2005 February » Sexy Fandom with Molly Case

What is a Leap Year?

Real Life

Feb 282005

This year is not a leap year. Leap years have an extra day after the 28th of February. A February 29 every four years keeps the calendar year in sync with the actual year, rotations of the earth, seasons, and other more traditional indicators of time. Easter is supposed to be celebrated on the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon that falls on or after March 21. The Gregorian calendar sees to it that Easter continues to fall on the vernal equinox. The equinox is when the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west. In Japan, the vernal equinox is a national holiday for honoring one’s ancestors and visiting their (hopefully still interred) relatives’ graves.

Those who are born on a leap day usually celebrate their birthdays on February 28 during non-leap years. In the musical The Pirates of Penzance, the star Frederic was born on a leap day and apprenticed to pirates until he was twenty-one. Unfortunately for Fred, the pirates did not follow the leap day custom of celebrating leap day birthdays on the twenty-eighth. So he was set to be apprenticed to pirates until he was about eighty-four years old.

I know some deviants who got married on a leap day. I’d advise them to celebrate on Feb 28, so I’m going to sent happy anniversary wishes their way digitally now. I think if they don’t do that wacky sub-28-for-29 thing, then they have been married for a bit over three years. Congrats guys.

Crystal Frost Water Bondage Babe

Gadgets, Web Sites

Feb 272005

Don’t want to slack on the naughtiness here at Sexy Fandom. I think I’ll share a couple of Water Bondage galleries with you this week. In keeping with the whole water nymphs theme. Check out Crystal Frost. I love her fantasy swords and sorcery sounding moniker.

Cyberpunk wild girl Yolanda in armor fashion

Sexy blonde teen posing naked on the sofa

Starbucks Sinful Serpent Siren

General Fandom, Real Life

Feb 262005

Wait a minute. The Starbucks business books out there describe their logo chick as being a siren, but I think she is actually a melusine or nixie. Given the two tails thing and all.

In European legends and folklore, Melusine (or Melusina) is the name of a spirit of fresh waters, in sacred springs and rivers. She is usually depicted either as a mermaid-like creature with two tails or a woman who was half-serpent. She is also sometimes depicted with wings.

Melusine is sometimes used as a heraldic figure, typically in German and Scandinavian coats-of-arms, where she supports one scaly tail in each arm. She may appear crowned. The Coat of Arms of Warsaw is variously said to feature a mermaid or a siren (identified in Polish as a syrenka) very much like a depiction of Melusine, brandishing a sword and shield. She is the water-spirit from the Vistula who identified the proper site for the city to Boreslaus of Masovia in the late 13th century. Ferenc Frangepán, Archbishop of Kalocsa in Hungary, included in his will of 1543 a series of seven tapestries representing the story of “The Beautiful Melusina.”

The Archbishop’s tapestries will have shown the most famous literary version of Melusine tales, that of Jean d’Arras, compiled about 1382 – 1394 and worked into a collection of “spinning yarns” told by ladies at their spinning. The tale was translated into English about 1500, and often printed in the 15th and 16th century. (There is also a prose version called the Chronique de la princesse.)

It tells how Elynas, the King of Albany (a poetical euphemism for Scotland) went hunting one day and came across a beautiful lady in the forest. She was Melusine’s mother, Pressyne. He persuaded her to marry him but she agreed, only on the promise — for there is often a hard and fatal condition attached to any pairing of fay and mortal — that he must not enter her chamber when she birthed or bathed her children. She gave birth to triplets. When he violated this taboo, Pressyne left the kingdom, together with her three daughters, and traveled to the lost Isle of Avalon.

The three girls, Melusine, Melior, and Palatyne grew up in Avalon. On their fifteenth birthday, Melusine, the eldest, asked why they had been taken to Avalon. Upon hearing of their father’s broken promise, Melusine sought revenge. She and her sisters captured Elynas and locked him, with his riches, in a mountain. Pressyne became enraged when she learned what the girls had done, and punished them for their disrespect to their father. Melusine was condemned to take the form of a serpent from the waist down every Saturday.

Raymond of Poitou came across Melusine in a forest in France, and proposed marriage. Just as her mother had done, she laid a condition, that he must never enter her chamber on a Saturday. He broke the promise and saw her in the form of a part-woman part-serpent. She forgave him. Only when, during a disagreement with her, he called her a “serpent” in front of his court, did she assume the form of a dragon, provide him with two magic rings and fly off, never to return. Men can be such dicks.

Melusine myths are especially connected with the northern, most Celtic areas of Gaul and the Low Countries. When Count Siegfried of the Ardennes bought the feudal rights to Luxembourg in 963, his name became connected with the local version of Melusine. In 1997 Luxembourg issued a postage stamp commemorating this Melusina, with essentially the same magic gifts as the ancestress of the Lusignans. This Melusina magically made the castle of Bock castle appear the morning after their wedding. On her terms of marriage, she too required one day of absolute privacy each week. Alas, Sigefroid, as the Luxembourgeois call him, “could not resist temptation, and on one of the forbidden days he spied on her in her bath and discovered her to be a mermaid. When he let out a surprised cry, Melusina caught sight of him, and her bath immediately sank into the solid rock, carrying her with it. Melusina surfaces briefly every seven years as a beautiful woman or as a serpent, holding a small golden key in her mouth. Whoever takes the key from her will set her free and may claim her as his bride.” (Yes, the script of Splash is based on this tale. Putting a liberal arts education to good use.)

Martin Luther knew and believed in the story of another version of Melusine, die Melusina zu Lucelberg (Lucelberg in Silesia), whom he referred to several times, as a succubus. Goethe wrote the tale of Die Neue Melusine in 1807 and published it as part of Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. The playwight Grillparzner brought Goethe’s tale to the stage and Felix Mendelssohn provided a concert overture “The Fair Melusina,” his Opus 32.

Melusine is one of the pre-Christian water-faeries who were sometimes responsible for changelings. The “Lady of the Lake,” who spirited away the infant Lancelot and raised the child, was such a water nymph. This proves that slutty snake chicks raise boys with no respect for the bonds of holdy matrimony. “Melusina” would seem to be an uneasy name for a girl-child in these areas of Europe, but the Duchess of Kendal, George I of England’s German mistress, was christened Ehrengard Melusina von der Schulenburg in 1667. (via Wikipedia)

What is a Mermaid?

General Fandom, Real Life

Feb 252005

A mermaid is a legendary creature with a female human head and torso (if it’s male, it’s called a merman) and the tail of a fish, which inhabits the water. Some sailors claim to have seen mermaids; what they actually saw are probably manatees. A freshwater mermaid-like creature having two tails is a melusine, or a Nixie.

In the 19th century, P. T. Barnum displayed in his museum a taxidermy hoax that was represented as the Feejee (He thought suckers could not pronouce Figi.) Mermaid.

Sirens in folklore are similar creatures to mermaids. Other related types of mythical or legendary creature are water nymphs or the Banshee (on land).

Mermaids first appeared historically in Assyria, ca. 1000 BCE. Atargatis, the mother of legendary Assyrian queen Semiramis, was a goddess who loved a mortal shepherd and in the process killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the waters would not conceal her divine nature. Thereafter, she took the form of a mermaid – human above the waist, fish below, though the earliest representations of Atargatis showed her as being a fish with a human head and legs, similar to the Babylonian Ea, precursor of the Biblical Noah. The Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo, where she was often conflated with Aphrodite.

Mermaids are present in many books and films, becoming one of the most popular creatures of pop culture. The first time a mermaid was envisioned within her own culture was apparently the one in The Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen, which was embodied in a bronze sculpture in Copenhagen harbor and much later was turned into a Disney movie of the same name. Other popular movies to feature a mermaid were Miranda, starring Glynis Johns and Splash, starring Daryl Hannah. L. Frank Baum (creator of Oz) wrote a novel about merfolk, The Sea Fairies. Mermaids and Mermen (called Merpeople) are present in the Harry Potter series, specifically in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. For many years, The comic book hero Superman had a romantic love interest with a mermaid woman called Lori Lemaris (one of Superman’s “LL” connections: Lex Luthor, Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Lori Lemaris). The name Lori Lemaris was probably drawn from Lorelei rock in the Rhine added to maris from the Latin mare meaning ocean. Advertising characters who were ever shown on any of the television commercials such as Chicken of the Sea Mermaid who was the cartoon mascot.

A shield and sword-wielding mermaid (Syrenka) is the official Coat of Arms of Warsaw, the capital of Poland.

It is said in Japan that eating the flesh of a Mermaid can grant unaging immortality. Queequeg and I want to go on a gourmet tour of Japan. (via Wikipedia)

Drowning in Coffee

Real Life

Feb 242005

In Greek mythology, the Sirens or Seirenes were sea nymphs who lived on an island called Sirenum scopuli which was surrounded by cliffs and rocks. Approaching sailors were drawn to them by their enchanting singing, causing them to sail on the cliffs and drown. They were considered the daughters of Achelous or Phorcys. Their individual names are variously reported as Aglaope, Leucosia, Parthenope, Pisinoe, and Thelxiepia. According to some versions, they were playmates of a young Persephone and were changed into the monsters of lore by Demeter for not interfering when Persephone was abducted.

The phrase “Siren song” refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad result.

In early art, the Sirens were represented as birds with the heads, and sometimes the breasts, of women. Later, they were represented as female figures with the legs of birds, with or without wings. The 10th century encyclopedia Suda says that from their chests up Sirens had the form of sparrows, below they were women, or, alternatively, that they were little birds with women’s faces. Birds were chosen because of their characteristic beautiful voice. However, later in history Sirens were sometimes also depicted as beautiful women (whose bodies, not only their voices, are seductive), or even as mermaids (half woman, half fish). The fact that in some languages (such as French) the word for mermaid is Siren adds to this confusion.

Odysseus escaped the Sirens by having all his sailors plug their ears with wax and tie him to the mast. He was curious as to what the Sirens sounded like. When he heard their beautiful music, he ordered the sailors to untie him but they ignored him. When they had passed out of earshot, Odysseus stopped thrashing about and calmed down, and was released. Jason had been warned by Chiron that Orpheus would be necessary in his journey. When Orpheus heard their voices, he withdrew his lyre and played his music more beautifully than they, drowning out their music. It is said that after a ship successfully sailed by the Sirens, they drowned themselves for their failure. Traditions associate this ship with both Jason and Odysseus. (via Wikipedia)

What is up with the Starbucks Coffee Logo?

Real Life

Feb 232005

What exactly is that on the Starbucks logo? It looks like some fantasy femme we ought to be lusting after, but it is unclear what sort. Many people mistakenly believe that the Starbucks chick is a mermaid. She is not a mermaid. She is a siren. Early versions of her had two visible tails, rather than a mermaid’s single tail.

Early versions of the Starbucks logo also featured two visible nipples. The logo was redone to put the siren’s hair demurely over her breasts. Later the logo was redone again to eradicate the siren’s navel.

Given that the siren was a mythical creature who led sailors to a watery grave with the lure of her magical song, she seems like an odd choice for a logo. Maybe the idea was that Starbucks customers would become good harpooners like Queequeg through the consumption of magical caffeine. Or perhaps something more sinister. One of those.

Nude blonde exposes her pussy against gold

Naked gorgeous warrior naked with the steel sword

Is Starbucks Coffee Named for Battlestar Galactica?

General Fandom, Real Life

Feb 222005

There are people who assume that Starbucks Coffee was named after the Lieutenant in Battlestar Galactica. There is apparently even a scene in a Starbucks in the revamped new version of the series. The coffee, however, did not receive its name from a science fiction serial.

There are also people who assume that Starbucks Coffee was named after Starbuck in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. This is kind of true. The most common story of how the name came to be is that Starbuck was a Melville character who loved coffee. If you read Moby Dick, however, you will find dickall in the way of references to Starbuck drinking coffee.

Apparently the actual true story of how Starbucks Coffee was named after a Moby Dick character is kind of nonsensical. As real life often is. The founders of Starbucks were casting about for a name and one of them, being a Melville fan and perhaps wanting to use that English degree for something, suggested Pequod for the name. If you are looking blank right now, that was the name of the ship. Yes, terrible idea and nixed by the others involved. They decided they wanted something with local Seattle flavor, so they settled on Starbo after the name of a local mining camp. The dude who was into Melville suggested they transmogrify that into Starbucks.

I wonder if they had to explain to locals how the hell that had local color. Turned out to be a great name though.

Every Old is New Again

Movies

Feb 212005

Too many fervent masturbators have written academic treatises about the homoerotic undercurrents in the relationship between Richard Hatch’s Apollo and Dirk Benedict’s Starbuck, but did the Sci Fi Channel really have to thwart their fantasizing by turning Starbuck into a girl? I’m all for feminism, but I don’t understand remaking things when the object is to totally change them rather than simply update them. I won’t watch more than a couple of episodes of that travesty, unless I’m being paid to write an episode. From what little I have seen though and what I’ve heard from friends, the chick Starbuck has like one ass-kicking moment in the whole show and spends the rest of the time adding sexual spice that morons believe could not have been shown in the 70′s. The saving grace is supposed to be that the new version is darker than the old one. Like we really need a lot more darkness in our lives in 2005. Then again, I’m having my period and a really bad CFIDS day today. Maybe the new series is fine.

RIP Hunter S. Thompson

Books, Real Life

Feb 212005

Science fiction fandom button makers everywhere would have made fewer sales had Hunter S. Thompson never written the immortal words, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” I am so sad that this brilliant writer took his own life. It seems right that he chose the firearm as his method of self-disposal, but what terrible times we live in that such a great man and tenacious fighter would just give up.

I suppose his last book Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness a.k.a. Modern History from the Sports Desk was more than just his usual critique of a judgemental world of inadequate integrity. I guess it was a suicide note of sorts. I want to say something more about this, but I find myself at an uncharacteristic loss for words, just groping for something to make this tragedy okay. I believe in the right of the individual to take his own life, but for Hunter S. Thompson to have wanted to do so is a tragedy.

Darth Vader vs. Apollo and Starbuck

Movies, Real Life

Feb 202005

Peeved I suppose at being outgrossed at the box office by Battlestar Galactica, George Lucas and the Star Wars folks had to sue Glen A. Larsen and the Battlestar Galactica people. Never mind that much of Star Wars was a knockoff of Flash Gordon and that Lucas would have done a Flash Gordon movie instead if Dino de Laurentis who owned the Flash Gordon option at the time hadn’t thought his take on Flash was too pussy. Never mind that Alan Dean Foster actually wrote Star Wars and not George Lucas and that it took many years of Foster writing best-selling novels before it was publicly acknowledged that he wrote the first Star Wars flick. Never mind that it was James Cameron script doctor and former Rolling Stone writer Jay Cocks who came up with the whole “In a galaxy far far away” thing. Never mind that Battlestar Galactica owes a much more blatant creative debt to various religious stories including the Jewish Diaspora and the Mormon quest for the thirteenth tribe and maybe to Herman Melville. Never mind all that because the Star Wars lawyers thought they were able to note thirty-four distinct copyright violations in the Battlestar Galactica series. Vader’s Fist lost its case against Apollo and Starbuck, but only after the series had been cancelled.

The cylon on the cover of the Battlestar Galactica digitally remastered DVD collection (complete minus the earth ones) does look a fuck of a lot like a Stormtrooper though, doesn’t he?

Redhead with small tits posing nude in the sunset

Naked busty blonde goddess showing her tits and pussy

Blonde babe with puffy nipples spreading her legs wide

Cody Carmichael, Hustler Cody Carmichael fucking Dr. McKoy in space

Battlestar Galactica Used to Make More $ Than Star Wars

Movies

Feb 192005

The original Battlestar Galactica had trouble deciding if it wanted to be a film or a television series. There are very real budget and story structure differences between the two, under normal circumstances. Battlestar Galactica pretty much kick-started the whole mini-series thing. The miniseries lies somewhere between traditional episodic television and movies. Without Battlestar Galactica, we probably would not have shows today like The Sopranos and all the historical drama series which are the bread and butter of the cable networks. The first episode of Battlestar Galactica cost seven million dollars to produce, so it was given a couple of theatrical releases with the intent of making back all those clams spent on it. In 1978, the theatrical release of the Battlestar Galactica pilot pulled in more Earth currency in most markets than Star Wars. Later episodes ran a mere million a piece. The show was cancelled despite excellent ratings and replaced by Mork & Mindy. This is why I always tell friends not to go into the business side of television; it makes people crazy and stupid. Needless to say, Mork & Mindy did much much much less well in Battlestar Galactica’s timeslot than its predecessor.

What is the connection between Flesh Gordon and Star Wars?

Books, General Fandom, Movies, Real Life

Feb 182005

Both Flesh Gordon and Star Wars were inspired by Flash Gordon. Which was inspired by Buck Rogers.

Flash Gordon was a science fiction comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond, first published on January 7, 1934. Although created to compete with Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon had much more sophisticated art and outlasted its inspiration.

In his youth, George Lucas was a fan of the Flash Gordon serials, and once wanted to adapt it to the screen as part of his modern-day myth. Dino De Laurentiis, who owned the rights, was not interested in Lucas’s interpretation, so Lucas wrote Star Wars instead, which borrowed liberally from the serials. The opening expository roll-up that appeared in episodes of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe became the now-famous opening crawl of each Star Wars episode. Flash Gordon and Dale Arden inspired not only Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, but also their parents, Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala.

The comics followed the adventures of Flash Gordon, for whom the series was named, and his companions Dr. Hans Zarkov and Dale Arden. The story begins with Dr. Zarkov’s invention of a rocket ship, in which the three of them make a journey to the planet Mongo, where they are stranded. Mongo is inhabited by a number of different cultures, some quite technologically advanced, that have been falling one by one under the domination of the vicious tyrant Ming the Merciless.

The three Earthpeople are befriended shortly after their arrival by Prince Barin, rightful heir to the throne that Ming has taken. Ming banishes Prince Barin and his followers — including Ming’s own daughter, Aura, Barin’s bride — to the forest realm of Arboria, and the three join in Barin’s quest to topple Ming.

In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps.

It was made into three serials starring Buster Crabbe from 1936 to 1940: Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938), and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940).

A 1957 film adaptation starred Steve Holland, who also starred in a 1954-1955 TV series which ran for 39 episodes and is, to date, the only live-action series based upon the character. The series had the distinction of being filmed in West Berlin, less than a decade after the end of World War II.

A semi-pornographic parody called Flesh Gordon was released in 1972. It became a cult classic and was followed in the 1980′s by a sequel.

In 1979, Filmation produced an animated series based on the comic strip and the first season is remembered as one of the better efforts on the studio. In the 1986 cartoon Defenders of the Earth, Flash teamed up with fellow King Features heroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician.

The 1980 film adaptation stars Sam J. Jones in the title role and also features Melody Anderson as Dale Arden, Topol as Dr. Zarkov, Max von Sydow as Ming, Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, and Ornella Muti as Aura. Although not a critical success, the film is also noted for its musical score, which was composed and performed by Queen. It also contained a quote which probably sums up the whole Flash Gordon plotline: “Flash, I love you, but we’ve only got fourteen hours to save the Earth.”

In 1988, DC Comics produced a modernized version of the comic strip. It featured a Flash as washed up basketball player who finds new purpose in life on Mongo, which is no threat to Earth, a Dale who is an adventurous reporter who is just as capable as Flash, and a Ming who is less of an Asian stereotype.

In 1996, Hearst Entertainment premiered a Flash Gordon animated television series.

In 2004, Stephen Sommers, director of Van Helsing and The Mummy, purchased the movie rights to Flash Gordon.

In 2005, perhaps we will have a metrosexual cgi Flash played by Brendan Frasier or a Flesh Gordon 3 to go with the new Star Wars sequel. (via Wikipedia sort of )