The White House today released an artist’s rendition of Donald Trump’s planned “Space Corps.”
Note — there are about a million “Starship Troopers” jokes to be made here. But if we go there, we’ll be at it all day.
Tag Archives: Eric Robert Nolan
Throwback Thursday: “Mystery Science Theater 3000” at Mary Washington College!
As I’ve shared here at the blog before, “Mystery Science Theater 3000” was a pretty big part of my college experience. MST3K parties were indescribably fun. I honestly believe that I have literally never laughed so hard in my life.
I’ve previously linked to the priceless episode where Joel and the ‘Bots skewer Joe Don Baker and 1975’s “Mitchell.” Below are three more that were the unofficial required viewing for the second floor of Mary Washington College’s New Hall during the 1993-1994 school year.
What was maddening about MST3K was how difficult it was to explain to the uninitiated. (Bear in mind, this was before the days of Youtube, with which you could just send your friends a clip.) It was an amazing TV show, but my efforts to explain it to friends made it sound preposterously stupid: There are these three comedians that make fun of old movies — really bad ones — as the movies are playing. Two of the comedians are portrayed by robot puppets … There’s an ongoing skit in which they’re stuck in space. The special effects are really terrible — but that’s okay, because it’s kinda part of the joke …
The first episode below is 1966’s “Manos: the Hands of Fate,” which I understand to be the most popular among fans. (Even aside from MST3K’s satirical riffing, I’ve read that this is widely regarded as the worst movie of all time — a distinction I’m not sure it truly deserves.)
The second is the episode devoted to 1944’s befuddling and blithely moralizing “I Accuse My Parents.” (I and the other guys on my floor might have actually liked this one even more than “Manos.”)
The third is my personal favorite — the entry for 1951’s saccharine, preachy “The Painted Hills.” In a strange coincidence, I think it’s actually the first one I ever saw. And it’s also one that I’ve never heard named as a favorite by another MST3K fan. Seeing the Joel and the ‘Bots make fun of a poor defenseless dog (played by the same dog who played Lassie, no less!) was just too irreverently brilliant. SNAUSAGES! (And does anyone else think that this was a morbidly strange film when it was first conceived? It was marketed as a family-oriented “Lassie” movie, but it contains just a bit more murder and bizarre horror than you’d expect from that.)
*****
“Manos: the Hands of Fate.”
“I Accuse My Parents.”
“The Painted Hills.”
A brush with uncertainty.
Sooooo, I suppose this is one of the reasons they tell you to never hike alone — the disorienting, downright Lovecraftian plantlife that limits your visibility, confuses your sense of direction and challenges your sanity. (I arrived at this insight hiking alone.) I have recently come to understand that this is what the people from the South and the West sometimes refer to as “the brush.”
I am frequently surprised when walking through the hills at how uneven the terrain is. (Probably why they call it “the hills.”) But I’m gaining a new appreciation for how daunting mountain flora can be.
I also saw a white-tailed deer — it looked as big as a frikkin’ Clydesdale.
The “P” key keeps getting stuck on my @#$%ing keyboard.
This frequently means that when I type “I hope,” it changes it to “I hoe.” It happened in a blog post the other day.
Awkwardness ensues.
“I Hoe” kinda sounds like a pornographic satire of Asimov’s “I, Robot.”
Care to peruse my Youtube channel?
Just a reminder — if you happen to enjoy any of my poetry readings here at the blog, then you can find more over at my Youtube channel. There is a playlist for me reading the work of other poets, and another short playlist for me reading my own work.
I hope that all you guys have had a wonderful weekend!
More old-time radio — 47 hours of science fiction classics
What a find! A poet I admire passed this along to me, and it was too good not to share — 47 hours of science fiction radio classics that Open Culture recently added to its Spotify page. You’ve got to be a Spotify member to hear these, but signing up is free and easy. (Spotify also makes it easy to reset your password if you’ve forgotten it, as I did.)
Right at the top of the list is Orson Welles’ famous/infamous 1938 broadcast of his radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” (Yes, this the show that made people believe that martians were actually invading. How’s that for “fake news?”)
Welles’ broadcast was actually the first classic radio I’d ever heard, when I was a kid in the 1980’s. I’d gotten it on a pair of cassette tapes for either Christmas or my birthday, along with an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” If those strike you as weird presents, I was a weird kid.
I loved those tapes — the Poe recording was so good it genuinely scared me. (The narrator really nailed it.) If I happen across that online, I’ll be sure to post it here.
Old-time radio horror shows (because I need another nerdy hobby)
So I’ve discovered a fun and easily accessible treatment for insomnia, and it’s also an interesting diversion for a horror fan looking for a change of pace. There are no small number of horror and suspense radio shows from the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s on Youtube. (They actually do have a significant online fandom.)
The programs are typically 30 to 40 minutes long, and the audio-only stories make you feel like you’re reading a book before bedtime (which for many people is a perfect treatment for sleeplessness).
The horror is a bit mild compared with modern films or TV shows, of course. But it’s still fun hearing what people found spooky before the days of television. It’s even better if the recording contains the original radio ads, which are even weirder than you might expect.
I started one last night that was narrated by the legendary Peter Lorre, and I know that Vincent Price starred in a slew of them.
Throwback Thursday: Marvel Comics’ “The Infinity Gauntlet” (1991)
My buddies and I have “Avengers” fever. We can barely wait to see “Avengers: Infinity War,” which opens tonight, and answer some burning questions. I myself want to know how the relatively humble Captain America can deflect a blow from Thanos’ omnipotence-granting Infinity Gauntlet (as depicted in the trailer). Meanwhile, a pal of mine insists it’s possible that some iteration of the Venom alien symbiote will make an appearance — even though that character is owned separately by Sony Pictures. (I’m inclined to think that this is wishful thinking.)
I was actually around for the 1991 debut of “The Infinity Gauntlet” — the six-issue 1991 crossover series upon which this movie is based. (“The Infinity War” was actually a sequel comic crossover that Marvel released a year later.) An upperclassman upstairs in my sophomore dorm lent it to me, and it pretty much blew my mind. I had only recently discovered that the characters owned by the “big two” comic book companies inhabited shared universes. (DC Comics has released its own universe-wide crossover series at about the same time — “Armageddon 2001,” a series I still love, despite other fans’ contempt for it.) I had read a lot of comic books growing up, but they were usually war comics or horror comics; superheroes had always seemed lame to me when I was a kid.
“The Infinity Gauntlet” was thick stuff, as comics went. The sheer number of characters involved (and an abundance of cosmic characters) made it a little hard to follow for a reader new to Marvel. (DC’s major characters were fewer, more familiar and easier to understand.)
But it was still a load of fun. I still think it’s messed up what Thanos did to poor goddam Wolverine, who’d skillfully gotten the drop on him at first.
Neon Nerd Nolan reads you Shakespeare! (Sonnet 29)
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Neon Nerd Nolan Recites Shakespeare!
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30
(For Emily) 🙂
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 