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PAUL AERMONT AMONG THE PLANETS (1873) – ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

venus-landscapeA NARRATIVE OF THE TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF PAUL AERMONT AMONG THE PLANETS (1873) – I shortened the title when naming this blog post. Paul Aermont was the pseudonym of an unknown author, so full credit cannot be officially given.  

Paul Aermont, an American descendant of fallen French aristocrats, is living in Albany, NY with his parents. After running off to sea years earlier Paul has sown some wild oats and now seems willing to settle down. In his travels he has learned how to be a pharmacist but while pursuing this stable profession by day the still-adventurous young man spends his free time experimenting with gases and balloons.  

In the early 1820s Aermont discovers a fictional gas which enables his aeronautical balloon & cart vehicle to escape the Earth’s gravitational field and explore our solar system. Like other vintage science fiction that Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed this story presents space travel being possible without breathing equipment. Once in space Paul is rendered inert and is unaware of the “space currents” (sic) blowing him toward Jupiter.   Continue reading

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JIREL OF JOIRY: STORY SIX

Balladeer’s Blog concludes its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.

jirel in armorHELLSGARDE (1939) – Sadly, this is the last of C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry adventures, but the character gets to go out on a high note. The handsome but treacherous Guy of Garlot ambushes twenty of Jirel’s soldiers and imprisons them in the dungeons of Castle Garlot.

Guy demands ransom, so Jirel meets with him to negotiate since Castle Garlot is impregnable to assault and sieges as it sits atop a high, steep mountain with underground springs supplying it with endless water. The only payment Guy will accept to free Jirel’s men unharmed is the treasure from the remote and damned castle of Hellsgarde. Continue reading

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2022 COLLEGE BASKETBALL POSTSEASON IS UNDERWAY

Yesterday the 2022 postseason of college basketball tipped off in the divisions covered here at Balladeer’s Blog. The Frontier Conference Tournament started things off.

Montana state northern lightsDAY ONE: GAME ONE – The 4 seeds – the MONTANA STATE-NORTHERN LIGHTS – took on the 5th seeded ROCKY MOUNTAIN COLLEGE BATTLIN’ BEARS.

By Halftime the Lights held a 37-32 advantage. After the break they put up another 37 points to the 35 scored by the Battlin’ Bears for a 74-67 victory. Mascio McCadney led Montana State-Northern with 18 points. Continue reading

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A SHOGGOTH ON THE ROOF (2000)

mockumentary shoggoth on the roofA SHOGGOTH ON THE ROOF (2000) – This comedic short film is a 19 1/2-minute mock documentary from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It was a very early effort to mimic the Found Footage approach of the previous year’s Blair Witch Project and centered around a fictional musical parody of Fiddler on the Roof using Shoggoth monsters plus other characters and situations from H.P. Lovecraft’s horror tales.

shoggoth setThe tongue in cheek story began with found film footage of what appeared to be stage rehearsals for the nonexistent musical A Shoggoth on the Roof. A tape of that footage was received by members of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, who then set out to investigate its bona fides while filming their own efforts in mock documentary style.

As the short movie rolls along, it becomes clear that something horrific happened to shut down the Other Gods Theater’s 1979 attempt at staging the musical before it could even debut. Finding the survivors of that ill-fated production proves difficult and getting them to talk proves even harder. Continue reading

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COOL-NAMED COLLEGE SPORTS TEAM: COLUMBIA-GREENE COLLEGE

For some random fun, here’s another college with cool-named sports teams and a cool logo.

columbia greene twins logoCollege: COLUMBIA-GREENE COLLEGE

Team Name: TWINS

Location: Hudson, NY Continue reading

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CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 8 – FINAL BATTLES WITH THE SECRET EMPIRE AND MOONSTONE

For Part One of this series click HERE

ca f 174CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #174 (June 1974)

Title: It’s Always Darkest …

Villains: The Secret Empire

Synopsis: This story picks up right where the previous issue left off. The disguised Captain America and the Falcon, posing as drifting, mutant-hating goons for hire have been recruited into the Secret Empire. That villainous organization has been plotting to take over the United States and has also been hunting down and capturing mutants in furtherance of that goal.

The Empire’s operative Number 13 is escorting the disguised Cap and Falc via elevator into their secret headquarters far beneath the New Mexico desert. (Where the group has been lurking ever since their first battles with the Hulk in the 1960s.)

As our undercover heroes are led by Number 13 throughout the high-tech and armament-loaded lair, Captain America reflects to himself how this whole convoluted saga began with the public campaign against him by the Viper and his crooked colleagues on Madison Avenue. Continue reading

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CRATES: ANCIENT GREEK COMEDIES

Balladeer’s Blog takes another look at the surviving fragments of an ancient Greek comedian, in this case Crates.

CratesCRATES – Crates’ career spanned from approximately the 450s B.C. to the 430s B.C. We have fragments from nine or ten comedies from an unknown total output. From other sources we know that comedies as stage productions began sometime around 500 B.C. or earlier so Crates came fairly early to the artform.

Crates was credited with being the first Athenian comic poet (the comedies were written in verse and included songs) to introduce drunken characters, still a comic staple over 2,400 years later. Aristotle himself credited Crates as being the first to abandon the “glorified comic monologues” approach of the oldest comedies and introducing fleshed-out plots and storylines.

Be that as it may, there is still a great deal of academic arguing over whether or not Crates’ work simply reflected the influence of Epicharmus, who may well have been the TRUE innovator.

Crates was supposedly an actor before he began writing comedies (But I’m sure he really wanted to direct. – rimshot – ) and his brother was Epilycus, one of the Epic Poets. Eusebius’ Chronicles stated that Crates was a well-known comedian by 451 B.C. and Demetrius Lacon in his work On Poetry indicates that Crates may have acted in some of Aeschylus’ tragedies before switching genres. 

KNOWN WORKS 

NeighborsNEIGHBORS – We do not have even a hypothetical year for this work, unfortunately. Since titles sometimes referred to the all-important Chorus of a Greek comedy there is speculation that the chorus members were “Neighbors” of some sort (Duh!) but nothing is known about the plot.

 Athenaeus argued that Crates’ use of a drunken character in this comedy PRE-DATED Epicharmus’ use of stage drunks, so apparently even back in ancient times this was being debated.    Continue reading

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DEATH GAME (1977) – MICRO-REVIEW

death game picDEATH GAME (1977) – Also released under the title The Seducers, this horror movie/ psychological thriller was filmed in 1974 but not released until 1977 due to assorted legal entanglements. Sondra Locke and cult queen Colleen Camp starred with Seymour Cassell in this thoroughly bizarre exploitation movie.

Death Game was remade decades later as Knock Knock starring Keanu Reeves. The 1970s original may have been a trippy exploitation flick which spotlighted titillation and violence but so was the Eli Roth remake. And the original actually feels more honest and less cringe because it lacks the corporate cinematic feel of the Keanu Reeves movie, despite Locke co-producing and Camp making a cameo appearance.   

death game posterAfter the oft-invoked nonsense about the film being based on a true story Death Game begins.

Two predatory young women, Agatha Jackson (Sondra Locke) and Donna (Colleen Camp) insinuate themselves into the home of 40 year old George Manning (Seymour Cassell) on a rainy night when his wife and family are out of town. After seducing him they refuse to leave and behave in increasingly menacing and psychotic ways, subjecting him to physical and psychological abuse. Continue reading

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JIREL OF JOIRY: STORY FIVE

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.

jirel picQUEST OF THE STAR STONE (1937) – It’s crossover time! C.L. Moore decided to do a story in which her two most famous pulp creations – Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry – meet each other. Trouble is Jirel’s adventures take place in Medieval times while Northwest Smith’s stories are set around 2500 A.D. Any reader of pulp fiction knows that’s no real obstacle so let’s dive in.

The story opens in Jirel’s time. She is leading her obedient soldiers in an assault on the castle of a sorceror named Franga. Our sword-wielding heroine battles her way through to Franga’s chamber where she seizes a mystic gem called the Star Stone. That jewel is so powerful but so unfathomable that even Franga was still trying to discover how to harness its arcane energies.

Jirel defeats Franga and forces him to flee between dimensions, but as he leaves he promises Jirel that he’ll return to get revenge on her and get the Star Stone back – just as soon as he finds a champion capable of matching Jirel’s courage, cunning and force of will. “No matter what world or what time I find them in” he adds, letting the reader know what’s coming up.  Continue reading

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NJCAA COLLEGE BASKETBALL RANKINGS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG

In recent weeks I presented college basketball rankings in the NAIA and USCAA. This time around it’s all three divisions of the NJCAA. (National Junior College Athletic Association)

indian river state college pioneersNJCAA DIVISION ONE –  1. INDIAN RIVER STATE PIONEERS     ###    2. SALT LAKE CITY COLLEGE BRUINS    ###     3. DODGE CITY COLLEGE CONQUISTADORS    ###     4. JOHN A LOGAN COLLEGE VOLUNTEERS    ###    5. KILGORE COLLEGE RANGERS    ###     

southeastern ia college blackhawks6. SOUTHEASTERN (IA) COLLEGE BLACKHAWKS    ###     7. INDIAN HILLS COLLEGE WARRIORS    ###    8. HUTCHINSON COLLEGE BLUE DRAGONS    ###     9. OTERO COLLEGE RATTLERS    ###    10. ODESSA COLLEGE WRANGLERS    ###      Continue reading

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