The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Word of the Every So Often
aposematism: (noun) (pronounced: ah-paws-mah-tism) This is where particularly nasty animals, like poison arrow frogs or coral snakes, have really obvious colouring so other animals know just how nasty they are and leave them alone. Not to be confused with Batesian mimicry, where a critter that is not nasty in the least has colouring very similar to critters that are nasty, just so everybody leaves them alone, like scarlet kingsnakes, which look just a whole heck of a lot like coral snakes.
The Almost Daily
Aside from being Memorial Day, it’s Star Wars Day! It was on this day in 1977 that the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV – A New Hope) premiered in a theatre near you. As far as that goes, it was also on this day in 1983 that Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi first premiered, and, in 2018 Solo: A Star Wars Story. If you are wondering – or not, there are a total of 12 “official” Star Wars movies, the nine movies that make of the Skywalker Saga, two stand alone anthologies (Rogue One and Solo), and one animated film (The Clone Wars). There was also a holiday special in 1978 as well as several TV specials. If you add it all up – box office, video sales, merchandising, video games, books, and whatever – the Star Wars franchise has so far raked in around 47 billion dollars. Though open for debate, as are many things in life, Jar Jar Binks is the least liked of any of the Star Wars characters. And my favourite Star Wars stories: James Earl Jones was the voice of Darth Vader, which was a simple voice acting job that took around two-and-a-half hours to record it all. He was given a choice – the flat fee for his time or a small percentage of the box office. Sir Alec Guinness, who did the voice for Obi-Wan Kenobi, was offered the same deal. James Earl Jones took the flat fee of $7,000. Sir Alec took the small percentage, which was ultimately worth around 95 million. Ka-ching. So here was James Earl Jones, going on a family vacation driving across the US back in 1977. As did a lot of people back then, he had a CB radio in his car. And the name he went by (his “handle”) was Darth Vader, which he did in voice. Imagine being on another radio and talking to Darth Vader, and it really was Darth Vader? I’m not sure that would be worth 95 million, but it has to be worth something.
Cartoon of the Week
Stuff
The Travelers
Not yet abandoned,
we left in the car
only those things we’d never miss:
a broken radio
and a glovebox forced shut
on miss-folded roadmaps
to places neither of us would ever return.
Down a tree-crowded road
we came upon a place
where the creek had moved on its own accord,
and a mailbox now stood
in the middle of the stream.
I couldn’t help but wonder
how they would get their mail,
and laughed at the image
of the postman puttering along in his boat.
And, of course,
you reminded me not to be stupid.
It was plain to see that no had lived there
in quite a while.
And, after all, we had to keep moving on,
because there was somewhere else we were sure to be
before dark.
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