 ...Continued from yesterday: As it turns out, two readers knew the answer to yesterday's riddle as evidenced by their posted comments. The two readers who knew the answer just happened by coincidence to be two of my daughters.  Anyway, here's the answer:
 Starring a cast of real side-show performers that both shocked and scandalized the general public,  ... “Freaks” was a horror movie that was too horrifying for its time. The story line of “Freaks” goes as follows: The circus sideshow freaks are a good-hearted and sociable group and among each other they form a close-knit, supportive familial circle. A kind-hearted dwarf named Hans who is well-loved within the freak community and his sweetheart, a tiny dancer named Frieda, are engaged to be married.  A beautiful but evil-hearted trapeze artist named Cleopatra learns that Hans is due to inherit a fortune, though Hans does not yet know this. Cleopatra and her handsome evil lover, a circus strong man named Hercules, plot to get their hands on Han‘s money. Cleopatra pretends to fall in love with Hans and seduces him away from Frieda, then prevails upon him to marry her, which, completely smitten with the irresistible Cleopatra, he does.  Cleopatra, however, intends to poison Hans on their wedding day so that she will inherit his money. Hans and Cleopatra are married, and the freaks joyfully celebrate at their friend’s wedding reception, except for heart-broken Frieda.  While the guests sit around the banquet table feasting and drinking, Cleopatra surreptitiously drops poison into her groom’s wine. The freaks, tipsy and happy, propose a toast to Cleopatra, telling her that even though she’s different from them, they will accept her as one of themselves. Then proceeds the famous (among the film savvy), iconic scene from “Freaks,” in which the Freaks chant over and over again to the horrified Cleopatra: “One of us! One of us! Gooba gobble, gooba gobble, we accept her, we accept her!”  Here's the Youtube link to the "One of us! One of us!" scene in case anybody would like to watch it and become a film savvy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Bnk6VU53Y Cleopatra throws the wine at the freaks and she and Hercules threaten them and insult and shame Hans, who succumbs to the poison.  Hans eventually recovers and he and Frieda are reconciled, but not before the freaks, who have discovered that Cleopatra and Hercules tried to murder Hans for his money, go after the evil pair and deliver to them their just desserts, carrying out a special vengeance on Cleopatra: they capture her and turn her into a sort of squawking duck-woman so that now she, too, is a circus sideshow freak and one of them. "Freaks" was considered so horrifying when it opened in 1932 that the final "duck woman" scene caused audiences to run screaming from the theater. One woman claimed the movie caused her to miscarry. However in the 1960's the film was rediscovered and has since picked up a cult following among hard-core movie buffs such as myself (I'm not actually a cult-follower of "Freaks," just a hard-core movie buff) and the line "One of us! One of us!" is a frequent in-joke reference (that few get but from now on you will) in pop culture, as it has been on The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, South Park, in a hilarious kiddie book my grand daughter likes called Dog Man,  ...and now at the Columbus airport.  I wonder if whoever thought up the Columbus Airport slogan googled it first?  Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaks
2 Comments
What Goodreads reviewers are saying about "Equal and Opposite Reactions": "It's Hallmark meets the Sopranos in this fun and engaging read." "The characters are well developed with lots of sass, drama and wicked humor." "The characters were hilariously and perfectly flawed." "Cleverly plotted and exceptionally well written... part drama and part slapstick comedy." Buy it on Amazon http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa  The other day I found myself once again in the Columbus Airport waiting for my flight to Portland, Oregon for a visit with my sister, Romaine.  Now, over the years I've been to, and spent considerable time in, quite a number of airports: ...Chicago,  ...Los Angeles, 
 ...Minneapolis, 
 ...to name but a few. But of all the airports I've departed from, arrived at, and waited around in, I do believe the best airport of them all is:
 I say this not out of hometown pride. Columbus is a great little airport, part of its charm being that, though an international airport, it's small. One can easily find one's way around and get to where one needs to be. 
 ...and shops,  ... that one need not go hungry or do without anything one might need for one's trip. And Columbus is a comfortable, traveler-friendly airport with lots of comfortable seats and lounges,   
   
 But what I really love about the Columbus airport is that it makes me laugh. The Columbus airport has been making me laugh ever since the inception of a new slogan sometime last year which is posted, 
 ...and hung,  ... everywhere.
 ...in one's line of vision. Which never ceases to crack me up. Now, before I explain to those of you who may have no idea why "One of Us" signs posted all over the Columbus airport is so funny, I'm wondering if there are any fellow aficionados out there who also find this phenomenon hilarious, especially where so presented?  So before I share why this tickles me, I'm going to put the question out there to any other possible culture vultures who might also be in stitches over these pics of the Columbus airport:
 Anybody?
I'll share the answer tomorrow. ;) "EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTIONS" SALE SALE SALE ON AMAZON! Was: $19.95 Now: $16.95 "Fun and entertaining read" "Captures the complex nature of Human Emotions." "Lots of sass, drama, and wicked humor." -Amazon Reviews BUY IT ON SALE AT AMAZON! http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa  Invasion Of The LOL Dolls  If you've never heard of an LOL doll, it's a pretty sure bet you haven't had any recent interchange with a little girl in the four-to-ten-year-old range. For the uninitiated, of which I was a member until my grand daughters introduced me to - nay, immersed me into - the phenomenon,  ...which, if it has not yet taken over the world, has at least taken over my daughter and son-in-law's house,  ...like an army of tiny, variegated, doe-eyed plastic space invaders. 
 ...and the LOL pets.  But the wild popularity of these toys has, I believe, less to do with the little poppets themselves than the fact that they've been marketed with 1). a shtick, and 2). a narrative. 1). The Shtick The LOL Doll's shtick is a relatively recent concept in the toy world - as explained to me by a sales associate in a Barnes & Noble where I had the wildly unexpected luck of finding one of the dolls - known as the Blind Bag, which involves the child opening layers of surprises hidden in little bags before finding the main surprise, in the case of the LOL this being the doll. The LOL Dolls - and their companion L'il Sisters and LOL Pets - are marketed as collectibles and sold in colorful spheres,   ...which require peeling back several layers before the spheres can be popped apart and the bags hidden within opened one by one, offering first little tidbits such as clues to the doll's identity, paper tattoos and stickers, then the more exciting bags containing the teeny weeny clothes and accessories.  Then finally, with the anticipation at its peak, one finds the bag containing the LOL Doll itself, and learns which of the collectibles one has acquired.  But there’s yet another surprise to come.
 Thus opening an LOL Doll is a thrill; however the thrill is most certainly amplified by: 2.) The Narrative A feat of marketing genius, there have been created for the LOL Dolls a number of companion Youtube videos, each about twenty minutes long. The videos generally begin with The Narrator, as I’m calling her – an anonymous young lady one never sees but with a sweet, energetic voice – opening an LOL sphere step by step and voicing much excitement over each discovery. My granddaughters, having watched numerous times this engaging video demonstration on opening the LOL sphere, now imitate the The Narrator's ritual when opening a new LOL Doll, including her vocal inflections and ebullience over each surprise discovery. The opening of an LOL Doll sphere is, then, a highly stylized and time-consuming process, not to be pursued in haste. After the opening - opening – scene, there ensues a little live-action feature in which The Narrator moves the LOL dolls around and speaks the part of each character.
 The story lines tend to cover fairly quotidian subjects such as going to the beach and spilling the sunscreen on the towel then getting sand on the sunscreen; going to the hospital to visit one’s new L’il Sister with spots on one’s face, causing the spots spread to all the new-born L’il Sisters in the nursery; showing the ropes to a clueless teacher at school; and, my granddaughters’ perennial and oft imitated favorite, a birthday party. The videos, sometimes off-beat as the subject matter may be, are entertaining and somehow highly relatable for young children. They’re also rather hilarious.
   …and can even offer a conduit to express – rather than act out – emotions in the face of life’s little downturns. For example, during a hotel stay en route to our trip to Legoland (see post from 4/18/2018 ) my four-year-old granddaughter, while stepping into the elevator, dropped her much-loved, much-prized LOL L’il Sister,* which then bounced into the elevator shaft via the small space at the opening of the elevator door. After a brief bout frantic crying my granddaughter was calmed and soon seemed to have forgotten about the lost doll. But a few days later I overheard my granddaughters playing with their LOL Dolls. “Our baby sister died,” said the four-year-old in her doll’s voice, “she fell down a crack in the elevator.” Her older sister’s doll offered some words of consolation. The younger one then added in the saddest of doll voices, “We really miss our baby sister.”  *At the time of my visit the wildly popular LOL Dolls were hard to come by in California, and if one happened to find one or two on a store shelf – as I did, one time at a Walgreens in Monterey and once at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan Beach – it was only by amazing luck and happenstance. L’il Sisters were even harder to come in by in Los Angeles and I searched to no avail around the Manhattan Beach area for a replacement for my granddaughter’s lost L’il Sister. However since my return to Columbus I’ve seen LOL Dolls in the toy departments of several stores, and by asking around even managed to procure two L’il Sisters, which I sent to my thoroughly delighted granddaughters in Los Angeles  ...and by asking around even managed to procure two L’il Sisters, which I sent to my thoroughly delighted granddaughters in Los Angeles.   "A Quiet Place," A Troubling Metaphor
 ...a really good movie, I thought, delightfully cribbing elements from the original (and still the greatest, in my book) alien invasion movie, the 1953 flick "War of the Worlds," 
 ...which are all the jumpier in this movie because most of the film transpires in silence,  ...as, per the plot line, the humanivore alien invaders are blind but have ears as sharp as their teeth, and one false noise will bring down a lightening-strike chomp upon the unfortunate, helpless noise-maker.
 Still, for most of us "A Quiet Place" is just a movie, the fear and anxiety it produces really nothing more than a few quick thrills of adrenaline that dissipate shortly after the theater lights come back up.
 "You know," said my daughter, a psychology major, "anyone who's been in an abusive relationship with a person with an anger disorder should not see this film. It could bring up some bad upsetting emotions." I could, in fact, understand how the movie could be an emotional trigger for anyone who'd ever lived in a state of subliminal anxiety, who'd ever been conditioned to watch every step so as not to suddenly arouse the inner monster lurking within some close and inescapable relationship.  I could understand how "A Quiet Place" could be an all-too-personal metaphor for an abusive relationship. In fact, since that conversation with my daughter about the movie I've been thinking about a book by Allen Long that I read and subsequently blogged about a few months ago called "Less Than Human" (See post from 10/16/2017),  ...in which the author recounts his childhood in a wealthy suburb at the hands of his socially respected parents who beat him and his brother at the slightest infraction, real or imagined, during an era when corporal punishment was considered such standard operating procedure in the raising of children that an adult's emotional distress and inner rage could be taken out on one's children in the name of love and with society's blessing.
Hence as children Long and his brother lived what seemed to them a normal existence regularly spiked with moments of terror and physical assault, sometimes the terror being worse than the assault. I recommend reading "Less Than Human." I also recommend seeing "A Quiet Place." They're really the same story.  You'll love the book! Amazon reviewers say: - “Lots of sass, drama and wicked humor.” - “It’s Hallmark meets The Sopranos in this fun and engaging read.” - “Emotions run high in this dance of very human passions and struggles.” - “Five Stars.” “Equal and Opposite Reactions” Buy it on Amazon http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa  Legoland  ...Continued from yesterday: Though we arrived at Legoland (see yesterday's post) shortly after the park opened on a chilly, overcast Thursday morning, still we found ourselves already behind a great crowd of park visitors.  On our way to the entrance gate we passed the soon-to-be-opened Legoland Hotel, a massive, 350-room edifice that looked like a giant toy castle.  
  ...populated by Legos.        
   ...and not too unmanageably vast for little legs or parents pushing strollers - I reckoned Legoland to be about half the size of the Ohio State Fair grounds. Maybe even less. A little past the gate entrance was a station at which one could upgrade one’s status to VIP, which I assumed expedited one’s arrival at the head of the ride lines.  We bypassed this option and stopped at what appeared to be a good first destination, a boat ride around a Lego-laden lake, where we saw a Lego London Eye and Big Ben, 
 ...A Lego Taj Mahal, 
   
   ...while those with a VIP pass breezed to the front of the line through a special VIP gate. I told the others to go find another line to stand in. As for me, I intended to go check out the VIP dispensation. Shortly after I took my place at the end of a fairly long line a friendly Legoland guy came down the line and asked how many of us came here after standing in a ride line. A number of hands besides mine went up. The Legoland guy then tore off slips of paper from a pad, handed each of a us a slip and a pen, and proceeded to explain to us how the VIP pass worked. The paper each of us had been handed was an information form that we were required to fill out while standing in line so as to be ready to hand it in when we reached the desk. The Ultimate Pass, at $100 per person, cut the wait time for the rides by 90%. However the Ultimate Passes were already sold out. There were a few Deluxe Passes left at $55 per person, which cut the ride time by 50%. I opted to buy each of us an Express Pass, which cut the wait time by 25%.  So six Express Passes added $125 to the cost of the park tickets, which were $107 per child and $119 per adult. But what the heck, it was Legoland. In for a penny, in for a thousand bucks. Anyway, how the system worked was that one was given a little device that resembled a Tomagotchi.  One pulled up the list of rides, scrolled down to the ride one wished to ride, and pressed "reserve." One would then be given a time, anytime after which one could proceed to the express gate for that ride. This little ride-reserving gizmo actually afforded us an excellent plan of action, as while we were waiting for for our reservation time for one ride, we could either stand in line for another ride, or go spend some time in one of the many play areas,   
 My grand daughters were particularly enchanted by one entitled, "BFF, Best Friends Forever,"  ...and were thrilled to be able to meet some of the friendly, lovely, cast members.   Between our VIP ride reservations we also had plenty of time to stroll around the park and take in the attractions, including the model cities: ...New York, 
 ...and of course, stop for lunch, which we did, at a spot we found that served the best ramen.   And so we spent the day riding the rides,          ...without too much line-waiting, 
    ...even the bathrooms were a sight, 
 ...including my grand daughters trying a game of skill for a prize that involved climbing a rope ladder to the top without falling off,  ...which one of the girls was, amazingly, able to do on her first try. 
 ...which we did, 
 
Off to Legoland  ...Continued from yesterday: Midway through our grand daughters' spring break we all set off to Carlsbad, California for a trip to Legoland, a magnificent Lego-themed amusement park geared towards the young crowd.  As Carlsbad is a good hour-and-a-half drive south from Los Angeles, we decided to leave Thursday afternoon after my daughter and son-and-law finished work, spend the night in Carlsbad and arrive at the park early for a long day of amusement. After a scenic drive margined by mountains,  ..and palm trees,  ...we stopped at a Denny's outside Carlsbad for dinner,   ...where we were surprised, though mayhaps we shouldn't have been, that the chain-restaurant food was so good. Or maybe we were all just muy hungry. In any case, we all ended up liking what we'd ordered: The Grilled Talapia from the 55+ menu,  The Veggie Burger, 
 ...the Skillet Supreme (minus the chorizo sausage) for me, 
 ... who generally are not exposed to such a prefabricated gustatory delicacy at home.  After dinner we headed for our hotel, The Carlsbad Holiday Inn,      
  ...and fire pit. 
 The following morning we rose early, checked out of the Holiday Inn and sought breakfast at a nearby restaurant called the Beach Plum Kitchen. 
 ...and the server offered us blankets - a first-time and much appreciated restaurant experience for us - which, it being a chilly morning, my daughter and I did not turn down.  
 The food was very good, especially the breakfast potatoes. Among us we ordered:
 ,,,French toast, 
 ...and for the girl whose birthday it was that day, a birthday muffin.  After breakfast we were back on the road, following the hordes to our mutual destination.  To be continued...
 ...Continued from yesterday: My grandchildren have the benefit of having one parent of a Jewish background and the other raised with the Christian traditions. And so in their family they celebrate both Chanukah,  
 ...as well as both Passover and Easter, as did Tom and I during our visit. On Saturday morning, March 31, the second day of Passover this year and the day before Easter our grand daughters told us the story of the biblical Ten Plagues upon Egypt that preceded the first Passover.  On the shelf in the background is an afikomen holder our younger grand daughter made at her preschool. The afikomen is a special piece of matzo eaten during the seder meal. 
 ...which I used in a recipe I found on the internet and wanted to try for healthy, low-calorie banana pancakes made only from eggs and mashed bananas. They were actually pretty dreadful, unless drowned in syrup. (When will I ever learn to stop falling for those too-good-to-be-true internet recipes?)  Then we dyed the egg shells.    
   
 The Passover symbols. 
 ...while we ate the traditional and symbolic seder foods, among which were gefilte fish, 
    The following day, Easter Sunday, my daughter and son-in-law hosted an Easter egg hunt and kosher brunch for about 30 children and adults. We started early preparing the food,  
  ...with some friends arriving early to help with the preparations.  The menu included scrambled eggs and a veggie scramble, fruit salad, popcorn, relishes,  ...matzo with assorted toppings, including lox, regular and vegan cheese, cream cheese, hummus, sunflower seed butter, avocado, 
  
 
 When everyone had arrived, and understood what they were supposed to do, 
 When all the eggs were found we moved on to the next activity, which was a raffle MC'd by my daughter, 
 It had been arranged that each guest would end up winning a prize from the trove of treasures we'd gleaned from the Dollar Tree, the biggest hit among which turned out to be the whoopee cushions, which continued to be a source of entertainment for the duration of the party. 
  
  ...and the crowd entertained.   
     ...eating, socializing,      ...and relaxing.   And so the the kosher Easter brunch went on until about 5:15 pm when the last guests left, though they'd have stayed longer if my daughter and son-in-law hadn't had tickets for that evening's L.A. Clippers game. I, of course, invited the guests to stay longer, have some more food, watch some more TV, but the time had come. 
 ...Continued from yesterday: On Friday morning, the R &R segment of our California trip being officially over, Tom and I plunged into the occupational specialty for which we had had been deployed From Columbus, Ohio, to Los Angeles, California: Babysitting our grand daughters over spring break.  Now, while I feel a mix of gladness for and envy of my fellow grandparents who live so close to their offspring that they can be part and parcel of their grandchildren's lives on a regular basis, still, living so far away does give Tom and I the benefit of our visits being special occasions. Thus may we go about our grandparental mission of spoiling to our hearts' content and guilt-free,  ...knowing it's only temporary and therefore unlikely to produce any long-term adverse outcomes in our grandchildren's development.  To that end, as our four-year-old grand daughter's break began on Friday, one school day before her sister's, we planned a full operation of activities for her and a couple of friends who came over for a day-long play date. We started with some supervised nail-painting, 
 The girls then made up a game that involved taking turns blocking the hallway and allowing passage only with the password, which was "bunny shoes and kitty shoes." Grandpa Tom kept getting the password wrong, much to the girls' delight, and hence was denied passage every time. We also took a trip to Pollywog Park (see post from 8/29/2014),    ...after which we went to Mandy's for lunch (see yesterday's post), where the girls were fascina-ted by the counter seating,  ...and the old-fashioned claw-crane vending machine. 
 ...then returned home for another round of playtime before it was time to retrieve the big sisters from school.  And so at the end of that first day of our grandparental call of duty we could say that the day's maneuver went down with unanticipated success - no casualties: no fighting, crying, or boo-boos - and much thankfulness on Tom's and my part that we'd built up almost enough stamina for just such a mission as this one by having twice hiked the 497- mile Camino de Santiago across northern Spain. (see https://www.andlightenyourpack.com/ and https://pattiliszkay.weebly.com/)  Day One: mission accomplished.
 ...Continued from yesterday: Tom an I returned from Monterey to Los Angeles on Wednesday. As our grandchildren's spring break hadn't yet started, we had most of Thursday to ourselves to while away as we wished. So after dropping the kids off at school we started the day at our favorite breakfast spot, a little local eatery called Mandy's, 
 ...while Tom went Rogue One and ordered the epic strawberry-topped Pancakes. 
    
 
 Amazingly, Scotty's is never crowded, even though the price is right, it's located right on the beach with a view of the Hermosa Beach Pier,  ...and the food is soooo good. Among us we had the roast chicken,  ...the Veggie burger, 
 ...ba-sketti, 
 Mayhaps Scotty's simply lacks a schtick. Which is fine by us.  To be continued...
...Continued from yesterday: On Wednesday, March 28, Tom and I said good-bye to our quarters at the Presidio of Monterey military hotel (see post from 4/1/2018).  On our way to the airport we stopped at the Presidio Historical Park, located on a hilltop next to the army post, to have a look at the views below us of Monterey Bay and the surrounding landscape,   
 ...which chronicles the history of the Presidio of Monterey - "presidio" is Spanish for fortress - from its construction on that site by Spanish soldiers in 1771 to the present. In the park was posted this sign,  ...the wording of which ― especially the use of the word "hosted" ― made me laugh. (The Native Americans really should have left the Spanish, Mexicans and Americans off their guest list). As the Spanish priest Junipero Sierro (see yesterday's post) accompanied the Spanish army to Monterey, founded a mission here (which he later moved to Carmel - see post from 4/7/2018), and oversaw the economic development of the region, there is a statue of him in the park on a spot overlooking Monterey Bay.  In 2015 when Junipero Serra was proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church there was protest against his canonization because of his subjugation and mistreatment of Native Americans and his forced suppression of their culture. At the time of his canonization some mystery protesters cut off Junipero Serra's head and threw it into the bay where it was later found. A new head was made and reattached. After our visit to the Presidio Historical Park we headed to the Monterey Airport.  We grabbed some lunch at the sole airport restaurant, where the food was not noteworthy,   ...except, perhaps, for the noteworthiness of the bread of my veggie sandwich being remarkably stale and my French fries being remarkably cold. But then, this was the only restaurant in the airport, so I guess the customers are pretty much a captive audience. 
 
|
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio 
Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
Archives
September 2023
I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers. Categories |
RSS Feed
Proudly powered by Weebly