Here's an extremely rare treasure, a 78 rpm recording of The Rocket Ranger March from the 1953 TV series Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers These may be the the first internet performances of The Rocket Rangers March, performed by the Rocket Rangers Chorus, and also an instrumental version of the Rocket Ranger March, performed by the Rocket Ranger Philharmonic Orchestra of Zagreb.
We occasionally mention of some of the classic films that are shown in The Janus Museum's Fellow's Lounge - here are links to the webmaster's capsule reviews:
Recent photographs, commentary,
and links from The Janus Museum's webmaster, Tibor Szégy-Légy
Every now and again you stumble on a weblog that seems to perfectly encapsulate a way of life, an environment, people, characters, whatever (although the Janus Museum is not all it seems, we think).
But may be able to summon energy to post the first in a series of anaglyphs - red/blue stereoviews made from stereo Kodachromes I shot around 1980, using these handy instructions. If you have the energy, put on your red/blue specs now:
It's a Devon cow and calf photographed at Turkey Run Farm, next to the CIA in Virginia. Red/blue glasses can be easily found online. Note - the glasses you swiped at the showing of Avatar won't work. Oh, just one more stereoview:
It's our old buddy Rodger Kingston, giving himself bunny ears on the Mall. Of course, we've worked in 3D on these pages before. Will post more later, if I can find the energy. And now, back to the couch.
... A dog in a smoking cap, with a pipe - "Say, Give Me a Light" is the hilarious caption. No date, but probably from around the same date as the other stereo.
Perhaps one evening soon we'll have a jolly old-fashioned evening in the Fellows' Common Room, passing the old stereoviewer back and forth, and reciting Longfellow. That should go over very well.
The great radio journalist John Hockenberry read a letter of mine the other day on The Takeaway, an engaging news magazine program. I was responding to a story on the dangers or lack of dangers involved in consuming time-expired foodstuffs - I had once been tempted to buy a jar of shucked oysters, only slightly bulging, offered at a very advantageous price at the local Food Lion. Here's Mr. Hockenberry reading my moving story - I used the nom de lettre "Ponto":
... Which reminds me of one of the Museum's great treasures, the painting entitled The Bad Oyster.
I have to admit that it's kind of soothing to watch; almost hypnotic. And the music's nice - it's a Piva from the album The Renaissance Lute, played by Ron McFarlane. But was it worth the aggravation, and my ruined grits? Pardon me - my polenta, as the head of the Unit, Josh Sackville-Cohen, insists on calling it. Why polenta? Easier to get the film into international festivals, he says.
And this song, Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, shows the sort of thing that got him in trouble in the first place. Sung by the fabulous Custer LaRue with the Baltimore Consort from the album The Daemon Lover. Am very pleased that the Baltimore Consort will be appearing in Washington Grove on March 14 as part of our fine Mousetrap Concerts - and there will be meatballs.
In other snow-related news, our missing maintenance man Gus, lost in the blizzard when he went to fetch the newspaper, has turned up. He was found holed up in the local watering hole. I was rather hoping he'd been caught in a glacier, and would finally turn up in a thousand years or so to puzzle anthropologists as some sort of primitive comedic throwback - a sort of faux-magnon music-hall Ötzi. Of course, I had to do the shoveling while the Iceman was on his bender.
And in other weather-related museum news, I've heard a report that one of the buildings at the National Air and Space Museum's Paul Garber Facility in Silver Hill, Maryland has been damaged by the weight of snow. Some of the side and roof sections have buckled on Building 21, used for artifact storage, but the damage is thought not to be severe. Hope Gilmore is all right...
I have found the little propane canister for the camp stove, in case we lose power; but can't find the camp stove.
We sent out Gus, looking very much like Capt. Lawrence "Titus" Oates of the Scott Expedition, to bring in the newspaper - haven't seen him since, haw haw. I stepped out on the front porch - very briefly - to snap the harrowing photograph shown above. Here's another intrepid explorer:
Cat Nutmeg, as snapped by the Bittersweet Cottage Circle Cam. She struggled through the drifts to visit her particular friend Maxine, and is now safe in the Fellows' Common Room.
Dear Janus Museum Rescue Archaeology Clearing House: Workers under contract to the Hornboestel Institute have just recently completed repair work on the Mt. Soma snow shrine complex. Very hard working chaps, I must say.
Our in-house staff was swamped, of course, what with trying to restore communications with the outside world and re-opening the Mt. Nichevo observatory, which was damaged in the recent Snowmageddon event.
The attached photo was taken by our staff photographer earlier this afternoon.
The smaller shrine, to the lower left of the photo, is ancient. Our team leader believes the foundations, at least, date back as far as Snowpocalypse. The larger shrine is of more recent origin.
I think Siddhartha G. would have been delighted at the idea of shrines that melt periodically, and subsequently need rebuilding. Or not.
I hope the recent weather has not hampered the work of your esteemed organization, and I remain
humbly yrs,
J. Price, FOTJM [Fellow of the Janus Museum]
I'm off; must get back quickly so I can polish Natasha's pickelhaube.
Funny story - when we cancelled Saturday's Annual Groundhog Day Catwalk, we thought we had notified all of the various bus tour groups that were planning to come that the event was off. Evidentially, we missed one group - a Pittsburgh cat club; and they started for the Museum early Saturday morning. Well, they never made it, of course, and no one has heard from them since Saturday afternoon when they stopped for gas in Breezewood, Pennsylvania. I wonder what happened to them?
Rodger's generous contribution is shown above - a postcard showing German troop train preparing for departure, probably at the beginning of the war, July 1914. The caption, translated, says "Departure for the Theater of War". Many of the soldiers are wearing their pickelhaubes, which are fitted with fabric field covers - an überzug, it was called. The others wear their round caps - feldmützen, or krätzchen. Wonder how many of the chaps survived the war?
Gus models a feldmütze from the Museum's collection. By the way, he says his back "feels a lot better", though I predict a relapse when he hears about tomorrow's forecast of more snow.
Many thanks for the superb donation, Rodger. Oh, and check out Rodger's online gallery, too.
I've seen Our Man in Havana (1959, from Graham Greene's novel) before, of course, but somehow had totally forgotten its pickelhaube content. Burl Ives (with the world's worst German accent) as Dr. Hasselbacher dons his old kurassier uniform - and thoughtfully provides an extra helmet for a guest. He mentions at one point in the film that he's from Munich. So perhaps he served in the Bayer. 1. Schweres Reiter-Regiment Prinz Karl von Bayern which was raised in Munich; or conceivably in Bavaria's other kurassier regiment, the Bayer. 2. Schweres Reiter-Regiment Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este1; it's not actually vital to the plot, though. At any rate, he wouldn't have worn those odd comic-opera epaulettes in either regiment. Also appearing, Alec Guinness as Wormold, the vacuum cleaner salesman turned spymaster, Ernic Kovacs, Maureen O'Hara, Noel Coward and Ralph Richardson. An excellent film, if one can get past those epaulettes.
