MST3K In Magnolia

oh

OH!

This guy:

^ That guy

That guy spoke in Magnolia, Arkansas last night. My roommate told me a few weeks ago and I was like "YEAH I'LL HIT THAT" and he was like "KTHNX." So last night, Halloween night, we drove for 3 hours and 20 minutes to the small town of Magnolia, Arkansas, to hear Michael J. Nelson, the second host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, speak to a group of college students about his books and movie commentaries.

Yeah, I was there. I have to say, Mike Nelson, though he looks a bit different in person now than he did when he was making fun of bad movies in space, is a totally hilarious guy. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, and it wasn't just because I was giddy for being there.

It's probably pretty ridiculous for me to outline all the stuff he said or whatever, so I'll just touch on some of the highlights:

-He was there.
-He read some of his movie reviews from his book (sounds like shameless plugging, but actually it was totally hysterical shameless plugging)
-He had a couple of palooks from the audience play a trivia game to win some random stuff he had with him (such as DVDs he's done commentary for, and some books he was reading; see a picture here.)
-He showed some of his own commentary on (the original) House on Haunted Hill, which is basically just like MST3k only without Robot Friends.
-He gave lots of bad rap to all kinds of movies (he pretty much hates movies for a living)
-He opened up the floor to questions;
-Someone asked what his favorite MST3k script was, to which he revealed that he had not really ever gone back to view them (they hurt too much), but to his knowledge it was Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders, which was one of the later ones and also one of the more ridiculous and inexplicable ones
-Someone asked "how are Bridget and the kids adjusting to the move out west?", to which he gave a supremely incredulous look and said "Wha...what...Dad?" Of course the guy wasn't his dad, just some random guy who for some reason knows what Mike Nelson's family is up to. Mike started to fake calling for security (it was hilarious).
-Afterwards, he went to the college bookstore to give out autographs and photos!!



Yes! It's my second photo with a famous person this year! I didn't talk about the first one on here, though. Oh, and Alex got a picture too:



He usually doesn't have that ridiculous moustache. He had to grow his beard out indefinitely for Fiddler on the Roof, and after it grew to monstrous sizes, he shaved the entire thing off and left just the monstrous moustache. Most of us think it's pretty hilarious.

And, in celebration of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), I have made a new comic!!



UNfortunately, I still have to use the inferior Imageshack to host my comics, since Flickr won't upload the image at the size it needs to be. D'oh.

Ever heard of a Beanfest?

No? Well neither had I until Saturday the 29th of October, two-thousand and the six. For every state like Arkansas which makes a big deal out of its "natural wonders" and so on, there is a town which makes a point of showcasing those things. Mountainview is a town like that in Northern Arkansas, and yesterday I made a trip out there, invited by my friend Liz, and following is the CHILLING ACCOUNT of what happened.



We started this adventure by taking an hour-and-a-half drive up to Mountainview, which is an extremely good thing to do on a sunny, breezy day in autumn. Before long Liz had to stop for gas, and above you can see that when you drive this far off the edge of nowhere, you get to see stuff like really old and outdated gas stations. There was, of course, no "pay-at-the-pump" option.



Here're a few examples of how pretty parts of Arkansas can be. I don't think I've done it justice at all, actually, however. You really have to be there experience the onslaughts of color and the plays of light and shadows on the changing leaves to really understand. Plus driving in a place like this is really a lot like driving on a roller coaster (Liz is too safe a driver to make it exciting like one though).

After driving through Heber Springs (a local resort town with mountains and a lake and a dam and vultures and other neat stuff), we ascended into the long, low hills which make up Mountainview, and parked about a half-mile out of the center of the town. There were tons and tons of people, as Beanfest is a pretty big event (I'll explain what it is shortly).



Anyone who knows me or has read any previous entries on this blog knows that this is what I like to see. Places about which I can say "you never know what you're gonna find" always rank among my favorites. This was on the door of an antique store/fleamarket, which are legion in Arkansas and especially in a place like Mountainview. Here is an example of the weird stuff you find in places like this. Note that one of those cassettes is labled something to the extent of "Porno Pyros" and seems to have an image of a lecherous Count from Sesame Street riding a 1950s space rocket into the massive unknown referred to by most as the 90s. Other stuff I found in that shop included large amounts of old Tonka trucks, stacks of VHS tapes (through which I always must sift), and a gigantic old Howitzer cannon truck toy made by Marx (a defunct toy company which had its heyday when my dad was young). I have no idea what toyline it came from, but it was massive, mostly made of metal, and priced at $75. Needless to say I left it there.



Walking along the street towards the center of Beanfest, we passed many a stand or stall selling various things, anything from giant rugs with marijuana leaves on them to geothermic curiosities. This all, of course, reminded me of the fleamarket in Mobile, which is one of my favorite places on Earth.

Now I'll take a minute to explain what the heck Beanfest is. Mountainview is pretty much a seasonal town, only becoming the booming partyland that it was on Saturday on certain occasions. This particular occasion is, at its core, a bluegrass festival. At the center of town, groups of bluegrass-playing folk of all ages gathered in little circles and just let loose with the jams. All around them the people gathered, eating food and snacks from various little restaurants and diners which only are only open on days such as this. I obliterated my hunger with something I call the Great American Meal, consisting of a gigantic bacon cheeseburger coupled with a generous helping of fried 'taters. I didn't get a gigantic swimming-pool sized drink to go along with it, though. I'm not that American.



The reason it's called Beanfest is because early in the day, large helpings of beans and cornbread are served, and I assume they are cooked with the help of these gigantic things which were standing triumphantly in the town square. We left Searcy after they had already finished with the beans and cornbread, so we missed that. Instead, we drifted around the square, stopping at each group of bluegrass folks to take their pictures and take in their jams. Here's a few pictures of them:



There are a lot more pictures of various parts of Mountainview, I've posted them all on Flickr and the whole gallery can be viewed here.

Now before I finish this first entry of the school year, there's one more anecdote to be related. On the way out, Liz saw this giant tree whose leaves had all turn a particularly brilliant shade of orange. After 1-5 seconds of debating with herself she turned the car around to take pictures of it. It was in someone's yard, but the driveway was empty, so we just pulled into the drive and she got out and took some pictures.



Pretty, huh? As we pulled out of the driveway, an old man in a small car pulled up right alongside us. We both stopped our cars, and after a few minutes of awkwardness, Liz opened her window and he opened his door. Before we could say anything, he said "Oh, I was just gonna take some pictures of the tree!" After explaining to him that that was exactly what we were doing, we took off and had a good laugh.

I got back and that night watched Fiddler on the Roof, which I think was my favorite homecoming musical of the three I've seen so far. A fitting way to end a marvelous day.

And I haven't gotten back into the comic-making mood yet so there's no comic for today. Expect them to return, though.

The Statues Made Me High

Last entry of the official summer period. Not sure where this blog is going to go during the school year, but I'm not looking to quit on it either.

Occassionally, if one opens their eyes, they can find extraordinary places and things right close to them. In my case I found a massive, massive cemetery right outside our neighborhood.

I guess I can say I morbidly enjoy cemeteries, especially really old gothic ones. In ninth grade when I had a morbid curiosity about everything that was morbid, ghosts were foremost. I've never seen an ectoplasmic orb or shimmery figures or anything of the sort, but my imagination does a pretty good job of filling that all in. It's even better in large and impressive graveyards.



It's easily the size of four of five football fields, but you may notice a curious lack of graves in the above picture. As you might expect, that's because it's actually a crematory garden. Here is one of the graves, which you can see is merely a metal plate with a small handle implanted in it; doubtlessly if one pulls on that handle and urn would be revealed somewhere underneath.

Exploring this place took forever. Adding to the grand feel to it were the statues scattered infrequently about the gardens.



And pretty statues they were, but this is definitely not Florence: most if not all of the statues are concrete casts. As such...



...most have not been treated well by age. The reason why her hand is so nubbish is because all of her fingers are gone. I perhaps only saw one statue which wasn't missing any digits.



It wasn't this one, though--I think this statue was missing entire limbs. Actually I spent a few minutes trying to figure out what it was; it was placed right over what seemed to be a family grave, and upon closer inspection it appears to be a normal human boy riding the back of a winged character, probably an angel. Why he got a free ride I don't know.



Standing confusedly among vaguely Greek and Christian symbols was this Buddha, standing near the entrance of a Buddhist funeral home. Half the graves I saw here were Asian in origin; it really reflects the mixed population of this area.



Here's another view of the amazingly pretty day and how it reflected on the pretty cemetery. You'd almost think it was a golf course (now that's interesting...).

After spying this Greek-like statue hiding among some bushes near a dirty fountain, I saw ahead the most grand statue I've seen yet in the gardens.



Yes, it's a massive tomb with a huge statue of the Last Supper standing conspicuously on top of it. Of course it's concrete like all the rest, so it's missing fingers, but it was still pretty impressive. The whole thing reminds me of the White Witch's powers from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, specifically the old BBC one with the terrible effects and animal costumes.



Upon close inspection, it seems to me that this group's Jesus is standing up in the standard arms-down-palms-forward style, while the rest of the disciples mutter to themselves. It strikes me as a very odd way of depicting Him. While initially I thought he was looking down at them, he's actually just staring off into space. Like he just stood up and announced something, but no one is listening to him. After musing on this unusual statue for a little while, we followed the path around and continuing behind it.

Following a path lined with trees and intermittent stairs, we came to the final statue I took pictures of, towards the edge of the property.



It's La Pieta, Michelangelo's La Pieta, but it's definitely not made of marble like the original. I think Mary's left hand was entirely fingerless. This statue is unusual for the unmatching proportions of Mary and Jesus. If you imagine both of them standing up, it's clear that Jesus would be a shrimp compared to the giant Mary. Since Michelangelo was such a genius, it's propable that he did this on purpose. For what reason, who knows. It's probably more visually perfect. Those Renaissance Men knew everything.

So that's all for Virginia this time. I'm flying out for Little Rock tomorrow sometime in the afternoon, then I'm going to try to move in and start classes without losing too much sanity. I'll live, somehow...