Osa Johnson

On Monday, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) premiered a very cute film, Hand in hand. At first, I was a little annoyed because the boy didn't believe that girls went to Africa, only boys. Then, they met one of the Queen's cousins who told them about her trip to Africa and he totally supported girls going to Africa after that.

What made me annoyed but mainly sad is that I wish Osa Johnson was more well-known. She still isn't well-known. I only found out about her because of Zebras. I love Zebras but Animal Kingdom doesn't have them. You have to go to Animal Kingdom Lodge to see them so we did one day...it's free so I totally recommend everyone doing this...and in a lounge area was an exhibit all about Martin and Osa Johnson complete with a book that Osa had written. It blew my mind that here was a female explorer, a pioneer of exploring and filming the natural world and I had never heard of her!

Tuesday was actually the anniversary of her birth, March 14, 1894. By 1917, she and Martin were on their first trip to the South Pacific. Women didn't even have the constitutional right to vote at that point! Many that they encountered couldn't believe that Osa and Martin were equals in all endeavours. If you notice in the 1928 video below, the footage is credited to Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson. This is actually progressive for the time. Others refused to credit her.

Osa outlived Martin and ended up putting together the very first nature program on United states television. "Osa's Big Game Hunt" premiered in 1953 and she was the host until her death halfway through the season. In her life, Osa was responsible for about 20 films where she pioneered both film techniques for filming live subjects in the wild and the film equipment itself. She also wrote at least 10 books on their adventures.

Here is part of their 1928 film Simba:

P.S. Osa and Martin met Queen Elizabeth's parents on safari in Africa. A photo is included in her 1940 memoir, I Married Adventure. I love that book.

Dream: My Subconscious is Very, VERY Bored

My dreams are always weird but they get worse the longer it's been since I've written actual stuff.

The night before, my dream started off fairly normal. I have recurring dreams where I'm walking around my town but finding new stuff that is definitely not there like the ocean or an old haunted house or in this case...an extremely old monolith with old writing. It's quite large and just me looking at it, makes it fall...releasing an ominous spirit!

(eerie music)

It starts hunting me and my friends by starting off as an internet troll. It turns out the evil spirit is a ghost of an early Catholic Church leader, not a Pope but high up. As such, he's racist and sexist so even though he is killing occasionally, we can't help but troll him back. At one point, he's taken a physical form where he's played by Ewan McGregor. I scream at him, "Jesus wasn't white!" Out of nowhere, Billy Dee Williams appears and says, "Right on, sister!" The ghost gets really, really pissed and unfortunately, we're in a crowd situation so he kills like 3 or 4 people but hey...at least Billy Dee Williams approved!