March 24, 2026

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JP Steve
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

..

Maltese
SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

This is actually the first film made of this Dashiel Basset book, ten years before the one you’ve probably seen.

Both follow the book more closely than most such films, but this version never attained the popularity of the later one, which has been called one of the best ever made.

So while this version was supposedly quite good… it could never bequite as sharp, fashionable, or “noir”…. that elusive quality that defines a certain era.

And honestly, Ricardo Corgi-hound could never quite be… well, i guess the only was to put it is, he could never quite be Humphrey Go-bark.

Another problem was that it was made right after the novel was published, and not long enough before the Hays Code attempted to sanitize Hollywood.

The book has some racy elements, which this movie included. But by the time of its distribution, it ran afoul of the new censorship, and some scenes had to be reshot, and others eliminated.

The Go-bark version was made in accordance with the code, so it had no such problem. That was ten years later, but many people had still never seen this first one, and even after cuts, it was kept off TV till the 1960s. By then it was quite old, and had been long outshone by the later one.

Tigressy
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Reply to  SusanSunshine
29 days ago

Thank you; that was quite interesting!
And here’s the link to that older version: https://archive.org/details/the-maltese-falcon-1931

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

Throw more brandy!!!

happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

I know the movie.

JP Steve
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago
Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

I didn’t teach him to say that! It must have come from YOUR side of the family!

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

I was surprised that this caption never mentioned the size of the amber or the dinosaur, except for “small”. Small means nothing to me when you’re talking about a dinosaur. Like a small lizard, small dog, or small car?

And I a was curious about how a dinosaur tail could fit in a piece of amber found in a market.

Okay, turns out the dinosaur is thought to have been only about the size of a sparrow, the tail is a fragment containing a few vertebrae, and the amber fragment is about 3.7cm long. For those of us stuck in inches and feet, that’s very roughly an inch and a half, and it was being sold to put into jewelry.

In spite of its size and feathers, and the fact that birds are thought to be modern day coelurosaurs, this one was not considered a bird, because the structures of the feathers and the tail itself are not meant for flight.

BTW, Wikipedia didn’t have much of this information… but I did like the images at the top of the Coelurosars page.

SmartSelect_20260323_231206_Samsung-Internet
meadowmary
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

And I see a spider!

Voxx
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

There is a very good documentary series on Netflix about this very subject.

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

The film.
The Shining (1980)

The-Shining-1980
Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

Definitely not in my neighborhood! Close to 90F (32C) today! Best I can do for my grandkids is a zipline (or maybe a slip-n-slide).

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Arfside
29 days ago

We had a heat wave last week…. between 89 and 95F every day, which is way out of season for us.

It just dropped down into the 70s this week. My favorite.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

That is awesome! What kid wouldn’t love it? What grown-up wouldn’t love it?

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

If it only had a nice heating system…

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  SusanSunshine
29 days ago

The heating is provided by walking back up to the top of the slope 😉

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

Love it! How many neighborhood kids has it eaten so far?

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

Wow! String some lights on it – okay, a lot of lights – it appears as if the homeowner may have had this thought already, and that beauty could draw some serious gasps.

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

Nice positioning of the Lame-Leg ‘H’ pole and 25kVA 11kV 3 Phase Pole Transformer, right on the hedgeline…..

Typical though, the planners rarely thought about such things when the rapid expansion of the HV power network occurred in the 1950’s and 60’s.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

I was reluctant to search the image, because I didn’t want to find out it was AI… There’s a lot of AI topiary out there.

But it’s not!

A man named John Brooker took 13 years transforming the hedge outside his rented farmhouse into this 150 foot dragon, all by himself.

Judging by the dates on the posts of it I saw, it would now be about 20 years.

It’s in England… I was looking for the location, but only one site said anything…. which is that it’s on the grounds of Frizzleton Farm near King’s Lynn. I don’t know whether that’s a complete place name.

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  SusanSunshine
29 days ago

John Brooker.

The hedge is gone now, and Frizzleton Farm is given as East Rudham, Norfolk, but the farm is near Bagthorpe Hall.

I’ve had a look on Google Maps, but without knowing the boundaries of the farm, I can’t locate the property.

John-Brooker
Alexikakos
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

This caption….
 
liquidnight: Interior of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County “Old Main” Building, photographer unknown, 1874. In 1874 the Public Library of Cincinnati took possession of a small building intended to be an opera house. According to John Fleishman, “the parcel at 629 Vine Street was transformed in two stages into a library building that startled America with its cutting edge design. Its vast Main Hall featured five tiers of cast-iron book alcoves that could house over 200,000 volumes.” [From Ohio Memory via { feuilleton }]
 
…comes from here…
 
https://bookshelfporn.com/post/1146413922/liquidnight-interior-of-the-public-library-of
 

Arfside
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Reply to  Alexikakos
30 days ago

I can see why it might almost be porn to book lovers!

JP Steve
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Reply to  Alexikakos
30 days ago

That person is NOT from 1874!

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Reply to  Alexikakos
29 days ago

A Cathedral of knowledge.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

Needs more books.

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

It could take a year just to dust the whole thing. Then you’d have to start over.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  Liverlips McCracken
29 days ago

People “dust” things?

To put dust on, or take it off?

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

Sadly, the, it was demolished by the city of Cincinnati in 1955, as repairs had grown increasingly difficult and expensive.

I bet Cleveland would have saved it! Cleo would have led a subscription drive.

Nah… maybe not. They didn’t serve food or lend out missiles.

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

Hollywood’s then-favorite couple, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

He’s in bed with me.

Edit. Got it.

Last edited 30 days ago by happyhappyhappy
JP Steve
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

Maybe…

Solstice-1947
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

The potato has three eyes and saw me first.

Arfside
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

Yeah, I’ll take the top 1 or 2 rows, thank you very much. Squashed to death isn’t my idea of a fun way to go!

SusanSunshine
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Reply to  nighthawks
29 days ago

Phone booth stuffing was a fad in the 1950s…. Mostly among young adults and college students.

The record was supposedly 25 people, in Johannesburg, South Africa, though it depends on the rules made in different places.

Most said half-in like this is fine, and the booth has to be upright and have a working phone.

Last edited 29 days ago by SusanSunshine
JP Steve
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

The Highness before she became a Majesty…

Liverlips McCracken
Liverlips McCracken
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Reply to  nighthawks
30 days ago

More_Cats_Than_Sense
Member
29 days ago

Salisbury Cathedral at night.

Salisbury-Cathedral-at-night
More_Cats_Than_Sense
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29 days ago

Snow Bunting.

Snow-Bunting
Tigressy
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29 days ago

comment image

happyhappyhappy
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Reply to  Tigressy
29 days ago

This one moves a lot for me.

Tigressy
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Reply to  happyhappyhappy
29 days ago

Yup.

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