Grantbridge Street & other misadventures: Jack Kirby Masterworks.

Kirby's unique style and extreme lines look like so much camp to the uninitiated, but this is exactly what super-hero comics were meant to be. There's little wonder he's now known as Jack "King" Kirby. Click below for more.

Grantbridge Street & other misadventures: Jack Kirby Masterworks.: "Selected pages from the Privateer Press celebration."

Smell of Books

Is today world hilarity day, or is this some ripple left over from April Fools Day? Whatever it is, there's some very funny stuff on the interwebs today. Not quite pants-wettingly funny, but almost.

One of the most frequent statements heard here at Bonnett's is, "I love the smell of book stores." Check this out and click through to the originating website. Make a point of clicking the AROMAS pull-down.

Smell of Books: "Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?

Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?"

New Terminator Movie Brings J.D. Salinger Out Of Hiding | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

The Onion, again, brings tears to my eyes... Tears of laughter, natch.

New Terminator Movie Brings J.D. Salinger Out Of Hiding | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "Salinger's decision to come out of seclusion has allowed scholars access to his massive archive of unpublished work for the first time. So far, critics have examined three never-before-seen novels, eight novellas, and more than two dozen short stories—all of which appear to be Terminator fan fiction."

The dead walk the streets of Dayton

As I promised earlier, here are a few photos of the zombie walk that took place on 5th Street. I don't know if anyone did a head count but there were certainly hundreds of the 'undead' shuffling, lurching, and staggering through the Oregon District late Friday night.
I'm not the biggest fan of horror films. I've seen my share of zombie flicks, including a showing of "Night of the Living Dead" for high school English credit in a Film Criticism class. My favorites are the lighter fare, "Return of the Living Dead", the "Evil Dead" films, and "Shaun of the Dead".

Sometime in 2008 Forbes magazine declared Dayton, Ohio to be among the nations fastest dying cities. I'm not sure if there was an underlying purpose to this parade of corpses, but if Forbes was correct there certainly couldn't have been a better place for it to happen. Dayton's history is rife with innovation and invention. No one here believes Dayton to be 'terminal', so, perhaps this corpse-capade is one way to express the down-but-not-out situation at this point in time. It's worth noting that event planners called for and included fighters of the undead, heroes of the living.
The zombies stopped traffic, tormented drivers, followed buses, drooled the blood of recent victims, dropped body parts, and even spat green zombie venom... whatever that is, leaving telltale signs of their passing all along the way. It was a fun sight to see but if such an event takes place again it would be worth a few minutes of the organizers time to ask participants to recall a bit of the decorum one hopes they had while among the living. The wedding guests of the "Corpse Bride" or the ghostly couple from "Beetle Juice" would make a fair example of the polite undead.

As I said before, this was fun to watch, and, as a haunted house veteran*, I'm even inclined to participate, but as an Oregon District businessman I must say, let's not 'bloody up' the ATMs, sidewalks, doors, windows, and walls. Out-of-town visitors (of which we have more than you might expect), who don't know what's up, might not know fake blood from the real thing when it's left to dry in public spaces overnight. That kind of image isn't at all helpful to a 'dying city'.

*Northmont Jaycees for a large part of the 1980s.

Wow! Another Bonnett's sighting, so soon...

When zombies attack it's good to have something to defend yourself with, a good heavy book will do, in a pinch.

ActiveDayton | Photo Galleries

I thought I'd be on my way home by the time the zombies arrived so I wasn't really ready for them. I've posted a couple of pictures on Facebook, but I'll dress them up a bit and parade them here for good measure... coming soon (probably late-late-later tonight).

Oops... I was fooled by poor web layout (retraction)

My previous post was NOT an image of the Bellagio. The website placed that image RIGHT NEXT TO the #1 Ceiling description. In my excitement and haste I mistakenly believed the image was the Bellagio when it's actually a department store in Paris, France. My apologies to our readers.

World’s top 10 greatest ceilings - Destinations- msnbc.com:
"Paris' elegant Galeries Lafayette department store, with its elaborate glass-domed ceiling feature, attracts as many tourists as shoppers."

World’s top 10 greatest ceilings - Destinations- msnbc.com

I don't get to travel much and I'm not a gambler. After years of half-jokingly suggesting that our own Dayton Arcade would make a great casino (if such things were to come to Ohio), imagine my shock at seeing this photo of the Bellagio interior.

World’s top 10 greatest ceilings - Destinations- msnbc.com