In Books Be Silliness!

Herewith are a few things which amused me in reading some of the three-thousand-plus books I have logged.

From page 176 of Philip José Farmer's The Fabulous Riverboat, we have a sentence towards the end of the big paragraph, "They had more gall than France."  This tickled me because I think Farmer was joshing about Gaul, the Roman province which included France.  You're familiar with the opening words of Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars?  "All Gaul is divided into three parts," or ""Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres," as we learned in Latin Class.

I don't know if a computer is to blame, but here in Jon Burlingame's great book Music for Prime Time, we have an odd hyphenation.  That is, an odd NON-hyphenation.  I mean ... aw, shucks!  Shouldn't that phrase be rendered the same way ALL THE TIME, especially in adjacent sentences?

In the 2020 spy thriller Black Flag by David Ricciardi, we are told that "a croc's jaws were the most powerful force in the mammalian world."  Somebody tell this guy that crocodiles ARE REPTILES, not mammals.  Sheesh!

Well, that's enough silliness for today.  See you on Thursday!

  

Bursting with ... Something!

Joyce uses this facial cleanser, see?

And it's called "Morning Burst," see?

Only one problem ... when I see those words, my crazy mind goes to ...

... a DIFFERENT place!

See you Monday.

  

Soap Shapes Number One!

That is, the first soap shape this month.  The soap isn't really shaped like the number 1.

Here is a bunch of conglomerated soap.  But do you see the blue line on this side of the soap holder?

To me, that squiggly line of dried soap LOOKED like something.

The it dawned on me.  My soap is a champ!

If you see the resemblance, you're a champ too.  if not, see ya Thursday for something almost as silly.

  

Welcome to April Foolishness 2025!

The Amazing Heroes Hoax Contest! – Part 1

From the April 1, 1985 Amazing Heroes, we have a challenge from Mark Waid. He and AH editor Kim Thompson DARE you to find the two hoaxes in this article!

And I DOUBLE-DARE YOU!

*****

Well, my friends, have you guessed correctly? Or remembered your DC lore accurately?

“The Girl of Straw” appeared in Action Comics #356, cover-dated November 1967. And Waid’s synopsis is basically correct.

“The Night of March 31st” is another non-hoax. It was the third story in Superman #145, cover-dated May 1961.

“Lois Lane’s Singing Sweetheart” is HOAX NUMBER ONE. This tale did NOT appear in a comic, and this storyline did not appear.

BUT ... Lois Lane #9 DID contain “Superman's Mystery Song,” in which Boone and Lois co-write a song about Supes.

See you on Monday!  And ... come back on Monday, April 21st, for part two of this explication!

  

Oswald Got Around

If you believe papers like the Weekly World News.

Now you know the truth, kids!

See you on Thursday for the commencement of APRIL FOOLISHNESS 2025!

  

A Seminal Stimulant for Fan Rage

... That's this article by smug critic Edmund Wilson.

This comes from The Nation, the issue of April 14, 1956.

If you dug Wilson up and rubbed his nose in one of the five zillion Tolkien collectibles or books, would he keep turning that nose up?

See you on Monday, fellow lowbrow fans of Middle-Earth!

 

Super Sheets!

Yup, besides Super Clothes (search it in the SEARCH bar), we've got plenty of Super Sheets at our place too!

This coverlet was never thick enough to be called a blanket, but it was intended to go atop a bed.  It's queen size, or at least a LOT bigger than full sheets.

Evidently these characters actually appeared in DC continuity, in The Best of DC #58, in 1985.  Can we blame this for the whole John Byrne reboot?

Other notes about Super Jrs is here.

Believe it or not!  See you on Thursday.

  

National Lampoon Got Comics!

Yup, one of the things I loved about the good ole National Lampoon mag (along with the sophomoric nudge-nudge "dirty" humor) was the general references to pop culture.

For the purposes of today's post, that's Superman culture, kiddies!

The above is from the August 1981 issue.  But the next one is even better!

The genius of this little news blurb from the May 1981 NatLamp is the spot-on DC lore, and the demented idea of applying Kandor to this silly photo.

Bravo!  See you on Monday.

  

Lotsa Spirits Around Here

This is from the March 23, 1971 Look magazine.

I cadged this article because of the lovely photos of mysterious ruins.  It’s interesting that the typography of the opening text omits several periods at the end of sentences, as well as leaving the “I”s undotted.  Captions on ensuing pages often, but not always, omit periods too.

Before you ask, I don’t know where the last page is, which would have contained the rest of the dark yard of Jerpoint Abbey.

See ya Thursday!

   

Weirdos, Unite!

 Celebrate the Weirdo

 

Scholar Paul Radin observed that most successful “primitive” societies readily tolerated eccentricity. In what ways do we “moderns” celebrate or censor oddball behavior? Do wild strains of thought strengthen culture, or threaten it?

(This was the topic of a discussion panel at a recent Soonercon.  I'm proud to have suggested it!)

 

Historical examples:

·       Diogenes (Greece, cs 400 BC)—He goofed off in Plato’s lectures, including taking a dump on Plato’s chair.  Alexander the Great came upon Diogenes tanning in the nude.  Alexander asked if he could do anything for Diogenes, who replied, “You could get out of my light for a start.”

·       Jesters’ impunity in England— The crown (cap and bells) and scepter (marotte) mirrored the royal crown and scepter wielded by a monarch.

·       Fuller's History of the Worthies of England (1662) gives an account of the recruiting of Tarlton, jester to Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603):  “Here he was in the field, keeping his Father's Swine, when a Servant of Robert Earl of Leicester . . . was so highly pleased with his happy unhappy answers, that he brought him to Court, where he became the most famous Jester to Queen Elizabeth.”

·       Lakota-Sioux of the Great Plains of North America:  The heyoka is a kind of sacred clown—a contrarian, jester, and satirist, who speaks, moves and reacts in an opposite fashion to the people around them

·       Ancient Romans had a balatro, a professional jester or buffoon.  Balatrones were paid for their jests, and the tables of the wealthy were generally open to them for the sake of the amusement they afforded

·       Shakespeare has plenty of clowns and jesters

Modern examples include standup comics, the class clown of high school, the village idiot (maybe)

“While in their costume, clowns have special permission from their society to parody or criticize defective aspects of their own culture.”

 What weirdos have offended YOU? or maybe provoked you to thought?

See you on Monday for a special St Paddy's Day article!
  

We're All Baffled Around Here

I don't think this was swamp gas.

This is from the October 11, 1989 Oklahoman.  Below is the article as printed, which I think is harder to read.

See you on Thursday, and keep watching the skies!

  

A Good Rebirth? Debatable

This is from the November 1986 issue of Comics Feature.

I can't say I'm a big fan of either revamp.  But revamps happen.  What do YOU think, now that it's nearly FORTY YEARS later????

See ya Monday!