Mancini and Morrison [This post is under construction.]

    Here’s another quick item from my history to top off the month and meet my quota, not unlike the December 31st post ending out 2024 did for that month and the year.

    It was provoked by a question raised by Warwick Grant to the ‘Baghdad By The Bay’ Facebook Group in his May 22, 2026 post. The subject being the old Tower Records on Columbus, Jones, Bay in San Francisco, he asked everyone: “Did you ever buy your records here?”

 

Tower Records circa 1980. SFAI, my now defunct alma mater is also visible.

    This was my reply the next day: “Yes, my very first two albums in 1968: 'Hatari! (Music from the Motion Picture Score)’ Henry Mancini RCA Victor - LSP-2559, and 'The Doors' The Doors Elektra - EKS-74007.

Er, Mancini and Morrison if you will.”*
😉

'Hatari!' (1962) & 'The Doors' (1967)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

    I was thirteen when Tower Records first opened its doors (no pun intended) even though 1967 was also the year The Doors eponymous debut was  coincidentally released. I was also being given an allowance for the first time and sometimes earning a little more with the occasional odd job or chore here and there. So with my older sisters telling me all about this neat record store way out on Bay Street at the end of the 47 Potrero bus route (we lived on Potrero), I scraped up and saved enough spending cash to make my first purchase ever of a phonograph record for myself!

    I immediately knew on what album that money was going to be spent: ‘The Doors’! I had to have the long play of ‘Light My Fire’ to play on our family portable phonograph player. My sisters, even my twin sister had their 45’s, but I as yet had no full length record of my own.

    1968 had already begun, so with the money in hand along with my bus card, I traveled across town to the North Beach venue. Tower Records was huge compared to all the other record shops I had ever seen. Its inventory seemed exhaustive. Wow! Thousand upon thousands of vinyl discs, 45’s, EP’s, LP’s, mono, high fidelity, stereo, you name it!

    Immediately locating my selection I was doubly excited to learn the prices were just low enough that I could pay for, not one, but two albums; taxes included!**

    I scurried to find the  next section alphabetized under “M” or the soundtrack section, knowing instinctively what that second album choice would be. For ever since I was first taken along with my twin by our dad to see Howard Hawk’s ‘Hatari!’ at the Paramount Theater on Market Street in June of 1962, I was mad about the film,*** the setting, the action, animals, and Henry Mancini’s magnificent score. He had already captured my ear with ‘Peter Gunn’ and ‘Mr. Lucky’. Definitely, ‘Hatari!’ was going to be the first of Mancini’s music I would collect.

    Heading up front, I paid for the items. The transaction went without a hitch. Albums under my arms (I can’t remember if Tower Records was already using the trademark yellow plastic bags with the bold red logo - Hey, come to think of it, I still have one of the smaller Tower bags for 45’s, CD’s and such, in my possession!)… where was I? Oh yes! Albums under my arms, securely tucked, I headed back post haste the quarter mile to the bottom of the 47 line at Van Ness Avenue and Front Street.

    It felt years getting back across town (3.92 miles) bus stop after bus stop, but home was now auditory Heaven, the instant I laid that diamond needle down in that long play groove.

    

 -FIN-

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

Tower Records (1980) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

San Francisco 

 

*The Mancini/Morrison line was added the day after that.

**Unfortunately, I cannot myself recall what the going price for the albums were, but looking it up online, it could have sold for as low as $2.98 per unit all the way up to $4.98 (the usual 1967 retail list price for a stereo album). Oddly enough, though our phonograph player was monaural, I exclusively only bought stereo. I guess I was a budding audiophile, even though I hadn’t the monetary means at thirteen to afford stereophonic equipment That was still a year or two away - like, late 1969.

***By the time Tower Records opened, I had already seen the movie eight or nine times wherever it played, at the various theaters and re-releases. It didn’t air on television until its national network Fall premiere on ABC; yet again, would you believe it, in 1967!

 

 

 

 

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Audrey and "Orangey"*

    I dunno, having just seen 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' on the big screen, with my sister and Andy, yesterday afternoon (I had no idea the original was already twenty years past! How decades fly!) I’ve been feeling a little Holly Golight-ish all day since. 

    This frequently happens as a direct result of my catching a snappy and snazzy film about style, women, the Big Apple, and wit. Holly is my afterglow, with Director Blake Edward’s 1961 adaptation of Truman Capote’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Audrey Hepburn’s character being movie-wise, my fashion favorites!**

    Not too long afterwards, and purely by coincidence, I chance to see a Facebook sci-fi film post about "Orangey", the feline of the silver screen, who just so happen to also play “Cat” in the Hollywood/New York-based classic.

    Then I happened on this online image fur the furst time fur minutes ago!

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly and "Orangey" as, what else, Cat. Naturally.

    -FIN-

*Wikipedia: "Orangey was a name used by multiple male, red domestic shorthair tabby cats which served as animal actors in motion pictures. While portrayed as a single cat in early studio publicity and news accounts, the cats' owner and trainer Frank Inn has stated that the original Orangey died prior to his first role and was actually multiple cats."

In fact, the feline depicted above, does not appear to be either of the two tabbies (Felis catus) purportedly used in the 1961 feature film, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.

For these reasons I felt it proper to place the name in quotation marks.

**Note, my own blogger profile incorporates Golightly's whimsicality as well as my signature wink.

Some Works

     Today is my good friend Iddo Johannes Van Spall's birthday. He's seventy nine I believe. Today the fifty five year old Vaillancourt Fountain in San Francisco is also in the process of being dismantled. 

    What's the connection you ask? Well, the only clear image of Iddo in my possession was coincidentally photographed at that very same fountain in 1974. 

    So lifting an idea from the card I recently bought to celebrate my sister's birthday, the timely lift proving to be just the perfect tie I needed to bring everything together, I decided to take advantage of the coincidences and produce this.

Iddo's birthday card featuring the 'Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi' and the 'Vaillancourt Fountain'.

    Happy Birthday, Iddo!! 

    ;-)

 

    -FIN- 

 

Fountains: Gian Lorenzo Bernini's ‘Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi’ (1651) in the Piazza Navona, Rome, and Armand Vaillancourt's 'Vaillancourt Fountain' or 'Québec libre!’ (1971) in San Francisco and dismantled in May of 2026.

Dan Fontes 1958~2026

     To my total surprise, I just learned two hours ago through social media, that one of my Facebook Friends had suddenly passed. Dan Fontes, an acquaintance of mine, and renowned Oakland and Bay Area muralist, was only sixty seven at the time of his demise. According to early news reports, cancer was the cause.

    Normally, I would always receive his semi-regular Facebook updates, and merely thought the recent lull in posts was because of other art or hobby-related activities momentarily taking up his priorities. I had no idea.

    And now he's gone.

    Dan Fontes and I first met at Cafe Van Kleef (CVK) in Oakland. In need of more steady income, I had just switched over from the Oakland Arts Department to work for Peter Van Kleef at Peter's fledgling art bar. Due to my freelance association with the City of Oakland, I was already aware of Dan's mural work and was more than overjoyed to finally meet him, when in 2003 he accepted Peter's invitation to add four figures to the mural hanging in the cafe (more on that in a bit).

    Dan and I soon struck up a casual friendship, and remained acquaintances over the years. That acquaintanceship extended to Facebook. And as I actually happen to live so very near to one of Dan Fontes' "Animurals", he and I would sometimes run into each other on the street. After my stint at CVK and returning to the Oakland Arts, I would also bump into Dan there, at a public meeting or art event, or his at his studio space, the one or times I dropped in for a visit.

    I always enjoyed our meetings, however fleeting.

    Speaking of one such encounter...

    Below is a series of pictures I took, when I chance to catch Dan restoring one of his "Giraphics" murals beneath the 580. En route on foot to a weekly commitment in Oakland, where I was no longer a resident but still having business (just up Oakland Avenue in fact from where I use to reside) we crossed paths. My commitment it so happened, was smack on the opposite side of that same MacArthur overpass.

    Pleased to see each other, Dan and I chatted for a bit. Leaving his assistant to carry on, he then suggested and volunteered to descend the scaffold to take my photo, kindly obliging me with a photo pose in return before I had to dash off to keep my appointment.

     I had no idea then this would be our last public encounter. The date was Thursday, April 25, 2016.

Dan Fontes, when last we met, and I still had personal commitments in Oakland. Thursday, August 25, 2016.

       This final, in-person meeting happened to coincide with the start of Dan's 2016 'Animural' Restoration Project, slated for completion unbeknownst to me by Earth Day April 22, 2017.

That's not an optical illusion you're witnessing. The scaffold is actually leaning toward the mural. Thursday, August 25, 2016. Dan's assistant is Kristi Holohan.

     And as the target date neared, a flurry of flyers went out inviting one and all to come enjoy the day and Dan's art. Wholly unaware of the announcement was I however, no longer residing, as I mentioned, in Oakland.

The official flyer for the Giraffe Murals' Earth Day, April 22, 2017 opening.

 

  Yet, sure enough, as luck would have it, by pure chance alone, I just happened to take these next two photographs two days prior to Earth Day! Once again, I was on my way to my weekly engagement.

Spot the three giraffes in this panoramic view. Thursday, April 20, 2017

My favorite Dan Fontes’ “Giraphics”. Thursday, April 20, 2017

    Dan's murals are many, but in once particular case, I can truthfully state that I had a hand.

    Back to 2003 and Cafe Van Kleef. 

    Peter Van Kleef, the eponymous proprietor, had this large mural, which had already been reworked by a second artist to populate to the tableau with recognizable personalities. Hence the appearance of Jerry Brown (Peter's then neighbor), Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Vincent van Gogh, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol. When in the fall of that year, the cafe officially got underway and was opened to the public, Dan was invited to add a few more notable celebrities.

Cafe Van Kleef Mural  -  Photo by Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE 2023-05-11

    First came Frida, followed by James Brown. Dan simply overlaid Frida Kahlo, head and shoulders atop a generic guitarist in the bottom left foreground, taking good advantage of the ready-made forearms and instrument 

    James himself, got slotted in bright lemon-lime, to the right of Jerry, perhaps in an bid to brighten up the latter's dour demeanor. ;-)  

Cafe Van Kleef Mural - Photo by Douglas Zimmerman SFGATE 2023-05-11

 

     Then came the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, third on Dan's list. Dan was almost done with the Dalai when suddenly there was a problem and he stopped. Up to this point, for each of the individuals, Dan had been relying on a photographic referent, but for the Dalai Lama, he needed a twist and lacked a guide.

    That's when Dan turned to me as we were chatting, and asked me if I could literally lend my hand. Sticking a bar glass in it, he then pulled out his Polaroid and once he was satisfied of the pose, snapped a picture. A moment later, with the freshly developed print in hand, Dan once again resumed his painting.

With the help of Google’s machine learning (A.I.) to blur out the surrounding imagery, yep, that’s me in the mural: the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso’s right hand man, er, um, uh… right hand!

    Not that anyone knows or cares - few do - but that's how I ended up literally having a hand in one of Dan's artworks and the story behind my brief stint as his hand model.

    A fourth figure was begun, but did not see completion. Craggy Keith Richards started to take his place at the extreme opposite end of the mural, but Peter and Dan had a falling out. Peter reneged on paying Dan the money he was due, and Keith was left uncompleted as a result.

    Fortunately, Dan and I remained friends. I only learned the reason for the parting much later. From Dan own lips. Sadly, knowing that one side of Peter, his spottiness with regards to monies due, I'm not surprised. Even I went unpaid. Were it not for Peter's wife, Cindy Reeves, who saw to it I eventually got paid everything in full, I would have been out on the streets.  

    But enough with the bummers and the prior puns already. All joking and some regrets aside, having had the honor to be of help to Dan is indeed, a memory I fondly treasure, and it's nice nevertheless to find a part of me unexpectedly immortalized. No big deal to Dan, but I have been more than well-rewarded.

Lake Merritt Mural Project (1988) Dan Fontes

     For all his kindness, his artistry, and decency, I am so saddened by Dan Fontes' sudden departure. I can barely believe it, and cannot even begin to imagine the heartbreak and anguish his long time, loving partner, Julie Lucchesi must be enduring. She was so very dear to him. Indispensable..

    Dan was a pleasure to have known and interact with, and I will miss him.

    To quote the recent remark of an admirer of his: "Rest In Paint".

-    -FIN-

What's in a...

 ...HEY!

    While working on the previous post, I noticed something that had slipped my prior attention - mainly because I was not thinking that very hard about it. 

    In addition to my middle name Antares (the rival of Ares, id est, Mars) spelling "ant arse" with the switching of two letters, something I long knew. It can also spell "ant ears". And if I kept going, then I'd could also get phrases like "tan ears" and "tan arse", "ran east", "sane rat", "sane art", "sane tar", "sea rant",  "sat near", "are ants", 'rats Ena", so on and so forth.

Ant, Ares, arse, ears, tan...

    Now that I've taken the time to notice, here are even other words embedded within like "eat", "era", "Etna", "Nate', "neat","net", "nets", "rate", "rates", rent', "rents", "rest", "Santa", "Sara", "sent", "sear', "seat", "snare", "Stan", "star", "stare", "stern", "tares",  "tase", "taser", "tea", "tears", "ten", "tern", "terns",  but which can make little or no use of the remaining letters to form a meaningful or coherent phrase.

     Okay... 

    So now that I have duly noted the presence of the word plays and smaller words possible, I can move on.  (I'm sure my obsessive-compulsive disorder hasn't exhausted them all - Stop that, OCD!)*

 

;-) 

 

-FIN- 

*I’m kidding about the OCD. I only have a touch of compulsive behavior; just a smidgen. Nothing full blown.

'Phantom Faith' Revisited

    Going over my earliest blog entries, there are a few poems in need of revision. Some, I have already tackled, but here is one from 2011-09-27 I have not, entitled 'Phantom Faith'. I was never really quite satisfied with the final two lines: "And thus is as God, Alike in aspect." That first part always felt clunky and clumsy. Here is my revision, "God. 'To the letter,' the wind interjects." which is closer to the meaning and mark, even if does add a sibilant to the very end..

Background: Cathedral of Christ, the Light in Oakland, CA taken 2010-12-29, by antaresrichard

 

-FIN-

Something Shared (backdated)

    This date on this Blogger post is obviously backdated as I'm actually uploading it to the site on the 22nd of April, 2026 

    To borrow from my April 20th Facebook post:with some minor forty eight hour alteration to number of elapsed days from two to four:

    I would have posted this [four] days ago on the occasion of my cousin and my sister's birthday, the 18th of April, but my other sister, my twin who snapped this image, had yet to upload it.

 

    Happy Birthday to Liz and Yvette, both! 

 

    Photo credit: Georgene

 

Elizabeth Aguilar and Yvette Klemm, nee Cano and Sanchez, respectively. 

    This year Yvette and "Cookie"* decided to celebrate their shared birthday together, (and for the first time I believe) so a group of us relatives gathered at Celia's Mexican Restaurant in Menlo Park, CA to mark the occasion!

Celia's Mexican Restaurant y Cantina

    Later in the day we reassembled at Cookie's place to continue the festivities. Featured in the video below and reading from left to right are Sam Cano, Cookie's brother; Georgene Randall, my twin sister; Cookie, Francisco "Paco" Aguilar, Cookie's husband; and Yvette Klemm, my other sis. I am, of course behind the lens. I deliberately elected to remain silent as my proximity to the mobile device would have caused my singing to drown out all the others. Besides, I have a rotten voice. ;-)

     Click on the 'Play' button as the short clip starts from black end fades to black. 

     We next enjoyed cake then retired to the living room where the birthday girls opened their many gifts.

Birthday girls Cookie and Yvette with Sammy in the background.

     A fun time was had by one and all, and we all promised each other to meet more often.

    -FIN- 

 

*"Cookie" is the Cano family nickname given to Liz as a child  

 

Amazingly,

    Amazingly, of the few bits of “woetry” I have penned over the last forty seven or so years, this treasure from 1988 I utterly failed to include in my eighteen years of blogging. It’s true, I have many lesser poems, which I have all but forgotten and remain to be recovered, but this was not one of them. I just assumed it was already posted. Boy, was I ever surprised to find the entry entirely missing instead! Completely overlooked! The whole damn time! With me, all along, taking for granted the opposite was true!

    I have yet to give it a title even, but long overdue, here it is in its final form.

 

The “yes” graphic above, is from the official music video of  Donald Fagen’s ‘New Frontier’ (1982).

 

                “We’re we to kiss,

                T’would not be once,

                But a thousand times,

                Or never.

                Each kiss,

                One thousandth of that breadth,

                Suffice to span,

                Forever.”

                -antaresrichard-

 

 

 

 

 

TARP & TCOH [This post is under construction.]

The Angry Red Planet & The Circus of Horrors Friday, June 23, 1961 Grand

Or maybe Thursday June 16, 1960 (Unlisted) Tower

 

 

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The Film I Forbade My Mom Entry [This post is under construction.]

 I was six at the time.

 

Leow Warfield Theater, sometime shortly after opening day, August 18, !960.

San Francisco 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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'The Time Machine' (1960) Poster art 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'The Time Machine' (1960) Lobby card art

 

 

 

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'The Time Machine' (1960) Lobby card art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 Leow Warfield Theater

 

Limerence [This post is under heavy construction at the moment]

I have been planning over the past two weeks to do a couple of post about my movie memories: The Time Machine (1960) and I believe, The Angry Red Planet (1959) and it’s double feature The Circus of Horrors (1960) but have been too busy. Then I ran into the subject of this post and had to write about that first.

At roughly a quarter to eleven this evening, I learned a new word: limerence.  I word I did not know until now, but whose concept, critique, rationale, reasoning, criticism, diagnosis, accusation, argument, charge, I have struggled, yea, wrestled with over fifty seven years. 

Limerence is an involuntary state of intense romantic infatuation, obsession, and longing for reciprocation from a "limerent object" (LO), often characterized by intrusive thoughts, emotional dependency, and idealization. It differs from love by being more addictive, anxious, and, frequently, one-sided. Treatment involves therapy and breaking the addiction cycle. 

Symptoms of Limerence
    Intrusive Thinking: Constant, involuntary thoughts about the person.
    Emotional Dependency: Intense highs (euphoria) when10 interacting or anticipating contact, and deep lows (despair) when rejected or ignored.
    Idealization: Placing the person on a pedestal and ignoring red flags or incompatibility.
    Fear of Rejection: Extreme anxiety regarding the person's feelings.
    Physical Symptoms: Trembling, palpitations, or butterflies in the stomach. 

Causes of Limerence
Limerence is often driven by a need for validation or a desire to escape personal insecurities. It is considered a form of "love addiction" or a "lovesickness" that often manifests when the target is unavailable, feeding the anxiety-driven, obsessive, "got-to-have-it" nature of the attachment.

 

My one-sided “love”, my intense infatuation, my obsession, my addiction, I say I love Ruth, but is it love? Was it ever. Without reciprocity? Without her input?

An artist, I was very emotionally motivated, underpinned, driven. I felt everything intensely. A constant undercurrent of emotion buoyed my actions. Oddly enough, not necessary my surface reactions, I could seem emotionally unresponsive or even aloof incapable of emotional contact or immediate interpersonal expression. Part of me was broken, through lack of any physical interfamilial touch. Moody as opposed to immediate I was then but always suffuse with simmering emotions through and through deep within.I no social skills, lacking the social graces, socially clueless. Neurodivergent, awkward.

Clearly, as far as the psychological features are concerned I check every box. Exhibit all the classic symptoms 

If it waddles, and quacks like a duck…

But the is the opposite danger of pigeonholing 

Placing things into convenient categories. Writing off complex 

oversimplifications 

I think love can be a complex, incorporating a concophony of many emotions mixed intentions, conflicting life elements

I believe love can be one-sided among many other things as long it purposely works to consider the other side. As longs it sets their interests, their considerations, their life agency and independence as paramount over itself. 

Agape.

One-sided, perfectly healthy examples, of love do exist, that require no reciprocal return.

Yes my love, has the anxiousness, the exhilarations, but it also has the love at its core. A love making an concerted, life-long, deliberate effort, to learn and be all love, love can really be in practice each and every day. I want to love Ruth right. I want to love her truly. To do and love right by her in the purest sense I can.  To learn love, act and be love. Because I really do want to love Ruth. I love her. I honestly do.

I weighed my life, over and over. I fight for the only item that is the truest sense of me, it has never altered or diminished, my genuine feeling for Ruth. The sole me that is me. Always.

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Neil Sedaka (March 13, 1939 ~ February 27, 2026) [This post just requires tags.]

     [As I have already met my monthly quota for February, I will have forward date this post to the top of March.]

    Here however is what I posted to my YouTube Channel and shared to my Facebook page, shortly after learning of Sedaka's death, February 27th.

From Facebook:

About ten or so years ago, for my listening pleasure, I decided to blend the full version of Neil Sedaka's 1962 hit 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do' with his 1975 reinterpretation of the number, swapping out the brief reprise that normally begins the latter version.

Upon learning of his passing, I quickly assembled this video together. It's just four static shots over the two songs. Still, I trust you will enjoy the music and Brill Building sound.

RIP Neil Sedaka (March 13, 1939 - February 27, 2026)

The video I posted to YouTube (uploaded direct from the laptop to here):

And should anything go wrong with the preceding MP4 file, here is the link to YouTube...

And if that link should go screwy, here below is the URL address of the YouTube entry, so I've got myself covered three separate ways!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNkVJbxCuqw


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Another Theater Tale [This post is under construction.]

    The majestic Fox Theater in San Francisco, and the one upcoming attraction whose display I never forgot! Amazingly, someone coincidentally took and preserved a record of that particular ad art that mesmerized me as a child of seven!  The year was 1961.

    Based on the information I was able to glean from the various online forums and sites dedicated to San Francisco history, 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' was one of three summer films my family and I caught at the Fox that season.

     The attention grabbing artwork was already up ond the side of the movie palace by the time we all went to see 'The Parent Trap' playing a couple of weeks prior, but the moment my family stepped off the trolley, or walked the few blocks from Van Ness Avenue and Market Street, and I first laid eyes from across Market on the U.S.O.S* Seaview [Holy cow! Sixty five years later, and I just now caught the pun!!] there was no way this kid was was gonna let his parents refuse to take them, er, me to see the flick! Just look at that menacing squid! 

    Besides, my twin sister Georgene and I would turn seven just ten days before the opening. What a perfect birthday treat! I'm sure my sister was just as excited. However, of our two older sisters Yvette and Angie, Yvette the eldest was the who talked to me the most about looking forward to the movie.

     Boy oh boy, what a film it was! Although, the only downside was my having to "go" in the middle of the feature. My daddy wasn't too happy about that, as he walked me to the restrooms in that palatial theater. I well remember even on the way and back, trying to catch glimpses of the onscreen action through the various aisle entry doors we passed! Luckily, in those days, you could just wait to see the film play again and leave "where you came in" or in this case leave after watching the scene you missed the first time, although it did mean watching the second , now totally forgotten feature ('Sniper's Ridge') as well.

 

The Fox Theater (June 23-29, 1961) Courtesy of OpenSFHistory.org
Slide image color-balanced, touched-up, and cropped by me.

 Kudos to OpenSFHistory.org, the San Francisco Public Library, NewBank Inc., the San Francisco Chronicle (1865 - 2017) digital archive, and Blogger's San Francisco Theatres.

 

 

The following background information was copied directly from my image file. The raw text merely awaiting to be edited into this post:

From OpenSFHistory.org: The Fox Theater, June 1961 (sometime between the 23rd and 30th of the month when 'Snow White and the Three Stooges' was on the bill.

I forgot to save this touch-up (TU) image file to my laptop and Google Photos when I initially posted it to social media. 

Fortunately I able to retrieve the post and securely download the JPG to my device and Google storage.

Curiously, the reason I went searching to find the picture on my laptop was because my re-cropped and cleaned-up copy of the tarnished and scuzzy, original Open Sf History.org image, was in turn used by someone else.

Fair enough.

My version of the picture now sits on a Blogger site lovingly dedicated to all the San Francisco theaters that ever were, entitled 'San Francisco Theaters'.

Fox lineup from June 30 to August 31, 1961, and those films (✔) I saw at the theater.

✔ 'The Parent Trap'
June 30 to July 20, 1961

Walt Disney's 'Nikki: Wild Dog of the North'
July 21 to August 1, 1961

✔ 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea'
August 2 to August 15,1961

Jules Verne's 'Master of the World'
August 16 to August 24, 1961

✔ 'Alakazam, the Great!'
August 25 to August 31, 1961 

'Voyage to the Bottom of the Semantics'

Retro 1950s-1960s Sci-fi Fan Club
Manuel Antares Richard Sanchez

On Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 9:58PM PST, posted the following to the Retro 1950s-1960s Sci-fi Fan Club Facebook group. It drew some flak for my imprecision.

Here's what I originally wrote: 

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun behind the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

 

 

I did my best to correct myself eventually editing the final form of the post to read:

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun within the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

My apologies. In pointing out my own slow-wittedness and making light of my decades old oversight, cleverness was hardly my aim. However, by not providing clearer information than I did, I made the post needlessly cryptic.

What eluded me all these sixty plus years, was the old, maritime distress code that could be read into USOS Seaview.
. . . - - - . . .

Yes, something that simple, trivial, or if you prefer, lame.

 

If I had my druthers, I would have struck through the preposition "behind" (something this text file nor Facebook can do) and left it in place, writing the post thusly [color highlights mine]:  

Sometimes, my mind is so-o-o quick [NOT] I frighten myself!

It only took me 64 years, 6 months, and 22 days to realize the pun behind within the acronym for United States Oceanographic Survey Seaview!

😉

My apologies. In pointing out my own slow-wittedness and making light of my decades old oversight, cleverness was hardly my aim. However, by not providing clearer information than I did, I made the post needlessly cryptic.

What eluded me all these sixty plus years, was the old, maritime distress code that could be read into USOS Seaview.
. . . - - - . . .

Yes, something that simple, trivial, or if you prefer, lame. 

 

Having to delete and replace "behind" altogether makes it seem as if the substitution "within" was always the way the original post read, and that the readers were somehow at fault for the initial confusion. They weren't, That error was mine.

    I did leave a concluding comment. It seemed germane.

    Voyage to the Bottom of the Semantics. My bad.

     Though in no way meant as an attack, this parting "thought" might nevertheless draw fire from those utterly contemptuous of anyone feigning any semblance of wit, however minuscule that wit may be, let alone attempting it.

    Oddly, a new memory just came back to me from the early to mid 1960's. My elementary school teacher once observing: "Oh Richard, you're always making mountains out of molehills!"

    ;-)

     Finally, another nod to MAD Magazine and its March 1966 take-down of the Sea Pew to periscope depth! 'Voyage to See What's on the Bottom!'

Mad No. 101, March '66, Page 13. Art by |||ort Drucker 

 *(United States Oceanographic Survey)

 

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