JennyPop: A Whit of Jennifer Susannah Devore

Aren't You a Little Old for Halloween?

2020-10-06T11:40:00.003-07:00

I try to do three active things a day because I have to fit into costumes that are very tight.

Get Your Frankenfreak On: Retro-a-go-go!

2020-10-05T13:24:00.004-07:00

"We make what we love. So being passionate is a big part of the equation. If we don't feel a product or design has our thumbprint of originality, quality, and uniqueness we don't create it or offer it. Our aim is to make you smile with some funny gifts peppered with our own brand of smart-ass humor."

A JennyPop Halloween: TV, Film and Book Recs

2020-10-05T12:48:00.004-07:00

Happy Autumn, fair reader! Finally! Some of us have been waiting for the season since, well, last Autumn. So, what's better than a Hallowe'en party? Not much, says Moi. Yet, 2020 seems to be satisfied only when crushing, hither-and-thither, all our annual events and holidays - like St. Patrick's Day, Comic-Con, Oktoberfest and Euro travels - with its diseased, Godzilla-sized, Doc Martens. So, in lieu of holiday parties this year, we have media. What's better than media in-general? Holiday media!

Halloween launches a glorious season of cozy, caramel-ly, candy apple-y, craft-boozy, cinnamon-y, TV goodness! Akin to my Summer, Thanksgiving and Chirtsmas rec-lists, allow JennyPop, a.k.a. Moi, to humbly proffer my fave Halloween recs.

Certainly, this is not a complete list of Halloween media options, simply my supadupa faves. (I mean, I do have other things to do during the day, rather than make lengthy, TV lists ... like, um, yoga, Irish step dancing ... planning cocktail party ensembles ... not that there's any of that going on ... taking pix of my dog for Instagram and, um, like ... IDK? One other thing?)

The Eek!-factor, as it were, of my list is more family-friendly/spooky-old-Irish-manor, and less slash-and-gash/abandoned-asylum-murders. True, I do list The Shining and Scream Queens; but, who doesn't love a haunted mountain-lodge with an insidious, time-travel speakeasy, and tales about evil, pretty, snarky, sorority girls ... and Jamie Lee Curtis?

So, since we're all, likely, staying in this Halloween, brew some spider-cider (spiked or no), pull on your stripey socks of courage, curl up under your Vermont Country Store Great Pumpkin fleece blanket and partake in the silly, only slightly-scary, spooky side of Halloween with your Mistress of the Dork, JennyPop.

*Please note, because I think this stuff's important - in the way I also think knowing which Revlon lipstick most approximates that which Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany's ("Pink in the Afternoon"/#415, btw), I have painstakingly noted season and episode numbers for TV series' Halloween episodes: i.e., (S0e0). However, if a series is listed with no (S0e0) notation, that simply means the whole series is Halloween apropos; pick any episode you like. Enjoy, kittens!

Halloween TV

South Park

Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery (S3e10)

The Big Bang Theory

The Middle Earth Paradigm (S1e6)
The Holographic Excitation (S6e5)
The Imitation Perturbation (S12e6)

Bob's Burgers

Full Bars (S3e2)
Fort Night (S4e2)
The Hauntening (S6e3)
Teen-a Witch (S7e3)
The Wolf of Wharf Street (S8e3)
Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street (S9e4)

King of the Hill

Hilloween (S2e4)

30 Rock

Stone Mountain (S4e3)

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Trick or Treat (S2e3)

Family Guy

Petergeist (S4e26)
Three Kings (S7e15)
And Then there Were Fewer (S9e1 & 2)
Halloween on Spooner Street (S9e4)
V is for Mystery (S16e13)

Modern Family

Halloween (S2e6)
Open House of Horrors (S4e5)
Halloween 3: AwesomeLand (S6e6)

The Goldbergs

Who Are You Going to Telephone? (S1e6)
Family Takes Care of Beverly (S2e5)
Couples Costume (S3e6)
Stefan King (S4e5)
Jackie Likes Star Trek (S5e5)
Mister Knifey-Hands (S6e5)
A 100 Per Cent True Ghost Story (S7e6)

American Dad

Best Little Horror House Langley Falls (S7e3)

The Office

Halloween (S2e5)
Employee Transfer (S5e5)
Koi Pond (S6e8)
Costume Contest (S7e6)
Spooked (S8e5)

666 Park Avenue

A Crowd of Demons (S1e5)

The Simpsons

Treehouse of Horror ... any season!

Spongebob Squarepants

Graveyard Shift (S2e16)

Scrubs

My Bad (S1e6)
My Big Brother (S2e6)

Freaks and Geeks

Tricks and Treats (S1e3)

NCIS

Witch Hunt (S4e6) ... Abby as Marilyn!

90210

Halloween (S2e13)

Roseanne

Boo (S2e7)
Trick or Treat (S3e7)
Trick Me Up, Trick Me Down (S4e6)
Halloween IV (S5e7)
Halloween V (S6e6)

Midsomer Murders

The Magician's Nephew (S11e5)

Poirot

Hallowe'en Party (S12e2)

Ghost Adventures
The Secret of Crickley Hall
The Addams Family
The Munsters
Scooby Doo, Where are You?
Be Cool, Scooby Doo!
Scooby Doo!: Mystery Incorporated
Scooby Doo and Guess Who?!
Hotel Paranormal
Sleepy Hollow (FOX series)
Scream Queens
The X-Files
Stranger Things

Halloween Films

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown ... duh!

Hocus Pocus

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Blair Witch Project

Paranormal Activity: 1 and 2

The Addams Family (1991)

Addams Family Values (1993)

The Addams Family (2019)

Beetlejuice

The Skeleton Key

Tyler Perry's Boo: A Madea Halloween: 1 and 2

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest

Halloweentown

Return to Halloweentown

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

The Haunted Mansion

The Craft

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (original 1919)

Garfield's Halloween Adventure

Francis Coppola's Dracula

Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow

Wishbone: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas

Eloise's Rawther Unusual Halloween

The Shining

The Others

Frankenweenie

Scooby Doo on Zombie Island

Scooby Doo and the Goblin King

Interview with the Vampire

Pirates of the Caribbean: I - V

Ed Wood

The Innkeepers

SyFy's The Nanny

The Lodgers

The Salem Witch Trials (w Kirstie Alley)

Paranorman

Boo-ooook! Halloween Reading

Murders on the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

The Halloween Kid by Rhode Montijo

Cinderella Skeleton by Robert D. San Souci

Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich

Ghostgirl series by Tonya Hurley

Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

Wraith by Phaedra Weldon

Halloween by Jerry Seinfeld

Fangland by John Marks

Savannah of Williamsburg: The Trials of Blackbeard and His Pirates by Jennifer Susannah Devore

Hocus Pocus & The All-New Sequel by A. W. Jantha

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

Frankenweenie by Tim Burton

The X-Files: Earth Children Are Weird by Jason Rekulak

*Did I omit any of your fave films, TV or books? SVP, get thee to @JennyPopCom on Insta or Twitter and tell me what holiday, media-fare you crave. LMK your Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah choices, even Summer, too. Always happy to add investiagte new shows and books and update my lists!

Sit, Stay, Good Geek: SDCC 2020 at Home

2020-07-24T12:11:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, watching Disney+ is better than gong to Disneyland. Sometimes, watching Rick Steves' travelogues is better than going to Europe. Sometimes, Thursday and Sunday are better than Friday and Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con. This year, 2020, Comic-Con@Home is going to be better than gong to San Diego Comic-Con IRL.

False.

Whilst, likely, no one has ever uttered said-sentiments, were they uttered, they would be the hallmarks of an optimist. JennyPop likes, and identifies with, the optimists. 2020 is our year. If you've ever wondered how the Spongebob Squarepants of your life would even be used in a dystopia, we exist to remind you of why we need art, culture, imagination, silliness and the superfluous. The absurdly useless is all too useful in these weird times of the virus.

Not to be too Shedon Cooper about it, but the correct Darwinism is "survival of the most adaptable", not "of the fittest". So, whether the wrath of 2020 is solely virus-oriented, or inflamed by protesters and Draconian restrictions, the fact is 2020 bites and whatever you had planned, is cancelled. European travel, summer holidays, Disney vacays, yacht club Xmas parties, family reunions (Oh, darn! The reunion is cancelled? Oh, noooo. I sooooo wanted to go to that!), or whatever you can think of, is not happening. So, as my sis-in-law says, "Suck it up, Buttercup," and plan for an epic 2021. This is where we optimists reign. We can make anything fun, even quarantine. Das ist das and we have to work with what we're afforded this year. Fortunately, some organizations are working harder than ever to bend to 2020's will. The good folks at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) are doing that rather well.

Do you miss the feeling of being physically at Comic-Con with over 135,000 of your closest friends? Do you yearn for the days of navigating your way through the San Diego Convention Center? Will your summer not be complete without a security guard telling you "the end of the line is that way"? Chin up buddy, we've got ya covered!

- Comic-Con@Home

Seize the Upside, Seize the Day and Emerge Better

2020-04-17T12:39:00.002-07:00

Today is a beautiful day of opportunity, for realsies. Certainly, for some, this new shift to social-isolation and community-shutdown, spurred by the Covid-19, global pandemic, is proving a difficult, daily slog. For others, life hasn't changed all that much, say, for stay-at-home writers. For other folks still, it is becoming one long, acute, 24/7 therapy session of self-reflection. For Yours Truly, life is, admittedly, still pretty charmed and I thank Lady Fortuna that my days remain full of love and good fortune. Clearly, everything can change in a single cough and because of that, every day Chez Devore remains healthy, is a charmed day. Regardless of your journey through this time, no one can emerge unchanged, for better or for worse. Hopefully, you and yours are faring well, or at least contentedly well-enough. For those faring poorly, I can only proffer you the tenderest thoughts of good cheer and hope.

Seize your day, and Namaste. Photo: Lic. Adobe Stock by Coka

The upside to this shutdown nonsense, should you choose to see it, is the opportunity for a personal re-do. When this microbial remake of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village fades to black and the house lights turn back up, and we are free again to roam at will, life could be brighter, better, depending on you. Your decisions today will affect your tomorrows. Too Pollyanna? Sorry, The Glad Game is kind of in my wheelhouse. As I wrote in one of my St. Patrick's Day posts, Irish I Were A Better Writer: Jenny's Lament, "Doesn't one always strive to better oneself? If not, what's the point each day?" Same point, different weird days.

As current events persist, I find myself revamping some of my character make-up. I want to come out of this a better JennyPop: less precious, less worrisome. Like a faint ghost, a wispy face in the silver, I sometimes see Meryl Streep's nervous, Lemony Snicket character, Aunt Josephine, when I look in the mirror. If I'm going to identify with any Lemony Snicket character, it's going to be Violet Beaudelaire; and I am, far more often than not, Violet B. Like right now, I am tying back my hair with a very silky ribbon, doing my research and feeling the Aunt Josephine part of me beginning to quietly wisp away.

"The only problem with being comfortable all the time, is she only noticed when she was uncomfortable."

Christmas in April: Christmas Shopaholic Book Review

2020-04-01T10:49:00.003-07:00

Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, a Book Review

Getting through Chapter One of Sophie Kinsella's Christmas Shopaholic took me, approximately, three hours. My delay was neither due to difficulty in reading comprehension, nor a lack of interesting content. It was, in fact due to, as is Kinsella's way, the utmost of engaging empathy. Kinsella's characters are so relatable and approachable, it is easy to fold into their world and become one with them. It is this exact, canny ability Kinsella possesses to tap into her readers' psyche and know precisely what they feel and need, emotionally as well as commercially. From page one, Christmas Shopaholic was so relatable, I set aside my reading, at regular intervals to, obviously, do some Christmas procuring.

Oh, my God, I've missed shopping. ... i mean, I've shopped online, obviously. But that's a whole different activity. In fact, I think they should invent a different word for it. Online ordering isn't really shopping, it's "procuring". You procure stuff online. But you don't get the buzz of actually stepping into a shop and seeing all the gorgeous stuff, feeling it, stroking it, being seduced by it.

- from Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. Escape to a charming, yet wacky, English Christmas! Photo: JSDevore

Whilst no scientific data exist, it is believed, in old, Irish lore, some scribes possessed the ability to mind-meld, like Druids, and enter the human brain, perchance as we sleep, to record our imaginations, experiences, embarrassments, wishes and fears. Then, as day would break, borrowing on the mind's eye of the sleeping mortals, these magical scribes put quill to paper. It is still believed, some contemporary authors possess this ancient, magical power.

Just kidding, but, it feels like it with some authors, right? When you stumble upon one of these magical authors, you consume their words with an obscene voracity.

Sophie Kinsella is just such an author, for millions of readers, as is attested by her multiple, #1 New York Times Best-Seller status. Her omnibus overflows with sheaves of relatable narratives, cheery self-deprication, quintessential and overly-apologetic English charm, and a heartwarming quality only a perky, pretty, optimist, poking the grouchy forces that be, can proffer.

Revisiting Kinsella's first Shopaholic title, Confessions of a Shopaholic (Book I in the series and also a satisfying, film adaptation starring the affable and effervescent Isla Fisher), Yours Truly readily related to multiple silly scenarios involving her quirky heroine. It is this oneness that curated a relationship between this new reader and that first-discovered work, so many Christmases ago, by a soon-to-be fave author of mine. That relationship quickly led to the very real need to seek, and oft times wait years, for more literary confections by the inimitable Sophie Kinsella.

Par example: Confessions of a Shopaholic introduces Becky Bloomwood: sassy, savvy, stylish, London heroine-at-large. Necessary to Becky's - very accidental - gig as a financial-advice columnist, she carries with her daily the notable business-newspaper, Financial Times. Yet, however adult-y and professionally she folds it in thirds and tucks it under her designer-sheathed arm, Becky's FT is not useful for its moneyed missives therein, but, rather understandably, because it is pink. (Well, more of a peachy-rose, but still. It makes perfect sense, choosing a daily paper based on its colour palette.)

Yours Truly went through a similar FT phase, making sure to carry it everywhere, especially upon Starbucks visits. After my initial sip of café crème, I would snap open my peachy FT and, as I perused articles and stock quotes, nod and frown knowingly, with the occasionally audible, annoyed harrumph. Once done with my café, I would fold my FT neatly back into thirds and, with pursed lips and slight head-shake about the state of world finances, tuck it under my arm and retain absolutely nothing I had just read.

*Aside: There was also an International Herald Tribune phase. Yet, that, I really did read, nay, devour and retain every single word. World affairs, I crave. World finances? Meh.

I digress …

It is Kinsella's ability to craft just such situations that, ironically, can tear the reader away from her words, for the very habit of recollecting one's own silly history; or even sparking the need to attend to a current, silly situation. Even pausing for a moment, to recall that time you looked fabulous, just walking downtown.

I can see my reflection in the windows as I walk along, and I can't help shimmying like a model ... I even mentally itemize my outfit as if I'm in a magazine, which is an old habit of mine. Coat: Topshop. Jumpsuit: ASOS. Shoes: See by Chloe. Bracelet: model's own (can't remember where I got it).

Selfridge's London, for Christmas shopping! Photo: BoyMeetsFashion.com

At first blush, Becky's draw is her seemingly inane, Lucy Ricardo tendencies, her Fran Fine absurdities (and élan) and her 2 Broke Girls antics. Yet, it is not simply Becky's CBS sitcom-ready shenanigans that have made Sophie Kinsella a best-seller. In fact, upon deeper reading and introspection, likened to any beloved, durable fictional character, it is Becky's intimate correlation with each devoted reader that gives her longevity. Kinsella devotees - largely female, but with easy gender-crossover, especially in the same family, thanks to nighttime read-alouds and road trip snippets - will tell you they know this character, they are this character, that they have shared her mortifying scrapes and cloud-dancing victories. If you bump into an old frenemy/school chum on the street, the one whom always seemed a step ahead of you in everything, and whom now happens to look fresh-from-the-salon amazing, just as you're digging a letter out of a trash bin, a letter you desperately need yet accidentally tossed with a bit of trash, you're Becky. Therein lies the beauty of Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) as icon of turn-of-the-21stC., chick-lit Brit-lit.

It is no accident Becky's lives The Life of Riley; it is by design, with a little serendipity from the Universe. Attractive, vibrant and relentless in character, and fortunate enough to have a supportive network of friends and fam, Becky has always had a fine, natural start to a happy, fruitful existence. Still, the proverbial sun doesn't always shine on Becky. When dark clouds hinder her Riley ways, she fights the hindrance with all her ingenuity, temerity and perseverance, like a chic Jack Russell. Whatever Becky wants, Becky gets, eventually and generally under the oddest of circumstances.

In the pretty, rabbit-y, chocolate-tin world of Letherby Village, just outside London, Becky Brandon lives her, nearly, perfect life. Married to the, naturally, handsome Luke Brandon, of Brandon Communications, she is a lively, young and pretty mum to their precocious and twee daughter, Minnie. Becky enjoys not only setting up her glamourous new home, just a three-minute walk to her BFF's house, stately Letherby Hall, but she also works with her BFF - Suze, Lady Cleath-Stuart - managing the Letherby Hall Gift Shop. If anyone is skilled in merchandising and attracting buyers to a posh gift shop, it is Becky Brandon.

Loving her new, country-squire life, it's admittedly nothing like her previous, townie life in bustling, vogue London and Becky finds herself feeling somewhat, well, not bored, but, maybe, missing out on the fast lane ... until her college ex-boyfriend, now a global rock star, just happens to move into a cottage on the Letherby estate. An unexpected drop-in to the gift shop flips country life on its ear and proves Becky may have a greater desire for the fast lane than she'd thought.

If a new house, a new job and an old flame aren't enough to keep a hummingbird kind of girl busy, Becky's usually consistent, rock-solid, mild-mannered parents pop her a real Christmas cracker. When Becky's half-sister and her husband return to England from a sojourn in Chile, the Parental Units offer up their lovely, suburban home in Oxshott for a few months and take the opportunity to excavate their lost youth by leaving their quiet, Hyacinth Bucket lifestyle and moving to London's hip, Shoreditch district. There, Mum and Dad discover a newfound need for smashed avocado, craft cocktails and urban beekeeping. Not only disturbing to see her parents acting like hipster doofuses, but their sudden move ignites a holiday firestorm even the inimitable, bright-eyed Becky Brandon might not be able to contain.

Mum and Dad's impromptu move to Shoreditch, and a tiny co-op apartment, means a tectonic shift in Christmas tradition. For the first time ever, Becky must host Christmas! As Mum horrifically suggests, Now you're in your lovely house, maybe it's time for you to host Christmas!

I don't host Christmas; Mum hosts Christmas. She knows how to do it. She knows how to unwrap the chocolate roll and put it on a doily and sprinkle icing sugar on it.

Not a problem. Hosting her first Christmas shall not fail! How could it? First things first, Becky has a WhatsApp group going, to get ideas from everyone invited to Christmas. What could be better than input from a dozen folks? She has fresh salmon (30 lbs of it). She has aromatic pine garland which will, eventually, stay tacked up on the mantel and plans for a spirited, Christmas Eve, gingerbread house-building party. She's even joined the Myriad Miracle Training System to lose "fifteen to forty pounds" by Christmas, to fit into her new, amazing, but a little small, Alexander McQueen dress. She's determined to get Luke the perfect present this year and not the boring aftershave he professes he wants. She's already got Minnie's most-requested pressie purchased and hidden. Best of all, she's going to have the most on-trend, sparkly, stylized Christmas tree in town, decorated tip to toe with the season's hippest, most coveted ornament: the silver llama.

Toss into this funny, figgy pudding an elementary school play with designer-costume malfunctions, old flames (maybe, old feelings?), infiltration of an ancient, private, gentlemen-only, London billiards-club, family infighting, possible freind-betrayals, a friend's heartbreaking divorce, an obsessive business-groupie stalking Luke, a humourless, environmentally-militant vegan demanding no store-bought gifts, Becky's attempt to introduce a new word into the Norwegian National Dictionary, plus an overnight, pet store lockdown, and Christmas Shopaholic is the star atop your Christmas reads.

It's not an English Christmas sans Paddington Bear. Photo: Rick Ligthelm

As Kinsella's nine previous Shopaholic novels will attest, mis-en-scène from NYC to Vegas, from Hollywood to London, Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) takes readers on interpersonal tours of monumental expectations, confusing emotions, disappointing reveals, exhilarating accomplishments and, of course, gorgeous hair and the cutest boots, bags and togs. Whether she's rescuing her BFF, Lady Cleath-Stuart, from a sexy, L.A. guru, branding herself as Hollywood's It Stylist to the Stars, saving her husband's sometimes-nemesis (a.k.a. Alicia Bitch Long-legs) or helping her dad find an old school mate in the wilds of Arizona's desert art-communities, nobody puts Becky in a corner, or an ugly dress. Becky can, and will, conquer any obstacle, personal, physical or otherwise.

In addition to her ten Shopaholic titles, Sophie Kinsella has penned nineteen other tales, some under the nom de plume, Madeleine Wickham: different heroines and varying venues, yet with the same charm, quirk, tenacity and, important for these times, I believe, happy endings … yet not always with the outcomes you might expect. If you are a new reader, lucky you! So many titles await you! Moi? Alas, I shall wait, as long as is necessary, and re-read my beloved Kinsellas, when the craving strikes.

As far as Christmas goes, why wait for Chirstmas in July? Heaven forbid waiting all the way to December! Give yourself some holiday cheer right now, during these very odd times, and celebrate Christmas in April, with Becky Brandon, Sophie Kinsella and your own, silly stories that make life so very vivid, so very worth living.

Have a very Happy Christmas ... in April! Why wait?1 Photo: BoyMeetsFashion.com

Publishing Info

Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

Available in Hardcover, Kindle and Audible

Published: 15 October 2019

Publisher: The Dial Press

424 pgs.

Irish-American Heritage Month: Ginger Myths, Facts and Green Envy

2020-04-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

Come little kittens , a tale I shall tell. I beseech you, twee ones, to heed my words well. The stories I regale, though legend they may be, in truth they could be born, but fret not, fair dears, Jenny will protect you, no need to flee. Now, turn down your light, settle in for the night, the creature you will meet, that which is called Ginger is that which brings the greatest fright.

“Redheads are like other women, only more so.”

- Playboy

It all began with the mythical Atlantians ...

Legend speaks of Prince Idon of Mu, the first redhead and discoverer of Atlantis. When he happened upon Atlantis, he was marked with the island’s red sunset and stunning, red and orange leaves, in the form of red hair and freckles so that he might remind future generations of Atlantians of the first sunset.

After Atlantis disappeared, something had to take the place of bedtime stories and The Garden of Eden fairy tale came to be. Lilith, first wife of Adam, supposedly was a ginger. Eventually, being an irascible lass, she was asked to leave The Garden because she refused to take Adam's shite. Sound like any gingers you know?

As the Ginger pertains to real humans of history, archaeologists have excavated Egyptian pharaohs whose hair registered red pigments. Of the most notable, possible Egyptinger was Ramesses II (c. 1,303 BC to 1,213 BC), a.k.a. Ramesses the Great.

Despite her iconic blue-black bob, Cleopatra (c. 69BCE - c. August, 30BCE), Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, is thought to actually have been a ginger. However, considering the ancient Egyptians superstitions, believing gingers bad luck enough to sacrifice them to the god Osiris, it is doubtful Cleopatra was a noticeable redhead. Maybe the black bob was for more than being chic. Method of sacrifice, btw? Death by live-burial.

The ancient Greeks were less superstitious, but still held a belief gingers transformed into vampires after death. In this life, however, gingers were thought of as honourable, courageous and exceptionally fertile. The Greek poet Xenophanes (c. 4,000BCE) wrote of the Thracian gods, that they were blessed of red hair and blue eyes. As they crafted their gods in their own eyes, it is of anthropological curiosity, that perchance the ancient Thracians themselves were a race of blue-eyed gingers. Add to this the fact many a Thracian gravestone was inscribed with Rufus, meaning "redhead", we certainly have some cultural evidence.

Mighty Aphrodite, the goddess of love (not Mira Sorvino, goddess though she is), was supposedly a ginger. Menelaus’ wife, a.k.a. Helen of Troy, is written as having the ginge-tinge, in Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad also describes Greek heroes Menelaus and Achilles as gingers.

Jumping ahead a few centuries, the Romans thought gingers to be very good luck, notably when choosing Briton and Irish slaves during their conquest the British Isles and parts of the rugged, Western Isle (Ireland). This was notably reflected in the cost of a ginger slave, especially female gingers, as they were a pricier commodity than blondes and brunettes.

While the rest of the human race are descended from monkeys, redheads derive from cats.

- Mark Twain. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography, SDCC 2015

Coming out of the Classical and Dark Ages, just when you thought it was save to be a ginger, here come Heinrich Kramer, Germany's terrifying, 17thC. witch-burnings, and the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. A little shy of the Age of Enlightenment, religious leaders still ruled the roosts and the Malleus Maleficarum, a Catholic treatise on witchcraft, (written by German clergyman Heinrich Kramer, 1486), was used across Europe and New England from the 15th - 17th Centuries in rooting out witches. Nearly two-hundred years after publication, the Malleus (trans. Hammer of Witches) would be cited, to call out potential offenders in Salem Village: "red hair and green eyes" were notably marks of witches, werewolves or vampires. Freckles and moles were, clearly "marks of the devil". Adding to the fearsome Zeitgeist, in 1613, playwright George Chapman wrote, in his play Bussy D’Ambois, the perfect poison must include the fat of a red-haired man.

Of note, because we're always learning new things about that monster, during WWII, it was reported Hitler forbade ginger marriages, to ensure no ginger bairns would be born under Nazi rule.

Of history's more ridiculous castigations, are that gingers are born of "unclean sex" (i.e. conceived during Aunt Flo's visit), have no souls, and were all pitched at birth into the woods.left to claw their way back into civilzation, which expains their wily and suspicious nature. Modern, 21stC. myths are mild and varied, and, obviously, not the belief system of entire regions or countries, only the superstitious.

In Poland, passing three gingers in a row means enough good luck to win the lottery. Less beneficent, and sanitary, in Corsica, France, if one passes a ginger on the road, spit once and turn around to ward off bad luck. (So, are black cats considered bad luck in Corsica, or are tabbies, I wonder?)British tradition says, on New Year’s Day, your first call, or text, of the day portends your luck for the year: brunettes bring the best luck (of course!), blondes bring you nothing (no harm, no foul), widows and widowers bring very bad luck ... and if a ginger is your first of the year ... cross yourself and keep eye for falling pianos. Denmark, conversely, finds great honour and luck in the birth of a ginger baby. That's a lovely myth! Awwwww :) Take that, Hitler!

Being ginger is contagious, btw ... according to Eric Cartman, anyhoo. The disease is known as "Gingerviitus" and, as is evidenced by South Park episode "Ginger Kids" (S9e11). (Remember, kids, the "Ginger Separatist Movement" is fictional, not real, it's comedic satire. K? Got it? Don't be so literal, some of you. Trey Parker and Matt Stone caught a lot of guff in 2005 because of some mo-rons whom took this episode waaaay too seriously. Calm down, some of you.)

We've all seen them, on the playground, at the store, walking on the streets. They creep us out and make us feel sick to our stomachs. I'm talking of course about ... ginger kids.

- Eric Cartman, South Park ("Ginger Kids" S9e11)

Facts are nice. Here are some facts.

According to a Clairol Color Attitude survey, 49% of those polled found blondes to be naïve, while only 15% found the same of gingers. When asked, if the word “bold” describes them, 71% of gingers said it did, only 47% of blondes thought themselves bold. Brunettes were off the charts.

Whilst it seems a low countenance, the global ginger-population stands at only 1% - 2%; that's natural redheads, btw. You'd think the ginger hubs to be Scotland and Ireland, and you'd be spot-on. Scotland calls approximately 13% of its population ginger; Ireland counts about 10% and, surprisingly, the U.S. claims only 2% - 6%. Of course, we have a much larger population in America, so that's still a big chunk, like still some 6million - 18million gingers roaming the streets of Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Egad!

Why are gingers ginger? Hello, Melanocortin 1 receptor, a.k.a. MC1R: a recessive gene which must be passed on from both mother and father to create that lucky, ginger babe. The ginger gene is actually a mutation of MC1R on chromosome 16; so, clearly, gingers are not only rare and beautiful, but kind of like cool, mutant superheroes, like Spider-Man. He wears red. Cheers to University of Edinburgh's Prof. Jonathan Rees, who, in 1995, discovered that special superhero gene, known as the "ginger gene". Geneticists estimate the MC1R mutation likely occurred 20,000-40,000 years ago.

Apropos, British and Irish surnames are reflective of their historically-high, ginger populations: Flanary, meaning “red eyebrow”; Reid, meaning “red-haired, ruddy-complexioned”; and Flynn, meaning “bright red”.

Of further interest, BritainsDNA, a genetics-testing lab specializing in British, Welsh, Irish and Scottish deep-ancestry, discovered 40+% of the world population carries the recessive ginger gene. If both parents carry the gene, there's a 25% chance of bearing that lucky ginger bairn; if two gingers get busy, ta-dahhhhh! 100% chance of a twee Flynn. Maybe a move to Denmark is in your cards, ginger couples.

Just for extra fun, famous gingers:

Roman emperor Nero, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, and Aphrodite (as prev referenced), Seth Green, Queen Elizabeth I, Conan O'Brien, Julianne Moore, Napoleon Bonaparte, Benedict Cumberbatch, Oliver Cromwell, Emily Dickinson, Antonio Vivaldi, Thomas Jefferson, Vincent Van Gogh, Ron Howard, Mark Twain, James Joyce, Winston Churchill, Malcolm X (yep), Galileo, King David, Galileo Galilei, Kate Winslet, Marilyn Monroe, Gillian Anderson, Prince Harry, Melissa Gilbert and Shaun White.

Even more fun, fictional gingers we love!

Lois Griffin, Jessica Rabbit, Anne Shirley, Madeline, Ariel, Red Sonja, Ron Weasley, Beaker, Alf, Daphne Blake, Black Widow, Kyle Broflovski, Winifred Sanderson, Garfield, Elmo, Pippi Longstocking, Strawberry Shortcake, Kieran Kelly Mulholland (from The Darlings of Orange County) and Erin Tara O'Connor (from Savannah of Williamsburg: The Trials of Blackbeard and His Pirates).

Ruadh gu brath! “Red heads forever!”

Did I mention my envy, my Kelly green, kind envy, in the nicest way possible, of course. Who is more beauteous than a ginger in Kelly, Emerald or Hunter green? Add those green or blue eyes and, zowie! Would that I could. Mine is to be an Anne Hathaway - pale, Snow Whitey and dark of mane - and I'm quite happy with that: great for cosplaying choices! Still, would that I could've engineered myself ... curly carrot-locks, blue eyes and freckles, lots of freckles.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, pog ma thoin and Sláinte to all, especially all you beauteous gingers!

@JennyPop

Make Your Dog Happy: Stay Home and Watch TV This St. Patrick's Day

2020-04-01T09:39:00.001-07:00

Look at him, or her. I'll wait ... See? Your dog wants you to stay home and watch TV for St. Patrick's Day. Be honest, you've done it all and it's soooo passé. You've had your share of wicked-bonkers St. Patrick's celebrations: the local, grotty, "real" Irish pub; the pub crawls hitting every bar in town, Irish or not; and the big, private parties with way too many Sportos. You've even flown to Dublin, to celebrate the Patron Saint on his home turf, which, funny enough, in Ireland, is relatively chill ... but still amazing! So, isn't it time for a chill year at home? You can still have a couple drinkies witth your S.O. and wear summat cute and green, or William-orange, or The Order of St. Patrick-blue. So, maybe this year, the year of COVID-19, give your immune system a break, your liver a break (I love you, Liver.) and make your dog happy.

Besides the fact that St. Patrick's Day is on a Tuesday, which always harshes a holiday buzz, Coronoavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19) is giving a lot of folks "paws" (See what I did there?), about their usual, March 17th shenanigans. Not to mention, the Friday before St. Patrick's Day ... is Friday the 13th. All signs point to ... cloistering at home.

We're staying here, right, Mom?! We're just going to watch TV all night? Jublii!!!!!

Now, you know JennyPop knows TV. In the fashion of her Xmas and Thanksgiving TV recs (See JennyPop Blog > Archived Posts), JennyPop has curated a twee list of St. Patrick's Day viewing fun. First though, peruse Gin-nyPop's Irish cocktail recs, select and craft your fave, turn on Hulu, Netflix or whatever platform you cherish and enjoy a safe and cozy, virus-free St. Patrick's day 2020.

"Passing out and cursing, on St. Patrick's Day? Is nothing sacred anymore?"

- Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock ("The Funcooker" S3e14)

TV

The Office
"St. Patrick's Day" (S6e19)

Family Guy
"Peter's Two Dads" (S5e10)

The Big Bang Theory
"The Irish Pub Formulation" (S4e6)

The Simpsons
"Homer vs. the 18th Amendment" (S8e18)
"Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes" (S20e1)
"In the Name of the Grandfather" (S20e14)

30 Rock
"The Funcooker" (S3e14)
"St. Patrick's Day" (S6e12)

South Park
"Ginger Kids" (S9e11)

Charmed
"Lucky Charme"d (S5e17)

Bewitched
"The Leprechaun" (S2e27)

Josh Gates' Destination Truth
"Live from Ireland: The Search for the Banshee Ghost" (S4e9)

Ghost Adventures
"Leap Castle & Hell-Fire Club" (S10e9)
"Loftus Hall" (S10e10)
"Ireland: Celtic Demons" (S10 Live Hallowe'en Special)

Letterkenny
"St. Patrick's Day Special: St. Perfect's Day"

Rick Steves' Europe
"Dublin and Mystical Side Trips" (S2e8)
"South Ireland: Waterford to the Ring of Kerry" (S2e9)
"The Best of West Ireland: Dingle, Galway, and the Aran Islands" (S2e10)
"Belfast and the Best of Northern Ireland" (S3e4)

Derry Girls
Moone Boy
Ballykissangel

Films

Leap Year
Snatch
It's St. Patrick's Day, Charlie Brown!
Michael Collins
In the Name of the Father
Once
The Quiet Man
In Bruges

*You could also use this St. Patrick's downtime time wisely, to learn about Ginger myths and facts, The Brazen Head pub in Dublin and Jenny's writing lament.
Sláinte agatsa, kittens! (Seriously)

@JennyPop (IG) (Twitter)

Stay A While, Weary Traveller: Dublin's Brazen Head

2020-04-01T09:29:00.001-07:00

After a grueling travel-day, rather traversing open highways, riding miles of luxury rails or flying the crowded skies, what is the first thing most of us want to do upon our destination-arrival? Nap, right? No? Not nap. Okay. Next best thing? Drink, right? Yes! Drink and stroll, or as the Germans say, Wanderwegen. Explore your new digs, meander, ramble at a leisurely pace; you're not dashing to your terminal now, or sprinting down a train platform. Chill, weary traveller, you've got loads of time. Get your geographic bearings and, a.s.a.p., find a cheery, lively place to rest and sample local libations and noshes. Better yet, find a place chockablock with local colour, just bleeding history from its walls.

Notably, if you've traveled a long distance, say, overseas, jet lag is your enemy and from the moment you touch down, he's just waiting down a cobblestone alley, to whack you in the brain with a bag of Euros and leave you there to wallow in a daze for a good ten to twelve hours. Fret not, dear pilgrim, for bright lights, fresh air and hearty convo are lethal to jet lag. Bring on the nom nom noms, adult beverages and local colour. Take that, Jet Lag!

The Brazen Head Pub: Where the Fr. Matthew Bridge crosss the River Liffey at Bridge Street.
Photo: JSDevore, Dublin, Ireland, 2019

As early as 1198, land records cite "a hostlery" was established on the River Liffey, in what was then known as Ball-ya-Awha-Clia: "The Town of the Ford of the Reed Hurdles". Before civil engineering made medieval Irish life less of a soul-crushing, seemingly pointless slog, the best way to cross the Liffey was at low tide, on foot. Ancient logicians knew the value of an efficient, river crossing and set up a safe, if not soggy, striding path. When the tide allowed, reed mats were lain across the river bed and for a few hours, travellers and their loads made their way to whatever business - for there was likely little pleasure-travel in the Ireland of the Dark Ages - called across the Liffey. What little pleasures did exist, happily, could be found right off the mats, at an establishment on the banks of the LIffey and flush with hooch, snackies and good cheer, awaiting weary travellers.

Within a decade of the original hostlery construction, fresh for a new century, the Normans saw a smarter way to cross the Liffey and replaced the reed mats with a bridge, in 1210. By 1214, the relatively new bridge, clearly in a poor state all too quickly, needed replacing and England's King John allowed for Dublin to engineer a new bridge "should they so wish". That wooden bridge held up a bit better, until 1385, when it finally collapsed. In that year, the third bridge on that spot was built, this time by the Irish-Catholic Dominican Order and, adhering to progressively greater engineering standards, lasted well into the 18thC. Today's Liffey crossing is the Father Matthew Bridge - originally named for Lord Lieutenant, Charles, Earl of Whitworth - and was built in 1818. Until 1674, on this spot over the Liffey, at the Bridge Street quay, where The Brazen Head sits today, was the river's only bridge-crossing.

As early as 1693, The Brazen Head is first documented, and again in 1700, appearing in a legal writ, owing to an debt dating back to 1613 and the original landowners, Richard and Elinor Fagan. Yet, it is not until 1754 that The BH is distinctly erected as an inn, a coaching inn, specifically. Two years later, in 1756, after renovations, the first advert appears:

Christopher Quinn of The Brazen Head in Bridge Street has fitted said house with neat accommodations and commodious cellars for said business.

Brazen Head interior diversions, road signs. Photo: JSDevore, Dublin, Ireland, 2019

Most great metropoli are water-situated. Go ahead, ask History ... I'll wait. Paris, New York, Hong Kong, Cairo, Boston, Philadelphia, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Vienna, San Francisco, Bakersfield ... oh, wait ... all world-class societies were erected on major waterways. We are made of mostly water; we, as humanoids, come from the water, evolution-wise. Water is vital for life. It also ain't bad for commerce and tourism, remarkably ancient commerce and religious-tourism, as it serves our story. Well before Norwegian Air, Easy Jet and Aer Lingus could get you anywhere on the planet in a snap, for relatively little coinage, waterways were the easy-peasiest way to travel. When a young city draws travellers, it cultivates citizens; when a growing town cultivates citizens, it breeds politics. When a viable town breeds politics, it manifests passion and passion, oft times, sparks revolution.

Similar to Boston, Philadelphia, Paris and Williamsburg - towns where revolution quietly began in local pubs, taverns and coffeehouses - so did Dublin draw its share of passionate pols and, therein, revolutionaries. According to The Brazen Head's historian, "Its proximity to the quay, the churches and the law courts also made it a hub for gossip and an ideal place for strangers to pass on their intelligence in secret."

At the end of the 18thC., meeting discreetly at The Brazen Head, United Irishmen and Robert Emmet concocted the Rising of 1798, a proposed overthrow of British-ruled Dublin Castle, just around the corner from The BH: quick right, quick left. Emmet rented a room therein and, like any sage yet, rightly, paranoid revolutionary, secured a room with a window overlooking the front door, assuring he could see assassins before they could see him. In the end, it all went very badly for Emmet and room-choice mattered not a whit. (If your inner Velma Dinkley is looking a twee ghost adventure, Emmet is said to haunt the upper floors of The Brazen Head,, still keeping eye for the law.)

In 1916, the United Irishmen returned, this time with Michael Collins and a host of other leaders during the War of Independence. It is miraculous The Brazen Head escaped total destruction, as both Anti-Treaty/British troops and Free State/Irish troops were stationed, at various times, on both the corner just outside The Brazen Head and in front of The Four Courts, just across the Liffey. During the Easter Rising of 1916, the rebel (Free State/Irish) garrison, stationed outside The Four Courts and led by Cmdt. Ned Daly, fired across the Lffey at British troops stationed outside The Brazen Head. Conversely, during the Civil War of 1922, British troops, then stationed at The Four Courts fired across the Liffey at Free State Troops, then stationed outside The Brazen Head. Bonkers! Tell me all those chaps didn't need a pint. During these years of strife, fire was a constant threat, as flames engulfed The Four Courts during the Civil War, and The BH was regularly an easy mark for any accidental or intentional fires, bomb detonations and any manner of militaristic crossfire.

Amidst calmer tides, The Brazen Head's history has been replete with writers, because, if you're not writing in front of other people, it doesn't count, right? From Trinity-grad Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels, Battle of the Books) and James Joyce (Ulysses, Finnegans Wake) to playwright Bredan Behan (The Quare Fellow, An Giall) and even Yours Truly (Savannah of Williamsburg, The Darlings of Orange County), writers of all stripes and stages of success have called TBH a warm and friendly, temporary office.

Even Tiny Mulder needed a rest, and a G&T, after a flight from L.A. Photo: JSDevore, Brazen Head, Dublin, Ireland, 2019

Be it a brief stop for a weary traveller, a long night of great craic amongst strangers and besties, or a noisy afternoon where a writer can observe, fold-in and note the world, The Brazen Head proffers warm and welcoming arms, a smile down every hallway and a hearty back-slap on every stool. Come on in and stay a while, weary travellers, friends and strangers, one and all.

Sláinte!

*Aside, there are two musings on two bits of BH history:

1) Is The Brazen Head Ireland's oldest pub?

2) Why is The Brazen Head named as such?

Allow JennyPop to elucidate, fair reader ...

Is it the oldest? (Now, presented for you are clear facts. Let it be known JennyPop loves The Brazen Head and, in all transparency, has yet to visit Seáns Bar, Ireland's other Oldest Bar.) So, official documentation, for the land and buildings as a unit, dates to 1613: ownership by an Irish family of high-standing, on the wife's side, Richard and Elinor Fagan. It should also be noted, there is, in court records, documentation for a "substantial building" on this spot circa 1500.

However ... Seán's Bar, in Athlone, Ireland, halfway between Dublin and Galway, on the River Shannon, "south of Lough Ree and north of the ancient monastic monastery at Clonmacnoise", where the Shannon intersects with the Esker Riada, not only dates as Ireland's Oldest Pub, having been established and continuously running since 900CE, but was authenticated in 2004, by Guinness World Records, as Europe's Oldest Pub. Located at 13 Main Street in Athlone, make the trek and stay a bit for a couple o' fingers of Seán's Bar Specially Blended Irish Whiskey - Luain Edition: named Luain after the very first innkeeper of this bar.

Of cultural-anthropological interest, similar to The Brazen Head and the River Liffey, Luain escorted travellers across the River Shannon, on reed mats at low tide. Eventually, a settlement erected around these river banks, when King Turlough O’Connor commissioned Ireland's first wooden castle, in 1129. Today, Athlone (in Irish, Atha Luain) is named after Luain, that first innkeeper and river guide. As of 2020, Seáns Bar has stood for 1,120 years. Sláinte agatsa, Seán and Luain!!

Seán's Bar, est. 900CE, is Europe's Oldest Pub, at 1,120 years old! Photo: William Murphy/Flickr, Athlone, Ireland

Now, back to The Brazen Head and its namesake. Most agree it was named for the mystical brass, or brazen, head of Norse, Celtic and Arabian folklore. Like a Magic 8-Ball, a brazen head was purported to proffer cryptic advice, when asked. There is some chatter though, that TBH was named for brazier, or brazen, barrels: fire baskets which used to stand outside the building, keeping travellers and troops alike warm during the earliest days of The BH.

What thinkst thou? LMK @JennyPop! Happy St. Patrick's Day, all!!

Irish I Were A Better Writer: Jenny's Lament

2020-04-01T09:07:00.001-07:00

Irish I were a little Will Wall-er

Irish I were Domhnall-er

Irish I had a cravat that looked good

I would Wilde-r

"Hey, jerk! Puns are lazy writing!" - Krusty the Klown

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde
Photo: JSDevore, Merrion Square Park, Dublin, Ireland, 2019

I know. My apologies to Skee-Lo ... and Krusty. See? Were I Oscar Wilde, or Skee-Lo for that matter, the above would have more rhythm, more soul, more bounce. Alas, as a snarky, pompous, old fiddler once asked me, at a grand craic in a twee, blue bungalow on the cliffs of Dana Point, "Can you write like James Joyce? If not, then give it up, girl."

Go feck yourself, is what today's JennyPop would reply. She would do so with her trademark, Snow White smile and a polite offer to refresh his Tullamore Dew. Well, I try, was the regrettable, whiny reply of a fretful, eager-to-please Jenny lacking the confidence of five novels (four published) and hundreds of published essays, posts, articles, reviews, interviews and poems: not including the above-laziness.

March, a.k.a. Irish-American Heritage Month, and indeed St. Patrick's Day (March 17th), is the cheery, green time of year when so many Americans proudly proclaim their Irish heritage: 35million-plus Americans, second only to German heritage in European-Americans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. With that deserved, Irish pride comes all the banner and flash heralded by the fire of Éire. Part of that fire is the long-burning flame of the written word.

A long time ago, yet somehow still in the future, atop a cold and craggy Ahch-To Island, an aging, weirdy-beardy Luke Skywalker stood in the ocean spray, surrounded by puffins and ravens as his tattered robes fluttered in the Irish win ... oh, wait ... wrong tale.

A long time ago, circa 450CE, Irish monks, largely the only Greek and Latin literates on the Emerald Isle, commenced penning Christian manuscripts, as Britons and Gauls brought the new religion to the Western Island. This medieval, monastic life would become one of servitude to a new, Christian God: their fanciful manuscripts meant to captivate those Irish folk once dedicated to their long-standing, oral, pagan tales of Celtic and Irish mythology. A pre-Christian civilisation of gods and goddesses would be replaced with the permanence of a new, singular god and His written word. These monks would not only serve to preserve this new deity, but also the intellectual, philiosophical, and artistic culture of the Irish people, by way of their dedicated, lifelong tasks of meticulous penmanship in isolated, inhospitable locales like Skelling Michael.

Leap-frog some 1,600 years, and whether one bleeds green or no, March is the happy time of year to cheer, Kiss me I'm Irish! If you have even a modicum of untapped, writer urges, a few hours gabbing over a perfect pint of Guinness or a herbaceous Massey Cocktail might burble up your confidence and bring about thoughts like, Hey, I could write the great Irish novel, or at least, Hey, I could write TV reviews.

Imagine the centuries of storytelling. The Brazen Head (Ireland's Oldest Pub, 1198). Dublin, Ireland. Photo: JSDevore, 2019

I do wish I were a better writer though; I do try, always. Doesn't one always strive to better oneself? If not, what's the point each day? Writing requires confidence, the confidence to choose a selection of words, string them together and hope what occurs isn't a mess of gobbeldy-gook. Writing requires the confidence to show a finished (or, very rarely, mistakenly, nearly-finished) piece to others and fight the overwhelming desire to run to a lavvy and hide as they read and then venture to proffer feedback. Yet, writing also takes a gift and that is from whence the truest confidence is begat. That gift can be honed, massaged and workshopped until the Derry cows come home. Yet, sans the innate ability to weave words into a relatable, engaging vision in a reader's mind, all the writing challenges and word exercises will remain just that.

My point, fair reader? My point being, if you feel, deep in your soul, you are meant to write, write. Start today. Write in a journal, write an impromptu poem on a cocktail napkin, start a simple blog or build a dynamic site and let the wordsmithing fly! Post some film reviews on Amazon. (Keep those reviews insightful, helpful and intelligent. Snark and personal chiding tell prospective viewers more about the reviewer than the film.) Classes and degrees can certainly polish and promote your personal style; more education never hurt anybody. Apropos, You can never be overdressed or overeducated, quoth Oscar Wilde. (Admittedly, my overeducation has served me well, if not socially awkwardly.)

Likely, one doesn't even venture further afield in the language arts if the initial talent isn't already germinating. Yet, if you haven't approached writing or storytelling via academic or professional paths, fret not, timid one. If a pen is pressing on your heart, all you truly need is confidence, and an imagination ... and a good grasp on proper spelling and form. Of course, if you love language, you probably already have a better grasp on all that rot than the average bear.

Self-publish all the words you can bear to spew. The beauty of the Internet is no more gatekeepers. Conversely, there is an intimidating amount of competition for eyeballs. Still, you must have the tenacity to actually write something, and finish it. Sure, when the printing press, fountain pens, typewriters and word processors came about in the course of mankind, the tools were certainly available; but it didn't mean everybody could tell a tale.

If gold coins are what you seek, the gatekeepers of old are certainly helpful; if releasing your soul via the glory of language is what you seek, go to it presently. Whatever your language, or languages if ye be a polyglot, there are countless, beauteous gems within every language. Excavate those gems and fashion fabulous visions, Like a striking, velvet frock or a fanciful, cocktail skirt of feathers, strut it on the world's runway, or keep it all for your lonesome, to bring private cheer and smiles, or tears and heartbreak, whatever your soul needs.

As an aside, reading as much as you can, from comic books and political sites to screenplays and the Classics, is of great benefit to the art of writing. Style, tone and vocabulary are merely a few gifts your fave writers, bloggers and playwrights will bestow upon your brain and heart.

Content isn't king. Confidence is. Find your confidence. Be confident, loudly or quietly; but be so. Take a cue from your favourite writers, whomever they may be, from whichever era they may reign. Be they quiet, bombastic, ladylike, flamboyant, meek, gentlemanly, unbearably obnoxious or deathly shy in their daily lives, one imagines, when questioned duly on their gift for the written word, their answer may very well be, in any given age, a variation on, Go feck yourself.

Confidence in repose. Oscar Wilde statue, Merrion Square Park, Dublin, Ireland. Photo: JSDevore, 2019

Note: This is one writer's, unsolicited advice. Moi does not have the confidence in many a thing, save fashion, travel, decorating, art and writing. In the spirit of the great writers, Irish and otherwise, my words are meant as cheerful support and little else. However, should this post inadvertently offend, on any level .... may I refresh your Tullamore Dew? ;)

@JennyPopCom

Death Becomes Them? SyFy's The Magicians: Season the Fifth

2020-04-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

... and then there were fewer.

Like a Star Trek Red Shirt, SyFy shows are being lost one by one, never making it back to the Mothership. Unlike variables as wide-ranging as inhospitable atmospheres, aggressive aliens or malfunctioning transporters, SyFy losses can be blamed largely on season-over-season, double-digit, low and consistently-declining ratings. Deadly Class (0.14 share / 0.396mil viewers), Krypton (0.11 /0 .408), Happy! (0.09 / 0.286mil) and Van Helsing (0.08 / 0.296mil) rank amongst the most recent cancellations. Although, Van Helsing was renewed, but slated to end, so not technically cancelled. Ditto for Killjoys (0.06 / 0.316mil): ended, not cancelled. The good news? The Magicians has been renewed for a fifth season. The bad news? There could be a half-dozen red shirts hanging somewhere on a wardrobe rack with a sign reading, The Magicians.

Oh, Alice. The Magicians S5e1: "Do Something Crazy", Olivia Taylor Dudley as Alice Quinn --Photo by: Eric Milner/SYFY. Photo provided by NBCUniversal Media

With current, cringe-worthy ratings of 0.15 / 0.09 / 0.11 for the first three episodes of 2020, respectively, S5 really needs to ... please, forgive me ... pull a rabbit of its hat. S5 ratings may be directly related to ... S4 SPOILER ALERT ... the death of Quentin Coldwater in the S4 finale. Like the death of many a beloved character, throughout TV history, the first reaction is, Why?. The writers' answers in the following season had better be damn good to calm the masses. (Just ask Downton Abbey creator, Julian Fellowes, about Matthew and that horrid S3 finale. Some of us are still unforgiving.) Thus far, The Magicians S5 is leaving a lot of Q-devotees scratching their heads and waiting to learn if that death plant was worth the payoff.

Untenable as it can be, life does trudge forward, under great duress and melancholia, after the death of a loved one; yet, that's not really a plot. The real quest for The Magicians' Quentin-free season, just as in real life, is to find a purpose. Julia (played spellbindingly by Stella Maeve) appears to be doing just that: pulling a Why? out of Q's death, seeking her true purpose - as long as the pig-men of New Fillory waddle out of her way. Alice (portrayed with painful empathy by Olivia Taylor Dudley) is doing exactly what psychologists say not to do after a great loss: making huge, irreversible decisions. She's making some very bad magic choices, but at least she's doing something, crazy. Margo (depicted forcefully by Summer Bishil) is bent on regaining total reign; whilst Eliot (played boozily by Hale Appleman) betrays the greatest shift of all in character: palpable, wooden apathy. As Polonius advised Laertes in Hamet, to thine own self be true. Save Eliot, clearly hiding his grief behind his new apathy, everyone has remained themselves, just devastated.

Mind you, as in real life, there's always other crap going on you can't avoid, no matter how sad you are. For our Magicians, it's the continued threat of a complete apocalypse due to magic surges quickly growing out of control. Yet, in between the tales of personal grief and the end of the world lies ... well, there's the rub. Tell us, fair writers, what be?

"It's all classic Magicians stuff, but by now the threat of an apocalypse stemming from issues with the flow of magic is old hat. Q dying should have completely changed the status quo. Season 5 treats it instead as something that happened before the world resumed its regularly scheduled chaos," observes Mashable's Alexis Nedd.

We like the foul-mouthed, Seinfeldian-quick quips, some of the uglier nods to ealry-1990s fashion, and Fen (played by Brittany Curran), perhaps unwittingly, channels a very likable Leah Remini, King of Queens Carrie Heffernan kind of likable. In the end though, someone might need to take the tree dwarf a snack, persuade him to turn back the clock, bake an immortality cake and force feed it to Quentin, like corn meal to a French goose. If not, The Magicians. S5 finale could take a weird wardrobe turn, to the Star Trek Red Shirt kiss of death.

The Magicians A SyFy Original

Production Companies: Groundswell Productions, NBC Universal Television, Universal Cable Productions

Exec Producers: Sera Gamble, Laura Lieser

Directed by: Chris Fisher, James L. Conway

Written by: Sera Gamble, Lev Grossman, John McNamara

Special Effects Coordinator: Darren Marcoux

Visual Effects Supervisor: Robert Greenwood

@JennyPopCom

Muppet Meet-and-Geek: JennyPop's Official SDCC2019 Souvenir Book Article

2019-07-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Limbic Overload: Daphne's Muppet Meet-and-Geek

Jennifer Susannah Devore

Author Jennifer Susannah Devore, meets Fozzie and Red, SDCC 2013 Photo: Twisted Pair Photography

"Are they really Muppets? Like, actually Muppets?" her purple-sparkle lids lowered to half-mast and her berry-frost lips twisted up-left as she tilted her head and twirled a long, Orange Crush-coloured curl, hesitating, requiring verbal authentication before further engagement.

"As real as they get," a bemused puppeteer nodded with a genial, albeit tired smile.

The puppeteer remains unremarkable; for, he was merely man, not Muppet. What memory does remain is a set of thin rods, manipulating Fozzie Bear's furry, Cheetos-hued arm. Happily, Red Fraggle was also present. What Fozzie, Red and their handlers did not realize - or perchance, they did - was the Muppet siren call.

As it had been day's end, Scooby-Doo's Daphne Blake and her BFF (neither Freddy nor Velma, this day) had been blissfully wending their way out of the Exhibit Hall, toward Lou & Mickey's in The Gaslamp for their traditional, après-Day1 martini. Suddenly, sans explanation, Daphne had mystically diverted course and drifted to the Hasbro booth: the lure of the felt being greater than the lure of the olive.

"Yeah?! Really real Muppets?!" Daphne's lids lifted, her lips now exposed too many teeth.

"Yep," Fozzie Bear's handler uttered simply. Red Fraggle nodded affirmatively, her butterscotch-and-tangerine pom-poms quaking like aspen leaves atop her head as her honey-coloured, four-fingered hands opened wide in welcome.

Jeepers! Daphne's brain went amok amok amok! Her limbic lobe flooded and braced itself, ready to determine the strength and duration of the inevitable, oncoming embrace. It was hug overload. Squeeeeee! Real Muppets! Daphne's mind squealed.

For a former Muppet Fan Club member, few random meet-and-geeks, even at a pop-culture hot-spot like Comic-Con, could have buttoned up the day with a greater deluge of emotion and pure, childlike belief.

For a girl with a mild Peter Pan Complex, a well-worn hashtag of #notadulting, and a literary repertoire smithied on a foundation of Disney, Peanuts, Beatrix Potter and, clearly, The Muppets, Day1 of SDCC 2013 sparks brilliantly as a Favorite Comic-Con Memory.

Cheers to Fozzie, Red and their handlers, CCI and, most warmly, Jim Henson, whom we miss terribly.

San Diego Comic-Con 2019 Official Souvenir Book Photo: JSDevore

Read all of JennyPop's SDCC Souvenir Book articles: from The Simpsons to The X-Files, from Hellboy to Catwoman and so much more!

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JennyPop's Amazon Author Page, to boot!

Tiny Mulder Sweeps Scandinavia

2019-03-14T17:42:00.002-07:00

As of late, Tiny Mulder has been meget travlt, very busy exploring the globe: most recently, Denmark and Sweden. Hop on over to JennyPop.com for the most recent Wanderlust, EuroPop slideshow from our Miss Jenny (aka Savannah of Williamsburg and Darlings of Orange County authoress, Jennifer Susannah Devore). Gode eventyr, killinger!

Tiny Mulder looking for love on the lock bridge in Nyhavn. Photo: JSDevore, Copenhagen, 2018

Tiny Mulder enjoys his Starbucks and waves to fellow travellers as he departs Copenhagen for Malmö, Sweden. Photo: JSDevore, Copenhagen, 2018

Tiny Mulder towers aboard a replica Viking longboat. Photo: JSDevore, Roskilde, Denmark, Viking Museum, 2018.

Tiny Mulder making friends on the train from Malmö, Sweden. (Cheery but sleepy chaps, headed home to Copenhagen after a wknd-rager party in Stockholm.) Photo: JSDevore Øresund Bridge train, Øresund Strait, Denmark/Sweden border, 2018)

Tiny Indy Mulder explores the 12thC ruins of Absalon's Castle underneath Christiansborg Palace. Photo: JSDevore, Copenhagen, 2018

Holding a seat for love. Tiny Mulder waiting on the harbour at Nyhavn, for love to take a seat. Keep looking, TM. We love you! Photo: JSDevore Copenhagen, 2018

Enjoy JennyPop's full, totally silly, Tiny Mulder slideshow here! Indtil senere, killinger!

Follow @JennyPopCom on Twitter and (mostly) Insta for regular sightings of Tiny Mulder: sometimes face-down in a martini, sometimes contemplating a VanGogh or a Rembrandt, sometimes watching a beach bonfire and sometimes just hanging out in a world metropolis, watching the folks pass by him.

JennyPop's Amazon Author Page, to boot!

Fear and 25 Years of The X-Files: JennyPop's SDCC2018 Souvenir Book Article

2018-07-25T12:39:00.001-07:00

A Grim Walk in the Woods:

25 Years of The X-Files Monster

Jennifer Susannah Devore

Author Jennifer Susannah Devore's Official SDCC Souvenir Book article #8. Photo: JSDevore, SDCC 2018

"I was out Squatchin' … Bigfoot hunting."

- Fox Mulder

The Greeks first tamed it in written form. Later, the Polynesians, Norsemen and Celts appropriated it orally. Centuries following, Europeans and Americans re-appropriated it in grander, literary and visual form.

Fear.

Seafarers like the Hawaiians, Vikings and Boston whalers spun wild tales to rationalize everything from squalls to squids. Fear of the unknown is a powerful pinch on the neck. Reducing it to mere myth not only explains it, but tames it, kind of. With rationalization comes control. If the giant squid tapping on your poopdeck has a name, you might take the upper hand. Call him Kraken, see what happens.

Even with Medieval Europe's myriad population centers, the Continent was largely blanketed in forests. Bustling Bruges might be home, yet outside the gates the forest awaits.

"Queequeg, we're not going into the woods."

- Scully

Woods are eerie. Historically, woods are where failures flee with heads hung low and cloaks pulled tight. The woods mean exile for the repugnant, stripped of their communities, left to fend in fright, alone.

"Living in the city you forget a lot of things. It's not until you get back to nature you realize everything is out to get you."

- Scully

In 1812, brothers Wilhelm und Jacob recognized this fright and began collecting oral folklore across Germany. Published originally as Kinder und Hausmärchen (Children and Household Tales), the first editions of Grimm's Fairy Tales, including Hansel and Gretel, Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin, served as folklore preservation and cautionary tales in a weary world, as much of Europe was in the early-1800s.

Today, forests are still unnerving. Regardless, depending where Wanderlust summons, there's a friendly ranger or an app to guide you. Ancestral fear has been demoted to mere amusement. Still, mankind needs to maintain the primal fright, to keep us on our evolutionary toes. (What happens when the Google dogs rise?)

Sprouted from the cagey mind of a SoCal surfer and former writer for Surfer magazine, The X-Files (1993 - 2018) speaks to the masses, and their collective subconscious. Creator Chris Carter (Millenium, The Lone Gunmen, Harsh Realm) is a self-described believer in "true evil" with "an acute sense of what makes us afraid". Similar to Voltaire and Shakespeare, Carter traffics not in media, but in psychology. Madison Avenue asserts the most effective marketing ploys are hope and fear. Carter gets that. His impetus for The X-Files was "simply to scare the heck out of people", he confirmed in The X-Files: Conspiracy Theory. (Titan Comics, 2016)

On a late-Summer night in 1993, The X-Files landed in some 12m homes. Since "Pilot" aired, X-Philes have bathed in the blue light of nighttime television, fighting the night with two FBI agents far too sensual for relegation to a D.C. basement.

"Are you familiar with the so-called X-Files?"

- Mulder, "Pilot", S1e1

The X-Files are "unsolvable" cases, originally manned solely by paranormal-believer and FBI black sheep, Agent Fox Mulder: portrayed magnetically by David Duchovny (Californication, Aquarius, Goats). Mulder proves specious en seul and is eventually paired with paranormal-skeptic and scientist, Agent Dana Scully: portrayed regally by Gillian Anderson (Hannibal, Bleak House, Crooked House).

For basement-dwellers, they are not only smoking hot, but well-educated. Both are Quantico-standouts, the FBI training facility where Mulder earned his moniker, "Spooky", due to his unorthodox theories. Mulder also earned an Oxford Ph.D. in Psychology; Scully earned an M.D. at Stanford.

Scully may have been assigned to the basement to veer Mulder from the scent of alien-whitewash and Bureau-conspiracy, yet it was Mulder who veered Scully, somewhat, via the meat of the X-Files: the plausible supernatural.

An insidious government is always a party-pleaser; but it's the Monster-of-the-Week (MOW) awarding The X-Files icon status. Monsters lurk everywhere; the fear they instill gives them teeth. The X-Files sharpens those teeth to scare the Underoos right off us in ways Die Brüder Grimm never fathomed, had 19thC. Germans sported Underoos.

Name a childhood fear. Something's under the bed. Plenty of adults still do a nightly assessment, especially checking into a hotel: more so if it's a creepy, farmhouse B&B.

"Home" (S4, e2) exposes what's under the bed. Now, burn the bed, raze the house, pour cement over the lot and build a Piggly-Wiggly. The screaming torso of Aunt-Momma on a mechanic's dolly under the bed, an infanticidal show-open from the baby's POV, and multiple, grisly, cop-murders deem "Home" so disturbing, it was the first X-Files to air a viewer-warning and the first network-episode in America to receive a TV-MA. FOX aired "Home" once, banning reruns. It only clawed its way back up via a 1997 FX marathon.

The under-bed may be clear now, but there lurks more horror. Chris Carter and his fellow writer-directors know what lurks there and have covered it thoroughly, including the Hollywood monsters.

"When convention and science offer us no answer, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?"

- Mulder

Sport a scarf and rosary to bed? "Bad Blood" (S5, e12) and "3" (S2, e7) will leave their marks, despite the scarf. Do witches spell toil and trouble? "Theef" (S7, e14), "Die Hand Die Verletzt" (S2, e14), "Familiar" (S11, e8) and "Chimera" (S7, e16) moil their magick and validate voodoo doll discomfort. Silver bullets in your Glock19, in case of neighbourhood werewolves? "Shapes" (S1, e19) suggests, no whisky nightcaps on the front porch.

Are there black masses forming over your bed and inhuman scratching behind the armoire? "Shadows" (S1, e6), "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" (S5, e6) and "Elegy" (S4, e22) will leave you feeling you're not alone.

"When darkness falls, all we have left to guide us are questions. What am I looking for? Where am I going? What did I just step in?"

- Mulder, Darkness Falls, S1,e20

Does camping, or a walk in the woods, especially with your little dog, bullyrag your comfort zone? Is a sleeping bag just filo dough for whatever will eat you? "Jersey Devil" (S1, e5), "Detour" (S5, e4), "Darkness Falls" (S1, e20) and "Quagmire" (S3, e22) will ensure you outrun your friend … although, that won't always matter. Poor Queequeg.

If we categorize fear, the supernatural falls into the Fun Zone. We can enjoy poltergeists, assured by science they won't come to our house, probably. There are, however, varmints that will. The X-Files ferments logical fears of things in the walls, closets and sewers.

It's always exciting! Every year! Photo: JSDevore

Block the shower drain at night? Sewer dwellers might disquiet you. "The Host" (S2, e2) covers that, with copious slime. Vexed by thoughts of midnight cockroach parades in the kitchen? "War of the Corprophages" (S3, e12) will get under your skin, and your wallpaper … not to mention awakening latent fears about your partner working late with a hot scientist named Dr. Bambi.

Fretting about rats in your broom closet and Jaguar engine? "Tesos Dos Bichos" (S3, e18) assures you rats do live there, and in your lavvy. Like Indy, do you hate snakes? Add fundamental religion, and "Signs and Wonders" (S7, e9) will help you see the light. Worried about organ thieves? (It's more real than you think.) "Hell Money" (S3, e19) and "Nothing Lasts Forever" (S11, e9) will keep you indoors, abusing your liver. Mine, mine, mine!

It's not just the paranormal and the critters. Mankind has deeper nightmares, disembodied of claws, feelers and fangs.

Keeping up with the Petries may seem vapid, but conformity keeps us from exile. (Remember the woods?) Of course, conformity can go too far. "Arcadia" (S6, e15) questions HOAs as necessary evils. Freaks and outsiders may unnerve us, but largely as projection. Who wants to be the freak banished to Portland, Oregon or North Florida? "Humbug" (S2, e20) declares, Ich bin Ausländer!

Though Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are quite something to gaze upon in S10 & S11, that doesn't mean Muggles aren't aging everywhere else.

A gratuitously gory episode, "Nothing Lasts Forever" (S11, e9) examines purloined transplants and perplexing beauty regimes. A poignant confrontation in "Plus One" (S11, e3), between Demon Judy and Scully, might leave you gazing in the mirror, thinking, Dammit. Face it, looks matter. "The Post Modern Prometheus" (S5, e5) squirms against society's guilty discomfort with the severely disfigured … and Cher.

Lest we forget … the children. Little is as evil as an evil little one. Like a Tiffany box with a spider in it, no one expects such vileness in such prettiness. "Born Again" (S1, e22) and "Eve" (S1, e11) argue against Eugenics, ponder reincarnation and advise against accepting soda from creepy twins.

If there is an evil doll, bet Stephen King is behind the bisque. Co-written by the King of Horror and Chris Carter, "Chinga" (S5, e10) confronts the common, irrational fear of dolls: pediophobia.

Lessons learned from "Chinga":

1) If you find a doll in a lobster trap off the New England coast, throw it back.

2) If your kid (or wife) has a favourite doll, do not microwave said-doll.

3) When Polly wants to do something, do it.

4) When you hear "Hokey Pokey", run.

What's the future of fear? If you listen to Elon Musk, Mulder and your Meemaw, it's technology. "Ghost in the Machine" (S1, e7) first input the idea of bad robots, at the crucible of our Internet existence. Whilst the earliest protocols were developed decades earlier, it was the Nineties when ubiquity took hold. The Internet sank its teeth in and hasn't let go.

The Information Age bit hard and has been shaking us by the neck ever since. "Rm9sbG93ZXJz" (S11, e7) - "Followers" in base64 code - could be an epilogue to "Ghost … ". It's a semaphore warning. Your inner Sheldon Cooper dreams of life sans other humans, but "Followers" explores the self-aware silicon being. (Cue ominous, Google dogs.)

Chris Carter has tapped our amygdalas: the area of the brain where neuroscientists pinpoint fear-conditioning is encoded. Whether your poison is airline disasters, bikini season, sharks, cancer, poverty or Bigfoot, fear reigns in our brains. Yet, how dare we let it rule us?

"X-COPS" (S7, e12) may be the pinnacle of The X-Files monster, for it is all monsters, via the power of suggestion. Werewolves, Freddy Kruger, pimps, wasps, the Hanta virus and even abandonment rear their interchangeably ugly heads during a full-moon, police ride-along in a SoCal 'hood.

If the future of fear lies in our amygdalas and Google dogs, where lies the future of The X-Files?

“I think there will be more X-Files,” Carter prophesied in a March 2018 Den of Geek interview. "They haven’t locked up the file cabinet in Mulder’s office. There’s still more stories to be told."

If there comes S12, it will be sadly sans Scully. Gillian Anderson made it clear she's left the Bureau.

"I’ve said from the beginning this [S11] is it for me,” Anderson affirmed in a January 2018 TV Guide interview. Although, "It's never a fitting end unless you die," David Duchovny asserted in a 2016 EOnline interview. Scully isn't dead.

"I have his manifesto … I don't know which was more disturbing: his description of the Inner Core reincarnated souls' orgy, or the fact that the whole thing was written in screenplay format."

- Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' (S3, e20)

Citing Chris Carter in a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, there exists a third X-Files screenplay: The X Files (1998) and The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008) being the first two films. As of this writing, there are no third film certainties, other than Mrs. Carter's advice: "I let my wife read the third movie," Carter told THR, "and she said, 'I think not for television.'."

At the end of the night, The X-Files represents an underlying fear of anyone living in a democracy, and paying attention: government overreach. Scully and Mulder fight the beasties for us, real and perceived; but when the IRS appears in your driveway … you're on your own.


Contributor Bio: Keep your byline fun, kittens. Photo: JSDevore

Follow JennyPop's girl-geekery (incl all the adventures of #TinyMulder) all year long @Twitter and Insta!

Need even more Fox? Enjoy Tiny Mulder's totally silly, regularly updated slideshow of all his aventures in Europe and across the States, here, at JennyPop.com!

Cheers to our JennyPop! Photo: JSDevore, SDCC 2018

Dirty Shirleys, The X-Files and SyFy's The Magicians: SDCC 2018

2018-07-11T11:59:00.002-07:00

Run for your lives, local mortals! 'Tis time! 'Tis time! San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) is here, again, kittens! Whilst Summer is my least fave season (Moi, aka, authoress Jennifer Susannah Devore, needs her Autumn days and Sbux PSL!), July is a glorious month indeed! Comic-Con, the reigning monarch of all comic book/pop culture conventions takes flight July 19 - 23, 2018 at the San Diego Convention Center. Once again, Yours Truly will be there with my fave con cohort and shutterbug, Eslilay Evoreday of Twisted Pair Photography and Sea Gypsy Costume Designs. As this Summer tradition remains a constant, some aspects of the game are ever-changing. Now, the game is afoot!

All my friends are heathens ... Photo: JSDevore, SDCC 2014

Cosplay? Always. Yet, this year, three characters spoke to me: The X-Files' Agent Dana Scully, Disney's Moana and Star Wars' latest glamourous, kick-ass, space-chick, Qi'ra, of this Spring's Han Solo prequel, Solo.

SDCC Official Souvenir Book article? Bien-sur! Every year, mes amies. This year's article celebrates twenty-five years of The X-Files: (25 years! Wowee! Hold me closer, Tiny Mulder!) Hence, the Agt. Scully cosplay. (Moi always represents my writing-theme with apropos costuming ... if there's a fun character involved.) Catch up on all my SDCC SouvBk articles: The Simpsons, Catwoman, Hellboy, Peanuts, Batgirl, Betty and Veronica and Tarzan!

The Gaslamp Stroll? As Archer's Lana Kane would confirm, "Yup." It's not a con sans a few martinis and Dirty Shirleys hither and thither through San Diego's historic Gaslamp District.

Dirty Shirleys: a Comic-Con tradition. (L to R: Jennifer Susannah Devore, Beki Lane) Photo: JSDevore, SDCC 2013

If you're already dialed in to SDCC, you know what to do. Follow me on Twitter and Insta for all the extra, JennyPop goodness and I'll see you next week! If you're a con-fledgling and need a few helpful deets, load the official Comic-Con app on your phone and be sure to consult the programming schedule.

Programming this year includes such goodies and panels as Inside The Big Bang Theory Writers' Room, Comic-Con Film School, The Simpsons, Big Hero 6: The Series, SyFy's Krypton, a 25th anniversary screening of The Nightmare Before Christmas and far too much for my li'l ol' blog. (Speaking of SyFy, Yours Truly and our Eslilay will be in the SyFy Press Room once again: this year, interviewing the cast and writers of Sy'Fy's The Magicians. If you have any questions you'd like us to ask, tweet meeeeee! For past SyFy interviews, incl. 12 Monkeys, Helix and The Expanse, visit JennyPop's Interviews!)

Photo: JSDevore, SDCC 2016

Finally, make sure you're well-acquainted with not only SDCC's official, convention policies but, maybe even more importantly, JennyPop's con common courtesy policies: Boobs Are Not Bunnies. (If you need a swift kick to help you find your manners, Mistress of the Dorks, Adrianne Curry will help you right along!) Remember kittens, be nice, keep San Diego beautiful and keep your mitts to yourselves.

Abyssinia at the Con, kittens!

JennyPopCom (Twitter & Insta)

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Mulder: SDCC 2018 Prep Commences

2018-04-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

It's Springtime in San Diego, kittens and that means one thing: San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) approacheth! July 19 - 22, 2018 will find Yours Truly awash in cosplay and cultur de pop, more so than usual. Sure, it's still three months off; yet playing the big Con takes prep. Every sweltering, sunny, San Diego Summer year my Con-cohort and I, Eslilay Evoreday, immerse ourselves in all the geeky goodness at the grandest of comic book conventions.

You want ants? 'Cause that's how you get ants. Archer's Lana Kane and Pam Poovey, SDCC 2017. Photo: JSDevore

From groggy, early-morning costuming to the quiet and peaceful, calm-before-the-storm, Pacific-view train ride into downtown San Diego, punctuated by a perfunctory café stop and cosplay photo opp at Starbucks Santa Fe Station, SDCC days are chockabock of dorky fun. Shopping, involuntary crowd control, interviews in the SyFy Press room and boisterous evenings in The Gaslamp with Con pals, partaking of Dirty Shirleys and G and Ts at Lou & Mickey's, make July in SoCal worth the pervasive heat and obnoxious sunshine. (Yes, if you haven't met me, I'm not a big fan of the sun. Moi has a bit of an Addams Family aura.)

Author Jennifer Susannah Devore as Archer's Lana Kane, SDCC 2017. Photo: JSDevore

What makes SDCC the most special, besides hanging for a week with my bestie? Seeing my dorky musings in print, complete with a byline. Each year I submit an article for publication in the Official SDCC Souvenir Book. Fortunately, my scribblings have passed muster with each submission: seven years running and consistently the longest name in the book. (Jennifer Susannah Devore. Duh.) Will this year's article be of publication quality?! Commence fingernail nibbling.

Required to be an historical-retrospective of a given theme - no fan-fiction or fantasy submissions accepted - the article is always a fab opportunity to introduce some 250K con-goers to my writing style, yet also to research, at length, some fave pop-culture themes. Even where I consider myself an aficionado, I always learn gobs of fresh factoids on each new theme. This year? 25 years of The X-Files ... yep, 25 years! Scary. Hold me closer, Tiny Mulder.

Tiny Fox Mulder: as determined as ever. Photo: JSDevore

On a late-Summer night in 1993, The X-Files landed in some 12m homes. Since "Pilot" aired, X-Philes have bathed in the blue light of nighttime television, fighting the night with two FBI agents far too sensual for relegation to a D.C. basement.

"Are you familiar with the so-called X-Files?"

- Agt. Fox Mulder, "Pilot", S1e1

Not familiar with The X-Files? Keep up with me and you will be. Abyssinia at the Con, Kittens!

Read all my previous published articles on Hellboy, The Simpsons, Peanuts, Tarzan, Catwoman, Betty and Veronica and Batgirl!

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JennyPop's Amazon Author Page, to boot!

Caffè Florian: Intruder Alert

2018-04-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

Caffè Florian: Intruder Alert

Jennifer Susannah Devore

JennyPop (aka author Jennifer Susnnah Devore) at Caffè Florian, Venice, Italy. Why are there other people here? Photo: JSDevore, 2018

Little Miss JennyPop, as most people know,

Longed to revisit 18thC. Venice; she was always ready to go.

So to Caffè Florian, the oldest in the world - 1720 - she did flock.

For this Italian adventure, naturally, she packed her most Verdi-inspired frock.

On a rainy, Veneto night, into Florian they fled,

Sipping famed Florian brandy and espresso, JennyPop and her belov-ed.

Taking in a glistening, empty, St. Mark's Square,

The two shared an Enlightenment moment, looking quite the pair.

When down plopped beside them, a policeman and his wife,

An L.A. County sheriff and his clangorous, chatty lass, instantly spoke ad nauseam, all about their life.

Like a boom in the shot, a fly in the wine,

They guffawed and gamboled too loudly, far from sublime.

We got two babies back in Big Bear! Do you know it?

I sure do love my babies ... the wife hesitated a bit.

Buuuuut? JennyPop prompted.

It sure is nice to get away sometimes, she admitted. Isn't it?

Leave me alone. Please exit my reveries.

This is my time, my moment, to experience the Seventeen-Twenties.

I don't really like people, JennyPop awkwardly blurted.

Fortunately, to her more affable half, the convo quickly reverted.

If one day you see JennyPop, lost in historical daydreams,

in a museum, cathedral or historic caffè,

Feel free to chat with her, quietly, then, please, go away.

Caffè Florian, Venice, Italy. Summat went askew. Photo: JSDevore, 2018

Enjoy JennyPop's full EuroPop slideshow for Winter 2K18! Ciao, tutti!

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JennyPop's Amazon Author Page, to boot!

Poppin' Open a Brand New Bag of 2K18

2018-01-26T14:19:00.003-08:00

'Tis 2K18. What do you have on the docket? What dragons will you slay, what cats will you herd, what other animal-wrangling metaphors will you concoct? JennyPop is ready for a new year! New Savannah of Williamsburg (Book IV publication and Book I, again, yet now in a newly published, gorgeous, illustrated version!), more Euro travel, some historical-research trips and, as always, San Diego Comic-Con. This year's Souvenir Book theme? The X-Files: my favourite obsession. Plus, whatever else may dare come her way ...

Stay tuned, kittens!

'Sup, 2K18. Bring it. Photo: JSDevore

"Well, hey. I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage."

- Faulkner, The X-Files, "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" (S3e20)

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The Electric Glow of Sex: JennyPop's Homage to A Christmas Story

2017-11-29T12:18:00.000-08:00

We plunged into the cornucopia quivering with desire and the ecstasy of unbridled avarice.

- Ralphie, "A Christmas Story"

Author Jennifer Susannah Devore's homage to A Christmas Story, Gaslamp Strip Club, San Diego. Photo: JSDevore

All hail the electric glow of sex! In homage to arguably one of the most perfect Christmas tales, A

Christmas Story: JennyPop's leg-lamp reënactment at San Diego Comic-Con 2016.

Merrie Christmas to all!

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JennyPop's Amazon Author Page, to boot!

JennyPop: Branded

2017-11-17T14:07:00.004-08:00

So we're clear,

Like Highlander ... there can be only one.

JennyPop.

JennyPop, Carrie-necklace. Photo: JSDevore

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Four Hours in Iceland: Notes on Exhaustion, Brain Drain and David Sedaris

2017-11-09T15:31:00.001-08:00

Four Hours in Iceland: Notes on Exhaustion, Brain Drain and David Sedaris

- loopy, jet-lagged scribbling journaled on layover at Keflavik Int'l Airport -

by Jennifer Susannah Devore

View from Loksins bar, Keflavik Int'l Airport, Iceland. Photo: JSDevore

20 Sept. 2K17

1:45pm - 5:45pm

8dg C. (outside, duh)

How many degrees Fahrenheit are 8 degrees Celsius?

What is the Icelandic currency, and how much is it worth? When "nachos" cost 650kr, what does this mean, to me?

Beer and Brennivin is what this pub, Loksins, offers. What is Brennivin? (In fact, a vile schnapps-like fuel that tastes like Scope. Blech!) My Internet connection is failing; ergo, I cannot research any of this

After over two weeks in countries where we speak the languages - Austria (fluent German), Dutch (horribly spoken Nederlands, yet enough comprehension) and Belgium (fluent French) - it is v odd to not understand a bit of the native language, here in Iceland. Hungary does not count.

American football is on the pub TV: N.E. Patriots vs. N.O. Saints. Neither GarBear nor I care.

(Note: If my writing style seems odd, to those whom are more familiar w my sesquipadalian ways, my Baroque, verbal-flourishes, I am currently influenced, this trip anyhoo, by David Sedaris. I am reading Theft By Finding: Diaries 1977 - 2002; his natural, unpretentious, diary manner has affected Moi. (See? Moi. There is some of the old, less tired JennyPop!)

Brugghus must mean Brewhouse. I see some Dutch in Icelandic.

Sidan must mean Since. Drekkist means Drink (formal/plural/directive). Iskalt means Ice Cold. I think.

8 degrees Celsius, it turns out, is 0 degrees F. No, not F. 0 degrees C is freezing, 32 degrees F. I can't do the math right now. I'm tired.

Where am I, exactly? So tired. Eight more hours to get home. Ughhh. Mascara smudged; I don't care. Photo: JSDevore, KEF Intl Airport

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Take me home, WOW. So long, Iceland, and thanks for all the fish. Photo: KEF Intl Airport, JSDevore

She Can Kick ... and Punch! She's Fifty! A Batgirl Retrospective

2017-07-31T15:28:00.001-07:00

Author Jennifer Susannah Devore, SDCC 2017 Souvenir Book article. Photo: JSDevore, artwork by Alejandra Zuniga Miranda.

Batgirl: 50 Years Behind the Mask

by

Jennifer Susannah Devore

“She called herself Bat-Girl! Gosh, I wonder who she is?”

- Robin, Batman #139, April 1961

Swooshing through an open window, Bat-Girl crashed the DC Comics clique in 1961. Resembling 1930s Norwegian, Olympic ice-skater Sonia Henie, she was more Madame Alexander doll than superhero. The first Bat-Girl, a.k.a. Betty Kane, was little more than a pretty, teenage nuisance and, according to Robin, “an inexperienced girl bound to get hurt pursuing crooks”.

On her Fiftieth, Batgirl, and we, might reflect on her personal transformations. Along her journey, she has refashioned not only her hair colour, costumes and careers, but her secret identities. Batgirl's personalities number so many, a PhD candidate might deconstruct her mythology as a dissertation on “Dissociative Identity Disorder in Pop-Culture”. However deconstructed, Batgirl's only constant is her utility belt.

In the Spring of 1954, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee Hearing on Juvenile Delinquency met in New York City to discuss potential, mental health effects from comic books on children. Publishers, police, psychiatrists, psychologists and teachers testified on the perceived detriments of, specifically, crime and horror comic books. Fredric Wertham, M.D., a German-American psychiatrist and contemporary of Sigmund Freud testified as a child-welfare advocate. Concerned with comic book sales to children under fifteen, Dr. Wertham argued the graphic, violent imagery therein would establish a pivotal step toward a delinquent life. Whilst some of his data was later scrutinized as skewed to support his thesis, Dr. Wertham's crusade against violent imagery indelibly changed the comic landscape.

Following the hearings, sensing impending, government intervention, the Comics Magazine Association of America drafted the Comics Code Authority (CCA): a proactive, self-regulating code of ethics. (Today, the CCA is arcane and inoperative. By 2001, only DC, Bongo and Archie Comics adhered. By 2011, all three had abandoned it.)

Dr. Wertham also saw a subtext of homosexuality in some figures. Enter Batman and Robin. Reacting to Wertham's accusation that the Dynamic Duo might share more than just a penchant for bodysuits and leg-days at the gym, Batman co-creator Bob Kane and artist Sheldon Moldoff created Batwoman in 1956: a sultry crime-fighter in a leotard and sporting a utility belt holding scant but lipstick, perfume and hair-bobs. Batwoman's role was to serve as a lust-interest for the, clearly, hetero Batman. Now … that leaves Robin.

In 1961, Batman's other co-creator, Bill Finger, collaborated with Sheldon Moldoff to craft a nice girl for Robin. If a bat-woman was good enough for Batman, a bat-girl was fine for Robin. Conveniently, Batwoman, a.k.a. wealthy heiress Kathy Kane, had a niece: Betty Kane. Instant Bat-Girl. Betty was the perfect complement to Robin, down to her matching red, green and yellow costume. Sadly, Betty's colour scheme, Scandinavian allure and dancer's legs weren't appealing enough. By 1964, she disappeared altogether, without any clarification.

The beauty of the DC Universe, is rebirth can occur as easily as a new narrative can be written. In January of 1967, Batgirl was respawned, sans hyphen, and christened Barbara Gordon in Detective Comics #359: “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl”. Barbara Gordon was no Shirley Temple doll in a cape. She was 5'7” 126lbs of 38-24-36 funneled into black rubber and topped with cinnamon curls and rose-red lips. Unlike the bored, Kane heiresses, Barbara was a career librarian at Gotham City Public Library. Being Commissioner Gordon's daughter was equally poignant; as she was now a real player, a challenge and a prime target for Gotham villains.

As the TV medium reigned in the late-Sixties, and as Batman was an American staple, there was no better screen début for Barbara Gordon. In “Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin” (Batman S3e1), Batman got his first eyeful of gorgeous ginger, Yvonne Craig. Clad in purple-glitter latex, crashing the scene astride her purple-glitter motorcycle, Craig instantly joined the Batman roster of arousal-icons like Lee Meriwether, Eartha Kitt, Julie Newmar, Caroyln Jones, Joan Collins and Van Johnson.

Whilst comic books dutifully adhered to their authority code, so now did television. If the former endeavoured to shield children, the latter was just stupid. According to Frances Early's book Athena's Daughters: Television's New Women Warriors, TV superladies were disallowed “real” combat onscreen. If Batman borrowed moves from Bruce Lee, Batgirl borrowed from The Rockettes. Fight scenes consisted of only high-kicks to the chin, maybe followed by a pretty jeté.

" … her fights were choreographed carefully to imitate the moves of a Broadway showgirl through the use of a straight kick to her opponent's face rather than the type of kick a martial artist would use."

- Athena's Daughters

During the 1970s, with the exception of being relegated to high-kicks, Batgirl enjoyed some fruits of the Women's Liberation movement. Yvonne Craig's Batgirl recorded an “Equal Pay for Women” PSA and comic book writers promoted Barbara Gordon to head librarian at GCPL as well as elected her to the U.S. Congress in Detective Comics #422 - #424 (1972).

Throughout the Seventies and Eighties, Batgirl shelved a lot of books, made new friends and took out the trash in Batman Family Giant #9 (“Startling Secret of the Devilish Daughters!” 1977), fighting all the daughters of Gotham's greatest villains. Life was good for Batgirl … until she met The Joker.

In the Spring of 1988, the joke was on Batgirl. Ka-Pow!!! The Joker took aim and Barbara Gordon was blasted right into a wheelchair. Allan Moore's “Batman: The Killing Joke” remains a tent-pole of comic book history. One gunshot to the spine and The Joker rendered Batgirl instantly powerless; however, the Barbara behind the mask was stronger than paralysis and soon thereafter fostered a new identity, and purpose.

With Batgirl incapacitated, Barbara Gordon's new identity bloomed as Oracle. Surfacing in 1989, in Suicide Squad #23, Oracle focused her energy on technology: aiding Batman, the Justice League and Birds of Prey behind the scenes. Confusingly, the Nineties presented Batgirl fans with two Barbara Gordons. Both Barbaras thrived, yet without the convenience of a multiverse mitigation.

One Barbara is still Batgirl, active on the streets of Gotham via “Batman Adventures” (comic books 1993), Batman: The Animated Series (TV 1993) and Batman & Robin (feature film 1997). The other Barbara is wheelchair-bound Oracle, confined to her underground lair, hacking government databases.

On the eve of Y2K, the batsuit hung empty. Fortunately, another girl too driven, too beautiful and too fit to be anything other than a superhero limbered up, brushed her hair one-hundred times and polished the utility belt. A new Batgirl, a.k.a. Helena Bertinelli, would serve a short but sweet tenure.

Formerly known as The Huntress in the Birds of Prey legend, Helena's Batgirl materialized in the No Man's Land story arc (specifically in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #120 in 1999). Like her predecessors, Helena was headstrong and too impatient to sport the utility belt. When Batman caught her sporting it too soon, not to mention having unwisely removed her mask in public, she received a paternal scolding about her carelessness. Maybe, he suggested, further tutoring from Oracle would serve the young Helena well. Pish tosh. What did Batman know?

Well, turns out Batman was correct. Helena wasn't ready and, within the same issue, Batman reclaimed the Batgirl costume from Helena and, humiliatingly, handed it over to another hottie, along with some sage advice.

“It is a sacred trust. Remember that. Honor it. You can change in the bedroom.”

- Batman, “No Man's Land” #120, 1999

The next Batgirl would reign until 2008. She should have been known as Radon, for her silent lethality; but she would be known as Cassandra Cain. C.C.'s father, assassin David Cain, raised her as a mute, to better hone her sensorial focus. He trained her in his likeness, to be an assassin skilled in martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, weaponry and explosives. Nevertheless, after her first kill, guilt-laden, she would spend the rest of her life in penance, making amends and fighting for the good guys. C.C. emerged in full regalia at the end of “No Man's Land”, but her first call of duty occurred in Batman #567 (“Mark of Cain: Part One” 1999).

Cassandra's Batgirl is not only remarkable for her muteness, but also the fact that she is the only Asian Batgirl. To that point, she is a rare example of an Asian, female superhero not drawn like a naughty anime character. Not to be overlooked is her stature. At 5'4” 110lbs., she is Lucy Liu-petite and the tiniest of all the Batgirls.

As if Batgirl's history isn't baffling enough thus far, C.C.'s muteness was never a constant. In 2003, she spoke to Oracle, wading into existentialism, with a former Batgirl no less, by asking in Batman #45, What is soul? C.C. would have nearly a decade to soul-search when, big shock, another chick was waiting in the bat-wings for the coveted utility belt.

By 2009, Batgirl's identity made a sizable change. At 5'5” 142lbs of solid muscle, Stephanie Brown is the Ronda Rousey of Batgirls, minus the boxer braids. This Batgirl can twist Harley Quinn like a soft pretzel and emasculate Darkseid in a likely painful UFC match. Big Stephy buckled up the utility belt in Batman #4 (“Meet the New Batgirl” 2009).

“What is your scene, baby? We just gotta know!”

- cover, Batman #4, 2009

Proto-Batgirl, Stephanie's scene was student-by-day, Spoiler-by-night. Stephanie is the daughter of the Cluemaster: the Homer Simpson of villains. Always a failure, the Cluemaster needed to be stopped, for his own dignity. What is a daughter's job if not to tell Dad his shirt is lame, his loafers look cheap and he's a bungling crook. Transitioning her good intentions to the Batgirl suit, Stephanie enjoyed a productive but limited run from 2009 – 2011 battling vermin like Scarecrow and Black Mask … when along came a writer, who sat down beside her and erased Big Stephy away.

Don't call it a comeback. Barbara Gordon is, and always must be, Batgirl. She knows it, you know it and, in 2011, the creators of The New 52 development knew it. The New 52 was to the DC Universe what the USB was to computers: a paradigm shift taming the chaos of everything that came before it. In this crossover thread, only The Flash seemed to know the Universe had been upended; to everyone else living there, life was as it always had been … totally different.

The New 52 Batgirl was once again Barbara Gordon, sans wheelchair. Suddenly, paralysis was a bad dream and in 2011 she had a new suit, a new nickname, Babs, and a new life as a doctoral candidate in library science. She also had a lot of energy to burn.

“It's a bit of a shock … Barbara Gordon leaping, fighting and swinging over Gotham.”

- The New 52 and Batgirl writer Gail Simone

After The New 52 titles retired in 2015, Batgirl, still Barbara Gordon, remained very active. In 2016, Babs moved to Asia for martial arts training in Batgirl Series #1. Naturally, as in Gotham, friends and enemies got in the way of her training and swept her up in the new adventures of old Batgirl. Stateside, she kept busy with grad school and her new girl squad, Birds of Prey.

So, what lies in Batgirl's future? Gotham gentleman Ben McKenzie (Jim Gordon) hinted, during an interview at New Orleans Wizard World in 2015 that Gotham writers “hope to address” Barbara Gordon as Batgirl “in the life of the show”. Film-wise, Batgirl is currently shortlisted as a supporting superhero in Gotham City Sirens, Warner Bros' 2018 sequel to Suicide Squad. Elsewhere perched on a rooftop in Gotham waits the freshest, soon-to-be-named Batgirl.

In March 2017, Variety reported, "Batgirl is flying solo ... getting her own standalone movie from filmmaker Joss Whedon." Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, The Avengers) will write and direct the as-yet-untitled project, a Warner Bros/DC Extended Universe collaboration. While no lead actress has been tapped, what fans do know is - according to Whedon himself - Batgirl's Whedonesque lore will emerge from the most contemporary of storylines, DC's The New 52.

Perhaps, in the end, the many faces behind the mask are emblematic of society's evolving, oft confusing roles for females. For fifty years, Batgirl has fought for life and legend. Yet, why so many identities? Batman is Bruce Wayne: one man, one superhero, done. Was Batgirl initially such a stretch that she has needed constant inconsistency to sustain her appeal? Whatever the writers' motivations behind her metamorphoses, Batgirl's appeal, and utility belt, seem buckled up tightly within the DC Universe.

JennyPop's SDCC byline. Keep it pithy, kittens! Photo: JSDevore, artwork by Deniloop

Contributor bio: Jennifer Susannah Devore authors the Savannah of Williamsburg series of 18thC. historical-fiction and The Darlings of Orange County contemporary-fiction. Currently, she is penning a mystery novel mis-en-scène in California's Danish town of Solvang, is obsessed with “Gilmore Girls” and “TURN”, and is being treated, unsuccessfully, for her Hello Kitty addiction.

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JennyPop's Amazon Author Page, to boot!

150 Years of The Gaslamp: From Horton's Hall to Hall H, SDCC 2017

2017-07-19T14:09:00.001-07:00

"San Diego’s booming prosperity attracts unscrupulous characters ... This includes prostitutes and gamblers."

Author Jennifer Susannah Devore's homage to A Christmas Story, Gaslamp Strip Club, San Diego. Photo: JSDevore

Unscrupulous is such a subjective characterization. Effervescent? Of course. Adventurous? Certainly. Creative? Sans doute! We, specifically of the Comic-Con ilk (as this post pertains to that segment of the San Diego populace) are merely carrying on Rabbitville's long-running, luxe and intricate tapestry of the curious, the frivolous, the entrepreneurial, the artistic, the devoted and the odd. We also like a good martini, an unobstructed sunset and free parking.

Chances are good, the Gaslamp Quarter's founding real estate developer, San Franciscan transplant

Horton. Photo: San Diego Hist. Society

Alonzo Horton, was probably on the hunt for the same things, sans the free parking. Like all wise civilizers, Horton understood development along the water was optimal and set out to establish a thriving metropolis. Others had tried, and failed: notably, fellow San Franciscan, William Heath Davis.

In 1850, Davis moved his family down from the northern Bay Area and into a "pre-framed lumber salt box house" on the San Diego Bay, one of San Diego's first residences. Davis attempted to build a waterfront town and began to develop land at the foot of what is today Market Street. Unlucky in the financial markets, an economic downturn that year drained Davis and halted his expansion. Soon, the proposed town was home to only a few fishermen, srcub oak and a lot of rabbits. So many so, San Diego earned itself the moniker of Rabbitville.

Fourteen years later, along came Mr. Horton, with better luck and deeper pockets. In a whirlwind of planning and expansion, 1867 - 1869, Horton buys nearly 1,000 acres along San Diego's waterfront, builds a wharf at the end of what he names 5th Avenue and, on March 24, 1869, sells $5K worth of commercial and residential lots in what he named, Horton's Addition ... today's Gaslamp Quarter. Within another year Horton builds a bank and the city's first pubic theater: a 400-seat lecture hall called, what else? Horton's Hall. (Today, San Diego Convention Center has Hall H, the venue for Comic-Con's most coveted and celebritous panels and screenings. Hall H seats 6,500.)

San Diego's Gaslamp, 5th and Island, 1887. Photo: San Diego Historical Society

Wise civilizers also know, where there is prosperity and progress, there will come riff-raff. San Diego was (is) no exception. Waterfront boom and growth attracts not only the prosperous, but the downtrodden. Where do both ends of this social spectrum meet? In gambling parlours and bordellos, of course.

By the 1880s, as San Diego real estate tentacled north and east from Horton's Addition. The area below Market Street - the heart of today's Gaslamp - fell into gradual abandonment. The hip, wealthy and beautiful Victorians were moving to more luxurious and verdant communities like Banker's Hill, Cortez Hill and the quiet lots surrounding the, relatively new, Balboa Park. What was left in the Gaslamp comprised of mostly immigrants, family businesses, manufacturing, shipping, gambling and prostitution. The swath of land directly below the once-desirable Market Street became a redlight district known as Stingaree: a euphemism based on the profusion of stingray in the bay, and the after effects of patronizing Gaslamp girls. It is said you could be stung as badly in the Stingaree as you could in San Diego Bay.

Until 1912, when a police raid shut down the redlight district, the Stingaree was home and hovel to more than 350 girls working some 130 bordellos, including the then-mayor's favourite: Madame Ida Bailey's Canary Cottage, a pristine, yellow home with a white, picket fence, located at 530 4th Avenue. If men got too much sting at Madame Ida's, watering holes like First and Last Chance Saloon, Old Tub of Blood, and Legal Tender kept them drunk enough to be comfortable. If they had any cabbage left after the madams and the barkeeps, Gaslamp gambling halls were aplenty; some are rumoured to have been owned by Wyatt Earp. Interestingly, once the police raid wiped the streets clean of dirty girls, the U.S. Navy moved its West Coast liberty port from San Diego to San Francisco, based on a 779 to 17 vote taken by sailors aboard warships in 1913. Plenty of dirty girls up there, no doubt. Your Taft tax dollars at work.

1920 proves vital for San Diego's growing, Chinese population. The Chinese Benevolent Society is built "to protect the interest of all Chinese citizens in San Diego". Though they built much of the West Coast, laid the railroads bringing so much of America to the West, and worked the businesses and lands up and down California, the Chinese were oft treated with disdain and discrimination, including limited legal rights, like being disallowed to testify in court against a white man or woman. The Chinese Benevolent Society still stands today at 428 3rd Street and serves as a social place for myriad, Chinese holiday celebrations.

Like any metropolis, San Diego has wended through hills and valleys of prosperity, degradation, depression, restoration and gentrification. In the 1980s, many of the dilapidated, Victorian buildings were proffered new life as the Gaslamp Quarter was placed on the National Registrar of Historic Places (1980). In 1982, proprietors and landowners formed the Business Improvement District (BID) and christened the Gaslamp Quarter Association (GQA) "to protect and promote the historic district".

In 1990, the now-famous, Gaslamp Quarter Archway was built and erected by Pacific Sign Construction, Inc. and funded by redevelopment funds, managed by the former Centre City Development Corporation. The Archway cost $150,000 and weighs six tons.

Of course, waaaaay back in 1970, a twee gathering of thirty dorks (30!!!) met at the US Grant hotel to discuss, trade and buy comic books: baby's first Comic-Con. If you haven't endured enough history herein, enjoy my brief history of SDCC ... when you've finished here, of course!

Best martini in the Gaslamp, Lou and Mickey's. Photo: JSDevore

Like Alonzo Horton, you'll likely find a good martini (best at Lou and Mickey's), only a slightly obstructed sunset (there are a lot more folks here than in 1867) and fat chance with free parking (Comic-Con or any time of year).

San Diego's Gaslamp Archway. Photo: JSDevore, SDCC 2014

The Gaslamp Quarter has successfully transformed into a premier shopping, dining, and entertainment neighborhood. With over 200 restaurants, bars, nightclubs and lounges, boutiques, art galleries, and shops to peruse, the Gaslamp Quarter has established itself both as the playground of hip, eclectic San Diegans and as an elite urban destination, or so boasts Gaslamp Quarter online.

Can't make it to Comic-Con? Don't be sad! JennyPop's got you covered! All the dorky fun rages July 19 - July 23, 2017. For full posts, detailed accounts and, possibly, her Souvenir Book article, bookmark JennyPop.net for the in-depth, geeky, good times.

JennyPop, SDCC 2012. Remember steampunk? Mr. Horton does. Photo: Twisted Pair

For up-to-the-moment action, Con-floor pix, JennyPop's IMHO snippets and this year's cosplay with cohort Eslilay Evoreday (as Archer's Lana Kane and Pam Poovey) follow @JennyPopNet on both Twitter and Insta! This is how you get ants! Don't care to go to the Con, but want to check out the Gaslamp during the zoo? Plenty to do in what S.D. Mayor Kevin Faulconer calls the Comic-Con Campus!

Aside: Will JennyPop's seventh official SDCC Souvenir Book article be published? We shall see! Past published pieces include The Simpsons, Catwoman, Hellboy, Peanuts, Tarzan and Archie Comics. Read them all here!

Abyssinia at the Con, kids!

A Postcard From Visit California: Welcome to My House, SDCC 2017

2017-07-19T10:07:00.002-07:00

@VisitCA #DreamBig

JennyPop, a.k.a. authoress Jennifer Susannah Devore, as Bellatrix Lestrange, SDCC 2014. Photo: Twisted Pair

Can't make it to Comic-Con? JennyPop's got you covered! All the dorky fun rages July 19 - July 23, 2017. For full posts, detailed accounts and, possibly, her Souvenir Book article, bookmark JennyPop.net for the in-depth, geeky, good times.

Abyssinia at the Con, kids!

Follow @JennyPopCom Twitter and Insta

JennyPop's Amazon Author Page, to boot!

SDCC 2017: Final Plans, MySched App and Yoda Slippers

2017-07-11T14:02:00.002-07:00

One week out from San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC July 19 - July 23, 2017, incl. Preview Night, San Diego Convention Center)! If you're attending, most of your prep is likely finished: cosplay elements, travel and entertainment itineraries, recruiting a friend to watch your dog and feed your turtle. Of course, even with all your ridiculous-meticulous prep, so much of the unknown remains.

First things are first, whatever you do ... carry a travel-size deodorant in your bag. Trust me, Con days are long, active and exceedingly warm; you don't want to be part of the problem. Bring or buy a spare pair of shoes. Trust me here, again. I'm starting off with 5" OTK Lana Kane boots and will likely end up in Yoda bedroom slippers. Have Uber already loaded on your phone so you're not tempted to drink and drive in the evenings, or don't want to wait for a trolley. Keep emergency cabbage on-hand for those impromptu Meet and Geeks; you never know when a martini or espresso can turn into a networking opp! Now, after you're set with all that, it's time to tend to your curious self and schedule all those fab SDCC panels, conferences and screenings!

Where's Waldo? There. Waldos with a plan. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography, SDCC 2012

So, if, comme Moi, you're a somewhat frivolous Con-goer, you're happy to play dress-up, grab some Starbucks and roam aimlessly around the Con floor in search of merchandise, fun pix and always have an eye on the horizon: a night of cocktails and good cheer, all in costume, in The Gaslamp or on the Harbour.

If, however, you are panel folk, Comic-Con is serious business. There's no time to shop for Ewok wallets and Yelp which pub has both Guinness AND Stone on draught. Panel folk have work to do and there are not enough hours in a Con-day to attend everything they desire. Hoping for a seat in a Hall H event? Well, there's your whole day, maybe even an overnight, grass-sleep: one event, one long line and a lot of stinky Captain America tees.

What's the big deal about panels, JennyPop?

Excellent query, fair reader! It depends upon your pop culture fetishes, yet panels number in the hundreds and cater to every possible fetish and inclination. Some, like the 4-day Comic-Con Law School actually qualify for MCLE continuing education units. Besides panels, there are also autograph booths (bring money), film festivals, artist conferences, Portfolio Review and gaming tourneys. The Big Daddies all land, however, at Hall H: the largest venue at 6,500 seats with the grandest events and most celebrated names. (A nice facet of SDCC? It's not about only celebrity thespians; everyone involved with fave productions gets star-status! Yea, writers, directors, costume designers, set designers and producers!)

Witness a random smattering of panels, screenings and Q&A sessions:

Warner Bros. film premiere: Deception
Once Upon a Time
Lucifer
Disney Manga
Comic-Con Film School
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 2oth Anniversary
Cosplay Makeup
My Little Pony

Coveted Hall H events for 2017 include the following behemoths:

The Big Bang Theory: 10th Anniversary
Fear The Walking Dead
Game of Thrones
Westworld
Stranger Things
Twin Peaks
Doctor Who

Doctors Who. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography, SDCC 2015

With a finite number of hours, and days, in which to play, you need a rock-solid plan. If you scan the Comic-Con Programming Schedule and find you only want to attend the panel Hey Arnold!: From Hillwood to the Jungle (Friday July 21, 2017 11:45am - 12:45pm, Rm 6A) it's a good bet you'll recall where to be and when to head that way. Move it, football head!

However, if you're a panel-obsessive, you'll need dedication, comfortable shoes (like running-to-catch-your-flight-at-a-changed-gate comfortable) and the official Comic-Con My Schedule app (MySched).

Besides laying out your personally designed schedule, MySched allows you to send the schedule to your preferred calendar-software, sends push notifications so you know when to start sprinting to the next ballroom, enables sharing so you can coordinate with fellow dorks, and synchronizes across multiple platforms and devices. To boot, you can filter and search within the app via celebrity names, show titles, company names, artists, writers, etc. If you miss a panel, it's nobody's fault but your own, kitten.

As a program reminder, if you are going to Preview Night (Wednesday, July 19th), you'll want to head straight to Ballroom 20 when the Con doors open. From 6:00p - 10:00p, Warner Bros. and SDCC will continue their tradition of PrevNight screenings. This year fans will see the pilot-screening of ABC's new crime-drama Deception, a new episode of Cartoon Network's Teen Titans Go! and sneak peeks of new TV series Krypton and Black Lightning.

Now, off you go, Earthlings! One week to go! Spit-spot, chop-chop, lots to do!

Make a fun night this weekend of cosplay dress-rehearsal for your significant other, or your cat: no loose strings or tatty corsets, unless you're going as a zombie. If you wear makeup, get quality lipstick, mascara and blotting papers; you can't be touching up all day. Get in your possession a nice stainless steel water bottle; plastic bottles are wasteful and nobody wants to wait in line for $5 water. Purchase or make your own water mister, using only quality water like Fiji or Evian; the occasional, cooling spritz on your face just might ward off your own Baby down! temper tantrum. Buy that travel deodorant for your bag (Do it!). Set aside those extra shoes and, finally, load MySched and the Comic-Con Official Mobile App on your phone ... both are free and avail for Android and iOS!

Abyssinia on the Con floor, kittens!

JennyPop, Lucy Van Pelt. Photo: Twisted Pair SDCC 2015

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She Can Kick ... and Punch! She's Fifty! A Batgirl Retrospective

Batgirl: 50 Years Behind the Mask

by

Jennifer Susannah Devore

150 Years of The Gaslamp: From Horton's Hall to Hall H, SDCC 2017

A Postcard From Visit California: Welcome to My House, SDCC 2017

@VisitCA #DreamBig

SDCC 2017: Final Plans, MySched App and Yoda Slippers