March 27, 2012
Valley Girl is a stereotype leveled at a socio-economic and ethnic class of American women who can be described as colloquial English-speaking and materialistic. Valspeak is also a form of this trait, based on an exaggerated version of ’80s California English.
The term originally referred to the ever increasing number of semi-affluent and affluent middle-class and upper-middle class girls living in the bedroom community neighborhoods of San Fernando Valley. Due to the Valley’s proximity to the Hollywood media machine, the demographic group which the term stereotyped garnered large exposure to the rest of the world.
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March 26, 2012
Librarian.net was founded in 1999 by Jessamyn Charity West (b. 1968), an American librarian and blogger. West characterizes librarian.net as generally ‘anti-censorship, pro-freedom of speech, pro-porn (for lack of a better way to explain that we don’t find the naked body shameful), antiglobalization, anti-outsourcing, anti-Dr. Laura, pro-freak, pro-social responsibility, and just generally pro-information and in favor of the profession getting a better image.’
‘Wired’ described her as ‘on the front lines in battling the USA PATRIOT Act,’ particularly the provisions that allow warrantless searches of library records. The act not only prohibits libraries from notifying the subjects of such searches, it prohibits them from disclosing to the public whether any such searches have been made. In protest, West created a number of notices that libraries can post which she suggests are ‘technically legal.’ One of them, for example, reads: ‘The FBI has not been here. Watch very closely for the removal of this sign.’ The Vermont Library Association provided copies of this sign to every public library in Vermont.
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March 26, 2012
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is a newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club (which features interviews and reviews of various newly released media, as well as other weekly features). Since 2007, the organization has been publishing satirical news audios and videos online, as the ‘Onion News Network.’
The Onion’s articles comment on current events, both real and fictional. It parodies such traditional newspaper features as editorials, man-on-the-street interviews, and stock quotes on a traditional newspaper layout with an AP-style editorial voice. Much of its humor depends on presenting everyday events as newsworthy and by playing on commonly used phrases, as in the headline ‘Drugs Win Drug War.’
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March 25, 2012
The Harvard Lampoon is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876. It is the world’s longest continually published humor magazine. It is also the second longest-running English-language humor magazine, after the ‘Yale Record.’ The organization also produces occasional humor books and parodies of national magazines. Much of the organization’s capital is provided by the licensing of the ‘Lampoon’ name to ‘National Lampoon,’ begun by ‘Harvard Lampoon’ graduates in 1970.
The Lampoon is known for its bacchanalian parties, which can result in smashed plates and furniture. Robert K. Hoffman, co-founder of the ‘National Lampoon’ and major donor to the Dallas Museum of Art was a Trustee until his death in 2006, and was declared a Trustee ‘Ad-Infinitum’ a year later. The bone of his pinky finger is said to be encased in a block of lucite in the Harvard Lampoon’s ‘Brainatorium Crypt.’
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March 25, 2012
National Lampoon was both a ground-breaking American humor magazine and also a wide range of productions directly associated with that magazine. The magazine ran from 1970 to 1998, and was originally a spinoff of the ‘Harvard Lampoon’ (is an undergraduate humor publication founded in 1876 at Harvard University).
The magazine reached its height of popularity and critical acclaim during the 1970s, when it had a far-reaching effect on American humor. It spawned films, radio, live theater, various kinds of recordings, and print products including books. Many members of the creative staff from the magazine subsequently went on to contribute creatively to successful media of all types.
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March 25, 2012
Heavy Metal is an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine, known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction and erotica. In the mid-1970s, while publisher Leonard Mogel was in Paris to jump-start the French edition of ‘National Lampoon,’ he discovered the French science-fantasy magazine ‘Métal Hurlant’ which had debuted in 1974. The French title translates literally as ‘Howling Metal.’
When Mogel licensed the American version, he chose to rename it, and ‘Heavy Metal’ began in the U.S. in 1977 as a glossy, full-color monthly. Initially, it displayed translations of graphic stories originally published in ‘Métal Hurlant,’ including work by Enki Bilal, Jean Giraud (also known as Moebius), Philippe Druillet, Milo Manara and Philippe Caza. The magazine later ran Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore’s ultra-violent ‘RanXerox.’ Since the color pages had already been shot in France, the budget to reproduce them in the U.S. version was greatly reduced.
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March 24, 2012
Blueberry is a Franco-Belgian comics western series created by the Belgian scriptwriter Jean-Michel Charlier and French comics artist Jean Moebius’ Giraud. It chronicles the adventures of Mike ‘Blueberry’ Donovan on his travels through the American Old West. Blueberry is an atypical western hero; he is not a wandering lawman who brings evil-doers to justice, nor a handsome cowboy who ‘rides into town, saves the ranch, becomes the new sheriff and marries the schoolmarm.’
He is accompanied in many tales by his hard-drinking deputy, Jimmy McClure, and later also by Red Woolley, a rugged pioneer. Donovan is the son of a rich Southern farmer and started as a dedicated racist. He was framed for a murder he did not commit, had to flee and was saved by an African-American. He became an enemy of discrimination of all kinds, fought against the Confederates (although he was a Southerner himself), and tried to protect the rights of Native Americans.
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March 24, 2012
The Incal is a set of science fiction comic book series written in French by Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by Moebius and others. ‘The Incal’ takes place in, and introduced Jodorowsky’s ‘Jodoverse,’ a fictional universe in which his science fiction comics take place. The story begins in the dystopian capital city of an insignificant planet in a human-dominated galactic empire. The series stars John DiFool, anoccasional bodyguard. DiFool has no interest in being a hero, has mood swings and suffers from self-doubt and temper tantrums in which he threatens to walk away and assume a comfortable lifeh. He has a fondness for cigars, ‘ouisky’ and ‘homeosluts’ (gynoid prostitutes).
The series mixes space opera, metaphysics, and satire; a counterpoint to the grandiosity of the events is always Difool’s base, even cowardly nature. Every major character in The Incal is based upon Tarot cards – for example, John Difool is based upon The Fool with his name being a pun upon ‘John, the Fool.’ Moebius and Jodorowsky sued Luc Besson, director of ‘The Fifth Element,’ claiming that the film borrowed graphic and story elements from ‘The Incal,’ but they lost their case. In a 2002 interview with Danish comic book magazine ‘Strip!,’ Jodorowsky actually claimed that he considered it an honor that somebody stole his ideas, saying he believes that authors do not create the stories they tell as much as they make personal interpretations of mythemes shared by the collective unconscious.
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March 24, 2012
‘The Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius’ (‘Le Garage Hermétique de Jerry Cornelius’) is a lengthy comic strip work by the artist and writer Moebius (real name Jean Giraud). It first appeared in discrete two-to-four page episodes, in the French magazine ‘Metal Hurlant’ between 1976 and 1980, and later in the American version of the same magazine, ‘Heavy Metal,’ starting in 1977.
‘The Airtight Garage’ was followed by ‘L’Homme du Ciguri’ (‘The Man from the Ciguri’) in 1995. Some of the characters from these stories also show up in the 1974 comic ‘Le Bandard Fou’ (‘The Horny Goof’), which can be considered a prequel. The story is at times confusing, as Moebius was making it up as he went along. The ‘garage’ itself is actually an asteroid in the constellation Leo which houses a pocket universe. Major Grubert orbits the asteroid in his spaceship Ciguri, from which he oversees the development of the worlds contained within. Several entities, including Jerry Cornelius, seek to invade the garage.
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March 24, 2012
‘The Most Dangerous Game,’ also published as “The Hounds of Zaroff”, is a short story by Richard Connell. It was published in ‘Collier’s Weekly’ in 1924. Widely anthologized, and the author’s best-known work, it features as its main character a big-game hunter from New York, who falls off a yacht and swims to an isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Cossack aristocrat. The story is an inversion of the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.
The story has been adapted for film numerous times. The most significant of these adaptations (and the only one to use the original characters) was RKO’s ‘The Most Dangerous Game,’ released in 1932, having been shot (mostly at night) on sets used during the day for the ‘Skull Island’ sequences of ‘King Kong.’ The film added two other principal characters: brother and sister pair Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray) and Martin Trowbridge (Robert Armstrong). (Wray and Armstrong were also filming King Kong on the same sets during the day.)
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March 24, 2012
The Prize of Peril is a science fiction short-story by Robert Sheckley, written in 1958 and first published in the collection ‘Store of Infinity’ in 1960 by Bantam Books. The short story is noted for its plot’s anticipation of Reality television shows such as Survivor and Fear Factor by several decades. The screenplay for the fake German reality show ‘Das Millionenspiel’ (‘The Million Game’) was based on the story, as was the French film version of ‘Das Millionenspiel,’ ‘Le prix du danger.’ The protagonist of the story is Jim Raeder, a man only notable due to his normality, who has been a participant in many reality television-shows (given the name ‘thrill shows’) and thus become a celebrity.
In all the shows the risk of dying has been a part of the concept; he has fought a real bull in Spain, he has driven a Formula 1-car, and fought with other divers while trying to escape sharks and other sea monsters. In the story he partakes in the greatest of all reality shows; he is to be hunted by professional gangland murderers. As he is hunted, his journey is shown all over the US on TV and he receives help from the viewers; the so called Good Samaritans and the commentator, Mike Terry, makes a point of this during the show: ‘All of America is ready to help Jim!,’ but Raeder soon finds out that things are not what he expected them to be and that maybe his survival is not the main priority among the public. The story ends with Raeder winning The Prize of Peril, but being dragged away after presumably having a mental breakdown, not being ‘himself’ at the moment according to Terry.
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March 24, 2012
The Running Man is a science fiction novel by Stephen King, first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982 as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus ‘The Bachman Books.’ The novel is set in a dystopian United States during the year 2025, in which the nation’s economy is in ruins and world violence is rising.
The story follows protagonist Ben Richards as he participates in the game show ‘The Running Man’ in which contestants, allowed to go anywhere in the world, are chased by ‘Hunters,’ employed to kill them. ‘The Running Man’ was loosely adapted into a film with the same name, which was released five years after the book in 1987. The film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Richards.
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