the kitchen.

 

 

            Now here is a close-up of the plate shelf glimpsed in the middle left of the previous panorama.    At the far left edge of this photo is that lime-green Superman inflatable I mentioned, below which are an alarm clock with a Superman background, and the edge of a plastic Mighty Mouse lunchbox.

 

            The leftmost plate features the same art of Superman as was used on the cover of the Filmation VHS releases in the 1980s.  The two smaller items on either side of the center Star Trek plate are part of a 1980s-era kids’ eating set.  The art for both look like Jon Bogdanove art, or at least in his rawboned, big-jawed style.

             The central, biggest item is one of the Franklin Mint Star Trek sets. It has an interesting history in that about 1986, when my oldest Matthew was two or three, he was goofing around and banged into the wall where this plate was originally hanging.  It fell down to the floor with a crash, and several small pieces cracked off the edge.  Matthew started to cringe and cry.  He knew his Grandma (my mom) had given me the plate and that it was a special gift.  He was afraid that I was going to spank him until he couldn’t walk straight.

 

            But I explained to Matthew that I wasn’t going to spank him.  I told him he should have been more careful, but that I knew it was an accident.  He should be more careful.  I told him, “People are more important than things.”  I sure hope he remembers that forever!

 

            On the far right of this shelf is a Bakelite-style plate copyrighted 1967, with a Wayne Boring Superman swooping across it.

 

            In the foreground you can see that Superman bouncy-ball thing.

 

            Leaning against the plate rack, behind the bouncer, is an adaptation of Monopoly I made based on STAR OKC. Someday I’ll do a STAR OKC blog post about this…I made something specialized to STAR OKC’s history for every property and every Community Chest and Chance card.

 

 

            This is a four-sheet Star Trek color-your-own poster set.  According to this website, this came out in 1976 but it seems to me that it must have been sooner than that.  I had these posters on my walls before I graduated high school in 1974, it seems to me.

 

 

            Of course, some day in the future I will have to unpack this set, scan them, and post them.  In the frame are all four posters and the (flattened) box.  As you can see from my photo, I've colored all four of the posters.

 

            Well, that’s stop four in our tour of the Fortress of Markitude.  Hope you found something interesting.  Feel free to comment and share some of your own memories or reflections!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance deHaven-Smith

 

            This is a very even-handed book, even though I'm pretty sure that the author and/or a lot of his friends, at some level, feel like me when I think there is lots of evidence for a particular conspiracy theory.

 

            I feel like jumping up and down and screaming, “Don’t you guys get it?!?  _____ got away with ___ and you must be blind if you can’t see it!”

 

            The book starts with an examination of the modern concept of “conspiracy theory” as a label.  You see, it is an historical fact that many times political change has occurred as the result of a small group of planners implementing a series of actions that brought about a change that had a big effect.  Do the words “et tu, Brute?” ring any bells?

 

            Yep, insider actions for various reasons have been around a long time.  De-Haven-Smith (what a nuisance to type!) compares and contrasts the  views of three thinkers, Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, and Charles Beard, regarding “Political Perspectives on Conspiracy Theory,” a section beginning on page 82.  As with many deep things, it made sense to me as I read it, but I would have to re-read and think about it before I could repeat it to you and make sense.

 

            Suffice it to say, political conspiracies have been around a long time.  Some are undertaken for the benefit of a few in power; some are supposedly to benefit an entire nation.  However, all are wrong in that they subvert the informed will of the people!  Taking a secret action and then hiding it, or setting up another to be blamed, is not what we want members of our government to be doing -- at any level!

 

            It’s for this reason that de-Haven-Smith proposes the acronym SCAD, standing for State Crimes Against Democracy.  If you Google the acronym or the phrase, you will learn a lot about some proposed SCADS that you may or may not agree with.

 

            It also interests me (but doesn’t surprise me) that the framing of “conspiracy theory,” in the general consciousness, as the belief of a whacko, came from the CIA in its attempts to undermine the credibility of Warren Commission opponents.

 

            That belief is certainly true nowadays, vide the 1997 Mel Gibson film of that name.  I think a big part of how this framed opinion, that conspiracist = unbalanced loon, is also more easily accepted by people who don’t want somebody rocking the boat of the “we’re-the-good-guys” worldview.  I know that I, at least, fervently wish for our government servants to take our founding ideas seriously.  But being human, sneaky people seek and find ways to subvert the individual rights intended by our founders.

 

            A big example is the Fourteenth Amendment, which was passed in 1868.  Specifically, part of it gives corporations the same constitutional protections as persons.  This isn’t right!  A company is NOT a person.

 

            There is a lot of discussion and theory here.  I encourage anybody interested in free will, our government, or “conspiracies” to read the book.  As I said at the top, some of the SCADs that the author sees, I may not agree with.  But to his credit he frames a broad discussion without emphasizing the things he sees as most egregious or harmful.

 

            One description of a SCAD, from page 11, is that “it refers to a special type of transgression: an attack from within on the political system’s organizing principles.” I would agree, wouldn’t you?, that such a thing is wrong!

 

            It’s one thing to steal an orphan’s money; it’s a lot worse when the thief is the banker in charge of the account.  In the same way, the fact that such offenses are instigated by people in power is what makes them even more outrageous than “ordinary” crimes.

 

            I encourage you to read this book and start to take the idea seriously.  Scoundrelism DOES occur at high levels.  Sometimes, in my opinion, it takes the form of murder.  The more we realize that crimes such as these  DO occur, the less likely that the crimes can be covered up for long.  In parting I leave you with two examples that YOU may or may not agree with.

 

            “I DID NOT have sex with that woman … It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”

            “I am not a crook.”

 

            Read the book and learn about SCADs.

Superman Activities for Kids - Guest Post!

Here is a little tale from a new friend of mine named Ryan.  He had some suggestions for parents who want to help their kids feel a little more SUPER!  I added the illustrations.

Super Activities for Kids!

            Before Superman grew up to become the ultimate hero, he was just an otherworldly kid with some special powers.  With activities ranging from dressing up to obstacle courses and candy, your children can change into their Kids of Steel personas faster than a speeding bullet and have an amazing Superman- themed day.  Here are five ideas to get them started…

 

1.      DRESSING UP

There may be no quicker way to get into the Superman spirit than by dressing up like the hero.  Once your kids look like the Man of Steel, they may be more enthusiastic and ready to start on the activities.  Depending on your budget, skills and resources, dressing up can be as simple as throwing on a pair of Superman pajamas and using a red towel for a cape, or as complicated as sewing your very own costume.  Either way, once the kids are dressed for the heroic theme, it may make it easier for them to become completely absorbed by the activities.

Julie (left) and Melissa (right) -- two girls made more SUPER by their attire

 

 

2. IT’S A BIRD… IT’S A PLANE… IT’S A…. SUPERMAN PAPER PLANE?

While he has inhuman strength, x-ray vision, and incredible speed and stamina, Superman is probably best known for his ability to fly.  In this activity, kids not only may have a great time creating their own Superman-themed planes – they can exercise a little arts and crafts, test their throwing skills, and even learn a bit about physics.

 

            The little heroes can start off by folding their best paper planes.  These planes can be of their own design, or they can look up instructions online.  Once they have them all folded, it is time to start customizing them.  For example they can make their planes resemble a spacecraft from Krypton, or just stick to the tried and true Superman theme, adding his insignia (or one for their own name) and keeping the color scheme red, blue and yellow.

 

 

            Once everyone has folded and decorated their planes, it is time for the true test of skill and heroism: who can throw their planes the furthest and most accurately?  To make the competition more exciting, you can hang  “Kryptonite laced” hula hoops that the planes will need to pass through without touching, or provide target where Superman needs to fly to right away – for example, an overturned toy car that needs rescuing.  Whichever child can fly through the most hoops and come closest to the target wins.



            Find some great patterns at Amazing Paper Airplanes.

3.      SUPERHERO SKILLS TEST

Superman’s flying skill is not always enough to save the day.  Sometimes he needs to use his strength, precision, and other abilities to get the job done.  By creating a Super Hero Skills Test, your kids can show off their otherworldly skills.

 

            Set up the test in your backyard or a nearby park.  One of the obstacles can be buildings (cardboard boxes) that kids will need to leap over in a single bound – without touching them.  You can set up a series of these buildings at heights that match the athletic abilities of the kids.

 

 

            So they can show off their laser vision, you can also create a test of their finesse and accuracy.  To do this, freeze other Justice League Action figures in blocks of ice.  Then, load water guns with warm water.  The kids will shoot these in lieu of heat rays (unless they actually happen to have heat vision) to rescue their heroic compatriots by melting them out of their icy tombs.

 

(These ice cubes are a little TOO big, though)

 

            Finally, they can demonstrate their X-Ray vision and accuracy by trying to throw their planes at a target while blindfolded (a Lex Luthor figurine can make a good target). Let the children take a few practice shots at the target with their normal vision and then blindfold them and make them rely on their super senses.

4.      KRYPTONITE CANDY

While Superman’s weakness is Kryptonite, a kid’s weakness is often candy.  There are a number of ways you can combine the two of these, using Pop Rocks!  Green Pop Rocks can be mixed with lime sherbet to make a great snappy summer treat, or with green drinks like limeade to make a fun and bubbly concoction. 

 

 

 

You could also bake Superman cookies, either in the shape of his flying silhouette, or in the shape of his signature S emblem.  Then, decorate them with frosting, and add red, yellow and blue pop rocks to the appropriate areas to make it more exciting and crackling.

 

 

 

 

5.      MOVIES AND COMICS

Once you’ve built up the stock of Superman candy, now is a perfect time to relax and unwind.  Whether your kids want to hang out on the couch and watch Man of Steel, or kick back and read a few of their favorite comics, after a Superman-themed day of dressing, acting, and baking they should be ready for a little downtime.

 

            Before Superman was a man, he was a kid.  With a little fun and imagination, your kids can also experience what it would be like to have a variety of superpowers, make some delicious Kryptonite candy concoctions, and even have a Superman-themed plane to remind them of the awesome day.

 

 

 

See you next Monday, and thanks Ryan!