The costume will scare the shit out of any crooks who think I’ll accidentally implicate them.
Photo credit: By Amazinggena – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77474912
Cover to “Marvel Comics Presents” #78, Al Milgrom, 1991
Marvel Comics.
“GOOD EVENING, FRAULEIN.”
I know this is a childish comparison to make, but does anyone else look at acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and totally see Toht from 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark?”
FILE PHOTO: Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 24, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo – RC19789AFEF0
Cover to “World of Krypton” #3, Ross Andru and Dick Giordano, 1979
DC Comics.
“Still Life: Basket of Peaches,” Raphaelle Peale, 1816
Oil on panel.
“For poetry makes nothing happen …”
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
— from W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”
“Woman On a Black Divan,” Jean-Jacques Henner, 1865
Oil on canvas.
Throwback Thursday: “Kingdom of the Spiders” (1977)!
“Kingdom of the Spiders” (1977) was yet another 70’s bug-apocalypse flick that aired from time to time on 1980’s television. As I recall, this one was kinda good … or at least it was scary enough to impress me as a grade-school kid. The movie wisely made use of a truly frightening adversary (and used live tarantulas for filming). And it had the kind of jarring, open-ended final scene that I hadn’t seen before for a sci-fi/horror film.
The only thing that detracted from its creep-factor was the presence of William Shatner as the lead. It wasn’t that Shatner did a poor job with the role — it was just that he was indelibly linked in my young mind to his iconic role in the original “Star Trek” (1966-1969). I simply couldn’t get past the idea that Captain Kirk was an ordinary veterinarian; it took me out of the movie. I’m willing to bet that Shatner was helming the cop drama “T.J. Hooker” (1982-1986) at around the time that I saw “Kingdom of the Spiders,” but that was a show I didn’t watch.
Anyway, if you want to catch the flick in its entirety, you can find the whole thing over at Youtube right here.
“La Liseuse,” Jean-Jacques Henner, late 19th Century
“The Reader.” Oil on canvas.
THE CYCLOPS SPIDER?
No, this isn’t a terribly good picture. And the lack of scale here prevents the viewer from appreciating this spider’s immense size. (They’re huge in Southwest Virginia.)
But I still like the way that mark on its back makes it look like a fanged orange cyclops in this picture, don’t you?
My best guess is that this is some variation of an orb weaver spider, but don’t hold me to that.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 