Hola, Sneakers. Welcome to the last Episode 459 we will ever do!
This week: false start; bad faith; smoke gets in your eyes; translating names; God’s alphabet; unknown vows; legalisms; same names; the John Smith of England; ethical problems; child abuse; jobs for sociopaths; how to backstab your way through business without really trying; promotional opportunities; phone skills; predator governors; more deep state; skule rulz; we don’t need no education; don’t fence him in; early to bed; steady jobs; ambitionless; friendless; the art of the deadline; creative tricks; math proud; diligent; shit jobs; gaming the system; reviewing our own podcast; movie flaws; Bad Taste; let’s preserve Let It Be; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; rolling stones; ordinary gentlefolk; pronaziation; clichéd Oscar bait; Dave loses his pen; age envy; adulthood; pregnancy snowball; C.S. Lewis says…; proud dads; Nawlins; unfunny animals; Halloween safety; sad for boring parents; and, finally, what are we doing to ourselves!!!
Thanks for listening.
Question of the week: Do you have plans for Halloween?
Sub-question of the week: School? Yay? Nay? Ugh…
Sub-sub-question of the week: What is a beloved children’s book you have kept into adulthood? Or children’s books you have made a point of passing on to your children?
Here is some artwork by proud papa Ed Draganski’s children:
And here is that documentary David mentioned during the show about Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste:
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I’m very sorry for not being doing an exhaustive research of Best Picture Oscar winners before making a quick throwaway statement while trying to make a point about how Chicago seemed like an unorthodox choice to me, along with a single example of a type of film that’s won many times that I had just pulled off the top of my head without putting too much thought into it. Next time I will do a careful count to see what genre has been best known to win best picture before etching in stone such careless words for the Sneaky Dragon records.
*for not having done (stupid autocorrect)
Oh and yes, The English Patient and Casablanca are definitely war movies.
But does the Casablanca TV series count a war movie? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw2CZtTCXuc
I think you could subdivide war movies into “combat movies” where the climax of the movie is a battle or mission (eg. Saving Private Ryan) and “war-time dramas” where the focus is on the impact of war on people and their relationships. (The Deer Hunter).
That’s a good idea!
Okay, I haven’t been great at responding to questions of the week so: halloween! If things were Normal this year, I’d participate in the costume contest at Simpsons trivia night, and then hang out at Ian’s place on October 31st. Or I’d go to California and spend it with the guy who should have been my husband by now. But with coronavirus having taken away all of these possibilities, I will probably sit at home and work on comics, like I’ve been doing for the past several months. Insert long sigh here.
That’s a great picture of the Marx Brothers! Were those actual comic book pages cut up to make that shield?
Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old is amazing and well worth checking out, whether for Fansplainers or otherwise.
Halloween plans: I’ll probably still be holed up at home for Halloween, but I do at least plan to spend October going through the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe as the latest leg of my plague year reading marathon.
Answering Todd’s question, the images on the Captain America shield my daughter made me aren’t from actual comic book pages. Even though comics would have worked much the same way, my daughter took large photocopies of Captain America comics and made them into red, white and blue monotone images and used those. She then used Modge Podge to decoupage them onto the wooden shield and glue the star over the blue center. My little girl is as craftsy as they come.
I also wanted to let you know I had no idea the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had such a run as it did. When I mentioned my idea about carrying on the League using literary characters from future generations, I hadn’t a clue that had already been done. I’m no Alan Moore but now I think I’ll have to look into these issues since it’s what I’ve always hoped would happen! I’ve only read the first series a friend of mine loaned me years ago and let me just keep it after I read it, I didn’t go looking for any more after that. Maybe I’ll go and find the trade versions someday.
I must admit, I’m glad no actual comic books were harmed in the making of that shield. Anyway, the result looks great!
As for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I’d definitely recommend checking out the later volumes if you ever get the chance. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and even I have mixed feelings about it, but there’s nothing else quite like it.
I’m an Alan Moore fan from all the way back to Swamp Thing, Miracle Man, WATCHMEN and his random DC stories…all which were done back in my days of working at a comic shop. By the time League was published, my funds were going into the expenses of two kids and there wasn’t a whole lot of extra for comics. A friend lent me the first League comics, so I read those and left it at that. I’ll definitely go back and find the trades for these, at least the ones Moore wrote.
Your discussion about university prices and the “North America Ridiculous” costs made me want to put some real numbers out there. The university I used to attend in America was just around $55,000 last year. For community college, the one closest to me is $9000, but it is often less if you have a high gpa. Universities also raise their prices each year, my university had a $2,000 increase each year (so once you get in you’ll get a bigger bill each year). We haven’t even mentioned the cost of room and board, which is often mandatory for your first two years, which bumps the bill up to $70,000. A YEAR. I think the smartest thing American universities did was making their prices so ridiculously high, that you can’t even conceptualize it.
I looked up McGill University’s tuition prices, since they have a nice breakdown, and for an international student their tuition would be $49,000, not including room and board. So less than America, but not by much. Of course within America you can get financial aid, which at least greatly reduced the price for me. (But there are still some issues with aid)
So I guess this flows into the school question “School?”. Which is such a loaded question, that I feel I could write endlessly on (but I’ll refrain). When I was young, I really enjoyed the competition of high test scores and good marks. If there was an honors class or AP class, I wanted to be in it. But looking back, I really overworked myself and set up horrible habits. In high school, I took the highest level classes I could, and did all of the plays, and went to dance twice a week…. I didn’t know how to take a break. I would get home from play practice at 5:30, take a nap because my teenage body was exhausted, eat dinner, then work till I physically couldn’t stay awaken anymore. I would often go to bed at 11pm, then wake up at 4 am, just so I could do more work before school. This of course, is not a good idea! Plus, I never had close connections with people, since I would only see people in a structured context (play rehearsal, dance, etc) and didn’t make time for regular teenage fun.
So this long winded answer is to say that 15 year old me was very happy about school and loved to go, but I now look back and see a girl who was overworked, way too hard on herself, and didn’t have anytime to form real connections.
dulthood ? Shhhhiiiii…. Today, I bought my first agricultural model since something like 20 years… A die cast 953 IH combine harvester, a moiss’bat’ as we call it in France (contraction for Moissoneuse batteuse, in french we litteraly say what we combine). On the daily market of Aligre (Paris) there a side flea market and there was this model with the expedition voucher from the IH warehouse in Ris Orangis (place where I got one of my first summer job). But collection is not a game ???? BTW, David know everything about John Deere, nice!
Procrastination… the cat is out of the bag, normally any word with pro in it is cool. But really, being a pro in this domain. Not so cool. Or is it?
With adulthood it’s one of the other questions getting raised by my middle age crisis. And I think the more you do, the more it’s painfull. Do people with « boring lifes » procrastinates ?
There’s 2 procrastinations, doing nothing, day dreaming, watching pointless video on internet, taking a nap…. and there is the other way, starting new projects to avoid commitment to the existing ones.
I do both, sir. On one hand impossible taking a useful nap, when I really tired, because I’m loosing precious time doing nothing useful… resulting on not being rested and not having done anything. On the other hand, as I’ve got already too many projects and as I watch makers youtube videos I got 200 more new ideas with complicated technics to learn. So it take some time to learn about them, which tools, how much it will cost, can I found less complicated and expensive ways to get it done. Many hours on Amazon and Youtube… Learning a lot of thing but not doing anything.
And when you’ve got two many projects going on you’re getting frustrated because nothing is getting really done.
You guys got podcast done weekly and bi-weekly (?!!??) and yes you can count them, so there real, you’ve produce something tangible.
I’ve always got the felling that i’m doing nothing, but taking some distance, I could see that in fact there too many thing in the making. Like cooking everyday, shooting the dishes (with a camera) for my instagram and facebook account, on the facebook I was writing regularly texts about food to go with the pictures.
I dreamed for several years to get a CNC, I sure David can explain what it is :-), I got it, so need to learn fusion 360… and make videos for a new trilogy of social account about doing things (Facebook, youtube, instagram). So need to learn to use a video editing software in my case DaVinci Resolve. And learn animation technics and video editing. And buy stuff like lightning. And it had to look pro… I discarded 3D printing until now because the result where not as neat as I want, it need antialiasing to look really pro.
I bought, along side the CNC, tools to work wood and organised a desk/workshop on my « spare bedroom ». As I want to make mix technics stuff, wood and resin, so I got a vacuum chamber and re-purpose one of my compressor into a « depressor ». Oh, I didn’t tell you I try to get a cheap and technological, way to paint ? So compressed air tool, anyone? A real compressor is too expensive and bulky, why not using an aerograph, let’s see Amazon… 40 bucks. cool get one, not enough power ? Get a more power full, 80 bucks… but for surfacing you lack constant pressure because you’ve got no tank, so finally get one with a tank… finally? No because, nothing really replace a real compressor with a not too little tank… so finally I got one (back to square one). So many hours and euroz spent… to spare time and money/
Along side I got my Instagram photo account…
I told you… And It goes on and on.
When I listen for example to one of the many sneaky dragon podcasts, I need to play a little game on my phone (three for instance) because otherwise my brain goes on vacation after five minutes. If I read I need to have music to occupy the part or parts) which is not reading…
At school ? Same thing, I was distracted, day dreaming, they even say that they caught me humming in class… but I want proofs. I did not like it, got a lot of problems with orthography and grammar. Was too slow. Got bad evaluations. Repeated several grades… It was difficult. But when I tried to get out of the educational system I fail at it too.
Affer hardly getting my Bac (college diploma I think) I went for a two year technical course in computer science (BTEC Higher National Diploma, i think you call it). Done my final internship in a CNRS (National research center) laboratory with post graduates and intelligent people so I sign for 2 more years (Bachelor and master) at the university. But that was it, after that I was done with it! But when I make my internship for the master, my stage chief said to me you should post graduate so you will be an engineer and got executive level with the attached salary… So I did one more year.
For the sub question if I had a book which I remember to have impress me, « the secret book of dwarfs » , which challenges my gullibility. It’s a spoof scientific guide on the gnome’s life. I was knowing that dwarfs wasn’t existing but the shear amount of facts and the precision of the details makes you wonder if this was real or not. And the illustrations are superb.
That all folks, I stop procrastination and goes back to work or whatever need to be done… or not.
Forgot the main question, I’m french so halloween is a cultural disaster, a sign of the american commercial imperialism along side with coca cola and mc donald… Case closed.
What am I doing on Halloween this year? Getting another year older. It’s my birthday. So that means a feast of Chinese food. Usually we have friends over, and send the girls to answer the doorbell when the trick or treaters arrive, but this year with Covid – who knows? Regarding a book from my childhood, there are many, but the Trixie Belden series is one that my girls enjoyed. A strange and maybe not internationally known children’s book that was a big favourite of mine was The Secret World of Og by Canadian author Pierre Burton. And a book from my childhood that my children were subjected to was The Manual of Horsemanship, but that’s non-fiction, so I don’t think that’s the type of book you were talking about. Also the Thelwell books were ones that we had here in the house from my youth.
In Australia, I guess the college equivalent is TAFE (Technical and Further Education) where you get Certificates and Diplomas. They’re the ones who work in conjunction with apprenticeships and where you can become a teacher with a Diploma of Education, which you can do in one year if you combine it with a degree if you want to specialise in one area. (The one year is to make sure you can cover the basics in case you can’t get work in your area straight away). I entertained the thought of being an art teacher once and thank god I dodged that bullet, but I couldn’t do it because I failed year 10 math and never did any further math in year 11 or 12. Why I needed math I didn’t understand then, but now I know.
The one book I made sure to get for my son was Jennie (by Paul Gallico) about a boy who turns in to a cat and is shown the ropes of being a cat by Jennie and they get into wild adventures. Took me a while to track it down because I had no idea it’s called The Abandoned in North America, but I’ll never get to read it to him. My son and I are completely different. I will continue going to Disney movies on my own, I’m afraid – he’ll leave that kid stuff to me (he’s 6). I might read it on my own though! Remind myself while I liked it so much.
On the subject of the kid, and being an adult – Granted there is that moment when you walk out of the front doors and you’re looking around thinking “is this okay?” – “Aren’t you going to stop me?” but the day our kid was born – He was born on a mid-November morning during the first heavy snowfall of the season in Calgary, and we hadn’t been in Calgary long and we generally avoided me driving in the snow because I’m Australian and my snow-driving experience was, well… none. But here we were, new baby in the back, mum unable to drive, barely able to see in front of our faces, and I’m driving home 45 minutes across the city for my first major drive in snow. If that wasn’t at least one adult time I’ve experienced I don’t know what is.
Also, completely unwarranted recommendation, have either of you checked out The Goes Wrong Show on Amazon? I don’t think I’ve laughed so much at a show for quite some time. They’re filmed plays from the BBC where things go wrong on purpose, where it’s written in to the script. You might watch it too much with a critical hat, coming from that world, so maybe it wouldn’t be as funny, but I thought it was pretty clever.
Our plan for halloween is the same as it is every year, Pinky. Go to London Drugs the day after and buy boxes of candy for 50 to 70 percent off! 😀
Hi gents,
Halloween looks unlikely, but we still have some of my son’s candy haul from last year stashed somewhere in the kitchen cupboard, so we can probably hold out until 2021.
School? Generally YAY – thanks to a few lifelong friends, some good teachers and the joy of English, drama and art.
Books from childhood – Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, the Frog & Toad series by Arnold Lobel, and Roald Dahl’s memoirs Boy and Going Solo which I re-read about once a year and just read to my son for the first time. He loved them both.
Also TinTin of course, but that goes with saying.
Happy 460th episode!
Hello Ian and David!
No Halloween for me this year! We live way too far off any beaten path for kiddos to wander up our gravel road. I’ve gone out to do the trick or treat thing with grandson other years, which was so much fun, but I don’t think that’s happening now.
As for school, I liked it so much in the elementary years, small school in Recife Brazil, and it was great. I didn’t mind missing school, though, as when once I was out a week with a flu, and had a grand time sitting in bed clipping Beatle articles and pictures from 16 and Life magazines, making up a scrapbook for fun. Later, in middle school and high school years back in the States my school enthusiasm waned. A good student, especially loving the history and art classes, but uncomfortable with the social pressure.
As for childhood books to pass along, my hardback copy of “Little Women” is one I saved in case I had a girl child… which my second one is, and btw, she is named Margaret, and we call her Meg, as was the eldest sister in said story. Also, the Narnia series of books were ones I saved and read to both of my offspring!
I’d write more, but Ed D is probably waiting as I write this near deadline time, and we all know he is good to get in that last word! PS. Ed, thanks for sharing your children’s cool art gifts to you!
Stay well, David and Ian! Yes! You both SHOULD take MUCH pride in the accomplishment of 459 episodes of Sneaky Dragon, as well as every one of the other podcast series you have given and/or are currently giving the world! We are all so grateful! I remember once a couple years ago when there was a glitch and an SD episode was almost 24 hours late for you to upload, David, and I was a panic! “Email them now,” I said to myself, “and be sure they are ok!” When the show was up, there was much rejoicing! There always is, every week!
Ok! Enough of me! Take it away, ED…!!!
Sorry Laurel, you were my stand-in this week, let one standing. Even as our friends Ian and Dave were recording episode 460, I was hard at work on a deadline for work along with my Art Director and Creative Director. After the smoke cleared I realized it was indeed Friday and missed my opportunity to write to the show. Thanks for the kind words about my Kid’s art gifts, they’re treasured and I’ll always cherish something made for me over something bought.