The Legend


This cave painting appears to be the first depiction of six immortal men whose immortality stemmed from this incident.The central figure has been known as a savage, a bloodthirsty conqueror, and a killer of his brother men. The other five men are the focus here, the two curious bystanders more so than the fleeing three men. You may be able to identify these men when I say that the three men from the other tribe were all rather short. One had a shaven head due to a ritual whose origins are lost in time, another was balding but with large tufts of hair on either side of his head, the last had a haircut that would one day be called the bowl haircut, also probably some ritualized style. Of course this information comes from other sources and cannot be seen from the cave painting. The two particular cavemen who are the subject of this group were ne'er-do-well's, probably low on the pecking order of their tribes and fairly inept at tool making or hunting. If it had not been for the falling meteorite that imbued them with immortality, they probably would have lived short violent lives. As Immortals they carried out this pattern of their lives. The pair was represented by numerous actors retelling their stories and jokes: Mutt and Jeff, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello. But the originals were actually Ollu and Buzsla.
Dennis Power-ImmortalBefuddled at the Wold-Newton site

Unbeknownst to the active participants in the foreground, there were also four persons in the area nearby otherwise occupied. There was the tribe's chief Shaman, The Wizard of Ugghh (W. C. Fields), the number 2 Shaman at this time tied up on the ground and being readied for sacrifice, Old Tumnus (Buster Keaton) and the latter Shaman's daughter and granddaughter, Cedar and Willow. Quite by accident these people were also passively granted Immortality. The two women were known to wander into and out of Ollu and Buzsla's lives throughout the ages and they were represented in later times by such actresses as Thelma Todd, Hillary Brooke, Christine MacIntyre, Leslie Easterbrook and Bobbi Shaw for the large and imposing woman Cedar; and ZaSu Pitts, Betty Grable, Jean Harlow, Vera-Ellen, Dorothy Provine and Teri Copley as the slighter and slightly forlorn woman Willow. On the Flintstones, Willow was represented as Wilma, and the women were joined by another Immortal (actually the daughter of Hercules, it was said), the darker-haired Beech, Betty Rubble on the Flintstones, most notably shown on films as Clara Bow and in cartoons as Betty Boop. The Wizard of Ugghh was created by Joe Kubert for Tor comics. The characters of Old Tumnus (Tunka), Cedar, Willow and Beech are all the sole property of Dale A. Drinnon

Monday, October 31, 2011

The Extraordinary Voyages of Julia Verne

This is one of those cases when you have an idea which seems like a good idea when you are younger and when you get older you find that it's been done before. In the 1980s I had a character named Julia Verne that was a female character meant to be the lead in a series of Jules Verne -Like stories. In a word, Steampunk, although back then the idea was not nearly so common as it has become since. My Julia Verne was supposed to have science-fictional advantures and voyages to exotic places before 1900. Since then I find that the name has been used so long ago it is probably in public domain. I include a piece of artwork from Deviant Art with the artist's watermark on it for his Julia Verne, and a needlepoint example from a different adventures of Julia Verne from the site:
http://www.ixstitch.com/juliavernevisitsrussia


To a certain extent, ALL Steampunk Adventuresses are alike: they are all extremely competent travellers able to handle anything that comes their way, being fencers and duellists with pistols, able to handle larger firearms in a pinch , good enough naturaists to be able to identify most common plants and animals they encounter down to the Linnean binomial, dabblers in most sciences, keen mathematicians, amateur inventors, radio operators and electricians, speaking several languages, Social reformers and champions of the rights for women, children, orphans, social deviants and the downtrodden of all types. In short they are all patterned after the real-life globetrotting woman reporter, inventor and adventuress Elizabeth Cochrane AKA Nelly Bly (Who gets her own mention below as originating her own string of adventures as well as those of countless imitators) There are of course the usual exaggerations about her abilities, competence and mastery of several situations: but then again that is common to all adventuring heroes.


And so in explaining the template, I have explained the specific character of Julia Verne, except that she is more involved with travel in time and space, and between dimensions, than most of the stay-at-home types. As in the case of several other timetravelers, she had the misfortune to have an equipment breaksdown in the ancient past, got stranded, and was forced to take up a "Robinson Crusoe" existance as a cavegirl for a while. Some years later, her comerades tracked her down and rescued her.
The original concept was to have the character as a sort of Melies woman as being the protagoonist of Melies-type short fantasic adventures based on the works of Jules Verne. The stories later became more serious explorations of many of the themes expounded in Jules Verne's original works. There were many of my original touches, too: I had a "Planet of the Apes" variant where the Apes had evolved to a Jules Verne level and were essentially Steampunker Greasemonkeys. But the bulk of my stories involved timetravel to the Dinosaur age and other ages of Geological time, and the corresponding future Eras named the Neozoic (future-Cenozoic), Penultimazoic (Second Age of Reptiles) and Ultimazoic (Long slow decline of life on Earth, ending up in an unpleasant situation where the only things that were left looked like worms). With few modifications, these Eras remain the plan that I still use today. The essential difference was that initially I had the Mesozoic dinosaurs resembling their Crystal Palace analogues instead of their more recent representations: Nowadays I say that those types were deliberately manufactured to be that way.

Julia Verne was conceived of as being a sort of Bloomer Girl with a more exotic wardrobe: perhaps a mite plump by modern standards but still atletic and in good shape for the times. She had fierce red hair and a somewhat knowing expression in her eyes that gave certain young men that "Mom's got eyes in the back of her head" feeling. She was about 5'2" tall and 120 pounds-about par for a woman in good health at the time-and had the very definite hourglass figure counted as so desirable at the time.

Besides being in Jules Verne types of adventures, she was also sometimes in H. G. Wells stories and sometimes stories made to resemble situations as described by Hugo Gernsback
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback
Here is a list of the novels of Jules Verne from Wikipedia:
.
Verne wrote numerous works, most famous of which are the 54 novels comprising the Voyages Extraordinaires. He also wrote short stories, essays, plays, and poems.
His very first and better known works include:
A close parallel to Julia Verne that appeared on more recent television was the character of  Rebecca Fogg in the Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, supposedly the second cousin of Phileas Fogg. I make that out as Julia Rebecca Verne (Possibly different surname legally), second cousin to Jules Verne: I further suppose that both Verne and Fogg were related, probably as cousins.

The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne is a 22-episode science fiction television series in the steampunk genre that first aired in June 2000 on CBC Television in Canada and in syndication in the United States.
The plot concept is predicated on a vast fictional conspiracy beginning with the revelation that Jules Verne did not merely write the stories behind his famous science fiction classic books Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth or Around the World in Eighty Days — but actually experienced these adventures personally.
A television technological historic footnote, this work was the first hour-long series filmed entirely in HDTV format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Adventures_of_Jules_Verne

Premise
Jules Verne is a struggling author who joins Phileas, Rebecca, and Passepartout after a chance encounter. Phileas leads the group. Dapper, daring, intelligent, brash, and arrogant, Praed described him as essentially a more flawed version of James Bond. Rebecca Fogg is his second cousin; it is clear that Phileas and Rebecca are attracted to one another, but it remains platonic. Passepartout is Phileas' valet, and an accomplished inventor/mechanic. Although Phileas treats Passepartout very poorly (at least by today's standards), the servant is a valued member of the crew. {If Rebecca is Verne's second cousin rather than Fogg's, that would lead into the possibility of a romance between Rebecca and Fogg all the more easily. Verne could even have introduced them-DD]
The group's only recurring enemy is the League of Darkness, an international terrorist organization aiming to use steampunk technology to rule the world. Its leader: Count Gregory (Rick Overton), a steampunk cyborg who originally died 500 years ago.

Most episodes took advantage of both the Wold Newton family and metafictional possibilities of the premise. Mark Twain, the Holy Grail, and Cardinal Richelieu (played by Michael Praed) all made appearances.
Some parts of the show are truthfully historical, such as the mention of Nicolas Poussin or Verne's friendship with Alexandre Dumas. However, the show cannot be historically placed. For example, at least one episode ("Southern Comfort") takes place during the American Civil War (1861-1865). During the Civil War, the historical Jules Verne was already married; the fictional character remains single throughout the first season. Also, the historical Verne would have been in his mid-thirties at the time of that conflict, whereas Chris Demetral, the actor who portrayed him on television, was in his mid-twenties.
The Aurora
The Aurora is at the heart of The Secret Adventure of Jules Verne. The world's first dirigible airship, property of Mr. Phileas Fogg of London, it combines unexampled luxury, total mobility and an extraordinary array of weapons and gadgets. It is to this series what the Starship Enterprise is to Star Trek: both as a home base and also as the route to the world of adventure. The Aurora became Phileas' property after he won it in a poker game that was rigged by the British government.
Episodes
1. In the Beginning David Warner and Rick Overton
2. Queen Victoria and the Giant Mole Tracy Scoggins
3. Rockets of the Dead Patrick Duffy
4. The Cardinal's Design John Rhys-Davies and Rene Auberjonois
5. The Cardinal's Revenge John Rhys-Davies and Rene Auberjonois
6. The Eyes of Lazarus Michael Moriarty and Margot Kidder
7. Lord of Air and Darkness Sonia Vigneault and Rick Overton
8. Southern Comfort Larissa Laskin, Sonia Vigneault and Rick Overton
9. Let There Be Light Michael Yarmush
10. The Ballad of Steeley Joe
11. The Black Glove of Melchizedek Kim Chan and Nigel Bennett
12. Dust to Dust Pascale Bussieres
13. The Golem Caroline Dhavernas
14. Crusader in the Crypt
15. The Strange Death of Professor Marechal Polly Draper
16. The Rocket's Red Glare Rick Overton
17. Rocket to the Moon R. H. Thomson
18. The Inquisitor Mako
19. Royalty Geordie Johnson
20. Secret of the Realm Rick Overton
21. The Victorian Candidate Bill Paterson and Keir Cutler
22. The Book of Knowledge David Warner and Michael McManus

External links

-There is already clearly a timetravel element in operation in the stories. Incidentally, "Phantom Airships" were seen commonly during the later 1800s in the USA and there is some speculation that an Ameican inventor had actually built such a thing and that it crashed during a test flight in 1886 (Wikipedia under Phantom Airship)-In which case, Fogg did not own it and neither did the British government: they were only "Borrowing" it. One of the members of my own WN discussion group suggested for several very sound reasons that Mark Twain may have been involved in the real-life project, if there actually had been such a thing. Another note of this is that the time of the crash would have corresponded to the time that WN theorists say a small spacecrft brought Hugo Danner to Earth, a story later attached to Clark Kent. If this is true, there was NO crashed spaceshuip involved at the time, only the "Phantom Airship", and NO "Strange Visitor from another Planet", only an Earth-born farmboy or two.


Julia Verne under the Guise of Rebecca Fogg. Fogg just might be her married name. If so, they were divorced by the time of Around the World in Eighty Days: Possibly the marriage was annulled.



Julia Rebecca Verne I take to be a granddaughter of Jules Verne's grandmother. She was a member of Jules Verne's family but her last name might not have been Verne if she was related through the female line. That her first names are given as Julia and Rebecca is highly suggestive that she was partly of Jewish descent.
Jules Verne Family Tree-Click On For Larger Version

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly

Nellie Bly (May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922) was the pen name of American pioneer female journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochran. She remains notable for two feats: a record-breaking trip around the world in emulation of Jules Verne's character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. In addition to her writing, she was also an industrialist and charity worker.
Born on May 5, 1864 as Elizabeth Jane Cochran in Cochran's Mills (present day South Park Township), Allegheny County, Pennsylvania 10 miles south of Pittsburgh near the Bridge in Jefferson Borough[2]. She was nicknamed "Pinky" for wearing that color as a child. Her father, Michael, began as a modest laborer and mill worker. He then bought the mill and all the land around his family farmhouse. He eventually owned so much land that the town was named Cochran's Mills. Her mother, Mary Jane, stayed at home and raised her stepsons and stepdaughters. As a teenager Bly changed her surname to Cochrane, apparently adding the "e" for sophistication.[3] She attended boarding school for one term, but dropped out because of a lack of funds. In 1880, Cochran and her family moved to Pittsburgh. A sexist column in the Pittsburgh Dispatch prompted her to write a fiery rebuttal to the editor with the pen name "Lonely Orphan Girl." The editor was so impressed with Cochran's earnestness and spirit that he asked the man who wrote the letter to join the paper. When he learned the man was Cochran he refused to give her the job, but she was a good talker and persuaded him. Female newspaper writers at that time customarily used pen names, and for Cochran the editor chose "Nellie Bly", adopted from the title character in the popular song "Nelly Bly" by Stephen Foster.
Nellie Bly focused her early work for the Dispatch on the plight of working women, writing a series of investigative articles on female factory workers. But editorial pressure pushed her to the women's pages to cover fashion, society, and gardening, the usual role for female journalists of the day. Dissatisfied with these duties, she took the initiative and traveled to Mexico to serve as a foreign correspondent. Still only 21, she spent nearly half a year reporting the lives and customs of the Mexican people; her dispatches were later published in book form as Six Months in Mexico. In one report, she protested the imprisonment of a local journalist for criticizing the Mexican government, then a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz. When Mexican authorities learned of Bly's report, they threatened her with arrest, prompting her to leave the country. Safely home, she denounced Díaz as a tyrannical czar suppressing the Mexican people and controlling the press.

Asylum Expose

Main article: Ten Days in a Mad-House

Burdened again with theater and arts reporting, Bly left the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887 for New York City. Penniless after four months, she talked her way into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the New York World, and took an undercover assignment for which she agreed to feign insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island.
After a night of practicing deranged expressions in front of a mirror, she checked into a working-class boardinghouse. She refused to go to bed, telling the boarders that she was afraid of them and that they looked crazy. They soon decided that she was crazy, and the next morning summoned the police. Taken to a courtroom, she pretended to have amnesia. The judge concluded she had been drugged.
She was then examined by several doctors, who all declared her to be insane. "Positively demented," said one, "I consider it a hopeless case. She needs to be put where someone will take care of her."[4] The head of the insane pavilion at Bellevue Hospital pronounced her "undoubtedly insane". The case of the "pretty crazy girl" attracted media attention: "Who Is This Insane Girl?" asked the New York Sun. The New York Times wrote of the "mysterious waif" with the "wild, hunted look in her eyes", and her desperate cry: "I can't remember I can't remember."[5]
Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced its conditions firsthand. The food consisted of gruel broth, spoiled beef, bread that was little more than dried dough, and dirty undrinkable water. The dangerous patients were tied together with ropes. The patients were made to sit for much of each day on hard benches with scant protection from the cold. Waste was all around the eating places. Rats crawled all around the hospital. The bathwater was frigid, and buckets of it were poured over their heads. The nurses were obnoxious and abusive, telling the patients to shut up, and beating them if they did not. Speaking with her fellow patients, Bly was convinced that some were as sane as she was. On the effect of her experiences, she wrote:
What, excepting torture, would produce insanity quicker than this treatment? Here is a class of women sent to be cured. I would like the expert physicians who are condemning me for my action, which has proven their ability, to take a perfectly sane and healthy woman, shut her up and make her sit from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. on straight-back benches, do not allow her to talk or move during these hours, give her no reading and let her know nothing of the world or its doings, give her bad food and harsh treatment, and see how long it will take to make her insane. Two months would make her a mental and physical wreck.[4]
…My teeth chattered and my limbs were …numb with cold. Suddenly, I got three buckets of ice-cold water…one in my eyes, nose and mouth.
After ten days, Bly was released from the asylum at The World's behest. Her report, later published in book form as Ten Days in a Mad-House, caused a sensation and brought her lasting fame. While embarrassed physicians and staff fumbled to explain how so many professionals had been fooled, a grand jury launched its own investigation into conditions at the asylum, inviting Bly to assist. The jury's report recommended the changes she had proposed, and its call for increased funds for care of the insane prompted an $850,000 increase in the budget of the Department of Public Charities and Corrections. They also made sure that all of the examinations were more thorough so that only people who were actually insane went to the asylum.




Around the world



Main article: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days

A publicity photo taken by the New York World newspaper to promote Bly's around-the-world voyage.


Nelly Bly

In 1888, Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days' notice,[6] she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the Hamburg America Line,[7] and began her 24,899-mile journey.
She brought with her the dress she was wearing, a sturdy overcoat, several changes of underwear and a small travel bag carrying her toiletry essentials. She carried most of her money (£200 in English bank notes and gold in total as well as some American currency)[8] in a bag tied around her neck.[9]
The New York newspaper Cosmopolitan sponsored its own reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, to beat the time of both Phileas Fogg and Bly. Bisland would travel the opposite way around the world.[10][11] To sustain interest in the story, the World organized a “Nellie Bly Guessing Match” in which readers were asked to estimate Bly’s arrival time to the second, with the Grand Prize consisting at first of (only) a free trip to Europe and, later on, spending money for the trip.[9][12]
On her travels around the world, Bly went through England, France (where she met Jules Verne in Amiens), Brindisi, the Suez Canal, Colombo (Ceylon), the Straits Settlements of Penang and Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. The development of efficient submarine cable networks and the electric telegraph allowed Bly to send short progress reports,[13] though longer dispatches had to travel by regular post and were thus often delayed by several weeks.[12]
Bly travelled using steamships and the existing railroad systems,[14] which caused occasional setbacks, particularly on the Asian leg of her race.[15] During these stops, she visited a leper colony in China[16][17] and she bought a monkey in Singapore.[16][18]
As a result of rough weather on her Pacific crossing, she arrived in San Francisco on the White Star liner Oceanic on January 21, two days behind schedule.[15][19] However, World owner Pulitzer chartered a private train to bring her home, and she arrived back in New Jersey on January 25, 1890, at 3:51 p.m.[13]
"Seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds after her Hoboken departure" Bly was back in New York. She had circumnavigated the globe almost[7] unchaperoned. At the time, Bisland was still going around the world. Like Bly, she had missed a connection and had to board a slow, old ship (the Bothina) in the place of a fast ship (Etruria).[6] Bly's journey, at the time, was a world record, though it was bettered a few months later by George Francis Train, who completed the journey in 67 days.[20] By 1913, Andre Jaeger-Schmidt, Henry Frederick and John Henry Mears had improved on the record, the latter completing the journey in less than 36 days.[21]

Later years


Nellie Bly in her later years
In 1895 Nellie Bly married millionaire manufacturer Robert Seaman, who was 40 years her senior. She retired from journalism, and became the president of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co., which made steel containers such as milk cans and boilers. In 1904, her husband died. In the same year, Iron Clad began manufacturing the steel barrel that was the model for the 55-gallon oil drum still in widespread use in the United States. Although there have been claims that Nellie Bly invented the barrel,[22] the inventor is believed to have been Henry Wehrhahn, who likely assigned his invention to her. (US Patents 808,327 and 808,413).[23] Nellie Bly was, however, an inventor in her own right, receiving US patent 697,553 for a novel milk can and US patent 703,711 for a stacking garbage can, both under her married name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman.[24] For a time she was one of the leading female industrialists in the United States, but embezzlement by employees forced her into bankruptcy. Forced back into reporting, she covered such events as the women's suffrage convention in 1913, and stories on Europe's Eastern Front during World War I.[25]

The grave of Nellie Bly in Woodlawn Cemetery
In 1916 Nellie was given a baby boy whose mother requested Nellie look after him and see that he become adopted. The child was illegitimate and difficult to place since he was half-Japanese. He spent the next six years in an orphanage run by the Church For All Nations in Manhattan.
As Nellie became ill towards the end of her life she requested that her niece, Beatrice Brown, look after the boy and several other babies in whom she had become interested. Her interest in orphanages may have been part of her ongoing efforts to improve the social organizations of the day.
She died of pneumonia at St. Mark's Hospital in New York City in 1922, at age 57, and was interred in a modest grave at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.




Nelly Bly In Hollywood





Philea Fogg, Phileas Fogg's daughter, in the 1900s and 1920s (Half-Indian and British National, but favored living in Paris. Had many adventures but mostly of what could be called a social nature)
With Papa's (Phileas Fogg's) Bengal Tigerskin Rug


Momma & Poppa





Married Six Times
Widowed Six Times
Growing incrementally Wealthier Each Time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Way_to_Go! {I added a couple extra}



I HATE Pink!


Wait'll You see What's Waiting For YOU!

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