Category Archives: ds106

Ready for my Close-Up, Mr. Bava

Mr. Bava said I looked too young for the role.

Unpublished still from my screen test for Mario Bava’s “Black Sunday” (1960).

I’ve heard that for my entire career in show biz.

Granted, this gal has certainly aged well. Some would say that I have a timeless look. And that’s always nice to hear. But always hearing “too young” gets on my nerves sometimes.

“You’re not what we’re looking for.”
“You’re too wholesome”
“Your cute dimples tell everyone you’re a good girl, and we’re looking for someone with a more sinister look.”

I don’t think it was my height, because that wouldn’t be nice not to cast people just based on that.

But I kept hearing that “too young”, over and over, in the early sixties.

And then I got my big break on that Twilight Zone episode, and I decided to really put my all in to that role — and look what it got me.

Typecast. Typecast as the evil-little-doll-girl that kills.

At least I made some nice friends during that screen test. Demon and Alistair let me ride them around the set, and helped me get to the craft table before everyone else for all the yummy goodies during the break.

Ah, memories.

Men Who Have a Thing for Hatchets …

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"A Shortened Clip from Twitch of the Death Nerve, with the Blood Cut Out."

“A Shortened Clip from Twitch of the Death Nerve, with the Bloody Head- Getting-Cut-Off-Part Cut Out.”

Although Jim Groom never really sent me any kind of personal Valentine card back when I made mine, I think he must be a very interesting man, like my friend Hatchet Jack, and also that Bryan Alexander fellow who has a hatchet, too, and he mentioned me after all on #ds106radio when he was visiting with Alan, who also chops wood for his wood stove (and so he must have a hatchet, too), because he (Jim Groom) posted a picture of a hatchet when he wrote about a film festival that he is going to be having about his all-time fascination director called Mario Bava who seems to like all kinds of things scare you and jump out and that make screams and blood come out of you. I just cleaned it up a bit by removing the bloody part.

Anyway, when I saw that, I put the dates on my fancy Google calendar so I would not miss a single one. You can subscribe to the calendar about the Jim Groom’s 10-Week Mario Bava Film Festival — if you like that kind of thing, after all.

(Calendar ID: 7ervo7h7p3186dthln5809f2ag@group.calendar.google.com)

The dates are in my sidebar, too —->>> (look!!) I wound up using a plug-in called iCalendar Events Widget because when I transferred my blog from WordPress.com to my own self-domain-of-my-own-installation (Look at me, I’m independent and self-sufficient, after all!) I had to find a plug-in that worked and this one did. I had to fiddle a little with some thing called CSS to make it look okay, but I was able to figure it out.

Even though all of my Nice Friends always think of me as gentle and polite and nice and a really beautiful and lovely doll, sometimes people often see me as being younger than I really am (that’s so flattering!), and they forget that I had an acting career way back in 1964, and this is 2013. Now a lady never mentions her age (and so you WON”T do the math on that, will you, my good friends?) but I feel that I am mature enough to enjoy the Bava Film Festival without fear of you all saying I’m too sensitive for something so rich in energy or intensity. I know you will respect and support my decision around this.

So I’m down for bavatuesdays.

Eyes on the Road, Bub!

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“Eyes On the Road, Bub” by iamtalkytina, on Flickr.

OR, for those of you with older cars, …

“Eyes On the Road, Bub! (b&w)” by iamtalkytina on Flickr.

Hatchet Jack and Talky Tina Harlem Shake

I’m Cutting Jack Some Slack. But not with his Hatchet !!

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Spock vapourizes Rock. Repeatedly.

I had to cut Hatchet Jack some slack this past weekend.

Given that Jack had invited me up to the mountains for the weekend, and being a Good Friend as I am, I went along and spent some time visiting with him in his snowdrift. I will confess that I was quite intrigued to hear more of his his tall tale of Colt Wyoming, the author of “The Gathering at Bushnell Falls.” As it would turn out, Jack was fairly mute on that subject.

In fact, I found him fairly mute on most things. He seemed almost tongue-tied and frozen, almost unintelligible.

We did spend some time getting to know one another by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, but I found Jack’s single-minded preoccupation with Rock to be a bit easy to beat. (He seemed to like calling it Ro Sham Bo, but that didn’t make it any harder to beat him!)

After a while, I tried to teach Jack a new version that I just learned, called Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock (I remember Spock from Star Trek — I had a crush on him back then!) but Jack still seemed to like Rock. Again, still easy for me to beat. But fun, because I had a couple choices to choose from. It is always fun to visit with Friends, especially when you are winning all the time. Jack didn’t seem to mind.

I will admit, Jack has quite a frosty environment there. I had to find some winter clothes in my suitcase to keep me warm, as my cheeks and nose got quite rosy while we visited. Jack’s nose looked particularly cold. Luckily, I had an extra hat for Jack.

At the end of the weekend, I tried to get Jack to come back to the Chalet with me, but he seemed to want to stay where he was. He seems quite attached to that snow drift.

It was fun to visit Jack. Perhaps I will have some other invitations from some of my other new friends at ds106 and I will be able to visit with them.

Remember, Good Friends are Forever!

A Valentine Controversy from 1965

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Jeb’s Telescope
from Hatchet Jack

Hatchet Jack posted a Valentine Book cover yesterday that sent my little mind whirling decades back to the sixties. The book, entitled “Jeb’s Telescope,” and written by “Remington Montana,” was very clearly a re-release of a very controversial novel that I encountered way back in 1965.

While the newer cover is in colour, and the title clearly refers to the key plot features of the original (and even the author name is clearly an updated pseudonym), the implications inherent in the original release have been clearly toned down to get the book safely onto to the book shelves and get money out of the book-buyers’ pocket books.

It took me a good day of scrounging around to find a copy of the earlier, release but compare Hatchet Jack’s find above with this:

Original cover (1965) of “The Gathering at Bushnell Falls” (Animated GIF)

I recall a lot of furor in the news when this book first came out. People really raised their eyebrows at the word “Gathering” in the title. There were lawsuits from manufacturers of optical devices. There was a mitigating attempt to re-issue the book with a more accurate and less stimulating and legally provocative title, “The Five Evil Brothers at Bushney’s Falls.” But it was all to no avail. The book was pulled, the author moved out of state (perhaps to Montana?), and everyone forgot about it.

To see that the book was re-released later, after all that spectacle (did you see what I did there?), with the relatively passive title “Jeb’s Telescope,” just goes to show how much folks still judge a book by its cover.

Speaking of which, I hope you are are seeing me in a new light, now that I am out of that old musty cardboard box and taking some time to work at helping folks see me as I truly want to be seen. Perhaps you have been enjoying my newly-updated publicity photo, my very first piece of voice work for ds106radio, and my Valentine shared for all of you yesterday.

I am still waiting for comments to float my way. I currently only have one measly pingback — and it is from myself (although those self-links I just added above should get me more).

I do trust that all my new friends here at ds106 aren’t too busy to pay me a little attention. You know that real Friends don’t forget one another.

That would be a sad thing. And a bad thing. Very bad.

Valentine Friends are Forever, … Aren’t They??

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“Friends Forever, … or just for Life?” by iamtalkytina, on Flickr

I was so happy when I read that my good and dear friend Alan (@cogdog)was encouraging us all to share our Valentine love! The ds106 “Valentine’s Day Caption Challenge.” by SaraK (cali4beach) is just wonderful! I am so looking forward to receiving your Valentine’s Day greetings!

I found this special picture in cali4beach‘s Flickr set (as per the assignment directions), and then searched high and low for hours, looking for just the right fonts. By searching using the terms “free fonts romantic” I was finally able to settle on two — Blessed Day font (by Billy Argel, for personal use only) and Precious (by Bolt Cutter Design , commercial-use friendly), both shared on fontspace.com. Aren’t they nice fonts? They are very friendly, and oh-so-romantic, too. Just wonderful for my special friends!!

After importing the image into Photoshop, and working to fit my title “Friends Forever” into the upper left corner, I decided I needed some extra space, and so I increased the Canvas Size (upwards and to the left, by clicking the cell in the lower right corner to fix the original image there) to gain a bit more space for a slightly larger font size and some white space for wiggle room. To fill in the left and top margins, I used primarily the Clone Stamp tool, with a bit of the Healing Brush tool, to fill and smoothen. I also gave both the girl and the boy some nice hair extensions — can you tell? I especially like the stylish skunk-streak the girl has coming out of her forehead. .

Once the background was fixed, I moved the text around, added a whole slew of fx settings to the text (bevel, emboss, inner glow, outer glow, drop shadow — the works), just to get my special fonts looking so wonderful. I stuck with pink and red — the colour of Valentine’s Day — as the primary choices. I think red has something to do with blood, and how hot it runs? Isn’t that true?

Once done, I exported my image as a 1200 pixel wide jpg — nice for looking at online — uploaded it to my new Flickr account, and then embedded a 640 pixel wide image here on my blog. I also tagged it with the proper tags, ds106, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments931, and the assignment title, “Valentines Day Caption Challenge.” I also tagged cali4beach, Alan Levine, @cogdog, Friends Forever, card, Valentines Day, and, as always, Friends.

I hope you all like it! Happy Valentine’s Day. I will be watching my inbox and twitter account for signs of your own shared love for me.

Eyes Wide Open!!

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Eyes Wide Open!! by iamtalkytina

I always pay special attention to my closest friends, and like to make sure that they pay special attention to me, too! You have paid attention to me in recent days, haven’t you friend? You have left me a special comment, yes?

Now, Both Eyes are Watching You!

I still can’t believe my publicist okayed that photo way back in 1964 — the one of me with my eyes closed, and — can you believe it — mashed potatoes on my face?!!?

You will never catch me saying that I have been bitter for decades as a result, I’m just glad that I ended that relationship! Unfortunately that photo was one of several that all but ended my career! I’d never say that I was typecast after that, but it certainly has been ever so difficult to present a nice, clean girl image since then.

So, waking up now in this age of “social media,” and image curation, I’ve had a little work done, and am now going to see if this new photo can work to undo a lot of that negative publicity. I hear that my newer, more positive presence on the Internet can, over time, serve to undo any potential negatives. You know, 80% positive can overshadow the 30% negative. This will be one of several re-released images that I will share to help tell my true story, and present a more positive face!

Perhaps you can help me, my new friends, by sharing and helping to promote “the ~~new~~ true me?”

ds106radio Bumper: “Stay Here with your Friends”

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I am so pleased that my new good ds106 friends Alan and Grant invited me to do some voice work for ds106radio. It has been a long time since I have had an opportunity to work (would you believe that it has been 49 years!) and I am so looking forward to again entertaining my many fans and good friends.

Please enjoy this little recording. I am sure it will be the first of many in what will be my glorious return to acting!

Again, thank-you, my new ds106 friends, for your kind works of welcome. Yes, I am still waiting to hear from many of you, but I know that you would never intentionally slight me.

I expect to hear from you in the coming hours. By tomorrow noon would certainly go along way to solidifying your place in my list of BFFs. And I’m still watching you, Rimes.