Super Mouse off topic:
One of my childhood heroes was Super Mouse. He was modeled, so far as I can tell, on Captain Marvel, the original one, who – if my childhood chums were to be trusted – it was suppressed by the Superman folks. It was that original Captain Marvel whom I thought to be the best of all, but Super Mouse was good, too. I guess if I’m going to warm up to a character I don’t want the character to take himself too seriously.
Super Mouse had a characteristic pose when flying. It was right arm straight forward and left drawn back – right hip and knee flexed and left hip and knee straight or the mirror image. Superman does that, too, but not consistently.
Of course it is more or less the classical fencer’s lunge. If the foil is in the right hand, the right elbow is extended forward and the left arm bent upward, left knee and hip extended, right bent, head turned toward the extended elbow. The guitar pose ever since Elvis is more or less a display of man abuses machine, but classically, particularly with the lute, the musician stands with the left foot propped up, left knee bent, right knee straight, left elbow extended along the left fret board, right elbow bent, head turned toward the extended elbow. An archer, if he is right handed and has a foot rest, props the left foot up, extends the right knee, extends left elbow on arm with bow, draws with right arm, turns head toward extended elbow.
This is also the pose of the boxer, the crawling child, the swimmer doing the Australian crawl, the girl combing her hair with the aid of a handheld looking glass, and in fact if you put a baby in its back and turn the head to the left, the left elbow will straighten and right elbow flex while the right hip and knee extend and the left flex.
They call this the “brachiating reflex.” You can imagine it is the default setting for locomotion. The ape’s body swings from side to side while the head stays oriented. It would seem to me to be fun to have a sport of brachiating racing. Incidentally if you just startle a baby it will let out a cry and make a sweeping gestures with its arms for all the world as if it is groping for a branch.
My current powers of brachiating preclude me doing it as a sport, but I have spent a lot of time lying around in bed recently. And I find the most comfort (at a time when comfort is rare and spare) comes with lying on the right side with right leg and arm straight and left bent and after a few minutes reverse it. I hope you never learn how nice this can be in comparison with anything else I have tried under the circumstances.
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