Monday with Hayley Mills: Sitting Pretty

Sitting Pretty

Monday with Hayley Mills: Why I Quit Chemotherapy After Surgery To Remove Cancer

Hayley Mills: Why I Quit Chemotherapy After Surgery To Remove Cancer

Monday With Hayley Mills: 3 Covers

A tale of 3 Covers

PAPERCRAFT: Bully the Little Stuffed Bull

Enjoy this papercraft  
Doctor Who Universe - Cassandra Variant of 
Bully the Little Stuffed Bull!

Back to School: Drive Safe

It's okay for the kids in class to let their minds wander but not you if you are driving.

Pay attention.

Don't worry about what song comes up next on the mp3 player, unless you are into 70's live stadium rock then the song will be over in about 3 minutes and move to the next. Deal with it.

Put down the phone.

STFU.

Nothing you could text, tweet or update is so important you can't keep your eyes where they belong, on the road in front of you.

I Remember School Days by Peter Whalley from Maclean’s (March 19, 1955).

Papercraft: Explore the Spaceways!

From Science Comics #7 (August 1940) is this 2-page text story about space exploration and claiming a moon of Jupiter in the name of the United States and the One World Government. A few pages of text were often added to comic books in order to qualify for a less expensive postal rate and on occasion were interesting and worth a read. DC Comics was the master of this practice in the late 1950s and through the 1960s with their educational features and "Flash Facts".

This Golden Age feature is noteworthy if not for the expansionist creed then the arts and crafts page that is featured earlier in the book. Readers can build their own papercraft rocket ship that is representative of that throughout the different drawn tales in this issue including the text story! Readers can explore the galaxy for themselves! Pretty keen and gorgeously retro to today's sensibilities.  

Unfortunately while the story is credited to Fox Comics house author Nathaniel Nitkin (a.k.a. N. N. Nathaniel) the text and rocket art could be from any or none of the illustrators who worked on the book itself. The perceived disposable nature of work-for-hire pop entertainment was one of many factors that had the sad result of creators not being properly credited for years. A practice that stretched from the beginning of the pulps that persists in many formats to present day.

Any papercrafters that make their own rocket and send me a link I'll post your work. By the way, the instructions don't say you have to make rocket motor noises when playing with your finished model but, come on, don't pretend you won't.

Show your work.

Monday with Hayley Mills: Arts & Crafts

Hayley Mills trying some arts and crafts from The Trouble With Angels (1966).

HEY, Y'ALL! STFU AND READ!

READ THEN LISTEN

February 26, 2012

Dispatcher: Sanford Police Department.

Zimmerman: Hey we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there’s a real suspicious guy, uh, Retreat View Circle, um, the best address I can give you is 111 Retreat View Circle. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy is he white, black, or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing?

Zimmerman: Yeah. A dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie, and either jeans or sweatpants and white tennis shoes. He’s [unintelligible], he was just staring…

Dispatcher: OK, he’s just walking around the area…

Zimmerman: …looking at all the houses.

Dispatcher: OK…

Zimmerman: Now he’s just staring at me.

Dispatcher: OK, you said it’s 1111 Retreat View? Or 111?

Zimmerman: That’s the clubhouse…

Dispatcher: That’s the clubhouse, do you know what the–he’s near the clubhouse right now?

Zimmerman: Yeah, now he’s coming towards me.

Dispatcher: OK.

Zimmerman: He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male.

Dispatcher: How old would you say he looks?

Zimmerman: He’s got button on his shirt, late teens.

Dispatcher: Late teens ok.

Zimmerman: Somethings wrong with him. Yup, he’s coming to check me out, he’s got something in his hands, I don’t know what his deal is.

Dispatcher: Just let me know if he does anything ok

Zimmerman: How long until you get an officer over here?

Dispatcher: Yeah we’ve got someone on the way, just let me know if this guy does anything else.

Zimmerman: Okay. These assholes they always get away. When you come to the clubhouse you come straight in and make a left. Actually you would go past the clubhouse.

Dispatcher: So it’s on the left hand side from the clubhouse?

Zimmerman: No you go in straight through the entrance and then you make a left…uh you go straight in, don’t turn, and make a left. Shit he’s running.

Dispatcher: He’s running? Which way is he running?

(Sound of Truck Door Opening/Closing)

Zimmerman: Down towards the other entrance to the neighborhood.

Dispatcher: Which entrance is that that he’s heading towards?

Zimmerman: The back entrance…fucking [unintelligible]

Dispatcher: Are you following him?

Zimmerman: Yeah.

Dispatcher: Ok, we don’t need you to do that.

Zimmerman: Ok.

A few minutes later...

Independence Day PSA for 2013

Hey, while you are all out and about this July 4th and adjacent days the holiday is being observed I would really appreciate if this Independence Day I could have independence from bonehead drivers. My wife is driving to work during the evening. So if any of you want to watch the pretty sparkles in the sky pull over, don't abruptly slow down to a crawl or stop on the highway every year, like so many of you idiots do.

You know who you are so no, I'm not going to be nice about it. If having spouse almost die in a wreck because you really shouldn't be driving anything more dangerous than a Radio Flyer prompts me to be impolite so be it and screw you.

Monday with Hayley Mills: 20 to LIFE

Photo of actor Hayley Mills for a multi-page feature of celebrities by veteran LIFE photographer Gjon Mili.

Cover photo for the 2nd part of the story Communism by Ralph Morse. The cover price of this slickly-printed high-quality magazine in 1961 was 20 cents which, coincidentally enough, was what a human life in Vietnam was worth in that same year.

New, Improved Star Trek Into Darkness

Energize the hyperlink for a description of the new and improved Uhura vs Klingon scene from Star Trek Into Darkness.

Possible Site Move

Today I received one of those emails warning me that this blog is designated as an adult site and I may have it shuttered by the end of the month. A three day notice. If it happens I will appeal on obvious grounds. But the last time blog was locked (I suspect it was from one of those kindly, WWJD Godly Christian trolls I was dealing with at the time who made a spurious revenge complaint) I lost about 20-30 posts when it came back.

Absurdly there is almost no direct way to correct Blogger that a mainly comic book and Hayley Mills-centric website is hardly full of adult themes. Apparently many, many people have received the same warning. Some users that received the emails are whiners about to lose their years of pornography and associated advertisements, some have what Blogger terms as "adult" that are actually mature only in that they are about such topics as breast cancer, other diseases and aspects of human and civil rights such as LGBT, DOMA and some various politics. Someone needs to parse the difference between "Adult" and "ADULT".

The "improvements" over the last couple years to Blogger has incrementally pushed me away from the service. The GUI has gradually become more of a pain to use, where it was once a few clicks. Now, everything is multiple drop downs, saving, opening again to access a menu that doesn't show until after saved and other annoyances. The big irritant for me was the limitations to formatting and pictures. Loyalty, for the most part, along with some inertia has kept me here. If indeed this site is shuttered then I will probably make the full leap to WordPress and also Tumblr, which is where about 80% of my posts have been going anyways. I have about 20 posts in the queue waiting to go so at least I'll stick around here until those are live. They'll export to WordPress at any rate so if you change feed overe there you won't miss anything.

You can find me here also:
Wordpress: http://ladythatsmyskull.wordpress.com/

Tumblr: http://ladythatsmyskull.tumblr.com/

Twitter: @Sleestak

FB (as reposting platform only. No real use for it)

Monday with Hayley Mills: More like Incredible Table

From The Parent Trap (1961)

True Life Secrets: Short Story

I don't know if it was intentional but these two separate covers for True Life Secrets tells a story of wanton betrayal, jealousy and revenge. Neither book contains a story with a scene resembling the cover action. The first is a pretty iconic cover, having been used on a few books and as examples of the genre.

True Life Secrets #23 (November-December 1954) is a recycled cover, initially published in My Desire Intimate Confessions #4 (April 1950).  The second cover, with the angry gent wanting to know just what the lady did to get the pricey necklace is from True Life Secrets #25 (March 1955). So while the story presented by the covers is coincidental it is pretty neat to have turned out that way.

If I saw issue #25 on the rack back in the 1950s I would have picked it up based on my memory of cover #23. I would have been disappointed but cover disconnect was the way the comic book  game was played back then. The budget, deadlines, disposable nature of comic books back then and people not giving a darn about the craft contributed to the practice. Covers were uncomplicated sales gimmicks and rarely represented the contents.

The art for the issue #23 is credited to Leon Winink and Ray Osrin. The second book is uncredited.

Monday with Hayley Mills: Camp Inch Army Base, South of Cam Ranh Bay, 1969

Let's Get Together: A story of Vietnam featuring an hallucination of Hayley Mills. Hey, I know the feeling.

The Monroe Doctrine As A Memory-Restorer

The Monroe Doctrine As A Memory-Restorer

A short article from the science section of The Literary Digest (January 5, 1907) on psychological therapy and the effectiveness of the reading of a 1823 U.S. Government policy declaration as a remedy for alcohol-induced amnesia may be a parody but it's hard to tell. I'd definitely declare it is for laughs except it is in a section of the periodical devoted to otherwise serious medicine and science. The British Medical Journal definitely did not take the study very seriously.

I don't know enough about medicine to determine if the "experimental distraction method" will restore memories. It appears to be, if not quaint junk science, then the testing of hypotheses during an age of discovery and scientific expansion to find out what is effective and what is not. From reading the article it occurs to me that several factors contributed to any successes from the experiment, the primary of which may be an alcoholic patient who suffered a blackout sitting in a dark room drying out, relaxing and recovering from over his hangover. 

Pull quote on the Distraction Method: "With a scientific candor which transcends patriotism he admits that it is less stimulative than the ticking of a stop-watch."

Science marches on.
 

 

Another Tiger Bustin' Hero

 

Malikar and Vekyra ride the Golden Tiger. From Weird Tales (April 1933). Art by J. Allen St. John. 

A part of Tiger Bustin' Heroes.

Monday with Hayley Mills: Camp Inch insignia

 Here is my recreation of the Camp Inch summer camp uniform insignia featured in the 1961 magnum effing opus The Parent Trap starring Hayley Effing Mills. The closest leaf I could find that represented the camp logo was the Red Maple. Close but not exact. I may re-do it later to make it more faithful to the film like a high quality Star Wars prop. As it stands it is as faithful as the off-model Space Enforcer Wars prop you find for sale in a dollar store. Don't be surprised if it gets updated.

The camp insignia was presumably created by or under legendary costume designer Bill Thomas. I'd kill for a peek at some original sketches from the Disney vault. I would. I really would. The transformation of the twin's mother Margaret via fashion throughout the movie is often a point of discussion about The Parent Trap (though why you'd not discuss only Hayley is anyone's guess). You'd think with all the Parent Trap-mania over the last 5 decades someone else would have made this insignia by now.  

You'd think.


Many shirts, hats, underwears will soon have this embroidered onto my wardrobe.

A bit more on the real world Camp Inch. One of the places that was the basis for Camp Inch is the religious stronghold Camp Crestridge for Girls. Wikipedia deleted the page about the camp for being "not notable" which is stupid because of the very notable eternal connection to Parent Trap. I blame the diseased abomination which is the remake poisoning the Parent Trap legacy.

 Yes, I do own this and by extension, you.

Monday with Hayley Mills: Statuesque

Actress Hayley Mills posing with some Disney statues circa 1960s.

No Jelly

Vintage candy bar ad by surrealist illustrator and graphic designer Roger Hane from 1972.