Early this morning, in a fit of indigestion induced insomnia, I was up reading the NYT. The opinion lead at that time was, Susan Faludi’s marvelous essay, The Barbie Backlash. I was doubly impressed, both with her writing and what she had to say. In her piece she drew upon this summer’s hubbub over Chris Nolan’s Odessey. Using it to introduce the hero’s journey, Ms. Faludi launched a thousand ship conveyance that brought her argument to the present. From Odysseus to Pete Hegseth, history has seen misbegotten men stumble through life, making a mess out of everything. The problem is that as they stumble forward, they ruin other’s lives.
Last month, when we went north to the cabin, we froze. Memorial Day may be the unofficial start of summer most places, but not on Lake Superior. This time should be different. A gigantic heat dome is forming that will engulf the Eastern United States. With our only choices being to remain here in Sweat Louis or flee north, I choose the later.
This weather situation triggered a memory of an old, cheesy, Sci-Fi B-movie that I had once seen. In this show men travel to the moon, where they find oxygen, a breathable atmosphere and women. All that I could remember about it was a sequence where a party of astronauts were walking across the moon’s surface. They had to be careful to stick to the shade, because when one of their number strays into the sunlight, he bursts into flame and is incinerated. Through the miracle of AI, this rather vague description was able to find me the title of the film, Missile to the Moon. This 1958 movie was actually a remake of the 1953 film, Cat Women of the Moon. Both movies sport the same plot; a colony of desperate women lure unsuspecting men into their trap. Let the misogyny ensue. Maybe next time they could just send Elon Musk?
All of this is merely preamble to our next rocket trip north. Eschewing our normal route, we are headed to the cabin via Wisconsin. Although, we are both retired and under no fixed schedule, our visit to the Badger state is time limited. The encroaching heat dome will soon engulf that place too. Consequently, we have limited our itinerary to three attractions:
The House on the Rock – An eclectic, complex, crazy quilt of architecturally distinct rooms, streets, and gardens designed by Alex Jordan Jr.
Taliesin – Architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Witches Gulch – This otherworldly gorge is a mossy slot canyon in the Wisconsin Dells.
House on the Rock and Taliesin are closely located, but supposedly Wright and Jorden did not get along. There’s a story there. The Dells is devoted to waterparks and while we have chosen a more natural itinerary, our motel is fully pool equipped. I hope we don’t get sunburned. 😉
Pictured is a statue of Marilyn Monroe modeled after her iconic pose from the 1955 film The Seven-Year Itch. The statue depicts the actress in a white cocktail dress designed by William Travilla. The original scene was filmed on a windy subway grating in New York City. Marilyn Monroe was a prominent American actress but died way too young. Yesterday, June 1, 2026, marks her 100th birthday. That would have made her more than a year older than Harry, who won’t turn a hundred until a year from this coming August.
We left home, headed east and drove to Dayton. We got here early enough to visit the Air Force Museum. Anne noticed unusual behavior among the other couples. The men would stride off, leaving the women to follow as best they could. One woman asked her, are we having fun? She was, unlike the questioner. We closed the museum. I had a great time and appreciated Anne’s patience.
While working for Boeing, I would routinely travel to Dayton on business. I almost never had the opportunity to visit the museum. Long ago I watched a cheesy Sci-Fi movie called Hanger 18. Starring Darren McGavin and Robert Vaughn its story involved a UFO encounter with the Space Shuttle. Lives were lost and most of the movie dealt with a coverup, culminating with a fiery plane crash into Hanger 18 that burned all of the evidence.
In our family, this movie became lore. Every time I visited Wright Pat, my brother Chris would ask about the space aliens there. I am retired now and am finally willing to come clean. See above photo of the alien flying saucer. 😉Â
Jaws, octopus jaws, giant octopus jaws, cretaceous giant octopus jaws. Recently, a Japanese archeologist using a novel technique has found the jaws of giant cretaceous octopus in the fossil record, an animal that otherwise is composed of soft tissue. Searching the ocean floor for sedimentary nodules, then first microplanning these nodules and then reconstructing these slices like in a CT scan, images of these jaws have been revealed. Based upon the size of these jaws, scientists estimate the octopus’s size as large as fifty feet long. Fanciful artist’s impressions soon accompanied this discovery.Â
Down through the ages octopuses have been reimagined as giant sea monsters, capable of attacking sailing ships. In reality the more modestly sized Giant Pacific octopus is as big as they get nowadays. Pictured above is one, with a hand for scale. One such octopus is the star of a new movie that dropped on Netflix today, Remarkably Bright Creatures. Starring Sally Field and Lewis Pullman as an aquarium’s odd couple. In this show, octopus Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina) coaxes these two humans together, so that they may heal each other in this shmaltzy melodrama. Both humans are wounded when they begin treatment. Comparable to another Netflix movie, the pandemic favorite, My Octopus Teacher, this movie could have been called My Octopus Therapist.Â
