Excuses, excuses

All right, my fellow NaBloPoMistas.  I have been maintaining two blogs so far, without faltering, throughout this project of international mass delirium.  One of them even requires me to post twice a day, the second time with a poem I have created that day using Dictionary.com's Word of the Day, no matter what it is.  Snap.

(Oh.  Sorry, young people.  I momentarily lost sight of how disconcerting it is when 43-year-olds use your slang, if it still is your slang, and how much more painful it is than that when we use your old slang that you've just abandoned.  I'll try not to do it again.)

Today, I am tired and being hammered by hormones.  I also wrote two poems -- possibly bad poems, but hey, you should feel free to do better, 'k? -- for that other blog.  I am also, coincidentally, working on two posts for this blog simultaneously, one of which I am actually researching, you know, in books and stuff, and I took pictures today for a third on top of that!  It doesn't look like I'm going to finish any of those tonight before midnight, though.  In spite of all appearances, I do still have a little bit of a life.  And there's that tired thing I mentioned.  So instead, I shall pose a question:

Who are your favorite amputated characters in literature, movies, cartoons, anywhere fictional?  Here are a couple I love to get you started:

The Phantom Limb.  The first time I saw this guy during an episode of Venture Brothers I laughed so hard and so long I had to replay the tape.  I can't even explain.  Go rent the DVD of Season 1.

Thing.  A classic, right?  Yes, I mean that little disembodied hand running around throughout The Addams Family comics, TV show, and two movies.  Is he an amputee?  Or was he born that way?  I don't actually know, and I daresay you don't either.  But either way, there's only one way to describe his lifestyle:  adaptive!

And then there's Major Motoko Kusanagi of the Ghost in the Shell movies, comics, videogames and TV series.  She wears a full-body prosthetic after facing the imminent demise of her original body while still a child.  Is she even an amputee?  Is hers the kind of prosthetic body you would choose if you could buy such a thing?  And under what circumstances would you buy a prosthetic body if you could?

And here's another little semantic jujube for you:  Is Thing disabled?  Is Major Kusanagi?

Okay, talk amongst yourselves.  I'll be back tomorrow, either with more stuff about leg cramps and planting perennials, wherein you will see that this is not such an odd combination after all, or with the long-awaited feet and feminism post.  Have fun 'til then.

Comments

[Ron Sullivan]

I'm not sure you can say Thing was born, let alone "that way." But I think I always figured that that was all there ever was of him, and whatever he used to, oh, hear or anticipate needs or whatever he did, all that was somewhere in what looked like a hand.

Or maybe the rest of him was just invisible, plus of course not capable of walking around and stuff.

I used to do Hallowe'en stuff as Cousin Itt sometimes. I've always related to the Addams Family in a way. Explained a lot of my own family's dynamics. And I had a crush on Gomez before he was Gomez (cf. I'm Dickens, He's Fenster) and Morticia gave me goosebumps in the best possible way. I'm talking about the TV orogonal here.

And I also have a bad habit of taking in orphan plants.

[Sara]

I also loved the Addams Family movies. I thought Angelica Huston was smokin' hot as Morticia, and that Raul Julia was a magnificent Gomez. I liked the TV show versions -- Carolyn Jones, John Astin -- every bit as much, but differently.

In the movies, I think I remember Thing actually meeting a female Thingette. Am I imagining this, or did I dream it? I seem to remember her being distinguishable only by her clothing. It begged the question of reproduction.