80's Magic: "Punky Brewster"

"I have two different feet, why shouldn’t I wear two different shoes?"

One of the things most endearing and charming about Punky Brewster is her outlook on life. I appreciate the way she is an individual, with individual (and ofttimes highly unique) ideas, and isn't ever made to feel ashamed for being who she is. Actually most of the time her perky, spunky, optimistic, ready-to-try-anything attitude is the focus, rather than being something other characters are trying to rid her of, as is so often true in other cases of a drastically-different main protagonist.

This attitude is strung throughout the show itself too. The episodes always managed to pack both comedy and heartfelt issues into one nice bright package. And talk about bright! I think even for the rainbow-infused 80's Punky Brewster was more multi-chromatic than one would even think possible!

Watching the series on DVD - oh how I love DVD releases of fave shows :D - the jolt of the 80's-ness of this show is quite powerful. The pop culture references, the original score, the fashions and set design, the plots... - I love that about it. Plus it has this very comfortable quality to it, like you're in the company of long-time friends and family. It feels for me (having been only a few years younger than Punky herself in the eighties) exactly like that decade felt when living through it (minus the extreme comedic situations of course). There were plenty of things going on that adults were conscious of during that time, but Punky captures the mood of what was important to a child's mind then. The honest level to the writing and the on-screen bond between the characters/actors are both key elements in this, I think. The emotions so often feel unscripted, like you're just watching a group of friends going about their daily joys and troubles, handled in ways you feel certain you'd handle them if you were there.

Here's the TV guide fall preview mention (thanks to Brandedinthe80's for it), from the now-so-long-ago year of 1984:

Punky is the quintessential little orphan girl, Shirley-Temple-esquely softening the heart of the crusty, old, lonely man - there's something so timeless about that :) And it was great to watch Punky best all the difficulties that having been abandoned by her mother caused, and become part of a new family and grow into a truly happy, exuberant young girl. I've made up my mind that when I'm ready for kids, I'm going to adopt, cos it just isn't right for there to be children who are already in this world who have no stable, loving family of their own.

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And just for the fun of it, have a listen to the theme song for the Punky cartoon, "It's Punky Brewster"?

Person of Interest fan-art (sort of)

The following essay and reproduction I did for Fine Arts credit. I chose "The Red Tower" because I wanted to explore it so I could better understand it since it was used in my favorite current show.

Giorgio de Chirico’s “The Red Tower”
By Janis Kunz
3-6-13

         I hadn’t heard of, nor had I seen, Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico’s 1913 surrealist painting, “The Red Tower”, until it was used as part of a character moment in the CBS action-drama, “Person of Interest”. The character of Grace, an artist and illustrator, tells of a defining moment she had while in Venice, Italy:

GRACE: “I got to be two feet away from de Chirico’s ‘The Red Tower.’
His paintings have that sense of… mystery, of something looming.”

HAROLD: “Yeah, it’s like life is frozen in that moment,
and the universe is about to reveal all its secrets.”

GRACE: “Yes. And it did – in a way.
That’s when I knew I wanted to be an artist.”

         To me, on my first glimpse of it, I found the painting to be drab and sparse. So I was instantly intrigued as to why they had chosen it to be the piece so striking to Grace as to capture her imagination like that. There must be something about it I was missing. It was time to take a closer inspection.
         A quick trip to Guggenheim.org revealed that de Chirico’s works were an enormous inspiration to Surrealist painters, and that it’s his use of ‘irrational perspective, lack of a unified light source, elongation of shadows, and hallucinatory focus on objects’ that causes the dreamlike quality of his paintings. Plus, the fact that there is no event taking place within the painting can cause a feeling of melancholy or anxiety, as if ‘one senses the wake of a momentous incident’.
         Taking these things into account, as well as the characters’ dialog, I studied the painting – with its solitary tower imposing over the entire setting, its heavy use of shadow, its minimal palette, and its stark landscape – and I could see what it was they meant when they spoke of a sense of mystery and looming and an event about to occur. Other paintings by de Chirico’s, like “The Disquieting Muses” and “The Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon”, have the same sense of mood.
         Now when I look at “The Red Tower”, what had previously seemed drab and sparse, instead spurs my imagination. I feel compelled to fill the spaces, to wish to walk among them. I feel the desire to understand, or even solve, the mystery of that looming event. In essence, I can now look at the painting as Grace had looked at it, with a sense of fascination.

Happy Valentine's Day - Misfits Style!

Happy Love Day!! <3
--> click for mood music <---

Awesome HQ's [POI, MoS, WotW, Miracles]

There are certain fictional worlds that tug at you, worlds that make you long to be able to step inside that particular universe and walk around its environments. For me, 'Person of Interest', 'Misfits of Science', 'War of the Worlds', and 'Miracles', definitely do that!! Many a time I've dreamt about hanging out with each one's respective teams at their too-cool headquarters...

These awesome HQ's supply that tactile feeling mentally, like you know exactly what it would feel like to be there. What the lighting is, what the acoustics are, where everything is located, how the mood of the building impacts the activities within...

It's hard to remember that these aren't real places. They don't really exist. Due to the demands of filming a TV show, they need to be sets - and not even always contiguous ones either. One floor might be on one soundstage while the secret basement may have been created at another location all together. And the exteriors are 'second unit', filmed elsewhere in the city sometimes.

Occasionally a show is lucky enough to commandeer a real-life building for its purposes, but even then it can be, in actuality, located in a different city than portrayed on the show, and it still isn't going to be somewhere you can visit and find crime-fighters or superheroes hard at work.

However, once these HQ's - these focal points of where our favorite characters plot and plan and grow close - are seamlessly placed within the episode, they come alive in our minds and become a reality, a place that we can consider from all angles and fill in the gaps and shadows. What fan doesn't try to imagine what's behind closed doors in the background, or what rooms and corridors are in between the entrance shot and the interior shots, or what items are in the drawers and on the shelves.


And now, in no particular order except for year order, are four of my favorite awesome HQ's:

Humanidyne: H.I.T. Lab

    Location:
          Southern California

    Team members: 
          Dr. Billy Hayes
          Dr. Elvin Lincoln
          Johnny Bukowski
          Gloria Dinallo




Humanidyne is a large government complex and the Human Investigation Team lab is in the basement. (I wonder what work the rest of Humanidyne is doing all the time the Misfits are engaged in their shenanigans?) It's filled with complicated equipment of all shapes and sizes, and who knows what's in the walk-in freezer at present.

This is a lab, yes, but it's also a doctor's office - waiting room, receptionist, and all. I can just imagine being a test subject or a volunteer there, surrounded by the kookiness that's present at all hours. However, amid that is a purveying sense of fun and joy of life and the desire to find advancements in science to better the human condition.

Who wouldn't want to join in one of Billy and El's experiments or do some test work with Johnny B and Glo? Even getting chewed out by administrator Dick Stetmeyer for not providing the test results on time would be great. The lab is always crammed with toys and science-y gadgets, so enticing for someone who loves to play around with that sort of stuff. Oh what fun it would be to grab a visitor's pass and hang out with the Misfits of Science for a while.

Entry for H.I.T. at 'Science of Misfits'.

The Cottage

 
    Location:
          Northern California

    Team members:
          Col. Ironhorse
          Dr. Harrison Blackwood
          Dr. Suzanne McCullough
          Norton Drake


The Cottage is a top secret government facility tricked out with the highest-end equipment and technology, with the sole purpose of providing a means for the Blackwood Team to protect the planet against the threat of invading Mor-Tax. Norton looooves his supercomputer, Suzanne is at home in her personal microbiology lab, Ironhorse has a gym and shooting range, and Harrison's office is an exact recreation of his old one at the college. The basement command central has all the feel of being inside the inner workings of a computer combined with a federal agency task force war room.

The Cottage is located in beautiful countryside, secured with the best in anti-intruder devices (Ironhorse knows this well, since he had to infiltrate their own security once). There's a horse paddock, a pond with swans, and tree-covered hills that lead to the water. Quite a picturesque contrast to the dark sick twisted gritty side of fighting aliens.

With its rich furnishings, the interior of the main house is right out of some Better Homes magazine and Mrs. Pennyworth and Kensington lend to the air of a rich home as well. But for all the stateliness the Cottage exudes, it can feel as homey as any family living room. One of my favorite scenes has got to be when the newly thrown-together individuals are spending their first evening around the fireplace and Ironhorse is telling Debi a story of his Indian ancestor.

 

 

Sodalitas Quarito

    Location:
          Boston

    Team members:
          Paul Callan
          Alva Keel
          Evelyn Santos




SQ is housed in part of an unassuming brownstone, a building that feels as mysterious and overlooked as the paranormal cases that the SQ gang investigates. Evie brings her son Matty to work with her, and while she, Paul, and Keel are researching cases and solving the odd haunting, he plays in the office rooms. What a spooky environment for a little boy to let his imagination run in. It reminds me of attics and hidden secret places that call out to be discovered.

What supernatural-related things are lurking among the jostles of office items? What sort of artifacts does Keel have stashed there? This place promises mysteries galore, like the floor that's not really there, so the rain leaks through to the floor below like it was the roof. Makes me just want to explore every dark corner and see what lies there.

It can only be reached by the alley entrance in the rear, making it feel like a place you have to search for to find. The way it has no walls and is just a lot of dark space trying to be filled up makes it feel haunted, like Paul himself. But at the same time it also feels inviting, because you know that its occupants are ready and willing to do all it will take to solve a client's problems.

 

 

The Library

    Location: 
          New York

    Team members:
          Harold Finch
          John Reese
          (Bear ^_^)


An old library owned by Finch, but in financial limbo and therefore off the record. Perfect for clandestine vigilantism. It has so much area that is 'broken down' - a metaphor for our heroes, no? It also has a dignified magnificence that befits an abode for these two world-experienced men. I can't help wondering though, we've been shown the apartment Finch gifts Reese, but where does Finch sleep? Surely not in the Library all the time.

The Library comes well-stocked with a horde of books, something that turns out to be more important to the work Reese and Finch do than just a nice collection. And the center round table (does that make them Dark Knights of the Round Table? ;P  ) with Finch's five monitors of geeky coolness is a great central hub.

Versatility is something this place doesn't lack, seeing as it's been used as a nursery, a doghouse, and a safe haven/detention cell for Leon. I like how things are used for unintended purposes; the damaged pane of glass in place of a whiteboard, books for baby Leila's playpen, a filing drawer holding not files but firearms... Speaking of, I wonder just how many weapons Reese has squirreled away inside the Library?

Entry for the Library at 'Pedia of Interest'