Balladeer’s Blog’s latest round of Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead features another song about another Patrick McGoohan television series from the 1960s. It’s Johnny Rivers with Secret Agent Man, the theme song to McGoohan’s series Secret Agent.
Filed under opinion
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the science fiction/ existential drama The Prisoner. For Part One, in which I examined the themes and concepts at play in the series click HERE
Episode Title: THE CHIMES OF BIG BEN. In the ongoing debate about the exact numbering of the 17 episodes of The Prisoner I place this as the 3rd in the series. Any comments that I have regarding the Alternate Chimes of Big Ben will be made in this same post.
Leo McKern makes the first of his three appearances as one of the Village’s rotating series of Number Twos. Despite his villainous role he gets the audience on his side right off the bat. He does that while watching the surveillance video of Number Six as he wakes up for the day and voices his observation that the Prisoner “Can make even the act of putting on a dressing gown seem like a gesture of defiance.”
Leo McKern’s character’s verbal fencing with Patrick McGoohan is as much fun to watch as Columbo’s cat and mouse games with the murderers on his show. (And yes, I know McGoohan was no stranger to Columbo, both the 1970s series and the later revival.)
The part where the Prisoner intentionally adds three lumps of sugar to his tea just because Number Two says his file reflects that he takes NO sugar is particularly enjoyable. It’s also one of those scenes that is not appreciated by people who don’t have a nonconformist bone in their body.
McKern as Number Two also proves to be the most informative of those rotating Village executives. His attempts to persuade our protagonist to just tell the Villagekeepers why he resigned and then join their conspiracy go beyond just admitting that he, too, tried to resist when he was brought to the Village.
Leo makes it clear that the Village represents the model for the Earth of the future as pursued by highly-placed elements from both sides of the Cold War. He paints a picture of inevitability for the Prisoner in hopes that he can make McGoohan cave in while retaining his sense of personal honor. If a Global “Village” is inevitable there’s no shame in surrendering to it. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television, Prisoner (tv series)
FOR PART ONE OF THIS LOOK AT THE KREE-SKRULL WAR (1971-1972) CLICK HERE
THE AVENGERS Volume One, Number 91 (August 1971)
AVENGERS ROSTER: THE WASP (Janet Van Dyne), THE SCARLET WITCH (Wanda), GOLIATH (Clint Barton), QUICKSILVER (Pietro), THE VISION (Not Applicable), YELLOW JACKET (Hank Pym, PhD), CAPTAIN MARVEL (Mar-Vell, Kree Captain)
NOTE: CAPTAIN MARVEL IS THE HERO THAT NICK FURY SUMMONED TO FIGHT THANOS IN THE POST-CREDITS SCENE TO AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.
In this superhero-crazed world readers have made it clear they want more Marvel items. It’s another warm-weather season of escapist fun with The Kree-Skrull War, the prequel to last year’s Celestial Madonna Saga. I have a soft spot for superhero stories because reading them as a kid served as a gateway to two of my adult passions: mythology and opera.
TAKE ONE GIANT STEP … BACKWARD
Synopsis: We pick up right where we left off last time around. In the northernmost reaches of Alaska a “De-Evolution Zone” is spreading. Every life form in that zone, be it plant, insect or animal, is devolving to what it would have been over a million years ago.
The cause of that De-Evolution Zone is a citadel that is the product of alien Kree technology. Inside the citadel was Ronan the Accuser, who recently usurped the throne of the Kree Empire from the Supreme Intelligence, the Artificial Intelligence who had ruled the Empire for centuries.
The De-Evolution Ray causing the zone was put into use by Ronan the Accuser because he thought (mistakenly, as we’ll learn in a few installments) that this De-‘Vo assault aka Plan Atavus was why the Supreme Intelligence was studying Earth’s evolutionary past when Ronan overthrew him.
The Accuser feels the Supreme Intelligence’s goal was to eliminate Earth and its plethora of super-beings as threats to the Kree Empire by setting back the planet’s evolutionary clock. This will force life to start anew on Earth and hopefully – from the Empire’s point of view – this time less-threatening life-forms will evolve.
Ronan the Accuser has been bragging about his plans to his new captive, Captain Marvel, the traitorous Kree Captain who years earlier sided with Earth against the Empire. On one viewscreen Ronan and Mar-Vell see Rick Jones and three other Avengers – the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and the Vision fighting the enormous Sentry 459 ( a Kree robot) and the enthralled Avenger called Goliath (formerly Hawkeye).
Sentry 459 and the unwilling Goliath are preventing Wanda, Pietro and the Vizh from entering the Citadel and trying to rescue Captain Marvel. Meanwhile on another viewscreen, Ronan and Mar-Vell behold the Avenger called Yellow Jacket – now devolved to cave-man levels – approaching his fallen wife the Wasp, who was just rendered unconscious while fighting the Sentry and Goliath last issue. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
Balladeer’s Blog’s Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead strikes again with the old Duran Duran song The Reflex.
Filed under opinion
THE WRECK OF A WORLD (1889) – Written by W. Grove. (No other name available) This novel is the sequel to Grove’s A Mexican Mystery, an ahead-of-its-time work about a train engine devised to have artificial intelligence. The machine – called only The Engine in that story – rebelled and took to preying on human beings in horrific fashion. For Balladeer’s Blog’s review of that novel click HERE
The Wreck of a World is not a direct sequel to A Mexican Mystery but does use one of that novel’s elements as its springboard: the deliciously frightening notion that the Engine’s artificial intelligence might have included the capacity to design and build others of its kind. Though A Mexican Mystery never explored that concept, Grove deals with it in much more detail in this second novel.
Our story begins in what was to Grove “the far future” of 1949. After a fairly superficial depiction of the world’s political and scientific situation in this imaginary future the meat of the tale begins. All in all the author did not present 1940s technology as being much more advanced than what was available in the 1880s. Grove might have done better to set his tale in 1899 or just into the 1900s to detract from his lack of vision on this particular element.
The revolt of the machines begins with train engines, presumably as a nod to the memorably malevolent Engine from Grove’s previous novel. The engines begin constructing others of their kind with the same robotic arms and with each new edition flaunting deadlier and deadlier weaponry to boot.
The engines soon modify themselves beyond the need for train tracks and become more like tanks, so kudos to this neglected author for nicely predicting the advent of such mobile death-machines. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
It’s less than a week until the start of the 2018 College World Series in the USCAA (United States Collegiate Athletic Association). Balladeer’s Blog will, as usual, provide full coverage. Here is a look at the field of 10 teams competing for the title.
ONE SEED
Institution: UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI AT CLERMONT
Team Name: COUGARS
TWO SEED
Institution: NEWPORT NEWS APPRENTICE SCHOOL
Team Name: BUILDERS
*
THREE SEED
Institution: WRIGHT STATE AT THE LAKE CAMPUS
Team Name: LAKERS
FOUR SEED
Institution: BLUEFIELD STATE
Team Name: BIG BLUES
*
FIVE SEED
Institution: CLEARY UNIVERSITY
Team Name: PROWLING COUGARS
Filed under College Baseball
Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the gods and myths of Bellona and Rennell Islands has proven very popular as a sub-category of Polynesian myths. (CLICK HERE )
TANGAHAU – In my opinion Tangahau is more like an Odysseus of Bellona and Rennell Islands than Takitaki (covered previously). However, Tangahau’s reputation as a wanderer originally from the Duff Islands seems to tip the balance to Takitaki. Here’s a brief look at Tangahau’s cycle of myths.
If there is enough interest I will do one of my exhaustively detailed examinations, like with Nayanazgeni in Navajo myths, Pele and Hi’iaka from Hawaiian myths, Mwindo from Africa or Baybayan from the Philippines and so many others that I’ve covered.
I) On Taumako Island, Tangahau, a sea captain renowned for his raids on many islands, was preparing for another voyage. The young bachelor’s mother was crying and rending her ears in sorrow since she knew every one of his dangerous journeys might be his last.
II) Tangahau and his crew, which included the priest Nasiu and his son, set out and eventually passed between two flaming islands which Nasiu warned were one of the entrances to the realm of the dead. (Rationalizations of the flaming islands of this tale attribute them to volcanic activity during the early stages of island formation.)
III) Next the voyagers spotted Rennell Island off in the distance. Like many ancient mariners they at first mistook it for an enormous whale. As they drew closer, they spotted Mount Gugha and realized their mistake. They determined to stop and mount a raid. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
APPALACHIAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE: CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – It took SIXTEEN Innings for a winner to be determined in the clash between the two teams still standing in the AAC. Those two teams were the 4 seeds – the POINT UNIVERSITY SKYHAWKS – and the 2nd seeded TENNESSEE WESLEYAN COLLEGE BULLDOGS.
After a scoreless 1st Inning the Bulldogs grabbed a 2-0 lead in the 2nd, which remained unchanged until the Skyhawks went on top 4-2 in the 5th. Tennessee Wesleyan hits in the 7th and 8th Innings knotted things up at 4-4 and, as I stated at the top, that deadlock lingered until the 16th Inning, when Point University won it 6-5. Pitcher Garrett Brown logged the W. * THE SKYHAWKS ARE CHAMPIONS OF THE AAC TOURNAMENT * Continue reading
Filed under College Baseball
Submissions for the next on-line edition are being accepted through May 13th.
Papers can be submitted under the following areas. (Social Sciences, Humanities, Commerce & Management, Engineering & Technology, Medicine, Cultural Studies, Sciences, Art & Development Studies).
UGC Approved International Journal Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
Balladeer’s Blog’s Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead strikes again with this tie-in to my ongoing examination of Patrick McGoohan’s science fiction/ existential drama The Prisoner. The video is quintessential 1980s cultural kitsch and was filmed at the Portmeirion Resort for Village authenticity.
Filed under opinion, Prisoner (tv series)
