By Maggie Thompson on 7/22/2008 3:24 AM

Why so few entries in the blog? Why will there be so few over the next week?

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go -- and this afternoon, fingers crossed, I'll be in San Diego, picking up exhibitor badges (Booth #1419) prior to Comic-Con International: San Diego.

Onward!

By Maggie Thompson on 7/15/2008 8:58 AM

It was a long day July 9, packed with incident, on the first-ever day with Jonah and Maggie just hanging out together. We began by stocking up in Appleton for the ensuing adventure and then, when we got back to Iola, we stuck the frozen foods in the (duh) freezer, the refrigerated foods guess where, and then hopped in the car for the only time we could visit the Iola Old Car Show grounds via automobile. And it was a blast. I'd handed Jonah my back-up camera, I carried mine, and we looked at Rare Old Cars. Jonah took brilliant photos (really excellent! great shots!) and noted that two license plates were identical. We talked with a man who explained that the collector plates go to the collector, rather than the vehicle -- and confirmed to me that the collector who owned a huge string of collector cars was Ken Buttolph, whom I know.

 
This isn't one of Kenny's cars, but I thought it was a terrific photo. Who'd have guessed that Jonah's only 7? Here's another one:

We ate ice cream cones at the food building and then drove home, where we had supper (fried egg sandwiches) and then to bed. Zzzzzz. Oh, while we were settling down, neighbor George Cuhaj came over and we lolled about chatting for a bit, with George saying he'd be opening his sale the next morning at 9 a.m. -- and Jonah and I dropped by off and on throughout the ensuing days to give George's mom a break at monitoring the garage sale (and give Jonah a chance to evaluate the many, many Hot Wheels cars on sale there).
 
We slept July 10 till 7:15 (actually, Jonah said he woke up at 6:58) and then got breakfast (bagel -- his with butter, mine with peanut butter) and made A Drink Experiment. We did a blind taste test on some of the bottled juices I'd picked up the night before. I liked CBOO, PERR, and GRGO and was hesitant about STKI. He liked STKI and CBOO, didn't like PERR, and was hesitant about GRGO. (Hey, I said it was a blind taste test.) Explanations will follow someday. We had three left to test. Jonah had also begun work on a puzzle of the world that covered most of a table, and we experimented with some color-mixing markers.
 
And the Wii was a complete hit. The basic sports it comes with kept us jumping, and he went on to try a DecaSports disc which is much more complicated, with the controllers used differently with each game. After a stretch of that (during which he concluded that, in the soccer game, it was easier to kick the ball into his own goal), we returned to the basic disc. While the basic disc it came with is, indeed, basic, the boxing was an unexpected workout (and he did better than I did). We fared badly a little equally at tennis, but he served much better than I. (And I'd had some time to practice some of the games.) I'm going to send the Maryland Thompsons their own Wii console.What with the Wii and a stint at the village swimming pool, we actually forgot to eat lunch Thursday.  We just went from event to event, swimming for more than an hour, substituting for George's mom, working on the puzzle map, etc.

Friday we swam again, and the rest of Friday was a combination of helping at George's garage sale, working on the world puzzle (which we never finished but have a strategy for the next time he has an extended visit), swimming in the late afternoon, and the Wii. I put in the Simpsons disc, and he was great at it -- at least, compared to my pathetic achievements. (I never got beyond being repeatedly knocked out by the cho ... Read More »

By Maggie Thompson on 6/23/2008 7:56 AM

'Nuff said?

By Maggie Thompson on 6/17/2008 8:52 AM

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was much fun in the theater: It barrelled along satisfyingly with just the right number of Eek! and Yes! moments.

And I picked up the hardcover by James Rollins, "Based on the story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, and the screenplay by David Koepp."

It's nicely straightforward, an excellent reminder of the entertainment and a faithful transcription of the script as performed on screen, along with some bonuses. Such as this paragraph on Page 78, featuring the confrontation when Dean Stanforth (played by Jim Broadbent) breaks the news to Indy that he's in trouble.

Indy reminds him, "They're good kids."

Thanks!

By Maggie Thompson on 6/17/2008 8:22 AM

I took it for granted that acquiring the Wii console would be the end of problems in working out with Nintendo's gaming system. After finding that the basic games did, indeed, get me more active (if you sign on as a beginner, Bowling -- for example -- is very forgiving), I also realized that (at least the way I played them) the games provided most exercise for my right arm and little else.

Even understanding that the way I was playing Tennis was not the way that a tennis-player would play tennis, I became more interested in the Wii Fit equipment. One review I'd come across said that, for example, the hoop game could provide a full-body workout in six minutes. Hot diggety! I'll just go buy Wii Fit and go for more serious exercise.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was the "Hunt for the Wii" process all over again. Nobody had it. I tried an two-hour round trip to Appleton to check all the possible stores. Nothing. Asked at service desks for estimated arrival dates. It was first come, first served again (with at least one service-desk staffer expressing considerable hostility -- not for me, but for Nintendo). I alerted my buddies to keep an eye out for it. I set up a schedule of telephone calls with possible venues. (When does the store open? When does it unload the truck?) The Best Buy recorded telephone pick-up seemed a little crabby, as it said something along the lines of, "If you're calling about the Wii Fit, none is available right now."

So you can doubly imagine my surprise when a not-quite-casual jaunt through the Target store in Stevens Point (where I'd wound up in advance of a dinner meeting with friends) found -- with no fanfare, no store announcements, no crush of multitudes -- a Wii Fit, not where I'd logically checked with the other Wii software, but sitting happily on an endcap beside five or six other Wii Fit boxes.

Whew! The exercise is over!

(What do you mean that wasn't the exercise?)

By Maggie Thompson on 6/14/2008 4:39 PM

An aspect of being even a "minor" entertainer is that, often, there is someone, somewhere who loves what it is you do. That person has it easier these days than I did when I was growing up -- but even the additional effort of tracking down such entertainments doesn't deter such a fan.

Even realizing that others didn't share my obsession, it came as something of a shock that my customary (radio and online) news sources didn't pay more attention to the heart-failure death of Mel Ferrer (August 25, 1917-June 2, 2008). I was startled to open the June 20 issue of The Week and see the 4/9 of a page devoted to an obituary for "the reticent actor who married Audrey Hepburn" (the headline in the issue and, apparently, his main achievement in many minds, though the marriage only lasted from 1954 to 1968).

While I'm sure I haven't been alone in my admiration, I don't think I've ever talked with anyone who (a) was so captivated by a couple of his performances and (b) has retained an ongoing attention to his acting (though, while I appreciated all his performances, I wasn't obsessive enough to try to follow his performance as Phillip Erikson on the Falcon Crest soap opera in the early 1980s). In recent years he'd occasionally get a mention out of his connection to Hepburn, but I'm not aware of any TCM specials on his life or work -- and, indeed, though I'd followed his career, there were many aspects I didn't know until this week.

He was interested in acting in college and wound up on Broadway as a dancer in the chorus in 1938. Following polio (which affected his arm), he became a radio disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas but returned to New York City as a producer and director. His first movie acting job came in Lost Boundaries in 1949, and iMDB declares, "He is best remembered for the role of the lame puppeteer in Lili (1953) and as Prince Andrei in War and Peace (1956)."

Mind you, Ferrer has more than 100 listings at iMDB for his acting, but many performances were in European productions, and few of his U.S. roles are available on DVD. One that is, however, is the one I focused on from the moment I saw it in 1952 (when I was 9 1/2): Scaramouche. The star of the film was Stewart Granger (1913-1993), he's the one whose pictures (as Andre Moreau) adorn the DVD packaging, and I was much taken with him -- but I was equally fascinated by Ferrer (as Noel, the Marquis de Mayne). And with the wonderful swordfights -- including the final one which retained its status for years as the longest swordfight on film. (Amusingly, the Big Reveal on de Mayne had to be changed from the Sabatini novel, since Ferrer was four years younger than Stewart. But I digress.)

Reviewers sometimes called his performances "wooden," and The Week quotes him as saying, "I curl up inside and freeze when I have to act." Nevertheless, I thought that occasionally served him well: as the icy de Mayne and as the lame, sullen Paul Berthalet in Lili. Both captivated me -- though I didn't see Lili until it was eventually released on VHS. Moreover, Scaramouche called for extensive sword-fighting performances, and Ferrer went into the assignment without knowing how to fence. It was in the supplementary interview for the DVD that Ferrer credited Director George Sidney (who was nominated for a Directors Guild of America award for his work on the film). Stewart was a skilled fencer and did many of his own stunts, so how did Sidney handle Ferrer? He had him learn the part by applying his earlier skills -- and dancing the fencing routines.

I remember seeing him on TV at a friend's ... Read More »

By Maggie Thompson on 6/12/2008 10:28 AM

I don't know whether you've ever come across Paul Gallico's Thomasina. Subtitled "The Cat Who Thought She Was God," the novel was originally published in 1957. The writer (1897-1976) had several of his works adapted to film; these included The Poseidon Adventure and Love of Seven Dolls (filmed as Lili). As noted, among the film adaptations of his writing is the Disney 1964 film The Three Lives of Thomasina.

That film starred Patrick McGoohan as the vet father of a little girl (played by Karen Dotrice) who loves her cat Thomasina, who narrates the film -- and dies, only to return to life to be with the little girl. It's a children's film and it features a cat (well, actually, a bunch of male cats, each playing Thomasina and each clearly distinctive to the adult cat-lover's eye, but never mind) -- so it was a natural for 5-year-old grandson Devon (who first saw it when he was 4).

 

Switch the scene now to Devon's household a couple of weeks ago. Beloved kitty Dactyl was in such an advanced stage of cancer that it was time to say goodbye. Devon was told this, though he didn't seem to grasp the details (which was probably just as well), and -- after much family cuddling -- Zander had the sad job of taking Dactyl to the vet.

It was then decided that the family desperately needed cheering distractions, so Valerie, Zander, and Devon went to the Quassy Amusement Park (on Lake Quassapaug in Connecticut , founded in 1908, one of only 11 "trolley parks" still operating in this country). They had a lovely time and then headed to the multi-lane highway for the long ride home. They were driving in the outside lane, when both Valerie and Zander simultaneously (and incredibly) spotted a tiny, road-colored lump by the side of the road. "Isn't that --?"

Zander (carefully) pulled over and (carefully) got out and ran back to the lump, then carried it back to the car. Valerie, who had had no reason to bring along a cashmere sweater on a hot day, took the tiny lump and wrapped it in the seemingly useless sweater. And Devon, from the back seat, asked, "Is that my Thomasina?"

And, yes, it was. Clearly, someone had decided it'd be (shudder) merciful to throw a six-week kitten out by the side of a major highway (with a Jersey Barrier in the middle, so nothing could ever cross it safely). The fist-sized kitten was covered with ticks but otherwise OK, and all arrived home safe and sound, albeit with ensuing tick-picking ahead.

Kitten has now seen the vet, and it is clearly established that (again, as was the case in the Disney film) Thomasina is a boy kitty. And a wonderful addition to the household.

By Maggie Thompson on 6/11/2008 7:03 PM

I don't know whether this photo was taken exactly 46 years ago -- but here are the circumstances:

Don and I had been engaged for a year and a half. It was the end of my sophomore year at Oberlin College, and Don had taken the bus to Oberlin each weekend for the entirety of my Oberlin stay. (I'd even managed to stay in Oberlin between my freshman and sophomore year with the excuse of taking typing at the little business college that was also in Oberlin.)

I was staying in the Fairchild dormitory, where I'd met Ron Hardin, who was a junior, played the lute, snapped a mean camera shutter, and ate at the same dining-room table as I did. Ron occasionally hung out with Don and me -- and, as something of an end-of-year gift, took several photos of Don and me clowning in front of Fairchild within the month before we were married.

So here we were, as of June 1962. Hee!

By Maggie Thompson on 6/8/2008 12:26 PM

It was on June 8, 1957, that Mom (science-fiction writer Betsy Curtis) drove to a science-fiction picnic at the home of Basil and Virginia Wells. She'd thought the event would be held at the home of Ed Hamilton and Leigh Brackett in Kinsman, Ohio, so we arrived there -- only to be told (by Leigh's parents in the farm across the road) that it was at the Wells home.

Undeterred, we ended up at a delightful event, attended by a number of SF professionals and fans. Among pro attendees were P. Schuyler Miller, the Hamiltons, and Andre Norton. Among the fans was a Penn State sophomore who'd heard about it through the National Fantasy Fan Federation.

The college student had hitchhiked there from his home in Grand Valley, Pennsylvania -- and we happened to reside in a house that was on the route back to Grand Valley, so we were glad to take him as far as our place on his way home. But that's not why we hit it off: What happened was that we spent most of the day discovering almost identical fannish interests, ranging from Old Time Radio (which wasn't Old Time at that point) to Western movies to fantasy to science fiction to mysteries to, yes, comics.

The next time I heard from him came when Harvey Kurtzman's Humbug #1 (Aug 57) was released; Don Thompson folded it in two and sent it to me in a #10 envelope with a note telling me of its publication.

It wasn't until some time later that he sent me this photo:

On the back, he had typed this message:

This picture was taken before I became a science fiction fan. Anyone gazing at my ravaged features today will see only too clearly the detrimental effects of this insidious activity.

Don't let this happen to your child! Join the Crusade to Stamp out Bug-Eyed Monsters. See your neighborhood chapter of the Society For the Prevention of Science Fiction Books and Magazines.

Support the SFPSFBM. Cash contributions are welcomed. Send your donation to:

Ray Palmer
Amherst, Wisconsin

It is difficult to believe that this innocent, wide-eyed child is today, not only a science fiction fan, but a radio announcer.

(Annotation for the history-minded: Don worked on the Penn State radio station WDFM.)

(Further annotation: Who'd have thought that, 25 years later, Don and Maggie Thompson would move less than 20 miles away from the home of SF and flying saucer editor Ray Palmer? It was, clearly Fate -- another in-joke. Sorry.)

By Maggie Thompson on 6/6/2008 5:35 AM

While an annoying combination of Things That Happen have kept me from this blog for days and days and days, it's a Personal Triumph that returns me to it.

I decided that Wednesday would be the beginning of investigations that will eventually lead to a revamped home-entertainment environment. The whole digital-to-analog broadcast-television thing coming up in February has goaded me to visiting TV set replacement and the like. So I eyeballed (almost literally: I put my eye about two inches away from an assortment of LCD screens to look at details) sets, read descriptions of what different TVs had to offer, stood at varying distances from displays to decide what would be "too big," and so on.

At the same time, I decided to begin the process of trying to purchase something I'd mulled buying for months: a Nintendo Wii. I don't play most games. Life is short enough without activities that leave you where you began. But a few games provide a bonus that makes worthwhile the time you've invested. I've found Out of the Box's Apples to Apples and Cineplexity are not only fun but also enriching. (The former consists of thought-provoking non-embarrassing social interaction with friends; the latter has led to movie recommendations for films I hadn't encountered. But I digress.)

But, as is widely known, You Can't Find a Wii. So I went online to see what eBay prices looked like. And I Googled online vendors to do the same. Best price seemed to be about $375. Ouch. But, hey, my goal is to find something that makes it, if not pleasant, at least bearable to exercise. If I'm going to have a fancy environment for passive entertainment, how much better if it gets me off my duff from time to time? So I asked at the Appleton Best Buy (after deciding that a 40-42-inch LCD was probably what my goal TV should be) how one went about finding a Wii there. Can I put my name on a waiting list? How does it work?

"We advertise the console and say there are limited quantities available." Oh. So I need to watch the ads and it's first come first served? Yep.

So yesterday I asked The Invaluable Brent (who pays attention to Best Buy ads) to let me know the next time he saw a Wii advertised. Having decided to buy one, I figured I would simply make a concerted effort to acquire it. Brent said, "When I was at the Best Buy in Plover last night, there were a bunch of them on a table at the front of the store." The console? Not a bunch of add-ons? No way? Way. When did you see them? Last night. What time does the store open this morning? 10 a.m. -- and it was just after 9.

Surely, there'll be none left after a day on sale, but what the heck. (Brent, as we talked, made a list of area information of other possibilities, in case this didn't pan out.) Hopped in car, drove to Plover, found about a dozen consoles sitting on a table at the front of the store, grabbed one (limit was one per family, by the way), headed to the Other Wii Things to Buy display, chatted with a friendly Best Buy clerk about what good additions would be (second remote controller), threw stuff in the cart, and made for the checkout with a smile. Price was list for the item: $249.

I returned to the office to spread the word to an assortment of buddies -- and the reaction was interesting, ranging from several people who'd acquired consoles already, several people who didn't care, one person (John Jackson Miller, creator of this very website) who expressed revulsion at the idea of playing indoors when one should be active outdoors, and one person who immediately grabbed the phone to give the news to a relative who'd been looking for a console for months.

Mind you, it's now almost 24 hours later, and I still haven't opened the box. ... Read More »