No smoke seen, but the fire is burning

[sovay]

After failing to sleep at all last night, I got up anyway at eight-thirty this morning to attend the first MIT Swapfest of the year with my father as part of his extended birthday. It was fun; he got two WWII-era gyroscopes, derspatchel got the complete packaging for a surrealist Infocom game (Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It, 1987), my brother got some wrenches and a server, and I got a pair of antique pliers which I have named the Devonian Parrotfish. It looks like a placoderm and it has a beak. Pictures are forthcoming. We had waffles with my mother in Lexington and then returned home to pass out for several hours. I lay in bed with cats and read C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce (1945), lent me by gaudior.

My Patreon is six dollars a month away from a year-end chapbook of my complete collected reviews of 2015! Anyone want to chip in the last necessary pledge? Then I can start thinking up a new milestone goal.

If I am reading the runtime correctly, the version of Baby Face (1933) showing tonight on TCM is the decades-lost original uncensored cut, soundly rejected by New York censors and trimmed of five minutes before it could be publicly shown. An article about the rediscovery refers to it as "one of the most stunningly sordid films ever made." Fingers crossed.

Comments

[gwynnega]

The Swapfest sounds like a lot of fun.

Baby Face is on TCM as I write this. It's pretty darn sordid, all right. "Use men! Use men to get the things you want!"

[sovay]

Baby Face is on TCM as I write this. It's pretty darn sordid, all right. "Use men! Use men to get the things you want!"

That was brilliant. Oh, man, I have to figure out how to write about this film.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

You should be happy to know that this is the only hit Googel has for "Devonian Parrotfish." Brava.

[sovay]

You should be happy to know that this is the only hit Googel has for "Devonian Parrotfish." Brava.

I am delighted to hear this.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I got a pair of antique pliers which I have named the Devonian Parrotfish. It looks like a placoderm and it has a beak. Pictures are forthcoming.

I have always asserted that any Waiter's Friend corkscrew, when opened out in the obvious manner, looks like a mechanical shrimp.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Highly recommend The Parrot. (http://store.alessi.com/usa/en-gb/catalog/detail/parrot-sommelier-corkscrew/am32)

[sovay]

I have always asserted that any Waiter's Friend corkscrew, when opened out in the obvious manner, looks like a mechanical shrimp.

I had never thought about it before, but I believe you're right.

Now I want a mantis shrimp corkscrew. I wonder how to make that happen.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I suspect engineering a corkscrew to have one of these on it would end in tears when one of the cats got at it, but it would be pretty to look at before it got its feathers mussed.