Tag Archive for the kids

| March 29, 2012
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Carnival Time: Dreamland Amusements and Sellner Manufacturing

Anchors Away, the one-of-a-kind amusement ride from Sellner Manufacturing

This past Sunday, I took my three boys to a local carnival, set up in the big parking lot behind the Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge, Virginia. The carnival was running a “threatening weather special” on unlimited rides bracelets, and between the special and a set of $5 off coupons, I was able to buy each boy a bracelet for $15 apiece, which seemed reasonable (especially given that buying ride tickets would mean spending $3 or $4 per ride per child, which would very quickly eviscerate my wallet).

When I was a kid, I was a tremendous fan of carnival rides. I begged my parents to take me to any neighborhood or church carnival I heard about, and I’d squeeze in as many rides on the Zipper, the Octopus/Spider, the Tilt-A-Whirl, and the Rock-N-Roll as I could.

My longest continual carnival ride came in high school, when my theater club, the Pioneer Players, raised funds for our trip to the State Thespian Competition by hiring out all the members of our club as extras on the set of the low-budget horror film, The Funhouse, directed by Tobe Hooper and filmed in North Miami in 1981. Nearly all of the film takes place on a carnival midway, and the filmmakers needed hundreds of extras to ride the rides and play games and walk around eating corndogs and fried dough. (The filming took place on the grounds of the old Ivan Tors Studio on 125th Street in North Miami, where Flipper and other TV shows had been produced.) My job turned out to be riding the Sizzler, which twists and twirls you around and around and around. Turned out I had to ride the Sizzler for more than five hours straight, from about 9 PM to 2 AM. On a very chilly night (for North Miami, that is… it was probably in the 50s). Good thing I had a strong stomach back then. I doubt I could handle the Sizzler for five minutes straight at my age now, much less for five hours. The producers called things to a halt a little before 2 AM and invited all us extras into a chow tent for some hot chocolate and hamburgers. By that time I was very hungry and VERY cold (not to mention very tired), so I appreciated their largess.

Anyway, my kids are about as nuts for carnival rides as I once was. So I felt really good about being able to buy them unlimited rides bracelets, which meant I wouldn’t have to carefully ration their rides, like I had during every other trip to a carnival we’ve made as a family. My surprise of the afternoon was how good I ended up feeling about the workers on the midway. There is a widespread stereotype of carnival workers (“carnies”) being, well, skeevy, greasy, ill-mannered, and generally unpleasant. I won’t say that I’ve never had the displeasure of interacting with carnival workers who lived down to the stereotype. However, that didn’t occur at this carnival, operated by Dreamland Amusements. The workers I had the pleasure to interact with were friendly, helpful, and attentive to my anxiety that my kids should be properly strapped and buckled into rides (I almost had a panic attack when I saw that Judah, my five-year-old, had wrapped the bumper car seat belt around his neck after climbing in next to his older brother Levi, but the operator assured me he would sort Judah out, and he did).

One employee was especially friendly, talkative, and helpful. He operated a ride called Anchors Away, a pair of pirate ships that swung on half-moon-shaped tracks, giving the riders a cascading back-and-forth swinging ride (there’s a photo of the ride at the top of this post). All three boys initially rode Anchors Away together. The operator, a man in his sixties, surprised me by showing genuine enthusiasm for children, a quality I don’t typically see in this sort of setting – he laughed with them and encouraged them to raise their arms into the air while the ride swung them back and forth. At first, I wasn’t sure that Judah was enjoying himself. He had a very disconcerted expression the first couple of swings. But then he raised his arms like his brothers were doing, and by the end of the ride he was smiling and laughing. They all asked to ride it again, and since they had ride bracelets, I said, “Sure! Why not?” But when his two older brothers said they wanted to go next door to ride the Sky Hawk, a ride too advanced for Judah, Judah said he wanted to stay and ride Anchors Away some more.

He ended up riding it eight times in a row, and he would’ve kept right on riding it if I had let him. Once, when there were no other children or adults in line with him, the operator even let him ride it all by himself. The operator told me that recently, at a State Fair in Tampa, Florida, a mother had let her little girl, about Judah’s age, ride Anchors Away all day long. I noticed a sign hanging from the guard railing surrounding the ride. It gave a brief history of this particular Anchors Away ride, one-of-a-kind. The ride had been designed by Bruce Sellner, president of Sellner Manufacturing of Faribault, Minnesota, in the mid-1990s. Mr. Sellner had intended for Anchors Away to become a new mainstay of Sellner Manufacturing. However, he passed away shortly after designing the ride and seeing the first one built, and the company decided that it would build and sell only that initial unit. (Did they do this as a memorial for Bruce Sellner? It seems like a better memorial would’ve been to keep building more units of the last ride design he had championed. But maybe his family members who took over the business after his death decided the business model for making more of them no longer stood.) The one and only Anchors Away was sold to a West Coast carnival company, which owned it until last year, when Dreamland Amusements bought it. The sign announced that Dreamland Amusements was proud to bring the only Anchors Away to carnival-goers on the East Coast for the first time.

I wish more carnivals would do this sort of thing – publicize what is unique about their rides and attractions. I’m sure individual rides must take on lives and histories of their own, considering that many of them travel around the country for decades. The rides at Dreamland Amusements range in age from at least my age (I was born in 1964) to less than a year old (they purchased their one-truck Himalaya ride, manufactured by Wisdom Rides, in 2011, and their Dizzy Dragons kiddy ride is also pretty new). The oldest ride I saw probably dates to the mid-1960s; it was a kiddy automobile racing ride, with miniature cars mounted on a turntable. I can pretty much date it to around 1965 or 1966 because all of the cars were either first generation Ford Mustangs (first built in 1964) or early 1960s Corvette Mako Shark concept cars (the concept car precursors to the second generation Stingray Corvettes that came out in 1968). That modest little ride has seen quite a lot of use; how many thousands of kids have sat inside those miniature Mustangs and Corvettes and twirled their steering wheels over the past forty-five years? It is a little staggering to think how many times the ride has been put together and taken apart during its career, considering that it gets disassembled at the end of each show, mounted in pieces on a truck, then reassembled at the next show a week or two later. I’ll bet the long-time carnival workers get pretty attached to and sentimental about the rides they work with, considering that they take them apart and put them together probably between twenty and thirty times each year, then spend long hours operating them in-between.

The Water Toboggan, Sellner Manufacturing's first amusement ride

A happy landing on Sellner's Water Tobaggan

The day after taking the kids to the carnival, I looked up the history of Sellner Manufacturing, the makers of the one and only Anchors Away. The company got started way back in 1923 by Herbert W. Sellner (grandfather of Bruce Sellner, who invented Anchors Away). The first ride Herbert manufactured was the Water-Toboggan Slide, designed for swimming parks on lakes. Boy, does that look like it was fun! Check out these photos. Can you imagine riding a toboggan down that long, tall, steep slide, then skimming a hundred feet across the surface of a lake? What a thrill that must’ve been!

But Sellner Manufacturing’s biggest success and greatest claim to fame rolled out a few years later, in 1926, when Herbert Sellmer invented the Tilt-A-Whirl. They manufactured hundreds of the original design, and they continue to build updated models today (Sellner Manufacturing, a family-owned company for most of its existence, was purchased by Larson International in 2011).

Sellner's Tilt-A-Whirl ride in the 1940s

Take a look at this photo of a Tilt-A-Whirl from the 1940s. I’ll bet lots of readers my age or even a little younger will recognize the design. I rode Tilt-A-Whirls exactly like the one in the photo throughout the 1970s, and I’ll bet if I were to rent a copy of The Funhouse from Netflicks, I’d see one of the old-style Tilt-A-Whirls spinning on that haunted midway where I rode a Sizzler for five hours straight.

Just for comparison’s sake, here’s a photo of a modern-day Tilt-A-Whirl, a custom designed Mardi Gras version Sellner Manufacturing built for New Orleans’ City Park Story Land after Hurricane Katrina destroyed all of the park’s original amusement rides.

Category: Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags:
| March 2, 2012
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Great Kids’ Books from MystiCon

Danny Birt, doing his heroic thing

My family and I really enjoyed attending MystiCon in Roanoke, Virginia this past weekend. It’s very gratifying to me to be able to say this, considering that the volunteer who was scheduled to run most of the children’s activities track got sick prior to the con, and those activities had to be canceled. Even so, my kids were very welcome in the dealers’ room, the con hospitality suite, and (most important to them) the video gaming room, which featured various games and gaming consoles going all the way back to the 1980s.

In fact, my best memory of the con, apart from two terrific (but sparsely attended) panels on Sunday, is of the Saturday night children’s story hour in front of the hotel’s fireplace in the lobby. Alethea Kontis and Deborah Smith Ford read from their picture books to a very appreciative audience of about eight children (three of whom were my boys), who sat on pillows in front of the fire and were quite vocal with their reactions and questions. After the story telling was over, a kind (and incredibly patient) con organizer wandered over with a beginners’ level fantasy board game and taught the kids how to play. Even my five-year-old, Judah, caught on and was very engaged in playing. Asher, my seven-year-old, got a little too overly enthusiastic on a couple of occasions and knocked over the playing pieces, but the man organizing the game took this in his stride (which is more than I could’ve accomplished – after the second mishap, I would’ve exiled Asher to the far side of the lobby).

Writer/actress/teacher Deborah Smith Ford

I remarked to another parent (who, like me, enjoyed being able to lean back and watch other adults entertain and educate our kids), “There’s the future of fandom, right there, sitting on those pillows. If we can do a good enough job of showing the kids a good time at conventions, making cons events the kids want to go back to again and again, then we can be reasonably assured that we’ll still have conventions to go to thirty years from now.”

A number of conventions that I’ve attended in the past few years have catered to the needs and interests of young children. I think this is a marvelous and healthy development. As a parent, I really enjoy being able to take my kids with me to conventions and knowing they won’t be bored out of their minds (and constantly bugging me to entertain them). As a writer for multiple age groups, I appreciate that so many folks are making a concentrated effort to make reading a fun activity and offer science fiction and fantasy books as desirable acquisitions for young people (who, we all hope, will grow from young readers to teen readers to adult readers). As a fan, I’m gratified (and relieved) that fandom appears to be making a good effort to avoid becoming extinct (by pushing back against what has been called “the graying of fandom” – not that there’s anything at all wrong with senior citizen fans, many of whom I love to death and who provide much of the best audience participation at panel discussions, but conventions need to have a good mix of ages involved if they are to survive).

For those of you who may be looking for great new (or old) books for your kids, or who just like children’s books, here are some of the wonderful books my boys and I were exposed to at MystiCon.

Alethea Kontis is an absolute natural when it comes to interacting with children. Kids just gravitate toward her (adults, too, for that matter; warmth and genuineness count for a lot). She sold out of her first picture book, Alphabet Oops! prior to the story hour. So she read from her second picture book, Alphabet Oops! H is for Halloween, which, given my boys’ enjoyment of monster movies and all things monster-related, I think would’ve been a good choice in any case. Her book is chock-full of charming illustrations (including hidden characters on each page which young readers are encouraged to find), and her story of the various letters of the alphabet all competing to stand for various symbols of Halloween certainly kept my kids’ attention. Any parent looking for a picture book for a young child who likes monsters can’t go wrong with this one.

MystiCon was the first time I had the pleasure of meeting Deborah Smith Ford, an actress, teacher, and writer from Florida. Things got a bit chaotic in the hotel lobby midway through the children’s story hour (not due to the kids, but to a bunch of adults who congregated there and were oblivious to the authors trying to read to little ears). But Levi, my oldest, wanted very much to hear Deborah’s book, so she very obligingly gave him a one-on-one reading of her picture book, The Little Apple, which is about her own upbringing on a farm. Levi and Deborah hit it off so well that she made him a present of her book, which came with an audio CD that features songs by sound-alikes of Johnny and June Cash. We haven’t had a chance yet to listen to the audio CD, but I’m looking forward to it (especially given that I’m a fan of the Cashes’ music).

Danny Birt is a fellow Loyola University of New Orleans grad and an all-around good guy. His book, Between a Roc and a Hard Place, is a chapter book aimed at middle school readers. I’ve heard him read excerpts from his tale of a baby dragon and enjoyed what I heard very much. Very charming and sweet. So I had my oldest son, Levi, aged 8, look at the book to see if it is something he can read and would be interested in. Affirmative on both questions! Danny very kindly inscribed a copy for him.

The proprietor of Oreilis Books, a used books shop that operates online and at conventions, is very interested in catering to the reading needs of young readers. I discovered to my delight that she had a copy of Evelyn Sibley Lampman’s 1955 classic children’s chapter book, The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek. Another parent was considering buying it for his seven-year-old son, but that kid ended up picking out another couple of books, so I snatched up the Lampman as soon as he put it down.

I’ve never read The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek, but when I was about Levi’s age, my mom bought me a copy of the sequel, The Shy Stegosaurus of Indian Springs, which I remember simply loving and reading over and over again. (The shy stegosaurus of the title, George, was always apologizing to his young human friends for the very small size of his brain and his limited intellect; he was an endearing character.) I thought I’d kept my old hardback copy, and not too long ago I went looking for it, hoping to give it to Levi. However, in one of my many moves over the years, I either gave it away or lost it (although I managed to hang onto some of my other favorite books from childhood, including J. B. Priestley’s Snoggle a precursor of Steven Spielberg’s E.T., and my collection of Alfred Hitchcock’s oversized anthologies for young people). So I was thrilled to find a copy of the first book to give to Levi and his younger brothers (I’ll bet Judah, the dinosaur and Japanese monster fan, will be the book’s biggest enthusiast in our household). The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek has been reprinted fairly recently by Purple House Press, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find, if you know a little dinosaur-lover who needs a wonderful chapter book to read.

Category: Book Love, Conventions and Fandom | Tags:
| February 7, 2012
One comment

More Scarifying Than Rollerball or Death Race 2000

I'll bet James Caan never chaperoned a bowling party for 23 little kids...

Now that I’m a middle-aged guy with a professional job and family responsibilities, I very rarely willing enter a situation involving physical peril (my rollerblading days, for example, are far, far behind me). But this past Saturday, I found my pulse racing, my adrenaline pumping, my internal alarm Klaxon screaming like a banshee with a burning tail, and my trusty robot companion blaring “DAN-GER! DAN-GER! DAN-GER!”

What’s more terrifying than a Friday the Thirteenth marathon, more hair-raising than participating in a Mexican cliff-diving competition? How about… hosting a bowling party for twenty-three kids under the age of nine?

Since we’ve been up in Northern Virginia, Dara and I have been throwing the boys their birthday parties at one of a couple of local Burger Kings with indoor playlands. The parties have been reasonably pleasant affairs for involved; the kids get to get their ya-yas out by crawling through the tunnels and pitching themselves down the slides, and the parents can hang out with their BK ice coffees and chat, keeping only half an eye on the kids. I like those parties. I look forward to them.

The car-nage of Death Race 2000 can't compare with the catastrophic mayhem in my mind's eye at Bowl America

But this year, Asher, my middle son, decided a Burger King party was no longer satisfactory. He wanted Something Different. Now, mind you, Something Different doesn’t come cheap. Back in New Orleans, Februarys are fairly mild, so parents can make do with renting a bounce house for the backyard and inviting over twenty kids. In Virginia, however, the February climate isn’t so accommodating. Renting an indoor House-of-Bounce bounce house palace for a party runs over five hundred bucks when you include the food and drinks. Doing a party at Chuck-E-Cheese isn’t much less expensive.

So I came up with the idea of doing a bowling party. The boys have been nagging me to take them bowling for months. A big change in bowling for kids since I was a youngster is that nowadays, managers of bowling alleys are willing to block gutters for young bowlers. This lets the kids have way more fun. When I was a kid, being taken to the bowling alley by my summer camp counselors was an occasion for withering humiliation, as I launched ball after ball into the gutters. In today’s culture of Self-Esteem, however, such an outcome is simply not allowable. But the allowances made nowadays bode well for bowling’s future as a recreational pastime. Kids that can do it and feel good about themselves will probably grow up to become adult bowlers (unlike me, for instance).

Bowl America advertised bowling parties that included ninety minutes of bowling, followed by pizza, soda, ice cream, and tokens for video games. Their prices were reasonable, so I had Dara sign us up. Bowl America even provided invitations for Asher to pass out to his friends. We brought our own birthday cake.

I don’t know what I pictured; I guess I figured that the bowling alley staff would set all the kids up and supervise their games. We were assigned just one staff member to work with us, however. A very nice, accommodating young lady who was quickly Overtaken By Events.

Things didn’t start out too badly, when it was just a few guests and my three kids. We got bowling shoes for everyone, and Judah, my youngest, thought the red and blue shoes were the cat’s meow. My liaison set the five or six boys up on a pair of adjacent alleys and blocked the gutters on both. We had a total of four lanes set aside for our party. I was able to get the kids to take turns, with some difficulty, I’ll admit, but they listened. At first. Of course, some of the bowling was painful to watch. I’m talking balls that Dara and I made bets on as to whether or not they would finally reach the pins. I suspect that the lanes were very slightly angled downward, because only gravity could have caused those balls to keep meandering toward the pins after their momentum was entirely spent. But hey! Every ball a kid tossed knocked down at least one pin. So what if a kid sometimes tossed himself down the lane along with the ball?

The birthday boy, looking suspiciously innocent... is that pizza sauce or BLOOD around his mouth?

Then things began getting Out Of Control. One of the lanes consistently refused to reset on its own, so I was constantly having to run to the front desk to grab some help, leaving the kids temporarily on their own. More kids started arriving in a big rush. I had to direct parents where to go to get their kids into bowling shoes. Plus, I had to corral staff to sign the new kids onto the scoring machines and divide them between our four lanes.

In the meantime, the kids were Devising Their Own Games. That sort of thing is just fine at a Burger King playland, where the opportunities for mayhem are minimal. It’s another matter entirely when each child is wielding a spherical hunk of plastic weighing between eight and twelve pounds. I have to give kudos to the parents. They spontaneously organized themselves into supervisory squads that kept the most dangerous behaviors at bay. If just a few more parents had decided to drop their kids off at the party and head for a local bar for a couple of hours, I would have been S-C-R-E-W-E-D.

Even with the help of numerous parents, however, the bowling party rapidly devolved into Barely Safe Chaos. Balls were dropped. Many balls, which miraculously missed landing on many, many little toes. Kids launched themselves head-first down the lanes. Taking turns was quickly abandoned. When kids saw a freestanding set of pins, they ran to chuck their ball, even if the pins stood at the end of another set of kids’ lane. A neat thing the bowling alley had for the littlest kids to use was a wire ramp which allowed a small child to set his or her ball into its top, then push the ball down the ramp so it got up a good head of steam. My youngest, Judah, all of five years old, actually bowled a strike using one of those ramps. Unfortunately, we only had one ramp to service all four lanes. Most of the kids adored the ramp, so of course the ramp became the object of much competitive attention. My heart almost flew out my mouth several times as I saw various small children toting a bowling ball in one hand and dragging that ramp across the alleys with the other.

The little brother, about to bash someone's brains in...

Balls clanged into the reset sweepers as kids flung their balls before pins could be reset. This necessitated staff braving the hazardous spaces between the children and the pins to retrieve the balls. The birthday boy, either out of an overabundance of zeal or mischievousness, tossed his ball onto a lane as an unwary staff person trooped up the lane to grab a stranded ball, narrowly missing the man’s feet.

Amazingly, incredibly, almost unbelievably, no bones were broken, and no blood was shed (although I may have surrendered several birthdays of my own in years lost to fright). The children all had a marvelous time and said it was one of the best parties ever. However, rarely in my life have I been so relieved as when the pizza and ice cream arrived, and the kids put their bowling balls down.

Category: Slices of Life | Tags:
| January 22, 2012
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More Handmade Monsters!

Here to save the planet... it's Mothra!

My youngest son, Judah, continues to request handmade monster toys, so I continue to make them. My first efforts were Gorgo and Tarantula (seen here in this earlier post). Gorgo was a simple paper puppet, two layers of construction paper glued together over a straw. Tarantula, however, was a more elaborate project, involving two plastic token cups from Chuck E. Cheese’s, a ball of black yarn, and several dozen black pipe cleaners. I made sure to over-build that sucker, reinforcing his legs six ways to Sunday (or eight ways to Sunday, given the number of legs).

Now I just need those two tiny Japanese twin gals...

Next up, per Judah’s instructions, was Mothra. Making a Mothra isn’t too hard; making a Mothra that won’t get destroyed after one or two sessions of play is a taller order. Mothra’s body is a cardboard toilet paper roll, coated in yellow construction paper, with pipe cleaner legs inserted through holes. Her wings are two layers of construction paper, reinforced on top with “veins” of variously colored pipe cleaners (which also give the wings some stiffness). Her head is construction paper with fuzzy ball eyes and antennae made of Bendaroos (wax-coated string). So far, she has avoided mortal damage, and she has been in Judah’s hands for over a month. So I guess I must’ve built her right.

Ghidorah vs. Godzilla!

Having seen the “Ghidorah Trilogy” (Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster; Monster Zero; and Destroy All Monsters), of course Judah would want a Ghidorah for his collection (and professionally made Ghidorah toys aren’t too common, at least not here in the States). I’d originally intended to make a simple two-dimensional Ghidorah puppet, along the lines of what I’d done with Gorgo, but then I got a bit more ambitious. I couldn’t figure out a workable way for me to make him fully three-dimensional, but by making his heads, wings, torso, and legs separately and then slotting them together, I was able to make him at least partially three-dimensional, plus able to stand on his own (a definite plus in a household inhabited by a kitten who loves to chew paper).

Another view of the wintry grudge match

I printed out a nice, cartoony drawing of Ghidorah from the deviantart.com site and cut out portions to use for the fronts of Ghidorah’s heads and legs, the most difficult parts to draw, then drew the wings and torso freehand. I did my best to draw the reverse sides of his legs and feet and of his heads and necks on another sheet of construction paper, plus reverse sides of his wings and torso. I then traced the parts onto a sheet of corrugated cardboard, which would give all the parts the necessary stiffness. I cut everything out, glued the construction paper “skins” over the cardboard “skeleton,” and then, after it had all dried, cut slots into the various parts and slotted and glued them together, sort of like how you would put together a cardboard model of an airplane. My finished product didn’t come out exactly proportional (the torso and wings are too big for the heads and legs), but he turned out exactly the right scale to battle Judah’s plastic Godzilla, which is more important. And from certain angles, he is rather impressive, if I do say so myself. Besides, Ghidorah was always sort of a lumpy, ungainly monster, anyway, at least in the original 1960s Toho films.

The best thing about Yongary, Monster From the Deep--the hero's 1964 Corvair convertible

This past week was a bad one, health-wise, for my family. One by one, we all came down with bouts of stomach flu. Judah and Asher caught it nearly simultaneously, and while they were on the mend, I stayed home with them to give Dara a bit of a break. The three of us watched Yongary, Monster From the Deep (1967). This was one giant monster picture I had somehow not managed to see as a kid. Yongary is essentially a South Korean Godzilla, with the monster-loving little kid from Gamera, the Invincible tossed in for good measure. The model cities weren’t bad, at least on par with those seen in the early Gamera movies, but the monster costume was a step down from those featured in the Gamera creature-fests, about as silly looking as the average kaiju in an episode of Ultraman.

The worst thing about Yongary, Monster From the Deep--the heroine's absurdly obnoxious little brother, Icho

What made the film stand out in my eyes were two things — the hero drove a splendid 1964 Chevy Corvair convertible, and Icho, the six or seven-year-old kid whom the filmmakers unwisely (and sadistically) foisted on us for much of the film, was simply the most detestable and obnoxious child character I have ever witnessed in any monster movie, ever. Worse than any of the kids in the Gamera movies (even that horrid, virtually unwatchable little Caucasian girl who wore a Scottish tam in War of the Planets). Worse than the kid in Godzilla’s Revenge. Worse, quite possibly, than any of the kids in The Lemon Drop Kids Meet a Brooklyn Gorilla (although I’ll admit I haven’t seen that one, so I can’t say for certain). One gizmo that plays a role in the movie’s plot is an itching ray (yes, an itching ray) developed by the hero (for God knows what reason; he’s already invented it when the film begins, before Yongary ever appears). The first time we meet Icho, he is hiding in the bushes, having stolen his new brother-in-law’s invention, and he zaps his sister and her new husband with the itching ray as they drive past (in that splendid Corvair convertible), forcing them to pull over and jump out of their clothes while they are on their way to their honeymoon. Icho gets even more obnoxious as the film rolls on. At one point, the hero scientist and the military have found a way to render Yongary unconscious, after he has knocked down most of those parts of Seoul that weren’t already knocked down during the Korean War. What does cute little Icho do? He steals the itching ray again, runs to the giant monster’s side, and wakes him up. Just as a goof, you know. Yongary then proceeds to knock down those parts of Seoul he missed the first time around. At that point, I was rooting for the big lizard to squash the kid already. Doesn’t happen. Evil triumphs; Yongary dies.

View from my back deck, January 21, 2012

But enough about itch-inducing child actors. We got a bit of wet snow last night, enough to lightly coat our back yard and replenish our stream. Knowing I’d be posting about giant monster movies, I began wondering whether any of them had taken place in the wintertime, during a heavy snowfall. Dozens of them took place in the desert, in the American Southwest, near where the atomic tests were carried out. All of the Japanese kaiju movies that I can recall took place in the summertime, with the exception of the early parts of Gigantis the Fire Monster / Godzilla Raids Again, the second Godzilla movie, in which Godzilla (or a second Godzilla-like creature, the original having been thoroughly disintegrated by the oxygen destroyer at the close of Godzilla, King of the Monsters) and Anguilus are discovered fighting each other on a northerly, ice-covered island, before they both invade Japan. The Deadly Mantis begins in Antarctica, where the titular giant bug makes his first attack on humanity, but when he gets up to the cities of North America, it is summertime. Much of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, which features numerous giant creatures, takes place in a mysterious region of the Arctic, but that’s more a fantasy-adventure film than a traditional “giant monsters attack” movie. I haven’t seen The Beast From Twenty Thousand Fathoms in a long time, and I seem to recall that its climax takes place in Coney Island during a storm. Was it a snowstorm? If anyone has a good memory for this kind of thing, help me out here. I just think it would be neat to see New York City or Washington, DC or Tokyo (or even Seoul) get attacked by a gigantic lizard during a beautiful snowstorm.

(Ah, memory just kicked in; Peter Jackson’s New York City scenes in his recent remake of King Kong took place in the wintertime, one of the nicer touches in that film. Digital effects make much possible that perhaps weren’t so practicable during the era of miniature models.)

Category: Stuff I Like, Uncategorized | Tags: ,
| January 5, 2012
3 comments

Visit to the National Navy Museum (part 2)

Levi with quad 40mm anti-aircraft mount

The National Museum of the U.S. Navy is a treasure house, both inside and out. My recent post described the artifacts, some of them gargantuan, that occupy the lawn between the museum’s building and the Anacostia River, where the USS Barry is docked. Today’s post will cover some of the equally stunning (although less large) exhibits found inside the museum hall.

Any fan of the model maker’s art simply must visit the National Navy Museum. When I was a kid, my father, also a military and naval buff, put together plastic model kits for me as birthday and Hanukkah gifts. He built me a Bismarck, a HMS Rodney, and a USS Olympia, as well as a set of Hampton Roads opponents, USS Monitor and CSS Virginia. He regularly took me to hobby shops and to the Dade County Youth Fair, where we could see other model makers’ work on display, some of it very elaborate. However, nothing – absolutely nothing – I have ever seen in the way of scale models compares with the models which awaited me when the boys and I walked inside the Navy Museum.

Armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania

Both Levi and Judah have a funny little habit they engage in whenever something really, really excites them. They jump up and down and flap their arms. Well, I very nearly jumped up and down and flapped like a Canada goose when I saw the first model that awaited us, the USS Pennsylvania, an armored cruiser which served as part of the backbone of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in the first decade or so of the twentieth century, making up part of the “Big Eight” group of armored cruisers. The Pennsylvania is best known, however, as the US Navy’s first “aircraft carrier.” A little more than a hundred years ago, in 1911, she was outfitted with a temporary wooden take-off ramp on her stern and launched seaplanes, which landed in the water and were recovered by ship-mounted cranes. The model on display shows the Pennsylvania in her 1911 state with the temporary ramp installed. This is a big model, easily six feet long, built to a scale, if I remember correctly, of about 1 foot per 100 feet, a scale standard to nearly all the museum’s models.

Monitor USS Miantonomoh

One of the most unusual attractions of the Navy Museum is its outstanding collection of models and artifacts documenting the US Steel Navy, the ships which served from the period stretching from 1890 to the world cruise of the Great White Fleet in 1907-09. One ship which straddled naval epochs, bridging the gap between the US Navy’s ironclad period during the Civil War and its Steel Navy period leading into the Spanish-American War, was the monitor USS Miantonomoh. The history of the Miantonomoh‘s building, and that of her sister ships, is actually more interesting than nearly any of their operational histories. These vessels took longer to construct than any other ships built for the US Navy, reflecting the lowest period in the Navy’s long history. Their construction was begun in 1873 under a cloud of subterfuge. An incident on the high seas nearly led to war between Spain and the United States. The Secretary of the Navy was mortified to learn that the US Navy, had it been called upon to fight the Spanish fleet, had no modern, oceangoing armored ships ready to steam. Congress approved funds for five of the most recent double-turreted monitors to be repaired and modernized; these ironclads had been commissioned in the final year of the Civil War or shortly thereafter. The original Miantonomoh, one of this group, had been the first monitor to cross the Atlantic Ocean, back in 1867. However, by 1873, the five monitors, all with wooden hulls, had deteriorated so badly that they were not worth repairing.

USS Monadnock in heavy Pacific swells

So the Secretary of the Navy used the funds appropriated for repairs to begin building five entirely new monitors, each of which would be given the same name of one of the old monitors, so as to maintain the fiction that those old ironclads were being repaired and refitted. Running out of funds, the Secretary of the Navy gave the private shipyards dozens of Civil War-era monitors and sloops to scrap for additional building money. The scheme eventually came to light, and Congress directed that work on the five monitors be halted. Several years later, however, during another diplomatic crisis, Congress changed its mind and directed that the vessels be completed in various Navy Yards. The incomplete Miantonomoh was transferred to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. However, laggard appropriations and frequent changes in design dragged out construction times for another decade. The Miantonomoh did not enter service until 1891, seventeen years after her construction had been initiated. Her sisters and partial sister, the Puritan, did not enter Navy service until 1895-96, more than twenty years after their construction had begun. Contemporaries and rough equivalents of the British ironclad HMS Devastation, which had been commissioned in the early 1870s, the Miantonomoh and her sisters were thoroughly obsolete as frontline warships by the time they entered service. The major problem with the class can be seen in this photograph of the Miantonomoh‘s sister, USS Monadnock, crossing the Pacific to join Commodore Dewey’s squadron during the Spanish-American War. She made it, but the crossing was so treacherous that she spent the rest of her career on the western side of the Pacific with the US Asiatic Fleet, never daring to cross an ocean again.

Protected cruiser USS Baltimore

The protected cruiser USS Baltimore played a role in every major US conflict from the Spanish-American War to WWII. Commissioned in 1890 as Cruiser #3 of the New Navy, her first major duty was to transport the body of famous engineer John Ericsson, inventor of the US Monitor, to be buried in his native Sweden. She was one of Commodore Dewey’s ships at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War and participated in the Philippines operations which followed that war. Prior to the US involvement in WWI, she was converted to a minelayer, and in 1918 she helped lay anti-submarine minefields between Scotland and Ireland and in the North Sea, an effective deterrent against German U-boats. Between 1922 and 1942 she was laid up as a storage hulk at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and was present during the Japanese air raid on December 7, 1941.

Broadside 8" gun turret, armored cruiser USS Brooklyn

The USS Brooklyn was the most powerful of the first group of New Navy cruisers, mounting eight 8” guns, four of them mounted in French-style en echelon broadside turrets (one of which can be seen in my photograph of the model of the Brooklyn). Commissioned in 1896, she played a key role in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in July of 1898, where the main Spanish battle fleet was destroyed. The Brooklyn was hit twenty times by Spanish shells but suffered only one sailor killed. In 1905, she retrieved the remains of naval hero John Paul Jones from Cherbourg, France and delivered them to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where the body was reinterred. During WWI she served as the flagship of the US Asiatic Fleet and finished her lengthy career with the Pacific Fleet in 1921. The Brooklyn was the only US armored cruiser named for a city, rather than a state.

Battleship USS Kearsarge

Similarly, the USS Kearsarge was the only US battleship not named for a state; rather, she was named after the famous steam sloop of the Civil War, the vanquisher of the Confederate raider CSS Alabama (the museum also features models of the original Kearsarge and the Alabama). Commissioned in 1900, too late for service in the Spanish-American War, the Kearsarge nevertheless enjoyed a very lengthy and varied career in the US Navy. Never firing any of her guns in anger, she participated in the cruise of the Great White Fleet in 1907-09 and served as a training vessel during WW1. In 1920, she was converted to a heavy-lift crane ship. During WWII, she lifted and enabled the installation of guns, turrets, and armor plating for the battleships Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Alabama, as well as the cruisers Savanna and Chicago. She continued to serve as a heavy-lift vessel until decommissioned in 1955, five and a half decades after her first commissioning. The most notable feature of the Kearsarge’s design was her double-decker main turrets, with the turrets for her four 13” guns serving as the bases for turrets for her secondary armament of 8” guns. This arrangement caused blast interference between the 13” and 8” guns, however, and the arrangement was repeated in only one other class of US battleships (the Virginia class).

Ironclad CSS Virginia

Other outstanding models at the museum include a diorama of the CSS Virginia in drydock, completing her fitting out after her conversion from the steam frigate USS Merrimac; the USS South Carolina, the US Navy’s first all-big-gun battleship (designed before the famous HMS Dreadnought but completed several years after that history-making warship); and a tremendous model of one of the navy’s last dreadnought battleships, the USS Missouri. The model of the Missouri was built by the same technicians and craftsmen who built the actual ship; they spent an incredible 70,000 man hours working on the model, which is likely one of the finest ship models existent, anywhere.

Battle flag of USS Balao

The museum contains more than just scale models. There are numerous preserved cannons on display, the largest inside the museum being a twin 5″ gun mount from a WWII anti-aircraft cruiser. My boys enormously enjoyed sitting in the gunners’ seats of a quad 40mm anti-aircraft mount, which they were able to swivel and elevate. A display on American submarines contained fascinating models of some of the earliest US Navy submersibles, as well as two working periscopes, both of which poked out the museum’s roof and looked out onto the USS Barry. Another wonderfully appealing artifact is the battle flag of the submarine USS Balao, credited with sinking seven Japanese vessels in WWII. This memorable flag, with its cartoon mascot of a pistol-packing bumblebee riding a torpedo, was designed by a Walt Disney Studios artist in 1945 at the request of Motor Machinist’s Mate 3rd class William G. Hartley.

We’ll most definitely go back. Many times!

Category: Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| January 3, 2012
2 comments

Visit to the National Navy Museum (part 1)

1850s experimental 15" gun

This past week, while my boys were on their winter break from school, I finally found the time to visit one of the Washington, DC-area museums I’ve been anxious to see since moving up here – the National Museum of the U.S. Navy. Located next to the Anacostia River, inside the Washington Navy Yard, the Navy Museum is a good bit smaller than its sister facility, the National Museum of the U.S. Marine Corps, located in Quantico, Virginia. However, it is densely packed with artifacts and displays, many of them one-of-a-kind, and a naval buff can easily spend an entire afternoon strolling among the outside artifacts and exploring the various exhibits inside the museum hall. Additionally, the 1950s-era destroyer USS Barry is docked adjacent to the hall as a museum ship (the boys and I ran out of time and energy before setting foot aboard the Barry, so we’ll have to save that exploration for another visit to the Navy Yard).

We visited on a cold, blustery day, but the outside artifacts were so fascinating that we spent nearly an hour braving the winds off the river. Some of the most fascinating things we saw included:

Cannons from ironclad CSS Tennessee

Four cannons removed from the ironclad USS Tennessee (formerly CSS Tennessee) prior to that ship’s scrapping in 1867: two 7” Brook rifles and two 6.4” Brook rifles (the latter seen in the photograph of the Navy Museum’s entrance); as the CSS Tennessee, the ironclad had fought valiantly against Union Admiral David Farrugut’s entire fleet, which included four ironclad monitors, before being overwhelmed by the combined gunfire of the monitors USS Manhattan, USS Chickasaw, and USS Winnebago;

6" gun from USS Maine

A 6” gun salvaged from the wreckage of the second class battleship USS Maine after she was sunk by a magazine explosion in Havana Harbor in 1898, the incident that precipitated the Spanish American War;

Post WWI 16" gun

Several very large cannons which were never used in combat, including an experimental model of a 15” muzzle-loading cannon built in the 1850s, and a 16” gun built prior to the Washington Naval Conference arms limitations talks of 1921-22, which resulted in the scrapping, cancellation, or (in the cases of the USS Lexington and USS Saratoga) conversion of big gun capital ships into aircraft carriers; battleship size was limited by the treaty to 35,000 tons, which ruled out two classes of U.S. battleships and battlecruisers than being built, most of which would have been armed with the model of 16” gun on display here;

26" thick Japanese battleship armor

Sections of battleship armor plating, including large strakes of 16″ thick waterline armor and 9″ thick upper side armor from the USS South Dakota, plus a massive 26″ thick plate intended for the battleship Yamato, recovered by the American Navy at the Japanese naval base of Kure after the war and later tested against 16″ gun armor-piercing shells (as you can see, the American battleship gunfire pierced the Japanese plate clear through, so perhaps the American Iowa class battleships would not have been so terribly outgunned by the Yamato and Musashi had the ships ever met in a gun duel, particularly given the former ships’ five knots greater speed).

Judah between two 16" shells

The most mesmerizing artifact we saw outside the museum was also the largest — a 14″ battleship gun mounted on a railcar carriage. This particular gun (identical to those being mounted on battle wagons of the Pennsylvania class) was shipped to France in the spring of 1918 in time to fire several hundred giant shells at German positions up to twenty-four miles distant. The gun was manned by U.S. Navy sailors who fired it in over a dozen campaigns on the Western Front.

14" railway gun sent to France

14" railway gun (background); Civil War cannons (foreground)

Next in Part 2: the scale model treasures found inside the museum hall

Category: Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| December 31, 2011
4 comments

Wishing My Friends and Readers a Wonderful 2012

Consider this my “bloggy” version of the end-of-the-year summing-it-all-up letter (known most commonly, I think, as “the Christmas letter”) that lots of families write, then make dozens of copies of to send off to their relatives and friends along with a Christmas card and/or a family snapshot.

Topping my “to do” list is wishing all of you a coming year of good health, profitable ventures, enjoyable times with family and friends, a deepening sense of community, and many hours of wonderful, entertaining, and enlightening reading. May 2012 be a year in which many longstanding bright aspirations are fulfilled, and one in which all of life’s surprises are positive ones.

2011 has been an odd year, a rather bifurcated year for me. Whereas many events in the wider world have prompted ill ease and a sense of waiting for the next shoe to drop, my immediate family’s life has been one of blessings over the past twelve months (your host spits between his fingers and mutters in Yiddish, “Kein ayin hora.”) The economy has remained on wobbly legs, with the official unemployment rate declining only because more and more people are opting to give up and leave the workforce entirely. Events overseas, from unrest in Arab lands to Iranian belligerence to the European sovereign debt crisis, combine to keep one on edge. In this time of uncertainty, I feel incredibly fortunate that I continue to be gainfully employed, that my family and I live comfortably and cozily in our small house in the woods, that we have enjoyed mostly good health this past year, that I’ve been able to start and finish a book I am very proud of, and that my sons have continued their growth and development into admirable young men.

Levi’s love of reading grows stronger and stronger, and he is taking to playing the piano, if not quite like a duck to water, then like a golden retriever to water (slowly and steadily, he’ll get to the far side). He and his younger brother Asher have both received glowing reports from their teachers at school. Both of them have made me proud by hanging in there with their Tae Kwan Do lessons, despite Master Nam’s exacting standards and Marine-like insistence on discipline, which places far greater demands on them than those they encountered at their former Tae Kwan Do academy (at the old school, the boys advanced to a new belt every other month, whereas under Master Nam, Levi has remained a white belt for more than six months, and Asher only recently received his first promotion). Judah has discovered an enthusiasm for monster movies, especially Japanese kaiju monster movies, which has prompted me to make him handmade monster toys and brought us even closer.

Dara and I have been able to do some traveling, reuniting with old friends in New York and in New Orleans; I had the honor of being a writer guest at CONtraflow, the first fan-run science fiction convention to be held in the New Orleans area since before Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We welcomed a new companion into our family this year, a kitten, rescued from the streets, named Priscilla. She has quickly made herself the queen of the household, demanding only the best (and most expensive) cat food, continuously pouncing on our four older cats, putting her small nose everywhere it does not belong, but happy to purr on Dara’s chest all night and offer affection to the rest of the members of the family (with the possible exception of Judah, who plays as roughly with her as she does with the other cats).

Growing independence on the boys’ part (mainly their being able to fall asleep without having me in their room with them) has returned to me a part of my life I had greatly missed – the opportunity to read for pleasure before going to bed. I’ve read some wonderful books this past year. The best of the bunch were Barney’s Version by Mordechai Richler and Mr. Sammler’s Planet by Saul Bellow. Not quite as pleasurable and enriching but still very rewarding were A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, Kampus by James Gunn, and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. Borders’ going-out-of-business sale tempted me into adding a lot of recently published books to my library, so I have a very full shelf of to-be-read books waiting for me in 2012.

The Borders bankruptcy was just one symptom of the massive churn and “creative destruction” that seemed to accelerate in 2011 in the publishing and bookselling industries. All the uncertainty is enough to give any writer heartburn. Uncertainty has been the hallmark of my writing career since 2004. I presently have five unsold novel manuscripts sitting on my hard drive. But my attendance at the 2011 Nebula Awards Weekend helped me decide to take a more proactive stance toward my career, rather than simply churning out the books and hoping/praying that something good happens in the brain of some editor somewhere. Although the connection I made with Robin Sullivan of Ridan Publications didn’t end up working out the way I’d originally hoped, that experience did lead me to setting up this website after having been absent from the web for six years. I convinced my most recent publishers, Tachyon Publications, to make my third book, The Good Humor Man, or, Calorie 3501, available in all the popular ebook formats. Also, Dara and I have been laying the groundwork for our own small e-press, so that when I judge that any of those five unpublished manuscripts have sat on enough editors’ desks for enough time, the books won’t be trapped in limbo. I will make them available myself, and Dara and I will combine our efforts to market them directly to readers.

Blogging has been a source of fun and pleasure so far. Since July 1 of this year, I’ve been fortunate enough to attract about 60,000 page views; not a rocket ship take-off, but not too shabby. Of the approximately 120 posts and articles I’ve placed on the website in its first six months, the following twelve are the ones I’m happiest with, the posts I think of as my creme de la creme to date. If you’ve missed any of them, you may want to take a look:

“The Death of Science Fiction, 1960 and Today”
“Lust for a Laptop, or the Madness of the Obsessive Collector” (series begins here)
“Thoughts Prompted by the English Riots”
“It’s J. G. Ballard’s World, We Just Live in It”
“The Absence of 9-11 from Science Fiction”
“Science Fiction Movements and Manifestos”
“The Thrill of the New”
“A Tale of Two Bildungsromans”
“An Unpredictable (But Golden) Reward of Publishing”
“In Praise of Anne McCaffrey”
“Training the Next Generation of SF Geeks: an Intergenerational Study”
“Farewell to Joe Simon, American”

To close out the year, here is my favorite quote I’ve stumbled across in 2011 (thanks to Mona Charen for bringing it to my attention), from the lips of Teddy Roosevelt:

“It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful businessman . . . or farmer, or a successful lawyer, or doctor, or a writer, or a president, or a ranchman . . . or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.”

I couldn’t agree more, Teddy. Have a wonderful and successful 2012, everybody!

Category: Miscellaneous Musings | Tags:
| December 15, 2011
2 comments

Training the Next Generation of SF Geeks: Update #1

I’ll occasionally be posting on my success (or lack thereof) in promoting the growth of science fictional geekhood in my offspring. I’ll probably never be a Little League parent, unless Asher surprises me and decides he wants to play baseball (my two nephews in Florida play baseball, but my brother Ric has always been an avid fan of the game, unlike me). However, I am most definitely a Geek Dad, and proud of it.

It is fascinating to watch each of my three boys gradually develop their own interests. I’ve learned that the most I can do as Geek Dad is expose them to the things I love, in case that love is catching; but I can’t make them enjoy anything they don’t have an innate interest in. My dear stepdad learned that with me when he tried and tried again to get me interested in boxing. No matter how many Golden Gloves bouts he took me to, I insisted on staring at the ceiling rather than watch what was happening in the ring. I was very anti-violence as a kid, apart from illustrated punch ’em outs in comic books. (Ironically, as an adult, I’ve developed an interest in boxing, and now I wish I could go back in time and force my younger self to pay attention to the sport.)

Levi with his pair of Heinlein juveniles

Levi, my eight year old, has blossomed into an enthusiastic reader. He loves humorous books (like the Captain Underpants series and the Wimpy Kid books) and also immerses himself in beginning readers YA fantasy series (especially the Magic Treehouse books). He is curious about science fiction, too. So this past weekend I bought him a pair of the Heinlein juveniles, The Rolling Stones and Rocket Ship Galileo. He looked them over in the store and said they seemed pretty interesting. I’m crossing my fingers, hoping Heinlein will be his entry drug. If the Heinlein doesn’t float his boat, I’ll probably try some Anne McCaffrey or Andre Norton next. One of his classmates has started reading the Harry Potter books, and he’s expressed an interest in those. I don’t have anything against Harry Potter, but I’m a little afraid that, given the books’ enormous length, if he gets sucked into that series, he won’t be reading anything else for the next year or so. Plus, I really, really want to expose him to some science fiction, not just fantasy. I’ll keep you all posted on what he thinks of the Heinlein books.

Judah, my five year old, is, as I have previously mentioned, a fanatic for monster movies, particularly Japanese giant monster movies, and their associated toys. He frequently asks for toys from movies which have never been especially toyetic, such as Gorgo and Tarantula. But where there is a will, there is a way. My mother has always been a very artsy-craftsy person, and she passed along some of that love to me. It is a fun challenge to create toys which Judah and Asher will not destroy within their first five minutes of playing with them. My first effort was a Gorgo stick puppet. I folded over a piece of green construction paper, drew a picture of Gorgo (essentially a Tyrannosaurus with long arms and big, square ears), cut it out, drew all the details on the opposite side, and glued the two sides together with a plastic straw in the middle. It has proven to be surprisingly durable. Judah and Asher have used it for puppet shows.

Judah with homemade Tarantula; Asher with homemade Gorgo

Next Judah begged me for a Tarantula toy. I planned to take him to a reptile expo and exotic pet show at the Prince William Fairgrounds, where I figured I’d find a rubber tarantula or two on sale, but I got the dates wrong, and we missed it. So it was Michael’s Crafts to the rescue — black pipe cleaners, a bundle of black yarn, and a package of googly eyes. For the body, I recycled a pair of plastic tokens cups we’d brought home from Chuck E. Cheese’s. I poked holes in the cups for the eight pipe cleaner legs, glued and taped the cups together, then wrapped the body in black yarn. I finished off Judah’s Tarantula with a pair of pipe cleaner pinchers and six googly eyes. My wife Dara said it was one of the creepiest toys she’s ever seen.

Judah adores it and plays with it daily. I am one happy dad.

Next up? Mothra. That’ll be this coming weekend’s project.

Category: Science Fiction, Slices of Life | Tags:
| December 6, 2011
Comments Off on Training the Next Generation of SF Geeks: an Intergenerational Case Study

Training the Next Generation of SF Geeks: an Intergenerational Case Study

My gateway to the heroes of comics' Golden Age, courtesy of my stepdad and Jules Feiffer

Any culture that fails to train its young in its traditions is doomed to extinction. The culture of science fiction geekdom is no exception. Many SF geeks have come into their geekhood entirely on their own, sometimes in clear opposition to their parents’ preferences (most of the Futurians, for example, needed to get away from their families in order to come into their full geekhood). Yet many others (myself included) have benefitted from the support and encouragement of a geek (or partial geek, or proto-geek) parent. SF geek culture has now been with us long enough that grandparents can share it with their grandchildren (especially if it is Flash Gordon serials or Astounding Science Fiction pulps or EC horror comics that are the artifacts being passed on).

My stepdad was my initial mentor in geekdom, although I’m sure he didn’t think about in those terms (my training in geekhood began in the late 1960s, but the term “geek” did not begin taking on anything approaching a positive connotation until fairly recently, sometime during Bill Clinton’s term in office). He is a movie lover and for many years was an amateur movie maker (in the old days of Super-8 equipment; he never made the transition to digital media). During his twenties, he had nursed an ambition to go to Hollywood to work for Warner Brothers as an animator. He ended up a salesman instead, a very successful one, first of shoes and later of folding cardboard boxes. He and my mother both enjoyed science fiction and horror movies, so my earliest movie-going experiences were outings to the drive-in to see pictures including Destroy All Monsters (1968), The Return of Count Yorga (1971), Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971), and Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (1971). (Come to think of it, we saw an awful lot of movies at the drive-in in 1971.) He was a huge fan of old-time film actors, so the bookshelf in our living room was stocked with oversized volumes on the history of movies serials, classic films of Hollywood’s Golden Age (including the Universal monster movie cycle), and silent film comedy stars such as Charlie Chaplin and W. C. Fields. He also amassed a pretty big collection of Super-8 film shorts to show on his collapsible movie screen, including shorts by Chaplin, the Our Gang kids, and Laurel and Hardy, as well as compilations of coming attractions from Japanese kaiju giant monster films and 1950s Hollywood giant insect movies.

The book on his shelf that probably had the biggest impact on me, though, was Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965). I still have numerous passages virtually memorized (most especially Feiffer’s remembered glee as a young man when he read that psychologist Fredric Wertham had written in Seduction of the Innocent that Batman and Robin, in their civilian identities as Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson, could be said to be experiencing “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together;” Feiffer always hated Robin, so anyone who muddied Robin’s rep was okay by him). I passed hundreds of hours on my living room sofa with that book open on my lap. Feiffer presented a very personal memoir of what each of the classic characters of the Golden Age of Comic Books had meant to him during his childhood and teen years. His book generously provided me with origin stories or very early adventures of such figures as Superman, Batman, the Flash, the Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, the Spectre, Plastic Man, Captain Marvel, Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, and the Spirit, in nearly all cases (with the exceptions of Superman and Batman) my very first exposure to the characters. My stepdad, noting my enthusiasm, followed up by taking me to my very first comic book and nostalgia convention, held in the Coconut Grove library, where I got to see a couple of chapters from Monogram’s The Adventures of Captain Marvel serial and page through a mimeographed reproduction of the famous Human Torch-Sub-Mariner epic battle from Marvel Mystery Comics.

The fact that my stepdad loved old monster movies and old comic book heroes made me want to love them, too; not that I needed too much encouragement in that direction, since I had discovered my love of dinosaurs, prehistoric life, and Greek and Norse mythology all on my own. One thing led to another. Novelizations of the Planet of the Apes films and TV shows proved to be my “entry drugs” to original science fiction novels and story collections by H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Silverberg. A fondness for atomic apocalypse movies led to my picking up books on worldwide catastrophe by J. G. Ballard and John Christopher. The movie versions of The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend made me hunt down the original books by Richard Matheson. The same kid at summer camp who let me look at his dog-earred Iron Man comics also lent me a truly magical novel, The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney.

And thus was my career as a science fiction geek well and truly launched by the time I turned eight. That year I wrote my first short story, “Tyrann!”, a tale about a lonely little boy, his scientist father, the mechanical Tyrannosaurus the father builds as a companion for his son, and the gangsters who have evil plans for the scientist and his robot creation. The boys at school loved it, and I got the idea that writing stories and entertaining my peers was kind of fun.

One thing my stepdad didn’t do was pass on any relics of his own proto-geek childhood. Hardly anybody from his generation saved their comic books and pulp magazines (unless they were extremely obsessed with them). This, of course, is what makes those artifacts of the 1930s and 1940s so valuable – scarcity. Oh, the daydreams I had, though, as a child – “If only Dad had saved his Captain America comics!” I resolved at a very young age that I would save everything: all my comics, all my issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland, all my copies of Eerie and Creepy, and all of my science fiction paperbacks. No future son (or daughter) of mine would ever have to pine for the childhood stuff I had thrown away. I also considered the potential monetary value of the collectibles I would be passing on, figuring I would be doing my future children a great fiduciary favor.

Judah "Iron Man" Fox, celebrating his fifth birthday

Unfortunately, I proved to have an odd talent for buying comics which would never go up in value and for passing up those comics which would someday be worth real money. I distinctly recall seeing all the early issues of The All-New, All-Different X-Men on the carousel wire racks at my local convenience stores (Little General and 7-11) and turning up my nose at them, because the characters on the covers looked “too weird” (why I felt that way about the New X-Men I cannot currently fathom; after all, I eagerly purchased other comics with stranger heroes, such as Jack Kirby’s The Demon and Marv Wolfman’s The Tomb of Dracula, but I remember having a powerful aversion to the costumes worn by the New X-Men in their early adventures). Instead, I bought reprint comics like Marvel Triple Action, Marvel’s Greatest Comics, Monsters on the Prowl, and Creatures on the Loose; the adventures of short-run, failed characters like It! the Living Colossus, the Living Mummy, Man-Thing, Brother Voodoo, the Defenders (a bit more successful than the others on this list), the Invaders, the Golem, and Werewolf by Night; and a fairly full set of The Invincible Iron Man during the character’s worst run ever (excepting, perhaps, the much later Teen Tony issues), from about issue 35 to issue 90 or so. So I ended up with an accumulation of essentially worthless comics, boxes and boxes of them, from the 1970s to the 1990s. Worthless, that is, except for the reading pleasure they might provide a young person.

Over the past eight years, I’ve been blessed with three sons. How should I divide my childhood collection among the three of them, I’ve often wondered? Have them draw lots? Let them sort out the materials among themselves, according to their preferences, with me serving as referee? As things have turned out, this will not be an issue, surprisingly; two of the three appear to have very little interest in my old stuff.

Levi, my oldest, is a voracious reader, but he generally avoids comic books. He showed a mild interest in Silver Age Superman stories for a time, but that didn’t last. After I took him and his brothers to see Captain America: the First Avenger, we went to the comic book store next to the theater, and I offered to buy him any Captain America or Avengers comic he wanted. He wouldn’t bite; instead, he insisted I buy him the latest Wimpy Kid chapter book. The only comics or graphic novels he seems to be interested in are the Bone books. He is very interested in science, but blasé about dinosaurs. He shows very little interest in my collection of old horror movie videos. However, he is fascinated by astronomy and outer space, and most of the chapter books he likes to read (such as the Magic Treehouse and the Captain Underpants books) are essentially fantasy. So I have hopes that I’ll be able to steer him toward science fiction. Within the next year (he is currently in second grade) I plan to introduce him to the Heinlein juveniles, the Rick Riordan books, and eventually Ender’s Game. We’ll see how he takes to those. He is very opinionated and particular regarding what books he chooses to read, so I know I will only be able to suggest (and gently suggest, at that). The potential for an SF geek resides within him (“The Force is strong in this one…”). We shall see.

Asher, my middle child, on the other hand, appears to have little or no geek potential. His interests are decidedly mainstream American boy – he likes sports, race cars, and monster trucks. He enjoys superhero and science fiction movies and TV shows, but he mainly appreciates them for their action. He likes watching things explode and seeing giant robots beat on each other. He thought the last twenty minutes of X-Men: First Class were “awesome,” and he simply loved Real Steel. His favorite toys are his large collection of Hot Wheels cars. He is a pretty strong reader, but he won’t go out of his way to pick up a book. He gets bored when I try to read him Silver Age Superman stories (which Levi enjoys to an extent). His preferred books to look at are illustrated editions of The Guinness Book of World Records and any books on monster trucks.

So, I was at two strikes and one ball to go, so far as passing along my old comics and monster magazines to one of my offspring. Perhaps Judah, my youngest, sensed an opportunity, an unclaimed niche, a chance to beat out his brothers at snuggling up close to Daddy. Or maybe it’s all in the genes (could there be a specific geek chromosome)? In any case, with my final opportunity to reproduce myself as a young geek, I finally struck geek gold in Judah. Several years back, I bought a whole collection of plush Godzilla figures for Levi and Asher as Hanukkah gifts; on eBay, I found Godzilla, Minya, Rodan, Anguillis, Gigan, young Godzilla, Hedorah, King Kong, and Destroyah. These were gorgeous toys. Had they been available when I was a young boy, I would have wet my pants with excitement. But neither Levi nor Asher took to them. They sat on the edge of the boys’ bed for years, unplayed with, gathering dust and cat hair.

Judah with "The Deadly Mantis"

Then Judah decided he liked Godzilla movies. In fact, he loved Godzilla movies. Better still was to watch a Godzilla movie with toys that matched the monsters on screen. He expanded his palate to include a fondness for Gamera movies, too (and I happened to have a few Gamera toys lying around). He will watch any monster movie with his daddy, and he has a particular liking for giant insect movies. Like me, he can watch Tarantula over and over again. When I took him and his brothers to Dinosaur Land in White Post, Virginia, one of the statues there was of a ten-foot-tall praying mantis. I took a picture of the boys standing beneath its claws, and I posted the picture on my website, next to a photo from the 1957 monster movie The Deadly Mantis. Judah took a look at that photo and declared he simply had to have a Deadly Mantis toy. After looking far and wide, I managed to find a really nice praying mantis figurine at Le Jouet Toys down in New Orleans, and I bought it as a birthday gift for Judah. One event marking his fifth birthday celebration was a family viewing of The Deadly Mantis (a clean DVD print obtained from Netflix). Judah sat in bed between me and his brothers with his brand-new mantis toy in his fist, watching Craig Stevens, William Hopper, and Alix Talton deal with their bug problem. He is very disappointed that there has never been a Tarantula vs. the Deadly Mantis movie, or, even better, a Tarantula vs. Godzilla film. He has asked multiple times for me to buy him a Deadly Mantis costume to wear, and I’ve endeavored to explain that no one is likely to make a costume based on a giant bug movie from 1957 that hardly anyone remembers.

It’s not just monsters. He loves dinosaurs and superheroes, too. His favorite dinosaur (for the past few weeks, anyway) is Ankylosaurus, an armored dinosaur from the Cretaceous Period. When I told him that Anguillus from the Godzilla movies is an Ankylosaurus, he went and got his plastic figurine of the monster and asked why Anguillus doesn’t have a knob of bone at the end of his tail like a real Ankylosaurus would. The only reply I could come up with was “artistic license.” So he went and found a small, hollow rubber ball that he was able to insert on the end of Anguillus’ tail. Thus far, he doesn’t seem to have a favorite superhero. Between his dad’s old toys and action figures he has gotten as gifts or collected from McDonald’s or Burger King, he has amassed a pretty impressive set of Justice Society, Justice League, X-Men, and Avengers figures. His affection and loyalty shifts between characters and figures, depending on his mood and which toy happens to catch his eye. One day his favorite will be Banshee from the X-Men, and the next day it might be Captain America or Iron Man, and the day after that either Batman or the Golden Age Flash will have captured his fancy.

Scene from "The Deadly Mantis 2: Mantis in Manassas"

He’s still too young to pass along to him my old comics and issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland (I shudder to think what shape he would leave them in after tearing through them). I’ll probably wait until he turns eight. But that kid has a tremendous bequest coming his way. I can hardly wait to see his face on the day I pull out box after box after box of my old stuff from the basement.

For the time being, I’m as delighted as any proud Little League parent to have him sitting next to me and watching Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster or Tarantula, a rapt look of enjoyment on his face. I glance down at him, squirming with excitement while nestled in the nook of my arm, and think to myself with a glow of satisfaction, “That’s my boy!”

Category: Book Love, Conventions and Fandom, Horror and Fantasy, Science Fiction, Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: , ,
| November 1, 2011
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Trunk or Treat at the Family Drive-In

Jack o' lanterns, a Coke, and a minivan: recipe for an American Halloween

If there’s one thing Americans are pretty darned good at, it’s coming up with new and imaginative ways to celebrate old holidays. Halloween is a completely different animal today than it was when I was a kid (we’re talking the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s). When I was young, it was all about the kids. Now, Halloween competes with New Year’s Eve as an excuse for adult bacchanalia. However, in one little rural corner of northwest Virginia — Stephens City, to be exact — Halloween has stayed all about the kids. Not to say that parents can’t have a blast, too.

the Grim Reaper invites sundown to come so the movies can begin

I’ve gotten into the pleasant habit of taking my kids to the Family Drive-In , about an eighty-minute drive from our house. The vibe at the drive-in is pure late 1960s, early 1970s. It’s always chock full of families. Every time I drive through the gate, I half expect the lot to be filled with the same Chevy Bel Airs and Plymouth Belvederes Ford Fairlanes that would’ve been parked in front of the screens back in 1956, when the theater first opened. The current owners do a fantastic job of keeping the old place relevant with solid choices in family movies and lots of special programming. Last year, they put on a Halloween event called Trunk or Treat. The boys and I enjoyed ourselves so much that I swore on my stack of classic Universal Studios monster movies that we’d go again this year the Saturday before Halloween.

a typical Trunk or Treat family

For a bit there, it looked like I’d have to disappoint the boys (and myself). The entire Northeast got socked with a rare late-October snow storm. The area around Stephens City was predicted to be buried under six to eight inches on Saturday. However, rather than cancel their biggest event of the year, the Family Drive-In folks pushed it off one day, to Sunday. Trunk or Treat ended up being a bit soggier and chillier than last year (there was still a good bit of snow on the ground, surrounding the bounce house the theater set up for the kids), but this in no way ruined the fun.

Judah about to enter the bounce house

Patrons are asked to bring three bags of candy and to come in costume. The gates open at 3 PM. Admission prices are the same as they are every other weekend — a very reasonable $7.50 (adults) or $3.50 (kids under 12), which is a great honking deal for a double feature (or you can pay a little less if you only want to come in for the party). For that modest admission fee, the kids get a bounce house to play in while they are waiting for twilight and the start of Trunk or Treating, plus fire engines from the local volunteer fire department that they are invited to climb around in, a costume contest, and music from one of the area’s FM radio stations.

ghouls on the Family Drive-In playground

Plus, the kids have Ye Olde Playground of Death, a well-preserved example of early 1970s hard steel playground architecture straight out of my elementary school’s recess yard. Ah, the memories… monkey bars that look like exercise equipment you’d find in an old-time prison yard; a tall, steep slide that dumps kids into a mud puddle; and Wild West horsey swings with grasping steel hinges and chains that threaten to amputate little fingers. The leaflets you get with your tickets say no ball playing or frisbee throwing, but plenty of kids do it, anyway.

This family went all out!

Then comes the Trunk or Treating. I love how so many attendees have already started a tradition of decorating the backs of their SUVs, pickups, or minivans just like they might decorate their front yards and porches. Instead of walking from house to house and down driveway after driveway with the little goblins and their candy buckets, you comb the aisles of the drive-in, weave past the speaker stands, and go from trunk to hatch to pickup bed. No need to worry about keeping the kids out of traffic and off the road, because all the cars here are parked.

waiting for Trunk or Treating time

What movie did we see? It almost didn’t matter after all the fun we’d had. We saw Dreamworks’ newest animated comedy, Puss in Boots. Not as good as the Shrek movies, in my humble opinion, but not bad at all. At least it wasn’t The Zookeeper, still my choice for Worst Family Film of 2011. Puss didn’t work as well as last year’s reprise of Monster House as a Halloween film, though. Maybe one of these years the Family Drive-In will make their Trunk or Treating event an evening of classic, family friendly monster movies (a few choices from this list would make for a terrific spooky evening under the stars).

my three little goblins

I can hardly wait for next year!

And neither can my boys…

Category: Slices of Life | Tags:
| October 31, 2011
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Happy Halloween!

As you might well imagine, here at Fantastical Andrew Fox.com, Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. As a little Halloween treat, allow me to suggest a list of my Top Thirteen Creature Feature Oldies (spooky movies more than thirty years old), all guaranteed to add to your Halloween enjoyment. Some are classic, some are quirky, some are so-bad-they’re-good. So surf to your Netflix queue or dash over to Blockbuster Video (if there’s still one of those by your house) and download or rent one of these oldies-but-goodies:

1) Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922): The granddaddy of all vampire movies, and still one of the best. You won’t find a creepier, more repulsive vampire than Max Shreck as Count Orlok, who portrays the vampire as half-man, half-rat.

2) The Black Cat (1934): Probably the best film Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi ever made together. Fabulous Expressionist sets and an intriguing back-story of World War One horror and betrayal add to the star power in this tale of devil worship and sadism.

3) The Bride of Frankenstein (1935): The best of the early Universal Studios horror films, director James Whale’s masterpiece of whimsical terror, and certainly Boris Karloff’s finest acting as the Monster. Plus, you get Elsa Lanchester in two roles!

4) House of Frankenstein (1944): I included this one for its major fun value. All of the Universal Studios monsters are here (save the Mummy, who was too wrapped up, I suppose, and the Creature, only because he hadn’t been invented yet) — Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the wolf man, the mad doctor, and the mad doctor’s demented assistant. You can’t beat the cast: Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, J. Carrol Naish, George Zucco, and Lionel Atwill. This would be spoofed twenty-three years later by the puppet animation film Mad Monster Party (1967).

5) Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954): This rates both for the outstanding, iconic design of the starring amphibian and for the fabulous underwater photography, shot on location at the Florida Panhandle’s Wakulla Springs. Watch Ricou Browning as the Creature swimming furtively beneath Julie Adams, contemplating her with curiosity and perhaps desire, and you’ll be watching a monster you’ll never forget.

6) Them! (1954): This gi-ants movie is the direct ancestor of both Aliens and every “swarm-of-creatures-is-out-to-get-me-or-eat-me” movie released since the mid-fifties. Great scenes in the sewer tunnels beneath Los Angeles.

7) Invisible Invaders (1959): This one is mainly on the list for its historical value and high camp and fun quotient. The inspiration for George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and thus virtually every zombie movie made in the last forty years. John Carradine is great as the leader of the aliens. The scenes of the aliens inhabiting the bodies of the dead and creeping across the desert are still pretty effective. And for a truly goofy special effect, you’d have to revisit Plan Nine from Outer Space to see something as ridiculous as the invaders’ invisible feet, shuffling slowly through the sand, leaving beach shovel-like trails behind.

8 ) The Haunting (1963): This adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is the real deal, a truly spooky haunted house movie. Much, much more effective and frightening than the 1999 remake, which over-relied on CGI effects that weren’t nearly as hair-raising as the subtle, off-screen suggestions of supernatural menace so well used in the original.

9) Attack of the Mushroom People (aka: Matango, Fungus of Terror) (1963): Yes, it is mainly here for its two alternate titles, either of which place it high on the list of campy horror films. However, this Japanese flick does have its moments of genuinely unsettling atmosphere and mounting unease, as the castaways, trapped on a weird island, begin running out of food and must resort to consuming the local fungi… definitely not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (nor its Japanese equivalent). This one creeped me out when I was a kid; I was always susceptible to the effects of the “heroes-into-monsters” trope (also featured in the climax of The Return of Count Yorga and in most zombie movies).

10) Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971): Low-budget psychological horror film about a woman recently released from a mental institution who seeks rest and rehabilitation on a bucolic farm, only to be faced by the dreadful fact that either she is sliding back into madness again, or that one or more of her house guests is a vampire. Lots of visual and thematic references here to the then-recent Manson Family murders. This one really weirded me out when I saw it on late-night TV as a kid.

11) Blacula (1972): Far more than your run-of-the-mill Blaxploitation pic, as I’ve written elsewhere. William Marshall’s performance is first rate, and this movie really started the whole trope of vampire-as-tragic-romantic-hero in American popular culture. Plus, it serves as a virtual museum piece of early 1970s urban styles.

12) Horror Express (1972): Who can pass up a Victorian era horror movie set entirely on a train, starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas? Plus, the missing link monster is not your run-of-the-mill ghoul; watch what it does to poor Telly. Uuuch.

13) The Legend of Hell House (1973): I’ve always been a big Roddy McDowall fan, as well as a great admirer of Richard Matheson’s stories, novels, teleplays, and film scripts. An interesting book end to The Haunting, and another on the short list of truly spooky haunted house films.

Sergeant Rock and Captain America salute you on Halloween!

Category: Horror and Fantasy, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| October 28, 2011
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Dinosaur Land: Imaginary Monsters

Imaginary giant shark, or the actual prehistoric Megalodon? The model maker didn't know himself!

One of the wonderful, weird, and almost dada aspects of Dinosaur Land is that its builders did not limit themselves to actual dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals. They let their imaginations run a bit wild. The first two creatures a visitor encounters when he or she walks out of the gift shop, through a short, cavern-like tunnel and out into the Prehistoric Forest are a 60 foot-long shark and a giant octopus which stretches 70 feet from tentacle tip to tentacle tip. In fact, to continue on into the park, one must walk beneath one of the octopus’s pink tentacles. Now the park’s operators could have identified the big shark as a Megolodon, an actual prehistoric shark which grew up to 52 feet long. They don’t; I get the feeling the big shark was installed up front, where it could be seen from the road, around the time the movie Jaws was a mega summer hit (my feeling was reinforced when the boys and I discovered you could walk into his mouth through his gills and pose between his giant teeth).

Did any octopi actually grow to be seventy feet in diameter? Who knows? They didn't leave any fossils behind!

The octopus? Who knows? There’s the legend of the kraken, of course. And it’s possible that giant octopi did exist at one time, but we likely will never know, because, apart from their beaks, no other parts of their bodies would have fossilized. As cephalopods, they would have left behind no bones for us to find.

"The Deadly Mantis:" 1957 called and wants its giant bug monster back

So I suppose the big shark and the giant octopus are borderline creatures, on the margin between potential scientific fact and imaginative fantasy. Other critters in Dinosaur Land, however, definitely fall into the latter category. There’s the giant king cobra. Actual examples stretch up to 14 feet long. This representation, on the other hand, towers a good 14 feet high. Then there’s the 13 foot-high praying mantis. Unless its breathing apparatus were to be completely different from that of actual insects, a mantis anywhere near this size would be unable to breathe.

But it is a wonderful reminder of one of my all-time favorite Creature Features, the 1957 giant bug movie The Deadly Mantis, starring Craig Stevens and a bunch of other B-listers I never heard of. The film’s memorable climax takes place when the big bug crawls into the Manhattan Tunnel in New York City and the army goes in after it.

Kong says, "Fay Wray? Who needs Fay Wray? These boys look tastier!"

And then there’s the boys’ favorite, and one of the largest statues in the park – King Kong. Kong is the only figure the park’s managers encourages children to climb upon (into his big paw, at least), so he makes for irresistible pictures. Interestingly, all of Kong’s prehistoric playmates from the classic 1933 film are with him at Dinosaur Land. His companions include a Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus, a Stegosaurus, a giant snake, and a Pterodon.

Is this the giant octopus Kong fought in "King Kong vs. Godzilla"?

The only missing creature from the original King Kong is a giant spider (but, to be fair to the park’s designers, the giant spider scene was cut out of King Kong’s original release prints, and was not restored to the movie until nearly fifty years later).

On the other hand, one of Kong’s antagonists from a later film appearance is present, the giant octopus from 1962’s Toho Films monsterfest King Kong vs. Godzilla.

Forget King Cobra... how about "Emperor Cobra?"

One request for the Dinosaur Land folks… my youngest son, Judah, was sorely disappointed that there were no giant turtles in the park. He is a big fan of Gamera (child after my own heart!). The closest thing we could find to a giant turtle was the Ankylosaurus, which looked more like a giant horny toad than a giant turtle.

unnamed colorful beastie menaces the boys

All in all, we loved the place. You could easily take a quick look-through and spend only twenty minutes in the Prehistoric Forest. But you would be denying yourself one of the park’s primary pleasures – an opportunity to quietly and languorously allow your imagination to roam.

a sign you can't miss if you're driving Route 340/522 North

(Go to Part One)
(Go to Part Two)

Category: Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| October 27, 2011
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Dinosaur Land: Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

Allosaurus on the prowl


(Go to Part One)

Dinosaur Land has added a number of additional statues since its opening back in 1964. Most of the additions have been carnivores (or herbivores being eaten by carnivores in life-sized dioramas of ancient life and death battles). I’d be curious to find out how many of the newer carnivores were added to the park after the huge success of the film version of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park in 1993, which helped make Velociraptors part of every red-blooded American boy’s fantasy life.

Watch out, Stegosaurus! Oviraptor is about to steal your eggs!

The park certainly suffers from no shortage of meat-eaters now. Newer dinosaurs include a Gigantosaurus, a Dilophosaurus, a Velociraptor (star of the movie), a Megalosaurus, and an additional Tyrannosaurus, this one trying to take down a Titanosaurus. The park also added a few herbivores, including a Styracosaurus and a mother and baby Stegosaurus. (More fantastical additions have included a 60 foot-long shark, a 70 foot-wide octopus, and King Kong, I suppose to keep the 13 foot-tall praying mantis company.)

Boys, don't tick off the Stegosaurus! You wouldn't want to get whacked by that tail!

Oddly, one of the original figures has disappeared, the “cave man” (possibly a homo erectus, to try to judge from an old photo, but more likely a figure from the artist’s imagination). Possibly he was just too anatomically incorrect (but the 70-foot octopus and King Kong have remained?). Or maybe some overly exuberant children tried climbing up his back or yanked on his arms, toppling him over and smashing him beyond repair? I would bet on the latter, given my own children’s behavior (Asher, my middle son, admitted to breaking off one of the giant ground sloth’s claws while hanging on it; I sheepishly handed over the broken finger to one of the staff).

Tylosaurus is a fish out of water--actually, a marine reptile out of water

Dilophosaurus says, "Aww, Mom, just one snack before dinner?"

Pterodon swoops down on the attack!

Gigantosaurus says, "Mmm... tastes like chicken!" Pterodon says, "Shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning!"

Megalosaurus about to enjoy an Apatosaurus steak

Each child that attends Dinosaur Land receives a free copy of a wonderful booklet on the park’s recreations that was originally compiled and printed back when the attraction first opened in 1964 or shortly thereafter (the girl in the miniskirt on the rear cover, standing next to the Tyrannosaurus, makes me think the photos in the booklet might come from a little later, perhaps 1966?). It contains photos of the original 27 statues — dinosaurs, other prehistoric animals, and two oddities, a giant praying mantis and a giant king cobra. Especially eye-popping is to page through this little guide and see how comparatively desolate the park appeared in the mid-1960s compared to its lush foliage today. Back then, all of the trees in the park were saplings, none taller than five feet. Today, forty-five years later, the trees are all fully grown and provide dense shade above most of the animals’ heads. It is also intriguing to see how the paint schemes have been changed over the years on the original animals, such as the Dimetrodon, the Oviraptor, the Pachycephalosaurus, and the Stegosaurus. All of them have become much more colorful since their original unveilings.

Who is "Responsible for accidents," Pachycephalosaurus or Levi?

A 1993 article on Dinosaur Land in the Hampshire Review listed the park’s annual attendance at between 18,000 and 20,000 visitors per year, or an average of 50 visitors per day. That would roughly match the level of attendance I saw during the couple of hours the boys and I explored the park on a Sunday afternoon. About half a dozen families with 3-5 members wandered in while we were there, along with another four or five moms pushing a toddler in a stroller. There were a few ten or fifteen minute stretches during which we were the only guests present. Which was wonderful.

Tyranosaurus vs. Titanosaurus (I know who I'd place my bet on)

Despite the four scenes of carnage and combat (a Gigantosaurus munching down a pterodactyl; a Megalosaurus feasting on an Apatosaurus; a battle between a Titanosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus; and, if memory serves, another Tyrannosaurus facing off against a pair of Triceratopses), the park is exceptionally peaceful and quiet, inviting silent contemplation of the ancient beasts (and the fanciful creatures mixed in). I enjoyed as restful a Sunday afternoon with the boys as any I can remember. That, by itself, was well worth the $17 we spent on admission to the Prehistoric Forest.

(Go to Part Three)

Your kindly blog narrator, one second before his head is bitten off

Category: Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| October 25, 2011
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Dinosaur Land: Not Just Another Roadside Attraction

We're there! We're there!

Ah, roadside attractions… at one time in our national childhood, salvation for parents traveling cross country with their kids, looking desperately for a bathroom break and a pause from choruses of “Are we there yet?” Oases of fun for children stuck all day long in the rear storage hatch of their parents’ station wagon, tired of reading the same comic books over and over again.

hanging out with Triceratops

I grew up in South Florida at pretty much the end of the Golden Age of roadside attractions, just before the mega theme parks closed so many of them down by drawing away their customers (I was born in 1964, and Disney World opened in Orlando in 1971). I still remember Planet Ocean, Stars Hall of Fame Wax Museum, the Fun Fair, the Miami Serpentarium, the Mystery Fun House, Ocean World, Parrot Jungle (now Jungle Island), and Monkey Jungle (still going strong!).

My fondest dream as a kid was a pet Stegosaurus that I could ride to school

I loved dinosaurs as a kid. The only life-sized dinosaur statue anywhere near me was a scrawny Tyrannosaurus mounted in front of the parking lot of a furniture store located, I believe, in South Miami, placed there to make parents with kids pull over and take a look (and then maybe wander into the furniture store). The Miami Museum of Science and Space Transit Planetarium had statues of a giant ground sloth and a sabretoothed tiger, but those were prehistoric mammals, not dinosaurs. Had I known back then that a place such as Dinosaur Land existed, I’m sure I would’ve bugged the dickens out of my mom and dad until they agreed to take me to White Post in rural northwestern Virginia, between Winchester and Front Royal (maybe combining that with a visit to relatives in Charleston, West Virginia, not too far away).

Good thing Psittacosaurus is a plant eater--that beak looks sharp!

Dinosaur Land was built the same year I was born. So it’s about 47 years old. The place doesn’t advertise much; I’ve driven the western stretch of I-66 a dozen times or more and never seen a billboard hawking the place, which is located only seven miles north of the highway, up Route 340/522 North. I stumbled upon a description of the place when I was looking online for weekend activities for my three boys. That was back at the height of the summer. I decided I’d wait for a perfect autumn day and then take my sons. The perfect day arrived this past Sunday, crisp and sunny. Off we went.

Mama Stegosaurus and her baby

Diatryma says, "There's Colonel Sanders! Hide me! Hide me!"

Cheer up, Dimetrodon! It'll be sailing season before you know it!

Dinosaur Land is completely charming. Any Baby Boomer (I came at the tail end of the boom) will be plunged into nostalgia by a visit. You enter the attraction through the gift shop (of course). This isn’t as bad as it sounds, because the gift shop is part of the charm of the place, with a tremendous variety of knick-nacks and tchotches for sale at all price ranges, from leather moccasins to dinosaur masks. As a parent, I was very pleased to find I didn’t have to spend a minimum of five bucks per kid on souvenirs; I could’ve easily spent a bundle (had I heeded my boys’ pleadings), but the shop also sold a huge assortment of rubber insects and small dinosaur figurines from 75 cents to $2.95, so I was able to redirect my childrens’ cravings to more reasonably priced items. Admission to the Prehistoric Forest is also very reasonable at $5 for adults and $4 for children (children two and under enter for free).

Pachycephalosaurus reminds himself, "Next time, I need to buy the anti-psoriasis shampoo!"

Once you exit the gift shop, you walk through a “cavern” to get to the Prehistoric Forest. The approximately three acre park contains 37 creature statues (not just dinosaurs), all either life-sized or larger than life-sized (I’ll explain that in an upcoming post). When the park opened in 1964, it had 26 statues. Since then, the owners have added several dinosaur battles and beefed up their stock of the trendy carnivores. Attached to the multi-room gift shop is a modest ranch house where the original owners once lived. They looked out their windows at Tyrannosaurus, a gigantic praying mantis right out of the 1957 monster movie The Deadly Mantis, and a Mylodon, or giant ground sloth. I wonder if they had kids.

Judah says to Moschops, "I prefer lamb chops!"

The dinosaurs are definitely old-school (except for the most recent additions), modeled upon the classic dinosaur murals that line the walls of the New York Museum of Natural History. Since then, paleontologists have completely revised their theories of how dinosaurs moved and lived, and many dinosaur skeletons in major natural history museums have been remounted to reflect the current view of dinosaurs as swift, active animals, possibly warm-blooded, very different from modern reptiles, more like modern birds. The Dinosaur Land dinosaurs, however, would all be very much at home in the Ray Harryhausen dino epics of the 1950s and 1960s.

Stegosaurus, the armored dinosaur which was my favorite when I was a boy, gets lots of love at Dinosaur Land. There are three of them, one an old-fashioned green gentleman and the other two a more updated mother Stego and baby. I was very pleased to see all of them.

cuddling with the friendly Stegosaurus, my childhood favorite

More photos to come! More dinos and other weird, fantastical creatures! A mystery dinosaur! The giant octopus from King Kong vs. Godzilla! And Kong himself!

(Go to Part Two)

Category: Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| October 12, 2011
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Optimistic YA SF: Any Recommendations?

I’m about to embark upon a new type of project for me, a YA (Young Adult) science fiction novel aimed at readers in the sixth through ninth grades. This won’t be my first attempt. But I never finished the earlier effort I started back in 2005 (that got derailed by the death of my original agent, Dan Hooker, the lack of confidence his boss subsequently had in my ability to produce a viable YA book, and Hurricane Katrina, which redirected me to another huge project). I currently have one huge advantage I didn’t have back then, three huge advantages, actually: three sons who are all, in their own ways, very interested in books and stories. My oldest son, Levi, although in second grade, is on the cusp of plunging into middle grade fiction. He has been begging me for many months to write something that he can read. Thanks to him and his fascination with maps, I think I’ve stumbled upon a story I want to tell and that I think would be very appealing to a middle grade audience.

However, the YA field is one I’m mostly unfamiliar with. I haven’t read any YA fiction since my own boyhood, which was thirty-five years ago. A lot has changed in the world of YA science fiction and fantasy since the early 1970s. I’d like to become familiarized with some of the best of the contemporary books before starting my own, but I hardly know where to start.

I would love some recommendations, either from parents of middle school readers or from grown-up readers who just happen to love YA fiction (I know there are plenty of you out there). I’m particularly interested in YA science fiction and fantasy that projects a sense of optimism and hopefulness. Just glancing through the YA shelves at Barnes and Noble or the lost and lamented Borders, I saw an awful lot of downbeat fiction, books focusing on family breakdown, child abuse, bullying at school, inappropriate sexual relationships, and other social pathologies. I don’t begrudge YA writers the freedom to explore such issues, nor do I think young readers need to be shielded from such explorations. But it’s not the type of YA book I want to write, and, honestly, it’s not the type I would recommend with enthusiasm to Levi. And Levi is a voracious reader, so I’ll need an increasingly long list of books to steer him towards.

Any recommendations would be enormously appreciated. I know there are a number of classic, older works that would fall within the guidelines of what I’m looking for. But I’m particularly interested in hearing about YA science fiction and fantasy books written within the last decade that concentrate on sense of wonder and excitement about what the future may bring.

Thanks in advance!

Addendum: Right after posting this request for recommendations, I stumbled upon this article on the Locus Online site which recommends a good many science fiction and fantasy books for young readers, although most of the books are aimed at readers younger than middle school age. Are any of you familiar with any of the books on this list? Levi simply adores the Captain Underpants series (he’s read them so many times, I’ll soon have to buy him fresh copies, because he is loving them to pieces).

Category: Book Love, Horror and Fantasy, Science Fiction | Tags:
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