Author: Jeff Milner

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Backmasking Reference in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

After watching The L Magazine’s The Evolution of the Modern Blockbuster Movie (via) I got thinking that I had never actually read the famous Batman – The Dark Knight Returns comic series (wikipedia entry) from 1986 that was used as a rough basis for Tim Burton’s Batman (1989).

I remember hearing about Frank Miller’s, soon to be a collector’s item, The Dark Knight Returns and had always wanted to read it, but I was a bit young for its graphic content and besides, I didn’t exactly have any disposable income for comics when I was seven.

However, as I read it this evening, I came across a page that I found pretty interesting. On page 89 of book two, the comic makes a reference to backmasking in Stairway to Heaven. I’m posting it here to show just one more way the legend crept into popular culture. The relevant panels after the jump.

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Paul’s Not Dead Yet

Paul McCartney on the “Paul is dead” rumours:

The conspiracy theory began in October 1969, when a Detroit-based DJ claimed that the three other Beatles — Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison — had recruited a lookalike replacement for McCartney after he died in 1966.

He argued that because the man “posing” as McCartney on the cover of the Beatles’ 1969 album “Abbey Road” had bare feet meant it represented a corpse, and that the number plate on a car in the photograph was LMW 28IF — denoting McCartney’s age, if he had lived.

“It was funny, really,” McCartney, 67, told MOJO music magazine in an interview. “But ridiculous. It’s an occupational hazard: people make up a story and then you find yourself having to deal with this fictitious stuff.

“I think the worst thing that happened was that I could see people sort of looking at me more closely: ‘Were his ears always like that?'”

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Pareidolia

The Best of Wikipedia is a continually updated collection of some of the most interesting Wikipedia articles. Here’s one from yesterday:

Pareidolia – Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. There have been many instances of perceptions of religious imagery and themes—in 1978, a New Mexican woman found that the burn marks on a tortilla she had made appeared similar to the traditional western depiction of Jesus Christ’s face. Thousands of people came to see the framed tortilla. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

(via Best of Wikipedia)

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Arm Wrestle

Over the weekend I went to my good friend Duane’s stag in Banff. We were lounging around in a bar sometime after midnight. My friend Niall was sitting beside me in a little love seat, in front of us sat a coffee table and on the other side two ladies were chatting with us. Out of the blue, one of them challenged Niall.

She declared, “I’ll betcha $20 that my friend here can beat you at an arm wrestle.”

I looked at Niall and then back at the girl—she was very tiny. I thought wow, this girl must be tremendously strong or have some kind of trick, because there’s no way she’s going to beat Niall, she’s just too small. He’s not a particularly big guy, but big enough. He’s about my height and weight, which lead me to ponder what this girl was thinking.

We moved some empties out of the way, they set up, a small crowd had gathered. It was over almost as quickly as it started.

Niall kind of shrugged and picked up his cash. I suggested to him that maybe they figured he would buy them some drinks and therefore they wouldn’t really be out any cash. Niall’s response was priceless.

“Fuck that. They can buy their own drinks.”

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Pearl Jam

I’m off to see Pearl Jam and others at the 2008 Virginfest in Calgary. I’m having the busiest summer in memory so posting will continue to be light for the next while.

Update: Here’s a photo of the crowd at the Pearl Jam concert. I’m right up there, second from the front.

Watching Pearl Jam at COP