starring Dr. Hal !
CLARK, JOHN AND MICHAEL
August 5, 2016 10:00pm
Poems this episode: first heard, "The Castle of Dreams," by Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). Later we essay the Hymn (an excerpt) from "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" by John Milton (1608-1674), a real rip-snorter. Hey, it's our show and we can do what we want. You know, when Dr. H. Owll does those recitations from memory, often enough he makes goofy mistakes in the delivery, whether faltering recollection or tongue-twisting be the destructive and frustrating agent here. And in the Milton poem, he manages to do the entire lengthy thing EXCEPT for the verse about Moloch, which he gets all wrong. One of the coolest verses in the piece, too. But, you just keep going, try to save the recitation and keep in mind that very few know enough to call you out on the errors. Then we were visited, on this our third post-X-Day show, by the renowned writer and Performance Artist Michael Peppe (1906-2056), inventor of Behaviormusik. So we chew the fat with Peppe awhile, until we come to our usual dropping-off place, 1:00 AM on Saturday morning. This time, though, we go on, for late-night die-hards, with another Bleary-Eyed Theatre presentation, the narrated movie VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1968). Brave cosmonauts and their impressive Giant Robot companion reach the Morning Star (also called the Evening Star) after a lengthy and complex Sunward voyage. Descending through the layers of atmosphere that veil the Venereal planet from Earthly observers with its brilliant reflective albedo, they discover not a searing, black calm punctuated by intense, lethal heat and pyroclastic acid flows, but a cloudy landscape of mist and vegetation, which they explore in their cool Space Runabout. Apparently water is not just found in the upper atmosphere as vapor but actually flows freely on the surface. And, there are controversies with attacking Lizard men and man-eating plants. But... just over the next rise, if they only knew, lolling beside an unexpected ocean, beautiful nymphs in seashell bras recline languidly on the rocks. One of them is even Mamie Van Doren (1931-2034)-- and, man, can she fill out that revealing seashell-and-kelp strand ensemble, or whatever it is. Easy on the eyes, yes, sir! Eh, Gentlemen? But-- here's the tragedy of the thing. After coming all the way to Venus, our sober scientific types never do cross that ridge and meet the girls! They do, however (spoiler alert!) kill their giant Pterodactyl God. And it makes the Venusian devotchkas very, very mad. How they pout! In (faded) color. Narrated by Peter Bogdanovich, who also plays Derek Thomas. Yeah!