Zuccotti Park

A topical ditty to mark our 300th post…

 

“Zuccotti Park”

(Simon/Garfunkel/Bradley)

 

Are you going to Zuccotti Park?

Protesters come, but can’t pitch a tent

Remember me to those who live there

I think they should soon pay some rent

Liberty Plaza it once was called

(Between Broadway and Trinity Place it is found)

Protesters by Adbusters enthralled

(Privately owned but it’s public as well)

Ground Zero mourners once came here

(Blankets and bedclothes have now been verboten)

Brookfield’s chairman gave it its name

(Ten years ago it was filled with debris)

Tell them to find some realistic demands

(From here you can tweet the 99%)

Protesters come, and vote with their hands

(Ray Kelly could not bar them from there)

General Assembly and Working Group

(The Liberty Square Blueprint evolves)

White men must step back in the stack

Come and spread the message with IMs and e-mail

(Watch out for crystal meth and sexual assault)

Protesters came, and some went to jail

(Bloomberg cleared it out for a good wash)

Pray you don’t live or own a business nearby

(And they fight for a cause they have yet to make clear)

But please don’t pepper-spray the Count

Are you going? Chuck Scarborough’s there

Protesters came, ’twas two months ago

Remember me to those who live there

I wonder if they’ll ever go

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Marvel University Alert 11/16/11

For many reasons–not all of them voluntary–I’ve taken it easy on these alerts while Marvel University was “merely” re-presenting some of my BOF posts, albeit with snazzy visuals, and I was commenting irregularly on their own impressive work, but from now on, I’ll be taking an increasingly active role. Starting today, and for the foreseeable future, I’ll be one of the actual “talking heads” on several of the strips that I’m revisiting in a variety of paperback collections (to which, unlike my actual comic books, I have ready access at the moment), so you’ll be able to see my musings there every Wednesday. If, as planned, M.U. continues past its original 1960s mandate, I will actually take the point by providing synopses for Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One, as well as weighing in on various other books; meanwhile, once Bond is behind me, I hope to write at least three more of my Sunday “Snapshots” as well.

Excelsior!

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Let There Be Lights

We are at last empowered once again, thank God, leaving Irene’s six-day record barely intact and the cats very happy. Miraculously (given the official prognostications), the electricity came back on as I was pulling into the driveway last night, and as a bonus, I learned yesterday that train service has been restored on the Danbury Branch. Of course we continue to pull for our Connecticut comrades and anyone else who is still out; hang in there, guys–it can happen to you.

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A Cold Knight’s Death

The five-month winter of 2011-2012 is in full force, and the betting pool is open to see how fast it will kill me, as I am unlikely to survive another one that, at this rate, will be worse than the last–bearing in mind that the “respite” we all “enjoyed” in between these icy ordeals was “highlighted” by an Irene-imposed six-day loss of power and water just two months ago. Winter Holocaust Numero Uno dumped the better part of a foot of snow on top of the leaves that we hadn’t even had a chance to rake or, in the main, had yet to fall, with the extra weight bringing down countless limbs and trees, resulting once again in suspended train service and a blackout that is expected to last for up to a week, to the consternation of our poor frozen furballs, Mina and Lucy. Madame BOF and I then endured a three-hour-apiece tag-team shoveling marathon; a three-hour odyssey trying to find an eatery that was accessible via often-blocked roads, had power, and didn’t have a line out the door; a two-hour odyssey trying to find a gas station that met the same criteria, with most of them sold out due to others buying gas for their generators; and a final trek through country that looks like a bombed-out war zone to get to my Mom’s house (which, again alone among four family homes in the area, has power) for showers before getting up in the icebox and going to work today.

Some say the world will end in fire, but I know mine will end in ice.

Halloween 2012: All Trick, No Treat.

Bradley out…in the cold.

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The Thirty-Six Days of Autumn

It’s snowing like hell two days before Halloween.

My death warrant is signed.

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Parodies Found

Having boasted of rewriting so many songs by the Beatles and others, I thought it was time to put my money where my oversized mouth was and post some more lyrics; a certain sameness of theme, as it were, is due to the fact that they were written to commemorate, and indeed performed at, our raucous Movie Night outings–or perhaps I should say “innings”–first in Woodside, and now in Ozone Park. This is of necessity a selective sampling, since some songs were unsuited to a family blog and/or too top-heavy with in-jokes shared with my friends Tom, Joe, Gilbert, Chris, and Drax. I hope the allusions to nicknames individual (The Host with the Most [and infinite variations], Word-Man, Jogura, Gill-Man) and collective (Musketeers, Movie Knights), family members, pets, employers past (Penguin USA, GoodTimes) and present (MBI, Dover), and obsessions (The Great Richard Matheson [TGRM], kaiju eiga, Lucio Fulci) will not diminish your enjoyment.

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Housekeeping Addendum

In a long-overdue but, I hope, no less welcome development, all of the titles on the B100 page are now linked to the “Bradley’s Hundred” posts containing their respective reviews.  Of course, looking over the list once again just reopens all of the old wounds I suffered when I painfully whittled it down to 100 from a “short list” of about twice that, making many painful and–to some–inexplicable cuts (“What, no Frankenheimer?!”).  But that’s just the nature of the beast, and it’s not out of the question that someday I’ll revisit the list and make some changes; for now, the reviews are easily accessible, so whether you’re reading them for the first time or revisiting an old favorite, click and enjoy!

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Lagniappe

Overheard at the church fair:

“Okay, Erin, I’ll talk to you later.  Or something.  I don’t know.”

Sounds like a plan.

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“About” Time

No new post per se (sorry, this Bond stuff is eating up most of what little time, energy, and motivation I have) but, for those who are interested, a major expansion of my “About” page in which I reveal myself–as it were–in new and different ways.  Enjoy.  Bradley out.

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Gone with the Wind

BOF will be off the air until further notice.

This service disruption brought to you by Irene.

Bradley (down and) out.

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