I’ve had plenty of friends talk about bad initial reactions to their vaccinations. I’ve never had much trouble except with the flu vaccine. This week, though, one of the vaccines I got Tuesday left me groggy for a couple of days. That did not help my output. However the groggy wore off by late Thursday — and vaccines are still a health miracle.
Nor did it help that everyone I tried contacting for Local Reporter articles early in the week — I wanted to set up interviews for midweek — was out (that time of year, I guess). So I spent Wednesday while I was feeling groggy trying to find an idea I could bat out in a much shorter span of time. I got several ideas I can tackle later but that was it. I wound up doing a short article about Pride Month in Carrboro and nothing else. That wasted a lot of time I could have spent on other projects.
I did get the second chapter of Jekyll and Hyde rewritten, focusing on the Victorian stage adaptations. Rereading the stage plays, I realized the landmark Richard Mansfield adaptation not only introduced Jekyll’s love interest to the sausage-fest story (there’s also bad girl for Hyde but rather than his lover, it’s his landlady) but establishing Jekyll as a good man who screwed up his research rather than a morally mixed man who deliberately became Edward Hyde.
The later Irving adaptation now looks to me to have a very strong influence on the 1920 John Barrymore film version. In that version Sir George Carew, wife of Jekyll’s sweetheart, is an old roue who thinks Jekyll, a man with no vices, is a fool: the only way to manage one’s lusts and base urges is to have enough experience you can master them. Several film reference sources suggest Henry Wotton, Dorian Gray’s mentor in sin, is the template the screenwriter used for Sir George. But in the Irving stage play Sir Danvers Carew is also a lecher and adulterer; I suspect that’s a much more likely inspiration for the film’s take. And the shot of Hyde below looks a lot like Barrymore’s Hyde.
Here’s Barrymore.
Over at Atomic Junk Shop I looked at the first appearance of Tony Stark’s father, Howard, plus a few images from 1970s comics. One of them is below, an ad hinting at Jack Kirby’s imminent arrival at DC Comics.
As explained at the link, I don’t think the add works.
Not a great week for work, in other words, but I am very pleased with my Chapter Two rewrite. And last month I sold an ebook of 19-Infinity and one of Questionable Minds so yay! And thanks, whoever you were — I hope you liked them.
Rights to all images remain with current holders.
It feels like he really wants to be our indoor cat but can’t quite bring himself to do it. TYG loves him so much, she’ll be over the moon if he comes in and snuggles like Wisp does.
I also have a piece at Atomic Junk Shop on the 
But she’s still my cat and she’s welcome to stay in if she wants.
Yesterday McFarland mailed me the PDF of The Aliens Are Here for me to proof, edit and index. This is quite a job, especially the unimaginable tedium of indexing. Due by early September (the book comes out late that month). And wouldn’t you know, after a couple of months of quiet, Leaf suddenly has a ton of articles available. And one of my other clients wants me to do an accounting article.
Impressed though I was with their swiftness, once they determined I was not in peril mortal, the swiftness disappeared. I got out of the CATscan around noon. 4 PM we were still waiting for someone to wrap things up and remove the various wires and IV hooked up to me. And we couldn’t get to the cafeteria — I just had to wait on the bed, staring at my surroundings (above). Good thing we both brought plenty to read.
I got my permanent crown in Wednesday, so I feel definitely victorious over darkness. No more worrying about biting down on nuts or toffee, whoo-hoo!
— and here’s how he looks after his recent grooming.
Hard to believe it’s the same dog, isn’t it?
And less dramatic than this Joe Kubert cover.
I’m quite happy to have my eyes neither scary nor dramatic.
Getting to the lab turned out surprisingly complicated. Driving up the road alongside the hospital, I passed the entrance that said EMERGENCY PATIENTS — not noticing that underneath it, in much smaller prints, the sign said Outpatients. I tried the next entrance (attempting to interpret my GPS), which turned out to be staff. Tried the one after that, parked, went inside, learned it was the wrong entrance. And because of Covid, I assume, I couldn’t just make my way back to the MRI wing.
