.
"The Tarzan Collection Volume 2:
Debuts October 31 from Warner Home Video
 
Johnny Weissmuller swings back into action with Warner Home
Video's "The Tarzan Collection Volume 2" debuting on October 31. Following
the huge success of WHV's first Weissmuller Tarzan set in 2004, this new
DVD collection includes the home video debut of Weissmuller's last six
Tarzan films, presented on three double-feature discs. Originally made
at RKO, these films feature actress Brenda Joyce. Weissmuller starred in
12 Tarzan features for both MGM and RKO. This collection features "Tarzan
Triumphs" ~ "Tarzan's Desert Mystery" ~ "Tarzan and the Amazons" ~ "Tarzan
and the Leopard Woman" ~ "Tarzan and the Huntress" ~ "Tarzan and the Mermaids."
These six films, which were never available on videocassette, are all new
to DVD, and will sell as a collection only, for $39.92 SRP.
For descriptions of the films see ERBzine Silver Screen:
ERBzine
0502
http://www.erbzine.com/mag5/0502.html
Comics Should Be Good: Friday in the Embassy
CBR
~ August 18, 2006
We were at an evening class at church, and our pastor
asked what was new. I explained that I’d had a little field trip for my
cartooning students to a local comics show that was a bit of a bust as
a field trip, hardly any turnout at all, but I’d done a little shopping
so it wasn’t a total loss.
“What did you get?”
“Tarzan, mostly.” I shrugged and grinned.
“Really!” The reverend perked up. “Tarzan comics? I have
a mental picture… I know this from when I was young, it’s on the tip of
my tongue… Johnny Weissmuller? Was he the first Tarzan?”
I couldn’t help myself. It’s a reflex. Maybe a disease.
“No, in movies that was a man named Elmo Lincoln… we have it on DVD at
the house, actually, Julie gave it to me for Christmas.”
My bride, who was sitting a couple of feet away, giggled
and drew an imaginary score mark in the air. I flushed. “But yes, Weissmuller
probably was the most famous guy to play him. These comics, though, I wanted
because Joe Kubert drew them. Kubert’s probably one of the cartoonists
I admire the most in comics. He’s had an amazing career.”
“What makes you say that?” One of the things I like about
our pastor is that Sharon is endlessly curious about everything and everyone;
she has a busy, restless intellect. My admiration of Joe Kubert’s career
had caught her interest and by now a couple of the others at the table
were listening too.
“Well, for one thing, he made his rep in comics largely
without doing too many superheroes. Kubert specialized in macho, two-fisted
adventure stuff. Sgt. Rock, Tarzan, characters like that. And he founded
a school, the only accredited school for comics and cartooning in fact,
and he’s continuing to produce work today that’s widely regarded as top-of-the-line.
Won a bunch of awards not too long ago for a book about the conflict in
Sarajevo… a true story, a documentary, done in comics form.” More>>>
Just released at www.panthanpress.com
and as a Podcast: Elmo's
Dateline Jasoom for this week:
Episode 14 is a full report from the 2006 ECOF convention.
Speakers include DJ "Usha" Howell, Laurence Dunn, Jim
Thompson and Mike Conran.
Elmo interviews fans. Hadron sings about his hat.
And a song by Mark Wheatley from Insight Studios, whose
interview appears on the next show.
Paramount is back in the black
Variety
~ August 9, 2006
Viacom came out swinging Wednesday as Paramount was back
in the black and CEO Tom Freston declared that it's "re-emerging as a top-tier
studio in Hollywood." The slimmed-down new Viacom reported robust quarterly
numbers that reinforced just how critical the DreamWorks deal was -- bringing
in hefty theatrical distribution fees and international TV license fees
and keeping the studio's homevideo biz on an even keel. More>>>
Disney biz gets dizzy
Variety
~ August 9, 2006
"Cars" is driving Disney to high-octane profits. While
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" came out in July and won't
show up in the results until the fourth quarter, company still saw massive
gains in its fiscal third quarter, growing net income to $1.13 billion
-- an increase of 39% over the April-June frame last year. Announcement
of the sharply improved earnings came less than a month after Disney declared
a belt-tightening, which resulted in the dismissal of some 550 employees.
More>>>
Weissmuller was a star in water
and on screen
Washington Times ~ August
7, 2006
Of all the stars who glittered in the Roaring Twenties'
so-called Golden Age of Sports only one became more famous after his competitive
career was over. At 24, Weissmuller was the best male swimmer in history.
And then ... "UMGAW-A-A-A-A!" Unexpectedly, Hollywood beckoned,
and the handsome, 6-foot-3 swimmer turned into "Tarzan the Ape Man" in
the movie of that name, emitting this blood-curdling cry -- actually, an
electronic blend of a hyena's howl played backward, a camel's bleat, a
violin and a soprano's high C -- whenever the script demanded. (Though,
for the record, he never uttered the infamous "Me Tarzan, you Jane" line
to co-star Maureen O'Sullivan.)
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Weissmuller
acted -- if that's the word -- in 12 Tarzan pictures, six for MGM and six
for RKO, before yielding the franchise to Lex Barker. So effective was
he in the role than Barker and all the other Tarzans who followed seemed
mere carbon copies. Even Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created the character
in a 1919 book, was said to be a fan. Such admiration was not quite
universal. Elmo Lincoln, the original Tarzan in silent films, told Burroughs,
"The studio seemed to think ['Tarzan the Ape Man´] was a comedy.
Why do they portray Tarzan without dignity?" Well, for one thing,
Elmo baby, it's hard to take seriously a character who consorts with chimps
and swings on vines.
After that, Weissmuller covered up
his loincloth to play Jungle Jim for years in movies and on television.
When he died at age 79 in 1984, following a series of strokes, very few
people remembered he once had been a swimmer of unparalleled accomplishments.
Tarzan's constant companion in the early movies was a chimpanzee named
Cheetah, who spent much of his time between takes trying to bite and scratch
actress O'Sullivan. Presumably, the lovely Maureen took it like a trooper.
Years later, during the brief first marriage of her daughter, Mia Farrow,
she became the only person ever related, so to speak, to both Tarzan and
Frank Sinatra. . . . "I was in Los Angeles, and [MGM] asked if I
would like to take a screen test," Weissmuller recalled years later. "I
told them no, but they said I could go to the lot and meet Greta Garbo
and have lunch with Clark Gable. Any kid would want to do that, so I said
OK. ...
There were 100 actors trying for the part. ... Then someone
called me and said, 'You got it.' I said, 'Got what?' They said, 'You're
Tarzan.' " "UMGAW-A-A-A-A!" More>>>
Evolution reversed in mice
BBC
News ~ August 7, 2006
US researchers have taken a mouse back in time some 500
million years by reversing the process of evolution. By engineering its
genetic blueprint, they have rebuilt a gene that was present in primitive
animals. The ancient gene later mutated and split, giving rise to a pair
of genes that play a key role in brain development in modern mammals. The
scientists say the experiments shed light on how evolution works and could
lead to new gene therapy techniques. "We are first to reconstruct an ancient
gene," said co-researcher Petr Tvrdik of the University of Utah. "We have
proven that from two specialised modern genes, we can reconstruct the ancient
gene they split off from. "It illuminates the mechanisms and processes
that evolution uses, and tells us more about how Mother Nature engineers
life." ...
"It gives a real example of how evolution works because
we can reverse it." More>>>
PULP CULTURE, part 4: FROM PULPS
TO COMICS
Comic
Book Bin ~ Phil's Bubble ~ By Philip Schweier ~ Aug 6, 2006
Heroes come in various forms. . . . One of the most popular
of these was Tarzan, who debuted in All-Story Magazine in October, 1912.
Originally billed as “A Romance of the Jungle” on the cover, the Tarzan
of the Apes story has been interpreted both as a Victorian drama as well
as pure action and adventure. The ape man has conquered virtually all forms
of media and has been featured in over 50 feature films. A prolific writer
in the fields of fantasy and adventure, Tarzan’s creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs'
(ERB) first foray into fantasy fiction was A Princess of Mars, in
1912. His tales of Mars were later adapted to comics form, first from Dell
in 1941. His comic book adventures were few and far between, perhaps overshadowed
by his more successful literary sibling, Tarzan. The King of the Jungle
went on to star in 24 novels written between 1912 and 1950. First drawn
by Hal Foster in 1929, he became one of the most popular stars of the funny
pages, later illustrated by Burne Hogarth, and then Russ Manning. In comic
books, he has starred in several ongoing series from all the major publishers.
He made his comic debut in Dell’s Four Color Comics in 1947, leading to
his own title a year later. Dell later relinquished the character to Gold
Key. In 1971, when DC Comics aquired the license to many of ERB’s creations,
John Carter, along with other Burroughs creations such as the Pellucidar
and Venus stories, were featured as back-up stories published in Korak,
Son of Tarzan. Six years later, when the Burroughs properties moved to
Marvel Comics, John Carter graduated to his own title which lasted for
two years, as did their Tarzan title. Since then, the ape man’s comic appearances
have been sporadic, most notably from Dark Horse Comics in the late 1990s.
With such broad appeal, the success of Tarzan inevitably spawned numerous
imitators. Ka-Zar ... Conan ... The Shadow ... The Avenger ... Doc Savage
... Superman ... Batman ... The Spider .... More>>>
When Tarzan meets Cleopatra...
IOL
~ Sofia News Agency
~ August 5, 2006
Sofia - Bulgarian parents are increasingly giving their
children unconventional names taken from films, plays and books as the
country prepares to join the European Union, according to civil registry
data published on Friday. A Tarzan, a Zorro, a Hamlet and an Ophelia, as
well as two Cleopatras (but only one Caesar), were born in 2006 in Bulgaria,
a place that until now has been on the conservative side when it came to
names.
More>>>
GYPSY OF THE MONTH: Andy Pellick
of 'Tarzan'
Broadway
World ~ August 4, 2006
Tarzan Swings Into 100th Bway Performance,
Aug. 5
Broadway
World ~ August 2, 2006
Tarzan, the Broadway Musical, will mark its 100th
performance on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Saturday,
August 5th. Tarzan opened on May 10, 2006 at the Richard Rodgers
Theatre (226 West 46th Street) and is presented by Disney Theatrical Productions.
The show has broken the box office record at the Richard
Rodgers Theatre for three consecutive weeks, most recently by grossing
$857,425 during the week of July 24 – July 30.
The original cast recording of Tarzan was released by
Walt Disney Records and is available now at the Richard Rodgers Theatre,
in music stores nationwide and at online retailers including Amazon, iTunes
and Disney Shopping. More>>>
Tarzan has been nominated for three Henry Hewes Design Awards:
Scenic Design ~ Costume Design ~ Lighting Design
This week's Dateline
Barsoom Podcast #13 from www.PanthanPress.com
features
fan fiction by Steve "Ghak" Wadding and an essay by Elmo about ERB
and racism.
Weissmuller, son of Olympic swimmer
and Tarzan star, dies at 65
 
Associated
Press ~ July 31, 2006
Johnny Weissmuller Jr., the son of Tarzan film star and
five-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, died Thursday
of liver cancer. He was 65. His last few months were filled with excitement,
including driving part of the California leg of the multicontinent Gumball
Rally 3000 auto race, his wife said. Weissmuller Jr. was an underwater
demolition specialist in the Navy who went on to work as a stage actor
and longshoreman in San Francisco in the 1970s. He also penned a memoir
about life with his father, who died in 1984 of pulmonary edema. "Tarzan,
My Father" was published in 2002. In July, Weissmuller Jr. petitioned the
International Swimming Hall of Fame Museum to return his father's medals
and other memorabilia, which were stolen two years ago from the museum
and returned in September. Weissmuller Jr. is survived by a daughter, two
stepsons and four grandchildren.
More>>>
John Carter of Mars Movie Update:
AIN'T
IT COOL NEWS ~ July 29, 2006
Interview with John Favreau:
QUINT: What's going on with JOHN CARTER OF MARS?
JON FAVREAU: I want it to be next. I just visited
(Edgar Rice Burroughs') grandson and showed all the art work to him and
they loved what we were doing. The fact that (IRON MAN) is a Paramount
project and (JOHN CARTER) is a Paramount project, I'm really hoping I can
sort of segue right from one into the other.
QUINT: IRON MAN might make a good step between ZATHURA
and JOHN CARTER.
JON FAVREAU: I think it is. We'll see how much
they want to do IRON MAN 2! Let's see how excited they get about Carter
because I would do more of these, you know, but I really... You know,
Carter has really turned into a labor of love. I really have grown to love
that character and that franchise and I think we really broke the story
and the visuals, so I'm ready to make that one. More>>>
Tarzan Presley Author Dies
Novelist leaves his final book
 Dominion
Post, NZ ~ July 29, 2006
The final work by acclaimed Wellington novelist Nigel
Cox will be published in November after he worked tirelessly to complete
it before his death. Cox, 55, died of cancer yesterday morning, four days
after his fifth book, Responsibility, was runner-up in the Montana New
Zealand Book Awards. Cox insisted on travelling to the Montana awards in
Auckland last Monday. He took a doctor with him. His fourth novel, Tarzan
Presley, was a runner-up at the Montana awards last year. But a threat
of legal action from the estate of Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs over
the use of the name means the novel cannot be published overseas or reprinted
in New Zealand. In an interview with The Dominion Post last month, Cox
admitted the episode had upset him. "I did feel bitter, and then I got
over it. There's just no point." More>>>
Tarzan
Presley Review at ERBzine Swag
Thipdar Sex Secrets Revealed
Flying reptile mystery 'solved'
 BBC
News ~ July 27, 2006
UK scientists say they have solved the mystery of why
prehistoric flying reptiles grew crests on their heads. A rare skull specimen
found in Brazil shows the crest appeared at puberty, suggesting it was
used to attract attention from the opposite sex. University of Portsmouth
experts say pterosaurs, which ruled the air during the time of the dinosaurs,
flaunted their headgear in sexual displays. "This is a significant find
as it links the growth of the crest to physical maturity and therefore
presumably to sex," said Dr Naish. More>>
"Jane's Daughter" Returns to Africa
World must not turn away from Darfur's desperation
By Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an actor and UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
She just returned from her second trip to the Darfur region of Sudan.
Chicago
Tribune ~ July 25, 2006
. . . Since 2003, almost 90 percent of the villages of
Darfur have been bombed and burned by the Sudanese government and its proxy
Arab militia, the janjaweed. More than 200,000 people have been killed.
Terrified survivors of unimaginable atrocities walk across the parched
terrain in search of safety, food and water. Today, 2 million human beings
live amid deplorable conditions in swollen refugee camps across Darfur.
Overwhelmingly, they are women and children. A majority of men and boys
have been killed. Those who survive have taken up arms with rebel groups.
. . . The refugees shelter under plastic sheets supplied by aid workers.
Food rations have been cut to less than what is required to sustain human
life. Clean water is insufficient. Meanwhile, a cholera outbreak is spreading,
with the potential to claim tens of thousands of lives. Worst of all, there
is no safety: The janjaweed are always nearby, and the camps are attacked
relentlessly. . . . UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's attempts to gain
consent for such a mission from the government of Sudan, the perpetrators
of this genocide, have been predictably refused. Appallingly, the UN and
the world community have simply acquiesced, seemingly content to let genocide
take its course. More>>>
History of a Hollow Earth Fantasy
 NY
Sun ~ July 20, 2006
"There have been many books recently about important
ideas or commodities that have changed the world," David Standish writes,
astutely, in the introduction to his very casual but well-researched "Hollow
Earth" (Da Capo, 304 pages, $24.95). His book, he boasts, "traces the
cultural history of an idea that was wrong and changed nothing — but which
nevertheless had an ongoing appeal."
Sir Edmond Halley was the first to suggest seriously
that our world was merely a crust. Driven by developments in navigation,
Halley wanted to understand why the magnetic North Pole moved. Not long
after he discovered his comet, Halley suggested to the Royal Society that
magnetic drift was caused by the oscillations of smaller globes within
our own. This was in 1692. Halley was not ridiculed; the enlightenment
was barely afoot, and notions such as his could of course appear enlightened.
The theory of a hollow earth entered the working scientific canon.
Some hollow earth enthusiasts believed that another civilization
was prospering beneath our feet, on the concavity of the earth's crust.
Other hollow earthers imagined inner spheres like Halley's. Both camps
imagined holes at the North and South Pole that let in sunlight and allowed
chance communication with us surface-dwellers. . . . For decades
a polar expedition became Symmes's chief mission, and the supposed hole
up top is still called Symmes's Hole. [Others followed:] Nathaniel Hawthorne
~ J.N. Reynolds ~ Edgar Allan Poe ~ JulesVerne. Between 1880 and
1915, Mr. Standish can list at least 33 hollow earth novels.
Note the progress of the notion from Sir Edmond Halley
to Edgar Rice Burroughs. As Mr. Standish notes, the hollow earth theory
has always been a vessel for contemporary issues. Mr. Standish notes that
the same thing that happened to the hollow earth in 1910 happened to Venus
in 1960, when that planet was proved inhospitable. . . . Science opens
frontiers, but it also closes them. Fantasy lives in the interval. More>>>
Hollow Earth The Long and Curious History of Imagining
Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous
Machines Below the Earth's Surface by David Standish Da Capo: 304 pp.
LA
Times Review ~ July 30, 2006
. . . Standish produces plenty more of these hollow worlds,
including those of Tarzan's creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and L. Frank
Baum, who takes Dorothy out of Oz into hollow Earth in "Dorothy and the
Wizard in Oz" (1908). Standish's list of hollow-Earth novels published
between 1880 and 1915 (a non-exhaustive roster) is a couple of pages long.
Even Adolf Hitler is said to have been seduced by hollow-Earth theories,
subscribing to Koresh's cosmic-egg idea and considering the Symmes Hole
at the South Pole as an escape route. . . .More>>>
DC superhero stamps issued in
US
 BBC
News ~ July 20, 2006
A set of US postage stamps celebrating 10 of DC Comics'
superhero characters are being issued this week.
The set of 39-cent-stamps, featuring Batman, Superman,
Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Supergirl, the Flash, the Green Arrow
and Hawkman, are being launched at the Comic-Con
Festival in San Diego.
Half of the 20 stamps feature portraits of the characters,
while the rest show covers from their comic books. A set of stamps celebrating
characters from the Marvel Comics stable will reportedly follow in 2007.
More>>
Moon Men IV: Wide Awake on the Sea of
Tranquillity
NASA
Science News ~ July 19, 2006
The fourth installment of Science@NASA's Apollo Chronicles
explains why Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin couldn't fall asleep 37 years
ago in the Sea of Tranquillity. More>>>
This
week's DATELINE JASOOM Podcast
has been broadcast by Jeff
Long's Panthan Press
Podcast #12 is an exciting, terrifying journey by Elmo
up the Wazoo River into the Heart of Darkness in search of Jane, Lady Greystoke.
Listeners will also hear the latest news about the Aug.
3-6 ~ ECOF/Dum-Dum convention
in Rockville, MD
and the showing of the new John
Carter of Mars stage play DVD
RAS THAVIS REPORT
Tiny wireless memory chip debuts
BBC
~ July 17, 2006
A chip the size of a grain of rice that can store 100
pages of text and swaps data via wireless has been developed by Hewlett-Packard.
The tiny chip was small enough to embed in almost any object, said HP.
The chip could be used to ensure drugs have not been counterfeited, on
patient wristbands in hospitals or to add sounds or video to postcards,
said HP. . . . Because the chips were so small and easy to make they could
be embedded in documents as they were printed, stuck to any surface or
made into a book of self-adhesive dots. HP speculated that once in
production the devices could cost as little as one dollar each. No battery
is needed because devices reading data from the chip will provide power
by induction. More>>>
July 15, 2006
Jon Favreau visits Tarzana
Director Jon Favreau, who was assigned pre-production
duties on Paramount's John Carter of Mars film project last year,
met with Danton Burroughs in the ERB, Inc. Tarzana offices this week.
Among the many topics discussed was a brainstorming session
on revitalizing the project which was put on hold when Favreau signed on
as director for the new Iron Man film.
Favreau also gave Danton a preview of the very impressive
production art that has been created for John Carter of Mars.
Proposed Princess comics
series stalled
IDW's proposed comics series based on A Princess of
Mars, to be written by Dan Taylor, with art by Ted McKeever and covers
by Frank Cho and Mark Wheatley has apparently been scrapped. Apparently
appropriate licensing arrangements could not be worked out with ERB, Inc.
who own trademarks on many of the characters and place names in the Mars
series, as well as copyrights on most of the titles in the series.
PULP CULTURE, PART 2: AN OVERVIEW
Comic
Bin ~ July 15, 2006
http://comicbookbin.com/article_3907.html
In the age before mass market paperbacks, there were
such things as dime novels, so called because that’s about how much they
cost. Cowboys were the usual fare, the aim of the magazine to entertain
young boys. On magazine racks across America, real life Western heroes
such as Wyatt Earp stood side-by-side with manufactured ones such as Hopalong
Cassidy. New genres such as detective mysteries and science fiction followed.
The variety of material tapped into wider audiences, and gave birth to
stories to suit every taste. . . . Competition was stiff, with newsstands
filled with magazines dedicated to mystery, adventure and science fiction.
Classic characters such as Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and Zorro by Johnston
McCulley have become part of the pop culture landscape. . . . For some
authors, the pulps were a stepping stone to greatness, allowing them to
hone their craft before a book publisher came looking for a novel. Edgar
Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, and Zane Grey all got their starts in the
pages of monthly magazines such as All-Story and Black Mask. More>>>
Goodall's captive audience better
off than wild chimps
The
Australian ~ July 15, 2006
HAVING seen what she's seen, world-renowned primatologist
Jane Goodall could be forgiven for being wary about animals in captivity,
but yesterday she decided the chimpanzee enclosure at Sydney's Taronga
Zoo was one of the world's best. . . . Dr Goodall, who as a child dreamed
of living like Tarzan and Dr Dolitte, last saw the group in August 1997.
. . . During her 45 years working with and observing chimpanzees, Dr Goodall,
72, has made several important discoveries. More>>>
Tarzan's Chester Gregory Performs
7/31 Concert
Broadway
World ~ July 14, 2006
Singer/songwriter Chester Gregory--currently on Broadway
in Tarzan--will perform R&B/soul hits from his upcoming album "High
Love" at the Triad Theatre. . . "Chester Gregory is carving his own
niche in the R&B male vocalist category. For his new CD titled 'High
Love,' he has teamed with some of the newest and hottest producer's in
the industry. . . . Gregory--who plays Terk on Broadway in Disney's Tarzan--had
the opportunity of working first hand with Phil Collins, who wrote all
the music for the show, including "Who Better Than Me", which Collins wrote
especially for Chester just 2 weeks before Tarzan's world premiere. Other
credits include the 8 Tony Award-winning Broadway hit musical, Hairspray
(where he was "Seaweed") and The Jackie Wilson Story, which ran in Chicago
for three years and for which he received critical praise. . . . His "High
Love" single from the upcoming album will soon be release. It is currently
available on iTunes. Visit www.theatermania.com
to order tickets for his concert. More>>>
Why teens were tough for Tyrannosaurus
CBC
News ~ July 13, 2006
 Young
dinosaurs lived in packs with nurturing parents like modern mammals, paleontologists
who studied a group of fossils in Alberta's Badlands say. Paleontologist
Phillip Currie of the University of Alberta and his colleagues concluded
predation led to high death rates among newborns until they reached a threshold
size about age two. The dinosaurs then survived relatively well until about
age 13, the team reports in Friday's issue of the journal Science. That
would help explain the mysterious rarity of young adult bones. The fossils
aren't found simply because the mortality rates for that age group were
extremely low, the growth curves suggest. At about age 14, when the dinosaurs
reached sexual maturity, the death rate rose significantly, possibly because
they were competing with each other for mates and food. The survivorship
pattern paints a picture of parents who shield their offspring until their
young are old enough to breed. The behaviour is seen in large modern mammals,
such as male elephants that usually stay with their birth herd until puberty.
The results reinforce the notion that dinosaurs were much more closely
related to modern birds and mammals than they were to reptiles. "If dinosaurs
hadn't died out, I'm not sure that mammals would have got an edge to outcompete
them." More>>>
Edmonton lives up to dino bone
billing
CBC
News ~ June 29, 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/06/29/edmontonsaurus.html
A huge dinosaur bone yard has been uncovered in Edmonton,
where housing construction is booming. One of the largest duck-billed
dinosaurs, known as Edmontosaurus. A man walking his dog in a city park
found the first fossils some years ago, but now paleontologists are discovering
the site's full potential. The bones belong to one of the largest duck-billed
dinosaurs, known as Edmontosaurus. "Because Edmontosaurus has such a huge
distribution north and south, all the way up to the north slope of Alaska,
we may also learn something about the migratory patterns of dinosaurs,"
said Phil Currie, a paleontologist at the University of Alberta. More>>>
Fanged killer kangaroo roamed
Outback "Valley Dor"
July 12, 2006
SYDNEY,
Australia (Reuters) -- A team of Australian palaeontologists say they
have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what
they describe as a "demon duck of doom". . . the remains of a meat-eating
kangaroo with wolf-like fangs were found as well as a galloping kangaroo
with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo. "Because
they didn't hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big, powerful forelimbs.
Some of them had long canines (fangs) like wolves." . . . "These things
had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off
flesh" More>>>
Wild Oak Park Tarzan Exhibit
Oak
Park Wednesday Journal ~ July 11, 2006
The Historical Society’s Tarzan exhibit was recently
featured on "Wild Chicago’s Illinois Road Trip," broadcast June 16, 18
and 20 on WTTW-Channel 11. Research Center Director Diane Hansen was interviewed
for the segment.
Tarzan exhibit? Sure, complete with the ape-man’s famous
yell. Not your standard fare at your standard historical society, to be
sure, but this is Oak Park, and Edgar Rice Burroughs published his first
Tarzan novels while living here in the early part of the last century.
If you’re curious about the exhibit, the Historical Society is located
on the second and third floors of Pleasant Home, located at the corners,
not coincidentally, of Pleasant and Home.
Prominent Oak Park Residents
Oak
Park Wednesday Journal ~ July 11, 2006
"As one of the growing towns of the times, the Fair Oaks
development did attract many prominent businessmen," says Lipo, such as
the owners of Jewel Foods. Frank Vernon Skiff and Frank P. Ross were the
owners in 1899 of Jewel Tea Company, today’s grocery giant. Skiff started
the company as a door-to-door coffee delivery service. He later partnered
with his brother-in-law in 1902. The two lived in neighboring estates designed
by architect-to-the-wealthy Howard Van Doren Shaw in the Fair Oaks district
on the 500 block of North East Avenue. Frank Lloyd Wright was a 22-year-old
architect in 1889 when he began what is now the Frank Lloyd Wright Home
and Studio on Chicago Avenue. Several of his prairie style homes were built
between 1900 and 1920 in the Fair Oaks district. Other notables of that
era include Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs, dance impresario Doris
Batscheller Humphrey; Ernest Hemingway who lived in several residences,
two located in the original Fair Oaks district; and fast food entrepreneur
Ray Kroc.
ERB Artist Suydam unveils Batman
at San Diego
www.evainkpublishing.com
Arthur Suydam, whose highly acclaimed oil paintings have
been catapulting the “Marvel Zombie” series, is now using that same “fine
art to comics” technique on the Dark Knight. And, Clampett Studios has
tapped the San Diego Comic Con as the venue to unveil its new giclee, “Domain
of the Bat,” from this renowned artist. Suydam will be appearing at the
Heroic Fine Art Booth at San Diego from 1-3 on Thursday, July 20th.
He can also be found in Artist’s Alley throughout the show.
Recommended: Astronomy Picture of the
Day Archives
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
Mars
from the Valley of Fire 2003: Brightest appearance in 60,000 years
Weissmuller's son fights museum
for swimmer's mementos
McClatchy
Newspapers ~ July 11, 2006
Although he was most famously known as the big-screen
Tarzan, to the people at the International Swimming Hall of Fame, Johnny
Weissmuller embodied the history of his sport. But now the athlete's son,
65-year-old Johnny Weissmuller Jr. wants to take back his father's every
memento and medal from the Hall. "They are mine," said Weissmuller Jr.
in a voice weakened by terminal cancer during a phone interview from his
home in San Francisco. Diane Weissmuller, his wife, said the couple is
due the Olympian's collection because Weissmuller Sr. said so in his will.
. . . "There have been just too many shenanigans at the Hall of Fame,"
Diane Weissmuller said. "We don't feel the items are secure." More>>>
Times
Online UK
Canada.com
A Voluble Visit with Two
Talking Apes
NPR
~ July 8, 2006
Two bonobo chimpanzees in Iowa are changing how scientists
think about the nature of human language. Kanzi and Panbanisha understand
thousands of words. They use sentences, talk on the phone, and they like
to gossip. In short, they use language in many of the same ways humans
do. . . . Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, head scientist at the Great Ape Trust near
Des Moines says apes can acquire a lot of language if they learn it the
same way human babies do. More>>>
Bigger dinosaurs had warmer blood
BBC
News ~ July 11, 2006
The bigger a dinosaur was, the warmer its blood, a study
of the big beasts' fossil remains shows. Dinosaurs were long considered
to be cold-blooded reptiles. More recently, some researchers have proposed
that the extinct creatures actively regulated their body temperature like
mammals. A study in the journal Plos Biology now suggests this is not the
case, but that bigger dinosaurs may have lost heat so slowly that they
stayed warm anyway. Reptiles tend to be cold-blooded ectotherms, whose
internal body temperature is dependent on the outside environment. For
example, lizards and snakes will sun themselves on rocks in order to heat
themselves up. More>>>
Microsoft shuts down Windows
98
July 11, 2006
Microsoft is urging an estimated 70 million users of
Windows 98 to upgrade as it ends support for the software. From 11 July,
Microsoft will no longer help users over the phone with any problems they
have with the ageing operating system. The firm will also stop providing
security updates for Windows 98 from the same date.
Gene reveals mammoth coat colour
 BBC
News ~ July 6, 2006
The coat colour of mammoths that roamed the Earth thousands
of years ago has been determined by scientists. Some of the curly tusked
animals would have sported dark brown coats, while others had pale ginger
or blond hair. The information was extracted from a 43,000-year-old woolly
mammoth bone from Siberia using the latest genetic techniques. In humans,
reduced activity of the Mc1r gene causes red hair, while in dogs, mice
and horses it results in yellow hair. Woolly mammoths ( Mammuthus primigenius
) were common about 50,000 years ago, during the late Pleistocene epoch.
They were about the size of an Indian elephant, but with shaggy woolly
coats and tusks measuring over 4m long. They are thought to have died out
about 4,500 years ago. More>>>
ERBzine Swag Site Updates
www.ERBzine.com/swag
The latest from Jerry Schneider's
ERBville Press ~ George McWhorter's new book ~ J. Allen St. John art:
High Adventure ~ Kubert's Tarzan in Dark Horse ~ Disney's
Tarzan Cast Album
Update: The Enid Markey Biography Project
Brian Bohnett has been researching the life of Enid Markey,
the first Jane of the cinema
Tarzan of the Apes 1918, for the past 2-3 years, and he is close
to finishing the project. He is putting out a final appeal to members of
ERB world to see if anyone has any last-minute information or memorabilia
which they would be willing to share. Brian has over 100 images of Enid
already, but he is always on the look out for unique "stuff."
Tarzan Roars Into Billboard Cast
Album Chart
July 6, 2006
Walt Disney Records' original Broadway cast recording
of the Phil Collins musical Tarzan enters the Billboard Cast Album chart
at No. 3 this week right behind the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Jersey
Boys and Wicked. With a score from pop singer-songwriter Collins, the new
album featuring Josh Strickland in the title role and Jenn Gambatese as
his Jane was released June 27 by the company behind the 1999 animated film
which serves as source material.
Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography
of Lord Greystoke
By Philip Jose Farmer (Bison Books/University of Nebraska
Press, $19.95).
June 30, 2006 ~ Brief
Reviews: Grade: A by Mark Graham
Like me, many fans of science fiction and fantasy cut
their teeth on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Most of us envisioned
Mars through the eyes of John Carter and imagined swinging through the
trees in the African rain forest like John Clayton, better known as Tarzan,
Lord of the Jungle. In 1972, Popular Library published Philip
Jose Farmer's Tarzan Alive, a biography of this fictional character
written as if he were a real person. Later, Esquire magazine published
Farmer's "Tarzan Lives: An Exclusive Interview with the Eighth Duke of
Greystoke," and his "Extracts from the Memoirs of 'Lord Greystoke' " was
published in a collection of his works. Now for the first time, these
three amazing narratives are published together, along with a new foreword
by Win Scott Eckert, an introduction by Mike Resnick, five lengthy addenda
and a selected bibliography of more than 200 resources.
Farmer starts off by claiming that Burroughs knew Lord
Greystoke and wrote his life story as fiction to protect his privacy. Farmer
has painstakingly chronicled the plots of the 24 Tarzan books written by
Burroughs and analyzed what he considers to be "true" and what he claims
Burroughs added to make the stories more exciting and to convince readers
that Tarzan did not actually exist. Using a plethora of sources,
Farmer not only makes the case for the existence of the King of Beasts,
but for several other fictional heroes as well. All of these exceptional
characters, he claims, can be traced to common ancestries. They include:
Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Bulldog Drummond and Fitzwilliam Darcy and
Elizabeth Bennett (from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice). This
easily readable scholarly tome filled me with nostalgia for the first time
I visited Africa with Tarzan many years ago and reminded me that, in the
books, at least, Tarzan still lives.
Tarzan the Broadway Musical Cast
Album:
An update from Disney Webmaster Eric Kratzer in NYC:
We've just launched another Tarzan update that includes
links
to buy the cast album (from disney direct and the itunes music store).
There is also a player that plays 30 second clips from
every song on the cast album continuously. I think its very cool!
Also, check out: this special for NewsDay
subscribers.
More>>>
Rosie O'Donnell Swings By Tarzan
Broadway.com
~ June 26, 2006
She played the voice of Tarzan's pal Terk in the 1999
Disney animated film—and got to sing Phil Collins' catchy song "Trashin'
the Camp"—so it made sense that Rosie O'Donnell would check out the live-action
version of her fun-loving character. O'Donnell took in a matinee performance
of Tarzan on June 25 at Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre, then went backstage
to congratulate the cast. Broadway.com joined the hugfest.
Fresh Daily: Moving Forward
BallerStatus.net
~ June 28, 2006
The name Tarzan probably conjures images of a damn near
naked white man swinging on vines through the jungle. But flip that image,
throw in a dope emcee and hip-hop in the mix and you'll get ill Tarzan;
the self-proclaimed epitome of Brooklyn boom-bap who's been rocking on
the underground circuit for 7 years . . . may have been getting too
much notoriety. So much so, that the family of Edgar Rice Burroughs --
the original writer of the Tarzan book series -- is presenting him with
legal drama, forcing him to
change his name from ill Tarzan to Fresh Daily. . . .
The family of Edgar Rice Burroughs gets millions of dollars every year
for that name in plays, books, amusement parks, soundtracks, movies, and
the television series. They realized that I was doing something under that
name and they weren't seeing any money from it, so they had to shut me
down. More>>>
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“From
Verne to Vonnegut: A Century of Science Fiction,” an exhibit that runs
from Aug. 22-Dec. 15 in the Special Collections Exhibition Gallery in the
Morris Library at UD, will showcase literary works and related materials
by such notable sci-fi authors as Samuel Delany, Kurt Vonnegut and Edgar
Rice Burroughs.
Tarzan
was invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912, and the first Tarzan film
was made in 1914. As an American, Burroughs was geographically and philosophically
at a distance from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Shelley, and Jules Verne,
but he inhaled both their love of the primitive and their suspicion of
science. Growing with unabated power, that wariness of the mechanical continued
to expand and take on an ever more intoxicating force with the dread following
the unprecedented carnage of World War I and the smokestack lightning of
industrialization. In the rocket's red glare of America, a particularized
love of the "natural" revealed itself in the romance of the woodsman, the
Indian, and the cowboy or Western outlaw, all of whom were in conflict
with the shackles that came with settling anything, whether in the Mohawk
East or the Wild West. Burroughs was essential to the popularization of
the idea that technology could be terrible and that man was the inevitable
target of increasingly restrictive and ominous inventions . . . .