POPnews - March 22nd

[Located on the grounds of Bangkok's Grand Palace, the temple of Wat Phra Kaew contains the most precious treasure in Thai Buddhism - namely the Emerald Buddha - which only the King is allowed near.]
238 CE - Gordian I and his son Gordian II were jointly proclaimed Roman Emperor.

1622 - Algonquian Indians massacred 347 English settlers at Jamestown - a full third of that colony's population.

1765 - Britain passed the Stamp Act, which introduced a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies without offering them representation at Westminster; reaction to the legislation was mixed - some colonists were outraged, while others were merely furious - and a new nation was born...

1784 - Thailand's Emerald Buddha was moved with great ceremony to its current place in Wat Phra Kaew.

1849 - Austrian forces commanded by Joseph Radetzky von Radetz defeated the Piedmontese of the Kingdom of Sardinia under Wojciech Chrzanowski at the Battle of Novara.

1871 - Although North Carolina Republican William Woods Holden (shown, at left) was the second governor of a US state to be impeached* he was the first to be removed from office because of that impeachment - which he was for attempting to limit the activities of the Ku Klux Klan who, during Reconstruction, had been denying blacks their right to vote by the various heinous methods they've been known to employ. Despite being defended by well-known attorneys such as Nathaniel Boyden and William Nathan Harrell Smith, the governor's involvement in the Kirk-Holden War left him on the wrong side of victory but on the right side of history**. There's a moral to the story somewhere in there I'm sure...

*Charles L. Robinson of Kansas of course being the first, in February 1862, for opposing the extension of slavery into his state during the tragic series of events known today as Bleeding Kansas.
**How different things were in the olden days, when Republicans were removed from office for fighting the good fight in support of minority rights. Maybe if a modern-day Republican wanted to wrest control of the Grand Old Party back from the Great Big Windbag (uh, Rush Limbaugh!) they could follow the example of these two men rather than the tar-hearted Cheneys and ethically-challenged Roves of the world.

1894 - The first Stanley Cup playoff series was won when Montreal Hockey Club beat the Ottawa Generals, 3–1.

1895 - Auguste and Louis Lumière held a private screening of motion pictures, a prelude to their first public showing in December of that year.

1916 - The last Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicated the throne and the Republic of China was restored.

1923 - Canada's legendary Foster Hewitt gave the first radio play-by-play in his esteemed career as a hockey announcer, or at least according to his memoirs; nevertheless, there was no scheduled game that day. The actual date of his broadcast debut was likely on February 16th, during a game between the Toronto Argonaut Rowing Club and the Kitchener Greenshirts.

1942 - In the Mediterranean Sea, Britain's Royal Navy confronted Italy's Regia Marina at the Second Battle of Sirte.

1943 - The entire population of Khatyn in Belarus was burnt alive by Nazi occupation forces.

1945 - The Arab League was founded when its charter was adopted in Cairo.

1975 - A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama, caused a dangerous lowering of cooling water levels.

1978 - Karl Wallenda of the The Flying Wallendas died after falling off a tight-rope strung between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1979 - Opposition Leader Margaret Thatcher put down an early day motion censuring the government, which led to the defeat of the Labour government of British Prime Minister James Callaghan.

1989 - Goalie Clint Malarchuk of the Buffalo Sabres suffered a near-fatal injury when another player accidentally slit his throat with a skate blade in one of the most gruesome sports injuries of all time.

1997 - The Comet Hale-Bopp made its closest approach to Earth.

2006 - BC Ferries' M/V Queen of the North ran aground near British Columbia's Gil Island and sank with 101 on board; two passengers remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead. It took two years to determine that human error was to blame.
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"Fool's Overture" by Supertramp

Most of those people whether intimately or tangentially connected to the Pop Culture Institute are an amiable enough lot, more than willing to let mention of their names slip into the occasional post here and there - even if they do occasionally look askance or roll their eyes at the editorial liberties taken therein, and/or at the outrages committed by me against those blameless names... There is one member of the Brain Trust, though, who is a shadowy figure known only to the world as The Broker.

I cannot stress his importance strongly enough; without him this publication simply could not function. His connections are those which best enable us to function intellectually, materially, and even spiritually. I wouldn't dream of crossing him, either, for behind his perennial smirk glint the eyes of a... Well, not a killer as such (nice Broker, ha ha, just kidding...) but someone who in a second could stop selling me obscure comic books from the 1960s like Millie the Model and bound collections of Walt Kelly's Pogo - which might as well be death! And so it is as much through the intervention of this important personage as it is owing to the supreme talent of Roger Hodgson - who was born on this day in 1950 - that Fool's Overture appears here today...

First appearing on Supertramp's 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments, the longer than 10 minute track offered that portion of the population enamoured of symphonic-style progressive rock ample opportunity to lie back and enjoy at the end of what was likewise a thoroughly enjoyable musical journey. Although the song never charted - in contrast to the more popular Give a Little Bit, which went all the way to #15 in North America - its melody has nevertheless insinuated its way into the public consciousness; in Canada, for instance, a snippet of became the theme for the respected television newsmagazine W5, while in the Netherlands it was for many years used during that country's weekly hit parade on the offshore station Radio Veronica as the theme music for the gig guide. Supertramp's hardcore fans, meanwhile, will recognize it as the finale for their monster 1977, 1979 and 1983 tours.
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Pop History Moment: The Overthrow Of Haile Selassie

On this day in 1974 Ethiopia's Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, ending nearly 3000 years of monarchy in that country...

Selassie had previously been in exile between 1936 and 1941, of course, during the occupation of his country by Italy following the invasion of Emilio De Bono which precipitated the Second Italo-Abyssinian War; then he and his family had settled at Fairfield House, in the English resort town of Bath. He later donated it to the city for use as a residence for the aged, for which it is still being used today.

Although he was returned to Ethiopia a hero, by the early 1970s a famine in Ethiopia's Wollo region and a shortage of oil worldwide had destabilized Ethiopia enough to allow for the rise of a madman named Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose Derg would succeed in systematically dismantling the longstanding tradition of democracy in the country.

Haile Selassie died in exile in August 1975 in mysterious circumstances; bones said to be His Majesty's were discovered beneath a plain concrete slab on the grounds of the Imperial Palace in 1992, in the year after the fall of the Soviet-backed Derg. He was succeeded as de jure Emperor of Ethiopia by his son, Amha Selassie I, who had briefly served as Emperor previously during a brief period of unrest in 1960.
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"PopoZão" by Kevin Federline

For all that he has been considered a human punchline* it was Britney Spears' extended nightmare of a nervous breakdown that, partially at least, rehabilitated the whack wigga known as Kevin Federline, born on this day in 1978. For the definitive record of their train wreck of a relationship - which many of us have gone out of our way to expunge from our memories - illegally download Britney & Kevin: Chaotic. Even as his ex-wife was struggling to find herself in the conflicting personae her mother and the Disney Corporation attempted to bury her under, Federline assumed responsibility for his sons Sean Preston and Jayden James even to the detriment of his own career as a rapper, which was anyway DOA despite being as legit as any.

Which brings us, inevitably, to PopoZão, the actually not bad Brazilian-esque number (produced by Disco D) which was the high point of Kevin Federline's career as a rapper; having earned a reported $5,000 a week as a nanny to care for his own sons as they traveled the world on The Circus Starring: Britney Spears in 2009, his most recent television appearance was on Celebrity Fit Club, where he appeared alongside (and competed against) his ex-babymama Shar Jackson.

*I personally couldn't wait for Britney and K-Fed to breakup so I could start calling him FedEx.
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Remembering... Pocahontas

It's not known when she was born or even when she died; the only date we have for certain concerning the life and death of Pocahontas is the day she was buried, which was this day in 1617. Even in this there are more questions than answers, for while we know at which church she was buried - Saint George's in Gravesend - it's not known which of the graves in the churchyard is hers.

Still, Pocahontas exerts a powerful pull on the white consciousness; subsequent generations have reinvented her according to their own culture and relative level of white guilt. The consensus of opinion is that she was a beautiful Indian princess who, for some unspecified reason, aided and abetted European settlement on the land of her fathers before converting to the white man's religion and dying of one of their diseases at a tragically young age.

Within that description is much of the bias upon which European culture (and especially its fairytales) is based. Certainly she wasn't a Princess in the typical manner, except that she was daughter of a powerful chief, Wahunsunacock (better known as Powhatan) of the Powhatan Confederacy. Even as a putative Princess, naturally, she had to be beautiful, otherwise why bother? Certainly any relationship with John Smith other than the platonic was fabricated, although her love for John Rolfe seems to have been sincere enough.

As for her conversion to Christianity, having seen and heard the thunderous brimstonery of white missionaries often enough, it's safe to say that any canny young girl such as her could see what lay ahead for those who didn't embrace the alleged God of love who seemed to do nothing but punish people - even (and often specifically) the best ones.

In the end it was the newly christened Rebecca's public relations junket to England, intended to drum up colonists and much-needed support from the Crown, which proved her end. As unaccustomed to Europe's pollution as she was to its bacteria, she fell ill and died even before the ship bringing her home was out of the Thames estuary. Not even the means of death has been recorded; some reports have it as tuberculosis, others as smallpox.

As is so often the case, since nothing could have saved her in life, some quality or other managed to save her in death, for she lives still in our collective memory; Disney's Pocahontas (1995) is pretty but inaccurate, and even Terrence Malick's 2005 film The New World (featuring Q'Orianka Kilcher as the woman herself) ends up derailing from the historical record into romantic bunkum fairly early on. Then again, if John Smith had looked anything like Colin Farrell, perhaps history would have turned out quite differently.
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Pop History Moment: Who Shot J.R.?

A remarkable example of the unifying potential of television occurred on this day in 1980; in the finale of the second season of Dallas - an episode ironically entitled A House Divided - J.R. Ewing, the oiliest oilman who ever fueled the lingering death of the planet (played brilliantly by Larry Hagman) was shot. Instantly, the phrase Who Shot JR? was on everybody's lips; a cultural phenomenon (and its attendant merchandising frenzy) was born. A House Divided had unwittingly spawned a world united, mainly with glee at the potentially fatal wounding of a greedy capitalist oligarch.

Owing to an actor's strike it would be nine months to the day before anyone would know who had actually shot the character everybody loved to hate, by which point the revelation was almost a let-down. The episode for which a record-breaking audience of some 83 million had waited and waited was entitled Who Done It?, but could just as easily have been called Who Gives A Crap?

After months of rampant speculation routinely fed by the publicity machine of CBS-Television, almost every fan of the show had their own pet theory, and my bet is that the dullest of them was better than the one cooked up by the show's writers. In the end it was revealed that, even though every character on the show (with the possible exception of Miss Ellie who was, after all, his own mother) would have gladly given him an enema with a rifle, it was J.R.'s humped and dumped sister-in-law Kristin Shepard (played by Mary Crosby) who had done the deed. In order to preserve the secret, many of the show's characters were filmed shooting him, with only the producers knowing for sure which one would be used.

For all that, the episode changed television; suddenly every season ended with a cliffhanger, and by the end of the 1980s, almost every episode was ending with a cliffhanger as well. Which, while it undoubtedly made TV more interesting, also created a very blase audience out of it. In TV terms, Who Shot JR? was little more than a gateway drug, giving viewers the greatest high they'd had to date, and making them hungry for ever higher highs, which pushers - I mean producers - like Aaron Spelling dutifully sought to provide.
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"Pieces" by Sum 41

Birthday wishes go out today to Deryck Whibley, vocalist and front man for Canadian pop-punk phenoms Sum 41, who are part of a new generation of musicians whose mashups of various musical genres are defining a new sound by defying such limiting notions as genre.

Pieces was the second single from the band's 2004 album Chuck, and is said to bear a striking resemblance to the Coldplay song The Scientist... Why not watch and compare?
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POPnews - March 21st

[Scheduled to be held at Cleveland Arena on this day in 1952 the first Moondog Coronation Ball - organized by promoter Lew Platt and Alan Freed, the man who coined the term 'rock and roll' - was something of a fiasco. As many as 20,000 tickets (many of them counterfeit) were sold for an event whose venue had a capacity of 10,000; after one song by Paul 'Hucklebuck' Williams authorities shut it down. Now an annual event for the nostalgia minded, run in conjunction with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the city's Quicken Loans Arena, things go a little more smoothly.]
717 CE - At the Battle of Vincy Austrasian forces led by Charles Martel were victorious over Frankish King Chilperic II and his mayor of the palace Ragenfrid.

1413 - Henry V became King of England following the death of his father Henry IV.

1556 - Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake at St. Mary's Church in Oxford; Cranmer had played a pivotal role in the English Reformation under Henry VIII and Edward VI, but was found guilty of heresy for his troubles by their staunchly Catholic successor Mary I. He was succeeded by Reginald Cardinal Pole.

1788 - The Great New Orleans Fire destroyed 856 of the 1,100 buildings in that city.

1800 - With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict with Napoleon, Pius VII was crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché, the original - along with his papal predecessor Pius VI - having been pilfered by the French.

1801 - The Battle of Alexandria was fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.

1804 - The Code Napoléon was adopted as the basis of French civil law.

1844 - This, the original date predicted by William Miller for the return of Christ, came and went without incident.

1871 - Otto von Bismarck was appointed Chancellor of the German Empire, the first ever to hold that post.

1913 - Over 360 were killed and 20,000 homes destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio.

1952 - Disc jockey Alan Freed presented the Moondog Coronation Ball - considered to be the first rock and roll concert - in Cleveland, Ohio.

1960 - During what came to be known as the Sharpeville Massacre, South African police opened fire on a group of unarmed black demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180. The day is now commemorated as Human Rights Day in that nation; the event was pivotal in South Africa's removal from the Commonwealth of Nations in May 1961.

1963 - Alcatraz - the famed Federal Penitentiary located on an island in San Francisco Bay - closed.

1965 - NASA launched Ranger 9, the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes, at the close of its Ranger program.

1970 - The first Earth Day proclamation was issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.

1980 - President Jimmy Carter announced a US boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, something a certain previous President didn't have the stones to do in regards to the 2008 Summer Olympics and its host country's ongoing theft of Tibet.

1985 - Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen began his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.

1989 - Sports Illustrated first reported allegations tying baseball player Pete Rose to gambling on the sport, which would eventually spoil his chances of ever entering the Hall of Fame.

1990 - Namibia became independent after 75 years of South African rule.
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"Rumble in Brighton" by Stray Cats

Birthday wishes go out today to Slim Jim Phantom, drummer for the American neo-rockabilly act Stray Cats, whose 1981 song Rumble in Brighton was soon over-shadowed by the huge fame the band would garner the following year with such hits as Rock This Town and Stray Cat Strut - not to mention 1983's pervo classic (She's) Sexy + 17*.

Rumble in Brighton appeared on the band's self-titled debut album, re-released the following year in the US as Built for Speed; it refers to a period of civil unrest between mods and rockers beginning in 1964 and continuing well into the Thatcher Era, at which time the Iron Lady gave the two sides a common enemy. The conflict is best documented in the 1974 film Quadrophenia, which starred members of The Who and was based on the 1973 album of the same name.

Phantom briefly courted the tabloid limelight in 1984 when he married famed movie strumpet Britt Ekland; their marriage ended in 1992, having resulted in the 1988 birth of their son T. J.

*The title of which looks too much like an algebra equation for my liking...
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Spring Photo Essay: Tulips

This is the time of year when Vancouver enters into its greatest period of floral profusion. Over the next two months there will be daffodils and crocuses, even grape hyacinths will linger in some sheltered places; meanwhile, cherry and apple blossoms fill the air with both colour and perfume as rhododendrons begin their season, and everywhere else there are tulips.

Even the dandelions have begun to run riot. It's crazy, not to mention crazy beautiful.

So why not celebrate springtime? This is my longest photo essay to date - nine images! - all of tulips. I must warn you, though, I break the rules. The standard rule of photography is to never show an even number of things in a picture. This despite the fact that springtime is all about pairings. Since I never met a rule I didn't want to break, a pair of these pictures even feature a pair of tulips! If seeing the rules broken bothers you, I just have one question: what the Hell are you doing here?

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Pop History Moment: Princess Anne Foils Own Kidnapping

On this day in 1974 Princess Anne and her new husband Captain Mark Phillips escaped an attempted kidnapping unharmed while returning to Buckingham Palace from a charity film screening; it remains the only attempted royal abduction in modern times, and resulted in increased security around the royals.

In all, four people were hurt in the attack, which took place in The Mall; the Princess' Personal Protection Officer Inspector James Beaton was most seriously injured, having been shot in the head and chest. He'd been the first to respond when the royal car was forced to stop by a light-coloured Ford Escort. The driver of the limousine and long-time member of the royal household, Alex Callender, was also shot early in the attack.

A journalist named Brian McConnell happened upon the scene and he too was shot, which is when the assailant, a mentally unstable man named Ian Ball ordered Her Royal Highness out of the car. 'Not bloody likely!' she is said to have exclaimed as she dove out of the opposite side; she was then escorted from the scene by another passerby named Ron Russell, but only after he'd punched Ball in the back of the head. One police officer named Michael Hills attempted to arrest the assailant, but was shot; as Ball tried to flee the scene another officer, Peter Edmonds, gave chase and managed to capture him without incident. The Princess' Lady-in-Waiting Rowena Brassey was also present; history does not record any action or reaction on the part of Mark Phillips.

Beaton was awarded the George Cross for his heroism; Alex Callender, Brian McConnell, Ron Russell, PC Michael Hills, and DC Peter Edmonds were all awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal. Ian Ball was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, where he remains to this day, maintaining his innocence via his own website, despite the fact that a note demanding £3 million in ransom was found in his car. In 2006 Granada Television produced a docu-drama entitled To Kidnap a Princess - directed by John Alexander - which related the events of this incident.
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Now Showing - "The Ballad of John and Yoko"

Released by The Beatles in May 1969 - just two months after the marriage of its protagonists - The Ballad of John and Yoko tells the story of the affair and marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono leading up to and including their famous Bed-In at the Amsterdam Hilton during their honeymoon. Recorded without the benefit of George Harrison or Ringo Starr*, its pared down sound is the perfect showcase for Lennon's other important partnership at the time, namely the one he shared with Paul McCartney.

A true single, the song was released as such immediately before recording commenced on the band's legendary Abbey Road album; it was later released as part of the album Past Masters, Volume Two (1967-1970), as well as on the latter-day smash compilation 1.

*Harrison was on holiday and Starr was filming The Magic Christian.
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Queen's Message To The Commonwealth, 2010

Today’s societies are constantly seeking ways to improve their quality of life, and science and technology play a vital part in that search.

Experimentation, research and innovation, mean that more opportunities for improving people’s lives exist today than ever before. Take long distance communication, where the obstacles of time and geography have been dramatically reduced: people can now use mobile phones to be in instant contact virtually anywhere in the world, be it with a medical centre in the Himalayan mountains in Asia, a Pacific island school, a research facility at the South Pole, or even the international space station, beyond this planet altogether.

Advances in modern telecommunications are also having a marked economic effect on people from developing nations in the Commonwealth, helping to transform small to medium-sized businesses. The internet is playing an important part in helping to nurture these fledgling markets but, as yet, it still remains an unaffordable option for too many of our Commonwealth citizens.

Progress in the fields of healthcare, manufacturing, and education have, for the most part, helped improve people’s lives throughout the world. In the health sector, the Commonwealth has shown how collaborative schemes can successfully assist member states to fight pandemics and diseases.

In making these advances the Commonwealth recognises that the best forms of innovation are those that unite, and help build resilient partnerships and better societies as a whole.

This is particularly important for the more than half of the Commonwealth citizens who are under 25 years of age. It is vital that their potential to build on the exceptional scientific expertise that exists in member states is also fully supported through education and social development. The Commonwealth understands this, and should continue to aid and encourage our young people to participate in the exciting new opportunities that lie ahead, in the knowledge that progress is something which must be sustained and shared by all.
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Jules Feiffer: 'Television'

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By way of explanation, I recently bought and was reading Explainers (1956-66) - the first of four scheduled volumes of the collected works of legendary cartoonist Jules Feiffer, published by the darling folks at Fantagraphics Books - when I came across this little gem of insight. It occurred to me that a) to my cynical eye, at least, not much has changed in television over the exactly fifty years since this was first printed*, at least not from an executive standpoint anyway, and b) since I was so taken by its form and content what better an example to publish here and thereby justify the cost of the book? I mean, it's not even his birthday or anything!

Wondering if there was possibly some way to translate a strip which was initially horizontal in two lines into one which is vertical in one, I set up my scanner to work with my laptop, then set out with the aid of a photocopier and scanner to attempt just that... This is the result.

Aside from a slight lopsidedness near the top (owing entirely to my lack of technical acuity**) I think it translates well. I may, in fact, return to it at a later date and repair my own error. Then again, I probably won't; two years ago I published a Peanuts cartoon with a scan warp that I have yet to fix. One thing is for certain - I will be posting more items like this as I come across them... I had completely forgotten how much fun one can have with a scanner!

*In New York City's pioneering alternative weekly The Village Voice.
**Either that or one of my eyes is in crooked!
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Blast From The Past: The Queen Mother At Work

It was fifty years ago today Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother took a tour of the Heinz factory at Kitt Green near Wigan in Lancashire, as this excellent bit of video from YouTube's The Royal Channel so amply demonstrates; then in operation just five weeks, the plant was turning out some half a million tins of pork and beans a day.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the factory this past May 21st in order to mark the 50th anniversary of the facility.
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Breaking News: Chastity Bono To Drop The 'Tity', Become Chaz

Speaking as a professional smart-aleck, sometimes the jokes just come to me; I certainly don't mean to be offensive or cruel by them when they do. Like the headline above, for example: it just popped into my head as I was typing something more pedestrian. To my mind it would be wrong of me not to use it, since to do so would mean censoring myself, and censorship is never justified (especially when self-inflicted). I've always used comedy to help me come to terms with just about everything*, and I always will. I mean, I think I try to be sensitive far more than most - certainly more than 99% of the blogosphere - when I do, I really do. But unfunny people just don't get, during times of personal or cultural tragedy - or else, like this, times when sensitivity and taste are called for - how difficult it is, and how hard some of us have to bite on our fists and just keep our tacky mouths shut until it's no longer 'too soon' for everybody else...

Not that today's announcement that Chastity Bono - eldest child of the late Sonny Bono and Cher - will be undergoing gender reassignment surgery in the near future is anything like a tragedy, you understand. It's just that an earnest expression and an understanding nod would be far more appropriate in this instance than a joke about breasts whose days are numbered. No, the only tragedy in a situation like that of Chaz Bono is in having to live the lie of a body that doesn't match who you are in your mind. Fortunately for him - see, it's not so hard to switch a pronoun here and there, is it? - there are clinical options; not even the platoon of charlatans who came so close to turning Michael Jackson into Diana Ross could correct my mind-body dysphoria by turning me into Hugh Grant.

On a more personal note, I don't think it'll come as any surprise to my regular readers, since I've openly discussed it on here before, but back when I was a little kid (or a 'pre-blogger', which is my preferred term) I was inordinately fond of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. My favourite part of the show - and this is saying something, because how do you pick a favourite part of anything that fabulous? - were the appearances by Chastity; I had a wicked crush on her back in the day, and even told my mother I'd some day like to marry her.

After she came out as a lesbian, I assumed that was the affinity I'd been sensing all those years before; after all, I've always been drawn to the little culture-fucking rule-breaker that is a tomboy. Well, it turns out it went much deeper than that. Anyway, best of luck to you man as you embark upon your journey into the world of the male mysteries... The Pop Culture Institute will always have your back.

*Everything, in fact, except the death of Princess Diana... Ain't no smiles in that.
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Wednesday Wallpaper: May 13th

The last place I wanted to be that morning was on the platform of the Main Street SkyTrain station; tired after having just gotten off work, my shoulder sore and as overburdened as the knapsack it held, eyes both cloudy with fatigue and sticky from the canned air I'd just left.

And yet... The sun was warm on my face and for some reason cleared my vision enough to behold the above scene as a dolphin-like smiling face passed through the clouds overhead.

(If you would like a large-sized file of this image to use for your computer's wallpaper, email me at michaelseanmorris@gmail.ca and indicate which image you'd like, either by date or description or by cutting and pasting the link to this post into the body of your email. Or, if you're in the mood for supporting an artist who receives no public funding, contact me about purchasing a print. ~ MSM)

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Princess Eugenie Robbery Drama

The Queen's grand-daughter Princess Eugenie, the 19 year-old daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York, has been involved in an attempted purse-snatching while visiting the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh as part of her gap year...

Available accounts say that the attack took place two weeks ago, and was thwarted by officers of the Royal Protection Squad, who also succeeded in retrieving the handbag in question. Although the pair of detectives had tackled and pinned the mugger, an accomplice pelted them with rocks, at which time they released their captive; the tactic, known as 'de-escalation', was undertaken in consideration of the Princess' safety. Neither she nor her two traveling companions were hurt, and they decided not to curtail their vacation because of the incident.

Although most of the media have pointed out that this is the first time in more than a decade that members of SO14 branch have had to defend a royal from harm, it's unlikely given the circumstances that her assailants even knew who she was, and in fact a royal source has pointed out that it wasn't even Princess Eugenie herself who was mugged. Buckingham Palace, therefore, has refused to comment on the story.

Her Royal Highness conducts no business as yet on behalf of the Royal Family and, while well-known enough in the UK, still travels by Tube when in London and otherwise conducts a largely private life. Of course, that hasn't stopped the British Press from taking an interest in her anyway; a cover appearance on Tatler magazine in April 2008 set tongues a-wagging, and a much-publicized nude frolic on the grounds of posh Marlborough College two months later did more than that.
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The Pop Culture Institute: A State Of The Blog Address

[Compared with the same map of the entire year ending October 26th, 2008 - located behind this image - the first half of this year looks very strong indeed.]
Back in the olden days (I'm talking 2007 here - which is so long ago to the modern mind it might as well be the Renaissance - I mean, it was before Twitter even!) it was fairly common for me to occasionally lift the veil of secrecy that shrouds the activity behind the scenes at the Pop Culture Institute. It was my intention in doing that to try and foster a kind of community surrounding this blog without setting myself up as a kind of wicker man in the service of a personality cult...

Well, after a very stressful couple of months - February, March, and especially April - I've come to the conclusion that a community (like a person) cannot be fostered until it is born; in those terms the Pop Culture Institute is still a fetus. Oh, it's a late-term fetus to be sure, but whether second or third trimester, well, who can say? Especially not me, since you've just discovered the utmost extent of my knowledge regarding obstetrics and therefore the limit to the metaphor. The point is, it has yet to be born, and so still is what it is in a self-enclosing way that yields few comments, virtually no discussion, and worst of all zero feedback.

Of course, no news is good news, so the anxiety I feel over the lack of feedback is merely a manifestation of my own insecurity; it's to be trapped in a corner and beaten until dead like the disease-bearing vermin it is...

As shown by the bar graph above, my stats were strong for the first three weeks of April - with no one day falling below 120 page views, although four of them came dangerously close. One day, the 13th, soared to 209 - second place in terms of busiest days ever*. Why they fell so sharply from the 21st to the 22nd is anybody's guess... The weather certainly improved, but also the Conficker virus activated itself - both of which could have caused a decrease in all computer activity and therefore in my traffic. While the traffic seems to be improving now

What it means is that I was deprived of twelve straight months of steady growth in traffic - April's total falling just 8 page views shy of March's record; had the stats not dropped for the five days they did I would have surpassed it by at least 48, and possibly even cracked the 4,500 mark as well.

Still, the 'disappointing' 4,328 does represent a three-fold increase over this time last year, and even though the current stats indicate a plateau is coming, I would be thrilled to see a similar pattern of growth over the next 12 months. Despite the loss of the Brain Trust and the help they gave me, I feel certain that the brain I can best trust - my own - will continue to fumble its way through to the next Beltane just fine.

*The busiest day ever was 225 in February 2009.
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Queen's Day Car Crash Raises Many Questions, Offers Few Answers

Today's Koninginnedag (or Queen's Day) celebrations in Holland were marred by an apparent assassination attempt aimed at Queen Beatrix and other members of the Dutch Royal Family; as their open-topped bus drove slowly past adoring crowds near the Het Loo palace in the Dutch city of Apeldoorn a black late-model Suzuki Swift plowed through several barriers and a crowd of revellers, narrowly missing the royal party and crashing into a monument instead. The video above clearly shows Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife Máxima standing and expressing shock following the collision; the Crown Prince's brother Prince Johan-Friso is also seen looking crestfallen.

Police acted swiftly and apprehended the assailant, a 38 year-old Dutch national named Karst Tates who was said to be a security guard distraught over losing his job and facing eviction; precisely how he hoped to remedy his situation by committing such a heinous act remains between him and his conscience. All told five people died and twelve were injured in the attack; in addition to murder and attempted murder charges, Tates is being charged under Article 108, a little-used statute meant to punish those targeting the Dutch royals. Tates is not known to Dutch police, and there's no indication his action was connected to any terrorist group.

Remaining Koninginnedag celebrations were cancelled, depriving the Dutch of their annual display of togetherness; Her Majesty addressed the nation via videotape later in the day, expressing shock at the attack and condolence for the victims and their families.

On this formerly joyous occasion turned sombre by a crime which nevertheless could have been much worse, the Pop Culture Institute can only offer the heartfelt wish: Leef lang de Koningin...
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The Barington Encounter: Part Twenty-Two

After an inexcusable lapse of two whole weeks, it seems The Barington Encounter is back on track... Of course, as with Virgin trains or the career of Jonathan Ross, there's no telling what Fate might befall the author of the story as he attempts to attempt telling the story of the story even further. See? I barely survived this caption! Oh, the suspense... ~ MSM

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[13] * [14] * [15] * [16] * [17] * [18] * [19] * [20] * [21]

CHAPTER 1.5

Any chance Barington might once have had at remaining a very normal town in Sussex was now about to be well and truly shot to shit...

Oriononians had been colonising the dankest gardens from Wales to Wellington for centuries and their colonists had managed in all that time to make no discernable difference to the hearty character of the people found therein; Centauris had been flocking to Glasgow for even longer - and eaten many a deep-fried orphan as well along the way - without so much as raising an eyebrow. Yet after just one day in England five Andromedans who'd never left their home world even once until recently had managed to screw the place up so completely that many of her former enemies had been rendered tragically supine by the effort of their laughter...

In Dublin, especially, the morning’s news was delivered with a decided slur which by midday was a very sloppy sing-along and by tea-time an abortive brawl between the news presenter and the meteorologist brought to you live from the RTE car park... All of which was positively idyllic compared to the reaction in France, which you wouldn’t have thought would have so damn many highly flammable suburbs left.

Of course, the British media was too busy that day chasing Princesses of one class or another into early graves, then chasing their coffins even more zealously, to notice that some strange happenings had begun beginning in Sussex...

* * *

Here again is where we get ahead of ourselves.

Tempting as it might be to jump ahead to all the pageantry and that of Gary Carlisle’s funeral it would all take time to plan, during which period many hilarious events best described with a truly baroque arrangement of adverbs will occur; it seems such a waste to let them go undescribed.

Anyway, such logistics as required of an authentic Andromedan royal burial normally would have come most easily to just one person on the Bishop’s staff, which anyway was a staff of one, other than himself; alas, it was the same person who was just then being loaded into the back of an ambulance before making its slow, gravelly way down the drive followed closely by the Bishop’s Jaguar on its way to hospital in Brighton. Fortunately for Miss Reed her constitution was one of the most durable in all of Europe - even more so than Switzerland - and so it would take more than a close call with the Andromedan national anthem to keep her down, even if witnessing it up close meant she'd been temporarily unable to keep the contents of her lunch down.

In the opposite direction went Felicia Fripp and Victor Vickers, off to plan some scheme or scheme some plan or other from the relative comfort of her kitchen table while the aliens went more or less in the same direction - albeit on foot - having first assisted the driver of the hearse with the by now truly fragrant corpse of Gary Carlisle. A third direction, north, saw the diminishing figures of Trudy Carlisle and Frederick Toady, heads bent together to some unknown (or indeed heretofore un-thought of) aim.

So while following them all seems like the likely thing to do, which of them to follow first...

[CONTINUE]

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Friday Watchlist - April 3rd

Tom Waits - Putnam County
Tom Jones - Situation
Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People
UTFO - The Roof Is On Fire
Eva Cassidy - Fly Me To The Moon
Kool and the Gang - Get Down On It
Nine Inch Nails - Closer (Fuck You Like An Animal)
Bettye Lavette - Let Me Down Easy
Madonna - Nothing Really Matters
Eminem - Without Me
Ron Hynes - St. John's Waltz
L7 - Suzy Is A Headbanger
Michelle Shocked - Anchorage
The Magnetic Fields - The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side
Cyndi Lauper - She Bop
Gary Numan - Cars
Deee-Lite - Runaway
Keb' Mo' - Momma, Where's My Daddy
Indigo Girls - Power Of Two
Donovan - Catch The Wind
The Guess Who - Laughing
Holly Cole Trio - Downtown
Pat Benatar - We Live For Love
The Rolling Stones - Waiting For A Friend
Dexy's Midnight Runners - Come On Eileen
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Obama Meets The Queen

Never mind that the greed of bankers has reduced the world's economy to a colossal Take-a-Penny tray, or that the entire world is gradually being sucked down the drain (at least according to cable news outlets); the most pressing issue in the world today is how American First Lady Michelle Obama touched - I mean, actually put her hands on! - the Queen.

Fortunately the leaders of the world's twenty biggest economies had already converged on London for the G-20 Summit, so they were able to put aside discussion of a global depression, various genocides both ongoing and impending, and how 6 billion of us should all go about committing suicide since it's pretty much over to tackle this vital issue. With any luck my eyes should stop rolling in about a week or so...
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Friday Watchlist - March 27th

Evelyn 'Champagne' King - I'm In Love
Pink Floyd - Be Careful With That Axe, Eugene
Les Paul & Mary Ford - Vaya Con Dios
Tom Waits - Downtown
Michelle Shocked & Doc Watson - Strawberry Jam
Joni Mitchell - Taming The Tiger
Randy Newman - I Think It's Going To Rain Today
The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
Queen Latifah - Black Hand Side
Johnnie Ray - Hey There
Lady Sovereign - Love Me Or Hate Me
The Kinks - Starstruck
ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Loving
England Dan & John Ford Coley - I'd Really Love To See You Tonight
Tom Lehrer - Selling Out
Raekwon - Casablanca
Dion and the Belmonts - Runaround Sue
Klaus Nomi - Total Eclipse
Eurythmics - Who's That Girl?
The Ramones - Rockaway Beach
Carol Douglas - Midnight Love Affair
Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
Fine Young Cannibals - Good Thing
Style Council - The Paris Match
Gnarls Barkley - Gone Daddy Gone
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The Barington Encounter: Part Twenty-One

Not unlike the Bishop of Barington - who's currently as burnt-out as his cathedral once was - the author of The Barington Encounter has seemingly come to a point in the story where, short of a miracle, he has nowhere else to go with it... His flights of fancy have succeeded, in their Icariosity, only in flying too high too soon with too predictable and too waxy results. If only there were actually such a people as Andromedans to help him maybe he'd know what to do with the ones created by his now sadly depleted imagination... ~ MSM



[1] * [2] * [3] * [4] * [5] * [6] * [7] * [8] * [9] * [10] * [11] * [12]

[13] * [14] * [15] * [16] * [17] * [18] * [19] * [20]
Although most of us dread socially awkward standoffs in the asymmetrical shadow of modernist Anglican cathedrals deep in the loveliest parts of suburban Sussex - except, of course, for those of you who don't - it was one such event which'd brought Frederick Toady, Trudy Carlisle, Marlak, Grimmnha, Bisree (nee Lakh), Croupf, and Lililili (along with their varying degrees of various familiar qualities including, but not limited to, dread) to their current locale - standing crowded round the desk of Robert Stephens, the Bishop of Barington...

Seated in front of them, unfortunately, were the volcanically livid Felicia Fripp and her vicar, Victor Vickers, who was then (not unlike the Bishop himself) having trouble following the conversation, so keenly was he considering early retirement. So strong were the feelings of Mrs. Fripp and Vicar Vickers, in fact, that they even showed upon their backs, a happenstance not unfamiliar to Mr. Toady and Mrs. Carlisle - they being English, and therefore accustomed to such lavish displays of passive-aggressive opprobrium - but one which had previously been known to the aliens only via the entirely theoretical England contained within the pages of the Encyclopedia Earthica. Seeing it now face to back, needless to say, thrilled them to their very electrons.

‘What seems to be the problem again?’ the Bishop asked for the fourth (or was it the fifth?) time, right after the third (or was it the fourth?) time they’d tried to explain the relatively straightforward situation to him and succeeded only in failing.

‘We require your permission to bury Gary Carlisle with the full rites accorded to an Andromedan Emperor in the catacombs beneath Barington Cathedral,’ offered Frederick Toady with such lucidity it would have made him the laughingstock of the Foreign Office, whereat his job now clung by the slenderest thread based entirely upon the even slenderer possibility of his current assignment's successfulness.

‘I see,’ said the Bishop, who once again didn’t. ‘And who is he again?’

‘My husband,’ offered Trudy Carlisle, unhelpfully.

‘Our friend,’ offered Marlak, on behalf of the others, who nodded in agreement, although his offer also provided little or no help.

‘A police constable who died while on duty in this town,’ offered Frederick Toady, which entirely helpful input unintentionally threw the Bishop for a loop (or was it two?).

Still, at this news, he only nodded; of course, it was a better reaction than he’d given to anything else that had been said so far, which was a hopeful sign for all concerned. ‘And where is this Gary Carlisle now?’ he enquired yet again.

At which point came a shrill scream and sickening thump from his outer office, wherewithout his secretary had - intending to clean up the pile of towels left there earlier by what she perceived were a crowd of entirely slovenly aliens - discovered it to contain an entirely dead, if beautifully scented, corpse. She then shrieked as previously elucidated before doing what she least wanted to do in the world and fainted right on top of its cadaverous lumpenality. ‘He’s out there,’ offered Marlak, somewhat needlessly if entirely helpfully, as Lililili and Croupf went to Miss Reed’s aid and/or comfort.

‘Well, I see no reason - ’ the Bishop started to say when he was interrupted by Felicia Fripp.

‘If you see no reason then I most certainly do,’ she said, reflexively clutching Vickers’ hand before realizing what she’d done (not to mention where she’d done it, although - after the afternoon they'd passed - grateful it was only his hand she’d clutched) and releasing it.

‘Mrs Fripp,’ the Bishop turned to her intending to sound avuncular and soothing (as per the terribly useful self-help book The Idiot’s Guide to Being A Bishop resting well-thumbedly upon an Ottoman, that is to say, a hassock, in his study at home - fat lot of good it did him there) but instead sounding strident and patronising (something he must have picked up at a Tory party conference in the Eighties). ‘When you are Bishop of Barington you may make the decisions regarding this see. In the meantime, I think we’ll leave them to me, hm?’

He looked at her some more, as did the entire group, at which attention she rather unusually slunk down in her chair and held her mouth closed by covering it with her hand. Satisfied that this particular member of his flock was finally ready to leave her flocking mouth shut at last, the Bishop tried to resume his former line of questioning. ‘Now, you say he died in the line of duty?’

‘Well...’ said Trudy Carlisle, with a wince and a shrug.

It took an act of patience worthy of Job not to shout at her, but looking across the desk at the lushness of her form and the pinkness of her skin (each of which made her so unlike the salty pillar his wife had become) ensured that where she was concerned patience was one virtue he was only too willing to demonstrate in exchange for the one vice she inspired in him in spades. All of which roiling emotions and hormonal disturbance he perfectly encapsulated with a sweet grin and a benign turn of phrase: ‘Well what, Mrs Carlisle?’

Still shrugging, she sheepishly said, ‘It was technically during his tea break.’

‘I see. And what was it he was doing again when he died?’ Here the memory of it evoked a greater sense of embarrassment than grief in her, and she blushed. ‘Mrs Carlisle, I understand what you’re going through but you’re among - ’ He cut himself off before he could say ‘friends’, especially given the dirty looks being thrown at her through him by Mrs Fripp and the vicar, despite their backs being turned. ‘Ah, it’s all right to tell me.’

‘He... He...’

‘Yes?’

‘He was performing the Andromedan national anthem,’ she said, letting all the words at last tumble out of her like commuters off a Tube train, and at the utterance of which the aliens all seemed to puff up with pride, but which rather sort of embarrassed her - as it did them, since nothing shamed an Andromedan like pride - or indeed made them swell with pride like being deflated with shame.

‘I see. And is such a thing normally as hazardous as, say, removing an ASBO from a red zone?’

‘Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t know about that, Your Bishopness, since Barington has none of either,’ she said. ‘Besides which I’m not a police officer, my husband is. Was. But just the sound of him performing it did make me quite nauseous, so who knows what actually performing it might have done to him.’

‘Mm-hm.’ At this the Bishop took a discreet sip of his drink in order to work up the courage to look at Marlak. When he finally did, he asked, ‘Perhaps if you five could, uh, favour us with a few bars?’

The alien sat stock still and Stephens thought he saw a glimmer of consternation there - although that could have been the Scotch, which hadn't been offered around - and when he finally nodded his fellows followed suit, and with alarmingly similar nods too. In fact what he’d seen was pride, which to an Andromedan is the same thing as consternation, as well as embarassment, shame. In fact, the Andromedans' greatest expression of pride was not unlike the kind of shivering revulsion that accompanies the memory of a really incomprehensible drunk-dial about three days after the fact.

Here Trudy Carlisle couldn’t help but speak up. ‘It might be better if they went in the other room and we stayed in here and listened through the door.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously.’

‘Alright then, erm, Marlak... Will you take your... Uh, your compatriots outside and sing - ’ here Trudy Carlisle made what might have been a maddeningly indeterminate gesture but one which was nevertheless perfectly clear to the Bishop ‘ - uh, perform us a bit of your national anthem.’

With a discreet nod from each of them, the aliens each in their own inimitable way rose and turned fluidly and/or jerkily and left the Bishop’s office, so honoured stroke ashamed were they to be performing their national anthem in such a holy place as this.

Meanwhile Felicia and the vicar remained seated, their faces rather like carved masks of skepticism, as the Bishop rose and crossed the room with Trudy Carlisle, and Frederick Toady. Here he closed his office door, then called out for them to begin; Trudy covered her ears, and motioned to Toady and the Bishop to do the same...

At once the outer (and indeed the inner) office was filled by what sounded like a calliope underwater, or a dozen bagpipers drowning in a car wash - perhaps, even more grotesquely than that, Lady Thatcher singing a medley of Girls Aloud hits in the shower - followed almost immediately by the horrifying shriek which was as much a part of her as her lank hair and her heavy thighs, accompanied by the most awful - even Dickensian - retching sounds which, the way his luck was going today, also belonged to the suddenly hapless Miss Reed.

The performing stopped and the bishop flang the door to his outer office to discover his secretary once again passed out, her hair and clothing utterly disarranged and her body in a kind of position every yoga instructor and Pilates teacher in Knightsbridge would have given their well-developed abdominal muscles to achieve, a vast pool of fresh vomit gradually seeping into the old, if not exactly antique, wall-to-wall carpeting on the floor of the waiting room beneath her.

‘You’ve got a deal,’ said the bishop, who returned to his desk to ring 999 while the aliens, Trudy, and Toady rejoiced at the news and Felicia and the vicar stormed angrily out, potential imprecations seeming to rise in cartoon-like wisps of steam from their heads...

[CONTINUE]

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