The Love Quarterly: Happy Birthday, Steve!

It's my birthday today, so feel free to take the day off and do whatever you want to observe it. I encourage you to start the tradition of buying yourself something special, or treating yourself to a fancy dinner in observation of the day that I was put on this Earth!

Bessie Love has baked a cake, but she only put on a fraction of the candles that should be on it. And even with that amount, she is concerned that it might catch the Shades of Gray offices on fire...

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

 Anita Page invites you to celebrate with music and more!

Just don't party too hard... or you'll end up like Anita does every year!

Wonder Woman Wednesday

The legendary, trailblazing artist Neal Adams, who influenced an entire generation of comic book artists and who was a tireless advocate for creator rights, passed away at the age of 80 on April 28, 2022. In his memory and honor, we are featuring Wonder Woman sketches and portraits that Adams drew.

Adams is remembered mostly for his work for DC Comics, on Batman and Deadman stories in various titles, on the "Green Lantern & Green Arrow" series, as well as dozens of amazing covers for titles such as "House of Mystery" and "The Phantom Stranger". He was also responsible for interesting characters such as Toyboy and Valaria for his own company, Continuity Comics. We'll be presenting a gallery or two of Adams' more iconic work at some point in the future.

'To Save Her Soul' turns terrible at the end

To Save Her Soul (1909)
Starring: Mary Pickford, Arthur V. Johnson, George Nichols, and William Beaudine

Director: D.W. Griffith

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A beautiful young woman with an equally beautiful voice (Pickford) is put onto the path of a successful showbusiness career after a chance encounter with a theatrical producer (Nichols). A young pastor in her hometown (Johnson) is in love (or maybe just in lust) with her, and he follows her to the big city, in hopes of convincing her to return with him.

I generally don't have the patience for silent dramas, because the pacing combined with the overwrought performance styles and melodramatic pantomiming used by the actors to communicate emotions either bore me or make me laugh. 

A notable exception are short films from D.W. Griffith. Every one of them I've seen so far has moved along at a breakneck pace and has been augmented by staging and framing of scenes that are at the same time reminiscent of renaissance paintings and modern-feeling. Griffith was one of the early masters of the cinematic medium, and that's what makes his short films entertaining to this day.

"To Save Her Soul" is no exception. It clips along at a quick pace. While there's plenty of overly dramatic emoting and even some overacting, the two leads--Pickford and Johnson--have enough presence and charisma that their screen presence shines through that. Pickford is, as always, excellent in her part. 

With that said, I'm going to break format and present "To Save Her Soul" for your viewing pleasure here in the middle of this post instead of at the end. This is because the rest of this review reveals the film's ending and thus may spoil it for you.

The story of "To Save Her Soul" is fairly engaging... and it becomes even more so when the handsome lead makes a transition from a concerned would-be suitor to the young singer to a crazed stalker and religious fanatic who is going to murder her, ostensibly to save her soul (as the title implies) but more basically because if he can't possess her completely and wholly, she cannot be allowed to live.

But, ultimately, that character transition is what undoes this movie. Instead of treating the pastor like the vicious monster that he is, the film sets him up as a literal savior: After he literally points a gun at Pickford's character's face and threatens to murder her if she doesn't surrender to his whims and desires (and his whims and desires alone), the young woman surrenders to him completely, leaving behind the life of sinful showbusiness to be his sex slave before the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, I probably put a far darker spin on the film's final moments than Griffith intended, but the ending of "To Save Her Soul" is seriously messed up. Even when allowing for more than a century of shifting social standards, the "hero" of this film should have been a villain that one of the show biz folk wrestled with, and ultimately shot with his own gun. That is how this film should have ended, and I would have given it Eight or Nine Stars.

Musical Monday with DeKade

Today's video features an artist who is a bit of a mystery, because the half-assed research that we here at Shades of Gray undertook to find some background on him. He put up music on Soundcloud for a few months 3-4 years ago, and then moved onto Spotify where his albums, EPs, and singles have been appearing since 2018. None of this pages on those sites, nor on his TikTok channel, YouTube channel, nor his website offer any information about who DeKade is.

In mid-April of 2022, DeKade released a new single. Both the song and video produced to promote it are fabulously spooky and befitting of a performer who seems to be a music-making, rapping shadow in a hooded sweater.

Perfect (2022)
Starring: DeKade
Director: Tyler Michalsen
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Coffee fit for the Workers of the World

It's May Day... and we're reviewing coffee that comes to us from the Worker's Paradise of Vietnam! Workers of the World, Unite! And go on coffee break!

  

Willkins and Wontkins know coffee, be it Commie or Capitalist sourced.

 

CHESTBREW COFFEE COMPANY: GRIZZLY BEAR

ChestBrew Coffee Company was founded in the mid 2010s when friends of its owners began demanding that coffee brought back for personal use from trips to Vietnam be shared with them. At the time, no one was marketing authentic Vietnamese coffee in the United States, so ChestBrew stepped in to fill the void. A secondary motivation was to provide an affordable and simple alternative to the complicated and expensive pour-over offerings that were on the market at the time. (You can read more about ChestBrew and their coffees on their website.) 

ChestBrew positions themselves as a coffee-drinker's coffee maker; they say there's lots of caffeine AND flavor in their Vietnam-grown, carefully roasted Arabica beans. As I've confessed repeatedly in these coffee reviews, I am heavily in the fru-fru camp when it comes to coffee preferences. So, when choosing one of their offerings to review, I went with the medium roast Grizzly Bear blend, which is available as whole beans that are "dark chocolate dusted".

The moment I opened the bag, I figured I was in for a treat. The coffee smell was strong, and it remained strong as I ground and then brewed the first pot. It's not often that I pick up on the smell of brewing coffee when I'm in my office, but ChestBrew's Grizzly Bear was a great exception to the normal.

The aroma remained strong as I poured my first cup-full. The advertised chocolate dust could not be detected in the air, but it was present as a strong undertone as I took my first sip. The coffee flavor was strong and smooth and delicious and truly a full-flavored coffee. In fact, it was so smooth that I drank that first cup without adding any of my usual unsweetend almond milk or sugar-free cream, but instead just added about half a package of Stevia. That's a break with my usual protocols for this article series, but since I have an entire 20-oz. bag of Grizzly Bear (as opposed to the 4-oz. sample packs most of my Bones Coffee reviews are based on), so I have plenty of opportunities to try this coffee in however many ways that might strike me.

When I tried Grizzly Bear with Unsweetened Almond Milk, the coffee flavor remained intense and what few rough edges that still existed disappeared. The hint of chocolate got washed out, but I didn't miss it all that much. As the coffee cooled to room temperature, the flavor held steady.

Drinking Grizzly Bear with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer was okay, but I didn't like it as much as I did with the unsweetened almond milk. Curiously, the drink seemed a little too sweet; the coffee flavor remained strong, but the Italian Sweet Cream creamer mixed with it in an almost sickly-sweet fashion that I'd not experienced before. It didn't exactly ruin my cup of Grizzly Bear, but the two certainly did not mix well. That overwhelming sweetness only got worse as the coffee cooled--to the point where I just dumped the last bit into the sink.

Given that odd interaction, I tried mixing the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer with some of Unsweetened Almond milk with a cup of Grizzly Bear. It worked a little better, but the creamer flavor still came across stronger than I ever remember experienced before. Why? I have no idea, but it certainly doesn't belong in Grizzly Bear.

When consumed over ice, Grizzly Bear is fabulous whether you drink it straight--although it gets even better with a touch of Stevia added--or if you add Unsweetened Almond Milk. The coffee flavor is very mellow, with the lovely hints of chocolate adding greatly to the experience. I, once again, broke with the standard protocol and tried iced Grizzly Bear with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, and it was also quite excellent. My favorite iced variety was the one where I just added the unsweetened almond milk. (For the sake of consistency with other reviews, I tried Grizzly Bear with the creamer as well. It worked a little better over ice, but it still did not mix well with the flavor of the coffee.)

I highly recommend Grizzly Bear to anyone who is interested in a strong-flavored, yet smooth, coffee that features a touch of chocolate. Although it only seems to be available as whole beans, grinding it is worth the extra step. I got this coffee with no expectations--just so I could make a May Day joke--but it turned out to be a great product! When my current bag is empty, I'll probably order another one!

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WILLKINS & WONTKINS: THE CAFFEINATED MUPPETS
The characters of Willkins and Wontkins (seen at the top of the post) were an early creation of Jim Henson. Originally conceived for a television ad campaign for U.S.-based coffee company Wilkins Coffee, these muppets became so popular that toys were made of them in the early 1960s. You can learn more and watch a whole slew of the ads by clicking here. Also, below is the Wilkins Coffee ad from which the image that opens this post was captured. If you find it funny, you'll get a big kick out of the ad compilation in that other post.

Happy birthday to Kirsten Dunst!

Actress Kirsten Dunst turns 40 years old today. Here's a celebration in pictures!

It's Arbor Day...

 ... and Sydney Dolan invites everyone to celebrate!

It's International Dance Day, but ...

 ... who let the dancers out? Who? Who? Who?

 

They all seem happy, except for Brigitte Bardot. Maybe she'll come back to Shades of Gray soon. As for the rest, we're sure they will adapt just fine to life in a wild!

They're getting ready and waiting...

 ... for this year's International Dance Day at Shades of Gray!

Tomorrow, we'll be celebrating with our traditional gallery of photos of dancers in action, but for now... we wait.

Even Brigitte Bardot is getting ready ahead of time, so she doesn't miss the festivities, like she did last year!

But hold on... what is THAT?!

Something, beyond the window, is calling to the Shades of Gray Dancers... come back tomorrow to see what!