A Milestone Birthday

Yes, David B., it was a "milestone" birthday that I celebrated this past week.

Rather than wallow in the fact that I'm growing older, I thought it would be fun to see who and what else was born the same year as I (in addition to my beloved Mr. Ginley).

So, without further ado...

The Barbie Doll
Yes, "Barbie" was born the same year as "Barbie." How cool is that? America's favorite dress-up doll, anatomically deformed but much beloved.

Emma Thompson
Allegedly, she's a terror to work for, but a great actress.

The Twilight Zone
Imagine if you will...a show that was fabulous and creepy. It reflected our fears and paranoia in the space age. And, hey, guess what? It's just as timely today as it was then.

Alaska and Hawaii
Both became states that year, completing the set of 50.

Weird Al Yankovic
You gotta love a guy who plays with his words. I've got a DVD of his greatest parodies around here somewhere, I think it's time to pop it in the player and enjoy one more time.

Xerox
Time to make the copies. The first Xerox machine entered the hallowed halls of the business world, effectively killing mimiograph machines and eliminating the need for carbon paper. Halleluia!

Hugh Laurie
I loved him as Bertie Wooster. He was a pompous jerk as Gregory House, but I enjoyed his character just the same.

The Day the Music Died
Okay, this is a reverse "born." Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (aka "The Big Bopper") were killed in a plane crash, along with their pilot, Roger Peterson. Years later, Don MacLean would make a killing of his own with the song American Pie, which had so many verses, the single had to be recorded on both sides of the record.

Marie Osmond
Treacly-sweet, Marie teamed up with her equally goody two-shoes brother, Donny, to sing lots of songs that could have formed a songbook called "Lawrence Welk Redux."

I'm also sharing my year with Allison Janey, Flavor Flav and Fabio.

So, there you have it.

It was a very good year...unless you were Buddy Holly.

Feline Madness

Now that I've been spending a lot of time at home, I've honed my ability to pick up on my cat's thoughts.

For example, when I feed Maggie first thing in the morning, she acts excited...until I set down her bowl of food. At which point, she squeaks (she doesn't really "meow") and looks back at me. What she is really saying is, "This restaurant sucks. Same f***ing food every day. Morris the cat wouldn't put up with this s**t."

I've set up a mini office in the kitchen. First thing, I am on my laptop, checking my email and such. Up comes Maggie, strolling across the keyboard. "I'm more important than that stupid piece of junk. Pay attention to me, god****it."

Her favorite time to snuggle is when I'm trying to watch the French production of the TV series Maigret. Then she's all up in my grill, rubbing her face against my chin and purring, etc., demanding, "Pet me NOW!" Making it impossible for me to read the subtitles. Admittedly, I do enjoy this -- until she hears a loud noise outside, digs her claws into my chest and leaps across the room.

It turns out Mr. Ginley is also in tune with our furry feline.

When he engages in what he perceives as cat play (but Maggie finds annoying), I will hear the "cat's voice" from the other room, saying things like,""I'm going to kill you with my talons of steel." Or "Get away from me, old man." Or, my favorite, "You're not my real dad."

I find that I'm taking a lot of cat photos. And posting them on Facebook sites that invite you to share pictures of your pet.

Mr. Ginley asked me if I wanted the "Crazy Cat Lady" bumper sticker we saw on a car yesterday. I protested that one kitty does not a crazy cat lady make.

Now I'm beginning to wonder.

Maybe one is all it takes.

Moony Eyed

"How did you celebrate the moon landing 50 years ago?"

The question has been asked a lot lately. Which makes sense, given the upcoming anniversary of Apollo 11, when a trio of astronauts landed on the moon, effectively winning the space race with the Russians. 

USA! USA! USA!

July 20, 1969.

I was 10 years old, and we were at my grandmother's house in Lima, Ohio. Dad was trying to explain how historic the event was. 

"Look up at the sky, you see the moon? There are guys walking around up there."

I couldn't see anything. Clearly, my dumbass 10-year-old self was not as impressed as I should have been. Disgusted, Dad gave up.

I can't speak for my elder siblings, who were clearly old enough to grasp the full significance. It's not something we've talked about, although now that I'm thinking about it, maybe they will weigh in with their perspectives. As for my younger brother, Paul, who was only five at the time, I wonder if he remembers. He's free to chime in here, too.

In any event, the fact that everybody got so blasé about future trips to the moon so quickly must have been disheartening to the Apollo astronauts. Not to mention the staff at NASA, many of whom lost their jobs in the ensuing years. After the sixth crewed mission in 1972, lunar landings ceased.

I cannot imagine the rush of having been involved in something so monumental, then being cut loose to find another job. Although as it turns out, a lot of them went into the burgeoning electronics industry and started perfecting computers and such. So I guess they did pretty well for themselves.

What most folks didn't foresee was the lasting impact the space race would have on everyday life. So many things were invented during that time: memory foam, freeze dried food, firefighting equipment, and cochlear implants, to name a few. Just to note, Tang, Velcro and Teflon are not on this list, although everybody knows how much the astronauts loved their Tang.

As for the flag that was planted on the moon, it got knocked over by the blast of the engines when the ship took off. Oh well. The best laid plans...

So, how will you celebrate the 50th anniversary?

I think I'll don my memory foam slippers and have me some moon pies.

With a side of Tang.

Be Natural

Once again proving that I never know what will get me cranked up when I pick up a library book, along came  Hollywood Her Story.

I figured I would just flip through this (largely) picture book and it would be a quick read. But right there, at the beginning of motion picture history, I was, like, "Hold the phone there, Andrew, this is amazing."

The book is laid out in a timeline of film history and features the women who had a role in the movie business. Of course, one needs a reference point, so it talks about Edison and his first film in 1895. It lasted 30 seconds and featured a man in the lead role of Mary, Queen of Scots.

It was just one year later when the first woman director appeared on the scene.

Frenchwoman Alice Guy-Blaché began her career as a secretary at a camera manufacturing and film supply company in Paris. Not content with her role as typist-stenographer, she began to familiarize herself with clients, marketing strategies and cameras. She rubbed shoulders with film pioneers like Georges Demeny and the Lumiére brothers.

Alice managed to convince her employer, L. Gaumont et Cie, to let her craft one or two short plays for the entertainment of her friends.  Pitched this way, she was able to try out her newly formed skills, an amazing feat given her gender and youth  -- she was 23 years old.

And so it was that in 1896, Alice directed The Cabbage Fairy, the first of over 1,000 motion pictures she made over the course of her career.

Alice was a pioneer in filmmaking. She foresaw that the novelty of random images on the screen would wear off, and that telling a story was key. She also experimented with sound and special effects, such as running a film in reverse (or slowed down or accelerated), doing double exposures and creating fade-outs.

In addition to director, Alice held the roles of writer, producer and cinematographer.

In 1907, Alice married Herbert Blaché, who was also employed by Gaumont, and resigned. The company sent Herbert to America to set up a Gaumont Chronophone franchise in Cleveland, Ohio. Alice went with him. After the franchise failed, the couple headed to New York.

In 1910, Alice co-founded Solex Studios, the largest studio in America up to that time. Two years later, a new state-of-the-art facility was built at Fort Lee, New Jersey, then a hot spot for filmmaking.

Alice Guy-Blaché made her last film in 1919. By then, Hollywood was taking over as the reigning film capital. Two years later, her studio went bankrupt, and Alice was forced to auction off the studio and its contents. She left America for France in 1922, returning in 1964 to live out her remaining days with her daughter. Alice passed away four years later at the age of 94.

 As is the case with many early films, of the over 1,000 Alice made, only 150 survive today.

Alice placed a large sign in her studio that read, "Be Natural." Which explains the title of a 2018 documentary, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché. I just watched the trailer, now I am smitten. I need to watch the whole thing.

The DVD is being released next month. I. can't.wait!

"There is nothing connected with the staging of a motion picture that a woman cannot do as easily as a man, and there is no reason why she cannot completely master every technicality of the art."   -- Alice Guy-Blaché