Author: DOuG pRATt

From Russia With Silence

When synchronized sound came to the movies, American film studios no longer had a universal product that only needed the title cards translated into different languages to be exported to markets around the world. Dubbing spoken dialog has never been a satisfactory alternative, except for cartoons.

Thanks to the ubiquitous distribution of American silent movies in their day, every so often copies show up in other countries. The latest example is a cache of American films that were preserved in Russia.

K3 Through the Looking Glass

In addition to their TV sitcom, the ladies of K3 in have a new stage musical coming up. It’s an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (perhaps inspired by the success of Tim Burton’s movie?).

http://youtu.be/PyZCUD7pAHw

With all of the injuries from the aerial acrobatics in the Spider-Man musical, one would hope that Karen, Kristel, and Josje wouldn’t be made to wear wires so they can fly above the stage, but they already did that in an earlier musical, when Kathleen was in the group.

[media id=230 width=512 height=308]

Johnston Flood

Lynn Johnston’s “modern classic” family comic strip, For Better Or For Worse (It’s not “For Better Or Worse”!), is in reprints, and the Boston Globe, which I still get as a newspaper, carries it. Since Lynn isn’t producing new daily strips, on her web site she writes comments about the old ones. Tuesday, she explained that she will soon be the age that Charles Schulz was when she met him. Lynn says that she’ll be speaking at the Charles M. Schulz Museum, and she mentions that she stays in touch with Jeannie Schulz. Jeannie can be heard in this recent audio interview. (And, no, I didn’t forget Monte Schulz’s birthday on February 1. I wished him well on Facebook.)

[audio:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Feb/Airtalk_CharlesSchulz.mp3|titles=KPCC: The Legacy of Charles Schulz]

Last September, Lynn did a video podcast interview. You’ll find it here in six parts.

Inspiron 530 (2008-2011)

My primary computer, a Dell Inspiron 530, purchased in April, 2008, is dead. Motherboard problem. Won’t even come out of POST (Power-On Self-Test). Guess I won’t be updating it to Windows 7 after all! Until I decide on a replacement, the little Acer Aspire One netbook keeps rockin’ on, and for heavier-duty stuff like scanning and editing audio/video I can use the old Dell Optiplex GX-260 that’s been idle since Eric got his Acer laptop last August.