(Tele)Visions of the Past

[I started this post in March or April, and did not finish it until October, which shows that I am no good at getting things done on time, but most people reading probably already know that.]

March was a bad month for television stars relevant to my generation, the dreaded (or, perhaps more accurately, largely ignored) Generation X. 

First came the death of Luke Perry. He played Dylan on Beverly Hills, 90210, which was inescapable for people my age.  (It was the hot teen show when I was a teenager.)

Beverly Hills, 90210 began the trend of teen soap operas, and ever since then there has been at least one teen soap on the air (Dawson’s Creek, The O.C., Gossip Girl, etc.).  Perry had a role on the latest teen soap, Riverdale (the Spock-with-a-beard version of Archie Comics), bringing his career, and in some ways the teen soap genre itself, full circle.  

Then we learned that Jan Michael-Vincent had died.  (He had actually died in February, but it wasn’t publicly reported until March.)  He played Stringfellow Hawke, the lead character on Airwolf.  Airwolf was a show about a heavily-armed combat helicopter from the time when helicopters abounded on prime time television  (Airwolf, Blue Thunder, Magnum, P.I., Riptide . . . ).  And the helicopters were part of a larger prime time television trend of fistfights, car chases, and explosions that made the Eighties a great time to be a ten-year-old boy.

Finally there was the enormous college admissions scandal, which implicated, among many others, Lori Loughlin, who played Aunt Becky on Full House.  

Full House was an intensely stupid show, but I watched it, because in those days I would watch almost anything. (Nobody had the internet yet.) 

If anything good is to come from this scandal, it is that Lori Loughlin might be forced, under oath, in a court of law, to explain whatever happened to predictability, the milkman, the paperboy, evening TV. 

At this point I would like to write a humorous courtroom dialogue between Lori Loughlin and a prosecuting attorney, filled with lots of snarky references to Full House.  But I can only really remember three concrete things about the show:

1.  Uncle Jesse played drums with the Beach Boys.

2.  Uncle Joey had some sort of Ranger Woodchuck puppet.

3.  Someone named Kimmy Gibbler existed.  

About That Last Post . . .

A minimal amount of internet searching reveals that there is actually a huge amount of discussion on the similarities between Taylor Swift’s “Lover” and Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You”—like this and this and this and this and this and this and this.

  And that makes my previous post feel entirely redundant and pointless.  But it’s my own fault for failing to keep up with the current state of Taylor Swift scholarship.

Taylor and Mazzy

Does anyone else think that the new Taylor Swift single (“Lover”) sounds like a lamer version of the Mazzy Star song “Fade into You”?

(And yes, I could google to find out if anyone else does think that, but I’m too lazy.)

For the lawyers out there, I will note that I am not alleging actual plagiarism, just noting similarities between the two songs in terms of the 3/4 time signature, the use of piano, and the overall tone of the vocals.  

Heron Spearfishing

Here we see a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) holding what I think is a Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) in a tributary of the Potomac.  Close examination reveals that the heron has not bitten the fish, but rather has apparently speared it.  The heron walked around with the fish like this for a few minutes, presumably waiting for it to die, then dropped it back into the water to eat it.

I have to wonder if there have been any scientific studies of this type of spearfishing by birds.  (I imagine that there have been although I don’t know the scientific literature well enough to say.)  I recall that it was was once proposed, and then dropped, as a potential feeding behavior for certain types of long-jawed pterosaurs (although I can’t find a link for this).

Mockingbird on Razor Wire

I have had a Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) picture on the blog before, but this bird ups the ante by perching on razor wire.

I imagine that, since Mockingbirds prefer a more open habitat than other songbirds, Mockingbirds are more likely to be seen silhouetted against the open sky, creating opportunities for striking photos. 

  

Colleges That Need Renaming

In my work, I am constantly paying attention to the names of institutions of higher learning.  Over the years I have concluded that there are certain colleges whose names aren’t quite right, and would benefit from some readjustment:

*Denison University should rename itself Denisovan University, in honor of our lost hominid cousins, the Denisovans. 

*The College of Wooster should rename itself the College of Woofter, in honor of a guy with whom I went to high school. 

*Purdue University should rename itself Perdue University, for, well, chicken reasons.  (And isn’t that what most people think already?)

*Baylor University should rename itself Balrog University, in honor of the evil creature from The Lord of the Rings.  Furthermore, “Baylor” sounds like “baleful”, and a balrog is nothing if not baleful.  Indeed, “baleful” is one of those early Dungeons & Dragons-type words, like “ilk” and “denizen”, calling to mind the game’s very early days, when the name “balrog” was given to a Dungeons & Dragons monster, before it had to be renamed for copyright reasons.  

it is even rumored that if you say “baleful Balrog” five times, the ghost of E. Gary Gygax will appear to award you 100,000 experience points, and/or exile you to the Slaad-Infested realm of Limbo.

First Impression Part Two

It dawns on me that the premise of my last post, that one never gets a second chance to make a first impression, is contradicted by the title of the song “Karn Evil #9: 1st Impression—Part 2”.

  Despite having been a fan of ELP for decades, I did not realize until I researched this blog post that the full name of the band is officially spelled out using an ampersand, as “Emerson, Lake & Palmer”.

Should Emerson, Lake & Palmer have used a serial comma?

Is a serial comma even possible with an ampersand?