Fellow Citizens (and Permanent Residents) of Kansas City and beyond!
Time has come to stand up against over-saturation of our visual space with penises, breasts and other dirty, dirty genitals. Everywhere we look, everywhere we turn, we cannot avoid being confronted with genitalia and/or breasts. Some may call it art, but we know better – it’s pornography, a mere glimpse of which leads to lust, perversion and, dare I say, fornication.
Accidental breast and penis sightings ruin our children. We all know who else loved art in all of its nakedness – people like Hitler, Charles Manson, and, I assume, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. One day little Hitler was looking at some shameful works of art and the next thing anyone knew….well, we all know what happened next. On the other hand, George W. Bush didn’t like art, especially the obscene kind, and he grew up to be an American President.
It’s for the well-being of the children that I call upon you to join the new organization – DOur United Citizens Hoping to Eradicate Breast And Genitalia in Sculpture. Let’s prevent the next tyrant or a murdering cannibal from growing up in our communities. Let’s raise our children to be American Presidents like George W. Bush.
Of course, we denounce any censorship, this is not Soviet Russia after all. Everyone is free to express their opinion and artistry on public property as long as it doesn’t harm the children* and/or biblical in nature. You might have heard of a whorish sculpture which every one of our children is forced to walk by on their way to and from school. Thousands of them come home in tears,embarrassed, shocked and even (god forbid) aroused! They want to know why the photos sent to them by their classmates feature a lot smaller breasts. They want to ask questions like where they can see more art like this. They spend a long time alone in their rooms and hide things hastily (probably art) when we come in unannounced.
DOur United Citizens Hoping to Eradicate Breast And Genitalia in Sculpture are here to save your children. When the offending sculpture will be finally removed from our sights and melted into something they could sell at Crate and Barrel (or at least ammo), we will all as one call on the Kansas City Administration to
Remove An Offensive Penis From Its City Hall.
Yes, your children wandering around the City Hall are confronted with a penis and it hurts them now and for the rest of their lives.
Click to enlarge the offending penis
Fellow Citizens (and Permanent Residents) of Kansas City and beyond! DOur United Citizens Hoping to Eradicate Breast And Genitalia in Sculpture have a lot of work ahead of us. This Metro Area is literally stuffed with thousands of penises and boobs.
We need to move fast before it’s too late and we have another Hitler on our hands.
Email all the (sculptural) penis and boob sightings to douchebags@gmail.com
Recently a set of photos taken at the Kansas City’s Wonderland Arcade in the late 1960’s made rounds on the Internet. These photos are stored at the National Archives in the file “Wonderland Inc. v. United States of America, 1968 – 1968”. The National Archives allows searches but not direct links or bookmarks, so you will have to enter your own search terms.
The Arcade located at 1200 Grand from the 1940’s to the early 1980’s was covered in the press numerous times, like this Billboard Magazine article: Wonderland Arcade Good Model of Well-run Amusement Center published in 1946, when The Billboard was still an amusement industry trade magazine.
Same magazine in 1947 informed about the time when the Wonderland Arcade was robbed of $150 in nickels, some of which was spent on a “new suit, shoes and a tour of the city by taxicab”.
Although The Circus (Tsirk) was made in 1936 it was still shown on TV in the 1970’s and 80’s and the songs took on the life of their own with “My Country is So Vast” (Shiroka Strana Moya Rodnaya) becoming the Soviet equivalent of “God Bless America”.
The movie is beautifully done propaganda piece for the Soviet Society where there is no place for racism and hatred and everyone wears white. It stars the most popular actress of that time Lyubov Orlova whose looks and voice dominated the best Soviet movies of the 30’s and 40’s.
Below are some clips I cut and lightly subtitled; some of the scenes are actually in understandable English, the others are musical numbers where no translation is needed; some scenes can be understood without words: in 1930’s actors still knew how to display emotions on their faces from their years in the silent movies.
The movie starts with an angry mob scene, someplace in the racist US of A, where a bunch of screaming people sans torches and pitchforks are chasing Marion Dixon, a mother of an interracial child who happened to be a circus performer.
On the train Marion meets Franz Von Kneishiz, who will become her manager. The story moves to the Moscow Circus where Marion performs her death-defying stunt – “Flight to the Moon”. The music playing in the beginning of the clip is a de facto anthem of the Soviet Circus. I still remember the circus being this grand and amazing.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud3DLEr1nsE
During the act the Director of the Circus asks his actor -a military hero – Martynov to recreate and improve this act. His partner is to be the Director’s daughter whose fiance also appears carrying flowers. Martynov throws the bouquet to Ms. Dixon. Love is in the air.
Evil capitalist Von Kneishiz threatens Marion Dixon to tell everyone about her black baby. While she is crying over Martynov’s photos, he comes into the room to pick up his suitcase. The scene ends with the war of stares between him and Von Kneishiz.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYdD7RlTI5g
Von Kneishiz hints that he would like the contract extended, instead the director shows him the new replacement act.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9zWQd09zCU
Stunt fails and Marion runs downstairs concerned for Martynov. Seeing her interest Von Kneishiz tries to make an announcement about her baby.
Von Kneishiz begs Marion to leave, she refuses. She says that Martynov loves her, but Von Kneishiz screams that no one will love her with her black baby. When he leaves, she sings a lullaby to her baby in Russian but with an “american” accent.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djesek2-e-Q
Notice the black maid. This movie probably employed the whole black population of Moscow. The baby was played by James Lloydovich Patterson who lived in the USSR, served in the Soviet Navy, but later emigrated back to the USA.
Von Kneishiz tries to leave Moscow with Marion, but she is being helped by her Soviet friends. Instead she partners with Martynov for a now successful “Flight to the Stratosphere”.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBlL5TIUq8
Von Kneishiz finally gets a chance to tell everyone about the black baby. To his dismay no one cares. Instead the circus patrons, each one of a different nationality takes turns singing a lullaby in there own language. One of the singers is a world-famous Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels who sings in Yiddish. My Dad always pointed out this scene because this was probably the only Yiddish on film which wasn’t censored. Mikhoels was assassinated on Stalin’s orders after the WWII but in this movie he illustrates the supposed internationalism of the Soviet people.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31kSvUrBd6I
The Circus director tells Marion that the Soviet people love all children – white, black, green, pink with stripes. Marion starts singing “My Country is So Vast”. The scene moves to the Red Square where the Circus performers lead the demonstration singing, marching and carrying portraits of the Soviet leaders.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ioY7tD5_E
This movie was immensely popular throughout the Soviet times. As any propaganda movie it wasn’t very truthful, there was a lot of national hatred, antisemitism and conflicts in the USSR; many of them manifested themselves only after the break-up of the Soviet Union, but it didn’t mean that on a personal level many different nationalities didn’t live happily side-by-side. People of different nationalities shared apartments, served in the military, worked in the camps. In these situation nationality took second seat to the necessities of hard life.
I am not a movie critic (but I once had a beer with a real-life professor of cinematography), so I will not comment on the technical aspects or the influences present in this movie. The characters and the musical numbers from this movie are an important part of the Golden Fund of the Soviet culture and you just had a chance to enjoy a small peek at it.
I could’ve used my 800th post on something worthwhile like my thoughts on health-care or bitching about the first day of school moving even closer to the last day of school, but I’ll post another recipe. After all, the health-care is not going anywhere and school already started, but the eggplant season may be over at any time.
This is probably the simplest recipe you will find on this blog. You will need only 6 ingredients: eggplant, tomatoes, flour, (olive) oil, garlic and salt.
When picking an eggplant try to get an evenly shaped one so the slices are similar in size. Slice the eggplant in about 1/4 inch slices.
Dust with flour on both sides…
…salt lightly and place in the skillet on medium-low heat with a pretty decent amount of oil in it. If you salt the eggplant beforehand it will start losing liquid and shrivel.
Cook eggplant on both sides. It doesn’t need to brown, just poke it with a knife or a fork, if it easily goes in – it’s ready. Remove on paper towels and cook another batch.
The eggplant seems to soak up great quantities of oil, keep adding as needed. While the eggplant is cooking, slice some ripe tomatoes.
Assemble the final product-a slice of eggplant, a slice of tomato, pressed garlic to taste.
I ate everything you see on this plate by myself in one setting.
This could be a side-dish, or a Hors d’œuvre, also called “zakuska” in Russian – something that goes well after a cold shot of vodka. Just as good or better on the next day. Keep refrigerated.
Now pour yourself an aforementioned shot of vodka, drink it, eat an eggplant-tomato sandwich. Do you still want to argue about health-care or schools? Repeat. How about now? I didn’t think so. At this point you would start singing a Russian folk song but since you can’t how about this one, it sounds equally stupid.
Recently Shane wrote about his ride to work and how it makes him wish for the public transit system. I’ve been driving my everyday 20.5 miles (one way) for close to ten years now and while it’s not my favorite pastime I think a lot depends on the soundtrack you use for your drive. Since my hectic schedule and refusal to tolerate people other than me farting in my vehicle prevent me from sharing the ride, I grabbed my new camera so I can invite you for a few minutes of virtual carpooling on my morning drive to work. See for yourself how easy and fun it is.
(I placed the camera slightly lower than I should have, I will try better next time)
