Pindaric Advice

Editor's note -- IKEA Instructions for Stonehenge:

"If plagued by demons or suffering from pestilence, seek advice from a druid before attempting assembly."

The Bard, 1774, by Welsh artist Thomas Jones

Torment.The Editor is now seeking advice from Thomas Gray's The Bard: A Pindaric Ode at Flipped Again. In the painting by Thomas Jones, Stonehenge represent the antiquity of Welsh Bards, thought to be descendants of Celtic Druids.

Gray and Jones: The Bard

'Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race. 
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-eccho with affright
The shrieks of death, thro' Berkley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing King!
She-Wolf of France with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled Mate,
From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heav'n. What Terrors round him wait! 
Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.

Pestilence Tip: Susan Brown Carleton on Facebook

The Dinoland Mold-a-Rama

Editor's note -- The Sinclair Dinoland Waxy-Plastic Dinosaur was THE souvenir to have from the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, New York. The Editor got a Triceratops (shown below) when she was 5 years old. It cost 25 cents.

The real name for these injection-molded dinosaurs is Mold-a-rama. There were six styles of dinosaurs to buy. They are all collector's items now. 

The Sinclair (oil corporation) trademark Brontosaurus with the 1964 World Fair inscription would be worth probably about $250.

Indirect Hat Tip via Twitter:

Plastic Sinclair Dinosaur was Souvenir! @TheWallBreakers Riding through Earth’s history, World Fair, New York, 1964 http://ow.ly/oBMaC 

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Flippantly Florida will be closed 
for Labor Day Weekend as 
the Editor is at Jacksonville Beach Oceanfront 
courtesy of Marriott Rewards.

We assume continued solo performances of 
"Wasting Away in Margaritaville"
 and more at the Tiki Bar Grille
on weekend afternoons.

Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet cover with chords and lyrics

Hey! It's the middle of July

Editor's note -- Michael Kupperman posted to Facebook this cartoon at some point between Flippantly Florida's last post on May 9th and today.

The Editor had commented on his post but can't remember now in what context.

UPDATE: Michael clarifies via twitter, "Not by me actually! It's from an old comic."

Harryhausen: Technical Titan

Editor's note -- This blog is not turning into an obituary page but Flippantly Florida can't let the death of Ray Harryhausen pass without note from the New York Times. 

Ray Harryhausen, Whose Creatures Battled Jason and Sinbad, Dies at 92

Ray Harryhausen, the animator and special-effects wizard who found ways to breathe cinematic life into the gargantuan, the mythical and the extinct, died on Tuesday in London. 

His innovations were honored in 1992 with a career Academy Award for technical achievement. 

At the Oscar ceremony, Tom Hanks told the audience that he thought the greatest movie of all time was not “Citizen Kane” or “Casablanca” but “Jason and the Argonauts."

The Editor posted a similar sentiment to her Facebook page: "Argonauts is my favorite Harryhausen movie. Maybe one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. Who's with me?"

I think Tom Hanks very well might be... 

"My favorite monsters," Harryhausen said, "are the more complicated ones. Like the hydra had seven heads, which you had to animate, and the seven skeletons took a lot of time and, of course, Medusa in Clash of the Titans. She was a fascinating image to animate."

Roger Ebert: Universe

Editor's note -- Roger Ebert died on Thurs., April 4th from cancer. His blog inspired a few flippant posts here; my favorite is Dust, based on his blog post from April 2011. Now is the perfect time to link it again; it's about the nature of life and death in an incomprehensibly vast universe.

RT @ebertchicago Why the meaninglessness of the Universe consoles me. My new blog entry, just posted. 

A quintessence of dust

A message from light years away would probably miss me in my box of space and time, but I find that Art can shout to me across a few years or centuries, and it carries the same message: "Yes, I exist, and you are not alone."

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, 

how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and

admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! 

the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals--

and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? 

Man delights not me--nor woman neither, 

though by your smiling you seem to say so.

That's what we are, a quintessence of dust. That Shakespeare could so conclude, and then end with a little joke is, to me, a great comfort.

  

About Time

Editor's note -- After a brief hiatus 

FLIPPANTLY FLORIDA 

notes the word "shagged" is a bit overused but in this case means "exhausted."

 Behind-the-scene photo from 'A Clockwork Orange,' 1971

via Dangerous Minds

"We were all feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it being a night of no small 

expenditure, O my brothers."

-- Alex