#‘when i was FIVE i wanted to FUCK ava gardner’ like…

[bobbyjean]

in case you’re wondering where my loyalties lie i will be voting anita ekberg til my thumbs fall off and then i will be voting barbara stanwyck and liz. i could be missing someone since there are over FIVE HUNDRED women but that’s my story.

[thecoleopterawithana]

The next night Elliot [Mintz] took us out with a friend of his, Sal Mineo, and we all went to a gay cabaret/discotheque. John was oblivious to the gay ambience. He was curious about everyone's sexuality and liked to gossip about who was sleeping with whom, whether they were gay or straight. John made no judgements about homosexuality but was really curious about who was and who wasn't gay.   He knew that his appearance at a gay club might start rumors about his own sexuality, and it made him laugh. He told me that there had been rumors about him and his first manager, Brian Epstein, and that he usually didn't deny them. He liked the fact that people could be titillated by having suspicions about his masculinity. Then I was the one who was laughing. "How could anyone believe a man who likes women as much as you do is gay?" I told him.   After the show we went back to Mineo's apartment. I was thirsty, and Mineo told me to look in the refrigerator. There was nothing in it but one big bottle of amyl nitrite.   Mineo told John that he knew Ava Gardner. "I'm a real fan of hers. I love Ava," John replied excitedly.   Mineo went to the phone, called London, woke Gardner up, and told her that John wanted to speak to her. John took the phone. "Ava, is that you? Ava, I think you're beautiful. I've seen all your movies. Christ, is it really you?" They spoke for five minutes, then a thrilled John handed the phone back to Mineo.

In May Pang’s Loving John (1983).

-

[Once again, a million thanks to @eppysboys for sending over passages of interest.]

-

Elliot Mintz (born February 16, 1945) is an American consultant. In the 1960s and early 1970s Mintz was an underground radio DJ and host. In the 1970s he became a spokesperson for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and took on other musicians and actors as clients as a publicist, including Bob Dylan. [...] 

Though not in a professional capacity, since the death of Lennon, Mintz has acted as a spokesperson for the Lennon estate. In addition, while sifting through Lennon's belongings, he discovered hundreds of unreleased tape recordings including half-finished new songs, early versions of famous hits, and idle thoughts. Beginning in 1988, he hosted a weekly syndicated radio series based upon these recordings called The Lost Lennon Tapes, which was broadcast for about four years. After the show came to an end, Mintz began hosting the spinoff radio program The Beatle Years. Mintz has appeared in feature documentaries about Lennon and Yoko Ono, including The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Imagine: John Lennon and The Real Yoko Ono. In 1985 he was a technical advisor on the television film John and Yoko: A Love Story. He also authored an essay about his relationship with them published in 2005 in a book entitled Memories of John Lennon. [Source]

-

Salvatore Mineo Jr. (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976) was an American actor, singer and director. Mineo is best known for his Academy Award-nominated performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Mineo also received a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in Exodus (1960). A 1950s teen idol, Mineo's acting career declined in his adult years. He was murdered in 1976. [...]

By the early 1960s, Mineo was becoming too old to play the type of role that had made him famous, and his rumoured homosexuality led to his being considered inappropriate for leading roles. [...] In 1969, Mineo returned to the stage to direct a Los Angeles production of the LGBT-themed play Fortune and Men's Eyes (1967), featuring then-unknown Don Johnson as Smitty and himself as Rocky. The production received positive reviews, although its expanded prison rape scene was criticized as excessive and gratuitous. [...] By 1976, Mineo's career had begun to turn around. While playing the role of a bisexual burglar in a series of stage performances of the comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead in San Francisco, Mineo received substantial publicity from many positive reviews; he moved to Los Angeles along with the play.

Mineo met English-born actress Jill Haworth on the set of the film Exodus in 1960, in which they portrayed young lovers. Mineo and Haworth were together on-and-off for many years. They were engaged to be married at one point. According to Mineo biographer Michael Gregg Michaud, Haworth cancelled the engagement after she caught Mineo engaging in sexual relations with another man. The two did remain very close friends until Mineo's death. [...] While some have described Haworth as being nothing but a close friend and a "beard" to Mineo to conceal his same-sex partners, Michaud casts doubt upon this claim; he asserts that Mineo and Haworth's relationship was genuine, that Mineo fell in love with Haworth, and that Mineo regarded her as one of the important people in his life. [Source]

“Portrait of a Marriage really disturbed [John]. The book was an account of the fifty-year marriage of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson, both of whom were bisexual and continually unfaithful to each other, yet were able to evolve a relationship of great depth and longevity despite the incompleteness of their marriage. John was very distressed by the theme of sexual incompatibility in the midst of great emotional attraction and the fact that no matter how hard one tries, a marriage may always remain incomplete.”

In a 1972 interview with Boze Hadleigh, Mineo discussed his bisexuality. At the time of his death, he was in a six-year relationship with male actor Courtney Burr III. [Source]

BH: Who are those two girls you mentioned, for a double date?

SM: (Laughs.) Are you kidding? I got a girl in every port- and a couple of guys in every port, too.

BH: Do you think rumors about being bi have hurt you in your career?

SM: Maybe. . . Nah, I doubt it. Everyone's got those rumors following him around, whether it's true or not. Everyone's supposed to be bi, starting way back with Gary Cooper and on through Brando and Clift and Dean and Newman and . . . you want me to stop?

BH: Did you resent the rumors?

SM: Well, no. Because what's wrong with being bi? Maybe most people are, deep down.

BH: Shirley MacLaine has publicly said that.

SM: I think she's right- got a good noodle, Shirl does. But anyhow, the rumor about me, from what I hear, was usually that I'm gay. Where, like, with Monty Clift or Brando, the rumor was that they're bi. [Brando later publicly admitted to bisexuality.]

— Boze Hadleigh’s interview with Sal Mineo (1972).

-

“John and I had a big talk about it, saying, basically, all of us must be bisexual. And we were sort of in a situation of thinking that we’re not [bisexual] because of society. So we are hiding the other side of ourselves, which is less acceptable. But I don’t have a strong sexual desire towards another woman.”

Have you ever? “Not really, not sexually.”

One online satire imagined an affair between Ono and Hillary Clinton.

“It’s great,” Ono laughs. “I mean, both John and I thought it was good that people think we were bisexual, or homosexual.” She laughs again.

What about that old rumor that Lennon had sex with Beatles manager Brian Epstein (which was also the subject of the 1991 film, The Hours and The Times)?

Lennon himself said: “Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.” Later, Lennon’s friend Pete Shotton said Lennon had told him that he had allowed Epstein to “toss [wank] him off.”

“Uh, well, the story I was told was a very explicit story, and from that I think they didn’t have it [sex],” Ono tells me. 

— in Yoko Ono: I Still Fear John’s Killer by Tim Teeman for the Daily Beast (13 October 2015).

-

Q. Have you ever fucked a guy?

A. Not yet, I thought I’d save it til I was 40, life begins at 40 you know, tho I never noticed it.

Q. It is trendy to be bisexual and you’re usually ‘keeping up with the Jones’, haven’t you ever… there was talk about you and PAUL…

A. Oh, I thought it was about me and Brian Epstein… anyway, I’m saving all the juice for my own version of THE REAL FAB FOUR BEATLES STORY etc.. etc..

Q. It seems like you’re saving quite a lot for when you’re 40…

A. Yes, there might be nothing better to do, tho I don’t believe it.

— John Lennon, interview conducted by/on John Lennon, and/or Dr Winston O’boogie, for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine (November 1974).

-

John: [...] I was trying to put it 'round that I was gay, you know– I thought that would throw them off��� dancing at all the gay clubs in Los Angeles, flirting with the boys… but it never got off the ground.

Q: I think I’ve only heard that lately about Paul.

John: Oh, I’ve had him, he’s no good. [Laughter]

— John Lennon, interviewed by Lisa Robinson for Hit Parader: A conversation with John Lennon (December 1975).

-

Like other alkyl nitrites, amyl nitrite is bioactive in mammals, being a vasodilator, which is the basis of its use as a prescription medicine. As an inhalant, it also has a psychoactive effect, which has led to its recreational use with its smell being described as that of old socks or dirty feet. It is also referred to as banapple gas. [Source]

Popper is a slang term given broadly to drugs of the chemical class called alkyl nitrites that are inhaled. [...] Popper use has a relaxation effect on involuntary smooth muscles, such as those in the throat and anus. It is used for practical purposes to facilitate anal sex by increasing blood flow and relaxing sphincter muscles, initially within the gay community.

"If you trace the bottle of amyl (a type of alkyl nitrite) through late 20th century history, you trace the legacies of gay culture on popular culture in the 20th century”

The drug is also used or for recreational drug purposes, typically for the "high" or "rush" that the drug can create.

Poppers were part of club culture from the mid-1970s disco scene and returned to popularity in the 1980s and 1990s rave scene. [Source]

“A cable had arrived for him that very morning stating the obvious: ‘Come too quickly. Stop. Try again. Stop. Am waiting in Paris. Stop me if you’ve heard it. Stop. Stuff yourself with artichokes and live. Stop. Don’t stop. Stop.’ He knew it was from Amie L'Nitrate.”

— in John Lennon’s unfinished story about a sudden rendezvous in Paris. Published in “Skywriting By Word Of Mouth”.

-

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress and singer. [...] Gardner appeared in several high-profile films from the 1940s to 1970s [...] She is listed 25th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

-

Answered asks about:

John’s sexuality

Yoko and his sister Julia’s public statements about John’s sexuality

John "trying to put it ‘round that” he was gay

The Bob Wooler Episode

The Tony Manero Story

[Disclaimer: The answer to these asks represent my personal opinion at the time, which is liable to have evolved since then.]

[ijustreallylovezebras]

Courtney’s Crisis Writing Challenge

So yeah as I’m sure all of you are aware of by now I’m having a crisis

and I figured what better way to deal with an emotional crisis than to do a writing challenge and read all the wonderful thing’s y’all can write to distract myself from my ever-growing list of responsibilities

maybe i should change it to Courtney’s Procrastination and Existential Worry Writing Challenge instead

ANYWAY

This is a whole-ass mega writing challenge, going across ALL the people I’ve ever written for and all the people I lowkey want to write for/kinda have a current obsession/love for atm

I’ll give a full comprehensive list below the rules 

But yeah this is going to have an English Literature theme bc I’m a nerd like that and have been reading too many books lately, again, to distract myself

So the prompts are split into three categories - “The Heartbreakingly Beautiful”, “The Hilariously Relateable” and “Fuck I’m Drowning In Fluff”

yeah the categories are just what went through my mind when I read the things these authors wrote

The Rules

1) You don’t have to be following me but it would be nice because I’m lonely and want friends plz

2) If your piece of writing is over 500 words, please use the ‘read more’ feature

3) Reblog this post to get the word out (and tag anyone who may be interested!)

4) It’s going to be one person per prompt but if needed I can add more prompts

5) Smut is fine but please leave warnings as appropriate (THOUGH NO UNDERAGE CHARACTER SMUT THANKS)

6) On the back of that one, no inappropriate pairings pleaseeeeee

7) Also please make sure you leave appropriate warnings at the beginnings of fics if any sensitive subjects are brought up (e.g. mental health etc)

8) Ships and OC’s are welcome

9) Tag me in your writing! - on any of my blogs or all three if you’re keen whoooo

10) Use the hashtag #CourtsCrisisWC

11) If you want to enter send me an ask with the prompt you want and the pairing you’ll be writing it with - again the ask can be sent to either of my writing blogs

12) The deadline for this is 15th December (this can be extended if y’all need it)

Characters/People/Pairings

Okay so imma split this section into parts real quick

Main Blog

1) Pretty much anyone from the MCU is welcome - with the exception of Tony Stark and Clint Barton

2) Tom Holland & Harrison Osterfield and HOCO cast and the Holland boys (NOT PADDY) 

3) Any of Les Amis

4) The characters from Peaky Blinders as well

5) Poly ships (e.g. Steve x Reader x Bucky or Tom x Reader x Harrison)

Side Blog

1) Ben Hardy (+ Warren Worthington)

2) Joe Mazzello (+ Eugene Sledge, Gardner Langway, Pat Murray, Dr Tim Murphy)

3) Gwilym Lee (+ Charlie Nelson)

4) (BoRhap!)Queen members (Freddie only platonically)

5) Roger x Reader x Ben

6) Joe x Reader x Ben

7) The Hargreeves Children (older!Five only)

8) Richard Madden (+ David Budd, Robb Stark, Prince Kit)

9) Taron Egerton (+ Eggsy)

10) Rocketman!Bernie Taupin and Ray Williams

11) Smosh Members

12) Jake Gyllenhaal (+ all his various characters)

13) Chris Evans (+ Ari Levinson, Frank Adler)

Just For Funsies (i.e. current obsessions I don’t officially write for but lowkey want to)

1) Ashton Irwin

2) Calum Hood

3) Sebastian Stan (+ Chris Beck)

tbh y’all can just send me a person and I’ll let you know if I’m cool with you writing for them but judging by this list I think you can rest fairly assured that I’m going to be okay with whoever you want to write for

Prompts

The Heartbreakingly Beautiful

“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons” - The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot // the most beautiful and wonderful poem ever written don’t fight me on this // ( @writingsoftheloser w/ BLANK)

“I am so busy keeping my head above water that I scarcely know who I am, much less who anyone else is” - The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do you start missing everybody” - The Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger ( @takenbyheartstrings w/ Peter Parker)

“I should have made it as hard for you to leave me as it is now for me to leave you” - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë ( @bensakindofmagic w/ Ben Hardy)

"The universe is bigger than anything that can fit into your mind." - Love Letters To The Dead by Ava Dellaira ( @petersfreckles w/ Peter Parker)

“You never forget the face of the person that is your last hope” - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins ( @tom-holland-stuff w/ BLANK)

“Hope may be the thing that pulls you forward (may be the thing that keeps you going) but that it’s painful and dangerous and risky it’s making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?” - The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

“We can't fight another person's battle, no matter how much we want to.” - Holding Up The Universe by Jenifer Niven

“I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.” - The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.” - Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Hilariously and Painfully Relatable

“As far as I'm concerned, I came out of the womb spouting cynicism and wishing for rain.” - Solitaire by Alice Oseman

“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good." - East of Eden by John Steinbeck ( @queen-paladin w/ Joe/Eugene/Charlie/Les Amis boy)

"We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered." - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard ( @lilulo-12 w/ Bucky)

"It's just that…I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is." - The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen ( @sataninsatin w/ Detective Loki)

“It was books that made me feel that I was not completely alone” - The Night Circus by Erin Mogenstern

“Was there some kind of rule against drop kicking arseholes in the face? Probably. They always had rules against things that needed to be done” - Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits but I see you are unarmed” - Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare ( @icantspellanything w/ Poe Dameron)

“Some people are born with an ear for music, some people are born with a talent for drawing, some people...have a built-in radar that tells them where a comma needs to go in a sentence.” - Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland

“Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” I Am The Messenger by Marcus Zusak

Fuck I’m Drowning In Fluff 

“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you” - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin ( @mavalenovaninagavi w/ Andrew Garfield!Peter Parker)

“I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything” - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Flitzgerald ( @angiefangirlworld-2 w/ Ben Hardy)

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë ( @fichoe21 w/ Bucky)

"The curves of your lips rewrite history." - Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde ( @sarahp879 w/ Bucky)

"[BLANK] was right. [They] never looked nice. [They] looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something." - Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell ( @writing-of-a-british-bitch w/ Eggsy/Warren)

“Here’s my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eye.” - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Love is worth everything. Everything.” - Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace,  against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens ( @natdoesthings w/ Jake Gyllenhaal)

“I just want you to know that you’re very special and the only reason I’m telling you is that I don’t know if anyone else ever has” - The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chebowsky ( @d-is-for-delightfull w/ Enjolras)

“Don’t you understand? You mean more to me than anything in this whole world!” - Peter Pan by J.M Barrie

[purplesurveys]

425

What website is it easy to spend too much time on? Reddit. I’m pretty easy to please - I just go through the Popular tag and I can stay scrolling for a straight hour. What's been bothering you lately? This one class with the horrible instructor I’ve been ranting about in my last few surveys. It’s 12:54 AM and I do NOT want to be thinking about it rn. Do you ever get cravings for cheese? Never. My stomach doesn’t go loco for cheese so I don���t actively look for it. Do you ever crave affection? All the time, but just with my girlfriend. I don’t like being affectionate with other people, like leaning on their shoulders for too long. Would you name your baby after someone or give him/her his or her own name? For a boy, I’m planning the name Owen at least as a second name, as a tribute to Owen Hart. For a daughter, I don’t really have solid plans yet...probably Ava (for Ava Gardner) and Audrey (for Audrey Hepburn).

Do you think boys can wear pink and girls can wear blue? Anyone can wear any color they want. It’s 2019, I thought we’ve been through this before? Which hair curlers have you had the best luck with? None of them. I don’t use hair curlers. What is the best way to curl your hair? Umm I’m not sure but the flat iron thingy that looks like tongs usually works. Idk what I’m talking about because I only ever get my hair curled by other people and only for special events haha.  Don't you hate it when people act like idiots just to make you mad? Did you mean, college groupmates? If you were thrown into a lion's den, would you trust God to save you? Welp, I lived a good life. Do you wish you could call the police on the police? OMG yes. Philippine police are a joke. Do you write in cursive or print more? Print. I have to write hurriedly when taking down notes in class, and I realized that my cursive is really ugly if I have to scribble quickly. Were you alive before the Internet came out? Nope, the Internet was already well alive when I was born. Do you like that trends from the 90's are coming back in style? I do. I wasn’t conscious then so it doesn’t give me that ~nostalgia vibe, but 90s fashion highkey slaps nonetheless. ...or would you rather have the trends stay the same as the last decade? Last decade’s trends were so awful...denim on denim, bell-bottoms, skirts and leggings in one outfit, low-waist jeans, boot cut jeans, cropped vests, dresses and pants...we do not talk about that time. What was a horrible trend when you were in high school? I think the trends took a turn for the better when I started high school. All I remember are rubber bracelets/armbands/whatchamacallem, but those were in 6th and 7th grade. What is a horrible trend now? Anything from Forever 21 that has some dumb print at the back that says something like “I hate everyone.” What would you do differently if you were God? Oh no, I wouldn’t exist. Have you ever met anyone who claimed to be God? Fortunately no. Do you believe there is any hope left? Outside the country, yes. Inside this country, very little. Do you hope that everyone is held accountable for their sins? Can I like, skip the Christian questions...ty If you had to leave the US and never come back, where would you move? Well firstly I don’t even live there. Secondly, Canada or Australia. Would you buy a castle if you could afford one? No, I don’t see the need for one. I’d rather get a swanky, fully-furnished minimalist square house. What is something you aren't okay with? Animal abuse. Do you know anyone who isn't fake? Sure. Name five people you know who aren't fake. I don’t feel like it. Do you fully trust anyone? My girlfriend. How many true Christians do you know? Do you know any? What qualifies as ‘true?’ Do you think someone's value is based on how much money they have or make? Not at allllll. There are so many billionaires who are also the biggest assholes. Would you rather be an aborted baby or a victim of child abuse? This is a horrible, tasteless question. What's one trend you're behind the times on? Anything rap, anything A$AP. Do idiots act like know-it-alls a lot around you? Hahahaha they do, actually. Do you think it's ok to call an idiot an idiot? Only if they turn into a blatant asshole, but I think being respectful still takes precedence for the most part. If you had a child with down's syndrome, would you keep him/her? I think I would, but it would honestly worry me a lot. I’d want that child to get the best care 24/7 and I know I’d never want to leave them behind. Don't you wish people who weren't qualified would stop getting handed leadership positions? Lmfao, this is deadass the PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT. There is absoltutely no fucking one qualified on those seats right now. So to answer your question, I give you an absolutely exasperated yes. Who is the worst plagiarizer you know? Honestly every guy groupmate I’ve had have been useless and lazy. It’s very easy to tell if they simply got an entire paragraph from a website. If someone tried to murder your child, do you think it would be wrong to expose them publicly and talk about it on social media? No. I say expose them. It’s so much easier and quicker to get things done that way. Why do you think people think this is wrong? They could argue that it’s not the proper venue and that authorities should be addressed first before anyone else knows, but I’m honestly all for shaming the suspect and making sure the story makes the rounds. Probably the journalist in me. Is there a toxic person that you miss? OMG no never. Good riddance!!! Are you still contemplating going back to someone you shouldn't? I haven’t thought about the person for as long as I can remember. What do you need right now? I need to get work done and catch up on work, but I’m soooo absorbed in my one-week break that it’s hard to get out of bed :( When was the last time you had a new crush? I’ve only had one crush and that happened five years ago. Do you know any "Christians" who are rude and judgmental? All of them, save for like two people. What would you do if your Bible was falling apart? The Bible I had to use for Catholic school (because we had to read it everyday throughout grade school and high school) was worn out. I think I just stored it in the storage closet when I went off to college or something. Do you have coffee with Jesus every morning? This is a creepy question. Do you pretend to be someone you're not on facebook? Why or why not? No. It’s unnecessary. Do you know anyone who pretends to be a Christian to get attention? I don’t think so. Do you want Jesus to come back soon? OMG WHEN WILL THIS END Do you believe that Jesus is going to come back in your lifetime? NO Would you rather wear blue jeans or jeggings? Jeans. I don’t think I’ve ever owned jeggings. What is the most comfortable type of pants ever? Culottes. They don’t suffocate your legs and they give them air instead. What is something you can't wear because of your body type? XXS flowy spaghetti straps/tanktops/sleeveless tops still look large on me. Would you feel self-conscious if you wore a girls size 12 as an adult? I’m not sure what that means ahaha oof. If you have curves, do you like them? What is the curviest part of your body? My butt. Have you ever been punished for doing the right thing? Not that I know of. How often do you cry? A lot. I’m quite the crybaby. How many Christians do you know who actually care? Is Tumblr all that it's hyped up to be? Not anymore, but it’s still fun to hang around here. At what age do you think someone is old enough to give advice? Any age is good enough as long as it’s accompanied by experience. Have you ever worn matching pajamas with someone? Nah my girlfriend and I don’t have those. What helps you fall asleep? Scrolling on social media, having the AC on. Do you have a nighttime routine? No, I just lie in bed and go on my phone until I pass out. What was the last mountain you climbed? Never climbed any yet. Who is the fakest Christian you know? OMG I’m begging you to stop Who are the fakest friends you've had? Wahahaha ez question but I’m not dropping their name here! Who's the most narcissistic person you know? GAB (not my girlfriend, it’s another Gab). Who gives the best hugs? Gabie :( And Laurice. Who was the last person you hugged? Gabie.

[philippahsnow]

On Blonde, By Joyce Carol Oates (— The Fanzine)

Hollywood acts about Marilyn Monroe as though it had her poster pinned up on its dorm-room wall: much like the “full pedigree of insanity” Norman Mailer describes on her mother’s side, it’s a passion that verges on madness. So, too, is Blonde’s. A fictionalised account of the life and death and difficult menstrual cycles of Marilyn, written by Joyce Carol Oates — an author who, tellingly, also fictionalised the life of Jeffrey Dahmer — it melds the rough and the smooth as much as its subject. It seduces, then depresses. Parts of the story are real (her marriages to Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller, though here they go unnamed) and parts of the story are wildly unreal (a scene in which a bathroom attendant hands Marilyn her dead foetus), though as is so often the case with celebrities, “real” hardly matters so long as the story is good.

Everybody who saw me holding the seven-hundred-odd-page novel or heard it drop with a thump to the table insisted I’d never get through it. I finished in four days. This is the beauty of famous women — they are all too easily consumed. Moving from the orphanage to foster-care to pin-up to polyamorous naïf to drug-addled movie star, Marilyn is called Norma Jeane, Beggar Princess and The Blonde in the narrative, but she also gets called “cunt,” “cow,” “slut,” “whore,” and “a mammalian spectacle.” “Men don’t see me,” the real Monroe once said. “They just lay their eyes on me.” With this fictional Monroe, they finish at “lay.”

A sprawling, grand disaster of a novel can be a triumph, provided it’s meant to capture a sprawling, grand and disastrous life. Whose was moreso than Marilyn’s? Ava Gardner — inexplicably called, in Blonde, “The Rat Beauty” — tells Monroe in the book that maybe she’ll be the last Hollywood blonde. I racked my mind for another: assuming that Bardot is considered a crossover, I’m not sure that I found one. Hers is a very specific blondeness; saying that it glowed would only make sense if I meant this abstractly. There are signs and signifiers far paler than ghosts, is what I am saying. Lindsay Lohan dyed her hair this blonde once, shortly before she began to turn into a signifier. If that woman isn’t a walking abstraction, I don’t know who is. “There was something gratifyingly real about being called a bitch, a whore, a blond tramp,” meta-Marilyn thinks to herself about halfway through the action. If the gratification’s less evident, I agree with the “real,” as the squalid horror and her bimbo-glorification make Blonde a textbook for the American ingénue. Assuming those who study history are not doomed to repeat its mistakes, I wish somebody had put a copy into the hands of Britney Jean Spears. “The ancient Greeks had Oedipus,” somebody says in the documentary Love, Marilyn, “We have Marilyn.” Monroe is also like Oedipus in that, in Blonde, she sleeps with a lot of her industry daddies and, doing so, kills mother-women’s careers. Flipping back through the novel, I found I had underlined three points while reading which, taken together, suggested a very particular state of mind. They were as follows:

1) "Her life had grown baffling to her, as an adult life does to those who live it."

2) "I did not believe in pain, and therefore not in painkillers."

3) "And her face, that’s a special kind of cunt. The wet red mouth, the tongue. When she dies, the movie dies. But her dying is so beautiful, I almost came in my pants."

It occurred to me, then, that a person could write their own biography simply by underlining five or six sentences. They might also use the same methods to outline their psychological profile. Madness is genetic rather than contagious, but the feeling of Blonde is catching. The book gets better the more scattershot and unraveled it is, to whit: "but was this funny? was this funny? was this funny? why was this funny? why was Sugar Kane funny? why were men dressed as women funny? why were men made up as women funny? why were men staggering in high heels funny? why was Sugar Kane funny, was Sugar Kane the supreme female impersonator? was this funny? why was this funny? why is female funny? … why did they love her? why when her life was in shreds like clawed silk? why when her life was in pieces like smashed glass? why when her insides had bled out? why when her insides had been scooped out? …why when everybody on the set of the film hated her? resented her? feared her?...why did the world adore Marilyn? who despised herself? was that why? …why did the world want to fuck Marilyn? why did the world want to fuck fuck fuck Marilyn? why did the world want to jam itself to the bloody hilt like a great tumescent sword in Marilyn? was it a riddle? was it a warning? was it just another joke? I wanna be loved by you boop boopie do nobody else but you nobody else but you nobody else"

The same is occasionally true of its subject, whose heavy, soulful and soul-fouled final performance in Huston’s Misfits feels, already, more like séance than acting. (“Finally finished,” somebody has written on Goodreads, of Blonde. “All magic is gone from life now.” I wonder if anyone said the same thing when she died.) Tremulous, sexy female madness is almost unstoppable, signifying as it does desire, profit, and a certain immortality in the minds of men; still, I can’t help but imagine that most of Oates’ readers were women, just as most of those who put up Marilyn’s poster in real, literal life are girls. Like her Dahmer novel, Zombie, Blonde equates attempted transformation with torture: it examines the assembly of the living dead. One might even swap the two titles. Since I was fourteen, I’ve often imagined my life would be better blonde — by which I mean that I might have been more loved, and thus more sane; or, if not more loved, then desired. Desire, I understand now, is not anything like love, protection, or sanity. It can read a little like violence. “Monroe’s greatest secret was her sense of insecurity and unworthiness,” Oates went on to tell TIME magazine. “She had to be seductive to everyone. It was like a compulsion. A woman who doesn’t especially care what other people think of her, whose sense of self is strong, from within, would not try so hard to please. The very notion of bleaching one’s hair platinum blond, wearing so much makeup and squeezing into tight dresses, would not appeal to many, perhaps most women.” Blonde, at so many pages and with so much madness, does not try so hard to please everyone. Women who bleach their hair platinum blonde and wear too much makeup, on the other hand, may find it instructive. I could sum the novel up in a single line rather than four or five underlined: gentlemen may prefer blondes, but Monroe never meets one. Only once the poor, doomed girl had died did I feel myself able to put down the novel and live.