Friday Night Videos

Today's video is "Bettie Page" by the Royal Crowns. It's a fan-made video, but wholly appropriate for the subject matter (except for some weird Halloween non-sequitur at the end). No other explanation is necessary.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Kinks.

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We'll miss ya, Bettie

The passing of Bettie Page saddens me. Her saucy, naughty pinup romps and fetish work should, by all rights, be tawdry affairs that withered with age. But they weren't, and didn't. Against all odds, there's a sweet innocence to her sexuality in them--fat chance of finding that today. And she was an inspiration for David Stevens of Rocketeer fame. If she had no other accomplishment in her life, that would be enough for me.

My buddy Rick has a distinctive perspective on Ms. Page's passing, as his grandfather was Irving Klaw, the photographer who made her famous (yes, before Bunny Yeager came along). You can read his thoughts on his Geek Curmudgeon blog. There's also a memorial up on her website.

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John Adams

I'd heard that the John Adams miniseries from HBO was pretty good. Heck, it won an Emmy after all. But goodness, I didn't expect it to be this degree of excellent. Laura Linney steals almost every scene she's in as John's wife, Abigail Adams. She is excellent. Paul Giamatti is great as John Adams, although I confess to seeing him as Paul Giamatti in most scenes simply because nobody else looks quite like Paul Giamatti. Tom Wilkinson is brilliant as Ben Franklin.

The first two episodes were wholly engrossing. They quite reminded me of that other great HBO series, Rome, except there wasn't any sex, scant nudity and a dearth of violence and gore. Other than that it was incredibly well written and produced. The third episode, where an ill-suited Adams is sent to France and clashes with Ben Franklin and insults pretty much everyone in Paris was less engaging. Adams was a boorish ass that made pretty much every stupid mistake he could... which it the point, I take it. Historically, his time in France wasn't a great success, but thematically, it's his separation from Abigail that is his undoing--she tempers his passions, and he is a bigger man due to her influence. That said, I'm ready for episode 4 to get back to Adams cutting a great swath through history and not falling on his face so much.

Highly recommended at any rate. One of the best colonial/Revolutionary War/early American dramas ever made.

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Friday Night Videos

It's been a while since I featured the Kinks here, so with rumors swirling (well, maybe not swirling, but at least percolating) I figure now's as good a time as any for one of my favorites from their Arista years, "Don't Forget to Dance." It's a mushy, sentimental song, and in the video, despite his slick Spiv persona, Ray reveals that he's mushy and sentimental at heart (but then Kinks fans have known that ever since Village Green Preservation Society...)



Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Refreshments.

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Wafflefest

Okay, so I'm back from the Christmas-themed Wafflefest held in downtown New Braunfels. And just like last year, there was not a waffle to be had. Instead of hot syrup and buttery goodness, everyone there was passing out cups of hot, spiced apple cider. Some of them were pretty good, mind you, but that's no substitute for a piping hot waffle. What's up with that?

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Love, Kilma

The lovely and talented John Klima, who had the singular good taste of purchasing my short story "A Plague of Banjos" for his excellent publication Electric Velocipede (more on that to come), has given yours truly an enthusiastic shout-out for my piece "The Whale Below" in the über-awesome pirate anthology, Fast Ships, Black Sails currently available at a bookstore near you:

The top two stories from the book, in my opinion, are the Garth Nix story, “Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe,” a wild conglomeration of pirates, ancient technology, clockwork robots, general steampunkery, gods, and other whatnot with a dash of humor, and Jayme Lynn Blaschke’s “The Whale Below” (also a tale of steampunkishness, but with airships, whaling, gibbering beasts, and other good stuff). Both stories give a unique perspective on pirates as well as having a great deal of world-building that’s gone into them. As a reader, I appreciate when an author has put the effort into creating a world that I feel like I could step into and experience. Both writers have done this here.

Ah, such love is always welcome when you're an angsty, dithering writer with esteem issues. Which pretty much describes the lot of us, doesn't it? The rest of Klima's thoughtful review may be found over at Tor.com.

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A Beast of a review

My new review of the DVD movie Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs is now live over at RevolutionSF. Gotta love satirical cartoons that manage to include both Shakespeare and porno allusions in the title.

The premise of the film is straighforward enough: There’s a rip in the universe, allowing a tentacled, extradimensional being -- Yivo -- to invade and possess the population of Earth, Puppet Masters-style. Yivo isn’t your garden-variety extra-galactic menace, however. Instead of death and destruction, he wants love and copulation -- and lots of it. Throw in Amy’s long-delayed marriage to long-suffering Kif, Fry’s whirlwind romance with polyandrous Colleen and Bender’s induction into a secret society of human-hating robots, and there’s more chaotic plot twists than even billion-tentacled Yivo can shake sticks at.

It's a funny continuation of the Futurama universe, although not without flaws. But I'm not going to outline them all here for you. That's what the review is for. Go read it!

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