Lexicon.
About a week before Bloom County went on a substantial sub-plot about Bill the Cat being a Russian spy, there was this glorious 3-day sequence. It has even been quoted in academic papers.
“Foreshadowing” — Your clue to quality literature.
Here, have a link to the very first Bloom County strip, December 8, 1980. Then, you can read through the whole thing. If you want.
Lexicon.
This comes from “Fit the Twelfth,” the final episode of the radio version of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The lads have found the ruler of the universe, who is a solitary man in a shack, and who has a cat. While feeding the cat he says,
“I think fish is nice, but then l think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?”
I’m going to include some screen captures below, because I’m too lazy to type out the whole thing. But it’s Douglas Adams at his most humorously philosophical, and also empirical.
All of them lexicon.
Boot to the head:
Ti Kwan Leep:
And, Make Up Dirty Words:
These are all, spectacularly, from the same album. But so many phrases come from them:
”Boot to the head.”
”Yeah, yeah, patience… how long will that take?”
” I have urges in my areas.”
”…and one for Jenny and the wimp.”
”Beat people up?”
What’s interesting is “Ti Kwan Leep” has generated second generation performances in… martial arts schools, of all places. Here’s an example (a little shaky, but others stick in Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire):
The Frantics were a recurring act on a radio show for novelty records, hosted by Dr Demento. The good Doctor’s most famous acolyte was “Weird Al” Yankovic, who got his start on the radio program.
A great piece on Perry Mason and Erle Stanley Gardner, that I’m making an entry for good old linkblogging. Maybe I can find it in the future.
Lexicon. Used in many situations where cleaning down to the floor, or clearing a desktop, as appropriate. Originally from Doonesbury, obviously.
Lexicon. From the movie adaptation of L.A. Confidential. A great example of your assumptions not being correct.
Notes: Spacey’s smirk (now there’s a fanzine title) builds the scene. Also, the Formosa Cafe continues to be with us. And makes a great location for the Brendan Fraser/Joanna Going movie, Still Breathing.
Lexicon. This will dovetail into another entry about the difference between an actor and a star that I hope to make, but this guy is a 37-year-old Harrison Ford, in Apocalypse Now. Many people miss him, even when told to look for him. When asked about it, he (reportedly) once said, “I’m an actor. You’re not supposed to notice me.”
Lexicon. From Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Sometimes reworked as, “C’mon, Clark. You won’t be late. You hate being late.” Clearly a case of bad memory, since the original is really commenting on Clark’s sleeping habits. (Just for search index: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Superman, Batman)
I’m going to quote this in full. Mostly so I can have it in a safe place, and not disappear due to link rot, or the Brownian swirl of the internet.
“As Canadian as possible under the circumstances” is arguably one of the most famous Canadian aphorisms. But not many know its author, or how it came to be.
In 1972, Peter Gzowski, then summer host of This Country in the Morning, held a contest to complete (in the manner of “As American as apple pie”) the saying “As Canadian as …”. Heather Scott, a seventeen-year-old summer music school student at the time, heard of the contest, and immediately came up with the phrase that has since become so famous. The subsequent telephone call from Peter to Heather at her school began what was to become an on-and-off relationship with “Mr. Canada”.
Heather was a passionate Canadian, who cared deeply about her country and her fellow man. She bravely completed her University of Toronto Honours B.A. while recovering from Hodgkin’s Disease, and went on to a career as a production editor with Prentice Hall, married and miraculously (after all her radiation treatments) bore a daughter, Sarah. Her other popular claim to fame is as editor of Don Cherry’s autobiography, for which she earned a flowery dedication from Don.
Sadly, her cancer returned in 1990, and she died at home (in White Rock, B.C.) on 30 October 1994. Ironically, Peter Gzowski visited White Rock on a book tour just a few days later. They never met, until perhaps Peter’s own passing a scant eight years later.
R. W. Scott (Heather’s father)
Long Point, Ontario
18 May 2004
This can be lexicon, as I joke about five (maybe six) of my eight great-grandparents being Canadian makes me ethnically so. Sometimes rephrased as, “As well as possible…” in response to the American opening question, “How are you doing?”
(Note that Ms. Scott was a music student, and there were rules about a minimum of Canadian content on radio and television.)
My mom and I were watching a procedural murder mystery on TV, just the two of us, back in the early 1980s.
“Who do you think did it?” I asked.
”Olivia de Havilland,” my mom said, very confidently.
”Oh?”
”Well, why else do you get Olivia de Havilland?”
Sticking to that principle — who is the most prominent actor who isn’t the lead? — solves the mystery most of the time. Not always. But usually.