Penning the End and Beginning the New

~ LobaBlanca

Happy New Year, denizens!

There. I was remiss before. Now, I’m…unremiss.

I wandered away from the lair for some end-of-season celebrating. Penn’s sylvan city of brotherly love played surprise host to the festivities. I haven’t been to Philadelphia since a high school field trip my Senior year, so it was interesting to see it from an adult perspective…and for more than a quick day trip.

Plus, they do seem to enjoy the New Year party mentality. There were fireworks twice: once at 6 p.m. Saturday evening and again at the midnight hour. There was also a dazzling number of people roaming the streets, adorned with all variety of flashing and flickering gaudiness, enjoying the various vice-fueled buzzes that would carry them into the new year. I was disappointed, however, that, yet again, no one tried to ring that big famous bell, giant crack be damned. Honestly, why no one’s tried to patch that thing up yet eludes me.

Let me in there…I’ll have her good as new in no time.

Actually, we didn’t engage in any Americana worship at all this trip (although we did walk past the Liberty Bell twice). This was more of a food extravaganza journey. The prime destination on New Year’s Eve was a tapas restaurant, Amada. They offered a special New Year’s Eve menu, which consisted of what seemed like a never-ending arrival of little plates containing all manner of decadence. It was an experience that shames any previous concept of the phrase “food coma.” The rest of the evening is honestly a bit of a glorious blur. All I know is that fireworks occurred again. Indeed.

Did you know that Philly holds a pretty much all-day parade on New Year’s Day? It’s called the Mummers Parade and it’s this insane blending of all sorts of traditions from all sorts of ethnic influences. Basically, it’s a day-long party parade that represents the blended ethnic motif of the city itself.

Not really being parade people, we avoided most of the Mummers festivities…although at some point we did get to witness drunken douchebaggery dressed in flamboyant Mardi Gras jester attire. Apparently, drinking starts early at the Mummers Parade and doesn’t stop until well after dark. Neither, unfortunately, does the douchebaggery. Needless to say, I was not expecting to encounter the aforementioned merry band of miscreants who, for several uncomfortable blocks, serenaded any woman within their visual range with the visceral chant for them to “reveal their endowments.” Oh, the shear poetry of it all.

However, inebriated revelry was nowhere to be found at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There was, however, an abundance of lovely art…and a lot of furniture. There was also an entire section devoted to armor and weaponry, which I found surprisingly fascinating. I think it was the horse armor. How do you not love horse armor?

Afterward, we roamed the city, allowing its culinary redolence to lead us through its grid of diverse neighborhoods. Unfortunately, it being New Year’s Day and all, a lot of places were closed, including the place we wanted to go for what many have rated one of Philly’s best cheese steaks. The more touristy places, Pat’s and Geno’s, were both open, with lines that curled in on themselves like ravenous M

Flashback Friday: “Shake Your Love”

~ LobaBlanca

I know what you’re thinking right now. “But, Loba, you’ve already done an entire Flashback Friday dedicated to Debbie Gibson! Why another one just for one of her songs?”

I have my reasons, denizens. Lemme ‘splain.

So one of my Internet PersonalitiesTM is currently subjecting me to a viewing marathon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m almost halfway through the third season. It’s a bit of a manic experience, I can assure you. However, the highs are exponentially higher than the lows are low (thus far), so I’m sticking with it.

One of the secondary characters who arrived in the first season and immediately caught my attention was Jenny Calendar, the computer science teacher and, as we soon learn, a “techno pagan” whose mad Internet searching skills quickly come in handy to “the Scooby Gang.”

Robia LaMorte Totally Looks Like Nana Visitor

One of the things that makes me laugh the most about Calendar’s arrival at Sunnydale High is how in awe the Gang is of her computer skills (and how distrusting Watcher Giles is of anything that doesn’t slide back onto a bookshelf once he’s finished reading it). I had almost forgotten how new and unknown things like personal computers and teh Interwebz were back in the mid 90s. So quaint. It’s also a nice juxtaposition that Whedon makes with her character being both a dabbler in the dark arts and a dabbler in the techie arts, which when they were first catching on were viewed by many with an equal level of distrust as being nothing more than electronic hocus pocus. Good one, Whedon.

So what does all this have to do with Debbie Gibson? Jenny Calendar was portrayed by an actress named Robia LaMorte. Okay, right now I also know what you’re thinking: That has to be a stage name. LaMorte? “The Death”? I know, I know. Strangely, enough, this is her real name. And before she was an actress, she was a dancer.

Starting to click for you yet?

That’s right. If you watch the video for Gibson’s song “Shake Your Love,” you will see a 16-year-old LaMorte bopping along in the background with her Jennifer Beals-esque hair. Look for the dark-haired girl in the white T-shirt and the backward suspenders…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldE800eFJps&w=640&h=480]

Sometimes I really miss the 80s. Then I remember Reagan and the fact that I was a pudgy little nerd at a Baptist school and I get over it.

It gets better, though. LaMorte went on to be “Pearl” for Prince’s Diamonds and Pearls album. She appeared with Lori Elle (“Diamond”) in several of the videos for songs from this album and even accompanied Prince on his “Diamonds and Pearls” tour back in the early 90s. I’d post a link for one of the videos but Prince doesn’t allow his music on YouTube. Even if I found a video online now, it’d be a dead link in a few weeks. Instead, here’s a screen capture of LaMorte and Elle sandwiching the tiny Purple One in some dance moves from, I believe, “Cream.”

Not long after she finished touring with Prince, LaMorte hung up her dance shoes and decided to chase the acting dream for a little while…which is how she eventually found her way to Sunnydale High. My first encounter with her, however, (other than “Shake Your Love,” of course) was as Joan Marks, from the CSI episode “You’ve Got Male.”

It’s a small one, this geeky world I inhabit.

And now for the…well, not the bad news. But the weird news. Apparently, LaMorte found Jesus. Three months after hitching her wagon to the Buffy Train, she became a Christian. Playing a techno pagan.

Yes, I am making a face right now. It’s my “difficult to process” face. But you know what? It’s obviously something that gives her fulfillment. So much so, in fact, that she runs her own ministry. You’re making a face now, too. I can tell. But it’s all good. She can have her faith. And I can have Jenny Calendar and “Shake Your Love.”

See? And here you all thought this was going to be another Flashback Friday on Debbie Gibson. You all should know me better than that, denizens…

The Holidays As They Were Intendant…

~ lobablanca

Yes, denizens, it’s time once again for me to drop a little holiday geekery on you. I’m returning to my Trek roots this year, with a traditional geeky greeting from the Mistress of All Things Naughty, The Intendant.

Because, really, nothing says holiday cheer quite like an unhinged Bajoran wrapped in a pleather onesie.

Whatever your pleasure might be…whether it’s pleather or tweed or somewhere in between, I wish you the merriest of days, filled with peace, love, and joy.

Flashback Friday: “Silent Night”

~ lobablanca

It was a decrepit building, not really fit for anything more than storage. My father always said that walking inside reminded him of walking into the aquarium store that his father would take him to when he was a little kid. Strange how dropping me off and picking me up from kindergarten made my dad think of Siamese fighting fish and freshwater tanks.

To me, however, this drab, befittingly cruciform building was my baptism into the world of religious schooling. Within the boundaries of those butter cream-tinted cinder block walls, I wrote my first words, made my first fumbling attempts at friendships, first learned that I was loved by a supreme being

BookBin2011: Blankets

~ LobaBlanca

I suppose it would be a bit naive of me to think that I can have an objective opinion of Craig Thompson’s illustrated novel (his rather concise term) Blankets. Even though I knew nothing about the novel when I hefted it from the library shelf and added it to my pile, it ended up being one of the most surprisingly accessible books I’ve picked up in a very long time.

Thompson, born one year before me, is a contemporary not only in age and pop culture references (his affinity for the grunge music scene is particularly well defined through mostly wordless background references that might slip past you if you’re not paying attention), but also in religious experiences. His autobiographical protagonist goes through many of the same ordeals that I went through as a student at a Christian high school. His questions, fears, conundrums, and ultimately, his deliverance from these spiritual quandaries are more often than not identical to my own experiences.

And there I’ve gone and given away the ending. But only if you know me well…

Thompson’s journey through his religious and familial morasses is much darker, much more complex than mine ever was, which adds a newness to a slightly recognizable story and provides greater opportunity to develop a sense of empathy for our hero. His experiences with the ostracizing impact of adolescence and fumbling attempts at first love ultimately make him more fallible and more endearing with each page. Also, Thompson’s artistic skills are enviable. Blankets is a perfect example of why the graphic medium is such a powerful contributor to the literary world. In fluid lines and simple shadowing, Thompson is able to convey the complexities of emotion and beauty that often defy description. His artwork is elegant, observational, reverent, and beguiling.

Final Verdict: Alas, I must return this copy to our library where, hopefully, many others will discover its subtle beauty and depth. I would love to have a copy of this book in my library. Dear Amazon.com Marketplace, make me an offer I can’t refuse…

Flashback Friday: Frosty the Snowman

~ LobaBlanca

You may have noticed a lot of love at the lair recently for Rankin/Bass. Well, kind of love. As much love as you can possibly find in something like my Donner Party movie poster. Then, of course, there was my recent door decoration post for a proposed new Rankin/Bass special, Walken in a Winter Wonderland.

It’s true, denizens, while I might have a strange way of showing it, I adore Rankin/Bass holiday specials. In fact, Christmas simply didn’t exist in my mind when I was little without four things: A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman. Two of those four were brought to my childhood by Rankin/Bass.

Frosty, unlike Rudolph, wasn’t a stop-motion animation. Instead, it’s a traditional animated cartoon. However, as was par for the course for a lot of Rankin/Bass specials, it did have a “very special” narrator. Rudolph had Burl Ives. Frosty had Jimmy Durante. I had actually forgotten this fact until tonight; it’s been years since I saw this cartoon. Too many years. Guess that’s why I just felt the need to order it on DVD, along with Rudolph and the Grinch. I need a little Christmas, denizens. And so do you. So enjoy Jimmy Durante and his animated nose, singing the eponymous song to Frosty the Snowman. Thumpety-thump-thump, thumpety-thump-thump, look at that Frosty go…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkoq_DKSdcs&w=640&h=480]

Ode to…P

~ LobaBlanca

I love the Muppets. A lot. I’ve already talked about how Jim Henson is one of the greatest influences from my childhood. Seriously, the two things that continue to make me proud to be an alumna of the University of Maryland at College Park are: my three aunts graduated from there; and Jim Henson graduated from there.

I still haven’t made it to see the new Muppets movie. I’m actually quite irritated with myself over this fact. I haven’t wanted to go see a movie in a very long time, but frog dammit, I want to see this one. Time to finally finish off that Fandango card!

In the interim, however, I’ve been watching some of the YouTube videos put out by Muppet Studios. Two have quickly become my favorites. Two of my favorite recurring characters are Beaker and the Swedish Chef. Poor Beaker, always getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop stick, no matter what. All the horrible things that Bunsen Honeydew did to him, yet he continued to rise like some kind of orange-tufted, felty Messiah (ooh, have I offended the fundamentalists? Good). Even when he’s on his own, as in this video, he still somehow attracts an incomparable level of disaster that is equal parts traumatic and hilarious. Okay, that’s a lie. They’re just hilarious…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnT7pT6zCcA&w=640&h=360]

And then there’s the Swedish Chef. I can only imagine that he must be offensive on some level to true Swedes. Right? I mean, come on, such a blatant mockery of their native language must ruffle their feathers at least a little. Yet there’s something so delightfully underdoggish about the Swedish Chef. He’s utterly incompetent and frighteningly inept at his profession. But he means well in his attempts. And he botches his dishes in such hysterically horrifying ways…such as this attempt to make P

BookBin2011: La Perdida

~ LobaBlanca

This was a last-minute impulse grab from the graphic novel section as I was trying to leave the library during my last visit. I’d already pulled a stack of books from this section (most of which I’ve already finished and written up here), but there was something so very…forsaken about this novel. It sat, separate from the other novels, missing its dust jacket, its hardback cover showing its title and author only on the spine. I don’t know why, but I have a bit of a soft spot for hardback books that have lost their jackets.

And thus I ended up adding Jessica Abel’s La Perdida to my stack of selections. Translated as “The Lost,” La Perdida leads us through a year-long look at life in Mexico City, as experienced by the novel’s protagonist, Carla Olivares. Born to an American mother and Mexican father, Carla spends most of her early life trying to distance herself from the Mexican half of her heritage. However, as she grows more disillusioned with her urbanal existence as a 20-something Chicagoan, she decides to leave everything behind to drop in on her ex-boyfriend Harry, a rather stereotypical “wealthy WASP” who has chosen to live in Mexico City because his literary hero, William S. Burroughs, lived there for a brief time (he fled to Mexico City to escape possible jail time in Louisiana only to end up in a Mexican jail after killing his wife during a drunken game of William Tell.)

[Loba Tangent: There is a part of me that was greatly amused by the serendipity of discovering so many references to Burroughs throughout this novel, considering my recent discovery and appreciation of Beat Generation literature.]

Harry soon tires of Carla’s presence and kicks her out. However, rather than return home, Carla chooses to remain in the country illegally, an expatriate desperate to not only experience “true Mexico” but to be accepted by a collection of locals with whom she has become friends since her arrival. These include Oscar, a winsome if somewhat witless drug dealer who dreams of one day touring the United States as a renowned DJ and with whom she falls into a rather indeterminate relationship; and Memo, a false prophet of

Philanthropy Friday

~ LobaBlanca

Change of plans today, denizens. As we move ever closer into the holiday season, I thought I would take a moment to praise some of the old and new organizations to which I have either religiously made donations or to which I plan to donate.

I know that this is not a kind economy right now, and that things like charity donations typically fall off everyone’s radars during these lean times. However, if you can spare a few dollars and would like to put them to maximum use, here are four suggestions that receive the Loba Pawprint of Approval:

Defenders of Wildlife: In an utterly unsurprising announcement, I am a staunch animal lover and armchair environmentalist. I’ve been donating to Defenders of Wildlife since I was in college, and I continue to believe in and respect their efforts. They are consistently ranked by Worth magazine as one of the best charities in the United States, with the largest portion of received donations being put toward their protective efforts, rather than in covering administrative costs or purchasing poorly made give-aways to clog up your mailbox (like certain other charities to which I will never donate again). Defenders not only has never overwhelmed me with give-aways, they also ask me if I would rather opt out of the give-away when I do donate. I really like that. They also know me well enough that they always send me wolf-specific information when it’s time to remind me to renew my membership. They’ve been fighting to protect wildlife since 1947, which makes me think they must know a little bit about what they’re doing.

Pat Summitt Foundation: It is wrong to anthropomorphize a disease, but if you did, then Alzheimer’s would be a brutal, harsh betrayer…a Judas with a kiss that is lingering, debilitating, unstoppable, and cruel. There is nothing poetic in its deconstruction of mind and spirit, and it leaves bystanders with nothing to do but sit by helplessly and watch as the person they love is stolen from them piece at a time until there is nothing left. It needs to be stopped, and if there is anyone with the fortitude to help bring the beginning of the end to this disease, it’s Pat Summitt. I’ve already spoken my part on how I feel about Coach Summitt. If anything, I respect her even more than before, and I am so in awe of how she has yet again stepped up to the challenge placed before her with 100-percent focus and dedication. I wish I could say that I believe she can outpace this disease and add it as another win for her record books. I do believe that she will dedicate herself wholly to her offensive stance against it, and through giving her name and support to research against the disease, I believe that she will have a huge impact in bringing the support and funding needed to move that much closer to the cure.

Penny Lane: This is another new addition to my list, brought to my attention by someone else I respect and admire…and ironically, another Pat. This time, it’s that zombie-bashing, phaser-firing, mind-reading stunt actress extraordinaire, Patricia Tallman. I learned about this foundation by reading Tallman’s recent memoir, Pleasure Thresholds and decided that it needed further investigation. The foundation’s California-based centers provide therapeutic residential services, foster family placements, transitional housing, and outpatient mental health services to more than 1,400 abused and neglected children and youth. Tallman has been a long-time advocate of Penny Lane’s efforts, even starting her own “Be A Santa” program in 1998. Hint, hint…it’s the perfect time of year to help with the Be A Santa program.

RAINN: This is the other organization to which I have donated since college. I first learned about them through their founder, Tori Amos. She started RAINN as a way to respond to the many fans who reached out to her with their own stories when she stepped forward as the survivor of sexual assault. This is another close to the top of the list of Worth magazine’s highest-ranking U.S. charities, with 92 percent of every dollar donated going to helping victims of sexual violence, educating the public, and improving public policy. It’s also another charity that doesn’t overwhelm you with give-aways or pester you with repeated mailings. I receive regular e-mails, but the only time I ever receive postal mail from them is when I haven’t made a donation in a while. Additionally, as far as I can tell, they have never sold my contact information to any other organizations or affiliates. I really respect them for that.

There you go. If you can give something, please do. If not, that’s okay, too. And if you want additional recommendations, just look to the right of the screen, under the heading “Give It Up, For Good.”