And I considered myself a cinephile...

I like movies. I like all sorts of movies. During the pandemic proper, when my dad and brother and I first started to get together on Zoom (later Skype), I challenged them to come up with a random prime number of favorite movies list, and then to grab screenshots of them and try to stump each other, or show off what we really connected with. I feel like a fan of the form. In high school I started my quest to visit with the oldies: I rented The Wild Bunch and Easy Rider and Mean Streets; I went to see Taxi Driver at the Tower Theater in Sacramento in 1996 when they re-released it on the big screen for its 20th anniversary.

I like documentaries as well. I love Steve James' work, and certainly saw a couple of Michael Moore's movies in the theater.

But then I read a quick blurb in a review of documentaries that should be seen. The article was about three docs that can be found on various streaming platforms, and they all sounded interesting to differing degrees. The author mentioned, near the end of their spiel, that they were sure to make time for Frederick Wiseman's "Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros." They had to make sure, since it was going to leave PBS online on 4/20, all the dialogue was in French, and it was four hours long.

This movie wasn't one of their reviews otherwise, yet it was mentioned. They quickly ran down the premise: (this guy) Wiseman's look at a third-trying-to-hand-off-to-a-fourth-generation family-run three Micheline star holding restaurant in France.

Now, I have mixed feelings about cooking-related programming. As well as that, I've always been cagey about my job-status on this blog. I've never mentioned any of my actual jobs here, only alluded to aspects when it was needed for a post. Anyone can read through the 1500+ posts and see that I've never mentioned the actual job itself. 

That being said, I'll admit that at one point, I did work for a restaurant in Manhattan that was a Micheline star holding establishment. And as far as programs are concerned: I do enjoy PBS's America's Test Kitchen, but none of the competition cooking shows. I'm not a huge fan of the late Anthony Bourdain's show, but I did highly enjoy the ahead-of-its-time sitcom Kitchen Confidential, based on Bourdain's book of the same name and starring Bradley Cooper as a character named Jack Bourdain, an avatar of the source material. Pixar's Ratatouille holds a place near to my heart as one of my favorite movies, animated or otherwise.

To hear that there was a documentary based on a family's long-standing Micheline star (3!) restaurant was too much for me to decide to skip it, so I fired it up while at work. I had about four days to watch all four hours, if that was something I wanted to do. After five minutes I knew I had to see the whole enchilada.

Similar to other Wiseman documentaries (I later learned), this movie provides no voiceover, no title cards to let you know who's who, and no music. It starts as a chef and some of his acolytes are shopping at a farmer's market in Roanne, France. He runs into his brother, who is also shopping for gear. The next scene has the two boys with their father, working out menus---sauces, proteins, starches, veg, the like. The younger brother explains that a sauce isn't as complicated as it sounds as the father tries to work it out in his head (the sauce, which was to be poured over (gigantic) poached asparagus: mayo, frommage blanc (a creamy cheese product similar to cream cheese), soy sauce, elderberry vinegar and almond puree). We later see someone prepping out the garnish: shaved almonds on a mandolin (the other garnish was julienned rhubarb).

The movie travels all over central France; we see a cattle supplier, a cheese maker, a supplier of tomatoes and other vegetables; we see a convo between the dad and his sommelier concerning wines that will cost the patron 5,000 Euro, even 15,000 Euro a bottle. I learned more about calf brains than I ever knew I needed to know. It's a masterpiece. 

In the four days I had eyes on it, before I understood it was to leave PBS online, I turned my dad and an old friend onto it. I love this movie.

But then I found other Wiseman documentaries. On Kanopy (free to stream if you have a library card) one can find "The Store" and "Belfast, Maine." I fired up "The Store" the other day and was shocked by what I saw: a title card stating the name of the film, and then we're there in the store, the flagship of Neiman-Marcus to be exact, in Dallas (wait, what? I would've guessed otherwise). We see counter-people trying to sell jewelry, sales meetings, workers going about their business. No music, no voiceover, no information at all. It was released in 1983.

This was exactly the same style as Menus-Plaisirs. "Belfast, Maine" looks at a tiny cannery town in Maine: workers working, meetings happening, life trudging along.

What?

After checking into the 94 year-old Frederick Wiseman I learned a few things: he's considered an American documentary institution, his work has been hailed as a classic form of cinema veritae, even though he bristles at the label. He says that his movies, while unobtrusive and observational, and pass no judgement on its subjects, are implicitly biased, and he tries to find drama in the minutiae of each tiny scene.

Wiseman's made many, many films over the years, many breach the 200 minute mark, and many are considered masterpiece classics. He tends toward generic titles like "City Hall" and "High School," where he'll do his thing (no voiceover, music, or title cards) while looking deeply at institutions in American cities. His own release company leases the films to schools and PBS, and offers for sale many of them on their own website, Zipporah Films, named for his late wife.

I mentioned a while back about loving to learn new things. And here I am again. Menus-plaisirs translates to "small pleasures," and it may have wormed its way into my film ziggurat, into an upper echelon of my favorite movies ever. If you ever thought that Pixar's Ratatouille would be better as a documentary and set in the French countryside, this would be your evidence.

And I made it until now without learning about Frederick Wiseman?

Thoughts on "Californipithecus"

I'm not sure where I heard it---maybe an Eons video---but I heard that Gigantopithecus lasted until maybe 300kya, where the"kya" is "thousand years ago." Only 300,000 years ago?

So, the "...pithecus" suffix means "ape", and the most common word with this suffix is likely Australopithecus, the name given to a hominid genus---an ape that stood upright. Australopithecus afarensis has yielded a vast array of fossils, and even Lucy herself, the famous remains named for the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is an A. afarensis.

Gigantopithecus was a rather large ape, probably the biggest ever discovered judging by the name, and looks to have resembled a huge orangutan, like a supersized orangutan crossed with a a gorilla---the hunched over knuckle walk of a big silverback with the wizened face of an orangutan. 

I was under the impression that this primate had gone extinct further back than 300kya, seeing as how us, Homo sapien at least, had arrived by then. Modern H. sapien a bit later, but still.

Then, while checking all this out, I read that some of the pseudo-science and cryptozoologists folks posit that Yetis and Sasquatches are really Gigantopithecuses that had evolved quietly on the unseen margins of our world.

They maintain that Gigantopithecus could have made the same land bridge trek over the Bering Sea, and settled in the Pacific Northwest, same as us. Their predecessors would have simply stayed in Tibet...? I guess?

Serious scientists today generally roll their eyes at this line of thought. It would have been pretty difficult for them to have left no fossil evidence from the time they otherwise disappear from the fossil record until, er, today?

Another science issue is that with the size and ambulatory nature meant Gigantopithecus---using knuckles---was essentially a quadruped and would most likely not have evolved bipedalism.

It was around here that I started learning about all sorts of our "in-between" ancestors, the branches of the bush between us and today's Pan (chimps, bonobos) and Pongo (gorillas, orangutans): Sivapithecus, Khoratpithecus, Ankarapithecus, et al...

I even found the following graphic I used to help explain that "in-between" status to Cass:

The middle two above, if you're like I ain't readin' that, are a male and female Australopithecus afarensis. They still showed signs of serious sexual dimorphism (older ape trait), but stood upright and had less splayed toes (more human-ape traits).

I thought it would be cool to think about how some sort of -pithecus may have evolved into Yetis and Sasquatches, but it's probably not meant to be.

Also, did your morning start with conversations about sexual dimorphism? I'm sure they might have!

I grew up loving Harry and the Hendersons. And I'm excited for this summer's Sasquatch Sunset movie.

Also also, I was trying to come up with a cool -pithecus name, and I'm not sure Californipithecus counts, but I like it nonetheless.

Weird Stuff with Trading Cards

So...much to Corrie's chagrin, I've passed my attention to collecting trading cards onto my son. Maybe that's just a normal thing for boys my son's age---the collecting, the information on the backs, finding players you really like.

Anyway, my boy found an old football card in one of my old baseball card stacks, and started asking about football cards. I had/have probably a thousand baseball cards, and maybe a dozen football cards. He asked why I didn't have more. I didn't really have a good answer, and eventually we started a quick Internet search for where to buy current football cards. It turns out, video game retailer Game Stop sells football and basketball cards.

We strolled down to our local Game Stop, surprised them by asking about trading cards, and left with one of the new offers: thirty-packs. Score is a brand I have in the baseball variety, and today they sell big-ol' thirty-packs. Cool, I thought.

Another brand I hadn't heard of before we got on another trip, Prestige, and they also had thirty-packs. At some other trip to our Game Stop, I picked up a third type of football card, and two types of basketball cards (one was even from Donruss, a baseball card company well represented in my collection).

But something struck me as we looked at all these cards. I make a picture to describe the situation:

Above there are only 6 cards, but I've shown both sides. There are 4 different types of football cards and 2 types of basketball cards (and one even with no color on the reverse). BUT the thing that struck me is highlighted by the yellow oval-circles: the same-logo name Panini.

I was like, Wait, what? Panini makes all the cards? Makes all the cards for different, competing brands of trading cards?

The answer, after more web-sleuthing than I cared to do, was essentially: kinda. It seemed like there were two different card-production companies---Panini and Fantagraphics (sp?)---and some reports have stated that the NFL has finished their business relationship with Panini, so maybe these are the last sets that'll be available.

Anyway, it's been interesting to try and rank all the players, all while explaining to Cass that you'll get plenty of players you've never heard of, despite getting a Travis Kelce in his first football pack and a Nikola Jokic in his first basketball pack.

More junky scraps of paper to frazzle mama-bear.

Wondercon 2024

It was eight years ago, back in 2016, before Cass was born, that I first attended Wondercon. It was also the only time. It was an adventure.

The motivating factor was the chance to see the Valiant panel, and get a Wondercon-exclusive comic. I even picked up a gold-covered edition to boot, all for free. Well, the gold-covered one was free, not sure about the other one. Anyway...

...The motivator was the same, only the company was different. The head-honcho, though, was not. And, this year, the convention was in Anaheim instead of DTLA:

The Anaheim Convention Center is a massive, world-class exhibition hall, and the home of Wondercon---except in 2016, when it was LA for some reason.

This year the panel I wanted to see was from the rebellious Bad Idea, a company I've mentioned more recently than that first link, headed by former nerd-boss Dinesh Shamdasani (that's the link of when I met Dinesh in LB in 2017). 

After he was ousted from Valiant by the new VC-bosses, he took some of his, er, bad ideas and started a company revolving around them. They produce good work, and I'm all in.

I kinda don't read many other comics anymore. But, in one of my occasional trips to Facebook, I noticed the Bad Idea chatter was asking if anyone going to Wondercon could pick them up the free book. 

That was the sound of a record scratch for me. Bad Idea is known to make convention exclusives for various cons (NYCC, ComicCon (SD), Emerald City (Seattle), et al), and I'm comfortable knowing I'll never get my hands of those books.

But the words "Wondercon" and "free exclusive" in the same sentence got my attention. After deciding to go alone, I got my ticket, saw my panel, got my (rad) free book, and headed home after walking around all weary, trying to get my money's worth.

The exclusive comic was a reprint of "The Hero Trade," and its prequel, "The Hero Trade 2." Thsi time they were both colored, and the cover was exclusive and shows many of the The Hero Trade universe characters, along with a few upcoming ones, appearing here for the first time.

Why is the prequel called The Hero Trade 2? Remember the name of the company? Anyway, the story is bonkers: in The Hero Trade (the first Bad Idea comic release, unbeknownst to fans and retailers alike, sparking a frenzy, as some stores may have just tossed them; they go for hundreds on eBay nowadays), the main character has Captain Fabulous (think Superman) in his trunk, and he's driving around, cutting pieces off of him to sell to underworld organizations. It's wild, dark, and a comment on the way the market treats intellectual property today. That's why that blue outline of a guy is in pieces on the cover above.

Anyway, Wondercon 2024 was a nice afternoon. I supported some small presses, got a low-priced trade paperback I wanted to read (then give to Cass), and got the exclusive book that motivated me to go in the first place.

For my Kids...

This post is for my kids. 

They're big fans of Scooby-Doo, because frankly, who's not? They've devoured most of the offerings on HBO and have circled back around to them again in their limited screen time. The voice work has remained fairly constant for something that started airing 55 years ago, what with Frank Welker voicing Fred for nearly the entirety of the time. Casey Kasem voiced Shaggy from 1969 until 2009, and returned to voice Shaggy's wealthy uncle as well as his father in what turned out to be some of his last work before he passed.

It was the animation styling that inspired me to do this, and in skimming the Internet to find the images I would use, I learned about more than I realized. I thought the animation models were pretty standard, even when they were mostly "updated". I guess all in good time.

So...I was going to start listing out the shows and movies and all, but the list was unwieldy. Let's get to some pictures. To start, the original models, and Scrappy:

These models were virtually the same for quite a while, even if most of the time Scrappy starred in a show with just Shaggy and his uncle Scooby. Later on, Daphne got in on the action, specifically with the supernatural-themed Scooby-Doo and the 13 Ghosts:

This rendition had Scrappy, Daphne with new hair, Vincent Price playing a version of himself (as a wizard), and a kid the kid-viewers could relate to named Flim-Flam (that's him in yellow above). I've seen regretfully too many of the thirteen episodes. (I could do with less Scrappy.)

Now the actual redesigns start to show up. In the 1990s, they did a kid version called "A Pup Named Scooby," and we see new versions of the characters for the first time in nearly 25 years:

We haven't seen any of those episodes. (This is the only time Fred wasn't voiced by Frank Welker up until the movie "Scoob.") I didn't even know it existed until tonight. Same thing with the next picture, another redesign, this time from 2006, for a show called "Shaggy and Scooby: Get a Clue:"

I guess the animation is "very different," but I'm not sure what to make of that. I haven't gone to find clips yet. This might be the first time that Matthew Lilliard took over the voice work of Shaggy, as Casey Kasem was pulling back from acting work for health reasons. He voiced Shaggy's wealthy uncle. Lilliard played Shaggy in the two live action movies (2002 and 2004).

Next is one of my favorite Scooby properties, a reboot I suppose, called "Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated:"

The models are basically updated versions of the originals, the story that covers the two seasons has elements of both monster-of-the-week type story along with an over-arching storyline that covers the entirety of the two seasons. This was the program that has Casey Kasem's last work before he died, as Shaggy's dad. They even busted out a reference that caused me to try to explain something that I simply couldn't:

And yes, that dude was voiced by Michael J. Anderson, the very same from Twin Peaks.

While that series was rather dark, the next series veered further toward humor and silliness, and they added another drastic redesign of the character models. This was "Be Cool, Scooby Doo:"

They kept the clothes the same, and the spirit's the same, the voices are the same, but it is far sillier. It's grown on Corrie and me in the time since the kids, especially Camille, have fixated on it. Daphne is especially weird, which has its moments.

I put the models from "Scoob" next. This was the digitally animated film that was due out in Summer of 2020 that got shelved, on and off, for a while:

I only got to see bits and pieces, but it is jarring a little. None of the regular voice actors from the shows are used. While there are a bunch of other characters from other Hannah-Barbera cartoons, I think Captain Caveman, voiced by Tracy Morgan, was my favorite. The models kinda had to to changed, as the jump in dimension forced animators' hands.

Next I grabbed a shot of the four teens in the crew from the show "Velma:"

Mindy Kaling produced the show and stars as Velma. I haven't seen any episodes, and thankfully Max doesn't put this title in the streaming line with all the other Scooby properties. Maybe because Scooby isn't involved? There's no Scooby Doo. Also, everything I've read about it basically uses it as a toilet. I've read both Norville (who doesn't like being called Shaggy) and Fred are highly unlikable characters, Daphne's vapid and sexed up, and Velma has a crush on her. Something like that. It's, eh...it's a show.

By this point, I figured I'd throw in some shots of the live-action productions. First, there was the cast from the first two films:

Then the third movie was released directly to video and was a prequel:

And, lastly, there was a web-series called "Mystery Inc." that I only heard about tonight. You can find it on Youtube. (If you follow that link, it looks like there at least a few fan-made Scooby projects. People LOVE these characters.)

One more thing: tonight I also learned some of the background of the original show. I learned how the dog's name was originally Too Much, but listening to Frank Sinatra scat "doo-be-doo-be-doo" at the end of "Strangers in the Night," they changed it. I also learned that the primary inspirations for the show were the radio serial show "I Love a Mystery" and "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."

I'd heard of Dobie Gillis before, and was confused for the longest time becase I thought Bob Denver was Dobie Gillis. Like, I thought that actor's name was Dobie Gillis, or whatever. I mean, he was Gilligan and all. The names just crossed me up. Plus, I was eight years old and didn't really watch Dobie Gillis. I did like Gilligan's Isle, though.

What I'm trying to get to is that Shaggy is directly modeled after Maynard G. Krebs, the character that Bob Denver played in Dobie Gillis. Fred is based on Dobie, for sure, and Daphne and Velma also have corresponding characters from that show, but Shaggy is Maynard. The use of language tics like saying "like" a lot, the goatee, the outfit, the laziness and desire to just eat instead of working. I guess Bob Denver's character was the first beatnik on US television. He played the bongos, liked jazz music, and used the slang associated with that world. I didn't know that either. 

Anyway, I found this picture online, too, just to complete the circle:

Also thought I'd share the following parody: Bendee Boo and the Mystery Crew:

Update: I just found this mockup showing the Dobie Gillis comparisons/inspirations. Scooby as a dog sidekick was taken from an animated Archie program they were looking to ape:

(New) Watch Studies

My beloved automatic wooden watch died last year sometime. It was a slow demise that started when I could no longer change the time. Eventually the mechanism stopped working all together. I had an issue before---when it had stopped working---and brought it to a jeweler/watch repair to get it fixed. 

In the end, it gave me false hope. That time, the first time it stopped working, it was because one of the metal chits that marked the hours had popped free and fallen into the gears, halting the watch. It was an easy fix: just pull the piece out, glue it back in place, and go about your business.

I like the automatic watches because they don't need batteries, they use your own body's motion to keep the main spring tight, and the main spring titrates out the energy needed to keep time through an amazing collection of precision engineering.

Anyway, when my watch died again and I took it into the guy, he said he couldn't fix it, or that it would just be easier to buy a new one and replace it (the mechanism), but in the end, it may just be easier to buy a whole new watch. I wasn't pleased with this opinion, and went looking for a second. A separate jeweler/watch repair shop was more candid. (The first guy was Cambodian; the second guy was a Slav of some kind.) He said, "Well, not to make you angry, but this is a poorly constructed Chinese mechanism, which ultimately can't be fixed. It's meant to be thrown out. I could fix it, but I wouldn't guarantee the work, because it's so poorly made. That watch, is, eh, how should we say, not very expensive?"

It was a gift, that I loved, but I understood what he meant, especially after looking at watches. Maybe $250 bucks for an automatic watch mechanism is on the low end.

But I do like to work with a watch on, and I've been trying to find something legit, that I could reasonably afford, that I could actually get repaired, and that I would like. I should really talk to Norm about all this, and he'd be a person I would contact before I made a serious purchase. Corrie told me to find something in a budget you're comfortable with that can be repaired, but do your research about it.

Corrie's dad gave me a watch from his recently deceased navy buddy to see if I could get it fixed. It's a '60s era Seiko automatic watch, with the date and day dials, which has it's charm. It can be fixed, and is at the Cambodian dude's shop. It's gonna cost almost $250 to fix, so, eh, it'll give me some time before I find something else.

And that led to this study. There are a ton of watches out there, and a ton of styles. Norm knows. I learned about the different makers of the different types of automatic mechanisms. I learned about watches that I'm not even sure how to read. I imagine you'd get used to it, but, eh:

I think...you look at the bottom?

The watches from Mr. Jones Watches are fascinating and beautiful. One of my favorites is:

The lady's foot is the hour and the ducky is the minute. A different company didn't have hands at all, exactly, but used a series of dials supported by fluid. Like...what?

If you'd like, check out their website to see how they move, finding the simulator near the bottom of the page. I thought they were interesting and cool, but I couldn't find a price. Then I did. And they're no longer on the list. They set fire to my list and laughed as they walked away to their yacht.

Anyway anyway, I also found some cheapo quartz watches from Etsy that I decided to get as a hold over until I find something that I'm looking for. (This was before Ron's navy buddy's watch finally got on the docket to get working.) I bought three, each with a different van Gogh painting as the dial, and figured I'd give one each to the kids as they got older. For the price ($50 for all three, so...), they seemed like a fun family thing that would help in the short term and not hurt in the long term.

So, action items: chat up Norm about stuff, and keep my dynamic list updated as I see fit.