Sybil Bruncheon's "A Few of My Favorite Things"... John DiLeo's "There Are No Small Parts"...

You know when someone gives you a box of luxury chocolates, maybe for your birthday?... no, I'm talking about LUXURY chocolates! Not some past-its-freshness-date Whitman's sampler from the corner drugstore or a Fanny Farmer hand-me-down from Aunt Edith! I'm talking about Teuscher Champagne Truffles with NO crushed red velvet bow or a smirking bunny with a bent tinfoil ear... ok? You get the idea! Well, if you've ever had the delicious pleasure of that, you know that you savor each one you carefully lift from its pleated paper cup. You really look at it, maybe smell the deep chocolate perfume coming off it before you slowly slip it into your mouth. There's no racing through the box, wedging one after another, unfinished onto the conveyor belt of your gaping tongue and maw, right? It's an exercise in being present and appreciative of something truly wonderful...

Well! Having said all that, there is a newly published book by a truly wonderful writer and film fanatic who has over-ridden any restraint you might have to "savoring", blah, blah, blah! It's "THERE ARE NO SMALL PARTS" by John DiLeo; a collection of extraordinary essays on film performances of ten minutes or less that are unforgettable, perhaps even iconic, and that are immediately recognizable. Even if you "can't quite place the name" of the actor, you might be able to recite every line, and with the same cadences and emotions that earned them a place in this book! Reading these essays, starting with the first one of Elsa Lanchester's in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), you may find yourself gobsmacked by DiLeo's astute joy and celebration of each actor's incredible talent in such a small space; how can an artist render so much with so little? Well, that's genius for you! Eleven of these one hundred gems were nominated for Oscars, and two won, each with an onscreen time of less than 7 minutes! An Oscar in less than 7 minutes!!! Talk about nuance!

Reading some of these essays may bring you to knowing laughter, some may move you to tears, but all of them will certainly impress you with DiLeo's knowledge and discernment. I opened the book and sat stunned that he had chosen performances, one after another, that I had always treasured, even as a child. And how wonderful too, to see major stars take a brief turn "just for the fun of it"; Marlene Dietrich in TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), Gene Hackman in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974), or Al Pacino in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019).

Back to the box of chocolates; I savor a box of Teuscher Champagne Truffles, one at a time, and certainly NOT finishing all of them in one sitting. Sadly, these essays are so delicious that many readers have stated that they opened the book... and read on and on, page after page, gorging themselves on his erudition, humor, wisdom, and on the combination of his subjects' brilliance and his for celebrating it... I am one of those readers!... wolfing down one after another, swearing to take a break, and making the mistake of "oh, just one more"! Why couldn't he have made it 200 performances??... Or is there perhaps a sequel?? (I hope, I hope, I hope!)... Thank God, gorging on John DiLeo is non-fattening. Oh, and when you've finished, you can start all over again!

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Happy, Happy Birthday to PINOCCHIO (February 23,1940)...

On February 23rd, 1940, Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures. It wasn't just the children who sat thunderstruck at the visuals, imagination, and deeply moving story of a little toy that wanted to "be real".... When Monstro the Whale swept onto the giant movie screens of America with surging waves and tiny seagulls skittering out of the way to emphasize the appalling scale, when the ironically named Pleasure Island towering over the boys began to whirl into a terrifying nightmare of glittering lights and donkey-ears, and when the final resolution of death and transfiguration took place with the Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket standing by, gasps, screams, and tears flowed freely...

Whatever Disney's personal issues and prejudices were, his ability to mobilize the great talents that made one iconic piece of art after another at his studios remains fixed. 82 years later, even the stills from this and so many of his other films are spellbinding... "Cartoon"??? "Cartoon"... The word is laughable...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "NEWS ITEMS FROM THE DISTANT FUTURE"!!! February 18th, 2219.....

... and here we have a photograph from 200 years ago... of what some historians believe is the president of a country formerly known as "The United States of America", since swallowed up into the pan-continental Northern Atlantic Corporate Brotherhood. This image was uncovered from the rubble of one of the cities involved in the Great War of 2028, and it is still not clear which one of the figures was the president... and which one was the wife...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "My Merry Memoirs... the early, EARLY years!!"...

So many of you have asked about my early (very early!) career, before television, Hollywood, Broadway… even back before Vaudeville and the carny-show circuit… an actress, a serious actress applies herself to any and every opportunity when she’s starting out and she hones her craft in every possible venue… speaking of which, here are a few of my early (very, VERY EARLY!) projects… (clockwise from left)  

TCHEPOULTA-PEGGY MEETS THE TRAVELING SALES-SHAMAN (725 BC): The story of a young inexperienced farm-girl in Meso-America who dreams of adventures in the Mayan Riviera with glamorous celebrities. She works her way up the ladder and across the countryside doing a musical comedy act with dancing chickens dressed only in a feather boa. She ends up headlining in some of the greatest human-sacrifice temples around. The finale takes place with the entire cast on a giant stone staircase, high-kicking and singing about the bird-lizard goddess of the moon when a huge earthquake destroys the city. The survivors throw her into a volcano to satisfy the monkey-papaya priest… or was it the mango-goat-god?... someone with a pierced nose… whatever. 

BABBLING-LONIA & A SUMMER IN SUMERIA (1910 BC): A musical based on an earlier “ladies’ romance novel”… the story follows a young open-hearted socialite in Mesopotamia who is so full of joy and energy that she wins a vacation-cruise on the Tigris-Euphrates. Surrounded by exciting and glamorous people on the cruise, she becomes embroiled in a murder mystery/ponzi-scam with a Persian real estate magnate named Xerxes the Jerxes! He happens to be half-man and half-bull… with an emphasis on the BULL. Sadly, Lonia loses her little inheritance investing in beach-front property in Crete destroyed years earlier in a volcanic eruption. But all is resolved in a big musical finale when she marries Hammurabi… as his 37th wife. 

UGGA-BUMBA BUILDS HIS CAVE FOR TWO! (12,000 BC….or so) A percussion only musical about an extremely handsome though unsophisticated caveman who tires of the trivial whirl of prehistoric urban life, and decides to settle down. Unfortunately, like so many extremely attractive and scantily dressed men in the primitive world, he is offered the very best and most exciting diversions that can be had when you’re wearing nothing but a loincloth. Saber-tooth tiger furs, pet Pterodactyls, rare and exotic shells and rocks, and the rarest vintages of monkey-papaya wine…all these and Brontosaurus filets a l’Orange are his for the asking, but Ugga-Bumba wants love. He meets Neander-Nancy in a small café where she’s the barista serving coffee beans and other seeds and barks to be chewed and spat out. He drags her out by her hair into the sunset. 

OH! SIRIS! (927 BC) A fabulous tour of Ancient Egypt during one of the most glamorous dynasties. I played Hattie McHapshuts, a milliner in Thebes who specialized in the stylish hats and crowns of high society made with feathers, jewels, and of course gold… and maybe a touch of jackal glue. Hattie meets all sorts of interesting and frolicsome folks from Nubia, Thrace, and Phoenicia. One afternoon as she models one of her more festive creations in her shop, she’s mistaken for Empress Zarantha of Assyria. A stampede of fans, thrill-seekers, and autograph-hounds descends on her. Although she’s man-handled and the crowd tears her clothes for souvenirs, Hattie is captivated and decides to take on her new identity and all its trappings. She enters the world of show business, starring in the great tragedies, but rewrites them into cheerful musical comedies with happy endings. Medea reconciles with Jason on a Mediterranean cruise, the Trojan war ends in a merry pie fight, and Oedipus Rex only scratches his corneas… Sadly, during an autograph signing at the Clytemnestra Stab & Stew Melody Barn, Hattie is crushed under a stone tablet she was carving her name into for an adoring house-wife from Karnak. 

OOO-PHY AND HER VISITORS (date undetermined) A strange rhythmic-dance recital about a primitive settlement on a remote island in the South Pacific. Some spoken dialogue interspersed with grunts, screams, gourd rattling, and rock-banging… and an occasional mooing from off-stage livestock… some of it actually scripted! The second act (such as it is) involves the entrance of odd creatures who both cajole and harangue OOO-PHY, a lovely young native girl clad only in a coconut brassiere and palm-leaf skirt, who has opened a raw fish bar on the beach. Gradually, she realizes the visitors are from another planet and want to take her to their home world… either to install as their queen… or eat… or perhaps both. They leave in their flying saucer… just as a volcano erupts.

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*Tour-ette from Wegmans in the fresh produce department with... um... God knows what!!!

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Olympic Coverage Tonight!"... the Beijing Bump & Grind Bob-Sled Stadium...

Broadcasting LIVE, the Women's Finals in the singles competition! An interesting coincidence in that the four top-ranked competitors all happen to be nuns; France/Sister Marie-Giselle from La Sainte Maison de la Miséricorde et Les Manières de Table Impeccables, Hungary/Sister Magdarra Jargada from A Meditáció és a Jeges víz Szent Kunyhója, Argentina/Sister Maria Conconchita Esmeraldita con Esculita y Mucho Saborita from El Retiro Sagrado de Los Asuntos Mundanos y Los Malos Toques, and finally the USA/Sister Mary Kiki Connover from the Nun Hut in the Sepulvida Bargain Mart (near the Slossen cut-off). Perhaps because of their Holy status, all the other competitors give the Sisters a wide berth and consequently a huge advantage in the contest. Or perhaps their reputations for being ferocious and aggressive drivers of pick-up trucks, fork-lifts, and rider-mowers is the secret... all four have arrest records for felonious motorized vehicle crimes. Stay tuned...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Olympic Coverage Tonight!"... the Friendly Little Shepherdess Convent of Covington, Kentucky...

In the Care-Full & Prayerful Community Cafeteria the Sisters of all ranks have gathered to watch Sister Mary Helgillina compete in the Women's Obstacle Course and Hand-to-Hand Combat/ Downhill Luge. Traveling at over 120 mph and in her habit and wimple (as required by Monsignor Cryptuss McGallagher), she must race eight miles of winding, wind-blown track with carefully placed boulders, prickly pines, and assorted grizzly bears, coyotes, and enraged muskrats, while swinging wildly at other competitors with an assortment of croquet mallets, putting irons, and kitchen utensils. All the women of course are on their little luge sleds with no brakes of any kind... Mary Helgillina's advantage over her competition?? The Reverend Mother had set aside all of her kitchen duties over the last nine months so that she could practice sledding on a cafeteria tray while the other Holy Sisters pelted her flying by with old socks stuffed with potato peelings. Stay tuned...

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Sybil Bruncheon's HIT-OR-MISS Histories... Fascinating Inventions:

... Ah, yes... the famous Seatless Hysterium... invented by Hyrus Schnectum. A student of Sigmund Freud, he became obsessed with the idea of the "unsatisfied" female psychiatric patient and that "hysteria" was a completely curable condition if a woman was properly... "attended to". Indeed, the word hysteria originates from the Greek word for uterus, "hystera". The oldest record of hysteria dates back to 1900 B.C. when Egyptians recorded behavioral abnormalities in adult women on medical papyrus. The Egyptians attributed the behavioral disturbances to a "wandering uterus"—thus later dubbing the condition "hysteria". In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a variety of electrical devices were patented as both medical and home remedies for female disorders which a woman could use "in the privacy of her toilette"... but it was Schnectum who came up with this dual purpose excercise/sexercize "Seatless Hysterium". Suffice it to say, there was no seat, ok?... I guess we can let the smile on Mrs. Gladys Hobkins tell us everything we need to know. Schnectum's slogan for the Seatless Hysterium?... "Pedal! Pedal! Pedal your way to PLACID!!"...

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Questions! We get QUESTIONS!"...

Dear Sybil, I am eight years old and I collect dolls… My dolls have personality disorders and emotional issues. They won't stop fighting with each other and they cause trouble, sometimes in public places, like expensive restaurants, nail salons, or during pet funerals. What should I do? Sincerely, your fan, Grant.

Sybil: Grant, Do what I did with my mother. Tragically, sometimes the only solution is to threaten them with jail time... or even the death penalty.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Weird Tales Of Other Worlds... and our own picnics!"...

Yes, Friends… so many of us have heard of or actually lived strange experiences… sometimes in the most unexpected places and ways. This story is taken from the Powahatton Morning Gazette that a Mrs. Geraldinette Gardner of 1250 Elco Drive in Mount Mason, Iowa recently reported that her own younger sister Edith was no longer… well… “Edith”. And that she might have been taken over by an alien presence… possibly from the flying saucer which supposedly landed earlier in the week at the annual Girl Scout Jamboree in the Pchucken woods two miles down the road.

Local newspapers reported the landing, but unfortunately it only lasted a matter of minutes and was reported only by young girls under the impressionable age of seven… and it was at 4:30 in the morning as Gilda Marie Faber reported from her Minnie Mouse watch. No adults or indeed reliable sources were witnesses according to Sheriff Johnny Bob Clemens. “We like to trust these young ladies, especially as they’re Girl Scouts and, of course, the mothers of tomorrow, but five or six pre-teens in the wee hours of the morning claiming a flying saucer landed near tent #13 for a few minutes?… well, Hell, I wouldn’t trust ‘em if they were actually grown teen-agers! I certainly wouldn’t trust my OWN!”.

Back to Mrs. Gardener: before her sister began to “change”, Mrs. Gardner had been on the Refreshments and Festive Aspics committee for the United Baptist Holy Waters Conference to be held in the Mason Fairgrounds. She reported that she had carefully prepared a recipe from the Duncan Hines MORE-THAN-CAKE Cook Book (the 1954 edition with the color photos and the plasticized recipe cards tucked into the back cover flap! You know the kind… they can be wiped clean in case of kitchen spills!) She had followed the recipe exactly without her usual improvisations or additions! “It was my first time with this recipe, and I always follow the directions exactly when I attempt a new dish!… It’s only fair!”… She finished with the gelatin, the tomato soup, the vegetables and seasonings… and then refrigerated the circular mold in her Amana refrigerator, the new pink one with the chrome trim. At approximately 4:30 in the morning, she heard the sound of her screen door on the back porch swing open and slam. She rushed down the stairs to see a shadowy figure “bent over and sort of limping or crawling quickly through the nearby trees in the direction of Pchucken. She saw that nothing seemed to be amiss and went back to bed…

But the next morning!… when she went to the Amana to take out her aspic, it had changed! CHANGED! It had grown… yes, GROWN strange appendages in the middle where there had been olives, pineapple chunks, mini-marshmallows, carrot and celery sticks, and a refreshing but-not-too-sweet mayonnaise mousse-dip! And it had grown… well… eyes. Yes, EYES!! ALL OVER!!! Red, glaring EYES!!!… that followed you wherever you went! She staggered backward from the quivering dish; quivering, by the way, all on its own. When her sister Edith swept into the kitchen with fresh flowers, a six-pack of Schlitz, and two jumbo sized loaves of Wonder Bread, all for the picnic, Mrs. Gardner didn’t mention the aspic or its appalling transformation to Edith. She claims she didn’t know what to say… She left the kitchen for only a moment, apparently to get her new Mary Kay lipstick in Tango Tangerine and a mascara… but when she came back down “in just a matter of minutes”, Edith had swallowed (or been forced to swallow) the entire aspic. At least that’s what it looked like… and from there, according to a hysterical Geraldinette Gardner, Edith was never the same.

Most of the authorities contacted have not believed Gardner’s story, and the few that have interviewed Edith have not noticed anything out of place other than a flatness in her conversation… well, and her frequent requests for ketchup and mustard packets from the Athanasakos Greek Diner. She assures us that she always pays for them, and consumes them as “meal-substitutes, sometimes twenty or thirty at a time… but only around 4:30 in the morning… 5 at the latest…”…

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