cinema history class: creature with the blue hand

Session: Krazy Krimis -- Get Your Krimi On, Week 4
Movie 1: Creature with the Blue Hand (1967)
Directed by Alfred Vohrer
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
A homicidal maniac with a metal hand (which has built-in claws) is killing people, and Scotland Yard is having trouble solving the string of murders. Hilarity ensues.

Reaction:
There's stuff to like here.

First of all, there's Klaus Kinski who is always a treat. And here he plays a sane man, which is a bit of a stretch for him. There's the murder weapon, which can be seen as a primitive precursor to the whole Wolverine thing. And the portrayal of the various and sundry residents of the asylum was entertaining.

But I just couldn't really get into this.

Ratings:
Me: 7
Dave: 9.5-9.6
Ethan: 10
Joe: 10
Sean 3 out of 4

earworm wednesday: i

lids bbq 2018

Well, the weather cooperated. We had a beautiful day for the LIDS annual picnic.

A little auction excitement

Club President Chris Petersen, hosted (how many years in a row is this?). Not that I'm complaining -- the setting is perfect, just off the bay, with a nice breeze and beautiful scenery. Her husband, Steve, handled grill duties. Several members brought lots of daylilies to auction off, and to give away (both as door prizes and plain old giveaways.

I've come to really look forward to the annual picnic -- it's a time to schmooze with other LIDS members in a relaxed atmosphere, without an agenda. And schmooze, I did. Between bites of hamburgers, hotdogs and cake. Hmmm. Maybe that explains my waistline.

The only thing I didn't like was that Blair couldn't come. She was taking Sharon to some e-Sports event in Manhattan. Not to worry though -- I ate enough for both of us. Back to that whole waistline issue...

And speaking of eating, Can someone explain to me what kind of dog won't eat hamburger?

Anyway, I came away with some plants, so tomorrow I'll be digging in the yard (hopefully before the Jamaica Estates Association Gardening Club meeting). My bounty? Glad you asked. Pictures of the daylilies are below the list:

• War Horse: I bought this at auction. I love those reds. It reminds me of Spider Man, which is my favorite.
• Allen Watts: Also at auction. I love those Hanson cultivars with the halo pattern. Funny, I was thinking that it looked a lot like Alien Data Base, which is also a Hanson. And when I looked it up, lo, I found that it's one of Alien Data Base's children.
• Frame of Reference: Also at auction. Another haloed Hanson.
• Beyond 2000: This was a freebie. I'd heard a description, and it sounded pretty.
• Trish Herr: Another freebie. Same thing
  about hearing a description.
• Cherokee Star: Another freebie. Same thing about hearing a description.
• Black Ambrosia: Thanks, Toni& Doug! I forget how it came about, but at some point Toni had promised Blair and me that she would give us some of this. I think it's because I had expressed interest in the dark purples.
• A huge hosta (I don't know which cultivar): Thanks, Pam & Luanne! I don't know how this came about, but since Blair and I have a large section of shaded yard that we've been trying to turn into a hosta bed,* this will come in handy.

War Horse

Allen Watts

Frame of Reference

Beyond 2000

Trish Herr

Cherokee Star

Black Ambrosia

*The woman we bought the house from had pachysandra there. I hate pachysandra.

two tales of a city

Ethan and I were in Boston last weekend. It was part of our plan to go to Boston.

You may be rolling your eyes, anticipating that I'll bore you with all the details of the tour. Fear not. Instead I'll just be boring you with discussion of two things we did. At the advice of Keith (who runs our horror movie class) we went on a Boston Crime Tour and a Beacon Hill Crime Tour.

Both were walking tours in which our guide took us around the designated area, telling us a variety of stories about the history of crime in the area. Both were excellent experiences -- especially if you've had your fill of duckboat rides and Faneuil Hall. But they both required a lot of walking.

But they were very different from each other.

The Beacon Hill Crime Tour, led by David Phillips, focused on -- duh -- Beacon Hill, a very wealthy area of Boston. But while the geographic area was limited (it only involved one mile of walking, though that mile included some steep hills), the scope was pretty expansive -- covering crimes from colonial times up through the 1960s. Phillips  would walk the group to a location, and then tell us a crime-related story from the area's history. The stories were discrete and self-contained; none of them were really related to each other. I should note that Phillips threw a little twist in there -- one of the stories was made up, so it was a game to figure out which one was false.

The Boston Crime tour, by contrast, was a more-expansive experience, geographically speaking. We walked about three miles in all -- starting at the Downtown Waterfront, then going up through the North End, and the West End, before ending at the sight of the Boston Massacre. While our guide, Omar Doherty, did cover some crimes from Colonial times, he focused on organized crime from the mid to late 20th century. So we heard a lot about Whitey Bulger, Stephen Flemmi and John Martorano. Rather than focusing on discrete, self-contained stories, Doherty painted a picture of a phenomenon. His tour was more of a conversation -- though that also might have been a function of the fact that Ethan and I were the only ones taking that tour. With Phillips, we were two of maybe a dozen.

While Ethan and I did do some conventional touring in Boston, I really enjoyed these less-traditional activities, and can wholeheartedly recommend them -- unless, of course, you have low tolerance for icky stories.

In case you're interested:
Beacon Hill Crime Tour
Boston Crime Tour

Tell 'em Moish sent ya.

vote. or don't. your choice.

This morning, I voted in the primaries. A few observations:

• Since Blair and I are registered with different parties (yes, we're a mixed marriage), there was some confusion over which ballots to give us. Fortunately, it wasn;t a big problem.
• One of the pollworkers started giving me dirty looks when he realized my party affiliation. He did his best to mask his distaste, but I could still see it. Whatever. He still did his job.
• This was Ethan's first time voting, so he was a little ill at ease. I had brought the Approval Notice he got from the the Board of Elections. Just in case. We didn't need it.
• One of the observers (perhaps alerted by the confusion of a new voter and a mixed-affiliation couple) came over. When he saw my T-shirt (a Nick Lowe concert shirt from sometime -- I forget when -- in the last ten years), he started chatting with me about it. He was unaware that Nick Lowe had reinvented himself as a crooner in the 1990s.

Overall, it went reasonably smoothly. Let's hope for the same in the general election in a couple months.