Fanny Friday

In 1927--the year this week's Flapper Fanny cartoon was originally published--the U.S. was fully engulfed by the Black Bottom dance craze. For more information, and to see demonstrations, check out this previous Shades of Gray post.

Plaaaay ball!

Today, Major League Baseball starts its 2023 season. We're celebrating the return of America's Pastime with Julie Newmar... and weirdness in a cornfield! (We're not sure if it's the Field of Dreams we've heard so much about, but it would explain a lot if it is.)

 
 

 
 

 
If you want to learn more about baseball, we've compiled everything we know about the game into this handy booklet. All proceeds go to support our coffee habits, although if Julie Newmar showed up wanting to go to a ballgame, we'd spend that money on tickets!

What are the dancers doing now that it's Spring?

On International Dance Day 2022, the ballerinas ran off into the wild. We're trying to keep track of them, and we'll try to bring you updates on the last Wednesday of each month until International Dance Day 2023.

And now that winter is ending, and Spring has arrived, we're checking in to see what's up with the ballerinas.

We have discovered that some are dancing around their favorite trees, encouraging leaves to grow. (While also demonstrating the Unifying Theme here at Shades of Gray.)

Some of the ballerinas have also come back inside, so they can properly prepare for International Dance Day 2023, which is one month away!

It's Women's History Month...

... and Flapper Fanny makes a special appearance (via the pens of trailblazing female cartoonists Ethel Hays and Gladys Parker) with commentary on changing fashion.

In 1928...

In 1938... 

Then, Now, and In the Future...

Musical Monday with the Lennon Sisters

The Lennon Sisters are a group of musically talented sisters whose professional singing career (together and occassionally seperately) spanned seven decades. We're kicking off the final week of Women's History Month 2023, with them being all traditional and stuff on "The Lawrence Welk Show" in the late 1950s while performing a song that is best known for its association with Doris Day and the Hitchcock's remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much".

It's a Mohammed Monday

 
THIS WEEK WITH JESUS & MO

 

We have another sponsor!

Shades of Gray and NUELOW Games have our offices in the same building as Threapland Industrial Products, and we are proud to announce that our downstairs neighbors have joined the Shades of Gray line-up of sponsors.

Here's an ad for their latest innovation!

Fanny Friday

Don't stay in the dark about 'Pitch Black Heist'

Pitch Black Heist (2011)
Starring: Liam Cunningham, Michael Fassbender, and Alex Macqueen
Director: John Maclean
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A pair of safe-crackers (Cunningham and Fassbender) team up to rob an office secured with an alarm system that's triggered by light.

"Pitch Black Heist" has all the elements you expect to find in a caper film, and it delivers them succinctly and so satisfyingly that I would have thought impossible in a film that isn't even 15 minutes long. Even more astonishing, the expertly executed and paced heist plot is almost secondary to the development of the relationship between the two thieves, much of which takes place as they hang out in a pub. Watching actors of Cunningham and Fassbender's talent play off each other is a treat in and of itself, but since they are performing within the structure of a great script makes this a must-see movie, especially if you're a fan of crime and/or heist movies.

Aside from delivering in under 15 minutes what many films can't deliver in more than two hours, this award-winning effort from writer/director John Maclean is made even better by the great twist at the end. While it's a given that a heist movie like this will have things go wrong during the heist and that there will be one final twist/obstacle threatening the characters at the end, "Pitch Black Heist" goes above and beyond in every way during its final few minutes.

Grab a drink, click below, and get ready for some great story-telling!

 

 

It's Women's History Month...

... so here's one more cartoon about 1920s fashions from illustrator and writer Ethel Hays.