October 25th can be a scary day. I would like to review a few things that can be quite frightening. First, October 25th is Frankenstein Friday (the last Friday in October). To commemorate the day, I have a Frankenstein, pop-up graphic novel, “Frankenstein” by Sam Ito, published in 2010.
My mother and I met the author at a weekend long pop-up convention in Philadelphia. He gave a talk about designing and printing this book.
An interesting story about making the book, was how the author had to fight censorship. Since this was a pop-up book, along with being a graphic novel, there were rules he had to follow. It was thought that children would read the book, so they were much more stringent on showing death.
One scene, the monster kills a little boy. To sneak past the censors, he just showed the boy’s leg in the grass.
Later in the story, the monster kills Frankensteins’ wife on their wedding night. He was not allowed to show that dead body in her bed, or even reference that she was killed in the bedroom. He fought very hard with the censors. So finally, Ito made a giant “EEEEEK!” trailing up stairs to the bedroom, as the monster’s hand breaking a window to get into her bedroom. Dr. Frankenstein, his eyes on fire when he sees what happened, declared he would “follow the monster to the end of the Earth.” Ito said he had an untold amount of meetings with the publisher censors.
We then talked to Ito for about twenty minutes after his speech, and he signed books for my mom. This was the last of four famous novels he made. When he asked if she had all four, she said “No, I am buying the last one at the book sale the next day.” He said “Let me fix that.” He reached into his briefcase, and pulled out “Moby Dick” and signed it for her. Ito treated my mom as if she was his mom. Mom was so excited that evening. It was the best day in all her years of pop-up book collecting.
I was just given a call from my brother, stating that I may have exaggerated a little on the amount of stitches he received from me. I was not too far off. So I will bring him back into this story. Much like in “Young Frankenstein” the movie, with the monster dancing with Dr. Frankenstein, my brother (Shall I call him the family Frankenstein because of his stitches?) was dancing on a stage in Okinawa.
October 25th is World Karate Day. My brother was celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the founding of Matsubayashi Ryu Karate-do, at their headquarters in Okinawa. They were also honoring the founder’s son who had passed away, by doing ritual Karate moves. My brother was leading two of his students from his Dojo in Philadelphia in some moves. Unfortunately, this picture catches my brother making a wrong move.
He took it in stride. He later made a sign for his Dojo in Japanese Kanji that translates to “Even monkeys sometimes fall from trees“. Along with this picture, my brother also gave me the book “The Essence of Okinawan Karate Do” by Shoshin Nagamine. It is a book with descriptions and photographs of all the Karate moves from the type of Karate my brother trains in. This book is a limited to 1000 copies, from Germany.
So we have the tale of two Frankensteins, one hiding death from book censors, and the other ‘Putting on the Ritz” in a white karate-gi (keikogi).
Thanks for reading.
P.S.
Who does Frankenstein take to the school dance? His ghoul friend. They might have to get on a school bus. I have the book “The Wheels on the Bus” by Paul O. Zelinski 1990.
October 25th is the last day of National School Bus Safety Week. My wife was a bus driver for a school. She was pretty safe, unless you talk about the mailbox she ran over and killed. I think it is still hanging at the “Bus Barn” where they store the busses. While my wife is not too frightening normally… when the kids are screaming and acting up, she can give a terrible ‘Evil Eye’ looking up in the overhead mirror; and she can yell without yelling. That is scary.
We always were waiting for her to get mad, and drop the F-bomb. I made this hat for her. It had velcro.
I might end this segment of bus drivers by remembering my high school bus driver Mae Moylen. She was the best! Older, by high schooler’s definitions, with long wild red hair. I convinced her to drop me off, several blocks from the high school (several times) at the Dunkin Donuts that had just opened up. As she then drove around the block, I ran in to buy some donuts-always one for her.
On the bus drive home, I would not get off at my stop, I would ride with her as she drove the students to Winthrop Harbor lakefront. They were the rowdy students, on the other side of the tracks. Speaking of tracks, one day going down to lakefront, I opened the door at the back of the bus, and tossed out a bus seat cushion. Others helped distract her, and I stood covering her line of vision, pretending to yell at others being stupid and opening the door.
When we were riding back up from the lakefront, we came up to the bus cushion on the road. Mae yelled “Is that my seat cushion? I am going to kill someone!” I quickly jumped up, opened the door, and volunteered to run out and retrieve the cushion, and attached it back to the seat. I didn’t get caught with that prank-it was long before cameras.
Perhaps I was the monster…
Librarytomes 