10 on the 10th - Muppets

I wasn't prepared for today's prompt. Marsha wants us to tell her about our ten favorite Muppets.

Who are the Muppets? I'm using "who" on purpose because of the impact some of them make. No one tell me that Kermit is not real.
Did you know that there is a distinction between the Muppets and the Sesame Street Muppets?
The first Muppets were created in 1955 (which quite surprised me, I don't think the show that introduced them made it to Germany) and the Sesame Street Muppets were added in 1969 when that show started. The Muppet Show, however, ran from 1976 to 1981 - thanks to a British TV channel!

The original Kermit from ca. 1955,
public domain via Wikipedia

I will pick my favorites from both, randomly as usual as I can only name one all time favorite and you probably know who that is.

1. Kermit.
Now didn't that come as a surprise? 😄
I have always loved Kermit.
 

Public domain via Wikipedia

2. Animal.
In 2010, I already complained about the Muppet mugs that my sisters and I got ... well, it must have been almost 50 years ago.
There were three of them and as the youngest of three sisters I got to choose last. Of three mugs. Right, I didn't have a choice, so I got Miss Piggy who won't be in this list as she's too overbearing for my taste (I still have the mug, though).
The other two got Kermit and Animal, and yes, I was jealous.

Kermit just isn't shown here because there are already
pictures of him above.

3. Count von Count - ah ah ah!
I'm not a numbers person, but who could resist him? In German, his name is Graf Zahl (Count Number), by the way.

Count von Count in an exhibition at the LBJ Presidential Library,
public domain via Flickr

4. Statler and Waldorf.
I think I'm sometimes a female version of those two. Do you think they take applications to turn the duo into a trio?

The Muppets, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

5. The Swedish Chef (who's actually Danish in the German translation because the voice actor was familiar with the Danish accent in German and who greets the audience with his song "Smørrebrød, Smørrebrød, røm, pøm, pøm, pøm").
I learned cooking from him ... now where did my spoons go ... 😜

The Muppets, CC BY 3.0
via Wikimedia Commons

6. Cookie Monster
My soulmate. In fact, I just had a cookie while writing this, even if Cookie Monster also teaches healthy eating habits nowadays.

Cookie Monster during a live
show 2011, United States
Navy, Public domain 
via Wikimedia Commons

7. Rizzo the Rat
You remember him together with Gonzo in "The Muppet Christmas Carol"? I think they make a great team. Add some chickens and hilarity ensues.

8. Beaker
My heart was always bleeding for him because he kept ending up in all those lab accidents!

The Muppets, CC BY 3.0
 via Wikimedia Commons

9. Janice from the band "Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem"
We already had their drummer Animal up there. Janice is the lead guitarist and background singer. I love how her hair dances when she plays.
 

10. Ernie and Bert. They are such good friends. I often feel more like Bert, though. Maybe I need an Ernie of my own.

Pictures of Ernie and Bert by thotfulspot,
 CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

There you have it, my ten favorite Muppets (actually more if you count them individually ... maybe Count von Count can help you with that!).
I'm a little surprised that I managed doing it!
What would your choices have been?

From my children's book cabinet - Die Abenteuer des starken Wanja

This time I chose another old favorite of mine and with old I mean 1968.
Let's talk about "Die Abenteuer des starken Wanja" by Otfried Preußler (translated into English (as "The Adventures of Strong Vanya" which I unfortunately couldn't find to read for comparing) and 15 other languages). You may remember Preußler as the author of "Krabat" which I wrote about here.
This is also a story based on fairy and folk tales.
I'll use the names from the German original as I only know how Wanja was transcribed in the English translation. Oh, and the pictures were taken at night in the light of my reading lamp. Sorry.

Wanja is the youngest son of farmer Wassili Grigorewitsch. His older sons Sascha and Grischa are hard-working young men, but the 17 year old Wanja prefers sleeping, eating, and daydreaming.

One day, Aunt Akulina asks him to go into the woods and cut her some brushwood for a new broom. Wanja first eats the lunch she has given him and then wants to take a nap when he's interrupted by a blind old pilgrim.
The pilgrim tells him that he's destined to become Tsar, and in order to gain the strength needed for the long travel to the White Mountains, he will need to take seven sheepskins and seven sacks of sunflower seeds and stay on the stove in silence (not that many alliterations in the original 😉) until he's strong enough to lift the roof with his bare hands.

You can imagine that Wanja's family, and in fact the whole village, is slightly irritated by that. The aunt thinks he's bewitched, but Sascha and Grischa think he's simply lazy and let the villagers' mockery get to them until they decide to burn the roof over Wanja's head.

This is prevented by the blind pilgrim, and after seven years Wanja can finally comes down from the stove and sets out for the White Mountains, guided by the three kopeck coin his mother once gave him.
On the way, Wanja helps a lot of people thanks to his strength, ploughing for them, digging wells, towing a barge all by himself, and more, but he also has one adventure after the other.

He defeats the evil Och, a disgusting green monster who haunts the villages once a year and destroys one of them by blowing it to shreds. This gains him the Iron Lance hidden in the Och's pine tree.
He helps the knight Wolok against the Black Batur's gang. Wolok invites him to join the knights at Kiev, but the kopeck coin guides Wanja to a different path.
The witch Baba-Jaga, who's living in the moor and rides on an oven that has four chicken legs, has stolen all the horses from the villages around her. Wanja fights her and wins the black horse Waron.
Wanja's last adventure is to set the prisoners of the stony knight Foma Drachensohn free. Thanks to his Iron Lance, he defeats Foma and demands the armor of Iwan Wassiljewitsch (which is his full name, by the way).

Baba Yaga as you may know her is of course a
very familiar figure in Slavic fairy and folk tales.

Finally the White Mountains are behind him and Wanja is nearing the Tsar's city. What he doesn't know is that time is running out. If he doesn't reach the old Tsar within seven years and seven times seven weeks after the task of bringing the armor to him has been set, the Tsar's daughter Wassilissa will have to marry the evil Grand Duke because he's the noblest man in the city.

As a child, I loved this illustration so much that I
kept trying to copy it ... I was only good at
doing the hair around the face, though. 

Wanja stops at an inn. The innkeeper is one of the Grand Duke's many spies, though, and is told to poison him. Luckily, Wanja has made the acquaintance of Mischa, a soldier who can also do magic. With his help, he doesn't only make it to the castle, but also escapes the attack of the Siberian bears the Grand Duke tries to sic on him before being attacked himself.

When Wanja enters the Tsar's room, he's surprised to see that the sick old man is actually the blind pilgrim he has met years before.
The Tsar says he can marry Wassilissa now if he wants, but Wanja says that Wassilissa must want him as well. He gives her the kopeck coin from his mother and she accepts saying she will wear it on her neck forever.

The book may not be a "regular" fairy tale, but it has quite a few elements of fairy or folk tales.
This begins with the three brothers who are part of several fairy tales from different countries. Usually the older ones are too sure of themselves and then give up quickly while the youngest is a bit stupid, naive or simply modest, but wins the "prize" - whatever it is - in the end even if the older brothers get jealous and try to prevent it.
Maybe you think that in this case it's understandable that Sascha und Grischa aren't happy about Wanja not pulling his weight on the family farm. If you think about it, though, Wanja's mission isn't that much fun, either.
To me as a child, it always sounded very boring having to spend all those years on the oven, eat nothing but sunflower seeds, have nothing to drink, and annoying to be mocked by the villagers and threatened by your own brothers without even being allowed to speak up!
It needs quite a lot of patience and resilience, well, and of course trust and the faith that everything is going to be alright if you are ready to alienate your family and community and risk your life just because a blind stranger has said that you are meant for greater things.
That's how fairy tales work.

Then there are of course the adventures.
Our hero has a pure and kind heart and helps others on his way for which they help him, for example by telling him about the Iron Lance, Waron, and the armor all of which he needs to tackle the last great obstacle.
Baba-Jaga and Foma try to fool him, Waron looks like an old nag and the armor is rusty. When Wanja chooses them over the stunning horses and the precious metal armors, anyway, they change to their real form which means the final defeat for his opponents.
To be honest, the only thing I used to wonder about is the question if Wanja went back home - after all he promised Akulina a golden samovar with precious stones - or if he sent a messengerto invite his family to live with him which would have been a nice gesture.

Although both books are inspired by folk tales, "Krabat" is clearly darker and deeper than "Wanja", but I love them both.

The same year "Wanja" was published, it was also made into a puppet show for TV by famous puppeteer Albrecht Roser, by the way. I have to admit, however, that the three parter was a little boring to me, not the puppeteering itself (I loved the horses), but the voices didn't do it for me.

That's it from Wanja and me.
I hope you will join me again for the next visit to my children's book cabinet!

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 181

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

You never need to fear to get attacked by sharks in your home if you have the Great Shark Hunter around who takes care of them for you.

Unless he fraternizes and Bruce becomes his best friend, that is ... (thank you to my family member for allowing me to use these pictures of their cutie!)

***

And now my contribution to Anne's and Olivia's "Friday Book Snippets" where you share a quote - a sentence or short paragraph - from the beginning of a book you read at the moment and one from page 56 (or another).

Today, mine are from "The Collected Tales of Nurse Matilda" by Christianna Brand which includes the three books "Nurse Matilda" (from which today's snippets are), "Nurse Matilda Goes to Town", and "Nurse Matilda Goes to Hospital".
The books which were published between 1964 and 1974 are based on stories Brand and her cousin Edward Ardizzone were told by their great-grandfather. They inspired the Nanny McPhee movies with Emma Thompson.
I chose the book for Ardizzone's illustrations (see my post about Eleanor Estes's book "The Witch Family") after seeing them in the gallery on the "Edward Ardizzone Archive".

Beginning:
"Once upon a time there was a huge family of children; and they were terribly, terribly naughty.
In those days, mothers and fathers used to have much larger families than they do now; and these large families often were naughty. The mothers and fathers had to have all sorts of nurses and nannies and governesses (who were often French or German) to look after all their naughty children: and usually one poor, skinny little nursery-maid to wait on all the nurses and governesses and nannies ..."

Page 56:
"In those days, when there were such big families, they needed lots of people to look after them, and the houses were divided into two parts: very often by a door covered with baize - green or red - and studded with big, round brass nails."

Being from a large family myself (completely without a nanny or governess 😉), I wonder what these kids will be up to.

***

Back to the Weekend Traffic Jam.
As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Grace Filled Moments.

Paula from Grace Filled Moments says: "Hey everyone, I’m just your ordinary Christian woman trying to navigate the beautiful chaos of everyday life. Just traversing through the wilderness of the everyday mess— and finding beauty from ashes.
I’m a retired social worker by trade (BSW, if you’re wondering!). I live in Western Pennsylvania with my furry best friend, Little Girl, a spoiled rotten beagle who brings endless amusement to my days. My two daughters are all grown up and on their own.
Life for me comes with a side of invisible chronic illness. Fibromyalgia, chronic pain, “complicated” migraines that seem to take on a life of their own, trigeminal neuralgia (don’t even get me started!), and anxiety for good measure.
But that’s just part of my story! And it’s a story I share because I know others are facing similar challenges. Those “you too?!” moments? Yeah, we’ve all been there. I love encouraging others battling invisible illnesses – to let them know they’re not alone in this messy journey."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up (English/Dutch).

Kathrine is mad for plaid with a new shacket.

Mireille shows beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the Keys.

Nicole asks how many winter coats you need.

Jeanie shares pictures of the Skeleton Walk.


Let's link up!

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Silent movies - Falling Leaves

I had planned to look for some autumnal silent movies, but only found this one to have a vague connection to the season.
Actually I had heard about this film before because it's one from the Solax Studios directed by Alice Guy-Blaché - "Falling Leaves" from 1912 (original title: Les Feuilles chéant).

This is the plot (with spoilers).

First, we meet bacteriologist Dr. Earl Hadley who "exhibits the result of his wonderful cure for consumption" by showing off patients he has cured.

Then we're with the Thompsons. Winifred, the older daughter, is sick with consumption. When she collapses, the doctor is called in and the news are not good.
He lets the parents know that "when the last leaf falls, she will have passed away".

Little Trixie is very worried and tries to think of a way to help her sister. Suddenly she has an idea.

She takes a ball of string, goes outside in the garden, and starts tying the fallen leaves back up to the branches because, if the leaves don't fall, Winifred will get well again, right?
Just at that moment, Dr. Hadley walks by and asks her what she's doing. She explains and he tells the family that he can help with his "wonderful serum" which he happens to have on him.

Three months later, Winifred is so much better that she eats with appetite again which makes all of them happy, also Dr. Hadley who comes by to check on her.
Trixie happily pulls their parents out of the room.
As the "Moving Picture News" put it "The doctor restores her lungs, but takes her heart".

The movie is said to be inspired by O. Henry's short story "The Last Leaf", but if it was, only that leaf stayed and the fact that a young girl is sick, those are the only similarities. Maybe only the title was the inspiration?
The young artist in the story has pneumonia and is convinced that she'll die when the last leaf falls, but her old neighbor paints a leaf on the window to give her hope.

It's a cute film (even if we might not be used to the actors delivering their speeches to the audience a lot, especially Trixie can't seem to resist having a look).
Who wouldn't be touched by little Trixie and her idea? Well, and the happy ending of course.
Okay, the idea of letting a stranger coming in from the street injecting your child may seem a little suspicious to us, but we believe a lot of things in movies, so why not that?
Although it looks as if Trixie isn't a fan of needles ...

Tuberculosis was a very real problem at the time (it'll come up again in a post later this year). I'm sure people would have wished for such a miracle serum.
How lucky Winifred was to have her little sister, too.
I'd recommend watching the film even just for "The Solax Kid".

I have written about Alice Guy-Blaché before. She's one of the big film pioneers (female and male) and was almost forgotten, but she's worth knowing about, really.

A Good Book & a Cup of Tea - November 2026 link party

Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!
This link up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).

Each link party will be open for a month.
My co-hosts for this event are Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

You can link up with any of us.

Here are my favorite posts from the October party.

I enjoyed the posts most in which Lisa, Jeanie, and Barbara shared their September reading.


These are the guidelines:
1. For bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.
2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.
3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.
4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.
5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

My October books

This is an overview of the books I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and those I have read to Gundel (marked with 😸).
I will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book or how I found it and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not going to add real reviews or ratings (Gundel also refuses to give ratings). Should you want a little more information on a book you're interested in, though, just let me know.

"Village School" by Miss Read (Dora Jessie Saint), first published in 1955
(Fairacre 1) 

Miss Read tells us about the year of a school mistress in the small English village school of Fairacre in the 50s.

I saw the books mentioned on different blogs and they sounded like something I would enjoy. Of course the book is dated in some regards which I had expected, though. I will look for more books in the series.

"Four Days' Wonder" by A. A. Milne, first published in 1933 

When the 18 year old Jenny accidentally walks into her old home and finds the body of her aunt there whom she hadn't seen in years and then the current tenants come home, she has to flee and come up with an ingenious plan not to get arrested.

As accidentally as Jenny finds her dead aunt, I found this book and I'm so glad about it.
It's a mystery comedy and I loved it so much that I ordered my own copy of it when I hadn't even finished.

"The Reluctant Vampire" by Eric Morecambe, first published in 1982
(The Reluctant Vampire 1) 

The King and Queen of Gotcha are vampires and have two sons, Vernon and Valentine.
Valentine, however, finds out he's not a vampire which changes everything.

Recently, the two children's books by British comedian Eric Morecambe have been turned into a six-part TV series. I can't watch the series, so I read the first book instead.

"Undine" by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, first published in 1811 😸

The knight Huldbrand, sent out on a mission to cross a haunted forest by the beautiful Bertalda, comes to the hut of a poor fisherman and his wife where he meets their foster-child Undine and falls in love with her.
After they have been married by a passing priest, Undine tells Huldbrand that she's a water spirit and that his love has given her a soul. The jealousy of Bertalda and the rage of Undine's uncle Kühleborn, another water spirit, however, endangers their bond.

Since school I hadn't read any German classics and decided to try and read at least one a month now.
The novella which I had never read before is based on old legends.

"Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" by M. R. James, first published in 1904 

A collection of eight Victorian ghost stories, "most of them read to patient friends, usually at the season of Christmas" (see my post about that tradition here).

M. R. James was known for his ghost stories, this is just one collection.

"Good Morning, Miss Dove" by Frances Gray Patton, first published in 1954 

Miss Dove has been the geography teacher at the Cedar Grove School for 35 years. An unexpected hospital stay makes her reminisce about her life and her pupils.

Re-read for a future blog post.

"To Sir With Love" by E. R. Braithwaite, first published in 1959 

After leaving the military at the end of the war, Ricky Braithwaite - born in British Guiana (today Guyana) - expects to easily find work as an engineer. He's shocked to find that his skin color even prevents him from getting interviews and after 18 months of unemployment someone gives him the idea to try it as a teacher in East London where teachers are needed most.

Braithwaite left teaching and became a social worker and then a diplomat after publishing this book.
I read it for a future blog post.

"Der Fuhrmann des Todes" = "Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!" by Selma Lagerlöf, first published in 1912 

A legend goes that the last man dying in the old year has to collect the souls of the dying for one year as the driver of Death.
This time it is David Holm whose family the young slum sister (social worker for the Salvation Army) Edit (Edith in the German and English translation) has been trying to save from his drunkenness, violence, and consumption.

I read the book (included in volume 5 of Lagerlöf's collected works in this case) for a blog post.

"The Sitwells and the Arts of the 1920s and 1930s" : with essays by Sarah Bradford et al., first published in 1996 

Catalog of an exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, Oct. 14, 1994 - Jan. 22, 1995.
The Sitwell siblings Osbert, Edith, and Sacheverell were poets and novelists who were known for forming "an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930", admired by some and seen as overrated by others. Interesting - definitely. Complicated - oh yes.

This was a bit of a tough read. I really enjoyed the essays and also the images, but the blurbs with the images were a lot. The Sitwells knew so many people! This was one book I had to do in slow bits or the many names would have overwhelmed me completely.

"Love's Shadow" by Ada Leverson, first published in 1908
(Little Ottleys 1)

This comedy of manners takes us to the Edwardian London, we meet Edith Ottley and her husband Bruce and their friends and acquaintances.

Ada Leverson was friends with the Sitwells, that's how I found her (it seems only the third book of the trilogy got a German translation). She was also a devoted friend to Oscar Wilde who called her the wittiest woman in the world.
This was the perfect book to balance out the heaviness of the Sitwell catalog. It was light and fluffy, but from our modern view also quite sad in regard to women's situations. Bruce, for example, was so annoying that I kept hoping I would be told eventually just one reason why Edith ever thought he was the right man to marry. That didn't happen, so I could only imagine she didn't have much choice and that made me sad for her.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book because of the very amusing dialog and I plan to read the other two books as well (once I have overcome my urge to slap Bruce).

"Die Kinder, die Hexen zaubern konnten" = "The Witch Family" by Eleanor Estes, first published in 1960
(Amy and Clarissa 1)

Amy and Clarissa, almost seven years of age, are best friends - and they know witches!

This was a re-re-re-re-re-re-...-read for a blog post.

"The Last Leaf" by O. Henry, first published in 1905

Pneumonia has hit the Greenwich Village artist colony, among them the young Johnsy. Her friend Sue is very worried because she has lost the will to live and thinks she's going to die when the last ivy leaf in front of the window falls off, but it keeps hanging on and so does Johnsy.
Only afterwards she learns that their old neighbor who always wanted to paint a masterpiece has painted a "last" realistic looking leaf on the window. From being out there in the cold, he contracts pneumonia and dies.

This is just a short story, but I added it because I read it for a future blog post.

"As I Knew Him: My Day, Rod Serling" by Anne Serling, first published in 2013

Anne Serling writes about her father, TV writer Rod Serling who died in 1975 at the age of 50.

When I looked at reviews for Estes's book "The Witch Family", someone mentioned the "Twilight Zone" episode "It's a Good Life" (also about a kid banishing somebody, a very creepy story, no matter if you watch or read it), and I spontaneously looked for books about "Twilight Zone" (which most people probably know Serling for) and found this among them.
If Serling hadn't used so many letters written by her father or quotes from interviews, I'm not sure if I would have read it because it's more of a personal declaration of love to her father and an expression of her grief. Nothing wrong about that, and it does show how Serling was as a family man, but I think I'd also like to read a "real" biography about him eventually for the whole picture.

"The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1" by Beth Brower, first published in 2019

After working as a companion for Cousin Matilde for three years, the young Emma M. Lion returns to Lapis Lazuli, the house in London that she inherited and that's run by her Cousin Archibald until she's of age. Things don't go as planned, though.

I saw the series mentioned everywhere, so when the first volume turned up on OverDrive, I gave it a try as well. No idea when the other volumes will be following.


DNF:

"At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things" by Diane Purkiss, first published in 2003

Fairies in history weren't as nice as they are often described today. According to Purkiss they were born from fear, of the dark, of death, birth, loss, etc.
The history as such would have been interesting, but the style just didn't work for me, so I gave up eventually.



If you write book reviews or blog posts about other book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I co-host with  Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. You can find out more about it here or directly click through to the current party via the image in the right hand column.