Barney Google and
Snuffy Smith, originally Take
Barney Google, F'rinstance, is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck.
Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a large
international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries. The initial appeal of the strip led to its
adaptation to film, animation, popular song and television. It added several terms and phrases to the
English language and inspired the 1923 hit tune "Barney Google (with the
Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)" with lyrics by Billy Rose, as well as the 1923 record,
"Come On, Spark Plug!" Barney
Google himself, once the star of the strip and a very popular character in his
own right, has been almost entirely phased out of the feature. An increasingly peripheral player in his own
strip beginning in the late 1930s, Google was officially "written
out" in 1954, although he would occasionally return for cameo
appearances. These cameos were often
years apart—from a period between 1997 and 2012, Barney Google wasn't seen in
the strip at all. Google was
reintroduced to the strip in 2012, and has been seen very occasionally since,
making several week-long appearances.
Snuffy Smith, who was initially introduced as a supporting player in
1934, has now been the comic strip's central character for over 60 years. Following "The Goo-Goo Song"
(1900), the word "Google" was introduced in 1913 in Vincent
Cartwright Vickers' The Google Book, a children's book about
the Google and other fanciful creatures who live in Googleland: "The Google has a beautiful garden which
is guarded night and day. All through
the day he sleeps in a pool of water in the center of the garden; but when the
night comes, he slowly crawls out of the pool and silently prowls around for
food." Aware of the
word's appeal, DeBeck launched his comic strip six years later, and the
"goo-goo-googly" lyrics in the 1923 song "Barney Google"
focused attention on the novelty of the word.
When mathematician and Columbia University professor Edward Kasner was challenged in the late
1930s to devise a name for a very large number, he asked his nine-year-old
nephew, Milton Sirotta, to suggest a word.
The youthful comic strip reader told Kasner to use
"Google". Kasner agreed, and
in 1940, he introduced the words "googol" and "googolplex" in his
book, Mathematics
and the Imagination. This is the term that Larry Page and Sergey Brin had in mind when they
named their company in
1998, but they intentionally misspelled "googol" as
"google," bringing it back full circle to Vickers' form. In 2002, when Page set up a scanning device
at Google to test how fast books could be scanned, the first book he scanned
was Vickers' The Google Book.
DeBeck, who had a gift for coining colorful terms, is credited with
introducing several Jazz Age slang
words and phrases into the English language—including "sweet mama",
"horsefeathers", “heebie-jeebies”, “hotsy-totsy” and “Who has seen
the doodle bug?” Snuffy's catchphrases “great balls o’ fire” and
“time's a-wastin'” remain popular to this day.
In DeBeck's memory, the National
Cartoonists Society in 1946 introduced the Billy DeBeck
Award. (Eight years later, the name was
changed to the Reuben Award after Rube Goldberg.) Snuffy Smith currently appears in
21 countries and 11 languages. In 1995,
the strip was honored by the U.S. Postal Service;
it was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series
of commemorative USPS postage stamps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith
More
than 90 percent of global trade moves by
ship and the top 25 ports in North
America account for a whopping 97 percent of total trade for the
continent. Read on to learn more about
North America’s top ports in 2015, and just what cargo they are bringing in and
sending out. https://thebossmagazine.com/busiest-north-american-ports-cargo/
Lillian Michelson:
Hollywood's Librarian 7,000 books.
100,000 periodicals. Over
1,000,000 clippings. This is the Lillian
Michelson Research Library. It is the
largest private motion picture library in Hollywood and it’s been a passion of
Lillian’s since 1961 when she happened upon it at the Samuel Goldwyn
Studios. Under the tutelage of a
librarian named Lelia Alexander, Lillian learned how to have a seven-track
mind--as questions poured in from filmmakers, needing research for films they
were making--and every question was answered in detail--because nothing was
more important to great storytelling than “getting it right.” By 1969, the library was facing
eviction. Lelia was done, too, but she
had a strange vision she shared with her pupil, “Lillian, I feel as if you’re
going to own this library.” Now, her
husband Harold was making a nice living by this time, but “owning a
library?” Still, Lillian was
compelled--or, as she put it “in a fit of insanity” to ask Harold, what would
you think if I borrowed on your life insurance policy to buy that library?” Harold paused, “Where are you going to put
it?” Lillian said, “I don’t know
yet.” Harold replied, “Sure. Sounds like a terrific idea.” If Harold were story-boarding this love
story, he’d now cut to a frame showing Lillian moving every box of her massive
library to AFI, after persuading them to give her space in their basement. From there, Lillian helped to shape ten
years’ worth of the next generation of great filmmakers. In 1980, she met Francis Coppola--that man
who defined film the same way you might define Harold and Lillian. Once Coppola saw what she had--and, even
better, saw the encyclopedic mind of the woman that came with this library--he
made her library the central hub of his own dream--Zoetrope Studios. The library would move a few more times--to
Paramount and, most prominently, under Lillian’s care, via Jeffrey Katzenberg
to Dreamworks Animation Studios in Glendale. During their lives together, Harold and
Lillian worked on the films of all of our lives: Ben Hur, West Side Story, The Apartment, Chinatown, Rosemary’s
Baby, Terms of Endearment and on and on. As their boys grew into men, with prospering
lives of their own, Harold and Lillian quietly became known, through their
mentorship and giving back, the heart and soul of the best of what Hollywood
can be. The very definition of
invaluable behind-the-scenes contributors--and true Hollywood royalty. Sweetly, in 2004, Dreamworks Animation (who’d
lent office space to the couple to continue work at their ripe young age) made
a sequel to their greatest success and, let’s just say, there’s no coincidence
Princess Fiona’s parents in Shrek 2 are named King Harold and Queen Lillian. https://www.mptf.com/reelstories/lillianmichelson
LILLIAN MICHELSON RESEARCH LIBRARY Dreamworks SKG
1000 Flower Street Glendale, CA
91201 (818) 695-6445 http://www.theacme.com/?product=1030205974
Movie fans know the work of Harold and Lillian
Michelson, even if they don't
recognize the names. Working largely
uncredited in the Hollywood system, storyboard artist Harold and film
researcher Lillian left an indelible mark on classics by Alfred Hitchcock,
Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski and many
more. Through an engaging mix of love
letters, film clips and candid conversations with Harold and Lillian, Danny
DeVito, Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola and others, the deeply engaging
documentary Harold and Lillian: a Hollywood
Love Story from Academy Award (R)-nominated director Daniel Raim offers both a
moving portrait of a marriage and a celebration of the unknown talents that
help shape the films we love. Adama
Films 100 min. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/harold_and_lillian_a_hollywood_love_story/ Harold and Lillian opened in New
York on April 28, 2017 and Los Angeles on May 12, 2017. Available in DVD and Blu-Ray
Equifax is one of many companies that collect
information about you by on September 14, 2017
Via NBR/CNBC: “There
are literally hundreds of smaller consumer-reporting companies [33-page PDF]
operating in the U.S. and the smaller ones are collecting information you might
not expect. The Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau maintains a self-reported list of the companies. Consider Milliman IntelliScript, for
example. The company collects
information on the prescription drugs you buy.
If you’ve ever authorized the release of your medical records to an
insurance company, they might have shared them with Milliman. Or look at Retail Equation, a company that
monitors consumers’ return and exchange behavior at retail companies. Company critics say the information collected
can prevent legitimate returns from being accepted. Consumer-reporting companies are governed by
the Fair Credit Reporting Act, according to the CFPB. That means consumers can request copies of
their reports, though some will charge you for it.” [h/t Pete Weiss] The New York Times provides answers to some of the many questions causing
us considerable concern following the delayed announcement by Equifax of
a massive breach of personal data that impacts perhaps half of the
American population. https://www.bespacific.com/ See also FTC launches Equifax breach probe, warns consumers about credit
scammers: Posing as Equifax employees,
crooks are calling to verify your account information by David Kravets at https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/ftc-opens-equifax-investigation-says-beware-of-equifax-calling-scams/
On September 14, 2017, hundreds of spectators lined
across a portion of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to watch the boulevard turn into a glittering
spectacle of moving lights. It was the
world debut of artist Cai Guo-Quang’s “Fireflies” performance.
Twenty-seven pedicabs adorned in colorful handmade lanterns of all shapes and
sizes wheeled their way down the Parkway in synchronized rhythm to the tune of
something that resembled the Pennsylvania’s official state song. Through an interpreter, Guo-Quang explained
before the performance that growing up in China, playing with paper lanterns
was a childhood pastime. So when the
Association for Public Art approached Guo-Quang to bring his work to Philly for
the 100th Anniversary of the Parkway, he jumped at the chance to play with
these lanterns once again. Thousands of
lanterns—aka the fireflies—were handmade by Guo-Quang in his hometown of
Quanzhou, then carefully transferred to the U.S. this summer and installed onto pedicabs in a warehouse in Kensington.
Guo-Quang said the lanterns are symbols
of his childhood, although new shapes like emoji’s have been added to the mix. Coincidentally, aPA’s executive director
Penny Balkin Bach, says only after the association commissioned Guo-Quang did
they find out that Pennsylvania’s state insect is the firefly. Melissa Romero Read more and
see pictures at https://philly.curbed.com/2017/9/15/16311634/cai-guo-quang-fireflies-philadelphia-benjamin-franklin-parkway-photos
"Rocket
Man" (officially titled as Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to
Be a Long, Long Time)), is a song composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and
originally performed by John. The song
first appeared on John's 1972 album Honky
Château and became a hit single, rising to No. 2 in the UK and No.
6 in the US. The song was inspired by
the short story "The Rocket Man" in The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury,
and echoes the theme of David Bowie's
1969 song "Space Oddity" (both recordings were produced by Gus Dudgeon). But according to an account in Elizabeth
Rosenthal's book His Song: The
Musical Journey of Elton John, the song was inspired by Taupin's sighting
of either a shooting star or a distant aeroplane. Elton John - Rocket
Man (Official Music Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtVBCG6ThDk 4:42 President Donald Trump began September
17, 2017 with a stream of tweets taking a dig at North Korea's leader,
referring to him as "Rocket
Man". http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/17/trump-tweets-about-north-koreas-rocket-man-242812
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1770
September 18, 2017 On this date
in 1837, Tiffany and Co. (first named Tiffany
& Young) was founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and
Teddy Young in New York City. The store was called a "stationery and fancy
goods emporium". On this date in 1948, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine became
the first woman elected to the United States Senate without
completing another senator's term, when she
defeated Democratic opponent
Adrian Scolten. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_18
No comments:
Post a Comment