Things you were shockingly old when you learned

That whole extended bit toward the beginning with Francois and Bob Balaban was inserted later

Old Lunch factually wrong, cuz i saw it in '77, pal

u ppl should fall asleep to that Ridley Scott shit

was def in my 30s before I realized the alpha+beta thing

Forgiveness, Morbs, sorting out what is and is not included in the various cuts of Close Encounters requires some kind of flow chart, possibly a slide rule.

That whole extended bit toward the beginning with Francois and Bob Balaban was inserted later

Old Lunch factually wrong, cuz i saw it in '77, pal

So did I, and you're wrong. The movie has *always* opened with the black screen/credits w/swelling score crescendoing to a loud chord and the bright desert light of the Truffaut/Balaban/airplanes scene. Every cut.

This site details, down to the timecode, the differences among all extant versions, and there are none until 14 minutes into the movie. https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=491777

Even the comics adaptation opens with that scene!

https://savacoolandsons.blob.core.windows.net/photos/13003/13003-x95y.jpg

https://savacoolandsons.blob.core.windows.net/photos/13003/13003-x95y.jpg

Also the promotional Topps trading cards were sequential and this card is #1 in the series:

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Non-Sport/75166/75166-1Fr.jpg

ANYWAY.

Okay fine, y'all are just going to badger me until I'm forced to admit that I hardly ever pay much attention to the first fifteen minutes of any movie because I'm too busy dancing around the room and singing the title over and over to the tune of Zapp's 'More Bounce to the Ounce'. Are you happy now? Are you?

Hold up, I am cuing the filmstrip proving you are wrong. One sec

And for final emphasis, Vincent Canby's NYT review of Nov. 17, 1977:

Though “Close Encounters” is strictly a product of the 70's in its dress and manners, its heart is in the 50's. This is apparent from the first scene, when a squadron of World War II fighter planes, missing on a training mission more than 30 years earlier, suddenly turn up intact, as good as new, in the Mexican desert. In classic sci‐fi manner, Mr. Spieiberg's screenplay then cuts from this general introduction to the “mystery” to encounters with the mystery by individual folks in Muncie, homespun types like you and me who draw into the adventure

Still loading the film strip

lol final emphasis, pal!

Here, lemme see that thing a sec (grabs Close Encounters screenplay, uncaps Sharpie)

Filmstrip is jammed. Gotta wait for A/V to come down

The Truffaut? The Truffaut?! I can't handle the Truffaut!

Alright, so I held 'em up to the overhead light and it turns out the first 20 images on the filmstrip are indeed of Ol' Lunch dancing around the room, but he could be singing to the tune of ANYTHING. When will the lies end.

I found out today that you can get wrist replacement operations, in the same way you can get a hip replacement op.

If only there was also a way to cure the blindness...

Leopold Stokowski was English.

The epitome of 'fake it till you make it'.

And one of his wives, the pianist “Olga Samaroff”, was actually a Texan named Lucy Hickenlooper.

nous as in cop on
derives from a Greek term not the french 1st person plural.

This just occurred to me so be nice, but the terms high brow and low brow come from phrenology don't they?

— Bill G (@morosevacuum) September 11, 2019

Makes sense!

Don't know if it's been covered here but always happy to discuss how many terms derive from printing that people are often impressed by (pun intended!)

Uppercase and Lower Case, mind your Ps and Qs, stereotype and cliché are all ancient printing terms.

The keenest print historian I know disagrees about “mind your ps and qs “ fwiw - I saw an excellent discussion on this at a letterpress conference last year. But generally yes - “bodge” is another printing term in general use (in the uk at least).

(The idea is that ps and qs is a pun on please and thank you, on the basis that (a) there’s no documented instance of it being an old printers’ phrase, and (b) what it actually means -“mind your manners”, more or less - is nothing to do with what it would mean in a printing context, which would have to be something about paying attention or being accurate.)

huh that's news to me! feeling shockingly old.

'Out of sorts' is another of these, fyi: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/out-of-sorts.html

One of my design perfessers was big on making sure we knew all of the printing-related idiomatic expressions in existence. I'm sure more will come to me.

THere appear to be only 2 crematoriums in the Republic of Ireland. One near Cork and one in Shannon.
I was wondering why a recently dead acquaintance's family were going to take him down to Shannon when somebody else explained the lack of the funeral related service in the country.

I'd assumed it was something that was a lot more widespread and I just hadn't come across.
So I assume it must be something counter to long held Catholic funeral rites.
JUst seemed to be one of several options in the UK I thought.

Actually that seems to be the entire West Coast not entire country. There are a couple in Dublin and one in the North of the country, one more in Belfast. Still seems like very few for a country of this size.
Would have expected one per large town at least.

Kids today: "you mean the 'save' button represents some kind of physical storage disk? OMG"

Me today: "you mean 'upper case' and 'lower case' refer to the physical cases where printers kept their letters? OMG" pic.twitter.com/whMIBpyLMm

— Benjamin Molineaux (@benmolineaux) September 13, 2019

Kind of something I learned? I just got a new microwave, and for the first time in my life I will know the power setting. I’ve been guessing between times my whole life, and I feel like an enormous source of uncertainty has been lifted from me.

Haha the lay of those typecases is different enough to the lay I use (just what I'm used to, as inherited from the people I bought a load of type from) that it's making me feel uncomfortable.

dowd otm, ONE THOUSAND WATTS that's me

There are many many case styles. The most popular in the states at least is called the California case and it combines lower case and upper case in one case

"fun size" actually means small.

http://www.alembicpress.co.uk/Typecases/Index.htm

Yeah I’m familiar with a few lays but that particular one made me feel weird. I’m sure there’s a reason for the ffl being in the upper case but I can’t imagine what it would be. A single box for opening and closing speech marks seems unhelpful, same for ) and ( in the same box. And a box for fists!

I was thinking about 'fun size' today. 'treat size'. My 2-pack of Jamaican ginger cake I got in the pound shop says "tea-time pack" or something weird, presumably to indicate it's a swiz size?

I've seen those printers cases in antique stores and flea markets all my life and I never figured out why the boxes were different sizes until I saw that picture.

selling those cases as a way to display tchotkes is the bane of the letterpress community. Frustrating on one hand because you hope they can be used for the proper use, funny on the other hand because they're sold often as kinda pricey collectables, but within the community you can get plenty of them cheap. I donated a bunch to Bowne & Co. Stationers in NY after the South Street Seaport got flooded by Sandy. Took them there in an ikea bag on the ferry!

Some desirable cases are harder to come by, for a while I was looking for he kind of cases that could hold 3 or 4 different small fonts in a single case.

To further complicate matters there's also different cabinet sizes.

milquetoast was popularised from the name of a mid 1920s comicstrip character.
So presumably does derive directly from milktoast something so bland its almost flavourless.
But it's been given a french twist in spelling with the 'que' to give it added prestige or something.

I knew my mom went to Loyola in Chicago for 1 yr and then dropped out after marrying my dad, but just learned she had a full scholarship! My grandma was not too pleased she quit. You'd think she would've mentioned that part to me at some point before I was in my 40s lol.
Anybody else learn stuff about their parents/relatives bios at a shockingly old age?

its the stage where id actually be more surprised i didnt have half brother/sisters in other ports

I was 29 when I found out that serial killer / movie biopic subject Aileen Wuornos was my dad’s second cousin and that he saved her from drowning when she was a toddler.

nice one dad

whoa
(Son of) Svengoolie is my mom's 2nd cousin lol. I assume only Chicago area ppl know who that is.

ha ha, also wow

erm xpost

that it's pronounced Oh-CAHH-Sick, not Oh-CAY-Sick