E Plebnista

The election is over, and Democrats are celebrating all over, from Woodstock to Berkeley, from Tehran to Beijing. The majority of Americans have said they are happy with the management of their Government, and are excited to see four more years of continuing in the current direction. Democracy works, and the people have spoken. It's time for us to put away the yard signs and bumper sticker and get back to work so we can pay the taxes that enable the whole thing to continue to function.

Yesterday, I mentioned a device called the Vac-u-Form. At the time, I brought it up just because it's one of the memories I have of Herbie's house. It was a device that melted plastic into various kid-friendly shapes, and introduced children to the concept of mold-based manufacturing. It also provided a tremendous boost to the First Aid Creme and gauze dressing industries, since 100% of the children who played with the thing ended up with various 1st- and 2nd-degree burns.

That's probably why you don't see the things anymore. So I guess that's one of those items that would be familiar to everyone in a certain generation, and totally foreign to all others.

At some point, though, all dangerous toys were removed from the shelves. Today's Cub Scouts probably don't spend time searing their names into blocks of wood, and 8-year-old kids probably aren't allowed to operate their daddy's drill press without goggles and adult supervision. I suppose this is progress, and certainly an improvement in safety...but it still seems like some sort of loss to me.

Of course, today's youth DO know how to dispatch aliens with ruthless efficiency, and field army battle tactics are second nature from the day they begin to play computer games. Each generation's default skill set is slightly different from the previous. My dad's boyhood friends could all ride horses and milk cows, but had no clue how to tie-dye a t-shirt. I can still tell you the phone numbers of a half-dozen high-school friends, but I bet my son doesn't know a single number. It's all in his smartphone, so there's no reason for him to memorize anything.

I wonder how much those little cultural changes contribute to the fact that those kids seem so unorganized and irresponsible to the people of my generation. Hmm.

Anyway, here's one more hint for yesterday's puzzle. This photo could've been included along with the others. Do you see the answer now?

No, it's not "incompetent farmers." Nor is it "People who wear ties in inappropriate settings." I suppose you could make a case for each photo being chosen because of the interesting facial expression of the subject, but that's not it either.



It's "Oliver."

The first fellow is Oliver Cromwell, who was a historical royal ugly dude from England, who did a bunch of historical English stuff. Next to him is actress Susan Oliver, shown here in her role as Vena, the chick from Talos IV who occasionally pretended to be a green Orion Slave Girl (as featured in this space a couple of days ago).

Allow me to digress a moment. In this photo, Ms. Oliver is revealed to be deformed and lumpy, because the Talosian medics who repaired her spaceship crash injuries "had never seen a human before." Huh? That makes no sense: Other than being skinny and big-headed, the Talosians themselves look pretty much the same as humans. And c'mon...the concept of bilateral symmetry shouldn't be foreign to them, even if they hadn't seen the precise shoulder joint configuration that Vena had. What would possibly make them say "Gee, even though the bones on this side pretty much mirror the bones on that side, I think we should add a giant hump here, just because I'm guessing that's what these "hu-mans" are supposed to look like." C'mon, Roddenberry, that's just silly.

And anyway, Dr. McCoy could've fixed her right up in SickBay. (Yes, I know McCoy wasn't on board at this time, but he'd have come along eventually. Work with me here, people.)

Anyway, Susan Oliver was actually pretty cute in real life, so kudos to the makeup crew. And to her right, we see Mr. Oliver Reed, in the movie "The Curse of the Werewolf." We caught him in transition here, which explains his obvious discomfort with this particular photo opportunity. I'm pretty sure this was the first werewolf movie I ever saw, and I thought it was pretty good, and that Reed had some definite scene-stealing charisma as the troubled changling. And as I was entering adolescence at the time of this viewing, I was also entranced by the supporting cast of buxom females. I'm not sure another viewing would result in the same level of endorsement my younger self gave it, but the memory is all I have to go on at this point. I would recommend the movie as a worthy contender in the "Not Lon Chaney, Jr." category of movies about hairy handed gents.

To Reed's right is Oliver Hardy, who was famous for being fat and irritable and hanging around with a goofy skinny guy...I guess he was sort of the Joe Biden of his day. And to his right is Oliver Platt, in "The Three Musketeers."

Platt's version of the Dumas classic is arguably the worst one. When I saw the previews, I got excited about this movie because a) the a couple of the previous versions (especially the Gene Kelly one) were great, and b) the previews made me laugh out loud. Unfortuately, the thing I most remember about this movie is the fact that the three 5-second clips used in the previews were the ONLY good moments in the entire film...which made me think for the first time about the complex art of movie trailer editing.

And by the way, you get extra credit if you recognized that Oliver Reed was also in one of the Three Musketeers movies. The dude had range, man.

Anyway, that's your Oliver connection for today. The only other comments I have are that it's REALLY good to be back in the swimming pool...and that later today I will see the dermatologist to hopefully get professional confirmation that my ear is completely healed. Wish me luck, and have a great day!