Saturday, 31 December 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XXIII

( Part XXII , XXIV )

The sensei moved backward, and forward, waving his umbrella around as if he were Zorro or Robin Hood in an old movie. Rocks and stones crunched and wobbled as his unseen adversary played its part in the game. Sometimes, with a screech, Ken would score a hit, proving at least that the thing they were facing was material. It was also proving that Ken wasn't above mild combat to save his life. The sacred order of the ninjas of health were allowed to fight in self-defence, but it was always a very dangerous ethical balancing act.

"A ha!" Shouted Ken in triumph, and the with a sudden smash of sound, an invisible mass fell to the ground, utterly destroying their rock garden tribute to the druids of Tumbledown Moor. The sensei scrambled over in an instant, looking to  immobilise the invisible prisoner.

"We've got to help him!" Gasped the Woman and she dashed outside and jumped on the invisible beast at the second attempt.

"Ropes? We need restraints... We need something..." The Man dashed around the chapel, looking for something useful to secure their guest, finally emerging with some gurney belts. He rushed outside, to see Ken and his companion bucking up and down in the air wildly, on the back of the mysterious creature. Unhesitatingly, the Man rushed forward, seeking to trip the Whatever It Was with the belts, but a manic heave sent Ken and the Lady flying through the air and onto the chapel roof. They hung there limply, and for several moments the Man's mind turned to utter despair.

The gravel behind him crunched, and a moment later he was sprawled all over the chapel roof too, between his partner and their teacher. Her eyes fluttered, and looked at him blankly. Then, muttering softly, "We are getting knocked out far too often...", she crawled over and checked his pulse. It was fine. Then, she checked on Ken, who was a bit thready but otherwise functioning as far as she could tell.

Was the creature still in the grounds, she wondered, or had it wandered off? Was it THE creature, or some new entity? Were there problems going to get even worse. Looking back to Ken again, she was slightly stunned when he winked at her and slid over to the drainpipe. "Chin up, big tall Grasshopper, we've got a chance now!"

More, more, more...

Thursday, 29 December 2016

Global Peace Plan: Haircuts

After a weary day of changing plans, and being thoroughly annoyed, it could be difficult to write something possible here, but we don't care about reality! Nyahahahaha! Oh, okay, we do care about reality a little. At the moment, reality is proving most persistent in the area of the one compulsory module forced upon me by the Open University. It is going very slowly... Never have I had to think for so long about multiculturalism versus uniculturalism (a new -ism!), and monoculturalism as a concept, and try to make judgements. What does any of it mean? I don't know. Uniculturism seems more practical than multiculturalism though, so presumably I'll have to think about it some more.

'Mission Impossible' is playing to one side, with a strange tale about a pseudo South African republic, and a Colonel artificially made black in order to forward a hunt for some stolen gold. It's really a very strange one. I forgot that things like this happened. They did it on 'M*A*S*H' once too, to a lesser degree, this changing of skin colour. However, I don't think it's that bad a thing to do in pursuit of making a point. At least they were trying, however clumsily. Maybe a darkly coloured person would be more offended than an exceedingly pale caucasian weakling.

December is almost at an end, and 2016 has almost expired with it. Thankfully, the return of lengthening days is helping a marked improvement in concentration and ability, which is only hindered by needing a haircut. Yes, the biblical stories about Samson are true, but in reverse. My mental acuity becomes weaker as my hair grows. It's probably an overheating problem. Sometimes, a suspicion crosses the mind that many of the world's political problems might be averted with some judiciously prescribed haircuts, but that would be too simplistic, right?

Having finished both the Jules Verne adventure, and the Michael Palin travelogue mini-series, the idea of a post about 'Around The World In Eighty Days' has been kicking around in my mind, but it's not quite right yet. The concept of a race around the world in a certain time pre-dates the novel, so it feels wrong to write about it without getting more information. Maybe in the future it will surface. Until then, viva 'The Ninja Of Health'!

More shall follow in the coming days.


Tuesday, 27 December 2016

Television: 'Supergirl: Pilot' (Episode 1x01) (2015)

I don't know what to make of the pilot episode for 'Supergirl'. Somehow, it combines immense potential with many of the problems of superficiality in the modern DC superhero series. Nothing goes unsaid, everything is stated, and everyone is very, very beautiful. It's very feminist but at the expense of running almost all the male characters into idiotic stooge status and having a pretty awful first episode supervillain. Well, feminism isn't exactly 'equal rights and equal treatment' anyway, is it? Or is it? It's a very murky question, and one addressed very clumsily in the pilot. Finally, there's far too much a feeling of 'inside pool', of everything originating and circling around from one pool of causes back to the same pool with effects, of there not being any outside stories being told. Everything is just too neat.

It's very unusual for me to be writing without an overview of the whole series, season or even the next few episodes. If this turns into an ongoing feature it could become very interesting... For now, it's like reaching around blindly, searching for a torch in the darkness.

Having covered the most negative aspects of the 'Supergirl' pilot, let's elaborate much more on the positives. The traditional airplane rescue sequence is fantastic and sells the idea of being super as being fun - which is then squandered with a brutal closing fight, but let's gloss over that. Flying should be a wonderful experience! Melissa Benoist pulls off a difficult job as Superman's cousin Kara, jumping over the very odd characterisation of someone who has renounced using their superpowers (and thus passively allowing every accident that ever happened around her?), but then finally gives in to her noble impulses, all the while pulling off a very nerdy vibe in her 'real life' personality as a browbeaten personal assistant. I'm just not sure it makes any sense, unless her contradictions are the result of her very troubling adopted family's insistence that she just be 'normal'. Hang on, we've shifted back into mixed to negative things! The plane sequence is very good indeed. It's a good tradition to keep, the inaugural plance rescue. I think that only George Reeves and Kirk Alyn were too early to get ones of their own.

Other positive things include the great use of Jimmy Olsen as a potentially very useful character, Kara revealing her new super-identity to two friends immediately, former-Super alumni Helen Slater and Dean Cain as her adopted parents (yet to speak a word so a question mark hangs over that), and the notion of a female superhero taking centre stage is a strong one. Ultimately, it will all hang on whether they manage to make any of the supporting cast interesting, and whether they can get away from the slightly disturbing reverence to 'Him', the ever-absent Superman in their universe. Also, can male characters also not just be wimps? Will they be able to get away with all those things? After one episode, the supporting cast are extremely bland with the notable exception of  Mehcad Brooks as Jimmy Olsen; Brooks is probably the most charismatic person in the whole pilot! Hopefully, it will pick up. The potential is amazing, but is the team behind the show super enough to make it work? Will there be enough depth to compensate for the superficiality brought in with the computer generated imagery? (Having said that, the heat vision was extremely well done for once, as was the plane sequence.)

Time will tell. We will see...


Monday, 26 December 2016

The Benefit Of Sleeping Well

It's that time again, the time to start pounding out silly words and hope they all make sense in a row. At least it will be easier this time, as for the first time in more than a month, tiredness is away and sleep has been predominant. The Quirky Muffin, as an extension of its writer, is finally well rested again. It's a wonderful and rare feeling. Maybe it's partly connected to being in the nicer half of the year too...

What could we write about in this new and exciting era? What new realms of imagination or scholarly endeavour remain to be plumbed? The nature of Christmas itself? A new plan for personalised bank holidays? The wonders of Dr McCoy's boom boom machine? What to write about? What? It's fortunate that we have a mandate for being determinedly undetermined, specifically unspecific, and fixedly unfixed in focus, or the Muffin might be in trouble! Tomorrow, a post on the pilot episode for the new-ish 'Supergirl' series will go up, but right now what shall it be?

There is a theory, a prominent one here at QM headquarters, that in your life you are usually either giving of yourself or giving to yourself. You are taking in or giving out. If you do too much of one of the other, you become out of balance and erratic. Teaching is a highly giving exercise. If you don't take time to do the opposite, you will run yourself ragged, as I nearly have. Holidays are a great time for calming down, relaxing and taking in peace and energy for a while. You get to read, watch television, think calm thoughts and be  at ease with the world. Good grief, this year has not been one conducive to the meditative and absorptive half of life! However, it's almost over now and we can relax. There is 'Around The World In Eighty Days' almost finished on the book pile, the Conan stories are a quarter read, 'Gilligan's Island', 'Batman', 'The Mentalist' and 'JAG' are all going swimmingly in the DVD rotations, and there's even time for a little bit of music.

Also, in a sign of definite holiday fever, a jigsaw puzzle has been embarked upon. Nothing shrieks of contemplation quite as much as a well patterned and highly irregular jigsaw of a beautiful illustration or painting. You take a chaotic pile of fragments, slowly sift them for the edges, establish the frame or context of the puzzle, and then build order from the madness. Well, for the most part my father will do the work compulsively, but it's still quite the project.

We're old school here at this weblog. Rathbone and Bruce all the way.


Saturday, 24 December 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XXII

( Part XXI , XXIII )

"The rules behind prophecy have always been fuzzy. The act of divining a vision of the future, or the past, presupposes that the vision will be useful to someone eventually. If not, then why divine it in the first place? This tablecloth means something to someone, or will in the near future. That's simple logic. Also, we must assume that people have been knocked out for a reason, implying that one of the unconscious might have the clue we need. You have both been revived, so perhaps you aren't the ones with the knowledge. Does it sound good so far?" Ken paused for reassurance.

"Yes, that seems reasonable, although it could just be a meaningless or unconnected scheme that saw us knocked out." The Woman was not convinced.

"I won't argue that's a likely proposition, but then we have no clue whatsoever to follow. We must assume that the creature is keeping some people unconscious because they can explain what the tablecloth means, or could do so in the future. That includes especially our friend the Oracle, whose position is now beginning to seem desperate."

The Man looked thoughtfully at the corner of the room. "If that's so, then if we were detectives we could find some common factor behind the most stubbornly unconscious -- assuming that we're not fed misinformation -- and get ahead in this all."

"Yes... I should tell you once again, remind you, that this place is safe now. I can't exactly explain it, but ball pools seem to be excellent media for certain Pattern arrangements that are remarkably stable, and won't permit chaotic influences from the stars. At least, I hope so. As long as it's said here, it won't hear. For example, if I twirl and sing some standards from old musicals, it won't have the faintest idea that it ever happened." Ken stood up, twirled and did some Gene Kelly songs, distracting his two protégés from something he had seen outside the window in the process. Then he made an excuse and left the room, the tiny sitting room that had been the vestry.

"We're not detectives. How can we possibly work out a commonality between all these people, apart from obvious things such as when or where they collapsed?" The Woman demanded.

"Hush, milady, there might be ways."

"Huzzah!" The two looked at each other confusedly, and then toward the window. The noise had come from outside. When they looked, they saw Ken mock fencing with an umbrella in the small garden. Or was he mock fencing, after all?

Rocks tumbled and rolled, but nowhere near the sensei's steps. Something else was in the garden.

There can and will be more...

Thursday, 22 December 2016

Take Two

There was already one attempt at writing this post, but it fell foul of the Great Cosmic Jinx (GCJ) that occasionally takes the place of Thursdays. The GCJ/Christmas conjunction is quite rare, though. The doubling can cause all kinds of bizarre pressures! Even now, I shudder at it all. Actually, I shudder more at the sheer madness of ASDA in Llanelli earlier today. It wasn't a full on Christmas panic - they don't happen in Llanelli - but it was verging on ridiculous. What is it that happens to people at Christmas, exactly? It's only two bank holidays in a row, after all. You don't have to buy several trollies of extra food for just two days, do you? My incomprehension is probably linked to a secular upbringing. Maybe the extra food is for Father Christmas or his reindeer, or needs to be there in case of a spontaneous papal visit.

Oh, Christmas, that tricky time of year. What should be done with the free time? Sadly, this year it will be all study, as there are weeks of lagging behind the OU schedule to rectify. Who would have thought it would be that hard to stay on schedule? At least there's scope here for a New Year's resolution. Oh, that's a good idea. New Year's resolutions! There's a good one planned for 2017, and it involves a boat. Somehow, the resolution is that enough money will be saved to pay off a long cruise sometime in late 2017. Yes, a cruise... If it happens, expect a mass of ship-related in about a year's time. Oh, the joys of restful sea travel... How unlikely it is.

Argh, this is quite a difficult one to write. It's late at night in mid-December after a very strange day of endless self-interruptions. Even now, mental discipline is wavering endlessly. It's probably the accumulated effect of all the 'Conan' stories that I've been reading by Robert E Howard. Soon, very soon, there will be a Quirky Muffin on those stories. The writing is excellent, although in the current patch there have been a few too many dark bat-like demon monsters in a short space of time! I suspect it will become more diverse in time, and it's just a consequence of the collected editions printing the texts in internal continuity order instead of the publication sequence. The scope of the 'Conan' stories is cast, but we'll get to it all in good time.

'The Ninja Of Health' rolls on and is tentatively scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2017. Even now, ideas are failing to percolate, but there is an extremely vague outline rolling around in the brain space.  How do we get mutant carrots from Mars into this narrative, anyway?


Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XXI

( Part XX , XXII )

The Man's first thoughts upon awakening from his unconsciousness were mainly about cheese and acupuncture, This wasn't unprecedented, as there had been several odd related episodes in his training and orientation periods, but it had been a long long time since that particular mental conjunction had come to pass. Then, he opened his weary eyes and looked up at the ceiling, wondering after a few moments why his bed was so uncomfortable.

"Oh, finally, he awakes!" He definitely knew that voice.

"Hush, my friend. Do you not remember your headache?"

*    *    *

Two hours later, our two protagonists were reunited, and looking down at the Oracle with their sage mentor Ken. The prognosticator was not responding to the ball pool therapy. Ken shuffled around uncertainly in the mess, and took his old friend's pulse. "It's a little better," he mused, before peeling up an eyelid, and then touching his forehead in a very precise way. "Did he hurt himself when he fell unconscious?"

"No, he was seated where he had been when warping the cloth." The Woman was just as puzzled.

"I will stay here and observe." Ken waved vaguely toward the kitchen area. "You two had best go out and get some fresh air, AND some groceries. I, for one, have not sausages in far too long a time. Off you go."

"Yes, teacher."

"Yes, sir."

*    *    *

The  trip to the supermarket became a re-orientation and lesson of its own sort. Toddlingham was for the most part deserted, with only a few hollow-eyed people wandering around. They shied away from the two Ninjas when they approached, looking to upset to make contact. The supermarket was slightly better, but still barren. It was inexplicable. In the car park, the duo held hands and wondered what to do.

Returning to the chapel, they found Ken in conversation with someone who wasn't there. He hung up the phone after a quick goodbye, and looked worriedly at their faces. "It's getting worse?" He asked.

"Yes, while we were asleep, the situation has deteriorated badly." The Man replied.

"Right, then we will have to follow the only clue we have." He waved the tablecloth in the air like an flag. "We will have to find out what this means."

To be continued...

Sunday, 18 December 2016

The December Darkness

It's mid-December, and darkness rules over more than two thirds of the day here in South Wales. The hours of daylight are weak in number but you can still hold on to that sunny feeling with lunchtime walks and dreams of things to come after the Winter Solstice. The Winter gloominess isn't completely unbeatable, after all...

'Solstice' is a pretty interesting word, passing down to us from Latin, via Old French and Middle English. It literally means 'the stopping of the Sun', as that celestial body ceases its long trudge to the horizons or zeniths of our own personal worlds and begins to retrace its steps. Yes, the good old tilted Earth will have gone from one side of the Sun to the other, and passed once more on to the other half of its journey. Even now, in the Southern hemisphere, the daylight hours are reaching their greatest duration. Never forget the flip side.

Astronomy is wonderful, isn't it? The great study of the universe, and our own moving place within it! If there were more hours in the week, it would be top of my list of things to study ardently, and without cessation! However, the real world does like to get in the way, with a grand diversity of students, studies and fascinating books to read. And lots of sleeping, of course, befitting the the darkest time of the year. If you're not sleeping hours more, then you're plainly not doing it right. Consider investing in extra beds for hot bunking, personal valets to rotate you for optimal hygiene, and anti-insomnia pillows. We'll get to full employment via twelve hour sleep nights, people.

Also in recent news, a new commentary is up, a Tysto/Quirky Muffin co-production for 'Batman: The Movie'! Ah, for those grand days when a pre-atomic Penguin Sub made sense and labelling was a universal antidote to seriousness...

More will follow, following the brief interruption to normal service yesterday which was prompted by a bizarre confluence of dogsitting, podcast recording, tutoring and covering my mother's stall at the local produce market. Days like those happen at most once per year...


Thursday, 15 December 2016

Film: 'Batman' (1966)

This is not the Tim Burton film. This is not any of the Christopher Nolan movies. No, this is 'Batman', the real movie. The first live-action theatrical superhero film, excepting the serials, although corrections will be welcomed with style. It's daft, lunatic and far too long. Adam West and Burt Ward light it up and Lee Meriwether leads the gang of all star supervillains with panache.

Making a movie of a television series while the series is still in production is a pretty rare activity. The only other examples I can think of are 'The Muppet Movie' and 'The Great Muppet Caper', although the extremely mediocre 'Star Trek: Generations' might also fit in this category. 'Batman' is probably the most faithful theatrical conversion of any television series to date ('Star Trek II' is a slightly different category, I think), maintaining the spirit of the series while adding enough scope and scale to be a big screen endeavour. Does it work? Well, that's the fiddly question. The answer is not certain in this writer's mind. It played constantly over the decades on television, home video and DVD, and has achieved a level of saturation that precludes rational thought. It has a war-surplus pre-nuclear submarine with gigantic penguin flippers for propulsion, for goodness sake, and Lee Meriwether at her most sophisticated!

Objectively, is it good? Let's take a stance and stop prevaricating. Yes, it probably is. It's a good film. It's a funny caper that's a little too long. The colours are amazing, the gags are ridiculous, the visuals are spectacular, and the toys are amazing. The problem is that the villains don't quite work for one hundred and five minutes, except for Catwoman and possibly the Riddler. Something strange happens, and the paradigm of the series flips, making Batman and Robin the most interesting characters. Could it be Adam West and Burt Ward were just naturals for the big screen, more so than the caricatures that are the the series versions of Penguin and the Joker? Could that be the secret of the movie? It's a curious part of the end product.

Ultimately, it's a very important film. Even as a comedy, this version of Batman still encapsulates his status as a detective more than any other live-action version, and the principle if not the reasoning behind a mysterious crimefighter and his vast array of gadgets. (Reasoning: Mortal man begins fighting crime, and realises he is only ever one fight away from ending it all in crippling disability or death, and therefore designs a thousand devices to avoid fisticuffs.) It also has so many classic moments that it can't be anything but great, right? The highlights from 'Batman' (1966) include: "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!", the penguin submarine, the polaris riddles, Bruce Wayne warming milk in a brandy snifter, the villains dehydrating the United World security council, Alfred's mask disguise, jetpack umbrellas, THAT SHARK, and the great and singular 'kapow' fight on the deck of the submarine. It's a bizarre and ingenious endeavour, all in all and utterly unrepeatable now. There's not the writing or production talent to make something like this, 'Get Smart' or 'Star Trek' in this era. 'Batman', on my recent reviewing of the show, has been revived most faithfully in my mind.

'Batman' is a daft and well-polished movie from the 1960s. Considering the quality of comedies in that decade, this may actually be in the top echelon from that time period. The sixties were not a great time for comedies, excepting other minor gems like 'Cat Ballou' or 'Support Your Local Sheriff'. Oh, if only this one had had another set of 'kapows'...


Tuesday, 13 December 2016

Eight Hundred

The river at the bottom of the valley is very close to flooding. Ignoring the possible effects for a moment, it's amazing to see a small-ish river swollen to several times its normal size, full of muddy brown water, and flowing swiftly from its unknown regions upstream to its ultimate destiny in meeting the sea. It's so close to flooding that it might soon splosh all over the tiny footpath commonly used to make a shortcut over to the Pontyates Post Office. This means nothing to the non-locals out there, but it is definitely an uncommon occurrence. Water is the most overwhelming manifestation of nature, the only one which is always obviously dynamic and in motion. The earth beneath us is apparently quiescent for most of our lives, and wind or air pressure only imposes itself upon us at certain times, but rivers and seas are always in motion and working away.

Just as that swollen river has flowed down from upstream regions, and is heading to the sea, the Quirky Muffin is now flowing under its eight hundredth bridge. Eight hundred posts will be in the bag at the close of this text, and we will have reached another landmark. What have these past eight hundredth posts meant? Almost nothing! However, there have been maybe two Very Important Posts, a daft assortment of serial stories, and piles and piles of book, television, film, and even radio reviews. Yes, Old Time Radio has found itself once again, and it's nice to have it back from time to time. It's a shame it was ever shunted aside by the then-new phenomenon of television and growing cynicism in the world, but the thing they call progress never can be denied. It seems that the price of every advance is a loss of cultural innocence... That can't be true, can it? Can it? Is it even true of tin openers or door stops?

Eight hundred posts of extemporisation, attempts to redress infamies dumped unfairly on underrated (but not necessarily great) attempts at entertainment, and made up on the spot serial stories. At the moment, the spine of the Quirky Muffin is a story entitled 'The Ninja Of Health', which has now taken over as the prime serial. Once 'The Ninja Of Health' concludes, the problematic story 'The Glove' will have to vie with 'Wordspace: Phase II' and 'Diary Of A Laundry Robot' for the status of Predominant Story Serial. Good grief, all of those three will need a decent amount of work to go any further, and there is still 'Triangles: Phase II' waiting to be started too! There will be lots of story work before we ever get to anything new! All this, and we still have Groucho season to come. Yes, all four of the prime Paramount Marx Brothers films, at least two of the Goulart private eye novels, and his comeback audience performance in the 1970s. You have to have mini-seasons to keep blogs going for this long. Perhaps after Groucho season, we'll break into some other run of posts, maybe about the 'Peanuts' films?

Eight hundred posts in the bag, and now we only have two hundred to go to reach one thousand. Everyone, please close your eyes and whistle. It will make it all go far more easily...


Sunday, 11 December 2016

Before The Invention Of Breakfast Cereal

A long time ago, before the invention of breakfast cereal, primitive mankind used to spend its nights in primitive holes and caves, bereft of culture and diversion apart from hunting and procreation. Back in those pre-sophisticated times, there was little conversation due to a lack of language, but eventually something must have happened. Maybe it was music, or play acting, but the entertainment we know about is cave painting. At some point back in the distant past, someone found some pigments and started scraping pictures on a cave wall, starting mankind off on the first steps to abstraction. Yes, sticks had been used to make pictures in the ground, but they tended to go away.

Think about it a little, and let the awesomeness sink in. A cave dweller, who had barely discovered fire and the rudiments of food scavenging, suddenly dipped his finger in some soot, blood or other tint and started scraping it across a wall to make a picture. It's pretty amazing. Pictures, the foundations of the first writing systems, being stuck on a wall or scraped in the ground with a stick. Now, here in the twenty-first century, we use brushes, pencils, computers, pens, sprays and even mosaic tiles, but we're ultimately doing the same thing. Those ancient people invented a wonderful thing, but did they ever know it? Did the first composer realise what they had done either?

What would you, the imagined reader of this blog post, daub onto a cave wall if you had the chance? Would it be an old red London bus, or the Starship Enterprise? Would it be a rough painted sketch of your sweetheart or your favourite sports team's crest? It could be anything! I think I would start with the Superman shield, or an attempt at the famous Groucho face, before giving up and doodling lighthouses, which are my default and solitary competent drawings. Everything else is difficult, but a lighthouse on a rocky outcrop can always be done. It may actually be time to start breaking out the sketchpads and experimenting again. Christmas is coming, after all, with its endless expanses of free time. Already, the tutoring is dwindling to holiday levels, and OU revision taking over.

Hmmm... reverting to cave painting for a moment... how do children start to illustrate usually? It's remarkable similar, isn't it?


Friday, 9 December 2016

Seven Hundred And Ninety Eight

We're only two steps away from the Quirky Muffin's eight hundredth post, and there are absolutely no plans whatsoever for that momentous landmark. Nothing. We will just have to make do with the standard summary and plan for the next hundred posts, unless some miracle progress occurs in the next few days. It would have been nice to get that joined-up version of 'Oneiromancy' sorted out, but it will come soon enough. Maybe Christmas will be the time to get it done, with the slackening in teaching that ensues.

It's December, and it seems like the whole world is going Christmas crazy. Songs are blaring out of the shops, trees are up in students' houses, and the world --

No, it's just not working. The writing power isn't on tap, replaced instead by a big ball of majestic galactic knitting wool. Seeing and helping so many people in a week can be very draining, and three hours in one day is almost crippling. It's amazing that any words are making it into this text coherently at all. It might as well as be in badly translated Greek. An episode of 'The Mentalist' is playing to one side, rather brilliantly, and thoughts are scattered everywhere, like socks from a young child's drawer thrown in anger.

It is possible to write in a state of disarray, though, if you lean into the curve. For example, you could start whittering on about the perils of too much sleep, or the things you're currently reading. Oooh, there's something! Robert E Howard's Conan stories are rather amazing. Delving into 'The Conan Chronicles', you clearly detect something entirely original, both then and now. These are prototypal tales, and you can tell. It's a sensation that you get when you read the 'Sherlock Holmes' stories, or Dashiell Hammett, or even Jules Verne and the short prose of Woody Allen. More on this later.

Now, the work is done. Seven hundred and ninety eight posts... What a bizarre occurrence...


Wednesday, 7 December 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XX

( Part XIX , XXI )

The Woman's first sight when she regained consciousness was a blurry blue ball. Recovering further she saw red, yellow and green balls too stretching into the near distance. Was she in some play school version of the afterlife? No, that was the roof of their chapel above them.

"Well done, milady. I was wondering how long it would take!" A wise and familiar voice said to her from above her line of sight.

"Ken! Oh, blast..."

"Oh, don't move too much yet please. You're pretty bruised, stiff and dehydrated. I've been giving you water for a day, but you might still be groggy." The face behind the voice could be seen now. That wise old face from the training school.

"How long? What about..."

"He is doing well. I brought you up first because you were showing signs of distress. We will be safe here now. The visitor will not return." Ken seemed very tired, but jubilation could be detected.

The Woman looked around a bit more vigorously. The whole chapel was knee deep in plastic balls, arranged in spirals, bubbles and sparkles of colour, radiating around her to the walls. "Good grief! You still have to use ball pools?!"

"We never did manage to succeed with anything else. There's something about the airlock in each ball that augments permittivity in the Pattern Field, which--"

"Not now, Ken. Help me up, please." Wincing, our lady protagonist struggled with the balls. "They even go into the corridor..."

"Yes, I filled the whole chapel. It was the only way. Hopefully, it should be easier to revive your partner and the Oracle with two of us to focus." Ken led her into the side rooms, where the Man and the Oracle lay in cradles of plastic balls.

"They're very pale." She commented tensely.

"You were asleep for five days. You were very pale too."

"Five days!"

"Yes, I was very concerned. However, it will be well now, and the sanctity of this place is now assured once again."

"All with ball pools?" Incredulity coloured the Lady's voice.

"Yes, all with ball pools. Let's get to work. We need to wake these two before the next shipment arrives."

They got to work.

To be continued...

Monday, 5 December 2016

Well, It's An Idea...

Buying gifts for people is nice. Yes, Christmas is really a religious holiday but why not throw gifts at people throughout December anyway, even if you're not of the required faith? Why not? The buying is nice, the note and letter writing are pretty good, and the wrapping and packaging is pretty tedious. The worst part by far is the trip to the Post Office and paying the postage. That's the killer, especially when you end up spending more on the postage than the gifts! (If that's not evidence of a tightly budgeted Christmas, then what is?! Or of miserliness, of course...)

The tradition here in Quirky Muffin land is to distribute books wildly to people at Christmas, whether they want them or not, with the scope depending on the budget available. Yes, given enough money, books would fly out to every inhabitant of the Earth. Books are brilliant. If everyone read a book a month, the world would improve dramatically, even if some of the books were scandalous and diabolical! Can there be any doubt about that? It's a serious question. Is it true?

The argument against the proposition would be that people would just read books they agreed with and never challenge their ideas or grow, and it's a potent one. However, arguments that revolve around the mythical 'people' can be exploded by considering the individuals. Some individuals would automatically try out new things and become just that bit more learned, and maybe pass on the habit to others. There would be generation advances. We're not talking about a global population of geniuses here, just a greater tendency toward absorbing knowledge. It's a good thought problem, if only people could be coaxed into reading things not on tiny screens, and picking up some tomes instead. Yes, I'm talking about you, lovers of pictures of cats in fezzes. You know who you are... (Only kidding, folks!)

It's good to be choosy about the words to use: 'learned' instead of 'intelligent', 'individuals' instead of 'people', 'knowledge' instead of 'information'. The words used here mean different things. 'Information' is an essentially meaningless term, but 'knowledge' implies an appreciation and understanding of what has been learned. 'Learned' reflects acquired skills and knowledge, but 'intelligent' indicates a base skill. 'People' have no defining characteristics, only averages, while individuals have sets of all kinds of qualities. We need to think more about the words we use.

Is that enough patronising and pontificating for today? Sometimes the words just flow this way.


Saturday, 3 December 2016

Film: 'Paper Planes' (2015)

This was a quietly awesome little movie, a gem in the rough. It falls into the category of 'things I cry to' pretty easily, but also into that of 'movies that don't quite do what you expect'. As soon as you see that the main character's father is grieving, you get a set idea of how it's all going to work out in your head, but in reality it runs just a little differently. After all, this is a film about paper planes...

Who would have known that there was a World Junior Paper Plane Championship? Who would ever have thought that happened? Apparently, it does, and in the movie the finals were in the most obvious country of Japan, home of papercraft. There's even a little sequence where the contestants, including our main character Dylan, twelve year old plane prodigy from a little dustbowl town in Australia, get the traditional process shown to them in a Japanese garden.

This post is definitely rolling out in a non-linear fashion, isn't it? 'Paper Planes' is about Dylan, who is recovering from his mother's death and simultaneously worrying about his father's extended grieving. A chance encounter with a student teacher leads him into completing in a regional paper plane championship, which then cascades finally into the World Championship in Tokyo. Yes, there's a bad boy competitor, and the dad does finally begin to emerge from his cocoon, but there's also a crazy grandpa who breaks all kinds of rules, his oddball school friend, and the girl Japanese national champion who becomes Dylan's friend through it all. None of it quite goes as expected, and when it does it does so efficiently and simply.

The child acting is decent, and improves over the course of the movie, but the real strength is in the simplicity and composition of the two layers of narrative. Why do some films work, and others don't? It's hard to say. Is this success related to the elegantly simple Australian style at work? Maybe. Ultimately, for me, it's more to do with telling a story uncynically and viewing the world in an honestly charming way. No-one flies over the top, not even the roguish war veteran grandfather. Well, maybe he does fly out into ham land a little, but it fits. His most telling interlude is handled very nicely indeed.

This could have been a gooey and sentimental mess, but it works well. It could have taken the grieving storyline and made us squirm awkwardly at times, but it doesn't. The paper plane aspects lifts the movie into being something slightly new, and that's always welcome. It's a good film, and an instant DVD purchase. It's also at times rather funny, and has some pretty good music.

Paper planes? Who would have thought it?


Thursday, 1 December 2016

Brainstorming 'The Ninja Of Health'

Okay, let's brainstorm a little. There are a couple of stealth medics in the town of Toddlingham, operating out of a little disused (deconsecrated?) chapel. They were trained by a bloke called Ken (origins unknown but he has visited Scandinavia at the very least), and are in tune with some kind of underlying Pattern (capital P intentional) of the Universe. The two health ninjas are in all likelihood a couple, breaking several narrative rules or tropes in the process. An invisible force has landed, emerging from an egg Mork-style, and is spreading illness injury around while carrying out its unknown plans. It even knocked out the local Oracle of the health ninjas, who had warped a tablecloth into a helpful vision!

What next? What could be next? What act of blue sky thinking could save this bizarre cavalcade of events? What will happen when the two ninjas wake from their imposed hibernation? Was it even a good idea to put them to sleep? When will the Oracle ever wake up? What's it all about, darn it?! Is the warped prophetic tablecloth, which idea seems better every time I write it, the clue to some treasure hunt that will save the day? Is the Entity being bad just for the sake of being bad or is it out there with ulterior motives? If the latter, then what might they be? World domination? Is it looking for the secret of French doilies? Could it be stranded, or an infant, a la Trelane from'The Squire Of Gothos'? Is a benign assessment taking place, or a semi-benign one, given that nothing lethal or even very serious has happened yet, apart from the crash into the allotment. Hmm, there's a dangling threat, the allotment. It had flown clear out of mind. Yes, there could be repercussions at the allotments... And witnesses...

It feels like there's something there, and it's something good. No, it's probably not related to macaroni, but very few things are. Logically, since our protagonists are largely reactive instead of proactive due to a lack of information, that status quo must be resolved one way or another in order to progress the story. There must another inciting incident, a further twang to the string, for something to happen. The problem is in making it happen without invoking 'deus ex machina' in a most blatant way. Maybe the newly arrived Ken is the key to it all.

On the other hand, there is still that tablecloth to consider. What of the cloth? A map? A recipe? A photo? A psychological visualisation? It is true that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud might have said, so maybe it's just a screwy tablecloth? Maybe it's a promo for an interplanetary charitable foundation seeking funds? Aha! Perhaps that alien is a fundraiser run amok? How's that for lateral (or an absence of) thinking? Interplanetary fundraisers running amuck! You know, that's not too bad, but maybe it's an entirely different story.

A lot hinges on the motivation of the antagonist, that mysterious thing from Out There. Is it like the Tweedy Lady from 'Oneiromancy'? Was it in exile in that space egg, in retreat, or journeying to the Earth on purpose? Is the tablecloth linked directly to it's nature, or just to something in its future? What on Earth can our health ninjas do without developing a supernatural ability? Oh, Ken, you had better have some new information in that backpack or yours, as you enter the grand scheme of things!

We will have to resume with Ken, but to what end? When next we rejoin 'The Ninja of Health', someone will have to wake up... Will it be one or both of our heroes, or will it be the Creature? Maybe it's asleep and having a nightmare?

Once again, more questions than answers.


Tuesday, 29 November 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XIX

( Part XVIII , XX )

The Man and the Woman looked down at their friend, the Oracle, and took his vital signs. He remained, as ever, stable. The power remained loose in the world, and the two Ninjas of Health were too busy to do anything about it. At that thought, the Woman stopped and considered.

"Do you think we're being kept busy for a reason?" She wondered out loud.

"Who? Us?" Her weary companion replied from their bunk. "I could sleep for a week."

"This begins to look like an endless odyssey of procrastination on that thing's part, if it's not doing something else somewhere. What is this? A giant stalling exercise?"

"It may well be, or it's just as confused as we are."

"I am not confused," commented the Voice of the Entity.

The Health Ninjas became very still, and edged toward the door. Where was It?

"Oh pish-tosh. You won't get out unless I let you," the voice continued, "and that won't happen for a long time. Go to sleep for now."

The two agents of health slept, again, for quite a long time. Longer than they had ever slept before, in fact.

*    *    *

The little chapel stood untouched for exactly two days, until a strange little man approached it, carrying a backpack and an umbrella. He went up to the door and knocked. When there was no answer, he knocked a second time, and seemed to become very still for a few seconds, in a little world of his own. Then, he went around to the back and reached into a small recess in a hidden part of the wall. Fearlessly, he took the recovered key and entered the chapel by the side door.

To be continued? Where will the great idea come from?

Sunday, 27 November 2016

Groucho Season?

The last week was eventful: a dark night-time walk between villages, upgrading of the computers up to Fedora 25, an online dating scam, the car hiding away at the garage, the first successful breading of something (chicken and mushrooms), a new undergraduate student, and of course the obligatory cancellations that come with the season. That night time walk stands out, though, as previously noted a few days ago, in 'Scary And Beautiful'. The low water mark was installing Fedora 25, which is shipping with a really rotten version of VLC and some shocking sluggishness. It seems 23 may be the last great version for a while... Compiling a decent version of VLC from scratch seems to bring so much dependency baggage that it's almost not worth it. However, let us not dwell on these petty things, gentle readers.

To bread something, for those not initiated into the mystery, you need some crumbs, some beaten egg, and some flour. You then dip the item to be breaded into the bowls in this order: flour, egg, crumb. Then, having prepared a tray, with the breaded items placed upon it, you stick it in the oven and hope for the best. For best results, you add seasoning and herbs to the flour, or is it to the crumb? I'm not sure at this point, it having been an excessively long weekend of tedium. Installing computers can be tiresome work indeed.

In other activities, 'The Music Man' retained its reputation as one of the great screen musicals on its latest showing here, 'Groucho Marx, Private Eye' is living up to the standard of the first book in the series. They probably deserve their own posts here at the Quirky Muffin, actually, being just different enough to be interesting in comparison to more conventional mysteries. Ron Goulart certainly seems to have caught the knack of writing Groucho for most of the time. Speaking of Groucho Marx, his 1972 revival performance is available at, and is pretty good. It's called 'An Evening With Groucho'. Any excuse to hear him sing 'Lydia, The Tattooed Lady' again is enough.

Perhaps Christmas 2016 will be Groucho season here on the blog, if I really know enough about the man. However, there are those four classic Paramount movies to write about, the Goulart detective novels, 'An Evening With Groucho' and the accumulated other content, already touched on with 'Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel'. Maybe that's not such a bad idea?


Friday, 25 November 2016

Television: 'Press Gang' (1989-1993) (Revisited)

On my first post about 'Press Gang', I wrote extensively about the first two seasons, and then dismissed the following three as non-canonical and best ignored. Looking back, having now rewatched the whole series, that sentiment could be walked back a little but is still fundamentally true. The first two seasons make a degree of sense, but the following are built on the fundamental silliness that the gang would be allowed to keep their paper instead of responsibly handing it on to the next bunch of kids. Of course they would have to hand it on! That's the whole point! Hence, to get through the non-canonical seasons, you have to get through the daftness of them making the Junior Gazette a going concern, and also characterization that goes up, down and everywhere.

Having said all that, there are good about things the series as a whole. The first two seasons are amazing, and work very well after a settling down period, with a dynamite cast for a children's television production. They touch on interesting and provoking topics, and don't flinch, and build a meaningful relationship between the nominal lead characters of Lynda and Spike, the star-crossed lovers of the series, and everyone else. Even the weirdest character, the mercenary Colin, gets his moments to shine and prove his own humanity. A lot of this carries over into the following seasons too, but it becomes massively inconsistent in characterization. The Grand High Moffat evidently lost the plot and caricatures took over for a while, especially in the characters of Lynda and Colin, who both became utter monsters! Lynda eventually recovered, perhaps she was merely bitterly heartbroken instead of simply monstrous, but Colin reverted to being a creep permanently. Despite it all, it maintained a decent quality, and some good laughs. There just weren't so many standout episodes...

So, in retrospect, we have a good series that goes a little haywire after a couple of years. The cast chemistry lives on, even as it dwindles in size, but something goes awry. Much like in 'Doctor Who', the series tries to grow but finds in the unenviable position of not knowing where it is. 'Press Gang' became something too sophisticated for a kids' show, but not developed enough for prime time. It falls somewhere in the middle, awkwardly. It must have been very confusing for any new audience outside the one that grew up with it! The core romance goes up and down and develops, and adult gags get through the gaps. Where should the final verdict end up? Ultimately, it's the same as before: Watch the first two seasons and enjoy it, and then sample the rest with care. At least Lynda finally recovers, and the core relationship is patched together again. Maybe Spike and Lynda ended up happy after all?


Wednesday, 23 November 2016

Scary And Beautiful

Walking along a darkened road long after sunset, and between villages, it can get scary. It's a spooky situation, with cars occasionally zooming by, warned off by the handheld bike lights in each hand, red facing backward. Away from the things of man, at the mercy of any passing lunatic or hedgebound madman, you can get paranoid and nervous. One thing to do is to start singing songs to ward off your nerves, and another is to start talking to yourself at random. Can you tell that someone is scared of the dark?

Another thing to do while striding along with your red and white lamps, is to become entranced. You see, there's one amazing thing about being out in the dark, and that is that there are no streetlamps, and no houses. On a clear night, while trying to remember the words to 'Three Steps To Heaven', and forgetting about how vulnerable you are to crazed night-time drivers, you are suddenly presented with the universe.

Above you, on a clear night, you see the stars. The stars you can not normally see for all the light pollution around in populated places. It might not be perfect, if it's not too long after full sunset, and there is still light fuzz in the distance, but you get the real night sky anyway. A magnificent starscape opens above you. For a few moments, between cars, you are connected to everything there is and was and every other person who ever looked up and wondered. Orion is right up there, clearly in view, and you can imagine navigating by the stars, or sailing across a still and darkened ocean. What stories are those pictures telling, and to whom?

Yes, it can be fun to walk home in the dark, if you can look at the stars and sing, and forget to be scared. In fact, that's probably the best way to make those lonely minutes go a little quicker. Beautiful and scary fun, indeed.


Note: 'Under The Moon Of Love' also works pretty well!

Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Book: 'The Moonstone' by Wilkie Collins (1868)

It's certainly the best of the Big Four of Wilkie Collins, but it's also the least striking or controversial. 'The Moonstone' is a rollicking yarn from start to finish, with the one exception of the forced secret that keeps the story going, and the whole positively reeks of style. It also contains the fewest narrative cheats of the Four, and the most lovable of narrators in the opening section, the charming butler Betteredge, devotee of 'Robinson Crusoe' and stubborn defender of common sense throughout.

Is it important that it's not as controversial or sensational as the other three: 'Armadale', 'The Woman In White' and 'No Name'? Is that perception even correct? As it stands, the only vaguely controversial aspect of this story is the drug aspect, and drugs weren't as controversional in the nineteenth century as they are now. For example, in the 1890s, people could buy now-criminal drugs over the counter in pharmacies! In the end, it's probably important that 'The Moonstone' isn't scandalous, but for the opposite reason to what we might expect. It's important because it's the least susceptible to changes in societal norms! 'The Moonstone' always remains a caper instead of a social commentary or sensationalist endeavour.

The story revolves around a supposedly cursed Indian diamond, passed on by a villainous ancestor to Rachel Verinder, a young heiress. The stone, which has been pursed by Brahmin priests for fifty years, disappears mysteriously from Rachel's rooms, ruining the relationship between her and beloved fiance, and causing massive confusion on all sides. What did happen to the diamond? Why does Rachel turn on her confused man? How did the stone end up with a prominent fence, and will famed detective Sergeant Cuff be the mind to penetrate the mystery? The story then passes through several first hand narratives, over the course of almost two years, before the true story is revealed.

What is the revelation? Depending on your point of view, it's either a masterpiece of innovative storytelling or the worst piece of hokum to ever grace the pages of a classic novel. Only you can make the decision. It's important to remember that, despite my hyperbole, 'The Moonstone' is still a Wilkie Collins novel and therefore has the obligatory middle stretch where you can feel the book stalling for time before it begins to wind up again, which is a symptom of its origins in seralisation, perhaps? It makes up for this with one of the very first detective characters in fiction, and gains a place in history as a result.

Yes, it's pretty good. Thank you, Wilkie Collins, for this and the others, 'No Name' being the pick of the rest.


Sunday, 20 November 2016

To Race The Lobster You Must Have Style, Little One

It was a terrible weekend, and maybe a terrible week, but it still feels okay. Sometimes it works out anyway. What has been happening? Well, nothing of any consequence really. It just felt bad at the time, and mostly because of the Winter Blues more than anything else. Oh, this seasonal adjustment disorder is a real thing, people. It's real! Sometimes it feels as if you're walking around inside a large plastic bubble, seeing the world but forever apart from it, with a brain full of grey tissue paper...

Oh, let's forget all about that. Let's be happy instead. It's pretty easy to be happy when you've been swimming, watched some phenomenal vintage television and munched through a decent portion of your proofreading job. We call it progress, people, progress! What were the television shows? 'Quantum Leap: Another Mother', part four of Michael Palin's 'Around The World In Eighty Days' and 'The Flintstones: The Hypnotist'. All somewhere between very good and great, where 'Quantum Leap' definitely wins out by several noses. Incidentally, what could you possible race that would not allow the phrase, 'to win it by a nose'? A squid? This thought will fester now... What about if we raced horses backwards? Then we could win by a tail? Oh! Oh! We could race lobsters, and they would win by a claw! Hang on, though, do lobsters walk forwards or sideways? This internal debate could go on forever, couldn't it?

Getting away from lobster racing (or penguin racing; if they slid luge-style they really could win by a tail!), this week will also be dominated by an assignment. Yes, an assignment! If only it were more interesting. I'm trying to get excited, but it's difficult. Five hundred to seven hundred words on "Learning a foreign language gives you a unique insight into the cultures of the people who speak this language." might not sound difficult, but it's actually a very small number of words to write about anything. This post is already more than three hundred words, and it doesn't even have a point to make, unless it's about penguins. It's almost aggressively about nothing in particular. That's why it's an interesting thing for the writer, and at best a curiosity for the imaginary readers, who sometimes drop in to read about the funny obscure words. Oh, the funny obscure words!

Coming up soon, you can expect many things. Sometime soon, there should be the aftermath report on 'Press Gang', a book review of 'The Moonstone', more of 'The Ninja Of Health', eventually a piece on Mark Twain's 'Joan of Arc' and in twelve posts time we will have Quirky Muffin 800! The eighth hundred post may end up being an utterly normal post, or a grand review. It is very difficult to say at this point, as nothing is planned. The very best case scenario is the 'joined-up' version of one of the serialised stories, but time may be too short for that. You will have to wait and see...


Friday, 18 November 2016

Radio: 'The Phil Harris And Alice Faye Programme' (1948-1954)

Travelling back to the Golden Age of Radio is like dipping into an entirely different world, where clichés weren't quite yet clichés, and innocence mingled with cynicism in now unheard of ways. It was an entirely different art form, as distinct from modern radio as it is from television, but somehow reborn in the world of podcasts via 'Thrilling Adventure Hour' and some other projects.

The Harris/Faye show was a pseudo-spinoff from the legendary Jack Benny programme and the real-life marriage of Phil Harris and Alice Faye, two of the biggest stars of the day. Yes, you may not have heard of any of these names now as a citizen of the contemporary world, but Jack Benny was the comedic superstar of the 30s and 40s, Phil Harris was his bandleader for many years and would later be the voice of Baloo the Bear, and Alice Faye was a musical comedy megastar. This was a massive radio show, sponsored by pharmacy giant Rexall. Yes, this was the era of corporate sponsorship, but it was also a time when sponsorship was more straightforward and unconcealed. This made it much more endearing, much like the sponsorship of today's podcasts.

Maybe it takes a special brain to appreciate it, but the naiveté of old time radio is something I love. The prevailing pet theory here in the Quirky Muffin Treehouse is that new things come from naiveté and not cynicism. Cynicism only destroys; it does not build. Is this series a particularly worthwhile example, a paragon in any way? I suspect it's one of the best ones of its kind, but only exhaustive research would reveal if it's the first family-based situation comedy to have emerged, or the first to feature fictionalised versions of real people. On the other hand, if this writer had engaged his brain for even a moment, he would realise that the Jack Benny Programme had already done the fictionalised real person for fifteen years at this point...

One thing that this show has in abundance, which may have been less apparent elsewhere, is musical talent and jazziness. Not only do you have Phil Harris at his best, but you also have Alice Faye, and both were unafraid to launch into their old or new standards when the occasion and scriptwriters demanded! It doesn't stop at the music's edge, though as the whole thing is very jazzy and well timed, with great chemistry throughout and some unanticipated dialogue and jokes. Yes, it can lean toward sentimentality a little from time to time, and hokiness, but I like that so it's not a problem. It's part of the naive charm. The supporting cast are pretty good too, and I perpetually wonder if they actually did get child actors to spout that dialogue sometimes...

Oh, a good time was had by all. and is still had by those few who frequent the shows that no one else realises even exist. Welcome, Phil Harris and Alice Faye, your show may be hokey at times, but you carry it off well.


Wednesday, 16 November 2016

Take Two

Ah, the old 'take two', the second attempt at filling the old white box. What could cascade from the fingers this time, and will it be more of the same old nonsense? How could it be? This is a Wednesday, right? Nothing repetitive ever happens on a Wednesday!

Hmmm. This is going to be a tough one. Does anyone here know anything about poetry? I've been trying hard, as part of student preparation, to get into poetry but this stubborn dislike of unrhyming and unmetered verse persists. The primary case in point is the collected poetry of Robert Frost. I know, absolutely, that he was a revered poet of distinguished renown, however most of his verse leaves me utterly cold. Where's the beauty? Poetry that doesn't rhyme reads like random words sludged on to a page, and unmetered verse is just prose and bad prose at that. Send all complaints to this barbarian in the usual way, please. It's not poetry, I say!

Shakespeare's Sonnets are pretty ropey too, but for different reasons. They verge on being total gibberish at times, don't they? However, let us now move on to some random words of the day, drawn from the Phrontistery, some of which might even be amusing...

idioticon: vocabulary of a particular district
illusionism: belief that the external world is philosophy
indifferentism: the belief that all religions are equally valid
iotacism: excessive use of the letter 'i'
irenic: conducive to or working towards peace

It is rather endearing to learn that there was a word for excessive use of the letter 'i', isn't it? I can imagine the scholars now, combing through their students` theses and counting the i's, hoping against hope that they would get to deploy their favourite criticism. "You used the letter 'i' too much! Too much! What a hideous iotacism this is!"

There is also a far worse interpretation of 'iotacism'; it could refer to a work in which the first person singular 'I' is used far too often, a habit far too ingrained into the population in general. That's even a problem that gets into this writer's writing on a regular basis too... A 'iotacism' could well be a sign of overly self-centred nonsense...


Monday, 14 November 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XVIII

( Part XVII , XIX )

'The Tablecloth'

The Oracle had restructured the prophetic tablecloth in a very obscure way, which was partly a result of dealing with the preexisting threads and colours in the cloth and partly due to the imperfect nature of oracular activities. Not even Ken, who had discovered the capacity within himself during a particularly boring experience with breakfast cereal, could do it that well. Their friend, the Oracle, was the best, and the tablecloth was his newest experimental medium.

What was on the cloth? One interpretation might be the following:

`A lighthouse is standing on a cliff, above a red and green streaked cliff. At the bottom of the supposed cliff, pinwheel lollipops are sticking out of a giant crater, throwing off rays of zigzag colour. Above the lighthouse, if it is a lighthouse, a massive swirly thing hangs in the sky. The swirly thing suggests movement, but perhaps that's just the tablecloth, or the giant tree hanging in the sky next to it is putting you off...'

There are other interpretations, variously involving broccoli, hair dryers, a sweet shop, and a cataclysm around Big Ben. The final resolution will have to wait until later in the tale, but the final counter-resolution will take place much after that, when the recovered Oracle will reveal the truth about his prophetic vision and the connections between our unusual protagonists, the strange entity and the tinned pear shortages that followed.

(You see, this is what happens to the writing brain when you commit yourself to an incredibly stupid story about health-giving ninjas and oracles who tell the future via table ornaments! Next time: A dog who travels in time via his chew toy's supernatural... Hey, that's not bad!)

You can't stop it, there shall be more...

Saturday, 12 November 2016


How relaxing it is to have the political dramas of the year behind us. Now we can relax and get on with our lives. What a relief it is to be able to finish watching the classic series 'Press Gang', tear through the last few pages of 'The Moonstone', get to grips with Open University courses, and become irrationally enraged by any trifle that passes this way because of pent up stress. Not only are we finally free from politics, but the GCSE exams are over for those of my students going through that ordeal. They're free and clear! What lucky people they are!

Going from eight to four students does lead lead to a budget downgrade, but it also leads to a healthy respite from exam stress and extreme time pressure, and in this case the hopeful pleasure of a job well done. It also leads to a very beneficial respite from the horrors or being positive and reassuring at all times. I absolutely believe that all my students are going to do very well, but that heightened state of reassurance is a difficult trick to pull off. It's a necessary trick, too, because obvious and apparent confidence is a vital quality to convey... It's nice to be able to leave it at its normal level for a while.

What is to come, as we close in on Quirky Muffin eight hundred, and the week wends happily on? Well, there will much talk about books, films, radio and television, much storytelling, and in the remaining times far too much whittering about events unseen and words obscure and forgotten due to the enigmatic vicissitudes of time. In the remaining hours there will a mass of French and Spanish practice, but that concerns you not, dear illusory readers of this fair and silly mock journal.

Hmmm, there's a word that is used in context frequently without any knowledge of its definition:

vicissitude: mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another)

How often have you used a similar phrase and invoked the vicissitudes without due research? I must have done it dozens of times! How many odd little vicissitudes has this very blog gone through? And large ones too? Many, and probably many more to come.

All hail the vicissitudes!


Thursday, 10 November 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XVII

( Part XVI , XVIII )

What could a tablecloth mystically rewoven by a seer tapped into the great Pattern of the Cosmos possibly reveal about the true nature of an invisible and powerful alien being recently landed in the small town of Toddlingham? What might be hidden in the great Appendices of the Archives of the Modern Order of the Ninjas of Life? Why are we stalling in this blatant attempt at catching people up? Why are storks credited with the euphemismic creation of human life? Only some of the answers to these questions will become apparent in the next few paragraphs.

The letter from Peggy, Keeper of the Appendices, read as follows, reproduced as much as possible from the records of the time:

"My dear, dear friends,

It has been too long since we saw you last. It was only a few days ago that Ken was talking about how the teaching committee missed you so badly, and that he would be trying to get you back for a session sometime soon. I, personally, miss the excellent cooking and the hot air balloon lessons, but what can be done? You were called, after all.

We have pored though the Appendices, which took a while, as you might imagine! There are some relevant passages and extracts (enclosed with this letter) that we thought of interest, but no direct precedents to the visitor that you described. The sketches and letter have been duly committed to the reservoir of knowledge for later perusal.

Ken himself took a hand when I told him of the reference to the healing power, and placed Qi in charge of the school as he assisted me. The incident you referred to was one of the earliest meditation experiments conducted in the coloured ball pits at the soft play centre where Ken was volunteering at the time. Apparently he had sustained a fracture during a freak supermarket incident (he wouldn't give any more detail apart from mouthing 'gouda' at me), and while maintaining some pain control had raised a meditative state after working hours. More than an hour later he awoke in concentric colour circles of plastic balls, with nothing but a small twinge to remind him of the fracture, and an odd craving for peanut butter. More information will follow in a separate message from the man himself.

The picture of the tablecloth was very interesting, and we've turned the picture over to our local expert, who is completely baffled. Perhaps it is more intimately connected to your local environment? We will not give up. We are just as concerned about the Oracle as you two, and have sent someone to help you. You'll know them when you see them. Further support is being rallied from our small number.

Please stay alert. There may be clues anywhere.

Your devoted friend and teacher,


PS Please send recipe for the oaty biscuits. We lost ours in a fiery abyss during a Committee Barbecue, and Adeolu's dog stole the disc with the originals."

Tuesday, 8 November 2016

By This Time Tomorrow

By this time tomorrow, the furore will hopefully have settled down, and the great political votes of 2016 will have all been resolved. It has been an awful year for politics, where the US presidential election and the EU Referendum are just the tips of a very creepy iceberg of sleaziness. The free trade treaties between the EU and North America lurk below the surface, oozing with nasty conditions, as do the Burkini fiascoes of France and the endless flayings of Jeremy Corbyn. It has been so icky and horrible that it seemed as if it was never going to end. Even if Trump manages to edge out Clinton tomorrow, at least it will all be over for a few months, and settled. That will be something. Nothing will possibly go wrong now, until after  Christmas? Right?

People seem to be utterly hysterical about Trump. Don't they realise that even if the lunatic is elected, he will be hampered by Congress into being completely ineffectual, just as the dissimilar Corbyn has been here? He will be left tied in so many legislative knots that he won't be free until 2020 at the earliest. If he tried to start a nuclear war, the Joint Chiefs would in all likelihood mutiny! There's not really any danger, except from gross stupidity.

How nice it would be to finally be free from these electoral clouds. The world will obviously continue going to its doom due to the shear idiocy of its prevailing species, but at least elections will be over! Hurrah! France and Germany next year? Mere trifles, especially with the ongoing EU exit travails. Oh, yes, the elephant in the room: The EU exit. What a mess that is, but thankfully it's a mess that can be left for another day. It's hard enough to have gone through the voting and decision-making ordeal, the trauma of being labelled a racist by association by virtue of voting to leave, the endless patronising waffle of indignant newspaper columnists, and the senseless financial problems that will follow due to idiot traders with nothing better to do than play games with people's lives, without wrestling with any more of it prematurely. There really is no excuse for there being any financial problems now, as nothing has happened!

That will probably be enough. Roll on tomorrow, and the freedom from portentous future events. Freedom! Hopefully, this freedom won't be accompanied by crazed dictators commanding that we all 'kneel before Zod'. Hopefully...


Note: Normal apolitical service will now be resumed. Enough is enough.

Sunday, 6 November 2016


This is going to be one of those 'blank page' activities, which may not go anywhere at all. At least it won't be about exam season, which is finally almost over, as my minions -- oops, that should say 'students' -- go forth into a second week of exams. It's more nervous to be the tutor than the student sometimes! That's a daft thing to say, isn't it? Of course the students are more nervous.

What to write? 'The Moonstone' isn't quite finished, so that will have to wait. British Summer Time bit the proverbial dust last weekend, but I'm not really in the mood to kick it in the teeth yet again as the relative normality of real time beds back in, against the backdrop of seasonal depression. 'Carcassonne: Over Hill And Dale' was a good game, but it's not particularly worth writing about. Breaking through writer's gloom is rough this time.

Fireworks night has been and gone, and was not at all nice in its noisiness and associated smokiness. I still don't understand the human love for burning things, but it's not a particularly endearing topic for this post, which may well end up being about nothing at all. Yes, nothing, the great concept that defies explanation. You cannot explain a nothing in its own terms, only as the absence of all other things! In fact, it has been such a strange few days that I watched a live play of 'Twilight Imperium III' by the Dice Tower. Fascinating game, but long and not for me!

Did you know that 'yapness' is an old word for 'hunger'? It's a nice little word, isn't it? (Thank you, Phrontistery, once again.) "Hello, dear, is there anything to eat? I've got quite a yapness building up!" Sadly, the etymology of the word isn't available. Where might it have come from? We'll never know, but if I were feeling a bit silly, it could end up as a cameo in 'Wordspace, Phase II', once 'The Ninja Of Health' has been wound up. There can be no peace until those ninjas have found their conclusion! Somehow, it shall be done, and then 'The Glove'.


Friday, 4 November 2016

Book: 'Flywheel, Shyster And Flywheel' edited by Michael Barson, from the radio series by Perrin and Sheekman [1989] (1932-1933)

How many half hour scenarios can you squeeze Groucho and Chico Marx into on radio in a season, with no apparent effort, while also producing material that would be incorporated into several later movies, and recycling some from earlier efforts? As it turns out, the answer is twenty-six if your lead writers are Nat Perrin and Arthur Sheekman and the season is 1932-1933. Twenty-six golden half hours, only one of which survives in any aural form. Was the show any good? It's difficult to say. There is one entirely surviving episode, but we'll never know if it's representative. Nat Perrin did pretty well with 'The Addams Family' several decades later, so he had reverse precedent.

Fortunately, twenty-five of the twenty-six scripts for the show were rediscovered in 1988, so we at least know how the show was on the written page. Unsurprisingly, it was very Marx Brothers-ish, except without Harpo, who couldn't possibly appear in a radio show in any meaningful way. Personally, I think they could at least have had his horn, but it might not have been cost effective. It's a great show on the written page, sometimes repetitive on a script-by-script basis, but it would have been great in a weekly radio series. The ghost house sequence alone would have been priceless.

Despite being printed on the page, Groucho and Chico's voices spring into your mind, whether you want them to or not. You can't help but hear Chico's awful puns and gags in that mock Italian patois and groan in sympathy, nor can you read nonsensical Groucho dialogue and imagine any voice but his, grousing away in lyrical excellence. It's just a shame that you can't hear them in actuality, or find out who played any of the other roles. It would be nice if Margaret Dumont had played any of the Dumont-ian characters in the show, or if Zeppo had popped up playing any of the random bit parts. Maybe Harpo was in it? We would never have known, never having seen him speak on screen! Who played Miss Dimple, the ever dependable secretary of Groucho's law firm? How did any of it work?

Teasing out twenty-six episodes was probably not the easiest thing to do. Groucho's lawyer Flywheel (originally called Beagle before a real lawyer called Beagle complained) and Chico's inept and corrupt sidekick character Ravelli encountered mock haunted houses, robberies, adulteries, dogs, temporary tenures as judges, several rambles over America, and even a revival of most of the movie 'The Cocoanuts', and then stopped due to an unimpressed network. Sadly, the Marx Brothers were of their time, and when their time came they were badly behind it due to weariness, and the death of screenwriting due to censorship.

'Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel' may well have been excellent. The scripts are pretty good. All together now: 'Good night ladies, good night ladies...'


Wednesday, 2 November 2016

The Almost Sonnet

It's nice to stretch yourself a little bit, especially when you're in the middle of sonnet season with your English student. Hence, a rudimentary sonnet has emerged, known provisionally as 'The Time Travel Sonnet'. It's still a bit rough, and the meter is broken, but as a first attempt it's not too bad. These things tend to evolve, after all. For those who haven't guessed, it's lightly inspired by 'Quantum Leap', but you could just as easily cite 'The Time Tunnel'.

Oh, the things we do for our students! You wouldn't believe just how much preparation can go into each hour of tutoring... I certainly don't believe it...

'Sonnet I' by Oliver Bain (2016)
(also known as 'The Time Travel Sonnet')

I fly through time, a rover back and forth,
Righting wrongs and seeking a pathway home.
With each flash of light, facing south or north,
My feet might touch past sand or future loam.
The first time was a trip to Rome by boat,
The next a jaunt to the Moon by balloon.
The third was a meal with an old dragoon,
But next I was chasing an angry goat!
How long have I been bouncing to and fro?
How long until this tale is fully told?
It was meant to be a test, a brave go,
With our time machine, which will our past fold.
When will I land this time, when that flash fades?
Home at last, the past, or green future glades?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense, here at the Quirky Muffin. Coming up fairly soon: The next part of 'The Ninja Of Health'!


Monday, 31 October 2016

Bring Me A Naive Genius, On The Double

Excuse me for a moment, gentle readers, as I wax meditative. While trying to write a post on 'The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show', the old time radio program, an old theory popped back into mind from that place that theories go to hibernate and recover from scrutiny. Old ideas definitely have to go somewhere when you're not considering them, don't they?

The theory is that, roughly, progress comes mainly from naive ideas, or that naiveté is the basis for creativity and not experience. How many artists lose their edge after their first few works, after all? Is it because they've become less talented? No, but maybe it's because they think they know how it works and stop messing about with new techniques? This isn't really about art, though, as much as the world in general. Why does it seem as if things are in a static cycle or repetition at the moment? Could it be because naive ideas are being thrown away in the cause of maintaining the status quo for the currently priviliged? Or because we see naiveté and confuse it with idiocy?

Most of the major changes throughout history are based in naive ideas. Was it a cynical move for the ancient Greeks to start handing out votes in their democracy? No, it was a dumb and original one. Was the first hot air balloon a smart idea? No, it was born from someone thinking about hot air in the most idealistic and naive of ways and then tying a basket to it. New things don't come from experience, do they? Refinement comes from experience and destruction from cynicism. In the great wide world of today, naiveté is an endangered quality. Thanks to years of exposure and overexposure to the troubles all around us, it's almost impossible to be naive.

A day or two ago, I read a story about a thirteen year old high school student who made a functioning renewable energy generator for five dollars, out of what looked like some bits of plastic and sticky tape. It works, and will one day be scaled up to something truly wonderful. She did it, with no disrespect intended, from naive origins. Let's hope that she never loses that ability to take things from the aether and make them real.

Will the human race ever truly make a change for the better? Will the world die under a crowd of abundant and automated cynics? Maybe not, but to change we're probably going to have to learn to listen to some experts, and some naive geniuses. Some of them might even be both.


Saturday, 29 October 2016

Movie: 'Superman: The Movie' (1978)

It's surprising that 'Superman: The Movie' (STM) hasn't already been covered here at the Quirky Muffin, it being the prototype theatrical superhero movie. However, is it quite the prototype that we think? There is the 'Batman' film of 1966 to consider too, 'Superman and The Molemen', and even the Superman and Batman serials and cartoons of the Golden Age of cinema. 'Superman' isn't the first superhero project to take itself seriously, but it is the first complete package to make it to the big screen, complete with origin and internal consistency.

'Superman' is a difficult movie to talk about, due to its storied and layered genesis. It was made simultaneously with the original footage of 'Superman II' as part of the virtuoso performance of director Richard Donner and writing talent of Tom Mankiewicz. The ending is in fact taken and adapted from the original story for 'Superman II', explaining both why it seems to be less organically plotted out than the rest of the first film, and why that ending was what had to be used in the restored version of 'Superman II'. This change adds a sensation of roughness to the finale of an otherwise wonderfully structured and solid movie. The humour is wonderful, the verisimilitude is unprecedented, and the whole movie is so solidly based in the foundation that was forty years of accumulated Superman mythology to that date that it couldn't reasonably fail in retrospect, but was a great concern at the time. Yes, the ending is a problem, but it smells like something that was enforced from much higher up than the director or writer, and the whole makes up for it.

The most fascinating aspect of STM is that it comes from a past era when superhero movies were not established, and were not entirely pre-programmed to be all fighting, all the time. There's not a violent confrontation in the whole two and a half hours, which perfectly suits Superman the character in his native movie environment of the romantic adventure. Why does Superman not function particularly well in any medium in the present? It's almost certainly because the romantic adventure doesn't really exist any more. Brian Singer took a large chance on 'Superman Returns' in trying merge into the defunct genre, but its legacy was abandoned by the studio, and we ended up with punch-fests instead. Yes, this isn't an entirely fair analysis, but it does capture the main problem of Superman in a highly cynical age.

Watching STM is a slightly complicated process, as you effectively move through four distinct and differently toned sub-movies. You have the origin on Krypton, the upbringing in Smallville, the travails of Superman, Lois and Lex Luthor in Metropolis, and then the ending. The first three are all awesome, and star-studded, with the lynch pin trio of Marlon Brando, Glenn Ford and Gene Hackman stealing the movie until Christopher Reeve appears. It must have been a daunting challenge to step under the shadow of that cape after the legendary George Reeves, but Reeve became an instant legend, proving himself in one shot. Oh, and the John Williams music is wonderful too.

It's a comic book come to life, a wonder of the past age of movie making, and not something that will really be matched until a new paradigm takes over in cinema, if it ever does. Would it be slow for today's film-lovers? Yes, but at least it's true to the core of the character and lore of Superman, and if you can just open your mind and heart then it's an awesome experience from start to finish.


Thursday, 27 October 2016

The Peril Of Form-Filling

Losing a passport is a tough thing. Not only do you go through the trauma of hunting that vital piece of identification, but if you don't find it then you face the expense of having to get the replacement, and the expense isn't just one of money, but time, you face the peril of form-filling, that horror from times long past...

It's a tedious thing, this completion of forms, whether they be online or on paper. Information has to be collated and compiled, questions have to be asked, and there's always a required document that you don't quite have at hand. There is always a problem somewhere... even if it's just the printer jam of fate breaking in at the worst moment.

'What was your parents' wedding date?' 'What happened to your old passport?' 'Have you reported it?' Yes, I have reported it, thank you, and the police said it was a waste of time and a waste of a phone call. Once your passport is gone, then it's gone, and they'll destroy it if it's handed in. Yes, thank you very much, world. I sigh at it all, in a good humoured way. Well, I'll pretend to be good humoured, but really there's a fair amount of unrest and muttering.

Mutter mutter mutter. I wonder where it was lost? Was it on the bike trail to Bucharest? Or in the interdimensional tube transit to Splotty Newt Nest? Did the time travelling vagabond with the green shoes swipe it, or did I just drop it somewhere dumb in the normal course of events? We will never know.

It's a mystery to me that everyone with a passport knew someone qualified enough to be their counter-signatory. I wonder how that works? Is there a grand conspiracy of qualified counter-signatories wandering the country, signing things for a ridiculous fee? Is there? Is there? How do people know who they are? It bears investigation. Expect a scandal-breaking post in the near future...


PS A very nice woman tracked me down, having found my passport on one of my routes from earlier in the day. Sadly, it was a little too late. Thank you, nice lady, that was a very nice thing to do.

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Story: The Ninja of Health, XVI

( Part XV , XVII )

The incidents were piling up, accumulating slowly but steadily and in extremely unlikely fashion. The Man had already fixed Mr Costa's back three times within one week, while the Woman had fixed three hunches and two colds in just one afternoon at the Toddlingham library. They had begun expanding their regular patrols, and lengthening them, to sometimes dangerous extents.

Toddlingham could not have become a magnet for the accident prone, suddenly, or could it? The accident and emergency room was becoming more and more hectic, and the ninjas of health could only make the smallest of differences, with all their skills and abilities. Minor ailments were springing up everywhere, very worryingly.

On the day that a reply arrived from the Keeper of the Appendices, Peggy, the Woman was strolling along the High Street on what was an altogether frazzling day. On walking past the Post Office, she brushed past a young man adjusted his twisted arm, before administering the  karmic cold cure to three people at a bus stop and stumbling a little as she entered the supermarket. A man helped her get her balance, and in return straightened up a little more and lost his migraine. It was her ninth migraine cure of the day, in that small town.

The duo were more than a little frazzled when a reply arrived from the Appendices. Finally, a reply! They checked the Oracle, and marked their activities on the pinboard map before they settled down to read. There seemed to be no pattern to the pins scattered around their old chapel. No pattern at all, except --

"It's almost as if that power is following us around, the way we always find so much to do on our patrols." The Man muttered to himself. "Is there no pattern at all?"

"Perhaps the letter will help." Reassured his companion. "They will have analysed that tablecloth vision, hopefully."

"Yes. I just keep getting this nagging feeling that that force out there is watching every move we make."

"Perhaps it is." The Woman waved the letter in his face. "I'm hoping that it can't read English though, so let's do this and not say a word."

The two read the letter silently.

To be continued...

Sunday, 23 October 2016

Seven Hundred And Seventy Four

Twenty-five posts from now we will hit number eight hundred, and I will have to decide whether to continue the Quirky Muffin project or let it go on indefinite vacation. The leaning is toward continuation, but the original challenge of the blog has been met. It is possible to write, and write, and write some more, and not quit. An archive of eight hundred posts is a wonderful pile of evidence for that and managing to write in a coherent or incoherent manner on a regular basis.

Oh, the Quirky Muffin will probably continue. It has a lot of momentum, and far too many unfinished stories to just stop on a dime. That mass of unfinished stories will weigh on this writer's mind. It might be time to stop shirking, and focus on finishing them one at a time, until nothing is left and then start up new ones? Could that be true? Every single one of these stories has a sticking point, or gaping void, holding it back, but perhaps the 'Ninja Of Health' should be put through the analysis machine until something pops. There is something there, the germ of a useful idea encased in much procrastination and waffling. The key is in not just repeating the outlines of already completed stories. It can't be a rehash of the first parts of 'Triangles' or 'Wordspace', or 'Oneiromancy' and 'The Disappearance'. How best to proceed? Analysis or endless rambling until something pops out.

Analysing a story's status is a very vague procedure. You mainly summarise what has happened so far, and then ramble on introspectively about the nature of both stories in general and this one in particular until something clicks or you run out of hard drive space. That second option has yet to occur, but it has never been totally out of the question! At least 'The Glove' is out of danger now, and is now only stalled, with some vague outline peering through the creative mists. Maybe, just maybe, time can be scraped together and not wasted on a thousand silly little things. Degree studies? Ha! The Quirky Muffin will win out!

Now, in first assignment news, I just need to scrape together the content for seven hundred words on a notable intercultural encounter from my past... It's pretty difficult to come up with 'notable' examples of anything when your whole history is buried in a deep sepia emotional tint. Perhaps that time with the elephant at the ball of twine would count, but how would I ever explain the sherpa's boomerang skills?


Friday, 21 October 2016

Film: 'Superman' - The Fleischer Cartoons (1941-1943)

The seventeen 'Superman' cartoons made by Fleischer (and Famous) Studios are a marvel to behold. In this era of limited animation, those fully animated mini-masterpieces are spectacular. It's a little sad that the new management that oversaw the last eight packed those examples full of war propaganda and some awful stereotypes, but the quality of the workmanship is unparallelled. All the previous expertise developed from the Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons is concentrated and condensed until the whole screen is filled with technicolour exploits.

The Superman in the Fleischer cartoons is radically different to what you might expect if you have experienced only the modern DC screen universe. The cartoons are filled with rescues of every variety, and some of the best screen action you could ever imagine in a modern television show. It's fantastic. My favourite example so far is the train rescue in 'Billion Dollar Limited', which captures so much of what was wonderful about Superman as to render practically every other version redundant. You may think this is hyperbole, but the Fleischer cartoons really are that good. They're magical. In 'Billion Dollar Brain', Superman ends up pulling the train himself, after the locomotive goes off a precipice, in a spectacularly rhythmic fashion, while pulling off a dozen other feats.

Superman in the Fleischer cartoons is a rescue machine. His main interaction with the villain is at the end, after defeating the scheme, when he picks up the fiend and drops him off with the police. Clark Kent is just a bit player, working at the Daily Planet as it's one of the rare places where he can get up to the date news. He also turns up at the end to do the George Reeves wink to camera that apparently didn't start with George Reeves! Yes, the wink originated here, or in the comic strip. It's hard to say without more research. The end wink might have originated in principle in the radio serial, as did the voice actors used, the legendary Bud Collyer and Joan Alexander.

The Superman phenomenon can be pretty hard to understand now, so long past the relevant time frame. Superman began in Action Comics in 1938, leaped into the radio sphere in 1940, then theatrical cartoons in 1941 and movie serials in 1948 and 1950, before George Reeves took over for television in the 1950s. Superman was massive, a wonderful burst of positivity in a depressed world, exploding out of the chaos of the 1930s. He was the first popular superhero.

These Fleischer cartoons are also utterly gorgeous, with the best technicolour and a truly drop dead gorgeous pinup version of Lois Lane. Lois here is a gutsy newshound, always following stories in the most dogged fashion, and getting into a dust up whenever possible! Yes, she may end up in distress, but not without giving a good account of herself. Oh, Lois, you have either the most wonderful or terrible luck... She also gets to kiss the man himself, which would be frowned upon in many a following year. The artwork is amazing in these cartoons, and puts a lot of modern animation in a box of shame from which it would never recover. Colour, full animation, music, sight gags, and some of the most fluid visuals you can find now, and which you wouldn't even have imagined at the time; all combine to make something special.

Oh, and if you're not sold: These cartoons are in the public domain and available at the Internet Archive. Try 'Billion Dollar Limited'. Go on.


Wednesday, 19 October 2016

In Brief

We're homing in on eight hundred posts, gentle readers of the Quirky Muffin, an unimaginable landmark. Eight hundred posts, and all without any kind of underlying agenda. In fact, this blog's agenda is to avoid, as much as possible, having an agenda! The closest we have come here is to perhaps talk about 'Star Trek' and 'Superman' a lot, two properties with deep underlying optimism. Maybe our agenda, if it does exist, is to highlight some of the more positive works of popular entertainment out there.

Maybe that faux positivity agenda has been how the temptation to go into a full political editorial mode has been averted, no matter how barely. The sheer nastiness of the moment will go on, and eventually something will change. There's just no status quo here to cling to, and there it shall be left. Politics is out for the foreseeable future unless something diabolical happens in the presidential election, perhaps. Let's hope that doesn't happen...

The season has definitely shifted and Autumn is upon us. The OU work continues to pile up and things continue to become more fraught, even as my own students grapple with their stress-filled upcoming GCSE students. The symmetry of stress is maintained, in a thoroughly frustrating way, but it will all work out, given a monumental amount of effort. No-one ever said this was going to be an easy academic year. The work load will continue to grow.

Ah, October, the time when Christmas shopping is finalised and purchasing continues. Why wait until the last minute when we have so much time to get it all exactly correct? Followed searches exist on eBay for a reason, and some bargains are sure to be found. Let's hope that Jasper Fforde, 'Schotten Totten' and some other things really work out.

What will the eight hundredth post celebration be? It's time to start thinking. All suggestions happily received.