Mario is another one from the DV seedling group; he's pretty similar to 1203 Peaches West. They both have smallish, dark red / yellow blooms, though Mario's spathes are taller than Peaches',
and Mario's foliage is not as good, mostly due to thrips damage. Both Peaches and Mario are beginning to flop over now, as the stems get longer, so there's probably no reason to keep both.
The way things look at the moment, Mario's probably going to be the one to go, if it comes down to a choice between Mario and Peaches. But I'm not necessarily in a hurry to decide.
There was a real-life Mario Montez; he was1 an actor, and appeared in several of Andy Warhol's movies between 1964 and 1966; besides the linked Wikipedia article, there's a brief but interesting article about Montez at the New York Daily News, which notes that Montez was also a co-founder of Charles Ludlam's "Ridiculous Theatrical Company,"2 something the New York Times also mentions in Montez's very interesting obituary.3
1211 Gina Marie Rittale is a contemporary drag queen, from Queens, New York. I kind of like the video Gina Marie Sees A Psychic, which I think should give you a pretty good idea of her shtick.
The seedling has only bloomed once so far, and for some reason the tips of the spathe and spadix were both burnt. I don't know precisely why this happened, but my guess is that the developing bud happened to rest on one of the fluorescent lights, and I didn't notice until it was too late to do anything about it.
It wouldn't have been an amazing bloom even if it hadn't burnt; the color's pretty ordinary, and the thrips damage is pretty obvious on the spathe. Worse, if anything, on the foliage.
Probably going to let Gina try again before making the decision, to see what she looks like when she doesn't burn herself on hot objects, but I'm probably not going to keep her either, since I have plenty of red/yellow blooms already.
Gina's from the DM seedling group, the offspring of 0223 Patty Cake, and sibling to 1209 Raven Samore Holiday and 1212 Sweet Pam. I'm still pretty happy with Pam; less sure what to do with Raven.4
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1 (Montez died of a stroke in 2013)
2 Which reminds me that I skipped right over the real-life Charles Ludlam back when he got a seedling. Which is a shame, because he's much more interesting than the seedling, in an avant-garde playwright/actory sort of way. I'm particularly intrigued by the description of Ludlam's play The Mystery of Irma Vep (1984), in which two actors play seven roles through various quick costume changes.
3 The Times describes a scene from Warhol's first film with sound, Harlot, in which "Mr. Montez slowly, silently and seductively devoured banana after banana;" this is of course now on YouTube, for readers who care to see it. I found it a lot less interesting than the description indicates (and unless I'm going deaf, there doesn't actually seem to be any audio on the scene so I don't understand the point of noting that it was Warhol's first film with sound), but then, that's my reaction to most of Warhol's stuff. (Not denying that Warhol was important or genuinely Art or whatever: I just don't like most of his work, and am pretty sure I wouldn't have liked him personally either. Possibly the latter is the reason for the former.)
4 Who has now bloomed a second time; the second bloom is taller and more normally-proportioned than the unusually broad first spathe, but it's also considerably more lopsided. First bloom:
Second bloom:
It's less obvious because the second photo was taken at an angle, but the right-hand side of the spathe is about 20% smaller than the left. This happens from time to time, and doesn't usually happen repeatedly to the same seedling, so I'm pretty sure it's an environmental issue, not a genetic one. But it's not a great sign, if Raven keeps producing oddly misshapen spathes.
2 Which reminds me that I skipped right over the real-life Charles Ludlam back when he got a seedling. Which is a shame, because he's much more interesting than the seedling, in an avant-garde playwright/actory sort of way. I'm particularly intrigued by the description of Ludlam's play The Mystery of Irma Vep (1984), in which two actors play seven roles through various quick costume changes.
3 The Times describes a scene from Warhol's first film with sound, Harlot, in which "Mr. Montez slowly, silently and seductively devoured banana after banana;" this is of course now on YouTube, for readers who care to see it. I found it a lot less interesting than the description indicates (and unless I'm going deaf, there doesn't actually seem to be any audio on the scene so I don't understand the point of noting that it was Warhol's first film with sound), but then, that's my reaction to most of Warhol's stuff. (Not denying that Warhol was important or genuinely Art or whatever: I just don't like most of his work, and am pretty sure I wouldn't have liked him personally either. Possibly the latter is the reason for the former.)
4 Who has now bloomed a second time; the second bloom is taller and more normally-proportioned than the unusually broad first spathe, but it's also considerably more lopsided. First bloom:
Second bloom:
It's less obvious because the second photo was taken at an angle, but the right-hand side of the spathe is about 20% smaller than the left. This happens from time to time, and doesn't usually happen repeatedly to the same seedling, so I'm pretty sure it's an environmental issue, not a genetic one. But it's not a great sign, if Raven keeps producing oddly misshapen spathes.
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