thegrumblebunny's blog

Shameless self promotion*

I have a Civil War namesake & you can read all about "GRUMBLE" Jones @ FIVESECONDFUSE.

*(I have to do something since nothing I post on my new blog ever shows up in search or explore.)

Goats and Monkeys, Oh My!

The Goat Teaches Dancing by Phelps, Dodge and Palmer.  A children's picture story book from the 1890s.

The goat teaches dancing -- The performing monkeys -- Caught in a storm -- Good little kids.

Movie Review: Curse of Demon Mountain = That was one weird movie

I watched a movie yesterday at the Internet Archive that started out as a Civil War story and turned into something else... something very weird... I highly recommend it!

The Curse of Demon Mountain (aka: The Shadow of Chikara) starts out in the midst of the Civil War, and moves to the mountains of Arkansas where the characters are on a treasure hunt while being followed, hunted, and stalked by an invisible, mysterious something or other.

It's a bad 1970s "B" movie, but with lots of good actors, like Joe Don Baker, Slim Pickens, Ted Neeley, and Sondra Locke....  As well as prominently featuring the song The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by The Band.

The best part is that it was VERY SUSPENSEFUL right up until the very last possible moment.  I never saw that coming, and I never would have guessed the ending even though looking back now - I can NOT believe how I ever missed i

Of course, the internet being what it is... the above video isn't formatted for Vox's screen width, so to see it full screen go to the Curse of Demon Mountain details page at the internetarchive.

12 Civil War themed movies available at the Internet Archive

In no particular order:

Hearts in Bondage

Kansas Pacific

Arizona Kid

Southward, Ho!

Drums in the Deep South

Cavalry

Abraham Lincoln

Santa Fe Trail

Hoosier Schoolmaster

It's a Joke Son

Judge Priest

Curse of Demon Mountain

If you are looking for more.... you can always search the internet from this list of Civil War films from Wikipedia.

Union Army Picket Line Charge

Photo from StrangeMilitary.com used WITHOUT permission.

Ashleigh Brilliant, in 17 words or less.

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"

100 years ago today, Mark Twain (aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens) died.

From Wikipedia:  "In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:

'I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'

His prediction was accurate â€“ Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth."

Read lots of Twain stories over at Gutenberg.org today to celebrate his genius.

Quiz: What Civil War General are you?

"Which American Civil War General are you", or "Which Confederate Civil War General are you", and a page of random Civil War quizzes. 

I got Braxton Bragg (Actually, he tied with NB Forrest, but my tie breaker gave up Bragg, damn it.).  Bragg was such a rat-bastard... his own men tried to kill him at least twice!

Books I've read about the War Between the States (aka: The Civil War)

LIBRARY BOOKS:

Sunday in Centreville: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861 by G. A. Foster

Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz

The Civil War: Strange and Fascinating Facts by I don't remember (IDR)

An Album of the Civil War by IDR

And about 4 or 5 books I took out and leafed through but didn't actually read-read...


ONLINE:

Fiction: The Comings of Cousin Ann by Emma Speed Sampson (1923).

Set in Kentucky in the early 1900s. Cousin Ann is the family Matriarch and she's had to go "visiting" on all her kin ever since the end of the Civil War when the Plantation had been burned to the ground leaving her homeless. Needless to say, her visits wear thin on the family after all of these years... Enter Judith, the sweet, peppy girl from town. Judy wins the hearts of the townsfolk and saves the day by saving the whole the Cousin Ann Family from themselves.

This was a phenomenal look into the Southern culture from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Outstanding book. Emma Speed Sampson was such a good writer that she was even allowed to write under L. Frank Baum's pseudonym of Edith Van Dyne.

Non-Fiction: A Confederate Girl's Diary by Sarah Morgan Dawson (1913).

Transcriptions of the diaries of a young woman living in the South DURING the Civil War. An engrossing read detailing what it was like to "live" in the South during Federal occupation and under constant fire. I am only into August of 1862, and based on her writings I wish the South had won and I can see why Southerners are so proud and protective of their heritage.

A Yankee Girl At Fort Sumter by Alice Turner Curtis.

Yankee Girl in Gettysburg by Alice Turner Curtis.


the little colonel (et al) by annie fellows johnston


(Boy's historical fiction) Civil War Series by Harry Castlemon: 1. True to his colors; 2. Rodney, the Partisan; 3. Marcy the Blockade Runner.


Raiding with Morgan by Byron Dunn

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

Paper: A Refutation of the Charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having Authorized the Use of Explosive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65.

I don't like the glasses

They're cute, but very cheaply made.

They have spring hinges which make the arm stems (Is that what you call them?) not relax on my ears.  They pinch me and don't sit right on my nose.  They're kind of crooked too.  Not worth 15$.

The lens is too short.  I need a taller lens.  It's like I am peering over them, not looking through them.

I am disappointed, but they ARE as cute as they looked in the picture, they just fit poorly.

I have an email out to the seller asking about an exchange - as I knew she did not do refunds when I bought them.  Oh well.