#Also RIP to Iron Man dying twice in succession

[the-marx-brothers-will-live-on]

Arthur "Harpo" Marx (born Adolph Marx; November 23, 1888 – September 28, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, mime artist, and musician, and the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers. In contrast to the mainly verbal comedy of his brothers Groucho Marx and Chico Marx, Harpo's comic style was visual, being an example of both clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish blond wig, and never spoke during performances (he blew a horn or whistled to communicate). He frequently used props such as a horn cane, made up of a pipe, tape, and a bulbhorn, and he played the harp in most of his films.

Harpo was born on November 23, 1888, in Manhattan. He grew up in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, on East 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue. The turn-of-the-century tenement that Harpo later called (in his autobiography Harpo Speaks!) "the first real home I can remember" was populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans—which even included a glass blower. Just across the street were the oldest brownstones in the area, owned by people like David L. Loew and William Orth.

Harpo's parents were Sam Marx (called "Frenchie" throughout his life) and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Shean. Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was from East Frisia in Germany, and his father was a native of Alsace in France and worked as a tailor.

Harpo received little formal education and left grade school at age eight (mainly due to bullying) during his second attempt to pass the second grade. He began to work, gaining employment in numerous odd jobs alongside his brother Chico to contribute to the family income, including selling newspapers, working in a butcher shop, and as an errand office boy.

In January 1910, Harpo joined two of his brothers, Julius (later "Groucho") and Milton (later "Gummo"), to form "The Three Nightingales", later changed to simply "The Marx Brothers". Multiple stories—most unsubstantiated—exist to explain Harpo's evolution as the "silent" character in the brothers' act. In his memoir, Groucho wrote that Harpo simply wasn't very good at memorizing dialogue, and thus was ideal for the role of the "dunce who couldn't speak", a common character in vaudeville acts of the time.

Harpo gained his stage name during a card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. The dealer (Art Fisher) called him "Harpo" because he played the harp. He learned how to hold it properly from a picture of an angel playing a harp that he saw in a five-and-dime. No one in town knew how to play the harp, so Harpo tuned it as best he could, starting with one basic note and tuning it from there. Three years later he found out he had tuned it incorrectly, but he could not have tuned it properly; if he had, the strings would have broken each night. Harpo's method placed much less tension on the strings.[citation needed] Although he played this way for the rest of his life, he did try to learn how to play correctly, and he spent considerable money hiring the best teachers. They spent their time listening to him, fascinated by the way he played. The major exception was Mildred Dilling, a professional harpist who did teach Harpo the proper techniques of the instrument and collaborated with him regularly when he had difficulty with various compositions.

In the autobiography Harpo Speaks! (1961), he recounts how Chico found him jobs playing piano to accompany silent movies. Unlike Chico, Harpo could play only two songs on the piano, "Waltz Me Around Again, Willie" and "Love Me and the World Is Mine," but he adapted this small repertoire in different tempos to suit the action on the screen. He was also seen playing a portion of Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# minor" in A Day at the Races and chords on the piano in A Night at the Opera, in such a way that the piano sounded much like a harp, as a prelude to actually playing the harp in that scene.

Harpo had changed his name from Adolph to Arthur by 1911. This was due primarily to his dislike for the name Adolph (as a child, he was routinely called "Ahdie" instead). The name change may have also happened because of the similarity between Harpo's name and Adolph Marks, a prominent show business attorney in Chicago. Urban legends stating that the name change came about during World War I due to anti-German sentiment in the US, or during World War II because of the stigma that Adolf Hitler imposed on the name, are groundless.

His first screen appearance was in the film Humor Risk (1921), with his brothers, although according to Groucho, it was only screened once and then lost. Four years later, Harpo appeared without his brothers in Too Many Kisses (1925), four years before the brothers' first released film, The Cocoanuts (1929). In Too Many Kisses, Harpo spoke the only line he would ever speak on-camera in a movie: "You sure you can't move?" (said to the film's tied-up hero before punching him). Fittingly, it was a silent movie, and the audience saw only his lips move and the line on a title card.

Harpo was often cast as Chico's eccentric partner-in-crime, whom he would often help by playing charades to tell of Groucho's problem, and/or annoy by giving Chico his leg, either to give it a rest or as an alternative to a handshake.

Harpo became known for prop-laden sight gags, in particular the seemingly infinite number of odd things stored in his topcoat's oversized pockets. In the film Horse Feathers (1932), Groucho, referring to an impossible situation, tells Harpo that he cannot "burn the candle at both ends." Harpo immediately produces from within his coat pocket a lit candle burning at both ends. In the same film, a homeless man on the street asks Harpo for money for a cup of coffee, and he subsequently produces a steaming cup, complete with saucer, from inside his coat. Also in Horse Feathers, he has a fish and a sword, and when he wants to go to his speakeasy, he stabs the fish in its mouth with his sword to give the password, "Swordfish." In Duck Soup, he produces a lit blowtorch to light a cigar. As author Joe Adamson put in his book, Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo, "The president of the college has been shouted down by a mute."

Harpo often used facial expressions and mime to get his point across. One of his facial expressions, which he used in every Marx Brothers film and stage play, beginning with Fun in Hi Skule, was known as "the Gookie." Harpo created it by mimicking the expression of Mr. Gehrke, a New York tobacconist who would make a similar face while concentrating on rolling cigars.

Harpo further distinguished his character by wearing a "fright wig". Early in his career it was dyed pink, as evidenced by color film posters of the time and by allusions to it in films, with character names such as "Pinky" in Duck Soup. It tended to show as blond on-screen due to the black-and-white film stock at the time. Over time, he darkened the pink to more of a reddish color, again films alluded to it with character names such as "Rusty".

His non-speaking in his early films was occasionally referred to by the other Marx Brothers, who were careful to imply that his character's not speaking was a choice rather than a disability. They would make joking reference to this part of his act. For example, in Animal Crackers his character was ironically dubbed "The Professor". In The Cocoanuts, this exchange occurred:

Groucho: "Who is this?"

Chico: "Dat's-a my partner, but he no speak."

Groucho: "Oh, that's your silent partner!"

In later films, Harpo was repeatedly put in situations where he attempted to convey a vital message by whistling and pantomime, reinforcing the idea that his character was unable to speak.

The Marxes' film At the Circus (1939) contains a unique scene where Harpo is ostensibly heard saying "A-choo!" twice, as he sneezes. It is unclear, however, whether he actually voiced the line, or if he mimed it while someone said it off-camera.

In 1933, following U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, he spent six weeks in Moscow as a performer and goodwill ambassador. His tour was a huge success. Harpo's name was transliterated into Russian, using the Cyrillic alphabet, as ХАРПО МАРКС, and was billed as such during his Soviet Union appearances. Harpo, having no knowledge of Russian, pronounced it as "Exapno Mapcase". At that time Harpo and the Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov became friends and even performed a routine on stage together. During this time he served as a secret courier; delivering communiques to and from the US embassy in Moscow at the request of Ambassador William Christian Bullitt, Jr., smuggling the messages in and out of Russia by taping a sealed envelope to his leg beneath his trousers, an event described in David Fromkin's 1995 book In the Time of the Americans. In Harpo Speaks!, Marx describes his relief at making it out of the Soviet Union, recalling how "I pulled up my pants, ripped off the tape, unwound the straps, handed over the dispatches from Ambassador Bullitt, and gave my leg its first scratch in ten days."

The Russia trip was later memorialized in a bizarre science fiction novella, The Foreign Hand Tie by Randall Garrett, a tale of telepathic spies which is full of references to the Marx Brothers and their films (The title itself is a Marx-like pun on the dual ideas of a "foreign hand" and a style of neckwear known as a "four-in-hand tie.")

In 1936, he was one of a number of performers and celebrities to appear as caricatures in the Walt Disney Production of Mickey's Polo Team. Harpo was part of a team of polo-playing movie stars which included Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. His mount was an ostrich. Walt Disney would later have Harpo (with Groucho and Chico) appear as one of King Cole's "Fiddlers Three" in the Silly Symphony Mother Goose Goes Hollywood.

Harpo was also caricatured in Sock-A-Bye Baby (1934), an early episode of the Popeye cartoon series created by Fleischer Studios. Harpo is playing the harp, and wakes up Popeye's baby, and then Popeye punches and apparantly "kills" him. (After Popeye hits him, a halo appears over his head and he floats to the sky.)

Friz Freleng's 1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon The Coo-Coo Nut Grove featuring animal versions of assorted celebrities, caricatures Harpo as a bird with a red beak. When he first appears, he is chasing a woman, but the woman later turns out to be Groucho.

Harpo also took an interest in painting, and a few of his works can be seen in his autobiography. In the book, Marx tells a story about how he tried to paint a nude female model, but froze up because he simply did not know how to paint properly. The model took pity on him, however, showing him a few basic strokes with a brush, until finally Harpo (fully clothed) took the model's place as the subject and the naked woman painted his portrait.

Harpo recorded an album of harp music for RCA Victor (Harp by Harpo, 1952) and two for Mercury Records (Harpo in Hi-Fi, 1957; Harpo at Work, 1958).

Harpo made television appearances through the 1950s and 60s, including a 1955 episode of I Love Lucy, in which he and Lucille Ball re-enacted the famous mirror scene from the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup (1933).[19] In this scene, they are both supposed to be Harpo, not Groucho; he stays the same and she is dressed as him. About this time, he also appeared on NBC's The Martha Raye Show. Harpo and Chico played a television anthology episode of General Electric Theater entitled "The Incredible Jewelry Robbery" entirely in pantomime in 1959, with a brief surprise appearance by Groucho at the end. In 1960, he appeared in an episode of The DuPont Show with June Allyson entitled "A Silent Panic", playing a deaf-mute who, as a "mechanical man" in a department store window, witnessed a gangland murder. In 1961, he made guest appearances on The Today Show, Play Your Hunch, Candid Camera, I've Got a Secret, Here's Hollywood, Art Linkletter's House Party, Groucho's quiz show You Bet Your Life, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Your Surprise Package to publicize his autobiography Harpo Speaks!.

In November 1961 he guest-starred with Carol Burnett in an installment of The DuPont Show of the Week entitled "The Wonderful World of Toys". The show was filmed in Central Park and featured Marx playing "Autumn Leaves" on the harp. Other stars appearing in the episode included Eva Gabor, Audrey Meadows, Mitch Miller and Milton Berle. A visit to the set inspired poet Robert Lowell to compose a poem about Marx.

Harpo's two final television appearances came less than a month apart in late 1962. He portrayed a guardian angel on CBS's The Red Skelton Show on September 25. He guest starred as himself on October 20 in the episode "Musicale" of ABC's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a sitcom starring Fess Parker, based on the 1939 Frank Capra film.

Harpo married actress Susan Fleming on September 28, 1936. The wedding became public knowledge after President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations the following month. Harpo's marriage, like Gummo's, was lifelong. (Groucho was divorced three times, Zeppo twice, Chico once.) The couple adopted four children: Bill, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie. When he was asked by George Burns in 1948 how many children he planned to adopt, he answered, "I’d like to adopt as many children as I have windows in my house. So when I leave for work, I want a kid in every window, waving goodbye."

Harpo was good friends with theater critic Alexander Woollcott, and became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table. He once said his main contribution was to be the audience for the quips of other members. In their play The Man Who Came to Dinner, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart based the character of "Banjo" on Harpo. Harpo later played the role in Los Angeles opposite Woollcott, who had inspired the character of Sheridan Whiteside.

In 1961 Harpo published his autobiography, Harpo Speaks!. Because he never spoke a word in character, many believed he actually was mute. In fact, radio and TV news recordings of his voice can be found on the Internet, in documentaries, and on bonus materials of Marx Brothers DVDs. A reporter who interviewed him in the early 1930s wrote that "he [Harpo] ... had a deep and distinguished voice, like a professional announcer", and like his brothers, spoke with a New York accent his entire life. According to those who personally knew him, Harpo's voice was much deeper than Groucho's, but it also sounded very similar to Chico's. His son, Bill, recalled that in private Harpo had a very deep and mature soft-spoken voice, but that he was "not verbose" like the other Marx brothers; Harpo preferred listening and learning from others.

Harpo's final public appearance came on January 19, 1963, with singer/comedian Allan Sherman. Sherman burst into tears when Harpo announced his retirement from the entertainment business. Comedian Steve Allen, who was in the audience, remembered that Harpo spoke for several minutes about his career, and how he would miss it all, and repeatedly interrupted Sherman when he tried to speak. The audience found it charmingly ironic, Allen said, that Harpo, who had never before spoken on stage or screen, "wouldn't shut up!" Harpo, an avid croquet player, was inducted into the Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979.

Harpo Marx died on September 28, 1964, (his 28th wedding anniversary), at age 75 in a West Los Angeles hospital, one day after undergoing heart surgery. Harpo's death was said to have hit the surviving Marx brothers very hard. Groucho's son Arthur Marx, who attended the funeral with most of the Marx family, later said that Harpo's funeral was the only time in his life that he ever saw his father cry. In his will, Harpo Marx donated his trademark harp to the State of Israel. His remains were cremated, and his ashes were scattered at a golf course in Rancho Mirage, California.

[ocdorky-blog]

Wind and Iron - A Gigantic FanFic

This didn’t get much love on Reddit but maybe you all will like it :P When @motigagames released #Gigantic a few weeks back I got inspired to write a little bit of fanfic. It’s not something I normally do, but the entire team has been through so much during development of the game that I wanted to make something to show that, yes, their game is amazing and inspirational. Shout out to @gorrem and @lexxercise, two of the artists on the game whose art I adore! @Gorrem also gave me a beta key back during closed beta so extra points for him ^_^

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Blade struck iron in a storm of clangs and grunts. Tyto’s arm was a whirl of cutting steel, each flash a precise strike ready to meet flesh, but foiled by heavy, black armour. The Margrave could never match his attacker’s speed, his massive form encased by metal, eyes hidden behind a massive, single horned helmet. Any bulkier or slower and Tyto would have had the beast bleeding out by now, stuck like a ravenous boar a dozen times over. Unfortunately, such luck was in short supply.

The chaos around them was forgotten, the muted cacophony of the greater battle set aside like clothes on a riverbank. They would come back to it in time. For now, in this moment, there was only their noise, their music. With a crescendo, the Margrave moved on to the attack, his shout a forest of burning, snapping trees. Tyto stepped back, gliding, but kept their face stoic. Now it was time for the iron monstrosity to miss his mark.

Neither warrior, each pledged to a different house and gigantic beast, had left the other unscathed thus far. Blood splattered the dirt at their feet, each drop a crimson apology, their bodies sorry for betraying them. Thin trails of smoke drifted up into the wind from Tyto’s ruby cloak, the Margrave’s massive burning fist a gauntleted fireball. It was rumoured he had fought a demon and won, ripping the creature’s arm from its socket and grafting it to himself. Seeing it in person, feeling it’s burning strength, Tyto was certain of one thing. Some rumours are, indeed, true.

Their melee was not an elegant dance or a vicious brawl, but an ugly mix of both. The Margrave hurled himself towards Tyto with reckless anger, arms like oversized war hammers, his fists tearing chunks from the earth as though they were wet paper. He was a battering ram, a force unable to move anywhere but forward. Roaring, he would throw himself towards his owl-faced opponent, one misstep threatening to gore Tyto in a single piercing thrust. The Margrave was a spiked fortress on two legs, fighting like a machine of war.. Every fortress, however, has it’s weaknesses.

Tyto was the wind to the Margrave’s stone ore. Where he bashed, they glided. Where he tore, they sliced. Where he roared, they whispered. One blade, one strike. Tyto cut and slashed and stabbed only when they saw an opening, only when the Margrave opened himself too wide or moved too slowly. It was hard, grueling work, but success is a mother of great patience. Not every single section of the Margrave was heavily armored, though that was easy enough to tell from the beginning of their house’s contest. It was piecing those unprotected portions that proved infuriating, the demon armed behemoth too reckless and wild to deal a clean blow. Yet, no matter how feral an animal, how strong of will, they are all similar in at least one regard: they tire.

Exhaustion burned Tyto’s limbs, legs no less nimble and arms no less fluid, but cursing every second that went by without rest. Flip after flip, dodge after precise dodge, their body cried out. Tyto ignored it.. Their focus remained on a singular goal: bring down the beast. Nothing else mattered. Fatigue set her seductive hands on their shoulders. Watching the Margrave, weighed down beneath a five man’s share of iron, it was easy to see tiredness had settled atop him too. It made no difference, powerful as he was, or how many abyssal appendages he grafted to his body. The Margrave still grew tired and on the battlefield, such a state makes one falter.

Another punch from the demon fist. Too wide. Chest thrown too hard to the left. Legs overextended.

A mistake.

The wind became a tornado. In that moment, that split second of failure, Tyto became a one-armed dervish, a hurricane sent to tear down the castle that was the Margave, brick by brick, piece by black iron piece. Fang, the warrior’s rodent companion and second arm, leapt and bit in concert, sinking sharp teeth into any scrap of neck, arm, leg, and heel to be found. Tyto was a whirlwind, a force of unbound nature set to destroy, to render useless that which had no place in their path forward. The looming fortress must be brought low. They would shatter it with steel.

Clank. Chink. Clank. Bang. Clank. For every slice that found its mark, every flesh torn by Fang’s frenzied attacks, Tyto’s blade bounced and jerked off the Margrave’s iron hide. Faster, faster, faster. All thought went to speed, all reflexes pushed to their limit. In the split second their enemy’s misstep granted them an advantage, they cut into him like an angry butcher, armour forgotten. There was flesh and they would strike it. They would cut it from the bone.

A whisper of seconds passed by, then were silent. Tyto jumped back, legs ready to buckle, sword drooping and ringing in their burning hand. They fell to a knee, Fang skittering up to rest on Tyto’s shoulder, white fur streaked as red as its eyes. The pair watched the Margrave, breaths coming ragged, their foe slumped to the ground, head bowed and pulsing demon arm outstretched, holding up his bulk. His breath too came quick and angry, the breathing of a dying boar, its fury no less diminished by the blood pouring from its wounds. With an effort, Tyto stood up, adjusted their cloak, and moved to stand over the Margrave. He made no move when the owl-faced duelist set their blade against his neck.

“You betrayed your house.”

The Margrave struck when Tyto threw their sword arm wide, readying steel to sever bowed neck. Their weapon clattered to the ground, useless, the duelist’s body clutched in the burning fist of the now standing Margrave. Fleshed burned, smoke and scream wafting from Tyto in equal measure as they tried to break free of the searing grasp. Like a child with a stolen toy, the black iron behemoth slammed his enemy into the ground. Once. Twice. Three times. Dazed, they stopped struggling. When Tyto could no longer think, no longer see less than double, the Margrave brought them close, eyes hidden behind the horned mask but cracked lips and sharpened smile swirling in the owl-warrior’s vision.

“Aurion’s is a house of fools!” Crunch. Burning mixed with breaking. Tyto shrieked, a bird of prey crushed by a catapult’s boulder. They fell to the ground, dropped by the Margrave’s hand like a broken cup. Discarded.

Before darkness claimed the duelist, the cacophony of the world slowly dying as life left them, a flash of steel caught their eyes. A shaft, wooden, sunlight glinting off its tip. A spear. Why a spear?

Knossos. The minotaur lord had come to aid them, though his timing left something to be desired. From the pained growl that set their ears ringing, Knossos was sure to have hit his mark. Tyto let their eyes close with a smile, the concerned chittering of Fang forgotten.

+++

Wind whipped Tyto’s half cloak, the deck of House Aurion’s airship coming into view after what seemed only a few moments. Memory failed the warrior for a time but it all came back to them soon enough. The war between the houses. Sanctum Falls. The Margrave. An echo of pain sounded through their body. The roar of anger drowned it out.

Tyto looked to Fang, ready and waiting on his shoulder. They nodded and ran leaping off the airship to the battle still raging below, sword outstretched at their side. The sight of stone ruins and green grass set a brief cloak of calm across their shoulders.

By the end of this, Tyto thought, we will see who the fool truly is.